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diff --git a/2534-h/2534-h.htm b/2534-h/2534-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2654d9f --- /dev/null +++ b/2534-h/2534-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2098 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Eugene Pickering</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Eugene Pickering, by Henry James</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Eugene Pickering, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Eugene Pickering + + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: May 8, 2005 [eBook #2534] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE PICKERING*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1887 Macmillan and Co. edition of “The +Madonna of the Future et al.” by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. +Proofed by Vanessa M. Mosher, Faith Matievich and Jonesey.</p> +<h1>EUGENE PICKERING<br /> +by Henry James</h1> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p>It was at Homburg, several years ago, before the gaming had been +suppressed. The evening was very warm, and all the world was gathered +on the terrace of the Kursaal and the esplanade below it to listen to +the excellent orchestra; or half the world, rather, for the crowd was +equally dense in the gaming-rooms around the tables. Everywhere +the crowd was great. The night was perfect, the season was at +its height, the open windows of the Kursaal sent long shafts of unnatural +light into the dusky woods, and now and then, in the intervals of the +music, one might almost hear the clink of the napoleons and the metallic +call of the croupiers rise above the watching silence of the saloons. +I had been strolling with a friend, and we at last prepared to sit down. +Chairs, however, were scarce. I had captured one, but it seemed +no easy matter to find a mate for it. I was on the point of giving +up in despair, and proposing an adjournment to the silken ottomans of +the Kursaal, when I observed a young man lounging back on one of the +objects of my quest, with his feet supported on the rounds of another. +This was more than his share of luxury, and I promptly approached him. +He evidently belonged to the race which has the credit of knowing best, +at home and abroad, how to make itself comfortable; but something in +his appearance suggested that his present attitude was the result of +inadvertence rather than of egotism. He was staring at the conductor +of the orchestra and listening intently to the music. His hands +were locked round his long legs, and his mouth was half open, with rather +a foolish air. “There are so few chairs,” I said, +“that I must beg you to surrender this second one.” +He started, stared, blushed, pushed the chair away with awkward alacrity, +and murmured something about not having noticed that he had it.</p> +<p>“What an odd-looking youth!” said my companion, who had +watched me, as I seated myself beside her.</p> +<p>“Yes, he is odd-looking; but what is odder still is that I +have seen him before, that his face is familiar to me, and yet that +I can’t place him.” The orchestra was playing the +Prayer from Der Freischütz, but Weber’s lovely music only +deepened the blank of memory. Who the deuce was he? where, when, +how, had I known him? It seemed extraordinary that a face should +be at once so familiar and so strange. We had our backs turned +to him, so that I could not look at him again. When the music +ceased we left our places, and I went to consign my friend to her mamma +on the terrace. In passing, I saw that my young man had departed; +I concluded that he only strikingly resembled some one I knew. +But who in the world was it he resembled? The ladies went off +to their lodgings, which were near by, and I turned into the gaming-rooms +and hovered about the circle at roulette. Gradually I filtered +through to the inner edge, near the table, and, looking round, saw my +puzzling friend stationed opposite to me. He was watching the +game, with his hands in his pockets; but singularly enough, now that +I observed him at my leisure, the look of familiarity quite faded from +his face. What had made us call his appearance odd was his great +length and leanness of limb, his long, white neck, his blue, prominent +eyes, and his ingenuous, unconscious absorption in the scene before +him. He was not handsome, certainly, but he looked peculiarly +amiable and if his overt wonderment savoured a trifle of rurality, it +was an agreeable contrast to the hard, inexpressive masks about him. +He was the verdant offshoot, I said to myself, of some ancient, rigid +stem; he had been brought up in the quietest of homes, and he was having +his first glimpse of life. I was curious to see whether he would +put anything on the table; he evidently felt the temptation, but he +seemed paralysed by chronic embarrassment. He stood gazing at +the chinking complexity of losses and gains, shaking his loose gold +in his pocket, and every now and then passing his hand nervously over +his eyes.</p> +<p>Most of the spectators were too attentive to the play to have many +thoughts for each other; but before long I noticed a lady who evidently +had an eye for her neighbours as well as for the table. She was +seated about half-way between my friend and me, and I presently observed +that she was trying to catch his eye. Though at Homburg, as people +said, “one could never be sure,” I yet doubted whether this +lady were one of those whose especial vocation it was to catch a gentleman’s +eye. She was youthful rather than elderly, and pretty rather than +plain; indeed, a few minutes later, when I saw her smile, I thought +her wonderfully pretty. She had a charming gray eye and a good +deal of yellow hair disposed in picturesque disorder; and though her +features were meagre and her complexion faded, she gave one a sense +of sentimental, artificial gracefulness. She was dressed in white +muslin very much puffed and filled, but a trifle the worse for wear, +relieved here and there by a pale blue ribbon. I used to flatter +myself on guessing at people’s nationality by their faces, and, +as a rule, I guessed aright. This faded, crumpled, vaporous beauty, +I conceived, was a German—such a German, somehow, as I had seen +imagined in literature. Was she not a friend of poets, a correspondent +of philosophers, a muse, a priestess of æsthetics—something +in the way of a Bettina, a Rahel? My conjectures, however, were +speedily merged in wonderment as to what my diffident friend was making +of her. She caught his eye at last, and raising an ungloved hand, +covered altogether with blue-gemmed rings—turquoises, sapphires, +and lapis—she beckoned him to come to her. The gesture was +executed with a sort of practised coolness, and accompanied with an +appealing smile. He stared a moment, rather blankly, unable to +suppose that the invitation was addressed to him; then, as it was immediately +repeated with a good deal of intensity, he blushed to the roots of his +hair, wavered awkwardly, and at last made his way to the lady’s +chair. By the time he reached it he was crimson, and wiping his +forehead with his pocket-handkerchief. She tilted back, looked +up at him with the same smile, laid two fingers on his sleeve, and said +something, interrogatively, to which he replied by a shake of the head. +She was asking him, evidently, if he had ever played, and he was saying +no. Old players have a fancy that when luck has turned her back +on them they can put her into good-humour again by having their stakes +placed by a novice. Our young man’s physiognomy had seemed +to his new acquaintance to express the perfection of inexperience, and, +like a practical woman, she had determined to make him serve her turn. +Unlike most of her neighbours, she had no little pile of gold before +her, but she drew from her pocket a double napoleon, put it into his +hand, and bade him place it on a number of his own choosing. He +was evidently filled with a sort of delightful trouble; he enjoyed the +adventure, but he shrank from the hazard. I would have staked +the coin on its being his companion’s last; for although she still +smiled intently as she watched his hesitation, there was anything but +indifference in her pale, pretty face. Suddenly, in desperation, +he reached over and laid the piece on the table. My attention +was diverted at this moment by my having to make way for a lady with +a great many flounces, before me, to give up her chair to a rustling +friend to whom she had promised it; when I again looked across at the +lady in white muslin, she was drawing in a very goodly pile of gold +with her little blue-gemmed claw. Good luck and bad, at the Homburg +tables, were equally undemonstrative, and this happy adventuress rewarded +her young friend for the sacrifice of his innocence with a single, rapid, +upward smile. He had innocence enough left, however, to look round +the table with a gleeful, conscious laugh, in the midst of which his +eyes encountered my own. Then suddenly the familiar look which +had vanished from his face flickered up unmistakably; it was the boyish +laugh of a boyhood’s friend. Stupid fellow that I was, I +had been looking at Eugene Pickering!</p> +<p>Though I lingered on for some time longer he failed to recognise +me. Recognition, I think, had kindled a smile in my own face; +but, less fortunate than he, I suppose my smile had ceased to be boyish. +Now that luck had faced about again, his companion played for herself—played +and won, hand over hand. At last she seemed disposed to rest on +her gains, and proceeded to bury them in the folds of her muslin. +Pickering had staked nothing for himself, but as he saw her prepare +to withdraw he offered her a double napoleon and begged her to place +it. She shook her head with great decision, and seemed to bid +him put it up again; but he, still blushing a good deal, pressed her +with awkward ardour, and she at last took it from him, looked at him +a moment fixedly, and laid it on a number. A moment later the +croupier was raking it in. She gave the young man a little nod +which seemed to say, “I told you so;” he glanced round the +table again and laughed; she left her chair, and he made a way for her +through the crowd. Before going home I took a turn on the terrace +and looked down on the esplanade. The lamps were out, but the +warm starlight vaguely illumined a dozen figures scattered in couples. +One of these figures, I thought, was a lady in a white dress.</p> +<p>I had no intention of letting Pickering go without reminding him +of our old acquaintance. He had been a very singular boy, and +I was curious to see what had become of his singularity. I looked +for him the next morning at two or three of the hotels, and at last +I discovered his whereabouts. But he was out, the waiter said; +he had gone to walk an hour before. I went my way, confident that +I should meet him in the evening. It was the rule with the Homburg +world to spend its evenings at the Kursaal, and Pickering, apparently, +had already discovered a good reason for not being an exception. +One of the charms of Homburg is the fact that of a hot day you may walk +about for a whole afternoon in unbroken shade. The umbrageous +gardens of the Kursaal mingle with the charming Hardtwald, which in +turn melts away into the wooded slopes of the Taunus Mountains. +To the Hardtwald I bent my steps, and strolled for an hour through mossy +glades and the still, perpendicular gloom of the fir-woods. Suddenly, +on the grassy margin of a by-path, I came upon a young man stretched +at his length in the sun-checkered shade, and kicking his heels towards +a patch of blue sky. My step was so noiseless on the turf that, +before he saw me, I had time to recognise Pickering again. He +looked as if he had been lounging there for some time; his hair was +tossed about as if he had been sleeping; on the grass near him, beside +his hat and stick, lay a sealed letter. When he perceived me he +jerked himself forward, and I stood looking at him without introducing +myself—purposely, to give him a chance to recognise me. +He put on his glasses, being awkwardly near-sighted, and stared up at +me with an air of general trustfulness, but without a sign of knowing +me. So at last I introduced myself. Then he jumped up and +grasped my hands, and stared and blushed and laughed, and began a dozen +random questions, ending with a demand as to how in the world I had +known him.</p> +<p>“Why, you are not changed so utterly,” I said; “and +after all, it’s but fifteen years since you used to do my Latin +exercises for me.”</p> +<p>“Not changed, eh?” he answered, still smiling, and yet +speaking with a sort of ingenuous dismay.</p> +<p>Then I remembered that poor Pickering had been, in those Latin days, +a victim of juvenile irony. He used to bring a bottle of medicine +to school and take a dose in a glass of water before lunch; and every +day at two o’clock, half an hour before the rest of us were liberated, +an old nurse with bushy eyebrows came and fetched him away in a carriage. +His extremely fair complexion, his nurse, and his bottle of medicine, +which suggested a vague analogy with the sleeping-potion in the tragedy, +caused him to be called Juliet. Certainly Romeo’s sweetheart +hardly suffered more; she was not, at least, a standing joke in Verona. +Remembering these things, I hastened to say to Pickering that I hoped +he was still the same good fellow who used to do my Latin for me. +“We were capital friends, you know,” I went on, “then +and afterwards.”