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diff --git a/old/eugpk10.txt b/old/eugpk10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3971ab1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/eugpk10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2139 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Eugene Pickering by Henry James +#29 in our series by Henry James + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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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. + +"What an odd-looking youth!" said my companion, who had watched me, +as I seated myself beside her. + +"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 +Freischutz, 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. + +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 aesthetics-- +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! + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Not changed, eh?" he answered, still smiling, and yet speaking with +a sort of ingenuous dismay. + +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." + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +"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 laisser- +aller 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." + +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. + +"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 in medias res." + +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. + +"How long do you expect to be in Europe?" I asked. + +"Six months I supposed when I came. But not so long--now!" And he +let his eyes wander to the letter again. + +"And where shall you go--what shall you do?" + +"Everywhere, everything, I should have said yesterday. But now it is +different." + +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!" + +"Tell me everything, by all means," I answered, smiling. "I desire +nothing better than to lie here in the shade and hear everything." + +"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 IS 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 ACT!" + +"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. + +"It is my sentence!" + +"Not of death, I hope!" + +"Of marriage." + +"With whom?" + +"With a person I don't love." + +This was serious. I stopped smiling, and begged him to explain. + +"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." + +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." + +"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 LIVE first!" + +"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." + +"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. + +"What is it?" + +"A letter from Smyrna." + +"I see you have not yet broken the seal." + +"No; nor do I mean to, for the present. It contains bad news." + +"What do you call bad news?" + +"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." + +"Is not this pure conjecture?" + +"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 TARRY NOT!" And he flung +the letter on the grass. + +"Upon my word, you had better open it," I said. + +"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." + +"In your place," I said, "curiosity would make me open it." + +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." + +I took the letter, smiling. "And how long is your rope to be? The +Homburg season doesn't last for ever." + +"Does it last a month? Let that be my season! A month hence you +will give it back to me." + +"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. + +He blushed deeply, but he met my eyes with the same clear good- +humour. + +"Ah, then, you saw that wonderful lady?" + +"Wonderful she was indeed. I saw her afterwards, too, sitting on the +terrace in the starlight. I imagine she was not alone." + +"No, indeed, I was with her--for nearly an hour. Then I walked home +with her." + +"Ah! And did you go in?" + +"No, she said it was too late to ask me; though she remarked that in +a general way she did not stand upon ceremony." + +"She did herself injustice. When it came to losing your money for +you, she made you insist." + +"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." + +"In other words, she is a lady with no reputation to lose!" + +Pickering seemed puzzled; he smiled a little. "Is not that what you +say of bad women?" + +"Of some--of those who are found out." + +"Well," he said, still smiling, "I have not yet found out Madame +Blumenthal." + +"If that's her name, I suppose she's German." + +"Yes; but she speaks English so well that you wouldn't know it. She +is very clever. Her husband is dead." + +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." + +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." + +"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?" + +"Opposite?" + +"Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the neighbourhood. In a +word, does she interest you?" + +"Very much!" he cried, joyously. + +"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." + +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 +mediaeval 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?" + +"Gracious powers!" I said to myself; "what an enchanting thing is +innocence!" + +"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." + +"Not much, I hope," I said, as I gave it back. "She is very sweet!" + +"Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet--no doubt!" And he put the thing +away without looking at it. + +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." + +"Immediately?" + +"To-day--as soon as you can get ready." + +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." + +"I think I can guess it. Madame Blumenthal has asked you to come and +play her game for her again." + +"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." + +"Ah, then," I said, very gravely, "of course you can't leave +Homburg." + +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 MUST." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +"And who is your teacher?" I asked, glancing at the book. + +He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he answered, after an instant's +delay, "Madame Blumenthal." + +"Indeed! Has she written a grammar?" + +"It's not a grammar; it's a tragedy." And he handed me the book. + +I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, with a very large margin, +an Historisches Trauerspiel 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 +- + +"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!" + +"It seems decidedly passionate," I said. "Has the tragedy ever been +acted?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +"Madame Blumenthal, on the contrary," I surmised, "entered into your +situation with warmth." + +"Exactly so--the greatest! She has felt and suffered, and now she +understands!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Which you as formally accepted?" + +"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." + +"Meanwhile she had dropped her tragedy into your pocket!" + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + +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. + +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 +entr'acte, 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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"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." + +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!" + +"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?" + +"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 Grafin, 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 conjugophobia--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 camaraderie 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." + +"You are reversing your promise," I said, "and giving me an opinion, +but not an anecdote." + +"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." + +"By Jove, it's a striking story," I said. "But the question is, what +does it prove?" + +"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." + +"And last?" I asked. + +"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." + +"Well, but poor Clorinda?" I objected, as Niedermeyer paused. + +"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." + +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?" + +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. + +"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!" + +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!" + +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. + +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!" + +"Adventures?" I inquired. "Has she had adventures?" + +"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!" + +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." + +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 Konigstein, 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!'" + +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 Revue des Deux Mondes. 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. + +"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!" + +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. + +"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." + +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!" + +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. + +"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!" + +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?" + +"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_ 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!" + +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?" + +"The wife of my intelligent choice!" + +"And does she consent?" + +"She asks three days to decide." + +"Call it four! She has known your secret since this morning. I am +bound to let you know I told her." + +"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." + +"What does she say to your breaking your promise?" I asked in a +moment. + +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!" + +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. + +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!" + +"Indeed!" said I. "Since when?" + +"These three days." + +"And what is he doing?" + +"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." + +"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." + +"Do you mean the soft young man of the other night?" + +"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 ME soft." + +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." + +"I assure you Pickering is a very interesting fellow," I said. + +"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!" + +"Upon my word," I cried, with heat, "if she does, she will be a very +unprincipled little creature!" + +Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. "I never said she was a saint!" + +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:- + + +"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. E. P." + + +One of the diversions of Homburg for new-comers is to dine in +rotation at the different tables d'hote. 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--"I am happy--I am +accepted--an hour ago. I can hardly believe it's your poor friend + +E. 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. + +"You look very wise. I give it up!" said I. + +"She is gone there to make the major follow her. He went by the next +train." + +"And has the major, on his side, dropped you a line?" + +"He is not a letter-writer." + +"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." + +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 +ennui 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. + +"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 +denoument. 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 THIS!" "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!" + +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 HER 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Evidently," I said, "you have read your letter." + +"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." + +"You called it a 'summons,' I remember." + +"I was a great fool! It's a release!" + +"From your engagement?" + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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?" + +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. + +He looked up, staring; and then with a deep blush--"That woman?" he +said. "I was not thinking of Madame Blumenthal!" + +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!" + +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!" + +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. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Eugene Pickering diff --git a/old/eugpk10.zip b/old/eugpk10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee51311 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/eugpk10.zip |