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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of South Wind, by Norman Douglas
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: South Wind
+
+Author: Norman Douglas
+
+Posting Date: August 19, 2012 [EBook #4508]
+Release Date: October, 2003
+[This file was first posted on January 27, 2002]
+[Last updated: March 2, 2016]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUTH WIND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo Aldarondo@yahoo.com and Colin
+Choat CChoat@sanderson.net.au
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SOUTH WIND
+
+BY NORMAN DOUGLAS
+
+AUTHOR OF 'OLD CALABRIA'
+
+LONDON: MARTIN SECKER
+
+First Published March 1917
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+
+
+
+The bishop was feeling rather sea-sick. Confoundedly sea-sick, in fact.
+
+This annoyed him. For he disapproved of sickness in every shape or
+form. His own state of body was far from satisfactory at that moment;
+Africa--he was Bishop of Bampopo in the Equatorial Regions--had played
+the devil with his lower gastric department and made him almost an
+invalid; a circumstance of which he was nowise proud, seeing that
+ill-health led to inefficiency in all walks of life. There was nothing
+he despised more than inefficiency. Well or ill, he always insisted on
+getting through his tasks in a businesslike fashion. That was the way
+to live, he used to say. Get through with it. Be perfect of your kind,
+whatever that kind may be. Hence his sneaking fondness for the
+natives--they were such fine, healthy animals.
+
+Fine, healthy animals; perfect of their kind! Africa liked them to "get
+through with it" according to their own lights. But there was evidently
+a little touch of spitefulness and malice about Africa; something
+almost human. For when white people try to get through with it after
+their particular fashion, she makes hay of their livers or something.
+That is what had happened to Thomas Heard, D.D., Bishop of Bampopo. He
+had been so perfect of his kind, such an exemplary pastor, that there
+was small chance of a return to the scenes of his episcopal labours.
+Anybody could have told him what would happen. He ought to have allowed
+for a little human weakness, on the part of the Black Continent. It
+could not be helped. For the rest, he was half inclined to give up the
+Church and take to some educational work on his return to England.
+Perhaps that was why he at present preferred to be known as "Mr.
+Heard." It put people at their ease, and him too.
+
+Whence now this novel and unpleasant sensation in the upper gastric
+region? Most annoying! He had dined discreetly at his hotel the evening
+before; had breakfasted with moderation. And had he not voyaged in many
+parts of the world, in China Seas and round the Cape? Was he not even
+then on his return journey from Zanzibar? No doubt. But the big liner
+which deposited him yesterday at the thronged port was a different
+concern from this wretched tub, reeking with indescribable odours as it
+rolled in the oily swell of the past storm through which the MOZAMBIQUE
+had ridden without a tremor. The benches, too, were frightfully
+uncomfortable, and sticky with sirocco moisture under the breathless
+awning. Above all, there was the unavoidable spectacle of the suffering
+passengers, natives of the country; it infected him with misery. In
+attitudes worthy of Michelangelo they sprawled about the deck, groaning
+with anguish; huddled up in corners with a lemon-prophylactic against
+sea-sickness, apparently-pressed to faces which, by some subtle process
+of colour-adaptation, had acquired the complexion of the fruit;
+tottering to the taffrail....
+
+There was a peasant woman dressed in black, holding an infant to her
+breast. Both child and parent suffered to a distressing degree. By some
+kindly dispensation of Providence they contrived to be ill in turns,
+and the situation might have verged on the comical but for the fact
+that blank despair was written on the face of the mother. She evidently
+thought her last day had come, and still, in the convulsions of her
+pain, tried to soothe the child. An ungainly creature, with a big scar
+across one cheek. She suffered dumbly, like some poor animal. The
+bishop's heart went out to her.
+
+He took out his watch. Two more hours of discomfort to be gone through!
+Then he looked over the water. The goal was far distant.
+
+Viewed from the clammy deck on this bright morning, the island of
+Nepenthe resembled a cloud. It was a silvery speck upon that limitless
+expanse of blue sea and sky. A south wind breathed over the
+Mediterranean waters, drawing up their moisture which lay couched in
+thick mists abut its flanks and uplands. The comely outlines were
+barely suggested through a veil of fog. An air of irreality hung about
+the place. Could this be an island? A veritable island of rocks and
+vineyards and houses--this pallid apparition? It looked like some snowy
+sea-bird resting upon the waves; a sea-bird or a cloud; one of those
+lonely clouds that stray from their fellows and drift about in wayward
+fashion at the bidding of every breeze.
+
+All the better-class natives had disappeared below save an unusually
+fat young priest with a face like a full moon, who pretended to be
+immersed in his breviary but was looking out of the corner of his eye
+all the time at a pretty peasant girl reclining uncomfortably in a
+corner. He rose and arranged the cushions to her liking. In doing so he
+must have made some funny remark in her ear, for she smiled wanly as
+she said:
+
+"Grazie, Don Francesco."
+
+"Means thank you, I suppose," thought the Bishop. "But why is he a
+don?"
+
+Of the other alien travellers, those charming but rather metallic
+American ladies had retired to the cabin; so had the English family; so
+had everybody, in fact. On deck there remained of the foreign
+contingent nobody but himself and Mr. Muhlen, a flashy over-dressed
+personage who seemed to relish the state of affairs. He paced up and
+down, cool as a cucumber, trying to walk like a sailor, and blandly
+indifferent to the agonized fellow-creatures whom the movements of the
+vessel caused him to touch, every now and then, with the point of his
+patent-leather boots. Patent-leather boots. That alone classes him,
+thought Mr. Heard. Once he paused and remarked, in his horrible
+pronunciation of English:
+
+"That woman over there with the child! I wonder what I would do in her
+place? Throw it into the water, I fancy. It's often the only way of
+getting rid of a nuisance."
+
+"Rather a violent measure," replied the Bishop politely.
+
+"You're not feeling very well, sir?" he continued, with a fine
+assumption of affability. "I am so sorry. As for me, I like a little
+movement of the boat. You know our proverb? Weeds don't spoil. I'm
+alluding to myself, of course!"
+
+Weeds don't spoil....
+
+Yes, he was a weed. Mr. Heard had not taken kindly to him; he hoped
+they would not see too much of each other on Nepenthe, which he
+understood to be rather a small place. A few words of civility over the
+table d'hote had led to an exchange of cards--a continental custom which
+Mr. Heard always resented. It could not easily be avoided in the
+present case. They had talked of Nepenthe, or rather Mr. Muhlen had
+talked; the bishop, as usual, preferring to listen and to learn. Like
+himself, Mr. Muhlen had never before set foot on the place. To be sure,
+he had visited other Mediterranean islands; he knew Sicily fairly well
+and had once spent a pleasant fortnight on Capri. But Nepenthe was
+different. The proximity to Africa, you know; the volcanic soil. Oh
+yes! It was obviously quite another sort of island. Business? No! He
+was not bound on any errand of business; not on any errand at all. Just
+a little pleasure trip. One owes something to one's self: N'EST-CE-PAS?
+And this early summer was certainly the best time for travelling. One
+could count on good weather; one could sleep in the afternoon, if the
+heat were excessive. He had telegraphed for a couple of rooms in what
+was described as the best hotel--he hoped the visitors staying there
+would be to his liking. Unfortunately--so he gathered--the local society
+was a little mixed, a little--how shall we say?--ultra-cosmopolitan. The
+geographical situation of the island, lying near the converging point
+of many trade-routes, might account for this. And then its beauty and
+historical associations: they attracted strange tourists from every
+part of the world. Queer types! Types to be avoided, perhaps. But what
+did it matter, after all? It was one of the advantages of being a man,
+a civilized man, that you could amuse yourself among any class of
+society. As for himself, he liked the common people, the peasants and
+fishermen; he felt at home among them; they were so genuine, so
+refreshingly different.
+
+To suchlike ingratiating and rather obvious remarks the bishop had
+listened, over the dinner table, with urbane acquiescence and growing
+distrust. Peasants and fisher folks! This fellow did not look as if he
+cared for such company. He was probably a fraud.
+
+They had met again in the evening, and taken a short stroll along the
+quay where a noisy band was discoursing operatic airs. The performance
+elicited from Mr. Muhlen some caustic comments on Latin music as
+contrasted with that of Russia and other countries. He evidently knew
+the subject. Mr. Heard, to whom music was Greek, soon found himself out
+of his depths. Later on, in the smoking-room, they had indulged in a
+game of cards--the bishop being of that broadminded variety which has
+not the slightest objection to a gentlemanly gamble. Once more his
+companion had revealed himself as an accomplished amateur.
+
+No; it was something else that annoyed him about the man--certain almost
+contemptuous remarks he had dropped in the course of the evening on the
+subject of the female sex; not any particular member of it, but the sex
+in general. Mr. Heard was sensitive on that point. He was not
+disheartened by experience. He had never allowed his judgment to be
+warped by those degrading aspects of womanhood which he had encountered
+during his work among the London poor, and more recently in Africa,
+where women are treated as the veriest beasts. He kept his ideals
+bright. He would tolerate no flippant allusions to the sex. Muhlen's
+talk had left a bad taste in his mouth.
+
+And here he was, prancing up and down, sublimely pleased with himself.
+Mr. Heard watched his perambulations with mixed feelings--moral
+disapproval combining with a small grain of envy at the fellow's
+conspicuous immunity from the prevailing sea-sickness.
+
+A weed; unquestionably a weed.
+
+Meanwhile, the mainland slowly receded. Morning wore on, and under the
+fierce attraction of the sun the fogs were drawn upwards. Nepenthe
+became tangible--an authentic island. It gleamed with golden rocks and
+emerald patches of culture. A cluster of white houses, some town or
+village, lay perched on the middle heights where a playful sunbeam had
+struck a pathway through the vapours. The curtain was lifted. Half
+lifted; for the volcanic peaks and ravines overhead were still shrouded
+in pearly mystery.
+
+The fat priest looked up from his breviary and smiled in friendly
+fashion.
+
+"I heard you speak English to that person," he began, with hardly a
+trace of foreign accent. "You will pardon me. I see you are unwell. May
+I get you a lemon? Or perhaps a glass of cognac?"
+
+"I am feeling better, thank you. It must have been the sight of those
+poor people that upset me. They seem to suffer horribly. I suppose I
+have got used to it."
+
+"They do suffer. And they get used to it too. I often wonder whether
+they are as susceptible to pain and discomfort as the rich with their
+finer nervous structure. Who can say? Animals also have their
+sufferings, but they are not encouraged to tell us about them. Perhaps
+that is why God made them dumb. Zola, in one of his novels, speaks of a
+sea-sick donkey."
+
+"Dear me!" said Mr. Heard. It was an old-fashioned trick he had got
+from his mother. "Dear me!"
+
+He wondered what this youthful ecclesiastic was doing with Zola. In
+fact, he was slightly shocked. But he never allowed such a state of
+affairs to be noticed.
+
+"You like Zola?" he queried.
+
+"Not much. He is rather a dirty dog, and his technique is so
+ridiculously transparent. But one can't help respecting the man. If I
+were to read this class of literature for my own amusement I would
+prefer, I think, Catulle Mendes. But I don't. I read it, you
+understand, in order to be able to penetrate into the minds of my
+penitents, many of whom refuse to deprive themselves of such books.
+Women are so influenced by what they read! Personally, I am not very
+fond of improper writers. And yet they sometimes make one laugh in
+spite of one's self, don't they? I perceive you are feeling better."
+
+Mr. Heard could not help saying:
+
+"You express yourself very well in English."
+
+"Oh, passably! I have preached to large congregations of Catholics in
+the United States. In England, too. My mother was English. The Vatican
+has been pleased to reward the poor labours of my tongue by the title
+of Monsignor."
+
+"My congratulations. You are rather young for a Monsignor, are you not?
+We are apt to associate that distinction with snuff-boxes and gout
+and--"
+
+"Thirty-nine. It is a good age. One begins to appreciate things at
+their true value. Your collar! Might I enquire--"
+
+"Ah, my collar; the last vestige.... Yes, I am a bishop. Bishop of
+Bampopo in Central Africa."
+
+"You are rather young, surely, for a bishop?"
+
+Mr. Heard smiled.
+
+"The youngest on the list, I believe. There were not many applicants
+for the place; the distance from England, the hard work, and the
+climate, you know--"
+
+"A bishop. Indeed!"
+
+He waxed thoughtful. Probably he imagined that his companion was
+telling him some traveller's tale.
+
+"Yes," continued Mr. Heard. "I am what we call a 'Returned Empty.' It
+is a phrase we apply in England to Colonial bishops who come back from
+their dioceses."
+
+"Returned Empty! That sounds like beer."
+
+The priest was looking perplexed, as though uncertain of the other's
+state of mind. Southern politeness, or curiosity, overcame his fears.
+Perhaps this foreigner was fond of joking. Well, he would humour him.
+
+"You will see our bishop to-morrow," he pursued blandly. "He comes over
+for the feast of the patron saint; you are lucky in witnessing it. The
+whole island is decorated. There will be music and fireworks and a
+grand procession. Our bishop is a dear old man, though not exactly what
+you would call a liberal," he added, with a laugh. "That is as it
+should be, is it not? We like our elders to be conservative. They
+counteract the often violent modernism of the youngsters. Is this your
+first visit to Nepenthe?"
+
+"It is. I have heard much about the beauty of the place."
+
+"You will like it. The people are intelligent. There is good food and
+wine. Our lobsters are celebrated. You will find compatriots on the
+island, some ladies among them; the Duchess of San Martino, for
+instance, who happens to be an American; some delightful ladies! And
+the country girls, too, are worthy of a benevolent glance--"
+
+"That procession is sure to interest me. What is the name of your
+patron?"
+
+"Saint Dodekanus. He has a wonderful history. There is an Englishman on
+Nepenthe, Mr. Earnest Eames, a student, who will tell you all about it.
+He knows more about the saint than I do; one would think he dined with
+him every evening. But he is a great hermit--Mr. Eames, I mean. And it
+is so good of our old bishop to come over," he pursued with a shade of
+emphasis. "His work keeps him mostly on the mainland. He has a large
+see--nearly thirty square miles. How large, by the way, is your
+diocese?"
+
+"I cannot give you the exact figures," Mr. Heard replied. "It has often
+taken me three weeks to travel from one end to the other. It is
+probably not much smaller than the kingdom of Italy."
+
+"The kingdom of Italy. Indeed!"
+
+That settled it. The conversation died abruptly; the friendly priest
+relapsed into silence. He looked hurt and disappointed. This was more
+than a joke. He had done his best to be civil to a suffering foreigner,
+and this was his reward--to be fooled with the grossest of fables. Maybe
+he remembered other occasions when Englishmen had developed a queer
+sense of humour which he utterly failed to appreciate. A liar. Or
+possibly a lunatic; one of those harmless enthusiasts who go about the
+world imagining themselves to be the Pope or the Archangel Gabriel.
+However that might be, he said not another word, but took to reading
+his breviary in good earnest, for the first time.
+
+The boat anchored. Natives poured out in a stream. Mr. Muhlen drove up
+alone, presumably to his sumptuous hotel. The bishop, having gathered
+his luggage together, followed in another carriage. He enjoyed the
+drive along that winding upward track; he admired the festal
+decorations of the houses, the gardens and vineyards, the many-tinted
+rock scenery overhead, the smiling sunburnt peasantry. There was an air
+of contentment and well-being about the place; something joyful,
+opulent, almost dramatic.
+
+"I like it," he concluded.
+
+And he wondered how long it would be before he met his cousin, Mrs.
+Meadows, on whose account he had undertaken to break the journey to
+England.
+
+Don Francesco, the smiling priest, soon outstripped both of them, in
+spite of a ten minutes' conversation on the quay with the pretty
+peasant girl of the steamer. He had engaged the fastest driver on the
+island, and was now tearing frantically up the road, determined to be
+the first to apprise the Duchess of the lunatic's arrival.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+
+
+
+The Duchess of San Martino, a kind-hearted and imposing lady of mature
+age who, under favourable atmospheric conditions (in winter-time, for
+instance, when the powder was not so likely to run down her face),
+might have passed, so far as profile was concerned, for a faded French
+beauty of bygone centuries--the Duchess was no exception to the rule.
+
+It was an old rule. Nobody knew when it first came into vogue. Mr.
+Eames, bibliographer of Nepenthe, had traced it down to the second
+Phoenician period, but saw no reason why the Phoenicians, more than
+anybody else, should have established the precedent. On the contrary,
+he was inclined to think that it dated from yet earlier days; days when
+the Troglodytes, Manigones, Septocardes, Merdones, Anthropophagoi and
+other hairy aboriginals used to paddle across, in crazy canoes, to
+barter the produce of their savage African glens-serpent-skins, and
+gums, and gazelle horns, and ostrich eggs--for those super-excellent
+lobsters and peasant girls for which Nepenthe had been renowned from
+time immemorial. He based this scholarly conjecture on the fact that a
+gazelle horn, identified as belonging to a now extinct Tripolitan
+species, was actually discovered on the island, while an adolescent
+female skull of the hypo-dolichocephalous (Nepenthean) type had come to
+light in some excavations at Benghazi.
+
+It was a pleasant rule. It ran to the effect that in the course of the
+forenoon all the inhabitants of Nepenthe, of whatever age, sex, or
+condition, should endeavour to find themselves in the market-place or
+piazza--a charming square, surrounded on three sides by the principal
+buildings of the town and open, on the fourth, to a lovely prospect
+over land and sea. They were to meet on this spot; here to exchange
+gossip, make appointments for the evening, and watch the arrival of
+new-comers to their island. An admirable rule! For it effectively
+prevented everybody from doing any kind of work in the morning; and
+after luncheon, of course, you went to sleep. It was delightful to be
+obliged, by iron convention, to stroll about in the bright sunshine,
+greeting your friends, imbibing iced drinks, and letting your eye stray
+down to the lower level of the island with its farmhouses embowered in
+vineyards; or across the glittering water towards the distant coastline
+and its volcano; or upwards, into those pinnacles of the higher region
+against whose craggy ramparts, nearly always, a fleet of snowy
+sirocco-clouds was anchored. For Nepenthe was famous not only for its
+girls and lobsters, but also for its south wind.
+
+As usual at this hour the market-place was crowded with folks. It was a
+gay throng. Priests and curly-haired children, farmers, fishermen,
+citizens, a municipal policeman or two, brightly dressed women of all
+ages, foreigners in abundance--they moved up and down, talking,
+laughing, gesticulating. Nobody had anything particular to do; such was
+the rule.
+
+The Russian sect was well represented. They were religious enthusiasts,
+ever increasing in numbers and led by their Master, the divinely
+inspired Bazhakuloff, who was then living in almost complete seclusion
+on the island. They called themselves the "Little White Cows," to mark
+their innocence of worldly affairs, and their scarlet blouses, fair
+hair, and wondering blue eyes were quite a feature of the place.
+Overhead, fluttering flags and wreaths of flowers, and bunting, and
+brightly tinted paper festoons--an orgy of colour, in honour of the
+saint's festival on the morrow.
+
+The Duchess, attired in black, with a black and white sunshade, and a
+string of preposterous amethysts nestling in the imitation Val of her
+bosom, was leaning on the arm of an absurdly good-looking youth whom
+she addressed as Denis. Everyone called him Denis or Mr. Denis. People
+used his surname as little as possible. It was Phipps.
+
+With a smile for everyone, she moved more deliberately than the rest,
+and used her fan rather more frequently. She knew that the sirocco was
+making stealthy inroads upon her carefully powdered cheeks; she wanted
+to look her best on the arrival of Don Francesco, who was to bring some
+important message from the clerical authorities of the mainland anent
+her forthcoming reception into the Roman Catholic Church. He was her
+friend. Soon he would be her confessor.
+
+Wordly-wise, indolent, good-natured and, like most Southerners, a
+thorough-going pagan, Don Francesco was deservedly popular as
+ecclesiastic. Women adored him; he adored women. He passed for an
+unrivalled preacher; his golden eloquence made converts everywhere,
+greatly to the annoyance of the parroco, the parish priest, who was
+doubtless sounder on the Trinity but a shocking bad orator and
+altogether deficient in humanity, and who nearly had a fit, they said,
+when the other was created Monsignor. Don Francesco was a fisher of
+men, and of women. He fished AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM, and for the fun of
+the thing. It was his way of taking exercise, he once confessed to his
+friend Keith; he was too fat to run about like other people--he could
+only talk. He fished among natives, and among foreigners.
+
+Foreigners were hard to catch, on Nepenthe. They came and went in such
+breathless succession. Of the permanent residents only the Duchess,
+always of High Church leanings, had of late yielded to his
+blandishments. She was fairly hooked. Madame Steynlin, a lady of Dutch
+extraction whose hats were proverbial, was uncompromisingly Lutheran.
+The men were past redemption, all save the Commissioner who, however,
+was under bad influences and an incurable wobbler, anyhow. Eames, the
+scholar, cared for nothing but his books. Keith, a rich eccentric who
+owned one of the finest villas and gardens on the place, only came to
+the island for a few weeks every year. He knew too much, and had
+travelled too far, to be anything but a hopeless unbeliever; besides,
+he was a particular friend of his, with whom he agreed, in his heart of
+hearts, on every subject. The frequenters of the Club were mostly
+drunkards, derelicts, crooks, or faddist--not worth catching.
+
+Carriages began to arrive on the scene. That of Don Francesco drove up
+first of all. He stepped out and sailed across the piazza like a
+schooner before the wind. But his discourse, usually ample and florid
+as befitted both his person and his calling, was couched on this
+occasion in Tacitean brevity.
+
+"We have landed a queer fish, Duchess," he remarked. "He calls himself
+Bishop of Bim-Bam-Bum, and resembles a broken-down matrimonial agent.
+So lean! So yellow! His face all furrowed! He has lived very viciously,
+that man. Perhaps he is mad. In every case, look to your purse, Mr.
+Denis. He'll be here in a minute."
+
+"That's quite right," said the young man. "The Bishop of Bampopo. It's
+in the NEW YORK HERALD. Sailing by the MOZAMBIQUE. But they didn't say
+he was coming to the island. I wonder what he wants here?"
+
+Don Francesco was aghast.
+
+"Indeed?" he asked. "A bishop, and so yellow! He must have thought me
+very rude," he added.
+
+"You couldn't be rude if you tried," said the Duchess, giving him a
+playful slap with her fan.
+
+She was burning with ardour to be the first to introduce such a lion to
+the local society. But fearful of making a FAUX PAS, she said:
+
+"You'll go and speak to him, Denis. Find out if it's the right one--the
+one you read about in the paper, I mean. Then come and tell me."
+
+"Good Lord, Duchess, don't ask me to do that! I couldn't tackle a
+bishop. Not an African. Not unless he has a proper apron on."
+
+"Be a man, Denis. He won't bite a pretty boy like you."
+
+"What nice things the lady is saying to you," observed Don Francesco.
+
+"She always does," he laughed, "when she wants me to do something for
+her. I haven't been on this island long, but I have already found out
+the Duchess! You do it, Don Francesco. He is sure to be the right one.
+They get yellow, out there. Sometimes green."
+
+Mr. Heard was intercepted on his way to the hotel by the genial priest,
+and formally presented to the Duchess. She was more than condescending
+to this stern and rather tired-looking man; she was gracious. She made
+all kinds of polite enquiries, and indicated the various sites and
+persons of interest; while Don Francesco, he observed, had
+unaccountably recovered from his sudden attack of bad humour on the
+steamer.
+
+"And that is where I live," she said, pointing to a large and severe
+structure whose walls had plainly not been whitewashed for many long
+years. "It's an old disused convent, built by the Good Duke Alfred.
+Wasn't it, Denis?"
+
+"I really couldn't say, Duchess. I never heard of the gentleman."
+
+"That Good Duke was an unmitigated ruffian," observed Don Francesco.
+
+"Oh, don't say that! Think of all the good he did for the island. Think
+of that frieze in the church! I have acres and acres of rooms to walk
+about in," she continued, addressing the bishop. "All by myself! I'm
+quite a hermit, you know. You will perhaps be able to have a cup of tea
+with me to-day?"
+
+"Not exactly a hermit," Denis interposed.
+
+"To take tea with the Duchess is an experience, a revelation," said Don
+Francesco in judicial tones. "I have enjoyed that meal in various parts
+of the world, but nobody can manage it like she can. She has the true
+gift. You will make tea for us in Paradise, dear lady. As to luncheon,
+let me tell you in confidence, Mr. Heard, that my friend Keith, whom
+you will meet sooner or later, has a most remarkable chef. What that
+man of Keith's cannot cook is not worth eating."
+
+"How delightful!" replied the bishop, slightly embarrassed. "And
+where," he added, laughing--"where does one dine?"
+
+"I do not dine. Madame Steynlin used to give nice evening parties," he
+continued reflectively, and with a shade of sadness in his voice.
+"Excellent little dinners! But she is so taken up with Russians just
+now; they quite monopolise her house. Down there; do you see, Mr.
+Heard? That white villa by the sea, at the end of the promontory? She
+is so romantic. That is why she bought a house which nobody else would
+have bought at any price. That little place, all by itself--it
+fascinated her. Bitterly she regrets her choice. She has discovered the
+drawbacks of a promontory. My dear Duchess, never live on a promontory!
+It has fearful inconveniences; you are overlooked by everybody. All the
+islands know what you do, and who visits you, and when, and why....
+Yes, I remember those dinners with regret. Nowadays I must content
+myself with a miserable supper at home. The doctor has forbidden
+dinners. He says I am getting too fat."
+
+Denis remarked:
+
+"Your fat is your fortune, Don Francesco."
+
+"My fortune, then, is a heavy load to bear. Mr. Keith tells me I have
+seven double chins, three behind and four in front. He says he has
+counted them carefully. He declares that an eighth is in course of
+formation. It is too much for a person of my austere temperament."
+
+"You need never believe a word Keith says," said the Duchess. "He
+upsets me with his long words and his--his awful views. He really does."
+
+"I tell him he is the Antichrist," observed Don Francesco, gravely
+shaking his head. "But we shall see! We shall catch him yet."
+
+The Duchess had no idea what the Antichrist was, but she felt sure it
+was something not quite nice.
+
+"If I thought he was anything like that, I would never ask him to my
+house again. The Antichrist! Ah, talk of angels--"
+
+The person in question suddenly appeared, superintending half a dozen
+young gardeners who carried various consignments of plants wrapped up
+in straw which had arrived, presumably, by the steamer.
+
+Mr. Keith was older than he looked--incredibly old, in fact, though
+nobody could bring himself to believe it; he was well preserved by
+means of a complicated system of life, the details of which, he used to
+declare, were not fit for publication. That was only his way of
+talking. He exaggerated so dreadfully. His face was clean-shaven, rosy,
+and of cherubic fulness; his eyes beamed owlishly through spectacles
+which nobody had ever seen him take off. But for those spectacles he
+might have passed for a well-groomed baby in a soap-advertisement. He
+was supposed to sleep in them.
+
+It looked as if Mr. Keith had taken an instantaneous liking to the
+bishop.
+
+"Bampopo? Why, of course. I've been there. Years and years ago. Long
+before your time, I'm afraid. How is the place getting on? Better
+roads, no doubt. And better food, I hope? I was much interested in that
+little lake--you know? It seemed to have no outlet. We must talk it
+over. And I like those Bulanga people--fine fellows! You liked them too?
+I'm glad to hear it. Such a lot of nonsense was talked about their
+depravity! If you have nothing better to do, come and lunch to-morrow,
+can you? Villa Khismet. Anybody will show you the way. You, Denis," he
+added, "you disappoint me. You look like a boy who is fond of flowers.
+And yet you have never been to see my cannas, which are the finest in
+the kingdom, to say nothing of myself, who am also something of a
+flower. A carnivorous orchid, I fancy."
+
+"A virgin lily," suggested Don Francesco.
+
+"I wish I could manage to come," replied Mr. Heard. "But I must look
+for a cousin of mine to-morrow; Mrs. Meadows. Perhaps you know her?"
+
+The priest said:
+
+"We all know Mrs. Meadows. And we all like her. Unfortunately she lives
+far, far away; right up there," and he pointed vaguely towards the
+sirocco clouds. "In the Old Town, I mean. She dwells like a hermit, all
+alone. You can drive up there in a carriage, of course. It is a pity
+all these nice people live so far away. There is Count Caloveglia, for
+instance, whom I would like to see every day of my life. He talks
+better English than I do, the old humbug! He, too, is a hermit. But he
+will be down here to-morrow. He never misses the theatricals."
+
+Everybody seems to be a hermit hereabouts, thought Mr. Heard. And yet
+this place is seething with people!
+
+Aloud he said:
+
+"So my cousin lives up in the fog. And does it always hang about like
+this?"
+
+"Oh dear no!" replied the Duchess. "It goes away sometimes, in the
+afternoon. The sirocco, this year, has been most exceptional. Most
+exceptional! Don't you think so, Denis?"
+
+"Really couldn't say, Duchess. You know I only arrived last week."
+
+"Most exceptional! Don Francesco will bear me out."
+
+"It blows," said the priest, "when the good God wishes it to blow. He
+has been wishing pretty frequently of late."
+
+"I am writing to your cousin," the Duchess remarked, "to ask her to my
+small annual gathering after the festival of Saint Dodekanus.
+To-morrow, you know. Quite an informal little affair. I may count on
+you, Bishop? You'll all come, won't you? You too, Mr. Keith. But no
+long words, remember! Nothing about reflexes and preternatural and
+things like that. And not a syllable about the Incarnation, please. It
+scares me. What's the name of her villa, Denis?"
+
+"Mon Repos. Rather a commonplace name, I think--Mon Repos."
+
+"It is," said Keith. "But there is nothing commonplace about the lady.
+She is what I would call a New Woman."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+Mr. Heard was alarmed at this picture of his cousin. He did not
+altogether approve of New Women.
+
+"She has long ago passed the stage you have in mind, Bishop. She is
+newer than that. The real novelty! Looks after the baby, and thinks of
+her husband in India. I believe I have many points in common with the
+New Woman. I often think of people in India."
+
+"Such a dear little child," said the Duchess.
+
+"Almost as round as myself," added Don Francesco. "There goes the
+Commissioner! He is fussing about with the judge, that red-haired
+man--do you see, Mr. Heard?--who limps like Mephistopheles and spits
+continually. They say he wants to imprison all the Russians. Poor
+folks! They ought to be sent home; they don't belong here. He is
+looking at us now. Ha, the animal! He has the Evil Eye. He is also
+scrofulous, rachitic. And his name is Malipizzo."
+
+"What a funny name," remarked the Bishop.
+
+"Yes, and he is a funny animal. They are great friends, those two."
+
+"A horrible man, that judge," said the Duchess. "Only think, Mr. Heard,
+an atheist."
+
+"A freemason," corrected Mr. Keith.
+
+"It's the same thing. And ugly! Nobody has a right to be quite so ugly.
+I declare he's worse than the cinematographic villain--you remember,
+Denis?"
+
+"It is a miracle he has lived so long, with that face," added Don
+Francesco. "I think God created him in order that mankind should have
+some idea of the meaning of the word 'grotesque.'"
+
+The proud title "Commissioner" caused the bishop to pay particular
+attention to the other of the two individuals in question. He beheld a
+stumpy and pompous-looking personage, flushed in the face, with a
+moth-eaten grey beard and shifty grey eyes, clothed in a flannel shirt,
+tweed knickerbockers, brown stockings, white spats and shoes. Such was
+the Commissioner's invariable get-up, save that in winter he wore a cap
+instead of a panama. He was smoking a briar pipe and looking blatantly
+British, as if he had just spent an unwashed night in a third-class
+carriage between King's Cross and Aberdeen. The magistrate, on the
+other hand--the red-haired man--was jauntily dressed, with a straw hat on
+one side of his repulsive head, and plenty of starch about him.
+
+"I never knew we had a Commissioner here," said Mr. Heard.
+
+Keith replied:
+
+"We haven't. He is Financial Commissioner for Nicaragua. An
+incomparable ass is Mr. Freddy Parker."
+
+"Oh, he has a sensible idea now and then, when he forgets to be a
+fool," observed Don Francesco. "He is President of the Club, Mr. Heard.
+They will elect you honorary member. Take my advice. Avoid the whisky."
+
+Denis remarked, after a critical glance in the same direction:
+
+"I notice that the Commissioner looks redder in the face than when I
+last saw him."
+
+"That," said Keith, "is one of Mr. Parker's characteristics."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+
+
+
+Concerning the life and martyrdom of Saint Dodekanus, patron of
+Nepenthe, we possess hardly any information of a trustworthy nature. It
+is with his career as with that of other saints: they become
+overlaid--encrusted, as it were--with extraneous legendary material in
+the course of ages, even as a downward-rolling avalanche gathers snow.
+The nucleus is hard to find. What is incontestably true may be summed
+up almost in one paragraph.
+
+He was born in A.D. 450, or thereabouts, in the city of Kallisto, in
+Crete. He was an only child, a beautiful but unruly boy, the despair of
+his widowed mother. At the age of thirteen he encountered, one evening,
+an elderly man of thoughtful mien, who addressed him in familiar
+language. On several later occasions he discoursed with the same
+personage, in a grove of laurels and pines known as Alephane; but what
+passed between them, and whether it was some divine apparition, or
+merely a man of flesh and blood, was never discovered, for he seems to
+have kept his mother in ignorance of the whole affair. From that time
+onward his conduct changed. He grew pensive, mild, and charitable. He
+entered, as youthful acolyte, a neighbouring Convent of Salacian monks,
+and quickly distinguished himself for piety and the gift of miracles.
+In the short space of three years, or thereabouts, he had healed eight
+lepers, caused the clouds to rain, walked dryshod over several rivers,
+and raised twenty-three persons from the dead.
+
+At the age of eighteen he had a second vision. This time it was a young
+woman, of pleasing exterior. He discoursed with her, on several
+occasions, in the grove of laurels and pines known as Alephane; but
+what passed between them, and whether it was a woman of flesh and
+blood, or merely an angel, was never discovered, for he seems to have
+kept his brother monks in ignorance of the whole affair. From that time
+onward his conduct changed. He grew restless and desirous of converting
+the heathen. He set sail for Lybia, suffered shipwreck in the Greater
+Syrtis, and narrowly escaped with his life. Thence he passed onward,
+preaching to black nations as he moved along, and converting tribes
+innumerable. For three-and-thirty years he wandered till, one evening,
+he saw the moon rise on the right side of his face.
+
+He had entered the land of the Crotalophoboi, cannibals and
+necromancers who dwelt in a region so hot, and with light so dazzling,
+that their eyes grew on the soles of their feet. Here he laboured for
+eighty years, redeeming them to Christianity from their magical and
+bloodthirsty practices. In recompense whereof they captured him at the
+patriarchal age of 132, or thereabouts, and bound him with ropes
+between two flat boards of palmwood. Thus they kept the prisoner,
+feeding him abundantly, until that old equinoctial feast drew near. On
+the evening of that day they sawed the whole, superstitiously, into
+twelve separate pieces, one for each month of the year; and devoured of
+the saint what was to their liking.
+
+During this horrid banquet a femur or thigh-bone was accidentally cast
+upon a millstone which lay by the shore, having been borrowed by the
+Crotalophoboi from the neighbouring tribe of Garimanes a good many
+years previously and never returned to them by reason, they declared,
+of its excessive weight. There it remained till, one day, during a
+potent sirocco tempest, the stone was uplifted by the force of the
+waters, and miraculously wafted over the sea to Nepenthe. Forthwith a
+chapel was built on the spot, to commemorate the event and preserve the
+sacred relic which soon began working wonders for the good of the
+island, such as warding off Saracenic invasions, procuring plentiful
+vintages, and causing sterile cattle to produce offspring.
+
+In later years the main church was dedicated to Saint Dodekanus and the
+relic moved thither and enclosed within that silver statue of the saint
+which is carried abroad in procession at his annual festival, or on any
+particular occasion when his help is to be invoked. And all through
+succeeding ages the cult of the saint waxed in pomp and splendour.
+Nobody, probably, has done more to foster pious feelings towards their
+island-patron than the Good Duke Alfred who, among other things, caused
+a stately frieze to be placed in the church, picturing in twelve marble
+tablets the twelve chief episodes in the life of the Saint--one for each
+month of the year. This frieze indeed was admired so unreservedly, so
+recklessly, that the Good Duke felt it his duty to remove the
+sculptor's eyes and (on second thoughts) his hands as well, in order
+that no other sovereign should possess works by so consummate a master
+of stonecraft. There the disciplinary measures ended. He did his best
+to console the gifted artist who was fed, henceforward, on lobsters,
+decorated with the order of the Golden Vine, and would doubtless have
+been ennobled after death, had the Prince not predeceased the sculptor.
+
+Such, briefly, is the history of Saint Dodekanus, and the origin of his
+cult on Nepenthe.
+
+Legends galore, often contradictory to this account and to one another,
+have clustered round his name, as was inevitable. He is supposed to
+have preached in Asia Minor; to have died as a young man, in his
+convent; to have become a hermit, a cobbler, a bishop (of Nicomedia), a
+eunuch, a politician. Two volumes of mediocre sermons in the Byzantine
+tongue have been ascribed to him. These and other crudities may be
+dismissed as apocryphal. Even his name has given rise to controversy,
+although its origin from the Greek word DODEKA, signifying twelve and
+alluding to the twelve morsels into which his body was superstitiously
+divided, is as self-evident as well can be. Thus a worthy young canon
+of the church of Nepenthe, Giacinto Mellino, who has lately written a
+life of Saint Eulalia, the local patroness of sailors--her festival
+occurs twelve days after that of Saint Dodekanus--takes occasion, in
+this otherwise commendable pamphlet, to scoff at the old-established
+derivation of the name and to propose an alternative etymology. He lays
+it down that then pagan inhabitants of the island, desirous of sharing
+in the benefits of Christianity which had already reached the mainland
+but left untouched their lonely rock, sent a missive to the bishop
+containing the two words DO DEKANUS: give us a deacon! The grammar is
+at fault, he explains, because of their rudimentary knowledge of the
+Latin tongue; they had only learnt, hitherto, the first person singular
+and the nominative case--so he says; and then proceeds to demonstrate,
+with unanswerable arguments, that Greek was the spoken language of
+Nepenthe at this period. Several scholars have been swayed by his
+specious logic to abandon the older and sounder interpretation. There
+are yet other conjectures about the word Dodekanus, all more or less
+fanciful....
+
+If the Crotalophoboi had not devoured the missionary Dodekanus, we
+should assuredly never have heard of Monsignor Perrelli, the learned
+and genial historian of Nepenthe. It was that story, he expressly tells
+us, which inflamed him, a mere visitor to the place, with a desire to
+know more about the island. A people like the Nepentheans, who could
+cherish in their hearts a tale of such beauty, must be worthy, he
+concluded, "of the closest and most sympathetic scrutiny." Thus, one
+thing leading to another, as always happens where local researches are
+concerned, he soon found himself collecting other legends, traditions,
+historical data, statistics of agriculture and natural productions, and
+so forth. The result of these labours was embodied in the renowned
+ANTIQUITIES OF NEPENTHE.
+
+This book, a model of its kind, is written in Latin. It seems to have
+been the author's only work, and has gone through several editions; the
+last one--by no means the best as regards typography--being that of 1709.
+The Crotalophoboi therefore, who procured the sanctification of
+Dodekanus by methods hardly commendable to decent folks, can be said to
+have done some good in the world, if the creation of a literary
+masterpiece like these ANTIQUITIES, for which they are indirectly
+responsible, may be classed under that head.
+
+It is a pity we know so little of the life of this Monsignor Perrelli.
+He is disappointingly reticent about himself. We learn that he was a
+native of the mainland; that he came here, as a youth, afflicted with
+rheumatic troubles; that these troubles were relived by an application
+of those health-giving waters which he lived to describe in one of the
+happiest sections of his work, and which were to become famous to the
+world at large through certain classical experiments carried out under
+his contemporary, the Good Duke Alfred--a potentate who, by the way,
+does not seem to have behaved very prettily to our scholar. And that is
+absolutely all we know about him. The most painstaking enquiries on the
+part of Mr. Eames have failed to add a single item of positive
+information to our knowledge of the historian of Nepenthe. We cannot
+tell when, or where, he died. He seems to have ended in regarding
+himself as a native of the place. The wealth of material incorporated
+in the book leads to the supposition that he must have spent long years
+on the island. We may further presume, from his title, that he belonged
+to the church; it was the surest path of advancement for a young man of
+quality in those days.
+
+A perfunctory glance into his pages will suffice to prove that he
+lacked what is called the ecclesiastical bent of mind. Reading between
+the lines, one soon discovers that his is not so much a priest as a
+statesman and philosopher, a student curious in the lore of mankind and
+of nature--alert, sagacious, discriminating. He tells us, for example,
+that this legend of the visions and martyrdom of Saint Dodekanus, which
+he was the first to disentangle from its heterogeneous accretions, was
+vastly to his liking. Why? Because of its churchly flavour? Not so; but
+because he detected therein "truth and symbol. It is a tale of
+universal applicability; the type, as it were, of every great man's
+life, endeavour, and reward." The introduction to these ANTIQUITIES,
+setting forth his maxims for the writing of history, might have been
+composed not three centuries ago, but yesterday--or even to-morrow; so
+modern is its note.
+
+Hearken to these weighty words:
+
+"Portraiture of characters and events should take the form of one
+gentleman conversing with another, in the easy tone of good society.
+The author who sets out to address a crowd defeats his own object; he
+eliminates the essence of good writing--frankness. You cannot be frank
+with men of low condition. You must presuppose a refined and congenial
+listener, a man or woman whom you would not hesitate to take by the
+hand and lead into the circle of your own personal friends. If this
+applies to literature of every kind, it applies to history in a
+peculiar degree.
+
+"History deals with situations and figures not imaginary but real. It
+demands therefore a combination of qualities unnecessary to the poet or
+writer of romance--glacial judgment coupled with fervent sympathy. The
+poet may be an inspired illiterate, the romance-writer an uninspired
+hack. Under no circumstances can either of them be accused of wronging
+or deceiving the public, however incongruous their efforts. They write
+well or badly, and there the matter ends. The historian, who fails in
+his duty, deceives the reader and wrongs the dead. A man weighted with
+such responsibilities is deserving of an audience more than usually
+select--an audience of his equals, men of the world. No vulgarian can be
+admitted to share those confidences....
+
+"The Greeks figured forth a Muse of History; they dared express their
+opinions. Genesis, that ancient barrier, did not exist for them. It
+stands in the way of the modern historian; it involves him in a
+ceaseless conflict with his own honesty. If he values his skin, he must
+accommodate himself to current dogmas and refrain from truthful
+comments and conclusions. He has the choice of being a chronologer or a
+ballad-monger-obsolete and unimportant occupations. Unenviable fate of
+those who aspire to be teachers of mankind, that they themselves should
+be studied with a kind of antiquarian interest, stimulating thought not
+otherwise than as warning examples! Clio has fallen from her pedestal.
+That radiant creature, in identifying her interests with those of
+theocracy, has become the hand-maiden of a withered and petulant
+mistress, a mercenary slut. So things will remain, till mankind has
+acquired a fresh body of ethics, corresponding to modern needs. It is
+useless, it is dangerous, to pour new wine into old bottles...."
+
+He carries out his theory. The work of Monsignor Perrelli is, above all
+things, a human document--the revelation of a personality cultured and
+free from prejudice. Indeed, when one considers the religious situation
+of those days, he seems to be sailing perilously near the wind in some
+of his theological reflections; so much so, that Mr. Eames often
+wondered whether this might not account for our ignorance of his later
+life and the manner of his death. He held it possible that the scholar
+may have fallen into the clutches of the Inquisition, never again to
+return to the surface of society. It would explain why the first
+edition of the ANTIQUITIES is so extremely rare, and why the two
+subsequent ones were issued, respectively, at Amsterdam and Bale.
+
+Incidentally, the book contains in its nine hundred pages all that
+could possibly interest a contemporary student about the history and
+natural products of Nepenthe. It is still a mine of antiquarian
+information, though large sections of the work have inevitably become
+obsolete. To bring the ANTIQUITIES up to date by means of a revised and
+enlarged version enriched with footnotes, appendixes and copious
+illustrations, was the ambition, the sole ambition, of Mr. Ernest
+Eames, R.A....
+
+It was not true to say of this gentleman that he fled from England to
+Nepenthe because he forged his mother's will, because he was arrested
+while picking the pockets of a lady at Tottenham Court Road Station,
+because he refused to pay for the upkeep of his seven illegitimate
+children, because he was involved in a flamboyant scandal of
+unmentionable nature and unprecedented dimensions, because he was
+detected while trying to poison the rhinoceros at the Zoo with an
+arsenical bun, because he strangled his mistress, because he addressed
+an almost disrespectful letter to the Primate of England beginning "My
+good Owl"--or for any suchlike reason; and that he now remained on the
+island only because nobody was fool enough to lend him the ten pounds
+requisite for a ticket back again.
+
+He came there originally to save money; and he stayed there originally
+because, if he had happened to die on his homeward journey, there would
+not have been enough coppers in his pocket to pay for the funeral
+expenses. Nowadays, having solved the problem of how to live on 85
+pounds a year, he stayed for another reason as well: to annotate
+Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES. It sweetened his self-imposed exile.
+
+He was a dry creature, almost wizened, with bright eyes and a short
+moustache; unostentatiously dressed; fastidious, reserved, genteel,
+precise in manner, and living a retired life in a two-roomed cottage
+somewhere among the vineyards.
+
+He had taken a high degree in classics, though Greek was never much to
+his taste. It was "runaway stuff"; nervous and sensuous; it opened up
+too many vistas, philological and social, for his positive mind to
+assimilate with comfort. Those particles alone--there was something
+ambiguous, something almost disreputable, in their jocund pliability,
+their readiness to lend themselves to improper uses. But Latin--ah,
+Latin was different! Even at his preparatory school, where he was known
+as a swot of the first water, he had displayed an unhealthy infatuation
+for that tongue; he loved its cold, lapidary construction; and while
+other boys played football or cricket, this withered little fellow used
+to lark about with a note-book, all by himself, torturing sensible
+English into its refractory and colourless periods and elaborating,
+without the help of a Gradus, those inept word-mosaics which are called
+Latin verses. "Good fun," he used to say, "and every bit as exciting as
+algebra," as though that constituted a recommendation. Often the good
+form master shook his head, and enquired anxiously whether he was
+feeling unwell, or had secret troubles of any kind.
+
+"Oh, no, sir," he would then reply, with a funny little laugh. "Thank
+you, sir. But please, sir! Would you mind telling me whether PECUNIA
+really comes from PECUS? Because Adams minor (another swot) says it
+doesn't."
+
+Later on, at the University, he used the English language for the sake
+of convenience--in order to make himself understood by Dons and Heads of
+Colleges. His thoughts, his dreams, were in Latin.
+
+Such a man, arriving almost penniless on Nepenthe, might have passed a
+torpid month or two, then drifted into the Club-set and gone to the
+dogs altogether. Latin saved him. He took to studying those earlier
+local writers who often composed in that tongue. The Jesuitical
+smoothness, the saccharine felicity of authors like Giannettasio had
+just begun to pall on his fancy, when the ANTIQUITIES fell into his
+hands. It was like a draught of some generous southern wine, after a
+course of barley-water. Here was Latin worth reading; rich, sinewy,
+idiomatic, full of flavour, masculine. Flexible, yet terse. Latin after
+his own heart; a cry across the centuries!
+
+So bewitched was Mr. Eames with the grammar and syntax of the
+ANTIQUITIES that he had already gone through the book three times ere
+realizing that this man, who could construct such flowing, glowing
+sentences, was actually writing about something. Yes, he had something
+of uncommon interest to impart. And a gentleman, by Jove! So different
+from what one runs up against nowadays. He had an original way of
+looking at things--a human way. Very human. Those quaint streaks of
+credulity, those whimsical blasphemies, those spicy Court anecdotes
+dropped, as it were, in the smoking room of a patrician club--a rare old
+fellow! He would have given anything to have made his acquaintance.
+
+Forthwith a change came over Mr. Ernest Eames. His frozen classical
+mind blossomed under the sunny stimulus of the Renaissance scholar. He
+entered upon a second boyhood--a real boyhood, this time, full of
+enthusiasms and adventures into flowery by-paths of learning. Monsignor
+Perrelli absorbed him. He absorbed Monsignor Perrelli. Marginal
+observation led to footnotes; footnotes to appendixes. He had found an
+interest in life. He would annotate the ANTIQUITIES.
+
+In the section which deals with the life of Saint Dodekanus the Italian
+had displayed more than his usual erudition and acumen. He had sifted
+the records with such incredible diligence that little was left for the
+pen of an annotator, save words of praise. In two small matters,
+however, the Englishman, considerably to his regret, was enabled or
+rather obliged to add a postscript.
+
+Many a time he cursed the day when his researches among the archives of
+the mainland brought him into contact with the unpublished chronicle of
+Father Capocchio, a Dominican friar of licorous and even licentious
+disposition, a hater of Nepenthe and a personal enemy, it seemed, of
+his idol Perrelli. His manuscript--the greater part of it, at all
+events--was not fit to be printed; not fit to be touched by respectable
+people. Mr. Eames felt it his duty to waive considerations of delicacy.
+In his capacity of annotator he would have plunged headlong into the
+Augean stables, had there been any likelihood of extracting therefrom
+the germs of a luminous footnote. He perused the manuscript, making
+notes as he went along. This wretched monk, he concluded, must have
+possessed a damnably intimate knowledge of Nepenthean conditions, and a
+cantankerous and crapulous turn of mind, into the bargain. He never
+lost an opportunity of denigrating the island; he was determined,
+absolutely determined, to see only the bad side of things, so far as
+that place was concerned.
+
+Regarding the pious relic, for instance,--the thigh-bone of the saint,
+preserved in the principal church--he wrote:
+
+"A certain Perrelli who calls himself historian, which is as though one
+should call a mule a horse, or an ass a mule, brays loudly and
+disconnectedly about the femur of the local god. We have personally
+examined this priceless femur. It is not a femur, but a tibia. And it
+is the tibia not of a saint, but of a young cow or calf. We may
+mention, in passing, that we hold a diploma in anatomy from the
+Palermitan Faculty of Medicine."
+
+That was Father Capocchio's way: bald to coarseness, whenever he lacked
+occasion to be obscene.
+
+To Mr. Eames it would have mattered little, A PRIORI, whether the relic
+was a femur or a tibia, a cow or man. In this case, he liked to think
+it was the thigh-bone of a saint. He possessed an unusually strong dose
+of that Latin PIETAS, that reverence which consists in leaving things
+as they are, particularly when they have been described for the benefit
+of posterity, with the most engaging candour, by a man of Perrelli's
+calibre. Now an insinuation like this could not be slurred over. It was
+a downright challenge! The matter must be thrashed out. For four months
+he poured over books on surgery and anatomy. Then, having acquired a
+knowledge of the subject--adequate, though necessarily superficial--he
+applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to view the
+relic. It was politely refused. The saintly object, they declared,
+could only be exhibited to persons professing the Roman Catholic Faith,
+and armed with a special recommendation from the bishop.
+
+"These," he used to say, "are the troubles which lie in wait for a
+conscientious annotator."
+
+On another point, that of a derivation of the saint's name, he was
+pained to discover in the pages of Father Capocchio an alternative
+suggestion, of which more anon. It caused him many sleepless nights.
+But on matters pertaining to the climate of Nepenthe, its inhabitants,
+products, minerals, water-supply, fisheries, trade, folk-lore,
+ethnology,--on questions such as these he had gathered much fresh
+information. Sheaves of stimulating footnotes had accumulated on his
+desk.
+
+When would all this material be published?
+
+Mr. Eames had not the faintest idea. Meanwhile he calmly went on
+collecting and collecting, and collecting. Something might turn up, one
+of these days. Everybody with the slightest pretensions to scholarship
+was interested in his work; many friends had made him offers of
+pecuniary assistance towards the printing of a book which could not be
+expected to be a source of profit to its publisher; the wealthy and
+good-natured Mr. Keith, in particular, used to complain savagely and
+very sincerely at not being allowed to assist to the extent of a
+hundred or two. There were days on which he seemed to yield to these
+arguments; days when he expanded and gave rein to his fancy, smiling in
+anticipation of that noble volume--the golden Latinity of Monsignor
+Perrelli enriched with twenty-five years' patient labour on the part of
+himself; days when he would go so far as to discuss prospective
+contracts, and bindings and photogravures, and margins, and paper.
+Everything, of course, was to be of appropriate quality--not
+pretentious, but distinguished. Oh, yes! A book of that kind--it must
+have a cachet of its own....
+
+Then, suddenly, he would observe that he was joking; only joking.
+
+The true Mr. Eames revealed and reasserted himself. He shrank from the
+idea. He closed up like a flower in the chill of night-fall. He was not
+going to put himself under obligations to anybody. He would keep his
+sense of personal independence, even if it entailed the sacrifice of a
+life's ambition. Owe no man anything! The words rang in his ears. They
+were his father's words. Owe no man anything! They were that
+gentleman's definition of a gentleman--a definition which was cordially
+approved by every other gentleman who, like Mr. Eames junior, happened
+to hold analogous views.
+
+Gentlemen being rather scarce nowadays, we cannot but feel grateful to
+the Crotalophoboi for devouring Saint Dodekanus and paving the way, VIA
+the ANTIQUITIES of Monsignor Perrelli, for the refined personality of
+Mr. Eames--even if such was not their original intention.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+
+
+
+Next morning, at precisely 4 a.m., there was an earthquake.
+
+Foreigners unaccustomed to Nepenthean conditions rushed in their
+pyjamas out of doors, to escape the falling wreckage. An American lady,
+staying at Mr. Muhlen's high-class hotel, jumped from her bed-room on
+the third floor into the courtyard below, and narrowly escaped bruising
+her ankle.
+
+It was a false alarm. The sudden clanging of every bell on the place,
+the explosion of twelve hundred mortars and the simultaneous booming of
+an enormous cannon--that far-famed gun whose wayward tricks had cost the
+lives of hundreds of its loaders in the days of the Good Duke--might
+have passed for an earthquake of the first magnitude, so far as noise
+and concussion were concerned. The island rocked to its foundations. It
+was the signal for the festival of the patron saint to begin.
+
+Nobody could have slept through that din. Mr. Heard, dog-tired as he
+was, woke up and opened his eyes.
+
+"Things are happening here," he said--a remark which he found himself
+repeating on several later occasions.
+
+He looked round the room. It was not an hotel bed-room. Then he began
+to remember things, drowsily. He remembered the pleasant surprise of
+the previous evening--how the Duchess had called to mind a small villa,
+vacated earlier than she had expected by a lady friend for whom she had
+taken it. It was furnished, spotlessly clean, with a woman, a capable
+cook, in attendance. She had insisted on his living there.
+
+"So much nicer than a dreadful room in an hotel! You'll show the bishop
+all over it, won't you, Denis?"
+
+Walking together, he and Denis, they had been overtaken by another
+recent visitor to Nepenthe. It was Mr. Edgar Marten. Mr. Marten was a
+hirsute and impecunious young Hebrew of low tastes, with a passion for
+mineralogy. He had profited by some University grant to make certain
+studies at Nepenthe which was renowned for its variegated rocks. There
+was something striking about him, thought Mr. Heard. He said little of
+consequence, but Denis listened enthusiastically to his abstruse
+remarks about fractures and so forth, and watched with eagerness as he
+poked his stick into the rough walls to dislodge some stone that seemed
+to be of interest.
+
+"So you don't know the difference between augite and hornblende?" he
+once enquired. "Really? Dash my eyes! How old did you say you were?"
+
+"Nineteen."
+
+"And what have you been doing, Phipps, these last nineteen years?"
+
+"One can't know everything at my age."
+
+"Granted. But I think you might have learnt that much. Come to me on
+Thursday morning. I'll see what I can do for you."
+
+Mr. Heard rather admired this youthful scientist. The fellow knew what
+he was after; he was after stones. Perfect of his kind--a condition
+which always appealed to the bishop. Pleasant youngsters, both of them.
+And so different from each other!
+
+As to Denis--he could not make up his mind about Denis. To begin with,
+he exhaled that peculiar College aroma which the most heroic efforts of
+a lifetime often fail to dissipate. Then, he had said something about
+Florence, and Cinque-Cento, and Jacopo Bellini. The bishop, a practical
+man, had not much use for Jacopo Bellini or for people who talked about
+him. None the less, while making himself useful with unpacking and
+arranging things, Denis dropped a remark which struck Mr. Heard.
+
+"The canvas of Nepenthe," he observed, "is rather overcharged."
+
+Rather overcharged....
+
+It was true, thought the bishop, as he glanced out of his window that
+evening, all alone, over the sea into which a young moon was just
+sinking to rest. Overcharged! A ceaseless ebb and flow of humanity
+surged before his weary eyes. That sense of irreality which had struck
+him on his first view of the island was still persisting; the south
+wind, no doubt, helped this illusion. He remembered the general
+affluence and kindliness of the people; that, at least, had made a
+definite mark upon his mind. He liked the place. Already he felt at
+home here, and in better health. But when he tried to conjure up some
+definite impression of town and people, the images became blurred; the
+smiling priest, the Duchess, Mr. Keith--they were like figures in a
+dream; they merged into memories of Africa, of his fellow-passengers
+from Zanzibar; they mingled with projects relating to his own future in
+England--projects relating to his cousin on Nepenthe. Mr. Heard felt
+exhausted.
+
+He was too tired to be greatly affected by that cannonade, which was
+enough to rouse the dead. Something must be happening, he mused; then,
+his meditations concluded, turned on his other side. He slept well into
+the morning, and found his breakfast appetisingly laid out in the
+adjoining room.
+
+And now, he thought, for that procession.
+
+Bells were ringing gaily into the sunshine. From a long way off, he
+discerned the brazen tones of a band, the chanting of priests and
+townspeople, shrill voices of women. The pageant came in sight--winding
+its way through the multitudes under the beflagged arches of greenery,
+while a rain of flowers descended from windows and balconies overhead.
+Clusters of children went before, in many-tinted array, according to
+their various schools or confraternities. Then came the municipal band
+in uniform, playing the cheeriest of tunes, and escorted by the
+Nepenthe militia whose old-fashioned costume of silver and scarlet was
+most effective. The authorities of the island trod on their heels--grave
+gentlemen in black clothes, some of them adorned with ribbons and
+decorations. The Mephistophelean judge, the freethinker, was among
+them; he limped along, expectorating every ten yards or so, presumably
+to mark his displeasure at being obliged, as official, to attend a
+religious function. The Commissioner, too, was in the ranks. He
+appeared just the same as yesterday; very informal in his
+knickerbockers, and decidedly pink about the gills.
+
+There followed a long train of priests, clad in lace and silken
+garments of every hue. They looked like a perambulating flower-garden.
+Plump, jovial fellows--chanting blithely, and occasionally exchanging a
+few words with one another. Don Francesco glittered in crimson
+vestments; he recognized Mr. Heard, and gave him a broad smile combined
+with something which might have been mistaken for a wink. The huge
+silver statue of the saint came next. It was a grotesque monster, borne
+aloft on a wooden platform that wobbled on the shoulders of eight lusty
+perspiring carriers. As it passed, all the onlookers raised their hats;
+all save the Russians, the Little White Cows who, standing aside with
+wonderment written on their childlike faces, were relieved from this
+necessity, since the wearing of hats had been forbidden by their
+leader, their self-styled Messiah, the divinely inspired Bazhakuloff;
+they were to go bareheaded summer and winter, "like the Christians of
+old." Some ardent believers went so far as to kneel on the stony
+ground. The Duchess, the Catholic-to-be, had assumed this reverend
+posture; she was on the other side of the street, surrounded by a
+number of ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Heard, reviewing the crowd,
+abandoned the idea of piercing that procession and exchanging a few
+words with her. He would see her in the afternoon.
+
+Then the bishop--the dignitary whom Don Francesco had called "not
+exactly a liberal." He tallied with that description. A wicked old
+face! He was blear-eyed, brown as a mummy, and so fat that his legs had
+long ago ceased to be any use save as a precarious support while
+standing. He rode, in gorgeous apparel, on a milk-white donkey which
+was led by two pretty choristers in blue. Attached to the end of a long
+pole, a green umbrella of Gargantuan proportions, adorned with red
+tassels, protected his wrinkled head from the rays of the sun. One hand
+clutched some religious object upon which his eyes were glued in a
+hypnotic trance, the other cruised aimlessly about the horizon, in the
+act of benediction.
+
+Mumbo-jumbo, thought Mr. Heard.
+
+Yet he looked without wincing at the caricature of Christianity. It was
+like an act in a pantomime. He had seen funnier things in Africa. Among
+the Bitongos, for instance. They would have enjoyed this procession,
+the Bitongos. They were Christians; had taken to the Gospel like ducks
+to the water; wore top-hats at Easter. But liars--such dreadful liars!
+Just the reverse of the M'tezo. Ah, those M'tezo! Incurable heathen. He
+had given them up long ago. Anyhow, they despised lying. They filed
+their teeth, ate their superfluous female relations, swopped wives
+every new moon, and never wore a stitch of clothes. A man who appeared
+among the M'tezo in a fig-leaf would find himself in the cooking-pot
+within five minutes.
+
+How they attached themselves to his heart, those black fellows. Such
+healthy animals! This spectacle, he discovered, was rather like
+Africa--the same steamy heat, the same blaring noises, dazzling light,
+and glowing colours; the same spirit of unconquerable playfulness in
+grave concerns.
+
+And the Bumbulis, the Kubangos, the Mugwambas! And the Bulanga--that
+tribe whom Mr. Keith seemed to know so well! Really, the Bulanga were
+the worst of the lot. Not fit to be talked about. And yet, somehow or
+other, one could not help liking them....
+
+"Good morning, Bishop!" said a voice at his side. It was Mr. Keith. He
+looked well washed and chubby in his spotless white clothes.
+Accompanying him was a friend in grey flannels whom he presently
+introduced as Mr. Eames. "Hope you slept well," he went on. "And how do
+you like the procession? You are doing quite the right thing in
+attending. Oh, quite. That is why I am here, though I don't much fancy
+these ceremonies. One ought to conform to custom. Well, what are you
+thinking?"
+
+"I was thinking of Africa, and the pain which the natives will endure
+for what they call their pleasures. I wonder how much those men are
+paid for carrying that statue? They perspire pretty freely."
+
+"They are paid nothing. They pay, themselves, a heavy sum for the
+privilege."
+
+"You surprise me!"
+
+"They have remission of sins; they can be as naughty as ever they like
+for a twelvemonth afterwards. That is a consideration. I will tell you
+something else about that idol. It is five hundred years old--"
+
+"Oh, come!" interposed Mr. Eames, in a tone of gentle remonstrance.
+"The saint was cast exactly eighty-two years ago; they used to have a
+wooden one before that time. Anybody can see from the workmanship--"
+
+"Have it your way, Eames. Eighty-two years old, I was going to say, and
+not yet paid for. They want some rich foreigner to produce the money.
+They are counting on van Koppen, just now; an American millionaire, you
+know, who comes here every year and spends a good deal of money. But I
+know old Koppen. He is no fool. By the way, Eames, what do you think of
+this discovery of mine? Of course you have heard of the James-Lange
+theory of the Emotions, namely, that bodily changes follow directly on
+the perception of the existing fact and that our feeling of these same
+changes as they occur is the Emotion. They developed the theory
+independently, and got great credit for it. Well, I find--what nobody
+seems to have noticed--that they were anticipated by Professor Maudsley.
+I've got a note of it in my pocket. Here you are. PSYCHOLOGY OF MIND,
+1876, pages 472-4 ET SEQ.; 372, 384, 386-7 ET PASSIM. What do you say?"
+
+"Nothing. I am not interested in psychology. You know it perfectly
+well.
+
+"Why not? Wouldn't you get more fun out of life if you were?"
+
+"I have Perrelli."
+
+"Always your old Perrelli! That reminds me, Eames. I mean to talk to
+van Koppen as soon as he arrives about getting that book of yours
+published. He is good for any amount. Koppen is your man."
+
+There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye, as he said this.
+
+"Please don't," implored Mr. Eames. "You will annoy me very seriously."
+
+"Don't be absurd, my poor fellow."
+
+"You can't think how much you will annoy me! How often have I told
+you--"
+
+"Then you must lunch with me to-day, together with the bishop. Don't
+trouble about driving to the Old Town to see your cousin," he added to
+Mr. Heard. "She is sure to be at the reception of the Duchess this
+afternoon."
+
+Mr. Eames said:
+
+"So sorry. I must get back home. I only came out to speak to a man
+about a collar--for my dog, I mean. Another day, if you don't mind. And
+no millionaires, whatever you do!"
+
+He departed, rather awkwardly.
+
+"He is shy," Keith explained. "But he can tell you all about the
+island. And now come home with me, Bishop. I feel as if it were time
+for luncheon. It must be about half-past twelve."
+
+Mr. Heard took out his watch.
+
+"Half-past twelve to the minute," he said.
+
+"I thought so. A man's best clock is his stomach. We have only a few
+hundred yards to go. Hot, isn't it? This infernal south wind...."
+
+The Villa Khismet was one of the surprises of Nepenthe. It lay somewhat
+out of the way, at the end of a narrow, gloomy and tortuous lane. Who
+would have dreamt of finding a house of this kind in such a situation?
+Who would have expected, on passing through that mouldy wooden gateway
+in the wall, to find himself in a courtyard that recalled the exquisite
+proportions and traceries of the Alhambra--to be able to wander thence
+under fretted arches through a maze of marble-paved Moorish chambers,
+great and small, opening upon each other at irregular angles with a
+deliciously impromptu effect? The palace had been built regardless of
+expense. It was originally laid out, Keith explained, by one of the old
+rulers of Nepenthe who, to tease his faithful subjects, simulated a
+frenzied devotion for the poetry and architecture of the Saracens,
+their bitterest enemies.
+
+Something Oriental still hung about these chambers, though the modern
+furniture was not at all in keeping with the style. Mr. Keith did not
+profess to be a man of taste. "I try to be comfortable," he used to
+say. He succeeded in being luxurious.
+
+They glanced into the garden--a spacious park-like enclosure terminating
+in a declivity, so as to afford a view over the sea far below. It was a
+mock wilderness of trees and bright blossoms, flooded in meridian
+sunlight. Some gardeners moved about, binding up the riotous vegetation
+that had sprouted overnight under the moist breath of the sirocco.
+
+"It's too hot to think of lunching out here," said Keith. "You should
+come and see this place in the evening."
+
+"It must be wonderful at that hour."
+
+"Still more wonderful in the early morning, or by moonlight. But then I
+am generally alone. There are twenty-four fountains in this garden," he
+added. "They might help to keep the place cool. But of course not one
+of them is in use now. You have observed, have you not, that there is
+no running water on this island? That old Duke built the fountains all
+the same, and to every one of them he attached a cistern, to hold the
+winter rains; then a pumping apparatus. Relays of slaves had to work
+underground, day and night, pumping water for these twenty-four
+fountains; it fell back into the cisterns, and was forced up again. The
+Arabs had fountains. He meant to have them too. Particularly at night!
+If anything went wrong with the machinery at that hour, there was the
+devil to pay. He swore he could not sleep unless he heard the music of
+the water. And his sleepless nights were bad for his subjects. They
+generally hid in caves till the fountains were reported to be in
+working order again. That is the way to run an island, Mr. Heard. One
+must be a stylist."
+
+"You might re-activate one of them, at least, with the help of those
+servants."
+
+"They have enough to do, I assure you, to re-activate me--keep me young
+and in good condition. To say nothing of the flowers, which also need a
+little friendly attention...."
+
+Mr. Heard enjoyed that luncheon. "The food, the wine, the service--they
+were faultless; something altogether out of the way," he declared with
+frank conviction.
+
+"Then you must come again," replied his host. "How long did you say you
+were staying here?"
+
+"Ten days or so. It depends upon Mrs. Meadows and her movements. I
+understand she is all alone up there, in the clouds. Her husband's
+leave has been postponed for the second time. He was going to pick her
+up on his way to England. She had to leave India before him, on account
+of the child."
+
+"A pretty baby. Couldn't stand the climate, I suppose."
+
+"Exactly. My mother asked me to look in and cheer her up a little, and
+perhaps take her back with me. And really," he added, "it's rather
+awkward! I have not seen my cousin since she was a little girl. What
+does she look like?"
+
+"Tailor-made. Looks as if she rode well and knew her own mind. Looks as
+if she had been through a good deal of trouble."
+
+"I daresay she has. She was always impetuous, even as a child. That
+first marriage was not at all a success. Some foreign scoundrel who
+deserted her and vanished. I was in China at the time, but my mother
+wrote me about it."
+
+"A first marriage? She never told me about that."
+
+"This second one was a love match. They ran away together. They must
+have had a hard time out there at first, living as they did. No doubt
+she has learnt to know her own mind; one has to cope with emergencies
+in a life like that. He has done well, I hear. A charming fellow, from
+all accounts, though I question whether they are properly married even
+now."
+
+"Perhaps they can't be," replied Mr. Keith, "in view of the earlier
+affair. But how will they educate that boy, in India? It can't be done.
+India is no better than Bampopo, for such purposes. Did you do much
+educational work in Africa? I hope you were gentle with my friends the
+Bulaga?"
+
+"We baptized two or three hundred of them one day. But they behaved
+shockingly the very next week--quite disgracefully! They are hopeless,
+those friends of yours, though one cannot help liking them somehow. I
+got through good deal of other work of that kind," he added.
+
+"I see you are a man of action. Sometimes I wish I were. A little money
+has made me lazy, I'm afraid. But I do some thinking, and a fair lot of
+reading. I travel, I observe, I compare. Among other things I observe
+that our English system of education is all wrong. We ought to return
+to that old Camp-and-Court ideal."
+
+"All wrong?" queried the bishop.
+
+"Take a case like that young fellow Denis. What is a child of his age
+doing at a University? No. If I had a son--but I am boring you."
+
+"I have not been bored since I was twenty."
+
+"I wish I could say the same of myself. I grow more intolerant of fools
+as the years roll on. If I had a son, I was saying, I would take him
+from school at the age of fourteen, not a moment later, and put him for
+two years in a commercial house. Wake him up; make an English citizen
+of him. Teach him how to deal with men as men, to write a
+straightforward business letter, manage his own money and gain some
+respect for those industrial movements which control the world. Next,
+two years in some wilder part of the world, where his own countrymen
+and equals by birth are settled under primitive conditions, and have
+formed their rough codes of society. The intercourse with such people
+would be a capital invested for life. The next two years should be
+spent in the great towns of Europe, in order to remove awkwardness of
+manner, prejudices of race and feeling, and to get the outward forms of
+a European citizen. All this would sharpen his wits, give him more
+interest in life, more keys to knowledge. It would widen his horizon.
+Then, and not a minute sooner, to the University, where he would go not
+as a child but a man capable of enjoying its real advantages, attend
+lectures with profit, acquire manners instead of mannerisms and a
+University tone instead of a University taint. What do you think?"
+
+"It sounds a trifle revolutionary," commented the bishop, with a smile.
+"But it appeals to me. Education is a matter than lies very near my
+heart. In fact, I had some thoughts of retiring from the Church and
+devoting myself to it. I feel, I don't know why, as if I could do more
+in that direction."
+
+Keith merely observed:
+
+"That is interesting. Perhaps you have reached the end of the Church."
+
+He liked this young Colonial bishop, and his straightforward, earnest
+face. Being of a complicated nature himself, he was always drawn
+towards men of single aims and purposes.
+
+The other would have been pleased to know why Keith found it
+"interesting" and what he meant by that other phrase, but forbore to
+inquire. He was rather a silent man, though not deficient in mother
+wit. He lit a cigarette, and waited.
+
+"Let us discourse of education!" said his host with that elaborate
+manner which the bishop afterwards discovered to be peculiar to him. "I
+think we need not differentiate between the sexes. In proportion as
+more careers are opened to women, their teaching will tend to converge
+with that of men. That specifically female education in domestic arts
+has been rendered superfluous by commercial products. I will tell you
+what I think. A sound schooling should teach manner of thought rather
+than matter. It should have a dual aim--to equip a man for hours of
+work, and for hours of leisure. They interact; if the leisure is
+misspent, the work will suffer. As regards the first, we cannot expect
+a school to purvey more than a grip of general principles. Even that is
+seldom given. The second should enable a man to extract as much
+happiness as possible out of his spare time. The secret of happiness is
+curiosity. Now curiosity is not only not roused; it is repressed. You
+will say there is not time for everything. But how much time is wasted!
+Mathematics.... A medieval halo clings round this subject which, as
+a training for the mind, has no more value than whist-playing. I wonder
+how many excellent public servants have been lost to England because,
+however accomplished, they lacked the mathematical twist required to
+pass the standard in this one subject? As a training in intelligence it
+is harmful: it teaches a person to underestimate the value of evidence
+based on their other modes of ratiocination. It is the poorest form of
+mental exercise--sheer verification; conjecture and observation are
+ruled out. A study of Chinese grammar would be far more valuable from
+the point of view of general education. All mathematics above the
+standard of the office boy should be a special subject, like dynamics
+or hydrostatics. They are useless to the ordinary man. If you mention
+the utility of a mathematician like Isaac Newton, don't forget that it
+was his pre-eminently anti-mathematical gift for drawing conclusions
+from analogy which made him what he was. And Euclid--that frowsy
+anachronism! One might as well teach Latin by the system of Donatus.
+Surely all knowledge is valueless save as a guide to conduct? A guide
+ought to be up to date and convenient to handle. Euclid is a museum
+specimen. Half the time wasted over these subjects should be devoted to
+draughtmanship and object-lessons. I don't know why we disparage
+object-lessons; they were recommended by people like Bacon, Amos
+Commenius and Pestalozzi. They are far superior to mathematics as a
+means of developing the reasoning powers; they can be made as complex
+as you please; they discipline the eye and mind, teach a child to
+discriminate between the accidental and the essential, and demand
+lucidity of thought and expression. And the hours spent over history!
+What on earth does it matter who Henry the Twelfth's wife was?
+Chemistry! All this, relatively speaking, is unprofitable stuff. How
+much better to teach the elements of sociology and jurisprudence. The
+laws that regulate human intercourse; what could be more interesting?
+And physiology--the disrespect for the human frame is another relic of
+monasticism. In fact our whole education is tainted with the monkish
+spirit. Divinity! Has any purpose ever been served--"
+
+Mr. Keith sighed.
+
+"I wish I had not eaten so many of those prawns," he added. "What are
+you thinking?"
+
+"I think modern education over-emphasizes the intellect. I suppose that
+comes from the scientific trend of the times. You cannot obtain a
+useful citizen if you only develop his intellect. We take children from
+their parents because these cannot give them an intellectual training.
+So far, good. But we fail to give them that training in character which
+parents alone can give. Home influence, as Grace Aguilar conceived
+it--where has it gone? It strikes me that this is a grave danger for the
+future. We are rearing up a brood of crafty egoists, a generation whose
+earliest recollections are those of getting something for nothing from
+the State. I am inclined to trace our present social unrest to this
+over-valuation of the intellect. It hardens the heart and blights all
+generous impulses. What is going to replace the home, Mr. Keith? And
+there is another point which has often forced itself upon me. A certain
+proportion of wealthy children tend to fall back into lower grades of
+life--manual labour, and so forth. They are born below the level of
+their parents. No difficulty about relapsing. But a fair percentage of
+the lowest classes tend to rise; they stand, potentially, above their
+surroundings. An apparatus has been contrived for catching these
+children. But it is defective, because devoid of sympathy. I have known
+hundreds of cases in the East End of London where families have been
+unable to raise themselves by this means because, at the critical
+moment, there was not twenty shillings in the house wherewith to buy
+clothes in which the child could present himself to a good employer
+with any prospect of success. Worthy of a better fate, he is pushed
+back. The chance is missed; the family remains in poverty. All kinds of
+profitable and honourable capacities are being wasted in this fashion
+every day--peculiar aptitudes for mechanics, talents for art, or music,
+or acting--"
+
+"Acting!" interrupted Keith. "I am glad you reminded me. We are just in
+time to see some theatricals at the municipality. They only come off
+once a year. It would never do for you to miss them. No, never."
+
+The bishop, rather regretfully, rose from his seat. He was feeling
+comfortable just then, and inclined to listen to a few more of Keith's
+educational heresies. But that gentleman seemed to have exhausted the
+subject, or himself.
+
+"It's only a few minutes' walk," he observed. "We'll take a couple of
+sunshades."
+
+They stepped into the broiling heat. The morning mists had rolled away
+from the mountains.
+
+Walking along, Mr. Heard began to realize what a rambling and craggy
+sort of place this was. And how decorative! Almost operatic. The town
+was full of surprises--of unexpected glimpses upon a group of slender
+palms, some gleaming precipice, or the distant sea. Gardens appeared to
+be toppling over the houses; green vines festooned the doorways and
+gaily coloured porches; streets climbed up and down, noisy with
+rattling carriages and cries of fruit-vendors who exposed their wares
+of brightest hues on the pavement. Country women, in picturesque
+cinnamon-coloured skirts, moved gravely among the citizens. The houses,
+when not whitewashed, showed their building stone of red volcanic tufa;
+windows were aflame with cacti and carnations; slumberous oranges
+glowed in courtyards; the roadways underfoot were of lava--pitch-black.
+It was a brilliant medley, overhung by a deep blue sky. The canvas was
+indeed overcharged, as Denis had said.
+
+"There are no half-tones in this landscape," the bishop remarked to Mr.
+Keith. "No compromise!"
+
+"And yet perfect harmony. They are all true colours. I hate compromise.
+It is one of the curses of life. That is why I cannot endure England
+for long. The country is full of half-tones, not only in nature.
+Because a thing seems good, there must be some bad in it. It seems bad
+to us--therefore it must be good for us. Bedlamites! I like clean
+values. They make for clean thinking. This is the only day in the
+year," he went on, "when you will see the population abroad at this
+hour. The streets are generally quite empty. It is the only day when I
+would forgo my afternoon nap on Nepenthe."
+
+"Nearly three o'clock," said the bishop, consulting his watch. "What a
+queer time for theatricals!"
+
+"That Duke again. You can ask Eames about him, he must have been a man
+worth knowing. He always slept in the afternoons. It annoyed him to
+think that his people slept too. He might suddenly want them for
+something, he said. He commanded that they should stay awake, and
+decapitated several hundred who were found napping. When he saw that
+the habit was ingrained in their natures and that nothing would avail
+save a total extermination of the populace, he gave way, gracefully.
+Then he instituted these popular theatricals in honour of the Patron
+Saint, and fixed them irrevocably for the hour of three o'clock. He
+meant to keep his faithful subjects awake on one afternoon of the year,
+at all events. He took it for granted that they could never resist a
+performance of this kind. He was right. He knew his people! That was
+ages ago. We shall find the place crammed this afternoon."
+
+There was barely standing room, in spite of the sirocco heat. Mr.
+Keith, by means of some mysterious formula, soon procured two seats in
+the front row, the occupants of which smilingly took their places among
+the crowd at the back.
+
+The bishop found himself sitting between his host and a
+distinguished-looking elderly gentleman who turned out to be Count
+Caloveglia. He was dressed in black. There was something alert and
+military in that upright carriage, those keen eyes, bushy black brows
+and snowy mustache. He uttered a few pleasant remarks on making Mr.
+Heard's acquaintance, but soon relapsed into silence. Absorbed in the
+spectacle, he sat motionless, his chin resting in the hollow of his
+right hand.
+
+"A fine type," Keith whispered into the bishop's ear. "You will like
+him. I call him the Salt of the South. If you are interested in the old
+Greek life of these regions--well, he gives you an idea of those people.
+He is the epitome of the Ionian spirit. I'll take you up to see him one
+of these days."
+
+The performance consisted of a series of twelve scenes without words,
+representing the twelve chief episodes in the life of the Patron Saint,
+as portrayed in a certain marble frieze in the church. The actors were
+a handful of the more attractive and intelligent children of the place.
+They had been trained under the watchful eye of a priest who confessed
+to some notions of stage-craft and delighted in juvenile theatricals.
+It was a thrillingly realistic performance; the costumes--designed, long
+ago, by the Good Duke himself--varied with every tableau. Vociferous
+expressions of approval accompanied the performance. The Saint's
+encounter in the grove of Alephane with the golden-haired lady was a
+masterpiece of histrionic art; so was his solemn preaching among the
+black natives. Tears flowed freely at his violent death--a scene which
+was only marred by the erratic movements of his venerable beard; that
+mill-stone, too, of PAPIER MACHE, played lovely pranks upon a pea-green
+ocean. Best of all was the cannibalistic feast of the Crotalophoboi
+ending with a tempestuous, demoniacal war-dance. Their blackened limbs
+emerging from the scantiest of vesture, the actors surpassed
+themselves. Such an uproar of applause accompanied the orgy that it had
+to be repeated.
+
+Every year it had to be repeated, this particular tableau. It was by
+far the most popular, to the intense regret of the PARROCO, the parish
+priest, a rigid disciplinarian, an alien to Nepenthe, a frost-bitten
+soul from the Central Provinces of the mainland. He used to complain
+that times were changed; that what was good in the days of the Duke
+might not be good for the present generation; that a scene such as this
+was no incentive to true religion; that the Holy Mother of God could
+hardly be edified by the performance, seeing that the players were
+almost nude, and that certain of the gestures verged on indelicacy and
+even immodesty. Every year he complained in like fashion: Ah, what
+would the Madonna say, if she saw it?
+
+And every year the entire body of the local clergy, with Don Francesco
+as their eloquent spokesman, opposed his views.
+
+The play was tradition, they avowed. Tradition must be upheld. And what
+more? It savoured of heresy to suggest that the Mother of God was blind
+to anything that happened on earth. Doubtless She saw this particular
+scene; doubtless She approved; doubtless She smiled, like everyone
+else. She loved her people in true motherly fashion. She was not born
+in the Central Provinces. She was fond of children, whether they wore
+clothes or not. The players enjoyed themselves. So did the audience.
+The Mother of God liked them to make a cheerful show in honour of that
+good old man, the Patron Saint. And Saint Dodekanus himself--what would
+he think, if this ancient act of homage were withheld? He would be very
+angry. He would send an earthquake, or a visitation of the cholera, or
+a shower of ashes from the volcano across the water. Piety and prudence
+alike counselled them to keep in his good graces. And what more? The
+performance had been established by the Good Duke; and that endless
+line of godly bishops, succeeding each other since his day, would never
+have given their sanction to the costumes and the acting had they not
+known that the Madonna approved of them. Why should She now think
+differently? The Mother of God was not a fickle earthly creature, to
+change Her mind from one day to the next.
+
+With arguments such as these they endeavoured to controvert the PARROCO
+who, being a fighter to the death, a resourceful ascetic of unbending
+will, never admitted defeat. He bethought him of other shifts. On one
+celebrated occasion he actually induced the bishop--tired as the old
+prelate was, after his morning's ride on the white donkey--to attend the
+performance, hoping to obtain from him some confirmation of his own
+view, that the objectionable scene should be entirely remodelled or,
+better still, cut out altogether. The reverend dignitary was supposed
+to be extremely short-sighted and wandering, moreover, in his mind,
+from sheer decrepitude. Perhaps he was wily beyond the common measure
+of man. Be that as it may, he witnessed the spectacle but allowed
+nothing to escape his lips safe a succession of soft purring sound
+resembling:
+
+Gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-,
+
+An ambiguous utterance, which was construed by both parties as a
+verdict in their favour.
+
+Mr. Heard, while conceding that the acting was good--first rate, in
+fact--could not make up his mind whether to be shocked or pleased. He
+wondered whether such a play had any features in common with religion.
+His host, who stood for paganism and nudity and laughter, convinced him
+that it had.
+
+"You would have seen the same thing in pre-Puritan England," he
+concluded, at the end of a long exposition. "And now, if you like, we
+will have a look at that Club. It may amuse you. There is still time
+for the Duchess."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+
+
+
+"This is the place," said Mr. Keith.
+
+It was one of a row of tawdry modern buildings, the lower floors of
+which were utilized as shops--an undistinguished sort of place, in an
+undistinguished street. They climbed upstairs and wandered through two
+or three rooms, all alike save that one of them had a balcony; square,
+white-washed rooms, not very clean, and inadequately furnished with
+tables, cane-bottomed chairs and a few prints on the walls. There was a
+lavish display, however, of bottles and glasses, and several shelves
+were littered with newspapers in different languages. Acetylene lamps
+hung from the flat ceiling. An odour of stale tobacco and alcohol
+pervaded the premises. Flies were buzzing against the window-panes.
+
+Half a dozen nondescript members, looking considerably the worse for
+wear, loafed about moodily or snored in deck chairs. Two or three were
+writing letters. It was the sulkiest hour of the day. Mr. Heard noticed
+a slender young Indian and a blond-haired fellow--probably a
+Scandinavian. They were arguing about cigars with a rosy-cheeked old
+reprobate whom they called Charlie. An adjoining apartment, the
+card-room, contained a livelier party, among whom the bishop recognized
+Mr. Muhlen. He had lost no time in making himself popular. He must have
+found congenial spirits here.
+
+"Well?" asked Keith.
+
+"Cheap and nasty," suggested the other.
+
+"That's it! They call it the Alpha and Omega Club, to shadow forth its
+all-embracing international character; it's just a boozing institution,
+where you run to seed. They come in here, and say the south wind makes
+them thirsty. Red and Blue Club would be a more appropriate name. That
+is the whisky they have to drink."