</p> +<p>“Yes, we were very good friends,” he said, “and +that makes it the stranger I shouldn’t have known you. For +you know, as a boy, I never had many friends, nor as a man either. +You see,” he added, passing his hand over his eyes, “I am +rather dazed, rather bewildered at finding myself for the first time—alone.” +And he jerked back his shoulders nervously, and threw up his head, as +if to settle himself in an unwonted position. I wondered whether +the old nurse with the bushy eyebrows had remained attached to his person +up to a recent period, and discovered presently that, virtually at least, +she had. We had the whole summer day before us, and we sat down +on the grass together and overhauled our old memories. It was +as if we had stumbled upon an ancient cupboard in some dusky corner, +and rummaged out a heap of childish playthings—tin soldiers and +torn story-books, jack-knives and Chinese puzzles. This is what +we remembered between us.</p> +<p>He had made but a short stay at school—not because he was tormented, +for he thought it so fine to be at school at all that he held his tongue +at home about the sufferings incurred through the medicine-bottle, but +because his father thought he was learning bad manners. This he +imparted to me in confidence at the time, and I remember how it increased +my oppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who had appeared to me in glimpses +as a sort of high priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was +a widower—a fact which seemed to produce in him a sort of preternatural +concentration of parental dignity. He was a majestic man, with +a hooked nose, a keen dark eye, very large whiskers, and notions of +his own as to how a boy—or his boy, at any rate—should be +brought up. First and foremost, he was to be a “gentleman”; +which seemed to mean, chiefly, that he was always to wear a muffler +and gloves, and be sent to bed, after a supper of bread and milk, at +eight o’clock. School-life, on experiment, seemed hostile +to these observances, and Eugene was taken home again, to be moulded +into urbanity beneath the parental eye. A tutor was provided for +him, and a single select companion was prescribed. The choice, +mysteriously, fell on me, born as I was under quite another star; my +parents were appealed to, and I was allowed for a few months to have +my lessons with Eugene. The tutor, I think, must have been rather +a snob, for Eugene was treated like a prince, while I got all the questions +and the raps with the ruler. And yet I remember never being jealous +of my happier comrade, and striking up, for the time, one of those friendships +of childhood. He had a watch and a pony and a great store of picture-books, +but my envy of these luxuries was tempered by a vague compassion which +left me free to be generous. I could go out to play alone, I could +button my jacket myself, and sit up till I was sleepy. Poor Pickering +could never take a step without asking leave, or spend half an hour +in the garden without a formal report of it when he came in. My +parents, who had no desire to see me inoculated with importunate virtues, +sent me back to school at the end of six months. After that I +never saw Eugene. His father went to live in the country, to protect +the lad’s morals, and Eugene faded, in reminiscence, into a pale +image of the depressing effects of education. I think I vaguely +supposed that he would melt into thin air, and indeed began gradually +to doubt of his existence, and to regard him as one of the foolish things +one ceased to believe in as one grew older. It seemed natural +that I should have no more news of him. Our present meeting was +my first assurance that he had really survived all that muffling and +coddling.</p> +<p>I observed him now with a good deal of interest, for he was a rare +phenomenon—the fruit of a system persistently and uninterruptedly +applied. He struck me, in a fashion, as certain young monks I +had seen in Italy; he had the same candid, unsophisticated cloister +face. His education had been really almost monastic. It +had found him evidently a very compliant, yielding subject; his gentle +affectionate spirit was not one of those that need to be broken. +It had bequeathed him, now that he stood on the threshold of the great +world, an extraordinary freshness of impression and alertness of desire, +and I confess that, as I looked at him and met his transparent blue +eye, I trembled for the unwarned innocence of such a soul. I became +aware, gradually, that the world had already wrought a certain work +upon him and roused him to a restless, troubled self-consciousness. +Everything about him pointed to an experience from which he had been +debarred; his whole organism trembled with a dawning sense of unsuspected +possibilities of feeling. This appealing tremor was indeed outwardly +visible. He kept shifting himself about on the grass, thrusting +his hands through his hair, wiping a light perspiration from his forehead, +breaking out to say something and rushing off to something else. +Our sudden meeting had greatly excited him, and I saw that I was likely +to profit by a certain overflow of sentimental fermentation. I +could do so with a good conscience, for all this trepidation filled +me with a great friendliness.</p> +<p>“It’s nearly fifteen years, as you say,” he began, +“since you used to call me ‘butter-fingers’ for always +missing the ball. That’s a long time to give an account +of, and yet they have been, for me, such eventless, monotonous years, +that I could almost tell their history in ten words. You, I suppose, +have had all kinds of adventures and travelled over half the world. +I remember you had a turn for deeds of daring; I used to think you a +little Captain Cook in roundabouts, for climbing the garden fence to +get the ball when I had let it fly over. I climbed no fences then +or since. You remember my father, I suppose, and the great care +he took of me? I lost him some five months ago. From those +boyish days up to his death we were always together. I don’t +think that in fifteen years we spent half a dozen hours apart. +We lived in the country, winter and summer, seeing but three or four +people. I had a succession of tutors, and a library to browse +about in; I assure you I am a tremendous scholar. It was a dull +life for a growing boy, and a duller life for a young man grown, but +I never knew it. I was perfectly happy.” He spoke +of his father at some length, and with a respect which I privately declined +to emulate. Mr. Pickering had been, to my sense, a frigid egotist, +unable to conceive of any larger vocation for his son than to strive +to reproduce so irreproachable a model. “I know I have been +strangely brought up,” said my friend, “and that the result +is something grotesque; but my education, piece by piece, in detail, +became one of my father’s personal habits, as it were. He +took a fancy to it at first through his intense affection for my mother +and the sort of worship he paid her memory. She died at my birth, +and as I grew up, it seems that I bore an extraordinary likeness to +her. Besides, my father had a great many theories; he prided himself +on his conservative opinions; he thought the usual American <i>laisser-aller</i> +in education was a very vulgar practice, and that children were not +to grow up like dusty thorns by the wayside.” “So +you see,” Pickering went on, smiling and blushing, and yet with +something of the irony of vain regret, “I am a regular garden +plant. I have been watched and watered and pruned, and if there +is any virtue in tending I ought to take the prize at a flower show. +Some three years ago my father’s health broke down, and he was +kept very much within doors. So, although I was a man grown, I +lived altogether at home. If I was out of his sight for a quarter +of an hour he sent some one after me. He had severe attacks of +neuralgia, and he used to sit at his window, basking in the sun. +He kept an opera-glass at hand, and when I was out in the garden he +used to watch me with it. A few days before his death I was twenty-seven +years old, and the most innocent youth, I suppose, on the continent. +After he died I missed him greatly,” Pickering continued, evidently +with no intention of making an epigram. “I stayed at home, +in a sort of dull stupor. It seemed as if life offered itself +to me for the first time, and yet as if I didn’t know how to take +hold of it.”</p> +<p>He uttered all this with a frank eagerness which increased as he +talked, and there was a singular contrast between the meagre experience +he described and a certain radiant intelligence which I seemed to perceive +in his glance and tone. Evidently he was a clever fellow, and +his natural faculties were excellent. I imagined he had read a +great deal, and recovered, in some degree, in restless intellectual +conjecture, the freedom he was condemned to ignore in practice. +Opportunity was now offering a meaning to the empty forms with which +his imagination was stored, but it appeared to him dimly, through the +veil of his personal diffidence.</p> +<p>“I have not sailed round the world, as you suppose,” +I said, “but I confess I envy you the novelties you are going +to behold. Coming to Homburg you have plunged <i>in medias res</i>.”</p> +<p>He glanced at me to see if my remark contained an allusion, and hesitated +a moment. “Yes, I know it. I came to Bremen in the +steamer with a very friendly German, who undertook to initiate me into +the glories and mysteries of the Fatherland. At this season, he +said, I must begin with Homburg. I landed but a fortnight ago, +and here I am.” Again he hesitated, as if he were going +to add something about the scene at the Kursaal but suddenly, nervously, +he took up the letter which was lying beside him, looked hard at the +seal with a troubled frown, and then flung it back on the grass with +a sigh.</p> +<p>“How long do you expect to be in Europe?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Six months I supposed when I came. But not so long—now!” +And he let his eyes wander to the letter again.</p> +<p>“And where shall you go—what shall you do?”</p> +<p>“Everywhere, everything, I should have said yesterday. +But now it is different.”</p> +<p>I glanced at the letter—interrogatively, and he gravely picked +it up and put it into his pocket. We talked for a while longer, +but I saw that he had suddenly become preoccupied; that he was apparently +weighing an impulse to break some last barrier of reserve. At +last he suddenly laid his hand on my arm, looked at me a moment appealingly, +and cried, “Upon my word, I should like to tell you everything!”</p> +<p>“Tell me everything, by all means,” I answered, smiling. +“I desire nothing better than to lie here in the shade and hear +everything.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but the question is, will you understand it? No +matter; you think me a queer fellow already. It’s not easy, +either, to tell you what I feel—not easy for so queer a fellow +as I to tell you in how many ways he is queer!” He got up +and walked away a moment, passing his hand over his eyes, then came +back rapidly and flung himself on the grass again. “I said +just now I always supposed I was happy; it’s true; but now that +my eyes are open, I see I was only stultified. I was like a poodle-dog +that is led about by a blue ribbon, and scoured and combed and fed on +slops. It was not life; life is learning to know one’s self, +and in that sense I have lived more in the past six weeks than in all +the years that preceded them. I am filled with this feverish sense +of liberation; it keeps rising to my head like the fumes of strong wine. +I find I am an active, sentient, intelligent creature, with desires, +with passions, with possible convictions—even with what I never +dreamed of, a possible will of my own! I find there is a world +to know, a life to lead, men and women to form a thousand relations +with. It all lies there like a great surging sea, where we must +plunge and dive and feel the breeze and breast the waves. I stand +shivering here on the brink, staring, longing, wondering, charmed by +the smell of the brine and yet afraid of the water. The world +beckons and smiles and calls, but a nameless influence from the past, +that I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist, seems to hold me back. +I am full of impulses, but, somehow, I am not full of strength. +Life seems inspiring at certain moments, but it seems terrible and unsafe; +and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure myself with merciless +forces, when I have learned so well how to stand aside and let them +pass. Why shouldn’t I turn my back upon it all and go home +to—what awaits me?—to that sightless, soundless country +life, and long days spent among old books? But if a man <i>is</i> +weak, he doesn’t want to assent beforehand to his weakness; he +wants to taste whatever sweetness there may be in paying for the knowledge. +So it is that it comes back—this irresistible impulse to take +my plunge—to let myself swing, to go where liberty leads me.” +He paused a moment, fixing me with his excited eyes, and perhaps perceived +in my own an irrepressible smile at his perplexity. “‘Swing +ahead, in Heaven’s name,’ you want to say, ‘and much +good may it do you.’ I don’t know whether you are +laughing at my scruples or at what possibly strikes you as my depravity. +I doubt,” he went on gravely, “whether I have an inclination +toward wrong-doing; if I have, I am sure I shall not prosper in it. +I honestly believe I may safely take out a license to amuse myself. +But it isn’t that I think of, any more than I dream of, playing +with suffering. Pleasure and pain are empty words to me; what +I long for is knowledge—some other knowledge than comes to us +in formal, colourless, impersonal precept. You would understand +all this better if you could breathe for an hour the musty in-door atmosphere +in which I have always lived. To break a window and let in light +and air—I feel as if at last I must <i>act</i>!”</p> +<p>“Act, by all means, now and always, when you have a chance,” +I answered. “But don’t take things too hard, now or +ever. Your long confinement makes you think the world better worth +knowing than you are likely to find it. A man with as good a head +and heart as yours has a very ample world within himself, and I am no +believer in art for art, nor in what’s called ‘life’ +for life’s sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, and come +and tell me whether you have found the pearl of wisdom.” +He frowned a little, as if he thought my sympathy a trifle meagre. +I shook him by the hand and laughed. “The pearl of wisdom,” +I cried, “is love; honest love in the most convenient concentration +of experience! I advise you to fall in love.” He gave +me no smile in response, but drew from his pocket the letter of which +I have spoken, held it up, and shook it solemnly. “What +is it?” I asked.</p> +<p>“It is my sentence!”</p> +<p>“Not of death, I hope!”</p> +<p>“Of marriage.”</p> +<p>“With whom?”</p> +<p>“With a person I don’t love.”</p> +<p>This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain.</p> +<p>“It is the singular part of my story,” he said at last. +“It will remind you of an old-fashioned romance. Such as +I sit here, talking in this wild way, and tossing off provocations to +destiny, my destiny is settled and sealed. I am engaged, I am +given in marriage. It’s a bequest of the past—the +past I had no hand in! The marriage was arranged by my father, +years ago, when I was a boy. The young girl’s father was +his particular friend; he was also a widower, and was bringing up his +daughter, on his side, in the same severe seclusion in which I was spending +my days. To this day I am unacquainted with the origin of the +bond of union between our respective progenitors. Mr. Vernor was +largely engaged in business, and I imagine that once upon a time he +found himself in a financial strait and was helped through it by my +father’s coming forward with a heavy loan, on which, in his situation, +he could offer no security but his word. Of this my father was +quite capable. He was a man of dogmas, and he was sure to have +a rule of life—as clear as if it had been written out in his beautiful +copper-plate hand—adapted to the conduct of a gentleman toward +a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. What is more, he was sure +to adhere to it. Mr. Vernor, I believe, got on his feet, paid +his debt, and vowed my father an eternal gratitude. His little +daughter was the apple of his eye, and he pledged himself to bring her +up to be the wife of his benefactor’s son. So our fate was +fixed, parentally, and we have been educated for each other. I +have not seen my betrothed since she was a very plain-faced little girl +in a sticky pinafore, hugging a one-armed doll—of the male sex, +I believe—as big as herself. Mr. Vernor is in what is called +the Eastern trade, and has been living these many years at Smyrna. +Isabel has grown up there in a white-walled garden, in an orange grove, +between her father and her governess. She is a good deal my junior; +six months ago she was seventeen; when she is eighteen we are to marry.”</p> +<p>He related all this calmly enough, without the accent of complaint, +drily rather and doggedly, as if he were weary of thinking of it. +“It’s a romance, indeed, for these dull days,” I said, +“and I heartily congratulate you. It’s not every young +man who finds, on reaching the marrying age, a wife kept in a box of +rose-leaves for him. A thousand to one Miss Vernor is charming; +I wonder you don’t post off to Smyrna.”</p> +<p>“You are joking,” he answered, with a wounded air, “and +I am terribly serious. Let me tell you the rest. I never +suspected this superior conspiracy till something less than a year ago. +My father, wishing to provide against his death, informed me of it very +solemnly. I was neither elated nor depressed; I received it, as +I remember, with a sort of emotion which varied only in degree from +that with which I could have hailed the announcement that he had ordered +me a set of new shirts. I supposed that was the way that all marriages +were made; I had heard of their being made in heaven, and what was my +father but a divinity? Novels and poems, indeed, talked about +falling in love; but novels and poems were one thing and life was another. +A short time afterwards he introduced me to a photograph of my predestined, +who has a pretty, but an extremely inanimate, face. After this +his health failed rapidly. One night I was sitting, as I habitually +sat for hours, in his dimly-lighted room, near his bed, to which he +had been confined for a week. He had not spoken for some time, +and I supposed he was asleep; but happening to look at him I saw his +eyes wide open, and fixed on me strangely. He was smiling benignantly, +intensely, and in a moment he beckoned to me. Then, on my going +to him—‘I feel that I shall not last long,’ he said; +‘but I am willing to die when I think how comfortably I have arranged +your future.’ He was talking of death, and anything but +grief at that moment was doubtless impious and monstrous; but there +came into my heart for the first time a throbbing sense of being over-governed. +I said nothing, and he thought my silence was all sorrow. ‘I +shall not live to see you married,’ he went on, ‘but since +the foundation is laid, that little signifies; it would be a selfish +pleasure, and I have never thought of myself but in you. To foresee +your future, in its main outline, to know to a certainty that you will +be safely domiciled here, with a wife approved by my judgment, cultivating +the moral fruit of which I have sown the seed—this will content +me. But, my son, I wish to clear this bright vision from the shadow +of a doubt. I believe in your docility; I believe I may trust +the salutary force of your respect for my memory. But I must remember +that when I am removed you will stand here alone, face to face with +a hundred nameless temptations to perversity. The fumes of unrighteous +pride may rise into your brain and tempt you, in the interest of a vulgar +theory which it will call your independence, to shatter the edifice +I have so laboriously constructed. So I must ask you for a promise—the +solemn promise you owe my condition.’ And he grasped my +hand. ‘You will follow the path I have marked; you will +be faithful to the young girl whom an influence as devoted as that which +has governed your own young life has moulded into everything amiable; +you will marry Isabel Vernor.’ This was pretty ‘steep,’ +as we used to say at school. I was frightened; I drew away my +hand and asked to be trusted without any such terrible vow. My +reluctance startled my father into a suspicion that the vulgar theory +of independence had already been whispering to me. He sat up in +his bed and looked at me with eyes which seemed to foresee a lifetime +of odious ingratitude. I felt the reproach; I feel it now. +I promised! And even now I don’t regret my promise nor complain +of my father’s tenacity. I feel, somehow, as if the seeds +of ultimate repose had been sown in those unsuspecting years—as +if after many days I might gather the mellow fruit. But after +many days! I will keep my promise, I will obey; but I want to +<i>live</i> first!”</p> +<p>“My dear fellow, you are living now. All this passionate +consciousness of your situation is a very ardent life. I wish +I could say as much for my own.”</p> +<p>“I want to forget my situation. I want to spend three +months without thinking of the past or the future, grasping whatever +the present offers me. Yesterday I thought I was in a fair way +to sail with the tide. But this morning comes this memento!” +And he held up his letter again.</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“A letter from Smyrna.”</p> +<p>“I see you have not yet broken the seal.”</p> +<p>“No; nor do I mean to, for the present. It contains bad +news.”</p> +<p>“What do you call bad news?”</p> +<p>“News that I am expected in Smyrna in three weeks. News +that Mr. Vernor disapproves of my roving about the world. News +that his daughter is standing expectant at the altar.”</p> +<p>“Is not this pure conjecture?”</p> +<p>“Conjecture, possibly, but safe conjecture. As soon as +I looked at the letter something smote me at the heart. Look at +the device on the seal, and I am sure you will find it’s <i>Tarry +not</i>!” And he flung the letter on the grass.</p> +<p>“Upon my word, you had better open it,” I said.</p> +<p>“If I were to open it and read my summons, do you know what +I should do? I should march home and ask the Oberkellner how one +gets to Smyrna, pack my trunk, take my ticket, and not stop till I arrived. +I know I should; it would be the fascination of habit. The only +way, therefore, to wander to my rope’s end is to leave the letter +unread.”</p> +<p>“In your place,” I said, “curiosity would make +me open it.”</p> +<p>He shook his head. “I have no curiosity! For a +long time now the idea of my marriage has ceased to be a novelty, and +I have contemplated it mentally in every possible light. I fear +nothing from that side, but I do fear something from conscience. +I want my hands tied. Will you do me a favour? Pick up the +letter, put it into your pocket, and keep it till I ask you for it. +When I do, you may know that I am at my rope’s end.”</p> +<p>I took the letter, smiling. “And how long is your rope +to be? The Homburg season doesn’t last for ever.”</p> +<p>“Does it last a month? Let that be my season! A +month hence you will give it back to me.”</p> +<p>“To-morrow if you say so. Meanwhile, let it rest in peace!” +And I consigned it to the most sacred interstice of my pocket-book. +To say that I was disposed to humour the poor fellow would seem to be +saying that I thought his request fantastic. It was his situation, +by no fault of his own, that was fantastic, and he was only trying to +be natural. He watched me put away the letter, and when it had +disappeared gave a soft sigh of relief. The sigh was natural, +and yet it set me thinking. His general recoil from an immediate +responsibility imposed by others might be wholesome enough; but if there +was an old grievance on one side, was there not possibly a new-born +delusion on the other? It would be unkind to withhold a reflection +that might serve as a warning; so I told him, abruptly, that I had been +an undiscovered spectator, the night before, of his exploits at roulette.</p> +<p>He blushed deeply, but he met my eyes with the same clear good-humour.</p> +<p>“Ah, then, you saw that wonderful lady?”</p> +<p>“Wonderful she was indeed. I saw her afterwards, too, +sitting on the terrace in the starlight. I imagine she was not +alone.”</p> +<p>“No, indeed, I was with her—for nearly an hour. +Then I walked home with her.”</p> +<p>“Ah! And did you go in?”</p> +<p>“No, she said it was too late to ask me; though she remarked +that in a general way she did not stand upon ceremony.”</p> +<p>“She did herself injustice. When it came to losing your +money for you, she made you insist.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you noticed that too?” cried Pickering, still quite +unconfused. “I felt as if the whole table were staring at +me; but her manner was so gracious and reassuring that I supposed she +was doing nothing unusual. She confessed, however, afterwards, +that she is very eccentric. The world began to call her so, she +said, before she ever dreamed of it, and at last finding that she had +the reputation, in spite of herself, she resolved to enjoy its privileges. +Now, she does what she chooses.”</p> +<p>“In other words, she is a lady with no reputation to lose!”</p> +<p>Pickering seemed puzzled; he smiled a little. “Is not that +what you say of bad women?”</p> +<p>“Of some—of those who are found out.”</p> +<p>“Well,” he said, still smiling, “I have not yet +found out Madame Blumenthal.”</p> +<p>“If that’s her name, I suppose she’s German.”</p> +<p>“Yes; but she speaks English so well that you wouldn’t +know it. She is very clever. Her husband is dead.”</p> +<p>I laughed involuntarily at the conjunction of these facts, and Pickering’s +clear glance seemed to question my mirth. “You have been +so bluntly frank with me,” I said, “that I too must be frank. +Tell me, if you can, whether this clever Madame Blumenthal, whose husband +is dead, has given a point to your desire for a suspension of communication +with Smyrna.”