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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c735811 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52701 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52701) diff --git a/old/52701-0.txt b/old/52701-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a512e2b..0000000 --- a/old/52701-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10753 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Comedies and Errors, by Henry Harland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Comedies and Errors - -Author: Henry Harland - -Release Date: August 2, 2016 [EBook #52701] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES AND ERRORS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -COMEDIES AND ERRORS - -By Henry Harland - -John Lane: The Bodley Head London and New York - -1898 - - - - -CONTENTS - -THE CONFIDANTE - -MERELY PLAYERS - -THE FRIEND OF MAN - -TIRALA-TIRALA... - -THE INVISIBLE PRINCE - -P’TIT-BLEU - -THE HOUSE OF EULALIE - -THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE - -COUSIN ROSALYS - -FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE - -ROOMS - -ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE - - - - -THE CONFIDANTE - -Every one who knew Rome fifteen or twenty years ago must remember -Miss Belmont. She lived in the Palazzo Sebastiani, a merry little old -Englishwoman, the business, the passion, of whose existence it was to -receive. All the rooms of her vast apartment on the piano nobile were -arranged as reception-rooms, even the last of the suite, in the corner -of which a low divan, covered by a Persian carpet, with a prie-dieu -beside it, and a crucifix attached to the wall above, was understood -to serve at night as Miss Belmont’s bed. Her day, as indicated by her -visiting-card, was Thursday; but to those who stood in her good books -her day was every day, and—save for a brief hour in the afternoon, -when, with the rest of Rome, she drove in the Villa Borghese—all -day long. Then almost every evening she gave a little dinner. I have -mentioned that she was old. She was proud of her age, and especially -proud of not looking it. “I am seventy-three,” she used to boast, -confronting you with the erect figure, the bright eyes, the firm cheeks, -of a well-preserved woman of sixty. Her rooms were filled with beautiful -and precious things, paintings, porcelains and bronzes, carvings, -brocades, picked up in every province of the Continent, “the spoils of -a lifetime spent in rummaging,” she said. All English folk who arrived -in Rome decently accredited were asked to her at-homes, and all good -Black Italians attended them. As a loyal Black herself, Miss Belmont, of -course, knew no one in any way affiliated with the Quirinal. - - - - - -One of Miss Belmont’s Thursday afternoons has always persisted in my -memory with a quite peculiar vividness. It was fifteen years ago, if you -will; and yet I remember it, even the details of it, as clearly as I can -remember the happenings of last week—as clearly indeed, but oh, how -much more pleasantly! Was the world really a sweeter, fresher place -fifteen years ago? Has it really grown stale in fifteen little years? -It seemed, at any rate, very sweet and fresh, to my undisciplined -perceptions, on that particular Thursday afternoon. - -We were in December, and there was never so light a touch of frost on -the air, making it keen and exhilarating. I remember walking down a -long narrow street, at the end of which the sky hung like a tapestry, -splendid with the colours of the sunset: a street all clamour and -business and bustle, as Roman streets are apt to be when there is -a touch of the tramontano on the air. Cobblers worked noisily, -tap-tap-tapping, in their out-of-door stalls; hawkers cried their wares, -and old women stopped to haggle with them; wandering musicians thrummed -their guitars and mandolines, singing “Funiculi, Funiculà,” more or -less in tune; and cabs rattled perilously over the cobble-stones, -whilst their drivers shrieked warnings at the foot-passengers, citizens -soldiers, beggars, priests, like the populace in a comic opera. - -But within the Palazzo Sebastiani the scene was as different as might -be. Thick curtains were drawn over the windows; innumerable wax candles -burned and flickered in sconces along the walls; there were flowers -everywhere, lilies and roses, and the air was heady with their -fragrance; there were people everywhere too, men in frock-coats, women -in furs and velvets, monsignori from the Vatican lending a purple -note. And there was a continuous, confused, rising, falling, murmur of -conversation. - -When I had made my obeisance to Miss Belmont, she said, “Come. I want -to introduce you to the Contessa Bracca.” - - - - - -Now, this will seem improbable, of course; but you know how one -sometimes has premonitions; and, upon my word, it is the literal fact: I -had never heard of the Contessa Bracca, her name could convey nothing to -me; and yet, when Miss Belmont said she wished to present me to her, -I felt a sudden knock in my heart, I felt that something important was -about to happen to me. Why?... - -She was seated in an old high-backed chair of carved ebony, inlaid with -mother-of-pearl, one of Miss Belmont’s curiosities. She wore a jaunty -little toque of Astrakhan lamb’s-wool, with an aigrette springing from -it, and a smart Astrakhan jacket. It was a singularly pleasant face, a -singularly pretty and witty and interesting face, that looked up in -the soft candle-light, and smiled, as Miss Belmont accomplished the -presentation; it was a singularly pleasant voice, gentle, yet crisp, -characteristic, that greeted me. - -But Miss Belmont had spoken to the Contessa in English; and the Contessa -spoke to me in English, with no trace of an accent. I was surprised; -and I was shy and awkward. So I could think of nothing better than to -exclaim— - -“Oh, you are English!” - -She smiled—it was a quiet little amused but kindly smile, rather -a lightening of her eyes than a movement of her features—and said, -“Why not?” - -“I thought you would be Italian,” I confessed. - -She was still smiling. “And are you inconsolable to find that I’m -not?” she asked. - -“Oh, no. On the contrary, I am very glad,” I assured her, with -sincerity. - -At this, her smile rippled into laughter; and she murmured something in -which I caught the words “youth” and “engaging candour.” - -“Oh, I’m not so furiously young,” I protested. - -She raised her eyebrows, gazing at me quizzically. - -“Aren’t you?” she inquired. - -“I’m twenty-two,” I announced, with satisfaction. - -“Oh, dear!” She laughed again. “And twenty-two you regard as the -beginning of old age?” she suggested. - -“At all events, one is no longer a child at twenty-two,” I argued -solemnly, “especially if one has seen the world a bit.” - -My conversation appeared to divert her more than I could have hoped; for -still again she laughed. - -Then, “Ah, wait till you’re my age—wait till you’re a hundred -and fifteen,” she pronounced in a hollow voice, making her face long, -and shaking her head. - -It was my turn to laugh now. Afterwards, “I don’t believe you’re -much older than I am,” I confided to her, with bluff geniality. - -“What’s the difference between twenty-two and thirty—especially -when one has seen the world a bit?” she asked. - -“You’re never thirty,” I expostulated. - -“An experienced old fellow of two-and-twenty,” she observed, “must -surely be aware that people do sometimes live to attain the age of -thirty.” - -“You’re not thirty,” I reiterated. - -“Perhaps not,” she said; “but unless I’m careful, I shall be, -before I know it. Have you been long in Rome?” - -“Oh, I’m an old Roman,” I replied airily. “We used to come here -when I was a child. And I was here again when I was eighteen, and again -when I was twenty.” - -“Mercy!” she cried. “Then you will be able to put me up to the -tricks of the town.” - -“Why, but you live here, don’t you?” I wondered simply. - -“Yes, I suppose I live here,” she assented. “I live in the Palazzo -Stricci, you must come and see me. I’m at home on Mondays.” - -“Oh, thank you; I’ll come the very first Monday that ever is,” I -vowed. For, though she had teased me and laughed at me, I thought she -was very charming, all the same. - -“Well, and how did you get on with the Countess Bracca?” Miss -Belmont asked. When I had answered her, she proceeded, as her wont -was, to volunteer certain information. “She was a Miss Wilthorpe, you -know—the Cumberland Wilthorpes, a staunch old Catholic family. Her -mother was a Frenchwoman, a Montargier. Monsignor Wilthorpe is her -cousin. Her husband, Count Bracca, held a commission in the Guardia -Nobile—between ourselves, a creature of starch and whalebone, a -pompous noodle. She was married to him when she was eighteen. He died -three or four years ago: a good thing too. But she has continued to -live in Rome, in the winter. In the summer she goes to England, to her -people. Did she ask you to go and see her? Go, on the first occasion. -Cultivate her. She’s clever. She’ll do you good. She’ll form -you,” Miss Belmont concluded, looking at me with a critical eye. - - - - - -On Monday, at the Palazzo Stricci, I was ushered through an immense -sombre drawing-room, and beyond, into a gay little blue-and-white -boudoir. The Contessa was there alone. “I am glad you have come -early,” she was good enough to say. “We can have a talk together, -before any one else arrives.” - -She wore a delightful white frock, of some flexile woollen fabric -embroidered in white silk with leaves and flowers. And I discovered that -she had very lovely hair, great quantities of it, undulating richly away -from her forehead; hair of an indescribable light warm brown, a sort of -fawn colour, with reflections dimly red. She was seated in the corner of -a sofa, leaning upon a cushion of blue satin covered with white lace. I -had not noticed her hair the other day at Miss Belmont’s, in the vague -candle-light. Now I could not take my eyes from it. It filled me with -astonishment and admiration. - -“Oh,” I said—I suppose I blushed and stammered, but I had to say -it—“you—you must let me tell you—what—what wonderful hair you -have.” - -The poor lady! She shook her head; she lay back in her place and -laughed. “Forgive me, forgive me for laughing,” she said. -“But—your compliment—it was a trifle point-blank—I was slightly -unprepared for it. However, you’re quite right. It’s not bad -hair,” she conceded amiably. “And it was very—very natural -and—and nice—of you to mention it. Now sit down here, and we will -have a good long talk,” she added. “You must tell me all about -yourself. We must get acquainted.” - -There was always, perhaps, the tiniest point of raillery in that crisp -voice, in those gleaming eyes, of hers; but it did not prevent them -from being friendly and interested. She went on to ask me all manner -of friendly, interested questions, adopting, apparently as a matter of -course, the tone of maturity addressing ingenuous youth; and I found -myself somehow accepting that relation without resentment. Where had -I made my studies? What was I going to do in the world? She asked me -everything; and I, guilelessly, fatuously no doubt, responded. I imagine -I expatiated at some length, and with some fervour, upon my literary -aspirations, whilst she encouraged me with her kind-glowing eyes; and I -am afraid—I am afraid I even went so far as to allow her to persuade -me to repeat divers of my poems. In those days one wrote things one -fondly nicknamed poems. Anyhow, I know that I was enjoying myself -very much indeed—when we were interrupted by the entrance of another -caller. - -And then a whole stream of callers passed through her dainty room: -men and women, old and young; all of them people with a great deal of -manner, and not much else—certainly with precious little wit. The men -were faultlessly dressed, they had their hair very sleekly brushed, they -caressed their hats, grinned vacuously, and clacked out set phrases; the -women gossiped turbulently in Italian; and my hostess gave them tea, -and smiled (was there just a tinge of irony in her smile?), and listened -with marvellous endurance. But I thought to myself, “Oh, if this is -the kind of human society you are condemned to, how ineffably you must -be bored!” - - - - - -I met her a few days later in the Villa Borghese. I was one of many -hundred people walking there, in the afternoon; her victoria was one -of the long procession of carriages. She made her coachman draw up, and -signed to me to come and speak with her. - -“If I should get down and walk with you a bit, do you think you would -be heart-broken?” she asked. - -I offered her my hand, and helped her to alight. She had on the toque -and jacket of Astrakhan in which I had first seen her, and she carried -an Astrakhan muff. The fresh air had brought a beautiful soft colour to -her cheeks; her hair glowed beautifully in the sunlight. As she walked -beside me, I perceived that she was nearly as tall as I was, and I -noticed the strong, fine, elastic contours of her figure. We turned away -from the road, and walked on the grass, among the solemn old trees; and -we talked... I can’t in the least remember of what—of nothings, very -likely—only, I do remember that we talked and talked, and that I found -our talk exceedingly agreeable. I remember, too, that at a given moment -we passed a company of students from the German College, their scarlet -cassocks flashing in the sun; and I remember how each of those poor -priestlings stole an admiring glance at her from the corner of his -eyes. But upon my calling her attention to the circumstance, though she -couldn’t help smiling, she tried to frown, and reproved me. “Hush. -You shouldn’t observe such things. You must never allow yourself to -think lightly of the clergy.” - -When I had conducted her back to her carriage, she said, “Can’t I -set you down somewhere?” So I got in and drove with her, through the -animated Roman streets, to the door of my lodgings. On the way, “You -must come and dine with me some evening,” she said. “When will you -come? Will you come on Wednesday? Quite quietly, you know.” And I -assured her that I should be delighted to come on Wednesday. - -But afterwards, when I was alone, I repeatedly caught myself thinking -of her—thinking of her with enthusiasm. “She is a nice woman,” -I thought. “She’s an awfully nice woman. Except my own mother, I -believe she’s the nicest woman I have ever known.” - -It may interest you to learn that I took occasion to tell her as much on -Wednesday. - -The other guests at her dinner had been Miss Belmont and the -Contessa’s cousin, Monsignor Wilthorpe, a tall, iron-grey, frigid -man, of forty-something; and they left together very early, Miss Belmont -remarking, “People who are not in their first youth can’t afford to -lose their beauty-sleep. Come, Monsignore, you must drive me home.” I -feared it was my duty to leave directly after them, but upon my rising -to do so the Contessa cried out, “What! Do you begrudge losing your -beauty-sleep too? It’s not yet ten o’clock.” I was only too glad -to stay. - -We went from the great melancholy drawing-room, where we had taken our -coffee, into her boudoir. I can’t tell you how cosy and charming and -intimate it seemed, in the lamplight, with its bright colours, and -with all her little personal possessions scattered about, her books, -bibelots, writing-materials. - -“Are you allowed to smoke?” she asked. - -“I don’t know. Am I?” was my retort. - -She laughed. “Yes. I think you deserve to, after that.” - -I lighted a cigarette, with gratitude; while she sat down at her piano -and began to play. - -“Do you care for Bach? No, you are too young to care for Bach. But you -will come to him. At your age one loves Chopin. Chopin interprets the -strenuous moments of life, the moments that seem all important when they -are present, but matter so little in the long run. Bach interprets life -as a whole, seen from a distance, seen in perspective, in its masses -and proportions, in its serene symmetry, when nothing is strenuous, when -everything seems right and in its place, when even sorrow seems right. -At my age one prefers Bach.” - -She said all this as she was playing, speaking slowly, dreamily, between -the chords. “If that is Bach which you are playing now, I like it very -much,” I made bold to affirm. - -“It’s the third fugue,” said she. “But it’s precocious of you -to like it.” - -“Oh, I give you my word, I’m not half so juvenile as you’re always -trying to make me out,” said I. - -She looked at me with her indulgent, quizzical smile. “No, to be sure. -You’re a cynical old man of the world—of twenty-two,” she teased. - -Presently she abandoned the piano, and took her place of the other day, -in the corner of her sofa. - -“Tell me,” she said, “what do you do here in Rome? What are your -occupations? How do you spend your time?” - -“Oh, my occupations are entirely commonplace,” I answered her. “In -the morning’ I try to write. Then in the afternoon I pay calls, or -go to some one’s studio, or to the museums, or what not. And in the -evening I generally dine with some men I know at the Caffé di Roma.” - -“And so, with one thing and another, you’re quite happy?” she -suggested. - -But this recalled me, of a sudden, to the rôle I was at that season -playing to myself in the human comedy. Ingenuous young men (a. friend of -mine often says), if they happen to have an active imagination, are the -most inveterate, the most incorrigible of poseurs. To make the matter -worse, they’re the first—if not the only—ones to be taken in by -their pose. They believe in it heartily; they’re supremely unconscious -that they’re posing. And so they go on, slipping from one pose to -another, till in the end, by accident as like as not, they find the pose -that suits them. And when a man has found the pose that suits him (I am -still quoting my friend) we say that he has “found himself.” - -The Contessa’s suggestion recalled me to my pose of the season. I -repudiated the idea of happiness with scorn. - -“Happy!” I echoed bitterly. “I should think not. I shall never be -happy again.” - -“Mercy upon me!” she exclaimed. “Si jeune, et déjà -Moldave-Valaque!” - -“Oh,” I informed her, with Byronic gloom, “it isn’t a laughing -matter. I’m the most miserable of men.” - -“Poor boy,” she said compassionately; and her eyes shone with -compassion too, though perhaps there still lingered in them just the -faintest afterglow of amusement. “Why are you miserable? What is it -all about?” - -“Oh,” I said, “it’s the usual story. When a man’s -hopelessly unhappy, when his last illusion has been destroyed, it’s -always—I’m sorry to say it to you, but you know whether it’s -true—it’s always a member of your sex that’s to blame.” - -Had she a struggle to keep from laughing? If so, she came out of it -victorious. Indeed, the compassion in her eyes seemed to deepen. “Poor -boy,” she repeated. “What have they done to you? Tell me all about -it. It will do you good to tell me. Let me be your confidante,” she -urged gently. - -And thereupon (oh, fatuity!) I strode up and down her floor, and -narrated the whole history of my desperate, my fatal passion for Elsie -Milray: how beautiful Elsie was, how mysteriously, incommunicably -fascinating; how I had adored her; how she had encouraged me, led me -on, trifled with me, and finally thrown me over—for Captain Bullen, a -fellow in the Engineers, old enough to be—well, almost old enough to -be her father. I fancy I swung my arms about a good deal, and quoted -Heine and Rossetti, and generally made myself very tiresome and -ridiculous; but my kind confidante listened with patience, with every -appearance of taking my narration seriously. - -“So you see,” I concluded, “I’ve been hard hit, hit in a vital -spot. My wound is one of those that never heal.” - -Even that did not provoke her to laughter. She gazed at me meditatively -for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Your wound will heal. When -our wounds are fresh, it always seems as if they would never heal. But -they do heal. Yours will heal. You must try to think of other things. -You must try to interest yourself in other girls—oh, platonically, I -mean, of course. There are lots of nice girls in the world, you know. -You must try not to think of Elsie. It’s no good thinking of her, now -that she’s engaged to Captain Bullen. But—but when you can’t -help thinking of her, then you must come to me and talk it out. That -is always better, healthier, than brooding upon a grief in silence. You -must come to me whenever you feel you wish to. I shall always be glad -when you come.” - -“You’re a—you’re an angel of kindness,” I declared, with -emotion. “I—I was thinking only the other day, when you had driven -me home from the Borghese, I was thinking that, except my own mother, -you’re the—the best and dearest woman in the world.” - -But at this, she could be grave no longer. She laughed gaily. “If -I come next to your mother in your affections,” she said, “it’s -almost as if I were your grandmother, isn’t it? Yes, that is it. -I’ll be a grandmother to you.” And she made me a comical little -moue. - - - - - -After that, it was my excellent fortune to see the Contessa Bracca -rather frequently. I called on her a good deal; she asked me to dine and -lunch with her a good deal; I spent a surprising number of afternoons -and evenings in her blue-and-white retiring-room. Then she used to -take me to drive with her in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian; and -sometimes we would go for walks together in the Campagna. Of course, I -was a regular visitor in her box at the opera: otherwise, the land -had not been Italy, nor the town Rome. I liked her and enjoyed her -inexpressibly; she was so witty and lively, so sympathetic, such a frank -good comrade; she was so pretty and delicate and distinguished. “I can -never make you understand,” I confessed to her, “how much fuller and -richer and more delightful life is since I have known you.” I was, -in fact, quite improbably happy, though I scarcely suspected it at the -time. I had not forgotten that my rôle was the disconsolate lover; -I must still now and again perorate about Elsie, and grieve over my -painted wounds. The Contessa always listened patiently, with an air of -commiseration. And I read her every line I wrote (poor woman!) whilst -she criticised, suggested, encouraged. The calf is a queer animal. - -You may wonder how she managed to put up with me, why I did not bore her -to extermination. I can’t answer—unless, indeed, it was simply that -she had a sense of humour, as well as a kind heart. I am glad to be -able to remember, besides, that our talks were by no means confined to -subjects that had their source in my callow egotism. We talked of many -things, we talked of everything: of books, pictures, music; of life, -nature, religion; of Rome, its churches and palaces, its galleries and -gardens; of people, of the people we knew in common, of their traits, -their qualities, defects, absurdities. We talked of everything; -sometimes—but all too infrequently—we talked of her. All too -infrequently. I can’t think how she contrived it; she was as far as -possible from giving the impression of being reserved with me; yet, -somehow, it was very seldom indeed that we talked of her. Somehow, for -the most part—with no sign of effort, easily, imperceptibly even—she -avoided or evaded the subject, or turned it if it was introduced. Only, -once in a long while, once in a long, long while, she would, just for an -instant, as it were, lift a corner of the curtain; tell me some little -anecdote, some little incident, out of her life; allow me never so -fleeting a glimpse into the more intimate regions of her experience. - -One day, for example, one afternoon in February, when a faint breath of -spring was on the air, we had driven out to Acqua Acetosa, and there we -had left her carriage and strolled in the open country, plucking armfuls -of flowers, anemones, jonquils, competing with each other to see who -could gather the greatest number in the fewest minutes, and laughing -and romping mirthfully. Her hair had got into some disarray, her cheeks -glowed, her eyes sparkled; and her face looked so young, so young, that -I exclaimed, “Do you know, you are exactly like a girl to-day. I told -you once that you were the nicest woman I had ever known; but to-day I -shall have to take that back, and tell you you’re the nicest girl.” - -She laughed, sweetly, joyously. “I am a girl to-day,” she said. But -then, all at once, her eyes became sober, thoughtful; there was even a -shadow of trouble in them. “You see, I never was really a girl,” -she went on. “I am living my girlhood now—as a kind of accidental -after-thought—because I have happened to make friends with a boy. I -am sowing my wild oats—gathering my wild flowers—at the eleventh -hour.” - -“How do you mean—you were never really a girl?” I questioned -stupidly. - -You will guess what I felt—her eyes suddenly filled with tears. - -I was stammering out some apology, but she stopped me. “No, no. It -isn’t your fault. I’m not crying. It’s all right. I meant I was -never a girl, because I was married at eighteen. That is all. And I’ve -had to be dull and middle-aged ever since,” she added, smiling again. -“You dull and middle-aged!” I scoffed at the notion. But her tears, -and then her word about her marriage, had touched me poignantly. She had -never mentioned, she had never remotely alluded to her marriage, before, -in all our intercourse. Certainly, I knew, from things Miss Belmont -had said, that it had not been a happy marriage. The Con-tessa’s word -about it now, brief as it was, slight as it was, moved me like a cry of -pain. I felt a great anguish, a great anger, to think that circumstances -had been cruel to her in the past; a great yearning in some way to be of -comfort to her. - -“Oh,” I cried out—tactlessly, if you will; but my emotion was -dominant; I could not stop to reflect—“oh, why—why didn’t I know -you in those days? Why wasn’t I here—to—to help you—to defend -you—to—to make it easier for you?” - -We were in the carriage by this time, rolling swiftly back towards -Rome. She did not speak. I did not look at her. But I felt her hand -laid gently upon mine, her little light gloved hand; and then her hand -pressed mine, a long soft pressure that said vastly more than speech; -and then her hand rested there, lightly, lightly, and we were both -silent, till we reached the Porta del Popolo. - -When I had left her, I was conscious of a curious elation, a curious -exaltation. It was almost as if my confidante had made me her confidant. -A new honour had been conferred upon me, a new trust and responsibility. -“Oh, I will devote my life to her,” I vowed fervently, in my soul. -“I will devote my life to making her happy, to compensating her in -some measure for what she has suffered in the past. When shall I see -her again?” I was consumed with eagerness, with impatience, to see her -again. - -I saw her, as a matter of fact, no later than the next day. I called on -her in the afternoon. I went to her, meditating heroics. I would lay my -life at her feet, I would ask her to let me be her knight, her servant. -I looked forward to rather a fine moment. But it takes two to make a -melodrama. She