+
+"Why cannot they drink wine or--or ginger beer?"
+
+"He tries to stop that. He would not be able to make any profits on
+wine."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The President."
+
+And Mr. Keith proceeded to sketch the history of the establishment.
+
+The Alpha and Omega Club had led a precarious existence. Often its life
+dangled by a thread for lack of members, or because those members who
+owed subscriptions were unable or unwilling to pay them. Such had been
+the case before the accession of the new President. It hung its
+drooping head; had almost withered away. Mr. Freddy Parker tended the
+languid flower, and watered it--with whisky of his own composition.
+
+It revived. Or rather (which amounts to the same thing) Mr. Parker
+revived--sufficiently, at all events, to pay off some of the more
+pressing of his private debts. Napoleon, or somebody, once remarked:
+"L'ETAT, C'EST MOI." Mr. Parker thought highly of a strong character
+like Napoleon. He used to say, when talking things over with his lady
+in her "boudoir" at the Residency:
+
+"The Club, that's me."
+
+Declaring that wine was the ruin of the place, he imported--it was the
+lady's idea, originally--the far-famed "Red-and-Blue" brand of whisky in
+barrels. The liquid was bottled in the cellars of the Residency. What
+happened during that process was never revealed. It was affirmed, none
+the less, that one barrel of the original stuff was more than enough
+for three barrelfuls of the bottled product. Cultured members, on
+drinking it, were wont to say things about Locusta and Borgia. The
+commoner sort swore like hell at Freddy Parker. It made you feel
+squiffy after the sixth glass--argumentative, magisterial, maudlin,
+taciturn, erotic, sentimental, sea-sick, ecstatic, paralysed,
+lachrymose, hilarious, pugilistic--according to your temperament.
+Whatever your temperament it gave you a thundering head next morning,
+and a throat like Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. It was known as
+"Parker's poison."
+
+The stuff was served, at an alluring price, out of bottles adorned with
+a seductive label--a label which had been designed by an impecunious
+artist who, after running up a rousing bill for drinks, got off payment
+on the strength of this job. But the prettiest label in the world could
+not atone for the mixture within. Members often complained of feeling
+queer. They threatened to resign. Mr. Parker did not want them to
+resign; he wanted their subscriptions. He had a grand way with him on
+such occasions. Whenever one of them complained too bitterly or too
+persistently--became damned abusive, in fact--he would patiently wait and
+see which was the fellow's favourite newspaper. That point settled--it
+was his lady's idea, originally--he would stop the supply of the journal
+in question, alleging insufficiency of Club revenues. These
+Napoleon-like tactics generally brought the offending member to his
+senses.
+
+Mr. Frederick Parker spent a good deal of his time in endeavouring to
+mask, under a cloak of boisterous good humour, a really remarkable
+combination of malevolence and imbecility. He was what you call a
+remittance man. He got so much a quarter--a miserable sum it was--to keep
+out of England. He travelled about formerly. But no amount of travel,
+no association with his betters, could pierce his stolid pachydermatous
+obliquity. He was the worst kind of Englishman; he could not even cheat
+without being found out. But for the wise counsels of his lady he would
+have been in the lock-up over and over again. Such being the case, he
+took a justifiable pride in his Anglo-Saxon origin. Whenever a project
+seemed too risky--not worth while, he called it--he would say:
+
+"It can't be done. That's a job for a Dago. I'm an Englishman, you
+know."
+
+He had knocked about the world a good bit, had Mr. Parker. His last
+known domicile was Nicaragua. There he invested in some land affair--a
+most unfortunate speculation, as it turned out. All his speculation had
+a way of turning badly. That was because people, even people in
+Nicaragua, distrusted him for one reason or another; they said his
+whole existence was a tangle of shady and ignoble transactions--that he
+looked like a fraud, and behaved like one. He couldn't help his face;
+but his face, they soon discovered, was not the only, or even the most,
+evasive and fugitive part of his personality.
+
+At last Nicaragua, even Nicaragua, got too hot for him.
+
+There was Don Pomponio di Vergara y Puyarola, Nicaraguan Minister of
+Finance; one might come to terms with a man of that kind. It was
+arranged between them that His Excellency, who had a large family and
+many poor dependents, should take over Mr. Parker's landed interests;
+being a native of the place he might succeed in squeezing a little
+something out of them. In exchange for this concession an unobtrusive
+Government job was specially created for Mr. Parker. He was appointed
+Financial Commissioner for South-Eastern Europe, to reside at Nepenthe
+or wherever else he pleased--unpaid; the exalted social status conferred
+by such a post being deemed ample compensation. His sole duty consisted
+of submitting a short annual report, a pure formality, to his
+Government.
+
+He departed, but not alone. With him went his familiar spirit, his
+guardian angel, his lady, his step-sister--a dusky dame of barn-like
+proportions. Arrived at Nepenthe they rented a small villa, rather out
+of the way, which they called the Residency. The change of climate did
+them good. So did the appointment. He was now a person of
+consequence--the sole representative of a Foreign Power on the island.
+His official rank procured him not only dignity and a new start in life
+but, what was still more urgent, credit. It brought him into contact
+with the local authorities--with the red-haired rachitic judge, for
+instance, between whom and Mr. Parker there sprang up an intimacy which
+was viewed with vague forebodings. The lady, being a Catholic--Mr.
+Parker, too, was suspected of Roman proclivities--was confessed by the
+parish priest. That was a point gained; the PARROCO being above
+suspicion, among foreigners at least. She stayed mostly indoors,
+inventing scandals about people and writing voluminous letters to warn
+new-comers of the appalling immorality of the place.
+
+To outward appearance the Commissioner and his lady agreed like a brace
+of turtle-doves. He, too, was a moral and social reformer. But men must
+live. The refined social status attached to Mr. Parker's honorary post
+producing nothing tangible in the way of ready cash, he began to cast
+about for some means of livelihood. They wre getting into debt once
+more. Something must be done, he declared.
+
+His portly presence, flushed countenance, briar pipe, knickerbockers
+and white spats had already become a familiar object in the streets of
+the town, when a terrible uproar at the Club--one of those periodical,
+approximately monthly, rows at which the police, who hated meddling
+with foreigners, were reluctantly compelled to intervene--suggested to
+her that something might be done in that direction. She got him elected
+President for that year, President for the next, the next, and the
+next; in spite of the fact that, according to the rules, a new
+President had to be elected every year. Who cared about rules? He was
+the Commissioner! People were only too glad to have him there. In fact,
+like Napoleon, he became a sort of Dictator.
+
+He was now in his element. There were emoluments to be picked up
+here--percentages, perquisites, and profits of all kinds. He made a
+little arrangement with the Club laundry-woman to take in his own
+washing as well, gratis. Under the threat of placing the Club custom
+elsewhere he concluded a number of treaties, each containing a secret
+clause which referred to fifteen per cent profit for himself, with the
+grocer who supplied provisions; and with other tradespeople dealing in
+stationery, soap, crockery (broken crockery was a heavy item in the
+accounts) and such--like Club necessaries. Next, he took the landlord in
+hand. He would clear out, by God, and take more respectable premises if
+the rent were not reduced by twenty per cent! Scandalous! Downright
+robbery! The landlord being a reasonable sort of man, it was agreed
+that the old rate should stand in the contract, while the balance of
+twenty per cent found its way into Mr. Parker's pockets, and not, as
+theretofore, into his own. The same with the servants. From the boy who
+cleaned the rooms, and whom he changed as often as ever possible, he
+exacted a monetary deposit as a guarantee of good conduct--a deposit
+which was never returned, whatever his behaviour had been. Then--the
+subscriptions. For of course the accounts were never audited; nobody
+bothered about such things on Nepenthe, with all that south wind
+hanging about. If they had been he would have squared the auditor up to
+any sum--a hundred francs, almost; it was worth while. Pickings, he
+called them. The place, the system suited him down to the ground. He had
+lived all his life on pickings. He was a retail welsher; he lacked the
+nerve for sweeping enterprises.
+
+On his accession, the Club was in such a state of demoralization, had
+become such a public scandal, that Mr. Parker, in his capacity of
+moralist, would have been the first person to dissolve that assembly of
+topers and rakes. As financier, he meant to live by it. But how was the
+place to be purified?
+
+Parker's poison solved that problem, besides yielding a fine slice of
+additional revenue. The hardest drinkers, the inveterate rowdies,
+refused to believe that it was anything but the ordinary whisky to
+which they had been accustomed from childhood; or believing, refused
+out of sheer boastfulness, or force of habit, to reduce their doses.
+While the moderate realized the truth and acted accordingly, these
+others insisted upon regarding it as genuine Scotch--with inevitable and
+dire results. They succumbed. During the first year of Freddy Parker's
+reign, eight of these stubborn sinners were carried to their graves.
+And year by year, the same causes being in action, the process of
+betterment went on. Extremists dropped off, moderates survived. The
+Club was purged of its grosser elements, the moral tone of the
+establishment was raised, through the operation of Parker's poison. It
+was Napoleon's way with the Paris Parliament, he once explained to his
+lady, who wondered vaguely how long the hero himself would have
+outlived the effects of that mixture which she brewed, with her own
+fair hands, in the dim vaults of the Residency.
+
+Even now it was a pretty tough place. New crooks, like the dubious Mr.
+Hopkins, new fire-eaters, new cranks, new sots, were always dropping in
+from different corners of the globe to spread their infection among the
+more recent crowd of curio-hunters, gentlemen of commerce, nautical
+wrecks, decayed missionaries, painters, authors and other vagrant
+riff-raff who frequented the premises. There were rows going on all the
+time--insignificant rows, mostly about newspapers and gambling debts.
+Mr. Samuel got his eye blacked over a harmless game of ecarte; Mr.
+White, one of the steadiest members, threatened to withdraw his
+subscription on account of the black-beetles; a Swedish sea-captain
+smashed nine panes of glass--just by way of a friendly demonstration, he
+said--because the great Upsala journal, the UTAN STAFVEL, was missing
+from its shelf; a muscular Japanese made himself distinctly offensive
+about the NICHI-NICHI-SHIN-BUM being out of date, and was going to
+twist everybody's head off, if it occurred again; the excellent
+Vice-President, Mr. Richards, tumbled noisily downstairs, nobody knew
+how or why--all on a single afternoon. The sirocco happened to be
+particularly trying that day.
+
+On the whole, there was no denying the fact that the Club flourished
+under the statesman-like autocracy of Mr. Parker. That was partly
+because, unlike previous presidents, he was generally on the spot. Some
+great man once made a remark about the need of "the Master's Eye." He
+believed in that remark. If you run a place, run it yourself. He was
+ever-present, absorbing at other people's expense his own poison, to
+the effects of which he seemed to be immune; and borrowing money, on
+the sly, from the richer and more forgetful members. His uproarious
+joviality, his echoing ha! ha! became a feature of the place; it
+deceived the simple, and amused the complex. He was ready to talk about
+anything with anybody who shoved along; he had a fund of naughty
+tropical stories for the so-called bawdy section, and could be as
+sympathetic and pious as you please with a contrite youngster suffering
+from last night's debauch.
+
+"A hair of the dog," he would suggest with a genial wink, pushing the
+bottle temptingly nearer.
+
+The regulations had also been improved under his auspices. The entrance
+fee was imperceptibly raised, while the conditions of entry were
+relaxed. It was his lady's idea originally. She made it clear that the
+more numerous the members the greater the quantity of whisky
+consumed--the greater, therefore, their profits; quite apart from the
+possibility of additional subscriptions being paid. He agreed. Then, in
+a sudden glow of commercial enthusiasm, he proceeded to hint that
+ladies should also be admitted. Regretfully she put her foot down.
+Anywhere else the proposal would have been welcome. It was out of the
+question on Nepenthe.
+
+"You're forgetting that Wilberforce woman," she said. "She would have
+to be carried home every night. It couldn't be done, Freddy. We might
+as well shut up the shop at once. People would get talking about the
+place--you know how they talk, as it is."
+
+Miss Wilberforce was a pathetic local figure, a lady by birth, with a
+ready tongue, wiry limbs, and an insatiable craving for alcohol. She
+would unavoidably have damaged the reputation of the place, to say
+nothing of its furniture. She had gone from bad to worse lately.
+
+"Perhaps you're right, Lola. It isn't worth while for those few
+subscriptions. After all, I'm an Englishman. But how about all those
+Russians?" he added.
+
+"I've often told you to let them in, Freddy."
+
+"So you have, dear! It was your idea originally. Well, I must think it
+over again."
+
+He thought it over and regretfully came to the conclusion that it could
+not be done. Russians were not people of the right kind. They were not
+honest.
+
+"Russians are too artistic to be honest," he declared.
+
+It was a BON MOT which he had picked up, long ago, from Madame
+Steynlin, in the days when the lady looked with disfavour on the
+Muscovite colony. That Lutheran period was over for the present: she
+was orthodox so far as sentiments were concerned. Nothing could be good
+enough for the Russians, just then. An acquaintance with Peter, one of
+the handsomest of the whole batch of religious enthusiasts, had brought
+about her psychological conversion and altered her outlook upon life.
+Her heart was in the Urals. But that stupid, malicious epigram had
+impressed itself on the mind of Mr. Parker, who was hopelessly
+insensitive to the flaxen curls of Peter.
+
+"No," he decided. "They are not honest. We must draw the line
+somewhere, Lola. I draw it at Russians. At least I think we ought to.
+But I'll think it over again."
+
+That was foolish of him, she opined. For the Muscovites would probably
+have paid their accounts as regularly as other members; and as to their
+capacity for raising the Club revenues by the destruction of
+alcohol--why, many people had said unkind things about them, and yet
+nobody had gone so far as to accuse them of being unable to stow it
+away in proper Christian style. No wonder. Because there was nothing
+whatever in their Bible, the GOLDEN BOOK of the divinely inspired
+Bazhakuloff, to prohibit or even limit the consumption of strong
+waters. In the matter of dietary he had only bidden them refrain from
+the flesh of warm-blooded beasts.
+
+Mr. Parker was always thinking things over and coming to the wrong
+conclusion. It was foolish of him.
+
+She knew him too well to say anything more for the moment. She would
+have to bide her time because Freddy, of whom she had made an
+exhaustive study, was a wobbler, and worse than a wobbler. He was
+stubborn at the wrong season and difficult to manage. He needed careful
+motherly guidance. All fools, she reflected, were subject to meteoric
+gleams of common sense. He was no exception to that rule. But whereas
+they received such flashes with thankfulness, he persisted in regarding
+them as inspirations of the devil. That was the tragedy of Freddy
+Parker. It made him into something quinessential--a kind of super-fool....
+
+Mr. Keith enquired:
+
+"You don't want to become a member of this institution, do you,
+Bishop?"
+
+The other pondered awhile.
+
+"I am pretty democratic," he replied. "We have some warm places in
+Africa, you know, and I never allowed myself to be beaten by them.
+Perhaps I might be of use to some of those poor fellows in there. But I
+like to do things properly. It would entail at first a little friendly
+drinking, I'm afraid, in order to gain their confidence. It is not in
+my character to do one thing and preach another. I cannot pose as an
+abstainer after the way I enjoyed your luncheon. But the smell of the
+whisky here--it scares me. My liver--"
+
+"Ah, yes!" said Mr. Keith with a sigh. "No wonder you hesitate. It is
+quite disheartening, all that drunkenness."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+
+
+
+It stands to reason that the Duchess was not a Duchess at all. She was
+American by birth, from some Western state, and her first husband had
+been an army man. Her second spouse--he, too, had died long ago--was
+Italian. In view of his passionate devotion to the Catholic Church and
+of a further payment of fifty thousand francs, he had been raised to
+the rank of Papal Marquis. He died relatively young. Had his life been
+spared, as it ought to have been, he might well have become a Papal
+Duke in course of time. He was carried off by an accident not of his
+own contriving--run over by a tramcar in Rome--before that further ducal
+premium was even expected to be paid. But for this, he ought to have
+died a Duke. He would have been a Duke, by this time.
+
+His widow, taking these things into consideration, felt it her duty to
+appropriate the more sonorous of the two titles open to her. Nobody
+contested her claim. All her friends, on the contrary, declared that
+she talked like a peeress and behaved like one; and in a world where
+the few remaining authentic specimens of that class fail to fulfil
+either the one or the other of these conditions, it was thought meet
+and proper that somebody should be good enough to carry on, if only in
+semblance, and if only in Nepenthe, the traditions of a race rapidly
+approaching extinction. It was pleasant to be able to converse with a
+Duchess at any hour of the day, and this one was nothing if not
+accessible so long as you were fairly well clothed, had a reasonably
+supply of small talk and did not profess violent anti-papal sentiments.
+
+Some people said she dressed like a Duchess, but there was less
+unanimity on this point. Her handsome oval face and towering grey hair
+induced her to cultivate an antique pose, with a view to resembling "La
+Pompadour." La Pompadour stood for something courtly and powdered. She
+certainly dressed better and on far less money than Madame Steynlin,
+whose plump figure, round sunburnt cheeks, and impulsive manner would
+never have done for an old-world beauty, and who cared little what
+frocks she wore, so long as somebody loved her. The Duchess had all the
+aplomb of La Pompadour, but not much of her French accent. Her Italian,
+too, was somewhat embryonic. That mattered little. The external
+impression, the grand manner, was everything. She was not lame, though
+she generally leaned on somebody's arm or a stick. It was rather a
+pretty stick. She would have worm a pomander in her hair, or on a
+chatelaine, if anybody had told her what a pomander was. As her friends
+were unable to enlighten her--Mr. Keith even hinting that it was an
+object which could not be mentioned in polite society--she contented
+herself with a couple of patches.
+
+Her rooms in that disused convent were an interminable suite of
+rectangular chambers, unpretentious but solidly built, with straight
+corridors running alongside. You beheld pretty pavements of
+old-fashioned tiles, not overmuch furniture, one or two portraits of
+the Pope, and abundance of flowers and crucifixes. The Duchess
+specialized in flowers and crucifixes. Everybody, aware of her fondness
+for them, gave her either the one or the other, or both. An elaborate
+arrangement for tea occupied one of the rooms; there was also a cold
+buffet for gentlemen--brandies and wines and iced soda-water and lobster
+sandwiches and suchlike.
+
+A many-tongued conversation filled the air with pleasant murmurs.
+Various nationalities were represented, though the Russian colony was
+conspicuous by its absence. The Duchess, like Mr. Freddy Parker, drew
+the line at Russians. If only they would not dress so oddly, with those
+open collars, leathern belts, and scarlet blouses! The judge, also, was
+never asked to come--he was too outspoken a freethinker, and too fond of
+spitting on the floor. Nor did Mr. Eames put in an appearance. He
+avoided social obligations; his limited means preventing him from
+making any adequate return. But there was an ample display of
+ecclesiastics, together with a few other notabilities. Mr. Heard
+encountered some familiar faces, and made new friends. He felt drawn
+towards Madame Steynlin--she had such a cheerful bright face.
+
+"And how delightfully cool these rooms are!" he was saying to the
+Duchess. "I wonder how you manage to keep the sirocco out?"
+
+"By closing the windows, Bishop. English people will not believe that.
+They open their windows. In comes the heat."
+
+"If English people closed their windows they would die," said Don
+Francesco. "Half the houses in England would be condemned by law in
+this country and pulled down, on account of their low ceilings. Low
+ceilings have given the Englishman his cult of fresh air. He likes to
+be cosy and familiar and exclusive; he has no sense for broad social
+functions. There is something of the cave-dweller in every Englishman.
+He may say what he likes, but the humble cottage will always remain his
+dream. You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements. This
+country is pastoral. That is why our advertisements are so apt to
+portray commercial conditions--enormous factories and engines and
+chimneys; we are dissatisfied with our agricultural state. The
+Frenchman's aspiration is woman; Paris hoardings will tell you that.
+England is a land of industrial troglodytes, where every man's cavern
+is his castle. Its advertisements depict either gross masses of food
+such as cave-dwellers naturally relish, or else quiet country
+scenes--green lanes, and sunsets, and peaceful dwellings in the country.
+Home, sweet home! The cottage! That means open windows or suffocation....
+I think I see the person who spoke to you on the steamer," he
+added to Mr. Heard. "I don't like his looks. He is coming our way."
+
+"That must be Mr. Muhlen," exclaimed the Duchess. "They say he played
+beautifully at the hotel last night. I wonder whether I could induce
+him to try my Longwood? It's rather an old model, I fear, and out of
+tune."
+
+The gentleman appeared, ostentatiously dressed and escorted by Mr.
+Richards, the Vice-President of the Alpha and Omega Club, who seemed to
+be fairly steady on his legs and was presently absorbed in an artistic
+examination of a number of silver ornaments, crucifixes, relics and
+suchlike objects of virtu, which the Duchess had gathered together. He
+handled them like a connoisseur. Others of that institution had
+promised to attend the party but, on being overhauled by the
+conscientious Vice-President, were found to be unpresentable at the
+last moment.
+
+The Duchess moved away to greet him. Mr. Heard remarked to Don
+Francesco:
+
+"That middle-aged colleague of yours, yonder--he has an unusual face."
+
+"Our parish priest. A sound Christian!"
+
+The PARROCO'S thin lips, peaked nose, beady eyes and colourless cheeks
+proclaimed the anchorite, if not the monomaniac. He flitted about like
+a draught of cold air, refusing all refreshments and not daring to
+smell the flowers, lest he should derive too much pleasure from them.
+He was often called Torquemada, from his harsh and abstemious habits.
+The name had been given him, of course, by his brother priests who knew
+about such matters, and not by the common people to whom the word
+Torquemada would have suggested, if anything, a savoury kind of
+pudding. Torquemada was capable of any sacrifice, of any enormity, in
+defence of the faith. A narrow medieval type, he was the only person on
+Nepenthe who would have been hewn in pieces for his God--nobody allowing
+themselves to be even temporarily incommoded in so visionary a cause.
+He enjoyed a reputation of perfect chastity which differentiated him
+from all the remaining priests and contributed, more than anything
+else, to his unpopularity. It enraged the frankly carnal natives to
+such an extent that they made insinuations about his bodily health and
+told other horrible stories, swore they were true, and offered to give
+statistical figures in confirmation. They said, among other things,
+that after begging money from wealthy foreigners for alleged repairs to
+the parish organ and other godly purposes, he kept the proceeds himself
+on the principle that charity began at home and ought to end there.
+Nobody could deny his devotion to mother, sisters, and even distant
+relatives. So much was also certain, that the PARROCO'S family was
+poor.
+
+Harp-like tinklings arose from an adjoining chamber; a general move
+took place in that direction. Mr. Keith was there. He sat beside Madame
+Steynlin who, being a fair performer herself, was listening with
+rapture to Muhlen's strains. During a pause he said:
+
+"I wish I could make it out. It annoys me, Madame Steynlin, not to
+comprehend the charm of music. I would give almost anything to the
+person who can satisfy me that what I hear is not a succession of
+unnecessary noises."
+
+"Perhaps you are not musical."
+
+"That would not prevent my understanding the feelings of people like
+yourself. I don't want to be musical. I want to get a grip of this
+thing. I want to know. Tell me why you like it and why I don't. Tell
+me--"
+
+The sounds began again.
+
+"Ah!" said the Duchess, "that wonderful ANDANTE CON BRIO!"
+
+Then, as the strains grew louder, she whispered to Don Francesco upon a
+subject which had always puzzled her.
+
+"I would be glad to learn," she said, "why our parliamentary
+representative, Commendatore Morena, has never yet visited Nepenthe.
+Surely it is his duty to show himself now and then to his
+parishioners--constituents, I mean? This festival of Saint Dodekanus
+would have been such a good opportunity. His appearance would have been
+a discomfiture for the free-thinkers. Every year he promises to come.
+And every year he fails us. Why?"
+
+"I cannot tell," replied the priest. "The animal has probably got other
+things to do."
+
+"The animal? Ah, don't say that! And such a good Catholic!"
+
+"Foreigners, dear Duchess, I leave to your judgment. They are of little
+account, anyhow. But you will be guided by me in your appreciation of
+the worldly qualities of natives. Otherwise, with all your
+intelligence, it will be impossible for you to avoid mistakes. Let us
+leave it at that."
+
+"But why--"
+
+"We will leave it at that, dear lady!"
+
+"Indeed we will, Don Francesco," replied the Duchess, who loved to be
+ruled in matters of this kind.
+
+At this moment, the performer rose from the piano with unexpected
+suddenness remarking SOTTO VOCE that if he had known he was to play on
+a spinet he would have brought some Lulli with him. He was beaming all
+over, none the less, and soon making arrangements with other guests for
+a series of picnics and boating excursions--getting on swimmingly, in
+fact, when the thoughtless Madame Steynlin captured him and began to
+talk music. He repeated that remark, too good to be lost, about the
+spinet; it led to Scarlatti, Mozart, Handel. He said Handel was the
+saviour of English music. She said Handel was its blight and damnation.
+Each being furnished with copious arguments, the discussion degenerated
+into technicalities.
+
+Denis, meanwhile, was handing round tea-cakes and things, with the
+double object of making himself useful and of being as near as possible
+to Angelina, the hand-maiden of the Duchess, a bewitchingly pretty
+brunette, who was doing the same. Perhaps the existence of Angelin
+accounted for his respectful attentions and frequent visits to the
+Duchess. He felt he was really in love for the first time in his life.
+
+He worshipped from afar. He would have liked to worship from a little
+nearer, but did not know how to set about it; he was afraid of
+troubling what he called her innocence. Hitherto he had scored no great
+success. Angelina, aged fifteen, with the figure of a fairy, a glowing
+complexion, and a rich southern voice, was perfectly aware of his
+idealistic sentiments. She responded to the extent of gazing at him,
+now and then, in a most disconcerting fashion. It was as though she
+cared little about idealism. She did not smile. There was neither love
+nor disdain in that gaze; it was neither hot nor cold, nor yet
+lukewarm; it was something else, something he did not want at
+all--something that made him feel childish and uncomfortable.
+
+And another pair of eyes were watching all the time, her sinuous
+movements--those of Mr. Edgar Marten. This young scientist, too,
+cherished loving thoughts about Angelina, thoughts of a more earthly
+and volcanic tinge; certain definite projects which made him forget, at
+times, his preoccupation with biotite, perlite, magnetite, anorthite,
+and pyroxene.
+
+"Denis," said Keith, in his usual pompous fashion. "Do put down that
+absurd tray and let people help themselves. Listen to me for a moment.
+How do you like this place? I am not asking out of vulgar curiosity; I
+am anxious to know the impressions of a person of your age and
+antecedents. You might collect them for me, will you? Not now. One day
+when you are in the mood. Somewhat terrestrial and palpitating, is it
+not, after the cloistered twilight of a University?"
+
+"I came here from Florence," observed Denis.
+
+"And even after Florence! Do you know why? Because mankind dominates in
+Tuscany. The land is encrusted with ephemeral human conceits. That is
+not altogether good for a youngster; it disarranges his mind and puts
+him out of harmony with what is permanent. Just listen a moment. Here,
+if you are wise, you will seek an antidote. Taken in over-doze, all
+these churches and pictures and books and other products of our species
+are toxins for a boy like you. They falsify your cosmic values. Try to
+be more of an animal. Try to extract pleasure from more obvious
+sources. Lie fallow for a while. Forget all these things. Go out into
+the midday glare. Sit among rocks and by the sea. Have a look at the
+sun and stars for a change; they are just as impressive as Donatello.
+Find yourself! You know the Cave of Mercury? Climb down, one night of
+full moon, all alone, and rest at its entrance. Familiarize yourself
+with elemental things. The whole earth reeks of humanity and its works.
+One has to be old and tough to appraise them at their true worth. Tell
+people to go to Hell, Denis, with their altar-pieces and museums and
+clock-towers and funny little art-galleries."
+
+Everybody is always giving me advice, thought Denis. And the worst of
+it is, it's often sound.
+
+A melodious voice added:
+
+"If, after that lecture, you still have some crotchety appreciation
+left for the works of man, you may be interested, when next you visit
+the Old Town, to look at some busts and other curiosities of mine.
+There is a little Greek bronze I would like to show you, though perhaps
+we had better not talk too openly about it. Pray come. You will extract
+pleasure from that statuette. And I will extract pleasure from your
+company. Obvious sources of pleasure, aren't they, Keith?"
+
+It was Count Caloveglia. He was referring to the Locri Faun, a
+wonderful antique which had recently been found on his property near
+the town of that name on the neighbouring mainland, and was about to be
+secretly smuggled out of Italy. He smiled in winning fashion as he
+spoke. Like everyone else, Denis had fallen under the spell of this
+attractive and courteous old aristocrat who was saturated to the very
+marrow in the lore of antiquity. There was sunshine in his glance--a
+lustrous gem--like grace; one realized from his conversation, from his
+every word, that he had discarded superfluities of thought and browsed
+for a lifetime, in leisurely fashion, upon all that purifies and exalts
+the spirit. Nothing, one felt, would avail to ruffle that deep pagan
+content.
+
+"And how," he continued, addressing Denis, "are your Italian studies
+progressing?"
+
+"Fairly well, thank you. My French puts me out a little. And I can't
+yet conjugate properly."
+
+"That is certainly a drawback," said Don Francesco, appearing on the
+scene. "But don't let it trouble you," he added in paternal tones. "It
+will come in time. You are still young. You are learning Russian,
+Madame Steynlin?"
+
+"Only a few words." She blushed becomingly. "There are certain sounds,
+like water being poured into a jug--neither easy nor pleasant. I am not
+as quick as some people. Mrs. Meadows always speaks Hindustani to her
+old Sicilian woman. She comprehends perfectly."
+
+"So clever these people are, at languages!" said the Duchess.
+
+Marten remarked:
+
+"I don't bother to learn Italian. I talk Latin to them. They understand
+all right."
+
+"And what Latin, Marten!" laughed Denis. "No wonder they understand.
+I'm coming to you on Thursday morning. Don't forget."
+
+"I have not had your public school advantages. But I manage to get what
+I want out of them, generally speaking," and he cast a fiery glance in
+the direction of Angelina, who returned it over her shoulder,
+unabashed. Denis, fortunately, was looking the other way.
+
+"I wish I had enjoyed all your chances," observed the Duchess, with a
+little mock-sigh. "We were so carelessly brought up. I learnt
+practically nothing at school. It is a pity. Ah, Bishop! I forgot to
+tell you. Such a charming note from your cousin. She cannot come. The
+baby is teething and troublesome in this heat. You will have to drive
+up, I'm afraid.... Mr. Keith, I have not yet thanked you for those
+flowers and the book you sent. The flowers are quite too lovely. Look
+at them! You are spoiling me--you really are! But I don't think I shall
+like the book. Lady Cecilia and her maid and that man, I forget his
+name--they do all sorts of things. They don't seem to be very nice
+people."
+
+"You have nothing but nice people round you, Duchess. Why should you
+want to read about them? There is so much goodness in real life. Do let
+us keep it out of our books."
+
+"That sounds a dreadful doctrine. I see the PARROCO is about to take
+his departure. Why does everybody leave so soon?"
+
+She wandered away.
+
+"The English are supposed to be bad linguists," said Don Francesco. "It
+is one of those curious international fallacies, like saying the French
+are a polite nation--"
+
+"Or that home-made marmalade tastes better than the stuff you buy in
+shops," added Denis. "I must help the Duchess to say good-bye to those
+people. She likes to have some one handy on such occasions. She needs
+an echo. I am becoming quite a good echo."
+
+"You are," said Keith, rather sharply. "Quite a pretty echo. And you
+ought to be a voice. Follow my prescription, Denis. The Cave of
+Mercury."
+
+Count Caloveglia remarked:
+
+"What a pity that Latin, as scholars' language, for the definition and
+registration of ideas, was ever abandoned! It has the incalculable
+advantage that the meanings of words are irrevocably fixed by
+authority. New ones could be coined as occasion required. Knowledge
+would gain by leaps and bounds. There would be a cross-fertilization of
+cultures. As things now stand, half the intellectuals of this world are
+writing about matters which, unbeknown to themselves, have already been
+treated by the other half. One would think that Commerce, which has
+broken down geographical barriers, might have done the same to
+political ones. Far from it! In sharpening men's lust for gold, it has
+demarcated our frontiers with a bitterness hitherto unknown. The world
+of thought has not expanded; it has contracted and grown provincial.
+Men have lost sight of distant horizons. Nobody writes for humanity,
+for civilization; they write for their country, their sect; to amuse
+their friends or annoy their enemies. Pliny or Linneus or Humboldt--they
+sat on mountain-tops; they surveyed the landscape at their feet, and if
+some little valley lay shrouded in mist, the main outlines of the land
+yet lay clearly distended before them. You will say that it is
+impossible, nowadays, to gather up the threads of learning as did these
+men; they are too multifarious, too divergent. A greater mistake could
+not be imagined. For there is a contrary tendency at work--a tendency
+towards unification. The threads converge. Medieval minds knew many
+truths, hostile to one another. All truths are now seen to be
+interdependent; never was synthesis easier of attainment. Conflict of
+nationality and language hinders the movement. Mankind at large is the
+loser. The adoption of a universal scholars' tongue would do much to
+remove the obstacle. When these Southern races coalesce to form the
+great alliance which I foresee, when the Mediterranean basin is once
+more the centre of human activity as it deserves to be, some such plan
+will doubtless be adopted."
+
+"Your notion would suit me down to the ground," said the bishop, who
+was a good Latinist. "I would love to converse in the old style with a
+student from Salamanca or Bergen or Khieff or Padua or--"
+
+Don Francesco gave utterance to some wholly unintelligible speech. Then
+he observed:
+
+"The student might not be able to catch your meaning, Mr. Heard. I was
+only talking Latin! You see, we would be obliged to standardize our
+pronunciation. I wonder, by the way, why the old scholars' language was
+ever discarded?"
+
+"Patriotism destroyed it," replied the Count. "That narrow modern
+patriotism of the cock-on-the-dung-hill type."
+
+Mr. Keith began:
+
+"It is an atavistic and altogether discreditable phenomenon--this recent
+recrudescence of monarchical principles--"
+
+"What did you promise about long words?" playfully enquired the
+Duchess, who had just returned.
+
+"I cannot help it, dear lady. It is my mother's fault. She was so very
+precise. I was carefully brought up."
+
+"That is a pity, Mr. Keith."
+
+"Northern people are very precise," said Don Francesco, folding his
+gown around his ample limbs. "Particularly in love affairs. We down
+here, who live in this sirocco, are supposed to be calculating and
+mercenary in matters of the heart. We want dowries for our
+daughters--they say we are always coming to the point: money, money! The
+capacity of an English girl for coming to the point will take some
+beating. She paralyses you with directness. I will tell you a true
+story. There was a young Italian whom I knew--yes, I knew him well. He
+had just arrived in London; very handsome in the face, though perhaps a
+little too fat. He fell in love with an elegant young lady who was
+employed in the establishment of Madame Elise in Bond Street. He used
+to wait for her to come out at six o'clock and follow her like a dog,
+not daring to speak. He carried a costly bracelet for her in his
+pocket, and every day fresh flowers, which he was always too shy and
+too deeply enamoured to present. She was his angel, his ideal. He
+dreamt of her by day and night, wondering whether he would ever have
+the courage to address so tall and queenly a creature. It was his first
+English love affair, you understand; he learnt the proper technique
+later on. For five or six weeks this unhappy state of things continued,
+till one day, when he was running after her as usual, she turned round
+furiously and said: 'What do you mean, sir, by following me about it
+this disgusting fashion? How day you? I shall call the police, if it
+occurs again.' He was deprived of speech at first: he could only gaze
+in what you call dumb amazement. Then he managed to stammer out
+something about his heart and his love, and to show her the flowers and
+the bracelet. She said: 'So that's it, is it? Well of all the funny
+boys. Why couldn't you speak up sooner? D'you know of a place round
+here--'"
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+It was a formidable explosion on the part of the Commissioner, in an
+adjoining room.
+
+He was talking to some friends about Napoleon.
+
+They wanted a fellow like that on Nepenthe--a fellow who got things
+done. Napoleon would have made no bones about the Wilberforce woman
+over there. It was a scandalous state of affairs. What was the use of a
+Committee for trying to keep her in order and getting her locked up in
+a sanatorium? Everybody knew what a Committee meant. Committee! It was
+a preposterous word. Committees were the same all the world over.
+Committee! He was in charge of that particular one; they were dong all
+they could, but what did it amount to? Nothing. To begin with, there
+was not enough money coming in, unless somebody could wheedle a cheque
+out of that rich old Koppen sensualist whose yacht might be arriving at
+any moment. And then her own pig-headedness! She refused to be talked
+over into doing what was in her own interests. Napoleon, he reckoned,
+might have talked her over--ha, ha, ha!
+
+The lady in question, all unaware of these humanitarian designs, had
+taken up a strategic position in the neighbourhood of the drinks, and
+was glancing shyly round the room in search of a likely male who would
+fetch her a stiff glass of something from the buffet, and that soon.
+She was groggy, but not sufficiently primed to go there herself; she
+knew that everybody's eye would be fixed upon her; she had been much
+talked about of late. Drunk, she was impossible; dead sober, almost as
+bad--haughty, sullen, logical, with a grieved and surprised air
+suggestive of wounded dignity.
+
+People avoided Miss Wilberforce. And yet you could not help liking her
+in those rare moments when she was just a little disguised. She had a
+pretty wit, then; a residue of gentle nurture; tender instincts and a
+winsomeness of manner that captivated you. Nor were appearances against
+her. That frail, arrowy figure was invariably clothed in black. She
+wore the colour by instinct. They said she had lost her sailor fiance
+who was drowned, poor lad, in the Mediterranean; and that now she
+wandered about at night looking for him, or trying to forget him and
+seeking oblivion in tipple.
+
+The story happened to be true, for a wonder. She had received a twist
+for life. The death of this young lover gave to her impressionable
+being a shock which never passed off again. The world was turned inside
+out for Amy Wilberforce. She seldom spoke of his fate. But she was
+always talking about the sea. She tried to drown herself, once or
+twice. Then, gradually, she put on a new character altogether and
+relapsed into queer ancestral traits, stripping off, like so many
+worthless rags, the layers of laboriously acquired civilization. The
+refined and bashful girl became brusque, supercilious, equivocal. When
+sympathizing friends said that they had also lost lovers, she laughed
+and told them to look for new ones. There were better fish in the sea,
+etc., etc.
+
+Soon she found herself abandoned, in spite of a full banking account.
+People had dropped her, right and left.
+
+The years went by.
+
+Calmly, without misgivings and without fervour, she took to the bottle.
+
+Something drew her to Nepenthe--dim Mediterranean memories. Arrived
+there, she used to engulf three pints of Martell and Hennessey, one
+after the other, and then "wash them out"--such was her phraseology--with
+a magnum of Perrier Jouet; a proceeding which, while it heightened her
+complexion and gave a sparkle to her poor flustered eye, was not
+conducive to the preservation of equilibrium in the lower limbs. There
+resulted those periodical "nervous breakdowns" which necessitated
+seclusion and sometimes medical treatment. The collapses had become
+distressingly frequent with the last year or two. One of her many
+drawbacks was that she courted publicity in her cups. She was perfectly
+reckless as to what she then said, and had been known to bring a blush
+to the seasoned cheek of Don Francesco himself who, unaware of her
+condition at one particular moment, politely ventured to enquire why
+she always wore black and was told that she was in mourning, as
+everybody ought to mourn, for his lost innocence. Being an
+Englishwoman, she was a thorn in the side of her moral compatriot the
+Commissioner.
+
+Her noctambulous habits often brought her into contact with the local
+police and sometimes with His Worship Signor Malipizzo. Greatly to the
+surprise of Mr. Parker, the magistrate was observed to take a lenient
+view of the case. None the less, she had passed several nights in the
+local gaol. Staggering about the lanes of Nepenthe in the silent hours
+before dawn, she was liable to be driven, at the bidding of some dark
+primeval impulse, to divest herself of her raiment--a singularity which
+perturbed even the hardiest of social night-birds who had the
+misfortune to encounter her. Taxed with this freakish behaviour, she
+would refer to the example of St. Francis of Assisi who did the same,
+and brazenly ask whether he wasn't good enough for them? Whether she
+couldn't give her last shirt to a beggar, as well as anybody else? In
+short, there was nothing to be done with her.
+
+The dear lady, as Keith often called her, was becoming a real problem.
+
+And now her eye, roving round the room, fixed itself with the
+drunkard's divine unerring instinct upon Denis. What a nice, modest,
+gentlemanly-looking boy! Just what she wanted.
+
+"This sirocco!" she sighed, groping dramatically for a chair. "It makes
+me feel so funny. Oh, dear! I shall go off in a faint. Ah, do be a kind
+young man and fetch me some brandy and soda. A large tumbler. Ah, do!
+And very little soda, please--on account of my heart. Only the smallest
+drop!"
+
+She took two or three sips, paused awhile as though undecided whether
+she could possibly swallow such nasty stuff and then, with a fine show
+of reluctance, gulped it all down. Denis was spell-bound; the dose, he
+artlessly imagined, was enough to kill a horse. Far from being damaged,
+Miss Wilberforce took a chair beside him, and began to converse.
+Charmingly she talked; all about England. As he listened he grew
+delighted, entranced. She was different, somehow, from all the other
+ladies he had lately met on the Continent. She was altogether
+different. Whence came it, he wondered?
+
+Then, as the discourse proceeded, he began to realize what was the
+matter with them. It was odd, he thought, that he had not noticed it
+before. Miss Wilberforce made him realize wherein the difference lay.
+They spoke English, it was true; but they had all taken on a
+Continental outlook; alien phrases, expressions, affectations;
+cosmopolitan airs and graces that jarred on his frank, untarnished
+English nature. This one was otherwise. She was old England, through
+and through. The conversation cheered him to an unusual degree--among
+all those foreign people he felt strangely drawn towards this wistful
+lady who could talk so naturally and conjure up, by the mere power of
+words, a breath of his own homestead in the Midlands. He might have
+been sitting with an elder sister just then, eating strawberries and
+cream and watching a tennis match on some shady green lawn. He was
+happy; happier still when Angelina once more floated into his ken and,
+noticing Miss Wilberforce, raised her eyebrows mischievously and gave
+him something that looked like a real smile, for a change.
+
+She had another smile, however, for Mr. Edgar Marten; and yet another
+one for Don Francesco who, as she passed near him, profited by the
+occasion to give her a paternal semi-proprietary chuck under the chin,
+accompanying the indecorous movement with an almost audible wink.
+
+Mr. Heard had noticed everything. He frowned at first. It gave him a
+little twinge, and some food for thought. He was absurdly sensitive
+about women.
+
+"A frolicsome child," he mused. "LASCIVA PUELLA. Possibly wanton."
+
+What were this young man's relations with the girl? That contact of
+hand and chin--what did it imply? Was the action quasi-paternal, or
+pseudo-paternal? Regretfully he decided that it was only
+pseudo-paternal.
+
+And yet--it was all so confoundedly natural!
+
+"Nobody but our PARROCO could keep his hands off that girl," blithely
+remarked the priest.
+
+Another little twinge....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Heard was not prone to wax enthusiastic over the delights of
+architecture or natural scenery. He called himself unexpansive and
+unromantic; he confessed to small understanding, small veneration, for
+artistic effects. The beauty of a man's character moved him more
+strongly than the beauty of any picture or any landscape. Yet, on
+arriving next afternoon at the upper plateau of Nepenthe he could not
+help being struck by the strange and almost compelling charm of the
+"Old Town." It was so different from the lower regions--so calm and
+reposeful.
+
+Down below, in that more accessible modern settlement, everything was
+bright and many-tinted; there was movement and noise and colour; a
+dazzling spot! The subtle influence of the sea, though it lay four
+hundred feet lower down, was ever present; one felt oneself on an
+island. On reaching these heights that feeling evaporated. You were
+embowered in mighty trees, in the midst of which stood the Old Town.
+
+Unlike that other one, it faced due North; it lay, moreover, a few
+hundred feet higher up. That alone could not have explained the
+difference in temperature, one might say in climate, between the two.
+To begin with, there was on this tiny upland basin exceptionally deep
+soil, borne down by the rains of unnumbered centuries from the heights
+overhead and enabling those shady oaks, poplars, walnuts and apples to
+shoot up to uncommon size and luxuriance and screen away the sunny
+beams. From above, meanwhile, a perennial shower descended. The
+moisture-laden sirocco, tearing itself to shreds against the riven
+summits of the high southern cliffs, dripped ceaselessly upon this
+verdant oasis in clouds of invisible dew. You could often enjoy the
+luxury of a shiver, at night-time, in the Old Town.
+
+It was a stronghold originally; built on these heights for the greater
+security of the islanders against Saracenic inroads. When a more
+peaceful era drew night the population began to decline; they found it
+more convenient to establish themselves in the new settlement lower
+down. Then came the Good Duke Alfred--that potentate who, as Mr. Eames
+was wont to say, NIHIL QUOD TETIGIT NON ORNAVIT. He took a fancy to
+this quaint old citadel which, before his day, could only be reached b
+a rough mule-track easily defended against invaders. After constructing
+a fine road of access with many twists and turnings, wide enough to
+admit the passage of two of his roomy state carriages driving abreast,
+he turned his mind to other improvements. Professing to be an admirer
+of the good old times, he decided to keep up its traditional
+character--it was to remain a fortress, in appearance if not reality. A
+massive crenellated rampart, furnished with four gateways and
+watch-towers at convenient intervals but serving no purpose in
+particular, grew up around the place; every one of its houses which
+failed to fit in with the design of this battlemented structure--and
+there were a good many of them--was ruthlessly demolished. The Old Town
+was enclosed in a ring.
+
+Desirous, next, of putting an end to the annoying exodus of the
+natives, he fixed by law the number of inhabitants; there were to be
+five hundred souls, neither more nor less. If in any one year the
+population exceeded that figure, the surplus was taken away, from among
+the adult males, to work as galley-slaves in his fleet; a deficiency in
+the requisite number was met by giving new husbands from the lower
+town, often three or four at a time "with a view to ensuring good
+results," to those of the native women who had hitherto failed to
+produce offspring. The system worked well. With some trifling but
+reprehensive fluctuations, the birth-rate and the death-rate remained
+even; things were at a standstill; a fact which caused His Highness to
+be compared, by a courtly panegyrist, to Joshua who bade the sun arrest
+his march across the heavens. Another of these gentlemen calls the
+Duke's action a "triumph of art over nature," adding, not without a
+grain of malice, that "never have the generative capacities of mankind
+adapted themselves with more conspicuous success to the shape of an
+unnecessary wall." Monsignor Perrelli, unfortunately, has nothing
+whatever to say on the subject. For reasons which will appear anon, he
+is remarkably silent on all that concerns the reign of his great
+contemporary.
+
+Even so the Prince was not satisfied. The fastness was yet imperfect;
+he disliked the variegated hues of the buildings--they reminded him of
+the garish brilliance in the lower town. Something different had to be
+contrived. He took thought and, being a man of taste and a decorist
+where picturesque effects were concerned, decreed that the entire
+place--walls, houses, the two convents (Benedictine and Carthusian), the
+church, and even stables and pigsties--was to be painted a uniform pink:
+"pink," he ordained, "without the slightest admixture of blue." He
+desired, in fact, a kind of rose or flesh colour, a particular tint
+which, he foresaw, would look well among the luscious verdure of the
+surroundings. His behest, as usual, was obeyed without much loss of
+time.
+
+Then he surveyed his work, and saw that it was good. He had created a
+gem. The Old Town was a symphony in emerald and coral.
+
+So it remained. The inhabitants grew to be proud of their rosy citadel;
+it was an unwritten law among them that every new house should adapt
+itself to this tone. For the rest, there was not much building done
+after his death, with the exception of a few isolated villas that
+sprang up, despite his old commands, in the neighbourhood. And the
+decline in population once more set in. Men forsook the place--all save
+the peasantry who tilled the surrounding fields. Towers and battlements
+crumbled to earth; roadways heaved uneasily with grassy tufts that
+sprouted in the chinks of the old paving-blocks. Sometimes at decline
+of day a creaking hay-waggon would lumber along, bending towards a
+courtyard in whose moss-grown recesses you discerned stacks of golden
+maize and pumpkins; apples and plum-trees, nodding drowsily over walls,
+littered the streets with snowy blossoms or fallen leaves. Commercial
+life was extinct. The few remaining shopkeepers wore an air of
+slumberous benevolence. The very stones suggested peace. A mellow and
+aristocratic flavour clung to those pink dwellings that nestled,
+world--forgotten, in a green content....
+
+One of those few modern houses was the Villa Mon Repos. There was a
+curious history attached to the place. It had been built about a
+century ago at the orders of an eccentric French lady, a lyric poetess,
+who professed to be tired of life. She had heard that somewhere on
+Nepenthe was a towering precipice, unique of its kind and convenient
+for suicidal purposes. She thought she would like to live near that
+precipice--it might come in handy. There was nothing of the right sort
+in Paris, she declared; only five-storey hotels and suchlike; the
+notion of casting herself down from one of those artificial eminences
+did not appeal to her high-strung temperament; she craved to die like
+Sappho, her ideal. An architect was despatched, the ground purchased,
+the house built and furnished. That done, she settled up her affairs in
+France and established herself at Mon Repos. On the evening of her
+arrival she climbed the little height at the back of her domain and
+looked southward, down a sheer wall of rock eight or nine hundred feet
+high, over the wrinkled ocean. It made her feel queer. Further
+familiarity with the precipice did not breed contempt; her visits to
+the site became rarer and rarer. She died, at a patriarchal age, in her
+bed, after writing a scholarly pamphlet to prove that the tale of
+Sappho's leap over her famous silvery crag was a myth, the "purest
+sensationalism," a fable of the grammarians "hopelessly irreconcilable
+with what we know of that great woman's character."
+
+This much the bishop had learnt from Mr. Keith. That gentleman liked
+the Sappho story; he called it absolutely true to human nature and so
+creditable to the old lady's intelligence that he would have insisted
+upon paying his respects to her had she not expired a good many years
+before his arrival on the island. And he, of course, got it from Eames
+who, as annotator of Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES, was in the habit of
+garnering old details anent private houses and so forth, and had
+possessed himself, in the course of his researches, of this particular
+pamphlet which he intended to reprint, together with others of its
+kind, in an appendix entitled, "Contemporary Social History."
+
+The driving road terminated at the Old Town. Mr. Heard, descending from
+his carriage, followed a pathway which had been described to him by
+Denis and soon found himself at the entrance of the Villa Mon Repos. It
+was an inconspicuous little place, surrounded by three or four chestnut
+trees and a rose garden. A steep incline at the back of the property
+ended, abruptly, in air. He concluded that the precipice must be on the
+other side of that slope and that, if so, it was rather too near the
+house for his taste. Mr. Heard thoroughly understood the feelings of
+the French poetess. He, too, was not fond of precipices. It was as much
+as he could do to look down from a church tower without growing dizzy.
+
+On the house-steps, beside an empty cradle, sat a shrivelled hag--a
+gaunt, forbidding anatomy, with hooked nose and brown skin. Tousled
+grey hair, like that of a Skye terrier, hung over her forehead, half
+concealing a pair of coal-black eyes. She rose up, barred the entrance
+with one claw-like hand, and scrutinized him distrustfully.
+
+"A Cerberus!" he thought. "This must be the old lady who understands
+Hindustani. Now I wonder if she knows English?"
+
+She seemed to understand that language too; or perhaps his kindly face
+disposed her in his favour. He was allowed to pass within.
+
+The house was empty. Mrs. Meadows had presumably gone out for a ramble,
+taking the child with her. He sat down and waited, glancing round the
+premises. It was a peaceful sort of abode, pervaded by a strong sense
+of home. It appealed to the bishop, who had domestic instincts and,
+despite his youth, was already a little weary of tossing about the
+world. He envied his cousin's happy married life. Would such an
+existence ever fall to his own lot? Although, like himself, she was
+only a bird of passage on Nepenthe, she had succeeded in impressing her
+personality upon those rather scantily furnished rooms and filling them
+with an atmosphere of England. Heavy bowls of fresh roses were ranged
+about. But what was she like, after all these years? Would she
+recognize him? Had she heard of his arrival on the island?
+
+Mrs. Meadows failed to return. Perhaps she had met some friend of
+neighbour who was keeping her to dinner together with the child. The
+old woman seemed unwilling or unable to give him any information as to
+her whereabouts. After waiting an hour, he scribbled a short note, left
+it on the writing-table, and took his leave. The eyes of that fierce
+creature followed him right out of the garden. So did the scent of
+roses....
+
+The afternoon was drawing to its close as Mr. Heard, in a placid,
+contemplative frame of mind, once more drew nigh the pink ramparts of
+the Old Town, purposing to find his way home on foot.
+
+He entered the most westerly of its four gateways. There were stone
+seats within the structure on either side of the road, convenient for
+sheltering from sun or rain. Passing under the vaulted roof he met
+Count Caloveglia, that handsome soldier-like personality, who instantly
+recognized him and greeted him in friendliest fashion.
+
+"Will you do me the pleasure of coming to my house, and allow me to
+offer you a cup of tea? It is visible from here--that rounded portal, do
+you see? with the fig tree leaning over the street. Only a hundred
+yards. Or perhaps we can rest awhile under this archway and converse.
+It is always pleasant to watch the movements of the country-folk, and
+there is a peculiar charm in this evening light. Well, let us sit down
+then. I observe you are interested in those people. A singular
+illusion, is it not?"
+
+He referred to a group of men and boys who, stripped to the waist, were
+bearing aloft immense masses of some argent-coloured rock.
+
+"You've guessed my thoughts," replied the bishop. "How on earth are
+they able to support such a weight? They remind me of Atlas with the
+world on his shoulders."
+
+"It is pumice-stone--one of the old industries of the place. They
+excavate it on the hill-side yonder. Volcanic stuff. There are several
+suchlike indications of subterranean fires; a hot spring, for instance,
+which the people regard with a kind of superstitious awe. It is
+dedicated to Saint Elias and believed to stand in mysterious sympathy
+with the volcano on the mainland. You will observe too, sooner or
+later, something fiery and incalculable in the temperament of the
+natives. Perhaps it is due to the wine grown on these scorching slopes.
+If geologists are right, we are sitting at this moment on the crater of
+a volcano--"
+
+"Dear me! That might be rather awkward. I suppose this pumice is very
+light?"
+
+"Light as foam. But who can believe it? The bearers move within a few
+feet of us, and yet it resembles the most ponderous limestone or
+granite. Then you ask yourself: How is it possible? If their burden
+were what it seems to be, they would be crushed to earth instead of
+striding proudly along. Admirable figures! As you say, the spectacle
+takes one back into mythological times. Would you not call it a
+procession of Titans, children of the Gods, storing up mountain-blocks
+for some earth-convulsing battle? Your eyes deceive you. Like Thomas,
+the doubting apostle, you must touch with your hands. And even then you
+are not wholly convinced. To me, who knows the capacity of human bone
+and muscle, these men are a daily miracle. They mock my notions of what
+is permissible. How hard it is, sometimes, to trust the evidence of
+one's senses! How reluctantly the mind consents to reality! The
+industry is decaying," he added, "but I hope it will outlive my time."
+
+"Everything seems to decay up here in sober and gracious fashion. I am
+delighted, Count, with your Old Town. There is an autumnal flavour
+about the place. It is a poet's dream. Some philosopher might dwell
+here--some sage who has grown weary of disentangling life's threads."
+
+Rarely did Mr. Heard use florid and sentimental language like this. The
+soft light, the reposeful surroundings, the homelike influence of the
+Villa Mon Repos--all had conspired to put him into an uncommonly idyllic
+mood of mind. He felt disposed to linger with the kindly stranger who
+seemed so much more communicative and affable than on the occasion of
+those theatricals. He lit a cigarette and watched, for a while, the
+flow of life through that gateway. Its passage was pierced, like the
+eye of a needle, with a slender shaft of light from the westering sun.
+Fine particles of dust, suspended overhead, enveloped the homeward
+moving peasantry in a tender mist of gold.
+
+"Yes," replied the Count. "This citadel is a microcosm of what the
+world might be, if men were reasonable. Not all men! A great proportion
+must be good enough to remain what they are. We could not live without
+those whose business it is to bring the reasonableness of the few into
+its proper relief. Were it otherwise, there would be no more
+reasonableness on earth, would there?"
+
+"And that would be a pity," observed Mr. Heard. "I was much interested,
+Count, in what you said yesterday. You spoke of the Mediterranean
+becoming once more the center of human activity. There is an attraction
+in the idea to one who, like myself, has been brought up on the
+classics and has never forgotten his spiritual debt to antiquity. But I
+question whether the majority of my countrymen would be moved by such
+considerations."
+
+The old man replied:
+
+"I think we need not trouble about majorities. No one can expect a
+majority to be stirred by motives other than ignoble. Your English
+majority, in particular, is quite unaware of its debt to us: why should
+it turn eyes in our direction? But as for other Northern men, the
+enlightened ones--I cannot help thinking that they will come to their
+senses again one of these days. Oh yes! They will recover their sanity.
+They will perceive under what artificial and cramping conditions, under
+what false standards, they have been living; they will realize the
+advantages of a climate where nature meets you half-way. I know little
+of England, but the United States are pretty familiar to me; the two
+climates, I imagine, cannot be very dissimilar. That a man should wear
+himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty.
+But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears?
+Without a degree of comfort which would be superfluous hereabouts, he
+would feel humiliated. He must become strenuous if he wishes to rise
+superior to his inhospitable surroundings."
+
+"We think a good deal of strenuousness," objected the bishop.
+
+"Have you not noticed that whenever anything, however fantastic, is
+imposed upon men by physical forces, they straightway make a god of it?
+That is why you deify strenuousness. You dare not forgo it. The Eskimo
+doubtless deifies seal-blubber; he could not survive without it. Yet
+nobody would be an Eskimo if he had a chance of bettering his
+condition. By all means let us take life seriously. But let us be
+serious about things that matter."
+
+"Things that matter, Count! Is it not creditable for a man to support
+his wife and family in the best conditions possible?"
+
+"Assuredly. But chosen spirits will do this in regions where the same
+results can be obtained with a smaller outlay of vital force. We have
+only a certain amount of energy at our disposal. It is not seemly to
+consume every ounce of it in a contest with brute nature. Man is made
+for better things. Whatever fails to elevate the mind is not truly
+profitable. Tell me, sir, how shall the mind be elevated if the body be
+exhausted with material preoccupations? Consider the complex conditions
+under which a Northern family is obliged to live. Think of the labour
+expended upon that unceasing duel with the elements--the extra clothing
+and footwear and mufflers and mantles, the carpets, the rugs, the
+abundant and costly food required to keep the body in sound working
+condition, the plumbing, the gas, the woodwork, the paintings and
+repaintings, the tons of fuel, the lighting in winter, the contrivances
+against frost and rain, the never-ending repairs to houses, the daily
+polishings and dustings and scrubbings and those thousand other
+impediments to the life of the spirit! Half of them are non-existent in
+these latitudes; half the vitality expended upon them could therefore
+be directed to other ends. At close of day, your Northerner is pleased
+with himself. He has survived; he has even prospered. His family is
+adequately housed and clothed. He feels 'presentable,' as he calls it,
+in the eyes of those who share his illusions. He fancies he has
+attained the aim and object of existence. He is too dazed with the
+struggle to perceive how incongruous his efforts have been. What has he
+done? He has sacrificed himself on the altar of a false ideal. He has
+not touched the fringe of a reasonable life. He has performed certain
+social and political duties--he knows nothing of the duties towards
+himself. I am speaking of men from whom better things might have been
+expected. As for the majority, the crowd, the herd--they do not exist,
+neither here nor anywhere else. They leave a purely physiological mark
+upon posterity; they propagate the species and protect their offspring.
+So do foxes. It is not enough for us. Living in our lands, men would
+have leisure to cultivate nobler aspects of their nature. They would be
+accessible to purer aspirations, worthier delights. They would enjoy
+the happiness of sages. What other happiness deserves the name? In the
+Mediterranean, Mr. Heard, lies the hope of humanity."
+
+The bishop was thoughtful. There occurred to him various objections to
+this rather fanciful argument. Still, he said nothing. He was naturally
+chary of words; it was so interesting to listen to other people! And at
+this particular period he was more than usually reflective and
+absorbent.
+
+Happiness--an honourable, justifiable happiness--how was it to be
+attained? Not otherwise, he used to think, than through the twofold
+agency of Christianity and civilization. That was his old College
+attitude. Imperceptibly his outlook had shifted since then. Something
+had been stirring within him; new points of view had floated into his
+ken. He was no longer so sure about things. The structure of his mind
+had lost that old stability; its elements seemed to be held in
+solution, ready to form new combinations. China had taught him that men
+can be happy and virtuous while lacking, and even scorning the first of
+these twin blessings. Then had come Africa, where his notions had been
+further dislocated by those natives who derided both the one and the
+other--such fine healthy animals, all the same! A candid soul, he
+allowed his natural shrewdness and logic to play freely with memories
+of his earlier experiences among the London poor. Those experiences now
+became fraught with a new meaning. The solemn doctrines he had preached
+in those days: were they really a panacea for all the ills of the
+flesh? He thought upon the gaunt bodies, starved souls, and white
+faces--the dirt, the squalor of it! Was that Christianity, civilization?
+
+The Count, pursuing some other line of thought, broke out into a kind
+of Delphic rhapsody:
+
+"Folly of men! The wits of our people have been blunted, their habits
+bestialized, their very climate and landscape ruined. The alert genius
+of the Greeks is clogged by a barbaric, leaden-hued religion--the
+fertile plains of Asia Minor and Spain converted into deserts! We
+begin, at last, to apprehend the mischief; we know who is to blame; we
+are turning the corner. Enclosed within the soft imagination of the
+HOMO MEDITERRANEUS lies a kernel of hard reason. We have reached that
+kernel. The Northerner's hardness is on the surface; his core, his
+inner being, is apt to quaver in a state of fluid irresponsibility. Yet
+there must be reasonable men everywhere; men who refuse to wear away
+their faculties in a degrading effort to plunder one another, men who
+are tired of hustle and strife. What, sir, would you call the
+phenomenon of to-day? What is the outstanding feature of modern life?
+The bankruptcy, the proven fatuity, of everything that is bound up
+under the name of Western civilization. Men are perceiving, I think,
+the baseness of mercantile and military ideals, the loftiness of those
+older ones. They will band together, the elect of every nation, in
+god-favoured regions round the Inland Sea, thee to lead serener lives.
+To those how have hitherto preached indecorous maxims of conduct they
+will say: 'What is all this ferocious nonsense about strenuousness? An
+unbecoming fluster. And who are you, to dictate how we shall order our
+day? Go! Shiver and struggle in your hyperborean dens. Trample about
+those misty rain-sodden fields, and hack each other's eyes out with
+antideluvian bayonets. Or career up and down the ocean, in your absurd
+ships, to pick the pockets of men better than yourselves. That is you
+mode of self-expression. It is not ours.' And Mediterranean people will
+lead the way. They have suffered more than all from the imbecilities of
+kinds and priests and soldiers and politicians. They now make an end of
+this neurasthenic gadding and getting. They focus themselves anew and
+regain their lost dignity. That ancient individualistic tone reasserts
+itself. Man becomes a personality once more--"
+
+He continued for some time in this prophetic strain, the bishop
+listening with considerable approbation though, at a certain point of
+the discourse, he would have liked to drop a word about Thermopylae and
+Marathon. He also knew something of the evils of Northern
+industrialism--how it stunts the body and warps the mind.
+
+"What a charming dreamer!" he thought.
+
+It was rather convenient for the Count to be able to pass, just then,
+for a dreamer.
+
+As a matter of fact, he was an extremely practical old gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+
+
+
+"Sanidin?" queried Denis almost flippantly, as he held up a fragment of
+rock.
+
+He was not particularly eager to hear Marten's answer. He had thought,
+only a few days ago, that he would like to be a geologist; Marten had
+inspired him with a fancy for that science. The fit was already
+passing.
+
+How quickly this geological mood had evaporated. How quickly everything
+evaporated, nowadays.
+
+All was not well with Denis. Early that morning he had tried his hand
+at poetry once more, after a long interval. Four words--that was all the
+inspiration which had come to him.
+
+"Or vine-wreathed Tuscany...."
+
+A pretty turn, in the earlier manner of Keats. It looked well on the
+snowy paper. "Or vine-wreathed Tuscany." He was content with that
+phrase, so far as it went. But where was the rest of the stanza?
+
+How easily, a year or two ago, could he have fashioned the whole verse.
+How easily everything was accomplished in those days. To be a poet:
+that was a fixed point on his horizon. Any number of joyous lyrics, as
+well as three plays not intended for the stage, had already dropped
+from his pen. He was an extraordinary success among his college
+friends; everybody liked him; he could say and do what he pleased. Was
+he not the idol of a select group who admired not only one another but
+also the satanism of Baudelaire, the hieratic obscenities of Beardsley,
+the mustiest Persian sage, the modernest American ballad-monger? He was
+full of gay irresponsibility. Ever since, on returning to his rooms
+after some tedious lecture, he announced to his friends that he had
+lost an umbrella but preserved, thank God, his honour, they augured a
+brilliant future for him. So, for other but no less cogent reasons, did
+his doting, misguided mother.
+
+Both were disappointed. Those sprightly sallies became rarer; epigrams
+died, still-born, on his lips. He lost his sense of humour; grew
+mirthless, fretful, self-conscious. He suddenly realized the existence
+of a world beyond his college walls; it made him feel like a hot-house
+flower exposed to the blustering winds of March. Life was no longer a
+hurdle in a steeple-chase to be taken at a gallop; it was a tangle of
+beastly facts that stared you in the face and refused to get out of the
+way. With growing years, during vacation, he came in contact with a new
+set of people; men who smiled indulgently at mention of all he held
+most sacred--art, classics, literature; men who were plainly not insane
+and yet took up incomprehensible professions of one kind or
+another--took them up with open eyes and unfeigned zest, and actually
+prospered at them in a crude worldly fashion.
+
+He shrank at first from their society, consoling himself with the
+reflection that, being bounders, it did not matter whether they
+succeeded or not. But this explanation did not hold good for long. They
+were not bounders--not all of them. People not only dined with them:
+they asked them to dinner. Quite decent fellows, in fact. Nothing was
+wrong with them, save that they held a point of view which was at
+variance with his own.
+
+It was a rude awakening. Every moment he was up against something new.
+There were quite a lot of things, he discovered, which a fellow ought
+to know, and doesn't. Too many of them to assimilate with comfort. They
+crowded in upon him and unsettled his mind. He kept up a brave
+exterior, but his inner core was suffering; he was no longer certain of
+himself. He became easily swayed and changeful in his moods. That sure
+touch in lyrics, as in daily life, was deserting him. His dreams were
+not coming true. He was not going to set the Thames on fire with poetry
+or anything else. He would probably be a failure. Aware of this
+weakness, he looked up to what was strong. Everything was different
+from himself, everything forceful, emphatic and clear-cut, exercised a
+fascination upon him. He tried in an honest, groping fashion, to learn
+what it was all about. That was why he had taken to Edgar Marten, the
+antithesis of himself, bright but dogmatic, a slovenly little plebeian
+but a man who after all had a determined, definite point of view.
+
+Denis repeated:
+
+"Sanidin?"
+
+"Let's have a look at it then," said Marten condescendingly, "though I
+can't say I'm in a geological temper this morning. The south wind seems
+to rot one's intelligence somehow. Hand it here. Sanidin be blowed!
+It's specular iron. Now I wonder why you should hit upon sanidin? Why?"
+
+He, too, did not pause for a reply. He turned his glance once more down
+the steep hill-side which they had climbed with a view to exploring
+some instructive exposure of the rock. Marten intended to utilize the
+site as a text for a lay sermon. Arrived on the spot they had sat down.
+As if by common consent, geology was forgotten. To outward appearances
+they were absorbed in the beauties of nature. Sirocco mists rose
+upwards, clustering thickly overhead and rolling in billowy formations
+among the dales. Sometimes a breath of wind would convulse their ranks,
+causing them to trail in long silvery pennants across the sky and,
+opening a rift in their gossamer texture, would reveal, far down below,
+a glimmer of olives shining in the sunlight or a patch of blue sea,
+framed in an aureole of peacock hues. Stones and grass were clammy with
+warm moisture.
+
+"It's a funny thing," said Marten, after a long pause. "I've often
+noticed it. When I'm not actually at work, I'm always thinking about
+girls. I wish I could talk better Latin, or Italian. Not that I should
+be running after them all day long. I've got other fish to fry. I've
+got to catalogue my minerals, and I'm only half-way through. For the
+matter of that, I haven't come across half as many nice ones here as I
+thought I would."
+
+"Minerals?"
+
+"Girls. I don't seem to take to these foreigners. But there's one--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"You're a queer fellow, Phipps. Don't you ever look at women? I believe
+you have the making of a saint in you. Fight against it. A fellow can't
+live without vices. Here you are, with lots of money, stewing in a back
+bedroom of a second-class hotel and getting up every morning at five
+o'clock because you like lying in bed late. Is that your way of
+mortifying the flesh? Got a soul, eh? Get rid of it. The soul! That
+unhappy word has been the refuge of empty minds ever since the world
+began. You're just like a man I used to know at Newcastle. You can't
+think what an ass he was. A sort of eugenical crank, who talked about
+the City Beautiful where everybody would lead regenerated lives like a
+flock of prize sheep. Everything sanitary and soulful; nothing but pure
+men and pure women. An addle-headed theorist, he was, till a woman got
+hold of him--one of the other kind, you know--and gave him something
+practical to think about. That's what will happen to you, Phipps. I can
+see it coming."
+
+"I've been analysing myself lately. I find I have too much romance in
+my composition, as it is."
+
+"What do you call romance?"
+
+Denis thought awhile. Then he said:
+
+"When a man invests ordinary people or objects or occurrences with an
+extraordinary interest. When he reads attributes into them which they
+don't possess, or exaggerates those which they do possess. When he
+looks at a person and can't help thinking that there is nobody on earth
+quite like her."
+
+"Too celestial for me, on the whole. But I'm glad you said that last
+part. Glad for your sake, I mean. It shows that you've perhaps got
+something better than a soul, after all."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"A body. Look here, Phipps. I also have my romantic moments, though you
+wouldn't believe it. I can be as romantic as ever you please. But not
+when I'm alone."
+
+"I should like to see you in that condition. And talking Latin, no
+doubt?" he added with a laugh.
+
+"I daresay you would," replied the scientist. "Given the circumstances
+under which I become romantic, you'll find it a little difficult. But
+there's no knowing. Funny things happen sometimes!"
+
+Denis had picked up another stone. He scrutinized it with close
+attention, and then began to turn it round and round in his hand in an
+absent-minded fashion. At last he remarked:
+
+"We are not doing much mineralogy, are we? What do you think of
+chastity, Marten?"
+
+"Chastity be blowed. It's an unclean state of affairs, and dangerous to
+the community. You can't call yourself a good citizen till you have
+learnt to despise it from the bottom of your heart. It's an insult to
+the Creator and an abomination to man and beast."
+
+"Perhaps you never gave it a fair trial," suggested Denis.
+
+"Perhaps I'm not quite such a damned fool as all that. A man needn't
+handle everything dirty in order to be doubly sure about it. If you
+tell me that a dead donkey smells bad, I'm quite prepared to believe
+you without poking my nose into it. Chastity is a dead donkey. No
+beating will bring it to life again. Who killed it? The experience of
+every sane man and woman on earth. It's decayed; it ought to be buried.
+You ask me to give it a trial. Perhaps I will, when I'm in the same
+mellow condition myself. Everything in its proper season. Don't let us
+reverse the natural order of things. When we cease to practise, then is
+the time to preach. A fellow of your size! And with your good looks,
+too. Who knows how many golden opportunities you've missed. Try to make
+up for lost time, Phipps. Get rid of conventional notions, if you value
+your health."
+
+"I will, when I find them wrong. What do you think of women--generally
+speaking, I mean?"
+
+Marten replied, without a moment's hesitation:
+
+"Thank God I'm a Jew. You must take that into consideration. I think
+the Mormons have made a good shot at solving the woman question, if the
+question exists at all. Mormonism is a protest against monogamy. And
+please observe that it's a protest not on the part of man alone. It's a
+protest on the part of woman. Never forget that. In fact, I don't
+believe any woman would ever bind herself to one fool of a man if she
+had her own way. She wouldn't marry at all. She needn't, nowadays. She
+won't, very soon. A man who marries--well, there may be some excuse for
+him, though a love-match is generally a failure and a money-match
+always a mistake. The heroes, the saints and sages--they are those who
+face the world alone. A married man is half a man."
+
+"Ahem!"
+
+Marten was silent.
+
+"I did not ask you to stop," said Denis. "You've got it very pat!"
+
+"Plain sailing, my boy. It's the social reformers and novelists who
+create these artificial conundrums; they want to sell their rotten
+literature; they want to make us forget that the only interesting and
+important part of the business is what nobody talks or writes about.
+What does it all amount to? Man creates intellectually and physically.
+He classifies minerals or blasts out a tunnel. Woman creates
+physiologically; she supplies the essential, the raw material; her
+noblest product is a child. I get on splendidly with women, because we
+both realize the stupidity of the average sex-twaddle. We have no
+illusions about each other. We know exactly what we are after. We know
+exactly how to attain it. I tell you what, Phipps, Female Emancipation
+is going to do away with a lot of cant and idealism. Knock the silly
+male on the head. There'll be an end of your chastity-worship, once
+women are fairly started on the game. They won't put up with it."
+
+"Disgusting," said Denis. "Go on."
+
+"I'm done. What, sanidin again?"
+
+Denis still held the stone in his hand. He was thinking, however, of
+other things. He liked to collect fresh ideas, to be impregnated with
+the mentality of other people--he knew how much he had to learn. But he
+would have preferred his mind to be moulded gently, in artistic
+fashion. Marten's style was more like random blows from a
+sledge-hammer, half of them wide of the mark. It was not very edifying,
+or even instructive. Keith was the same. Why was everybody so violent,
+so extreme in their views?
+
+Marten repeated:
+
+"Sanidin?"
+
+"It might be sanidin in places," replied Denis. "I do know a little
+something about crystals, Marten. I have read Ruskin's ETHICS OF THE
+DUST."
+
+"Ruskin. Good god! He's not a man; he's an emetic. But you never
+answered my first question. You always hit upon sanidin. Why?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. It's rather a pretty word, don't you think? It would
+do for a Christian name. Girls' names are so terribly commonplace. They
+are always Marjorie, or something. If I had a daughter, I should call
+her Sanidin."
+
+"You're not likely to find yourself in that position at this rate. If I
+had a daughter, I know perfectly well what I should call her."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Angelina."
+
+"You would?" asked Denis slowly. "And why?"
+
+"Oh, it's rather a pretty name, don't you think?"
+
+"Not a bad name at all, now I come to think of it. But it sounds
+foreign. I thought you did not care about foreigners."
+
+"I don't. But there's one--"
+
+"Go on," said Denis.
+
+Mr. Marten winked.
+
+The mists had fled from the hilltops; rocks and vineyards, and the sea
+at their foot, lay flooded in sunshine. With one accord, the two young
+men rose from the ground and turned their steps homewards. The
+mineralogical lesson was over.
+
+"Coming to Keith's to-night?" enquired Marten with a fine show of
+nonchalance.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I would if I were you. They say he does things properly. There'll be
+an awful crowd--a regular bust-up. He only gives one of these
+entertainments a year. Dancing and Chinese lanterns and champagne in
+torrents. Won't you go?"
+
+"Perhaps later in the evening."
+
+Denis was perturbed. He scented a rival in this brutalitarian, though
+it seemed hardly possible that Angelina should take much notice of him.
+Meanwhile, he felt in need of some gentlemanly and soothing influence,
+after such an outpouring of vulgarity. He thought of the bibliographer.
+He liked Eames; he admired that scholarly detachment. He, too, might
+end in annotating some masterpiece--who knows? To be a
+bibliographer--what a calm, studious life!
+
+"I think I'll go to Eames," he remarked.
+
+"Really? A colourless creature, that Eames. As dry as a stick; a
+typical Don. I promised him a mineralogical map, by the way. You might
+tell him I haven't forgotten, will you? I wonder what you can see in
+the man?"
+
+"I rather like him," said Denis. "He knows what he wants."
+
+"That is not enough, my young friend!" replied Marten with decision. "A
+fellow must want something sensible."
+
+"What do you call sensible?"
+
+"Sanidin, and things like that. Things with pretty names. Eh, Phipps?"
+
+Denis said nothing.
+
+His friend continued jovially:
+
+"The tavern mood is upon me. I am going to Luisella's to get a drink.
+One gets sick of that Club. Besides, I've taken rather a fancy to that
+younger sister. The second youngest, I mean; the one with the curly
+hair--you know! I only wish I knew a bit more Latin."
+
+Luisella's grotto-tavern had become quite a famous rendezvous. You
+could drop in there at any hour and always find company to your liking.
+Don Francesco had a good deal to do with its discovery; he discovered,
+at all events, the second eldest of the four orphan sisters who managed
+the house. After a time, having convinced himself that they were all
+good penitents and being a kindly sort of man, he thought that other
+people might like to share in the seductions which the place afforded.
+He took foreign friends there from time to time, and none were
+disappointed. The wine was excellent. Russians, excluded from the Club
+by Mr. Parker's severity, frequented the spot in considerable numbers.
+They were nicely treated there. Not many nights previously one of the
+Master's disciples, the athletic young Peter Krasnojabkin, who was
+credited with being a protege of Madame Steynlin's, had distinguished
+himself by drinking sixteen bottles at a sitting. He afterwards smashed
+a few chairs and things, for which he apologized so prettily next
+morning that the girls would not hear of his paying for the damage.
+
+"It's all in the family," they said. "Come and break some more!"
+
+That was the way they ran the place, as regards drinks. The quality of
+the refreshments, too, was quite out of the common. As for the girls
+themselves--their admirers were legion. They could have married anyone
+they pleased, had it not been more in accordance with the interests of
+their business, to say nothing of the personal inclinations, to have
+only lovers.
+
+As Marten disappeared under that hospitable doorway, I flashed through
+the mind of Denis that Eames was a confirmed recluse; he might not like
+being disturbed in the morning.
+
+Besides, he was probably at work.
+
+He thought of going to see the bishop. There was a glamour in the name.
+To be a bishop! His mother had sometimes suggested the Church, or at
+least politics as a career for him, if poetry should fail. But this one
+was so matter-of-fact and unpretentious in his clothing, his opinions.
+A broken-down matrimonial agent, Don Francesco had called him. Mr.
+Heard was not his idea of a shepherd of souls; he was only a colonial,
+anyhow. A grey type of man--nothing purple about him, nothing glowing or
+ornate. He did not get on particularly well with him either.
+
+Besides, he hardly knew him sufficiently to intrude at this hour of the
+day.
+
+One thing was certain. He would go to the Cave of Mercury that very
+evening. Keith was right. He must try to "find himself." He wanted to
+be alone, to think things out. Or perhaps--no. He did not want to be
+alone with his thoughts. They were too oppressive just then. He
+required some kind of company.
+
+Besides, Keith had said "full moon." The moon was not yet quite full.
+
+No!
+
+He would see what the Duchess was doing, and perhaps stay to luncheon.
+Eames could wait. So could the bishop. So could the cave. He was fond
+of the Duchess.
+
+Besides, it was such a quaint place--that austere old convent, built by
+the Good Duke Alfred.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+
+
+
+"That is the worst of dining with a man. You have to be civil next
+morning. But surely, Eames, we two need not stand on ceremony? I am
+particularly anxious for you to come to-night. Can't you really manage
+it? I want you to meet Malipizzo and say a few nice words to him. You
+are too aloof with that man. There is nothing like keeping on the right
+side of the law."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"The right side of the judge," said Keith. "It is so easy to be
+polite to people, and so advisable in some cases. How would you like
+to spend a week or two in gaol? He will have you there one of these
+days, unless you have placed him under some kind of obligation. He
+represents justice here. I know you don't like him. But what would
+it cost you--just a friendly handshake?"
+
+"He cannot touch me. I have nothing on my conscience."
+
+"Conscience, my dear fellow, is a good servant but a bad master. Your
+sentiments are English. They will never do in a country where the
+personal element still counts for something."
+
+"The personal element signifying favouritism and venality?" asked
+Eames. "A pretty state of affairs!"
+
+"The philosopher can only live under a venal government."
+
+"I disagree with you altogether."
+
+"You always disagree with me," answered Keith. "And you always find
+yourself in the wrong. You remember how I warned you about that little
+affair of yours? You remember what an ass you made of yourself?"
+
+"What little affair?" enquired Eames, with a tinge of resignation in
+his voice.
+
+The other did not reply. Mr. Keith could be tactful, on occasions. He
+pretended to be absorbed in cutting a cigar.
+
+"What little affair?" insisted the bibliographer, fearful of what was
+coming next.
+
+It came.
+
+"Oh, that balloon business...."
+
+It was not true to say of Mr. Eames that he lived on Nepenthe because
+he was wanted by the London police for something that happened in
+Richmond Park, that his real name was not Eames at all but Daniels--the
+notorious Hodgson Daniels, you know, who was mixed up in the Lotus Club
+scandal, that he was the local representative of an international gang
+of white-slave traffickers who had affiliated offices in every part of
+the world, that he was not a man at all but an old boarding-house
+keeper who had very good reasons for assuming the male disguise, that
+he was a morphinomaniac, a disfrocked Baptist minister, a pawnbroker
+out of work, a fire-worshipper, a Transylvanian, a bank clerk who had
+had a fall, a decayed jockey who disgraced himself at a subsequent
+period in connection with some East-End mission for reforming the boys
+of Bermondsey and then, after pawning his mother's jewelry, writing
+anonymous threatening letters to society ladies about their husbands
+and vice-versa, trying to blackmail three Cabinet Ministers and
+tricking poor servant-girls out of their hard-earned wages by the sale
+of sham Bibles, was luckily run to earth in Piccadilly Circus, after an
+exciting chase, with a forty-pound salmon under his arm which he had
+been seen to lift from the window of a Bond Street fishmonger.
+
+All these things, and a good many more, had been said. Eames knew it.
+Kind friends had seen to that.
+
+To contrive such stories was a certain lady's method of asserting her
+personality on the island. She seldom went into society owing to some
+physical defect in her structure; she could only sit at home, like
+Penelope, weaving these and other bright tapestries--odds and ends of
+servants' gossip, patched together by the virulent industry of her own
+disordered imagination. It consoled Mr. Eames slightly to reflect that
+he was not the only resident singled out for such aspersions; that the
+more harmless a man's life, the more fearsome the legends. He suffered,
+none the less. This was why he seldom entered the premises of the Alpha
+and Omega Club where, quite apart from his objection to Parker's poison
+and the loose and rowdy talk of the place, he was liable to encounter
+the lady's stepbrother. Of course he knew perfectly well what he ought
+to have done. He ought to have imitated the example of other people who
+behaved like scoundrels and openly gloried in it. That was the only way
+to be even with her; it took the wind out of her sails. Keith often put
+the matter into a nutshell:
+
+"The practical advantages of doing something outrageous must be clear
+to you. It is the only way of stopping her mouth, unless you like to
+have her poisoned, which might be rather expensive even down here,
+though you may be sure I would do my best to smooth things over with
+Malipizzo. But I am afraid you don't realize the advantages of
+ruffianism as a mode of art, and a mode of life. Only think: a thousand
+wrongs to every right! What an opening for a man of talent, especially
+in a country like this, where frank and independent action still counts
+its admirers. You have done nothing, of late, worthy to be recorded in
+the CHRONIQUE SCANDALEUSE of Nepenthe. Twelve years ago, wasn't it,
+that little affair of yours? Time is slipping by, and here you muddle
+along with your old Perrelli, in a fog of moral stagnation. It is not
+fair to the rest of us. We all contribute our mites to the gaiety of
+nations. Bethink yourself. Bestir yourself. Man! Do something to show
+us you are alive."
+
+To such speeches Mr. Eames would listen with a smile of amused
+indignation. He was incapable of living up to the ideals of a man like
+Keith whose sympathy with every form of wrong-doing would have rendered
+him positively unfit for decent society but for his flagrant good
+nature and good luncheons. He suffered in silence.
+
+He had good reason for suffering. That "little affair" of twelve years
+ago was a ghost which refused to be laid. Every one on the island knew
+the story; it was handed down from one batch of visitors to the next.
+He knew that whenever his name was mentioned this unique indiscretion
+of his, this toothsome morsel, would likewise be dished up. It would
+never grow stale, though atoned for by twelve years of exemplary
+conduct. He felt guilty. There was a skeleton in his cupboard. He
+realized what people were saying.
+
+"Know Eames? Oh, yes. That quiet man, who writes. One can't swallow
+half those yarns about him; quite impossible to believe, of course. She
+overdoes things, the good woman. All the same, there's no smoke without
+fire. You know what actually did happen, don't you? Well; one really
+doesn't quite know what to make of a fellow like that, does one?"
+
+What had happened?
+
+The bibliographer had fallen in love, after the fashion of a
+pure-minded, gallant gentleman. It was his first and only experience of
+this kind--an all-consuming passion which did much credit to his heart
+but little to his head. So deeply were his feelings involved that
+during those brief months of infatuation he neglected, he despised, he
+derided his idol Perrelli. He put on a new character. While the dust
+was accumulating on those piles of footnotes, Mr. Eames astonished
+people by becoming a society man. It was a transfiguration. He appeared
+in fancy ties and spats, fluttered about at boating parties and
+picnics, dined at restaurants, perpetrated one or two classic jokes
+about the sirocco. Nepenthe opened its eyes wide till the truth was
+made manifest. After that, everybody said he might have discovered a
+worthier object for his affection than the "BALLOON CAPTIF."