</p> +<p>He seemed to ponder my question, unshrinkingly. “I think +not,” he said, at last. “I have had the desire for +three months; I have known Madame Blumenthal for less than twenty-four +hours.”</p> +<p>“Very true. But when you found this letter of yours on +your place at breakfast, did you seem for a moment to see Madame Blumenthal +sitting opposite?”</p> +<p>“Opposite?”</p> +<p>“Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the neighbourhood. +In a word, does she interest you?”</p> +<p>“Very much!” he cried, joyously.</p> +<p>“Amen!” I answered, jumping up with a laugh. “And +now, if we are to see the world in a month, there is no time to lose. +Let us begin with the Hardtwald.”</p> +<p>Pickering rose, and we strolled away into the forest, talking of +lighter things. At last we reached the edge of the wood, sat down +on a fallen log, and looked out across an interval of meadow at the +long wooded waves of the Taunus. What my friend was thinking of +I can’t say; I was meditating on his queer biography, and letting +my wonderment wander away to Smyrna. Suddenly I remembered that +he possessed a portrait of the young girl who was waiting for him there +in a white-walled garden. I asked him if he had it with him. +He said nothing, but gravely took out his pocket-book and drew forth +a small photograph. It represented, as the poet says, a simple +maiden in her flower—a slight young girl, with a certain childish +roundness of contour. There was no ease in her posture; she was +standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-waisted +white dress; her arms hung at her sides and her hands were clasped in +front; her head was bent downward a little, and her dark eyes fixed. +But her awkwardness was as pretty as that of some angular seraph in +a mediæval carving, and in her timid gaze there seemed to lurk +the questioning gleam of childhood. “What is this for?” +her charming eyes appeared to ask; “why have I been dressed up +for this ceremony in a white frock and amber beads?”</p> +<p>“Gracious powers!” I said to myself; “what an enchanting +thing is innocence!”</p> +<p>“That portrait was taken a year and a half ago,” said +Pickering, as if with an effort to be perfectly just. “By +this time, I suppose, she looks a little wiser.”</p> +<p>“Not much, I hope,” I said, as I gave it back. +“She is very sweet!”</p> +<p>“Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet—no doubt!” +And he put the thing away without looking at it.</p> +<p>We were silent for some moments. At last, abruptly—“My +dear fellow,” I said, “I should take some satisfaction in +seeing you immediately leave Homburg.”</p> +<p>“Immediately?”</p> +<p>“To-day—as soon as you can get ready.”</p> +<p>He looked at me, surprised, and little by little he blushed. +“There is something I have not told you,” he said; “something +that your saying that Madame Blumenthal has no reputation to lose has +made me half afraid to tell you.”</p> +<p>“I think I can guess it. Madame Blumenthal has asked +you to come and play her game for her again.”</p> +<p>“Not at all!” cried Pickering, with a smile of triumph. +“She says that she means to play no more for the present. +She has asked me to come and take tea with her this evening.”</p> +<p>“Ah, then,” I said, very gravely, “of course you +can’t leave Homburg.”</p> +<p>He answered nothing, but looked askance at me, as if he were expecting +me to laugh. “Urge it strongly,” he said in a moment. +“Say it’s my duty—that I <i>must</i>.”</p> +<p>I didn’t quite understand him, but, feathering the shaft with +a harmless expletive, I told him that unless he followed my advice I +would never speak to him again.</p> +<p>He got up, stood before me, and struck the ground with his stick. +“Good!” he cried; “I wanted an occasion to break a +rule—to leap a barrier. Here it is. I stay!”</p> +<p>I made him a mock bow for his energy. “That’s very +fine,” I said; “but now, to put you in a proper mood for +Madame Blumenthal’s tea, we will go and listen to the band play +Schubert under the lindens.” And we walked back through +the woods.</p> +<p>I went to see Pickering the next day, at his inn, and on knocking, +as directed, at his door, was surprised to hear the sound of a loud +voice within. My knock remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced +myself. I found no company, but I discovered my friend walking +up and down the room and apparently declaiming to himself from a little +volume bound in white vellum. He greeted me heartily, threw his +book on the table, and said that he was taking a German lesson.</p> +<p>“And who is your teacher?” I asked, glancing at the book.</p> +<p>He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he answered, after an instant’s +delay, “Madame Blumenthal.”</p> +<p>“Indeed! Has she written a grammar?”</p> +<p>“It’s not a grammar; it’s a tragedy.” +And he handed me the book.</p> +<p>I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, with a very large margin, +an <i>Historisches Trauerspiel</i> in five acts, entitled “Cleopatra.” +There were a great many marginal corrections and annotations, apparently +from the author’s hand; the speeches were very long, and there +was an inordinate number of soliloquies by the heroine. One of +them, I remember, towards the end of the play, began in this fashion—</p> +<p>“What, after all, is life but sensation, and sensation but +deception?—reality that pales before the light of one’s +dreams as Octavia’s dull beauty fades beside mine? But let +me believe in some intenser bliss, and seek it in the arms of death!”</p> +<p>“It seems decidedly passionate,” I said. “Has +the tragedy ever been acted?”</p> +<p>“Never in public; but Madame Blumenthal tells me that she had +it played at her own house in Berlin, and that she herself undertook +the part of the heroine.”</p> +<p>Pickering’s unworldly life had not been of a sort to sharpen +his perception of the ridiculous, but it seemed to me an unmistakable +sign of his being under the charm, that this information was very soberly +offered. He was preoccupied, he was irresponsive to my experimental +observations on vulgar topics—the hot weather, the inn, the advent +of Adelina Patti. At last, uttering his thoughts, he announced +that Madame Blumenthal had proved to be an extraordinarily interesting +woman. He seemed to have quite forgotten our long talk in the +Hartwaldt, and betrayed no sense of this being a confession that he +had taken his plunge and was floating with the current. He only +remembered that I had spoken slightingly of the lady, and he now hinted +that it behoved me to amend my opinion. I had received the day +before so strong an impression of a sort of spiritual fastidiousness +in my friend’s nature, that on hearing now the striking of a new +hour, as it were, in his consciousness, and observing how the echoes +of the past were immediately quenched in its music, I said to myself +that it had certainly taken a delicate hand to wind up that fine machine. +No doubt Madame Blumenthal was a clever woman. It is a good German +custom at Homburg to spend the hour preceding dinner in listening to +the orchestra in the Kurgarten; Mozart and Beethoven, for organisms +in which the interfusion of soul and sense is peculiarly mysterious, +are a vigorous stimulus to the appetite. Pickering and I conformed, +as we had done the day before, to the fashion, and when we were seated +under the trees, he began to expatiate on his friend’s merits.</p> +<p>“I don’t know whether she is eccentric or not,” +he said; “to me every one seems eccentric, and it’s not +for me, yet a while, to measure people by my narrow precedents. +I never saw a gaming table in my life before, and supposed that a gambler +was of necessity some dusky villain with an evil eye. In Germany, +says Madame Blumenthal, people play at roulette as they play at billiards, +and her own venerable mother originally taught her the rules of the +game. It is a recognised source of subsistence for decent people +with small means. But I confess Madame Blumenthal might do worse +things than play at roulette, and yet make them harmonious and beautiful. +I have never been in the habit of thinking positive beauty the most +excellent thing in a woman. I have always said to myself that +if my heart were ever to be captured it would be by a sort of general +grace—a sweetness of motion and tone—on which one could +count for soothing impressions, as one counts on a musical instrument +that is perfectly in tune. Madame Blumenthal has it—this +grace that soothes and satisfies; and it seems the more perfect that +it keeps order and harmony in a character really passionately ardent +and active. With her eager nature and her innumerable accomplishments +nothing would be easier than that she should seem restless and aggressive. +You will know her, and I leave you to judge whether she does seem so! +She has every gift, and culture has done everything for each. +What goes on in her mind I of course can’t say; what reaches the +observer—the admirer—is simply a sort of fragrant emanation +of intelligence and sympathy.”</p> +<p>“Madame Blumenthal,” I said, smiling, “might be +the loveliest woman in the world, and you the object of her choicest +favours, and yet what I should most envy you would be, not your peerless +friend, but your beautiful imagination.”</p> +<p>“That’s a polite way of calling me a fool,” said +Pickering. “You are a sceptic, a cynic, a satirist! +I hope I shall be a long time coming to that.”</p> +<p>“You will make the journey fast if you travel by express trains. +But pray tell me, have you ventured to intimate to Madame Blumenthal +your high opinion of her?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what I may have said. She listens +even better than she talks, and I think it possible I may have made +her listen to a great deal of nonsense. For after the first few +words I exchanged with her I was conscious of an extraordinary evaporation +of all my old diffidence. I have, in truth, I suppose,” +he added in a moment, “owing to my peculiar circumstances, a great +accumulated fund of unuttered things of all sorts to get rid of. +Last evening, sitting there before that charming woman, they came swarming +to my lips. Very likely I poured them all out. I have a +sense of having enshrouded myself in a sort of mist of talk, and of +seeing her lovely eyes shining through it opposite to me, like fog-lamps +at sea.” And here, if I remember rightly, Pickering broke +off into an ardent parenthesis, and declared that Madame Blumenthal’s +eyes had something in them that he had never seen in any others. +“It was a jumble of crudities and inanities,” he went on; +“they must have seemed to her great rubbish; but I felt the wiser +and the stronger, somehow, for having fired off all my guns—they +could hurt nobody now if they hit—and I imagine I might have gone +far without finding another woman in whom such an exhibition would have +provoked so little of mere cold amusement.”</p> +<p>“Madame Blumenthal, on the contrary,” I surmised, “entered +into your situation with warmth.”</p> +<p>“Exactly so—the greatest! She has felt and suffered, +and now she understands!”</p> +<p>“She told you, I imagine, that she understood you as if she +had made you, and she offered to be your guide, philosopher, and friend.”</p> +<p>“She spoke to me,” Pickering answered, after a pause, +“as I had never been spoken to before, and she offered me, formally, +all the offices of a woman’s friendship.”</p> +<p>“Which you as formally accepted?”</p> +<p>“To you the scene sounds absurd, I suppose, but allow me to +say I don’t care!” Pickering spoke with an air of +genial defiance which was the most inoffensive thing in the world. +“I was very much moved; I was, in fact, very much excited. +I tried to say something, but I couldn’t; I had had plenty to +say before, but now I stammered and bungled, and at last I bolted out +of the room.”</p> +<p>“Meanwhile she had dropped her tragedy into your pocket!”</p> +<p>“Not at all. I had seen it on the table before she came +in. Afterwards she kindly offered to read German aloud with me, +for the accent, two or three times a week. ‘What shall we +begin with?’ she asked. ‘With this!’ I said, +and held up the book. And she let me take it to look it over.”</p> +<p>I was neither a cynic nor a satirist, but even if I had been, I might +have been disarmed by Pickering’s assurance, before we parted, +that Madame Blumenthal wished to know me and expected him to introduce +me. Among the foolish things which, according to his own account, +he had uttered, were some generous words in my praise, to which she +had civilly replied. I confess I was curious to see her, but I +begged that the introduction should not be immediate, for I wished to +let Pickering work out his destiny alone. For some days I saw +little of him, though we met at the Kursaal and strolled occasionally +in the park. I watched, in spite of my desire to let him alone, +for the signs and portents of the world’s action upon him—of +that portion of the world, in especial, of which Madame Blumenthal had +constituted herself the agent. He seemed very happy, and gave +me in a dozen ways an impression of increased self-confidence and maturity. +His mind was admirably active, and always, after a quarter of an hour’s +talk with him, I asked myself what experience could really do, that +innocence had not done, to make it bright and fine. I was struck +with his deep enjoyment of the whole spectacle of foreign life—its +novelty, its picturesqueness, its light and shade—and with the +infinite freedom with which he felt he could go and come and rove and +linger and observe it all. It was an expansion, an awakening, +a coming to moral manhood. Each time I met him he spoke a little +less of Madame Blumenthal; but he let me know generally that he saw +her often, and continued to admire her. I was forced to admit +to myself, in spite of preconceptions, that if she were really the ruling +star of this happy season, she must be a very superior woman. +Pickering had the air of an ingenuous young philosopher sitting at the +feet of an austere muse, and not of a sentimental spendthrift dangling +about some supreme incarnation of levity.