met me in a mood that sealed the heroics in my bosom; a -teasing, elusive mood, her eyes, her voice, all mockery, all mischief. -“Tiens, c’est mon petit-fils,” she cried, on my arrival. -“Bonjour, Toto. How nice of you to come and see your granny.” There -were days when she was like this, when she would never drop her joke -about being my grandmother, and perpetually called me “Toto,” and -talked to me as if I were approaching seven. “Now, sit down on the -floor before the fire,” she said, “and gwandmamma will tell you a -stor-wy.” A sprite danced in her eyes. Her drawling enunciation of the -last word was irresistible. I laughed, despite myself; and thoughts of -high rhetoric had summarily to be dismissed. - - - - - -When I look back upon my life as it was in those days, I protest I -am filled with a sort of envy. A boy of twenty-something, his pockets -comfortably supplied with money; free from morning to night, from -night to morning, to do as his fancy prompted; with numberless pleasant -acquaintances; and in the most beautiful country, the most interesting -city, of two hemispheres—in Italy, in Rome: yes, indeed, as I look -back at him, I am filled with envy. - -But then, when I think of her.... I think of her, and she becomes -visible before me, visible in all her exquisite grace and fineness, her -exquisite femininity. I see her intimate little room, its gay blue and -white, its pretty furniture, its hundred pretty personal trifles, tokens -of her habitation; I breathe the air of it, the faint, soft perfume that -was always on its air; I see her fan, her open book, her handkerchief -forgotten on a table. I see her, in the room. I see her delicate white -face, witty, alert, sensitive; I see her laughing eyes, her hair, the -sumptuous masses of her hair. I see her hands, I touch them, slender, -fragile, but warm, but firm and responsive. I see the delicious toilet -she is wearing, I hear the brisk frou-frou of it. I hear her voice. I -see her at her piano, I see her as she plays, the bend of her head, -the motion of her body. I see her as she glances up at me, whimsically -smiling, asking me something, telling me something. I gaze long at her, -hungrily. And then, remembering that there was a time when I could see -her like this in very reality as often as I would—oh, I can only cry -out to myself of those days, “You lucky heathen, you lucky, lucky -heathen! How little you realised, how little you merited, your -extraordinary fortune!” - -Of course, I was in love with her. But as yet, upon my conscience, I -did not know it. I knew that I was tremendously fond of her, that I was -never so happy as when in her presence, that I was always more or less -unsatisfied and restless when out of it. I knew that I was always more -or less unsatisfied and restless, too, when other men were hovering -about her, when she was laughing and talking with other men. I knew that -I wished to be her knight, her servant, to dedicate my existence to her -welfare. But beyond that, I had not analysed my sentiment, nor given it -a name. - -And so, if you please, I was still able to go on prating to her of Elsie -Milray! - - - - - -However, there came a day when I ceased to prate of Elsie... It was -during the Carnival. Miss Belmont had taken a room in the Corso, from -the balcony of which, that afternoon, she and various of her friends had -watched the merrymaking. The Contessa Bracca was expected, but the hours -wore away, and she did not turn up. I waited for her, hoped for her, -from minute to minute, to the last. Then I went home in a fine state of -depression. - -After dinner—and after much irresolution, ending in an abrupt -resolve—I ventured to present myself at the Palazzo Stricci. - -“I was alarmed about you. I was afraid you might be ill,” I -explained. I felt a great rush of relief, of warmth and peace, at seeing -her. - -She was seated in a low easy-chair, by her writing-table, with a volume -of the “Récit d’une Sour” open in her lap. - -“No, I’m not ill,” she said, rising, and putting her book aside. -“I’m not sorry you thought so, though, since it has procured me the -pleasure of a visit from you,” she added, smiling, as she gave me her -hand. - -But her face was pale, her smile seemed like a pale light that just -flickered on it for an instant, and went out. - -I looked at her with anxiety. “You are ill,” I said. “There’s -something the matter. What is it? Tell me.” - -“No, no. Really. I’m all right,” she insisted, with a little -movement of the head, that was meant to be reassuring. “Sit down, -and light a cigarette, and give me a true and faithful account of the -day’s doings. Who was there?” - -“I don’t know. You weren’t. That was the important thing. We -missed you awfully. Your absence entirely spoiled the afternoon,” I -declared. - -She raised her eyebrows. “I can imagine how they must all have pined -for me. Did they commission you to speak for them?” - -“Well, I pined for you, at any rate,” I said. “I kept looking for -you, expecting you. Every minute, up to the very end, I still hoped for -you. If you’re not ill, or anything, why didn’t you come?” - -“Vanity. I was having a plain day, I didn’t like to show myself.” - -I looked at her with anxiety, narrowly. “I say,” I blurted out, -“what’s the use of beating about the bush? I know there’s -something wrong. I should have to be blind not to see it. If you’re -not ill, then you’re unhappy about something. I can’t help it—if -you don’t like my speaking of it, send me away. But I can’t sit here -and talk small-talk, when I know that you’re unhappy.” - -“If you know that I’m unhappy, you might sit here and talk -small-talk, to cheer me up,” she suggested. - -“You—you’ve been crying,” I exclaimed, all at once understanding -an odd brightness in her eyes. - -“Well, and even so? Hasn’t one a right to cry, if it amuses one?” -she questioned. - -“What have you been crying about?” questioned I. - -“I’ve been crying over my faded beauty—because I’ve had a plain -day.” - -“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t try to turn the matter to a jest,” I -pleaded. “I can’t bear to think of you crying. I can’t bear to -think of you unhappy. What is it? I wish you’d tell me.” - -“Do you really wish it?” she asked, with a sudden approach to -gravity. - -“Yes—yes,” I answered eagerly. “If you’re unhappy, I want -to know it, I want to share it with you. You’re so good, you’re so -dear, I wish I could take every pain in the world away from you, I wish -I could protect you from every breath of pain.” - -Her eyes softened beautifully, they shone into mine with a beautiful -gentleness. “You’re a dear boy,” she said. “You’re a great -comfort to your grandmother.” - -“Well, then,” I urged, “the least you can do is to tell me what -has happened to make my grandmother unhappy.” - -“Nothing has happened. I’ve been thinking. That’s all.” - -“Thinking what? What have you been thinking?” - -“Thinking——————-” she began, as if she was about to -answer; but then she made a teasing little face at me, and declaimed— - - -“Oh, thinking, if you like, - -How utterly dissociated was I, - -A priest and celibate, from the sad strange wife - -Of Guido.” - - -And she laughed. - -I threw up my hands in despair. “You’re hopeless,” I said. -“It’s no good ever expecting you to be serious.” - -“I’m serious enough, in all conscience,” said she, “but I -conceal it. I let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask -cheek. And so—I have plain days.” - -“I don’t believe you’ve ever had a plain day in your life,” -asserted I. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” - -“I would beg you to observe that you’re sitting here and talking -small-talk, after all,” she laughed, “That isn’t small-talk. -It’s the solemn truth. But look here. I’m not going to let you evade -the question. What have you been unhappy about?” - -“I’m not unhappy any more. So what does it matter?” - -“I want to know. Tell me.” - -“I’ve been puzzling over a dilemma,” she said, “an excessively -perplexed one.” - -“Yes? Go on,” said I. - -“I’ve been wondering whether I’d better marry Ciccolesi, or retire -into a convent.” - -“Ciccolesi!” I cried, in astonishment, in dismay. “Marry -Ciccolesi! You!” - -“The Cavalière Ciccolesi. You’ve met him here on Mondays, A brown -man, with curly hair. He’s done me the honour of offering me his hand. -Would you advise me to accept it?” - -“Accept it?” I cried. “Good Lord! You must be—have you lost -your reason? Ciccolesi—that automaton—that cardboard -stalking-horse—that Neapolitan jackanapes! You—think of marrying -him!” - -I could only walk up and down the room and wave my hands. - -“Ah, well,” said she, “then I see there’s nothing for it but the -other alternative—to retire into a convent.” - -I halted and stared at her. - -“What—what on earth has happened to make you talk like this?” I -demanded, in a sort of gasp. - -“I’ve been reflecting upon the futility of my life,” she said. -“I get up in the morning, and eat my breakfast. Then I fritter away an -hour or two, and eat my luncheon. Then I fritter away the afternoon, and -eat my dinner. Then I fritter away the evening, and go to bed. I live, -apparently, to eat and sleep, like the beasts that perish. We must -reform all that. I must do something to make myself of use in the world. -And since you seem disinclined to sanction a marriage with Ciccolesi, -what do you say to my joining some charitable sisterhood?” - -She spoke lightly, even, if you will, half-jocosely. But there was a -real bitterness unmistakable behind her tone. There was a bitterness in -her smile. - -And I—I was overwhelmed, penetrated, by a distress, by an emotion, -such as I had never known before. I looked at her through a sort of -mist—of pain, of passion; with a kind of aching helplessness; longing -to say something, to do something, I could not tell what. Her smile had -faded out; her face was white, set; her eyes were sombre. I looked at -her, I longed to say something, to do something, and I could not move -or speak. My mind was all a whirl, a bewilderment—till, somehow, -gradually, from some place in the background of it, her name, her -Christian name, struggled forward into consciousness. I seemed to see -it before me, like a written word, her name, Gabrielle. And then I heard -myself calling it. - -“Gabrielle! Gabrielle!” - -I heard my voice, I found myself kneeling beside her, holding her hands, -speaking close to her face. - -“Gabrielle! I can’t let you—I can’t allow you to think such -things. Your life futile! Your beautiful, beautiful life! Gabrielle—my -love! Oh, my love, my love!”... - -By-and-by, laughing, sobbing, her eyes melting with a heavenly -tenderness, she said, “It’s absurd, it’s impossible. You’re only -a boy. I’m a woman. I’m seven years older than you—in years. I’m -immeasurably older in everything else. But I can’t help it—I love -you. You’re only a boy—and yet—you’re such an honest, frank, -sweet boy—and my life has been passed with such artificial people, -such unreal people—you’re the only man I have ever known.” - - - - - -The next morning one of her servants brought me a letter. Here it is. - -“Dearest Friend,—Please do not come to see me this afternoon. I -shall not be at home. I am leaving town. I am going to the Convent of -Saint Veronica; I shall pass Lent there, with the good sisters. - -“Dearest, do not be angry with me. I cannot accept your love, I have -no right to accept it. Our friendship, our companionship, has been -infinitely precious to me; it has given me a belief in human nature -which I never had before. But you are young, you are still growing—in -mind, in spirit. You must be free. I cannot cramp your youth, your -growth, by accepting your love. Look, my dear, it would be an impasse. -We could not marry. It would be monstrous if I should let you marry -me—at the end of a year, at the end of six months, you would hate me, -you would feel that I had spoiled your life. Yes, it is true. You must -be free—you must grow. You must not handicap yourself at twenty-two by -marrying a woman seven years your senior. - -“Well, what then? Nothing but this—I must not accept your love, -dear, I must give you up. You will go on, on; you will grow, you will -outgrow the love you bear me now. You will live your life. And some day -you will meet a woman of your own age. - -“I know the pain this letter will give you; I know, I know. You will -be unhappy, you will be angry with me. Dearest, try to forgive me. I am -doing the only thing there is for me to do. You will be glad of it in -the future. You will shudder to think, ’What if that woman had taken -me at my word!’—Oh, why weren’t you born ten years earlier, or I -ten years later? - -“I am going to the Convent of Saint Veronica, to pass Lent. Perhaps -I shall stay longer. Perhaps—do not cry out, it is not a sudden -resolution—perhaps I shall remain there, as an oblate. I could teach -music, French. I must do something. I must not lead this idle futile -life. Do not think of me as undergoing hardships. The rule for an oblate -is not severe. - -“Good-bye, dear. I pray God to bless you in every way. - -“Good-bye, good-bye. - -“Gabrielle.” - - - - - -Don’t ask me what I felt, what I did.... - -Lent dragged itself away, but she did not return to Rome. - -Then one day I received by post a copy of the Osservatore Romano, with -a marked paragraph. It announced that the Contessa Bracca had been -received into the Pious Community of Saint Veronica as a noble oblate. - -Her letter, and that paragraph, cut from the Osservatore Romano, lie -before me now, on my writing-table. Don’t ask me what I feel, as I -look at them. - - - - -MERELY PLAYERS I - -My dear,” said the elder man, “as I’ve told you a thousand times, -what you need is a love-affair with a red-haired woman.” - -“Bother women,” said the younger man, “and hang love-affairs. -Women are a pack of samenesses, and love-affairs are damnable -iterations.” - -They were seated at a round table, gay with glass and silver, fruit -and wine, in a pretty, rather high-ceiled little grey-and-gold -breakfast-room. The French window stood wide open to the soft June day. -From the window you could step out upon a small balcony; the balcony -overhung a terrace; and a broad flight of steps from the terrace led -down into a garden. You could not perceive the boundaries of the garden; -in all directions it offered an indefinite perspective, a landscape of -green lawns and shadowy alleys, bright parterres of flowers, fountains, -and tall bending trees. - -I have spoken of the elder man and the younger, though really there -could have been but a trifling disparity in their ages: the elder -was perhaps thirty, the younger seven- or eight-and-twenty. In other -respects, however, they were as unlike as unlike may be. Thirty was -plump and rosy and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and -merry big blue eyes; eight-and-twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking, -his face pale and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished -their coffee, and now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which -he selected with much careful discrimination from an assortment in a -porcelain dish. The thin man was drinking something green, possibly -chartreuse. - -“Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-affairs -are damnable iterations.” - -“Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “I -said red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the -same.” - -“The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young man -argued wearily. - -“It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired women -who are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an altitude. - -“In that case,” said he, “I admit there is a difference—they -have white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff. “Is -all this apropos of boots?” he questioned. - -The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s apropos of your immortal -soul,” he answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine for a mind -diseased. The only thing that will wake you up, and put a little life -and human nature in you, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman. Red -in the hair means fire in the heart. It means all sorts of things. If -you really wish to please me, Uncle, you’ll go and fall in love with a -red-haired woman.” - -The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged his -shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette. - -The elder man left the table, and went to the open window. “Heavens, -what weather!” he exclaimed fervently. “The day is made of perfumed -velvet. The air is a love-philtre. The whole world sings romance. And -yet you—insensible monster!—you can sit there torpidly—-” But -abruptly he fell silent. - -His attention had been caught by something below, in the garden. He -watched it for an instant from his place by the window; then he stepped -forth upon the balcony, still watching. Suddenly, facing halfway round, -“By my bauble, Nunky,” he called to his companion, and his voice was -tense with surprised exultancy, “she’s got red hair!” - -The younger man looked up with vague eyes. “Who? What?” he asked -languidly. - -“Come here, come here,” his friend urged, beckoning him. -“There,” he indicated, when the pale man had joined him, “below -there—to the right—picking roses. She’s got red hair. She’s sent -by Providence.” - -A woman in a white frock was picking roses, in one of the alleys of the -garden; rather a tall woman. Her back was turned towards her observers; -but she wore only a light scarf of lace over her head, and her -hair—dim gold in its shadows—where the sun touched it, showed a soul -of red. - -The younger man frowned, and asked sharply, “Who the devil is she?” - -“I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the other. “One of the -Queen’s women, probably. But whoever she is, she’s got red hair.” - -The younger man frowned more fiercely still. “What is she doing in the -King’s private garden? This is a pretty state of things.” He stamped -his foot angrily. “Go down and turn her out. And I wish measures to be -taken, that such trespassing may not occur again.” - -But the elder man laughed. “Hoity-toity! Calm yourself, Uncle. What -would you have? The King is at a safe distance, hiding in one of his -northern hunting-boxes, sulking, and nursing his spleen, as is his wont. -When the King’s away, the palace mice will play—at lèse majesté, -the thrilling game. If you wish to stop them, persuade the King to come -home and show his face. Otherwise, we’ll gather our rosebuds while we -may; and I’m not the man to cross a red-haired woman.” - -“You’re the Constable of Bellefontaine,” retorted his friend, -“and it’s your business to see that the King’s orders are -respected.” - -“The King’s orders are so seldom respectable; and then, I’ve a -grand talent for neglecting my business. I’m trying to elevate -the Constableship of Bellefontaine into a sinecure,” the plump man -explained genially. “But I’m pained to see that your sense of humour -is not escaping the general decay of your faculties. What you need is a -love-affair with a red-haired woman; and yonder’s a red-haired woman, -dropped from the skies for your salvation. Go—engage her in talk—and -fall in love with her. There’s a dear,” he pleaded. - -“Dropped from the skies,” the pale man repeated, with mild scorn. -“As if I didn’t know my Hilary! Of course, you’ve had her up your -sleeve the whole time.” - -“Upon my soul and honour, you are utterly mistaken. Upon my soul -and honour, I’ve never set eyes on her before,” Hilary asseverated -warmly. - -“Ah, well, if that’s the case,” suggested the pale man, turning -back into the room, “let us make an earnest endeavour to talk of -something else.” II - -The next afternoon they were walking in the park, at some distance from -the palace, when they came to a bridge over a bit of artificial water; -and there was the woman of yesterday, leaning on the parapet, throwing -bread-crumbs to the carp. She looked up as they passed, and bowed, with -a little smile, in acknowledgment of their raised hats. - -When they were out of earshot, “H’m,” muttered Hilary, “viewed -at close quarters, she’s a trifle disenchanting.” - -“Oh?” questioned his friend. “I thought her very good-looking.” - -“She has too short a nose,” Hilary complained. - -“What’s the good of criticising particular features? The general -effect of her face was highly pleasing. She looked intelligent, -interesting; she looked as if she would have something to say,” the -younger man insisted. - -“It’s very possible she has a tongue in her head,” admitted -Hilary; “but we were judging her by the rules of beauty. For my fancy, -she’s too tall.” - -“She’s tall, but she’s well-proportioned. Indeed, her figure -struck me as exceptionally fine. There was something sumptuous and noble -about it,” declared the other. - -“There are scores of women with fine figures in this world,” said -Hilary. “But I’m sorely disappointed in her hair. Her hair is -nothing like so red as I’d imagined.” - -“You’re daft on the subject of red hair. Her hair’s not -carrot-colour, if you come to that. But there’s plenty of red in it, -burning through it. The red is managed with discretion—suggestively. -And did you notice her eyes? She has remarkably nice eyes—eyes with -an expression. I thought her eyes and mouth were charming when she -smiled,” the pale man affirmed. - -“When she smiled? I didn’t see her smile,” reflected Hilary. - -“Of course she smiled—when we bowed,” his friend reminded him. - -“Oh, Ferdinand Augustus,” Hilary remonstrated, “will you never -learn to treat words with some consideration? You call that smiling! -Two men take off their hats, and a woman gives them just a look of bare -acknowledgment; and Ferdinand Augustus calls it smiling!” - -“Would you have wished for a broad grin?” asked Ferdinand Augustus. -“Her face lighted up most graciously. I thought her eyes were -charming. Oh, she’s certainly a good-looking woman, a distinctly -handsome woman.” - -“Handsome is that handsome does,” said Hilary. - -“I miss the relevancy of that,” said Ferdinand Augustus. - -“She’s a trespasser.’.was you yourself flew in a passion about it -yesterday. Yesterday she was plucking the King’s roses; to-day she’s -feeding the King’s carp.” - -“‘When the King’s away, the palace mice will play.’ I venture to -recall your own words to you,” Ferdinand remarked. - -“That’s all very well. Besides, I spoke in jest. But there are -limits. And it’s I who am responsible. I’m the Constable of -Bellefontaine. Her trespassing appears to be habitual, We’ve caught -her at it ourselves, two days in succession. I shall give instructions -to the keepers to warn her not to touch a flower, nor feed a bird, -beast, or fish, in the whole of this demesne. Really, I admire the cool -way in which she went on tossing bread-crumbs to the King’s carp under -my very beard!” exclaimed Hilary, working himself into a fine state of -indignation. - -“Very likely she didn’t know who you were,” his friend reasoned. -“And anyhow, your zeal is mighty sudden. You appear to have been -letting things go at loose ends for I don’t know how long; and all at -once you take fire like tinder because a poor woman amuses herself by -throwing bread to the carp. It’s simply spite: you’re disappointed -in the colour of her hair. I shall esteem it a favour if you’ll leave -the keeper’s instructions as they are. She’s a damned good-looking -woman; and I’ll beg you not to interfere with her diversions.” - -“I can deny you nothing, Uncle,” said Hilary, by this time restored -to his accustomed easy temper; “and therefore she may make hay of -the whole blessed establishment, if she pleases. But as for her good -looks—that, you’ll admit, is entirely a question of taste.” - -“Ah, well, then the conclusion is that your taste needs -cultivation,” laughed Ferdinand. “By-the-bye, I shall be glad if you -will find out who she is.” - -“Thank you very much,” cried Hilary. “I have a reputation to -safeguard. Do you think I’m going to compromise myself, and set all -my underlings a-sniggling, by making inquiries about the identity of a -woman?” - -“But,” persisted Ferdinand, “if I ask you to do so, as -your———-” - -“What?” was Hilary’s brusque interruption. - -“As your guest,” said Ferdinand. - -“Mille regrets, impossible, as the French have it,” Hilary returned. -“But as your host, I give you carte-blanche to make your own inquiries -for yourself—if you think she’s worth the trouble. Being a stranger -here, you have, as it were, no character to lose.” - -“After all, it doesn’t matter,” said Ferdinand Augustus, with -resignation. III - -But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found -himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge -over the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning -upon the parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus -raised his hat; the woman bowed and smiled. - -“It’s a fine day,” said Ferdinand Augustus. - -“It’s a fine day—but a weary one,” the woman responded, with an -odd little movement of the head. - -Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation; -perhaps he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At -any rate, he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this -time, he reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what -did she mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the -day as fine, that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was -astonishing that any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had -really a splendid figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was -distinguished. Her eyes and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling -eyes, her softly curved red mouth, suggested many agreeable -possibilities—possibilities of wit, and of something else. It was not -till four hours later that he noticed the sound of her voice. At dinner, -in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a subject in no obvious -way connected with her (about the Orient Express, indeed—its safety, -speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to him, and he checked a -remark upon the advantages of the corridor carriage, to exclaim in -his soul, “She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it would be a -mezzo.” - -The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps -in the direction of the bridge. - -“It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said, lifting his hat. - -“But a weary one,” said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement -of the head. - -“Not a weary one for the carp,” he hinted, glancing down at the -water, which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude. - -“Oh, they have no human feelings,” said she. - -“Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?” he inquired. - -“They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of -carp feelings,” she answered him. - -He laughed. “At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re of the -same way of thinking.” - -“Are we?” asked she, raising surprised eyebrows. - -“You take a healthy pessimistic view of things,” he submitted. - -“I? Oh, dear, no. I have never taken a pessimistic view of anything in -my life.” - -“Except of this poor summer’s afternoon, which has the fatal gift of -beauty. You said it was a weary one.” - -“People have sympathies,” she explained; “and besides, that is a -watchword.” And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a -new commotion among the carp. - -Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but, -perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for -enlightment. “Let us hope that the fine weather will last,” he said, -with a polite salutation, and resumed his walk. - -But, on the morrow, “You make a daily practice of casting your bread -upon the waters,” was his greeting to her. “Do you expect to find it -at the season’s end?” - -“I find it at once,” was her response, “in entertainment.” - -“It entertains you to see those shameless little gluttons making an -exhibition of themselves!” he cried out. - -“You must not speak disrespectfully of them,” she reproved him. -“Some of them are very old. Carp often live to be two hundred, and -they grow grey, for all the world like men.” - -“They’re like men in twenty particulars,” asserted he, “though -you, yesterday, denied it. See how the big ones elbow the little ones -aside; see how fierce they all are in the scramble for your bounty. You -wake their most evil passions. But the spectacle is instructive. It’s -a miniature presentment of civilisation. Oh, carp are simply brimfull of -human nature. You mentioned yesterday that they have no human feelings. -You put your finger on the chief point of resemblance. It’s the -absence of human feeling that makes them so hideously human.” - -She looked at him with eyes that were interested, amused, yet not -altogether without a shade of raillery in their depths. “That is what -you call a healthy pessimistic view of things?” she questioned. - -“It is an inevitable view if one honestly uses one’s sight, or reads -one’s newspaper.” - -“Oh, then I would rather not honestly use my sight,” said she; -“and as for the newspaper, I only read the fashions. Your healthy -pessimistic view of things can hardly add much to the joy of life.” - -“The joy of life!”