+
+She was a native of the mainland to whose credit it must be said that
+she did not pretend to be anything but what she was--an exuberant,
+gluttonous dame, with volcanic eyes, heavy golden bracelets, the
+soupcon of a moustache, and arms as thick as other people's thighs; an
+altogether impossible person. Nobody but a man of genuine refinement,
+scrupulous rectitude, delicate sense of honour and kindly disposition
+would have risked being seen in the same street with such a horror;
+nobody but a real gentleman could have fallen in love with her. Mr.
+Eames ran after her like a dog. He made a perfect ass of himself,
+heedless of what anybody though or said of him. The men declared he was
+going mad--breaking up--sickening for an attack of G.P. "Miracles will
+never cease," charitably observed the Duchess. Alone of all his lady
+acquaintances, Madame Steynlin liked him all the better for this
+gaucherie. She was a true woman-friend of all lovers; she knew the
+human heart and its queer little vagaries. She received the couple with
+open arms and entertained them royally, after her manner; gave them a
+kind of social status. Under this friendly treatment Mr. Eames grew
+thinner from day to day; he was visibly losing flesh. The dame
+prospered. Piloted by the love-sick bibliographer she gradually waddled
+her way--it was uphill work, for both of them--into the uppermost strata
+of local society where, owing to the rarefied atmosphere, her appetite,
+to say nothing of her person, soon gained notoriety. She was known, in
+briefest space of time, as "the cormorant," as "prime streaky," as
+"Jumbo," as "the phenomenon" and, by those who understood the French
+language, as the "BALLON CAPTIF."
+
+The "BALLON CAPTIF." ...
+
+How things got about, on Nepenthe! Somehow or other, this odious
+nickname reached her lover's ears. It embittered his existence to such
+an extent that, long after the idyll was over, he had serious thoughts
+of leaving the island and would doubtless have done so, but for his
+re-kindled enthusiasm for Monsignor Perrelli. So sensitive did he
+remain on this point that the mere mention of balloons, or even
+aeroplanes, would make him wince and feel desirous of leaving the room;
+he always thought that people introduced the subject with malicious
+purpose, in order to remind him of this unforgettable peccadillo, the
+"balloon business," his one lapse from perfect propriety. Mr. Keith,
+who confessed to a vein of coarseness in his nature--prided himself upon
+it and, in fact, cultivated insensitiveness as other people cultivate
+orchids, pronouncing it to be the best method of self-protection in a
+world infested with fools--Mr. Keith sometimes could not resist the
+temptation of raking up the ashes surreptitiously, after an elaborate,
+misleading preamble. He loved to watch his friend's meekly perplexed
+face on such occasions.
+
+Heaven knows how long the affair might have lasted but for the fact
+that a husband, or somebody, unexpectedly turned up--a husky little man
+with a cast in one eye, who looked uxorious to an alarming degree. He
+carried her off in the nick of time to save Mr. Eames from social
+ostracism, mental dotage, and financial ruin. Her mere appearance had
+made him the laughing-stock of the place; her appetite had led him into
+outlays altogether incompatible with his income, chiefly in the matter
+of pastries, macaroons, fondants, ices, caramels, chocolates, jam
+tartlets and, above all, meringues, to which she was fabulously
+destructive.
+
+It took some living down, that episode. He feared people would talk of
+it to his dying day; he knew they would! He wished balloons had never
+been invented. None the less he stuck it out bravely, threw himself
+with redoubled zeal into Monsignor Perrelli and, incidentally, became
+more of a recluse than ever.
+
+"It has been a lesson," he reflected. "SEMPER ALIQUID HAEREBIT, I am
+afraid...."
+
+Ernest Eames was the ideal annotator. He was neither inductive nor
+deductive; he had no axe to grind. His talent consisted in an ant--like
+hiving faculty. He was acquisitive of information for a set purpose--to
+bring the ANTIQUITIES up to date. Whatever failed to fit in with this
+programme, however novel, however interesting--it was ruthlessly
+discarded. In this and other matters he was the reverse of Keith, who
+collected information for its own sake. Keith was a pertinacious and
+omnivorous student; he sought knowledge not for a set purpose but
+because nothing was without interest for him. He took all learning to
+his province. He read for the pleasure of knowing what he did not know
+before; his mind was unusually receptive because, he said, he respected
+the laws which governed his body. Facts were his prey. He threw himself
+into them with a kind of piratical ardour; took them by the throat,
+wallowed in them, worried them like a terrier, and finally assimilated
+them. They gave him food for what he liked best on earth:
+"disinterested thought." They "formed a rich loam." He had an
+encyclopaeic turn of mind; his head, as somebody once remarked, was a
+lumber-room of useless information. He could tell you how many public
+baths exited in Geneva in pre-Reformation days, what was the colour of
+Mehemet Ali's whiskers, why the manuscript of Virgil's friend Gallius
+had not been handed down to posterity, and in what year, and what
+month, the decimal system was introduced into Finland. Such aimless
+incursions into knowledge were a puzzle to his friends, but not to
+himself. They helped him to build up a harmonious scheme of life--to
+round himself off.
+
+He had lately attacked, in Corsair fashion, the Greek philosophers and
+had disembowelled Plato, Aristotle and the rest of them, to his
+complete satisfaction, in a couple of months; at present he was up to
+the ears in psychology, and his talk bristled with phrases about the
+"function of the real," about reactions, reflexes, adjustments and
+stimuli. For all his complexity there was something so childlike in his
+nature that he never realized what an infliction he was, nor how
+tiresome his conversation could become to people who were not quite so
+avid of "disinterested thought." Living alone and spending too much
+time in unprofitable studies, his language was apt to be professionally
+devoid of humour--a defect he made heroic efforts to remedy by what he
+called the "Falernian system." It was the fault of his mother, he said;
+she was a painfully conscientious woman. A man's worst enemies are his
+parents, he would add.
+
+So far as was known, Mr. Keith had never written a book, a pamphlet, or
+even a letter to the newspapers. He maintained a good deal of
+correspondence, however, in different parts of the world, and the wiser
+of those who were favoured with his epistles preserved them as literary
+curiosities, under lock and key, by reason of the writer's rare faculty
+of expressing the most atrocious things in correct and even admirable
+English. Chaster than snow as a conversationalist, he prostituted his
+mother-tongue, in letter-writing, to the vilest of uses. Friends of
+long standing called him an obscene old man. When taxed with this
+failing--by Mr. Eames, for instance, who shivered at what he called
+PRAETEXTATA VERBA--he would hint that he could afford to pay for his
+little whims, meaning, presumably, that a rich man is not to be judged
+by common standards of propriety. Such language was particularly
+galling to Mr. Eames, who held that the possession of wealth entails
+not only privileges but obligations, and that the rich man should set
+the example of purity in words and deeds, etc., etc., etc.
+
+They were always disagreeing, anyhow.
+
+"You exalt purity to a bad eminence," Keith would remark. "What did you
+say about the book I lent you the other day? You said it was morbid and
+indecent; you said that no clean-minded person would car to read it.
+And yet, after an unnecessary amount of arguing, you were forced to
+admit that the subject was interesting and that the writer dealt with
+it in an interesting manner. What more can you expect from an author?
+Believe me, this hankering after purity, this hypersensitiveness as to
+what is morbid or immoral, is by no means a good sign. A healthy man
+refuses to be hampered by preconceived notions of what is wrong or
+ugly. When he reads a book like that the either yawns or laughs. That
+is because he is sure of himself. I could give you a long list of
+celebrated statesmen, princes, philosophers and prelates of the Church
+who take pleasure, in their moments of relaxation, in what you would
+call improper conversation, literature or correspondence. They feel the
+strain of being continually pure; they realize that all strains are
+pernicious, and that there is no action without its reaction. They
+unbend. Only inveterate folks do not unbend. They dare not, because
+they have no backbone. They know that if they once unbent, they could
+not straighten themselves out again. They make a virtue of their own
+organic defect. They explain their natural imperfection by calling
+themselves pure. If you had a little money--"
+
+"You are always harking back to that point. What has money to do with
+it?"
+
+"Poverty is like rain. It drops down ceaselessly, disintegrating the
+finer tissues of a man, his recent, delicate adjustments, and leaving
+nothing but the bleak and gaunt framework. A poor man is a wintry
+tree--alive, but stripped of its shining splendour. He is always denying
+himself this or that. One by one, his humane instincts, his elegant
+desires, are starved away by stress of circumstances. The charming
+diversity of life ceases to have any meaning for him. To console
+himself, he sets up perverse canons of right and wrong. What the rich
+do, that is wrong. Why? Because he does not do it. Why not? Because he
+has no money. A poor man is forced into a hypocritical attitude towards
+life--debarred from being intellectually honest. He cannot pay for the
+necessary experience."
+
+"There is something in what you say," Eames would assent. "But I fear
+you are overstating your case."
+
+"So did Demosthenes and Jesus Christ, and likewise Cicero and Julius
+Caesar. Everybody overstates his case, particularly when he is anxious
+to do something which he considers useful. I regard it as a real
+grievance, Eames, not to be allowed to assist you financially. Having
+never done a stroke of work in my life, I can talk freely about my
+money. My grandfather was a pirate and slave-dealer. To my certain
+knowledge, not a penny of his wealth was honestly come by. That ought
+to allay your scruples about accepting it. NON OLET, you know. Let me
+write you out a cheque for five hundred, there's a good fellow. Solely
+as a means of smoothing over the anfractuosities of life and squeezing
+all the possible pleasure out of it! What else is money made for? They
+say you live on milk and salad. Why the Hell--"
+
+"Thanks! I have all I want; sufficient to pay for the minor pleasures
+of life."
+
+"Such as?"
+
+"A clean handkerchief now and then. I see no harm in dying poor."
+
+"Where would I be, if my grandfather had seen no harm in it? Don't you
+really believe that money sweetens all things, as Pepys says?"
+
+The diarist was one of Keith's favourite authors. He called him a
+representative Englishman and regretted that the type was becoming
+extinct. Eames would reply:
+
+"Your Pepys was a disgusting climber. He makes me ill with his
+snobbishness and silver plate and monthly gloatings over his gains. I
+wonder you can read the man. He may have been a capable official, but
+he was not a gentleman."
+
+"Have you ever seen a gentleman, except on a tailor's fashion-plate?"
+
+"Yes. One, at all events; my father. However, we won't labour that
+point; we have discussed it before, haven't we? Your money would
+sweeten nothing for me. It would procure me neither health of body nor
+peace of mind. Thanks all the same."
+
+Mr. Keith, true to his ancestral tenacity, was not easily put off. He
+would begin again:
+
+"George Gissing was a scholar and a man of refinement, like yourself.
+You know what he says? 'Put money in thy purse, for to lack the current
+coin of the realm is to lack the privileges of humanity.' The
+privileges of humanity: you understand, Eames?"
+
+"Does he say that? Well, I am not surprised. I have sometimes noticed
+gross, unhealthy streaks in Gissing."
+
+"I will tell you what is unhealthy, Eames. Your own state of mind. You
+derive a morbid pleasure from denying yourself the common emoluments of
+life. It's a form of self-indulgence. I wish you would open your
+windows and let the sun in. You are living by candlelight. If you
+analysed yourself closely--"
+
+"I don't analyse myself closely. I call it a mistake. I try to see
+soberly. I try to think logically. I try to live becomingly."
+
+"I am glad you don't always succeed," Keith would reply, with a
+horrible accent on the word "always." "Heaven shield me from a
+clean-minded man!"
+
+"We have touched on that subject once or twice already, have we not?
+Your arguments will never entangle me, though I think I can be fair to
+them. Money enables you to multiply your sensations--to travel about,
+and so forth. In doing so, you multiply your personality, as it were;
+you lengthen your days, figuratively speaking; you come in contact with
+more diversified aspects of life than a person of my limited means can
+afford to do. The body, you say, is a subtle instrument to be played
+upon in every variety of manner and rendered above all things as
+sensitive as possible to pleasurable impressions. In fact, you want to
+be a kind of Aeolian harp. I admit that this is more than a string of
+sophisms; you may call it a philosophy of life. But it is not my
+philosophy. It does not appeal to me in the least. You will get no
+satisfaction out of me, Keith, with your hedonism. You are up against a
+brick wall. You speak of my deliberately closing up avenues of
+pleasure. They ought to be closed up, I say, if a man is to respect
+himself. I do not call my body a subtle instrument; I call it a damned
+nuisance. I don't want to be an Aeolian harp. I don't want my sensations
+multiplied; I don't want my personality extended; I don't want my
+outlook widened; I don't want money; I don't want aspects of life. I'm
+positive, I'm literal. I know exactly what I want. I want to concern
+myself with what lies under my hand. I want to be allowed to get on
+with my work. I want to bring old Perrelli up to date."
+
+"My dear fellow! We all love you for that. And I am delighted to think
+you are not really clean-minded, in spite of all these lofty
+protestations. Because you aren't, are you?"
+
+If, after such discourse, the bibliographer still remained mulishly
+clean-minded, Keith would return to the psychological necessity of
+"appropriate reaction" and cite an endless list of sovereigns, popes,
+and other heroes who, in their moments of leisure, were wise enough to
+react against the persistent strain of purity. Then, via Alexander of
+Macedon, "one of the greatest sons of earth," as Bishop Thirlwall had
+called him--Alexander, with whose deplorable capacity for "unbending" a
+scholar like Eames was perfectly familiar--he would switch the
+conversation into realms of military science, and begin to expatiate
+upon the wonderful advance which has been made since those days in the
+arts of defensive and offensive warfare--the decline of the phalanx, the
+rise of artillery, the changed system of fortifications, those modern
+inventions in the department of land defences, sea defences and, above
+all, aerial defences, parachutes, hydroplanes....
+
+Whereupon a curious change would creep over the bibliographer's honest
+face. He knew what this talk portended. His features would assume an
+air of strained but polite attention, and he generally broke off the
+conversation and took his departure at the earliest moment consistent
+with ordinary civility. On such occasions he was wont to think his
+friend Keith an offensive cad. Sadly shaking his head, he would say to
+himself:
+
+"NIHIL QUOD TETIGIT NON INQUINAVIT."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Keith was apt to be a bore, but he could do things properly when he
+wanted, as for example on the occasion of his annual bean-feast. There
+were no two opinions about that. The trees, arbours, and winding ways
+of his garden were festooned that evening with hundreds of Chinese
+lamps whose multi-coloured light mingled pleasantly with the purer
+radiance of the moon, shining directly overhead. It was like fairyland,
+the Duchess was wont to declare, year after year. And Don Francesco
+who, on this particular night, clung closely to her skirts in view of
+that impending conversion to the Roman Church, replied laughingly:
+
+"If fairyland is anything like this, I would not object to living
+there. Provided always, dear lady, that you are to be found somewhere
+on the premises. What do you say, Mr. Heard?"
+
+"I will gladly join your party, if you will allow me," replied the
+bishop. "This aspic could not be better. It seems to open up a new
+world of delights. Dear me. I fear I am becoming a gourmand, like
+Lucullus. Though Lucullus, to be sure, was a temperate man. No, thank
+you, Don Francesco; not a drop more! My liver, you know. I declare it's
+making me feel quite dizzy."
+
+As Marten had foretold, the wine flowed in torrents. There was a
+bewildering display of cool dishes, too, prepared under the personal
+supervision of the chef--that celebrated artist whom Keith had inveigled
+out of the service of a life-loving old Ambassador by the threat of
+disclosing to the police some hideously disreputable action in the
+man's past life which His Excellently had artlessly confided to him,
+under the seal of secrecy.
+
+Mr. Samuel, a commercial gentleman who had got stuck somehow or other
+at the Alpha and Omega Club, cast a practised eye over the wines,
+chaud-froids, fruits, salads, ices, the lanterns and other joys of the
+evening and announced, after a rough computation, that Keith's outlay
+for that little show must have run well into three figures. Mr. White
+agreed, adding that it did one good to get a mouthful of drinkable fizz
+after Parker's poison.
+
+"Ah, but you ought to try the punch."
+
+"Come on then," said White.
+
+They moved away and soon stumbled upon a cluster of bibulous mortals in
+their element. Miss Wilberforce was there. She liked to linger near the
+fountain-head; the fountain-head, on this occasion, being a cyclopean
+bowl of iced punch. The lady was in grand condition; festive, playful,
+positively flirtatious. She nibbled, between her libations, at a
+savoury biscuit (she hated solid food, as a rule) in order, she said,
+to staunch her thirst; she told everybody that it was her birthday.
+Yes, her birthday! In fact, she was quite a different creature from the
+bashful visitor at the Duchess's entertainment; she was hardly shy at
+all.
+
+"Punch and moonlight!" she was saying. "It's all as right as
+rain--birthday or no birthday."
+
+Miss Wilberforce had about forty birthdays in the year, each of them
+due to be worthily celebrated like this one.
+
+It was a sad and scandalous business. Better things might have been
+expected of her. She was so obviously a lady. She had been so nicely
+brought up. While there was still an English Church on the island, she
+never failed to attend Divine Service, despite her Sunday headache. She
+was often the only member of the congregation--she and Mr. Freddy
+Parker, whose official dignity and English origin, however questionable
+his Christianity, constrained him to put in an appearance. Mortal
+enemies, they used to sit on opposite pews, glaring across the vacant
+building to see if they could catch each other asleep, responding at
+irregular intervals out of sheer cussedness, and trying vainly to feel
+more charitable during those moments when the scraggy young
+curate--generally some social failure who raked together a few pounds
+from these hazardous continental engagements--recited the Gospel
+according to Saint John. Those days were over. She was definitely on
+the downward grade. Three members of the Club and two Russian apostles
+were even then engaged in tossing up who should have the privilege of
+seeing her home. The lot fell to Mr. Richards, the excellent
+Vice-President, an elderly gentleman whose carefully parted hair and
+flowing beard made him the very picture of respectability. To look at
+him, one would have said that the dear lady could not be in better
+hands.
+
+Mr. Keith was a perfect host. He had the right word for everybody; his
+infectious conviviality made them all straightway at their ease. The
+overdressed native ladies, the priests and officials moving about in
+prim little circles, were charmed with his affable manner "so different
+from most Englishmen"; likewise that flock of gleeful tourists who had
+suddenly turned up, craving for admission without a single letter of
+introduction between them, and were forthwith welcomed on the strength
+of the fact that one of their party had been to Easter Island. Even the
+PARROCO could not help laughing as Keith, with irresistible good
+nature, seized him by the arm and thrust a MARRON GLACE between his
+lips. An ideal host! The "Falernian system" was in abeyance that day.
+It was the one evening in the year when, in the interests of his
+guests, he could be relied upon to remain absolutely sober to the last
+moment; a state of affairs which doubtless had its drawbacks, seeing
+that it made him, in longer conversational efforts, rather more
+abstruse and unintelligible than usual--"blind sober," as Don Francesco
+once said. Even sobriety was forgiven him. He took the precaution, of
+course, to keep the house locked and to replace his ordinary services
+of plate by Elkington; people being pardonably fond of carrying away
+memories of so enjoyable an evening. Bottles, plates, and glasses were
+smashed by the dozen. He liked to see them smashed. It proved that
+everybody was having a good time.
+
+A person unacquainted with Keith's nature could never have guessed what
+a sacrifice this entertainment was to him. He was an egoist, a
+solitary, in his pleasures; he used to contend that no garden on earth,
+however spacious, was large enough for more than one man. And this
+little Nepenthe domain, though he saw it for only a few weeks in the
+year, was the apple of his eye. He guarded it jealously, troubled at
+the thought that its chaste recesses might be profaned, if but for one
+day, by the presence of a motley assemblage of nonentities. But a man
+of his income is expected to do something to amuse his
+fellow-creatures. One owes certain duties to society. Hence this
+gathering, which had become a regular feature in the spring calendar of
+the island. Having once decided on the step, he did not propose to be
+bound by conventionalities which were the poison of rational human
+intercourse. Unlike the Duchess and Mr. Parker, he refused to draw the
+line at Russians; the Club, too, was represented by some of its most
+characteristic members. He often descanted on the social intolerance of
+men, their lack of graciousness and generous instincts; he would have
+made room for the Devil himself--at all events in his "outer circle."
+Such being the case, it stands to reason that he did not draw the line
+at freethinkers. It was sometimes rather hard to know where he did draw
+the line.
+
+The red-haired judge, with straw hat and Mephistophelean limp, was
+there, looking like an Offenbach villain out for a spree. After being
+effusively greeted by the host--they understood one another
+perfectly--and forced to eat a quantity of some pink-looking stuff which
+he could not resist although knowing it would disagree with him, His
+Worship, left to his own devices, hobbled along in pursuit of his new
+friend Muhlen. He found him, and was soon relating succulent anecdotes
+of his summer holidays--anecdotes, all about women, which Muhlen tried
+to cap with experiences of his own. The judge always went to the same
+place--Salsomaggiore, a thermal station whose waters were good for his
+sore legs. He described to Muhlen how, in jaunty clothes and shining
+shoes, he pottered about its trim gardens, ogling the ladies who always
+ogled back; it was the best fun in the world, and sometimes--! Mr.
+Malipizzo, for all his incredible repulsiveness, posed as an ardent and
+successful lover of women. No doubt it cost money. But he was never at
+a loss for that commodity; he had other sources of revenue, he hinted,
+besides his wretched official salary.
+
+Wandering along arm in arm, they passed various contingents of the
+Russians, male and female, whose scarlet blouses shone brightly under
+the variegated globes of light. These exotics were happy as children,
+full of fun and laughter; none more so than the young giant
+Krasnojabkin, whose name had been coupled by scandalmongers with that
+of Madame Steynlin. An admiring audience had gathered around him while
+he performed a frenzied cancan in an open moonlit space; he always
+danced when he had enough to drink. The judge looked on with envy. It
+sickened him to realize that those far-famed luncheons and dinners of
+Madame Steynlin were being devoured by a savage like this. And the
+money he doubtless extracted from her! Presently a loud guffaw from
+some bosky thicket announced that the friends had been joined by the
+Financial Commissioner for Nicaragua. The Trinity was complete. They
+were always together, those three, playing cards at the Club or sipping
+lemonade and vermouth on the terrace.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Keith," said the Duchess in her sweetest accents, "do you know
+of what this entertainment makes me think?"
+
+"Shall I guess?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind! It makes me think that it is very, very wrong of
+a man like you to be a bachelor. You want a wife."
+
+"To want a wife, Duchess, is better than to need one. Especially if it
+happens to be only your neighbour's."
+
+"I am sure that means something dreadful!"
+
+Don Francesco broke in:
+
+"Tell me, Keith, how about your wives? What have you done with them? Is
+it true that you sold them at various Oriental ports?"
+
+"They got mislaid somehow. All that was before my Great Renunciation."
+
+"Is it true that you kept them locked up in different parts of London?"
+
+"I made it a rule never to introduce my lady-friends to one another.
+They are so fond of comparing notes. Novelists try to make us believe
+that women delight in men's society. Rubbish! They prefer that of their
+own sex. But please didn't refer to the same painful period of my
+life."
+
+The priest insisted:
+
+"Is it true that you gave the plumpest of them to the Sultan of
+Colambang in exchange for the recipe of some wonderful sauce? Is it
+true that you used to be known as the Lightning Lover? Is it true that
+you used to say, in your London days, that no season was complete
+without a ruined home?"
+
+"She exaggerates a good deal, that lady."
+
+"Is it true that you once got so drunk that you mistook one of those
+red-coated Chelsea pensioners for a pillar-box and tried to post a
+letter in his stomach?"
+
+"I'm very short-sighted, Don Francesco. Besides, all that was in a
+previous incarnation. Do come and listen to the music! May I offer you
+my arm, Duchess? I have a surprise for you."
+
+"You have a surprise for us every year, you bad man," she said. "Now do
+try and see if you can't get married. It makes one feel so good."
+
+Keith had a peculiar habit of vanishing for a day or two to the
+mainland, and returning with some rare orchid from the hills, a piece
+of Greek statuary, a new gardener, or something. Sowing his wild oats,
+he called it. During this last visit he had come across the tracks of
+an almost extinct tribe of gipsies that roamed up and down the glens of
+those mysterious mountains whose purple summits were visible, on clear
+days, from his own windows. After complex and costly negotiations they
+had allowed themselves to be embarked, for this one night only, in a
+capacious sailing boat to Nepenthe, in order to pleasure Mr. Keith's
+guests. And here they sat, huddled together in dignified repose and
+abashed, as it seemed, by the strangeness of their surroundings; a
+bizarre group stained to an almost negro tint by exposure to sun and
+winds and rain.
+
+Here they sat--gnarled old men and sinewy fathers of families, with
+streaming black hair, golden earrings, hooded cloaks of wood and
+sandals bound with leathern thongs. Mothers were there, shapeless
+bundles of rags, nursing infants at the breast. The girls were draped
+in gaudy hues, and ablaze with metal charms and ornaments on forehead
+and arms and ankles. They showed their flashing teeth and smiled from
+time to time in frank wonder, whereas the boys, superbly savage, like
+young panthers caught in a trap, kept their eyes downcast or threw
+distrustful, defiant glances round them. Here they sat in silence,
+smoking tobacco and taking deep draughts out of a pitcher of milk which
+was handed round from one to the other. Occasionally the older people
+would pick up their instruments--bagpipes of sheepskin, small drums and
+gourd-like mandolines--and draw from them strange dronings, gurglings,
+thrummings, twangings; soon a group of youngsters would rise gravely
+from the ground and, without any preconcerted signal, begin to move in
+a dance--a formal and intricate measure, such as had never yet been
+witnessed on Nepenthe.
+
+Something inhuman and yet troublingly personal lay in the performance;
+it invaded the onlookers with a sense of disquietude. There was
+primeval ecstasy in those strains and gestures. Giant moths, meanwhile,
+fluttered overhead, rattling their frail wings against the framework of
+the paper lanterns; the south wind passed through the garden like the
+breath of a friend, bearing the aromatic burden of a thousand
+night-blooming shrubs and flowers. Young people, meeting here, would
+greet one another shyly, with unfamiliar ceremoniousness, and then,
+after listening awhile to the music and exchanging a few awkward
+phrases, wander away as if by common consent--further away from this
+crowd and garish brilliance, far away, into some fragrant cell, where
+the light was dim.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Keith of Madame Steynlin, who was
+listening intently. "Is this music? If so, I begin to understand its
+laws. They are physical. I seem to feel the effect of it in the lower
+part of my chest. Perhaps that is the region which musical people call
+their ear. Tell me, Madame Steynlin, what is music?"
+
+"That's a puzzle," said the bishop, greatly interested.
+
+"How can I explain it to you? It is so complicated, and you have so
+many guests this evening. You are coming to my picnic after the
+festival of Saint Eulalia? Yes? Well, I will try to explain it
+then"--and her eye turned, with a kind of maternal solicitude, down the
+pathway to where, in that patch of bright moonshine, her young friend
+Krasnojabkin, gloriously indifferent to gipsies and everything else,
+was astounding people by the audacity of his terpsichorean antics.
+
+"Let that be a promise," Keith replied. "Ah, Count Caloveglia! How good
+of you to come. I would not have asked you to such a worldly function
+had I not thought that this dancing might interest you."
+
+"It does, it does!" said the old aristocrat, thoughtfully sipping
+champagne out of an enormous goblet which he carried in his hand. "It
+makes me dream of that East which it has never been my fortune, alas,
+to behold. What a flawless group! There is something archaic, Oriental,
+in their attitudes; they seem to be fraught with all the mystery, the
+sadness, of life that is past--of things remote from ourselves."
+
+"My gipsies," said Keith, "are not everybody's gipsies."
+
+"I think they despise us! And this austere regularity in the steps of
+the dancers, this vibrating accompaniment that dwells persistently on
+one note--how primitive, how scornfully unintellectual! It is like a
+passionate lover knocking to gain an entrance into our hearts. And he
+succeeds. He breaks down the barrier by the oldest and best of lovers'
+expedients--sheer reiteration of monotony. A lover who reasons is no
+lover."
+
+"How true that is," remarked Madame Steynlin.
+
+"Sheer monotony," repeated the Count. "And it is the same with their
+pictorial art. We blame the Orientals for their chill cult of geometric
+designs, their purely stylistic decoration, their endless repetitions,
+as opposed to our variety and love of floral, human, or other
+naturalistic motives. But by this simple means they attain their end--a
+direct appeal. Their art, like their music, goes straight to the
+senses; it is not deflected or disturbed by any intervening medium.
+Colour plays its part; the sombre, throbbing sounds of these
+instruments--the glowing tints of their carpets and tapestries. Talking
+of gipsies, do you know whether our friend van Koppen has arrived?"
+
+"Koppen? A very up-to-date nomad, who takes the whole world for his
+camping-ground. No, not yet. But he'll turn up in a day or two."
+
+Count Caloveglia was concerned, just then, about Mr. van Koppen. He had
+a little business to transact with him--he fervently hoped that the
+millionaire would not forgo his annual visit to Nepenthe.
+
+"I shall be glad to meet him again," he remarked carelessly. Then
+looking up he saw Denis, who moved under the trees alone. Observing
+that he seemed rather disconsolate, he walked up to him and said in a
+fatherly tone: "Will you confer a favour, Mr. Denis, on an old man who
+lives much alone? Will you come and see me, as you promised? My
+daughter is away just now and will not be back till midsummer. I wish
+you could have met her. Meanwhile, I am a little solitary. I have also
+a few antiquities that might interest you."
+
+While Denis, slightly embarrassed, was uttering some appropriate words,
+the bishop suddenly asked:
+
+"Where is Mrs. Meadows? Wasn't she coming down to-night?"
+
+"Of course she was," said Keith. "Isn't she here? What can this mean?
+Your cousin is a particular friend of mine, Heard, though I have not
+seen her for the last six days or so. Something must be wrong. That
+baby, I expect."
+
+"I missed her once already," said Heard. "I'll write and make an
+appointment, or go up again. By the way, Count--you remember our
+conversation? Wel, I have thought of an insuperable objection to your
+Mediterranean theory. The sirocco. You will never change the sirocco.
+The Elect of the Earth will never endure it all their lives."
+
+"I think we can change the sirocco," replied the Count, meditatively.
+"We can tame it, at all events. I do not know much about its history;
+you must ask Mr. Eames--"
+
+"Who is at home," interrupted Keith, "closeted with his Perrelli."
+
+"What has been, may be," continued the old man, oracularly. "I question
+whether the sirocco was as obnoxious in olden days as now, otherwise
+the ancients, who had absurdly sensitive skins, would have complained
+of it more frequently. The deforestation of Northern Africa, I suspect,
+has much to do with it. Frenchmen are now trying to revive those
+prosperous conditions which Mohammedanism has destroyed. Oh, yes! I
+don't despair of muzzling the sirocco, even as we are muzzling that
+often Mediterranean pest, the malaria."
+
+Keith observed:
+
+"Petronius, I remember, speaks of the North wind being the mistress of
+the Tyrrhenian. He would not use such language nowadays, unless
+alluding to its violence rather than its prevalence. Once I thought of
+translating Petronius. But I discovered certain passages in the book
+which are almost improper. I don't think the public ought to be put
+into possession of such stuff. I am rather sorry; I like Petronius--the
+poetical fragments, I mean; they make me regret that I was not born
+under the Roman Empire. People are leaving," he added. "I have said
+good-bye to about fifty. I shall be able to get a drink soon."
+
+"So you were born out of time and out of place, like many of us,"
+laughed the Bishop.
+
+Count Caloveglia said:
+
+"It is an academic problem, and therefore a problem which does not
+exist for me, and therefore a problem dear to your own metaphysical
+heart, to enquire whether a man is ever born at an inopportune moment.
+We use the phrase. If we took thought we would discard it. For what is
+the truth of the matter? The truth is that a man, of whom we say this,
+is born at exactly the right moment; that those with whose customs and
+aspirations he seems to be in discord have urgent need of him at that
+particular time. No great man is ever born too soon or too late. When
+we say that the time is not ripe for this or that celebrity, we confess
+by implication that this very man, and no other, is required. Was
+Giordano Bruno, or Edgar Poe, born out of time? Surely no generation
+needed them more imperiously than their own. Only fools are born out of
+time. And yet--no; not even they. For where should we be without them?"
+
+He smiles suavely, as though some pleasant thought was passing through
+his mind.
+
+"At any rate a good many people die too soon or too late," said Mr.
+Edgar Marten who, after doing full justice to the food and drinks, had
+suddenly appeared on the scene. "Often too late," he added.
+
+Keith, despite his professions of sanity and reason, had an
+inexplicable, invincible horror of death; he quailed at the mere
+mention of the black phantom. The subject being not at all to his
+taste, he promptly remarked:
+
+"The scholar Grosseteste was unquestionably born too soon. And I know
+one man who is born too late. Who? Yourself, Count. You were made for
+the Periclean epoch."
+
+"Thank you," said that gentleman with a gracious wave of his hand. "But
+forgive me for disagreeing with you. Had I lived in that age, I should
+be lacking in reverence for what it accomplished. I should be too near
+to its life; unable, as you say, to see the forest for the trees. I
+should be like Thucydides, a most sensible person who, if I recollect
+aright, barely mentions Ictinus and the rest of them. How came it
+about? This admirable writer imagined they were building a temple for
+Greece; he lacked the interval of centuries which has allowed mankind
+to see their work in its true perspective. He possessed traditional
+moral standards whereby to judge the actions of historical
+contemporaries; he could praise or blame his politicians with a good
+conscience. For the Parthenon creators he had no sure norm. The
+standards were not yet evolved. Pheidias was a talented
+fellow-citizen--a hewer in stone by profession: what could he know of
+the relations of Pheidias to posterity? Great things can only be seen
+at a proper distance. Pheidias, to him, may have been little more than
+an amateur, struggling with brute material in the infancy of his trade
+or calling. No, my friend! I am glad not to be coeval with Pericles. I
+am glad to recognize Hellenic achievements at their true worth. I am
+glad to profit by that wedge of time which has enabled me to reverence
+things fair and eternal."
+
+"Things fair and eternal," echoed Keith, who was getting too thirsty
+and restless to discuss art-matters. "Come with me! I will show you
+things fair and eternal."
+
+He led the way to a distant arbour, overhung with a canopy of blood-red
+passion-flowers and girt about by design dangled from the clustering
+foliage in its roof. Within, directly under the beams, all by itself,
+on an upright chair beside a small table, sat an incongruous,
+startling, awe-inspiring apparition--a grimy old man of Mongolian
+aspect. He might have been frozen to stone, so immobile, so lifeless
+were his features. Belated visitors passed near the entrance of the
+shrine, peered within as at some outlandish and sinister freak of
+nature, and moved on with jocular words. Nobody ventured to overstep
+the threshold, whether from religious fear or because of something
+repellent, something almost putrescent, which radiated from his person.
+A contingent of Little White Cows, a kind of bodyguard, stood at a
+respectful distance beyond, intent upon his every movement. The Master
+never stirred. He sat there to be looked at--accustomed to homage almost
+divine; beatifically inane. Like the Christians of old, he wore no hat.
+The head was nearly bald. A long cloak, glistening with grease stains,
+swathed his limbs and portly belly, on which one suspected
+multitudinous wrinkles of fat. Two filmy lidless eyes, bulging on a
+level with his forehead, stared into vacuity; his snub nose grew out of
+a flattened face whose pallor was accentuated by the reflection of the
+glittering leaves--it looked faded and sodden, like blotting-paper that
+has been left out all night in the rain. Sporadic greenish-grey hairs
+were scattered about his chin. The mouth was agape.
+
+On Mr. Keith's appearance he made no sign of recognition. Presently,
+however, his lips seemed to get out of control. They moved; they began
+to chatter and to mumble, in childish fashion, the inarticulate
+yearnings of eld. Keith said, as though displaying some museum
+curiosity:
+
+"Mine is the only house on Nepenthe which the Master still deigns to
+enter. I'm afraid he has grown very groggy on his pins of late; if he
+sat on any by a straight-backed chair they would never get him up
+again. To think that was once a pretty little boy.... Poor old
+fellow! I know what he wants. They've been neglecting him, those young
+idiots."
+
+He departed, and soon returned with a tumbler full of raw whisky which
+he placed on the table within reach of the arm. A flaccid,
+unwholesome-looking hand was raised slowly, in a kind of deprecatory
+gesture; then allowed to fall again upon the belly where it lay, with
+the five fingers, round and chalky-white, extended like the rays of a
+starfish. Nothing more happened.
+
+"We must go away for a while," said Keith, "or else he won't touch it.
+He does not object to alcohol, you know. Whisky has not come out of a
+warm-blooded beast. But it's going into one. A kind of Asiatic
+Socrates, don't you think?"
+
+"A Buddha," suggested the Count. "A Buddha in second-rate alabaster. A
+Chinese Buddha of a bad, realistic period."
+
+"It's odd," remarked Mr. Heard. "He reminds me of a dead fish.
+Something ancient and fishlike--it's that mouth--"
+
+"He's a beauty!" interrupted Edgar Marten, sniffing with disgust. "Eyes
+like a boiled haddock. And that thing has the cheek to call itself a
+Messiah. Thank God I'm a Jew; it's not business of mine. But if I were
+a Christian, I'd bash his blooming head in. Damned if I wouldn't. The
+frowsy, fetid, flow-blown fraud. Or what's the matter with the Dog's
+Home?"
+
+"Come, come," said Mr. Heard, who had taken rather a liking to this
+violent youngster and was feeling more than usually indulgent that
+evening. "Come! He can't help his face, I fancy. Have you no room in
+your heart for an original? And don't you think--quite apart from
+questions of religion--that we tourists ought to be grateful to these
+people for diversifying the landscape with their picturesque red
+blouses and things?"
+
+"I have no eye for landscape, Mr. Heard, save in so far as it indicates
+strata and faults and other geological points. The picturesque don't
+interest me. I am full of Old Testamentary strains; I can't help
+looking at men from the ethical point of view. And what have people's
+clothes to do with their religion? He can't help his face, you say.
+Well, if he can't help that greasy old mackintosh, I'll eat my hat.
+Can't a fellow be a Messiah without sporting a pink shirt or fancy
+dressing-gown or blue pyjamas or something? But there you are! I defy
+you to name me a single-barrelled crank. If a man is a religious
+lunatic, or a vegetarian, he is sure to be touched in some other
+department as well; he will be an anti-vivisectionist, a nutfooder,
+costume-maniac, stamp-collector, or a spiritualist into the bargain.
+Haven't you ever noticed that? And isn't he dirty? Where is the
+connection between piety and dirt? I suggest they are both relapses
+into ancestral channels and the one drags the other along with it. When
+I see a thing like this, I want to hew it in pieces. Agag, Mr. Heard;
+Agag. I must have another look at this specimen; one does not see such
+a sight every day. He is a living fossil--post-pleistocene."
+
+He drew off; Keith and the Count, engaged in some deep conversation,
+had also moved a few paces away.
+
+Mr. Heard stood alone, his back turned to the Master. Moonlight still
+flooded the earth, the lanterns were flickering and sputtering. Some
+had gone out, leaving gaps of darkness in the lighted walls. Many of
+the guests retired without bidding farewell to their host; he liked
+them to feel at their ease, to take "French leave" whenever so
+disposed--to depart "A L'ANGLAISE," as the French say. The garden was
+nearly empty. A great quietude had fallen upon its path and thickets.
+From afar resounded the boisterous chorus of a party of revellers loth
+to quit the scene; it was suddenly broken by a terrific crash and
+bursts of laughter. Some table had been knocked over.
+
+Standing there, the bishop could not but listen to Keith, who had
+raised his voice in emphasis and was saying to the Count, in his best
+Keithean manner:
+
+"I am just coming to that point. A spring-board is what humanity needs.
+What better one can be contrived than this pure unadulterated
+Byzantianism. Cretinism, I call it. Look at the Orthodox Church. A
+repository of apocalyptic nonsense such as no sane man can take
+seriously. Nonsense of the right kind, the uncompromising kind. That is
+my point. The paralysing, sterilizing cult of these people offers a far
+better spring-board into a clean element of thought than our English
+Church, whose DEMI-VIERGE concessions to common sense afford seductive
+resting-places to the intellectually weak-knee'd. Do I make myself
+clear? I'm getting infernally thirsty."
+
+"I quite agree with you, my friend. The Russians have got a better
+spring-board than the English. The queer thing is, that the Russians
+won't jump, whereas the Englishman often does. Well, well! We cannot
+live without fools."
+
+Mr. Heard was slightly perturbed by these words. A good fellow like
+Keith! "DEMI-VIERGE concessions to common sense"; what did he mean by
+that? Did his church really make such concessions?
+
+"I'll think about it to-morrow," he decided.
+
+The Master, when they returned to him, had not budged from his
+resting-place. The fingers still lay, starfish-wise, upon the folds of
+that soiled homespun; his eyes still stared out of the leafy bower; his
+face still wore its mask of placid imbecility.
+
+The glass was empty.
+
+Slowly, as on a pivot, his head turned in the direction of the
+bodyguard.
+
+Forthwith some favourite disciple--not Krasnojabkin, who happened to be
+escorting Madame Steynlin to her villa just then--darted to his side;
+with the help of two lady-apostles known, respectively, as the
+"goldfinch" and the "red apple," they conveyed him out of that shelter
+into the deserted, moonlit garden. He leaned heavily on the arm of the
+youth; peevish sounds, quasi-human, proceeded from his colourless lips.
+And now he was almost speaking; desirous, it seemed, of formulating
+some truth too deep for human utterance.
+
+"I bet I know what he is saying," whispered Keith. "It's something
+about the Man-God."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+
+
+
+The Russian Government is notoriously tender-hearted. But even the worm
+will turn....
+
+Scholars who have treated the life of the ex-monk Bazhakuloff divide it
+into five clearly marked periods: the probationary, dialectical,
+political, illumined and expiatory.
+
+The first began in youth when, being driven from his father's house by
+reason of his vagrant habits and other incorrigible vices, he entered a
+monastery near Kasan. Despite occasional lapses prompted by the hot
+blood of his years and punished with harsh disciplinary measures, he
+seems to have performed his monkish duties with sufficient zeal. It was
+observed, however, that with increasing years he became unduly
+interested in questions of dogma. He talked too freely; he was always
+arguing. Being unable to read or write, he developed an astonishing
+memory for things he had heard and faces he had seen; he brought them
+up at inconvenient moments. He grew factious, obstreperous, declaring
+that there was much in the constitution of the Holy Russian Church
+which ought to be amended and brought up to date. What people wanted,
+he said, was a New Jerusalem. A violent altercation with his Superior
+touching the attributes of the Holy Ghost ended in a broken jaw-bone on
+the part of the older man, and the expulsion of the younger. The
+dialectical period had set in. The convent inmates, on the whole, were
+glad to see the last of him--particularly the Father Superior.
+
+We next find him living in a large barn about fifteen miles from
+Moscow. The Superior being unwilling to publish the true facts of the
+broken jaw-bone, a certain fame, the fame of an earnest but
+misunderstood religious innovator, had preceded him. Adherents, barely
+twenty at first, gathered to his side. These disciples, humble
+analphabetics like himself, have left us no word of what passed at
+those long discussions. Certain it is that he now began to formulate
+the rules of his Revised Church. They were to live on charity, to go
+bare-headed, and to wear red blouses--like the Christians of old. The
+charm of these simple regulations spread abroad, and gained him fresh
+recruits. There were now some cultured folk among them, who collected
+his saying into the GOLDEN BOOK. He decided to limit his disciples to
+the "Sacred Number 63," and to call them "Little White Cows." Asked why
+he chose this title, he answered that cows were pure and useful animals
+without which humanity could not live; even so were his disciples. The
+innate good sense of this speech increased his reputation. About this
+time, too, he would sometimes prophesy, and undergo long periods of
+motionless self-abstraction. At the end of one of these latter, after
+tasting no food or drink for three and a half hours, he gave utterance
+to what was afterwards known as the First Revelation. It ran to this
+effect: "The Man-God is the Man-God, and not the God-Man." Asked how he
+arrived at so stupendous an aphorism, he answered that it just came to
+him. There were troubles in the neighbourhood over the audacity of this
+utterance; some called it a divine inspiration, to the majority it was
+known as the Unnamable Heresy. For a brief while the town was formed
+into two camps, and the Chief of Police, a prudent official, was at his
+wit's end what to do with these inflammable elements, seeing that the
+ex-monk's followers had now swelled to several hundreds and contained
+not a few of the more influential aristocrats of the city. In this
+dilemma, he applied for instruction to the Procurator of the Holy
+Synod. That gentleman, having considered the case, rashly decided that
+a visionary of this stamp might be useful for furthering certain
+projects of his own. He hoped, by placing under an obligation, to
+fashion out of the young reformer an amenable instrument--a
+miscalculation which he lived (though not for long) to repent. Under
+the Procurator's aegis, Bazhakuloff was summoned to the Capital. The
+political period was beginning. Moscow, on the whole, was glad to see
+the last of him--particularly the Chief of Police.
+
+There began the most brilliant epoch of his life. By steps which it is
+needless to trace, he fought and wormed his way into the favour of the
+Court. A good deal of his worldly success may well have been due, as
+his enemies assert, to an incredible mixture of cringing, astuteness,
+and impudence. It stands to reason, however, that a man of this type
+must have possessed sterling qualities of his own to be found
+occupying--all this was years and years ago--a suite of apartments in the
+Palace, where he lived in splendour, a Power behind the Throne, the
+Confidental Adviser of the Highest Circles. His monkish garb was soon
+encrusted with orders and decorations, no State function was complete
+without his presence, no official appointment, from the highest and
+lowest sphere of government, was held to be valid without his sanction.
+Red blouses, one of several keys to his favour, could be counted by
+thousands. He crushed opposition with an iron hand. He wrought a
+miracle or two; but what chiefly accounted for the almost divine
+veneration in which he was held was a succession of lucky
+prophecies--none luckier than that wherein, during one of his moments of
+inspired self-abstraction, he foretold the early and violent death of
+the former protector, the man to whom he owed this rise to the
+pinnacles of fame. For even so it fell out. Not many days later the
+Procurator of the Holy Synod was found murdered in bed by an unknown
+hand. A certain journalist, writing from Switzerland, boldly states
+that the Procurator was murdered at the instigation of Bazhakuloff and
+claims to have heard, from an eye-witness whom he does not name, of a
+bitter quarrel between the two on the subject of a certain lady as to
+whose identity we are also left in doubt. It may be true; such things
+have happened ere now. This particular writer's credibility, however,
+is none of the best; he has been convicted over and over again of
+forcing the note in his diatribes against what he calls "retrogression
+into idolatry." There was certainly a good deal of unrest in the
+country during the period of the ex-monk's ascendency; no less than
+13,783 persons had been banished to Siberia, and 3,756 executed at his
+orders. Yet nothing, it seemed, could shatter his position when, with
+appalling suddenness, a thunderbolt descended. Nobody knows to this day
+what took place. It was something Russian; some scandal in the Highest
+Spheres which may see the light of day, centuries hence, when the
+Imperial Archives are disclosed as musty court history to the eyes of
+students curious in such matters. At this crisis, when 44,323 persons,
+mostly liberals, were awaiting trial in the prisons of the Capital, the
+ex-monk would doubtless have been quietly removed after the fashion of
+court favourites, not by his adherents, now numbering many hundred
+thousands, threatened a revolution. A secret compromise was effected.
+He was banished, with every outward mark of disgrace, to a monastery in
+the remote and inhospitable region of Viatka, there to meditate upon
+the instability of human affairs. The illumined period was drawing
+nigh. The Capital, on the whole, was glad to see the last of
+him--particuarly the prisoners awaiting trial.
+
+The diet and discipline nearly killed him at first. He was consoled by
+knowing that his fame had spread far and wide. The Court being
+unwilling to publish the true facts of his disgrace, he was regarded as
+a martyr, a victim of political intrigue, an injured saint. Disciples
+multiplied. The GOLDEN BOOK was filled with priceless sayings--wise and
+salutary maxims which echoed from end to end of the country. The New
+Jerusalem took on a definite shape; the nucleus of the movement, the
+initiated among his followers, were retained as the "Sacred 63"; he
+called them his apostles and himself their Messiah, which some people
+thought rather presumptuous of him. His reputation for sanctity became
+such that he was once more a power to be reckoned with; the Court, in
+fact, was on the verge of receiving him into favour again, when the
+Second Revelation was announced. It ran to this effect: Flesh and blood
+of warm-blooded beasts is Abomination to the Little White Cows. Asked
+how he contrived to formulate so novel and tremendous a proposition, he
+answered that it just came to him. His followers--there were about three
+million of them now--instantly refused to touch the Unclean Thing, and
+all would have gone well but for the fact that the Army was tinctured
+with the New Faith, and that the Grand Dukes had recently become
+involved in extensive and lucrative contracts for supplying the troops
+with mean. The soldiery refusing to eat either beef or mutton or pork,
+percentages declined. These leaders took up a firm patriotic attitude.
+The health and morale of the entire Army, they declared, was dependent
+upon a sound nutritive diet obtainable only through the operation of
+certain radioactive oxydised magneto-carbon-hydrates which exist
+nowhere save in the muscular tissue of animals. This new heresy
+endangered the very foundations of Empire! They were not people to
+compromise where questions of national prosperity were concerned. They
+suggested, privately, that he should cancel his Revelation. He refused.
+They then sent him a confidential messenger offering the choice of
+assassination or deportation within the space of three hours. He
+inclined to the latter alternative, and was straightway conveyed to the
+frontier by special train with as many rouble notes in his pocket as he
+had been able to scrape together in the flurry of departure. Some
+disturbances broke out when the news of his banishment became known; a
+few whiffs of grape-shot worked wonders. The majority of his adherents
+abjured their error; the rest of them, aided by charitable
+contributions from a secret committee of enthusiasts, found their way
+abroad to dwell under the shadow of the banished Messiah. The expiatory
+period was approaching. Russia, on the whole, was glad to see the last
+of him--particularly the Grand Ducal party.
+
+A broken man, he decided to establish himself on Nepenthe, drawn
+thither partly on account of the climate but chiefly by the report of
+its abounding lobsters and fishes, an article of diet of which he was
+inordinately fond. Disciples followed singly, and in batches. Their
+scarlet blouses became a familiar object in the streets of the place;
+good-natured and harmless folks for the most part who, if they ran up
+bills with the local trades-people which they failed to pay, did so not
+out of natural dishonesty but because they had no money. They used to
+bathe, in summertime, at a certain little cove near the foot of the
+promontory on which Madame Steynlin's villa was situated. She watched
+their naked antics at first with disapproval--what could you expect, she
+would say, from Russians? Then she observed them eating raw crabs and
+things. It struck her that they must be hungry. Being a lady of the
+sentimental type, childless, and never so happy as when feeding or
+mothering somebody, she took to sending them down baskets of food, or
+carrying it herself. They were so poor, so far from their homes, so
+picturesque in those red shirts and leathern belts!
+
+Of late years Madame Steynlin had given up marrying, having at last,
+after many broken hopes, definitely convinced herself that husbands
+were only after her money. Rightly or wrongly, she wanted to be loved
+for herself; loved, she insisted, body and soul. Even as the fires of
+Erebus slumber beneath their mantle of ice, she concealed, under a
+varnish of conventionality--the crust was not so thick in her case--a
+nature throbbing with passion. She was everlastingly unappeased,
+because incurably romantic. All life, she truly declared, is a search
+for a friend. Unfortunately she sought with her eyes open, having never
+grasped the elementary truth that to find a friend one must close one
+eye: to keep him--two. She always attributed to men qualities which, she
+afterwards discovered, they did not possess. Her life since the
+marrying period had been a breathless succession of love affairs, each
+more eternal than the last.
+
+In matters such as these, Madame Steynlin was the reverse of the
+Duchess. True to her ideal of La Pompadour, that lady did not mind how
+many men danced attendance on her--the more the merrier. Nor did she
+bother about their ages; for all she cared, they might be, and often
+were, the veriest crocks. She was rather particular, however, about
+stiff collars and things; the appearance and conversation of her
+retinue, she avowed, should be of the kind to pass muster in good
+society. Madame Steynlin liked to have not more than one man escorting
+her at a time, and he should be young, healthy-looking, and full of
+life. In regard to minor matters she preferred, if anything, Byronic
+collars to starched ones; troubling little, for the rest, what costume
+her cavalier was wearing or what opinions he expressed. In fact, she
+liked youngsters to be frank, impetuous, extravagant in their views and
+out of the common rut. The two ladies had been likened to Divine and
+Earthly Love, or to Venus Urania and Venus Pandemos--a comparison which
+was manifestly unfair to both of them.
+
+It was during this summer bathing that Madame Steynlin had made
+acquaintance of what was, at the time, the Master's favourite disciple.
+His name happened to be Peter--Peter Arsenievitch Krasnojabkin. He was a
+fine son of earth--a strapping young giant who threw himself into
+eating, drinking, and other joys of life with enviable barbaric zest.
+There was not an ounce of piety in his composition. He had donned the
+scarlet blouse because he wanted to see Nepenthe and, like the
+Christians of old, had no money. Driven by that roving spirit which is
+the Muscovite's heritage and by the desire of all sensible men to taste
+new lands, new wine, new women, he professed himself a Little White
+Cow. It was quite the regular thing to do. It brought you to the notice
+of that secret committee of enthusiasts who paid your travel expenses;
+it gave you a free trip to the sunny south. Everyone wondered how he
+had managed to rise so rapidly in the Master's graces. Madame Steynlin
+now stepped between them. She grew fond of Peter, and marked him for
+her own. He fulfilled every one of her conditions as to age, costume
+and opinions. Besides, he was always so gloriously hungry! She invited
+him to take luncheon once or twice and then began to take Russian
+lessons from him. "He is only a boy," she would say.
+
+Conversing, as best she could, with this child of nature, it dawned
+upon her that she had hitherto been mistaken in her estimate of the
+Russian character. She began to understand the inward sense of that
+brotherly love, that apostolic spirit, which binds together every class
+of the immense Empire--to revere their simplicity of soul and calm
+god-like faith. She revised her former narrow Lutheran views and openly
+confessed that she was quite wrong in declaring, as she once did, that
+what the Little White Cows needed was "more soap and less salvation."
+The magic of love! It softened, not for the first time, her heart
+towards all humanity and in particular, on this occasion, towards the
+rest of the saintly band; were they not her brothers and sisters? She
+even knitted six pairs of warm woollen socks and sent them with a
+polite message to the Master--a message which was left unanswered,
+though the socks were never returned. As to Peter--she called him her
+Little Peter or, in his more expansive moments, Peter the Great. Soon
+he was always coming to the villa at meal-times and staying for hours
+afterwards, while they wrestled with the complexities of Russian
+genders. He made no secret of the pleasure he derived from filling his
+healthy young stomach at her expense; everything supplementary to that
+prime condition he took as a gift from the gods. If he had not been so
+simple-minded he could have wheedled any amount of money out of her.
+The affair had now been going on for four month--quite a long while, as
+such affairs went.
+
+Not for the first time did Madame Steynlin experience the drawbacks of
+her house, as regards natural situation. It was, as Don Francesco often
+pointed out, "the most unstrategic villa on Nepenthe." Ah, that
+peninsula, that isthmus, or whatever you called the thing--what on earth
+had attracted her to the place? What demon had tempted her to buy it?
+How she envied the other people--Keith, for example, who, if he had been
+a man of that kind, could have allowed any visitor, in the broadest
+daylight, to creep in or out of his mouldy old gateway in the wall
+without a soul being any the wiser! High-priced horticultural experts
+had been consulted as to the best means of thickening the vegetation
+and screening the approaches to the house. They had met with scanty
+success. The soil was of the most sterile, intractable rock; those few
+wind-blown olives were dreadfully diaphanous, and Peter's blouse
+visible from afar--even from the market-place. Everything got about on
+Nepenthe. People began to twit her about the progress of those "Russian
+lessons." It became quite a scandal. Signor Malipizzo was more annoyed
+than any one else. He hated the whole brood of Russians, and had formed
+various projects for uprooting the association from the island. His
+friend the Commissioner thoroughly endorsed these views. Often he
+declared that something must be done about it.
+
+The Master, despite his seclusion, had heard of the affair. He was
+grieved, but not unduly so; he had other disciples to choose from.
+Every new arrival from Holy Russia, regardless of sex or age, spent
+some hours or days, as the case might be, alone with the Master in his
+apartment, in order to be initiated into the Law and impregnated with
+its full signification: such was the way of the New Jerusalem. By this
+system of spiritual control he could be sure of finding a successor
+sooner or later. Besides, the defection of this favourite disciple was
+only a drop in the ocean of his griefs. What secretly preyed upon his
+mind was that, on the verge of returning to his former state of worldly
+prosperity, he had been inspired to issue that Second Revelation
+regarding warm-blooded beasts. He ought to have known about the Grand
+Dukes, and what a sacrilegious hot-tempered clique they were! "This
+comes," he would say, "of placing the service of God above that of my
+earthly masters." It kept him in exile on this island--the deadlock in
+the matter of that Second Revelation. The expiatory period was not yet
+over, though Nepenthe, on the whole, would have been glad to see the
+last of him--particularly Signor Malipizzo.
+
+Meanwhile, the Little White Cows lived on: the richer in houses,
+sleeping fifteen or twenty in one room after the happy style of
+patriarchal Russia--the humbler folk in old ruins, sheds, cellars, or
+even caverns of the rock. You could do that sort of thing in a climate
+like Nepenthe, if you were not fastidious in the matter of owls, bats,
+lizards, toads, earwigs, centipedes, and an occasional scorpion.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+
+
+
+No Russians dwelt within the Cave of Mercury. It was inconveniently
+remote; it was difficult of approach; moreover, it was haunted.
+Dreadful rites had been performed there, in olden times. The walls had
+dripped with human gore. Death-groans of victims slain by the priestly
+knife resounded in its hollow entrails. Such had been the legend in the
+days of those monkish chroniclers in whose credulous pages Monsignor
+Perrelli, incredulous himself, had discovered a mine of curious
+information.
+
+Then came the Good Duke Alfred. His Highness posed as a conservative in
+some matters; it pleased him to revive memories of the long-buried
+past. He cared little about ghosts. He liked to take things in hand.
+After remarking in his brisk epigrammatic fashion that "not everything
+old is putrid," he devoted his attention to the Cave of Mercury and
+caused a flight of convenient stairs to be built, wide enough to admit
+the passage of two of his fattest Privy Councillors walking abreast,
+and leading down to this particular grotto through a cleft in the rock.
+Nobody knew what happened there under his superintendence. Mankind
+being ever prone to believe the worst of every great man, all kinds of
+stupid and even wicked things were said, though not during his
+lifetime. People vowed that he carried on the old traditions, the
+tortures and human sacrifices, and even improved upon them in his
+blithe Renaissance manner. They were ready to supply circumstantial and
+excruciating details of how, disguised, down to the minutest details of
+costume, in the semblance of the Evil One, he had sought to prolong his
+life and invigorate his declining health with the blood of innocent
+children, artfully done to death after fiendish, lingering agonies.
+Father Capocchio, needless to say, has some shocking pages on this
+subject.
+
+Mr. Eames, who had made a careful study of Duke Alfred's reign, came to
+the conclusion that such excesses were incompatible with the character
+of a ruler whose love of children was one of his most salient traits.
+In regard to those other and vaguer accusations, he contended that the
+Duke was too jovial by nature to have tortured any save those who, in
+his opinion, thoroughly deserved it. Indeed, he was sceptical about the
+whole thing. Monsignor Perrelli might have told us the truth, had he
+cared to do so. But, for reasons which will appear anon, he is
+remarkably silent on all that concerns the reign of his great
+contemporary. He says nothing more than this:
+
+"His Highness deigned, during the same year, to restore, and put into
+its old working order, the decayed heathen rock-chapel vulgarly known
+as the Cave of Mercury."
+
+To put into ITS OLD WORKING ORDER; that would sound rather suspicious,
+as though to contain a veiled accusation. We must remember, however,
+that the historian of Nepenthe bore a grudge against his Prince (of
+which likewise more anon), a grudge which he was far too prudent to
+vent openly; so bitter and personal a grudge that he may have felt
+himself justified in making a covert innuendo of this kind whenever he
+could safely risk it.
+
+Meanwhile, everything remained as before--shrouded in mystery. Being
+doubly haunted now, by the Duke's victims and by those earlier ones,
+the cave fell into greater neglect than ever. Simple folk avoided
+speaking of the place save in a hushed whisper. It became a proverb
+among the islanders when speaking of something outrageously improbable:
+"Don't tell me! Such things only happen in the Cave of Mercury." When
+someone disappeared from his house or hotel without leaving any trace
+behind--it happened now and then--or when anything disreputable happened
+to anyone, they always said "Try the Cave," or simply "Try Mercury."
+The path had crumbled away long ago. Nobody went there, except in broad
+daylight. It was as safe a place as you could desire, at night-time,
+for a murder or a love-affair. Such was the Cave of Mercury.
+
+Denis had gone to the spot one morning not long after his arrival. He
+had climbed down the slippery stairs through that dank couloir or
+funnel in the rock overhung with drooping maidenhair and ivy and
+umbrageous carobs. He had rested on the little platform outside the
+cavern's vineyard far below, and upwards, at the narrow ribbon of sky
+overhead. Then he had gone within, to examine what was left of the old
+masonry, the phallic column and other relics of the past. That was ten
+days ago. Now he meant to follow Keith's advice and go there at
+midnight. The moon was full.
+
+"This very night I'll go," he thought.
+
+All was not well with Denis. And the worst of it was, he had no clear
+notion of what was the matter. He was changing. The world was changing
+too. It had suddenly expanded. He felt that he, also, ought to expand.
+There was so much to learn, to see, to know--so much, that it seemed to
+paralyse his initiative. Could he absorb all this? Would he ever get
+things in order once more, and recapture his self-possession? Would he
+ever again be satisfied with himself? It was an invasion of his
+tranquillity, from within and without. He was restless. Bright ideas
+never came to him, as of old; or else they were the ideas of other
+people. A miserable state of affairs! He was becoming an automaton--an
+echo.
+
+An echo.... How right Keith had been!
+
+"It's rotten," he concluded. "I'm a ludicrous figure, a pathetic
+idiot."
+
+The novel impressions of Florence had helped in the disintegration.
+Nepenthe--it's sunshine, its relentless paganism--had done the rest. It
+shattered his earlier outlook and gave him nothing in exchange.
+Nothing, and yet everything. That vision of Angelina! It filled his
+inner being with luxurious content; content and uncertainty. It was
+there, at the back of every dream, of every intimate thought and every
+little worldly phrase that he uttered. He was like a man who, looking
+long at the sun, sees its image floating in heaven, on earth--wherever
+he casts his eye. Angelina! Nothing else was of any account. How would
+it all end? He drifted along in blissful apprehension of what the next
+day might bring. She seemed to have become genuinely well-disposed
+towards him of late, though in rather a mocking, maternal sort of
+fashion.
+
+The poetic vein had definitely run dry. Impossible to make things
+rhyme, somehow. Perhaps his passion was too strong for technical
+restraints. He tried his hand at prose:
+
+"Your eyes bewilder me. I would liken you to a shaft of sunlight, a
+withering flame--a black flame, if such there be--for your grace and
+ardour is even as a flame. Your step is laughter and song. Your hair is
+a torrent of starless night. The sun is your lover, you god. He takes
+joy in your perfection. Your slender body palpitates with his
+imprisoned beams. He has moulded your limbs and kissed your smooth skin
+in the days when you ... nevermore will you whiten those kisses...."
+
+"It won't do," he sadly reflected, laying down the pen. "The adaptation
+is too palpable. Why does everybody anticipate my ideas? The fact is, I
+have nothing to say. I can only feel. Everything went right, so long as
+I was in love with myself. Now everything goes wrong."
+
+Then he remembered Keith's pompous exhortation.
+
+"Find yourself! You know the Cave of Mercury! Climb down, one night of
+full moon--"
+
+"There is something in what he says. This very night I'll go."
+
+It was particularly hard for him that evening. The Duchess was dining
+with a party at Madame Steynlin's; it was an open secret that the
+entertainment would end in a moonlight excursion on the water; she
+would not return till very late. Angelina would be alone, accessible.
+It was her duty to guard the house in the absence of its mistress. He
+might have gone there on some pretext and talked awhile, and looked
+into her elvish eyes and listened to that Southern voice, rich and
+clear as a bell. Almost he yielded. He thought of the ineptitude of the
+whole undertaking and, in particular, of those slippery stairs; one
+might break one's neck there at such an hour of the night. Unless one
+wore tennis shoes--
+
+Well, he would wear them. He would resist the temptation and approve
+himself a man. Everybody, even the Duchess, was always telling him to
+be a man. He would find himself. Keith was right.
+
+The night came.
+
+He descended noiselessly into the cool and dark chasm, resting awhile
+on a ledge about half-way down, to drink in the spirit of the place.
+All was silent. Dim masses towered overhead; through rifts in the rocky
+fabric he caught glimmerings, strange and yet familiar, of the
+landscape down below. It swam in the milky radiance of a full moon
+whose light streamed down from some undiscoverable source behind the
+mountain, suffusing the distant vineyards and trees with a ghostly
+tinge of green. Like looking into another world, he though; a poet's
+world. Calmly it lay there, full of splendour. How well one could
+understand, in such a place, the glamour, the romance, of night!
+Romance.... What was left of life without romance? He remembered his
+talk with Marten; he thought of the scientists crude notions of
+romance. He pitied the materialism which denied him joys like these.
+This moonlit landscape--how full of suggestion! That grotto down
+below--what tales it could unfold!
+
+The Cave of Mercury....
+
+How had Mercury, the arch-thief, come to be presiding genius here?
+Denis knew; his friend Eames had explained everything to him. Mercury
+had nothing whatever to do with the site. That name had been proved by
+the bibliographer to be the invention of some pedantic monk who liked
+to display his learning to a generation avid of antiquities, a
+generation which insisted on attaching a Roman deity to every cavern.
+It was a wilful fabrication, made in the infancy of archaeology when
+historical criticism was non-existent. And the same with all those
+stories about human sacrifices and tortures. There was not a word of
+truth in them. So Mr. Eames had decided, after a systematic
+investigation of both of the older authorities and of the grotto
+itself. The legends, too, were simply invented to give a zest to a
+locality whose original antique name had apparently been lost, though
+he had not yet abandoned all hope of stumbling across it by one of
+those lucky accidents which reward the lover of old parchments and
+title-deeds. A pure invention. It was plain the Mr. Eames from what
+remained of ancient symbols on the spot, that the cave had been
+consecrated to older and worthier rites--to some mysterious, primeval,
+fecund Mother of Earth. Her name, like that of her habitation, had
+lapsed into oblivion.
+
+"There is something grand in this old animistic conception," Eames had
+said. "Later on, under the Romans, the place seems to have been
+dedicated to Priapic rites. That is rather a depreciation, isn't it? It
+brings us down from fruitfulness to mere lasciviousness. But where are
+you going to draw the line? Everything tends to lose its hallowed
+meaning; it becomes degraded, bestialized. Still, the roots of the idea
+are sound. In giving sensual attributes to a garden god the ancients
+had in mind the recklessness, the spendthrift abundance, of all
+nature--not excluding our own. They tried to explain how it came about
+that the sanest man is liable, under the stress of desire, to acts of
+which he vainly repents at leisure. I don't suppose they meant to
+justify those acts. If they had, they would have given a less equivocal
+position to Priapus in their celestial hierarchy. Priapus, you know,
+was not wholly divine. I think they only wanted to make it quite clear
+that we cannot drive out nature with a fork. I wish we could," he
+added.
+
+And then he sighed. The poor fellow was thinking at that moment, of
+balloons.
+
+Denis remembered this conversation. Earth-worship: the cult of those
+generative forces which weld together in one mighty instinct the
+highest and lowliest of terrestrial creatures.... The unalienable
+right of man and beast to enact that which shall confound death, and
+replenish the land with youth, and joy, and teeming life. The right
+which priestly castes of every age have striven to repress, which
+triumphs over every obstacle and sanctifies, by its fruits, the wildest
+impulses of man. The right to love!
+
+Musing thus, he began to understand why men of old, who looked things
+squarely in the face, should have deified this friendly, all-compelling
+passion. He reverenced the fierce necessity which drives the living
+world to its fairest and sole enduring effort. Be fruitful and
+multiply. He recognized for the firs ttime that he was not a lonely
+figure on earth, but absorbed into a solemn and eternal movement; bound
+close to the throbbing heart of the Universe. There was grandeur, there
+was repose, in being able to regard himself as an integral part of
+nature, destined to create and leave his mark. He felt that he was
+growing into harmony with permanent things--finding himself. He realized
+now what Keith had meant.
+
+It cost him quite an effort to tear himself away from that ledge. He
+began to descend once more.
+
+Near the entrance of the Cave he paused abruptly. It seemed as if a
+sound had issued from the interior of the rock. He listened. It came
+again--a human sound, unquestionably, and within a few yards of his
+face. A whisper. There was something going on--Earth-worship....
+
+Suddenly a succession of words broke upon the stillness--breathless
+words, spoken in a language which not everybody could have translated.
+He recognized the voice. It said:
+
+"EGO TE AMARE TANTUM! NON VOLERE? NON PIACERE? NON CAPIRE? O Lord,
+can't you understand?"
+
+It was Mr. Marten's voice. Mr. Marten was being romantic. No answer
+came to his fervent pleadings. Perhaps they were not coherent enough.
+He began again, TREMOLO AGITATO, CON MOLTO SENTIMENTO:
+
+"O EGO TE AMARE TANTUM! NEMO SAPIT NIHIL. DUCHESSA IN BARCA AQUATICA
+CUM MAGNA COMPANIA. REDIBIT TARDISSIMO. NIENTE TIMOR. AMARE MULTISSIMO!
+EGO MORIRE FINE TE. MORIRE. MORITURUS. CAPITO? NON CAPIRE? Oh, CAPIRE
+be blowed!"
+
+There was a short pause. The language seems to have been understood
+this time. For, amid a ripple of laughter, a rich Southern voice was
+heard to say with a sigh of mock resignation:
+
+"SIA FATTA LA VOLONTA DI DIO!"
+
+Then silence....
+
+Denis turned. He walked up the steps as in a dream, neither slowly nor
+fast. No one was ever more unhappy, though he scarcely felt as yet the
+depths of his own humiliation. It was more like a stab--a numbing
+assassin-like stab. He could hear the beatings of his heart.
+
+He reached the upper level of the town, he knew not how.
+
+All lay quiet as he found his way among the familiar buildings. It was
+after midnight; most of the lamps had been extinguished. The streets
+were deserted. He heard, in the distance, the song of a drunken
+wayfarer reeling homewards from a tavern or from the Club.
+
+In one of the little roadways that converge upon the market-place
+something was astir. It was a dim phantom of willowy outline, swaying
+capriciously to and fro, like a black feather tossed by the wind. Miss
+Wilberforce! She fluttered down a doorstep and began crooning a vulgar
+song about "Billy had a letter for to go on board a ship." Denis moved
+to the other side of the narrow path, hoping to escape unobserved. The
+light was too strong.
+
+"My young friend," she cried in quite a hoarse and altered tone of
+voice, "we should know each other! We've had the pleasure haven't we?
+Been down to the sea, have you? And what are the wild waves saying?"
+
+Denis stood there, petrified with disgust. Was it possible? Was this
+the lady who had charmed him the other day? Who had spoken of England
+and conjured up the memories of his own home in the Midlands? With a
+playful gesture, she sent her hat careering across the street and began
+to fumble at her breast, unlacing or unbuttoning something. It was
+horrible, in the moonlight.
+
+A boot, flying merrily over his head, recalled him to his senses. He
+turned to go, and had already made a few paces when the voice croaked
+after him:
+
+"Does your mother know you're out?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+
+
+
+Some good genius took him by the hand next day and led him to the house
+of Count Caloveglia, in response to that friendly twice-repeated
+invitation. The old man saw at a glance that something serious was
+amiss. He plunged at once, with quick insight, into what he took to be
+extraneous topics of conversation.
+
+"I am glad you like my fig tree! It gives a distinctive tone to this
+quiet courtyard, don't you think? I could not have wished for anything
+more appropriate. Its shape, its associations, are alike pleasing. The
+fig is a legendary tree; a volume could be written about the stories
+and superstitions which have twined themselves around it. Some think it
+was the Biblical Tree of Knowledge. Judas Iscariot, they say, hanged
+himself on a fig tree. It came from the East-Bacchus brought it on his
+journey as a gift to mortal men. How much we owe to those of the Greek
+gods who were yet not wholly divine! The Romans, too, held it in
+veneration. You have doubtless heard about the FICUS RUMINALIS, at hose
+feet the cradle of Romulus and Remus was stranded? Among many nations
+it became the outward symbol of generative forces. The Egyptians
+consecrated the fig to Isis, that fecund Mother of Earth. Statues of
+Priapus were carved out of its wood in allusion, possibly, to its
+reckless fertility or for some analogous reason; it was also held to be
+sacred, I know not why, to Mercury--"
+
+Denis, during this little speech, had begun to look more troubled than
+ever. The other continued:
+
+"There is something in the very twistings of that smooth trunk and
+those heavy-laden branches that suggests fruitfulness, How voluptuously
+they writhe! A kindly growth, lover of men, their dwellings and ordered
+ways. That is why we foster it. We are all utilitarians here, Mr.
+Denis; we think of the main purposes of life. Besides food, it gives us
+welcome shade at this season; the leaves fall off in winter and allow
+the sunlight to percolate into our rooms. You will not find evergreen
+trees planted near our windows. We know the value of sunshine; where
+the sun enters, we say, the physician does not enter. In England the
+light is feebler and yet they made this mistake, during the Georgian
+period of architecture. They thought that houses were invented to be
+looked at, not to be lived in. Determined to be faithful to the
+tradition and regardless of the difference in climate, they planted the
+ilex about those mansions which must be dank and gloomy in wintertime,
+however charming, externally, to those who relish the chill Palladian
+outlines. You have lately been to Florence, I hear? Come! Let us sit
+indoors. The courtyard is rather too sultry to-day, in spite of the
+shade. My old servant will bring some tea, presently. Or perhaps you
+would prefer some wine and a biscuit? Or a glass of liqueur?...
+Well? And Florence?"
+
+"It has left me rather confused, so far," replied Denis. "Some of the
+things are overwhelming."
+
+"Overwhelming? That is perhaps because you do not see the movement in
+its continuity, because you have not traced the stream to its source. I
+can understand your feelings. But one need not be overwhelmed by these
+men. They were lovable folks, who played with their art like some child
+that has discovered a long-lost toy. It is a pity that their activities
+were so hampered by the conventions of religious dogma. Viewed by
+itself, the Renaissance may seem overwhelming; it shoots up like a
+portentous lily out of the blood-drenched soil of a thousand
+battlefields. Let me take you to its real source."
+
+He showed him that little statuette, the Locri Faun. Denis was
+enchanted by it.
+
+"You have heard of Sir Herbert Street? He also thinks highly of this
+thing. He is now adviser in art matters to Mr. van Koppen who is a
+patron of mine and who, I hear, will arrive to-morrow or the day
+after."
+
+"Street? I met him at my mother's house. Wasn't he at South Kensington?
+A great man for dining out. You cannot pick up an evening paper without
+reading something about him. That kind of man! All the same, he wrote a
+good book on the Siena School. I liked it, didn't you?"
+
+"It is a fair appreciation, from the collector's point of view. He has
+stayed with me here once or twice, and given me reason to form a high
+opinion of his capacities. Now if you will compare this Faun with your
+Florentine art, you will see what I mean by going to the fountain.
+There is a difference not only in technique, but in outlook. The man
+who wrought this did not trouble about you, or me, or himself. He had
+not moods. His art is purely intellectual; he stands aloof, like a
+glacier. Here the spring issued, crystal-clear. As the river swells in
+size it grows turbid and discoloured with alien elements--personality,
+emotions."
+
+"I have noticed that," said Denis. "It is what we call the malady of
+thought. This Faun, you say, was found on the mainland yonder?"
+
+"Near the site of old Locri, on a piece of ground which still belongs
+to me. I suspect there are still a good many Greek relics to be
+excavated on the site. We have discovered a Demeter some years ago; a
+mutilated head in marble; it is now in Paris. You can see the very
+place from my roof here, on bright days. These men, Mr. Denis, were our
+masters. Do not be misled by what you are told of the wanton luxury of
+those shores; do not forget that your view of that age has filtered
+through Roman stoicism and English puritanism which speak with envy
+lurking at their hearts--the envy of the incomplete creature for him who
+dares express himself. A plague has infected the world--the plague of
+repression. Don't you think that the man who made this Faun was
+entitled to dine well?"
+
+"I cannot quite make it out," said Denis, still examining the
+statuette.
+
+"Ah! How does it make you feel?"
+
+"Uneasy."
+
+"You are unaware of a struggle between your own mind and that of the
+artist? I am glad. It is the test of beauty and vitality that a
+beholder refuses to acquiesce at first glance. There is a conflict to
+be undergone. This thing thrusts itself upon us; it makes no
+concessions, does it? And yet one cannot but admire! You will seldom
+encounter that sensation among the masterpieces of the Renaissance.
+They welcome you with open arms. That is because we know what the
+creators were thinking about. They are quite personal and familiar;
+they had as many moods, one suspects, as a fashionable prima donna.
+They give pleasure. This Faun gives pleasure and something more--a sense
+of disquieting intimacy. While intruding upon your reserve with his
+solemn, stark and almost hostile novelty, he makes at the same time a
+strange appeal--he touches upon chords in our nature of which we
+ourselves were barely cognisant. You must yield, Mr. Denis, to this
+stranger who seems to know so much about you. When you have done so,
+you will make a surprising discovery. You have gained a friend--one of
+those who never change."
+
+"I am trying to," replied Denis. "But it is difficult. We are not
+brought up that way, nowadays."
+
+"No. Men have lost their frankness, their self-assurance. Whoever
+yields, must be confident of his own strength. Our contemporaries have
+lost that feeling. They dare not be themselves. They eke out lack of
+sincerity by profusion of commonplace. Unlike the heroes of Homer, they
+repress their fears--they repress everything, save their irrepressible
+flatulence of mind. They are expansive in unimportant matters and at
+wrong moments--blown about in a whirl of fatuous extremes. The
+impersonal note has vanished. Why has it gone, Mr. Denis?" he suddenly
+asked. "And when did it go?"
+
+The other was rather puzzled what to reply.
+
+"I suppose you could trace its disappearance to the days of which you
+spoke, when artists began to display their moods to the world. Perhaps
+further still. Some Roman writers were fond of talking about their own
+affairs. If they do, the public naturally becomes interested. People
+like Byron must have had a good deal to do with it. He was always
+harping on his private life."
+
+He paused, but the Count merely asked:
+
+"No further back than that?"
+
+"I don't know. Christianity made us interested in other people's
+feelings. Brotherliness, you know. That must have helped. So did
+Socrates, by the way. Of course it lowers the general standard. Where
+everybody can read and write, there's an end of good taste. No, I don't
+mean that exactly," he added, feeling that he was expressing himself
+very stupidly.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, everything! The telegraph and society papers and interviewing and
+America and yellow journalism ... and all those family memoirs and
+diaries and autobiographies and Court scandals.... They produce a
+new kind of public, a public which craves for personalities rather than
+information. They want to learn about our clothes and incomes and
+habits. Not a questioning public, I mean; a prying public--"
+
+"A cannibalistic public," said the Count, quietly. "Men cannot live, it
+seems, save by feeding on their neighbour's life-blood. They prey on
+each other's nerve-tissues and personal sensations. Everything must be
+shared. It gives them a feeling of solidarity, I suppose, in a world
+where they have lost the courage to stand alone. Woe to him who dwells
+apart! Great things are no longer contemplated with reverence. They are
+hauled down from their pedestals in order to be rendered accessible to
+a generation of pigmies; their dignity is soiled by vulgar contact.
+This lust of handling--what is its ordinary name? Democracy. It has
+abraded the edge of that keen anthropocentric outlook of the Greeks
+which exalted whatever was distinctively human. Men have learnt to see
+beauty here, there, and everywhere--a little beauty, mark you, not much!
+They fail to realize that in widening their capacity of appreciation
+they dilute its intensity. They have watered their wine. There is more
+to drink. The draught is poorer."
+
+It seemed to Denis that the Count's wine had not been watered.
+
+"Let me show you one or two other things," said the old man.
+
+They wandered about the premises awhile, looking at marbles, prints,
+intaglios, coins, till a serving man entered--a clean-shaven and rather
+bony old creature whom the Count called Andrea--to announce tea. Denis
+was feeling calmer; he had fallen under the beguiling influence of this
+place. He realized that his host was different from the artist type he
+had hitherto encountered; more profound, more veracious. Already he
+formed the project of returning to listen to his melodious voice, and
+learn some more about that Hellenic life which had hitherto been a
+sealed book to him. Nobody every spoke to him after the Count's
+fashion. He contrasted his address with the bantering, half-apologetic,
+supercilious tone of those other elderly persons who had heretofore
+deigned to enlightened him. He was flattered and pleased at being taken
+seriously and bidden to think in this straightforward, manly fashion;
+it unstrung his reserve and medicined to his wounded self-respect.
+
+"So your mother would like to see you in Parliament?" asked the Count.
+"Politics are apt to be a dirty game. One cannot touch dirt without
+soiling one's hands. We have a deputy here, the Commendator
+Morena--well, one does not like to speak about him. Let me ask you a
+question, Mr. Denis. Why do politicians exist?"
+
+"I suppose the answer would be that is profitable to mankind to be run
+by somebody."
+
+"Profitable, at all events, to those who do the running. Your good Sir
+Herbert Street has lately sent me a batch of books about the ideal
+public life of the future. Socialistic forecasts, and that kind of
+literature. He is a world-improver, you know, among other things. They
+have amused me more than I thought they would. That venerable blunder:
+to think that in changing the form of government you change the heart
+of man. And in other respects, too, these dreamers are at sea. For
+surely we should aim at simplification of machinery. Conceive, now, the
+state of affairs where everybody is more or less employed by the
+community--the community, that comfortable word!--in some patriotic
+business or other. Everybody an official, all controlling each other!
+It would be worse than the Spanish Inquisition. A man could live at
+Toledo by subscribing to certain fixed opinions; he could be assured of
+a reasonable degree of privacy. Nothing could save him, under
+socialism. An insupportable world! When people cease to reflect they
+become idealists."
+
+"I suppose they do," replied Denis, rather dubiously. Then it struck
+him that this might account for his own hazy state of mind--this lack of
+occupation or guiding principle. For the rest, he had not given much
+thought to such questions. To be a politician--it was one of the few
+projects which had never seriously entered his head. After a pause, he
+remarked:
+
+"I can't help noticing that portrait over there. It's a very pretty
+thing."
+
+"The little pastel? It is a sketch of my daughter Matilda. I did it
+myself when she was here last Christmas. Poor child, she can only come
+for the holidays; there is no chance of a respectable education o this
+island. But I can run over to see her every now and then. You will
+observe I am not much of a colourist!"
+
+"You have been parsimonious with the tints. It reminds me of some of
+Lenbach's work which I saw at Florence; it is in the same manner."
+
+"It appears you like art," said the Count. "Why not devote yourself to
+it? But perhaps your English social conditions are not propitious. Here
+is a letter from a friend of mind which arrived this morning; you know
+his name--I will not mention it! A well-known Academician, whose life is
+typical of your attitude towards art. Such a good fellow. He likes
+shooting and fishing; he is a favourite at Court, and quite an
+authority on dress-reform. He now writes to ask me about some detail of
+Greek costume which he requires for one of his lectures to a Ladies'
+Guild. Art, to him, is not a jealous mistress; she is an indulgent
+companion, who will amiably close an eye and permit a few wayside
+flirtations to her lover--enthusiasms for quite other ideals, and for
+the joys of good society in general. That is the way to live a happy
+life. It is not the way to create masterpieces."
+
+"I would take myself seriously, I think," said Denis. "I would not
+dissipate my energies."
+
+He meant it. To be an artist--it dawned upon him that this was his true
+vocation. To renounce pleasure and discipline the mind; to live a life
+of self-denial, submitting himself humbly to the inspiration of the
+great masters.... To be serene, like this old man; to avoid that
+facile, glib, composite note--those monkey-tricks of cleverness....
+
+Then, after this vision had passed before his eyes like a flash, he
+remembered his grief. The notion of becoming a world-famous artist lost
+all meaning for him. Everything was blighted. There was not a grain of
+solace to be found on earth.
+
+The Count, meanwhile, was looking with concern upon his companion's
+grave face, whose flawless profile might have emerged into life under
+the thought-laden chisel of Lysippus. He wondered what he could say or
+do to drive away this melancholy. The youth had been so bright that day
+at the entertainment of the Duchess; he seemed to have stepped straight
+out of a sunny dialogue of Plato. Serious trouble now shone out of his
+eyes. Something had happened. Something was wrong with him; wrong,
+too--he reflected--with a world which could find no better occupation for
+such a person than to hand round buttered tea-cakes at an old woman's
+party to a crowd of cosmopolitan scandalmongers.