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p>Madame Blumenthal seemed, for the time, to have abjured the Kursaal, +and I never caught a glimpse of her. Her young friend, apparently, +was an interesting study, and the studious mind prefers seclusion.</p> +<p>She reappeared, however, at last, one evening at the opera, where +from my chair I perceived her in a box, looking extremely pretty. +Adelina Patti was singing, and after the rising of the curtain I was +occupied with the stage; but on looking round when it fell for the <i>entr’acte</i>, +I saw that the authoress of “Cleopatra” had been joined +by her young admirer. He was sitting a little behind her, leaning +forward, looking over her shoulder and listening, while she, slowly +moving her fan to and fro and letting her eye wander over the house, +was apparently talking of this person and that. No doubt she was +saying sharp things; but Pickering was not laughing; his eyes were following +her covert indications; his mouth was half open, as it always was when +he was interested; he looked intensely serious. I was glad that, +having her back to him, she was unable to see how he looked. It +seemed the proper moment to present myself and make her my bow; but +just as I was about to leave my place a gentleman, whom in a moment +I perceived to be an old acquaintance, came to occupy the next chair. +Recognition and mutual greetings followed, and I was forced to postpone +my visit to Madame Blumenthal. I was not sorry, for it very soon +occurred to me that Niedermeyer would be just the man to give me a fair +prose version of Pickering’s lyric tributes to his friend. +He was an Austrian by birth, and had formerly lived about Europe a great +deal in a series of small diplomatic posts. England especially +he had often visited, and he spoke the language almost without accent. +I had once spent three rainy days with him in the house of an English +friend in the country. He was a sharp observer, and a good deal +of a gossip; he knew a little something about every one, and about some +people everything. His knowledge on social matters generally had +the quality of all German science; it was copious, minute, exhaustive.</p> +<p>“Do tell me,” I said, as we stood looking round the house, +“who and what is the lady in white, with the young man sitting +behind her.”</p> +<p>“Who?” he answered, dropping his glass. “Madame +Blumenthal! What! It would take long to say. Be introduced; +it’s easily done; you will find her charming. Then, after +a week, you will tell me what she is.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps I should not. My friend there has known her +a week, and I don’t think he is yet able to give a coherent account +of her.”</p> +<p>He raised his glass again, and after looking a while, “I am +afraid your friend is a little—what do you call it?—a little +‘soft.’ Poor fellow! he’s not the first. +I have never known this lady that she has not had some eligible youth +hovering about in some such attitude as that, undergoing the softening +process. She looks wonderfully well, from here. It’s +extraordinary how those women last!”</p> +<p>“You don’t mean, I take it, when you talk about ‘those +women,’ that Madame Blumenthal is not embalmed, for duration, +in a certain infusion of respectability?”</p> +<p>“Yes and no. The atmosphere that surrounds her is entirely +of her own making. There is no reason in her antecedents that +people should drop their voice when they speak of her. But some +women are never at their ease till they have given some damnable twist +or other to their position before the world. The attitude of upright +virtue is unbecoming, like sitting too straight in a fauteuil. +Don’t ask me for opinions, however; content yourself with a few +facts and with an anecdote. Madame Blumenthal is Prussian, and +very well born. I remember her mother, an old Westphalian Gräfin, +with principles marshalled out like Frederick the Great’s grenadiers. +She was poor, however, and her principles were an insufficient dowry +for Anastasia, who was married very young to a vicious Jew, twice her +own age. He was supposed to have money, but I am afraid he had +less than was nominated in the bond, or else that his pretty young wife +spent it very fast. She has been a widow these six or eight years, +and has lived, I imagine, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion. I +suppose she is some six or eight and thirty years of age. In winter +one hears of her in Berlin, giving little suppers to the artistic rabble +there; in summer one often sees her across the green table at Ems and +Wiesbaden. She’s very clever, and her cleverness has spoiled +her. A year after her marriage she published a novel, with her +views on matrimony, in the George Sand manner—beating the drum +to Madame Sand’s trumpet. No doubt she was very unhappy; +Blumenthal was an old beast. Since then she has published a lot +of literature—novels and poems and pamphlets on every conceivable +theme, from the conversion of Lola Montez to the Hegelian philosophy. +Her talk is much better than her writing. Her <i>conjugophobia</i>—I +can’t call it by any other name—made people think lightly +of her at a time when her rebellion against marriage was probably only +theoretic. She had a taste for spinning fine phrases, she drove +her shuttle, and when she came to the end of her yarn she found that +society had turned its back. She tossed her head, declared that +at last she could breathe the sacred air of freedom, and formally announced +that she had embraced an ‘intellectual’ life. This +meant unlimited <i>camaraderie</i> with scribblers and daubers, Hegelian +philosophers and Hungarian pianists. But she has been admired +also by a great many really clever men; there was a time, in fact, when +she turned a head as well set on its shoulders as this one!” +And Niedermeyer tapped his forehead. “She has a great charm, +and, literally, I know no harm of her. Yet for all that, I am +not going to speak to her; I am not going near her box. I am going +to leave her to say, if she does me the honour to observe the omission, +that I too have gone over to the Philistines. It’s not that; +it is that there is something sinister about the woman. I am too +old for it to frighten me, but I am good-natured enough for it to pain +me. Her quarrel with society has brought her no happiness, and +her outward charm is only the mask of a dangerous discontent. +Her imagination is lodged where her heart should be! So long as +you amuse it, well and good; she’s radiant. But the moment +you let it flag, she is capable of dropping you without a pang. +If you land on your feet you are so much the wiser, simply; but there +have been two or three, I believe, who have almost broken their necks +in the fall.”</p> +<p>“You are reversing your promise,” I said, “and +giving me an opinion, but not an anecdote.”</p> +<p>“This is my anecdote. A year ago a friend of mine made +her acquaintance in Berlin, and though he was no longer a young man, +and had never been what is called a susceptible one, he took a great +fancy to Madame Blumenthal. He’s a major in the Prussian +artillery—grizzled, grave, a trifle severe, a man every way firm +in the faith of his fathers. It’s a proof of Anastasia’s +charm that such a man should have got into the habit of going to see +her every day of his life. But the major was in love, or next +door to it! Every day that he called he found her scribbling away +at a little ormolu table on a lot of half-sheets of note-paper. +She used to bid him sit down and hold his tongue for a quarter of an +hour, till she had finished her chapter; she was writing a novel, and +it was promised to a publisher. Clorinda, she confided to him, +was the name of the injured heroine. The major, I imagine, had +never read a work of fiction in his life, but he knew by hearsay that +Madame Blumenthal’s literature, when put forth in pink covers, +was subversive of several respectable institutions. Besides, he +didn’t believe in women knowing how to write at all, and it irritated +him to see this inky goddess correcting proof-sheets under his nose—irritated +him the more that, as I say, he was in love with her and that he ventured +to believe she had a kindness for his years and his honours. And +yet she was not such a woman as he could easily ask to marry him. +The result of all this was that he fell into the way of railing at her +intellectual pursuits and saying he should like to run his sword through +her pile of papers. A woman was clever enough when she could guess +her husband’s wishes, and learned enough when she could read him +the newspapers. At last, one day, Madame Blumenthal flung down +her pen and announced in triumph that she had finished her novel. +Clorinda had expired in the arms of—some one else than her husband. +The major, by way of congratulating her, declared that her novel was +immoral rubbish, and that her love of vicious paradoxes was only a peculiarly +depraved form of coquetry. He added, however, that he loved her +in spite of her follies, and that if she would formally abjure them +he would as formally offer her his hand. They say that women like +to be snubbed by military men. I don’t know, I’m sure; +I don’t know how much pleasure, on this occasion, was mingled +with Anastasia’s wrath. But her wrath was very quiet, and +the major assured me it made her look uncommonly pretty. ‘I +have told you before,’ she says, ‘that I write from an inner +need. I write to unburden my heart, to satisfy my conscience. +You call my poor efforts coquetry, vanity, the desire to produce a sensation. +I can prove to you that it is the quiet labour itself I care for, and +not the world’s more or less flattering attention to it!’ +And seizing the history of Clorinda she thrust it into the fire. +The major stands staring, and the first thing he knows she is sweeping +him a great curtsey and bidding him farewell for ever. Left alone +and recovering his wits, he fishes out Clorinda from the embers, and +then proceeds to thump vigorously at the lady’s door. But +it never opened, and from that day to the day three months ago when +he told me the tale, he had not beheld her again.”</p> +<p>“By Jove, it’s a striking story,” I said. +“But the question is, what does it prove?”</p> +<p>“Several things. First (what I was careful not to tell +my friend), that Madame Blumenthal cared for him a trifle more than +he supposed; second, that he cares for her more than ever; third, that +the performance was a master-stroke, and that her allowing him to force +an interview upon her again is only a question of time.”</p> +<p>“And last?” I asked.</p> +<p>“This is another anecdote. The other day, Unter den Linden, +I saw on a bookseller’s counter a little pink-covered romance—‘Sophronia,’ +by Madame Blumenthal. Glancing through it, I observed an extraordinary +abuse of asterisks; every two or three pages the narrative was adorned +with a portentous blank, crossed with a row of stars.”</p> +<p>“Well, but poor Clorinda?” I objected, as Niedermeyer +paused.</p> +<p>“Sophronia, my dear fellow, is simply Clorinda renamed by the +baptism of fire. The fair author came back, of course, and found +Clorinda tumbled upon the floor, a good deal scorched, but, on the whole, +more frightened than hurt. She picks her up, brushes her off, +and sends her to the printer. Wherever the flames had burnt a +hole she swings a constellation! But if the major is prepared +to drop a penitent tear over the ashes of Clorinda, I shall not whisper +to him that the urn is empty.”</p> +<p>Even Adelina Patti’s singing, for the next half-hour, but half +availed to divert me from my quickened curiosity to behold Madame Blumenthal +face to face. As soon as the curtain had fallen again I repaired +to her box and was ushered in by Pickering with zealous hospitality. +His glowing smile seemed to say to me, “Ay, look for yourself, +and adore!” Nothing could have been more gracious than the +lady’s greeting, and I found, somewhat to my surprise, that her +prettiness lost nothing on a nearer view. Her eyes indeed were +the finest I have ever seen—the softest, the deepest, the most +intensely responsive. In spite of something faded and jaded in +her physiognomy, her movements, her smile, and the tone of her voice, +especially when she laughed, had an almost girlish frankness and spontaneity. +She looked at you very hard with her radiant gray eyes, and she indulged +while she talked in a superabundance of restless, rather affected little +gestures, as if to make you take her meaning in a certain very particular +and superfine sense. I wondered whether after a while this might +not fatigue one’s attention; then meeting her charming eyes, I +said, Not for a long time. She was very clever, and, as Pickering +had said, she spoke English admirably. I told her, as I took my +seat beside her, of the fine things I had heard about her from my friend, +and she listened, letting me go on some time, and exaggerate a little, +with her fine eyes fixed full upon me. “Really?” she +suddenly said, turning short round upon Pickering, who stood behind +us, and looking at him in the same way. “Is that the way +you talk about me?”