. he expostulated. “There’s no joy in life. -Life is one fabric of hardship, peril, and insipidity.” - -“Oh, how can you say that,” cried she, “in the face of such beauty -as we have about us here? With the pure sky and the sunshine, and the -wonderful peace of the day; and then these lawns and glades and the -great green trees; and the sweet air, and the singing birds! No joy in -life!” - -“This isn’t life,” he answered. “People who shut themselves up -in an artificial park are fugitives from life. Life begins at the park -gates, with the natural countryside, and the squalid peasantry, and the -sordid farmers, and the Jew money-lenders, and the uncertain crops.” - -“Oh, it’s all life,” insisted she, “the park and the -countryside, and the virgin forest and the deep sea, with all things -in them. It’s all life. I’m alive, and I daresay you are. You -would exclude from life all that is nice in life, and then say of the -remainder, that only is life. You’re not logical.” - -“Heaven forbid,” he murmured devoutly. “I’m sure you’re not, -either. Only stupid people are logical.” She laughed lightly. “My -poor carp little dream to what far paradoxes they have led,” she -mused, looking into the water, which was now quite tranquil. “They -have sailed away to their mysterious affairs among the lily-roots. I -should like to be a carp for a few minutes, to see what it is like in -those cool, dark places under the water. I am sure there are all -sorts of strange things and treasures. Do you believe there are really -water-maidens, like Undine?” - -“Not nowadays,” he informed her, with the confident fluency of one -who knew. “There used to be; but, like so many other charming things, -they disappeared with the invention of printing, the discovery -of America, and the rise of the Lutheran heresy. Their prophetic -souls——” - -“Oh, but they had no souls, you remember,” she corrected him. - -“I beg your pardon; that was the belief that prevailed among their -mortal contemporaries, but it has since been ascertained that they had -souls, and very good ones. Their prophetic souls warned them what a -dreary, dried-up planet the earth was destined to become, with the -steam-engine, the electric telegraph, compulsory education (falsely so -called), constitutional government, and the supremacy of commerce. So -the elder ones died, dissolved in tears; and the younger ones migrated -by evaporation to Neptune.” - -“Dear me, dear me,” she marvelled. “How extraordinary that we -should just have happened to light upon a topic about which you appear -to have such a quantity of special knowledge! And now,” she added, -bending her head by way of valediction, “I must be returning to my -duties.” - -And she moved off, towards the palace. IV - -And then, for three or four days, he did not see her, though he paid -frequent enough visits to the feeding-place of the carp. - -“I wish it would rain,” he confessed to Hilary. “I hate the -derisive cheerfulness of this weather. The birds sing, and the flowers -smile, and every prospect breathes sodden satisfaction; and only man is -bored.” - -“Yes, I own I find you dull company,” Hilary responded, “and if -I thought it would brisk you up, I’d pray with all my heart for rain. -But what you need, as I’ve told you a thousand times, is a love-affair -with a red-haired woman.” - -“Love-affairs are tedious repetitions,” said Ferdinand. “You play -with your new partner precisely the same game you played with the old: -the same preliminary skirmishes, the same assault, the same feints of -resistance, the same surrender, the same subsequent disenchantment. -They’re all the same, down to the very same scenes, words, gestures, -suspicions, vows, exactions, recriminations, and final break-ups. It’s -a delusion of inexperience to suppose that in changing your mistress you -change the sport. It’s the same trite old book, that you’ve read and -read in different editions, until you’re sick of the very mention -of it. To the deuce with love-affairs. But there’s such a thing as -rational conversation, with no sentimental nonsense. Now, I’ll not -deny that I should rather like to have an occasional bit of rational -conversation with that red-haired woman we met the other day in the -park. Only, the devil of it is, she never appears.” - -“And then, besides, her hair isn’t red,” added Hilary. - -“I wonder how you can talk such folly,” said Ferdinand. - -“C’est mon métier, Uncle. You should answer me! according to it. -Her hair’s not red. What little red there’s in it, it requires -strong sunlight to bring out. In shadow her hair’s a sort of dull -brownish-yellow,” Hilary persisted. - -“You’re colour-blind,” retorted Ferdinand. “But I won’t -quarrel with you. The point is, she never appears. So how can I have my -bits of rational conversation with her?” - -“How, indeed?” echoed Hilary, with pathos. - -“And therefore you’re invoking storm and whirlwind. But hang -a horseshoe over your bed to-night, turn round three times as you -extinguish your candle, and let your last thought before you fall asleep -be the thought of a newt’s liver and a blind man’s dog; and it’s -highly possible she will appear to-morrow.” - -I don’t know whether Ferdinand Augustus accomplished the rites that -Hilary prescribed, but it is certain that she did appear on the -morrow: not by the pool of the carp, but in quite another region -of Bellefontaine, where Ferdinand Augustus was wandering at hazard, -somewhat disconsolately. There was a wide green meadow, sprinkled with -buttercups and daisies; and under a great tree, at this end of it, -he suddenly espied her. She was seated on the moss, stroking with one -finger-tip a cockchafer that was perched upon another, and regarding the -little monster with intent meditative eyes. She wore a frock the bodice -part of which was all drooping creamy lace; she had thrown her hat and -gloves aside; her hair was in some slight, soft disarray; her loose -sleeve had fallen back, disclosing a very perfect wrist and the -beginning of a smooth white arm. Altogether she made an extremely -pleasing picture, sweetly, warmly feminine. Ferdinand Augustus stood -still, and watched her for an instant before he spoke. Then—— - -“I have come to intercede with you on behalf of your carp,” -he announced. “They are rending heaven with complaints of your -desertion.” - -She looked up, with a whimsical, languid little smile. “Are they?” -she asked lightly. “I’m rather tired of carp.” - -He shook his head sorrowfully. “You will permit me to admire your -fine, frank disregard of their feelings.” - -“Oh, they have the past to remember,” she said. “And perhaps some -day I shall go back to them. For the moment I amuse myself very well -with cockchafers. They’re less tumultuous. And then, carp won’t come -and perch on your finger. And then, one likes a change.—Now fly away, -fly away, fly away home; your house is on fire, and your children will -burn,” she crooned to the cockchafer, giving it never so gentle a -push. But instead of flying away, it dropped upon the moss, and thence -began to stumble, clumsily, blunderingly, towards the open meadow. - -“You shouldn’t have caused the poor beast such a panic,” he -reproached her. “You should have broken the dreadful news gradually. -As you see, your sudden blurting of it out has deprived him of the -use of his faculties. Don’t believe her,” he called after the -cockchafer. “She’s practising upon your credulity. Your house -isn’t on fire, and your children are all safe at school.” - -“Your consideration is entirely misplaced,” she assured him, with -the same slight whimsical smile. “The cockchafer knows perfectly -well that his house isn’t on fire, because he hasn’t got any -house. Cockchafers never have houses. His apparent concern is sheer -affectation. He’s an exceedingly hypocritical little cockchafer.” - -“I should call him an exceedingly polite little cockchafer. Hypocrisy -is the compliment courtesy owes to falsehood. He pretended to believe -you. He would not have the air of doubting a lady’s word.” - -“You came as the emissary of the carp,” she said, “and now you -stay to defend the character of their rival.” - -“To be candid, I don’t care a hang for the carp,” he confessed -brazenly. “The unadorned fact is that I’m immensely glad to see -you.” - -She gave a little laugh, and bowed with exaggerated ceremony. “Grand -merci, Monsieur; vous me faites trop d’honneur,” she murmured. - -“Oh, no, not more than you deserve. I’m a just man, and I give you -your due. I was boring myself into melancholy madness. The afternoon lay -before me like a bumper of dust and ashes, that I must somehow empty. -And then I saw you, and you dashed the goblet from my lips. Thank -goodness (I said to myself), at last there’s a human soul to talk -with; the very thing I was pining for, a clever and sympathetic -woman.” - -“You take a great deal for granted,” laughed she. - -“Oh, I know you’re clever, and it pleases me to fancy that you’re -sympathetic. If you’re not,” he pleaded, “don’t tell me so. Let -me cherish my illusion.” - -She shook her head doubtfully. “I’m a poor hand at dissembling.” - -“It’s an art you should study,” said he. “If we begin by -feigning an emotion, we’re as like as not to end by genuinely feeling -it.” - -“I’ve observed for myself,” she informed him, “that if we begin -by genuinely feeling an emotion, but rigorously conceal it, we’re -as like as not to end by feeling it no longer. It dies of suffocation. -I’ve had that experience quite lately. There was a certain person whom -I heartily despised and hated; and then, as chance would have it, I -was thrown two or three times into his company; and for motives of -expediency I disguised my antagonism. In the end, do you know, I found -myself rather liking him?” - -“Oh, women are fearfully and wonderfully made,” he said. - -“And so are some men,” said she. “Could you oblige me with -the name and address of a competent witch or warlock?” she added -irrelevantly. - -“What under the sun can you want with such an unholy thing?” he -exclaimed. - -“I want a hate-charm—something that I can take at night to revive my -hatred of the man I was speaking of.” - -“Look here,” he warned her, “I’ve not come all this distance, -under a scorching sun, to stand here now and talk of another man. -Cultivate a contemptuous indifference towards him. Banish him from your -mind and conversation.” - -“I’ll try,” she consented; “though, if you were familiar with -the circumstances, you’d recognise a certain difficulty in doing -that.” She reached for her gloves, and began to put one on. “Will -you be so good as to tell me the time of day?” - -He looked at his watch. “It’s nowhere near time for you to be moving -yet.” - -“You must not trifle about affairs of state,” she said. “At a -definite hour I have business at the palace.” - -“Oh, for that matter, so have I. But it’s half-past four. To -call half-past four a definite hour would be to do a violence to the -language.” - -“It is earlier than I thought,” she admitted, discontinuing her -operation with the glove. - -He smiled approval. “Your heart is in the right place, after all. It -would have been inhuman to abandon me. Oh, yes, pleasantry apart, I am -in a condition of mind in which solitude spells misery. And yet I am on -speaking terms with but three living people whose society I prefer to -it.” - -“You are indeed in sad case, then,” she compassionated him. “But -why should solitude spell misery? A man of wit like you should have -plenty of resources within himself.” - -“Am I a man of wit?” he asked innocently. - -Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “What is your opinion?” - -“I don’t know,” he reflected. “Perhaps I might have been, if I -had met a woman like you earlier in life.” - -“At all events,” she laughed, “if you are not a man of wit, it is -not for lack of courage. But why does solitude spell misery? Have you -great crimes upon your conscience?” - -“No, nothing so amusing. But when one is alone, one thinks; and when -one thinks—that way madness lies.” - -“Then do you never think when you are engaged in conversation?” She -raised her eyebrows questioningly. - -“You should be able to judge of that by the quality of my remarks. At -any rate, I feel.” - -“What do you feel?” - -“When I am engaged in conversation with you, I feel a general sense -of agreeable stimulation; and, in addition to that, at this particular -moment———But are you sure you really wish to know?” he broke -off. - -“Yes, tell me,” she said, with curiosity. - -“Well, then, a furious desire to smoke a cigarette.” - -She laughed merrily. “I am so sorry I have no cigarettes to offer -you.” - -“My pockets happen to be stuffed with them.” - -“Then, do, please, light one.” - -He produced his cigarette-case, but he seemed to hesitate about lighting -a cigarette. - -“Have you no matches?” she inquired. - -“Yes, thank you, I have matches. I was only thinking.” - -“It has become a solitude, then?” she cried. - -“It is a case of conscience, it is an ethical dilemma. How do I -know—the modern woman is capable of anything—how do I know that you -may not yourself be a smoker? But if you are, it will give you pain to -see me enjoying my cigarette, while you are without one.” - -“It would be civil to begin by offering me one,” she suggested. - -“That is exactly the liberty I dared not take—oh, there are limits -to my boldness. But you have saved the situation.” And he offered her -his cigarette-case. - -She shook her head. “Thank you, I don’t smoke.” And her eyes were -full of teasing laughter, so that he laughed too, as he finally applied -a match-flame to his cigarette. “But you may allow me to examine -your cigarette-case,” she went on. “It looks like a pretty bit of -silver.” And when he had handed it to her, she exclaimed, “It is -engraved with the royal arms.” - -“Yes. Why not?” said he. - -“Does it belong to the King?” - -“It was a present from the King.” - -“To you? You are a friend of the King?” she asked, with some -eagerness. - -“I will not deceive you,” he replied. “No, not to me. The King -gave it to Hilary Clairevoix, the Constable of Bellefontaine; -and Hilary, who’s a careless fellow, left it lying about in his -music-room, and I came along and pocketed it. It is a pretty bit of -silver, and I shall never restore it to its rightful owner if I can help -it.” - -“But you are a friend of the King’s?” she repeated, with -insistence. - -“I have not that honour. Indeed, I have never seen him. I am a friend -of Hilary’s; I am his guest. He has stayed with me in England—I am -an Englishman—and now I am returning his visit.” - -“That is well,” said she. “If you were a friend of the King, you -would be an enemy of mine.” - -“Oh?” he wondered. “Why is that?” - -“I hate the King,” she answered simply. - -“Dear me, what a capacity you have for hating! This is the second -hatred you have avowed within the hour. What has the King done to -displease you?” - -“You are an Englishman. Has the King’s reputation not reached -England yet? He is the scandal of Europe. What has he done? But no—do -not encourage me to speak of him. I should grow too heated,” she said -strenuously. - -“On the contrary, I pray of you, go on,” urged Ferdinand Augustus. -“Your King is a character that interests me more than you can think. -His reputation has indeed reached England, and I have conceived a great -curiosity about him. One only hears vague rumours, to be sure, nothing -specific; but one has learned to think of him as original and romantic. -You know him. Tell me a lot about him.” - -“Oh, I do not know him personally. That is an affliction I have as yet -been spared.” Then, suddenly, “Mercy upon me, what have I said!” -she cried. “I must ’knock wood,’ or the evil spirits will bring -me that mischance to-morrow.” And she fervently tapped the bark of the -tree beside her with her knuckles. - -Ferdinand Augustus laughed. “But if you do not know him personally, -why do you hate him?” - -“I know him very well by reputation. I know how he lives, I know what -he does and leaves undone. If you are curious about him, ask your friend -Hilary. He is the King’s foster-brother. He could tell you stories,” -she added meaningly. - -“I have asked him. But Hilary’s lips are sealed. He depends upon the -King’s protection for his fortune, and the palace-walls (I suppose he -fears) have ears. But you can speak without danger. He is the scandal of -Europe? There’s nothing I love like scandal. Tell me all about him.” - -“You have not come all this distance, under a scorching sun, to stand -here now and talk of another man,” she reminded him. - -“Oh, but kings are different,” he argued. “Tell me about your -King.” - -“I can tell you at once,” said she, “that our King is the frankest -egotist in two hemispheres. You have learned to think of him as original -and romantic? No; he is simply intensely selfish and intensely silly. -He is a King Do-Nothing, a Roi Fainéant, who shirks and evades all -the duties and responsibilities of his position; who builds extravagant -chateaux in remote parts of the country, and hides in them, alone with a -few obscure companions; who will never visit his capital, never show his -face to his subjects; who takes no sort of interest in public business -or the welfare of his kingdom, and leaves the entire government to his -ministers; who will not even hold a court, or give balls or banquets; -who, in short, does nothing that a king ought to do, and might, for all -the good we get of him, be a mere stranger in the land, a mere visitor, -like yourself. So closely does he seclude himself that I doubt if there -be a hundred people in the whole country who have ever seen him, to -know him. If he travels from one place to another, it is always in the -strictest incognito, and those who then chance to meet him never have -any reason to suspect that he is not a private person. His very effigy -on the coin of the realm is reputed to be false, resembling him in no -wise. But I could go on for ever,” she said, bringing her indictment -to a termination. - -“Really,” said Ferdinand Augustus, “I cannot see that you have -alleged anything very damaging. A Roi Fainéant? But every king of a -modern constitutional state is, willy-nilly, that. He can do nothing but -sign bills which he generally disapproves of, lay foundation-stones, set -the fashion in hats, and bow and look pleasant as he drives through the -streets. He has no power for good, and mighty little for evil. He is -just a State Prisoner. It seems to me that your particular King has -shown some sense in trying to escape so much as he may of the prison’s -irksomeness. I should call it rare bad luck to be born a king. Either -you’ve got to shirk your kingship, and then fair ladies dub you the -scandal of Europe; or else you’ve got to accept it, and then you’re -as happy as a man in a strait-waistcoat. And then, and then! Oh, I can -think of a thousand unpleasantnesses attendant upon the condition of -a king. Your King, as I understand it, has said to himself, ’Hang it -all, I didn’t ask to be born a king, but since that is my misfortune, -I will seek to mitigate it as much as I am able. I am, on the whole, -a human being, with a human life to live, and only, probably, -threescore-and-ten years in which to live it. Very good; I will live -my life. I will lay no foundation-stones, nor drive about the streets -bowing and looking pleasant. I will live my life, alone with the few -people I find to my liking. I will take the cash and let the credit -go.’ I am bound to say,” concluded Ferdinand Augustus, “that your -King has done exactly what I should have done in his place.” - -“You will never, at least,” said she, “defend the shameful manner -in which he has behaved towards the Queen. It is for that, I hate him. -It is for that, that we, the Queen’s gentlewomen, have adopted ’7’ -is a weary day as a watchword. It will be a weary day until we see the -King on his knees at the Queen’s feet, craving her forgiveness.” - -“Oh? What has he done to the Queen?” asked Ferdinand. - -“What has he done! Humiliated her as never woman was humiliated -before. He married her by proxy at her father’s court; and she was -conducted with great pomp and circumstance into his kingdom—to find -what? That he had fled to one of his absurd castles in the north, and -refused to see her! He has remained there ever since, hiding like—but -there is nothing in created space to compare him to. Is it the behaviour -of a gentleman, of a gallant man, not to say a king?” she cried -warmly, looking up at him with shining eyes, her cheeks faintly flushed. - -Ferdinand Augustus bowed. “The Queen is fortunate in her advocate. I -have not heard the King’s side of the story. I can, however, imagine -excuses for him. Suppose that his ministers, for reasons of policy, -importuned and importuned him to marry a certain princess, until -he yielded in mere fatigue. In that case, why should he be bothered -further? Why should he add one to the tedious complications of existence -by meeting the bride he never desired? Is it not sufficient that, by -his complaisance, she should have gained the rank and title of a queen? -Besides, he may be in love with another woman. Or perhaps—but who can -tell? He may have twenty reasons. And anyhow, you cannot deny to the -situation the merit of being highly ridiculous. A husband and wife who -are not personally acquainted! It is a delicious commentary upon the -whole system of marriages by proxy. You confirm my notion that your King -is original.” - -“He may have twenty reasons,” answered she, “but he had better -have twenty terrors. It is perfectly certain that the Queen will be -revenged.” - -“How so?” asked Ferdinand Augustus. - -“The Queen is young, high-spirited, moderately good-looking, and -unspeakably incensed. Trust a young, high-spirited, and handsome woman, -outraged by her husband, to know how to avenge herself. Oh, some day he -will see.” - -“Ah, well, he must take his chances,” Ferdinand sighed. “Perhaps -he is liberal-minded enough not to care.” - -“I am far from meaning the vulgar revenge you fancy,” she put in -quickly. “The Queen’s revenge will be subtle and unexpected. She is -no fool, and she will not rest until she has achieved it. Oh, he will -see!” - -“I had imagined it was the curse of royalty to be without true -friends,” said Ferdinand Augustus. “The Queen has a very ardent one -in you.” - -“I am afraid I cannot altogether acquit myself of interested -motives,” she disclaimed modestly. “I am of her Majesty’s -household, and my fortunes must rise and fall with hers. But I am -honestly indignant with the King.” - -“The poor King! Upon my soul, he has my sympathy,” said Ferdinand. - -“You are terribly ironical,” said she. - -“Irony was ten thousand leagues from my intention,” he protested. -“In all sincerity the object of your indignation has my sympathy. I -trust you will not consider it an impertinence if I say that I already -count you among the few people I have met whose good opinion is a matter -to be coveted.” - -She had risen while he was speaking, and now she bobbed him a little -curtsey. “I will show my appreciation of yours, by taking flight -before anything can happen to alter it,” she laughed, moving away. V - -“You are singularly animated to-night,” said Hilary, contemplating -him across the dinner-table; “yet, at the same time, singularly -abstracted. You have the air of a man who is rolling something pleasant -under his tongue, something sweet and secret: it might be a hope, it -might be a recollection. Where have you passed the afternoon? You’ve -been about some mischief, I’ll warrant. By Jove, you set me thinking. -I’ll wager a penny you’ve been having a bit of rational conversation -with that brown-haired woman.” - -“Her hair is red,” Ferdinand Augustus rejoined, with firmness. -“And her conversation,” he added sadly, “is anything you please -but rational. She spent her whole time picking flaws in the character of -the King. She talked downright treason. She said he was the scandal of -Europe and the frankest egotist in two hemispheres.” - -“Ah? She appears to have some instinct for the correct use of -language,” commented Hilary. - -“All the same, I rather like her,” Ferdinand went on, “and -I’m half inclined to undertake her conversion. She has a gorgeous -figure—there’s something rich and voluptuous about it. And there -are depths of promise in her eyes; there are worlds of humour and of -passion. And she has a mouth—oh, of a fulness, of a softness, of -a warmth! And a chin, and a throat, and hands! And then, her voice. -There’s a mellowness yet a crispness, there’s a vibration, there’s -a something in her voice that assures you of a golden temperament -beneath it. In short, I’m half inclined to follow your advice, and go -in for a love-adventure with her.” - -“Oh, but love-adventures—I have it on high authority—are damnable -iterations,” objected Hilary. - -“That is very true; they are,” Ferdinand agreed. “But the life of -man is woven of damnable iterations. Tell me of any single thing that -isn’t a damnable iteration, and I’ll give you a quarter of my -fortune. The day and the night, the seasons and the years, the fair -weather and the foul, breakfast and luncheon and dinner—all are -damnable iterations. If there’s any reality behind the doctrine -of metempsychosis, death, too, is a damnable iteration. There’s no -escaping damnable iterations: there’s nothing new under the