+
+Denis rose, remarking:
+
+"I wish I could stay a little longer! But it is getting so late. I'm
+afraid I must be going."
+
+He held out his hand.
+
+"You have caught me in a somewhat sad and depressed mood, I fear,"
+replied the other, heaving a most artistic sigh. And his features
+suddenly looked quite careworn. As a matter of fact, he had not been so
+joyous for many long years--that news of Mr. van Koppen's proximate
+arrival having made him feel fifty years younger and, but for his
+ingrained sense of Hellenic moderation, almost ready to dance with
+delight.
+
+"I am sorry I have been so despondent," he went on. "Sometimes one
+cannot help oneself. It shall not occur again! I will try to be more
+amusing next time you come. If I thought it would help, I would
+communicate my sorrows and claim your sympathy. But what does it avail
+to unburden oneself? Friends will share our joys, but every man is a
+solitary in his griefs. One soon finds that out! One soon realizes the
+vanity of all those talks about the consolations of philosophy and the
+comforts of religion, doesn't one? I suppose even you have your moments
+of dejection?"
+
+"One worries about things now and then. It is perfectly natural, I
+daresay."
+
+"Perfectly. We are not stones--least of all persons like yourself. I
+would not be at your age again, not for the wealth of Croesus! I
+suffered too much. All young people suffer too much; they bear it
+silently, like heroes. The eye of youth dilates and distorts the
+images. The focussing process is painful. Youth has no norm. It was in
+one of my worst fits of despondency, I remember, that my old teacher
+gave me certain advice, after I had puzzled it out, did me some good.
+In fact, I have acted upon it to this very day; I recall it as plainly
+as if he were speaking now. Well, I am sorry you are leaving. I would
+keep you hear if I could. But I hope you will not forget to come
+another day. You have cheered me up wonderfully! Shall Andrea find you
+a carriage?"
+
+"What did he say?" asked Denis.
+
+"The old teacher? Let me see.... He said: do not be discomposed by
+the opinions of inept persons. Do not swim with the crowd. They who are
+all things to their neighbours, cease to be anything to themselves.
+Even a diamond can have too many facets. Avoid the attrition of vulgar
+minds; keep your edges intact. He also said: A man can protect himself
+with fists or sword but his best weapon is his intellect. A weapon must
+be forged in the fire. The fire, in our case, is tribulation. It must
+also be kept untarnished. If the mind is clean, the body can take care
+of itself. He said: delve deeply; not too deeply into the past, for it
+may make you derivative; nor yet into yourself--it will make you
+introspective. Delve into the living world and strive to bind yourself
+to its movement by a chain of your own welding. Once that contact is
+established, you are unassailable. Externalize yourself! He told me
+many things of this kind. You think I was consoled by his words? Not in
+the slightest degree. I was annoyed. In fact, I thought him rather a
+hypocrite; anybody could have spoken as he did! I was so disappointed
+that I went to him next day and told him frankly what I thought of his
+counsel. He said--do you know what he said?"
+
+"I cannot even guess."
+
+"He said: 'What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? Take
+fifty of our current proverbial sayings--they are so trite, so
+threadbare, that we can hardly bring our lips to utter them. None the
+less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man
+who orders his life according to their teaching cannot go far wrong.
+How easy that seems! Has any one ever done so? Never. Has any man ever
+attained to inner harmony by pondering the experiences of others? Not
+since the world began! He must pass through the fire.'"
+
+"I had no teacher like that," observed Denis. "He must have been a man
+of the right kind."
+
+"Oh, he meant well, the old rascal," replied the Count with a curious
+little smile.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+
+
+
+Denis descended from the Old Town. At a turn of the road he overtook
+the bishop who was moving slowly in the same direction.
+
+"How is Mrs. Meadows?" enquired the young man.
+
+"Not particularly well, I'm afraid. And the Count?"
+
+"Oh, quite all right."
+
+They walked along in silence, having little to say to each other. That
+visit had done Denis good; he would return soon again, if only for the
+purpose of cheering up the lonely old man who, at the last moment, had
+given him a photograph of the Locri Faun, with a kindly inscription
+from himself. He was not to show it to anybody, the Count had said--not
+yet! The government must not hear about that relic--not yet! Later on,
+perhaps very soon, everything would be in order. Denis cherished that
+photo in his pocket. He was thinking, too, of the pastel--the face of
+Matilda, which seemed like a star shining through the mist.... Then
+he remembered the bishop walking at his side. He felt he ought to say
+something more to this dry Colonial whom he could not help contrasting,
+greatly to his disadvantage, with the Count.
+
+"Hasn't it been hot to-day?"
+
+"Stifling," replied Mr. Heard. "The warmest day we have had, so far.
+Not a breath of wind."
+
+"Not a breath...."
+
+The conversation flagged once more. They did not hit it off, somehow;
+they seemed to drift further apart every time they met. Each was
+preoccupied with his own thoughts. The bishop was more taciturn than
+usual; the interview with his cousin had not been quite a success.
+
+Denis, after a while, made another effort. He spoke of some of Count
+Caloveglia's antiquities and, one thing leading to another, told Mr.
+Heard the story of a friend of his in Florence who had excavated some
+wonderful early Italian pots, fragments o them, out of an old garden
+well. They were all lustred, he said.
+
+"That must have been a very pleasant surprise," observed the bishop,
+who had small use for lustred ware and lunatics who collected it.
+Feeling that it was his turn to say something, he remarked:
+
+"I am dining with the Duchess to-night. Will you be there?"
+
+"No," replied the young man with an unwonted air of decision. Never
+again would he be seen in that austere old convent, built by the Good
+Duke Alfred. Never again! Promptly, however, he toned down the
+harshness of his answer by adding that the lady had very kindly asked
+him to come, but he couldn't manage it, that evening.
+
+"I shall have to console her about the burglary," continued the bishop.
+
+"What burglary?"
+
+Mr. Heard explained that the premises had been entered while the
+Duchess was dining at Madame Steynlin's on the previous evening, the
+night of the water-party. Evidently the work of a man who knew his
+business. A man familiar with the ins and outs of the house. And a man
+of taste, into the bargain. All the sham articles had been left
+untouched; he had gone off with nothing but genuine things--a few
+precious crucifixes and bonbonnieres. No one had the faintest idea who
+the thief was. Most mysterious! The disaster could hardly have occurred
+but for the fact that the young girl Angelina, who was supposed to
+sleep on the premises, had been called away late at night to look after
+a suffering aunt. The old woman, it appeared, was liable to sudden
+heart-attacks. She had been round to see the Duchess early in the
+morning with endless apologies, and had fortunately been able to
+corroborate her niece's story.
+
+"I am glad of it," concluded the bishop. "Because that maid, when I saw
+her, struck me as rather a flighty young person--the sort of girl who
+would take advantage of her mistress's absence to have a little
+flirtation with a policeman round the corner. I am glad the aunt could
+explain things so satisfactorily. I was wrong about that girl. Shows
+how careful one must be in judging of other people, doesn't it? I must
+say she looked to me like a regular little coquette."
+
+Denis had so little sympathetic comment to make on this painful story
+that Mr. Heard was quite surprised at his indifference. He always
+understood the young man to be a particular friend of the Duchess.
+
+"These artistic people!" he thought. "They have quite another way of
+looking at things. Dear me. I shall never live to understand them."
+
+The two separated at the market-place without much reluctance on either
+side.
+
+During dinner, the Duchess was calm about her misfortune. She bore it
+well. She had been vigorously consoled by Don Francesco, who pointed
+out that such little things are trials of faith and that she ought to
+be thankful for this opportunity of proving how little she cared for
+earthly riches. While not exactly thankful, she was certainly as
+resigned as anybody could have been. Angelina had already been taken
+into grace again, at the charitable suggestion of the priest. Every one
+was puzzling who the thief could be (it happened to be Mr. Richards);
+the police had not discovered the faintest clue.
+
+"It does not much matter if they do," said Don Francesco. "I don't
+think, my dear lady, that you will get the judge to take up your case
+very actively. You know how he hates the clericals. In fact, I fear he
+will not move a finger unless the culprit also happens to be a good
+believer. In that case, he might lock him up. He is so fond of
+imprisoning Catholics!"
+
+"A bad state of the law," commented the bishop.
+
+"It is," replied Don Francesco, "And perhaps you do not know," he
+added, turning to the company, "that there has been another robbery as
+well, doubtless by the same hand. Yes! I only heard of it an hour ago.
+Poor Miss Wilberforce is the victim. She is terribly upset. A number of
+valuables have disappeared from her house; they must have been
+ransacked, she thinks, at the time of Mr. Keith's party. I understand
+she was rather overcome on that occasion. The thief seems to have been
+aware of her condition, and to have profited by it."
+
+"Poor Miss Wilberforce!" said everybody. They were all sorry for poor
+Miss Wilberforce.
+
+It was a rather full dinner-party on the whole. Mr. Heard left at
+half-past eleven.
+
+Passing the Club on his way home, he remembered his intention of
+looking in there and perhaps doing good to a few of those fellows.
+
+He climbed up the stairs. There was a fearful row going on. The place
+was crammed with members of various nationalities, drinking and arguing
+amid clouds of tobacco smoke. They seemed all to be at loggerheads with
+one another and on the verge of breaking out into violence, the south
+wind having been particularly objectionable all day long. A good deal
+of filthy and profane language was being used--it was worse than those
+hot places he had known in Africa. That pink-faced old drunkard known
+as Charlie was the only person who made any signs of recognizing him.
+He half rose from his chair with a genial: "Hello, Bishop--" and
+instantly collapsed again. Mr. Muhlen was there; he bowed rather
+distantly. A tremulous pale-faced youngster invited him pressingly to a
+drink, and just as the bishop was on the verge of accepting with a view
+to getting the victim out of that den of vice, the lad suddenly
+remarked: "Excuse me, won't you?" and tottered out of the door. They
+were too far gone to be spoken to with any prospects of success. Things
+might have been different if the restraining influence of Mr. Freddy
+Parker could have made itself felt, but that gentleman was at home, his
+lady being not very well. In the Commissioner's absence, Mr. Richards,
+the respectable Vice-President, was making his voice heard. Sober or
+not, he was certainly articulate and delighted with himself as,
+stroking his beard placidly, he roared out above the crowd:
+
+"I've no use for makeshifts. Honesty is a makeshift. A makeshift for
+saving time. Whoever wants to save time is not fit for the society of
+gentlemen."
+
+"Hear, hear!"
+
+"Call yourself a gentleman?" enquired another.
+
+"Just a makeshift. You won't hear honesty talked about in the great
+periods of the world's history. It's the small tradesman's invention,
+is honesty. He hasn't the the brains to earn anything more than three
+and a half per cent. That's why he is always in such a hurry to finish
+his first little deal and get on with the next one. Else he'd starve.
+Hence honesty. Three and a half per cent! Who's going to pick that up?
+People who earn three hundred don't cackle about honesty."
+
+"Call yourself a gentleman? Outside!"
+
+"I've no use for honesty. It's the small man's flapdoodle, is honesty.
+This world isn't made for small men! I am talking to you over there--the
+funny little bounder who made the offensive remark just now."
+
+"Are you? Well, take that!"
+
+A glass tumbler, which Mr. Richards dodged in quite a professional
+manner, came hurtling through the air and missed the bishop's forehead
+by about four inches.
+
+That crowd was past his aid. He turned to go. As he did so, a curious
+idea flitted through his brain. This Mr. Richards--was he, perhaps, the
+burglar? He was; but Mr. Heard dashed aside the horrible suspicion,
+mindful of the mistake he had made about Angelina's character and how
+careful one must be in judging of other people. The voice, meanwhile,
+pursued him down the stairs.
+
+"No, gentlemen! I've no use for an honest man. He always lets you down.
+Fortunately, he is rather rare--"
+
+Mr. Heard slept badly that night, for the first time since his arrival
+on Nepenthe. It was unbearably hot. And that visit to Mrs. Meadows had
+also troubled him a little.
+
+The Old Town looked different on this occasion. A sullen death-like
+stillness, a menacing stagnation, hung about those pink houses. Not a
+leaf was astir under the burning sirocco sky. Even old Caterina, when
+he saw her, seemed to be afflicted, somehow.
+
+"SOFFRE, LA SIGNORA," she said. The lady was suffering.
+
+The bishop would not have recognized his cousin after all those years;
+not if he had met her in the street at least. She greeted him
+affectionately and they talked for a long time of family matters. It
+was true, then. Her husband's leave had been again postponed. Perhaps
+she would travel back to England with him, and there await the arrival
+of Meadows. She would let him know definitely in a day or two.
+
+He watched her carefully while she conversed, trying to reconstruct,
+out of that woman's face, the childish features he dimly remembered.
+They were effaced. He could see what Keith had meant when he described
+her as "tailor-made." There was something clear-cut about her,
+something not exactly harsh, but savouring of decision. She was plainly
+a personality--not an ordinary type. The lines of her face told their
+story. They had been hammered into a kind of hard efficiency. But over
+that exterior of tranquil self-possession was super-imposed something
+else--certain marks of recent trouble. Her eyes looked almost as if she
+had been weeping. She made a tremendous show of cheeriness, however,
+calling him Tommy as in olden days.
+
+Just a little headache. This sirocco. It was bad enough when it blew in
+the ordinary fashion. But quite intolerable when it hung breathlessly
+about the air like this. Mr. Eames--he once called it PLUMBEUS AUSTER.
+That meant leaden, didn't it? Everybody had headaches, more or less.
+
+Was she speaking the truth? The bishop decided that she had an headache
+and that this south wind was certainly unendurable. None the less, he
+suspected that she was employing the common subterfuge--telling the
+truth, but not the whole truth; perhaps not even the main part of it.
+She was holding back something.
+
+"You haven't attended to these roses lately," he said, observing that
+the flowers had not been changed and that their fallen petals strewed
+the tables. "They looked so fresh when I was here alone the other day."
+
+"What a dreadful person you are, Tommy, for noticing things. First you
+discover my headache, and now those flowers! I see I shall have to be
+careful with you. Perhaps you would like to look at my precipice and
+tell me if there is anything wrong with that too? You have heard of the
+old French lady, I daresay. She ended, you know, in not approving of it
+at all. We can have tea when we come back. And after that perhaps you
+will let me know what is wrong with baby?"
+
+"I can tell you that without looking at him. He is teething."
+
+"Clever boy! As a matter of fact, he isn't. But I had to make some
+excuse to the dear Duchess."
+
+They climbed up the short slope and found themselves looking towards
+the sea over the face of a dizzy cliff. A falcon, on their approach,
+started with rustle of wings from its ledge and then swayed crazily
+over the abyss. Watching this bird, the bishop felt a sudden voice in
+his stomach. A sensation of blackness came before his eyes--sky and sea
+were merged together--his feet were treading on air. He promptly sat
+down.
+
+"Not an inch nearer!" he declared. "Not for a thousand pounds. If you
+go along that edge again, I shall have to look the other way. It makes
+me feel empty inside."
+
+"I'm not in the least giddy," she laughed. "There was an English boy
+who threw himself over this cliff for a bet--you have heard the story?
+They never found his body. It's a good place for throwing oneself down,
+isn't it?"
+
+She seemed to consider the idea quite seriously.
+
+"Well?" she pursued. "Have you any fault to find with my precipice?"
+
+"I have. It ought to be railed in. It is dangerous. What a temptation
+this cliff must be to anyone who has an enemy to dispose of! It would
+be so simple," he added, laughing.
+
+"That advantage has never struck me before...."
+
+These and other things passed through Mr. Heard's mind as he lay in bed
+that evening. He came to the conclusion that he could not quite make
+his cousin out. Had something upset her? And what did she mean by that
+sudden conundrum:
+
+"Do you know anything, Tommy, about our laws of illegitimacy?"
+
+"Nothing," he had replied, "except that they are a disgrace to a
+civilized country. Everybody knows that."
+
+She seemed to be disappointed. Perhaps she mistrusted him. The thought
+gave him a little pain. He had done nothing to merit mistrust. He was
+frank and open himself; he liked others to be the same.
+
+What was the use of thinking about it? He knew tantalizingly little
+about his cousin--nothing but scraps of information gathered from his
+mother's letters to him. He would call again in a day or two and make
+some definite arrangements about their journey to England. Perhaps he
+had talked more dully than usual.... Or could it be the south wind?
+
+Neither of these explanations was wholly convincing.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+
+
+
+Nothing was happening. For the first time since many years, the
+Nepenthe season threatened to be a failure. It was the dullest spring
+on record. And yet there was a quality in that heavy atmosphere which
+seemed to threaten mischief. Everybody agreed that it had never been
+quite so bad as this. Meanwhile, people yawned. They were bored stiff.
+As a source of gossip, those two burglaries were a negligible quantity.
+So was the little accident which had just happened to Mr. Keith, who
+ruefully declared he had done it on purpose, in order to liven things
+up. No one was likely to be taken in by this kind of talk, because the
+accident was of an inglorious and even ludicrous kind.
+
+Being very short-sighted he had managed to stumble backwards, somehow
+or other, into a large receptacle of lime which was being slaked for
+patching up a wall. Lime, in that condition, is boiling hot. Mr.
+Keith's trousers were rather badly scalded. He was sensitive on that
+point. He suffered a good deal. People came to express their sympathy.
+The pain made him more tedious, long-winded and exhortatory than usual.
+At that particular moment Denis was being victimized. He had
+thoughtlessly called to express his sympathy, to see those celebrated
+cannas, and because he could not bear to be alone with his thoughts
+just then.
+
+"Suffering!" exclaimed Mr. Keith. "That is what you young poets want.
+At present you are too unperplexed and glib. Suffering! It would
+enlarge your repertoire; it would make you more human, individual, and
+truthful. What is the unforgivable sin in poetry? Lack of candour. How
+shall there be candour if the poet lacks worldly experience? Suffering!
+That is what you people want. It would make men of you."
+
+Mr. Keith was considerably denser than Count Caloveglia. But even he,
+during this oration, could not help noticing that it jarred on his
+listener's nerves; there was something wrong, he concluded.
+
+Denis had not a word to say in reply. As if anyone could be more
+suffering than himself! He was full of a dumb ache. He marvelled at
+Keith's obtuseness.
+
+"Come and see my cannas," said the other with a kind of brutal
+tactfulness. "There is a curious story attached to them. I must tell it
+to you one of these days. It sounds like a fairy tale. You like fairy
+tales?"
+
+"I do," replied Denis.
+
+"Then we have one point in common. I could listen to them for hours.
+There is something eternal about them. If you ever want to get anything
+out of me, Denis, tell me a fairy tale."
+
+"I must remember that," replied Denis with a wan smile. "There is one
+thing I should very much like to get out of you; the secret of your
+zest in life. You have so many interests. How do you manage it?"
+
+"Heredity, I suppose. It has given me a kind of violent driving power.
+I take things by the throat. Have you ever heard of Thomas Keith, a
+soldier in a Highland regiment, who became governor of the Holy City of
+Medina? No, I suppose you have not. And yet he must have been a
+remarkable man, to obtain this unique position in the world. No
+interest in Arabian history? Why not? Well, Thomas Keith--that is my
+stock. Pirates and adventurers. Of course I live sensibly. Shall I give
+you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing
+indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I
+reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague. You will find
+that a pretty good recipe, Denis."
+
+The young man wondered whether the prescription would be of any avail
+for his particular complaint.
+
+Then they went into the garden, Mr. Keith hobbling painfully with two
+sticks and indulging in very bad language. They paused awhile under
+some trellis work covered with a profusion of Japanese convolvuluses,
+pale blue, slate colour, rose-tinted, purple, deep red, with white and
+coloured bands, a marvellous display of fragile beauty.
+
+"I have never seen anything like it!" declared Denis.
+
+"They die away in winter. I get fresh seeds every year from Japan, the
+latest varieties. How they cling for support to the wooden framework!
+How delicate and fair! One hardly dares to touch them. Are you always
+going to be a convolvulus, Denis?"
+
+"Me? Oh, I see what you mean. Were you never a convolvulus, Mr. Keith?"
+
+His friend laughed.
+
+"It must have been a good while ago. You don't like advice, do you?
+Have you ever heard of that Sparker affair?"
+
+"You don't mean to say--"
+
+"Yes. That was me. That was my little contribution to the gaiety of
+University life. So you see I am in the position to give advice to
+people like yourself. I think you should cultivate the function of the
+real, and try to remain in contact with phenomena. Noumena are bad for
+a youngster. But perhaps you are not interested in psychology?"
+
+"Not exactly, I'm afraid," replied Denis, who was more anxious to see
+those cannas.
+
+"So I perceive. Wouldn't you get more fun out of life if you were? I am
+nearly done with psychology now," he added. "It was the Greek
+philosophers before then. When I take up a subject this is what I do. I
+don't ask what are Aristotle's teachings or relations to his age or to
+humanity. That would lead me too far. I ask myself: what has this
+fellow got to say to me? To me, you understand. To me."
+
+"That must simplify matters."
+
+"It does," replied Keith, quite unaware of the faint tinge of College
+irony in the other's words. "Direct experience comes only from life.
+But you can get a kind of substitute out of books. Perhaps you are
+afraid of them? Take the fellows by the throat! See what they have to
+say. Make them disgorge. Get at their facts. Pull them to pieces. I
+tell you what, Denis. You must go through a course of Samuel Butler.
+You are moving in the same direction; perhaps he may be a warning to
+you. I took him up, I remember, during my biological period. He was
+exactly like yourself--bewildered by phenomena."
+
+Denis, meekly resigned, enquired:
+
+"Was he?"
+
+"I spent nearly a week over Butler. I found him interesting not for
+what he writes, but for what he is. A landmark. Think of when he wrote.
+It was an age of giants--Darwin and the rest of them. Their facts were
+too much for him; they impinged on some obscure old prejudices of his.
+They drove him into a clever perversity of humour. They account for his
+cat-like touches, his contrariness, his fondness for scoring off
+everybody from the Deity downwards, his premeditated
+irresponsibilities, his--"
+
+"Did he not prove that the Odyssey was written by a woman?"
+
+"He did. Anything to escape from realities--that was his maxim. He
+puzzled his contemporaries. But we can now locate him with absolute
+certainty. He personifies the Revolt from Reason. SURTOUT, MON AMI,
+POINT DE ZELE. He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis
+of Christianity--a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to
+bold navigation. He was always wavering between the two in an attitude
+of suburban defiance, reconciling what is irreconcilable by extracting
+funny analogies all round for the edification of "nice people" like
+himself. Oh, very English! He did not lack candour or intelligence. Nor
+do you. He understood the teachings of the giants. So do you. But they
+irked him. To revenge himself he laid penny crackers under their
+pedestals. His whole intellectual fortune was spent in buying penny
+crackers. There was something cheeky and pre-adolescent about him--a
+kind of virginal ferocity. That iridescent charm of sexlessness which
+somebody, one of these days, must be good enough to analyse for us! He
+lacked the male attributes of humility, reverence and sense of
+proportion."
+
+Mr. Keith paused, but it was only to take breath.
+
+"Did he?" enquired Denis. "The sense of proportion--"
+
+"The tail of a cow was just as important to him as the tail of a comet;
+more important, if it could be turned into a joke. Look at the back of
+his mind and you will always see the same thing: horror of a fact. That
+is what lies before you, Denis, if, in a world of facts, you refuse to
+assimilate them. They will disagree with you, as they disagreed with
+Butler. They will drive you where they drove him--into abstractions.
+Others went the same way. The painter Watts, for instance. He also
+suffered under the reign of giants. He also took refuge in
+abstractions. Faith leading Hope towards Despair. Why don't you write a
+book about these things, Denis?"
+
+"I am going to be an artist."
+
+"An Artist? That is better than a poet. Verse-making is a little out of
+date, is it not? It corresponds to juvenile stages of human
+development. Poets are a case of genepistasis. If they would at least
+get a new stock of ideas! Their demonology is so hopelessly threadbare.
+But why an artist? I think you were made for a bank manager, Denis.
+Don't look so surprised. Everybody grows up, you know. Shelley, if he
+had lived long enough, would have become a passable gentleman farmer.
+You can take my word for that."
+
+"I suppose I shall have to," replied the young man.
+
+"Don't take Mr. Keith's word for anything!" said a voice behind his
+shoulder.
+
+It was Don Francesco, who had come upon them unawares. He now removed
+his hat and began to mop his forehead and various double chins with a
+many-tinted handkerchief as large as a tablecloth.
+
+"My dear Don Francesco!" said Keith. "You always interrupt me in the
+middle of my sermons. What shall we do with you?"
+
+"Give me something to drink," replied the priest. "Else I shall
+evaporate, leaving nothing but a grease stain on this beautiful garden
+path."
+
+"To evaporate," said Keith, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "What
+an ideal resolution!"
+
+"I'll get some wine out of the house," suggested Denis politely. "But
+first of all tell me this. Mr. Keith has been giving me his recipe for
+happiness. What is yours?"
+
+"Happiness is a question of age. The bachelor of forty--he is the happy
+man."
+
+"That does not help me much," said Denis. "But I'll get your wine, all
+the same."
+
+He went.
+
+"A nice young fellow," observed the priest. "This little accident of
+yours," he continued, "does not reflect itself on your face. You always
+look like a baby, Keith. What is your secret? I believe you have
+concluded a pact with the devil for your soul."
+
+"To tell you the truth, Don Francesco, he never made me an offer for
+it."
+
+"Sensible devil! He knows he will get it sooner or later for nothing."
+
+They conversed awhile till Denis returned, bearing sundry bottles and
+glasses on a tray. The priest smiled at the sight. Light-hearted
+allusions to Ganymede rose to his lips, but were suppressed. He
+swallowed down the rising inclination to be classical at the expense of
+good taste, and engulfed, on the top of it, as a kind of paperweight, a
+vast tumblerful of red Nepenthe wine. The draught instead of cheering
+seemed to make him suddenly despondent. He wiped his lips and remarked,
+in a grave and almost conscience-stricken manner:
+
+"I have some unpleasant news for you, gentlemen. The fountain of Saint
+Elias has ceased to flow. We heard it this morning from a sailor, an
+unusually trustworthy person--a man, I mean, who can be relied upon to
+tell the truth when there is nothing to be gained by concealing or
+distorting it. The thing must have happened last night. Yes, it has
+dried up altogether. What is to be done?"
+
+"You don't say so," remarked Keith. "This is really interesting! I
+thought something was going to happen. I suppose your people are rather
+alarmed?"
+
+Denis interrupted:
+
+"I don't understand what you are talking about. Why should not a
+fountain dry up if it wants to? And what does it matter to anybody?"
+
+"What does it matter?" echoed the priest. "This is no ordinary
+fountain, I am sorry to say. Have you never heard of Beelzebub?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+
+
+
+Now, with regard to fountains, it is to be noted that Nepenthe, an
+islet of volcanic stone rising out of the blue Mediterranean, has
+never--for all its natural attractions--been renowned for cool springs
+and bubbling streamlets. There is, to be sure, a charming couplet in
+some old humanist about LYMPHA NEPENTHI; but modern scholars are
+disposed to think either that the text is corrupt and that the writer
+was picturing an imaginary NYMPHA--some laughing sea-lady--or else that
+he merely indulged in one of those poetic flights which are a feature
+of the literature of his period. For whatever the cause may be--whether
+internal fires have scorched up the natural humours of the soil, or
+whether the waters of Nepenthe are of such peculiar heaviness that,
+instead of flowing upwards in the shape of fountains, they tumble
+downwards into caverns below the sea--the fact remains: Nepenthe is a
+waterless land. And this may well be the reason, as several thoughtful
+observers have already pointed out, why its wines are so abundant in
+quantity, so cheap in price, and of such super-excellent flavour. For
+it is a fact conformable to that law of compensation which regulates
+all earthly affairs, a fact borne out by the universal experience of
+mankind, that God, when He takes away with one hand, gives with the
+other. Lack of water, on the face of things, might be deemed a
+considerable hardship. There are tracts in Africa where people have
+been known to barter wives and children for a cupful of the liquid
+element. Of the inhabitants of Nepenthe it must be said to their credit
+that they endure their lot with equanimity, and even cheerfulness.
+Their wine costs nothing. Why grumble at the inscrutable ways of
+Providence? Why be thirsty, why be sober, when you can get as drunk as
+a lord for the asking?
+
+For the rest, there are indications to show that such was not the
+original condition of affairs on the island. On the contrary, certain
+legends still current among the country-folk lead one to suspect that
+fountains once flowed on this arid rock. And more than legends.
+Monsignor Perrelli, in his ANTIQUITIES OF NEPENTHE, has gone into the
+subject with his usual thoroughness. The reader who takes the trouble
+to consult that work will find, in the twenty-sixth chapter of the
+third section dealing with the Natural Productions and Water-Supply of
+the island, an enumeration of no less than twelve fountains still
+flowing during the author's lifetime. Some of them issued high up, in
+rocky clefts; others at the middle heights, among vineyards and
+orchards; the majority at, or near, the seashore. All of these springs,
+he tells us, had the following features in common: they were more or
+less hot, unpleasant to the taste, of foetid odour and therefore unfit
+for culinary or other common uses. "But let it not be supposed," he
+hastens to add, "that they were worthless, inasmuch as there is no such
+thing as a worthless gift of Providence. Whoever argues on such
+fallacious lines," he says, "will stand convicted both of folly and of
+irreverence, seeing that it is the business of mankind, when confronted
+by a phenomenon which seems to mock their intelligence, humbly to
+ponder the evidence--to investigate causes and ascertain results." In
+the present case the utility of the waters, if not for cooking or
+drinking then for other specific purposes, had been put to the proof
+time out of mind, in an empirical fashion; though it was not till the
+reign of the Good Duke Alfred that a series of classical experiments
+placed our knowledge of their medicinal properties on a sound
+scientific footing.
+
+In a dissertation attached to this twenty-sixth chapter--a dissertation
+larded with illustrative extracts from Galen Celsus, Avicenna, Antonius
+Musa, Oribasius Salvus and about fifty others of the ancients who
+professed the healing art--Monsignor Perrelli condenses for his readers
+the results of these classical experiments; he hands down the names of
+these springs and their manifold healing virtues.
+
+The Fountain of Saint Calogero, described as one of the most famous,
+was lukewarm, of ammoniacal and alkaline flavour; a glassful of it
+produced the most violent retchings and vomitings. Properly applied,
+however, the water had been found to relieve the gout, the discomforts
+of child-bearing, leprosy, irritation of the mucous membrane of the
+nose, impetigo, strabismus and ophthalmia. If the patient observed care
+in his diet, avoiding articles of calorific nature such as fried fish
+and boiled lentils, he would find himself greatly benefited by its use
+in the case of cornucopic hydrocephalus, flatulence, tympanitis and
+varicose veins. It was useful, furthermore, as a cure for the stings of
+scorpions and other venomous beasts.
+
+The so-called "Fountain of Paradise," of nitrous ingredients, spurted
+forth with a prodigious hissing noise at a temperature of boiling lead,
+from so inaccessible a fissure in the rocks that little had been done
+to investigate its peculiar properties. It was held none the less to be
+efficacious for the distemper known as PLICA POLONICA, and the peasant
+folk, mixing its spray with the acorns on which their pigs were
+fattened, had observed that these quadrupeds prospered vastly in health
+and appearance.
+
+The Fountain of Hercules, laxative and tartaric, had proved its
+efficacy in cases of enlarged spleen, hare-lip, vertigo, apoplexy,
+cachexia, cacodoria, cacochymia senilis and chilblains. It was also
+considered to be a sovereign remedy for that distressing and almost
+universal complaint, the piles.
+
+The Fountain known as "La Salina," of arsenical nature, was frequented
+chiefly by women who found in its waters an alleviation for troubles
+which Monsignor Perrelli does not specify. It was recommended,
+moreover, as a sheep-dip.
+
+The Fountain of the Virgin, purgative and blastopeptic, had given
+relief to sufferers from the quartan fever, herpes, elephantiasis, and
+to all persons of atrobiliary and lunatick temperament.
+
+The so-called "Old Fountain," of sub-acidulate and vitriolique flavour,
+chalybeate and cataplastic, was renowned for removing stains from
+household linen. Taken in minute doses, under medical advice, it gave
+relief to patients afflicted with the wolfe, NOLI ME TANGERE,
+crudities, Bablyonian itch, globular pemphlegema, fantastical visions,
+koliks, asthma and affections of the heart. It also "fortifies the
+stomach, comforts the bowels, reduces the gallstone to sand, the sand
+to mud, the mud to water--water which can be passed out of the system by
+the usual channels."
+
+The Fountain of Saint Vulcan, anti-blepharous and amygdaloidal, was
+charged with such potent minerals that a single spoonful produced a
+diarrhoea more distressing to witness than cholera. None the less,
+applied externally, it was a wondrous remedy in cases of jaundice,
+toothache and open wounds.
+
+The Fountain of the Capon, sedative and scorbutic, was indicated for
+rheumatisms of every kind, not excluding sprained limbs, hydrophobia,
+lycanthropy, black choler, oppilations and procrastinating catapepsia.
+
+The Fountain known as "Spina Santa" was resorted to by all persons
+suffering from maladies of the alimentary canal, such as dysentery,
+cloven palate, follicular hepatitis, and trabulated hyperaemia of the
+Bivonian passage.
+
+The Fountain of Saint Feto had, by virtue of its smell alone, applied
+to her nose as she lay in her coffin, raised from the dead a certain
+Anna da Pasto.
+
+The Fountain popularly called "La Pisciarella" was peculiarly adapted
+to those ailments which are incidental to childhood and youth--to wit:
+chlorosis, St. Vitus' Dance, constipation, ringworm, otootitis and
+other perimingeal disturbances, urticaria, moon-sickness, scrofula and
+incontinence of urine.
+
+Lastly, the Fountain of Saint Elias, sulphurous and saponaceous, was
+renowned for its calming influence upon all who suffered from abuse of
+lechery or alcohol, or from ingrowing toe-nails.
+
+This concludes the list.
+
+"Whence we may safely infer," says Monsignor Perrelli at the
+termination of this chapter, "that our island is second to no part of
+the globe in this divine gift of salutary waters. And if some should
+ask why certain of these springs have recently undergone a marked
+diminution in volume we can but answer, simply and truthfully, that
+their virtues are no longer in as great demand as formerly. For is it
+not a fact that distempers like leprosy and PLICA POLONICA are now
+almost unknown on Nepenthe? It follows that the waters adapted to
+maladies such as these have performed their appointed task, so far as
+this island is concerned. They are doubtless flowing elsewhere, through
+mysterious channels of the earth, to carry their health-giving virtues
+into fresh regions for the saving of men's lives, to the glory of their
+Creator."
+
+Thus far the learned and ingenious Monsignor Perrelli....
+
+It stands to reason that so remarkable a chapter should not have
+escaped the notice of the bibliographer who, as already observed, had
+been engaged for the last quarter of a century in elucidating the text
+of the old historian and enriching it with footnotes for the better
+understanding of modern students. In the interval of three and a half
+centuries many changes had taken place in the physical aspect of
+Nepenthe; among other things, these twelve streams of pestilential
+odour had ceased to flow, all save the fountain of Saint Elias; their
+very sites had been forgotten, though traditions of their former
+existence still lingered among the populace.
+
+Searching among the archives for whatever might bear on the ancient
+history of these springs, Mr. Eames had accumulated abundant material
+for footnotes geological, hydrographical and balneo-therapic.
+Furthermore, his personal explorations on the island had enabled him to
+locate the site of at least four of these old fountains, and to prove
+that if some of them had been covered up under the debris of
+landslides, the majority had disappeared in consequence of a general
+desiccation of the province.
+
+Lastly and chiefly, his investigations had brought him in contact with
+that manuscript, already mentioned, of the Dominican monk Father
+Capocchio-a manuscript in which he alighted upon a curious but
+troublesome literary discovery anent these very fountains. The author,
+a contemporary of Monsignor Perrelli, a hater of Nepenthe, a cleric of
+lascivious and lecherous temperament, has in this parchment preserved
+what he calls a "popular joke"--a saying which he declares to have been
+"common property of the whole country" on the subject of Nepenthe and
+its evil-smelling waters. It was one of those scholarly, ponderous and
+yet helplessly straightforward jokes of the late Renaissance; a joke to
+which Monsignor Perrelli does not allude, both for reasons of local
+patriotism and of general decorum; some vulgar dictum, in short,
+connected with the name of the patron saint of Nepenthe who, he urged,
+was simply a local nature-god, christianized.
+
+When the bibliographer's eagle eye first fell upon this passage he was
+staggered. Then, on reflection, he found himself in an awkward
+predicament--his natural modesty as a man contending with a no less
+natural and legitimate pride and desire as historian that the fruits of
+his labours should not be lost.
+
+"These," he said, "are the dilemmas which confront the conscientious
+annotator."
+
+What position was he to take up? Should he exclude the miserable joke
+altogether from his amended and enlarged edition of Perrelli? He did
+not feel himself justified in this line of conduct. Some future
+investigator would be sure to unearth it and get the credit for his
+industry. Should he re-state it in such terms as to make it palatable
+to refined readers, diluting its primary pungency without impairing its
+essential signification? He was disposed to adopt that course, but,
+unfortunately, all attempts at verbal manipulation failed. Good scholar
+as Mr. Eames was, the joke proved to be obdurate, uncompromising;
+vainly he wrestled with it; try as he would, it stood out naked and
+unashamed, refusing to be either cajoled or bullied into
+respectability. There was no circumventing that joke, he decided.
+Should he reproduce it there fore IN EXTENSO? Such, after mature
+deliberation and not without certain moral misgivings, he conceived to
+be his duty towards posterity. Veiled in the obscurity of a learned
+tongue, the joke was surreptitiously introduced into the company of a
+thousand chaste footnotes that could dispense with such covering
+devices.
+
+Of the subsequent history of the Saint Elias Fountain, which alone
+still continued to flow, the bibliographer also learned much--how its
+fame had grown in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries till it
+attracted invalids from the most distant provinces, necessitating the
+erection of a palatial pump-room for the better accommodations of
+visitors; how latterly again the waters had unaccountably fallen into
+disfavour with the public. And this, notwithstanding the fact that in
+1872 the celebrated Privy Councillor Dr. Saponaro, Director of the
+Montecitorio Home for Incurables, had written, at the urgent
+solicitation of the Nepenthe Town Authorities (who were alarmed at the
+decrease in their bathing-tax revenue) a pamphlet--a pamphlet which, by
+the way, cost them a mint of money in view of the author's deserved
+reputation as an incorruptible scientist--a pamphlet extolling the
+virtue of the spring; proving, by elaborate chemical analysis, that its
+ingredients had not only not changed a white since the days of
+Monsignor Perrelli but actually improved in quality; and concluding
+with the warm recommendation that they were as well adapted as ever for
+curing those ailments to which the island population was peculiarly
+liable--namely, the consequences of excessive lechery and alcohol, and
+the discomfort caused by ingrowing toe-nails.
+
+The local deputy, Don Guistino Morena, had often promised his
+Nepenthean constituents to look into the matter and see that something
+was done. But he was a busy man. Up to the present he had apparently
+not moved a finger.
+
+And now this fountain, the last survivor of the twelve health-giving
+springs, had suddenly run dry....
+
+The bad news spread like wild-fire. It was regarded--for reasons which
+will presently appear--as a portent of gravest significance. The clergy
+met in unofficial but well-attended conclave to deliberate as to what
+attitude should be adopted towards the phenomenon, and what measures
+taken to allay popular apprehensions.
+
+There was gossip, too, at the Club. Most of its members were of the
+LAISSEZ FAIRE or even rationalistic type, and one of them--an
+unobtrusive Hindu who was suspected of wearing stays--went so far in his
+indifference as to declare that the only result of the drying-up of the
+fountain would be "one smell less on Nepenthe." A small but compact
+minority, however, thought otherwise. Obsessed by vague forebodings,
+they found an able and eloquent interpreter of their fears in the
+Commissioner who, rather redder in the face than usual, strode fussily
+up and down the premises, tugging at his disreputable briar pipe,
+drinking the whisky with anybody who cared to pay for it, and declaring
+to all and sundry that something must be done. It was his panacea--his
+unvarying formula for every emergency, scandalous or otherwise.
+Something must be done, he avowed. And from the card-table came two
+approving echoes--the voices of Mr. Muhlen and Signor Malipizzo, who did
+not care tuppence about the fountain but never lost an opportunity of
+expressing their public approval of Mr. Parker's words and actions.
+
+Something must be done and that soon, for in a few brief hours an
+atmosphere of gloom, a sense of impending calamity, had begun to hover
+over the sunny island. The natives called to mind, with consternation,
+that only once within the memory of their ancestors had the fountain
+behaved after this fashion. It was on the eve of that great volcanic
+outbreak on the mainland which, by a deadly shower of ashes, destroyed
+their crops and impoverished them to such an extent that for three
+consecutive months they could barely afford the most unnecessary
+luxuries of life. They opined with some show of reason that the little
+streamlet had been tempted by ancient and obscure bonds to sympathy to
+forsake its old home and creep away, under leagues of shimmering sea,
+towards the fiery heart of the volcano; there to undergo some alchemic
+process of readjustment, some ordeal, some torrid nuptial rite which
+would result in the birth of a flaming monster and the ruin of mankind.
+
+The terrace was crowded with folk; all eyes were turned toward the
+distant fire-mountain. But the volcano had never looked so placid, so
+harmless, so attractive; its shapely flanks suffused with the crimson
+light of evening, while wreaths of violent vapour ascended, in lazy
+intermittent spirals, from the cone. They rose into the zenith
+playfully, one after the other, as though the volcano were desirous of
+drawing attention to its pretty manners, and were wafted onwards, in
+delicate wisps of smoke by the persistent South wind. The clergy now
+began to appear in goodly numbers upon the scene. They were in the best
+of humours and more ready than usual, it seemed, to take part in any
+conversation which might be going on. It had been decided, during their
+informal gathering, that the apprehensions of the faithful could not be
+better allayed at this preliminary stage than by a mild demonstration
+of this kind. Appearances were everything; so they had concluded, not
+for the first time. And it was precisely then that the simple-minded
+PARROCO, surrounded by a knot of devout believers, pointed to the
+playful cloudlets of smoke as they issued from the mouth of the crater
+and apposite, but calculated to calm the minds of his hearers. He said
+that no rosy schoolboy, smoking his first cigarette, ever looked more
+innocent. An ominous, fateful speech! Yet such was his holy simplicity
+that he failed to realize its import. He failed to perceive how
+inauspicious the metaphor had been till Don Francesco, in a whisper,
+pointed out that appearances are apt to be deceptive and, alluding to
+certain experiences of his own at the tender age of six years, affirmed
+that the smoking of a first cigarette, for all its seeming
+harmlessness, is liable to be followed by something in the nature of a
+cataclysm.
+
+There was worse to come. For while the sun yet lingered on the horizon
+news of further portents came thick and fast. A plum tree belonging to
+a farmer of good standing had unaccountably lost all its leaves. The
+Duchess arrived in a state of unusual trepidation, declaring that the
+tortoise-shell of her lorgnette gave forth a crackling sound. She
+appealed to Don Francesco to explain the meaning of this extraordinary
+circumstance; it crackled most distinctly, she declared. Not far from
+the little bay where only yesterday the streamlet of Saint Elias still
+trickled into the sea, a fisherman had caught a one-eyed lamprey--a
+beast, unquestionably, of ill repute. The bibliographer, strolling
+about with Denis, recollected that his fox-terrier that very morning
+had been violently sick. He seemed to attach no great importance to the
+affair; all the same, he said, it was rather queer; dogs are not like
+that; now, if it had been Keith.... The baby of the principal grocer
+had tumbled downstairs and thereupon proceeded to swallow eight of its
+elder brother's marbles which had been carelessly left on the
+floor--without experiencing, so far as could be ascertained, any
+appreciable injury. A mysterious disease, known as the scabies, had
+broken out among the Russian apostles. The yacht of the American
+millionaire, Mr. van Koppen, arrived that day; there was nothing
+startling in this since he visited the island year after year at the
+same season; but why should she collide with a fishing-boat at the
+moment of anchoring?
+
+And from the Old Town came news of a portentous fowl which had suddenly
+assumed the plumage of the male sex. It was a hen renowned, hitherto,
+for her temperate and normal habits and, as it happened, known by sight
+to the local parish priest, who, horrified at the transformation of the
+feathered monster and mindful of the Papal Bull NE NIMIS NOCEANT NOBIS
+which enjoins upon Christians the duty of destroying all unnatural
+productions however generated, incontinently ordered it to be put out
+of the way. But the destruction of this androgyne proved an arduous
+task. It was reported that the creature fought for its life with the
+energy of a demon, crowing vigorously the while and laying, in the very
+act of death, an egg--an egg of spheroidal form, bluish in colour, and
+apparently hard-boiled--an egg which the Chief Medical Officer of Health
+had no great difficulty in recognizing as that of a cockatrice.
+
+In view of these and other sinister occurrences it is not surprising
+that a sense of insecurity should have fallen upon the more credulous
+section of the natives. Even sceptical persons thought it rather
+provoking on the part of Providence, or whoever managed these things,
+that the disquieting of men's minds should take place during this
+particular fortnight, the most important of the whole year, midway
+between the great feasts of Saint Dodekanus and Saint Eulalia when the
+island was crammed with visitors.
+
+And there followed late at night yet another surprise. Mr. Parker had
+been called away from his duties at the Club in hot haste by the news
+that his lady was seriously ill. A few days earlier she had been stung
+on the lip by a mosquito; no further attention was paid to the
+incident, though the disagreeable south wind provoked a rise in
+temperature and some discomfort. On this afternoon, however, her face
+had suddenly begun to assume strange tints and to swell in wondrous
+fashion. It was no already enlarged to twice its natural size and
+altogether--in the words of the physician who had been summoned to her
+villa--"a thing to see."
+
+It had always been a thing to see. So, at least, said those who were
+privileged to know. There were tropical strains in her blood-strains
+from some flowery land in the Caribbean Sea-strains which refused to
+mingle in harmonious fashion with the white elements in her ancestry.
+She was neither lovely nor lovable, and it was regarded as a kindly
+dispensation of Heaven that some malformation of the lower limbs kept
+her confined to her boudoir, where no visitors ever called save a few
+misguided newcomers to the island who were unaware of her
+idiosyncrasies. These idiosyncrasies, due to the enforced inactivity of
+her feet, took the form of a grotesque activity of the tongue. Her
+infirmity preventing her from learning how things really stood, she let
+her phantasy run riot on the occasional reports which reached the
+villa; and that phantasy, nourished by lack of physical exercise,
+indulged in a love of scandal-mongering which bordered, and sometimes
+trespassed, on the pathological. She distilled scandal from every pore,
+and in such liberal quantities that even the smiling and good-natured
+Don Francesco once spoke of her as "the serpent in the Paradise." But
+perhaps he only said that because Madame Parker was not over-fond of
+him--his rival the PARROCO being her friend and confessor.
+
+Such being the case, the prospect of her possible demise was received
+with unconcern and even relief by all save a notable number of
+tradesmen who prayed fervently for her health because the lady,
+presuming on her connection with the official representative of the
+friendly state of Nicaragua, had contrived to owe them considerable
+sums of money. Knowing the Commissioner as they did, these victims
+feared that they would never be able to collect their due in the event
+of her death. Hence their prayers for her speedy recovery.
+
+What would that gentleman do without her? For it was his redeeming
+feature that he felt, or professed to feel, affection for this
+graceless harridan who was the only person on earth that believed, or
+professed to believe, in the integrity of his motives. It is to be
+presumed that they saw through each other perfectly; she, at least, may
+well have appraised him at his true value. She must have known him for
+a dishonest fool. Yet this principle of mutual attachment was never
+relinquished. Wiser than her stepbrother, she knew that a house divided
+against itself must fall; she therefore approved, forcefully if without
+conviction, of his every word and deed. Such approval did him good. It
+created a fictitious self-esteem. And this was really rather
+unfortunate, since self-esteem, by giving him a sense of importance and
+consequence in the world, rendered him a good deal more objectionable
+to his fellow-creatures than he need have been.
+
+Meanwhile she lingered on, and a small group of enquirers were gathered
+round the physician who was returning late at night from his third
+visit. The moralists among them saw the finger of God in the fact that
+her mouth, out of which had proceeded so much harm to strong men and
+women, should now be sealed by one of the frailest of His creatures.
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders at this kind of talk. He was no
+moralizer; he was a true Southerner, an aesthete--one of those who could
+appreciate the subtlest beauty of a skin disease. He waxed discursive
+on the subject; said that the lady's face reminded him of the rainbow
+in a certain picture by a local genius; avowed that there were moments
+when even a doctor's hard life had its compensations, and that this was
+one of them.
+
+His enthusiasm carried the audience off their feet. It converted the
+sternest preachers into artists. They forgot to talk about moral
+lessons. All congratulated the good Aesculapius on his choice of the
+medical profession as a career and his luck in beholding a spectacle
+such as this; especially when he added, with glowing eloquence, that it
+was astonishing how so small an insect, a mere mosquito, should be able
+to produce an eruption of this magnitude and in colours, moreover,
+which would have made Titian or Peter Paul Rubens burst with envy.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+
+
+
+Decidedly, things were happening, as Mr. Heard would have said.
+
+Strange to say that gentleman himself was probably the only person on
+Nepenthe who still remained in ignorance of all these praeternatural
+occurrences. In the early morning, after admiring the sea overhung by a
+cloudless sky and once more thanking the Duchess in his heart for such
+a delightful residence when he might have been boxed up in some stuffy
+hotel bedroom, he descended to the beach for his morning bathe. Such
+was his custom. The swim did him good, it freshened him up.
+
+Then back to breakfast and a busy morning's work, to settle up arrears
+of correspondence. He wrote to various friends in England; he wrote a
+long letter--the third since his arrival--to his mother, telling her of
+all such things as might interest her; a nice gossipy letter, full of
+information about the entertainments of the foreigners on Nepenthe,
+about the obliging natives, the Russian colony, the persistent sirocco,
+his own domestic life, his improved health. Much as he liked the place
+and people, he said, he expected to be leaving in a week or so. He
+concluded with two pages describing his last visit to his cousin. She
+was rather poorly or troubled in mind, he thought; he would see her
+again ere long.
+
+And that reminded him--he would write to Mrs. Meadows as well. He did
+so, enquiring after her health, asking whether he could be of any
+assistance, and promising to call again shortly. "Rather a formal
+epistle," he concluded, on reading it through. He was unable to force
+the note: he could never write or talk otherwise than he felt, and this
+cousin, after all, was rather remote, self-centred, and difficult of
+comprehension. "It must go as it is," he decided. "To be quite frank,
+she's not exactly encouraging either. Asks such queer questions. What
+on earth did she mean by that conundrum about illegitimacy, I wonder?"
+
+Then luncheon; then a long sleep till tea-time. Everyone slept at this
+hour during the days of sirocco-heat. What else was there to do? He had
+already learned to look forward to that calm post-prandial hour of
+slumber. One owes something to oneself, N'EST CE PAS? as Muhlen had
+said.
+
+On waking he bethought him of an invitation to tea with Madame
+Steynlin. He would have listened gladly to her music and her
+instructive and charitable talk about Nepenthe and its inhabitants. But
+he was afraid of meeting Russians there. The lady seemed to be
+specializing in Muscovites just then, and Mr. Heard was not in the
+Russian mood. He would take what he called "a day off" from social
+duties.
+
+Slipping his field glasses into his pocket, he rambled upwards by now
+familiar paths, past white farmhouses nestling in a riot of greenery;
+till he reached the barer regions. The vines were more sparsely
+cultivated here, and soon all trace of human handcraft was at an end.
+He found himself on a little plateau of volcanic cinders and
+lava-blocks. The spare grasses and flowers that grew between fuliginous
+masses of stone were already losing their bright enamel under the
+withering heat; a peculiar odour, acrid but stimulating to the
+nostrils, rose from the parched ground. Here he rested awhile. He
+scanned the landscape through his glasses--a wine-coloured sea at his
+feet, flecked with sailing boats innumerable; confronting him from the
+volcano whose playful antics were even then attracting the attention of
+a crowded Piazza. And his eye roved along the serrated contours of the
+mainland, its undulating shore-line, its distant peaks throbbing in the
+sunset glow; they rested upon many villages, coral-tinted specks of
+light, so far away they seemed to belong to another world. It was a
+pleasure to breathe on these aerial heights, surrounded by sky and sea;
+to survey the world as a bird might survey it. Like floating in air....
+
+He sat and smoked and pondered. He tried to get himself into
+perspective. "I must straighten myself out," he thought. Assuredly it
+was a restful place, this Nepenthe, abounding in kindly people; his
+affection for it grew with every day. Rest without; but where was that
+old rest within, that sense of plain tasks plainly to be performed, of
+tangible duty? Whither had it gone? Alien influences were at work upon
+him. Something new had insinuated itself into his blood, some demon of
+doubt and disquiet which threatened his old-established conceptions.
+Whence came it? The effect of changed environment--new friends, new
+food, new habits? The unaccustomed leisure which gave him, for the
+first time, a chance of thinking about non-professional matters? The
+south wind acting on his still weakened health? All these together? Or
+had he reached an epoch in his development, the termination of one of
+those definite life--periods when all men worthy of the name pass
+through some cleansing process of spiritual desquamation, and slip
+their outworn weeds of thought and feeling?
+
+Whatever it was he seemed to be no longer his own master, as in former
+days. Fate had caused his feet to stray towards something new--something
+alarming. He was poised, as it were, on the brink of a gulf. Or rather,
+it was as if that old mind of his, like a boat sailing hitherto briskly
+before the wind, had suddenly encountered a bank of calm, of utter and
+ominous calm; it was a thing spell-bound; a toy of circumstances beyond
+human control. The canvas hung in the stagnant air. From which quarter
+would the quickening breeze arrive? Whither would it bring him?
+
+And his glance fell upon a slender coquettish vessel, a new-comer,
+lying in the sunny harbour under the cliff. He knew it from hearsay. It
+was the FLUTTERBY, van Koppen's yacht. He recollected all he had ever
+heard about the millionaire; he tried to conjure up some idea of his
+features and habits from gossip overheard at odd moments.
+
+This man, he concluded, must be intelligent beyond ordinary standards.
+It would be worth while making his acquaintance. America is notoriously
+the land of youthful precocity. But it is not every American who, as a
+stripling of fourteen summers, puzzling in callow boyish perplexity
+upon the thousand ills that afflict mankind and burning with desire for
+their betterment, makes a discovery in Malthusian methods destined to
+convulse the trade and the social life of a continent. Not everybody is
+like young Koppen--he attached a van to his name on reaching his
+seventy-fifth million--who, possessed at that time of barely three
+dollars in the world and not even the shadow of a moustache, had both
+the wit to realize the hygienic importance of a certain type of goods
+and the pertinacity to insist on cheapening their price, in the
+interest of public health, to such an extent that--to quote from
+subsequent advertisements--they should be "within reach of the humblest
+home." It is not everybody--no, not every American--who, after
+revolutionizing the technique of manufacture and shattering the Paris
+monopoly, dares boldly to advertise the improved article across the
+length and breadth of the land, and to thrust his commodity upon a
+reluctant market in the teeth of popular prejudice and commercial
+rivalry. Van Koppen had done all this. And it was noted that he had
+done it without ever for a moment losing sight of his dual
+aim--mercantile and philanthropic; for if he was a humanitarian by
+natural disposition, he became what he called "a tradesman by force of
+circumstance"--and not a bad tradesman, either. He had done all this and
+more. Unlike most self-made men who remain yoked like oxen to their
+sordid affairs (in harness, they aptly call it) he had been shrewd
+enough to retire from business in the heyday of his age, on a
+relatively modest competence of fifteen million dollars a year. He was
+spending his time at present in the gratification of personal whims,
+and leaving the remaining millions to be picked up by whoever cared to
+take the trouble. Manifestly an unusual type of millionaire--this man
+who had lived down half a century of obloquy and was now hailed, in
+well-informed circles, as the saviour of his country.
+
+Nor was this all. Van Koppen was described as a brisk, genial,
+talkative old fellow, rather fat, with a clear complexion, sound teeth,
+shrubby grey beard, a twang barely sufficient to authenticate his
+transatlantic descent, and the digestion of a boa-constrictor. He was
+tremendously fond of buttered tea-cakes--so the Duchess said; a man who,
+in the words of Madame Steynlin, "really appreciated good music" and
+who, as the PARROCO never ceased to declare, could be relied on to give
+a handsome contribution towards the funds for supporting the poor and
+repairing a decrepit parish organ. (The parish poor were never in such
+dire distress, the parish organ never so hopelessly deranged, as during
+that annual week when the FLUTTERBY rode at anchor.)
+
+In fact there was no doubt about it: van Koppen had the gifts of making
+himself beloved. But nobody's company was more markedly to his taste
+than that of Count Caloveglia. The two old men spent hours together in
+Caloveglia's shady courtyard, eating candied fruits, sipping home-made
+liqueurs of peaches or mountain-herbs and talking--ever talking. Between
+them there existed some strong and strange bond of friendship or
+interest. Speculation was rife as to its origin, its meaning, its end.
+
+What was all the talk about?
+
+Andrea, the devoted retainer, however artfully approached on the
+subject, was ambiguous to a distressing degree. It was understood, none
+the less, that Count Caloveglia was perhaps of use to the other in the
+accumulation of classical relics which--the Italian Government
+forbidding the export of antique works of art--were smuggled at
+night-time on board the FLUTTERBY to be incorporated in a magnificent
+museum somewhere out West, a museum which was destined to be presented
+by van Koppen as a gift to the great American people. Again, it might
+be inferred that these two elderly gentlemen, choice representatives of
+two conflicting civilizations, widely experienced and profoundly
+versed, each in his own way, in the knowledge of mankind, took a
+sincere and childlike pleasure in one another's society, going over
+past times and anxious, to the very end of life, to add something fresh
+to their store of learning.
+
+Both these explanations were sufficiently plausible to be straightway
+dismissed by the majority as inadequate to account for the phenomenon.
+They inclined, rather, to adopt an alternative and alluring theory
+propounded by the Commissioner's lady. This theory laid it down that
+the American was bargaining for the Count's daughter, a pretty girl
+whom the old ruffian had shut up in a convent somewhere in anticipation
+of the day when a purchaser, rich enough to content his inordinate lust
+for gold, should present himself. Van Koppen was that purchaser. They
+had now been haggling, she said, for two or three years; a DENOUEMENT
+might be expected at any moment. If the Count's avarice could be
+appeased the unhappy child might expect to find herself, with as little
+delay as possible, an inmate of the floating harem on board the
+FLUTTERBY.
+
+No visitor was safe from her lively tongue, and alas, certain little
+details, insignificant in themselves, gave ground for the ungenerous
+hypothesis that van Koppen, like all the rest of them, had a cloven
+hoof. There was the usual "dark side" to this otherwise charming and
+profitable stranger, the usual mystery, the usual fly in the ointment.
+In the first place it was a singular fact, much commented on, that
+nobody had ever been invited on board the yacht. That alone was
+suspicious. IF YOU WANT TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF OLD KOPPEN--so ran a
+local saying--DON'T PROPOSE A VISIT TO THE FLUTTERBY. More curious still
+was the circumstance that nobody, save the owner and certain bearded
+venerables of the crew, had ever been known to land on the island. How
+about the other passengers? Who were they? The millionaire never so
+much as mentioned their existence. It was surmised, accordingly, that
+he voyaged over the seas with a bevy of light-hearted nymphs; a
+disreputable mode of conduct for a man of his advanced years, and all
+the more aggravating to other people since, like a crafty and jealous
+old sultan, he screened them from public view. Impropriety could be
+overlooked--it could pass, where a millionaire was concerned, under the
+heading of unconventionality; but such glaring selfishness might end in
+being fatal to his reputation.
+
+Confirmatory evidence of this scandalous state of affairs was obtained,
+one sunny morning, in the most unexpected fashion. A fisherman named
+Luigi, paddling about the stern of the FLUTTERBY where, in consequence
+of the kitchen refuse thrown overboard, marine beasts of every shape
+and kind were wont to congregate, cast down his spear at what looked
+like a splendid caerulean flat-fish of uncommon size and brilliance.
+The creature shivered and collapsed at that contact in the most
+unnatural, unfishlike manner; and Luigi drew up, to his amazement, a
+fragment of a lady's dress--to wit, a short length of sky-blue CREPE DE
+CHINE. Bitterly disappointed, he nevertheless took the matter with the
+characteristic Southern philosophy. "This will do for my little
+Annarella," he decided. And doubtless the child, arrayed in these
+celestial tints, would have been the envy of all her girl companions at
+the next festival of the patron saint b for the fact that Mr. Freddy
+Parker was strolling on the beach at the very moment of the man's
+return to land. By a rare piece of good luck, as he himself phrased it,
+his eye fell upon the dripping fabric; by a stroke of intuition not
+rare but unique, he divined its worth as a sociological document.
+Promising the man a reasonable sum of money (the Commissioner happened
+to have no loose change in his pocket just then) he carried the
+incrimination morsel in triumph to the Residency, where it was
+displayed by his lady, to all and sundry, in corroboration of her
+theory.
+
+"That settles it," she used to say. "Unless indeed he dresses up his
+cabin-boy as a girl, and in that case...."
+
+Mr. Heard, reposing on the rough pumiceous ground with his eye fixed
+upon the naughty FLUTTERBY whose virginal whiteness, with declining
+day, had assumed a tell-tale crimson blush, pieced together these and
+sundry other little bits of information. They made him more than
+usually thoughtful; they chimed in with his momentary mood of
+self-analysis.
+
+One thing was dead certain. To circumnavigate the globe in the arms of
+a dozen chorus-girls was not his ideal. He was not built on those
+lines. He purposed, God Willing, to spend the evening of his days in
+another and more respectable manner. A vision arose before his
+imagination--a vision of a peaceful homestead among the green lanes of
+England, where he would lead a life of study and of kindly,
+unostentatious acts, with family and friends; old friends of College
+days, and London days, and African days; new friends from among the
+rising generation--straightforward and decent-minded youngsters, whom he
+would take to his heart like a father.
+
+Why could not van Koppen see the beauty of such dreamings?
+
+And yet, he argued, if the man does seclude them in this
+fashion--supposing they really exist--who can blame him? No woman is safe
+on Nepenthe with persons like Muhlen about. From chance meetings in the
+street, from stray conversations overheard, he had been led to take an
+unreasoning dislike to this foreigner, whose attitude towards the
+gentle sex struck him as that of a cur. Muhlen, if the yacht were his,
+would flaunt these ladies about the streets. The American, in keeping
+them secluded on board, betrayed a sense of shame, almost of delicacy;
+a sense of his obligations towards society which, so far as it went,
+was rather a laudable trait of character than otherwise.
+
+And then--the difference between himself and the millionaire in life,
+training, antecedents! A career such as van Koppen's called for
+qualities different, often actually antagonistic, to his own. You could
+not possibly expect to find in a successful American merchant those
+features which go to form a successful English ecclesiastic. Certain
+human attributes were mutually exclusive--avarice and generosity, for
+instance; others no doubt mysteriously but inextricably intertwined. A
+man was an individual; he could not be divided or taken to pieces; he
+could not be expected to possess virtues incompatible with the rest of
+his mental equipment, however desirable such virtues might be. Who
+knows? Van Koppen's doubtful acts might be an unavoidable expression of
+his personality, an integral part of that nature under whose ferocious
+stimulus he had climbed to his present enviable position. And Mr. Heard
+was both shocked and amused to reflect that but for the co-operation of
+certain coarse organic impulses to which these Nepenthe legends
+testified, the millionaire might never have been able to acquire the
+proud title of "Saviour of his Country."
+
+"That's queer," he mused. "It never struck me before. Shows how careful
+one must be. Dear me! Perhaps the ladies have inevitable organic
+impulses of a corresponding kind. Decidedly queer. H'm. Ha. Now I
+wonder.... And perhaps, if the truth were known, these young persons
+are having quite a good time of it--"
+
+He paused abruptly in his reflections. He had caught himself in the
+act; in the very act of condoning vice. Mr. Thomas Heard was seriously
+concerned.
+
+Something was wrong, he concluded. He would never have argued on
+similar lines a short time ago. This downright sympathy with sinners,
+what did it portend? Did it betray a lapse from his old-established
+principles, a waning of his respect for traditional morality? Was he
+becoming a sinner himself?
+
+Thomas--the doubting apostle. He wondered whether there was anything in
+a name.
+
+Then he called to mind how he had approved--yes, almost approved--of Don
+Francesco's deplorable act of familiarity towards the little serving
+maid. An absurdly small matter, but symptomatic. Things like that had
+happened in Africa lately. He remembered various instances where he had
+intervened on behalf of the natives, despite the murmured protests of
+the missionaries. They were such laughing, good-natured animals--so fine
+and healthy! What was it, this excessive love of erring humanity, and
+whither trending? Mr. Heard began to vex his soul to stray about in a
+maze of doubts. It was so miserably complex, this old, old problem of
+right and wrong; so unreasonably many-sided. Anon, he pulled himself
+together with characteristic bluntness.
+
+"The whole question," he concluded, "is plain as a pikestaff. Am I
+becoming more of a Christian, or less?"
+
+As though to learn an answer to his riddle he gazed fro he eyrie over
+the wide horizon, upon leagues of sea rising upward to blend their
+essence, under the magic touch of evening, with the purple dome
+overhead.
+
+The elements, as is their wont upon such occasions, gave forth no clear
+reply.
+
+None the less, while the moist south wind, shorn of the sting of
+midday, relaxed his pores and passed over his cheek like a warm caress,
+there exhaled from those limitless spaces a sense of joyous
+amplitude--of freedom and exhilaration.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+
+
+
+And now, in the sunlit hour of dawn, he was bathing again. An excellent
+habit. It did him good, this physical contact with nature. Africa had
+weakened his constitution. Nepenthe made him feel younger once
+more--capable of fun and mischief. The muscles were acquiring a fresh
+tone, that old zest of life was coming back to him. His health, without
+a shadow of doubt, had greatly improved.
+
+While disporting himself in amphibious joy among the tepid waves he
+seemed to cast off that sense of unease which had pursued him of late.
+It was good to inhale the harsh salty savour--to submit himself to these
+calming voices--to float, like a careless Leviathan, in the blue
+immensity; good to be alive, simply alive.
+
+Another hot and clammy day was in store for the island. No matter. This
+sirocco, of which older inhabitants might well complain, had so far
+exerted no baleful influence upon him. Quite the reverse. Under its
+tender moistening touch his frame, desiccated in the tropics, seemed to
+open out, even as a withered flower uncloses its petals in water. In
+Africa all this thoughts and energies had been concentrated upon a
+single point. Here he expanded. New interests, new sensations, seemed
+to lie in wait for him. Never had he felt so alert, so responsive to
+spiritual impressions, so appreciative of natural beauty.
+
+Lying in motionless ecstasy on the buoyant element he watched the mists
+of morning as they soared into the air. Reluctantly, with imperceptible
+movement, they detached themselves from their watery home; they
+clambered aloft in spectral companies, drawn skyward, as by some
+beckoning hand, under the stealthy compulsion of the sun. They crept
+against the tawny precipices, clinging to their pinnacles like shreds
+of pallid gauze, and nestling demurely among dank clefts where
+something of the mystery of night still lingered. It was a procession
+of dainty shapes wreathing themselves into gracious attitudes;
+mounting--ever mounting. As he beheld their filmy draperies that swayed
+phantom-like among the crags overhead, he understood those pagan minds
+of olden days for whom such wavering exhalations were none other than
+sea-nymphs, Atlantides, offspring of some mild-eyed god of Ocean rising
+to greet their playfellows, the Oreads, on the hills.
+
+The wildest stretch of Nepenthe coast-line lay before him. Its profile
+suggested not so much the operation of terrestrial forces as a
+convulses and calcined lunar landscape--the handiwork of some demon in
+delirium. Gazing landwards, nothing met his eye save jagged precipices
+of fearful height, tormented rifts and gulleys scorched by fires of old
+into fantastic shapes, and descending confusedly to where the water
+slept in monster-haunted caverns.
+
+Not a sign of humanity was visible save one white villa, far away. It
+was perched on a promontory of heliotrope-tinted trachyte; struck by
+the morning beams it flashed and glowed like a jewel in the sunshine.
+He knew the place: Madame Steynlin's abode. The sight of it reminded
+him of a promise to attend her picnic next week; all Nepenthe would be
+invited, after the feast of Saint Eulalia. And hard by the shore, at
+its foot, he discerned certain minute scarlet specks.
+
+What could they be?
+
+Why, of course! They were recognizable, even at this distance, as the
+blouses of the Sacred Sixty-three, who frequented this somewhat public
+spot for bathing purposes, blandly indifferent, or resigned, to the
+gaze of inquisitive onlookers. Mr. Heard, among others, had witnessed
+their aquatic diversions.
+
+The Messiah was hindered by age and growing infirmities from taking
+part in the proceedings; moreover, he had been sickening lately, it was
+said, for some new Revelation--a Revelation of which the island was to
+become cognizant that very morning. But others of the Muscovite band
+were fond of congregating at this spot and hour for their lustral
+summer rites--white-skinned lads and lasses, matrons and reverent
+elders, all in a state of Adamitic nudity, splashing about the water of
+this sunny cover, devouring raw fish and crabs after the manner of the
+fabled Ichthyophagi, laughing, kissing, saying nice things about God,
+and combing out each other's long tow-coloured hair. Madame Steynlin, a
+spectator by necessity if not deliberate choice of these patriarchal
+frolics, disdained to controvert certain frivolous folk who resorted to
+the same beach to gratify a morbid curiosity, under the pretext that it
+was a delectable entertainment and one of the sights of Nepenthe. She
+disdained, nowadays. It had not ever been thus. Things were different
+before Peter the Great came upon the scene. In those unregenerate times
+her Lutheran upbringing condemned, in no measured terms, this frank
+exhibition of animal nature. A warm friendship with the good-looking
+apostle had now opened her eyes to the mystic sense of what went on.
+Earthly love had given an unearthly tinge to her mind. The veil had
+fallen; she saw through external appearances into the Symbolic Beyond.
+Deeply penetrated of its inner meaning, she would say that the
+spectacle called up visions of the Age of Innocence, when the world was
+young....
+
+An elegant rowing-boat suddenly swept into Mr. Heard's field of vision.
+It had approached from round the entrance of the small bay and was
+already within a few yards ere he caught sight of it. He dived
+skilfully, and on returning to the surface beheld Mr. Keith smiling
+upon him, with owlish benevolence, through his spectacles.
+
+"How pretty you look," he said. "Just like a mermaid that's lost its
+tail."
+
+"You flatter me!"
+
+"Not at all. Climb in and I'll take you for a row."
+
+"Hadn't I better get some clothes on?"
+
+"As you please. We can take you off that boulder if you want to dress."
+
+"You're very kind."
+
+Kind indeed. To admit a friend into one of his yachts or rowing-boats
+was an act of rare self-sacrifice on the part of Mr. Keith, who
+maintained that no vessel, not even an Atlantic liner, was large enough
+for more than one passenger.
+
+"You are comfortable in here," the bishop remarked, as he presently
+stepped on board and looked around him. "Cleopatra's barge must have
+been something like this."
+
+"There will be no breeze worth talking about all day. We must row."
+
+An awning of red silk screened off the rays of the sun; the
+appointments of the small boat--the polished wood of rare texture,
+morocco leather cushions, and elaborate fittings--bespoke the taste or
+at least the income of a Sybarite. A grizzly brown sailor and his
+curly-pated son were the oarsmen; in the stern sat a couple of Keith's
+attendants, whom Mr. Heard might have mistaken for two Green genii but
+for the fact that between them lay an enormous and hideously modern
+receptacle of wicker-work which impaired the illusion. It troubled the
+bishop, both by reason of its incongruity and because he could not
+divine what its purpose might be, till Keith solved the mystery by
+saying:
+
+"I thought I would like to see for myself about this fountain of Saint
+Elias and, incidentally, enjoy a little al fresco luncheon by the
+shore. Now I wonder whether there will be enough food for both of us in
+the basket?"
+
+"That thing? Dear me. I thought it might contain a cottage piano. What
+fountain?"
+
+"You haven't heard anything? Nothing at all?"
+
+He outlined the events of the preceding day.
+
+"What?" he continued. "They didn't even tell you about Miss
+Wilberforce? Well, whether she thought it was her birthday, or whether
+all these omens upset her nerves--Oh, the usual thing, only rather
+more so. Decidedly more so. It was late at night, you see, and she
+insisted on singing 'Auld Lang Syne,' and even on translating it, for
+the benefit of the constable who arrested her, into her own particular
+brand of Italian. In fact, there was a good deal of trouble, till
+somebody let down a blanket from a window. It happened to be a new
+policeman unaccustomed to her ways, and he has had a bad shock. His
+wife complained to the judge, who set round word to me this morning
+that she was in the lock-up."
+
+"In prison. An English lady!"
+
+"It is not the first time by any means. But I feel exactly as you do
+about it. I've bailed her out, and stopped his mouth with a fifty-franc
+note. Please keep this between ourselves."
+
+Mr. Heard was not pleased to learn this incident. It seemed a
+discordant note on Nepenthe. He observed:
+
+"Miss Wilberforce apparently can be relied upon to create a diversion
+of a scandalous nature. I wish I could do something to help such a poor
+creature."
+
+"The dear lady! I don't know what we should do without her. By the way,
+have you seen Denis lately? We must be friendly to that young fellow,
+Heard. I don't think he is altogether happy in this clear pagan light.
+He seems to be oppressed about something. What do you make of him?"
+
+"Of Denis? Nothing at all."
+
+"You interest me."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Because your values appear to be perverted. Your heart remains dead to
+Denis, but goes out to a worthless and incurable drunkard. The one is
+supremely happy. The other plainly troubled in mind. It leaves you
+cold. How do you explain it?"
+
+Mr. Heard began to wonder. Were his values really vitiated? Had he done
+anything to justify self-reproach? He remembered meeting Denis lately,
+in a fit of dejection, as it seemed; they had passed each other with a
+few words of greeting. Perhaps he might have been a little more
+friendly. Well, he would atone for it on the next occasion. He asked:
+
+"Has he no relations?"
+
+"A mother, at present in Florence. There have been misunderstandings, I
+suspect. He has probably found her out, like he found out our Duchess;
+like he will find out both you and me, if we give him the chance.
+Meanwhile he gropes about in a wistful fashion, trying to carve out a
+scheme of life for himself and to learn something from al lof us. What
+can a person of that kind have in common with a mother of any kind?"
+
+"Everything," said Mr. Heard enthusiastically.
+
+"Nothing at all. You are thinking of your own mother. You forget that
+you never see her. Any son can live with any mother under those
+conditions. The fact remains: nobody can misunderstand a boy like his
+own mother. Look around you, and see if it is not true! Honour thy
+father and thy mother. Perhaps. But we must civilize our mothers before
+we can expect any rational companionship between them and their sons.
+Girls are different. They are more cynical and less idealistic, they
+can put up with mothers, they can laugh at them. I am speaking in a
+general way. Of course there are shining exceptions. Mothers at present
+can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark
+the end of their capacities. They can't even attend to the elementary
+animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many
+children survive in spite of their mothers. Ask any doctor."
+
+"If that is the case there must be something wrong with our social
+system. You may be sure that the female cat or canary bird is just as
+efficient in her department as the male in his. Speaking from my own
+experience among the London poor, I should say that the father is often
+a mere parasite on his wifo and children--"
+
+"We may both of us be right. But I wish you would take Denis in hand a
+little. Will you? Perhaps you misread his character. He may be afraid
+of you."
+
+"Have you any particular reason--?"
+
+"I don't like his looks. There is something tragic about him lately."
+
+Mr. Heard was slightly nettled. After all, he was not on Nepenthe for
+the purpose of doling out consolations to melancholy undergraduates.
+
+"I should be sorry to think myself singled out for his distrust," he
+replied. "At the same time, I don't notice that he has much to say to
+certain other people--to the Commissioner, for instance, or to Mr.
+Muhlen."
+
+"Muhlen? He is quite right to leave Muhlen alone. Quite right. It
+proves his intuition. I have learnt all about that man. A beastly
+character. He has a bad record. Lives on blackmail and women. His real
+name is Retlow."
+
+And Mr. Keith lit a cigar, as though to dismiss the subject.
+
+"Retlow, you say? That's queer."
+
+The name sounded familiar to the bishop. Where had he heard it before?
+He racked his memory. Where could it have been? Retlow.... It was
+not a common name. Long ago, obviously. Where?
+
+In African days, or earlier?
+
+His searchings were interrupted by the voice of the old boatman who,
+relinquishing an oar, pointed to a swart precipice near at hand and
+said in tolerable English (the older generation of natives all spoke
+English--their children were learning Russian):
+
+"The suicides' rock, gentlemens. Ah! Many is the poor Christian I have
+pick up there. He throw down hisself. Him dead. Often in small pieces.
+Here blood. Here brain. Here leg and boot. Here finger. Ah! The poor
+Chiristian. That so, gentlemens."
+
+The bishop scanned with a shudder this frowning cliff of basalt, and
+turned to address his companion.
+
+"Do people really throw themselves over here?"
+
+"Very few. Not more than three or four in a season, I'm told. The local
+suicides, as a rule, are not as spectacular as they might be
+considering the landscape. They shoot themselves or take poison, which
+shows a certain consideration for other people. It is not a pleasant
+job, you know, to row to this remote spot and scramble about the cliff
+at the risk of a broken neck, collecting shattered fragments of
+humanity into a potato sack."
+
+"Not at all pleasant!"
+
+"As compared with England," Keith pursued, "life here is intense,
+palpitating, dramatic--a kind of blood-curdling farce full of
+irresponsible crimes and improbable consequences. The soil is saturated
+with blood. People are always killing themselves or each other for
+motives which, to an Englishman, are altogether outside the range of
+comprehensibility. Shall I tell you about one of our most interesting
+cases? I happen to be on the island at the time. There was a young
+fellow here--an agreeable young fellow--an artist; he was rich; he took a
+villa, and painted. We all liked him. Then, by degrees, he became
+secretive and moody. Said he was studying mechanics. He told me himself
+that much as he liked landscape painting he thought an artist--a real
+artist, he said--ought to be versed in ancillary sciences; in
+fortification, wood-carving, architecture, and so on. Leonardo da
+Vinci, you know. Well, one day they could not get into his bedroom.
+They broke open his door and discovered that he had constructed a
+perfectly-formed guillotine; the knife had fallen; his head lay on one
+side and his body on the other. You may well be surprised. I went
+carefully into that case. He was in the best of health, with a
+creditable artistic record behind him. He had no troubles, financial or
+domestic."
+
+"Then what on earth--?"
+
+"The scenery of Nepenthe. It got on his nerves; it unstrung him. Does
+that surprise you too? Don't you feel its effect upon yourself? The
+bland winds, the sea shining in velvety depths as though filled with
+some electric fluid, the riot of vegetation, these extravagant cliffs
+that change colour with every hour of the day? Look at that peak
+yonder--is it not almost transparent, like some crystal of amethyst?
+This coast-line alone--the sheer effrontery of its mineral charm--might
+affect some natures to such an extent as to dislocate their stability.
+Northern minds seem to become fluid here, impressionable, unstable,
+unbalanced--what you please. THere is something in the brightness of
+this spot which decomposes their old particles and arranges them into
+fresh and unexpected patterns. That is what people mean when they say
+that they 'diswcover' themselves here. You discover a mechanism, you
+know, when you take it to pieces. You catch my meaning?"
+
+"I catch it."
+
+He nodded. He understood perfectly. Some analogous process was going on
+within him at that moment. He, too, was discovering himself.
+
+"Have you discovered yourself, Keith?"
+
+"Yes, by other methods, elsewhere. I am only here for a short time in
+the Spring and another ten days in September. That is hardly enough,
+even supposing I were the sort of person to be accessible to these
+externals. I have passed that stage. I am too old, too unemotional. I
+prefer devouring a partridge EN CASSEROLE or listening to your
+conversation ("listening to my conversation!" thought Mr. Heard) to all
+the scenery in the world But I watch other people; I make it my
+business to study their condition; I put myself in their places. JE
+CONSTATE, as the French say. To them, the landscape of Nepenthe is
+alive, often malignantly alive. They do what you cannot so effectually
+do in the North; they humanize it, identifying its various aspects with
+their own moods, its features with their own traditions."
+
+Mr. Heard thought of those tremendous mists he had seen only an hour
+ago--the daughters of old Ocean.
+
+"They humanize it," he echoed. "The mythopoetic faculty!"
+
+"Perhaps this capacity of Southern scenery to bear a mortal
+interpretation accounts for the anthropomorphic deities of classical
+days. I often think it does. Even we moderns are unaccountably moved by
+its varying facets which act sometimes as an aphrodisiac, and sometimes
+by their very perfection, their discouraging spell, their insolent
+beauty, suggest the hopelessness of all human endeavour.... Denis! I
+should think him capable of anything, just now. Do you imagine a person
+like this could possibly remain insensible to the beguiling influence
+of these surroundings?"
+
+"I never thought about him."
+
+"Really? You interest me, Heard. If you deny the susceptibility of a
+temperament like his, you deny the whole operation of externals upon
+character and action. You deny, for example, the success of the Roman
+Catholic Church which relies, for its moral effects, upon such optic
+appeals to the senses, and upon the ease with which transitory feelings
+can be transmuted into axioms of conduct. Do you deny this?"
+
+"Not at all. I have seen enough of their system to realize its extreme
+simplicity."
+
+"And then think of the peculiar history of this island and its
+situation as a converging-point for men of every race and every creed.
+All these things stimulate to rapid nervous discharges; that is, to
+inconsidered, foolish actions--"
+
+"All fools!" the boatman interrupted. "All foreigners! We people don't
+do these things. Only dam-fool foreigners. That so, gentlemens. They
+have trouble themselves, then they come to this rock and, boom! make
+trouble for their friends."
+
+"Boom!" echoed his son, who had apparently caught the drift of the old
+man's speech. Whereat the two Greek genii in the stern laughed
+immoderately; knowing, as they did, that the boy had not the slightest
+idea of what his father was talking about.
+
+"Boom!" they repeated, in derisive chorus.
+
+At that moment all the occupants of the boat pricked up their ears. A
+sound had reached them, a similar sound--a sound that recalled the
+distant firing of a big gun. Boom! It reverberated among the rocks. The
+rowers dropped their oars. Everyone listened.
+
+The sound came again. This time there was no question as to its origin.
+It was artillery, beyond a doubt.
+
+The old sailor had grown preternaturally grave.
+
+"IL CANNONE DEL DUCA," he said.
+
+The cannon of the Good Duke Alfred, never used save on urgent or solemn
+occasions, was being discharged.
+
+Then the boatman made another remark, in Italian, to Keith.
+
+"What does he say?" asked Mr. Heard.
+
+"He thinks they must be calling out the militia."
+
+Something was very wrong, up yonder, on the market-place.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+
+
+
+The cannon, to be hereinafter described, is not the sole surviving
+relic of the Good Duke's rule. Turn where you please on this island
+domain, memories of that charming and incisive personality will meet
+your eye and ear; memories in stone-schools, convents, decayed castles
+and bathing chalets; memories in the spoken word--proverbs attributed to
+him, legends and traditions of his sagacity that still linger among the
+populace. IN THE DAYS OF THE DUKE: so runs a local saying, much as we
+speak of the "good old times." His amiable laughter-loving ghost
+pervades the capital to this hour. His pleasantries still resound among
+those crumbling theatres and galleries. That gleeful deviltry of his,
+compounded of blood and sunshine, is the epitome of Nepenthe. He is the
+scarlet thread running through its annals. An incarnation of all that
+was best in the age he identified, for wellnigh half a century, his
+interests with those of his faithful subjects.
+
+He meditated no conquests. It sufficed him to gain and to retain the
+affection of men in whose eyes he was not so much a prince, a feudal
+lord, as an indulgent and doting father. He was the ideal despot, a man
+of wide culture and simple tastes. "A smile," he used to say, "will
+sway the Universe." Simplicity he declared to be the keynote of his
+nature, the guiding motive of his governance. In exemplification
+whereof he would point to his method of collecting taxes--a marvel of
+simplicity. Each citizen paid what he liked. If the sum proved
+insufficient he was apprised of the fact next morning by having his
+left hand amputated; a second error of judgment--it happened rather
+seldom--was rectified by the mutilation of the remaining member. "Never
+argue with inferiors," was one of His Highness's most original and
+pregnant remarks, and it was observed that, whether he condescended to
+argue or not, he generally gained his point without undue loss of time.
+
+"It's so simple," he would say to those perplexed potentates who
+flocked to him from the mainland for advice on administrative
+questions. "So simple! One knock to each nair. And keep smiling."
+
+It was the Good Duke Alfred who, with a shrewd eye to the future
+prosperity of his dominions, made the first practical experiments with
+those hot mineral springs--those healing waters whose virtues, up till
+then, had been unaccountable neglected. Realizing their curative
+possibilities, he selected fifty of the oldest and wisest of his Privy
+Councillors to undergo a variety of hydro-thermal tests on their
+bodies, internal and external. Seven of these gentlemen had the good
+luck to survive the treatment. They received the Order of the Golden
+Vine, a coveted distinction. The remaining forty-three, what was left
+of them, were cremated at night-time and posthumously ennobled.