</p> +<p>He blushed to his eyes, and I repented. She suddenly began +to laugh; it was then I observed how sweet her voice was in laughter. +We talked after this of various matters, and in a little while I complimented +her on her excellent English, and asked if she had learnt it in England.</p> +<p>“Heaven forbid!” she cried. “I have never +been there and wish never to go. I should never get on with the—” +I wondered what she was going to say; the fogs, the smoke, or whist +with sixpenny stakes?—“I should never get on,” she +said, “with the aristocracy! I am a fierce democrat—I +am not ashamed of it. I hold opinions which would make my ancestors +turn in their graves. I was born in the lap of feudalism. +I am a daughter of the crusaders. But I am a revolutionist! +I have a passion for freedom—my idea of happiness is to die on +a great barricade! It’s to your great country I should like +to go. I should like to see the wonderful spectacle of a great +people free to do everything it chooses, and yet never doing anything +wrong!”</p> +<p>I replied, modestly, that, after all, both our freedom and our good +conduct had their limits, and she turned quickly about and shook her +fan with a dramatic gesture at Pickering. “No matter, no +matter!” she cried; “I should like to see the country which +produced that wonderful young man. I think of it as a sort of +Arcadia—a land of the golden age. He’s so delightfully +innocent! In this stupid old Germany, if a young man is innocent +he’s a fool; he has no brains; he’s not a bit interesting. +But Mr. Pickering says the freshest things, and after I have laughed +five minutes at their freshness it suddenly occurs to me that they are +very wise, and I think them over for a week.” “True!” +she went on, nodding at him. “I call them inspired solecisms, +and I treasure them up. Remember that when I next laugh at you!”</p> +<p>Glancing at Pickering, I was prompted to believe that he was in a +state of beatific exaltation which weighed Madame Blumenthal’s +smiles and frowns in an equal balance. They were equally hers; +they were links alike in the golden chain. He looked at me with +eyes that seemed to say, “Did you ever hear such wit? Did +you ever see such grace?” It seemed to me that he was but +vaguely conscious of the meaning of her words; her gestures, her voice +and glance, made an absorbing harmony. There is something painful +in the spectacle of absolute enthralment, even to an excellent cause. +I gave no response to Pickering’s challenge, but made some remark +upon the charm of Adelina Patti’s singing. Madame Blumenthal, +as became a “revolutionist,” was obliged to confess that +she could see no charm in it; it was meagre, it was trivial, it lacked +soul. “You must know that in music, too,” she said, +“I think for myself!” And she began with a great many +flourishes of her fan to explain what it was she thought. Remarkable +things, doubtless; but I cannot answer for it, for in the midst of the +explanation the curtain rose again. “You can’t be +a great artist without a great passion!” Madame Blumenthal +was affirming. Before I had time to assent Madame Patti’s +voice rose wheeling like a skylark, and rained down its silver notes. +“Ah, give me that art,” I whispered, “and I will leave +you your passion!” And I departed for my own place in the +orchestra. I wondered afterwards whether the speech had seemed +rude, and inferred that it had not on receiving a friendly nod from +the lady, in the lobby, as the theatre was emptying itself. She +was on Pickering’s arm, and he was taking her to her carriage. +Distances are short in Homburg, but the night was rainy, and Madame +Blumenthal exhibited a very pretty satin-shod foot as a reason why, +though but a penniless widow, she should not walk home. Pickering +left us together a moment while he went to hail the vehicle, and my +companion seized the opportunity, as she said, to beg me to be so very +kind as to come and see her. It was for a particular reason! +It was reason enough for me, of course, I answered, that she had given +me leave. She looked at me a moment with that extraordinary gaze +of hers which seemed so absolutely audacious in its candour, and rejoined +that I paid more compliments than our young friend there, but that she +was sure I was not half so sincere. “But it’s about +him I want to talk,” she said. “I want to ask you +many things; I want you to tell me all about him. He interests +me; but you see my sympathies are so intense, my imagination is so lively, +that I don’t trust my own impressions. They have misled +me more than once!” And she gave a little tragic shudder.</p> +<p>I promised to come and compare notes with her, and we bade her farewell +at her carriage door. Pickering and I remained a while, walking +up and down the long glazed gallery of the Kursaal. I had not +taken many steps before I became aware that I was beside a man in the +very extremity of love. “Isn’t she wonderful?” +he asked, with an implicit confidence in my sympathy which it cost me +some ingenuity to elude. If he were really in love, well and good! +For although, now that I had seen her, I stood ready to confess to large +possibilities of fascination on Madame Blumenthal’s part, and +even to certain possibilities of sincerity of which my appreciation +was vague, yet it seemed to me less ominous that he should be simply +smitten than that his admiration should pique itself on being discriminating. +It was on his fundamental simplicity that I counted for a happy termination +of his experiment, and the former of these alternatives seemed to me +the simpler. I resolved to hold my tongue and let him run his +course. He had a great deal to say about his happiness, about +the days passing like hours, the hours like minutes, and about Madame +Blumenthal being a “revelation.” “She was nothing +to-night,” he said; “nothing to what she sometimes is in +the way of brilliancy—in the way of repartee. If you could +only hear her when she tells her adventures!”</p> +<p>“Adventures?” I inquired. “Has she had adventures?”</p> +<p>“Of the most wonderful sort!” cried Pickering, with rapture. +“She hasn’t vegetated, like me! She has lived in the +tumult of life. When I listen to her reminiscences, it’s +like hearing the opening tumult of one of Beethoven’s symphonies +as it loses itself in a triumphant harmony of beauty and faith!”</p> +<p>I could only lift my eyebrows, but I desired to know before we separated +what he had done with that troublesome conscience of his. “I +suppose you know, my dear fellow,” I said, “that you are +simply in love. That’s what they happen to call your state +of mind.”</p> +<p>He replied with a brightening eye, as if he were delighted to hear +it—“So Madame Blumenthal told me only this morning!” +And seeing, I suppose, that I was slightly puzzled, “I went to +drive with her,” he continued; “we drove to Königstein, +to see the old castle. We scrambled up into the heart of the ruin +and sat for an hour in one of the crumbling old courts. Something +in the solemn stillness of the place unloosed my tongue; and while she +sat on an ivied stone, on the edge of the plunging wall, I stood there +and made a speech. She listened to me, looking at me, breaking +off little bits of stone and letting them drop down into the valley. +At last she got up and nodded at me two or three times silently, with +a smile, as if she were applauding me for a solo on the violin. +‘You are in love,’ she said. ‘It’s a perfect +case!’ And for some time she said nothing more. But +before we left the place she told me that she owed me an answer to my +speech. She thanked me heartily, but she was afraid that if she +took me at my word she would be taking advantage of my inexperience. +I had known few women; I was too easily pleased; I thought her better +than she really was. She had great faults; I must know her longer +and find them out; I must compare her with other women—women younger, +simpler, more innocent, more ignorant; and then if I still did her the +honour to think well of her, she would listen to me again. I told +her that I was not afraid of preferring any woman in the world to her, +and then she repeated, ‘Happy man, happy man! you are in love, +you are in love!’”</p> +<p>I called upon Madame Blumenthal a couple of days later, in some agitation +of thought. It has been proved that there are, here and there, +in the world, such people as sincere impostors; certain characters who +cultivate fictitious emotions in perfect good faith. Even if this +clever lady enjoyed poor Pickering’s bedazzlement, it was conceivable +that, taking vanity and charity together, she should care more for his +welfare than for her own entertainment; and her offer to abide by the +result of hazardous comparison with other women was a finer stroke than +her reputation had led me to expect. She received me in a shabby +little sitting-room littered with uncut books and newspapers, many of +which I saw at a glance were French. One side of it was occupied +by an open piano, surmounted by a jar full of white roses. They +perfumed the air; they seemed to me to exhale the pure aroma of Pickering’s +devotion. Buried in an arm-chair, the object of this devotion +was reading the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>. The purpose of my +visit was not to admire Madame Blumenthal on my own account, but to +ascertain how far I might safely leave her to work her will upon my +friend. She had impugned my sincerity the evening of the opera, +and I was careful on this occasion to abstain from compliments, and +not to place her on her guard against my penetration. It is needless +to narrate our interview in detail; indeed, to tell the perfect truth, +I was punished for my rash attempt to surprise her by a temporary eclipse +of my own perspicacity. She sat there so questioning, so perceptive, +so genial, so generous, and so pretty withal, that I was quite ready +at the end of half an hour to subscribe to the most comprehensive of +Pickering’s rhapsodies. She was certainly a wonderful woman. +I have never liked to linger, in memory, on that half-hour. The +result of it was to prove that there were many more things in the composition +of a woman who, as Niedermeyer said, had lodged her imagination in the +place of her heart than were dreamt of in my philosophy. Yet, +as I sat there stroking my hat and balancing the account between nature +and art in my affable hostess, I felt like a very competent philosopher. +She had said she wished me to tell her everything about our friend, +and she questioned me as to his family, his fortune, his antecedents, +and his character. All this was natural in a woman who had received +a passionate declaration of love, and it was expressed with an air of +charmed solicitude, a radiant confidence that there was really no mistake +about his being a most distinguished young man, and that if I chose +to be explicit, I might deepen her conviction to disinterested ecstasy, +which might have almost provoked me to invent a good opinion, if I had +not had one ready made. I told her that she really knew Pickering +better than I did, and that until we met at Homburg I had not seen him +since he was a boy.</p> +<p>“But he talks to you freely,” she answered; “I +know you are his confidant. He has told me certainly a great many +things, but I always feel as if he were keeping something back; as if +he were holding something behind him, and showing me only one hand at +once. He seems often to be hovering on the edge of a secret. +I have had several friendships in my life—thank Heaven! but I +have had none more dear to me than this one. Yet in the midst +of it I have the painful sense of my friend being half afraid of me; +of his thinking me terrible, strange, perhaps a trifle out of my wits. +Poor me! If he only knew what a plain good soul I am, and how +I only want to know him and befriend him!”