sun. -But as long as one is alive, one must do something. It’s sure to be -something in its essence identical with something one has done before; -but one must do something. Why not, then, a love-adventure with a woman -that attracts you?” - -“Women are a pack of samenesses,” said Hilary despondently. - -“Quite so,” assented Ferdinand. “Women, and men too, are a pack of -samenesses. We’re all struck with the same die, of the same metal, -at the same mint. Our resemblance is intrinsic, fundamental; our -differences are accidental and skin deep. We have the same features, -organs, dimensions, with but a hair’s-breadth variation; the same -needs, instincts, propensities; the same hopes, fears, ideas. One -man’s meat is another man’s meat; one man’s poison is another -man’s poison. We are as like to one another as the leaves on the same -tree. Skin us, and (save for your fat) the most skilled anatomist could -never distinguish you from me. Women are a pack of samenesses; but, hang -it all, one has got to make the best of a monotonous universe. And -this particular woman, with her red hair and her eyes, strikes me as -attractive. She has some fire in her composition, some fire and flavour. -Anyhow, she attracts me; and—I think I shall try my luck.” - -“Oh, Nunky, Nunky,” murmured Hilary, shaking his head, “I am -shocked by your lack of principle. Have you forgotten that you are a -married man?” - -“That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a clear -conscience. If I were single, she might, justifiably enough, form -matrimonial expectations for herself.” - -“Not if she knew you,” said Hilary. - -“Ah, but she doesn’t know me—and shan’t,” said Ferdinand -Augustus. “I will take care of that.” VI - -And then, for what seemed to him an eternity, he never once encountered -her. Morning and afternoon, day after day, he roamed the park of -Bellefontaine from end to end, in all directions, but never once caught -sight of so much as the flutter of her garments. And the result was -that he began to grow seriously sentimental. “Im wunderschônen Monat -Mai!” It was June, to be sure; but the meteorological influences were, -for that, only the more potent. He remembered her shining eyes now as -not merely whimsical and ardent, but as pensive, appealing, tender; he -remembered her face as a face seen in starlight, ethereal and mystic; -and her voice as low music far away. He recalled their last meeting as a -treasure he had possessed and lost; he blamed himself for the frivolity -of his talk and manner, and for the ineffectual impression of him this -must have left upon her. Perpetually thinking of her, he was perpetually -sighing, perpetually suffering strange, sudden, half painful, half -delicious commotions in the tissues of his heart. Every morning he rose -with a replenished fund of hope: this day at last would produce her. -Every night he went to bed pitying himself as bankrupt of hope. And -all the while, though he pined to talk of her, a curious bashfulness -withheld him; so that, between him and Hilary, for quite a fortnight she -was not mentioned. It was Hilary who broke the silence. - -“Why so pale and wan?” Hilary asked him. “Will, when looking well -won’t move her, looking ill prevail?” - -“Oh, I am seriously love-sick,” cried Ferdinand Augustus, welcoming -the subject. “I went in for a sensation, and I’ve got a real -emotion.” - -“Poor youth! And she won’t look at you, I suppose?” was Hilary’s -method of commiseration. - -“I have not seen her for a mortal fortnight. She has completely -vanished. And for the first time in my life I’m seriously in love.” - -“You’re incapable of being seriously in love,” said Hilary. - -“I had always thought so myself,” admitted Ferdinand Augustus. -“The most I had ever felt for any woman was a sort of mere lukewarm -desire, a sort of mere meaningless titillation. But this woman is -different. She’s as different to other women as wine is different to -toast-and-water. She has the feu-sacré. She’s done something to the -very inmost soul of me; she’s laid it bare, and set it quivering -and yearning. She’s made herself indispensable to me; I can’t live -without her. Ah, you don’t know what she’s like. She’s like some -strange, beautiful, burning spirit. Oh, for an hour with her I’d give -my kingdom. To touch her hand—to look into those eyes of hers—to -hear her speak to me! I tell you squarely, if she’d have me, I’d -throw up the whole scheme of my existence, I’d fly with her to the -uttermost ends of the earth. But she has totally disappeared, and I can -do nothing to recover her without betraying my identity; and that would -spoil everything. I want her to love me for myself, believing me to be -a plain man, like you or anybody. If she knew who I am, how could I ever -be sure?” - -“You are in a bad way,” said Hilary, looking at him with amusement. -“And yet, I’m gratified to see it. Her hair is not so red as I could -wish, but, after all, it’s reddish; and you appear to be genuinely -aflame. It will do you no end of good; it will make a man of you—a -plain man, like me or anybody. But your impatience is not reasoned. A -fortnight? You have not met her for a fortnight? My dear, to a plain man -(like me or anybody) a fortnight’s nothing. It’s just an appetiser. -Watch and wait, and you’ll meet her before you know it. And now, if -you will excuse me, I have business in another quarter of the palace.” - -Ferdinand Augustus, left to himself, went down into the garden. It was a -wonderful summer’s evening, made indeed (if I may steal a phrase -from Hilary) of perfumed velvet. The sun had set an hour since, but the -western sky was still splendid, like a dark banner, with sombre reds and -purples; and in the east hung the full moon, so brilliant, so apposite, -as to seem somehow almost like a piece of premeditated decoration. The -waters of the fountains flashed silverly in its light; glossy leaves -gave back dim reflections; here and there, embowered among the -trees, white statues gleamed ghost-like. Away in the park somewhere, -innumerable frogs were croaking, croaking; subdued by distance, the -sound gained a quality that was plaintive and unearthly. The long -façade of the palace lay obscure in shadow; only at the far end, in the -Queen’s apartments, were the windows alight. But, quite close at hand, -the moon caught a corner of the terrace; and here, presently, Ferdinand -Augustus became aware of a human figure. A woman was standing alone -by the balustrade, gazing out into the wondrous night. Ferdinand -Augustus’s heart began to pound; and it was a full minute before he -could command himself sufficiently to move or speak. - -At last, however, he approached her. “Good evening,” he said, -looking up from the pathway. - -She glanced down at him, leaning upon the balustrade. “Oh, how do you -do?” She smiled her surprise. She was in evening dress, a white robe -embroidered with pearls, and she wore a tiara of pearls in her hair. She -had a light cloak thrown over her shoulders, a little cape trimmed -with swan’s-down. “Heavens!” thought Ferdinand Augustus. “How -magnificent she is!” - -“It’s a hundred years since I have seen you,” he said. - -“Oh, is it so long as that? I should have imagined it was something -like a fortnight. Time passes quickly.” - -“That is a question of psychology. But now at last I find you when I -least expect you.” - -“I have slipped out for a moment,” she explained, “to enjoy this -beautiful prospect. One has no such view from the Queen’s end of the -terrace. One cannot see the moon.” - -“I cannot see the moon from where I am standing,” said he. - -“No, because you have turned your back upon it,” said she. - -“I have chosen between two visions. If you were to authorise me to -join you, aloft there, I could see both.” - -“I have no power to authorise you,” she laughed, “the terrace is -not my property. But if you choose to take the risks——” - -“Oh,” he cried, “you are good, you are kind.” And in an instant -he had joined her on the terrace, and his heart was fluttering wildly -with its sense of her nearness to him. He could not speak. - -“Well, now you can see the moon. Is it all your fancy painted?” she -asked, with her whimsical smile. Her face was exquisitely pale in the -moonlight, her eyes glowed. Her voice was very soft. - -His heart was fluttering wildly, poignantly. “Oh,” he began, but -broke off. His breath trembled. “I cannot speak,” he said. - -She arched her eyebrows; “Then we have made some mistake. This will -never be you, in that case.” - -“Oh, yes, it is I. It is the other fellow, the gabbler, who is not -myself,” he contrived to tell her. - -“You lead a double life, like the villain in the play?” she -suggested. - -“You must have your laugh at my expense; have it, and welcome. But I -know what I know,” he said. - -“What do you know?” she asked quickly. - -“I know that I am in love with you,” he answered. - -“Oh, only that,” she said, with an air of relief. - -“Only that. But that is a great deal. I know that I love you—oh, -yes, unutterably. If you could see yourself! You are absolutely unique -among women. I would never have believed it possible for any woman to -make me feel what you have made me feel. I have never spoken like this -to any woman in all my life. Oh, you may laugh. It is the truth, upon -my word of honour. If you could look into your eyes—yes, even when -you are laughing at me! I can see your wonderful burning spirit shining -deep, deep in your eyes. You do not dream how different you are to other -women. You are a wonderful burning poem. They are platitudes. Oh, I love -you unutterably. There has not been an hour since I last saw you that -I have not thought of you, loved you, longed for you. And now here you -stand, you yourself, beside me! If you could see into my heart, if you -could see what I feel!” - -She looked at the moon, with a strange little smile, and was silent. - -“Will you not speak to me?” he cried. - -“What would you have me say?” she asked, still looking away. - -“Oh, you know, you know what I would have you say.” - -“I am afraid you will not like the only thing I can say.” She -turned, and met his eyes. “I am a married woman, and—I am in love -with my husband.” - -Ferdinand Augustus stood aghast. “Oh, my God!” he groaned. - -“Yes, though he has given me little enough reason to do so, I have -fallen in love with him,” she went on pitilessly. “So you must get -over your fancy for me. After all, I am a total stranger to you. You do -not even know my name.” - -“Will you tell me your name?” asked Ferdinand humbly. “It will be -something to remember.” - -“My name is Marguerite.” - -“Marguerite! Marguerite!” He repeated it caressingly. “It is a -beautiful name. But it is also the name of the Queen.” - -“I am the only person named Marguerite in the Queen’s court,” said -she. - -“What!” cried Ferdinand Augustus. - -“Oh, it is a wise husband who knows his own wife,” laughed she. - -And then.... But I think I have told enough. - - - - -THE FRIEND OF MAN - -The other evening, in the Casino, the satisfaction of losing my money -at petits-chevaux having begun to flag a little, I wandered into the -Cercle, the reserved apartments in the west wing of the building, where -they were playing baccarat. - -Thanks to the heat, the windows were open wide; and through them one -could see, first, a vivid company of men and women, strolling backwards -and forwards, and chattering busily, in the electric glare on the -terrace; and then, beyond them, the sea—smooth, motionless, sombre; -silent, despite its perpetual whisper; inscrutable, sinister; merging -itself with the vast blackness of space. Here and there the black was -punctured by a pin-point of fire, a tiny vacillating pin-point of fire; -and a landsman’s heart quailed for a moment at the thought of lonely -vessels braving the mysteries and terrors and the awful solitudes of the -sea at night.... - -So that the voice of the croupier, perfunctory, machine-like, had almost -a human, almost a genial effect, as it rapped out suddenly, calling upon -the players to mark their play. “Marquez vos jeux, messieurs. Quarante -louis par tableau.” It brought one back to light and warmth and -security, to the familiar earth, and the neighbourhood of men. - -One’s pleasure was fugitive, however. - -The neighbourhood of men, indeed! The neighbourhood of some two score -very commonplace, very sordid men, seated or standing about an ugly -green table, intent upon a game of baccarat, in a long, rectangular, -ugly, gas-lit room. The banker dealt, and the croupier shouted, and the -punters punted, and the ivory counters and mother-of-pearl plaques were -swept now here, now there; and that was all. Everybody was smoking, of -course; but the smell of the live cigarettes couldn’t subdue the odour -of dead ones, the stagnant, acrid odour of stale tobacco, with which the -walls and hangings of the place were saturated. - -The thing and the people were as banale, as unremunerative, as things -and people for the most part are; and dispiriting, dispiriting. There -was a hardness in the banality, a sort of cold ferocity, ill-repressed. -One turned away, bored, revolted. It was better, after all, to look at -the sea; to think of the lonely vessel, far out there, where a -pin-point of fire still faintly blinked and glimmered in the illimitable -darkness.... - -But the voice of the croupier was insistent. - -“Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Cinquante louis par tableau. Vos jeux -sont faits? Rien ne va plus.” It was suggestive, persuasive, besides, -to one who has a bit of a gambler’s soul. I saw myself playing, I -felt the poignant tremor of the instant of suspense, while the result is -uncertain, the glow that comes if you have won, the twinge if you have -lost. “La banque est aux enchères,” the voice announced presently; -and I moved towards the table. - -The sums bid were not extravagant. Ten, fifteen, twenty louis; thirty, -fifty, eighty, a hundred. - -“Cent louis? Cent? Cent?—Cent louis à la banque,” cried the -inevitable voice. - -I glanced at the man who had taken the bank for a hundred louis. -I glanced at him, and, all at once, by no means without emotion, I -recognised him. - -He was a tall, thin man, and very old. He had the hands of a very old -man, dried-up, shrunken hands, with mottled-yellow skin, dark veins -that stood out like wires, and parched finger-nails. His face, too, was -mottled-yellow, deepening to brown about the eyes, with grey wrinkles, -and purplish lips. He was clearly very old; eighty, or more than eighty. - -He was dressed entirely in black: a black frock-coat, black trousers, -a black waistcoat, cut low, and exposing an unusual quantity of -shirt-front, three black studs, and a black tie, a stiff, narrow bow. -These latter details, however, save when some chance motion on his part -revealed them, were hidden by his beard, a broad, abundant beard, that -fell a good ten inches down his breast. His hair, also, was abundant, -and he wore it long; trained straight back from his forehead, hanging -in a fringe about the collar of his coat. Hair and beard, despite his -manifest great age, were without a spear of white. They were of a dry, -inanimate brown, a hue to which they had faded (one surmised) from -black. - -If it was surprising to see so old a man at a baccarat table, it was -still more surprising to see just this sort of man. He looked like -anything in the world, rather than a gambler. With his tall wasted -figure, with his patriarchal beard, his long hair trained in that -rigid fashion straight back from his forehead; with his stern aquiline -profile, his dark eyes, deep-set and wide-apart, melancholy, thoughtful: -he looked—what shall I say? He looked like anything in the world, -rather than a gambler. He looked like a savant, he looked like a -philosopher; he looked intellectual, refined, ascetic even; he looked as -if he had ideas, convictions; he looked grave and wise and sad. Holding -the bank at baccarat, in this vulgar company at the Grand Cercle of the -Casino, dealing the cards with his withered hands, studying them with -his deep meditative eyes, he looked improbable, inadmissible, he looked -supremely out of place. - -I glanced at him, and wondered. And then, suddenly, my heart gave a -jump, my throat began to tingle. - -I had recognised him. It was rather more than ten years since I had seen -him last; and in ten years he had changed, he had decayed, terribly. But -I was quite sure, quite sure. - -“By Jove,” I thought, “it’s Ambrose—it’s Augustus Ambrose! -It’s the Friend of Man!” - -Augustus Ambrose? I daresay the name conveys nothing to you? And yet, -forty, thirty, twenty years ago, Augustus Ambrose was not without -his measure of celebrity in the world. If hardly any one had read his -published writings, if few had any but the dimmest notion of what his -theories and aims were, almost everybody had at least heard of him, -almost everybody knew at least that there was such a man, and that the -man had theories and aims—of some queer radical sort. One knew, in -vague fashion, that he had disciples, that there were people here and -there who called themselves “Ambrosites.” - -I say twenty years ago. But twenty years ago he was already pretty -well forgotten. I imagine the moment of his utmost notoriety would have -fallen somewhere in the fifties or the sixties, somewhere between ’55 -and ’68. - -And if my sudden recognition of him in the Casino made my heart give -a jump, there was sufficient cause. During the greater part of my -childhood, Augustus Ambrose lived with us, was virtually a member of -our family. Then I saw a good deal of him again, when I was eighteen, -nineteen; and still again, when I was four- or five-and-twenty. - -He lived with us, indeed, from the time when I was scarcely more than a -baby till I was ten or eleven; so that in my very farthest memories he -is a personage—looking backwards, I see him in the earliest, palest -dawn: a tall man, dressed in black, with long hair and a long beard, -who was always in our house, and who used to be frightfully severe; who -would turn upon me with a most terrifying frown if I misconducted myself -in his presence, who would loom up unexpectedly from behind closed -doors, and utter a soul-piercing hist-hist, if I was making a noise: a -sort of domesticated Croquemitaine, whom we had always with us. - -Always? Not quite always, though; for, when I stop to think, I -remember there would be breathing spells: periods during which he -would disappear—during which you could move about the room, and ask -questions, and even (at a pinch) upset things, without being frowned at; -during which you could shout lustily at your play, unoppressed by the -fear of a black figure suddenly opening the door and freezing you with -a hist-hist; during which, in fine, you could forget the humiliating -circumstance that children are called into existence to be seen and not -heard, with its irksome moral that they should never speak unless they -are spoken to. Then, one morning, I would wake up, and find that he was -in the house again. He had returned during the night. - -That was his habit, to return at night. But on one occasion, at least, -he returned in the daytime. I remember driving with my father and -mother, in our big open carriage, to the railway station, and then -driving back home with Mr. Ambrose added to our party. Why I—a -child of six or seven, between whom and our guest surely no love was -lost—why I was taken upon this excursion, I can’t at all conjecture; -I suppose my people had their reasons. Anyhow, I recollect the drive -home with particular distinctness. Two things impressed me. First, Mr. -Ambrose, who always dressed in black, wore a brown overcoat; I remember -gazing at it with bemused eyes, and reflecting that it was exactly the -colour of gravy. And secondly, I gathered from his conversation that he -had been in prison! Yes. I gathered that he had been in Rome (we were -living in Florence), and that one day he had been taken up by the -policemen, and put in prison! - -Of course, I could say nothing; but what I felt, what I thought! Mercy -upon us, that we should know a man, that a man should live with us, who -had been taken up and put in prison! I fancied him dragged through the -streets by two gendarmes, struggling with them, and followed by a crowd -of dirty people. I felt that our family was disgraced, we who had been -the pink of respectability; my cheeks burned, and I hung my head. I -could say nothing; but oh, the grief, the shame, I nursed in secret! Mr. -Ambrose, who lived with us, whose standards of conduct (for children, -at any rate) were so painfully exalted, Mr. Ambrose had done something -terrible, and had been found out, and put in prison for it! Mr. Ambrose, -who always dressed in black, had suddenly tossed his bonnet over -the mills, and displayed himself cynically in an overcoat of rakish, -dare-devil brown—the colour of gravy! Somehow, the notion pursued me, -there must be a connection between his overcoat and his crime. - -The enormity of the affair preyed upon my spirit, day after day, night -after night, until, in the end, I could endure it silently no longer; -and I spoke to my mother. - -“Is Mr. Ambrose a burglar?” I enquired. - -I remember my mother’s perplexity, and then, when I had alleged the -reasons for my question, her exceeding mirth. I remember her calling my -father; and my father, also, laughed prodigiously, and he went to the -door, and cried, “Ambrose! Ambrose!” And when Mr. Ambrose came, -and the incident was related to him, even he laughed a little, even his -stern face relaxed. - -When, by-and-by, they had all stopped laughing, and Mr. Ambrose had gone -back to his own room, my father and mother, between them, explained the -matter to me. “Mr. Ambrose, I must understand, (they said), was one of -the greatest, and wisest, and best men in the world. He spent his whole -life “doing good.” When he was at home, with us, he was working -hard, all day long and late into the night, writing books H to “do -good”—that was why he so often had a headache and couldn’t bear -any noise in the house. And when he went away, when he was absent, it -was to “do good” somewhere else. I had seen the poor people in the -streets? I knew that there were thousands and thousands of people in the -world, grown-up people, and children like myself, who had to wear ragged -clothing, and live in dreadful houses, and eat bad food, or go hungry -perhaps, all because they were so poor? Well, Mr. Ambrose spent his -whole life doing good to those poor people, working hard for them, so -that some day they might be rich, and clean, and happy, like us. But -in Rome there was a very wicked, very cruel man, a cardinal: Cardinal -Antonelli was his name. And Cardinal Antonelli hated people who did -good, and was always trying to kidnap them and put them in prison. And -that was what had happened to Mr. Ambrose. He had been doing good to the -poor people in Rome, and Cardinal Antonelli had got wind of it, and had -sent his awful sbirri to seize him and put him in prison. But the Pope -was a very good man, too; very just, and kind, and merciful; as good as -it was possible for any man to be. Only, generally, he was so busy with -the great spiritual cares of his office, that he couldn’t pay much -attention to the practical government of his City. He left that to -Cardinal Antonelli, never suspecting how wicked he was, for the Cardinal -constantly deceived him. But when the Pope heard that the great and -good Mr. Ambrose had been put in prison, his Holiness was shocked and -horrified, and very angry; and he sent for the Cardinal, and gave him -a sound piece of his mind, and ordered him to let Mr. Ambrose out -directly. And so Mr. Ambrose had been let out, and had come back to -us.” - -It was a relief, no doubt, to learn that our guest was not a burglar, -but I am afraid the knowledge of his excessive goodness left me somewhat -cold. Or, rather, if it influenced my feeling for him in any way, I -fancy it only magnified my awe. He was one of the greatest, and wisest, -and best men in the world, and he spent his entire time doing good to -the poor. Bene; that was very nice for the poor. But for me? It did not -make him a bit less severe, or cross, or testy; it did not make him a -bit less an uncomfortable person to have in the house. - -Indeed, the character, in a story such as I had heard, most likely to -affect a child’s imagination, would pretty certainly have been, not -the hero, but the villain. Mr. Ambrose and his virtues moved one to -scant enthusiasm; but Cardinal Antonelli! In describing him as wicked, -and cruel, and deceitful, my people were simply using the language, -expressing the sentiment, of the country and the epoch: of Italy before -1870. In those days, if you were a Liberal, if you sympathised with the -Italian party, as opposed to the Papal, and especially if you were a -Catholic withal, and so could think no evil of the Pope himself—then -Heaven help the reputation of Cardinal Antonelli! For my part, I saw a -big man in a cassock, with a dark, wolfish face, and a bunch of great -iron keys at his girdle, who prowled continually about the streets of -Rome, attended by a gang of ruffian shim, seeking whom he could kidnap -and put in prison. So that when, not very long after this, we went to -Rome for a visit, my heart misgave me; it seemed as if we were marching -headlong into the ogre’s den, wantonly courting peril. And during the -month or two of our sojourn there, I believe I was never quite easy in -my mind. At any moment we might all be captured, loaded with chains, -and cast into prison: horrible stone dungeons, dark and wet, infested -by rats and spiders, where we should have to sleep on straw, where they -would give us nothing but bread and water to eat and drink. - -Charlatan. Impostor. - -I didn’t know what the words meant, but they stuck in my memory, and -I felt that they were somehow appropriate. It was during that same visit -to Rome that I had heard them. My Aunt Elizabeth, with whom we were -staying, had applied them, in her vigorous way, to Mr. Ambrose (whom we -had left behind us, in Florence). “Poh! An empty windbag, a canting -egotist, a twopenny-halfpenny charlatan, a cheap impostor,” she had -exclaimed, in the course of a discussion with my father. - -Charlatan, impostor: yes, that was it. A man who never did anything but -make himself disagreeable—who never petted you, or played with you, -or told you stories, or gave you things—who never, in fact, took any -notice of you at all, except to frown, and say hist-hist, when you were -enjoying yourself—well, he might be one of the greatest, and best, -and wisest men in the world, but, anyhow, he was a charlatan and an -impostor. I had Aunt Elizabeth’s authority for that. - -One day, after our return to Florence, my second-cousin Isabel (she -was thirteen, and I was in love with her)—my second-cousin Isabel was -playing the piano, alone with me, in the schoolroom, when Mr. Ambrose -opened the door, and said, in his testiest manner: “Stop that -noise—stop that noise!” - -“He’s a horrid pig,” cried Isabel, as soon as his back was turned. - -“Oh, no; he isn’t a pig,” I protested. “He’s one of the -greatest, and wisest, and best men in the world, so of course he can’t -be a horrid pig. But I’ll tell you what he is. He’s a charlatan and -an impostor.” - -“Really? How do you