+
+He was the author of some mighty fine dissertations on falconry,
+dancing and architecture. He wrote furthermore, in the flamboyant style
+of his period, two dozen pastoral plays, as well as a goodly number of
+verses addressed, for the most part, to ladies of his Court--a Court
+which was thronged with poets, wits, philosophers and noble women. The
+island was a gay place in those days! There was always something doing.
+His Highness had a trick of casting favourites into dungeons, and
+concubines into the sea, that endeared him to his various legitimate
+spouses; and the rapidity with which these self-same spouses were
+beheaded one after the other, to make room for what he mirthfully
+called "fresh blood," struck his faithful subjects as an ever-recurring
+miracle of statecraft. "Nothing," he used to say to his intimates,
+"nothing ages a man like living always with the same woman." Well
+aware, on the other hand, of the inequality of social conditions and
+keenly desirous of raising the moral tone of his people, he framed iron
+laws to restrain those irregularities of married life which had been a
+disreputable feature of local society prior to his accession.
+
+Not in vain had he pondered in youth the political maxims of the great
+Florentine. He cultivated assiduously the friendship of Church and Mob;
+he knew that no throne, however seemingly well-established, can weather
+the blasts of fortune save by resting on those twin pillars of
+security. So it came about that, while all Europe was convulsed in
+savage warfare, his relations with other rulers were marked by rare
+cordiality and simplicity of intercourse. He never failed to conciliate
+his more powerful neighbours by timely gifts of local delicacies--gifts
+of dark-eyed virgins to grace their palaces, and frequent hampers of
+those succulent LANGOUSTES for which the coastal waters of the island
+are renowned, both items of the finest quality obtainable. A born
+statesman, he extended this ingratiating demeanour even to those minor
+sovereigns from whom, to all appearance, she had nothing to fear,
+supplying them likewise with periodical consignments of pretty maidens
+and well-flavoured crayfish, only of somewhat inferior quality--the
+crustaceans often too young, the damsels occasionally over-ripe.
+
+His high aspirations made him the precursor of many modern ideas. In
+educational and military matters, more especially, he ranks as a
+pioneer. He was a pedagogue by natural instinct. He took a sincere
+delight in the school-children, limited their weekly half-holidays to
+five, designed becoming dresses for boys and girls, decreed that lute
+playing and deportment should become obligatory subjects in the
+curriculum, and otherwise reformed the scholastic calendar which,
+before his day, had drifted into sad confusion and laxity. Sometimes he
+honoured the ceremony of prize-giving with his presence. On the other
+hand it must be admitted that, judged by modern standards, certain of
+his methods for punishing disobedience smacks of downright pedantry.
+Thrice a year, on receiving form the Ministry of Education a list
+containing the names of unsatisfactory scholars of either sex, it was
+his custom to hoist a flag on a certain hill-top; this was a signal for
+the Barbary pirates, who then infested the neighbouring ocean, to set
+sail for the island and buy up these perverse children, at purely
+nominal rates, for the slave-markets of Stamboul and Argier. They were
+sold ignominiously--by weight and not by the piece--to mark his
+unqualified disapproval of talking and scribbling on blotting-pads
+during school hours.
+
+It is recorded of the Good Duke that on one occasion he returned from
+this scene looking haggard and careworn, as though the sacrifice of so
+many young lives weighed on his fatherly spirit. Presently, envisaging
+his duties towards the State, he restrained these natural but unworthy
+emotions, smiled his well-known smile, and gave utterance to an
+apophthegm which had since found its way into a good many copy-books:
+"In the purity of childhood," he said, "lie the seeds of national
+prosperity." And if it be enquired by what arts of Machiavellian
+astuteness he alone, of all Christian princes, contrived to maintain
+friendly relations with these formidable Oriental sea-rovers, the
+answer lies at hand. His device was one of extreme simplicity. He
+appealed to their better natures by sending them, at convenient
+intervals, shiploads of local delicacies, girls and lobsters--of
+indifferent quality, it is true, but sufficiently appetizing to attest
+his honourable intentions.
+
+His predecessors, intent only upon their pleasures, had given no
+thought to the possibility of a hostile invasion of their fair domain.
+But the Good Duke, despite his popularity, was frequently heard to
+quote with approval that wise old adage which runs "In peace, prepare
+for war." Convinced of the instability of all mundane affairs and
+being, moreover, a man of original notions as well as something of an
+artist in costumery, he was led to create that picturesque body of men,
+the local Militia, which survives to this day and would alone entitle
+him to the grateful notice of posterity. These elegant warriors, he
+calculated, would serve both for the purpose of infusing terror into
+the minds of potential enemies, and of acting as a decorative
+body-guard to enhance his own public appearances on gala days. He threw
+his whole soul into the enterprise. After the corps had been duly
+established, he amused himself by drilling them on Sunday afternoons
+and modelling new buttons for their uniforms; to give them the
+requisite military stamina he over-fed and starved them by turns,
+wrapped them in sheepskin overcoats for long route-marches in July,
+exercised them in sham fights with live grapeshot and unblunted
+stilettos and otherwise thinned their ranks of undesirables, and
+hardened their physique, by forcing them to escalade horrible
+precipices at midnight on horseback. He was a martinet; he knew it; he
+gloried on the distinction. "All the world loves a disciplinarian," he
+was wont to say.
+
+Nevertheless, like many great princes, he realized that political
+reasons might counsel at times an abatement of rigour. He could relent
+and show mercy. He could interpose his authority in favour of the
+condemned.
+
+He relented on one celebrated occasion which more than any other helped
+to gain for him the epithet of "The Good"--when an entire squadron of
+the Militia was condemned to death for some supposed mistake in giving
+the salute. The record, unfortunately, is somewhat involved in
+obscurity and hard to disentangle; so much is clear, however, that the
+sentence was duly promulgated and carried into effect within half an
+hour. Then comes the moot question of the officer in command who was
+obviously destined for execution with the rest of his men and who now
+profited, as events proved, by the clemency of the Good Duke. It
+appears that this individual, noted for a childlike horror of bloodshed
+(especially when practiced on his own person), had unaccountably
+absented himself from the ceremony at the last moment--slipping out of
+the ranks in order, as he said, to bid a last farewell to his two aged
+and widowed parents. He was discovered in a wine-shop and brought
+before a hastily summoned Court-martial. There his old military courage
+seems to have returned to him. He demonstrated by a reference to the
+instructions laid down in the Militiaman's Year-book that no mistake in
+saluting had been made, that his men had therefore been wrongfully
+convicted and illegally executed and that he A FORTIORI, was innocent
+of any felonious intent. The Court, while approving his arguments,
+condemned him none the less to the indignity of a double decapitation
+for the offence of leaving his post without a signed permit from His
+Highness.
+
+It was at this point that the Good Duke interposed on his behalf. He
+rescinded the decree; in other words, he relented. "Enough of bloodshed
+for one day," he was heard to remark, quite simply.
+
+This speech was one of his happiest inspirations. Instantly it echoed
+from mouth to mouth; from end to end of his dominions. Enough of
+bloodshed for one day! That showed his true heart, the people declared.
+Enough of bloodshed! Their enthusiasm grew wilder when, in an access of
+princely graciousness, he repaired the lamentable excess of zeal by
+pinning the Order of the Golden Vine to the offending officer's breast;
+it rose to a veritable frenzy as soon as they learned that, by Letters
+Patent, the entire defunct squadron had been posthumously ennobled. And
+this is only one of many occasions on which this ruler, by his intimate
+knowledge of human nature and the arts of government, was enabled to
+wrest good from evil, and thereby consolidate his throne....
+
+It is passing strange, on the face of it, that this vivid personality,
+one of the most arresting figures in the history of the country, should
+be so briefly dealt with in the pages of Monsignor Perrelli. Doubly
+strange, and a serious disappointment to the reader, in view of the
+fact that the two men were contemporaries, and that the learned writer
+must have enjoyed exceptional facilities for obtaining first-hand
+knowledge of his subject. Almost inexplicable indeed, when one
+remembers those maxims which he himself, in the Introduction to his
+ANTIQUITIES, lays down for the writing of history; when one calls to
+mind his own gleams of exotic scholarship, those luminous asides and
+fruitful digressions, those statesmanlike comments on things in general
+which make his work not so much a compendium of local lore as a mirror
+of the polite learning of his age. It is no exaggeration to say that,
+compared with the ample treatment meted out to inconspicuous rulers
+like Alfonso the Seventeenth or Florizel the Fat, his account of the
+Good Duke Alfred is the baldest, the most perfunctory and conventional
+of chronicles. Neither good nor evil is related of him. There is
+nothing but a monotonous enumeration of events.
+
+It was the bibliographer who, poring over the pages of the rival monk
+Father Capocchio, that audacious and salacious friar already
+mentioned--it was the bibliographer who hit upon a passage which
+suggested a solution of the mystery and proved that, though Monsignor
+Perrelli lived during the reign of the Good Duke, it would be
+stretching unduly the sense of a plain word to say that he "flourished"
+under his rule. Other persons may have flourished; not so the kindly
+prelate.
+
+"Nothing whatever," says this implacable enemy of Nepenthe, "is to be
+recorded to the credit of the sanguinary brigand--so he terms the Good
+Duke--nothing whatsoever: save and except only this, that he cut off the
+ears of a certain prattler, intriguer, and snuff-taking sensualist
+called Perrelli who, under the pretence of collecting data for an
+alleged historical treatise, profited by his priestly garb to play fast
+and loose with what little remained of decent family life on that
+God-abandoned island. Honour to whom honor is due! The ostensible
+reason for this unique act of justice was that the said Perrelli had
+appeared at some palace function with paste buckles on his shoes,
+instead of silver ones. The pretext was well chosen, inasmuch as the
+tyrant added to his other vices and absurdities the pose of being an
+extravagant stickler for etiquette. We happen to know, nevertheless,
+that the name of a young dancer, a prime favourite at Court, cropped up
+persistently at the time in connection with this malodorous but
+otherwise insignificant episode."
+
+It were idle, at this hour of the day, to pursue the enquiry; the
+mutilation of Monsignor Perrelli's person, however, would explain
+better than anything else his equivocal attitude as historian. Nor is
+the incident altogether inconsistent with what we know of the Duke's
+cheerful propensities. "Nose after ears!" was one of his blithest
+watchwords. Faced with so dispiriting a prospect and aware that His
+Highness was as good as his princely word, the sympathetic scholar,
+while too resentful to praise his achievements, may well have been too
+prudent to disparage them. Hence his reticence, his circumspection.
+Hence that monotonous enumeration of events.
+
+This microscopic blot on the Duke's escutcheon, as well as other more
+commendable details of his life, were duly noted down by the zealous
+Mr. Eames who, in addition, had the good fortune to receive as a gift
+from his kindly but unassuming friend Count Caloveglia a quaint
+portrait of the prince, hitherto unknown--an engraving which he purposed
+to reproduce, together with other fresh iconographical material, in his
+enlarged and fully annotated edition of the ANTIQUITIES. The print
+depicts His Highness full face, seated on a throne in the accoutrements
+of Mars, with a gallant wig flowing in mazy ringlets from under the
+helmet upon his plated shoulders; overhead, upon a canopy of cloud,
+reclines a breezy assemblage of allegorical females--Truth, Mercy, Fame
+with her trumpet, and so forth. His nervous clean-shaven features do
+not wear the traditional smile; they are thoughtful, almost grim. On
+his left is portrayed a huge CANNON astride of which can be seen a
+chubby angel; the Duke's hand reposes, in a paternal caress on the
+cherub's head--symbolical doubtless of his love of children. His right
+elbow rests upon a table, and the slender bejewelled fingers are
+listlessly pressing open a lettered scroll of parchment on which can be
+deciphered the words "A CHI T'HA FIGLIATO" (to her who bare thee)--a
+legend which the bibliographer, whose acquaintance with the vernacular
+was not on a level with his classical attainments, conjectured to be
+some fashionable courtly toast of the period.
+
+The mention of artillery recalls the fact that His Highness was an
+amateur of ordnance. He established a gun-foundry on the island, and
+what he did not know about the art of casting pieces, as practised in
+his day, was plainly not worth knowing. Had it not been for his
+passionate love of testing new processes and new combinations of metal,
+he might have attained to a European reputation in that department. But
+he was always experimenting, and the consequence was that his cannons
+were always splitting. One, however, a monster of its kind, remained
+intact, to outward appearances. It was fired on every conceivable
+occasion--to summon the Militia, for example, from remote corners of the
+island at any hour of the day or night, a considerable hardship to
+those who lived at a distance of two or three miles, seeing that
+according to the instructions set forth in the Militiaman's Year-book,
+the sternest penalties were imposed upon all who failed to appear in
+their ranks at the Palace gates within five minutes after the signal
+had been sounded.
+
+It was a perilous gun to handle. Owing to some undiscoverable flaw of
+construction or imperfection in the alloy, the monster soon developed a
+disconcerting knack of back-firing, hazardous to life and limb. It
+stands to reason that the Good Duke attached no undue importance to any
+trifling disaster accruing therefrom. On the contrary, in order to be
+sure of a thunderous detonation, he often deigned to superintend in
+person the loading of this particular piece.
+
+"More powder," he would then command. "More powder! Ram it in! Never
+mind her little caprices! A good salute is worth a good soldier! More
+powder! Fill her up to the brim! She's only playful, like her master."
+Those who lost fingers or hands or arms received the Order of the
+Golden Vine. Whenever a major portion of the anatomy, a head or so
+forth, went astray, the victim was posthumously ennobled.
+
+Since his day, thanks to the science of a Paduan engineer, this defect
+has been almost completely overcome, and the gun can still be heard on
+great occasions, such as the Duke's birthday, the Festival of the
+Patron Saint, or the visit to the island of some foreign sovereign; it
+is also discharged, as of yore, to summon the Militia for the purpose
+of quelling any popular disturbance. But even now it occasionally
+relapses into its old humours--with this difference, that instead of
+being decorated with a coveted distinction, the disabled man is sent to
+the hospital and told not to make a fool of himself next time.
+
+This was the gun whose sound attracted the strained attention of Mr.
+Keith and his companions, far away, on the sea, under the cliffs.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+
+
+
+The firing had ceased; the boat began to glide forwards once more. But
+Mr. Heard's eye remained fixed upon the ill-omened black rock. The
+sun's rays had already licked dry the moisture on its surface; it shone
+with a steady dull glow. Some malefic force seemed to dwell here. Some
+demon haunted the place, peering out of the crevices or rising up from
+the turquoise-tinted water at its foot. The suicides' rock!
+
+That vague sense of apprehension, of impending disaster, once more
+invaded him. Suddenly it revealed itself in definite terms. A ghastly
+notion flitted through his mind.
+
+"You think it possible that Denis--?" he began.
+
+His friend seemed to have lost all interest in that subject. It was a
+way he had.
+
+"Denis? I really could not tell. I'm not sufficiently in his
+confidence.... Honour thy father and thy mother," he proceeded,
+reverting to his former theme. "What think you, Heard, of this old
+injunction? Is it not altogether obsolete? Was it not written for quite
+other conditions? Honour thy father and mother. Why? The State educates
+children, feeds them, investigates and cures their complaints, washes
+and weighs them, reports on their teeth and stomachs, prescribes when
+they may begin to smoke and enter public-houses: where does parental
+authority come in? The State provides old folks with refuges and
+pensions: how about the former obligations of children? Child and
+parent alike now thank the community for what they once received from
+each other. And the geographical elements that went to the making of a
+home are also dispersed. Rich and poor roam like gipsies from one
+country to another, from one flat into the next; the patriarchal board
+is replaced by clubs and grill-rooms and fried-fish shops. Many a man
+who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern
+for his friends. Note, too, that the family has outgrown its
+ecclesiastical sanction; the oil of supernaturalism which once greased
+the wheels has run dry; the machinery is creaking. Industrial
+conditions have killed the old home. REQUIESCAT! Honour thy father and
+mother. Industrialism has killed that commandment. Thou shalt not
+steal. Consider this injunction, Heard, and ask yourself whether
+industrialism does not split its sides with laughing at it. If we are
+to galvanize that old collection of laws into some semblance of life,
+every one f them must be re-written and brought up to date. They are
+inappropriate for modern life; their interest is purely historical. We
+want new values. We are no longer nomads. Industrialism has killed the
+pastoral and the agricultural points of view. And how the modern Jews
+smile at our infatuation for those queer doctrines and legends which
+they themselves have long ago outgrown. Apropos, what has become of
+Marten?"
+
+"Left the island, I hear."
+
+"Quick work. Now I wonder why?"
+
+Everybody wondered at Marten's precipitate departure. Even Angelina
+wondered.
+
+She just wondered.
+
+Had he known that she wondered, he might have been tempted to prolong
+his stay. But Marten was too young to be a practical psychologist. He
+had lived for half a day in terror of what he called "the inevitable
+reaction," unaware of the fact that certain people do not suffer from
+reactions and too engrossed in mineralogy to have learnt, from a study
+of other sciences, that Angelina was one of them. She had passed that
+stage, with Homeric laughter, long before his appearance on Nepenthe.
+She just wondered, nowadays.
+
+Scared, as though the avenging Furies were at his heels, he quitted the
+scene of his nocturnal romance, leaving half his geological projects
+incomplete. Had he taken the amiable Don Francesco into his confidence
+he might have heard something to his advantage. But the scientist could
+not endure the sight of a Christian priest. Like other intolerant folk
+he was now paying for his prejudices.
+
+"An erotic little beast," Keith went on. "And a typical Hebrew--a
+scoffer. Have you noticed what a disruptive and irreverential brood
+they are? They move up and down society like some provocative fluid,
+insensible to our ideals; they take a diabolical pleasure in shattering
+our old-established conceptions of right and wrong. I confess I like
+them for that; they need shattering, some of those conceptions. And
+they have their weaknesses too, their Achilles heel--music, for
+instance, or chess. When next you are in town don't forget to go to
+that little chess club of theirs over Aldgate East station. It is
+better than a play to watch their faces. And with all this materialism
+they have a mysterious feminine leaven of enthusiasm and unworldliness.
+What pecuniary advantage could Marten expect to gain from his
+minerals?"
+
+"A professorship."
+
+"Why, possibly. He had the professorial temperament; there was not much
+poetry in his composition. If you were to ask him, 'What are those
+wonderful rocks over there, shaped like some Titanic organ and glowing
+with a kind of violet flame?' he would say, 'Organ be blowed. It's
+columnar lithoidite.' I learnt a little from him, but not enough. I
+wish we had him here. He could have told us something."
+
+And Mr. Keith, ever avid of fresh things, regretted his lost
+opportunities. He was in one of this acquisitive, Corsair moods. He
+said:
+
+"I could take geology by the throat just now. It's disgusting, not to
+know things!"
+
+His companion, meanwhile, beheld the panorama in all its nightmarish
+splendour, as it drifted past him. He saw the bluffs of feathery
+pumice, the lava precipices--frozen cataracts of white, black, blood
+red, pale grey and sombre brown, smeared over with a vitreous enamel of
+obsidian or pierced by oily, writhing dykes that blazed with metallic
+scintillations. Anon came some yawning cleft or an assemblage of dizzy
+rock-needles, fused into whimsical tints and attitudes, spiky,
+distorted, over-toppling; then a bold tufa rampart, immaculate in its
+beauty, stainless as a curtain of silk. And as the boat moved on he
+looked into horrid dells which the rains had torn out of the loose
+scoriae. Gaping wounds, they wore the bright hues of corruption. Their
+flanks were blotched with a livid nitrous efflorescence, with flaring
+sulphur, unhealthy verdure of pitchstone, streaks of arsenical
+vermilion; their beds--a frantic maze of boulders.
+
+He beheld this crazy stratification, this chaos of incandescent nature,
+sent in a flame of deep blue sky and sea. It lay there calmly, like
+some phantasmagoric flower, some monstrous rose that swoons away, with
+upturned face, in a solar caress.
+
+He saw it with the eye. His mind was elsewhere. He was trying, in
+honest and relentless fashion, to discover himself. What if his human
+values were really wrong?
+
+Thomas, the doubting apostle....
+
+Africa had made him think; had made him more silent and reflective than
+ever. And now this sudden strange stimulus of Nepenthe--it was driving
+his thoughts headlong, out of their old grooves.
+
+Here was Keith, a man of altogether different stamp, drawing
+conclusions which he dared not formulate for himself. How far were they
+applicable, those old Hebrew precepts, to modern conditions? Were they
+still availing as guides to conduct?
+
+"You are a candid person, Keith, and I think I am. I sincerely try to
+be. Will you tell me what you think? You seem to have a quarrel with
+Moses and his commandments, which we are taught to regard as the
+keystone of ethics. I don't want to discuss things. I want to listen to
+the opinions of a man so different from myself as you are. It may do me
+good. And I think I could stand almost anything," he added, with a
+laugh, "in this landscape--in this clear pagan light, as you call it."
+
+"I used to be interested in such things as a boy. I suppose all
+respectable boys are; and I was respectable even at that tender age.
+Nowadays, though I still pick up an Oriental rug now and then, I have
+no further use for Oriental gods."
+
+"What is your objection to them?"
+
+Mr. Keith paused before replying. Then he said:
+
+"The drawback of Oriental gods is that they have been manufactures by
+the proletariat for the use of the aristocracy. They act accordingly;
+that is, they distil the morality of their creators which I consider a
+noxious emanation. The classic gods were different. They were invented
+by intellectualists who felt themselves capable of maintaining a kind
+of comradeship with their deities. Men and gods were practically on a
+level. They walked hand in hand over the earth. These gods belonged to
+what one might call the horizontal or downstairs variety."
+
+"And those others?"
+
+"Oh, they are the upstairs or vertical type. They live overhead. Why
+overhead? Because they have been created by the proletariat. The
+proletariat loves to humiliate itself. Therefore they manufacture a god
+who approves of grovelling, a god who can look down upon them. They
+exalt this deity to an infinite degree in point of goodness and
+distance, and in so doing they inevitably abase themselves. Now I
+disapprove of grovelling. That means I disapprove of upstairs gods."
+
+"Upstairs gods--"
+
+"If you walk into my front door as a distinguished visitor I am happy
+to show you the place. You can prowl about the garden, poke your nose
+into the pantry and learn, if it amuses you, all about my private life.
+But if you rent a high attic overlooking my premises and stair out of
+your window all day long, watching my movements and noting down
+everything I do, why, damn it, I call that vulgar. Staring is bad form.
+Vertical gods are inquisitive. I don't like to be supervised. I don't
+care about this DOSSIER business. My garden is for you and me to walk
+about in, not for outsiders to stare into. Which reminds me that you
+have not been to see me lately. You ought to come and look at my
+cannas; you really ought! They are in magnificent bloom just now. When
+shall it be?"
+
+Mr. Keith seemed to be already tired of the subject. In fact he was as
+near being bored as ever he allowed himself to be. But the other
+refused to let the conversation be side-tracked. He wanted to know.
+
+"Vertical and horizontal gods.... Dear me. Sounds rather profane."
+
+"I have not heard that word for quite a long time."
+
+"You don't feel the need of any kind of superior being to control human
+affairs?"
+
+"Not up to the present. I can find no room in my Cosmos for a deity,
+save as a waste product of human weakness, an excrement of the
+imagination. If you gave me the sauciest god that ever sat on a cloud
+or breakfasted with the Village Idiot--'pon my word, I shouldn't know
+what to do with him. I don't collect bric-a-brac myself, and the
+British Museum is dreadfully overstocked. Perhaps the Duchess could
+make some use of him, if he specialized in lace vestments and choral
+mass. By the way, I hear that she is going to be admitted into the
+Roman Church next week; there is to be a luncheon after the ceremony.
+Are you going?"
+
+"Vertical and horizontal gods.... I never heard that distinction
+made before."
+
+"It is a difference, my dear Heard. Mankind remains in direct contact
+with the downstairs variety. That simplifies matters. But the peculiar
+position of those others--perpendicularly overhead at a vast
+distance--necessitates a troublesome code of verbal signals,
+unintelligible to common folk, for the expression of mutual desires.
+You cannot have any god of this kind without some such cumbrous
+contrivance to bridge over the gulf and make communication possible. It
+is called theology. It complicates life very considerably. Yes," he
+pursued, "the vertical-god system is not only vulgar; it is perplexing
+and expensive. Think of the wastage, of the myriads of people who have
+been sacrificed because they misinterpreted some enigmatical word in
+the code. Why are you intent on these conundrums?"
+
+"Well, partly at least, it's quite a practical matter. You know that
+American millionaire, van Koppen, and the scandal attached to his
+peculiar habits? It made me wonder, only yesterday--"
+
+But at this juncture the tiresome old boatman lifted up his voice once
+more.
+
+"See that high cliff, gentlemens? Funny thing happen there, very funny.
+Dam-fool foreigner here, he collect flowers. Always collecting flowers
+on bad rocks; sometimes with rope round him, for fear of falling; with
+rope, ha, ha, ha! Nasty man. And poor. No money at all. He always say,
+'All Italians liars, and liars where go? To Hell, sure. That's where
+liars go. That's where Italians go.' Now rich man he say liar to poor
+man. But poor man, he better not say liar to rich man. That so,
+gentlemens. One day he say liar to nice old Italian. Nice old man
+think: 'Ah, you wait, putrid puppy of bastard pig, you wait.' Nice old
+man got plenty good lot vineyards back of cliff there. One day he walk
+to see grapes. Then he look to end of cliff and see rope hanging. Very
+funny, he think. Then he look to end of rope and see nasty-man hanging.
+That so, gentlemens. Nasty-man hanging in air. Can't get up. 'Pull me
+up,' says he. Nice old man, he laugh--ha, ha, ha! laugh till his belly
+hurt. Then he pull out knife and begin to cut rope. 'See knife?' he
+shout down. 'How much to pull up?' Five hundred dollar! 'How much?'
+Five thousand! 'How much?' Fifty thousand! Nice old man say quite
+quiet: 'You no got fifty thousand in the world, you liar. Liars where
+go? To Hell, sure. That's where liars go. That's where you go, Mister.
+To Hell.' And he cut rope. Down he go, patatrac! round and round in
+air, like firework wheel, on to first rock--pa-pa-pa-paff! Six hundred
+feets. After that he arrive, all messy, in water. That so, gentlemens.
+Gone where to? Swim to Philadelphia? I don't think! Him drownded, sure.
+Ha, ha, ha! Nice old man, when he come home that morning, he laugh. He
+laugh. He just laugh. He laugh first quiet, then loud. He laugh all the
+time, and soon family too. He laugh for ten days, till he nearly die.
+Got well again, and live plenty good years after. In Paradise to-day,
+God rest his soul! And never found out, no never. Fine judge on
+Nepenthe. Always fine judge here. He know everything, and he know
+nothing. Understand? All nice people here. That so, gentlemens."
+
+He told the tale with Satanic gusto, rocking himself to and fro as
+though convulsed with some secret joy. Then, after expectorating
+violently, he resumed the oars which had been dropped in the heat of
+gesticulation.
+
+The bishop was pensive. There was something wrong with this
+story--something fundamentally wrong. He turned to Keith:
+
+"That man must be a liar too. If, as he says, the thing was never found
+out, how can he have learnt all about it?"
+
+"Hush, my dear fellow. He thinks I don't know, but I do. It was his own
+father to whom the adventure occurred."
+
+"The adventure?" said Mr. Heard.
+
+"The adventure. Surely you are not going to make a tragedy of it? If
+you cannot see the joke of that story, you must be hard to please. I
+nearly died of laughing when I first heard it."
+
+"What would you have done?"
+
+"If I had been the botanist? I would not have made myself disagreeable
+to the natives. Also, I would not have got myself into a tangle with
+that rope."
+
+"You think he ought to have cut it?"
+
+"What else could the poor fellow do? It strikes me, Heard, you attach
+some inordinate importance to human life."
+
+"It's all rather complex," sighed the bishop.
+
+"Now that is really interesting!"
+
+"Interesting?"
+
+"Why should you find it complex, when I find it simple? Let me see. Our
+lives are perfectly insignificant, aren't they? We know it for a fact.
+But we don't like it. We don't like being of no account. We want some
+thing to make us feel more valuable than we are. Consequently we invent
+a fiction to explain away that insignificance--the fiction of a
+personality overhead everlastingly occupied in watching every single
+one of us, and keenly engrossed in our welfare. If this were the case,
+we would cease to be insignificant, and we might try to oblige him by
+not killing each other. It happens to be a fiction. Get rid of the
+fiction, and your feeling of complexity evaporates. I perceive you are
+in an introspective mood. Worrying about some pastoral epistle?"
+
+"Worry about my values, as you would say. Up to the present, Keith, I
+don't seem to have had time to think; I had to act; there was always
+something urgent to be taken in hand. Now that I am really lazy for the
+first time, and in this stimulating environment, certain problems of
+life keep cropping up. Minor problems, of course; for it is a
+consolation to know that the foundations of good conduct are immutable.
+Our sense of right and wrong is firmly implanted in us. The laws of
+morality, difficult as they often are to understand, have been written
+down for our guidance in letters that never change."
+
+"Never change? You might as well say, my dear Heard, that these cliffs
+never change. The proof that the laws of good conduct change is this,
+that if you were upright after the fashion of your great-grandfather
+you would soon find yourself in the clutches of the law for branding a
+slave, or putting a bullet through someone in a duel. I grant that
+morality changes slowly. It changes slowly because the proletariat,
+whose product it is, does the same. There is not much difference, I
+imagine, between the crowds of old Babylon and new Shoreditch; hence
+their peculiar emanations resemble each other more or less. That is why
+morality compares so unfavourably with intellectuality, which is the
+product of the upper sections of society and flashes out new lights
+every moment. But even morality changes. The Spartans, a highly moral
+people, thought it positively indecent not to steal. A modern vice,
+such as mendacity, was accounted a virtue by the greatest nation of
+antiquity. A modern virtue, like that of forgiving one's enemies, was
+accounted a vice proper to slaves. Drunkenness, reprobated by ancients
+and moderns alike, became the mark of a gentlemen in intermediate
+periods."
+
+"I see what you are driving at. You wish me to think that this
+fictitious value, as you would call it--this halo of sanctity--with which
+we now invest a human life, may be blown away at any moment. Possibly
+you are right. Perhaps we English do exaggerate its importance. They
+don't take much account of life in my part of Africa."
+
+"And then, I disagree with what you say about the difficulty of
+understanding the laws of morality. Any child can grasp the morality of
+its period. Why should I pretend to be interested in what a child can
+grasp? If is a positive strain to keep one's mind at that low level.
+Why should I impose this strain upon myself? When a group-up man shows
+an unfeigned interest in such questions I regard him as a case of
+arrested development. All morality is a generalization, and all
+generalizations are tedious. Why should I plague myself with what is
+tedious? Altogether the question that confronts me is not whether
+morality is worth talking about, but whether it's worth laughing at.
+Sometimes I think it is. It reminds me of those old pantomime jokes
+that make one quite sad, at first, with their heart-breaking vulgarity;
+those jokes, you know, that have to be well rubbed in before we begin
+to see how really funny they are. And, by Jove, they do rub this one
+in, don't they? You must talk to Don Francesco about these things. You
+will find him sound, though he does not push his conclusions as far as
+I do--not in public, at least. Or to Count Caloveglia. He is a
+remarkable Latin, that old man. Why don't you drive up one day and have
+a look at his Locri Faun? Street, the South Kensington man, thinks very
+highly of it."
+
+"I would like to listen to you just now. I am listening, and thinking.
+Please go on. I'll preach you my sermon some other day."
+
+"Will you? I wonder! I don't believe, Heard, that you will preach
+another sermon in your life. I don't think you will ever go back to
+Africa, or to any other episcopal work. I think you have reached a
+turning point."
+
+The bishop was thoughtful for a moment. Those words went home. Then he
+said lightly:
+
+"You are in better vein than you were a short while ago."
+
+"That story of the botanist has revived me. He tells it rather well,
+doesn't he? It is good to inhabit a world where such things can still
+happen. I feel as if life were worth living. I feel as if I could
+discuss anything. What were you going to say about the American
+millionaire?"
+
+"Ah yes," replied Mr. Heard. "I wondered, supposing these reports about
+the ladies are true, how far you and I, for example, should condone his
+vices."
+
+"Vices. My dear bishop! Under a sky like this. Have a good look at it;
+do."
+
+Mr. Heard, barely conscious of what he was doing, obeyed the counsel.
+Raising his hand, he pushed the silken awning to one side. Then he
+peered skyward, into the noonday zenith; into an ocean of blue,
+immeasurable. There was no end to this azure liquid. Gazing thus, his
+intelligence became aware of the fact that there are skies of different
+kinds. This one was not quite like his native firmament. Here was no
+suggestion of a level space overhead, remote, but still conceivable--a
+space whereon some god might have sat enthroned, note-book in hand,
+jotting down men's virtues, and vices, and what not. A sky of this kind
+was obviously not built to accommodate deities in a sitting posture.
+
+Instead of commenting on this simple observation he remarked:
+
+"I mean, whether one should publicly approve of van Koppen's ladies,
+supposing they exist."
+
+"Why should I approve or disapprove? Old Koppen's activities do not
+impinge on mine. Like a sensible fellow he cultivates a hobby. He
+indulges himself. Why interfere? Tell me, why should I disapprove of
+things?"
+
+"Look here, Keith! Not long ago you were disapproving of vertical
+gods."
+
+"That is different. They do impinge on my activities."
+
+"Are the peculiar hobbies of their votaries distasteful to you?"
+
+"Not at all. Their hobbies do not clash with mine. To feel righteous,
+or to feel sinful, is quite an innocent form of self-indulgence--"
+
+"Innocent self-indulgence? Dear me! You seem to be taking morality by
+the throat for a change. Is that your conception of sin? How should
+Moses have come to inscribe some particular form of wrong-doing into
+his Code, if it had not proved harmful to the community at large?"
+
+His friend paused before replying. He took out another cigar, bit off
+its end, and lighted it. Then he sent a few fragrant whiffs over the
+sea. At last he said:
+
+"Moses! I have a clear portrait of Moses in my mind; a clear and
+favourable portrait. I imagine him gentle, wise, and tolerant. Picture
+to yourself such a man. He is drawing up a preliminary list of the more
+noteworthy forms of misconduct, with a view to submitting it for Divine
+approval, to be welded later into the so-called Ten Commandments. He is
+still puzzling, you perceive, which sins ought to be included and which
+left out. Now that particular offence of which our millionaire is
+accused happens to have been left out of consideration so far."
+
+"Why has it been left out?" enquired the bishop.
+
+"Nomadic habits. And besides--Moses, don't forget, is a kindly old
+fellow, who likes people to have as much harmless amusement as
+possible; he is not always sniffing about to discover evil. But Aaron,
+or some other old family friend of his, thinks differently. He is a
+person such as we all know--a sour-faced puritan who has lost the vigour
+which people, rightly or wrongly, attribute to van Koppen. This man
+forgets what he used to do in his own youthful days; he comes up to
+Moses, professing to be horrified at this particular offence. 'These
+young people,' he says, 'the way they go on! It's a sin, that's what it
+is. And you, Moses, I'm ashamed of you. This sort of thing ought to be
+stopped. It ought to be publicly reprimanded in those blessed Tables of
+yours.' 'A sin?' says gentle Moses. 'You surprise me, Aaron. I confess
+it never struck me in that light before. But I think I see your point.
+We have a conference to-night on the Holy Mountain; I may be able to
+get a clause inserted--' 'Do, there's a good fellow,' says the other.
+'But aren't you a little hard on the youngsters?' asks Moses. 'You
+wouldn't believe it, but I was a boy myself once and I should have got
+into a lot of rows if such an enactment had been in existence then.
+Moreover (and here his eyes assume a rapt, prophetic look) I seem to
+see, rising out of the distant future, a personage of royal line,
+beloved of God--one David who, if your proposal were to come into force,
+would be classed as a pretty hot sinner,' 'Oh, bother David! Look here,
+I'm not asking for a loan of money, old man. Just see to it that my New
+Sin is inscribed on the Tables. Hang it all! What's that, to a man of
+your influence up there? You can't think how it annoys me nowadays to
+see all these young people--all these young people--need I go into
+particulars?' 'You needn't. I'm not altogether a fool,' says gentle
+Moses. 'And I'll see what I can do to oblige you, if only for the sake
+of your dear mother.'"
+
+The bishop, at the end of this narration, could not help smiling.
+
+"That," continued Keith, "is how Moses gets talked over by the
+Pharisees. That is how sins are manufactured and classified. And from
+that preposterous old Hebrew system of right and wrong they jump
+straight into our English penal code. And there they sit tight," he
+added.
+
+"Is that your quarrel with what you call the upstairs god system?"
+
+"Precisely! It affects me by its unsanitary tendency to multiply sins;
+that is to say, when it transforms those sins into legal crimes. How
+would you like to be haled before a Court of law for some ridiculous
+trifle, which became a crime only because it used to be a sin, and
+became a sin only because some dyspeptic old antediluvian was envious
+of his neighbour's pleasure? Our statute-book reeks of discarded
+theories of conduct; the serpent's trail of the theologian, of the
+reactionary, is over all."
+
+"It never struck me in that light before," said Mr. Heard.
+
+"No? Our reverence for inspired idiots: has it never struck you? Don't
+you realize that we are still in the stage of that ENFANT TERRIBLE of
+Christianity, Paul of Tarsus, and his gift of tongues? In the stage of
+these Russians here, with their decayed Messiah? What do you think of
+them?"
+
+"I must say they look pretty, all bathing together. Rather improper.
+But decidedly apostolic. You know I am not easily shocked in such
+matters. When you have lived in Africa among the M'tezo! Lovely
+fellows. I assure you they could give points to anyone on this island.
+And your friends the Bulanga! To think that I once baptized three
+hundred of them in one day. And the very next week they ate up old Mrs.
+Richardson, our best lady preacher. The poor dear! We buried her riding
+boots, I remember. There was nothing else to bury.... It's getting
+warm, isn't it? Makes one feel sleepy."
+
+"Sleepy? I don't agree with you at all. That Russian sect, Heard, had
+between two and three million followers out there. But I fancy our
+little contingent will not be on this island much longer. The judge
+tells me that he means to make short work of them when he gets a
+chance. If the Militia have really been called out, I should not be
+surprised to learn that the Messiah has been up to some new
+tomfoolery."
+
+"Really? H'm. The Militia.... I find it very warm all of a sudden."
+
+Mr. Heard had listened enough for the time being. Now he leaned back
+and rested.
+
+But Keith was wide awake.
+
+"You are a disappointing person, Mr. Heard. First you inveigle me into
+a religious discussion and then, when I begin to wake up, you go to
+sleep."
+
+"I didn't want to argue, my dear fellow. It's too hot to argue. I
+wanted to hear your opinion."
+
+"My opinion? Listen, Heard. All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of
+neurotics. Neurotics and their catchwords. Catchwords like duty,
+charity, purity, sobriety. Sobriety! In order that Miss Wilberforce may
+not come home drunk--listen, Heard!--all we other lunatics forgo the
+pleasure of a pint of beer after ten o'clock. How we love tormenting
+ourselves! Listen, Heard. I'll tell you what it is. We are ripe for a
+new Messiah, like these Russians. We are not Europeans. We are Indian
+fakirs, self-torturers. We are a pack of masochists. That is what
+upstairs gods have done for us. Listen, Heard!"
+
+The bishop failed to catch the import of this peroration. Its sound
+alone reached him like an echo from far away. He was unaccountably
+drowsy.
+
+"Fakirs. I quite understand--"
+
+The boat seemed to move more slowly than before. Perhaps the oarsmen
+were weary, or suffering from the heat. The glare pierced the awning.
+Mr. Heard, as he reclined about his cushions, felt the perspiration
+gathering on his forehead. A spell had fallen upon him--the spell of a
+Southern noon. It lulled his senses. It laid chains upon his thoughts.
+
+There was a long silence, broken only by the splash of the oars and by
+a steady flow of conversation on the part of the two Greek genii, who
+seemed impervious to the midday beams and entirely absorbed in one
+another. Mr. Heard opened his drooping eyelids from time to time to
+take pleasure in their merry play of feature, wondering dreamily what
+could be the subject-matter of this endless polite conversation.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+
+
+
+Both the old boatman and Mr. Keith were correct in their surmises.
+There was trouble in the market-place, serious trouble; so serious that
+for the first time in five years--ever since that deplorable scandal of
+the Irish lady and the poodle--the Militia were being called out. And it
+was entirely the fault of the Sacred Sixty-three.
+
+The Messiah, personally, was not to blame. That poor old man had much
+declined of late; he was enfeebled in health and spirits. A French
+artist who was specially despatched from Paris to do an original sketch
+of him for the enterprising journal L'ILLUSTRATION had, at the end of
+several sittings, uncharitably declared him to be "COMPLEETEMENT
+GA-GA." The voluptuous surroundings of Nepenthe, the abundant food,
+adoration of disciples, alcoholic and carnal debaucheries, had impaired
+his tough Monjik frame and blunted his wit, working havoc with that
+energy and peasant craftiness which once ruled an Emperor's Court. His
+body was obese. His mind was in a state of advanced putrefaction. Even
+his personal cleanliness left something to be desired. Sitting there,
+puffy and pasty, in a darkened room, he looked more than ever like some
+obscene vegetable that has grown up in the shade.
+
+He moved seldom and with difficulty; he hardly ever opened his mouth
+save to eat--for his appetite, thanks to certain daily exertions on the
+part of the communal doctor, was still fairly satisfactory. When he
+spoke at all it was in scattered monosyllables which even the most
+devoted of his disciples were unable to arrange into such coherence as
+to justify their inclusion in the GOLDEN BOOK. All this, though hidden
+from the world at large, had been observed with dismay by the
+initiated. It was an open secret among them that the last twenty-one
+sayings ascribed to him in that volume had never issued from his lips
+at all. They had been concocted by a clique of young extremists, who
+were now masters of the situation. These fanatics edited the GOLDEN
+BOOK and held the old man completely in subjection, ousting his former
+and more moderate collaborators.
+
+An ill-considered action on the part of this group led to the disaster
+and eclipsed the light of holiness on Nepenthe by bringing the apostles
+into conflict with the secular arm of the law. Fretting at the Master's
+prolonged inactivity and eager, after the fashion of disciples, to
+improve on his maxims, they decided on a bold step. They decided that
+the time was ripe for a new Revelation.
+
+The Messiah's last authentic one, it will be remembered, ran to the
+effect that "flesh and blood of warm-blooded beast is Abomination to
+Little White Cows." He had been inspired to insert the word
+WARM-BLOODED because fish, for example, was an article of diet of which
+he was inordinately fond, and he could not bring himself to deprive the
+faithful of this gift of God.
+
+With misplaced zeal, and little thinking that it would cost many of
+them their lives and liberties, these enthusiasts gave it out that the
+new Revelation ran as follows: "everything derivable from dead beasts
+is Abomination to Little White Cows." They had been inspired to insert
+the word DEAD because sheep's wool, for example, was an article of
+clothing in which they greatly delighted, and they could not bring
+themselves to deprive the faithful of this gift of God.
+
+Even as it stood, the Commandment entailed severe sacrifices on the
+part of the Sacred Sixty-three. No boot-leather, no picturesque belts,
+no bone knife-handles or combs, no tallow candles.... They were
+prepared, none the less, to carry out to the letter this injunction,
+since it gave them what all religious people require--something to
+torment themselves with; and this is how matters stood when, on that
+morning, a stalwart batch of new-comers from the wilds of Muscovy,
+burning with the ardour of abnegation and wholly ignorant of local laws
+and customs, sauntered across the market-place in freshly purchased
+hempen sandals.
+
+Tobacco being derivable neither from warm-blooded beasts nor yet from
+dead ones, a member of the band bethought himself of the fact that he
+had run out of cigarettes. Knowing not a word of Italian he entered the
+shop of a tobacconist and imitated the gesture of smoking with such
+success that the proprietor straightway understood and supplied him
+with a packet. Then he remembered that he also needed matches. This
+called for a gesture rather more complex; so complex, indeed, that
+perhaps nobody but a Nepenthean--gifted, as all his nation is, with
+alert intuition--could have divined the Apostle's want. The tobacconist
+was equal to the occasion. With a friendly smile of comprehension he
+laid on the counter a diminutive pack of wax vestas, price two sous.
+
+There the matter might have rested but for the new Revelation, which
+prompted the sturdy stranger to investigate the composition of the
+article tendered. He took out one match and examined it carefully.
+Then, triturating its substance between his fingers, he applied his
+nose to the product and sniffed critically. The outcome was suspicious
+in the highest degree. There was no perceptible odour of beeswax; the
+object had been compounded, only too plainly, of the fat of dead
+animals; it was the Abomination, the Unclean Thing. Devout, and gifted
+with the hot impulse of youth, he acted precisely as he would have
+acted in Russia under a similar provocation. With a third gesture, one
+of abhorrence and ungovernable fury, he threw the box in the
+tobacconist's face.
+
+And there the matter, once more, might have rested, had the salesman
+been a Russian. Russians understand frank dealing.
+
+He happened to be a native.
+
+Fully to appreciate what followed, it is necessary to bear in mind that
+local tobacconists are in a somewhat anomalous position. They occupy a
+social status superior to those of many other countries. They are not
+private merchants or ordinary citizens; they are, in a manner, servants
+of the State. A native tobacconist is empowered to dispense CARTA
+BOLLATA, which is the official stamped paper used for contracts and
+other legal documents requiring registration; he deals in tobacco and
+postage stamps--government monopolies; he sells, by special licence, wax
+vestas, on each box of which there is a duty so minute as not to be
+felt by the individual purchaser and yet, in its cumulative effect, so
+great as to enable the State to pay, out of this source of revenue
+alone, for the upkeep of all its colonial judges at a monthly salary of
+forty-five francs apiece. It is a reasonable tax. Don Francesco, who
+had notions of political economy and knew something of English life,
+having preached to thousands of Catholic miners in Wales and confessed
+hundreds of Catholic ladies in Mayfair--an occupation in which he might
+still be engaged, but for a little CONTRETEMPS which brought him into
+collision with the Jesuits of Mount Street--Don Francesco, who could
+voice the Southerner's one-sided point of view, often adverted to this
+match-tax when proving the superiority of his country's administrative
+methods over those of England. This is what he would say to his
+intimate friends:
+
+"The Russian has convictions but no principles. The Englishman has
+principles but no convictions--cast-iron principles, which save him the
+trouble of thinking out anything for himself. This is as much as anyone
+can ever hope to grasp concerning this lymphatic, unimaginative race.
+They obey the laws--a criminal requires imagination. They never start a
+respectable revolution--you cannot revolt without imagination. Among
+other things they pride themselves on their immunity from vexatious
+imposts. Yet whisky, the best quality of which is worth tenpence a
+bottle, is taxed till it costs five shillings; ale, the life-blood of
+the people, would be dear at three-pence a gallon and yet costs
+fivepence a pint; tobacco, which could profitably be sold at twopence a
+pound, goes for fivepence an ounce. They will submit to any number of
+these extortions, being persuaded, in the depths of their turbid
+intelligence, that such things are devised for the good of the nation
+at large. That is the Englishman's method of procuring happiness: to
+deny himself pleasure in order to save his neighbour's soul. Ale and
+tobacco are commodities out of which a man can extract pleasure. They
+are therefore appropriate objects for harassing restrictions. But
+nobody can extract pleasure out of lucifer matches. They are therefore
+pre-eminently unfitted for exploitation as a source of governmental
+revenue. So keen is their sense of pleasure and non-pleasure, and such
+is their FUROR PHLEGMATICUS on this particular question, that when it
+is proposed to establish a tax on matches--an imperceptible duty which
+would enrich the Exchequer to a vast extent--they will form a procession
+ten miles long to protest against the outrage, and threaten to batter
+down the Houses of Parliament. Why? Because there is no ethical purpose
+to be served by taxing matches, seeing that only a madman would give
+himself the guilty pleasure of either drinking or smoking them. In
+short, these English reason after the fashion of paranoiacs--logically,
+but from a wrong premise. Not that I dislike their women...."
+
+The action of the quick-tempered Apostle can now be appraised in its
+full enormity. A local tobacconist is a person in authority, a State
+official, and the nation safeguards the interests and the fair name of
+those who serve it faithfully. When it is remembered that according to
+sect 43 of the 16th Section of their Penal Code any person speaking
+disrespectfully to, or of, a Government official renders himself liable
+to a term of cellular confinement not exceeding thirty-one years, ten
+lunar months and eighteen days, it may be imagined what penalties are
+applicable to the crime of actual personal violence towards such a
+sacrosanct individual--a crime of which the Russian was unquestionably
+guilty.
+
+Now this particular tobacconist, though tremulously sensitive, like all
+Southerners, on a point of honour, was as good-natured and forgiving as
+might be consistent with his rank of Government official. He passed for
+a respectable married man with an eligible daughter and a taste for the
+quiet life; he did not want trouble. The purchase of an additional pack
+of cigarettes, accompanied or unaccompanied by a frank apology, would
+have more than satisfied his sense of honour.
+
+There the matter might have rested. The second packet might have been
+bought and even the apology tendered, but for the ill-considered action
+of a young farmer who entered the shop at that moment to procure a
+couple of postcards. This worthy lad was one of several dozen aspirants
+to the hand of the tobacconist's daughter, whose dowry was reputed to
+be considerable. He witnessed the insult and, desirous of standing well
+in the graces of a prospective father-in-law, dealt the offending alien
+so masterly a punch in the region of the solar plexus that he not only
+doubled up, but forgot to straighten himself out again. Two or three
+lusty Apostles came to the rescue without delay. They threw the youth
+down, stamped on his face, pounded his abdomen, pulled his hair out in
+handfuls, and otherwise treated him exactly as if the thing were
+happening in Russia. This spectacle was too much for the tobacconist's
+sense of honour. With unwonted sprightliness he vaulted over the
+writhing cluster and summoned a municipal policeman. The officer was on
+the spot in a twinkling, sword and trumpet in hand. And there, in all
+conscience, the matter ought to have rested--with the identification and
+bestowal in custody of the turbulent parties.
+
+But frenzy hung in the air; a red cloud of insanity was hovering over
+Nepenthe. Although the volcano continued to behave in exemplary
+fashion, although the clergy had done their utmost to allay popular
+apprehensions, the native mind had not calmed down since the news
+concerning the Saint Elias fountain and those other portents had been
+disseminated. The inhabitants were in a state of suppressed alarm and
+ready, at the least provocation, to burst out into some fiendish act of
+folly. And the Russians, especially those latest arrivals, could not
+withdraw themselves from the subtle influence of the sound wind, the
+frank stimulation of a cloudless sky; it made them fell, after their
+gloomy forests and lowering horizons, like wild beasts that rush from
+darkened cages into some sunny arena. Everyone lost his wits. The
+appearance of a constable, far from restoring order, was the signal for
+an uproarious tumult; the FRACAS, as the French artist was heard to
+declare, promptly developed into a MELEE. Nobody troubled about the
+merits of the case further than that it was a question of Apostles
+VERSUS Gentiles.
+
+The former were in sad minority. But they constituted a serried rank of
+muscular Christians; they laid about them like those old monks of
+Alexandria. All Russians are born fighters--if not on the battlefield,
+then at least in the lanes and taverns of their natal villages. The
+Little White Cows, wholly ignorant of the difference between their own
+law and that of Italy on questions of assault and battery, used their
+fists with such success that thirty natives were stretched out in
+almost a few seconds. Their Faith was at stake; moreover, and as a
+matter of fact, they were enjoying themselves hugely. The occasion
+reminded them of a Sunday at home.
+
+Then numbers began to tell--numbers and knives. For your sun-scorched
+Nepenthean, when duly roused, confesses to an expert knowledge of
+anatomy; he can tell you, to the fraction of an inch, where the liver,
+the spleen, kidneys and various other coy organs of the human frame are
+located. Blood, the blood of the Sacred Sixty-three, began to flow. At
+that sight the women, as their manner is, set up a scream.
+
+The Palace of Justice abutted on the market-place, and up to that
+moment His Worship Signor Malipizzo might have been lost to the world,
+so deeply immersed was he in threading the labyrinthine mazes of an
+exceptionally intricate affiliation case--a warm document, after his own
+heart. The sound of the scream suspended his labours. Like a gouty
+parrot he hopped down from his seat of judgment, spat on the floor,
+limped to the window and took in the situation at a glance. That is to
+say, he understood the cause of the disturbance as little as did any
+one else; it would have required a divine inspiration to guess that a
+box of wax vestas was at the bottom of the affair; but he knew enough,
+quite enough, more than enough, for the purpose at hand. He knew, to
+begin with, that Apostles were involved in the brawl. He knew, what was
+equally important, the provisions of the Penal Code. It sufficed. His
+chance for dealing with the Russian colony had at last arrived.
+Allowing himself barely time to smack his lips at this providential
+interlude he gave orders for the great cannon of Duke Alfred to be
+sounded. It boomed once or twice over Nepenthe and reverberated among
+the rocks.
+
+In times of yore a certain interval was wont to elapse before the
+Militia could be assembled, living as they did in distant regions of
+the island. But nowadays, as befitted a laborious rural population,
+they were spending their morning in the wine-shops of the town,
+gambling, drinking, or playing skittles. This enabled a sufficient
+number of them to forgather, in an incredibly short space of time, at
+the outskirts of the market-place (occupied by a seething, howling
+tangle of humanity)--there to receive the plainest of instructions. They
+were to quell the disorder and to single out for punishment, whenever
+possible, the strangers, the obvious authors of the rebellion, easily
+discernible by their scarlet blouses. Not that the judge was particular
+about the lives or deaths of a few natives; he knew that any injuries
+received by his countrymen would strengthen his case against the
+outsiders. But an order couched in such terms would look well in the
+records of the Court.
+
+Within ten minutes the market-place was cleared. The Militia had used
+their weapons with such precision that four school children, seven
+women, eleven islanders, and twenty-six Apostles were wounded--about
+half of them, it was believed, mortally. Order reigned in Nepenthe.
+
+The warm affiliation case having been laid on ice for the nonce, the
+next few minutes were occupied by His Worship in issuing warrants of
+arrest against the Messiah's followers. They were lodged by batches in
+gaol, and in supplementary gaols--disused cellars and so forth. Once
+under lock and key they were safe from mischief for an indefinite
+length of time, since according to the statutes of the Code of Criminal
+Procedure, there is no reason on earth why an Italian lawsuit should
+ever end, or indeed, why it should ever begin. They might, and probably
+would, remain incarcerated for life, pending the commencement of a
+trial which could only be set in motion by the judge himself--a most
+improbable conjuncture--or, failing that, by an extravagant bribe to his
+official superior, the President of the Court of Cassation. How were
+poor Apostles to find the necessary sixty or seventy francs for such a
+venture?
+
+His Worship retired to luncheon, reasonably satisfied with the
+morning's work. And yet not altogether delighted. Both the Messiah and
+Peter the Great had eluded his wrath. Peter was able to prove, beyond
+the shadow of a doubt, that he had spent the last twenty-four hours on
+Madame Steynlin's premises and knew nothing whatever of occurrences in
+the outside world. In the face of such a fact--so comfortable to common
+knowledge, so inherently probable--Malipizzo gave way. He was too good a
+lawyer to spoil his case. Sooner or later, he foresaw, that bird would
+be caged with the rest of them. Regarding the Messiah, an unexpected
+and breathless appeal for mercy was lodged by the Communal doctor,
+atheist and freemason like the judge, who implored, with tears in his
+eyes, that the warrant for his arrest should be rescinded. By means of
+a sequence of rapid and intricate Masonic signs, he explained that
+Bazhakuloff was a patient of his; that he was undergoing a daily
+treatment with the stomach-pump; that the prison diet being notoriously
+slender, he feared that if he, the Messiah, were confined in captivity,
+than it, the stomach-pump, would be no longer required and therefore
+he, the physician, a family man, deprived of a small but regular source
+of income. Again the astute judge relented. This is how the Messiah and
+his disciple escaped.
+
+They escaped, but not for long.
+
+And all this happened while Mr. Keith and his companion, drowsily
+ensconced among the morocco cushions of their boat, were being wafted
+over the blue sea, far away, under the cliffs.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+
+
+
+"The Devil's Rock, gentlemens! The rock of the Devil. Where the young
+English lord jump over. Everyone know that story."
+
+The word "devil" caused the bishop to wake up from his pleasant dreams
+with something of a start.
+
+"You had better take a good look at that cliff," suggested Mr. Keith.
+"It is not only the finest on the island but, I fancy, the finest on
+the whole Mediterranean. Those on the Spanish coast and on Mount Athos
+lack the wonderful colour and the clean surface of this one. Looks as
+if it had been done with a knife, doesn't it? Alpine crags seem
+vertical but are nearly always inclined; their primary rock, you know,
+cannot flake off abruptly like this tufa. This is a genuine precipice.
+Plumb!"
+
+"Terrific," said Mr. Heard. "What was that about the English lord?"
+
+"Two young fellows who rented the villa at the back of it for a summer.
+They used to bathe and booze all day long. I was not on the island at
+the time, but of course I heard about it. One day the younger one
+jumped over the edge of the cliff for a bet; said he was going to dive.
+They never recovered his body. There is a strong current at this point.
+That's so, isn't it, Antonio?"
+
+"That so, gentlemens. Drink branty all the time, both of them. But
+little one--everybody smile at him. Pretty boy. Swim and dive, something
+lovely. One evening both get drunk and walk along the edge of cliff up
+there. Then little one, he say: I good diver, eh, what, friend? Big one
+say: You dive prettier than dolphin.--What bet, over cliff here,
+now?--Six bottle branty.--Done! Clothes off, over he go, like a sea-bird.
+All finished. That so, gentlemens. Next morning they bring clothes to
+big one into house. Big one, when he wake up and see clothes lying
+there, with no friend inside, he very angry with servants and everybody
+else, and drink no more branty for three days. Dam-fool foreigners."
+
+"That's a tragedy, anyhow," said the bishop.
+
+"You are right. It is quite artistic--that touch about bringing back the
+clothes, the empty shell, next morning. Quite artistic."
+
+Mr. Heard looked up at the crag. It made him dizzy to picture some
+human body hurtling through the air from that awful height. Its surface
+was of perfect smoothness. But what struck him even more was the
+uncommon and almost menacing coloration. The rock was bluish black,
+spattered with maculations of a ruddy sanguine tint, as though drops of
+blood had oozed out, in places, from its stony heart.
+
+"I remember Mrs. Meadows telling me that story," he said to Keith.
+"Isn't her villa at the back?"
+
+"The very place. By the way, when next you call, would you please say
+something particularly nice DE MA PART? I don't see half enough of that
+lady, considering how much I like her. How is she?"
+
+"Complains of headache."
+
+"Headache? That is very unlike Mrs. Meadows. I always look upon her as
+a bundle of steel springs. Perhaps something is wrong with the baby."
+
+"Maybe," replied the bishop. "She seems to dote on it."
+
+Then that last visit to his cousin suddenly recurred to him; he
+remembered her conversation--he thought of the lonely woman up thee.
+Strange! Somehow or other, she had been at the back of his mind all the
+time. He decided to call again in a day or two.
+
+Keith said:
+
+"I should not like to come between her and the child. That woman is a
+tiger--mother.... Heard, there has been something in your mind all
+day long. What is it?"
+
+"I believe there has. I'll try to explain. You know those Japanese
+flowers--" he began, and then broke off.
+
+"I am glad you are becoming terrestrial at last. Nothing like Mother
+Earth! You cannot think how much money I wasted on Japanese plants,
+especially bulbs, before I convinced myself that they cannot be grown
+on this soil."
+
+"Those paper flowers, I mean, which we used to put in our finger-bowls
+at country dinner tables. They look like shrivelled specks of
+cardboard. But in the water they begin to grow larger and to unfold
+themselves into unexpected patterns of flowers of all colours. That is
+how I feel--expanding, and taking on other tints. New problems, new
+influences, are at work upon me. It is as if I needed altogether fresh
+standards. Sometimes I feel almost ashamed--"
+
+"Ashamed? My dear Heard, this will never do. You must take a blue pill
+when we get home."
+
+"Can it be the south wind?"
+
+"Everybody blames the poor sirocco. I imagine you have long been
+maturing for this change, unbeknown to yourself. And what does it mean?
+Only that you are growing up. Nobody need be ashamed of growing up....
+Here we are, at last! We will land at the little beach yonder, near
+the end of that gulley. You can go ashore and have a look at the old
+thermal establishment. It used to be a gay place with a theatre and
+ballrooms and banqueting rooms. Nobody dare enter it nowadays. Haunted!
+Perhaps you will see the ghost. As for me, I mean to take a swim. I
+always feel as if I needed a bath after talking about religion. You
+don't mind my saying so, do you?"
+
+Mr. Heard, climbing upwards from the beach, felt as though he did not
+mind what anyone said about anything.
+
+With the Devil's Rock the most imposing tract of Nepenthean
+cliff--scenery came to an abrupt end. That mighty escarpment was its
+furthest outpost. Thereafter the land fell seawards no longer
+precipitously, but in wavy earthen slopes intersected by ravines which
+the downward-rushing torrents of winter had washed out of the loose
+soil. It was at the termination of one of these dry stream-beds that
+Mr. Heard set foot on shore. Panting under the relentless heat he wound
+his way along a path once carefully tended and engineered, but now
+crumbling to decay.
+
+Before him, on a treeless brown eminence, silhouetted against the blue
+sky, stood the ruin. It was a fanciful woe-begone structure, utterly
+desolate. The plaster, gnawed away by winds laden with searching
+sea-moisture, had fallen to earth, exposing the underlying masonry of
+cheap construction whose rusty colour was the same as that of the
+ground from which it had arisen, and into which it now seemed ready and
+eager to descend. Everything useful or portable, everything that spoke
+of man's occupation, everything that suggested life and comfort--the
+porcelain tiles, woodwork, window-panes, roofings, mosaic or marble
+floors, leaden pipes--all this had been carried away long ago. It stood
+there stark, dismantled, de-humanized, in the midday heat. Here was
+nothing to charm the eye or conjure up visions of past glory; nothing
+elegant or romantic; nothing savouring of grim warlike purposes. It was
+a modern ruin; a pile of rubbish; a shameless, frivolous skeleton.
+Those hastily built walls and staring windows wore an air of faded
+futility, almost of indecency--as though the mouldering bones of some
+long-forgotten lady of pleasure had crept out of their tomb to give
+themselves an airing in the sunshine.
+
+Mr. Heard, after glancing at what remained of a pretentious facade,
+stepped within.
+
+Deep shade was here, in those of the chambers whose roofs remained
+intact; shade, and a steamy heat, and the noxious odour of some mineral
+product--the healing waters. He strayed in the twilight through halls
+and corridors, past ample saloons and rows of cells which had
+apparently served for convenience of disrobing. Everywhere that noisome
+smell accompanied his footsteps; the place was reeking with it. And all
+was in decay. Gaudy paper hung in tatters from the ceilings; the dust
+lay thick, undisturbed for generations. Unclean things littered in
+musty corners. Through gaping skylights a sunny beam would penetrate;
+it played about the mildewy stucco partitions encrusted, in patches,
+with a poisonous lichen of bright green. Wandering about this dank and
+mournful pile of wreckage, he could understand why simple folks should
+dread to enter so ghoul-haunted a spot.
+
+Gladly he issued, by way of an obscure passage, into what had once been
+a trim garden. No trace of flowers or shrubs remained; the walks, the
+ornamental stone seats and artificial terraces, were merging into brown
+earth. Here, in the centre of this ruined pleasaunce, the health-giving
+fountain had lately flowed, bubbling up in a couch-shaped basin of
+cement. It was now dry. But a damp warmth still clung to its rim,
+whereon the mineral had left a comely deposit of opaline texture.
+Lowering his hand he felt an intermittent stream of hot air rising out
+of the ground, feeble as the breath of a dying man. Still some
+mysterious gusts of life down there, he concluded, in the dark earth.
+How curious that volcanic connection with the mainland, of which Count
+Caloveglia had spoken!
+
+Soon he found himself beside the shattered framework of a small
+pavilion, built in a grotesque Chinese style and looking woefully out
+of place in this classic landscape, with the blue Tyrrhenian at its
+foot. And here he rested. He surveyed the traces of the old path
+leading down from the higher lands in serpentine meanderings; that
+path--once, doubtless, bordered by shady trees--whereby all those worldly
+invalids had once descended. He pictured the lively caravan afoot, on
+mule-back, in sedan chairs, seeking health and pleasure at this site,
+now so void of life. Lower down, almost within a stone's throw, lay the
+beach. The sailors, father and son, had drawn the boat up to the shore
+and were sitting huddled up on its shady side, with some food between
+them on a coloured handkerchief. That Brobdingnagian luncheon-basket
+had also been disembarked. Keith was swimming, together with his two
+genii; he looked like a rosy Silenus. They seemed to be enjoying
+themselves vastly, to judge by the outbursts of laughter. Mr. Heard
+thought of going to join the fun, but gave up the idea; there was
+something astir that clogged his energies.
+
+He knew them--these Southern noons. If no ghost resided in the
+melancholy ruin hard by, there might well be some imponderable hostile
+essence afloat in the still air of midday. Anything, he felt, could
+happen at this unearthly hour. The wildest follies might be committed
+at the bidding of this unseen Presence.
+
+He tried to recollect what Keith had told him concerning Muhlen, that
+corrupt personality. Retlow ... where had he heard that name before?
+In vain he flogged his memory. There was an alien power in this
+brightness; a power as of a vampire that drained away his faculties,
+his vitality; a spirit of evil, exhaling from the sunny calm. It made a
+mock, a mirage, of the landscape which danced before his eyes; it
+distorted the realities of nature, the works of man....
+
+Presently he observed that Keith and his companions were clothed and
+occupied in dragging things out of the preposterous food-receptacle.
+They called up to him. The spell was released.
+
+He descended.
+
+"Nice bathe?" he enquired.
+
+"Rather! And now these fellows will make a passable omelette, to begin
+with. I don't fancy cold luncheons, do you? They seem to lie dead on
+one's stomach."
+
+"Are those sailors not coming with us?"
+
+"No. They are well paid for their work. No doubt they would like to be
+in my service too. But I never employ islanders, except for casual
+jobs; it saves me all kinds of local trouble and family intrigues. Nor
+yet older people. They are so apt to think; and once a servant begins
+to think he ceases to be of use. I believe in the outsider, for all
+purposes of human intercourse. If you want a thing done, go to the
+outsider, the intelligent amateur. And when you marry, Heard, be sure
+to select a wife from another class, another province, another
+country--another planet, if possible. Otherwise you will repent it. Not
+that I see any objection, on principle, to incest; it strikes me as the
+most natural proceeding in the world--"
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"And yet--that inexplicable prejudice. It is probably artificial and of
+modern origin. I suspect the priestly caste. Royal families kept up the
+custom and do so still, like that of Siam. Odd, how anachronisms linger
+longest at the two poles of society. What do you say," he went on, "to
+climbing a little up that gorge, into the shade? I cannot digest
+properly with the sun staring at me. And tell me, as we go along, your
+impressions of the ruin ... I perceive drawbacks to incest; grave
+practical drawbacks--sterility, inbreeding. Yes, there is obviously
+something to be said for exogamy. AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM as Eames might
+say, though God knows why he thinks it sounds better in Latin. Seen the
+ghost?"
+
+The bishop remembered a certain answer given him by Madame Steynlin, to
+whom he had once spoken of the "tonic" effects of Keith's conversation.
+
+"A tonic?" she had said. "Very likely! But not a tonic for men and
+women. A tonic for horses."
+
+After luncheon they improvised a shelter in order to repose awhile. It
+was the right thing to do on Nepenthe at that hour of the day, and Mr.
+Keith tried to conform to custom even under unusual circumstances such
+as these. Protected by the boat's scarlet awning from the rays of the
+sun, they slumbered through the flaming hours.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+
+
+
+The duchess was a good sleeper, as befitted a person of regular habits
+and pure life.
+
+It was her custom to retire for the night at about eleven o'clock.
+Angelina, who reposed in an adjoining room, would enter softly at nine
+in the morning, draw up the blinds, and deposit a cup of tea at the
+bedside of her mistress. Up to that moment, she would slumber like a
+child. Rarely did she suffer from insomnia or nightmare. On this
+particular night, however, her rest was troubled by a strange and
+disquieting dream.
+
+She was a little girl once more, at her parental home out West. All the
+old memories were around her. It was winter time. She was alone, out of
+doors. Snow, the familiar snow, was falling from a sombre sky; already
+it lay deep on the boundless plains. It fell without ceasing. The sky
+grew darker. Hours seemed to pass, and still the flakes descended. It
+was not cold snow. It was warm snow--warm and rather suffocating. Very
+suffocating. It began to choke her. Suddenly she found she could
+breathe no more. She gave a wild cry of despair--
+
+Her maid was standing beside the bed, a lighted candle in her hand.
+Otherwise the room was in pitch darkness. Angelina looked like a
+Tanagra statuette. Draped in nothing but a clinging nightgown that
+reached two inches below the knee and accentuated the charm of her
+figure, with the candle-light throwing playful gleams upon her neck and
+cheeks, Angelina was an apparition to gladden the heart of man.
+
+The heart of the Duchess was not gladdened by any means.
+
+"What is the meaning of this, girl?" she enquired sternly, in what she
+took to be the language of the country. "And in the middle of the
+night!"
+
+"It's nine o'clock, Madam."
+
+"Nine o'clock? Then draw the blinds."
+
+"I've drawn them." She stepped to the window and tapped on the glass
+panes by way of confirmation. "All dark outside," she added. "Ashes are
+falling from heaven. The volcano is very, very angry."
+
+"Ashes? The volcano? I must dress at once. Light two more candles. No,
+three! We can't have three candles burning. Don Francesco may be here
+at any moment."
+
+The Duchess often laughingly described herself as "only a weak woman."
+A certain number of persons concurred in that opinion. Just then she
+was the most self-possessed inhabitant of Nepenthe. The disturbance of
+nature left her undisturbed. Her intellect was naturally incurious as
+to the habits of volcanoes; her soul, moreover, in good hands, her
+conscience in excellent working order, as befitted a potential convert
+to Catholicism. She could rely on a spiritual adviser who had instilled
+into her mind a lofty sense of obedience and resignation. Don Francesco
+would never desert her. He would arrive in due course, explaining why
+God had allowed the volcano to behave in this unseemly fashion, and
+brimming over with words of consolation for his daughter-to-be. God, if
+so disposed, could work a miracle and drive away the plague, even as he
+had sent it. Ashes or no ashes, all was for the best. Calmly she
+waited.
+
+Out of doors, meanwhile, the shower went on without ceasing. It had
+begun shortly after midnight; the ground was covered to the depth of
+two inches. Nepenthe lay veiled in Cimmerian gloom, darker than
+starless midnight--a darkness that could be felt; a blanket, as it were,
+hot and breathless, weighing upon the landscape. All was silent. No
+footfall could be heard in the streets; the powdery ashes, softer than
+snow, absorbed every sound. And still they fell. Those few scared
+natives whom necessity forced to go abroad crept about in fear of their
+lives. They thought the end of the world had come. Terror-stricken,
+they carried knives and revolvers in their pockets; they passed each
+other distrustfully in the streets holding, in one hand, a lighted
+torch or lantern, and in the other a handkerchief pressed to the face
+for fear of suffocation. In one or two of the shop windows could be
+discerned a light glimmering feebly as through the thickest fog. All
+the ordinary sights and sounds of morning--the vehicles plying for hire,
+the cracking of whips, the cries of the fish and fruit vendors--all were
+gone. The deathly stillness was broken only by a clangour of the town
+clock, tolling the hours into a darkened world.
+
+Half a dozen adventurous spirits had gathered together at the Club.
+They called themselves adventurous. As a matter of fact they were
+scared out of their wits and had gone there merely with a view to
+leaning on each other for mutual support and courage. There was no
+whisky drinking that morning, no cards, no scandal-mongering. They sat
+round a table under an acetylene lamp, anxiously listening to a young
+professor from Christiania who claimed to be versed in the higher
+mathematics and was then occupied in calculating, by means of the
+binomial theorem, how long it would take for the whole town of Nepenthe
+to be submerged under ashes up to the roofs--presuming all the buildings
+to be of equal height. He was a new-comer to the place and, for that
+reason, rather a cheerful pessimist. He thought it quite possible that
+before the second floors of the houses had been reached--granted, of
+course, that none was higher or lower than the other--the wind might
+change and carry the ashes elsewhere. His demonstration had a
+depressing effect on the hearts of those who had lived longer on the
+island. They rose from the table and sadly shook their heads, prepared
+for the worst. They knew their sirocco.
+
+As morning wore on other stragglers entered the premises, muffled up to
+the ears; they scattered ashes from their cloaks and hastily closed the
+door behind them. More lamps were lighted. The news was not inspiring.
+It was dark as ever outside; you could not see your hand before your
+face; the shower had accumulated to an alarming extent. Some roofs had
+fallen in under the weight of ashes; telegraphic communication with the
+mainland was interrupted owing, it was supposed, to the snapping of the
+cable in some submarine convulsion; a man had stumbled in the
+market-place over the dead body of a woman--choked, no doubt; two of the
+judge's Russian prisoners, unaccustomed to volcanic phenomena, had gone
+stark staring mad and disembowelled one another with a carving knife.
+Mr. Muhlen, who presently turned up in anything but his usual sprightly
+humour, was furnished with a full and corrected version of this last
+affair, to the effect that there were not two, but fourteen, of these
+victims; that prior to their frenzied act they had partaken of bread
+and salt and sung the national anthem; that the instrument chosen was
+not a carving knife but a rusty chisel. None of his listeners seemed to
+be greatly moved by what, under ordinary circumstances, would have been
+a valuable contribution to the entertainment. They were waiting for the
+appearance of their president, the Commissioner, the life and soul of
+the place, who would be able to give them an official apology for this
+scandalous outbreak of nature. The Commissioner, for once in his life,
+failed to perform his duty.
+
+That unfortunate man was sitting at home, in the remote villa known as
+the "Residency," profoundly troubled in mind. He leaned over his study
+table, which was lighted by a lamp; his eyes peered dejectedly, through
+the windows beyond, into the gloom. Before him lay the skeleton draft
+of his annual report to the Nicaraguan Minister of Finance, a gentleman
+who developed a passionate craving, once a year, to be informed of the
+condition of Nepenthe in regard to matters such as shipping and trade
+returns, zymotic diseases, and the methods locally employed for
+combating beri-beri.
+
+The elaboration of this report had hitherto given Mr. Freddy Parker no
+trouble whatever. It was an understood thing between himself and his
+protector, Senor Pomponio de Vergara y Puyarola, that his labours need
+not be otherwise than purely formal. To every one of the intelligent
+queries on the part of a paternal government it had been his custom,
+therefore, to append the magic word NIL. Banking system--NIL. Meat
+export--NIL. Cotton industry--NIL. Agriculture--NIL. Canal traffic--NIL.
+Teak trade--NIL. Emery mines--NIL. Fisheries--NIL.
+
+He could trust Senor de Vergara to arrange matters, in the event of any
+complaint arising as to the unwarranted ambiguity or succinctness of
+the Nepenthean Report.
+
+Bad news had just reached him; very bad news indeed. His friend and
+protector had been stabbed to death, after the approved fashion of
+Nicaraguan politicians, by a couple of assassins in the pay of that
+minister's rival, a bankrupt tradesman who, desirous of bettering his
+fortunes, conceived that he would make as good a Finance Minister as
+anyone else and had, in fact, already usurped that post. Worse news
+could hardly be imagined. The prognosis was most unfavourable. For Mr.
+Parer shrewdly argued that a rival of the late Don Pomponio would look
+askance at those whom His Excellency had exalted--at himself, for
+instance. And what then? However conscientiously he might henceforward
+edit the report, he realized that his position was no longer secure; he
+was liable to be recalled at any moment--to cede his place to some
+candidate of the opposing faction. Those damned republics! Or the post,
+being a purely honorary one created expressly for himself by the
+obliging and now defunct Don Pomponio, might be permanently abolished.
+It was not a pleasant prospect. Mr. Freddy Parker was rather too old to
+start knocking about the world again. He was losing what he called his
+"nerve." What was to be done?
+
+He tugged at his beard and puffed furious clouds of smoke out of his
+briar pipe. He thought of another grief--another source of anxiety. The
+quarterly remissions forwarded to him by certain obscure but
+respectable relatives in England, under the condition that he should
+never again set foot in that land of honest men, had not arrived. It
+was two weeks overdue. What had happened? Had they decided to cancel
+it? They had threatened to do so ere now. And if so, how was he going
+to live? It was a facer, that was. The equivalent of fifteen pounds
+sterling was urgently necessary at that very moment. Fifteen pounds.
+Who would lend him fifteen pounds? Keith? Not likely. Keith was a
+miser--a Scotchman, ten to one. Koppen? He had once already tried to
+touch him for a loan, with discouraging results. A most unsympathetic
+millionaire. Almost offensive, the older bounder had been. Perhaps
+somebody had let on about that bit of CREPE DE CHINE preserved at the
+Residency, and its uses as a sociological document. How things got
+about on Nepenthe! Where the Hell, then, was money to come from?
+
+Both these troubles, great in themselves, faded into insignificance
+before a new and overwhelming sorrow.
+
+In a room directly overhead lay the dead body of his lady. She had
+breathed her last on the previous midday, and it is more than likely
+that the noise of the cannon-shots, reverberating through her chamber,
+had accelerated her end; not the noise as such, for she was naturally a
+rowdy woman and never felt comfortable save in an atmosphere of
+domestic explosions and quarrels with servants, but the noise in its
+social significance, the noise as demonstrating to her exhausted
+consciousness that there was something wrong, something at the same
+time of considerable importance--something she might never live to
+comment on--happening in the market-place. In other words, it is highly
+probable that her death had been hastened by the moral rather than the
+physical shock of the noise; by disappointment; by the bitter
+reflection that she would never survive to learn what this new scandal,
+evidently an interesting one, was about.
+
+The doctor, for reasons which he deemed sufficient, had recommended a
+speedy interment; it was fixed for that morning. The fall of ashes had
+put the ceremony out of the question. There she lay. And in the room
+below sat her bereaved stepbrother, distractedly gazing out of the
+window upon the darkness of Erebus.
+
+It harmonized with the darkness of his mourning trousers, newly creased
+but not newly purchased; and of his soul. He saw his worldly existence
+menaced--tottering to its fall. All these catastrophes, so crushing, so
+unexpected, filled him with a kind of primeval terror. Mr. Parker was
+neither a devout believer nor the reverse. He was a fool and liable, as
+such, under the stress of bodily or mental disturbance, to spasmodic
+fits of abject fright which he mistook for religion. An attack of
+indigestion, the failure of some pecuniary speculation, the demise of a
+beloved stepsister--these various happenings, so dissimilar to one
+another, had yet this feature in common, that they put the fear of God
+into the otherwise empty brain of Mr. Parker.
+
+He had been in many tight corners, but never in so tight a corner as
+this. Hardly ever. He thought of the lady lying dead upstairs and all
+she had done towards establishing and consolidating their social
+position; how she had economized for him, yes, and lied for him--better,
+far better, than he could ever hope to lie. For she possessed that most
+priceless of all gifts: she believed her own lies. She looked people
+straight in the face and spoke from her heart; a falsehood, before it
+left her lips, had grown into a flaming truth. She was a florid,
+improvident liar. There was no classical parsimony about her
+misstatements. They were copious baroque, and encrusted with pleasing
+and unexpected tricks of ornamentation. That tropical redundancy for
+which her person was renowned reflected itself likewise in her
+temperament--in nothing more than the exuberance of her untruths which
+were poured out in so torrential a flood, with such burning conviction
+at the opulence of detail that persons who knew her well used to stand
+aghast (Catholics had been known to cross themselves) at the fertility
+of her constructive imagination, while the most hardened sceptics
+protested that, even if her facts were wrong, there could be no doubt
+as to her sincerity, her ingenuousness. Ah, she was a woman in a
+thousand! Often had Mr. Parker sat at her feet, a respectful disciple,
+listening spellbound and striving to acquire that secret--a secret which
+was, after all, not so much art as nature. He could never hope to rival
+her technique.
+
+That was because he could not look you in the face; because he
+disbelieved not only his own lies, but those of other people--and not
+only their lies, but their truths; because he distrusted everything and
+everybody, and was duly distrusted in his turn. Nobody believed a word
+he said, and some rude persons went so far as to tell him exactly what
+they thought of him. They called him a liar in public and in private.
+Such experiences are trying to one's nerve; they end in giving you a
+shifty look. People who knew him well never took his word for granted,
+and the more casual acquaintance would say that even if his facts were
+correct now and then he could not help being a fraud all the same.
+
+And now she was gone, this lady who had saved him from countless small
+annoyances, who had given him self-esteem and a kind of social
+backbone. He stared into the darkness. Where was money to come
+from--those miserable fifteen pounds, for example? What would happen?
+
+He almost decided upon praying, only he could not think of appropriate
+words in which to appeal for this loan; it might seem to the Deity a
+contemptuously small sum, not worth bothering the angels about. On the
+other hand he dared not apply for more than he actually needed--not to
+that quarter, at least--for fear of being found out. He was always being
+found out, even by his earthly creditors. Besides, there lingered at
+the back of his mind all the time certain doubts as to the efficacy of
+applying to God for money or anything else. The whole thing might be a
+farce. He remembered, with pain and grief, that he had already on
+several occasions tried the prayer-system, like most other systems. And
+alas, the results had invariably been NIL....
+
+A visit from His Reverence the parroco was announced.
+
+This heroic priest, accompanied by two acolytes bearing torches, had
+braved the downpour of ashes. He never shirked his duty. It was his
+duty that morning to confer with Mr. Parker anent the delayed funeral
+and other painfully material matters. For the deceased lady had not
+deserted the creed of her fathers; she was an ardent Catholic--so ardent
+that she professed great pain at her stepbrother's alien leanings and
+had taken considerable trouble to convert him to her own way of
+thinking. She used to say, in her flowery language, that his
+contumacious attitude towards the true Faith gnawed at her
+vitals--meaning, presumably, that it annoyed her. Often she pointed out
+how many social and other advantages they would gain--living in a
+Catholic country--if he, too, could bring himself to enter the field of
+believers. In vain! The Commissioner had a knack of being
+ultra-protestant on such occasions.
+
+Not that he greatly cared to what Church he belonged. But if nobody
+made it worth his while--why, he remained an Englishman. He knew
+perfectly well that the parroco, his lady's confessor, was anxious to
+do something in the proselytizing line which might lower the prestige
+of Don Francesco. And he was clever enough to realize that, by
+embracing Catholicism at Torquemada's hands, he, the Official
+Representative of Nicaragua, would be putting a feather in the priest's
+cap. He was not going to put a feather in anybody's cap--not for
+nothing. It was not good enough. Some strong leader of nations had once
+remarked, "Every man his price." Mr. Parker liked that phrase; he was
+deeply convinced of its veracity. He also had his price, and once, in a
+moment of extreme financial embarrassment, he had delighted his
+stepsister by announcing that he was prepared to consider the question
+of conversion. He then named his price. It was a condition not to be
+expressed by such terms as a gratified church might have been able to
+concede--by some elevation to a higher sphere of influence or other
+worldly favour; it was a figure baldly commercial, expressible, that
+is, in pounds, shillings and pence.
+
+"You've got some cheek, Freddy," was all she could bring herself to
+say.
+
+"My dear Lola, he can take it or leave it," the Commissioner had
+replied, sulkily.
+
+His Reverence never found himself in the odious dilemma of either
+taking it or leaving it, for the lady was wise enough not to divulge so
+ignoble a proposition.
+
+But now, while the good priest uttered a few parting platitudes of
+condolence, the other was revolving in his mind how negotiations--direct
+negotiations, this time--could be opened up. He needed fifteen pounds;
+well, one might be able to do a little juggling with the Club money for
+that part of the business. It was necessary, above all, to devise some
+means whereby the Nicaraguan Government might be induced to keep him at
+his old post. Here was Torquemada. How could the fellow be turned to
+account?
+
+"The Nuncio!" he suddenly thought. A Catholic republic like Nicaragua
+was sure to have a Papal Nuncio whatever that might be; and if he
+became a convert to the official faith of that country, the Nuncio
+would be delighted and might whisper in the ear of the President a few
+words commending his act and requesting that so good a servant of the
+Church should not be despoiled of his post. And if the President,
+himself a Catholic, could be brought to share this view, then he,
+Freddy Parker, could snap his fingers at the machinations of Senor
+Vergara's successor.
+
+He decided to show some signs of devotion to what he had been
+accustomed to call the grossest of superstitions; to reveal symptoms of
+latent Roman proclivities. Grief seemed to have sharpened his wits, for
+an inspiration came to him. After the sordid and melancholy details of
+the funeral had been discussed yet again--it was to take place as soon
+as ever the state of the sky would allow of it--Mr. Parker, pointing to
+the blackened world outside, made an oracular remark.
+
+"Something must be done," he said.
+
+His companion agreed, very heartily. But soon he drew a deep sigh. How
+could a volcanic eruption be stopped? In other words, what must be
+done?
+
+"Let me suggest something, parroco. Why not organize a procession at
+once, a penitential procession? Such things take place during eruptions
+on the mainland. Why not here?"
+
+It was the most tactful and diplomatic proposal that the Commissioner
+had ever made. A thundering good tip, in fact. How proud his Lola would
+have been, had she heard him make it! A flash of inspiration--and he was
+actually following it up. The effect was instantaneous. At the sound of
+the word "procession" the other's thin lips relaxed, and into his
+ferrety eyes there came a gentler look. He was pleased, infinitely
+pleased. The Protestant Commissioner betraying only too plainly the
+heart of a Catholic--that augured well. But difficulties, apparently
+insurmountable, presented themselves.