</p> +<p>These words were full of a plaintive magnanimity which made mistrust +seem cruel. How much better I might play providence over Pickering’s +experiments with life if I could engage the fine instincts of this charming +woman on the providential side! Pickering’s secret was, +of course, his engagement to Miss Vernor; it was natural enough that +he should have been unable to bring himself to talk of it to Madame +Blumenthal. The simple sweetness of this young girl’s face +had not faded from my memory; I could not rid myself of the suspicion +that in going further Pickering might fare much worse. Madame +Blumenthal’s professions seemed a virtual promise to agree with +me, and, after some hesitation, I said that my friend had, in fact, +a substantial secret, and that perhaps I might do him a good turn by +putting her in possession of it. In as few words as possible I +told her that Pickering stood pledged by filial piety to marry a young +lady at Smyrna. She listened intently to my story; when I had +finished it there was a faint flush of excitement in each of her cheeks. +She broke out into a dozen exclamations of admiration and compassion. +“What a wonderful tale—what a romantic situation! +No wonder poor Mr. Pickering seemed restless and unsatisfied; no wonder +he wished to put off the day of submission. And the poor little +girl at Smyrna, waiting there for the young Western prince like the +heroine of an Eastern tale! She would give the world to see her +photograph; did I think Mr. Pickering would show it to her? But +never fear; she would ask nothing indiscreet! Yes, it was a marvellous +story, and if she had invented it herself, people would have said it +was absurdly improbable.” She left her seat and took several +turns about the room, smiling to herself, and uttering little German +cries of wonderment. Suddenly she stopped before the piano and +broke into a little laugh; the next moment she buried her face in the +great bouquet of roses. It was time I should go, but I was indisposed +to leave her without obtaining some definite assurance that, as far +as pity was concerned, she pitied the young girl at Smyrna more than +the young man at Homburg.</p> +<p>“Of course you know what I wished in telling you this,” +I said, rising. “She is evidently a charming creature, and +the best thing he can do is to marry her. I wished to interest +you in that view of it.”</p> +<p>She had taken one of the roses from the vase and was arranging it +in the front of her dress. Suddenly, looking up, “Leave +it to me, leave it to me!” she cried. “I am interested!” +And with her little blue-gemmed hand she tapped her forehead. +“I am deeply interested!”</p> +<p>And with this I had to content myself. But more than once the +next day I repented of my zeal, and wondered whether a providence with +a white rose in her bosom might not turn out a trifle too human. +In the evening, at the Kursaal, I looked for Pickering, but he was not +visible, and I reflected that my revelation had not as yet, at any rate, +seemed to Madame Blumenthal a reason for prescribing a cooling-term +to his passion. Very late, as I was turning away, I saw him arrive—with +no small satisfaction, for I had determined to let him know immediately +in what way I had attempted to serve him. But he straightway passed +his arm through my own and led me off towards the gardens. I saw +that he was too excited to allow me to speak first.</p> +<p>“I have burnt my ships!” he cried, when we were out of +earshot of the crowd. “I have told her everything. +I have insisted that it’s simple torture for me to wait with this +idle view of loving her less. It’s well enough for her to +ask it, but I feel strong enough now to override her reluctance. +I have cast off the millstone from round my neck. I care for nothing, +I know nothing, but that I love her with every pulse of my being—and +that everything else has been a hideous dream, from which she may wake +me into blissful morning with a single word!”</p> +<p>I held him off at arm’s-length and looked at him gravely. +“You have told her, you mean, of your engagement to Miss Vernor?”</p> +<p>“The whole story! I have given it up—I have thrown +it to the winds. I have broken utterly with the past. It +may rise in its grave and give me its curse, but it can’t frighten +me now. I have a right to be happy, I have a right to be free, +I have a right not to bury myself alive. It was not <i>I</i> who +promised—I was not born then. I myself, my soul, my mind, +my option—all this is but a month old! Ah,” he went +on, “if you knew the difference it makes—this having chosen +and broken and spoken! I am twice the man I was yesterday! +Yesterday I was afraid of her; there was a kind of mocking mystery of +knowledge and cleverness about her, which oppressed me in the midst +of my love. But now I am afraid of nothing but of being too happy!”</p> +<p>I stood silent, to let him spend his eloquence. But he paused +a moment, and took off his hat and fanned himself. “Let +me perfectly understand,” I said at last. “You have +asked Madame Blumenthal to be your wife?”</p> +<p>“The wife of my intelligent choice!”</p> +<p>“And does she consent?”</p> +<p>“She asks three days to decide.”</p> +<p>“Call it four! She has known your secret since this morning. +I am bound to let you know I told her.”</p> +<p>“So much the better!” cried Pickering, without apparent +resentment or surprise. “It’s not a brilliant offer +for such a woman, and in spite of what I have at stake, I feel that +it would be brutal to press her.”</p> +<p>“What does she say to your breaking your promise?” I +asked in a moment.</p> +<p>Pickering was too much in love for false shame. “She +tells me that she loves me too much to find courage to condemn me. +She agrees with me that I have a right to be happy. I ask no exemption +from the common law. What I claim is simply freedom to try to +be!”</p> +<p>Of course I was puzzled; it was not in that fashion that I had expected +Madame Blumenthal to make use of my information. But the matter +now was quite out of my hands, and all I could do was to bid my companion +not work himself into a fever over either fortune.</p> +<p>The next day I had a visit from Niedermeyer, on whom, after our talk +at the opera, I had left a card. We gossiped a while, and at last +he said suddenly, “By the way, I have a sequel to the history +of Clorinda. The major is at Homburg!”</p> +<p>“Indeed!” said I. “Since when?”</p> +<p>“These three days.”</p> +<p>“And what is he doing?”</p> +<p>“He seems,” said Niedermeyer, with a laugh, “to +be chiefly occupied in sending flowers to Madame Blumenthal. That +is, I went with him the morning of his arrival to choose a nosegay, +and nothing would suit him but a small haystack of white roses. +I hope it was received.”</p> +<p>“I can assure you it was,” I cried. “I saw +the lady fairly nestling her head in it. But I advise the major +not to build upon that. He has a rival.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean the soft young man of the other night?”</p> +<p>“Pickering is soft, if you will, but his softness seems to +have served him. He has offered her everything, and she has not +yet refused it.” I had handed my visitor a cigar, and he +was puffing it in silence. At last he abruptly asked if I had +been introduced to Madame Blumenthal, and, on my affirmative, inquired +what I thought of her. “I will not tell you,” I said, +“or you’ll call <i>me</i> soft.”</p> +<p>He knocked away his ashes, eyeing me askance. “I have +noticed your friend about,” he said, “and even if you had +not told me, I should have known he was in love. After he has +left his adored, his face wears for the rest of the day the expression +with which he has risen from her feet, and more than once I have felt +like touching his elbow, as you would that of a man who has inadvertently +come into a drawing-room in his overshoes. You say he has offered +our friend everything; but, my dear fellow, he has not everything to +offer her. He evidently is as amiable as the morning, but the +lady has no taste for daylight.”</p> +<p>“I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow,” +I said.</p> +<p>“Ah, there it is! Has he not some story or other? +Isn’t he an orphan, or a natural child, or consumptive, or contingent +heir to great estates? She will read his little story to the end, +and close the book very tenderly and smooth down the cover; and then, +when he least expects it, she will toss it into the dusty limbo of her +other romances. She will let him dangle, but she will let him +drop!”</p> +<p>“Upon my word,” I cried, with heat, “if she does, +she will be a very unprincipled little creature!”</p> +<p>Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. “I never said she +was a saint!”</p> +<p>Shrewd as I felt Niedermeyer to be, I was not prepared to take his +simple word for this event, and in the evening I received a communication +which fortified my doubts. It was a note from Pickering, and it +ran as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“My Dear Friend—I have every hope of being +happy, but I am to go to Wiesbaden to learn my fate. Madame Blumenthal +goes thither this afternoon to spend a few days, and she allows me to +accompany her. Give me your good wishes; you shall hear of the +result.<br /> +E. P.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One of the diversions of Homburg for new-comers is to dine in rotation +at the different tables d’hôte. It so happened that, +a couple of days later, Niedermeyer took pot-luck at my hotel, and secured +a seat beside my own. As we took our places I found a letter on +my plate, and, as it was postmarked Wiesbaden, I lost no time in opening +it. It contained but three lines—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I am happy—I am accepted—an hour ago. +I can hardly believe it’s your poor friend<br /> +E. P.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I placed the note before Niedermeyer; not exactly in triumph, but +with the alacrity of all felicitous confutation. He looked at +it much longer than was needful to read it, stroking down his beard +gravely, and I felt it was not so easy to confute a pupil of the school +of Metternich. At last, folding the note and handing it back, +“Has your friend mentioned Madame Blumenthal’s errand at +Wiesbaden?” he asked.</p> +<p>“You look very wise. I give it up!” said I.</p> +<p>“She is gone there to make the major follow her. He went +by the next train.”</p> +<p>“And has the major, on his side, dropped you a line?”</p> +<p>“He is not a letter-writer.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said I, pocketing my letter, “with this +document in my hand I am bound to reserve my judgment. We will +have a bottle of Johannisberg, and drink to the triumph of virtue.”</p> +<p>For a whole week more I heard nothing from Pickering—somewhat +to my surprise, and, as the days went by, not a little to my discomposure. +I had expected that his bliss would continue to overflow in brief bulletins, +and his silence was possibly an indication that it had been clouded. +At last I wrote to his hotel at Wiesbaden, but received no answer; whereupon, +as my next resource, I repaired to his former lodging at Homburg, where +I thought it possible he had left property which he would sooner or +later send for. There I learned that he had indeed just telegraphed +from Cologne for his luggage. To Cologne I immediately despatched +a line of inquiry as to his prosperity and the cause of his silence. +The next day I received three words in answer—a simple uncommented +request that I would come to him. I lost no time, and reached +him in the course of a few hours. It was dark when I arrived, +and the city was sheeted in a cold autumnal rain. Pickering had +stumbled, with an indifference which was itself a symptom of distress, +on a certain musty old Mainzerhof, and I found him sitting over a smouldering +fire in a vast dingy chamber which looked as if it had grown gray with +watching the <i>ennui</i> of ten generations of travellers. Looking +at him, as he rose on my entrance, I saw that he was in extreme tribulation. +He was pale and haggard; his face was five years older. Now, at +least, in all conscience, he had tasted of the cup of life! I +was anxious to know what had turned it so suddenly to bitterness; but +I spared him all importunate curiosity, and let him take his time. +I accepted tacitly his tacit confession of distress, and we made for +a while a feeble effort to discuss the picturesqueness of Cologne. +At last he rose and stood a long time looking into the fire, while I +slowly paced the length of the dusky room.