know?” Isabel wondered. “I heard Aunt -Elizabeth tell my father so.” - -“Oh, well, then it must be true,” Isabel assented. - -He lived with us till I was ten or eleven, at first in Florence, and -afterwards in Paris. All day long he would sit in his room and write, -(on the most beautiful, smooth, creamy paper—what wouldn’t I have -given to have acquired some of it for my own literary purposes!) and in -the evening he would receive visitors: oh, such funny people, so unlike -the people who came to see my mother and father. The men, for example, -almost all of them, as Mr. Ambrose himself did, wore their hair long, so -that it fell about their collars; whilst almost all the women had their -hair cut short. And then, they dressed so funnily: the women in the -plainest garments—skirts and jackets, without a touch of ornament; the -men in sombreros and Spanish cloaks, instead of ordinary hats and coats. -They would come night after night, and pass rapidly through the outer -regions of our establishment, and disappear in Mr. Ambrose’s private -room. And thence I could hear their voices, murmuring, murmuring, after -I had gone to bed. At the same time, very likely, in another part of the -house, my mother would be entertaining another company, such a different -company—beautiful ladies, in bright-hued silks, with shining jewels, -and diamond-dust in their hair (yes, in that ancient period, ladies of -fashion, on the Continent at least, used to powder their hair with -a glittering substance known as “diamond-dust”) and officers in -gold-embroidered uniforms, and men in dress-suits. And there would be -music, and dancing, or theatricals, or a masquerade, and always a lovely -supper—to some of whose unconsumed delicacies I would fall heir next -day. - -Only four of Mr. Ambrose’s visitors at all detach themselves, as -individuals, from the cloud. - -One was Mr. Oddo Yodo. Mr. Oddo Yodo was a small, grey-bearded, -dark-skinned Hungarian gentleman, with another name, something like -Polak or Bolak. But I called him Mr. Oddo Yodo, because whenever we met, -on his way to or from the chamber of Mr. Ambrose, he would bow to me, -and smile pleasantly, and say: “Oddo Yodo, Oddo Yodo.” I discovered, -in the end, that he was paying me the compliment of saluting me in my -native tongue. - -Another was an Irishman, named Slevin. I remember him, a burly creature, -with a huge red beard, because one day he arrived at our house in a -state of appalling drunkenness. I remember the incredulous dismay with -which I saw a man in that condition enter our very house. I remember our -old servant, Alexandre, supporting him to Mr. Ambrose’s door, nodding -his head and making a face the while, to signify his opinion. - -Still another was a pale young Italian priest, with a tonsure, round and -big as a five-shilling piece, shorn in the midst of a dense growth of -blue-black hair, upon which I always vaguely longed to put my finger, to -see how it would feel. I forget his name, but I shall never forget the -man, for he had an extraordinary talent; he could write upside-down. He -would take a sheet of paper, and, beginning with the last letter, write -my name for me upside-down, terminating it at the first initial with a -splendid flourish. You will not wonder that I remember him. - -The visitor that I remember best, though, was a woman named Arseneff. -She had short sandy hair, and she dressed in the ugliest black -frocks, and she wore steel-rimmed spectacles; but she was a dear soul, -notwithstanding. One afternoon she was shown into the room where I -chanced to be studying my arithmetic lesson, to wait for Mr. Ambrose. -And first, she sat down beside me, in the kindest fashion, and helped me -out with my sums; and then (it is conceivable that I may have encouraged -her by some cross-questioning) she told me the saddest, saddest story -about herself. She told me that her husband had been the editor of a -newspaper in Russia, and that he had published an article in his paper, -saying that there ought to be schools where the poor people, who had to -work all day, could go in the evening, and learn to read and write. And -just for that, for nothing more than that, her husband and her two sons, -who were his assistant-editors, had been arrested, and chained up with -murderers and thieves and all the worst sorts of criminals, and forced -to march, on foot, across thousands of miles of snow-covered country, -to Siberia, where they had to work as convicts in the mines. And her -husband, she said, had died of it; but her two sons were still there, -working as convicts in the mines. She showed me their photographs, and -she showed me a button, rather a pretty button of coloured glass, with -gilt specks in it, that she had cut from the coat of one of them, when -he had been arrested and taken from her. Poor Arséneff; my heart went -out to her, and we became fast friends. She was never tired of talking, -nor I of hearing, of her sons; and she gave me a good deal of practical -assistance in my arithmetical researches, so that, at the Lycée where I -was then an externe, I passed for an authority on Long Division. - -Mr. Ambrose’s visitors came night after night, and shut themselves up -with him in his room, and stayed there, talking, talking, till long -past bed-time; but I never knew what it was all about. Indeed, I can’t -remember that I ever felt any curiosity to know. It was simply a fact, a -quite uninteresting fact, which one witnessed, and accepted, and thought -no more of. Mr. Ambrose was an Olympian. Kenneth Grahame has reminded us -with what superior unconcern, at the Golden Age, one regards the habits -and doings and affairs of the Olympians. - -And then, quite suddenly, Mr. Ambrose left us. He packed up his things -and his books, and went away; and I understood, somehow, that he would -not be coming back. I did not ask where he was going, nor why he was -going. His departure, like his presence, was a fact which I accepted -without curiosity. Not without satisfaction, though; it was distinctly -nice to feel that the house was rid of him. - -And then seven or eight years passed, the longest seven or eight years, -I suppose, that one is likely ever to encounter, the seven or eight -years in the course of which one grows from a child of ten or eleven to -a youth approaching twenty. And during those years I had plenty of other -things to think of than Mr. Ambrose. It was time more than enough for -him to become a mere dim outline on the remote horizon. - -My childish conception of the man, as you perceive, was sufficiently -rudimental. He represented to me the incarnation of a single principle: -severity; as I, no doubt, represented to him the incarnation of -vexatious noise. For the rest, we overlooked each other. I had been told -that he was one of the greatest and wisest and best men in the world: -you have seen how little that mattered to me. It would probably have -mattered quite as little if the information had been more specific, if -I had been told everything there was to tell about him, all that I have -learned since. How could it have mattered to a child to know that the -testy old man who sat in his room all day and wrote, and every evening -received a stream of shabby visitors, was the prophet of a new social -faith, the founder of a new sect, the author of a new system for the -regeneration of mankind, of a new system of human government, a new -system of ethics, a new system of economics? What could such a word -as “anthropocracy” have conveyed to me? Or such a word -as “philarchy”? Or such a phrase as “Unification versus -Civilisation”? - -My childish conception of the man was extremely rudimental. But I saw a -good deal of him again when I was eighteen, nineteen; and at eighteen, -nineteen, one begins, more or less, to observe and appreciate, to -receive impressions and to form conclusions. Anyhow, the impressions I -received of Mr. Ambrose, the conclusions I formed respecting him, when I -was eighteen or nineteen, are still very fresh in my mind; and I can’t -help believing that on the whole they were tolerably just. I think they -were just, because they seem to explain him; they seem to explain him -in big and in little. They explain his career, his failure, his table -manners, his testiness, his disregard of other people’s rights and -feelings, his apparent selfishness; they explain the queerest of the -many queer things he did. They explain his taking the bank the other -night at baccarat, for instance; and they explain what happened -afterwards, before the night was done. - -One evening, when I was eighteen or nineteen, coming home from the -Latin Quarter, where I was a student, to dine with my people, in the -Rue Oudinot, I found Mr. Ambrose in the drawing-room. Or, if you will, -I found a stranger in the drawing-room, but a stranger whom it took -me only a minute or two to recognise. My father, at my entrance, had -smiled, with a little air of mystery, and said to me, “Here is an -old friend of yours. Can you tell who it is?” And the stranger, -also—somewhat faintly—smiling, had risen, and offered me his hand. -I looked at him—looked at him—and, in a minute,% I exclaimed, -“It’s Mr. Ambrose!” - -I can see him now almost as clearly as I saw him then, when he stood -before me, faintly smiling: tall and thin, stooping a little, dressed -in black, with a long broad beard, long hair, and a pale, worn, aquiline -face. It is the face especially that comes back to me, pale and worn and -finely aquiline, the face, the high white brow, the deep eyes set -wide apart, the faint, faded smile: a striking face—an intellectual -face—a handsome face, despite many wrinkles—an indescribably sad -face, even a tragic face—and yet, for some reason, a face that was -not altogether sympathetic. Something, something in it, had the effect -rather of chilling you, of leaving you where you were, than of warming -and attracting you; something hard to fix, perhaps impossible to name. -A certain suggestion of remoteness, of aloofness? A suggestion of -abstraction from his surroundings and his company, of inattention, of -indifference to them? Of absorption in matters alien to them, outside -their sphere? I did not know. But there was surely something in his face -not perfectly sympathetic. - -I had exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Ambrose!” To that he had responded, -“Ah, you have a good memory.” And then we shook hands, and he sat -down again. His hand was thin and delicate, and slightly cold. His voice -was a trifle dry, ungenial. Then he asked me the inevitable half-dozen -questions about myself—how old I was, what I was studying, and so -forth—but though he asked them with an evident intention of being -friendly, one felt that he was all the while half thinking of something -else, and that he never really took in one’s answers. - -And gradually he seemed to become unconscious of my presence, resuming -the conversation with my father, which, I suppose, had been interrupted -by my arrival. - -“The world has forgotten me. My followers have dropped away. You -yourself—where is your ancient ardour? The cause I have lived for -stands still. My propaganda is arrested. I am poor, I am obscure, I am -friendless, and I am sixty-five years old. But the great ideals, the -great truths, I have taught, remain. They are like gold which I have -mined. There the gold lies, between the covers of my books, as in so -many caskets. Some day, in its necessities, the world will find it. What -is excellent cannot perish. It may lie hid, but it cannot perish.” - -That is one of the things I remember his saying to my father, on that -first evening of our renewed acquaintance. And, at table, I noticed, he -ate and drank in a joyless, absent-minded manner, and made unusual uses -of his knife and fork, and very unusual noises. And, by-and-by, in the -midst of a silence, my mother spoke to a servant, whereupon, suddenly, -he glanced up, with vague eyes, and the frown of one troubled in the -depths of a brown study, and I could have sworn it was on the tip of his -tongue to say hist-hist! - -He stayed with us for several months—from the beginning of November -till February or March, I think—and during that period I saw him very -nearly every day, and heard him accomplish a tremendous deal of talk. - -I tried, besides, to read some of his books, an effort, however, from -which I retired, baffled and bewildered: they were a thousand miles -above the apprehension of a nineteen-year-old potache; and I did -actually read to its end a book about him: Augustus Ambrose, the Friend -of Man: an Account of his Life, and an Analysis of his Teachings. By -one of his Followers. Turin: privately printed, 1858. Of the identity -of that “Follower,” by-the-bye, I got an inkling, from a rather -conscious, half sheepish smile, which I detected in the face of my own -father, when he saw the volume in my hands. I read his Life to its -end; and I tried to read The Foundations of Mono-pantology, and -Anthropocracy: a Remedy for the Diseases of the Body Politic, and -Philarchy: a Vision ; and I listened while he accomplished a tremendous -deal of talk. His talk was always (for my taste) too impersonal; it -was always of ideas, of theories, never of concrete things, never of -individual men and women. Indeed, the mention of an individual would -often only serve him as an excuse for a new flight into the abstract. -For example, I had learned, from the Life, that he had been an associate -of Mazzini’s and Garibaldi’s in ’48, and that it was no less a -person than Victor Emmanuel himself, who had named him—in an official -proclamation, too—“the Friend of Man.” So, one day, I asked him -to tell me something about Victor Emmanuel, and Mazzini, and Garibaldi. -“You knew them. I should be so glad to hear about them from one who -knew them.” - -“Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour—I knew them all; I knew -them well. I worked with them, fought under them, wrote for them, spoke -for them, throughout the long struggle for the unification of Italy. I -did so because unification is my supreme ideal, the grandest ideal -the human mind has ever formed. I worked for the unification of Italy, -because I was and am working for the unification of mankind, and the -unification of Italy was a step towards, and an illustration of, that -sublime object. Let others prate of civilisation; civilisation -means nothing more than the invention and multiplication of material -conveniences—nothing more than that. But unification—the unification -of mankind—that is the crusade which I have preached, the cause for -which I have lived. To unify the scattered nations of this earth into -one single nation, one single solidarity, under one government, speaking -one language, professing and obeying one religion, pursuing one aim. -The religion—Christianity, with a purified Papacy. The -government—anthropocratic philarchy, the reign of men by the law of -Love. The language—Albigo. Albigo, which means, at the same time, both -human and universal—from Albi, pertaining to man, and God, pertaining -to the whole, the all. Albigo: a language which I have discovered, as -the result of years of research, to exist already, and everywhere, as -the base, the common principle, of all known languages, and which I have -extracted, in its original simplicity, from the overgrowths which time -and separateness have allowed to accumulate upon it. Albigo: the tongue -which all men speak unconsciously: the universal human tongue. And, -finally, the aim—the common, single aim—the highest possible -spiritual development of man, the highest possible culture of the human -soul.” - -That is what I received in response to my request for a few personal -reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, and Mazzini. - -You will infer that Mr. Ambrose lacked humour. But his most conspicuous -trait, his preponderant trait—the trait which, I think, does more than -any other to explain him, him and his fortunes and his actions—was the -trait I had vaguely noticed in our first five minutes’ intercourse, -after my re-introduction to him; the trait which, I have conjectured, -perhaps gave its unsympathetic quality to his face: abstraction from his -surroundings and his company, inattention, indifference, to them. - -On that first evening, you may remember, he had asked me certain -questions; but I had felt that he was thinking of something else. I had -answered them, but I had felt that he never heard my answers. - -That little negative incident, I believe, gives the key to his -character, to his fortunes, to his actions. - -The Friend of Man was totally deaf and blind and insensible to men. Man, -as a metaphysical concept, was the major premiss of his philosophy; men, -as individuals, he was totally unable to realise. He could not see you, -he could not hear you, he could get no “realising sense” of you. You -spoke, but your voice was an unintelligible murmur in his ears; it was -like the sound of the wind—it might annoy him, disturb him (in which -case he would seek to silence it with a hist-hist), it could not signify -to him. You stood up, in front of him; but you were invisible to him; -he saw beyond you. And even when he spoke, he did not speak to you, he -spoke to the walls and ceiling—he thought aloud. He took no account of -his auditor’s capacities, of the subject that would interest him, -of the language he would understand. You asked him to tell you about -Mazzini, and he discoursed of Albigo and the Unification of Mankind. And -then, when he ceased to speak, directly he fell silent and somebody else -took the word, the gates of his mind were shut; he withdrew behind -them, returned to his private meditations, and so remained, detached, -solitary, preoccupied, till the time came when he was moved to speak -again. He was the Friend of Man, but men did not exist for him. He was -like a mathematician busied with a calculation, eager for the -sum-total, but heedless of the separate integers. My father—my -mother—I—whosoever approached him—was a phantasm: a convenient -phantasm, possibly, with a house where he might be lodged and fed, with -a purse whence might be supplied the funds requisite for the publication -of his works; or possibly a troublesome phantasm, that worried him by -shouting at its play: but a phantasm, none the less. - -Years ago, my downright Aunt Elizabeth had disposed of him with two -words: a charlatan, an impostor. My Aunt Elizabeth was utterly mistaken. -Mr. Ambrose’s sincerity was absolute. The one thing he professed -belief in, he believed in with an intensity that rendered him -unconscious of all things else; his one conviction was so predominant as -to exclude all other convictions. What was the one thing he believed in, -the one thing he was convinced of? It would be easy to reply, himself; -to declare that, at least, when she had called him an egotist, my Aunt -Elizabeth had been right. It would be easy, but I am sure it would be -untrue. The thing he believed in, the thing he was convinced of, the -only thing in this whole universe which he saw, was his vision. That, I -am persuaded, is the explanation of the man. It explains him in big -and in little. It explains his career, his fortunes, his failure, his -table-manners, his testiness, and the queerest of his actions. - -He saw nothing in this universe but his vision; he did not see the earth -beneath him, nor the people round him. Is that not enough to explain -everything, almost to justify anything? Doesn’t it explain his -failure, for example? The fact that the world ignored him, that his -followers dropped away from him, that nobody read his books? For, since -he was never convinced of the world, how could he convince the world? -Since he had no “realising sense” of men, how could he hold men? -Since, in writing his books, he took no account of human nature, no -account of human taste, endurance—since he wrote his books, as he -spoke his speeches, not to you or me, not to flesh and blood, but to the -walls and ceiling, to space, to the unpeopled air—how was it possible -that he should have human readers? It explains his failure, the failure -of a long life of unremitting labour. He was learned, he was in -earnest, he was indefatigable; and the net product of his learning, his -earnestness, his industry, was nil, because there can be no reciprocity -established between something and nothing. - -It explains his failure; and it explains—it almost excuses—in a -sense it even almost justifies—the queerest of his actions. Other -people did not exist for him; therefore other people had no feelings to -be considered, no rights, no possessions, to be respected. They did -not exist, therefore they were in no way to be reckoned with. Their -observation was not to be avoided, their power was not to be feared. -They could not do anything; they could not see what he did. - -The queerest of his actions? You will suppose that I must have some very -queer action still to record. Well, there was his action the other night -at the Casino, for one thing; I haven’t yet done with that. But the -queerest of all his actions, I think, was his treatment of Israela, his -step-daughter Israela.... - -During the visit Mr. Ambrose paid us in Paris, when I was nineteen, he, -whose early disciples had dropped away, made a new disciple: a Madame -Fontanas, a Mexican woman—of Jewish extraction, I imagine—a widow, -with a good deal of money. Israela, her daughter, was a fragile, -pale-faced, dark-haired, great-eyed little girl, of twelve or thirteen. -Madame Fontanas sat at Mr. Ambrose’s feet, and listened, and believed. -Perhaps she conceived an affection for him; perhaps she only thought -that here was a great philosopher, a great philanthropist, and that he -ought to have some one to take permanent care of him, and reduce the -material friction of his path to a minimum. Anyhow, when the spring -came, she married him. I have no definite information on the -subject, but I am sure in my own mind that it was she who took the -initiative—that she offered, and he vaguely accepted, her hand. -Anyhow, in the spring she married him, and carried him off to her -Mexican estates. - -Five or six years later (by the sheerest hazard) I found him living in -London with Israela; in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in a dreary -street, in Pimlico. I met him one afternoon, by the sheerest hazard, -in Piccadilly, and accompanied him home. (It was characteristic of -him, by-the-bye, that, though we met face to face, and I stopped and -exclaimed and held out my hand, he gazed at me with blank eyes, and I -was obliged to repeat my name twice before he could recall me.) He was -living in London, for the present, he told me, in order to see a work -through the press. “A great work, the crown, the summary of all my -work. The Final Extensions of Monopantology. - -“It is in twelve volumes, with plates, coloured plates.” - -“And Mrs. Ambrose is well?” I asked. - -“Oh, my wife—my wife is dead. She died two or three years ago,” he -answered, with the air of one dismissing an irrelevance. - -“And Israela?” I pursued, by-and-by. - -“Israela?” His brows knitted themselves perplexedly, then, in an -instant, cleared. “Oh, Israela. Ah, yes. Israela is living with me.” - -And upon my suggesting that I should like to call upon her, he replied -that he was on his way home now, and, if I cared to do so, I might come -with him. - -They were living in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in the dreariest -of streets. But Israela welcomed me with a warmth I had not anticipated. -“Oh, I am so glad to see you, so glad, so glad,” she cried, and -her big, dark eyes filled with tears, and she clung to my hand. I was -surprised by her emotion, because, after all, I was scarcely other than -a stranger to her; a man she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl, -and even then had seen only once or twice. I understood it afterwards, -however: when one day she confided to me that—excepting Mr. Ambrose -himself, and servants and tradesmen—I was the first human being she -had exchanged a word with since they had come to London! “We don’t -know anybody—not a soul, not a soul. He doesn’t want to know -people—he is so absorbed in his work. I could not make acquaintances -alone. And we had been here four months, before he met you and brought -you home.” - -Israela was tall, and very slight; very delicate-looking, with a face -intensely pale, all the paler for the soft dark hair that curled above -it, and the great dark eyes that looked out of it. Considering that -she must have inherited a decent fortune from her mother, I wondered, -rather, to see her so plainly dressed: she wore the plainest straight -black frocks. And, of course, I wondered also to find them living in -such dismal lodgings. However, it was not for me to ask questions; -and if presently the mystery cleared itself up, it was by a sort of -accident. - -I called at the house in Pimlico as often as I could; and I took Israela -out a good deal, to lunch or dine at restaurants; and when the weather -smiled, we would make little jaunts into the country, to Hampton Court, -or Virginia Water, or where not. And one day she came to tea with me, at -my chambers. - -“Oh, you’ve got a piano,” was her first observation, and she flew -to the instrument, and seated herself, and began to play. She played -without pause for nearly an hour, I think: Chopin, Chopin, Chopin. -And when she rose, I said, “Would you mind telling me why you—a -brilliant pianist like you—why you haven’t a piano in your own -rooms?” - -“We can’t afford one,” she answered simply. - -“What do you mean—you can’t afford one?” - -“He says we can’t afford one. Don’t you know—we are very -poor?” - -“You can’t be very poor,” I exclaimed. “Your mother was rich.” - -“Yes, my mother was rich. I don’t know what has become of her -money.” - -“Didn’t she leave a will?” - -“Oh, yes, she left a will. She left a will making my step-father my -guardian, my trustee.” - -“Well, what has he done with your money?” - -“I don’t know. I only know that we are very poor—that we can’t -afford any luxuries—that we can just barely contrive to live, in the -quietest manner. He hardly ever gives me any money for myself. A few -shillings, very rarely, when I ask him.” - -“My dear child,” I cried, “I see it all, I see it perfectly. -You’ve got plenty of money, you’ve got your mother’s fortune. But -he’s spending it for his own purposes. He’s paying for the printing -of his gigantic book with it. Twelve volumes, and plates, coloured -plates! It’s exactly like him. The only thing he’s conscious of is -the importance of publishing his book. He needs money. He takes it where -he finds it. He’s spending your money for the printing of his book; -and that’s why you have to live in dreary lodgings in the dreariest -part of London, and do without a piano. He doesn’t care how he -lives—he doesn’t know—he’s unconscious of everything but his -book. My dear child, you must stop him, you mustn’t let him go on.” - -Israela was incredulous at first, but I argued and insisted, till, in -the end, she said, “Perhaps you are right. But even so, what can I do? -How can I stop him?” - -“Ah, that’s a question for a solicitor. We must see a solicitor. A -solicitor will know how to stop him.” - -But at this proposal, Israela shook her head. “Oh, no, I will have no -solicitor. Even supposing your idea is true, I can’t set a lawyer upon -my mother’s husband. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps he is -right. Perhaps the publication of his book is very important. I’m sure -my mother would have thought so. It was her money. Perhaps he is right -to spend it for the publication of his book.” - -Israela positively declined to consult a solicitor; and so they -continued to live narrowly in Pimlico, and he proceeded with the issue -of The Final Extensions of Monopantology, in twelve volumes, with -coloured plates. - -Meanwhile, the brown London autumn had turned into a black London -winter; and Israela, delicate-looking at its outset, grew more and more -delicate-looking every day. - -“After all, what does it matter? The money will be his, and he can do -as he wishes with it honestly as soon as I am dead,” she said to me, -one evening, with a smile I did not like. - -“What on earth do you mean?” I asked. - -“I am going to die,” she said. - -“You’re mad, you’re morbid,” I cried. “You mustn’t say such -things. You’re not ill? What on earth do you mean?” - -“I am going to die. I know it. I feel it. I am not ill? I don’t -know. I think I am ill. I feel as if I were going to be ill. I am going -to die—I know I am going to die.” - -I did what I could to dissipate such black presentiments. I refused to -talk of them. I did what I could to lend a little gaiety to her life. -But Israela grew whiter and more delicate-looking day by day. I was her -only visitor. I had asked if I might not bring a friend or two to see -her, but she had answered, “I’m afraid he would not like it. People -coming and going would disturb him. He can’t bear any noise,” So I -was her only visitor—till, by-and-by, another became necessary. - -I wonder whether Mr. Ambrose ever really knew that Israela was lying in -her bed at the point of death, and that the man who called twice every -day to see her was a doctor? True, in an absent-minded fashion, he -used to inquire how she was, he used even occasionally to enter the -sick-room, and look at her, and lay his hand on her brow, as if to take -her temperature; but I wonder whether he ever actually realised her -condition? He was terribly preoccupied just then with Volume VIII, At -all events, on a certain melancholy morning in April, he allowed me to -conduct him to a carriage and to help him in; and together we drove to -Kensal Green. He was silent during the drive—thinking hard, I fancied, -about some matter very foreign to our errand.... And as soon as -the parson there had rattled through his office and concluded it, -Israela’s step-father pulled out his watch, and said to me, “Ah, I -must hurry off, I must hurry off. I’ve got a long day’s work before -me still.” - -That was something like ten years ago—the last time I had seen -him.... Until now, to-night, on this sultry night of August, ten years -afterwards, here he had suddenly reappeared to me, holding the bank -at baccarat, at the Grand Cercle of the Casino: Augustus Ambrose, the -Friend of Man, the dreamer, the visionary, holding the bank at baccarat, -at the Grand Cercle of the Casino! - -I looked at him, in simple astonishment at first, and then gradually -I shaped a theory. “He has probably come pretty nearly to the end -of Israela’s fortune; it would be like him to spend interest and -principal as well. And now he finds himself in need of money. And he is -just unpractical enough to fancy that he can supply his needs by play. -Or—or is it possible he has a system? Perhaps he imagines he has -a system.” And then I thought how old he had grown, how terribly, -terribly he had decayed. - -I looked at him. He was dealing. He dealt to the right, to the left, and -to himself. But when he glanced at his own two cards, he made a little -face. The next instant he had dropped them under the table, and helped -himself to two fresh ones.... - -The thing was done without the faintest effort at concealment, in a room -where at least forty pairs of eyes were fixed upon him. - -There was, of course, an immediate uproar. In an instant every one was -on his feet; Mr. Ambrose was surrounded. Men were shaking their fists in -his face, screaming at him excitedly, calling him ugly names. He gazed -at them placidly, vaguely. It was clear he did not grasp the situation. - -Somebody must needs intervene. - -“I saw what Monsieur did. I am sure it was with no ill intention. He -made no effort at concealment. It was done in a fit of absence of mind. -Look at him. He is a very old man. You can see he is bewildered. He does -not even yet understand what has happened. He should never have come -here, at his age. He should never have been allowed to take the bank. -Let the croupier pay both sides. Then I will take Monsieur away.” - -Somehow I got him out of the Casino, and led him to his hotel, a small -hotel in the least favoured quarter of the town, the name of which I -had a good deal of difficulty in extracting from him. On the way thither -scarcely a word passed between us. I forbore to tell him who I was; of -course, he did not recognise me. But all the while a pertinacious little -voice within me insisted: “He did it deliberately. He deliberately -tried to cheat. With his gaze concentrated on his vision, he could -see nothing else; he could see no harm in trying to cheat at cards. He -needed money—it didn’t matter how he obtained it. The other players -were phantasms—where’s the harm in cheating phantasms? Only he -forgot—or, rather, he never realised—that the phantasms had -eyes, that they could see. That’s why he made no effort at -concealment.”—Was the voice right or wrong? - -I parted with him at the door of his hotel; but the next day a feeling -grew within me that I ought to call upon him, that I ought at least to -call and take his news. They told me that he had left by an early train -for Paris. - -As I have been writing these last pages, a line of Browning’s has -kept thrumming through my head. “This high man, with a great thing to -pursue... This high man, with a great thing to pursue...” How does it -apply to Mr. Ambrose? I don’t know—unless, indeed, a high man, with -a great thing to pursue, is to be excused, is to be pitied, rather than -blamed, if he loses his sense, his conscience, of other things, of small -things. After all, wasn’t it because he lost his conscience of small -things, that he missed his great thing? - - - - -TIRALA-TIRALA... - -I wonder what the secret of it is—why that little fragment of a -musical phrase has always had this instant, irresistible power to move -me. The tune of which it formed a part I have never heard; whether it -was a merry tune or a sad tune, a pretty tune or a stupid one, I have -no means of guessing. A sequence of six notes, like six words taken -from the middle of a sentence, it stands quite by itself, detached, -fortuitous. If I were to pick it out for you on the piano, you would -scoff at it; you would tell me that it is altogether pointless and -unsuggestive, that any six notes, struck at haphazard, would signify as -much. And I certainly could not, with the least show of reason, maintain -the contrary. I could only wonder the more why it has always had, for -me, this very singular charm. As when I was a child, so now, after all -these years, it is a sort of talisman in my hands, a thing to conjure -with. I have but to breathe it never so softly to myself, and (if I -choose) the actual world melts away, and I am journeying on wings in -dreamland. Whether I choose or not, it always thrills my heart with -responsive echoes, it always wakes a sad, sweet emotion. - -I remember quite clearly the day when I first heard it; quite clearly, -though it was more—oh, more than five-and-twenty years ago, and -the days that went before and came after it have entirely lost their -outlines, and merged into a vague golden blur. That day, too, as I look -backwards, glows in the distance with a golden light; and if I were -to speak upon my impulse, I should vow it was a smiling day of June, -clothed in sunshine and crowned with roses. But then, if I were to speak -upon my impulse, I should vow that it was June at Saint-Graal the whole -year round. When I stop to think, I remember that it was a rainy day, -and that the ground was sprinkled with dead leaves. I remember standing -at a window in my grandmother’s room, and gazing out with rueful eyes. -It rained doggedly, relentlessly—even, it seemed to me, defiantly, -spitefully, as if it took a malicious pleasure in penning me up within -doors. The mountains, the Pyrenees, a few miles to the south, were -completely hidden by the veil of waters. The sodden leaves, brown -patches on the lawn and in the pathways, struggled convulsively, like -wounded birds, to fly from the gusts of wind, but fell back fluttering -heavily. One could almost have touched the clouds, they hung so low, big -ragged tufts of sad-coloured cotton-wool, blown rapidly through the air, -just above the writhing tree-tops. Everywhere in the house there was -a faint fragrance of burning wood: fires had been lighted to keep the -dampness out. - - - - - -Indeed, if it had been a fair day, my adventure could scarcely have -befallen. I should have been abroad, in the garden or the forest, -playing with André, our farmer’s son; angling, with a bit of red -worsted as bait, for frogs in the pond; trying to catch lizards on the -terrace; lying under a tree with Don Quixote or Le Capitaine Fracasse; -visiting Manuela in her cottage; or perhaps, best of all, spending -the afternoon with Hélène, at Granjolaye. It was because the rain -interdicted these methods of amusement that I betook myself for solace -to Constantinople. - - - - - -I don’t know why—I don’t think any one knew why—that part of -our house was called Constantinople; but it had been called so from time -immemorial, and we all accepted it as a matter of course. It was the -topmost story of the East Wing—three rooms: one little room, by way -of ante-chamber, into which you entered from a corkscrew staircase; then -another little room at your left; and then a big room, a long dim room, -with only two windows, one at either end. And these rooms served as a -sort of Hades for departed household gods. They were crowded, crowded -to overflowing, with such wonderful old things! Old furniture—old -straight-backed chairs, old card-tables, with green cloth tops, and -brass claws for feet, old desks and cabinets, the dismembered relics of -old four-post bedsteads; old clothes—old hats, boots, cloaks—green -silk calashes, like bonnets meant for the ladies of Brobdingnag—and -old hoop-petticoats, the skeletons of dead toilets; old books, -newspapers, pictures; old lamps and candlesticks, clocks, fire-irons, -vases; an old sedan-chair; old spurs, old swords, old guns and pistols; -generations upon generations of superannuated utilities and vanities, -slumbering in one another’s shadows, under a common sheet of dust, and -giving off a thin, penetrating, ancient smell. - -When it rained, Constantinople was my ever-present refuge. It was a -land of penumbra and mystery, a realm of perpetual wonderment, a mine -of inexhaustible surprises. I never visited it without finding something -new, without getting a sensation. One day, when André was there with -me, we both saw a ghost—yes, as plainly as at this moment I see the -paper I’m writing on; but I won’t turn aside now to speak of that. -And as for my finds, on two or three occasions, at least, they had more -than a subjective metaphysical importance. The first was a chest filled -with jewellery and trinkets, an iron chest, studded with nails, in size -and shape like a small trunk, with a rounded lid. I dragged it out of -a dark corner, from amidst a quantity of rubbish, and (it wasn’t even -locked!) fancy the eyes I made when I beheld its contents: half-a-dozen -elaborately carved, high-back tortoise-shell combs, ranged in a morocco -case; a beautiful old-fashioned watch, in the form of a miniature -guitar; an enamelled snuff-box; and then no end of rings, brooches, -buckles, seals, and watch-keys, set with precious stones—not very -precious stones, perhaps—only garnets, amethysts, carnelians; but -mercy, how they glittered! I ran off in great excitement to call my -grandmother; and she called my uncle Edmond; and he, alas, applied the -laws of seigniory to the transaction, and I saw my trover appropriated. -My other important finds were appropriated also, but about them I did -not care so much—they were only papers. One was a certificate, dated -in the Year III, and attesting that my grandfather’s father had taken -the oath of allegiance to the Republic. As I was a fierce Legitimist, -this document afforded me but moderate satisfaction. The other was a -Map of the World, covering a sheet of cardboard nearly a yard square, -executed in pen-and-ink, but with such a complexity of hair-lines, -delicate shading, and ornate lettering, that, until you had examined it -closely, you would have thought it a carefully finished steel-engraving. -It was signed “Herminie de Pontacq, 1818”; that is to say, by my -grandmother herself, who in 1818 had been twelve years old; dear me, -only twelve years old! It was delightful and marvellous to think that my -own grandmother, in 1818, had been so industrious, and painstaking, and -accomplished a little girl. I assure you, I felt almost as proud as if I -had done it myself. - - - - - -The small room at the left of the ante-chamber was consecrated to the -roba of an uncle of my grandfather’s, who had been a sugar-planter in -the province of New Orleans, in the reign of Louis XVI. He had also been -a colonel, and so the room was called the Colonel’s room. Here were -numberless mementos of the South: great palm-leaf fans, conch-shells, -and branches of coral, broad-brimmed hats of straw, monstrous white -umbrellas, and, in a corner, a collection of long slender wands, ending -in thick plumes of red and yellow feathers. These, I was informed, the -sugar-planter’s slaves, standing behind his chair, would flourish -about his head, to warn off the importunate winged insects that abound -là-bas. He had died at Paris in 1793, and of nothing more romantic than -a malignant fever, foolish person, when he might so easily have been -guillotined! (It was a matter of permanent regret with me that none of -our family had been guillotined.) But his widow had survived him for -more than forty years, and her my grandmother remembered perfectly. -A fat old Spanish Créole lady, fat and very lazy—oh, but very lazy -indeed. At any rate, she used to demand the queerest services of the -negress who was in constant attendance upon her. “Nanette, Nanette, -tourne tête à moi. Veux”—summon your fortitude—“veux -cracher!” Ah, well, we are told, they made less case of such details -in those robust old times. How would she have fared, poor soul, had she -fallen amongst us squeamish decadents? - - - - - -It was into the Colonel’s room that I turned to-day. There was a -cupboard in its wall that I had never thoroughly examined. The lower -shelves, indeed, I knew by heart; they held, for the most part, empty -medicine bottles. But the upper ones? - - - - - -I shut my eyes for a moment, and the flavour of that far-away afternoon -comes back fresher in my memory than yesterday’s. I am perched on a -chair, in the dim light of Constantinople, at Saint-Graal; my nostrils -are full of a musty, ancient smell; I can hear the rain pat-pattering on -the roof, the wind whistling at the window, and, faintly, in a -distant quarter of the house, my cousin Elodie playing her exercises -monotonously on the piano. I am balancing myself on tip-toe, craning -my neck, with only one care, one preoccupation, in the world—to get a -survey of the top shelf of the closet in the Colonel’s room. The next -to the top, and the next below that, I already command; they are vacant -of everything save dust. But the top one is still above my head, and -how to reach it seems a terribly vexed problem, of which, for a little -while, motionless, with bent brows, I am rapt in meditation. And then, -suddenly, I have an inspiration—I see my way. - -It was not for nothing that my great-aunt Radigonde (think of having had -a great-aunt named Radigonde, and yet never having seen her! She died -before I was born—isn’t Fate unkind?)—it was not for nothing that -my great-aunt Radigonde, from 1820 till its extinction in 1838, had -subscribed to the Revue Rose—La Revue Rose; Echo du Bon Ton; Miroir de -la Mode; paraissant tous les mois; dirigée par une Dame de la Cour; nor -was it in vain, either, that my great-aunt Radigonde had had the annual -volumes of this fashionable intelligencer bound. Three or four of them -now, piled one above the other on my chair, lent me the altitude I -needed; and the top shelf yielded up its secret. - -It was an abominably dusty secret, and it was quite a business to wipe -it off. Then I perceived that it was a box, a square box, about eighteen -inches long and half as deep, made of polished mahogany, inlaid -with scrolls and flourishes of satin-wood. Opened, it proved to be a -dressing-case. It was lined with pink velvet and white brocaded silk. -There was a looking-glass, in a pink velvet frame, with an edge of gold -lace, that swung up on a hinged support of tarnished ormolu; a sere -and yellow looking-glass, that gave back a reluctant, filmy image of -my face. There were half-a-dozen pear-shaped bottles, of wine-coloured -glass, with tarnished gilt tops. There was a thing that looked like the -paw of a small animal, the fur of which, at one end, was reddened, as if -it had been rubbed in some red powder. The velvet straps that had once -presumably held combs and brushes, had been despoiled by an earlier hand -than mine; but of two pockets in the lid the treasures were intact: a -tortoise-shell housewife, containing a pair of scissors, a thimble, -and a bodkin, and a tortoise-shell purse, each prettily incrusted with -silver and lined with thin pink silk. - -In front, between two of the gilt-topped bottles, an oval of pink -velvet, with a tiny bird in ormolu perched upon it, was evidently -movable—a cover to something. When I had lifted it, I saw, first, a -little pane of glass, and then, through that, the brass cylinder and -long steel comb of a musical box. Wasn’t it an amiable conceit, -whereby my lady should be entertained with tinkling harmonies the while -her eyes and fingers were busied in the composition of her face? Was it -a frequent one in old dressing-cases? - -Oh, yes, the key was there—a gilt key, coquettishly decorated with a -bow of pink ribbon; and when I had wound the mechanism up, the cylinder, -to my great relief, began to turn—to my relief, for I had feared -that the spring might be broken, or something; springs are so apt to be -broken in this disappointing world. The cylinder began to turn—but, -alas, in silence, or almost in silence, emitting only a faintly audible, -rusty gr-r-r-r, a sort of guttural grumble; until, all at once, when -I was least expecting it—tirala-tirala—it trilled out clearly, -crisply, six silvery notes, and then relapsed into its rusty gr-r-r-r. - -So it would go on and on till it ran down. A minute or two of creaking -and croaking, as it were, whilst it cleared its old asthmatic throat, -then a sudden silvery tirala-tirala, then a catch, a cough, and -mutter-mutter-mutter. Or was it more like an old woman maundering in -her sleep, who should suddenly quaver out a snatch from a ditty of her -girlhood, and afterwards mumble incoherently again? - -I suppose the pin-points on the cylinder, all save just those six, were -worn away; or, possibly, those teeth of the steel comb were the only -ones that retained elasticity enough to vibrate. - - - - - -A sequence of six notes, as inconclusive as six words plucked at random -from the middle of a sentence; as void of musical value as six such -words would be of literary value. I wonder why it has always had this -instant, irresistible power to move me. It has always been a talisman in -my hands, a thing to conjure with. As when I was a child, so now, after -twenty years, I have but to breathe it to myself, and, if I will, the -actual world melts away, and I am journeying in dreamland. Whether I -will or not, it always stirs a sad, sweet emotion in my heart. I wonder -why. Tirala-tirala—I dare say, for another, any six notes, struck at -haphazard, would signify as much. But for me—ah, if I could seize the -sentiment it has for me, and translate it into English words, I should -have achieved a sort of miracle. For me, it is the voice of a spirit, -sighing something unutterable. It is an elixir, distilled of unearthly -things, six lucent drops; I drink them, and I am transported into -another atmosphere, and I see visions. It is Aladdin’s lamp; I -touch it, and cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces are mine in the -twinkling of an eye. It is my wishing-cap, my magic-carpet, my key to -the Castle of Enchantment. - - - - - -The Castle of Enchantment.... - -When I was a child the Castle of Enchantment meant—the Future; -the great mysterious Future, away, away there, beneath the uttermost -horizon, where the sky is luminious with tints of rose and pearl; the -ineffable Future, when I should be grownup, when I should be a Man, and -when the world would be my garden, the world and life, and all their -riches, mine to explore, to adventure in, to do as I pleased with! The -Future and the World, the real World, the World that lay beyond our -village, beyond the Forest of Granjolaye, farther than Bayonne, farther -even than Pau; the World one read of and heard strange legends of: -Paris, and Bagdad, and England, and Peru. Oh, how I longed to see it; -how hard it was to wait; how desperately hard to think of the immense -number of long years that must be worn through somehow, before it could -come true. - -But—tirala-tirala!—my little broken bar of music was a touchstone. -At the sound of it, at the thought of it, the Present was spirited away; -Saint-Graal and all our countryside were left a thousand miles behind; -and the Future and the World opened their portals to me, and I wandered -in them where I would. In a sort of trance, with wide eyes and bated -breath, I wandered in them, through enraptured hours. Believe me, it -was a Future, it was a World, of quite unstinted magnificence. My -many-pinnacled Castle of Enchantment was built of gold and silver, -ivory, alabaster, and mother-of-pearl; the fountains in its courts -ran with perfumed waters; and its pleasaunce was an orchard of -pomegranates—one had no need to spare one’s colours. I dare say, -too, that it was rather vague, wrapped in a good deal of roseate -haze, and of an architecture that could scarcely have been reduced to -ground-plans and elevations; but what of that? And oh, the people, the -people by whom the World and the Future were inhabited, the cavalcading -knights, the beautiful princesses! And their virtues, and their graces, -and their talents Î There were no ugly people, of course, no stupid -people, no disagreeable people; everybody was young and handsome, -gallant, generous, and splendidly dressed. And everybody was -astonishingly nice to me, and it never seemed to occur to anybody that -I wasn’t to have my own way in everything. And I had it. Love and -wealth, glory, and all manner of romance—I had them for the wishing. -The stars left their courses to fight for me. And the winds of heaven -vied with each other to prosper my galleons. - -To be sure, it was nothing more nor other than the day-dream of every -child. But it happened that that little accidental fragment of a phrase -of music had a quite peculiar power to send me off dreaming it. - - - - - -I suppose it must be that we pass the Castle of Enchantment while we are -asleep. For surely, at first, it is before us—we are moving towards -it; we can see it shining in the distance; we shall reach it to-morrow, -next week, next year. And then—and then, one morning, we wake up, -and lo! it is behind us. We have passed it—we are sailing away from -it—we can’t turn back. We have passed the Castle of Enchantment! -And yet, it was only to reach it that we made our weary voyage, toiling -through hardships and perils and discouragements, forcing our impatient -hearts to wait; it was only the hope, the certain hope, of reaching it -at last, that made our toiling and our waiting possible. And now—we -have passed it. We are sailing away from it. We can’t turn back. We -can only look back—with the bitterness that every heart knows. If -we look forward, what is there to see, save grey waters, and then a -darkness that we fear to enter? - - - - - -When I was a child, it was the great world and the future into which my -talisman carried me, dreaming desirous dreams; the great world, all gold -and marble, peopled by beautiful princesses and cavalcading knights; the -future, when I should be grown-up, when I should be a Man. - -Well, I am grown-up now, and I have seen something of the great -world—something of its gold and marble, its cavalcading knights and -beautiful princesses. But if I care to dream desirous dreams, I touch -my talisman, and wish myself back in the little world of my childhood. -Tirala-tirala—I breathe it softly, softly; and the sentiment of my -childhood comes and fills my room like a fragrance. I am at Saint-Graal -again; and my grandmother is seated at her window, knitting; and André -is bringing up the milk from the farm; and my cousin Elodie is playing -her exercises on the piano; and Hélène and I are walking in the -garden—Hélène in her short white frock, with a red sash, and her -black hair loose down her back. All round us grow innumerable flowers, -and innumerable birds are singing in the air, and the frogs are -croaking, croaking in our pond. And farther off, the sun shines -tranquilly on the chestnut-trees of the Forest of Granjolaye; and -farther still, the Pyrenees gloom purple.... It is not much, perhaps it -is not very wonderful; but oh, how my heart yearns to recover it, how it -aches to realise that it never can. - - - - - -In the Morning (says Paraschkine) the Eastern Rim of the Earth was piled -high with Emeralds and Rubies, as if the Gods had massed their Riches -there; but he—ingenuous Pilgrim—who set forth to reach this -Treasure-hoard, and to make the Gods’ Riches his, seemed presently to -have lost his Way; he could no longer discern the faintest Glint of the -Gems that had tempted him: until, in the Afternoon, chancing to turn his -Head, he saw a bewildering Sight—the Emeralds and Rubies were behind -him, immeasurably far behind, piled up in the West. - -Where is the Castle of Enchantment? When do we pass it? Ah, well, -thank goodness, we all have talismans (like my little broken bit of a -forgotten tune) whereby we are enabled sometimes to visit it in spirit, -and to lose ourselves during enraptured moments among its glistening, -labyrinthine halls. - - - - -THE INVISIBLE PRINCE - -At a masked ball given by the Countess Wohenhoffen, in Vienna, during -carnival week, a year ago, a man draped in the embroidered silks of a -Chinese mandarin, his features entirely concealed by an enormous Chinese -head in cardboard, was standing in the Wintergarten, the big, dimly -lighted conservatory, near the door of one of the gilt-and-white -reception-rooms, rather a stolid-seeming witness of the multi-coloured -romp within, when a voice behind him said, “How do you do, Mr. -Field?”