+
+"That thought, Signor Parker, coming from you, gives me pleasure beyond
+words. But I question whether a procession can be formed. Even the
+priests, most of them, would not care to attend. As to the populace--who
+is going to risk his life in the midst of this calamity? We might all
+be choked to death. Not that I would hesitate to play my becoming
+part!"
+
+"You know your people--how inquisitive they are. If you toll the church
+bells a certain number are sure to gather in the market-place in order
+to learn, even at risk of their lives, what is happening. When they see
+a torchlight procession being formed, you will obtain a sufficient
+quantity, I feel sure, to carry the Holy Image of the Saint; and some
+to spare. Also, I see no reason why the priests should be present in
+full strength. Toll the bells, parroco! You will get your men."
+
+His Reverence was thinking hard. At last he said:
+
+"Your project appeals to me. It does credit to your heart. It would do
+credit to our island. I will try to arrange it. But if--"
+
+"You mean, don't you, if the ashes continue to fall, notwithstanding
+our expiatory demonstration? Let me see. There was that disgraceful
+tumult in the town yesterday. Saint Dodekanus is perhaps too deeply
+vexed against his people to concede them a grace under such
+circumstances. I imagine him to be very displeased with us just now.
+That being the case, the fall of ashes might well be permitted to
+continue for our castigation, despite the penitential act. What do you
+think?"
+
+Nobody knows what the parroco thought. It was not his habit to think
+aloud, much less to express opinions on ticklish arguments such as
+these. But he could corroborate the fact with a clear conscience.
+
+"It was indeed enough to anger a saint in Heaven! Seven more of the
+wounded have succumbed to their injuries; three of them little
+children. Ah, these deeds of violence and bloodshed, for which Nepenthe
+was ever infamous! When will the peace of God descend upon our island?"
+
+Mr. Parker had no idea when that might happen. He was not particularly
+keen about the peace of God--he was keen about keeping his job. None the
+less, he managed to move his head up and down, in a decidedly becoming
+fashion.
+
+"And now," concluded the parroco, "with your kind permission, I will
+take my leave, to confer with the clergy if I can discover any of them,
+as to what can be done towards forming a procession. I confess that the
+more I think upon your idea, Signor Parker, the more I like it. If only
+we can find a sufficient number to participate!"
+
+"Have no fear of that. Only toll the bells. You will get your men. This
+eruption is enough to make anybody religious. I mean--you know what I
+mean, parroco."
+
+The acolytes having rekindled their torches His Reverence, a happier
+man, stepped boldly out of doors and was swallowed up in the murk.
+
+This is a succinct and faithful account of the genesis of that
+procession which was to become famous in Nepenthean annals. However
+much, in later years, certain envious folks claim to be the originators
+of the project it was, from first to last, the Commissioner's idea.
+Honour to whom honour is due. He deserved, and took, all credit for it.
+Meanwhile he sat down at his table once more, and stared into the
+pitchy darkness.
+
+Not long afterwards, the sound of bells announced that something was
+being done. Men looked out of their windows and saw flickering lights
+moving about the gloom. The flames grouped themselves into definite
+arrangements; a procession was being formed. As the parroco had
+foretold it was but sparsely attended in the beginning; out of
+sixty-five priests and canons of the church, only fourteen found it
+convenient to attend; another dozen, however, were presently shamed
+into taking their places in the ranks. The same with the followers.
+Their number gradually increased. For the bells did the work of
+arousing curiosity; they tolled plangently into the night.
+
+Stranger pageant never trod Nepenthe. Some thoughtful person had
+discovered that umbrellas might be used with advantage. Umbrellas were
+therefore utilized by all save the priests, the choristers,
+torch-bearers, and those carrying the statue of the Saint who, for
+reasons of personal dignity or expediency, preferred the other method.
+They chanted their psalms and litanies through handkerchiefs, knowing
+full well that their music would be none the less pleasing to the Saint
+for being more than usually nasal in tone. Thus, with soundless
+footfalls, they perambulated the streets and outskirts of the town,
+gathering fresh recruits as they went.
+
+And still the ashes fell.
+
+Viewing this cortege of awe-struck innocents braying into the blackness
+under their umbrellas at the heels of a silver-plated idol (not yet
+paid for), an intelligent God might well be proud of his workmanship.
+So thought the parroco. He was undismayed. Come what might, he had an
+explanation ready. Saint Dodekanus, if the ashes continued to fall, was
+only showing his displeasure; he was perfectly justified in letting his
+wrath be known for the better guidance of mankind. Certain of the
+younger priests, on the other hand, were growing nervous at the
+prospect of a possible failure of the procession. They began to blame
+His Reverence for what he had given them to understand was his own
+idea. For two hours they had now been in movement; they had swallowed a
+hatful of ashes. And yet no sign from Heaven. The sky appeared darker
+than ever. Many of the followers, exhausted, dropped out of the
+procession and returned sadly to their homes. They thought the
+speculation was going to turn out badly. The others deemed in not
+impossible that the Saint could not see them through so thick a
+curtain. Well, then, he might hear them. They chanted more furiously.
+
+The sound must have reached Heaven, at last, for a miracle occurred.
+The gloom decreased in density. Men looked up and beheld a sickly
+radiance overhead--it was the sun, ever so far away; it shone as when
+seen through thickly smoked glasses. Then a veil seemed to be
+withdrawn. The light grew clearer--the song of the penitents jubilant
+with hope. Sullen gleams, now, pierced the murky air. Outlines of trees
+and houses crept furtively into their old places. The fall of ashes had
+almost ceased. With a wrench, as it seemed, the final covering was
+drawn away. The land lay flooded in daylight.
+
+That paean of joy and thanksgiving which ought to have greeted this
+divine largesse, died on the lips of the beholders when they saw the
+state of their island. Nepenthe was hardly recognizable. The Saint had
+lifted a mantle from Heaven only to reveal the desolation on earth.
+Ashes everywhere. Trees, houses, the fertile fields, the mountain
+slopes--all were smothered under a layer of monotonous pallor. They knew
+what it meant. It meant ruin to their crops and vineyards. None the
+less, they raised a shout, a half-hearted shout, of praise. For
+Nepentheans are born politicians and courteous by nature. It is their
+heritage from the Good Duke Alfred to "keep smiling." A shout was
+expected of them under the circumstances; it costs nothing and may even
+do good, inasmuch as Saint Dodekanus could remove the ashes as easily
+as he had sent them. Why not shout?
+
+"A miracle, a miracle!" the cry went up. "Long life to our patron!"
+
+A poor tribute; but the Saint took note of it. Half an hour had barely
+passed ere the sky grew cloudy. Moist drops began to fall. It was the
+first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of
+Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery
+shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife
+could not remember, encumbered the roofs, the fields, the roadways. It
+looked as if the whole island were plastered over with a coating of
+liquid chocolate. Now, if the shower would only continue--
+
+Suddenly it ceased. The sky grew clear.
+
+Saint Dodekanus had often been accused of possessing a grain of malice.
+Some went so far as to say he had the Evil Eye. It was by no means the
+first time in his long career that the natives had found cause to
+complain of a certain rancour in his temperament--of certain spiteful
+viperish acts to which the priests, and they alone, were able to give a
+benevolent interpretation. Now their wrath blazed out against the
+celestial Patron. "He's not fit for his job," said some; "let's get a
+new saint! The ruffian, the son of an impure mother--up to his tricks,
+was he? Ah, the cut-throat, the Saracen, the old paederast: into the
+ditch with him!"
+
+During a brief moment his fate hung in the balance. For it was plain
+that the ashes, if unwetted, might ultimately have been blown away by
+the wind. But what was going to happen when all this mud, baked by the
+sun into the hardness of brick, covered the island?
+
+Perhaps the Saint was only putting their tempers to the test. The
+experiment of another shout was worth trying. One could always punish
+him later on.
+
+So feeble was the noise that Saint Dodekanus must have had uncommonly
+good ears. He had. And soon showed his real feelings. Rain fell once
+more. Instead of diminishing it grew more violent, accompanied by warm
+blasts of wind. There was sunshine overhead, but the peaks were
+shrouded in scudding vapours, trees bent under the force of the wind;
+the sea, a welter of light and shade, was dappled with silvery patches
+under the swiftly careering clouds. Soon there came a blinding
+downpour. Gullies were blocked up with mud; rills carried tons of it
+into the sea. Then the gale died down; the sun beamed out of a bright
+evening sky. The miraculous shower was over.
+
+Men walked abroad and recognized their beloved Nepenthe once more. It
+glowed in the tenderest hues. The events of morning and midday were
+like a bad dream. Everything sparkled with unaccustomed brilliance; the
+land was refreshed--swept clean; the sea alone remained discoloured to a
+dingy brown. Truly, as the Commissioner--once more a sound
+Protestant--remarked in later years: "The old rotter came up to the
+scratch that time." So clear and pleasant was the air that it seemed as
+if the wind had actually veered to the north. But no. It still blew
+from the other quarter--the old familiar sirocco. Which proved that the
+shower of ashes had not been "carried elsewhere," as the youthful
+teacher of mathematics had prognosticated. It had not been carried
+anywhere. It simply ceased to fall, the volcano having momentarily run
+out of its stock of objectionable materials.
+
+The Clubmen therefore, calling to mind the discussion of the morning,
+were led to revise their opinion as to that gentleman's intelligence.
+They remembered one or two things. They remembered that even when
+Heavenly Powers are not known to be directly interested in the event,
+eruptions now and then come to an end quite irrespective of the wind--a
+contingency which had not been foreseen in the acute young
+Scandinavian's computations.
+
+"That comes," they said, "of studying the higher mathematics...."
+
+For their miraculous deliverance from a shower of volcanic ashes the
+islanders gave all credit, as might have been expected, to their Patron
+Saint. And this proves how inadequately causes and effects are
+understood, here on earth. For the priests, the most intelligent
+section of the populace, knew perfectly well that but for the orders of
+the parroco no procession could have taken place. The Saint would have
+remained locked up in his musty shrine, without the faintest chance of
+performing a miracle of any kind. They argued, consequently, that Saint
+Dodekanus got the credit for what was really the parroco's notion. And
+Torquemada, thinking over the day's proceedings, was driven to confess
+that he was indebted for the suggestion to the fertile brain of the
+Nicaraguan Representative; in other words that he, the parroco, was
+praised for what was really the Commissioner's idea. And it is evident
+that if Mr. Parker's lady had not died from the effects of a
+mosquito-sting, that gentleman would never have been in such a complex
+funk as to suggest a procession to the worthy priest.
+
+Thus it came about that the Commissioner, the Parish Priest, and the
+Patron Saint got the credit for what was really an insect's work.
+
+Which shows how a mosquito can cure an eruption.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+
+
+
+Everybody was drunk that night in honour of the Saint's bounty, though
+Miss Wilberforce reached the climax of her activities at the early hour
+of 4 p.m.--during the torchlight procession.
+
+An uproar had been generated at the Club; chairs were broken, bottles
+smashed, and sporting prints kicked about--all on account of a comical
+but rather scurrilous speech contrasting Europe with Australasia by a
+new-comer, a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, who
+limped home not long afterwards with a damaged shinbone and black eye.
+The more violent parties had been ejected during that incident, or
+carried to their lodgings. Only about half the usual number was
+left--all moderates, so far as drinking was concerned, but all more or
+less screwed that day as befitted the occasion. There was the
+card-table group, where Mr. Muhlen, with heightened colour in his
+cheeks, was losing money in so brilliant a fashion that everyone swore
+he must be on the verge of coming into a legacy or making some COUP
+with a rich woman. In another room the so-called bawdy section,
+presided over by the dubious Mr. Hopkins, were discussing topics not
+adapted to polite ears. The artistic group, sadly thinned by the
+ejection of four of its more imaginative and virile members who had
+distinguished themselves in the fray, now consisted solely of two
+youngsters, a black-and-white man and a literary critic; they sat in a
+corner by themselves, talking about colour-values in maudlin strains.
+
+The ordinary club-group had, as usual, installed themselves in the most
+comfortable chairs on the balcony. They were boozing steadily, like
+gentlemen, and having no end of fun with the poor little Norwegian
+professor and his miscalculations. One of them--a venerable toper of
+Anacreontic youthfulness known as Charlie who turned up on Nepenthe at
+odd intervals and whom the oldest inhabitant of the place had never
+seen otherwise than in a state of benevolent fuddle--was saying to him:
+
+"Instead of filling yourself up with whisky in that disgusting fashion,
+my friend, you ought to travel. Then you wouldn't make such an
+exhibition of yourself as you did this afternoon over those ashes. Talk
+about volcanoes! Ever seen the Lake of Pitch in Trinidad? Queer place,
+Trinidad. You never know where you are. Though I can't say I saw much
+of it myself. I was asleep most of the time, gentlemen, and often
+tight. Mostly both. All angles and things, as you sail along. To get an
+idea of that place, you must take a banana, for instance, and cut it in
+half, and cut that in half again, and that half in half again--the
+banana, mind you, must always remain the same size--or suppose you keep
+peeling a potato, and peeling, and peeling--well, Mr. Professor, what
+are you laughing at now?"
+
+"I was thinking what an interesting map one could draw of Trinidad if
+it's like that."
+
+"Interesting? That's not the word. It's Hell. I wouldn't care to take
+on that job, not even to oblige my poor old mother who died fifty years
+ago. Ever been to Trinidad, Mr. Richards? Or you, Mr. White? Or
+anybody? What, has nobody been to Trinidad? You ought to travel more,
+gentlemen. How about you, Mr. Samuel?"
+
+"Never further West than the Marble Arch. But a friend of mine kept a
+ranch somewhere down there. One day he shot a skunk. Yes, Mr. White, a
+skunk."
+
+"A skunk? I'm blowed. What on earth ever for did he do that? What did
+he want with a skunk? I thought they were protected by law to keep down
+rattlesnakes. That's so, isn't it, Charlie?"
+
+"Snakes. You should see them in Trinidad. Snakes. Great Scot! It's a
+queer place, is Trinidad. All angles and things--"
+
+"I don't think one can talk about a place being all angles and things,
+unless--"
+
+"Tell me, Charlie, what did the fellow on the ranch want to do with
+that rattlesnake?"
+
+"Couldn't say, my son. Maybe he thought of sending it to his mother. Or
+perhaps he didn't want the skunk to get hold of its tail: see?"
+
+"I see."
+
+"They're very sensitive about their tails. As ticklish as any young
+girl, I'm told."
+
+"As bad as all that, are they?"
+
+"I don't think one can talk about angles when describing an island or
+even a continent, except in a figurative and flowery fashion. As a
+teacher of geometry, it is my business to dwell among angles; and the
+thirty-five boys in my class will bear witness to the fact that my
+relations with angles, great and small, are above reproach. I admit
+that there are angles everywhere, and that a man who really likes their
+company will stumble against them in the most unexpected places. But
+they are sometimes hard to see, unless one deliberately looks for them.
+I think Charlie must have been looking for them in Trinidad."
+
+"I said angles AND THINGS, and I always stick to what I say. AND
+THINGS. You will be good enough, Mr. Professor, to draw your map
+accordingly."
+
+"Gentlemen! I rise to a point of order. Our Indian friend here is
+greatly annoyed. He has been accused of wearing stays. At his urgent
+request I have convinced myself, by personal inspection, that he wears
+nothing of the kind. He is naturally slim-waisted, as befits a worthy
+representative of the noble Hairyan race. It has also been suggested
+that he loses caste by his present mode of conduct. He begs me to say
+that, being a Jamshi-worshipper, he doesn't care a brass farthing about
+caste. Thirdly, he has been blamed in certain quarters for his
+immoderate indulgence in Parker's poison. Let me tell you, gentlemen,
+in my capacity as Vice-President, that for the last four thousand years
+his family has enjoyed a special dispensation from the Great Mogul,
+authorizing the eldest son to drink whatever he damn well pleases. Our
+friend here happens to be the third son. But that is obviously not his
+fault. If it were, he would have come forward with an apology long ago.
+Gentlemen! I can't speak fairer than that. Whoever says I'm not a
+gentleman--why, he isn't one either."
+
+"Hear, hear! I never knew you were an ornithologist, Richards."
+
+"Nor did I--not till this moment. But when it's a question of defending
+the honour of a Club-member I always rise to the occasion. Some
+things--they simply make my blood boil. Look at this REFEREE: two weeks
+out of date! How the blazes is a man--"
+
+"I say, Charlie, what did the fellow on the ranch want to do with that
+skunk? Something about tickling, wasn't it?"
+
+"Hush, my boy. We can't talk about it here. You're not old enough yet.
+I don't think I ought to tell you. It's too funny for words...."
+
+"You're a black-and-white man and I'm a writer, and really, you know,
+we're a cut above all those sots on the balcony. Now just be reasonable
+for a moment. Look here. Have you ever thought about the impossibility
+of realizing colour description in landscape? It's struck me a good
+deal lately, here, with this blue sea, and those orange tints on the
+mountain, and all the rest of it. Take any page by a well-known
+writer--take a description of a sunset by Symonds, for example. Well, he
+names all the gorgeous colours, the yellow and red and violet, or
+whatever it may be, as he saw them. But he can't make you see
+them--damned if he can. He can only throw words at your head. I'm very
+much afraid, my dear fellow, that humanity will never get its
+colour-values straightened out by means of verbal symbols."
+
+"I always know when a man is drunk, even when I'm drunk myself."
+
+"When?"
+
+"When he talks about colour-values."
+
+"I believe you're right. I'm feeling a bit muzzy about the legs, as if
+I couldn't move. A bit fuzzy--"
+
+"Muzzy, I think you said."
+
+"Fuzzy."
+
+"Muzzy. But we needn't quarrel about it, need we? I shall be sick in a
+minute, old man."
+
+"It's rather hard on a fellow to be always misunderstood. However, as I
+was saying when you interrupted me, I am feeling slightly wobblish in
+the peripatetic or ambulatorial department. But my head's all right.
+Now do be serious, for a change. You don't seem to catch my drift. This
+blue sea, and those orange tints on the mountains, I mean to say--how
+are they going to be held fast by the optic apparatus? The lens, you
+understand. I want to be able to shove them into a sketch-book, like
+you fellows. Well, how? That's what I want to know. How to turn my
+retina into a canvas."
+
+"Rot, my good sir."
+
+"It may be rot to you, but it strikes me as rather unfortunate, all the
+same, when you come to think of it. This blue sea, I mean, and those
+orange tints and all that, you know. Take a sunrise by John Addington.
+Of course, as a matter of fact, we ought both to have been born in
+another age--an age of sinecures. Why are sinecures extinct? I feel as
+if I could be Governor of Madagascar at this moment."
+
+"I feel as if you were getting slightly intoxicated."
+
+"That's me. But it's only my legs. My head is astonishingly clear. And
+I do wish you would try, just for once in a way, to follow my meaning.
+Be reasonable, for a change! I mean to say that a man has talents for
+all sorts of things. I, for example, have pronounced views upon
+agriculture. But what's the use of farming without capital? What I mean
+to say is this: we see the blue sea and the orange tints on the
+mountains, and all that, I mean, and we don't seem to realize, I mean,
+that we may die at any moment and never see them again. How few people
+grasp that simple fact! It's enough to make one sick. Or do you think
+it's a laughing matter?"
+
+"Bally rotten, I call it. You're quite right. People don't realize
+things the way they ought, except in a few selected moments. They live
+like animals. I shall be sick in a minute, old man."
+
+"Like animals. Good Lord! You've hit the nail on the head this time.
+How true that is. Like animals. Like animals. Like animals."
+
+"I know what we want. We want fresh air. No more Parker's poison for
+me. Let's take a stroll."
+
+"I would if I could. But I can't get off this chair, damn it. I shall
+fall down if I move an inch. I can hardly turn my head round, as it is.
+Awfully sorry. You don't mind, do you?"
+
+"Gad! That's awkward. Couldn't we take your chair along with us,
+somehow? I'm going to be sick, I tell you, this very minute."
+
+"Not here, not here! Third on the left. But surely, my dear fellow, you
+can put it off a little longer? Can't you be reasonable, for once in
+your life? Just for once in your life? Do listen to what those
+inebriated lunatics are saying on the balcony...."
+
+"What did you do to that skunk, Charlie?"
+
+"Not if I know it, young man. I promised my mother I'd never tell.
+Another day, perhaps, when I've got a little whiskey inside me. It's
+too funny for words."
+
+"You oughtn't to go tickling young girls, Charlie. It's not polite, at
+your age...."
+
+They all cleared out, as it seemed, after midnight; some on all fours,
+many of them fairly perpendicular. But when the serving lad entered the
+premises in the sober light of morning, to clear up the debris, he was
+surprised to perceive a human form reclining under a table. It was the
+young Norwegian professor. He lay there wide awake, with disheveled
+hair and an inspired gleam in his eye, tracing on the floor, with the
+point of a corkscrew, what looked like a tangle of parallelograms and
+conic sections. He said it was a map of Trinidad.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+
+
+
+As to Miss Wilberforce--she was becoming a real problem.
+
+Once again she had shocked the Faithful. She had misconducted herself
+by interrupting the torchlight procession with some of those usual or
+unusual antics, a detailed description of which, while entertaining to
+a few lost souls, would certainly mortify the majority of decent folks.
+The cup of endurance was full, overbrimming. Once again she had passed
+the night in the lock-up. Questioned as to her motives for this
+particular incident, she artlessly blamed the darkness which misled
+her, she said, into the regrettable delusion that it was night; "and at
+night, you know...."
+
+This, as Signor Malipizzo observed with his usual legal acumen, might
+pass for an explanation but nevermore for an excuse. How much longer,
+he continued, with a fine Ciceronian gesture of eloquent
+indignation--how much longer would the foreign colony on Nepenthe endure
+the presence in their midst of such a disgrace to womanhood?
+
+Thus spake the judge, well aware of what was expected from a man in his
+position. In his heart he desired nothing less than her departure; he
+was charmed with her disturbing influence; he hoped she would live a
+hundred years on the island. In the first place he received occasional
+gifts in kind from various grocers and wine-merchants who enriched
+themselves by supplying her at preposterous prices with intoxicants,
+and who thought by these subtle tactics to retain him as an ally in
+their cause. Secondly and chiefly, every new scandal of this nature
+gave him a fresh opportunity of consigning her, temporarily, to the
+lock-up. Only temporarily. Because Mr. Keith would be sure to bail her
+out again in the morning, which meant another fifty francs in his
+pocket.
+
+This is exactly what had just taken place. Mr. Keith had bailed her
+out, for the thirty-fourth time. She was at liberty once more, sobering
+down.
+
+Both the Duchess and Madame Steynlin pitied her, as only one woman can
+pity another. Often the prayed to their respective Gods, Lutheran and
+High Church, that she might be led to see the error of her ways or,
+failing that, removed by some happy accident from the island or,
+failing that, run over by a passing vehicle and injured--injured not
+dangerously, but merely to such an extent as to necessitate her
+permanent seclusion from society. Other careless folk were maimed by
+the furious driving of the Nepentheans; it was a common form of
+accident. Miss Wilberforce--the eye-sore, the scandal of her
+sex--remained intact. Some impish deity seemed to guide her wayward
+footsteps.
+
+Had she been a person of low extraction there would have been no
+difficulty in dealing with her. But she was so obviously a lady--she had
+such obviously rich and influential connections in England! These
+people, however glad to have her out of the way, might object if
+violent measures were taken by persons who, after all, had no right to
+interfere in her affairs. And the situation was rendered none the less
+complex by the attitude of Miss Wilberforce herself. She was a Tartar.
+She felt that all men's hands were against her. She used her tongue to
+good purpose and, at a pinch, her teeth and claws. The policemen of
+Nepenthe could bear witness to that fact. Drunk, she had a perfectly
+blistering flow of invective at command. Sober, she was apt to indulge
+in a dignified bestiality of logic that cut like a knife. It was only
+in the intermediate stage that she was affable and human. But to catch
+her in that intermediate stage was extremely difficult. It was of such
+very brief duration.
+
+They tried to tempt her with the prospect of being repatriated.
+Strenuously she opposed the notion, on grounds of health. She argued
+that she had come to the South at the bidding of her English
+doctor--which was true enough, that grave personage having been urgently
+pressed by the family to make a suggestion; a return to England, she
+declared, would be the death of her. If any attempt were made to
+interfere with her liberty in this manner, she would appeal to the
+local Court for protection.
+
+Then the project of sending her to an Inebriates' Home on the mainland
+was mooted. A sprightly young clergyman, not long resident on Nepenthe,
+volunteered for the delicate task of persuading the lady to take this
+step; it would be given out that she was merely undergoing a "rest
+cure." The sprightly young clergyman started on his mission full of
+bright expectations. He returned anon, looking prematurely aged. Nobody
+could get a word out of him at first; he seemed top have become
+afflicted with a partial paralysis of the tongue. After babbling
+childishly for an hour or so he fell silent altogether, and it was not
+till next morning that he recovered full powers of speech. Wild horses,
+he then announced, would not drag form his lips what had passed at the
+interview.
+
+As a last resource it was decided to inaugurate a sanatorium on the
+island for her especial benefit, with a trained nurse permanently in
+attendance; during her ever-decreasing spells of sobriety the place,
+together with the nurse, could be utilized for needle-classes and so
+forth. Money was required. A committee of ladies and gentlemen
+collected a certain small amount, but their hopes did not rise high
+till the day when the Duchess broached the subject to her countryman,
+Mr. van Koppen, after inveigling him into what she called "a friendly
+teat-a-teat." Surfeited to bursting-point with his favourite tea-cakes,
+the millionaire was in a lovely humour. He declared his readiness, then
+and there, to subscribe half a million francs to the scheme if--if his
+good friend Mr. Keith would make himself responsible for a similar sum,
+or even a thousandth part of it.
+
+"Half a million francs--what's that, Duchess, as the price of a smile
+from yourself? Cheap. Dirt cheap!"
+
+"Another one?" queried the lady.
+
+"Well, just one. I can't swallow any more. But I can still chew."
+
+So fatuously fond was he of this particular variety of condiment that,
+on their account alone, he would have imported the Duchess and her
+entire establishment into America. For all that, old Koppen was no
+fool. Half a million buttered tea-cakes could not impair the lively
+workings of a brain which had long ago mapped out a swift and sure path
+to worldly success. He had wind of this project; his answer was
+carefully prepared. It was a mathematical certainty that not one cent
+of those half-million francs would ever leave his pocket. For he knew
+what the Committee did not know--the real character of his friend Keith.
+Keith was a good fellow but a hopeless crank; Keith was perfectly
+capable of impoverishing himself in order to keep Miss Wilberforce out
+of prison. As to subscribing to the schemes of a pack of meddling fools
+who proposed to intern the dear lady--Keith would see them all damned
+first. This is how Mr. van Koppen, a profound student of human nature,
+would have argued, had he lacked the opportunity of discussing the
+question with his good friend. As a matter of fact he had enjoyed that
+opportunity only a few days ago. He had warned Keith of what was
+coming, and had found him equally alert to the plans of the Committee
+and more desirous than himself, if possible, of frustrating them. They
+had chuckled vastly over a bottle of dry sparkling Nepenthe in
+anticipation of the event.
+
+"Trust me," said Keith. "I'll talk their heads off."
+
+"I'm glad I shan't be there!" thought the American.
+
+He knew his good friend. Keith could be decidedly fatiguing, especially
+when dead sober. He had all the Scotchman's passion for dissecting the
+obvious, discovering new facets in the commonplace, and squeezing the
+last drop out of a foregone conclusion.
+
+It was a thousand pities that the Duchess, in the exuberance of her
+triumph, spread abroad the news of the millionaire's promise. For that
+news had an unfortunate and unexpected result. The Committee, which up
+till then had consisted of eight reputable members, now swelled,
+rapidly and mysteriously, to fourteen. Six new gentlemen, including the
+unspeakable Mr. Hopkins, got themselves enrolled, and all six of them,
+as was afterwards made manifest, were persons of questionable
+integrity. By dint of small donations to the fund varying from five to
+fifteen francs, they had contrived to have their names put down; it was
+worth while, they thought, to risk a small sum on the chance of getting
+a slice out of old Koppen's half-million which could not possibly be
+used up in the rent or purchase of a three-roomed Sanatorium.
+
+A committee of ladies and gentlemen, formed for charitable purposes,
+should be like Caesar's wife. This one had come to resemble the spouse
+of Claudius. Had the upright and intelligent Mr. Freddy Parker still
+been its guiding spirit, he would soon have weeded out these
+undesirable elements and kept the pickings for himself. But Mr. Parker,
+since his lady's illness, seemed to be withdrawn from all worldly
+concerns. He had become invisible. And now that the lady was dead he
+would presumably grow more invisible than ever. It was a severe blow to
+all concerned; to nobody more than to the Commissioner himself when, on
+emerging into society from his mourning retirement, he divined what a
+chance he had missed.
+
+Every single member of the small sub-committee who came, in rather a
+formal group, to communicate to Mr. Keith the terms of the
+millionaire's offer and to solicit his participation in the scheme,
+purposed to attend the funeral of Mr. Parker's lady. It was the right
+thing to do. That impressive function, already a day overdue, had been
+irrevocably fixed for 10.30 a.m. at the instance of the Chief Medical
+Officer of Health. Accordingly they reached the Villa Khismet at the
+matutinal hour of 9 a.m., convinced that the short interval would
+suffice to cajole out of Mr. Keith a sum sufficient to bind old Koppen
+to his promise.
+
+It struck them afterwards that this was their flagrant, initial
+mistake. They ought to have controlled their impatience and waited for
+a more opportune occasion.
+
+And they would have waited, but for the fact that Mr. Hopkins, a person
+of dubious motives and antecedents, had insinuated himself into the
+deputation not without a purpose of his own. This gentlemen insisted
+that delay was fatal. Mr. Keith, he argued, would understand their
+impatience. The millionaire was sailing in a day or two. One might
+never get that cheque cashed, or even signed, before he left Nepenthe.
+And then? Why, then the scheme might fall through and--he added to
+himself--how was he going to get his share of the plunder?
+
+The others, the respectable ones, gave way. Vainly they remonstrated.
+Vainly they pointed out that old Koppen was not a man to go back on his
+word; that a cheque could be made out in America as well as anywhere
+else; that the crux of the question was not the millionaire but his
+good friend Keith; that they might spoil all their chances by
+approaching the latter at such an unseasonable hour of the day. It was
+weak of them.
+
+They ought to have waited. For Keith was fond of solitude at all times,
+and any one of his dozen gardeners could have told them that, like
+every other self-respecting scholar, he was in the habit of
+breakfasting not earlier than 9.30, and dangerous to approach before
+that meal. Or they might have made enquiries concerning his mode of
+life among his fellow-countrymen on Nepenthe. The bibliographer, for
+instance, would have informed them that Keith was "generally sick about
+eleven"--meaning, by this playful nonsense, to insinuate that it was not
+safe to disturb him till after that hour. Be that as it may, he was
+certainly irritable before breakfast-time on every single day of the
+year and, as it happened, irritable beyond the common measure on this
+particular morning, because the downpour of the previous afternoon had
+dashed to pieces--among other material damage--the tender blooms of
+certain priceless ipomaeas. That alone was enough to infuriate an
+archangel. Moreover, like everybody else--he always conformed to
+custom--he had been slightly tipsy overnight. This had the singular
+effect of making him glum, ceremonious, and ready to take offence.
+
+Here, now was this pack of officious idiots blundering in upon him.
+Under ordinary circumstances he would have tried to be polite. As it
+was, he could hardly bring himself to give them a civil word of
+welcome. They caught him on his way from the bath to the garden--to a
+succulent breakfast under his favourite pine-tree within view of the
+Tyrrhenian; and his own flowered silk dressing-gown and
+gold-embroidered Turkish slippers contrasted oddly with the solemn
+vestments, savouring of naphthaline, which they had donned for the
+funeral. After the barest of apologies for a costume which, he ventured
+to think, was as suitable as any other for a gentleman at that hour of
+the morning, he bade them be seated and listened to what the speaker
+had to say--blinking ominously the while through his spectacles, like an
+owl with the sun in its eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+
+
+
+It was a long and rambling exposition.
+
+Miss Wilberforce must be protected against herself. They came to him
+for a contribution, however small, which would enable Mr. van Koppen to
+fulfil his promise. It was not a question of meddlesomeness. It was a
+question of putting an end to a crying public scandal. Miss Wilberforce
+spent her days in sleeping, and her nights in shocking the population
+of Nepenthe. The lady should be temporarily secluded in her own
+interests; she was not fit to be left alone; it was an act of charity
+to do what one could towards improving her health and prolonging her
+life. They were out for a philanthropic object--to assist in helping a
+fellow creature. Miss Wilberforce must be protected against herself.
+Mr. van Koppen's half-million would enable them to compass this end.
+His own contribution, however small, would enable Mr. van Koppen to
+fulfil his promise. Miss Wilberforce must be protected--
+
+He quite understood. Miss Wilberforce must be protected against
+herself. And he disagreed heartily. Nobody must be protected against
+himself. The attitude of a man towards his fellows should be that of
+non-intervention, of benevolent egotism. Every person of healthy
+digestion was aware of that cardinal truth. Unfortunately persons of
+healthy digestions were not as common as they might be. That was why
+straight thinking, on these and other subjects, was at a discount.
+Nobody had a right to call himself well-disposed towards society until
+he had grasped the elementary fact that the only way to improve the
+universe was to improve oneself, and to leave one's neighbour alone.
+The best way to begin improving oneself was to keep one's own bowels
+open, and not trouble about those of anybody else. Turkey rhubarb, in
+fact. The serenity of outlook thereby attained would enable a man to
+perceive the futility of interfering with the operation of natural
+selection.
+
+The speaker, he went on, had dropped the word charity. Had the tribe of
+Israel cultivated a smattering of respect for physiology or any other
+useful science instead of fussing about supernatural pedigrees, they
+would have been more cautious as to their diet. Had they been careful
+in the matter of dietary, their sacred writings would never have seen
+the light of day. Those writings, a monument of malnutrition and faulty
+digestive processes, were responsible for three-quarters of what was
+called charity. Charity was responsible for the greater part of human
+mischief and misery. The revenues of the private charities of London
+alone exceeded five million sterling annually. What were these revenues
+expended upon? On keeping alive an incredible number of persons who
+ought to be dead. What was the result of keeping these people alive? A
+deterioration of the whole race. Charity consisted in setting a premium
+on bodily ill-health and mental inefficiency. Charity was an Oriental
+nightmare; an endeavour to raise the week to the level of the strong;
+an incitement to improvidence. Charity disturbed the national
+equilibrium; it lowered the standard of mankind instead of raising it.
+Charity was an unmitigated nuisance which had increased, was
+increasing, and ought to be diminished.
+
+By way of varying the phraseology, but not the thing, they had called
+themselves philanthropists. The meaning of that venerable word had
+decayed of late in characteristic fashion. Prometheus, the archetype,
+brought fire from Heaven to comfort certain people who had the wit to
+appreciate its uses. He did not waste his time wet-nursing the unfit,
+like a modern philanthropist. What was a modern philanthropist? He was
+a fellow who was always bothering you to do something for somebody
+else. He appealed to your purse for the supposed welfare of some pet
+degenerate. Prometheus appealed to your intelligence for the real
+welfare of rational beings. A rich man found it extremely simple, no
+doubt, to sign a cheque. But an act was not necessarily sensible
+because it happened to be simple. People ought to dominate their
+reflexes. Prometheus did not choose the simplest course--he chose the
+wisest, and found it a pretty tough job, too. That alone proved him to
+have been a man of sound digestion and robust health. Had it been
+otherwise, indeed, he would never have endured that vulture--business
+for so long.
+
+The deputation exchanged glances, puzzled by this pompous and peevish
+exordium. It did not promise well; it sounded quite unlike Mr. Keith's
+usually bland address. Perhaps he had not yet breakfasted. "We ought to
+have waited," they thought. One of the listeners was so annoyed that he
+began:
+
+"A paradox, Mr. Keith, is not necessarily sensible, because it happens
+to be simple"--but was overborne by that gentleman, who proceeded
+calmly:
+
+"So much for generalities. Now Miss Wilberforce is a lady of
+independent means and of a certain age. She is not an infant, to be
+protected against herself or against others; she has reached years of
+indiscretion. Like a good many sensible persons she lives in this
+country. Of course a residence here has its drawbacks--very grave
+drawbacks, some of them. But the drawbacks are counter-balanced by
+certain advantages. In short, what applies to one country does not
+always apply to the other. Yet you propose to treat her exactly as if
+she were living in England. That strikes me as somewhat unreasonable."
+
+"Mr. van Koppen has promised us--"
+
+"He may do what he likes with his money. But I don't see why I should
+become the pivot for making my good friend do what strikes me as a
+foolish action. I am too fond of him for that. Mr. van Koppen and
+myself have many points in common; among other things this feature,
+that neither of us is of aristocratic birth. I suspect this is what
+made you count on me for a subscription. You thought that I, having a
+little money of my own, might be tempted by certain sycophantic
+instincts to emulate his misplaced generosity. But I am not a snob.
+From the social point of view I don't care a tuppenny damn for anyone.
+On the other hand, my origin has given me something of Dr. Samuel
+Johnson's respect for what he calls his betters. I like the upper
+classes, especially when they behave according to their old traditions.
+That is why I like Miss Wilberforce. She conducts herself, if report be
+true, with all the shamelessness of a born lady. Born ladies are not so
+common that we should hide them away in nursing homes. All forceful
+seclusion is dishonouring. Every little insect, drunk or sober, enjoys
+its freedom; and if you gentlemen were not philanthropists I would try
+to point out how galling your proposal must be, how humiliating to a
+high-spirited woman to be placed under lock and key, in charge of some
+callous attendant. But to what purpose? Turkey rhubarb--"
+
+"I am afraid, Mr. Keith, that we have come at an inopportune moment?"
+
+"It's quite possible. But I won't keep you much longer--you must be
+dying to attend that funeral! In fact, I would not detain you at all if
+I did not feel that you expected some kind of explanation from me. What
+were we saying?"
+
+"Turkey rhubarb."
+
+"Ah, yes! I was trying to be fair-minded which, by the way, is a
+general mistake. It struck me that perhaps I over-emphasized its
+advantages just now. Because, of course, there is something to be said
+against the use of such drugs. In fact, now I come to think of it,
+there is a good deal to be said in favour of constipation. It is the
+cause of our English spleenfulness, and this spleenfulness, properly
+directed, has its uses. It engenders a certain energetic intolerance of
+mind. I think the success of our nation is largely due to this
+particular quality. If I were an historian I would amuse myself with
+proving that we owe not only Magna Charta, but our whole Empire--Canada,
+Australia, and all the rest of them--to our costive habits of body. What
+befits a nation, however, does not always befit a man. To crush, in a
+fit of chronic biliousness, the resistance of Bengal and add its land
+to the British Empire, may be a racial virtue. To crush, in a fit of
+any kind, the resistance of our next door neighbour Mr. Robinson, and
+add his purse to our own, is an individual vice. No! I fail to discover
+any personal advantage to be gained from excess of bile. The bilious
+eye sees intensely, no doubt, but in a distorted and narrow fashion; it
+is incapable of a generous outlook. Cloudy, unserene! A closing-up,
+instead of a widening-out. The bowels of compassion: what a wonderful
+old phrase! They ought to be kept open. I look around me, and see
+extraordinarily little goodwill among my fellow-creatures. Here is Miss
+Wilberforce. What she yearns for is the milk of human kindness--gentle
+words, gentle dealing, from all of us. Instead of that, every one is
+ready to cast stones at her. She is treated like a pariah. For my part
+I do not pass her by; I am not ashamed to consort with sinners, if such
+they be; I would like, if I could, to make her free and happy instead
+of imprisoning her in a place of self-reproach. A healthy man is
+naturally well disposed, not on principle or from any divine
+inspiration but because his bodily organs are performing their proper
+functions. His judgment is not warped by the black humours of
+indigestion. He perceives that natural laws, however harsh they seem,
+are never so harsh as our amateurish attempts to circumvent them.
+Modern philanthropy is an attempt of this nature. It is crass
+emotionalism. Regarded from the point of view of the race, your
+philanthropy is a disguised form of brutality."
+
+"Mr. Keith!"
+
+"All sentimentalists are criminals."
+
+This perverse balderdash was getting on the nerves of the deputation.
+It had one good effect, however. They had been afraid, at first, of
+wasting Mr. Keith's time; now they began to realize that he was wasting
+theirs.
+
+"Speaking for myself, Mr. Keith, I should say that you are spoiling
+your case by over-statement, and that these reflections of yours are
+libels upon a class of men and women who devote their time and money,
+often their lives, to alleviating the distress of others. However that
+may be, they are generalities. We came to you about a practical matter,
+and an urgent one. We want to remove a crying scandal from the island.
+The habits of Miss Wilberforce, as I think I pointed out, are shocking
+to all decent folks. I suppose you won't deny that?"
+
+"I remember your using those words. They struck me as remarkable
+because, for my own part, I have not yet discovered any man, woman, or
+child who could shock me. Some persons make a profession of being
+scandalized. I am profoundly distrustful of them. It is the prerogative
+of vulgarians to be shocked. If I ever felt inclined to blush, it would
+not be a the crooked behaviour of men, but at their crooked
+intellectual processes. Whenever a so-called scandal comes my way, I
+thank God for the opportunity of seeing something new and learning
+something to my advantage."
+
+"There is nothing very new about the scandalous conduct of Miss
+Wilberforce, save her unfortunate habit of divesting herself--"
+
+"Please to note that there is a good deal of loose and exaggerated talk
+going on here. But one thing is quite certain. These exhibitions,
+supposing they really take place, have never been known to occur until
+after midnight--with the lamentable exception of yesterday afternoon,
+when it was even darker than midnight. If your decent folks are so
+squeamish, what are they doing in the streets at that unearthly hour? I
+am asleep them, as they ought to be. This may account for the fact that
+I have never seen the lady in a state of alcoholic exhilaration. But if
+I had the good luck to stumble upon her, I would certainly not be
+shocked."
+
+"And what, may I ask, would you do?"
+
+"My feelings towards the spectacle would depend upon the momentary
+state of my mind. I might, for example, be in a frolicsome Elizabethan
+mood. In that case I would appreciate the humour of the situation. If
+only half of what I hear is true, she must be extremely funny at such
+moments. I would probably laugh myself into an apoplexy. I wish the
+English still possessed a shred of the old sense of humour which
+Puritanism, and dyspepsia, and newspaper reading, and tea-drinking have
+nearly extinguished. It ought to be revived afresh. Nothing like a good
+drunkard for that purpose. As a laughter-provoking device it is cheaper
+and more effective than any pantomime yet invented; and none the worse,
+surely, for being a little old-fashioned?"
+
+"I must say, Mr. Keith, I don't think God created anybody to be laughed
+at."
+
+"Maybe he didn't. But a fellow can't help laughing, all the same. On
+the other hand, I might be in that interfering humanitarian mood which
+is liable to beset even the wisest of us. I would then be tempted to
+lead her homeward gently but firmly, simulating intoxication, if I
+could bring myself to do it--pretending, you understand, to be in the
+same state as herself, if I could manage it with any prospect of
+success--in order to make her feel thoroughly at ease. I should not
+dream of ruffling her state of mind by a single word f reproach; the
+private feelings and self-respect, even of a drunkard, should never be
+violated. Again, if I were in my ordinary reflective condition, I
+should doubtless stand aside and muse, as I have often mused, upon the
+folly of intemperance. Drunkenness--that shameful vice! How many
+estimable men and women have succumbed to it; men I have known, women I
+have loved and even respected! This makes me think that we ought to be
+grateful to have so glaring an example of insobriety before our eyes.
+We ought to regard Miss Wilberforce, if your account of her be true, as
+a Divine warning. Warnings are not sent for nothing. And you
+gentlemen--you propose to hide away this heaven-sent warning in a
+sanatorium. That strikes me as flying in the face of Providence."
+
+"Our project would at least secure her from the risk of being run over
+by some vehicle."
+
+"Pray, why should the dear lady not choose to be run over? Surely she
+can please herself? It would be an appropriate ending to a brief and
+merry career. It would be more than this. We spoke, just now, of her
+example as a deterrent to others. Well, this example, so far as we
+spectators are concerned, would lose its point and pungency if she died
+as you propose--a half-reclaimed inebriate in some home. She must be run
+over, or otherwise violently destroyed, if we are to have the full
+benefit of the example. It is only then that we shall be able to say to
+ourselves: Ah, we always thought it was risky to drink strong waters,
+but NOW WE KNOW."
+
+"A fatal accident of this kind, quite apart from other considerations,
+would involve her relatives in all kinds of trouble with the legal
+authorities of this country."
+
+"I am glad you mentioned the legal aspects of the case; I had nearly
+forgotten them. They are most important. In electing to be crushed
+under a vehicle she acts on her own initiative. What you propose is
+nothing less than a curtailment of her liberty of action. How do you
+think the local authorities would envisage such an arbitrary step? I
+imagine it may cost you dear to arrogate to yourselves a power which,
+in this country at least, is vested in the proper authorities. You may
+well find yourselves in collision with the penal code of Italy which
+has been framed, and is now administered, by men of uncommonly wide
+views--men who reverence personal freedom above gold and rubies. I
+should not be surprised if our magistrate in Nepenthe were to take, on
+legal grounds, the same view of the case as I hold on purely moral
+ones, namely, that your action towards Miss Wilberforce would amount to
+an unwarranted persecution. He would regard it, very likely, as the
+unjustifiable incarceration of a perfectly harmless individual. Signor
+Malipizzo, I may say, has pronounced views as to his duties towards
+society."
+
+This was too much for one of the respectable members of the deputation.
+He asked:
+
+"Are you referring to that blackguard, that pestilential hog, who calls
+himself a judge?"
+
+"Perhaps you do not know him as well as I do. I wish you knew him
+better. I wish you knew him as well as I do! He is worth knowing. Let
+me tell you something about him--something new and characteristic. Like
+many natives, he is scrupulously fair minded and honest. Now I can get
+on, at a pinch, even with an upright man. That is because I always try
+to discover the good side of my fellow-creatures. But other people
+cannot. Accordingly, being an incorruptible magistrate, he is liable to
+encounter hostility among a certain disreputable section of the
+populace. His conscientious methods expose him to the accusation of
+harsh dealing. This has happened more than once. It happened only two
+days ago, when he sentenced to prison a batch of Russian lunatics who
+were responsible, among other damage, for the death of three innocent
+school-children. I commend his action. He erred, if at all, on the side
+of leniency; for we really cannot have a pack of raving wolves at large
+here. It is different in Russia. You can go mad there--indeed that
+country, with its vast plains and trackless forests, seems to have been
+especially created for the purpose of running amok. But this island is
+really too small; there are so many glass windows and babies
+about--don't you think so, gentlemen?"
+
+"Nepenthe is certainly a small place, Mr. Keith."
+
+"Note, now, how differently he treats Miss Wilberforce, who not only
+never killed three school-children but has never, to the best of my
+knowledge, injured a living creature. I am informed on good authority
+that, after spending a tumultuous night in gaol, she has already
+regained her liberty. And this, if I am not mistaken, is the second or
+third occasion at least on which our judge has behaved in a similar
+manner towards her. Once more I commend his action. Why has Signor
+Malipizzo set the lady free? Because, unlike a modern philanthropist,
+he is aware of the wider issues involved; he acts not with the severity
+of a fanatic, but with the understanding, the tolerance, the mellow
+sympathy of a man of the world. I said that everyone on Nepenthe
+treated Miss Wilberforce as a pariah. That was a mistake. I ought to
+have allowed for one exception--our admirable judge! It strikes me as
+significant that an official who is bound to her by no ties of
+blood-relationship or nationality and who enjoys, moreover, a
+reputation--however undeserved--for harshness, should be the one person
+on Nepenthe to stretch a point in her favour; the one person who
+extends to her the hand of friendship, whose heart goes out in sympathy
+with her sad case. Significant, and not altogether creditable to us,
+her compatriots. Now who, I wonder, is the friend of man, the modern
+Prometheus; you who incarcerate her, or this alien lawyer who sets her
+free? To be perfectly frank, I find your attitude contrasts
+unfavourably with his own. You are the rigorists, the harsh ones. He is
+the humanitarian. Yes, gentlemen! In my humble opinion there is not a
+shadow of a doubt about it. Signor Malipizzo is the true
+philanthropist...."
+
+The deputation, wending to the market-place rather hurriedly in order
+to take their places in the funeral cortege, said to themselves:
+
+"We ought to have waited."
+
+Thinking it over as they marched along, the respectable members came to
+the conclusion that the others, the Hopkins section, were really to
+blame for the discomfiture of the expedition. It was they who had
+insisted with specious arguments upon an interview at this unseasonable
+hour of the morning; as for themselves, they would gladly have waited
+for a more suitable occasion. In undertones, low but venomous, they
+commented upon the undue haste of Mr. Hopkins and its probable motives.
+Later on they understood everything. Then they called him a thief and a
+rogue, loudly--but not to his face.
+
+Which shows yet again how inadequately causes and effects are
+appreciated here on earth. The dubious Mr. Hopkins may well have been
+moved by mercenary considerations. But this fact had nothing to do with
+the unsatisfactory issue of the affair. In other words, even as the
+Saint, in the matter of that volcanic eruption, had previously gotten
+the praise for what was not his merit, so now this sinner was blamed
+for what was not his fault. Had the sub-committee waited till the crack
+of doom, it would have made no difference whatever to the general trend
+of Mr. Keith's sententious irrelevancies.
+
+Perhaps, if they had caught him in a better humour, he might have had
+the decency to invite them to luncheon after the funeral.
+
+Even this was problematical.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+
+
+
+The funeral was a roaring success. The display of ecclesiastics and
+choristers was unusually fine. Torquemada had seen to that part of the
+business. It was his duty henceforward to cherish the bereaved
+representative of Nicaragua--a possible convert, at his hand, to the
+true faith. The Clubmen, headed by the excellent Mr. Richards, wore
+their gravest faces. Furthermore, in view of the lady's quasi-official
+position, the authorities of the island were present in full numbers;
+the Militia, too, looked superb in their picturesque uniforms. And so
+large was the unofficial attendance, so deafening the music, so
+brilliant the sunshine, so perfect the general arrangements that even
+the deceased, captious as she was, could hardly (under other
+circumstances) have avoided expressing her approval of the performance.
+
+There was an adequate display of fictitious grief among her social
+equals. Madame Steynlin, in particular, carried it off--to outward
+appearances--with remarkable success. She looked really quite upset, and
+her hat, as usual, attracted the attention of all the ladies. Madame
+Steynlin's hats were proverbial. She was always appearing in new ones
+of the most costly varieties. And never, by any chance, did they accord
+with her uncommon and rather ripe style of beauty. Madame Steynlin was
+too romantic to dress well. She trimmed her heart, and not her
+garments. A tidy little income, however, enabled her to eke out lack of
+taste by recklessness of expenditure. This particular hat, it was
+observed, must have cost a fortune. And yet it was a perfect fright; it
+made her look fifteen years older, to the delight of all the other
+women.
+
+What cared Madame Steynlin about hats? Her distressful appearance was
+not feigned; she was truly upset, though not about the death of the
+Commissioner's lady. With an effort whose violence nobody but herself
+could appreciate she had managed to extricate herself from the
+lion--like embraces of Peter the Great--to what purpose? To perform an
+odious social duty; to waste a fair morning in simulating grief for the
+death of a woman whom she loathed like poison. Nobody would ever
+understand what a trial in altruism had been. Nobody, in fact, ever
+gave her credit for a grain of self-abnegation. And yet she was always
+trying to please people--denying herself this and that. How harshly the
+world judged!
+
+She was also troubled in mind, though in a lesser degree, about the
+fate of the remainder of the Russian colony. Were they not all her
+brothers and sisters--these laughing, round-cheeked primitives? The
+magistrate, that caricature of a man, that vindictive and corrupt
+atheist, that tiger in human form, was doubtless thirsting for the
+blood of those still at liberty on Nepenthe. How much longer would
+Peter escape his malice? The dear boy! Her lambkin, her little soul--she
+had learnt to babble a few words of Russian--her play for, harmless,
+ever-hungry Peter! On this lovely island, where all men should be at
+peace--how harshly they dealt with one another!
+
+The rest of the foreign colony, undisturbed by such bitter personal
+reflections, appeared to bear the loss of the lady with praiseworthy
+equanimity. They were, in truth, considerably relieved in mind. Death
+is the great equalizer. In his pale presence they forgot their old
+squabbles and jealousies; they forgot their numberless and legitimate
+complaints against this woman. All honoured the defunct who had now
+lost, presumably for ever, the capacity of mischief-making.
+
+There was undisguised sorrow among the trades-people and Residency
+servants. They flocked to the procession in crowds, desiring by this
+last mark of respect to attract the benevolent notice of the
+Commissioner and to be remembered in the event of some future
+settling-up of accounts. To their tear-stained eyes, it looked as if
+this happy event were receding further and further away into the dim
+distance. Hoping against hope, they mourned sincerely. And none wept
+more convincingly that the little maid Enrichetta, an orphan of tender
+years whom the lady had taken into her service as an act of charity and
+forthwith set to work like a galley-slave. The child was convulsed with
+sobs. She foresaw, with the intuition of despair, that instead of being
+paid her miserable wages for the last five months she would have to
+content herself with a couple of her deceased mistress's skirts,
+thirty-eight inches too wide round the waist.
+
+There were wreaths--abundance of wreaths. Noticeable among them was an
+enormous floral tribute from the owner of the FLUTTERBY. It attracted
+the most favourable comment. People said that nobody but a
+multi-multi-multi-millionaire could afford to forgive an affront like
+that affair of the CREPE DE CHINE. As a matter of fact, old Koppen
+would have been the last person on earth to forgive an injury of this
+particular kind. He was a good American; he never permitted loose talk
+about women, least of all if they were in any way connected with
+himself; he would get purple in the face, he would ramp and rage and
+hop about like a veritable Sioux, in the face of any suggestion of
+improprieties on board his yacht. No, Cornelius van Koppen had acted in
+all innocence, from natural kindliness of heart. The legend had never
+reached his hears, nobody (for a wonder) having dared to mention it to
+him.
+
+Another wreath, from Count Caloveglia--an uncommonly pretty one, with a
+simple but heartfelt inscription--created legitimate surprise. Those
+white camellias, people reckoned, could not have cost less than twenty
+francs, and everybody knew that the dear old boy was as poor as a
+church mouse and that, moreover, he had enjoyed nothing but a bowing
+acquaintance with the deceased lady. He had indeed only spoken to her
+once in his life. But her face--her face had left an indelible
+impression on his sensitive and artistic mind.
+
+There was something Greek about Count Caloveglia. His pedigree,
+uncontaminated by Moor or Spaniard, went back to hoariest antiquity.
+Many people said he was a reincarnation of old Hellas. Elbowing his way
+through crowded cities or chatting with sunburnt peasant-lads among the
+vineyards, he received thrills of pleasurable inspiration--thrills to
+which grosser natures are inaccessible. He loved to watch the bodily
+movements of his fellow-creatures and all the eloquent gestures of
+Southern life--the lingering smile, the sullen stare of anger, the firm
+or flaccid step. Within this world of humdrum happenings he created a
+world of his own, a sculptor's paradise. Colour said little to him. He
+was enamoured of form, the lively passion of the flesh, the tremulous
+play of nerve and muscle. A connoisseur of pose and expression, he
+looked at mankind from the plastic point of view, peering through
+accidentals into what was spiritual, pre-ordained, inevitable; striving
+to interpret--to waylay and hold fast--that divinity, fair or foul, which
+resides within one and all of us. How would this one look, divested of
+ephemeral appurtenances and standing there, in bronze or marble; what
+were the essential qualities of those features--their aesthetic mission
+to men like himself; to what type or relic of the classic age might
+they be assimilated? He was for ever disentangling the eternal from
+mundane accessories. And there was an element of the eternal, he used
+to declare, in every creature of earth.
+
+His was an enviable life. He dwelt among masterpieces. They were his
+beacons, his comrades, his realities. As for other things--the social
+accidents of time and place, his cares and his poverty--he wore them
+lightly; they sat upon his shoulders with easy grace, like his own
+threadbare coat. When he walked among men he could not help contriving
+imaginary statuary in his head, historical portraits or legendary
+groups; the faces and attitudes of those he encountered--each one found
+a place in the teeming realm of his creative phantasy, each one
+beckoned to him, from afar, as a joyous and necessary revelation.
+
+An enviable life; and never more enviable than on the occasion when he
+was introduced, at some absurd tea-party to the lady known as the
+Commissioner's stepsister. The face! It took possession of him. It
+haunted his artistic dreamings from the same day onwards. He had always
+cherished ambitious designs--none more ambitious than a certain piece of
+work conceived in the bold Pergamese manner, a noble cluster of women
+to be entitled "The Eumenides." ... Her face! That wonderful face
+proclaimed itself the keynote of the group. If he lived a thousand
+years he would never behold its like again. What would he not have
+given to model the lady, then and there!
+
+But modeling was out of the question for the present. It must never be
+known that he was still capable of such an effort; it might spoil all
+his chances for the business in hand. He must continue to pose as
+heretofore for a harmless antiquarian, a dreamer. Nobody, save old
+Andrea the servant, must know the secret of his life. Yet he was not
+without hopes of being able to reveal himself ere long in his true
+character of creator. The day was perhaps not far distant when a
+pecuniary transaction between himself and his respected American
+friend, Mr. van Koppen, would ease the burdensome poverty of his life.
+Then--then he would return to the gold projects of his youth; to the
+"Eumenides," first of all. Light-hearted with bright expectancy, he saw
+the financial deal well-nigh concluded; the cheque might be in his
+pocket within a week; and now already he saw himself, in imagination,
+donning his faded frock-coat and wending his way down to the Residency
+to lay the foundations of his heart's desire. He would broach the
+subject with that insinuating Southern graciousness which was part and
+parcel of his nature; the lady's vanity could be trusted to do the
+rest. He knew of old that no woman, however chaste and winsome, can
+resist the temptation of sitting as model to a genuine Count--and such a
+handsome old Count, into the bargain.
+
+And now suddenly she had died--died, it might be, only a few days too
+soon. That face, that peerless face, was lost for ever to the world of
+art--his ideal snatched away by the relentless hand of fate. He mourned
+as only a sculptor can mourn. Thus it came about that something
+stronger than himself impelled him to manifest his grief. Despite
+Andrea's respectful but insistent remonstrances as to the appalling
+outlay, the wreath of camellias was ordered and dispatched. An artist's
+tribute....
+
+It created both surprise and a most excellent impression. What a
+gentleman he was! Always doing the right thing. How splendid of him. So
+they reasoned, though the wiser ones added that if he had known the
+deceased lady a little better he might have hit upon a more sensible
+way of spending his money.
+
+The fact that there was a good deal of social gossip like this, that
+appointments for picnics and other functions were being made, would go
+alone to prove the advantages of a funeral of this kind, quite apart
+from the universal relief experienced when the coffin was lowered into
+the earth, and bystanders realized that the lady was at last definitely
+transferred into Abraham's bosom.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+
+
+
+All Nepenthe had stood by the side of the grave--all, save only Mr.
+Keith. He remained at home. And this was rather odd, for it is the
+right thing to attend people's funerals, and Mr. Keith prided himself
+upon always doing the right thing. It was his boast to pass for a
+typical Anglo-Saxon, the finest race on earth, when all is said and
+done; and he used to point out that you could not be a typical
+Anglo-Saxon unless you respected yourself, and you could not respect
+yourself unless you respected simultaneously your neighbours and their
+habits, however perverse they might sometimes appear. Now a funeral,
+being unavoidable, cannot by an prestidigitations of logic be called
+perverse. All the more reason for being present. But for a strange
+twist or kink in his nature, therefore, he would have been on the spot.
+He would have turned up in the market-place to the minute, since he
+prided himself likewise upon his love of punctuality, declaring that it
+was one of the many virtues he possessed in common with Her Majesty
+Queen Victoria.
+
+He disliked funerals. For all his open mind and open bowels, Mr. Keith
+displayed an unreasoning hatred of death and, what was still more
+remarkable, not the least shame in confessing it.
+
+"The next interment I purpose to attend," he would say, "will be my
+own. May if be far off! No; I don't care about funerals and the
+suggestion they convey. A cowardly attitude? I think not. The coward
+refuses to face a fact. Death is a fact. I have often faced him. He is
+not a pretty fellow. Most men only give him a shy glance out of a
+corner of their eye. It scares them out of their wits and makes them
+say all sorts of snobbishly respectful things about him. Sheer
+flummery! It is with Death as it is with God--we call them good because
+we are afraid of what they can do to us. That accounts for our
+politeness. Death, universal and inevitable, is none the less a
+villainous institution. Every other antagonist can be ignored or bribed
+or circumvented or crushed outright. But here is a damnable spectre who
+knocks at the door and does not wait to hear you say, 'Come in.'
+Hateful! If other people think differently it is because they live
+differently. How do they live? Like a cow that has stumbled into a dark
+hole, and now spends its time wondering how it managed to get such a
+sore behind. Such persons may well be gladdened by the approach of
+death. It is the best thing they can do--to depart from world which they
+call a dark hole, a world which was obviously not made for them, seeing
+that they are always feeling uncomfortable about one thing or another.
+Good riddance to them and their moral stomach-aches."
+
+Mr. Keith professed never to feel uncomfortable. Oh, no! He had no
+moral stomach-aches. Unlike other folks, he "reacted to external
+stimuli in appropriate fashion," he cultivated the "function of the
+real," he always knew how to "dominate his reflexes." His neural
+currents were "duly co-ordinated." Mr. Keith was in love with life. It
+dealt fairly with him. It made him loth to bid farewell to this
+gracious earth and the blue sky overhead, to his cooks and his books,
+his gardeners and roses and flaming cannas; loth to exchange these
+things of love, these tangible delights, for a hideous and everlasting
+annihilation.
+
+That was why, having got rid of the committee of exasperating buffoons,
+he was now prolonging breakfast far beyond the usual hour. The meal was
+over at last; and still he felt disinclined to move. Those people had
+disquieted his composure with their mephitic rant about philanthropy;
+they had almost succeeded in spoiling his morning. And now this
+funeral! Would he go into the house and do some reading or write a few
+letters? No. He could not write letters just them. He was not feeling
+sufficiently Rabelaisian. Epicurus was his God for the moment. In a
+mood of heathen wistfulness he lit a cigar and leaned back in the chair
+trying to recapture his serenity.
+
+It was his favourite corner of the domain--a kind of projecting spur or
+platform shaded by a few grandiose umbrella pines. Near at hand, on a
+slightly lower level, rose a group of flame--like cypresses whose
+shapely outlines stood out against the sea, shining far below like a
+lake of pearl. The milky sheen of morning, soon to be dispelled by the
+breeze, still hung about the water and distant continent--it trembled
+upon the horizon in bands of translucent opal. His eye roved round the
+undulating garden, full of sunlight and flowers and buzzing insects.
+From a verbena hard by came the liquid song of a blackcap. It gave him
+pleasure; he encouraged the blackcaps, delighting in their music and
+because they destroyed the spiders whose troublesome webs were apt to
+come in contact with his spectacles. The gardeners had severest
+instructions not to approach their nests. It was one of the minor
+griefs of his life that, being so short-sighted, he could never
+discover a bird's nest; no, not even as a child. Memories of boyhood
+began to flit through his mind; they curled upwards in the scented
+wreaths of his Havana....
+
+The golden oriole's flute-like whistle poured down from some leafy
+summit in a sudden stream of melody. A hurried note, he thought;
+expressed without much feeling--from duty rather than inclination; not
+like the full-throated ease of other orioles in other lands he knew.
+And so were the nightingales. They profited by his hospitality for a
+day or two and then, uttering a perfunctory little tune, some
+breathless and insincere word of thanks--just like any human
+visitor--betook themselves elsewhere, northwards.
+
+Northwards!
+
+He glanced into the mazy foliage of the pine tree overhead, out of
+which a shower of aromatic fragrance was descending to mingle with the
+harsher perfume of the cypress. How they changed their faces, the
+conifers--so fervent and friendly at this hour, so forbidding at
+nighttime! Rifts of blue sky now gleamed through its network of
+branches; drenched in the sunny rays, the tree seemed to shudder and
+crackle with warmth. He listened. There was silence among those
+coralline articulations. Soon it would be broken. Soon the cicada would
+strike up its note in the labyrinth of needles--annual signal for his
+own departure from Nepenthe. He always waited for the first cicada.
+
+Northwards!
+
+To his little place in the Highlands, at first. The meager soil and
+parsimonious culture, the reasonable discourse of the people, their
+wholesome disputatiousness, acted as a kind of purge or tonic after all
+this Southern exuberance. Scotland chastened him; its rocks and tawny
+glinting waters and bleak purple uplands rectified his perspective. He
+called to mind the sensuous melancholy of the birches, the foxgloves,
+the hedgerows smothered in dog-roses; he remembered the nights, full of
+fairy-like suggestion and odours of earth and budding leaves--those
+wonderful nights with their silvery radiance, calm and benignant,
+streaming upwards form the luminous North.
+
+Then, after strolling aimlessly elsewhere, on sea or land, visiting
+friends--no matter whom or where--he would return to Nepenthe to indulge
+his genius to the full in the vintage bacchanals. He owned a small
+plantation that lay high up, among the easterly cliffs of the island.
+It produced that mountain wine which was held to be the best on
+Nepenthe. The vines grew upon a natural platform, surrounded by rugged
+lava crags that overhung the sea.
+
+Hither he was wont to repair with certain of his domestic staff and
+three or four friends from out of his "inner circle," to superintend
+the pressing of the grapes. There was a rude structure of masonry on
+the spot--a vaulted chamber containing winepress and vats and hoes and
+other implements of the husbandman's time-honoured craft; a few chairs
+and a table completed the furniture. Nobody knew exactly what happened
+up here. People talked of wild and shameless carousals; the rocks were
+said to resound with ribald laughter while Mr. Keith, oozing paganism
+at every pore, danced faun-like measures to the sound of rustic flutes.
+Certain it was that the party often got riotously tipsy.
+
+So tipsy that sometimes their host was unable to be moved down to his
+villa. On such days he was put to bed on the floor between two wine
+barrels, and the chef hastily advised to come up with some food and a
+portable kitchen range. In earliest morning he would insist upon
+tottering forth to watch the sun as it rose behind the peaks of the
+distant mainland, flooding the sea with golden radiance and causing the
+precipices to glitter like burnished bronze. He loved the sunrise--he
+saw it so seldom. Then breakfast; a rather simple breakfast by way of a
+change. It was on one of these occasions that the chef made a mistake
+which his master was slow to forgive. He prepared for that critical
+meal a dish of poached eggs, the sight of which threw Mr. Keith into an
+incomprehensible fit of rage.
+
+"Take those damned things away, quickly!" he commanded. It was the
+celebrated artist's one and only LACHE.
+
+As a rule, however, he did not sleep on the spot. Peasants, climbing to
+their work on the hillsides in the twilit hour of dawn, were wont to
+encounter that staggering procession headed by Mr. Keith who, with
+spectacles all awry and crooning softly to himself, was carried round
+the more perilous turnings by a contingent of his devoted retainers.
+
+He found it pleasant to live like this. And now another spring was
+nearing to its end. For how many more years, he wondered.... That
+confounded funeral....
+
+There was a rustle at his back. The southerly breeze had struck
+Nepenthe on its morning ripple over the Tyrrhenian, setting things
+astir; it searched a passage through those mighty canes which sprouted
+in a dank hollow where the rains of winter commingled their waters. The
+leaves grew vocal with a sound like the splash of a rivulet. Often had
+he listened joyfully to that melody which compensated, to some small
+degree, for the lack of the old Duke's twenty-four fountains. Legendary
+music! Now it made him sad. What was its burden? MIDAS HAD ASSES' EARS.
+Midas, the fabled king, whose touch turned everything to gold. And
+gold, and jewels--of what avail were these against the spectre?
+
+The gardeners, moving with bare feet among the sinuous paths, were
+quick to perceive that a cloud had fallen upon his spirit. They divined
+his moods with the tactfulness of natural sympathy. On some
+horticultural pretext one of them drew near and craftily engaged his
+thoughts and conversation. At last he said something that made him
+smile. One or two more appeared upon the scene, as if by accident. It
+was evident that the master needed cheering up. They began to tell him
+the fairy-tales he loved; tales of robbers and witches and
+pirates--grand old tales that never wearied him. To arouse his interest
+they joked among themselves, as though unaware of his existence. One of
+them, and then another, sang some wild song of love and war which he
+had picked up while wandering with his flocks among the craggy hills of
+yonder mainland. He was laughing now; outdoing their songs and stories.
+It kept him young--to unbend, to play the fool in company such as theirs
+and relax the fibres stiffened by conventionality; it refreshed him to
+exchange the ephemeral for the eternal, the tomfoolery of social life
+for Theocritus and his deathless creatures. How fair it was, this
+smiling earth! How blithely the young voices went aloft!
+
+They failed to drown those other strains, vagrant wraiths that now
+floated upwards over fields and houses on the tepid wings of the
+sirocco--fragmentary snatches, torn from the brazen measure of the
+municipal band as it marched with the funeral procession. He cursed the
+sounds from the bottom of his heart. They reminded him of that infamous
+apparition, of all he most ardently desired to forget. His laughter
+died down. Wanly he looked at his mirthful pagans, the embodiment of
+joys. Yes; these were his distractions, his playmates, his elixir of
+life, his antidote against the only disease, the only sin, crime, vice
+which he recognized on earth--a vice none the less, because it happened
+to be the inevitable--the vice of old age. And all the time that pallid
+swarm came crowding on: messengers from the inexorable spectre. He felt
+them creeping about with ghostly tread, blighting the radiance of his
+life, tainting the very air he breathed. Hateful intruders! They wailed
+among his lilies. The garden was full of their horrid footsteps.
+
+In their presence Mr. Keith began to experience an uncomfortable
+sensation, a kind of chill--as though something evil had stepped between
+himself and the brave light of the sun. It was a fleeting feeling which
+he would have diagnosed, in other people, as perilously akin to a moral
+stomach-ache.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+
+
+
+Only one other person on Nepenthe found cause to complain of the
+municipal music. It was Mr. Heard. Altogether, he was not greatly
+edified by this, the first funeral of its kind he had ever witnessed. A
+rowdy-dowdy business, he called it. The music was too lively and
+blatant for so solemn an occasion; the gorgeous vestments of the
+clergy, the loud chattering among the mourners, the violent gestures
+that accompanied Torquemada's well-meant and carefully prepared oration
+(Don Francesco, a born speaker, would have done it better, but the
+defunct was no friend or even client of his)--all these things savoured
+slightly of irreverence. Everyone was talking and laughing as they
+marched along. It was more like a polonaise than a funeral. In his
+African period the sight of such a burial would have affected him
+unpleasantly. But Mr. Heard was changing, widening out.
+
+"These people live gaily," he said to himself. "Why not? A funeral is
+supposed to be nothing but a friendly leave-taking. Why not be cheerful
+about it? We are all going to see each other again, sometime,
+somewhere. I suppose...."
+
+The problem gave him no trouble whatever.
+
+He found himself walking side by side with Mr. Eames who ventured to
+remark, in a seemly whisper, that he attended the funeral not so much
+out of respect for the lamented lady--every cloud, he fancied, had a
+silver lining--as because he hoped to gather, from among so
+representative a concourse of natives and foreigners, the "popular
+impression" of yesterday's eruption, with a view to utilizing it in
+this appendix on RECENT VOLCANIC PHENOMENA OF NEPENTHE.
+
+"Really?" replied the bishop. "A chapter on Volcanic Phenomena? It is
+sure to be interesting."
+
+Mr. Eames warmed to his subject.
+
+It might be made interesting, he agreed, but for his own ignorance of
+geology. As it was the business gave him a vast deal of trouble.
+Monsignor Perrelli had dealt with geological matters in a fashion far
+too summary for present-day requirements. The old scholar was not to
+blame, of course, seeing that geology was quite a modern science; but
+he might at least have been a little more painstaking in his record of
+those showers of ashes and lapilli which were known to have covered the
+island from time to time. His account of them was lamentably defective.
+It was literally bristling with--with--with lacunae, which had to be
+filled up by means of laborious references to contemporary chronicles.
+Altogether one of the most unsatisfactory sections of an otherwise
+admirable work....
+
+"I wish I could help you," said Mr. Heard.
+
+"I wish you could. I wish anyone could. There was that young Jew,
+Marten, who understood more about these things than most people. A
+coarse little fellow, but quite a specialist. He promised to supply me
+with an up-to-date statement, accompanied by a map of the geological
+structure of the island. I said to myself: Just what I wanted! Well,
+this confounded statement has never reached my hands. Now I fear he has
+left the place. Gone away altogether. Didn't have the decency to say
+good-bye or leave his address. Too bad. Who knows when the next
+mineralogist will turn up? These fellows are not as common as
+blackbirds. Meanwhile I have to rely on my own efforts. It's wonderful,
+by the way, how much a person can pick up of odds and ends of
+information when forced, by a hobby of this kind, to delve into
+recondite departments of knowledge which he would otherwise not have
+dreamt of exploring. One grows quite encyclopaedic! Minerals, medicine,
+strategy, heraldry, navigation, palaeography, statistics, politics,
+botany--what did I know or care about all these things before I stumbled
+on old Perrelli? Have you ever tried to annotate a classic, Mr. Heard?
+I assure you it opens up new vistas, new realms of delight. It gives
+one a genuine zest in life. Enthralling!"
+
+And thereupon the bibliographer fell silent, all at once. He had
+succumbed, yet again, to his besetting sin: talking too
+enthusiastically to outsiders of what was nearest his heart. Why on
+earth should a globe-trotting bishop be bothered about the mineralogy
+of Nepenthe? It was absurd: tactless of him.
+
+He tried to atone for the blunder by some mundane trivialities.
+
+"What are you doing afterwards?"
+
+"Going up to see Mrs. Meadows."
+
+"Are you? Do remember me very kindly! Or perhaps--no. Better not. Fact
+is, she cut me dead two days ago. At least, it looked uncommonly like
+it. I confess I was rather upset, because I'm not conscious of having
+done anything to annoy her. Indeed, I've always felt a kind of weakness
+for Mrs. Meadows; there is something so fine and womanly about her.
+Will you try to find out what it's all about? Thanks. Perhaps she may
+not have noticed me. She was walking very fast. And I must say she was
+not looking herself at all. Not at all. White and scared. Looked as if
+she had seen a ghost."
+
+The bishop was troubled by these words.
+
+"Is that so?" he asked. "You alarm me. I think I'll be off this minute.
+She is my cousin, you know; and I've been rather concerned about her
+lately. Yes; I won't wait for the end of this funeral; I'll be off!
+Perhaps we shall meet this evening. Then I can tell you her news. As to
+deliberately cutting you--don't you believe that for a minute."
+
+"I shall be down here about seven o'clock...."
+
+"People like her," thought Mr. Heard, as he fell out of the procession.
+He would make a point of having a good long chat, and perhaps stay to
+luncheon.
+
+He dreaded the coming heat of midday. It was quite warm enough already,
+as he climbed slowly upward by the short cuts that intersected the
+driving road, availing himself of every little patch of shade that fell
+from trees or cottages athwart the pathway.
+
+The country seemed deserted, the funeral ceremony having attracted all
+the natives from far and near. Yet one figure was moving rapidly up the
+road in front of him. Muhlen! Even at this distance he was
+recognizable; he looked, as usual, overdressed. What was he doing
+there, at this hour? Mr. Heard remembered seeing him go up, once
+before, at the same time of the day.
+
+He called to mind what he had heard from Keith in the boat. He was
+quite prepared to believe that this man lived on blackmail and women;
+that was precisely what he looked like. A villainous personality,
+masquerading under an assumed name. The sight of the fellow annoyed
+him. What business had he to transact up there? Retlow! Once more he
+began to puzzle where he had heard that name. It conjured up, dimly,
+some unpleasant connotation. Where? Long ago; so much was clear. For a
+brief moment he felt on the verge of remembering. Then his mind became
+blank as before; the revelation had slipped away, past recall.
+
+He was glad to enter the shady garden of the villa Mon Repos. Old
+Caterina sat, sphinx-like, on the stones at the house entrance. There
+was some knitting-work on her lap, with brown wool and curiously shaped
+needles; one foot rested on the base of the cradle, which she rocked
+from time to time. At his approach she rose up, stark and hieratic,
+without a trace of a friendly smile on her countenance. Was the lady
+indoors? No, she was out. Out! Where? There was a definite but
+enigmatical movement of her withered brown arm; it appeared to embrace
+the universe. And when would she be back? No reply whatever. Only a
+slight upward movement of the eyes, as much as to say: God knows!
+
+"I'll wait," thought Mr. Heard.
+
+He walked past the forbidding hag who seemed to exhale a positive
+hostility towards him, and entered his cousin's sitting-room. He would
+wait. He waited. He glanced through a pile of illustrated newspapers
+that lay about. And still he waited. The room looked different somehow;
+almost untidy. There were no rouses about. An hour passed. And still no
+sign of his cousin.
+
+Out. Always out. What could this mean? Where could she be? It was all
+rather mysterious and unsatisfactory.
+
+At last he took out his watch. Ten minutes to one! No use waiting any
+longer. He scribbled a hasty note, left it on the writing-table, and
+walked into the garden past the impenetrable Caterina, who barely
+deigned to glance up from her knitting. He would look for a carriage,
+and give himself the luxury of a drive down. It was too hot to walk at
+that hour.
+
+Strolling along he espied a familiar courtyard that gave upon the
+street; Count Caloveglia's place. On an impulse he entered the massive
+portal which stood invitingly ajar. Two elderly gentlemen sat
+discoursing in the shade of the fig tree; there was no difficulty in
+recognizing the stranger as Mr. van Koppen, the American millionaire, a
+frequent visitor, they said, of Count Caloveglia.
+
+A bronze statuette, green with age, stood on a pedestal before them.
+
+"How kind of you to come and see me!" said the Italian. "Pray make
+yourself as comfortable as you can, though these chairs, I fear, are
+not of the latest design. You are going to do me the honour, are you
+not, of sharing my simple luncheon? Mr. van Koppen is staying too."
+
+"Very good of you!"
+
+"Delighted to make your acquaintance," said the millionaire. "Keith was
+talking about you only yesterday--such nice things! Do stay. Count
+Caloveglia has been touching on most interesting subjects--I would come
+from the other end of the world to listen to him."
+
+The Count, manifestly shy of these praises, interrupted by asking:
+
+"What do you think of that bronze, Mr. Heard?"
+
+It was an exquisite little thing.
+
+Perfect to the finger-tips and glowing in a lustrous patina of
+golden-green, the Locri Faun--so-called from the place of its
+discovery--was declared to be stamped with the hall-mark of individual
+distinction which the artificers of old Hellas contrived to impress
+upon every one of the rare surviving bronzes of its period. It was
+perhaps the finest of the whole group. No wonder the statue had created
+wild excitement among the few, the very few, discreet amateurs who had
+been permitted to inspect the relic prior to its clandestine departure
+from the country. And much as they might deplore the fact that it was
+probably going to adorn the museum of Mr. Cornelius van Koppen, an
+alien millionaire, not one of them found it in his heart to disapprove
+Count Caloveglia's action. For they all liked him. Every one liked him.
+They all understood his position. He was a necessitous widower with a
+marriageable daughter on his hands, a girl whom everybody admired for
+her beauty and charm of character.
+
+Mr. van Koppen, like all the rest, knew what hard times he had gone
+through; how, born of an ancient and wealthy family, he had not
+hesitated to sell his wonderful collection of antiques together with
+all but a shred of his ancestral estates, in order to redeem the
+gambling debts of a brother. That amounted to quixotism, they declared.
+They little realized what anguish of mind this step had cost him, for
+he concealed his true feelings under a cloak of playful worldliness.
+Excess of grief, he held, is an unlovely thing--not meet to be displayed
+before men. All excess is unlovely. That was Count Caloveglia's classic
+point of view. Measure! Measure in everything.
+
+People revered him, above all else, for his knowledge in matters of
+art. His connoisseurship was not one of mere learning; it was
+intuitional. Astonishing tales were told of him. By the sense of touch
+alone, and in the dark, he could appraise correctly any piece of
+plastic work you liked. He had a natural affinity with such things.
+They held it quite likely that the blood of Praxiteles or his compeers
+may still have flowed through his veins--certain at all events, that
+there hung about his person the traditions of the versatile colonists
+on the shores of Magna Graecia who, freed by legions of slaves from the
+trivial vexations which beset modern lives, were able to create in
+their golden leisure those monuments of beauty which are the envy and
+despair of our generation. On all that concerned the history and
+technique of ancient bronzes, more especially, he was FACILE PRINCEPS
+in the land, and it was hinted, after the sale of his property, that
+Count Caloveglia would not be low to retrieve the fortunes of his
+family by putting into exercise those talents for metal-working of
+which, as a gifted boy, he had already shown himself to be possessed.
+
+In this they were disappointed. He spoke of these things as "sins of
+his youth," professing an invincible distaste, in these later years,
+for the drudgery of work. He called himself an old dreamer. There was a
+shed, it is true, attached to the house, a shed which went by the name
+of a studio. All visitors were taken to see this atelier. It was
+smothered in dust and cobwebs. Clearly, as the Count himself would
+explain with a honeyed smile, it had not been in use for twenty years
+or more.
+
+Mr. van Koppen knew all this.
+
+He knew about that strip of land which the old man had reserved for
+himself at the sale of his ancestral domain. It lay among the hills,
+some twenty or thirty miles above the classic site of Locri. On this
+spot, people were given to understand, fragments of old marbles and
+vases had been picked up by the peasantry within the last years. Things
+of small worth--pottery mostly; they lay about Count Caloveglia's
+Nepenthe courtyard and were given by him, as keepsakes, to any visitor
+who showed an interest in them. He attached no value to these trifles.
+
+"From my little place on the hills," he would say. "Pray take it as a
+memento of the pleasure which your visit has given me! Oh, it is quite
+a small property, you know; just a few acres, with a meager soil; in
+good years it produces a little oil and a barrel or two of wine. And
+that is all. I only kept back this morsel from the general ruin of my
+property--well, for sentimental reasons. One likes to feel that one is
+still tied--by a slender thread, it is true--to the land of one's
+ancestors. There is certainly no wealth to be obtained above ground.
+But it is quite possible that something might emerge from below, given
+the energy and the means to make systematic excavations. The whole
+country is so rich in remains of Hellenic life! The countrymen,
+ploughing my few fields, often stumble upon some odd trifle of this
+kind. There was that Demeter you may have heard about; sadly mutilated,
+alas!"
+
+Before the discovery of the Locri Faun on this site the only find of
+any value had been a battered head--a Demeter, presumably. It was sold
+to a Paris collection for a few thousand francs, and had thereafter
+attracted no further attention. It was not worth talking about.
+
+Now, when this dazzling Faun came to light and Mr. van Koppen announced
+his intention of purchasing the masterpiece for his collection, his
+art-expert, Sir Herbert Street--the eminent connoisseur whom he had
+filched form the South Kensington Museum with the bribe of a Cabinet
+Minister's salary--thought it his duty to compare the disfigured Demeter
+with this new and marvelous thing. Sir Herbert Street was an
+inordinately vain man, but conscientious at the same time and, in
+matters of art-criticism, sufficiently reliable. Not every art-expert
+would have done what he did. In the interests of his employer he took
+the trouble of journeying to Paris and carefully examining the poor
+Demeter fragment. Then, viewing the Locri Faun at Nepenthe in the
+presence of Count Caloveglia, he made rather a subtle remark.
+
+"Does it not strike you, Count, that there is a curious, an evasive
+kind of resemblance between this Faun and the Demeter?"
+
+The old man beamed with joy at these words.
+
+"My dear Sir Herbert, allow me to congratulate you on your keen
+artistic perception! I believe you are the only person, besides myself,
+who has hitherto been struck by those definite but undefinable traits
+of similarity. Mr. van Koppen may well be proud of your penetration--"
+
+"Thank you," said the other, immensely flattered. "That is what I am
+paid for, you know. But now, how do you account for the likeness?"
+
+"I will tell you my own hypothesis. I hold, to be brief, that they both
+came from the same workshop."
+
+"The same workshop! You amaze me."
+
+"Yes, or at all events from the same school of craftsmen, or some
+common fountain of inspiration. We know lamentably little of the art
+history of even a great center like Locri, but, judging by the hints of
+Pindar and Demosthenes, I think there may well have been--there must
+have been--consummate local masters, now forgotten, who propagated
+certain methods of work, certain fashions in form and feeling and
+treatment which ended, naturally enough, in a kind of fixed tradition.
+This would suffice to explain the resemblance which your sagacity has
+enabled you to detect between these two pieces. That is what I mean by
+saying that they came from the same workshop. What do you think of my
+theory?"
+
+"I think it accounts for the fact in a most satisfactory manner," the
+expert had replied, thoroughly convinced.
+
+Mr. van Koppen knew all this.
+
+But he only believed half of it....
+
+"You were saying, Count?"
+
+The Italian shifted his glance from the dainty outlines of the Locri
+Faun and smiled upon his interlocutor and then upon Mr. Heard, who had
+at last taken a seat, after walking approvingly round and round the
+statuette.