</p> +<p>“Well!” he said, as I came back; “I wanted knowledge, +and I certainly know something I didn’t a month ago.” +And herewith, calmly and succinctly enough, as if dismay had worn itself +out, he related the history of the foregoing days. He touched +lightly on details; he evidently never was to gush as freely again as +he had done during the prosperity of his suit. He had been accepted +one evening, as explicitly as his imagination could desire, and had +gone forth in his rapture and roamed about till nearly morning in the +gardens of the Conversation-house, taking the stars and the perfumes +of the summer night into his confidence. “It is worth it +all, almost,” he said, “to have been wound up for an hour +to that celestial pitch. No man, I am sure, can ever know it but +once.” The next morning he had repaired to Madame Blumenthal’s +lodging and had been met, to his amazement, by a naked refusal to see +him. He had strode about for a couple of hours—in another +mood—and then had returned to the charge. The servant handed +him a three-cornered note; it contained these words: “Leave me +alone to-day; I will give you ten minutes to-morrow evening.” +Of the next thirty-six hours he could give no coherent account, but +at the appointed time Madame Blumenthal had received him. Almost +before she spoke there had come to him a sense of the depth of his folly +in supposing he knew her. “One has heard all one’s +days,” he said, “of people removing the mask; it’s +one of the stock phrases of romance. Well, there she stood with +her mask in her hand. Her face,” he went on gravely, after +a pause—“her face was horrible!” . . . “I give +you ten minutes,” she had said, pointing to the clock. “Make +your scene, tear your hair, brandish your dagger!” And she +had sat down and folded her arms. “It’s not a joke,” +she cried, “it’s dead earnest; let us have it over. +You are dismissed—have you nothing to say?” He had +stammered some frantic demand for an explanation; and she had risen +and come near him, looking at him from head to feet, very pale, and +evidently more excited than she wished him to see. “I have +done with you!” she said, with a smile; “you ought to have +done with me! It has all been delightful, but there are excellent +reasons why it should come to an end.” “You have been playing +a part, then,” he had gasped out; “you never cared for me?” +“Yes; till I knew you; till I saw how far you would go. +But now the story’s finished; we have reached the <i>dénoûment</i>. +We will close the book and be good friends.” “To see +how far I would go?” he had repeated. “You led me +on, meaning all the while to do <i>this</i>!” “I led +you on, if you will. I received your visits, in season and out! +Sometimes they were very entertaining; sometimes they bored me fearfully. +But you were such a very curious case of—what shall I call it?—of +sincerity, that I determined to take good and bad together. I +wanted to make you commit yourself unmistakably. I should have +preferred not to bring you to this place; but that too was necessary. +Of course I can’t marry you; I can do better. So can you, +for that matter; thank your fate for it. You have thought wonders +of me for a month, but your good-humour wouldn’t last. I +am too old and too wise; you are too young and too foolish. It +seems to me that I have been very good to you; I have entertained you +to the top of your bent, and, except perhaps that I am a little brusque +just now, you have nothing to complain of. I would have let you +down more gently if I could have taken another month to it; but circumstances +have forced my hand. Abuse me, curse me, if you like. I +will make every allowance!” Pickering listened to all this +intently enough to perceive that, as if by some sudden natural cataclysm, +the ground had broken away at his feet, and that he must recoil. +He turned away in dumb amazement. “I don’t know how +I seemed to be taking it,” he said, “but she seemed really +to desire—I don’t know why—something in the way of +reproach and vituperation. But I couldn’t, in that way, +have uttered a syllable. I was sickened; I wanted to get away +into the air—to shake her off and come to my senses. ‘Have +you nothing, nothing, nothing to say?’ she cried, as if she were +disappointed, while I stood with my hand on the door. ‘Haven’t +I treated you to talk enough?’ I believed I answered. ‘You +will write to me then, when you get home?’ ‘I think +not,’ said I. ‘Six months hence, I fancy, you will +come and see me!’ ‘Never!’ said I. ‘That’s +a confession of stupidity,’ she answered. ‘It means +that, even on reflection, you will never understand the philosophy of +my conduct.’ The word ‘philosophy’ seemed so +strange that I verily believe I smiled. ‘I have given you +all that you gave me,’ she went on. ‘Your passion +was an affair of the head.’ ‘I only wish you had told +me sooner that you considered it so!’ I exclaimed. And I +went my way. The next day I came down the Rhine. I sat all +day on the boat, not knowing where I was going, where to get off. +I was in a kind of ague of terror; it seemed to me I had seen something +infernal. At last I saw the cathedral towers here looming over +the city. They seemed to say something to me, and when the boat +stopped, I came ashore. I have been here a week. I have +not slept at night—and yet it has been a week of rest!”</p> +<p>It seemed to me that he was in a fair way to recover, and that his +own philosophy, if left to take its time, was adequate to the occasion. +After his story was once told I referred to his grievance but once—that +evening, later, as we were about to separate for the night. “Suffer +me to say that there was some truth in <i>her</i> account of your relations,” +I said. “You were using her intellectually, and all the +while, without your knowing it, she was using you. It was diamond +cut diamond. Her needs were the more superficial, and she got +tired of the game first.” He frowned and turned uneasily +away, but without contradicting me. I waited a few moments, to +see if he would remember, before we parted, that he had a claim to make +upon me. But he seemed to have forgotten it.</p> +<p>The next day we strolled about the picturesque old city, and of course, +before long, went into the cathedral. Pickering said little; he +seemed intent upon his own thoughts. He sat down beside a pillar +near a chapel, in front of a gorgeous window, and, leaving him to his +meditations, I wandered through the church. When I came back I +saw he had something to say. But before he had spoken I laid my +hand on his shoulder and looked at him with a significant smile. +He slowly bent his head and dropped his eyes, with a mixture of assent +and humility. I drew forth from where it had lain untouched for +a month the letter he had given me to keep, placed it silently on his +knee, and left him to deal with it alone.</p> +<p>Half an hour later I returned to the same place, but he had gone, +and one of the sacristans, hovering about and seeing me looking for +Pickering, said he thought he had left the church. I found him +in his gloomy chamber at the inn, pacing slowly up and down. I +should doubtless have been at a loss to say just what effect I expected +the letter from Smyrna to produce; but his actual aspect surprised me. +He was flushed, excited, a trifle irritated.</p> +<p>“Evidently,” I said, “you have read your letter.”</p> +<p>“It is proper I should tell you what is in it,” he answered. +“When I gave it to you a month ago, I did my friends injustice.”</p> +<p>“You called it a ‘summons,’ I remember.”</p> +<p>“I was a great fool! It’s a release!”</p> +<p>“From your engagement?”</p> +<p>“From everything! The letter, of course, is from Mr. +Vernor. He desires to let me know at the earliest moment that +his daughter, informed for the first time a week before of what had +been expected of her, positively refuses to be bound by the contract +or to assent to my being bound. She had been given a week to reflect, +and had spent it in inconsolable tears. She had resisted every +form of persuasion! from compulsion, writes Mr. Vernor, he naturally +shrinks. The young lady considers the arrangement ‘horrible.’ +After accepting her duties cut and dried all her life, she pretends +at last to have a taste of her own. I confess I am surprised; +I had been given to believe that she was stupidly submissive, and would +remain so to the end of the chapter. Not a bit of it. She +has insisted on my being formally dismissed, and her father intimates +that in case of non-compliance she threatens him with an attack of brain +fever. Mr. Vernor condoles with me handsomely, and lets me know +that the young lady’s attitude has been a great shock to his nerves. +He adds that he will not aggravate such regret as I may do him the honour +to entertain, by any allusions to his daughter’s charms and to +the magnitude of my loss, and he concludes with the hope that, for the +comfort of all concerned, I may already have amused my fancy with other +‘views.’ He reminds me in a postscript that, in spite +of this painful occurrence, the son of his most valued friend will always +be a welcome visitor at his house. I am free, he observes; I have +my life before me; he recommends an extensive course of travel. +Should my wanderings lead me to the East, he hopes that no false embarrassment +will deter me from presenting myself at Smyrna. He can promise +me at least a friendly reception. It’s a very polite letter.”</p> +<p>Polite as the letter was, Pickering seemed to find no great exhilaration +in having this famous burden so handsomely lifted from his spirit. +He began to brood over his liberation in a manner which you might have +deemed proper to a renewed sense of bondage. “Bad news,” +he had called his letter originally; and yet, now that its contents +proved to be in flat contradiction to his foreboding, there was no impulsive +voice to reverse the formula and declare the news was good. The +wings of impulse in the poor fellow had of late been terribly clipped. +It was an obvious reflection, of course, that if he had not been so +stiffly certain of the matter a month before, and had gone through the +form of breaking Mr. Vernor’s seal, he might have escaped the +purgatory of Madame Blumenthal’s sub-acid blandishments. +But I left him to moralise in private; I had no desire, as the phrase +is, to rub it in. My thoughts, moreover, were following another +train; I was saying to myself that if to those gentle graces of which +her young visage had offered to my fancy the blooming promise, Miss +Vernor added in this striking measure the capacity for magnanimous action, +the amendment to my friend’s career had been less happy than the +rough draught. Presently, turning about, I saw him looking at +the young lady’s photograph. “Of course, now,” +he said, “I have no right to keep it!” And before +I could ask for another glimpse of it, he had thrust it into the fire.</p> +<p>“I am sorry to be saying it just now,” I observed after +a while, “but I shouldn’t wonder if Miss Vernor were a charming +creature.”</p> +<p>“Go and find out,” he answered, gloomily. “The +coast is clear. My part is to forget her,” he presently +added. “It ought not to be hard. But don’t you +think,” he went on suddenly, “that for a poor fellow who +asked nothing of fortune but leave to sit down in a quiet corner, it +has been rather a cruel pushing about?”</p> +<p>Cruel indeed, I declared, and he certainly had the right to demand +a clean page on the book of fate and a fresh start. Mr. Vernor’s +advice was sound; he should amuse himself with a long journey. +If it would be any comfort to him, I would go with him on his way. +Pickering assented without enthusiasm; he had the embarrassed look of +a man who, having gone to some cost to make a good appearance in a drawing-room, +should find the door suddenly slammed in his face. We started +on our journey, however, and little by little his enthusiasm returned. +He was too capable of enjoying fine things to remain permanently irresponsive, +and after a fortnight spent among pictures and monuments and antiquities, +I felt that I was seeing him for the first time in his best and healthiest +mood. He had had a fever, and then he had had a chill; the pendulum +had swung right and left in a manner rather trying to the machine; but +now, at last, it was working back to an even, natural beat. He +recovered in a measure the generous eloquence with which he had fanned +his flame at Homburg, and talked about things with something of the +same passionate freshness. One day when I was laid up at the inn +at Bruges with a lame foot, he came home and treated me to a rhapsody +about a certain meek-faced virgin of Hans Memling, which seemed to me +sounder sense than his compliments to Madame Blumenthal. He had +his dull days and his sombre moods—hours of irresistible retrospect; +but I let them come and go without remonstrance, because I fancied they +always left him a trifle more alert and resolute. One evening, +however, he sat hanging his head in so doleful a fashion that I took +the bull by the horns and told him he had by this time surely paid his +debt to penitence, and that he owed it to himself to banish that woman +for ever from his thoughts.</p> +<p>He looked up, staring; and then with a deep blush—“That +woman?” he said. “I was not thinking of Madame Blumenthal!”</p> +<p>After this I gave another construction to his melancholy. Taking +him with his hopes and fears, at the end of six weeks of active observation +and keen sensation, Pickering was as fine a fellow as need be. +We made our way down to Italy and spent a fortnight at Venice. +There something happened which I had been confidently expecting; I had +said to myself that it was merely a question of time. We had passed +the day at Torcello, and came floating back in the glow of the sunset, +with measured oar-strokes. “I am well on the way,” +Pickering said; “I think I will go!”</p> +<p>We had not spoken for an hour, and I naturally asked him, Where? +His answer was delayed by our getting into the Piazzetta. I stepped +ashore first and then turned to help him. As he took my hand he +met my eyes, consciously, and it came. “To Smyrna!”</p> +<p>A couple of days later he started. I had risked the conjecture +that Miss Vernor was a charming creature, and six months afterwards +he wrote me that I was right.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUGENE PICKERING***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2534-h.htm or 2534-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/3/2534 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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