—a woman’s voice, an English voice. - -The mandarin turned round. - -From a black mask, a pair of blue-grey eyes looked into his broad, -bland Chinese face; and a black domino dropped him an extravagant little -curtsey. - -“How do you do?” he responded. “I’m afraid I’m not Mr. Field; -but I’ll gladly pretend I am, if you’ll stop and talk with me. I was -dying for a little human conversation.” - -“Oh, you’re afraid you’re not Mr. Field, are you?” the mask -replied derisively. “Then why did you turn when I called his name?” - -“You mustn’t hope to disconcert me with questions like that,” said -he. “I turned because I liked your voice.” - -He might quite reasonably have liked her voice, a delicate, clear, soft -voice, somewhat high in register, with an accent, crisp, chiselled, -concise, that suggested wit as well as distinction. She was rather -tall, for a woman; one could divine her slender and graceful, under the -voluminous folds of her domino. - -She moved a little away from the door, deeper into the conservatory. The -mandarin kept beside her. There, amongst the palms, a fontaine lumineuse -was playing, rhythmically changing colour. Now it was a shower of -rubies; now of emeralds or amethysts, of sapphires, topazes, or opals. - -“How pretty,” she said, “and how frightfully ingenious. I am -wondering whether this wouldn’t be a good place to sit down. What do -you think?” And she pointed with a fan to a rustic bench. - -“I think it would be no more than fair to give it a trial,” he -assented. - -So they sat down on the rustic bench, by the fontaine lumineuse. - -“In view of your fear that you’re not Mr. Field, it’s rather a -coincidence that at a masked ball in Vienna you should just happen to be -English, isn’t it?” she asked. - -“Oh, everybody’s more or less English, in these days, you know,” -said he. - -“There’s some truth in that,” she admitted, with a laugh. “What -a diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy -arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass, -and look like stars. They do look like stars, don’t they? Slightly -over-dressed, showy stars, indeed; stars in the German taste; but stars, -all the same. Then, by day, you know, the purple glass is removed, and -you get the sun—the real sun. Do you notice the delicious fragrance -of lilac? If one hadn’t too exacting an imagination, one might almost -persuade oneself that one was in a proper open-air garden, on a night in -May.... Yes, everybody is more or less English, in these days. That’s -precisely the sort of thing I should have expected Victor Field to -say.” - -“By-the-bye,” questioned the mandarin, “if you don’t mind -increasing my stores of knowledge, who is this fellow Field?” - -“This fellow Field? Ah, who indeed?” said she. “That’s just what -I wish you’d tell me.” - -“I’ll tell you with pleasure, after you’ve supplied me with the -necessary data,” he promised cheerfully. - -“Well, by some accounts, he’s a little literary man in London,” -she remarked. - -“Oh, come! You never imagined that I was a little literary man in -London,” protested he. - -“You might be worse,” she retorted. “However, if the phrase -offends you, I’ll say a rising young literary man, instead. He writes -things, you know.” - -“Poor chap, does he? But then, that’s a way they have, rising young -literary persons?” His tone was interrogative. - -“Doubtless,” she agreed. “Poems and stories and things. And -book reviews, I suspect. And even, perhaps, leading articles in the -newspapers.” - -“Toute la lyre enfin? What they call a penny-a-liner?” - -“I’m sure I don’t know what he’s paid. I should think he’d get -rather more than a penny. He’s fairly successful. The things he does -aren’t bad,” she said. - -“I must look ’em up,” said he. “But meantime, will you tell me -how you came to mistake me for him? Has he the Chinese type? Besides, -what on earth should a little London literary man be doing at the -Countess Wohenhoffen’s?” - -“He was standing near the door, over there,” she told him, sweetly, -“dying for a little human conversation, till I took pity on him. -No, he hasn’t exactly the Chinese type, but he’s wearing a Chinese -costume, and I should suppose he’d feel uncommonly hot in that -exasperatingly placid Chinese head. I’m nearly suffocated, and I’m -only wearing a loup. For the rest, why shouldn’t he be here?” - -“If your loup bothers you, pray take it off. Don’t mind me,” he -urged gallantly. - -“You’re extremely good,” she responded. “But if I should take -off my loup, you’d be sorry. Of course, manlike, you’re hoping that -I’m young and pretty.” - -“Well, and aren’t you?” - -“I’m a perfect fright. I’m an old maid.” - -“Thank you. Manlike, I confess I was hoping you’d be young and -pretty. Now my hope has received the strongest confirmation. I’m sure -you are,” he declared triumphantly. - -“Your argument, with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile and -superficial. Don’t pin your faith to it. Why shouldn’t Victor Field -be here?” she persisted. - -“The Countess only receives tremendous swells. It’s the most -exclusive house in Europe.” - -“Are you a tremendous swell?” she wondered. - -“Rather!” he asseverated. “Aren’t you?” - -She laughed a little, and stroked her fan, a big fan of fluffy black -feathers. - -“That’s very jolly,” said he. - -“What?” said she. - -“That thing in your lap.” - -“My fan?” - -“I expect you’d call it a fan.” - -“For goodness’ sake, what would you call it?” cried she. - -“I should call it a fan.” - -She gave another little laugh. “You have a nice instinct for the mot -juste,” she informed him. - -“Oh, no,” he disclaimed, modestly. “But I can call a fan a fan, -when I think it won’t shock the sensibilities of my hearer.” - -“If the Countess only receives tremendous swells,” said she, “you -must remember that Victor Field belongs to the Aristocracy of Talent.” - -“Oh, quant à ça, so, from the Wohenhoffens’ point of view, do the -barber and the horse-leech. In this house, the Aristocracy of Talent -dines with the butler.” - -“Is the Countess such a snob?” she asked. - -“No; she’s an Austrian. They draw the line so absurdly tight in -Austria.” - -“Well, then, you leave me no alternative,” she argued, “but to -conclude that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn’t you notice, I -bobbed him a curtsey?” - -“I took the curtsey as a tribute to my Oriental magnificence,” he -confessed. “Field doesn’t sound like an especially patrician name. -I’d give anything to discover who you are. Can’t you be induced to -tell me? I’ll bribe, entreat, threaten—I’ll do anything you think -might persuade you.” - -“I’ll tell you at once, if you’ll own up that you’re Victor -Field,” said she. - -“Oh, I’ll own up that I’m Queen Elizabeth if you’ll tell me who -you are. The end justifies the means.” - -“Then you are Victor Field?” she pursued him eagerly. - -“If you don’t mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing -it?” he reflected. “Yes. And now, who are you?” - -“No; I must have an unequivocal avowal,” she stipulated. “Are you -or are you not Victor Field?” - -“Let us put it at this,” he proposed, “that I’m a good -serviceable imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article -is not procurable.” - -“Of course, your real name isn’t anything like Victor Field,” she -declared, pensively. - -“I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one -hand and take back with the other.” - -“Your real name——” she began. “Wait a moment... Yes, now I -have it. Your real name... It’s rather long. You don’t think it will -bore you?” - -“Oh, if it’s really my real name, I daresay I’m hardened to it,” -said he. - -“Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph -Emmanuel Maria Anna.” - -“Mercy upon me,” he cried, “what a name! You ought to have broken -it to me in instalments. And it’s all Christian name at that. Can’t -you spare me just a little rag of a surname, for decency’s sake?” he -pleaded. - -“The surnames of royalties don’t matter, Monseigneur,” she said, -with a flourish. - -“Royalties? What? Dear me, here’s rapid promotion! I am royal now! -And a moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London.” - -“L’un n’empêche pas l’autre. Have you never heard the story of -the Invisible Prince?” she asked. - -“I adore irrelevancy,” said he. “I seem to have read something -about an invisible prince, when I was young. A fairy tale, wasn’t -it?” - -“The irrelevancy is only apparent. The story I mean is a story of real -life. Have you ever heard of the Duke of Zeln?” - -“Zeln? Zeln?” he repeated, reflectively. “No, I don’t think -so.” - -She clapped her hands. “Really, you do it admirably. If I weren’t -perfectly sure of my facts, I believe I should be taken in. Zeln, as any -history would tell you, as any old atlas would show you, was a little -independent duchy in the centre of Germany.” - -“Poor dear thing! Like Jonah in the centre of the whale,” he -murmured, sympathetically. - -“Hush. Don’t interrupt. Zeln was a little independent German duchy, -and the Duke of Zeln was its sovereign. After the war with France it -was absorbed by Prussia. But the ducal family still rank as royal -highnesses. Of course, you’ve heard of the Leczinskis?” - -“Lecz———-what?” said he. - -“Leczinski,” she repeated. - -“How do you spell it?” - -“L—e—c—z—i—n—s—k—i.” - -“Good. Capital. You have a real gift for spelling,” he exclaimed. - -“Will you be quiet,” she said, severely, “and answer my question? -Are you familiar with the name?” - -“I should never venture to be familiar with a name I didn’t know,” -he asserted. - -“Ah, you don’t know it? You have never heard of Stanislas Leczinski, -who was king of Poland? Of Marie Leczinska, who married Louis XV.?” - -“Oh, to be sure. I remember. The lady whose portrait one sees at -Versailles.” - -“Quite so. Very well,” she continued, “the last representative of -the Leczinskis, in the elder line, was the Princess Anna Leczinska, -who, in 1858, married the Duke of Zeln. She was the daughter of -John Leczinski, Duke of Grodnia and Governor of Galicia, and of the -Archduchess Henrietta d’.ste, a cousin of the Emperor of Austria. She -was also a great heiress, and an extremely handsome woman. But the Duke -of Zeln was a bad lot, a viveur, a gambler, a spendthrift. His wife, -like a fool, made her entire fortune over to him, and he proceeded to -play ducks and drakes with it. By the time their son was born he’d got -rid of the last farthing. Their son wasn’t born till ’63, five -years after their marriage. Well, and then, what do you suppose the Duke -did?” - -“Reformed, of course. The wicked husband always reforms when a child -is born, and there’s no more money,” he generalised. - -“You know perfectly well what he did,” said she. “He petitioned -the German Diet to annul the marriage. You see, having exhausted the -dowry of the Princess Anna, it occurred to him that if she could only -be got out of the way, he might marry another heiress, and have the -spending of another fortune.” - -“Clever dodge,” he observed. “Did it come off?” - -“It came off, all too well. He based his petition on the ground that -the marriage had never been.... I forget what the technical term is. -Anyhow, he pretended that the princess had never been his wife except -in name, and that the child couldn’t possibly be his. The Emperor of -Austria stood by his connection, like the loyal gentleman he is; used -every scrap of influence he possessed to help her. But the duke, who was -a Protestant (the princess was of course a Catholic), the duke persuaded -all the Protestant States in the Diet to vote in his favour. The Emperor -of Austria was powerless, the Pope was powerless. And the Diet annulled -the marriage.” - -“Ah,” said the mandarin. - -“Yes,” she went on. “The marriage was annulled, and the child -declared illegitimate. Ernest Augustus, as the duke was somewhat -inconsequently named, married again, and had other children, the eldest -of whom is the present bearer of the title—the same Duke of Zeln one -hears of, quarrelling with the croupiers at Monte Carlo. The Princess -Anna, with her baby, came to Austria. The Emperor gave her a -pension, and lent her one of his country houses to live in—Schloss -Sanct-Andreas. Our hostess, by-the-bye, the Countess Wohenhoffen, was -her intimate friend and her première dame d’honneur.” - -“Ah,” said the mandarin. - -“But the poor princess had suffered more than she could bear. She died -when her child was four years old. The Countess Wohenhoffen took the -infant, by the Emperor’s desire, and brought him up with her own son -Peter. He was called Prince Louis Leczinski. Of course, in all moral -right, he was the Hereditary Prince of Zeln. His legitimacy, for the -rest, and his mother’s innocence, are perfectly well established, in -every sense but a legal sense, by the fact that he has all the physical -characteristics of the Zeln stock. He has the Zeln nose and the Zeln -chin, which are as distinctive as the Habsburg lip.” - -“I hope, for the poor young man’s sake, though, that they’re not -so unbecoming?” questioned the mandarin. - -“They’re not exactly pretty,” answered the mask. “The nose is a -thought too long, the chin is a trifle too short. However, I daresay the -poor young man is satisfied. As I was about to tell you, the Countess -Wohenhoflen brought him up, and the Emperor destined him for the Church. -He even went to Rome and entered the Austrian College. He’d have been -on the high road to a cardinalate by this time if he’d stuck to the -priesthood, for he had strong interest. But, lo and behold, when he was -about twenty, he chucked the whole thing up.” - -“Ah? Histoire de femme?” - -“Very likely,” she assented, “though I’ve never heard any one -say so. At all events, he left Rome, and started upon his travels. -He had no money of his own, but the Emperor made him an allowance. He -started upon his travels, and he went to India, and he went to America, -and he went to South Africa, and then, finally, in ’87 or ’88, he -went—no one knows where. He totally disappeared, vanished into space. -He’s not been heard of since. Some people think he’s dead. But the -greater number suppose that he tired of his false position in the world, -and one fine day determined to escape from it, by sinking his identity, -changing his name, and going in for a new life under new conditions. -They call him the Invisible Prince. His position was rather an ambiguous -one, wasn’t it? You see, he was neither one thing nor the other. He -had no état-civil. In the eyes of the law he was a bastard, yet he knew -himself to be the legitimate son of the Duke of Zeln. He was a citizen -of no country, yet he was the rightful heir to a throne. He was the last -descendant of Stanislas Leczinski, yet it was without authority that he -bore his name. And then, of course, the rights and wrongs of the matter -were only known to a few. The majority of people simply remembered that -there had been a scandal. And (as a wag once said of him) wherever he -went, he left his mother’s reputation behind him. No wonder he -found the situation irksome. Well, there is the story of the Invisible -Prince.” - -“And a very exciting, melodramatic little story, too. For my part, I -suspect your Prince met a boojum. I love to listen to stories. Won’t -you tell me another? Do, please,” he pressed her. - -“No, he didn’t meet a boojum,” she returned. “He went to -England, and set up for an author. The Invisible Prince and Victor Field -are one and the same person.” - -“Oh, I say! Not really!” he exclaimed. - -“Yes, really.” - -“What makes you think so?” he wondered. - -“I’m sure of it,” said she. “To begin with, I must confide to -you that Victor Field is a man I’ve never met.” - -“Never met...?” he gasped. “But, by the blithe way in which you -were laying his sins at my door, a little while ago, I supposed you were -sworn confederates.” - -“What’s the good of masked balls, if you can’t talk to people -you’ve never met?” she submitted. “I’ve never met him, but -I’m one of his admirers. I like his little poems. And I’m the happy -possessor of a portrait of him. It’s a print after a photograph. I cut -it from an illustrated paper.” - -“I really almost wish I was Victor Field,” he sighed. “I should -feel such a glow of gratified vanity.” - -“And the Countess Wohenhoffen,” she added, “has at least twenty -portraits of the Invisible Prince—photographs, miniatures, life-size -paintings, taken from the time he was born, almost, to the time of his -disappearance. Victor Field and Louis Leczinski have countenances as -like each other as two halfpence.” - -“An accidental resemblance, doubtless.” - -“No, it isn’t an accidental resemblance,” she affirmed. - -“Oh, then you think it’s intentional?” he quizzed. - -“Don’t be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one -or two odd little circumstances. Primo, Victor Field is a guest at the -Wohenhoffens’ ball.” - -“Oh, he is a guest here?” - -“Yes, he is,” she said. “You are wondering how I know. Nothing -simpler. The same costumier who made my domino, supplied his Chinese -dress. I noticed it at his shop. It struck me as rather nice, and I -asked whom it was for. The costumier said, for an Englishman at -the Hôtel de Bade. Then he looked in his book, and told me the -Englishman’s name. It was Victor Field. So, when I saw the same -Chinese dress here to-night, I knew it covered the person of one of my -favourite authors. But I own, like you, I was a good deal surprised. -What on earth should a little London literary man be doing at the -Countess Wohenhoffen’s? And then I remembered the astonishing -resemblance between Victor Field and Louis Leczinski; and I remembered -that to Louis Leczinski the Countess Wohenhoffen had been a second -mother; and I reflected that though he chose to be as one dead and -buried for the rest of the world, Louis Leczinski might very probably -keep up private relations with the Countess. He might very probably -come to her ball, incognito, and safely masked. I observed also that the -Countess’s rooms were decorated throughout with white lilac. But the -white lilac is the emblematic flower of the Leczinskis; green and white -are their family colours. Wasn’t the choice of white lilac on this -occasion perhaps designed as a secret compliment to the Prince? I was -taught in the schoolroom that two and two make four.” - -“Oh, one can see that you’ve enjoyed a liberal education,” he -apprised her. “But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You -do it with a grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make -four; but first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there -couldn’t be more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, -during carnival week! Dear, good, sweet lady, it’s of all disguises -the disguise they’re driving hardest, this particular season. And -then to build up an elaborate theory of identities upon the mere chance -resemblance of a pair of photographs! Photographs indeed! Photographs -don’t give the complexion. Say that your Invisible Prince is dark, -what’s to prevent your literary man from being fair or sandy? Or vice -versa? And then, how is a little German Polish princeling to write poems -and things in English? No, no, no; your reasoning hasn’t a leg to -stand on.” - -“Oh, I don’t mind its not having legs,” she laughed, “so long -as it convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you -yourself said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. -German princes are especially so. They all learn English, as a second -mother-tongue. You see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred -up for the marriage market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good -sound remunerative English marriage, than a knowledge of the language. -However, don’t be frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor -Field would prefer not to let the world know who he is. I happen to have -discovered his secret. He may trust to my discretion.” - -“You still persist in imagining that I’m Victor Field?” he -murmured sadly. - -“I should have to be extremely simple-minded,” she announced, “to -imagine anything else. You wouldn’t be a male human being if you had -sat here for half an hour patiently talking about another man.” - -“Your argument,” said he, “with a meretricious air of subtlety, is -facile and superficial. I thank you for teaching me that word. I’d -sit here till doomsday talking about my worst enemy, for the pleasure of -talking with you.” - -“Perhaps we have been talking of your worst enemy. Whom do the -moralists pretend a man’s worst enemy is wont to be?” she asked. - -“I wish you would tell me the name of the person the moralists would -consider your worst enemy,” he replied. - -“I’ll tell you directly, as I said before, if you’ll own up,” -she offered. - -“Your price is prohibitive. I’ve nothing to own up to.” - -“Well then—good night,” she said. - -Lightly, swiftly, she fled from the conservatory, and was soon -irrecoverable in the crowd. - - - - - -The next morning Victor Field left Vienna for London; but before he left -he wrote a letter to Peter Wohenhoffen. In the course of it he said: -“There was an Englishwoman at your ball last night with the reasoning -powers of a detective in a novel. By divers processes of elimination and -induction, she had formed all sorts of theories about no end of things. -Among others, for instance, he was willing to bet her hali-dome that a -certain Prince Louis Leczinski, who seems to have gone on the spree some -years ago, and never to have come home again—she was willing to bet -anything you like that Leczinski and I—moi qui vous parle—were to -all intents and purposes the same. Who was she, please? Rather a tall -woman, in a black domino, with grey eyes, or greyish-blue, and a nice -voice.” - -In the answer which he received from Peter Wohenhoffen towards the -end of the week, Peter said: “There were nineteen Englishwomen at my -mother’s party, all of them rather tall, with nice voices, and grey or -blue-grey eyes. I don’t know what colours their dominoes were. Here is -a list of them.” - -The names that followed were names of people whom Victor Field almost -certainly would never meet. The people Victor knew in London were the -sort of people a little literary man might be expected to know. Most of -them were respectable; some of them even deemed themselves rather smart, -and patronised him right Britishly. But the nineteen names in Peter -Wohenhoffen’s list (“Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried Victor) were names to -make you gasp. - -All the same, he went a good deal to Hyde Park during the season, and -watched the driving. - -“Which of all those haughty high-born beauties is she?” he wondered -futilely. - -And then the season passed, and then the year; and little by little, of -course, he ceased to think about her. - - - - - -One afternoon last May, a man, habited in accordance with the fashion -of the period, stopped before a hairdresser’s shop in Knightsbridge -somewhere, and, raising his hat, bowed to the three waxen ladies who -simpered from the window. - -“Oh! It’s Mr. Field!” a voice behind him cried. “What are those -cryptic rites that you’re performing? What on earth are you bowing -into a hairdresser’s window for?”—a smooth, melodious voice, -tinged by an inflection that was half ironical, half bewildered. - -“I was saluting the type of English beauty,” he answered, turning. -“Fortunately, there are divergencies from it,” he added, as he met -the puzzled smile of his interlocutrice; a puzzled smile indeed, but, -like the voice, by no means without its touch of irony. - -She gave a little laugh; and then, examining the models critically, -“Oh?” she questioned. “Would you call that the type? You place -the type high. Their features are quite faultless, and who ever saw such -complexions?” - -“It’s the type, all the same,” said he. “Just as the imitation -marionette is the type of English breeding.” - -“The imitation marionette? I’m afraid I don’t follow,” she -confessed. - -“The imitation marionettes. You’ve seen them at little theatres in -Italy. They’re actors who imitate puppets. Men and women who try to -behave as if they weren’t human, as if they were made of starch and -whalebone, instead of flesh and blood.” - -“Ah, yes,” she assented, with another little laugh. “That would be -rather typical of our insular methods. But do you know what an engaging, -what a reviving spectacle you presented, as you stood there flourishing -your hat? What do you imagine people thought? And what would have -happened to you if I had just chanced to be a policeman instead of a -friend?” - -“Would you have clapped your handcuffs on me?” he enquired. “I -suppose my conduct did seem rather suspicious. I was in the deepest -depth of dejection. One must give some expression to one’s sorrow.” - -“Are you going towards Kensington?” she asked, preparing to move on. - -“Before I commit myself, I should like to be sure whether you are,” -he replied. - -“You can easily discover with a little perseverance.” - -He placed himself beside her, and together they walked towards -Kensington. - -She was rather taller than the usual woman, and slender. She was -exceedingly well-dressed; smartly, becomingly; a jaunty little hat of -strangely twisted straw, with an aigrette springing defiantly from it; a -jacket covered with mazes and labyrinths of embroidery; at her throat -a big knot of white lace, the ends of which fell winding in a creamy -cascade to her waist (do they call the thing a jabot?); and then.... - -But what can a man trust himself to write of these esoteric matters? She -carried herself extremely well, too: with grace, with distinction, her -head held high, even thrown back a little, superciliously. She had an -immense quantity of very lovely hair. Red hair? Yellow hair? Red hair -with yellow lights burning in it? Yellow hair with red fires shimmering -through it? In a single loose, full billow it swept away from her -forehead, and then flowed into half-a-thousand rippling, crinkling, -capricious undulations. And her skin had the sensitive colouring, the -fineness of texture, that are apt to accompany red hair when it’s -yellow, yellow hair when it’s red. Her face, with its pensive, -quizzical eyes, it’s tip-tilted nose, it’s rather large mouth, and -the little mocking quirks and curves the lips took, was an alert, arch, -witty face; a delicate high-bred face; and withal a somewhat sensuous, -emotional face; the face of a woman with a vast deal of humour in her -soul, a vast deal of mischief; of a woman who would love to tease you, -and mystify you, and lead you on, and put you off; and yet who, in her -own way, at her own time, would know supremely well how to be kind. - -But it was mischief rather than kindness that glimmered in her eyes at -present, as she asked, “You were in the deepest depths of dejection. -Poor man! Why?” - -“I can’t precisely determine,” said he, “whether the sympathy -that seems to vibrate in your voice is genuine or counterfeit.” - -“Perhaps it’s half and half,” she suggested. “But my curiosity -is unmixed. Tell me your troubles.” - -“The catalogue is long. I’ve sixteen hundred million. The weather, -for example. The shameless beauty of this radiant spring day. It’s -enough to stir all manner of wild pangs and longings in the heart of an -octogenarian. But, anyhow, when one’s life is passed