+
+"I was going to tell you of another point which occurred later on to
+Sir Herbert; a man, by the way, of unusual acumen. We agreed that Locri
+was the indubitable place of origin both of the Demeter and of the
+Faun. 'Well,' said he, 'granting this--how came they to be unearthed up
+in the hills, on your property, twenty-five miles away?' I confess I
+was at first nonplussed by this question. For, to the best of my
+knowledge, there are no indications of any large Hellenic settlement up
+there. But it struck me that there may well have been a villa or
+two--indeed, there must have been, to judge by the miscellaneous ancient
+material found on my little place. This is what makes me think that
+these two relics were deliberately carried there."
+
+"Carried?"
+
+"Carried. For although the summer season at Locri was undoubtedly more
+endurable then than it now is, yet the town must have been sufficiently
+hot in the dog-days; whereas my vineyard is situated among the cool
+uplands--"
+
+"A kind of climatic station, you mean?"
+
+"Precisely. Don't you think that richer people had domiciles in both
+places? The ancients, you know, were so sensitive in the matter of
+temperatures that in summer time they traveled only by night and some
+of their toughest generals had underground chambers built for them
+during their campaigns. I can imagine, for instance, some young and
+ardent lover of art, in the days when Pythagoras taught under those
+glittering colonnades of Croton, when the fleets of Metapontum swept
+the blue Ionian and Sybaris taught the world how to live a life of
+ease--I can almost see this youth," he pursued enthusiastically,
+"flitting from a hot palace on the plain towards those breezy heights
+and, inflamed with an all-absorbing passion for the beautiful, carrying
+up with him one or two, just one or two, of those beloved bronzes from
+which he could not, and would not, be parted--no, not even for a short
+summer month--to be a joy to his eyes and an inspiration to h is soul
+among the mountain solitudes. These men, I take it, had a sense in
+which we their descendants are wholly deficient--the sense of the
+solace, of the pleasurable companionship, to be derived from works of
+art. That sense has been destroyed. The Japanese alone, of all moderns,
+still foster an ingenuous affection which prompts them to cling closely
+to these things of beauty, to press them to their hearts as loving
+friends; the rest of us, surrounded by a world of sordid ugliness, have
+become positively afraid of their fair but reproachful shapes. Ah, Mr.
+van Koppen, that was the age of true refinement, the age of gold!
+Nowadays--nowadays we only carry our troubles about with us."
+
+The bishop was touched by these moving words.
+
+Mr. van Koppen, wearing a benevolent twinkle in his eye, said to
+himself:
+
+"What a lordly liar! Almost as good as myself."
+
+Luncheon was announced.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+
+
+
+"You are quite right," the Count was saying to Mr. Heard. "The ideal
+cuisine should display an individual character; it should offer a menu
+judiciously chosen from the kitchen-workshops of the most diverse lands
+and peoples-a menu reflecting the master's alert and fastidious taste.
+Is there anything better, for instance, than a genuine Turkish pilaf?
+The Poles and Spaniards, too, have some notable culinary creations. And
+if I were able to carry out my ideas on this point I would certainly
+add to my list of dishes a few of those strange Oriental confections
+which Mr. Keith has successfully taught his Italian chef. There is
+suggestion about them; they conjure up visions of that rich and glowing
+East which I would give many years of my remaining life to see."
+
+"Then why not do what I have proposed several times already?" queried
+the millionaire. "I am in the East every winter; we reckon this year to
+reach Bangkok the first fortnight in November. We can find room for you
+on board. We'll make room! Your company would give me more pleasure
+than I can say."
+
+Count Caloveglia was probably the only male person on earth to whom the
+owner of the FLUTTERBY would have extended such an invitation.
+
+"My dear friend!" replied the other. "I shall never be able to repay
+your kindness, as it is. Alas, it cannot be done, not now. And don't
+you think," he went on, reverting to his theme, "that we might revive a
+few of those forgotten recipes of the past? Not their over-spiced
+entremets, I mean--their gross joints and pasties, their swans and
+peacocks--but those which deal, for example, with the preparation of
+fresh-water fishes? A pike, to my way of thinking, is a coarse,
+mud-born creature. But if you will take the trouble, as I once did, to
+dress a pike according to the complicated instructions of some obsolete
+cookery-book, you will find him sufficiently palatable, by way of a
+change."
+
+"You would make an excellent chef!"
+
+"It is plain," added Mr. Heard, "that the Count does not disdain to
+practise his skill upon the most ancient and honourable of domestic
+arts."
+
+"Indeed I don't. I would cook CON AMORE if I had leisure and materials.
+All culinary tasks should be performed with reverential love, don't you
+think so? To say that a cook must possess the requisite outfit of
+culinary skill and temperament--that is hardly more than saying that a
+soldier must appear in uniform. You can have a bad soldier in uniform.
+The true cook must have not only those externals, but a large dose of
+general worldly experience. He is the perfect blend, the only perfect
+blend, of artist and philosopher. He knows his worth: he holds in his
+palm the happiness of mankind, the welfare of generations yet unborn.
+That is why you will never obtain adequate human nourishment from a
+young girl or boy. Such persons may do for housework, but not in the
+kitchen. Never in the kitchen! No one can aspire to be a philosopher
+who is in an incomplete state of physical development. The true cook
+must be mature; she must know the world form her social point of view,
+however humble it be; she must have pondered concerning good and evil,
+in however lowly and incongruous a fashion; she must have passed
+through the crucible of sin and suffering or, at the very least--it is
+often the same thing--of married life. Best of all, she should have a
+lover, a fierce and brutal lover who beats and caresses her in turns;
+for every woman worthy of the name is subject and entitled to
+fluctuating psychic needs--needs which must be satisfied to the very
+core, if the master is to enjoy sound, healthy fare."
+
+"We don't always allow them to fulfil that last condition," observed
+Mr. Heard.
+
+"I know we don't. That is precisely why we are so often poisoned or
+starved, instead of being cheered with wholesome food."
+
+"You were speaking of woman-cooks?" asked van Koppen.
+
+"I was. But it stands to reason that no woman can be trusted with so
+responsible a task--so sacred a mission, I ought to call it--in regions
+south of Bordeaux or east of Vienna. Among many other reasons the whole
+sex is too drowsy, outside that radius. And if she drinks a little--"
+
+"Drinks a little?"
+
+"If she drinks a little, why it is all to the good. It shows that she
+is fully equipped on the other side of her dual nature. It proves that
+she possesses the prime requisite of the artist; sensitiveness and a
+capacity for enthusiasm. Indeed, I often doubt whether you will ever
+derive well-flavoured victuals from the atelier of an individual who
+honestly despises or fears--it is the same thing--the choicest gift of
+God. Andrea, my man here, is abstemious to the last degree; not, I am
+glad to say, from conviction or ill-health--it is the same thing--but
+because he is incurably desirous of saving my money. What is the
+consequence? You can taste his self-imposed asceticism in the very
+ZABBAGLIONE, for which I must really apologize! It speaks to the eye,
+but not to the heart. Let us hope the coffee will be more harmonious."
+
+"Would you not include some of our American dishes in your bill of
+fare?"
+
+"To be sure I would; a fine selection. I have most pleasant
+recollections of the cuisine of Baltimore."
+
+"You can get all those things in New York."
+
+"No doubt; no doubt. But one thing invariably distresses me in
+transatlantic dinners: the unseemly haste in rising. One might really
+think the company were ashamed of so natural and jovial a function as
+that to which a dining-room is consecrated. And then, have you not
+noticed that, sitting at table, a certain intellectual tone, an
+atmosphere of a definite kind, is insensibly generated among the
+guests, whatever the subject of conversation may be? They are often
+quite unaware of its existence, but it hangs none the less about the
+room and binds the inmates together for the time being. Suddenly we are
+bidden to rise and betake ourselves elsewhere; to sit on other chairs
+in a different temperature among different surroundings. It is a
+wrench. That peculiar atmosphere is dissipated; the genius of the
+earlier moment driven out beyond recapture; we must adapt ourselves to
+other conditions and begin anew, often with a good deal of
+trouble--often, how often, against our inclination! I call that a
+perverse custom. Every state of the mind, whether we are in society or
+alone, should be pressed to the last drop, irrespective of whether we
+happen to have swallowed a final mouthful of food or not. When the
+conversation has died, as everything must die, from sheer inability to
+draw further breaths of life, then is the time to break up that old
+encircling dome of thought; to construct a fresh one, if need be, in a
+fresh environment."
+
+"I confess," said the American, "it has always struck me as rather
+barbarous--this running away. I like to linger. But the ladies don't.
+They know that their dresses show off better in a parlour than under a
+boards of a mahogany table; perhaps their conversation, too, sounds
+better among arm-chairs and rugs. So we run after then, as we generally
+do; instead of making them run after us" ("as I do," he added to
+himself). "But, Count! If you like our American dishes, why not get
+this man of yours to learn a few from the Duchess? I know she would
+gladly teach him; she is not jealous of her knowledge like a
+professional chef."
+
+"I would have asked her that favour long ago, if Andrea had been a born
+cook, like Keith's men. Unfortunately he is quite different. The
+philosopher is represented in his nature, but not the artist. He is
+only a devoted Arcadian, overflowing with good intentions."
+
+"And are they of no avail?" queried the bishop.
+
+"I have been told that, in art and literature, they will atone for
+deficiency of natural talent. It may be so; some persons, at least,
+have been able to cajole their brains into believing this. However that
+may be, I do not think the rule can be extended into the domain of
+cookery. Good intentions--no. Nobody need attempt such an imposture on
+his stomach, an upright and uncompromising organ, which refuses to
+listen to nonsense. Or let them try the experiment. Gastritis will be
+the result of good intentions...."
+
+Mr. Heard stretched out his legs. He was beginning to feel at ease. He
+like this comely old man; he detected an abiding quality in his outlook
+and person. And he felt at home in these surroundings. There was an air
+of simplicity and refinement in that calm ground-floor chamber, with
+its subdued light filtering through windows that opened upon the
+courtyard, groined vaulting of noble proportions, stucco frieze stained
+with age to an ivory hue, and those other decorations which the Count,
+loyal to the traditions of old-world peasant architecture, had piously
+left unaltered--or, it may be, adapted to modern needs by touches so
+deft as not to reveal his own consummate artistry. Through the open
+door by which they had entered came breathings of warm wind laden with
+the suave odour of a tuft of Madonna lilies that grew, half neglected,
+in a shady corner. He had noticed them on his entry--how they stood in
+proud clusters, bending forward with mighty effort to reach the light.
+
+His eye strayed into the courtyard and moved about the green penumbra
+created by the fig tree's massy foliage; it glanced over fragments of
+statuary half buried under a riot of leaves and nodding flowers, and
+rested with complaisance upon the brickwork flooring of herring-bone
+pattern, coloured in a warm, velvety Indian-red. It was worn down here
+and there by tread of feet, and pleasantly marked with patches of
+emerald-green moss and amber-tinted streaks of light that played about
+its surface wherever the sunbeams could pierce the dense leafage
+overhead.
+
+From where he sat he could see the Locri Faun on its pedestal. The
+figure was drowned in twilight. It seemed to slumber.
+
+Meanwhile Andrea, looking uncommonly ceremonious in white tie and white
+cotton globes, was handing round the coffee. It was pronounced an
+unqualified success. "Absolutely harmonious," declared the bishop, who
+had no hesitation, after a critical sip or two, in extending his
+approval to a curiously flavoured liqueur of unknown ingredients.
+
+"From my little property on the mainland," the Count explained. "If it
+were a clear day I would take you up to my roof and show you the very
+site, although it is leagues and leagues away. But the south wind
+always casts a haze over the mainland at this time of day--a kind of
+veil."
+
+Mr. van Koppen, connoisseur of cigars, opened his capacious case and
+offered its contents, without disclosing the fact that they were
+specially manufactured for him at a fabulous price.
+
+"You will find them smokable, I hope. As a matter of fact it's no use
+trying to keep a cigar in good condition on the yacht. And it must be
+the same on an island like this. So far as tobacco is concerned,
+Nepenthe can be nothing but a ship at anchor."
+
+"True," said the Count. "The moist sirocco is injurious to the finer
+growths."
+
+"This south wind!" exclaimed Mr. Heard. "This African pest! Is there no
+other wind hereabouts? Tell me, Count, does the sirocco always blow?"
+
+"So far as I have observed it blows constantly during the spring and
+summer. Hardly less constantly in autumn," he added. "And in winter,
+often for weeks on end."
+
+"Sounds promising," observed the bishop. "And has it no influence on
+the character?"
+
+"The native is accustomed, or resigned. Foreigners, sometimes, are
+tempted to strange actions under its influence."
+
+The American said:
+
+"You spoke of amalgamating our cuisine with yours, or vice versa. It
+can doubtless be done, to the profit of both parties. Why not go a step
+further? Why not amalgamate our respective civilizations?"
+
+"A pleasant dream, my friend, with which I have occasionally beguiled
+myself! Our contribution to human happiness, and that of America--are
+they not irreconcilable? What is yours? Comfort, time and labour saving
+contrivances; abundance; in a word, all that is summed up under the
+denomination of utility. Ours, let us say, is beauty. No doubt we could
+saturate ourselves with each other's ideals, to our mutual advantage.
+But it would never be an amalgam; the joints would show. It would be a
+successful graft, rather than a fusion of elements. No; I do not see
+how beauty and utility are ever to be syncretized into a homogeneous
+conception. They are too antagonistic to coalesce."
+
+"But there is abundant beauty and grandeur in modern American life,"
+said the millionaire, "quite apart, I mean, from that of the natural
+scenery. A fine steam-engine, for instance--I call that a beautiful
+thing, perfectly adapted to its end. Is its beauty really so
+antagonistic to that of your civilization?"
+
+"I know that some excellent persons have been writing lately about the
+beauty of a swift-gliding motor-car and things of that kind. They are
+right, in one sense of the word. For there is a beauty to mechanical
+fitness which no art can enhance. But it is not the beauty of which I
+spoke."
+
+"And therefore," observed the bishop, "we ought to have another word
+for it."
+
+"Precisely, my dear sir! We ought to have another word. All values are
+continually being revised, and tested anew. Are they not? We have been
+restating moral values within the last half-century; it is the same
+with artistic ones. New canons of taste, new standards, are continually
+being evolved; there is a general widening and multiplying of notions.
+This, I think, ought to make us careful as to the words we employ, and
+ready to coin new ones whenever a new idea is to be expressed. If we
+enlarge our concepts, we should likewise enlarge our vocabulary. When I
+spoke of beauty, I used the word in its narrow classical meaning, a
+meaning which may be out of fashion, but which has the great advantage
+that it happens to be irrevocably fixed and defined for us by what the
+ancients themselves have handed down in the way of art and criticism.
+This particular beauty, I say, is irreconcilable with that other beauty
+of which you spoke."
+
+"How so?" asked the millionaire.
+
+"There resides, for example, in Hellenic sculpture a certain
+ingredient--what shall we call it? Let us call it the factor of
+strangeness, of mystery! It is a vague emanation which radiates from
+such works of art, and gives us a sense of their universal
+applicability to all our changing moods and passions. That, I suppose,
+is why we call them ever young. They beckon to all of us familiarly and
+yet, as it were, from an unexplored world. They speak to us at all
+seasons in some loving and yet enigmatical language, such language as
+we may read, at times, in the eyes of a child that wakes from sleep.
+Now the swiftest and fairest steam-engine in the world is not for ever
+young; it grows obsolete and ends, after a short life, on the
+scrap-heap. That is to say, where usefulness enters, this spirit of
+mystery, of eternal youth, is put to flight. And there is yet another
+element of classical beauty which is equally at variance with your
+modern conception of it: the element of authority. Beholding the
+Praxitelean Eros, the veriest ruffian feels compelled to reverence the
+creator and his work. 'Who was the man?' he asks; for he acknowledges
+that such things impose themselves upon his untutored mind. Now a
+certain Monsieur Cadillac builds the most beautiful motor-cars. Who is
+this man? We do not care a fig about him. He is probably a Jewish
+syndicate. Such being the case, I cannot bring myself to reverence
+Monsieur Cadillac and his cars. They are comfortable, but that factor
+of authority, which compels our homage to the Eros, is wholly lacking.
+Yet both things are called beautiful. That we should apply the same
+word to products so different, so hopelessly conflicting, as those of
+Praxiteles and Monsieur Cadillac--what does it prove? It proves our
+poverty of invention. And what does it explain? It explains our
+confusion of thought."
+
+The millionaire remarked:
+
+"I suppose the human outlook has shifted with the years. Democracy hyas
+changed your old point of view."
+
+"Assuredly. No American, no modern of any race, I fancy, can divest
+himself of the notion that one man is as good as another; in the eyes
+of God, they add--meaning in their own eyes. No Greek, no ancient of any
+race, I fancy, could have burdened himself with so preposterous a
+delusion. Democracy has killed my point of view. It has substituted
+progress for civilization. To appreciate things of beauty, as do the
+Americans, a man requires intelligence. Intelligence is compatible with
+progress. To create them, as did the Greeks, he requires intelligence
+and something else as well: time. Democracy, in abolishing slavery, has
+eliminated that element of time--an element which is indispensable to
+civilization."
+
+"We have some fine slavery in America at this moment."
+
+"I am using the word in the antique sense. Your modern slavery is of
+another kind. It has all the drawbacks and few of the advantages of the
+classic variety. It gives leisure to the wrong people--to those who
+praise the dignity of labour. Men who talk about the Dignity of Labour
+had better say as little as possible about civilization, for fear of
+confusing it with the North Pole."
+
+The American laughed.
+
+"That's one for me!" he remarked.
+
+"On the contrary! You are an admirable example of that happy graft
+which we mentioned just now."
+
+"Progress and civilization!" exclaimed Mr. Heard. "One uses those words
+so much in my walk of life that, thinking it over, I begin to wonder
+whether they mean more than this: that there are perpetual
+readjustments going on. They are supposed to indicate an upward
+movement, some vague step in the direction of betterment which,
+frankly, I confess myself unable to perceive. What is the use of
+civilization if it makes a man unhappy and unhealthy? The uncivilized
+African native is happy and healthy. The poor creatures among whom I
+worked, in the slums of London, are neither the one nor the other; they
+are civilized. I glance down the ages, and see nothing but--change! And
+perhaps not even change. Mere differences of opinion as to the value of
+this or that in different times and places."
+
+"Pardon me! I was using the words in a specific sense. What I mean by
+progress is the welding together of society for whatever ends. Progress
+is a centripetal movement, obliterating man in the mass. Civilization
+is centrifugal; it permits, it postulates, the assertion of
+personality. The terms are, therefore, not synonymous. They stand for
+hostile and divergent movements. Progress subordinates. Civilization
+co-ordinates. The individual emerges in civilization. He is submerged
+in progress."
+
+"You might call civilization a placid lake," said the American, "and
+the other a river or torrent."
+
+"Exactly!" remarked Mr. Heard. "The one is static, the other dynamic.
+And which of the two, Count, would you say was the more beneficial to
+humanity?"
+
+"Ah! For my part I would not bring such consideration to bear on the
+point. We may deduce, from the evolution of society, that progress is
+the newer movement, since the State, which welds together, is of more
+recent growth than the individualistic family or clan. This is as far
+as I care to go. To debate whether one be better for mankind than the
+other betrays what I call an anthropomorphic turn of mind; it is
+therefore a problem which, so far as I am concerned, does not exist. I
+content myself with establishing the fact that progress and
+civilization are incompatible, mutually exclusive."
+
+"Do you mean to say," asked the millionaire, "that it is impossible to
+be progressive and civilized at the same time?"
+
+"That is what I mean to say. Now if America stands for progress, this
+old world may be permitted--with a reasonable dose of that flattery
+which we accord to the dead--to represent civilization. Tell me, Mr. van
+Koppen, how do you propose to amalgamate or reconcile such ferociously
+antagonistic strivings? I fear we will have to wait for the
+millennium."
+
+"The millennium!" echoed Mr. Heard. "That is another of those unhappy
+words which are always cropping up in my department."
+
+"Why unhappy?" asked Mr. van Koppen.
+
+"Because they mean nothing. The millennium will never come."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because nobody wants it to come. They want tangible things. Nobody
+wants a millennium."
+
+"Which is very fortunate," observed the Count. "For if they did, the
+Creator would be considerably embarrassed how to arrange matters,
+seeing that every man's millennium differs from that of his neighbour.
+Mine is not the same as yours. Now I wonder, Mr. van Koppen--I wonder
+what your millennium would be like?"
+
+"I wonder! I believe I never gave it a thought. I have had other things
+to puzzle out."
+
+And the millionaire straightway proceeded to think, in his usual
+clear-cut fashion. "Something with girls in it," he soon concluded,
+inwardly. Then aloud:
+
+"I guess my millennium would be rather a contradictory sort of
+business. I should require tobacco, to begin with. And the affair would
+certainly not be complete, Count, without a great deal of your company.
+The millennium of other people may be more simple. That of the Duchess,
+for example, is at hand. She is about to join the Roman Catholic
+Church."
+
+"That reminds me," said Mr. Heard. "She gave me some remarkable
+tea-cakes not long ago. Delicious. She said they were your specialty."
+
+"You have found them out, have you?" laughed the American. "I always
+tell her that once a man begins on those tea-cakes there is no reason
+on earth, that I can think of, why he should ever stop again. All the
+same, I nearly overate myself the other day. That was because we had a
+late luncheon on board. It shall never occur again--the late luncheon, I
+mean. Have you discovered, by the way, whether the business of Miss
+Wilberforce has been settled?"
+
+Mr. Heard shook his head.
+
+"Is that the person," enquired the Count, "who is reported to drink to
+excess? I have never spoken to her. She belongs presumably to the lower
+classes--to those who extract from alcohol the pleasurable emotions
+which we derive from a good play, or music, or a picture gallery."
+
+"She is a lady."
+
+"Indeed? Then she has relapsed into the intemperance of her inferiors.
+That is not pretty."
+
+"Temperance!" said the bishop. "Another of those words which I am
+always being obliged to use. Pray tell me, Count, what you mean by
+temperance."
+
+"I should call it the exercise of our faculties and organs in such a
+manner as to combine the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of pain."
+
+"And who is the judge of what constitutes the dividing line between use
+and abuse?"
+
+"We cannot do better, I imagine, than go to our own bodies for an
+answer to that question. They will tell us exactly how far we may
+proceed with impunity."
+
+"In that case," said the millionaire, "if you drink a little too much
+occasionally--only occasionally, I mean!--you would not call that
+intemperance?"
+
+"Certainly not. We are not Puritans here. We do not give wrong names to
+things. What you suggest would be by the way of a change, I
+presume--like the eating of a pike: something we do not indulge in every
+day. If I were to come home a little joyful now and then, do you know
+what these people would say? They would say: 'The old gentleman is
+pleased to be merry to-night. Bless his heart! May the wind do him
+good.' But if I behaved as Miss Wilberforce is reported to do, they
+would say: 'That old man is losing self-control. He is growing
+intemperate. Every evening! It is not a pretty sight.' They never call
+it wrong. Their mode of condemnation is to say that it is not pretty.
+The ethical moment, you observe, is replaced by an aesthetic one. That
+is the Mediterranean note. It is the merit of the Roman Church that she
+left us some grains of common sense in regard to minor morals."
+
+The bishop remarked:
+
+"What I have seen of the local Catholicism strikes me as a kind of
+pantomime. That is the fault of my upbringing, no doubt."
+
+"Oh, I am not referring to externals! Externally, of course, our Church
+is the purest rococo--"
+
+Mr. Heard was expanding in this congenial atmosphere; he felt himself
+in touch with permanent things. He glanced at the speaker. How charming
+he looked, this silvery-haired old aristocrat! His ample and gracious
+personality, his leisurely discourse--how well they accorded with the
+environment! He suggested, in manner, the secret of youth and all that
+is glad, unclouded, eternal; he was a reflection, a belated flower, of
+the classic splendour which lay in ruins about him. Such a man, he
+thought, deserves to be happy and successful. What joy it must have
+been to a person of his temperament--the chance discovery of the Locri
+Faun!
+
+A great stillness brooded upon the enclosure beyond. The shadows had
+shifted. Sunny patches lay, distributed in fresh patterns, upon the old
+brickwork flooring. An oval shaft of light, glinting through the
+foliage, had struck the pedestal of the Faun and was stealthily
+crawling up its polished surface. He looked at the statue. It was still
+slumbering in the shade. But a subtle change had spread over the
+figure, or was it, he wondered, merely a change in the state of his own
+mind, due to what the Count had said? There was energy, now, in those
+tense muscles. The slightest touch, he felt, would unseal the
+enchantment and cause life to flow through the dull metal.
+
+Mr. van Koppen was slightly ruffled.
+
+"Are you not a little hard on the Puritans?" he asked. "Where would we
+have been without them in America?"
+
+"And after all," added the bishop, "they cleared up an infinity of
+abuses. They were temperate, at all events! Too temperate in some
+matters, I am inclined to think; they did not always allow for human
+weakness. They went straight back to the Bible."
+
+The Count shook his head slowly.
+
+"The Bible," he said, "is the most intemperate book I have ever read."
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+Mr. van Koppen, a tactful person, scented danger ahead. He remarked:
+
+"I did not know Italians read the Bible. Where did you become
+acquainted with it?"
+
+"In New York. I often amused myself strolling about the Jewish quarter
+there and studying the inhabitants. Wonderful types, wonderful poses!
+But hard to decipher, for a person of my race. One day I said to
+myself: I will read their literature; it may be of assistance. I went
+through the Talmud and the Bible. They helped me to understand those
+people and their point of view."
+
+"What is their point of view?"
+
+"That God is an overseer. This, I think, is the keynote of the Bible.
+And it explains why the Bible has always been regarded as an exotic
+among Greco-Latin races, who are all pagans at heart. Our God is not an
+overseer; he is a partaker. For the rest, we find the whole trend of
+the Bible, its doctrinal tone, antagonistic to those ideals of
+equanimity and moderation which, however disregarded in practice, have
+always been held up hereabouts as theoretically desirable. In short, we
+Southerners lack what you possess: an elective affinity with that book.
+One may wonder how the morality of those tawny Semites was enabled to
+graft itself upon your alien white-skinned race with such tenacity as
+to influence your whole national development. Well, I think I have at
+last puzzled it out," he added, "to my own satisfaction at least."
+
+The bishop interposed with a laugh:
+
+"I may tell you, Count, that I am not in the Episcopal mood to-day. Not
+at all. Never felt less Episcopal in my life. For that matter, it is
+our English ecclesiastics who have dealt some of the most serious blows
+at Biblical authority of late, with their modern exegesis. Pray go on!"
+
+"I imagine it is nothing but a matter of racial temperament."
+
+"Goth and Latin?"
+
+"One does not always like to employ such terms; they are so apt to
+cover deficiency of ideas, or to obscure the issue. But certainly the
+sun which colours our complexion and orders our daily habits,
+influences at the same time our character and outlook. The almost
+hysterical changes of light and darkness, summer and winter, which have
+impressed themselves on the literature of the North, are unknown here.
+Northern people, whether from climatic or other causes, are prone to
+extremes, like their own myths and sagas. The Bible is essentially a
+book of extremes. It is a violent document. The Goth or Anglo-Saxon has
+taken kindly to this book because it has always suited his purposes. It
+has suited his purposes because, according to his abruptly varying
+moods, he has never been at a loss to discover therein exactly what he
+wanted--authority for every grade of emotional conduct, from savage
+vindictiveness to the most abject self-abasement. One thing he would
+never have found, had he cared to look for it--an incitement to live the
+life of reason, to strive after intellectual honesty and self-respect,
+and to keep his mind open to the logic of his five senses. That is why,
+during the troubled Middle Ages when the oscillations of national and
+individual life were yet abrupter--when, therefore, that classical
+quality of temperance was more than ever at a discount--the Bible took
+so firm a hold upon you. Its unquiet teachings responded to the unquiet
+yearnings of men. Your conservatism, your reverence for established
+institutions, has done the rest. No! I do not call to mind any passages
+in the Bible commending the temperate philosophic life; though it would
+be strange if so large a miscellany did not contain a few sound
+reflections. Temperance," he concluded, as though speaking to
+himself--"temperance! All the rest is embroidery."
+
+Mr. Heard was thoughtful. The American observed:
+
+"That side of the case never struck me before. How about Solomon's
+proverbs?"
+
+"Maxims of exhaustion, my dear friend. It is easy to preach to me. I am
+an old man. I can read Solomon with a certain patience. We want
+something for our children--something which does not blight or deny, but
+vivifies and guides aright; something which makes them hold up their
+heads. A friend, an older brother; not a pedagogue. I would never
+recommend a boy to study these writings. They would lower his spirits
+and his self-respect. Solomon, like all reformed debauchees, has a
+depressing influence on the young."
+
+"Do you know England well?" asked Mr. Heard.
+
+"Very little. I have spent a few days in Liverpool and London, here and
+there, on my periodical journeyings to the States. Kind friends supply
+me with English books and papers; the excellent Sir Herbert Street
+sends me more than I can possibly digest! I confess that much of what I
+read was an enigma to me till I had studied the Bible. Its teachings
+seem to have filtered, warm and fluid, through the veins of your
+national and private life. Then, slowly, they froze hard, congealing
+the whole body into a kind of crystal. Your ethics are stereotyped in
+black-letter characters. A gargoyle morality."
+
+"It is certainly difficult," said Mr. van Koppen, "for an Anglo-Saxon
+to appraise this book objectively. His mind has been saturated with it
+in childhood to such an extent as to take on a definite bias."
+
+"Like the ancients with their ILIAD. Where is a truer poet than Homer?
+Yet the worship of him became a positive bane to independent creative
+thought. What good things could be written about the withering
+influence of Homer upon the intellectual life of Rome!"
+
+The bishop asked:
+
+"You think the Bible has done the same for us?"
+
+"I think it accounts for some Byzantine traits in your national
+character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least,
+seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They
+realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives
+them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That
+is what they need, and what this unbalanced Eastern stuff will never
+give them."
+
+"The withering influences of Homer: surely that is a bad sign?" asked
+the American.
+
+"And that of the Bible?" added Mr. Heard.
+
+"How shall a plant survive, save by withering now and then? If the
+ancients had not exhausted themselves with Homer, the soil might not
+have been ready for our Renaissance. A bad sign? Who can tell! Good and
+bad--I question whether these are respectable words to use."
+
+"You are content, as you observed before, to establish a fact?"
+
+"Amply content. I leave the rest to the academicians. And the only fact
+we seem to have established is that your notions of morality resemble
+my notions of beauty in this one point: neither of them are up to date.
+You will have be admire a steam-engine. Why? Because of its delicately
+adjusted mechanism, its perfect adaptation to modern needs. So be it. I
+will modify my conception of what is fair in appearance. I will admire
+your steam-engine, and thereby bring my ideals of beauty up to date.
+Will you modify your conception of what is fair in conduct? Will you
+admire something more adapted to modern needs than those intemperate
+Hebrew doctrines; something with more delicately adjusted mechanism?
+The mendicant friar, that flower of Oriental ethics--he is not up to
+date. He resembles all Semites. He lacks self-respect. He apologizes
+for being alive. It is not pretty--to apologize for being alive!"
+
+The American observed:
+
+"I should say that even our greatest bigots, nowadays, don't take those
+old doctrines as seriously as you seem to think."
+
+"I daresay they don't. But they profess to reproach themselves for not
+doing so. And this is more contemptible. It adds insincerity to
+imbecility."
+
+A sunny smile played about his face as he spoke these words. It was
+evident that his thoughts were already far away. The bishop, following
+the direction of his glance, saw that it rested upon the statuette of
+the Faun whose head and shoulders were now enveloped in a warm beam of
+light. Under that genial touch the old relic seemed to have woke up
+from its slumber. Blood was throbbing in its veins. It was inn
+movement; it dominated the scene in its emphatic affirmation of joy.
+
+Mr. Heard, his eyes fixed upon the statuette, now realized the
+significance of what had been said. He began to see more clearly. Soon
+it dawned upon him that not joy alone was expressed by the figure.
+Another quality, more evasive yet more compelling, resided in its
+subtle grace: the element of mystery. There, emprisoned in the bronze,
+dwelt some benignant oracle.
+
+Puzzle as he would, that oracle refused to clothe itself in words.
+
+What could it be?
+
+A message of universal application, "loving and enigmatical," as the
+old man had called it. True! It was a greeting from an unknown friend
+in an unknown land; something familiar from the dim past or distant
+future; something that spoke of well-being--plain to behold, hard to
+expound, like the dawning smile of childhood.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+
+
+
+Towards evening, Mr. van Koppen drove the bishop down in the carriage
+which he usually hired for the whole of his stay on Nepenthe. They said
+little, having talked themselves out with the Count. The American
+seemed to be thinking about something. Mr. Heard's eye roamed over the
+landscape, rather anxiously.
+
+"I don't like that new cloud above the volcano," he observed.
+
+"Looks like ashes. Looks as if it might drift in our direction, doesn't
+it, if the wind were strong enough to move it? Do you see much of the
+Count?" he enquired.
+
+"Not as much as I should like. What excellent veal cutlets those were!
+So white and tender. Quite different from the veal we get in England.
+And that aromatic wine went uncommonly well with them. It was his own
+growth, I suppose."
+
+"Very likely. From that little vineyard which produces so many good
+things." He chuckled softly. "As to English veal--I never yet tasted any
+worth eating. If you don't slaughter a calf till it's grown into a
+cow--why, you're not likely to get anything but beef."
+
+"They say the English cannot cook, in spite of the excellence of their
+prime materials."
+
+"I think the prime materials are at fault. They sacrifice everything to
+size. It's barbaric. Those greasy Southdown sheep! It's the same with
+their fowls; they're large, but insipid--very different from the little
+things you get down here. Now a goose is capital fodder. But if you
+grow him only for his weight, you destroy his quality and flavour; you
+get a lump of blubber instead of a bird."
+
+"Apple sauce?"
+
+"I don't like apples in any shape. A sour kind of potato, I call them.
+They eat an awful lot of apples in our country. That is what makes so
+many of our women as flat as boards, in front and behind--especially in
+the Eastern States. It's apple-eating. Apples ought to be taxed. They
+ruin the female figure. I'm not sure that they don't sour the character
+as well."
+
+"Don't you care about our English vegetables?"
+
+"Can't say I'm much in love with them, Mr. Heard. Brussels sprouts, for
+instance--I'm very partial to Brussels sprouts. But the things they give
+you over there are the size of a bath sponge, and much the same taste,
+I reckon. And the carrots! A carrot ought to be small and round and
+yellow, it ought to melt in the mouth like a plum. Those carrots aren't
+carrots at all. They're walking sticks. And the peas! No, I don't care
+about English peas. Too large and too lively for me."
+
+"Lively?"
+
+"That's it. Lively. I shall never forget my first experience of them,"
+he went on, laughing. "There were two or three in the dish; just two or
+three; filled it up nicely. Looked like cannon-balls. What do they
+expect me to do with these things? I wondered. I didn't like to ask the
+waiter. One doesn't care to be taken for an ignorant stranger. Well, I
+landed one on my plate and began carving at it, to see if there was
+anything eatable inside the shell, when the durned thing slipped away
+from my knife and crashed on to the floor. Bounced up like a marble. I
+called for a nutcracker--'I shall want the largest you've got,' I said.
+They couldn't find one. Now I'm not the sort of man, Mr. Heard, to be
+beaten by a vegetable, if it really was a vegetable. Because, you see,
+it behaved more like a blamed mineral. I sent for the head waiter, and
+took him into my confidence. I tried to talk English, like I'm talking
+to you. 'What d'ye call these things?' I asked. 'Marrowfats, Sir.' 'Ah,
+I thought they weren't peas. You've got PETITS POIS down on the bill of
+fare. Better get that put right. And now, how d'ye eat them?' 'You bite
+them!' That's what he said. 'You bite them.' Of course I didn't believe
+him. I thought it was just a bit of English humour, especially as the
+other waiter was looking the opposite way all the time. Well, like a
+fool, I said to myself: 'No harm in trying!' I've got pretty sharp
+teeth, you know, for a boy of my age. That's how I managed to do what a
+lot of you younger fellows couldn't have done. I got them fixed into
+the softest of that bunch of marrowfats. But as to pulling them out
+again! The head waiter, you bet, had disappeared. And the other fellow
+was standing at the window with his back to me. Looking up the street,
+I should say, to see if it was going to rain."
+
+After this little outburst, the millionaire seemed to have nothing more
+to say.
+
+He was thinking....
+
+Cornelius van Koppen loved a good liar. He knew something about the
+gentle art. It was an art, he used to say, which no fool should be
+allowed to cultivate. There were too many amateurs knocking about.
+These bunglers spoiled the trade. Without doing any good to themselves,
+they roused distrust; they rubbed the fine bloom off human credulity.
+His puritan conscience was enraged at petty thefts, petty forgeries,
+petty larcenies. That was why he despised that otherwise excellent
+person, the Financial Commissioner for Nicaragua, whose wildest flights
+of embezzlement never exceeded a few hundred dollars. He respected a
+man who, like himself, could work in the grand style. To play upon the
+credulity of a continent--it was Napoleonic, it was like stealing a
+kingdom; it was not stealing at all. This, he shrewdly suspected, was
+what his good friend the Count was engaged upon. That delightful old
+man was working in the grand style.
+
+Bronzes, ancient or modern, were Greek to Mr. van Koppen. He could not
+tell the difference between the art of Clodion and of Myron--had, in
+fact, never heard the names of these good people and did not
+particularly care to hear them; he paid Sir Herbert Street for that
+part of the business. But he had picked up, in the course of his long
+humanitarian career, a good deal of general knowledge. Old Koppen was
+no fool. He was intelligent; intelligence, as the Count had said, being
+perfectly compatible with progress. The millionaire could put two and
+two together as fast as most men; he was celebrated, even among his
+quick-witted compatriots, for an uncanny faculty of walking round
+people without getting off his chair. Common sense, he called it.
+
+Many a time he had listened to Count Caloveglia's rounded periods anent
+the Locri Faun. Taking his own personal experience as a guide, he had
+come to the conclusion that a man does not explain things quite so
+satisfactorily, unless he has some business in hand. Everything fitted
+into a hypothesis which had been slowly maturing in his mind, namely,
+that he was confronted by a fraud, a really noble fraud, a fraud after
+his own heart, a fraud deserving the fullest support of every sensible
+man and woman.
+
+That vineyard, for instance, with those antiquities. A good many
+friends of his in the States had made their pile out of salted gold
+mines. Why not salt a vineyard? Oh yes; everything fitted in
+beautifully. The remoteness of that vineyard ... a town like Locri
+was obviously unsafe, too public a place for such important
+discoveries. The conscientious Sir Herbert would certainly want to make
+enquiries on the spot--enquiries which would prove that no Faun had ever
+been found there. And that would ruin everything. Therefore the statue
+had been "carried" to the vineyard in ancient times by "some young and
+ardent lover of art." Carried, ha, ha! His knowledge of human nature
+made him doubt whether the Locri Faun had ever in its life made a
+further journey than to Caloveglia's shady courtyard from that
+mysterious, dusty shed at the back of his house. Or the Demeter either.
+That "sadly mutilated head" was a feeler--a rehearsal. They both came
+"from the same workshop." Excellent! That shed was the workshop--the
+birthplace of these two antiques; the Count himself their old Hellenic
+creator.
+
+Andrea, no doubt, was the secret.
+
+These art experts! Here was Street, one of the best of them, a man of
+celebrity in his department, solemnly pronouncing for the authenticity
+of the fake--in the full and innocent conviction that it was really
+authentic. A sucking babe. This man, he could see by his simple society
+face, had not even made an arrangement with the Count as to a
+commission for himself in the event of a purchase being concluded. He
+was satisfied with his salary. These experts--what a crowd of fools they
+were! Especially the honest ones.
+
+None the less, he was delighted with Sir Herbert's opinion. It was
+exactly what he wanted. For he meant to help the County who, he was
+sure, would never accept a cent from him save under a pretext like that
+of the sale of the Faun. He loved old Caloveglia. There was something
+clean and purposeful about him. His friendship with such a man filled
+up what he knew to be a void in his own equipment as citizen of the
+world. And the count was working--was lying--for a worthy purpose: a
+daughter's dowry. For that reason alone he was deserving of assistance.
+
+Mr. van Koppen was unmarried. Knowing life as he did, from its more
+seamy or mercenary side, he had never brought himself to accept a
+single one of several hundred offers of marriage which had been more or
+less overtly made to him--to his millions. He loved the sex, as a whole;
+but distrusted them individually. He thought he knew exactly what they
+were after. Pearl necklaces and things. He was a good American; fond of
+bestowing pearl necklaces. But he liked to give them when, and to whom,
+he fancied; he meant to be his own master and to keep his painfully
+gotten millions under his own control. All of which, far from
+extinguishing, actually fostered that queer bachelor's feeling of
+reverential awe for the married state and its results. Every form of
+courage and success appealed to van Koppen--none more than the reckless
+impetuosity of a man who speculates in such a delirious lottery and
+sometimes actually draws a prize. Such had been Count Caloveglia's
+portion. His marriage had plainly been a love-match; a success; its
+result, this offspring--a daughter of whom any father might be proud.
+Mr. van Koppen thoroughly understood the Count's position. These
+Italians need dowries for their girls. Well, he should have one! What
+did it signify? One pearl necklace the less, for some operatic charmer.
+Not worth talking about. Among all h is various benefactions, none was
+ever projected with a lighter heart, with more sincere pleasure. It
+made him glad to be a millionaire.
+
+All the details had been settled. The FLUTTERBY was sailing in a day or
+two. The relic would be brought on board, at dead of night, by the
+faithful Andrea, who would return to the Count with a cheque in his
+pocket. It was a considerable sum; so considerable that Caloveglia had
+displayed great hesitation in accepting it. But the millionaire pointed
+out that the parties must be guided by Sir Herbert's opinion. What was
+the good, he asked, of employing a specialist? Sir Herbert Street had
+declared the bronze to be priceless, unique. His employer, therefore,
+insisted on paying what the other had called "an adequate amount, if
+the value of such a work of art can be expressed in monetary figures at
+all." There was nothing more to be said. The Count gave way, with
+graceful reluctance. A sham ancestry having been manufactured for the
+masterpiece (it was proved to come from Asia Minor) in order to elude
+the vigilance of the Italian Government, the Locri Faun could
+thereafter be freely displayed to the American public, and Sir Herbert
+Street was probably right in foretelling that it would be the show
+piece of the millionaire's museum-artists and antiquarians flocking to
+see it from every part of the world.
+
+And Mr. van Koppen, as he drove along, was thinking of that cheque; he
+was converting the dollars into francs. They made rather an awkward
+sum. He decided to round it off, if only for the sake of appearances; a
+further reason for not sending the cheque till the last moment,
+together with a carefully worded letter to allay the Count's scruples.
+The old fellow might otherwise return the balance, in a fit of
+conscientiousness. Like himself, Count Caloveglia was infernally, and
+very properly, punctilious--in small matters.
+
+Yes, there was some fun, at times, in being a millionaire. Or a
+sculptor either, for that matter! For it evidently took some doing--a
+little thing like that Locri Faun. It took some doing. And it was worth
+doing: that was the main point. A man who could bamboozle Sir Herbert
+Street--such a man deserved to be supported. And what if the truth
+ultimately leaked out? Had he not acted with the best intentions, under
+the written advice of an expert? Far from feeling uneasy, Mr. van
+Koppen smiled at the thought of how his millions, backed by the opinion
+of a connoisseur of international reputation, had enabled him to play
+yet one more trick upon that great Republic whose fathomless
+gullibility no one had ever exploited to a better purpose than
+himself....
+
+Mr. Eames was waiting for the bishop, according to appointment.
+
+"How about Mrs. Meadows?" he at once began.
+
+"She was out, invisible. I waited nearly two hours and then lunched
+with Count Caloveglia. By the way, have you seen anything of Denis
+lately?"
+
+"No. Why?"
+
+"The old man seemed to be concerned about him. He asked me to make
+enquiries. Van Koppen thought that he might have got into trouble with
+some girl. But that strikes me as very unlikely. He may be a little
+homesick and lonely, so far from his mother."
+
+The bibliographer said:
+
+"I understand Mr. van Koppen is quite an authority on girls. As to
+Denis, I saw him last--when was it? Oh, not so very long ago. The day
+all those funny things happened; those portents. We walked up and down
+together on this very terrace. Perhaps he has left the island, like
+that wretched mineralogist who promised me--never mind! He seemed all
+right then. A little depressed, perhaps. Yes; a little depressed, no I
+come to think of it. But the Count need not be anxious. This island is
+a great place for scares and rumours."
+
+Mr. Heard was not satisfied.
+
+"Do you believe the influence of Nepenthe can make Northern people
+irresponsible for their actions? Keith does. Or how about the sirocco?
+Can it upset their nerves to such an extent?"
+
+"Not my nerves. I have heard of people making fools of themselves and
+then blaming the Creator. Often! And of course, if one begins to brood
+over accidentals like the weather, one is sure to become a lunatic
+sooner or later. Weather was not made for that purpose. If you come to
+think of it, how few days there are when a man can honestly say that
+the weather is quite to his liking! It is nearly always too hot or too
+cold or too wet or too dry or too windy. I don't trouble myself about
+sirocco. Why should Denis? He is not nearly as much of a fool as many
+people look. And I would not listen to Keith. He moves among
+hyperbolas."
+
+Mr. Heard felt slightly relieved. What a sensible fellow this was; so
+matter-of-fact and sure of his ground. The ideal scholar. Sirocco did
+not exist for him. He stood aloof from human passions and infirmities.
+
+It was plain that the bishop had never heard that story about the
+BALLON CAPTIF.
+
+"For my part," he said, "I am beginning to object to this south wind. I
+never felt it worse than to-day. Phew! Stifling! One can hardly
+breathe. My shirt is sticking to my back. Suppose we sit down
+somewhere?"
+
+They found a bench, in view of the sea and the volcano. The population
+moved sedately up and down before their eyes.
+
+"Is it always like this?" enquired Mr. Heard.
+
+"Spring is a little warmer than usual. Or perhaps one should say that
+summer has begun earlier. The sirocco is the same, year after year,
+although there is a kind of conspiracy among the foreign residents to
+say that it happens to be worse than usual that particular season. It
+never varies."
+
+"What does your Perrelli say on the subject?"
+
+Mr. Eames glanced at him distrustfully.
+
+"You are trying to chaff me," he said. "Serves me right for talking so
+much this morning. I am afraid I bored you dreadfully."
+
+The bishop wanted to know.
+
+"Then I may tell you that Monsignor Perrelli does not so much as
+mention the South wind. He names all the others and has come capital
+observations on the anchorages of the island as adapted to different
+winds and seasons. He has also extracted from old chronicles the
+records of the great storms of 1136, 1342, 1373, 1460, and so on; but
+never discloses the fact that they all blew from the south. He says the
+air is pleasant, tempered by gentle breezes from the sea. The word
+sirocco does not occur in his pages save once, when he laments its
+prevalence on the mainland."
+
+"The old humbug!"
+
+A little shiver ran through Mr. Eames. Then he observed, in a suave
+tone of voice:
+
+"He was an historian of the period, an agreeable gentleman telling
+others of his kind what he knows will be of interest to them. That is
+what makes his work attractive to me: the personality of the writer.
+The facts that he records, taken in conjunction with those he slurs
+over or omits--they give one such an insight into changing human nature!
+You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what
+he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do."
+
+"Modern historians are not like that," said Mr. Heard. "They give you
+the truth to the best of their ability. It is rather dry reading
+sometimes. I would like to borrow your Perrelli for a day or two, if
+you don't mind."
+
+"I'll send it round, together with some old prints of this island and
+modern photographs. You will then see what I mean. The prints are not
+exactly true to nature; these people did not want to be true to nature.
+And yet they convey a better impression of the place than the modern
+pictures. Perhaps there are two truths: the truth of fact and that of
+suggestion. Perrelli is very suggestive; romance grafted upon
+erudition, and blossoming out of it! So imaginative! He has a
+dissertation on the fishes of Nepenthe--it reads like a poem and is yet
+full of practical gastronomic hints. Can you picture Virgil
+collaborating with Apicius?"
+
+The bishop said:
+
+"Horace might have got on better with that old BON-VIVANT."
+
+"Horace could never have had a hand in this chapter. He lacks the
+idealistic tinge. He could never have written about red mullets as
+Perrelli writes when he compares their skin to the fiery waves of
+Phelgethon, to the mantle of rosy-fingered dawn, to the blush of a
+maiden surprised in her bath, and then goes on to tell you how to cook
+the b east in thirty different ways and how to spit out the bones in
+the most noiseless, genteel fashion. That is Perrelli--so original, so
+leisurely. Always himself! He smiled as he wrote; there is not a shadow
+of doubt about it. In another section, on the fountains of the island,
+he deliberately indulges in the humour of some old mediaeval schoolman.
+Then there is a chapter on the ecclesiastical conditions of the place
+under Florizel the Fat--it is full of veiled attacks on the religious
+orders of his own day; I suspect it got him into trouble, that chapter.
+I am sorry to say there is a good deal of loose talk scattered about
+his pages. I fear he was not altogether a pure-minded man. But I cannot
+bring myself to despise him. What do you think? Certain problems are
+always cropping up, aren't they?"
+
+Mr. Eames suddenly looked quite troubled.
+
+"They are," replied the bishop, who was not in a mood to discuss ethics
+just then. "What are you going to do about it?" he added.
+
+"About what?"
+
+"This poetic omission on the part of Perrelli to mention the sirocco?"
+
+"It has given me a deal of extra work, I can assure you. I have had to
+go into the whole question. I have tabulated no less than fifty-seven
+varieties of sirocco. Sailors' words, most of them; together with a
+handful of antiquated terms. Fifty-seven varieties. Twenty-three
+thousand words, up to the present, dealing the with south wind."
+
+"That is a fair-sized foot-note," laughed the bishop. "A good slice of
+a book, I should call it."
+
+"My foot-notes are to be printed in small type. In fact, I am thinking
+of casting the whole of this sirocco--material into an appendix. Too
+much, you think? Surely the number of words is not disproportionate to
+the subject? The south wind is a good slice of Nepenthe, is it not?...
+Look! That cloud has made up its mind to come our way after all.
+There will be another shower of ashes. Sirocco, you observe...."
+
+The terrace, meanwhile, had become crowded. Already the evening sun was
+slightly obscured behind a brown haze. Ashes were traveling fast. They
+began to fall, softly.
+
+What was to be done? Everybody, mindful of the previous experience, was
+in favour of a second procession to take place immediately. The PARROCO
+held the same opinion. For form's sake, however, he dispatched a
+confidential messenger to learn the views of Mr. Parker, who was
+sitting dejectedly in his study with the incomplete Financial Report
+still staring him in the face. The Commissioner pulled himself together
+with praiseworthy alacrity and gave his whole mind to the question.
+
+No. On due consideration, he was opposed to the idea of a procession.
+Having enjoyed, in various continents and various capacities, some
+experience of backing the same horse twice over, Mr. Parker was not in
+favour of demanding a second largesse from the Saint. It might spoil
+everything, he said. Let them wait till next morning. If there was a
+deep fall like last time, the experiment might be worth trying. But not
+just yet! While admitting that something ought to be done, it struck
+him as a hazardous proceeding to play fast and loose, in this fashion,
+with the reputation of a Saint.
+
+His Reverence, duly impressed, waited for half an hour. It was then
+seen that the Nicaraguan Representative had once more given the
+soundest of advice. The downpour of ashes ceased abruptly, at the
+moment when the sun sank into the sea. No mischief was done.
+
+Late at night another phenomenon became visible. The volcano was
+observed to be in violent eruption. It blazed forth like a gigantic
+torch held into the heavens. Streams of lava poured down the mountain
+flanks, reddening sky and sea.
+
+Nepenthe was consoled by the spectacle. The demon had at last found an
+outlet--a method of relief. There would be no more showers of ashes. The
+fact that villages were being overwhelmed under a deluge of flame,
+vineyards scorched and hundreds of innocent folks, their retreat cut
+off by fiery torrents, were even then being roasted to death, was no
+concern to the islanders. It only proved what every one knew: that the
+jurisdiction of their Patron Saint did not extend to the mainland.
+
+Each of those villages had its own Saint, whose business it was to
+forestall accidents of this kind. If they failed in their duty through
+incapacity or mulishness, nothing was easier than to get rid of them;
+there were others to choose from--dozens of others, waiting for the job!
+Thinking thus, the islanders gave vent to an immense sigh if relief.
+They wished long life to their Patron Saint, with whose services they
+had reason to be satisfied. Their own crops and lives were safe from
+harm, thanks to the martyr Dodekanus. He loved his people, and they
+loved him. He was a protector worthy of the name--not like those
+low-bred bastards across the water.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Heard had just finished his early Italian luncheon. Sitting at his
+coffee and smoking a cigarette, in a mood of considerable contentment,
+he gazed over the mirror-like surface of the sea towards the volcano,
+whose pyrotechnical display on the previous evening had kept him awake
+to a late hour. Yet another glistering day! Each one warmer than the
+last, and never a change in the wind! Presently he would retire for an
+hour or two into his cool and darkened bed-room.
+
+One little thing troubled his mind. There had been no reply to the
+note--a kind of note of enquiry--which he had left at the villa Mon Repos
+on the preceding day. Though he knew little of his cousin, he could not
+help feeling anxious. She was all by herself in that lonely little
+place, suffering--perhaps, and too proud or too shy to complain. Mr.
+Eames' description of her had made him uneasy. Why should she look as
+if she had seen a ghost? What could that signify? The bibliographer was
+a level-headed person, by no means given to flights of imagination.
+Imperceptibly, he felt, there had been established an under-current of
+sympathy between himself and this solitary woman, whom everybody seemed
+to like. She was different from the ordinary type; the kind of woman
+whom a man could not help respecting. She contrasted favourably with
+some of his recent female acquaintances who, however charming or witty,
+dissatisfied him in this or that particular. His cousin's devotion to
+child and husband appealed to his heart. She seemed to be perfect of
+her kind.
+
+Africa had boiled most of the starch out of Mr. Heard. But his
+acquaintance with some of the saddest and wildest aspects of womanhood
+only deepened his conviction of the sanctity of the sex. Some called
+him old-fashioned or quixotic, because he was not altogether in
+sympathy with modern feministic movements; they called him an idealist,
+because he had preserved his belief in the sacred mission of women upon
+earth--his childlike faith in the purity of their souls. They were a
+humanizing influence, the guardian angels of mankind, the inspirers,
+the mothers, the protectors of innocence. It pleased him to think that
+woman had softened harsh dealings between man and man; that every
+mitigation of savagery, every incitement to worthy or heroic actions,
+was due to her gentle words, her encouraging example. From the very
+dawn of history woman had opposed herself to deeds of violence. What
+was it Count Caloveglia had said? "Temperance. All the rest is
+embroidery." How well the old man could put things! Temperance....
+His cousin, from what he could guess of her character, agreed with that
+description. Mr. Heard would have maintained against the whole world
+that a woman, a true woman like this, could do no wrong.
+
+And now he gathered that she was in trouble of some kind. Then why not
+allow him to help? He had asked for an early reply to his note. Well,
+perhaps it would arrive by the evening post.
+
+Slightly vexed none the less, he laid down the stump of his cigarette,
+preparatory to retiring for the hot hours of the day. One owes
+something to oneself, N'EST-CE PAS? At that moment there was a knock at
+his door.
+
+Denis entered. His face, shaded under a broad-brimmed hat, was ruddy
+with the heat. He wore light flannels, and was carrying his jacket on
+his arm. There was a large parcel in his hand. He looked the picture of
+health.
+
+Mr. Heard, on rising, gave him a critical glance. He remembered his
+trip in the boat, and the suicide's rock--that black, ominous cliff; he
+remembered the thoughts which had passed through his mind at the time.
+Was this the kind of boy to kill himself? Surely not. Keith must have
+been mistaken. And Count Caloveglia--was he mistaken too? Evidently.
+There was nothing tragic about Denis. He was brimming over with life.
+His troubles, whatever they were, must have been forgotten.
+
+"I've been lunching with Keith," he began. "He made me tell him a
+fairy-tale."
+
+"Sit down and have some coffee! You came away very early."
+
+"He told me he wanted to go to sleep after luncheon. And one or two
+other nice things."
+
+Ah, thought Mr. Heard, Keith was acting up to what he had said in the
+boat; he was being good to the boy; that was right of him.
+
+"I'm sure," he said, "that Keith has been speaking kindly to you."
+
+"Kindly? It's like talking to an earthquake. He told me to dominate my
+reflexes. He called me a perambulating echo. He said I was a human
+amoeba--"
+
+"Amoeba. What's that?"
+
+"A sort of animal that floats about trying to attach itself to
+something which it can't find."
+
+"I think I see what he means. Anything else?"
+
+"He said I was a chameleon."
+
+"A chameleon!"
+
+"A chameleon that needed the influence of a good woman. Then he gave me
+this box of Cuban chocolates, to keep me from crying, I suppose. Have
+one! They're not nearly as nasty as they look."
+
+"Thanks. A chameleon. That is really interesting, as Keith would say. I
+have seen thousands of them. Outlandish beasts, that anchor themselves
+by their tails and squint horribly. Let's have a look at you, Denis.
+No, I fail to detect any striking resemblance."
+
+"I believe he meant that I take on the colour of other people and have
+none of my own. Then he told me to go and murder somebody."
+
+"I wouldn't do that, Denis," laughed the bishop. "Murders are so
+dreadfully vulgar."
+
+"He said it might make a man of me. He forgets that I'm not quite his
+age."
+
+"You had better not tell him that! Any other advice?"
+
+"Nothing new. He said I made a mistake in paying attention to what
+human beings said and did, and that I ought to forsake mankind for a
+while, and art and books and so on. You know the way he talks! He said
+it would give me a stronger individuality if I came into contact with
+nature and thought things out for myself instead of listening to other
+people. He advised me to sit among the rocks at midnight and in the hot
+afternoons, conversing with the genii of earth and air. It would
+correct my worldly perspective. I think he may be right, in a way.
+There is something in it. So I asked him to climb into the hills with
+me, then and there, in order to get into touch with elemental Powers.
+He said he thought highly of my character, but as to climbing about in
+this heat--he said he'd be damned if he would. Those were his very
+words. He wanted to sleep. He was too old for that sort of thing."
+
+"Very sensible, I'm sure."
+
+"You think so? Because then--then he told me that you were the proper
+person for an expedition of that kind. He suggested I should come and
+see you about it at once--it would allow him time to get his usual
+afternoon nap. That is why I'm here. So do! It isn't so very hot, once
+you get used to it. We are sure to see something funny."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+This, thought the bishop, was a pretty example of that doctrine of
+benevolent egotism which Keith had expounded to him once or twice. A
+very pretty example!
+
+"He said that?"
+
+Denis nodded.
+
+The notion was distasteful to Mr. Heard. To go out into this torrid
+sunshine.... He, too, was not exactly young; moreover, he was still
+rather delicate--he needed all the rest he could get. He was looking
+forward with positive delight to the coming hours in his cool bedroom.
+
+"You really want me to climb to the top of a mountain at this hour of
+the day and sit there in the heat, waiting for some wretched demon to
+reveal himself? Aren't you a little too old for that sort of thing?
+Come now! Does it strike you as a reasonable proposition? With the
+thermometer at seventy-eight in this room?"
+
+"Keith said you liked nothing better. He said you might take offence if
+I didn't ask you to come."
+
+He seemed to be disappointed.
+
+There were not many people for whom Mr. Heard would have put himself
+out just then in that particular way; and Denis, up to a few days ago,
+was certainly not one of them. The bishop had never been drawn towards
+this rather precious youth. He was not Mr. Heard's type of boy. There
+was a lack of grit and stamina about him--something soft, both in manner
+and appearance; something dreamy, ambiguous, almost epicene. Mr. Heard
+had not quite lost his old British instinct as to the fundamental
+uselessness of all art. A young fellow who, instead of taking up some
+rational profession, talked about Cimabue and Jacopo Bellini ...
+there was something not quite right with him. Jacopo Bellini! But even
+while thinking what to reply, he was conscious of having undergone a
+slight change of feeling lately. He was growing more tolerant and
+benign, even in trifles like this. Jacopo Bellini: why not? Meanwhile,
+he bethought himself of a way of escape.
+
+"Suppose you go alone? Or why not try the midnight expedition first? I
+might manage midnight."
+
+"I've tried it."
+
+"Alone?" he laughed. "No success?"
+
+"None whatever," said Denis. And it seemed as if a shadow flitted
+across his face at these words.
+
+That cloud, that change of tone--what did they portend? Something might
+be wrong, then, after all. Perhaps Keith had been correct in his
+diagnosis when he observed that a susceptible mind like this could be
+shaken out of its equilibrium by the influence of Nepenthe--"capable of
+anything in this clear pagan light." It was not Mr. Heard's habit to
+probe into the feelings of others--as to those of a person like Denis he
+did not pretend to understand them. Artistic people! Incalculable!
+Inconsequential! Irresponsible! Quite another point of view! Yet he
+could not help thinking of that doleful black rock, with the
+turquoise-tinted water at its foot. Remembering these things he felt a
+sudden access of sympathy towards this lonesome fellow-creature.
+Instead of pursuing the subject of the expedition he asked, quite
+abruptly:
+
+"Tell me, Denis, are you happy here?"
+
+"How odd that you should come with that question! I had a letter from
+my mother this morning. She wants to know the same thing. And hanged if
+I know what to say."
+
+Mr. Heard made up his mind.
+
+"Hanged if you know? Then I'll tell you. Write to say that you have met
+the Bishop of Bampopo, who seems a perfectly respectable old fellow.
+Uncommonly respectable! Tell her you rather like him. Tell her she can
+find out all about him in Crockford or the Red Book. Tell her that he
+will be happy to correspond with her, if she will allow it. Tell her
+you feel sure he will look after you these last few days, before we all
+go away. Tell her--oh, everything nice you can think of. You'll do that,
+won't you? And now I will climb any mountain you like. Where are we
+going?"
+
+"I have thought of a good place. Rather high up, but well worth it. I
+feel sure something funny is going to happen to-day. Don't you notice a
+kind of demonic influence in the air?"
+
+"I notice a kind of infernal heat, if that is the same thing.
+Seventy-eight in this room! You will have to walk slowly. I am not in
+good condition just yet. Wait a moment. I must take my field-glasses. I
+never go without them."
+
+Mr. Heard, resigned to his fate, was filled at the same time with
+anxiety. He could not drive Keith's words out of his head. Perhaps
+Denis was really up to some mischief. Who could tell? His eagerness--his
+curious language! That note of exaltation in his voice.... And what
+did he mean by saying that something funny would happen? Was he
+contemplating--? Above all, his dread of being unaccompanied! Mr. Heard
+was aware that persons of unbalanced mind are apt to experience before
+some critical outbreak a pathetic horror of solitude, as though, dimly
+conscious of what was about to happen, they feared to trust themselves
+alone.
+
+He meant to keep a sharp eye on Denis.
+
+Often, in later times, he recalled that trivial conversation. Every
+word of it was graven on his memory. How more than strange that Denis
+should have dragged him away that afternoon, to that particular spot,
+at that very hour! By what a string of accidents had everything
+happened....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+
+
+
+It was nearly two o'clock. To step out of doors was like passing into a
+furnace. Streets were deserted. The houses showed glaring white against
+the cobalt of the firmament; their inhabitants lay asleep within,
+behind closed shutters. Heat and silence brooded over the land.
+
+Climbing slowly aloft by a lava-paved lane they reached the
+bibliographer's residence and paused awhile near its entrance. Mr.
+Heard tried to picture the scholar's life in this two-roomed cottage;
+he regretted having had no chance of visiting that amiable person in
+his own abode. (Mr. Eames was chary of issuing invitations.) A life of
+monastic severity. There was a small outhouse attached to one side of
+the wall; it was the kitchen, Denis explained; Eames' only servant
+being a boy whom he borrowed for an occasional morning's work from a
+neighbouring farm which supplied him with dairy produce.
+
+"It isn't often used, that kitchen," said Denis. "He lives mostly on
+bread and milk. Does his own marketing in the early hours. I met him
+one day before breakfast, walking with a large brown basket on his arm.
+Said he was buying anchovies. There was a big haul of them overnight.
+He had heard about it. A penny a pound, he said. I noticed some lettuce
+as well. A couple of oranges. Fine chap! He knows what he wants."
+
+The bishop looked over the gate. An air of friendly seclusion reigned
+in this place. There was no pretence at a garden--not so much as a rose
+tree or a snapdragon; the vines, of daintiest green but sternly
+utilitarian, clambered up to the door-lintel, invading the very roof.
+He pictured to himself the interior. Bare walls and floorings, a print
+or two, a few trunks and packing cases utilized as seats, a bookshelf,
+a plain table littered with manuscripts; somewhere, in that further
+room, a camp bedstead whereon this man of single aim and purpose, this
+monk of literature, was even then at rest like all sensible folks, and
+dreaming--dreaming, presumably, of foot-notes. Happy mortal! Free from
+all superfluities and encumbrances of the flesh! Enviable mortal! He
+reduced earthly existence to its simplest and most effective terms; he
+owed no man anything; he kept alive, on a miserable income, the sacred
+flame of enthusiasm. To aspire, that was the secret of life. Thinking
+thus, Mr. Heard began to understand the bibliographer's feeling for
+Mrs. Meadows. She lived for her child--he for his work. They were alike;
+calm and self-contained, both of them; incapable of illusions, of
+excesses in thought or conduct.
+
+Without the doorway, in a small triangle of shade, sat is fox-terrier,
+alert, head poised on one side in knowing fashion, ready to bark if the
+visitors only touched the handle of the gate. Denis remarked:
+
+"He told me that dog was sick the other morning, just like Keith."
+
+"It had probably been eating something. I suppose they couldn't be
+unwell, could they? What a heat, Denis! It's addling my old brains.
+More slowly, please."
+
+An hour went by. Fatigue was beginning to tell upon Mr. Heard. They had
+left he cultivated ground behind and were now ascending, by a cindery
+track of pumice-stone, among grotesque blocks of lava and scoriae that
+glowed like molten metal. Tufts of flowery broom scented the air. The
+soil, so recently drenched by the miraculous shower of rain, was once
+more dry and dusty; its fragile flowers wilted in the sirocco. And
+still the young man marched ahead. Always upwards! The landscape grew
+more savage. They bent round a corner and gound themselves skirting a
+precipice. The bishop glanced down in trepidation. There lay the sea,
+with not a boat in sight. As he continued to look the horizon
+oscillated; the ground sank under his feet and blue waters seemed to
+heave and rise up towards him. He shut his eyes in a fit of dizziness
+and grasped a rock. Its burning touch revived him.
+
+Then on again. Always upwards.
+
+"Do walk a little more slowly," said the bishop, puffing and wiping his
+face. "We must be well above the level of the Old Town by this time. A
+wild scramble. How much higher are we going?"
+
+"Here we are. This is the place I meant."
+
+"Charming, I must say! But aren't we a little too near the edge of the
+cliff? It makes me feel funny, as if I were in a balloon."
+
+"Oh, we'll get used to it. Let's sit down, Mr. Heard."
+
+Still distrustful of his companion, the bishop made himself comfortable
+and glanced around. They were high up; the view embraced half the
+island. The distant volcano confronting him was wreathed in sullen grey
+smoke that rose up from its lava torrent, and crowned with a menacing
+vapour-plume. Then an immensity of sea. At his feet, separated from
+where he sat by wide stony tracts tremulous with heat, lay the Old
+Town, its houses nestling in a bower of orchards and vineyards. It
+looked like a shred of rose-tinted lace thrown upon he landscape. He
+unraveled those now familiar thoroughfares and traced out, as a map,
+the more prominent buildings--the Church, the Municipality, the old
+Benedictine Monastery where Duke Alfred, they say, condescendingly
+invited himself to dine with the monks every second month in such state
+and splendour that, the rich convent revenues being exhausted, His
+Highness was pleased to transfer his favours to the neighboring
+Carthusians who went bankrupt in their turn; he recognized Count
+Caloveglia's place and, at the furthest outskirts, the little villa Mon
+Repos.
+
+Where was she now, his cousin?
+
+Reposing, no doubt, like all sensible folks.
+
+And his eye wandered to the narrow pathway along the precipice where he
+had walked with her in the evening light--that pathway which he had
+suggested railing in, by reason of its dangers. A section of the
+horrible face of the cliff was exposed, showing that ominous
+coloration, as though splotched with blood, which he had noticed from
+the boat. The devil's rock! An appropriate name. "Where the young
+English lord jump over...."
+
+It was the stillest hour of the day. Not a soul in sight. Not a
+particle of shade. Not a breath of air. A cloudless sky of inky
+blueness.
+
+To Mr. Heard's intense relief Denis had settled down, apparently for
+ever. He lay on his stomach like a lizard, immovable. His head,
+sheltered by a big hat, rested upon his jacket which he had rolled up
+into a sort of cushion; one bare sunburnt arm was stretched to its full
+length on the seared ground. What a child he was, to drag one up to a
+place like this in the expectation of seeing something unearthly! Mr.
+Heard was not quite satisfied about him. Perhaps he was only feigning.
+
+Time passed. Do what he would to keep awake, the bishop felt his
+eyelids drooping--closing under the deluge of light. Once more there
+approached him that spirit of malevolence brooding in the tense sunny
+calm, that baleful emanation which seemed to drain away his powers of
+will. It laid a weight upon him. He felt into an unquiet slumber.
+
+Presently he woke up and turned sharply to look at his companion. Denis
+had not stirred an inch from his voluptuous pose. A queer boy. Was he
+up to some mystification?
+
+The landscape all around was scarred and deserted. How silent a place
+can be, he thought. An unhealthy hush. And what a heat! The lava
+blocks--they seemed to smoulder and reel in the fiery glare. It was a
+deathly world. It reminded him of those illustrations to Dante's
+INFERNO. He thought to see the figures of the damned writhing amid
+tongues of flame.
+
+His glance fell once more upon the villa of his cousin. Strange! There
+were two persons, now, walking along the edge of the cliff. Mere
+specks.... He took up his glasses. The specks resolved themselves
+into the figures of Mrs. Meadows and Mr. Muhlen.
+
+The devil! he thought. What's the meaning of this?
+
+They were moving up and down, at the same spot where he had moved up
+and down with her. They seemed to be on friendly terms with one
+another. Excellent terms. It looked as if they were laughing now and
+then, and stopping occasionally to glance at something, some book or
+other object, which the lady carried in her hand. The devil! At times
+his cousin seemed to be dangerously near the edge--he caught his breath,
+remembering that sensation of giddiness, of gulping terror, with which
+he had watched the falcon swaying crazily over the abyss. She was
+enjoying it, to all appearances. Then, as they retraced their steps, it
+was the man's turn to take the outside of the path. He suffered as
+little as she did, evidently, from vertigo. Laughing, and
+gesticulating. The devil! What were they talking about? What were they
+doing there, at this impossible hour of the day? Five or six times they
+went to and fro; and then, suddenly, something happened before Mr.
+Heard's eyes--something unbelievable.
+
+He dropped his glasses, but quickly raised them again. There was no
+doubt about it. Muhlen was no longer there. He had disappeared. Mrs.
+Meadows was walking down towards her villa, in sprightly fashion,
+alone.
+
+Mr. Heard felt sick. Not knowing exactly what he was about, he began to
+shake Denis with needless violence. The young man turned round lazily,
+flushed in the face.
+
+"Where--what--" he began. "Rather funny! You saw it too? Oh, Lord!
+You've woke me up. What a bother.... Why, Mr. Heard, what's the
+matter with you? Aren't you feeling well?"
+
+The bishop pulled himself together, savagely.
+
+"Touch of the sun, I daresay. Africa, you know! Perhaps we ought to be
+going. Give me your arm, Denis, like a good boy. I want to get down."
+
+He was dazed in mind, and his steps faltered. But his brain was
+sufficiently clear to realize that his was face to face with an
+atrocious and carefully planned murder.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+
+
+
+All the traditions of his race, the uprightness of ages of decent
+law-abiding culture, the horror of the pure for what is impure rebelled
+against this thing which nothing but the testimony of his own eyes
+could have made him believe. He felt humiliated, as though he had
+received a blow; inclined to slink about and hide his face from other
+men. There was contamination in the mere fact of having been a witness.
+Oh, it was villainous. How carefully the hour and place had been
+chosen!
+
+And he himself, during that evening walk, had given her the idea. He
+had said how easily a man could be thrown over at that spot. Very
+simple....
+
+His mind would clear up, maybe, in course of time. Meanwhile he
+remembered about Retlow-ALIASMuhlen. It came to him in a flash. The man
+was his cousin's first husband; possibly her only legal husband, seeing
+that she may not have been able to secure sufficient evidence against
+him to justify a divorce--had, indeed, lost sight of the scoundrel
+altogether for several years prior to her elopement with young Meadows.
+It might well be that Muhlen had heard somehow or other of her presence
+on Nepenthe, and gone there for the purpose of renewing acquaintance
+with her. But this foul crime! For it cannot have been a sudden impulse
+on her part. She had been playing with him--leading him on. His visits
+to the Old Town, at that quiet hour of the day.... No. She had
+carried out her infamous plan after ample premeditation.
+
+Mr. Heard stayed at home, burdened with a hideous secret. Practical
+questions began to assail him. What should he do? Wait! he concluded.
+Something would be sure to turn up. He was too dazed to think clearly,
+as yet. He also disliked that fellow. But one does not murder a man
+because one happens to dislike him. One does not murder a man ...
+foolish words, that kept on repeating themselves in his mind.
+
+To pardon--yes. Mr. Heard could pardon to any extent. The act of
+pardoning: what did it imply? Nothing more than that poor deluded
+mortals were ever in need of sympathy and guidance. Anybody could
+pardon. To pardon was not enough for a man of Mr. Heard's ruthless
+integrity. He must understand. How understand, how interpret, a
+dastardly deed like this? What could her motives have been? Of what act
+of proposal could the man have been guilty to merit, even in her eyes,
+a fate such as this? For evidently, one does not murder a man because
+one happens to dislike him--
+
+Denis came to enquire, in the course of the morning. He was anxious to
+know how the bishop was feeling after yesterday's attack of sunstroke.
+
+"I have been blaming myself bitterly for dragging you out," he began.
+"I--really--"
+
+"Don't think about it! I shall be better soon. I'll remain indoors
+to-day."
+
+"You are not looking quite yourself just yet. What a fool I was! I
+can't tell you how sorry I am."
+
+"Not worth talking about. You'll stay to luncheon?"
+
+The news of Muhlen's disappearance was spread about that same evening,
+and created no surprise whatever. Foreigners had a knack of coming to
+the island and mysteriously vanishing again; it was quite the regular
+thing to run up accounts all around and then clear out. Hotel-keepers,
+aware of this idiosyncrasy on the part of distinguished guests,
+arranged their scale of charges accordingly; they made the prices so
+high that the honest paid for the dishonest, as with English tailors.
+The other tradespeople of the place--the smiling confectioner, the
+simple-minded bootmaker and good-natured stationer, the ever-polite
+hosier--they all worked on the same principle. They recouped themselves
+by fleecing the more ingenuous of their clients.
+
+In the case of Muhlen's occultation there was even less surprise than
+usual. Everybody, judging by his lavish display of gold and showy
+manner, expected him to depart sooner or later in the orthodox
+manner--at night-time, by means of a sailing boat secretly hired,
+conscientiously prepaid. His more intimate friends, the Magistrate and
+the Commissioner, were less surprised than anyone else. True, Signore
+Malipizzo was somewhat hurt, because Muhlen had practically invited him
+to stay at his own native town where every kind of amusement was to be
+had, the female society being of the choicest. Exuberant women--and
+rich! It would have been a pleasant change after the trim but tedious
+gardens of Salsomaggiore. He had strong homes, however, of receiving a
+letter from some safe place outside the dominions, making an
+appointment for the holidays. For form's sake, of course, he promptly
+initiated the ordinary judicial enquiries. It would look well in the
+records of the Court.
+
+As for Mr. Parker, who was brooding in the retirement of his villa
+whither the news had swiftly spread, he merely thought:
+
+"Got off scot free. And without paying his Club account, I'll bet.
+Bolted. Lucky devil. That's where the casual visitor has the pull over
+a resident official like myself. Cleared out! I'm glad I never had any
+money to lend him. Touched a good few of them, I'll be bound."
+
+Within an hour or so of the magistrate's formal enquiries led to a
+startling discovery. Muhlen's room in the hotel was broken open, and
+his property searched. No letters could be found conveying any clue as
+to his whereabouts. But--what was almost incredible--there was loose
+money lying about. A more minute investigation proved that the
+gentleman had dressed himself with considerable care prior to leaving
+the establishment for the last time. He had changed his socks and other
+underwear--yes, he had donned a clean shirt. The old one, blue-striped,
+which he had been seen to wear at breakfast, was lying negligently
+across the back of a chair with a pair of costly enameled links, of
+azure colour to match, in the cuffs. Moreover, in a small box hidden
+beneath some collars in a drawer were found a few foreign bank-notes, a
+ring or two, and a handful of gold coins such as he was in the habit of
+carrying about his person. The judge, who superintended the researches,
+caused these valuables to be impounded, sealed, and deposited in the
+Court of Justice.
+
+The discovery put a fresh and ominous complexion on the affair. When a
+man means to bolt, he does not leave portable jewelry--an enameled pair
+of links--behind him. And even if, in the hurry and scurry of departure,
+he does overlook such elegant trifles, he never forgets to take his
+money; least of all a man like Muhlen.
+
+A lengthy deposition was signed by the hotel proprietor. It set forth,
+in reference to Muhlen's general habits, that this gentleman had
+hitherto not attended to his account; he had not been urgently pressed
+for a settlement. One did not like to incommode foreign visitors with
+bills; it annoyed them so much that they sometimes migrated to other
+hotels and made debts there, debts which in certain unexpected cases
+were liquidated in full while the former and equally legitimate ones
+remained unpaid--which was disheartening. In regard to his recent mode
+of life, the document contained the suggestive fact that Muhlen had not
+taken his midday meal at the hotel for some time past. He was strangely
+fond of going out in the late mornings, the proprietor averred; it
+might be, to bathe; he returned at about five in the afternoon after
+lunching, presumably, in some small restaurant by the shore.
+
+This declaration, signed by a respected citizen, soon leaked into
+publicity. Taken in conjunction with the discovery of his money it was
+an eye-opener to the whole community, and to nobody more than to the
+judge himself. Signor Malipizzo argued, with his usual penetration,
+that Muhlen had intended to return to his quarters as he had always
+done of late. The ANIMUS REVERTENDI was abundantly proven by the
+sleeve-links and loose cash. He had not returned. Ergo, something
+untoward had happened. Untoward things may be divided, for the sake of
+convenience, into two main classes, sections, or categories:
+
+1. Accidents.
+2. Foul play.
+
+Which was it?
+
+Signor Malipizzo dismissed as untenable the hypothesis of a clandestine
+withdrawal from local creditors. By way of clearing up the last vestige
+of doubt, however, and also for the sake of appearances (seeing that a
+wise magistrate is supposed to take nothing for granted) he called for
+depositions for the sailors and fishermen. It was a superfluous piece
+of work, a pure formality; he knew beforehand what they would say. They
+always said the same thing. They said it. Interrogated on oath they
+declared, one and all, that no person answering to the description of
+Muhlen had appeared on the beach for a long time; not for the last
+eight months and twelve days, to be quite accurate; much less had such
+a one engaged a vessel. The jovial but conservative sea-folk never
+varied their utterance on those many solemn occasions when a foreigner,
+for the purpose of evaporating, paid in advance for the hire of a boat,
+or was supposed to have done so. Albeit even ignorant people attached
+no significance to this statement, it went for what it was worth as
+cumulative evidence.
+
+The sight of that loose cash would have been quite enough for a man of
+Signor Malipizzo's discernment. Muhlen had not bolted. Nor was he the
+kind of man to lose his life by an accident. Not he! Muhlen was careful
+of his skin. Ergo, his disappearance was due to something which came
+under the second class, section, or category. He had been done away
+with.
+
+The magistrate, thinking of those summer holidays, began to be really
+vexed; so did Mr. Parker, who soon learned the result of these
+enquiries and regretted that his mourning retirement prevented him from
+issuing forth and telling everybody what he thought of this new
+disgraceful scandal. His English blood revolted at the idea of a
+harmless tourist, a prominent member of the Alpha and Omega Club, being
+callously murdered. Would these people never get civilized? He was glad
+to hear, at all events, that the judge was doing something.
+
+Signor Malipizzo was doing a good deal. He meant to sift the thing to
+the bottom. His energy, hitherto simulated, was now set genuinely at
+work to discover indications of the murderer--indications of his missing
+friend. But Nepenthe is not a good place for finding corpses. The
+island is full of fathomless rents and fissures. A good many
+foreigners, especially such as were known to carry loose gold in their
+pockets, had been suspected of falling into them without leaving a
+trace behind. Yet a thorough search was instituted, for he knew that
+criminals were not always as clever as they thought themselves; some
+insignificant relic might turn up--a shred of clothing or so forth. Such
+things were occasionally picked up on Nepenthe; nobody knew to whom
+they belonged. The Cave of Mercury, on being searched, yielded nothing
+but a trouser button, apparently of English manufacture. Enquiries were
+also made as to when the ill-starred gentleman had last been seen, and
+where. Finally, the judge drew up a list, a fairly long list, of all
+the suspicious characters on the place with a view to placing them
+under lock and key, in expectation of further developments. Such was
+the customary procedure; one must assume the worst. If innocent, they
+might of course regain their liberty in a year or two.
+
+It stands to reason that a good many people had noticed Muhlen on the
+morning of his disappearance. One cannot walk about Nepenthe at that
+hour of the day without being seen, and Muhlen was sufficiently
+conspicuous. But everyone knew what was in store for him if he admitted
+such a fact, to wit, an application of paragraph 43 of the 92nd section
+of the Code of Criminal Procedure, according to which any and every
+witness of this kind is liable to be segregated from his family and
+kept under arrest for an indefinite length of time, pending the
+instruction of a trial which might take half a century. Nobody,
+therefore, was fool enough to admit having encountered him--nobody save
+a half-witted youth who fatuously confided to a policeman that the had
+met the gentleman somewhere in the neighbourhood of the bibliographer's
+villa about the hour of midday. Under ordinary circumstances Signor
+Malipizzo would have been delighted to lay sacrilegious hands on Mr.
+Eames, whose Olympic aloofness had always annoyed him and against whom
+a case could now be got up, on the strength of these indications.
+Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the villa--that was quite sufficient
+to warrant an arrest.
+
+The boy in question happened to be a relation of his arch-enemy, the
+parish priest. Better still. Chuckling at the happy coincidence, he
+forgot all about Mr. Eames, and gave orders for the other to be
+conveyed to the guard-house, searched, and interrogated, arguing
+plausibly that a person of his mental instability would be sure to give
+himself away by some stupid remark.
+
+Things turned out better than he had dared to hope. Under the
+prisoner's clothing was discovered a gold coin of foreign nationality
+attached, by a piece of string, round his neck. For all one knew, it
+might have been Muhlen's. The interrogating carbineer who is invested,
+during such preliminary enquiries, with quasi-judicial functions--being
+permitted to assume the role of prosecuting or defending counsel, or to
+remain sternly unbiased, as he feels inclined--desired to learn how he
+had come by this jewel.
+
+He received it long ago from his mother, he said, as a talisman against
+the moonsickness which had tormented him in childhood. Replying, in
+stammering and dazed fashion, to further questions, he gave it to be
+understood that nobody had ever set eyes on the coin in question; he
+was afraid of showing it, lest someone should take it from him by
+force. He loved the coin. He got it from his mother.
+
+"Ah!" said the friendly policeman. "And your mother, now--could she
+perhaps tell us when she gave it to you?"
+
+"My mother is in Paradise."
+
+"Dead, is she? H'm. That looks queer, my young friend. Very fishy. You
+should be more careful in little things like that. She ought to have
+been kept alive, you know. Anybody can say they had gold coins given
+them by dead mothers, don't you see? Rather a thin trick. Can't you
+suggest something better? Cheer up, boy! You needn't tremble all over.
+Look, I am writing it down, and you must put your name to it
+afterwards. Think--little. A living uncle, for instance--if he came into
+Court and testified that he had given you the coin, why, it might make
+all the difference and get you out of a nasty scrape. Surely you've got
+an uncle or something? How about His Reverence the PARROCO? Couldn't he
+swear--?"
+
+"My mother is in Paradise."
+
+"In Paradise, is she? That's where you ought to be, my son. Just sign
+this declaration, please. Then perhaps you will meet your mother sooner
+than you expect. Can't read or write? Well, put your cross to it and
+may the Madonna help you! For I can't. I've done my best to be
+impartial, but God alone can steer a fool. He makes a specialty of it,
+they tell me. If so, you've got a sporting chance...."
+
+Overjoyed with this incriminating deposition, His Worship gave orders
+for the prisoner's formal arrest. Aloud he remarked:
+
+"What have I always said? Beware of wimple folks. They are the deep
+ones. Their naivete is nothing but a disguise. Here we have a case in
+point. This boy, from all accounts, is the pure type of the callous
+murderer. He stutters. He makes uncalled-for gurglings of a bestial
+nature. He has pendulous ears, and certain other stigmata of
+degeneration which are familiar to all conversant with criminal
+anthropology. Of course he denies everything. But mark my words! After
+six or seven months, when the prison diet begins to take effect, he
+will confess. I know the species; it is all too common. Meanwhile we
+must congratulate ourselves on having tracked down the culprit so
+soon."
+
+To condemn for homicide the cousin of a Catholic priest warmed the
+cockles of his free-thinking heart. In fact, on second thoughts, it was
+better than if he had caught the real murderer who might have turned
+out to be an atheist, which would have been bad enough--or possibly a
+freemason, which would have been really awkward. The news spread
+rapidly over the island, and caused wild rejoicings among the
+anti-clericals.
+
+The rejoicings were of brief duration.
+
+Torquemada, as usual, was in fighting trim. Like all God-fearing
+ascetics, he was a man-eater at heart. He made up his mind long ago to
+eat the judge, whom he considered an offence to Heaven and earth--the
+official mouthpiece of the devil. Up to the present he had bided his
+time, waiting for a good opportunity. The time was now ripe.
+
+Not that he greatly loved his cousin. The family to which the unhappy
+youth belonged was of no credit or use to himself, and this particular
+member was worse than useless, being afflicted with an unpardonable
+vice--lack of judgment. His stupidity had already got him into a number
+of minor scrapes. As a child he annoyed foreigners by ingenuous
+requests for money, stole flowers from neighbours' gardens because they
+were so irresistibly pretty, tied saucepans to their cats because they
+had such irresistibly long tails and made such irresistibly droll
+movements and noises in order to get rid of them, frightened old ladies
+by making faces at them; sometimes, by way of a change, he threw off a
+fit; later on, he had taken to smashing crockery, mooning about the
+vineyards, forgetting errands entrusted to him, throwing stones at
+passing carriages and making a general nuisance of himself. The PARROCO
+knew that he had been dismissed as incompetent by tradespeople to whom
+he was apprenticed, by farmers who had employed him as a labourer. He
+could not even repeat his Ave Maria without producing sinister
+crepitations from his gullet. And now he had crowned all by this
+surpassing act of imprudence. If he had only kept his mouth shut, like
+everybody else. But there! What could you expect from a fool?
+
+A genuine murderer--it was most irreligious, of course. Still, some
+homicides were fairly justifiable, others almost meritorious; and a
+criminal of this kind showed, in every case, undeniable traces of
+manliness; one could not help respecting him in an oblique sort of
+fashion. But a fool! Torquemada, the zealous priest, the man of God,
+could never quite repress the promptings of his blood. He had all the
+fanatic's appreciation of violent methods; all the Southerner's
+fondness for a miscreant, and contempt for a simpleton. A mere
+fool--what's the use of him on earth? Had the culprit been any ordinary
+Christian, His Reverence would not have dreamt of interfering; gladly
+would he have let him spend the remainder of his day sin prison which
+everybody knew to be the best place for stupid people--it kept them out
+of mischief.
+
+But this was not an ordinary Christian. He was a relation. A relation!
+That meant that one must show fight for him, if only for the sake of
+public appearances.
+
+He held a hurried council with his family and, half an hour later, a
+second one with the more influential members of the priesthood. It was
+decided, in both cases, that the occasion was favourable for a
+long-deferred contest between the Powers of Light and the powers of
+darkness, the Catholic Church and modernism, the Clergy of Nepenthe and
+the secular authority of law and order as personified by that judge in
+whom all evil, public and private, flowed together. A noble parting
+cheque which he had just received from Mr. van Koppen for some urgent
+repairs to the parish organ came in handy. It would enable him to face
+the adversary with good hopes of success. To his friends he said:
+
+"An insult to my family! I shall not take it lying down. Let them see
+what a humble servant of God can do."
+
+So saying, he girded his loins for the fray, walked in person to the
+post office and wrote out a lengthy telegram to the redoubtable Don
+Giustino Morena, the parliamentary representative of Nepenthe who, as
+readers of the newspapers were aware, happened to be taking a brief
+holiday among his own people in the South. It was a judiciously
+flattering dispatch. It prayed the famous lawyer-politician to
+undertake the defence of a relation, an orphan, a mere child, unjustly
+accused of murder and arbitrarily imprisoned, and to deign to accept a
+pitiful honorarium of five thousand francs--the largest sum which a
+parish priest, poor but jealous of the honour of his family, could
+scrape together. If the great man accepted the offer, he might arrive
+by the nest day's boat. There was a chance, thought the PARROCO, of his
+doing so. Don Giustino was an ardent Catholic; he might be favourably
+impressed by the modest petition of a clergyman in his constituency. He
+had promised over and over again to visit his Nepenthean constituents.
+He would now be killing two birds with one stone.
+
+Five minutes, under ordinary circumstances, were wont to elapse ere an
+item of private news could percolate out of the post office and become
+public property. Such was the portentous import of this message that it
+did not percolate at all. It flashed, and produced forthwith a feeling
+of joyous elation at the prospect of lively events in the near
+future--of a battle between the Vatican and the Quirinal. Coming on the
+top of Muhlen's murder--which was a decided improvement upon his alleged
+flight--it caused the citizens to talk in excited and almost random
+fashion about what was coming next. Alone, the members of the Alpha and
+Omega Club, thanks to the benign influence of Parker's poison, received
+the successive waves of information with composure, and preserved from
+beginning to end their sense of proportion.
+
+"Heard the news? Muhlen's bolted."
+
+"I thought he would."
+
+"They say he owes a good deal."
+
+"Obviously. Else he wouldn't have bolted. Good riddance, anyhow."
+
+"That's what I say. But he owes me a lot of whiskies, the blighter."
+
+"You're lucky. Gone off with thirty francs of mine."
+
+"Damn his eyes. I expect we're not the only ones."
+
+"Not by a long chalk. Come and have a drink."
+
+"Heard the news? Muhlen's murdered."
+
+"Serve him bloody well right. The blackguard owes me two francs fifty.
+I'll bet it was some money business."
+
+"Not a bit of it. A little girl, you know. Got a knife in the stomach.
+About eleven at night, from all accounts. They heard him squealing a
+mile off."
+
+"I don't believe it. He was not that kind."
+
+"Not that kind? What do you mean?"
+
+"Not that kind."
+
+"Not THAT kind? Really? Go on. You don't say so, by Jove! What makes
+you think it?"
+
+"Think? I don't think. I happen to know. You pay for my peg and I'll
+tell you all about it...."
+
+"Heard the news? Don Giustino's coming over."
+
+"The old assassin. What of it?"
+
+"Good business! One in the eye for Mali--what's his name. There'll be
+the hell of a row. We ought to be grateful to Muhlen for this
+amusement."
+
+"Damned if we ought. Unless he got himself killed on purpose to amuse
+us. And even then it would have amused me more if he had paid me back
+those seventeen francs."
+
+"You're very hard to please to-day."
+
+"So would you be, if you'd been as raddled as I was last night. You
+ought to see the inside of my head, you ought. There's room for a coal
+barge, in there."
+
+"That's easily remedied. Toss up for drinks."
+
+"Don't mind if I do...."
+
+Signor Malipizzo heard the news as he was sitting down to luncheon. At
+first he thought the priest had gone crazy. Don Giustino--good God! Five
+thousand francs. Where had he found the money? Then he remembered
+hearing about old Koppen's cheque for the organ. Those confounded
+foreigners, always mixing themselves up in local concerns! If the
+PARROCO were really poor, as these hypocrites of Christians professed
+to be, he could never have run to it. Don Giustino. What an awful turn
+of events. And all because Muhlen got himself murdered. These
+confounded foreigners!
+
+His heart sank within him. He had looked forward to keeping the
+priest's cousin for a year or two in gaol, previous to his trial. That
+would have to be altered. If Don Giustino came, the proceedings must be
+fixed for next morning--it was the merest act of courtesy towards a man
+of his standing, a man whom one must conciliate at any cost. He blamed
+himself for arresting that young idiot. It threatened to bring him into
+undesired prominence. Hitherto, by reason of his sheer insignificance,
+he had escaped the great Catholic deputy's eye. As Magistrate of
+Nepenthe, who cared what political or religious views he professed or
+in what manner he administered the law? All this was now changed. He
+was in the limelight. It might end--who knows where? He had other
+enemies on the island beside the clericals; the arrival of Don Giustino
+might lead to a general revision of his judicial labours. To-morrow
+perhaps he would have to confront the monster. Don Giustino! He knew
+him by reputation. A Camorrista of the blackest dye. He took no
+chances. He never threatened; he performed. Everybody knew that. Signor
+Malipizzo did not like the prospect of losing his lucrative job. Still
+less did he fancy the notion of receiving a charge of buck-shot in his
+liver, one evening from behind a wall. That was Don Giustino's cheerful
+way with people who annoyed him. Those infernal clericals; their
+sanguinary, out-of-date methods! Papacy and Camorra--interconvertible
+terms--who could plumb their depths? The Masons were different. They
+fought for the enlightenment of a people deluded by priestly snares and
+intimidated by the threats of assassins. Don Giustino. Holy Mother of
+God! What would to-morrow bring?
+
+Thinking thus, the judge eyed his victuals resentfully. His appetite
+was gone--he was beginning to feel sick. Suddenly he pushed his plate
+away from him and hobbled out of the room, even forgetting to finish
+his wine. He limped across the broiling market-place to give the
+necessary orders to his faithful and experienced clerk who, having
+likewise got wind of that telegram, was not unprepared for some change
+of mind on the part of his chief.
+
+"The young idiot must come up for trial to-morrow, if the assassin
+arrives."
+
+"A sound suggestion," the grey-haired one replied. "It will take the
+wind out of his sails. It will prove--"
+
+"Of course it will. And now, Don Carlo, go and take your little nap. I
+will stay here, to put my papers in order. May your dreams be happy."
+
+The judge was dowered with extreme irascibility of temper, due to his
+chronic valetudinarian condition. He, too--within the limits of
+propriety--was not going to take things lying down. So much was certain.
+At first he was too agitated to be able to collect his thoughts.
+Gradually, as he moved about those rooms, calmness and confidence
+returned. He was alone. It was very warm and quiet here, amid these
+scenes of his many little triumphs. The look of the archives, the
+familiar smell of the place, was reassuring. He began to feel at ease
+once more. Ideas came to him.
+
+He signed warrants for the arrest of the Messiah, Krasnojabkin and some
+fifteen others of those who had escaped his wrath on the previous
+occasion. They would be under lock and key within two hours. Don
+Giustino would never interfere on behalf of these aliens. Nor would any
+one else. An inspiration! It would proclaim his zeal for the public
+order--his official independence of mind.
+
+And--yes. There was one other little thing.
+
+He hobbled to where the various PIECES JUSTIFICATIVES were lying in
+their sealed envelopes. He took up the receptacle containing the gold
+talisman which had been sequestrated from the priest's nephew, and
+broke it open. It could always be sealed up again. The coin, attached
+to its string, fell out; it was an old-fashioned medal--Spanish,
+apparently. He fingered it awhile. Then, opening the packet which held
+Muhlen's gold, he carefully examined the contents. Five or six of these
+coins were of the same kind. French Napoleons. That was lucky. Any
+stick was good enough to beat a dog with. This was a particularly good
+stick. He bored a hole through one of the Napoleons and placed it on
+the culprit's string, after removing the original talisman, which he
+bestowed in his own pocket. That done, he sealed up the two parcels
+again, conscientiously.
+
+"There!" he said. "He laughs best who laughs last. Don Giustino is a
+clever man. But the devil himself could not prove the prisoner
+innocent, in the face of evidence like this. Down with the Pope!"
+
+Never had he felt so enlightened, so gloriously freemasonish.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+
+
+
+The commendatore Giustino Morena--familiarly known as Don Giustino or,
+by his enemies, as "the assassin"--was a Southerner by birth, a city
+product. From low surroundings he had risen to be a prominent member of
+the Chamber of Deputies and one of the most impressive figures in the
+country.
+
+As a child he was apprenticed to a cobbler. There, bending over his
+work on the pavement outside the shop-door, his blue eyes and curly
+fair hair, his rosy cheeks, his winning smile, his precocious retorts,
+attracted the most favourable comment from the passers-by and secured
+him an unfailing supply of chocolates and cigarettes. People liked him
+so much that he quickly learned not only how to mend shoes but a good
+many other things which they were anxious to teach him. His grown-up
+friends vied with one another for a place in his affections and a
+certain scandalous affair with knives, which somehow or other got into
+the daily press where it had no business to be, put the seal on his
+reputation in the quarter.
+
+"That boy will go far!" the old men and women used to say. "Only look
+at his blue eyes. Blessed the mother that bore him, whoever she
+was"--for nobody even pretended to know.
+
+They were right; as old folks are apt to be. The victor in the
+disreputable affray happened to be a gentleman of middle age, a
+distinguished ornament of the Black Hand. No happier fate could have
+been devised for Giustino than to live under the patronage of such an
+individual. He took charge of the little fellow, and was not slow in
+discovering that his protege possessed not only a muscular framework
+and ready wit, but the malice, the concentrated ruthlessness and
+rapacity of fifty devils rolled into one. Something could be made out
+of that boy, he concluded; the Society, always ready to adopt promising
+neophytes on the recommendation of a qualified practitioner like
+himself, would doubtless enrol him in due course. Meanwhile he
+instructed him, by precept and example, how to be religious in the
+manner most pleasing to the Madonna. He narrated the Lives of the
+Saints, forced him to attend Mass and confess himself to one of the
+Society's trusted priests and taught him, above all things, to hate the
+Government because it oppressed the Pope and the poor. One day he said:
+
+"You must now attend evening classes. I think you will do well at our
+school of the Holy Cross. Your outfit is exceptional. Among other
+things you have the great advantage that the first and second fingers
+of both your hands are of equal length. That augurs well! God has
+favoured you, for many lads have to lengthen the first one
+artificially, which is apt to weaken the joints."
+
+The Master and Director drew good salaries from the numerous pupils at
+this institution. Everything useful to young boys was taught here save
+only religion. Seeing that all the scholars were drawn from families
+distinguished for their piety and adherence to the Pope, the Director
+considered a religious training to be superfluous--his pupils learnt
+these things on their mothers' knees. Giustino soon acquired the
+jargon; he passed his examination in fifteen articles, in secrecy,
+swiftness of foot and nimbleness of hand. The latter was taught on a
+clothed wooden figure out of whose pockets the students were obliged to
+extract handkerchiefs, gold watches and jewelry with such dexterity
+that not one of the little bells, which dangled from its hat, gave
+forth the slightest sound; that stage passed, the art was practised on
+the person of the Director himself who, walking through the streets as
+an ordinary citizen, was supposed to have his pockets picked in the
+approved professional manner. Those who failed to come up to the
+standard were thrashed savagely three or four times; if they still
+failed, they were sent back to their parents with a polite
+recommendation that they should be taught some other trade. Giustino
+was seldom punished. On the contrary, the Director was so enamoured of
+his progress and blue eyes that he entered him as a fox long before the
+regular three years' course was up, and offered to tattoo the symbol of
+proficiency, a cross, on the back of his right hand.
+
+The patron, while proud of his young friend, did not intend to spoil
+his chances in after life by an indelible bodily mark of this kind
+however honourably attained. He had other designs for him. To pass the
+next year or two, he made arrangements for Giustino, now grown lean and
+wolfish, to be officially received into the Black Hand. As probationer
+he was the delight of his superiors; he went through the various tests
+with phenomenal rapidity and gave abundant proofs of manliness. At the
+age of sixteen he had already killed three men--one of them being a
+policeman who was suspected of infidelity towards the Society. It was
+then that the protector, who was no fool, spoke to him a second time,
+saying:
+
+"As you know, my son, I can neither read nor write. Those were not
+considered respectable accomplishments, in my day, for a lad of spirit
+or a man of honour. Devil's work! But we live in an effeminate age.
+Virtue is at a discount. The wise man, while observing these things
+with regret, adapts himself to them. He marches with the times. They
+call us reactionaries. It depends upon boys like you to show the world
+what reactionaries are good for. The whole town has already learnt to
+respect your manly instincts. You must now go further and learn to read
+and write. You will then enter the University. There you will study law
+and politics. You will then enter Parliament. There you will represent
+our cause. The means--the money? Trust the Society! Only be a credit to
+your friends, defend the poor, and never forget to say your prayers.
+Then the good God will reward your efforts."
+
+This is precisely what the good God did. Within a short space of time
+the young deputy had made a name for himself; he was recognized as one
+of the few representatives of the Black Hand whose word could be
+implicitly relied upon. He had a share in everything; commissions and
+percentages poured in upon him. After making an example of half a dozen
+tiresome persons by having them quietly stabbed or shot--nothing was
+ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work--he
+experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never
+threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal
+Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore;
+not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but
+because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity of
+showing that he could do what he pleased with everybody, Government
+included. It was an open secret that the next vacant portfolio of
+Justice would be at his disposal. All this of course was years and
+years ago.
+
+To these arts of statecraft he added a quite unusual legal acumen and
+forensic ability. For the last fifteen years he had been in receipt of
+large annual retaining fees from the principal commercial firms of the
+country; that of one shipping company alone amounted to fifty thousand
+francs. They found it worth their while since, without doing a stroke
+of work for them, he gave his tacit support to their most nefarious
+undertakings. A useful man! As a lawyer in private cases his reputation
+was tremendous. Judges and juries had been known to faint with emotion
+at his dramatic gestures, his fiery eloquence. He could pull anybody
+out of a scrape. Wherever he spoke the Court was crowded to listen to
+his impassioned arguments, to look upon the cold fire of his blue eyes,
+his carefully adjusted dress, his fair hair turning to grey, his smooth
+face which he kept shaven for no other reason--so he used to
+declare--than because he reverenced the fashions of the old papal
+regime. "Just like an Englishman," people said.
+
+He had lately put on flesh; it inspired confidence. Moreover, he never
+married; that also was something out of the common--it pointed to
+independence, to lack of ordinary human frailties. In short, he was so
+perfect a compound of vice and intelligence that even his dearest
+friends could not put their finger on the exact spot where the one
+began and the other ended. And the whole of this unique mixture was
+placed at the disposal of the Vatican. Don Giustino was the implacable
+enemy of modernism, a living disproof of the vulgar assertion that
+freemasonry is the sole key to success in modern Italy. A formidable
+man! And growing more formidable every day, as his wealth increased.
+His income was already such that he could afford to be honest; nothing
+but the force of old habits kept him from developing into a positive
+saint.
+
+It stands to reason that a person of this caliber would have sniffed at
+a paltry remuneration of five thousand francs offered by an obscure
+country priest. But Don Giustino was a good son of the Church. He had
+never forgotten the recommendation of his old patron to succour the
+humble and distressed; he specialized, as a lawyer, in defending
+murderers and rescuing them from the secular arm. They were enthusiasts
+suffering under a sense of wrong; they belonged to the class of the
+honest poor; they were victims of governmental greed and social
+injustice. Motives, not deeds! he would say. And the motives of the
+poor must be judged by other standards than those of the rich. They
+have other lives, other temptations. Trust the people. The people,
+under proper guidance of the priests....
+
+Although it was hardly likely that the great man would deign to accept
+Torquemada's invitation, yet half the town was assembled at the harbour
+to await the arrival of the evening boat and catch a glimpse, if
+possible, of the famous Camorrista. And there he was! He leaned over
+the taffrail, easily recognizable from his pictures in the illustrated
+papers. He was dressed in a felt hat, brown boots, and light grey
+clothes--just like anybody else. Presently he descended to the quay,
+followed by a tall and solid-looking young valet. He was wreathed in
+smiles. A whiff of political life, of busy deeds in the capital,
+exhaled from his person. The Mayor of Nepenthe, a devout Catholic,
+deferentially shook hands and introduced the PARROCO and other
+notabilities. They drove up together. It was all delightfully breezy
+and informal. But men were aware that in this little episode there
+lurked more than met the eye; that the arrival of Commendatore Morena
+was an occasion worthy to be chronicled in the annals of the island.
+Not only was it his first appearance as a deputy among his
+constituents. That alone would have been an event. The avowed purpose
+of his visit, to rescue a criminal from the properly constituted
+authorities, gave it the character of a pro-Vatican demonstration--a
+slap in the face of King and Constitution.
+
+An intimate little dinner had been arranged by the parish priest in
+order to give the principal clergy and a few favoured laymen of their
+party an opportunity of paying their respects. No one knew what took
+place at this repast save that the distinguished guest was in wonderful
+humour; he joked and laughed and told funny stories; he was enchanted
+with the wine and the excellent local crayfish and announced his
+intention of buying a little villa wherein to spend the evening of his
+days, after his public labours were over. An ideal spot! Lucky people,
+he called them. It was most unfortunate that he would be obliged to
+leave by to-morrow's midday boat, and so miss the greater part of the
+festival of Saint Eulalia.
+
+Another little item of news was allowed to filter out and sedulously
+propagated, to the effect that the Commendatore had refused, politely
+but firmly, to accept any remuneration for his services. Such a thing
+could not be thought of! Pleasure and duty rarely coincided as in this
+case, where it was both a pleasure to come to this charming island and
+a duty to say a few words in Court about this unfortunate young man--to
+defend the oppressed to the utmost of his miserable ability, and
+thereby approve himself a good son of the Church.
+
+"Your servant in everything!" he added. "And if you would now accept
+from me a humble donation of one thousand francs to be distributed, as
+His Reverence thinks best, among the needy poor of Nepenthe, you would
+indeed make me your debtor for life!"
+
+Such was the great man's speech, as reported. It was a pure invention
+on the part of Torquemada who, being a high-principled ecclesiastic,
+had clear-cut orthodox views anent the utility of pious legends. He
+knew it would sound well among the populace. He hoped it would vex the
+envious magistrate into a fit of colic. He argued that the great man
+himself, in the event of its coming to his ears, would not be otherwise
+than gratified by a godly fable so strictly in keeping with his
+character.
+
+Don Francesco alone, the smiling terrestrial beast, the lover of wine
+and women, held aloof from the entertainment, alleging a gastric
+indisposition and doctor's orders. He did not see eye to eye with
+Torquemada on matters such as these. Don Francesco disliked all
+measures of violence, Camorra or freemasonry, Vatican or
+Quirinal--disliked them so much that he would have hated them had he
+been built, like the PARROCO, on hating lines. He was too unwieldy, too
+fond of life, too indulgent towards himself and others to experience at
+mention of Don Giustino's name anything but a certain feeling of
+discomfort--a feeling which his acute intelligence, embedded under those
+rolls of fat, enabled him to formulate with warmth and precision.
+
+"I know quite well," he said to Torquemada, "that he calls himself a
+good son of the Church. So much the worse for the Church. I understand
+he is a prominent member of the Government. So much the worse for the
+Government. And I realize that, but for his intervention, this harmless
+individual might spend the remainder of his life in prison. So much the
+worse for all of us, who derive justice from so tainted a source. As to
+dining at the same table with him--no. Does not the whole world know his
+history? The animal! He would make me vomit. And you will believe me
+when I say, my dear PARROCO, that I do not look my best on such
+occasions."
+
+Torquemada shook his head, mournfully. It was by no means the first
+time that he had suspected his popular colleague of being a lukewarm
+Christian.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+
+
+
+The market-place was filled to over-brimming. Everybody discussed the
+near events in the Court of Justice. It promised to be a bad day for
+Signor Malipizzo. And yet people could not help admitting how clever he
+had been to lock up those Russians. It was the best thing he could have
+done under the circumstances. It proved his freedom from anti-Catholic
+prejudices. It made him look icily objective.
+
+Torquemada, on hearing that the prisoner's gold coin corresponded with
+those others which had been in the possession of the murdered man,
+thought it deplorable. Here was plain evidence of his cousin's guilt!
+Most deplorable. Still, the victim being not only a foreigner but a
+Protestant was a considerable mitigation of the offence from the moral
+and religious point of view, and possibly from the legal one as well.
+Anyhow, what did legal aspects matter? Had he not engaged Don Giustino?
+Innocent or guilty, the prisoner would be released. And, on second
+thoughts, he discovered him to be worthy of the great man's golden
+eloquence. He was not altogether a fool. There was a touch of manliness
+about him; he was decidedly a brighter lad than he looked. He deserved
+to be released.
+
+Ten o'clock sounded.
+
+The Court had never been so crowded. There was barely standing room.
+Sunlight poured in through the windows which had not been cleaned for
+many long months; the atmosphere was already rather oppressive. It was
+a stuffy place at all times, reeking of old tobacco smoke and humanity.
+
+Everybody was still save the old grey-headed clerk who fussed about
+with papers. Signor Malipizzo, after a deferential but dignified bow to
+the famous lawyer, had taken his seat on the raised platform facing the
+public whence he was wont to dispense justice. Nailed against the wall,
+directly over his head, was a large white paper bearing the printed
+words "La Legge": the law. It dominated the chamber. On one side of
+this could be seen a coloured portrait of the Sovereign in the
+bersagliere uniform; a fierce military glance shot out of his eyes from
+under that helmet whose plume of nodding feathers made it look three
+sizes too large for his head. On the other side hung a representation
+of the Madonna, simpering benignly in a blue tea-gown besprinkled with
+pearls and golden lace. The spittoon, which His Worship required
+continually during the audiences, was wont to be placed immediately
+below this latter picture; it was the magistrate's polite freemasonish
+method of expressing his reverence for the Mother of God. Everybody
+noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was
+located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate
+compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn
+enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little
+detail. How artful of him! they said.
+
+All eyes were fixed upon Don Giustino. He sat there quietly. If he was
+bored he certainly did not show it. Now that he was here he would give
+these good people a taste of his quality. He knew all about the gold
+coin; he was profoundly convinced of the prisoner's guilt. This was
+lucky for the young man. Had he thought otherwise he would probably
+have refused to take up the case. Don Giustino made a point of never
+defending innocent people. They were idiots who entangled themselves in
+the meshes of the law; they fully deserved their fate. Really to have
+murdered Muhlen was the one and only point in the prisoner's favour. It
+made him worthy of his rhetorical efforts. All his clients were guilty,
+and all of them got off scot free. "I never defend people I can't
+respect," he used to say.
+
+He began his speech in a rambling, desultory sort of fashion and quite
+a low tone of voice, as if he were addressing a circle of friends.
+
+A charming place, Nepenthe! He would carry away the pleasantest
+memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants. It was
+like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger. And
+yet nothing on earth was secure. That volcanic eruption the other
+day--what a scare it must have given them! What a lucky escape they had,
+thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint! Hardly any
+damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were
+intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to
+their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather
+round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the
+pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source
+whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and
+right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the
+parents' teaching and example--nothing! And this poor boy, now
+threatened with imprisonment, had a mother. He had a mother. Did the
+Court appreciate the import of those words? Did they realize what it
+meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her
+offspring's help and consolation--the child of its mother's fostering
+care? Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past
+who were known to have had mothers--Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter
+the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon--why had they achieved distinction in
+the world? What was the secret of their greatness? A mother's
+affectionate guidance in youth. They had not been torn, as children,
+from her loving arms.
+
+A good many people were already sobbing. But the orator had noticed
+that something was wrong. He consulted a small scrap of paper and then
+continued in the same conversational tones as before.
+
+He had no mother. He was an orphan. An orphan! Did the Court realize
+what it meant? No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all
+that was implied in that bitter word. An orphan. Nobody to instil those
+early lessons of piety ... to grow up wild, neglected, despised....
+It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly
+unnatural conditions. Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct
+them; he alone was bereft of this blessing. It was cruel, it was
+illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate
+other ones. Let the Court call to mind the names of those who had
+deviated from the narrow path of duty; did they not all belong to this
+unhappy class? It might safely be inferred that they had no mothers!
+Such person were to be pitied and helped, rather than condemned for
+what was the fault not of their natures but of their anomalous
+situation in life. To rescue a motherless young soul from the brink of
+perdition was the noblest task of a Christian. And this was still,
+thank Heaven, a Christian country, despite the ever-swelling invasion
+of that irreligious foreign element which threatened to break up the
+old faith in God. The Madonna was still worshipped; together with the
+Saints. Their precious relics and other holy amulets still proved their
+efficacy in the hour of danger.
+
+Amulets--ah, that reminded him.
+
+To kill a man with a view to possessing yourself of his substance was
+an unpardonable crime. Now what had this boy done? Let them take the
+so-called robbery first. Well, no robbery had been committed, in spite
+of the notorious fact that this Protestant, this foreigner was known to
+be loaded with money. His client had fought down the temptation, the
+almost irresistible temptation, of appropriating the gold. Let them
+remember that! The minutest investigation failed to reveal anything
+save a single coin which he had attached to a string and hung about his
+neck. Motives, not deeds! What were his motives for this strange act?
+An unconscious application of the homoeopathic principle. He had taken
+it as a safeguard, an amulet, in the childish belief that it might
+protect him on future occasions against insults such as those he had
+undergone.
+
+Then, while the audience were still puzzling what the last words meant,
+he suddenly indulged in one of those abrupt transitions for which he
+was famous, and burst out:
+
+"Down with foreigners! We Catholics know what foreigners are, how they
+work for evil in places high and low. One cannot take up a daily paper
+without seeing some exposure of their many-sided viciousness. They
+contaminate the land with their godless depravity. Nobody can count on
+immunity. The highest officials in the land, the very Ministers of the
+Crown, are subjected to their vile disguised attempts at bribery and
+corruption, no humble peasant girl, no child, is safe from the
+befoulment of their filthy minds. We know them--our police records, the
+archives of our Courts of Justice, testify to their demoralizing
+agency. A pest, a contagion! Who can tell what proposals were made in
+this particular case--what degrading proposals, backed by the insidious
+offer of foreign gold? A weak character might have succumbed. But the
+victim was made of different stuff. He belonged to another type--the
+heroic type. Suffering anguish of soul, he yet preferred honour to
+baseness. In self-defence--"
+
+At this point the great Deputy ceased to speak. Signor Malipizzo had
+swooned away. He had to be carried out of Court.
+
+It mattered little, for the proceedings were at an end save for a few
+formalities. The case was won.
+
+People were rather annoyed at being deprived of one of Don Giustino's
+far-famed perorations. It could not be helped. Better luck next time.
+Then they asked themselves why the judge had fainted. Some thought it
+might be the heat, or a touch of his old complaint. The majority were
+agreed that the attack was due to the Deputy's eloquence. And it was
+true that he was greatly impressed by the speech, but not quite as much
+as all that. He had decided to faint at a critical moment, for the sake
+of appearances. It was clever of him. He did it beautifully too; he had
+been rehearsing half the night. Don Giustino, on his part, shared the
+common opinion and was charmed with this tribute to his genius.
+Altogether, the local judge had made a favourable impression on him;
+his attitude had been irreproachably correct. He was not a bat fellow,
+for a freemason. One might do worse than leave him in possession of his
+present appointment on Nepenthe.
+
+The Deputy freed his prisoner; it was unavoidable. But the Russians
+remained in gaol, and this was always something to the credit of Signor
+Malipizzo....
+
+Madame Steynlin, on hearing of Peter the Great's arrest, was stricken
+dumb. She wept the bitterest tears of all her life. Then, with
+returning calmness, she remembered Mr. Keith whose friendship with the
+magistrate was the common talk of the place. Would he be able to do
+anything? Impulsive by nature, she called on that gentleman and poured
+out her griefs to him. Mr. Keith was sympathetic. He declared he
+understood perfectly. He promised to do his utmost, that very day.
+
+The Master, meanwhile, languished in prison. He had nobody to take his
+part, not even among the Little White Cows; the new section, that
+clique of young extremists, were only too delighted to have him out of
+the way. The communal doctor alone interceded on his behalf, imploring
+the judge in the name of the sacred brotherhood of freemasons that he,
+the Messiah, should be excarcerated in order that he, the physician,
+might be enabled to continue the daily treatment to which the old man
+had grown accustomed and for which he was being regularly remunerated.
+"Think of my wife and children!" he said to the magistrate.
+
+Signor Malipizzo on this occasion did not mean to be baulked of his
+prey. He was in bad humour; Don Giustino had got on his nerves. By
+means of a lightning-like discharge of symbols intelligible only to the
+Elect he retorted that a physician, who depended for his livelihood
+upon a legitimate practice among BONA FIDE patients, was not fit to be
+a freemason.
+
+Then the doctor urged the humanitarian aspects of the case. The old man
+needed the treatment which could be given in prison just as well; the
+fees would doubtless be paid sooner or later.
+
+The magistrate proved inexorable, adamantine. What was good enough for
+a native, he argued, was good enough for a vicious old alien. A
+stomach-pump in prison! What more? They would be wanting fried fish and
+asparagus next.
+
+As a special concession to the Master's age and rank a separate upper
+chamber, described as very airy, had been allotted to him in the local
+gaol. The poor old man did not know how he got there; they had thrust
+him into this strange place and locked the door on him. Long hours had
+passed. He sat on an uncomfortable cane-bottomed chair, his hands
+folded across his stomach. There was already a slight sense of
+oppression in that region of his body. His head, too, felt heavy.
+Without knowing how or why, he had fallen into a trap, after the manner
+of some dumb beast of earth. When would they take him out again? And
+when would that kind gentleman with the machine arrive?
+
+Daylight entered through a small but thickly grated window. Looking out
+from where he sat, he could detect neither men nor houses nor
+trees--nothing but four rectangular patches of deep blue. The sea! Often
+had he wondered about the sea, and why it was there. It had ever been
+an enigma to him, this purposeless mass of water. Not even good to
+drink. He knew nothing of those fables of the pagans--of old Poseidon
+and white-armed Leucothea and the blithe crew of Triton and
+silver-footed Thetis moving upon the placid sunlit waters; nothing of
+that fair sea-born goddess whose beauty swayed the hearts of men. His
+Venus ideals had been of a more terrestrial nature--the wives or
+daughters of army generals and state functionaries who desired
+advancement, and sometimes got it.
+
+Not even good to drink! There was nothing like this in Holy Russia. God
+would never have allowed it. The uselessness of this sea had always
+been to him a source of perplexity and even vague apprehension. The
+spectacle of this shining immensity troubled his world-scheme. Why did
+God create water, when land would have been so much more useful? Often
+had he puzzled on the subject.... Why?
+
+But now, in the evening of his life and the extremity of his anguish,
+the truth was made manifest. A Revelation drew nigh. It just came to
+him.
+
+The fishes.
+
+It was a dying gleam of intelligence, his last inspired thought, his
+swan-song. How else could the fishes live save in the water? All these
+long years he had remained ignorant of the truth. Ah, if only his
+disciples were at hand, to jot it down into that GOLDEN BOOK!
+
+But why--why must the fishes live in water? And why so much water for so
+few fishes? Why cannot fishes live on land? Then everybody would be
+satisfied. Inscrutable are the ways of God....
+
+And his glazed eye moved wearily from that disquieting expanse of blue
+along the wall of his chamber which had once been white and was now
+scrawled over with obscene jests and drawings, product of the leisure
+hours of generations of prisoners. The writing, like all writing, was
+unintelligible to him. But some of the artistic efforts left little to
+the imagination. He was saddened, less by homely pictures than by the
+unfamiliar script. He had always distrusted the written word. Why all
+these strange letterings--so unnecessary, so dangerous to the life of an
+orthodox Christian? What one brother has to tell another--why write it
+down?
+
+He saw the straw pallet destined for his nocturnal repose. It reminded
+him dimly of a similar resting-place during his monastic life. Then,
+too, he had slept on a couch near the floor. Flickering visions came to
+him of those days, so long ago, ere yet the First Revelation was given
+to the world. A breath of old Russia was wafted into his nostrils. He
+remembered the lusty, jovial country folk, the songs and dances at
+hay-making, the fragrance of the land, the sluggish rivers rolling
+their brown mud about the plains, the mild long-drawn evenings. He felt
+again that all-pervading charm of sadness, of tender yearning, that
+hangs in the pale Russian sky and penetrates to the very soul of the
+endless country.
+
+Gloomy autumn days--wet leaves and lowering horizons. The long winter
+within doors. Faces appeared to him, faces of old, an endless
+procession of faces clear-cut as ever ... his brother monks, bearded
+and unkempt ... debauched acolytes ... pilgrims from the Holy Land
+... glittering festal robes ... vodka orgies, endless chants and
+litanies, holy lamps burning, somber eikons with staring eyes ... the
+smell of greasy lukewarm cabbage soup, of unwashed bodies and boot
+leather and incense. Holy Russia--it all moved before his eyes in a kind
+of melodious twilight. Then the First Revelation. The Man-God.
+
+Man-God. The word filtered through his intelligence. How strange it
+sounded. The Man-God--what could it mean.
+
+A sudden change. A life of glory and intrigue. Food on platters of
+gold, sparkling wines and laughter. A diamond cross, an imperial gift,
+the reward of faithful services. Everybody cringing. Showers of bribes.
+Women--always women. A divine life! Nothing but women....
+
+Darkness. Something had happened; they had carried him into a place
+full of endless penances, floggings, starvings. Then they accused him
+of doing wrong. What was it? The flesh of warm-blooded beasts.... He
+had preferred the service of God to that of his earthly master. For
+this they banished him and made him suffer. He was dying now--dying to
+save mankind. He was giving up his life for sinners. Someone else had
+once done the same thing. Who was it? He could not remember. People who
+read and write--they know these things. Some saint, possibly; or at
+least a man from another province--someone he had never met or spoken
+to. A good Russian, whoever it was. But the name--the name had slipped
+out of his mind. He always had a good memory for faces, but a bad one
+for names.
+
+He was so ill and oppressed too. Worse than before. He felt himself
+rotting earthwards, like a fungus of his own native forests under
+autumn rains. His body remained inert but his eye, roaming away from
+the straw pallet, fixed itself upon the door. When, when would that
+kindly gentleman with the instrument arrive?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+
+
+
+Concerning the life and death of Saint Eulalia, patroness of Nepenthean
+sailors, we possess ample and accurate information.
+
+She was born in 1712 at a remote village in the Spanish province of
+Estramadura. Various divine portents accompanied her birth. Her mother
+dreamed a strange dream about a sea-serpent; her father was cured of a
+painful gouty affection; the image of Saint James of Compostella in the
+local church was observed to smile benignly at the very hour of her
+entry into the world. At the age of two years and eleven months she
+took the vow of chastity. Much difficulty was experienced in keeping
+the infant alive; she tormented her body in so merciless a fashion. She
+refused to partake of food save once in every five weeks; she remained
+immovable "like a statue" for months on end; she wore under her rough
+clothing iron spikes which were found, after death, to have entered
+deeply into her flesh. She was never known to use a drop of water for
+purposes of ablution or to change her underwear more than once a year,
+and then only at the order of her confessor who was obliged to be in
+daily contact with her. The heat of her body was such that it could not
+be touched by human hands. During her frequent trances she spoke
+accurately in sixty-nine different languages; there was no hair
+whatever on her head which was "spotless as an egg." She put baskets of
+sea urchins into her bed and, as a penance for what she called "her
+many sins," forced herself to catch the legions of vermin that infested
+her brown blanket, count them, separate the males from the females, set
+them free once more, and begin over again. She died at the age of
+fourteen years and two months. Her corpse forthwith became roseate in
+colour, exhaled a delicious odour of violets for twenty weeks, and
+performed countless miracles. On dissection, a portrait of Saint James
+of Compostella was discovered embedded in her liver.
+
+Saint Eulalia appeared too late to find her proper niche in Monsignor
+Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES or to be commemorated in some worthy
+architectural monument by the Good Duke Alfred; too late--and this is
+doubtless a lucky circumstance--to become the victim of one of Father
+Capocchio's offensive sneers. Whoever is interested in her saintly
+career may purchase at Nepenthe, for the small sum of sixpence, an
+admirable biography by a young Canon of the Church, Don Giacinto
+Mellino. It gives a full account of her life and of those nine hundred
+and seventy-two miracles of hers which have been authenticated by
+eye-witnesses. No need, therefore, to expatiate further.
+
+It stands to reason that Mr. Eames possessed a copy of this treatise.
+An ideal annotator, he rarely indulged in speculation; his business was
+to discover and co-ordinate references. Nevertheless, in regard to the
+earthly life of this particular saint, he used to say: "There are some
+things a man cannot help puzzling about." It irked him--her success on
+Nepenthe. He knew the sailormen to be a horny-handed, skeptical,
+worldly brood. Why had they imported the cult of Eulalia from Spain;
+why had they chosen for their patroness a mawkish suffering nonentity,
+so different from those sunny goddesses of classical days? He
+concluded, lamely, that there was an element of the child in every
+Southerner; that men, refusing to believe what is improbable, reserve
+their credulity for what is utterly impossible; in brief, that the
+prosaic sea-folk of Nepenthe were like everybody else in possessing a
+grain of stupidity in their composition--"which does not bring us much
+further," he would add....
+
+At the time of this year's festival Mr. Eames was supremely happy.
+Another pamphlet had come into his hands, an anonymous pamphlet making
+fun of the Duchess whose reception into the Roman Church had been fixed
+for the day of Saint Eulalia's festival. It bore the objectionable
+title THE DIPPING OF THE DUCHESS and had presumably been indited by
+some wag at the Alpha and Omega Club who disapproved of water in every
+shape, even for baptismal purposes. The stuff was printed on the sly
+and hastily circulated about the island--some people maintained that Mr.
+Richards, the respectable Vice-President of that institution, was its
+author. It was a scurrilous anti-Catholic leaflet, grossly personal and
+savouring of atheism. The Duchess, on hearing of it--everything got
+about on Nepenthe--was so distressed that she decided to cancel, or at
+least postpone, the ceremony of her public conversion. At a meeting of
+urgency convened by the priests, who were bitterly disappointed at her
+attitude, it was agreed that this was no time for half-measures. A
+round sum of money was voted wherewith to buy back the pernicious
+pamphlet from its respective owners with a view to its destruction.
+
+In the space of a single day every copy vanished from the island--every
+copy save one, which had found its way into Mr. Eames' collection. He
+meant to keep that copy. He would have died sooner than yield it up.
+When the clerical deputation arrived at his villa with soft words and
+promises of more solid lucre, he professed the uttermost amazement at
+their quest. Mr. Eames, the soul of honesty, the scorner of all
+subterfuge and crooked dealing, put on a new character. He lied like a
+trooper. He lied better than a trooper; that is to say, not only
+forcefully but convincingly. He lied as only a lover of bibliographical
+curios can lie, in defence of his treasure. He thanked them for their
+courteous visit and bade them keep their gold. He professed himself a
+poor recluse innocent of the world's ways and undesirous of riches,
+adding, as a mere afterthought, that he had not so much as heard of the
+noxious broadsheet in question. There must be some mistake. Society
+people might know something about it; that gentleman who called himself
+a bishop for example, that sallow gentleman from Africa, who spent so
+much of his time in social gaieties--he might very likely have received
+a copy. If they wished, he would gladly make enquiries, discreet
+enquiries, about the matter.
+
+It was Mr. Eames' second lapse from grace. Gentlemen do not tell
+falsehoods. He did not want to be a gentleman just then. He wanted that
+pamphlet.
+
+The reverend visitors withdrew convinced, amid showers of compliments
+and apologies. After seeing them safely off the premises and even, for
+greater security, half-way down the hill, Mr. Eames returned, drew out
+the jewel from where it lay in a secret hiding-place among others of
+its kind, and hugged it to his heart. He purposed to reproduce the
+pamphlet IN EXTENSO, in that particular appendix to his edition of
+Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES which dealt with "Contemporary Social History."
+...
+
+Mr. Heard knew nothing of all this as, jostled among the crowd, he
+watched the procession on that bright morning. It reminded him of the
+feast of Saint Dodekanus which he had witnessed twelve days earlier; it
+was even more extravagant. But he now felt himself seasoned to this
+kind of display. Besides, he had seen funnier things in Africa; though
+not much funnier. Once more his thoughts went back to those laughing
+black people, he remembered all of them--the Wabitembes, the M'tezo, the
+Kizibubi--what a set of jovial ruffians! How they would have enjoyed
+this sunshiny nonsense. And the Bulangas. Really, those Bulangas--
+
+There was a light touch on his shoulder. He turned, and found himself
+face to face with Mrs. Meadows. She was smiling and looking ever so
+happy.
+
+"Well, Tommy!" she said. "You don't seem to be very pleased to see me.
+Why haven't you come to tea lately? And why are you looking so glum?
+He's got his leave, after all. I had a cable two days ago. He'll pick
+me up here in a fortnight or three weeks. Aren't you glad you needn't
+escort me to England?"
+
+"Awfully glad!" he replied, trying to be jocular. The words stuck in
+his throat. He had expected to meet--if he met her at all--a skulking
+contrite criminal. This woman was jubilant. An amazing, terrifying
+state of affairs.
+
+"There is something the matter with you, Tommy. Perhaps you have caught
+my headache. You remember how inquisitive you were? And how you
+complained of the roses? If you come up now you will find fresh ones
+waiting for you."
+
+Her glance was unclouded. No human being ever looked less
+conscience-stricken. It was as though she had convinced herself of the
+righteousness of her deed, and thereafter dismissed it from her mind as
+something not worth bothering about. Blithe as a bird! If he had not
+seen with his own eyes--
+
+"Has it gone, your headache?" he enquired, not knowing what to say.
+
+"Gone away altogether. I have heard so much about this procession that
+I thought I would drive down and have a look at it. I missed the last
+one, you know. Besides, I wanted to see some friends here whom I've
+been neglecting lately. I feel quite guilty about it," she added.
+
+He couldn't help saying:
+
+"You don't look guilty."
+
+"Ah, but you mustn't judge by appearances!"
+
+"You blamed the sirocco, I remember."
+
+"I don't blame it any longer. Surely a woman can change her mind? But
+what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Perhaps the south wind," he ventured.
+
+She remarked laughingly:
+
+"I don't believe the wind is in the south at all. But you always were a
+funny boy, Tommy. If you are very good you will see some pretty
+fireworks presently. As for myself, I shall have to drive home for
+Baby's early dinner."
+
+"Fireworks in broad daylight?" he asked. "That is something new."
+
+"In broad daylight! Aren't they queer people? They can't wait till it
+gets dark, I suppose."
+
+At that moment they were joined by Keith and three or four others. He
+had no more chance of speaking to her alone; she drove away, not long
+afterwards, waving her parasol at him and leaving him in a state of
+dazed perplexity.
+
+He had been thinking night and day about his cousin, certain of her
+criminality and profoundly convinced of her moral rectitude. What had
+Muhlen done? He had probably threatened her with some exposure. He was
+her legal husband--he could make himself abominable to her and to
+Meadows. The future of the child, too, was imperiled. He might be able
+to claim it; or if not that--the bishop's notions of bastardy laws were
+not very clear--he could certainly rely upon his friend the magistrate
+to take the child out of the mother's custody or do something horrible
+of that kind. The happiness of that whole family was at his mercy. She
+had been goaded to desperation. Mr. Heard began to understand. To
+understand--that was not enough. Anybody could understand.
+
+Keith took his arm and remarked:
+
+"Come and see my cannas! They are prefect just now. I must tell you a
+story about them--it's the wildest romance. I am the only person in
+Europe who understands the proper cultivation of cannas. I shall have
+scented ones soon."
+
+"Don't they smell?" enquired the bishop absent-mindedly.
+
+"Not yet. You are looking a little tired, Heard, as if you had not
+slept well lately. Perhaps you would like to sit down? We can watch the
+fireworks from the terrace. You ought to read Pepys' DIARY. That is
+what I have been doing. I am also rather low-spirited just now. The end
+of another spring, you know--it always makes me feel sad. Pepys is the
+antidote. He is a tonic. Every Englishman ought to be compelled, for
+the good of his soul, to go through Pepys once in three years."
+
+"I must read him again," said the bishop who was not particularly
+interested in the diarist just then.
+
+"His universal zest! It seems to be extinct nowadays; it is a charm
+that I have not discovered in any living Englishman. What a healthy
+outlook! Not a trace of straining anywhere. He took life with both
+hands. How he threw himself into his work, his amusements, his clothes
+and women and politics and food and theatres and pictures. Warm heart,
+cool head. So childlike, and yet so wise. There's only one thing that
+troubles me about him--his love of music. It was so obviously sincere.
+He not only liked it; he actually understood it. Music, to me, is a
+succession of sounds more or less painful. I can't even whistle. It's
+too bad."
+
+The bishop said:
+
+"If the lives of all of us were written down with the same remorseless
+candour, how few would stand the test."
+
+He was thinking of the Devil's Rock.
+
+"I don't trouble about tests," replied Keith. "The whole herd of
+humanity adapts its pace to that of the weakest lamb. The capacity of
+the weakest lamb--that is the test. I don't consider myself bound to
+such a vulgar standard. And how spectacular we are, in matters of
+so-called right and wrong. That is because we have painfully cultivated
+the social conscience. Posing, and playing to the gallery! Mankind is
+curiously melodramatic, my dear fellow; full of affected reverence for
+its droll little institutions. As if anybody really cared what another
+person does! As if everybody were not chuckling inwardly all the time!"
+
+"Surely there are heights and depths in the matter of conduct?"
+
+"I don't trouble about heights and depths. Does it not all depend upon
+where we take up our stand? Must we always remain stationary like
+vegetables? A bird knows nothing of heights and depths. You sit here at
+night-time and look at the stars. They are firm-fixed, you say. Well,
+they are not firm-fixed. Therefore it is the wrong way to look at them.
+I have also written a diary, Heard. It is my legacy to posterity and
+will be published after my death. It relates of actions not all of
+which Count Caloveglia would call pretty. Perhaps it will give some
+people the courage of their unspoken convictions."
+
+The bishop suddenly asked:
+
+"If somebody you knew had committed a crime, what would you say?
+Somebody you really respect--a person like Mrs. Meadows?"
+
+"Your cousin? I should say that whatever Mrs. Meadows does is well done."
+
+"You would approve?"
+
+"Of course I would. People like that are bound to be in the right."
+
+"Really ...?"
+
+The fireworks were splendid; altogether, Saint Eulalia's day proved a
+tremendous success. The festal joy was only marred by the unseemly
+behaviour of Miss Wilberforce, who profited by the occasion to let off
+some fireworks, or at least steam, of her own.
+
+In broad daylight too.
+
+This was something new, and rather ominous.
+
+The dear lady was becoming quite a problem.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+
+
+
+Men looked down from the market-place that afternoon and beheld a
+gaily-coloured throng moving about Madame Steynlin's awkwardly situated
+promontory. Her house and its wide terrace overhanging the sea were
+filled with guests. The entertainment differed from the receptions of
+the Duchess. It was more rustic and unrestrained--more in the nature of
+a picnic. Everything possible had been done to convert that tongue of
+land, that refractory stretch of trachyte, into a garden. Paths were
+blasted through the rock; those few scarred olives, the aboriginals,
+had been supplanted by whatever flowers and shade-giving trees could be
+induced, with assiduous waterings, to strike roots into the arid soil.
+It was still rather a transparent place.
+
+A number of new people had lately arrived on Nepenthe in favour of whom
+the hostess, with the frank cordiality of her nature, had issued
+invitations broadcast. There was the celebrated R. A. and his dowdy
+wife; a group of American politicians who were supposed to be reporting
+on economic questions and spent the Government's money in carousing
+about Europe; Madame Albert, the lady doctor from Lyons whose unique
+combination of magic and massage (a family secret) had brought the
+expiring Prince of Philippopolis to life again; an Italian senator with
+his two pretty daughters; a bluff hilarious Scotchman, Mr. Jameson,
+who, as a matter of fact, had done seven years for forgery but did not
+like to have it brought up against him; some sisters of charity; a
+grizzled sea-captain who was making discreet enquiries about a safe
+place for a shipwreck, having been promised by the owners twenty per
+cent of his vessel's insurance money; a dilapidated Viscount and his
+SOI-DISTANT niece; two fluffy Danish ladies who always travelled
+together and smiled at everything, though the younger one smiled in
+such a horrible knowing fashion that you could not help disliking her;
+Mrs. Roger Rumbold who addressed meetings to advocate Infanticide for
+the Masses; Mr. Bernard of the Entomological Society-author of THE
+COURTSHIP OF COCKROACHES; another young man of pleasant exterior who
+was held to be an architect because his brother used to be employed in
+a well-known engineering firm, and several more.
+
+The exclusive Mr. Eames was absent. He sat at home, thinking how
+narrowly he had escaped imprisonment at the hands of Signor Malipizzo,
+in connection with Muhlen's disappearance. The closest shave of all his
+life! It showed how right Keith had been in bidding him keep on the
+right side of the law--on the right side of the judge--rather than trust
+to the promptings of a "good conscience." The Duchess likewise sent her
+excuses. She was so troubled about the pamphlet that Don Francesco
+hardly dared to leave her side. He, therefore, was also absent; so was
+the bereaved Commissioner. Mrs. Meadows had driven home again long ago.
+Van Koppen intended to sail in the early hours of next morning. The
+bishop and Denis were likewise on the verge of departure. A break-up
+was at hand.
+
+Mr. Keith alone refused to budge. He was waiting for the first cicada
+whose strident call was due, he declared, in a week's time. Till then
+he proposed to remain on Nepenthe.
+
+"Fancy waiting for an insect," said his friend van Koppen. "I believe,
+Keith, you've got a sentimental streak somewhere."
+
+"I have been fighting against it all my life. A man ought to dominate
+his reflexes. But if the insect keeps good time--why not?"
+
+He was in an elegiac mood, though he meant to drive away his cares
+later in the evening by the "Falernian system." He felt the exodus in
+the air. Another spring drawing to its close--everybody scattering! He
+was filled, too, with that peculiar pensiveness which troubles complex
+people when they have done a kindly act. Virtue had gone out of him.
+
+He had wrought a miracle.
+
+The moist look in the eye of his hostess testified to the miracle; so
+did her frock which, being of pink muslin, harmonized with the state of
+her mind but not with her complexion. Peter the Great had escaped from
+prison. Not only he, but all the others were at liberty once more,
+including the Messiah who, after some attentions on the part of the
+communal doctor, had been put to bed like a little child. The rest of
+them filled her trim walks with their gleeful laughter and bright
+raiment; they devoured abundant wines and food at those refreshment
+tables which groaned under the weight of good things. One could trust
+Madame Steynlin to attend to the commissariat department. She knew how
+to gladden the human heart. That of Peter the Great was gladdened to
+such an extent that he soon began to perform a Russian peasant dance, A
+PAS SEUL, to the delight of the assembled guests. It was a cheery
+interlude with a disastrous ending, for the rough terrace being
+different from what he expected, he stumbled and fell full length upon
+the ground. There he lay, laughing, like a young giant refreshed with
+wine.
+
+"I don't know how you have done it, Mr. Keith," she said, "and I am not
+going to ask. But I shall never forget this kindness of yours."
+
+"Would you not do the same for me? I imagine, between ourselves, that
+the judge has been a good deal flustered with this trial and the
+intervention of Don Giustino. Perhaps he lost his head. We are all
+liable to that, are we not? He is a nervous man; but quite a good
+fellow if one keeps on the right side of him. It is so easy to keep on
+the right side of people. I often wonder, Madame Steynlin, why men are
+so full of bitterness towards each other. It is one of the things I
+shall never live to understand. And another is this problem of music!
+Will you help me to grasp the pleasure which you seem to derive from
+it? Helmholtz does not bring me much further. He explains why certain
+sounds are necessarily disagreeable--"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Keith! You would go to a professor. I fear you are not very
+musical. Have you never felt inclined to cry?"
+
+"I have. But not in a concert-room."
+
+"Nor yet in a theatre?"
+
+"Never," he replied, "though it saddens me a little to see grown-up men
+and women stalking about in funny dressing-gowns and pretending to be
+kings and queens. When I watch HAMLET or OTHELLO, I say to myself:
+'This stuff is nicely riveted together. But, in the first place, the
+story is not true. And secondly, it is no affair of mine. Why cry about
+it?'"
+
+"That looks as if you were heartless and unimaginative. And you so
+compassionate! I do not understand you. I do not understand myself
+either. We are always groping about in the dark, are we not? We are
+always puzzling about our own problems instead of helping other people
+with theirs. Perhaps one should not think so much of oneself, though it
+is an interesting subject. Tell me, if music says nothing to you, why
+not leave it alone?"
+
+"Because I want to be able to extract pleasure from it, as you do. That
+is what makes me curious. I like to understand things, because then I
+can begin to enjoy them. I think knowledge should intensify our
+pleasures. That is its aim and object, so far as I am concerned. What
+are other joys--those of the illiterate and incurious? A dog scratching
+his fleas in the sunshine. They too are not wholly to be despised--"
+
+"What a dreadful simile!"
+
+"A precise one."
+
+"You like to be precise?"
+
+"It is my mother's fault. She brought me up so carefully."
+
+"I think that is a pity, Mr. Keith. If I had children I would let them
+run wild. People are too tame nowadays. That is why so few of them have
+any charm. These poor Russians--no one tries to understand them. Why is
+everybody so much alike? Because we never follow our feelings. And yet,
+what is a surer guide than the heart? We seem to live in a world of
+echoes."
+
+"A world of masks, Madame Steynlin. It is the only theatre worth
+looking at...."
+
+The lady was too happy to consider how the miracle had been wrought,
+though she suspected dirty work at the bottom of it. She never
+discovered how simple had been the method of Mr. Keith who had merely
+given His Worship to understand that he had done enough bribing for one
+season and that, unless Krasnojabkin were promptly released, there
+would be no bribing whatever next year. The judge, with his usual legal
+acumen, perceived the cogency of his friend's argument. He met Mr.
+Keith's wishes more than half-way. On an impulse of downright
+good-nature--there was no other interpretation to be put on it--he
+released all the Russians, including the Messiah. They were
+excarcerated then and there on a decree of "provisional liberty," which
+looked well in the records of the Court and, being interpreted,
+signified immunity from further judicial molestation. The incident was
+closed.
+
+People talked about it none the less. They discussed Don Giustino, his
+past career and present prosperity. As for Mr. Muhlen--he was already
+almost forgotten. So was the Commissioner's lady. Madame Steynlin alone
+brought herself to say a few kind words about both of them. She was
+ready to say kind things about anyone. The magic of love! Her heart,
+under the influence of Peter, had opened so wide as to embrace not only
+the Russian colony, but even the nine thousand families of Chinese
+cultivators who, according to a paragraph in the morning's newspaper,
+had perished in a sudden inundation of the Hoang-Ho.
+
+The poor people! she said. She did not see why one should not
+sympathize with the griefs of a Chinaman. Humble honest folks, without
+a doubt--swept off the face of the earth, through no fault of their own,
+by a cataclysm! There was quite a discussion about it on her terrace
+that afternoon.
+
+Mr. Heard, feeling also very charitable, found himself taking her part
+against someone who said it was impossible to sympathize with the
+troubles of a yellow man--they were too different, too remote from
+ourselves. He thought that much individual hardship had been suffered,
+undeserved, unchronicled; homes destroyed, children drowned before the
+eyes of their parents. And nobody seemed to care.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+
+
+
+Later on, he turned his back upon the crowded walks and found himself
+on a remote terrace overlooking the sea. It was quiet here, in view of
+the sunset--his last sunset on Nepenthe.
+
+Leaning over the parapet he enjoyed, once more, the strangely intimate
+companionship of the sea. He glanced down into the water whose uneven
+floor was diapered with long weedy patches, fragments of fallen rock,
+and brighter patches of sand; he inhaled the pungent odour of sea-wrack
+and listened to the breathings of the waves. They lapped softly against
+the rounded boulders which strewed the shore like a flock of nodding
+Behemoths. He remembered his visits at daybreak to the beach--those
+unspoken confidences with the sunlit element to whose friendly caresses
+he had abandoned his body. How calm it was, too, in this evening light.
+Near at hand, somewhere, lay a sounding cave; it sang a melody of moist
+content. Shadows lengthened; fishing boats, moving outward for their
+night-work, steered darkly across the luminous river at his feet. Those
+jewel-like morning tints of blue and green had faded from the water;
+the southern cliff-scenery, projections of it, caught a fiery glare.
+Bastions of flame....
+
+The air seemed to have become unusually cool and bracing.
+
+Here, on a bench all by himself, sat Count Caloveglia. As the bishop
+took a seat beside him they exchanged a few words. The Italian, so
+affable as a rule, was rather preoccupied and disinclined for talk.
+
+Mr. Heard remembered his first encounter with that old man--the Salt of
+the South, as Keith had called him. It was at those theatricals in the
+Municipality. Then too the Count had been remarkably silent, his chin
+reposing in his hand, absorbed in the spectacle--in the passionate grace
+of the young players. He was absorbed in another spectacle now--the old
+sun, moving in passionless splendour down the sky.
+
+Only a fortnight ago, that first meeting. Less than a fortnight. Twelve
+days. How much had been crammed into them!
+
+A kind of merry nightmare. Things happened. There was something bright
+and diabolical in the tone of the place, something kaleidoscopic--a
+frolicsome perversity. Purifying, at the same time. It swept away the
+cobwebs. It gave you a measure, a standard, whereby to compute earthly
+affairs. Another landmark passed; another milestone on the road to
+enlightenment. That period of doubt was over. His values had righted
+themselves. He had carved out new and sound ones; a workable,
+up-to-date theory of life. He was in fine trim. His liver--he forgot
+that he ever had one. Nepenthe had done him good all round. And he knew
+exactly what he wanted. A return to the Church, for example, was out of
+the question. His sympathies had outgrown the ideals of that
+establishment; a wave of pantheistic benevolence had drowned its smug
+little teachings. The Church of England! What was it still good for? A
+stepping-stone, possibly towards something more respectable and humane;
+a warning to all concerned of the folly of idolizing dead men and their
+delusions. The Church? Ghosts!
+
+His thoughts wandered to England. Often had he sighed, in Africa, for
+its drowsy verdant opulence--those willow-fringed streamlets and grazing
+cattle, the smell of hay, the flowery lanes, the rooks cawing among
+slumberous elms; often had he thought of that village on the hill-top
+with its grey steeple. Well, he would see them all in a few days. And
+how would England compare with the tingling realism of Nepenthe? Rather
+parochial, rather dun; grey-in-grey; subdued light above--crepuscular
+emotions on earth. Everything fireproof, seaworthy. Kindly thoughts
+expressed in safe unvarying formulas. A guileless people! Ships tossing
+at sea; minds firmly anchored to the commonplace. Abundance for the
+body; diet for the spirit. The monotony of a nation intent upon
+respecting laws and customs. Horror of the tangent, the extreme, the
+unconventional. God save the King.
+
+So much the better. This soulful cult of tradition, this clinging to
+the obvious and genteel as it were an anchor of safety--it nipped in the
+bud the monster-making faculty of low horizons and bleak, wintry
+stretches of earth. Bazhakuloff! Those Russians, it struck him, had
+been providentially sent to Nepenthe for his delectation and
+instruction. He was glad to have beheld a type of this nature,
+inconceivable in England. That grotesque, with three million followers!
+It had been a liberal education to look into his vacuous face, into
+those filmy eyes dripping with saintliness and alcohol. The Little
+White Cows! Chimaeras, engendered in hyperborean mists.
+
+And still Count Caloveglia said nothing. He gazed at the sun, whose orb
+now rolled upon the rim of the horizon. Slowly it sank, fusing the
+water into a golden pool. A hush fell upon nature. Colours fled from
+earth into the sky. They scattered among the clouds. The enchantment
+began, overhead.
+
+At last the old man remarked:
+
+"I suppose that is why I am no colourist. That is why I worship the
+inexorable rigour of form. We of the South, Mr. Heard, are drenched in
+volatile beauty.... And yet one never wearies of these things! It is
+what you call a glamour, an interlude of witchcraft. Nature is
+a-tremble with the miraculous. She beckons us to explore her strange
+places. She says: Tread here, my friend--and here; tread where you have
+never trodden before! The sage surrenders his intelligence, and grows
+young again. He recaptures the spirit of his boyish dreams. He peers
+into worlds unknown. See! Adventure and discovery are lurking on every
+side. These painted clouds with their floating banners and citadels,
+yonder mysterious headlands that creep into the landscape at this hour,
+those islets emerging, like flakes of bronze, out of the
+sunset-glow--all the wonder of the ODYSSEY is there!"
+
+He spoke out of politeness and soon fell silent again. His thoughts
+roamed far away.
+
+They were thoughts commensurate with the grandeur of the scene.
+
+Count Caloveglia was no colourist. He was a sculptor, about to reap the
+reward of his labours. The cheque would be in his pocket that night.
+Three hundred and fifty thousand francs--or nearly. That is what made
+him not exactly grave, but reserved. Excess of joy, like all other
+excesses, is not meet to be displayed before men. All excess is
+unseemly. Nothing overmuch. Measure in everything.
+
+Measure even in the fabrication of Hellenic masterpieces. He had
+created one of them (the Demeter did not count); it sufficed for his
+modest ambitions. The Faun was his first forgery and his last. To
+retrieve the fortunes of his family he had employed those peculiar
+talents which God had given him. He would remain, henceforward, an
+artist. He shrank from the idea of becoming a wholesale manufacturer of
+antiques.
+
+Three hundred and fifty thousand francs. If sufficed. Thinking of those
+figures, he began to smile with contentment. He smiled--but no more. And
+as he continued to muse upon the transaction his look melted,
+imperceptibly, into one of reverential awe; there was a solemnity about
+that sum, an amplitude, a perfection of outline that reminded him, in a
+way, of the proportions of some wonderful old Doric temple. The labour
+of a lifetime would not have enabled him to collect so much had he
+tried to sell bronzes of his own workmanship. A bust or statue by Count
+Caloveglia--it would command a certain small price, no doubt; but what
+was the reputation, the market value, of the most eminent modern artist
+as compared with that nameless but consummate craftsman of Locri?
+
+The Count saw things in their true perspective. His mental attitude
+towards Sir Herbert Street and his American employer was not tinged
+with the faintest cloud of disrespect; for van Koppen, indeed, he
+cherished a liking which bordered on affection. He detected in the
+astute American what nobody else could detect--an element of childlike
+freshness and simplicity. As far apart, in externals, as two distant
+trees whose leaves are fluttering on either side of some tangled
+forest, he yet felt that their roots were interwoven below ground,
+drawing common life and nourishment and sympathies from that old
+teeming soil of human aspirations. Nor was he vainglorious of his
+achievement. His superiority over the art-expert he took as a gift of
+the gods. Vanityi was abhorrent to his nature. He was not proud but
+glad--glad to have been able to reconquer his legitimate social
+position; glad, above all things, to have forged a link with the past--a
+key to admit him into the fellowship of Lysippus and those others whose
+august shades, he opined, were even them smiling upon him. The Locri
+Faun was his handiwork. He was "entitled to dine well," as he had told
+Denis. That was what he now purposed to do. One master-stroke had
+repaired his fortunes. It sufficed. Nothing overmuch. Count Caloveglia
+knew the story of Polycrates, the too-fortunate man. He knew what lies
+in wait for the presumptuous mortal whoo oversteps the boundary of what
+is fair and good. Nemesis!
+
+Three hundred and fifty thousand francs. There would be an ample dowry
+for Matilda. And, as regards himself, he could return to his passion of
+youth; he could afford to become a sculptor again and even, if so
+disposed, a collector--though not exactly after the style of his
+excellent friend Cornelius van Koppen.
+
+"That was a suggestive encounter, was it not, between the Deputy and
+our local judge?"
+
+He spoke, as before, out of civility.
+
+"Very suggestive," assented Mr. Heard. "Two blackguards, I call them."
+
+The bishop was particularly glad to learn, as everybody on the island
+had learnt, the minutest details of this sordid legal affair. It seemed
+likewise to have been providentially arranged, in order to afford him
+an insight into the administration of local law, and some notion of
+what would have been in store for his cousin had she applied for relief
+from Muhlen's persecutions to Signor Malipizzo, his intimate friend.
+There would have been no justice for her--not from that quarter. He
+would probably have forbidden the child to be moved out of his
+jurisdiction, pending the progress of a trial which might never end.
+Nor could the English Court, with its obsolete provisions on this head,
+have regarded Muhlen otherwise than as her legal husband--the child of
+her later union as illegitimate. Bastardy: a taint for life! How well
+she had done to put herself beyond a rancorous letter of the law; to
+protect her child and family according to the immutable instincts of
+mankind!
+
+The Nepenthe magistrate had shown what he was capable of, in his
+bestial dealings with a half-witted lad and those harmless Russian
+lunatics--the first one saved through the intervention of a cut-throat
+politician, and the second ... well, he did not exactly know how the
+Muscovites had been able to regain their freedom but, remembering what
+Keith had told him about Miss Wilberforce, her periodical imprisonments
+and his periodical bribes, he shrewdly suspected some underhand
+practices on the part of that gentleman at the instigation, very
+possibly, of the charming Madame Steynlin. Signor Malipizzo's cruel
+travesty of justice--how unfavourably it compared with his cousin's
+altogether satisfactory, straightforward and businesslike handling of
+Muhlen's little affair!
+
+Doubtless she suffered intensely. He called to mind her looks, her
+voice, during that first interview at the villa Mon Repos; he thought
+it likely that, but for her child and husband, she would have taken her
+own life in order to escape from this villain. And doubtless she had
+weighed the matter in her own mind. Sensible people do not take steps
+of this gravity without reflecting on the possible consequences. She
+must have tried her hardest to talk Muhlen over, before coming to the
+conclusion that thee was nothing to be done with the fellow. She knew
+him; she knew her own mind. She knew better than anyone else what was
+in store for her if Muhlen got the upper hand. Her home broken up; her
+child a bastard; herself and Meadows--social outcasts; all their three
+lives ruined. Mrs. Meadows, plainly, did not relish such a prospect.
+She did not see why her existence should be wrecked because a scoundrel
+happened to be supported by a disreputable paragraph of the Code.
+Muhlen was a troublesome insect. He must be brushed aside. Ridiculous
+to call such a thing a tragedy!
+
+He thought of the insignificance of a human life. Thousands of decent
+upright folks swept away at a blow.... Who cared? One dirty
+blackmailer more or less: what on earth did it matter to anybody?
+
+An enigma? His cousin was not an enigma at all. Keith had called her a
+tiger mother. That was correct. Not every parent could do what she had
+done. Not every parent could do what she had done. Not every parent was
+placed under the necessity. Not every parent had the grit. If all of
+them fought for their offspring after this fashion, the race would be
+stronger and better. Thinking thus, he not only understood. He
+approved. Mrs. Meadows had saved her family. She was perfect of her
+kind.
+
+Suddenly he remembered that other parent on the passenger boat when he
+came to Nepenthe--that ugly peasant-woman dressed in black, with the
+scar across her cheek--how she had tried to console her suffering child.
+What had Muhlen said? "Throw it into the water! It's often the only way
+of ridding oneself of a nuisance." Into the water. His own words. That
+was where he, the nuisance, had gone. It was unpleasant, maybe, to
+hurtle through eight hundred feet of air. But men who specialize in
+making themselves objectionable after Muhlen's peculiar fashion deserve
+all they can get. Sensible women do not put up with such nonsense, if
+they can help it.
+
+One owes something to one's self, N'EST-CE PAS?
+
+Decidedly so.
+
+Everything was as clear as daylight. And he found he had bothered
+himself long enough about Muhlen; there were so many other interesting
+things on earth. A contemptible little episode! He decided to relegate
+it into the category of unimportant events. He was glad that the whole
+affair had remained in the background, so to speak, of his Nepenthean
+experiences. It seemed appropriate. Odd, all the same, that the most
+respectable woman on the island should be a murderess.
+
+"Dear me!" he mused. "How very queer. It never struck me in the light
+before. Shows how careful one must be.... And a relation of mine
+into the bargain. H'm. Some people, if they knew, would call it a
+compromising situation. Well, I begin to think it rather creditable
+than otherwise to our family. We want more women of this kind on earth.
+All mothers ought to be tiger mothers...."
+
+"Don't you notice, Count, that there is an unwonted sparkle in the air
+this evening? Something cleansing, clarifying?"
+
+"To be sure I do," replied the other. "And I can tell you the cause of
+it. Sirocco is over for the present. The wind has shifted to the north.
+It brightens all nature. It makes one see things in their true
+perspective, doesn't it?"
+
+"That is exactly what I feel," said Mr. Heard.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+
+
+
+The symposium, that evening, might have degenerated into something like
+an orgy but for the masterful intervention of Denis who was not going
+to let Keith make a fool of himself. It took place in the most famous
+of all the caves of Nepenthe-Luisella's grotto-cavern dedicated, by
+common usage, to the worship of Venus and Bacchus.
+
+There were two or three living rooms on the surface of the ground.
+Walking through the first of these you clambered down some slippery
+stairs into what was once a breathless subterranean vault hewn out of
+the soft and dry pumiceous rock and used, as was customary, for storing
+barrels and other paraphernalia. In the course of time, as more barrels
+accumulated, the grotto was excavated further and further into the
+entrails of the island. There seemed no reason why it should ever cease
+growing when suddenly, one day, the perspiring workmen were struck in
+the face by a cool blast of wind laden with marine moisture. They knew
+what this meant. They had encountered one of those mysterious and
+dangerous fissures that lead down to unknown depths, opening upon the
+world of sunshine often at the water's edge, four hundred feet below.
+It was deemed prudent to suspend excavations. These rents in the
+interior of the earth had a knack of enlarging themselves, without a
+word of warning, from cracks of a few inches to black gulfs several
+hundred feet across. The cavern ceased to grow. As a matter of fact, it
+turned out to be just large enough.
+
+That current of air ventilating the grotto made the fortune of these
+orphan girls--Luisella and her three sisters. The barrels and other
+lumber once removed, the recess became a breezy night-tavern, its
+natural vaulting being first whitewashed and then adorned, by
+master-hand, with thrilling pictures of crimson fish afloat upon
+caerulean waves, and piles of bossy pumpkins, and birds of Paradise with
+streaming golden feathers, and goats at pasture among blue lilies, and
+horses prancing over emerald mountains, and trees laden with flowers
+and fruits such as no mortal had ever seen or tasted. It was an ideal
+place for a carousal.
+
+They could cook, those girls. Their savoury stews and vegetable soups
+and FRITTURAS of every description were known far and wide. It was
+universally agreed that nobody could make a more appetizing mayonnaise
+sauce for cold fish and lobsters. No mayonnaise was quite like theirs;
+no, not quite. Its flavour lingered on the palate; it haunted your
+memory in distant lands, like the after-glow of some happy love-affair.
+Nice girls, too; well-mannered; not very difficult to caress, and never
+jealous of each other. "It's all in the family," they used to declare.
+
+"Am I right, then, or am I wrong?" asked Mr. Keith, whose pomposity was
+melting away under successive bottles of his own wine, specially
+imported to grace the table.
+
+The honest Vice-President of the Club, Mr. Richards, was pretty far
+gone, but could always be relied upon to say something opposite. That
+was due to his legal training. Once a thriving solicitor, he had been
+struck off the rolls in consequence of some stupid trustee business
+which turned out all wrong and thereafter driven along devious paths
+known only to himself: hence his residence on Nepenthe. He replied:
+
+"That depends entirely, my dear Sir, upon what you postulated."
+
+"The older I get," observed Mr. van Koppen, "the more I realize that
+everything depends upon what a man postulates. The rest is plain
+sailing."
+
+"I never heard a truer remark," said Keith, "not even from you! One has
+only to posit a thing, and it's done. Don't you agree, Bishop? Here is
+what I would call a worn-out earthenware plate. It is not a plate
+unless I tell it to be a plate. You may call it anything you like--it
+can't answer back. But we need not pursue the argument. Speaking for
+myself, I am feeling as comfortable as a beetle in a rose."
+
+The Vice-President remarked:
+
+"We all know what it means when Mr. Keith becomes horticultural in his
+similes. It means the same thing as when I become legal. Gentlemen! I
+propose to grow legal within the next half-hour or so."
+
+"You promised to tell me the history of your cannas," said Mr. Heard.
+
+"You were going to tell it me too," answered Denis.
+
+"I did. I was. And I will. But let me ask you this: have you ever heard
+of a teetotaler conspicuous for kindliness of heart, or intellectually
+distinguished in any walk of life? I should be glad to know his name. A
+sorry crew! Not because they drink water, but because the state of mind
+which makes them dread alcohol is unpropitious to the hatching of any
+generous idea. WHEN MEN HAVE WELL DRUNK. I like that phrase. WHEN MEN
+HAVE WELL DRUNK. I am inclined to think that the Aramaic text has not
+been tampered with at this point. What do you say, Heard?"
+
+"Nothing is more improbable," replied the bishop. "And the water, you
+perceive, was changed into wine; not into cocoa or lemonade. That
+conveys, if I am not mistaken, rather a suggestive implication."
+
+"I have been pursuing Seneca's letters. He was a cocoa-drinker,
+masquerading as an ancient. An objectionable hypocrite! I wish people
+would read Seneca instead of talking about him."
+
+Van Koppen observed:
+
+"What a man postulates is truer than what exists. I have grown grey in
+trying to make my fellow-creatures understand that realities are less
+convincing than make-believe."
+
+"Given the proper atmosphere," said the bishop, laughing, "everything
+becomes inevitable. If you were wrong, Mr. van Koppen, where would our
+poets and novelists be?"
+
+"Where are they?" queried the American.
+
+"How shall that come out of a man," continued Mr. Heard, "which was
+never in him? How shall he generate a harmonious atmosphere if he be
+disharmonious himself? It is all a question of plausibility, of
+verisimi--simili--"
+
+"I never heard a more profound remark, Koppen, no, nor a more subtle
+one; not even from you. Nor yet from you, Heard. And I can tell you
+something to the point. I was talking this afternoon with a gentleman
+about the stage. I said it made me said to see flesh-and-blood people
+pretending to be kings and queens. Because it cannot be done. No
+sensible person can bring himself to believe it. But when you watch
+some of these local marionette theatres the illusion is complete. Why
+is a poppy show more convincing than the COMEDIE FRANCAISE? Because it
+is still further removed from reality. There is so much make-belief
+that you cease to struggle. You succumb without an effort. You are
+quite disposed, you are positively anxious, to make concessions to the
+improbable. Once they are made--why, as you say, it is plain sailing."
+
+"All life is a concession to the improbable," observed the bishop
+rather vaguely.
+
+Mr. Richards remarked:
+
+"These questions must be approached with an open mind. An open mind,
+gentlemen, is not necessarily an empty one."
+
+"A fine distinction!"
+
+"Very well. Mr. Keith proposes to abolish theatres. I second the
+motion. Nothing is easier. Let me draw up a memorial to the House of
+Lords. We will appeal to them on moral grounds. I know the proper
+language. WHEREAS BY THE GRACE OF GOD YOUR PETITIONERS HUMBLY PROTEST
+THAT THERE IS TOO MUCH KISSING ON THE STAGE--ah! Talking of kissing,
+here comes our friend Don Francesco. He shall put his name to the
+memorial and seal it with an oath. No Englishman can resist a
+Monsignor. And nothing like a solemn oath. People always think you mean
+it."
+
+That amiable personage strode down the stairs in dignified fashion,
+greeting the guests with a sonorous:
+
+"PAX VOBISCUM!"
+
+He could not be induced to stay long, however. He had been perturbed
+all day on account of the Duchess who now threatened to join the
+Moravian Brotherhood; she was so annoyed about a little thing which had
+happened. He did not quite believe it, of course; but, like a
+well-trained priest, took nothing for granted and was prepared for
+every emergency where ladies are concerned.
+
+"Just one glass!" said Keith.
+
+"Let me drink to your health ere we part," added the bishop. "I am
+sorry to leave you. Our friendship will endure. We meet in September,
+during the vintage season. Keith has been talking to me. I am as wax in
+his hands. Your smile, Don Francesco, will follow me across the ocean.
+Just one glass!"
+
+"Ah, well!" said the priest. "The next best thing to leading others
+astray is to be led astray oneself."
+
+He gulped down a couple of tumblers and dutifully took his leave,
+turning round, as he reached the staircase, to make a playful gesture
+of benediction towards the assembled company.
+
+"Don't leave your bottle half empty," Keith called after him,
+imploringly. "It looks untidy."
+
+"And so unhappy," added the bishop. "Dear me! This is most singular. I
+seem to see two lamps instead of one. It must have been those
+apricots."
+
+Keith interposed:
+
+"Or perhaps you strained one of your eyes bathing. It has happened to
+me, occasionally. Darkness is the best remedy. It rests the optic
+nerve."
+
+"Shall we take a turn or two outside?" asked Denis.
+
+It was past midnight as the two climbed out of the cave into the night
+air. A cool north wind blew across the market-place. The bishop was
+filled with a sense--a clear-cut, all-convincing sense--of the
+screamingly funny insignificance of everything. Then he noticed the
+moon.
+
+It dangled over the water, waning, sickly, moth-eaten, top-heavy, and
+altogether out of condition--as if it had been on duty for weeks on end.
+In other respects, too, its appearance was not quite normal. In fact,
+it soon took to behaving in the most extraordinary fashion. Sometimes
+there were two moons, and sometimes one. They seemed to merge
+together--to glide into each other, and then to separate again. Mr.
+Heard was vastly pleased and puzzled by the phenomenon--so pleased that
+he gave utterance to one of the longest speeches he had made since his
+arrival on Nepenthe. He said:
+
+"I have seen many funny things here, Denis. But this is the funniest of
+all. The spectacle seems to have been providentially arranged, as a
+sort of BONNE BOUCHE, for my last evening on the island. Dear me. Now
+there are two again. And now they are behind each other once more. A
+kind of celestial hide and seek. Most interesting. I wish Keith could
+see it. Or that dear Count Caloveglia. He would be sure to say
+something polite.... The inconstant moon! I know, at last, what the
+poet meant by that expression, though the word inconstant strikes me as
+hardly forcible enough. The skittish moon, I should be inclined to call
+it. The skittish moon. The frivolous moon. The giddy moon. The
+quite-too-absurd moon.... There it goes again! Very curious. What
+can it be?... Why, this is the reverse of an eclipse, my boy. The
+disk is darkened during an eclipse. It disappears IN VACUO. In the
+present case it is brightened and rendered, so to speak, doubly
+apparent. What would you call the reverse of an eclipse, Denis?
+Anti-eclipse? That sounds rather barbaric to my ears. One should never
+mix Greek and Latin, if it can possibly be avoided. Well?"
+
+"We must have a good look at this thing from your window, and then find
+out all about it."
+
+"Oh, but I could not possibly take you from your friends! I know my way
+home perfectly well. You will not dream of accompanying me."
+
+"Indeed I will. I walked with you to that house when you first arrived
+here, and helped you to unpack. Don't you remember? And now you must
+let me take you there on our last evening...."
+
+By the time Denis returned to the grotto a more exuberant and
+incoherent tone had been generated among the guests. He was not
+pleased. He felt inclined to be stern. A number of reprobates from the
+Club had dropped in, and Keith, whom he meant to keep straight for one
+night at least, was saying silly things and giving himself away. So was
+the excellent Mr. Richards.
+
+"This is a good island," observed that gentleman. "We discourse like
+sages and drink like swine. Peace with Honour!... How that old Jew
+took our English measure, eh? How he laughed in his sleeve at our
+infatuation for a phrase like that. Peace with Honour! The sort of
+claptrap that makes a man feel so jolly comfortable inside, so damned
+satisfied with everything like after a good deed. And that sentimental
+primrose business. Dizzy as flower-expert! What cared he for primroses?
+Votes and moneybags was what he was after. But he knew the British
+Public. And that accounts for the pious domestic button-hole. Who ever
+heard of a Jew telling the difference between a primrose and any other
+kind of rose? They're not such blasted fools."
+
+"Excuse me," said Keith, rising from his seat in an afflatus of
+inspiration. "Excuse me. I know the difference. It is primarily a
+question of nutrition. Glucose! I am a great believer in glucose.
+Because, even if it could be proved that the monks of Palaiokastron
+stripped the vine of its leaves and thereby hastened the maturing of
+the grape without reducing its natural supply of sugar--"
+
+"You don't shine," interrupted Denis, "when you talk like that."
+
+"Because even if this could be proved, which I greatly doubt, yet
+nothing on earth will make me believe that glucose is otherwise than
+beneficial to vegetation. Because--"
+
+"Do sit down, Keith. You are monopolizing the conversation."
+
+"Because the glucose resides within that verdant foliage like truth in
+her well, like the oyster within its pearl. The monks of
+Palaiokastron--they got it straight from Noah. I am a great believer in
+glucose. Which is absurd. Because--"
+
+"Oh, shut up! You are making a perfect exhibition of yourself. Can't
+you oblige me, for once in the way?"
+
+Denis was growing seriously alarmed for the reputation of his friend.
+He had changed of late; he was beginning to know his own mind. He meant
+to put a stop to this humiliating scene. As the other, regardless of
+his pleadings, continued to babble dithyrambic nonsense concerning
+glucose and self-fertilization and artificial manures and inflorescence
+and Assyrian bas-reliefs and Stilton cheese, he suddenly gripped his
+arm and pulled him, with a crash, into his chair.
+
+"Sit down, you double-distilled owl!"
+
+This was the first virile achievement of his young life, and directed
+to a worthy end. For it was obvious to the meanest intelligence that
+Mr. Keith was considerably drunk. Too surprised to utter a word of
+protest, the orator paused in his declamation, beaming blandly at
+nobody in particular. Then he remarked, in quite a subdued tone of
+voice:
+
+"We are all at the mercy of youth. Mr. Richards! Could you oblige me
+with a fairy-tale?"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of South Wind, by Norman Douglas
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