in a dungeon, one -can’t perpetually be singing and dancing from mere exuberance of joy, -can one?” - -“Is your life passed in a dungeon?” she exclaimed. - -“Indeed, indeed, it is. Isn’t yours?” - -“It had never occurred to me that it was.” - -“You’re lucky. Mine is passed in the dungeons of Castle Ennui,” he -said. - -“Oh, Castle Ennui. Ah, yes. You mean you’re bored?” - -“At this particular moment I’m savouring the most exquisite -excitement,” he professed. “But in general, when I am not working or -sleeping, I’m bored to extermination—incomparably bored. If only -one could work and sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year -round! There’s no use trying to play in London. It’s so hard to find -a playmate. The English people take their pleasures without salt.” - -“The dungeons of Castle Ennui,” she repeated meditatively. “Yes, -we are fellow-prisoners. I’m bored to extermination too. Still,” she -added, “one is allowed out on parole, now and again. And sometimes one -has really quite delightful little experiences.” - -“It would ill become me, in the present circumstances, to dispute -that,” he answered, bowing. - -“But the castle waits to reclaim us afterwards, doesn’t it?” she -mused. “That’s rather a happy image, Castle Ennui.” - -“I’m extremely glad you approve of it. Castle Ennui is the Bastille -of modern life. It is built of prunes and prisms; it has its outer court -of Convention, and its inner court of Propriety; it is moated round by -Respectability, and the shackles its inmates wear are forged of dull -little duties and arbitrary little rules. You can only escape from it -at the risk of breaking your social neck, or remaining a fugitive from -social justice to the end of your days. Yes, it is a fairly decent -little image.” - -“A bit out of something you’re preparing for the press?” she -hinted. - -“Oh, how unkind of you!” he cried. “It was absolutely -extemporaneous.” - -“One can never tell, with vous autres gens-de-lettres,” she laughed. - -“It would be friendlier to say nous autres gens d’esprit,” he -submitted. - -“Aren’t we proving to what degree nous autres gens d’esprit sont -bêtes,” she remarked, “by continuing to walk along this narrow -pavement, when we can get into Kensington Gardens by merely crossing the -street? Would it take you out of your way?” - -“I have no way. I was sauntering for pleasure, if you can believe -me. I wish I could hope that you have no way either. Then we could stop -here, and crack little jokes together the livelong afternoon,” he -said, as they entered the Gardens. - -“Alas, my way leads straight back to the Castle. I’ve promised to -call on an old woman in Campden Hill,” said she. - -“Disappoint her. It’s good for old women to be disappointed. It -whips up their circulation.” - -“I shouldn’t much regret disappointing the old woman,” she -admitted, “and I should rather like an hour or two of stolen freedom. -I don’t mind owning that I’ve generally found you, as men go, a -moderately interesting man to talk with. But the deuce of it is... You -permit the expression?” - -“I’m devoted to the expression.” - -“The deuce of it is, I’m supposed to be driving,” she explained. - -“Oh, that doesn’t matter. So many suppositions in this world are -baseless,” he reminded her. - -“But there’s the prison van,” she said. “It’s one of the -tiresome rules in the female wing of Castle Ennui that you’re always -supposed, more or less, to be driving. And though you may cheat the -authorities by slipping out of the prison van directly it’s turned the -corner, and sending it on ahead, there it remains, a factor that can’t -be eliminated. The prison van will relentlessly await my arrival in the -old woman’s street.” - -“That only adds to the sport. Let it wait. When a factor can’t be -eliminated, it should be haughtily ignored. Besides, there are higher -considerations. If you leave me, what shall I do with the rest of this -weary day?” - -“You can go to your club.” - -He threw up his hand. “Merciful lady! What sin have I committed? I -never go to my club, except when I’ve been wicked, as a penance. If -you will permit me to employ a metaphor—oh, but a tried and trusty -metaphor—when one ship on the sea meets another in distress, it stops -and comforts it, and forgets all about its previous engagements and the -prison van and everything. Shall we cross to the north, and see whether -the Serpentine is in its place? Or would you prefer to inspect the -eastern front of the Palace? Or may I offer you a penny chair?” - -“I think a penny chair would be the maddest of the three -dissipations,” she decided. - -And they sat down in penny chairs. - -“It’s rather jolly here, isn’t it?” said he. “The trees, with -their black trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen -such sumptuous foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the -sunlight, and the atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn’t it like -pearl-dust and gold-dust floating in the air? It’s all got up to -imitate the background of a Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous -and ribald, and supply a proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white -the clouds are. Do you think they’re made of cotton-wool? And what do -you suppose they paint the sky with? There never was such a brilliant, -breath-taking blue. It’s much too nice to be natural. And they’ve -sprinkled the whole place with scent, haven’t they? You notice -how fresh and sweet it smells. If only one could get rid of the -sparrows—the cynical little beasts! hear how they’re chortling—and -the people, and the nursemaids and children. I have never been able to -understand why they admit the public to the parks.” - -“Go on,” she encouraged him. “You’re succeeding admirably in -your effort to be ribald.” - -“But that last remark wasn’t ribald in the least—it was -desperately sincere. I do think it’s inconsiderate of them to admit -the public to the parks. They ought to exclude all the lower classes, -the People, at one fell swoop, and then to discriminate tremendously -amongst the others.” - -“Mercy, what undemocratic sentiments!” she cried. “The People, the -poor dear People—what have they done?” - -“Everything. What haven’t they done? One could forgive their being -dirty and stupid and noisy and rude; one could forgive their ugliness, -the ineffable banality of their faces, their goggle-eyes, their -protruding teeth, their ungainly motions; but the trait one can’t -forgive is their venality. They’re so mercenary. They’re always -thinking how much they can get out of you—everlastingly touching their -hats and expecting you to put your hand in your pocket. Oh, no, believe -me, there’s no health in the People. Ground down under the iron heel -of despotism, reduced to a condition of hopeless serfdom, I don’t say -that they might not develop redeeming virtues. But free, but sovereign, -as they are in these days, they’re everything that is squalid -and sordid and offensive. Besides, they read such abominably bad -literature.” - -“In that particular they’re curiously like the aristocracy, aren’t -they?” said she. “By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another -book of poems?” - -“Apropos of bad literature?” - -“Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems.” - -“So do I,” said he. “It’s useless to pretend that we haven’t -tastes in common.” - -They were both silent for a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable -little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a -merry trill of laughter. - -“What are you laughing at?” he demanded. - -“I’m hugely amused,” she answered. - -“I wasn’t aware that I’d said anything especially good.” - -“You’re building better than you know. But if I am amused, you look -ripe for tears. What is the matter?” - -“Every heart knows its own bitterness,” he answered. “Don’t pay -the least attention to me. You mustn’t let moodiness of mine cast a -blight upon your high spirits.” - -“No fear,” she assured him. “There are pleasures that nothing can -rob of their sweetness. Life is not all dust and ashes. There are bright -spots.” - -“Yes, I’ve no doubt there are,” he said. - -“And thrilling little adventures—no?” she questioned. - -“For the bold, I dare say.” - -“None but the bold deserve them. Sometimes it’s one thing, and -sometimes it’s another.” - -“That’s very certain,” he agreed. - -“Sometimes, for instance,” she went on, “one meets a man one -knows, and speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, -almost directly, what do you suppose one discovers?” - -“What?” he asked. - -“One discovers that the wretch hasn’t the ghost of a notion who one -is—that he’s totally and absolutely forgotten one!” - -“Oh, I say! Really?” he exclaimed. - -“Yes, really. You can’t deny that that’s an exhilarating little -adventure.” - -“I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man’s -embarrassment,” he reflected. - -“Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a sang -froid! They’ll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and -talk with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong -afternoon cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint -of their perplexity. They’ll brazen it out.” - -“That’s distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don’t you think?” -he said. “Internally, poor dears, they’re very likely suffering -agonies of discomfiture.” - -“We’ll hope they are. Could they decently do less?” said she. - -“And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their -brains,” he urged. “If I were a man in such a situation I’d throw -myself upon the woman’s mercy. I’d say, ’Beautiful, sweet lady! I -know I know you. Your name, your entirely charming and appropriate -name, is trembling on the tip of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable -reason, my brute of a memory chooses to play the fool. If you’ve a -spark of Christian kindness in your soul, you’ll come to my rescue -with a little clue.’.rdquo; - -“If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I -fear you’d throw yourself on her mercy in vain,” she warned him. - -“What is the good of tantalising people?” - -“Besides,” she continued, “the woman might reasonably feel -slightly humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced -manner.” - -“The humiliation surely would be all the man’s. Have you heard from -the Wohenhoffens lately?” - -“The—what? The—who?” She raised her eyebrows. - -“The Wohenhoffens,” he repeated. - -“What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?” - -“Oh, nothing. My enquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for -knowledge. It occurred to me vaguely that you might have worn a black -domino at a masked ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you -didn’t?” - -“I’ve a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I -did,” she teased. - -“She was rather tall, like you, and she had grey eyes, and a nice -voice, and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. -She was monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have -made her a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have -always been anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her -to marry me. I’m strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was -she?” he pleaded. - -“If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?” she -asked. - -“Try it and see.” - -“Ce n’est pas la peine. It occasionally happens that a woman’s -already got a husband.” - -“She said she was an old maid.” - -“Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?” she cried. - -“Yes.” - -“Upon my word!” - -“Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so -insipid as a young girl? Were you the woman of the black domino?” he -persisted. - -“I should need further information, before being able to make up -my mind. Are the—what’s their name?—Wohenheimer?—are the -Wohenheimers people one can safely confess to knowing? Oh, you’re -a man, and don’t count. But a woman? It sounds a trifle Jewish, -Wohenheimer. But of course there are Jews and Jews.” - -“You’re playing with me like the cat in the adage,” he sighed. -“It’s too cruel. No one is responsible for his memory.” - -“And to think that this man took me down to dinner not two months -ago!” she murmured in her veil. - -“You’re as hard as nails. In whose house? Or—stay. Prompt me a -little. Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come -with a rush.” - -“My name is Matilda Muggins.” - -“I’ve a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to -believe you,” said he. “Have you really got a husband?” - -“Why do you doubt it?” said she. - -“I don’t doubt it. Have you?” - -“I don’t know what to answer.” - -“Don’t you know whether you’ve got a husband?” he protested. - -“I don’t know what I’d better let you believe. Yes, on the -whole, I think you may as well assume that I’ve got a husband,” she -concluded. - -“And a lover, too?” he asked. - -“Really! I like your impertinence!” She bridled. “I only asked -to show a polite interest. I knew the answer would be an indignant -negative. You’re an Englishwoman, and you’re nice. Oh, one can see -with half an eye that you’re nice. But that a nice Englishwoman should -have a lover is as inconceivable as that she should have side-whiskers. -It’s only the reg’lar bad-uns in England who have lovers. There’s -nothing between the family pew and the divorce court. One nice -Englishwoman is a match for the whole Eleven Thousand Virgins of -Cologne.” - -“To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For -a man of the name of Field, you’re uncommonly foreign. You look rather -foreign too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven’t at all an English cast -of countenance,” she considered. - -“I’ve enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought -up abroad,” he explained. - -“Where your features unconsciously assimilated themselves to a foreign -type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign -things, no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little -foreign notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and -misconceptions concerning England?” she questioned. - -“Most of them,” he assented. - -“Perfide Albion? English hypocrisy?” she pursued. - -“Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there’s only -one objection to their hypocrisy—it so rarely covers any wickedness. -It’s such a disappointment to see a creature stalking towards you, -laboriously draped in sheep’s clothing, and then to discover that -it’s only a sheep. You, for instance, as I took the liberty of -intimating a moment ago, in spite of your perfectly respectable -appearance, are a perfectly respectable woman. If you weren’t, -wouldn’t I be making furious love to you, though!” - -“As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn’t make furious love to -me, if it would amuse you. There’s no harm in firing your pistol at a -person who’s bullet-proof,” she laughed. - -“No; it’s merely a wanton waste of powder and shot,” said he. -“However, I shouldn’t stick at that. The deuce of it is.... You -permit the expression?” - -“I’m devoted to the expression.” - -“The deuce of it is, you profess to be married.” - -“Do you mean to say that you, with your unprincipled foreign notions, -would be restrained by any such consideration as that?” she wondered. - -“I shouldn’t be for an instant—if I weren’t in love with you.” - -“Comment donc? Déjà?” she cried with a laugh. - -“Oh, déjà! Why not? Consider the weather—consider the scene. Is -the air soft, is it fragrant? Look at the sky—good heavens!—and -the clouds, and the shadows on the grass, and the sunshine between -the trees. The world is made of light today, of light and colour, and -perfume and music. Tutt’ intorno canta amort amor, amore! What -would you have? One recognises one’s affinity. One doesn’t need a -lifetime. You began the business at the Wohenhoffens’ ball. To-day -you’ve merely put on the finishing touches.” - -“Oh, then I am the woman you met at the masked ball?” she cried. - -“Look me in the eye, and tell me you’re not,” he defied her. - -“I haven’t the faintest interest in telling you I’m not. On the -contrary, it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am.” - -“She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything,” -he confided. - -“Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as -her instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a -watch about you?” she inquired. - -“Yes,” he said. - -“Will you be good enough to tell me what o’clock it is?” - -“What are your motives for asking?” - -“I’m expected at home at five.” - -“Where do you live?” - -“What are the motives for asking?” - -“I want to call upon you.” - -“You might wait till you’re invited.” - -“Well, invite me—quick!” - -“Never.” - -“Never?” - -“Never, never, never,” she asseverated. “A man who’s forgotten -me as you have!” - -“But if I’ve only met you once at a masked ball........” - -“Can’t you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for -that woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?” she -demanded. - -“But if you won’t invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to -see you again?” - -“I haven’t an idea,” she answered, cheerfully. “I must go now. -Good bye.” She rose. - -“One moment,” he interposed. “Before you go will you allow me to -look at the palm of your left hand?” - -“What for?” - -“I can tell fortunes. I’m extremely good at it,” he boasted. -“I’ll tell you yours.” - -“Oh, very well,” she assented, sitting down again: and guilelessly -she pulled off her glove. - -He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft, -with rosy, tapering fingers. - -“Oho! you are an old maid after all,” he cried. “There’s no -wedding ring.” - -“You villain!” she gasped, snatching the hand away. - -“I promised to tell your fortune. Haven’t I told it correctly?” - -“You needn’t rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don’t like to -be reminded of their condition.” - -“Will you marry me?” - -“Why do you ask?” - -“Partly from curiosity. Partly because it’s the only way I can think -of, to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will -you?” - -“I can’t,” she said. - -“Why not?” - -“The stars forbid. And I’m ambitious. In my horoscope it is written -that I shall either never marry at all, or—marry royalty.” - -“Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?” - -“If you care to follow me,” she said, rising again, “you can come -and help me to commit a little theft.” - -He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path, -where she stopped before a bush of white lilac. - -“There are no keepers in sight, are there?” she questioned. - -“I don’t see any,” he said. - -“Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods,” said she, -breaking off a spray, and handing it to him. - -“Thank you. But I’d rather have an answer to my question.” - -“Isn’t that an answer?” - -“Is it?” - -“White lilac—to the Invisible Prince?” - -“The Invisible Prince.... Then you are the black domino!” he -exclaimed. - -“Oh, I suppose so,” she consented. - -“And you will marry me?” - -“I’ll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner.” - -“But will you marry me?” - -“I thought you wished me to cheat my horoscope?” - -“How could you find a better means of doing so?” - -“What! if I should marry Louis Leczinski...?” - -“Oh, to be sure. You would have it that I was Louis Leczinski. But, on -that subject, I must warn you seriously——” - -“One instant,” she interrupted. “People must look other people -straight in the face when they’re giving serious warnings. Look -straight into my eyes, and continue your serious warning.” - -“I must really warn you seriously,” said he, biting his lip, “that -if you persist in that preposterous delusion about my being Louis -Leczinski, you’ll be most awfully sold. I have nothing on earth to -do with Louis Leczinski. Your ingenious little theories, as I tried to -convince you at the time, were absolute romance.” - -Her eyebrows raised a little, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on -his—oh, in the drollest fashion, with a gaze that seemed to say “How -admirably you do it! I wonder whether you imagine I believe you. Oh, you -fibber! Aren’t you ashamed to tell me such abominable fibs?”... - -They stood still, eyeing each other thus, for something like twenty -seconds, and then they both laughed and walked on. - - - - -P’TIT-BLEU - -P’tit-Bleu, poor P’tit-Bleu! I can’t name her without a sigh; -I can’t think of her without a kind of heartache. Yet, all things -considered, I wonder whether hers was really a destiny to sorrow over. -True, she has disappeared; and it is not pleasant to conjecture what she -may have come to, what may have befallen her, in the flesh, since her -disappearance. But when I remember those beautiful preceding years of -self-abnegation, of great love, and pain, and devotion, I find myself -instinctively believing that something good she must have permanently -gained; some treasure that nothing, not the worst imaginable subsequent -disaster, can quite have taken from her. It is not pleasant to -conjecture what she may have done or suffered in the flesh; but in the -spirit, one may hope, she cannot have gone altogether to the bad, nor -fared altogether ill. - -In the spirit! Dear me, there was a time when it would have seemed -derisory to speak of the spirit in the same breath with P’tit-Bleu. In -the early days of my acquaintance with her, for example, I should have -stared if anybody had spoken of her spirit. If anybody had asked me to -describe her, I should have said, “She is a captivating little animal, -pretty and sprightly, but as soulless—as soulless as a squirrel.” -Oh, a warm-blooded little animal, good-natured, quick-witted, full of -life and the joy of life; a delightful little animal to play with, to -fondle; but just a little animal, none the less: a little mass of soft, -rosy, jocund, sensual, soulless matter. And in her full red lips, her -roguish black eyes, her plump little hands, her trim, tight little -figure—in her smile, her laugh—in the toss of her head—in her -saucy, slightly swaggering carriage—I fancy you would have read my -appreciation justified. No doubt there must have been the spark 01 a -soul smouldering somewhere in her (how, otherwise, account for what -happened later on?), but it was far too tiny a spark to be perceptible -to the casual observer. Soul, however, I need hardly add, was the last -thing we of the University were accustomed to look for in our feminine -companions; I must not for an instant seem to imply that the lack of a -soul in P’tit-Bleu was a subject of mourning with any of us. That a -Latin Quarter girl should be soulless was as much a part of the natural -order of creation, as that she should be beardless. They were all of -them little animals, and P’tit-Bleu diverged from the type principally -in this, that where the others, in most instances, were stupid, -objectionable little animals, she was a diverting one. She was made of -sugar and spice and a hundred nice ingredients, whilst they were made of -the dullest, vulgarest clay. - -In my own case, P’tit-Bleu was the object, not indeed of love, but of -a violent infatuation, at first sight. - -At Bullier, one evening, a chain of students, some twenty linked hand in -hand, were chasing her round and round the hall, shouting after her, -in rough staccato, something that sounded like, “Ti-bah! Ti-bah! -Ti-bah!”—while she, a sprite-like little form, in a black skirt and -a scarlet bodice, fled before them with leaps and bounds, and laughed -defiantly. - -I hadn’t the vaguest notion what “Ti-bah! Ti-bah! Ti-bah!” meant, -but that laughing face, with the red lips and the roguish eyes, seemed -to me immensely fascinating. Among the faces of the other young -ladies present—faces of dough, faces of tallow, faces all weariness, -staleness, and banality, common, coarse, pointless, insipid faces—it -shone like an epigram amongst platitudes, a thing of fire amongst things -of dust. I turned to some one near me, and asked who she was. - -“It’s P’tit-Bleu, the dancing girl. She’s going to do a -quadrille.” - -P’tit-Bleu.... It’s the fashion, you know, in Paris, for the girls -who “do quadrilles” to adopt unlikely nicknames: aren’t the -reigning favourites at this moment Chapeau-Mou and Fifi-la-Galette? -P’tit-Bleu had derived hers from that vehement little “wine of the -barrier,” which, the song declares, “vous met la tête en feu.” It -was the tune of the same song, that, in another minute, I heard the -band strike up, in the balcony over our heads. P’tit-Bleu came to a -standstill in the middle of the floor, where she was joined by three -minor dancing-girls, to make two couples. The chain of students closed -in a circle round her. And the rest of us thronged behind them, pressing -forward, and craning our necks. Then, as the band played, everybody -sang, in noisy chorus: - - -“P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu-eu, - -Ça vous met la tête en feu! - -Ça vous ra-ra-ra-ra-ra, - -Ça vous ra-ra-ravigotte!” - - -P’tit-Bleu stood with her hands on her hips, her arms a-kimbo, her -head thrown impudently back, her eyes sparkling mischievously, her -lips curling in a perpetual play of smiles, while her three subalterns -accomplished their tame preliminary measures; and then P’tit-Bleu -pirouetted forward, and began her own indescribable pas-seul—oh, -indescribable for a hundred reasons. She wore scarlet satin slippers, -embroidered with black beads, and black silk stockings with scarlet -clocks, and simply cataracts and cataracts of white diaphanous frills -under her demure black skirt. And she danced with constantly increasing -fervour, kicked higher and higher, ever more boldly and more bravely. -Presently her hat fell off, and she tossed it from her, calling to -the member of the crowd who had the luck to catch it, “Tiens mon -chapeau!” And then her waving black hair flowed down her back, -and flew loose about her face and shoulders. And the whole time, she -laughed—laughed—laughed. With her swift whirlings, her astonishing -undulations, and the flashing of the red and black and white, one’s -eyes were dazzled. “Ça vous met la tête en feu!” My head burned -and reeled, as I watched her, and I thought, “What a delicious, -bewitching little creature! What wouldn’t I give to know her!” My -head burned, and my heart yearned covetously; but I was a new-comer in -the Quarter, and ignorant of its easy etiquette, and terribly young and -timid, and I should never have dared to speak to her without a proper -introduction. She danced with constantly increasing fervour, faster, -faster, furiously fast: till, suddenly—zip!—down she slid upon the -floor, in the grand écart, and sat there (if one may call that posture -sitting), smiling calmly up at us, whilst everybody thundered, “Bravo! -Bravo! Bravo!” - -In an instant, though, she was on her feet again, and had darted out of -the circle to the side of the youth who had caught her hat. He offered -it to her with a bow, but his pulses were thumping tempestuously, and no -doubt she could read his envy in his eyes. Anyhow, all at once, she put -her arm through his, and said—oh, thrills and wonders!—“Allons, -mon petit, I authorise you to treat me to a bock.” - -It seemed as if impossible heavens had opened to me; yet there she -was, clinging to my arm, and drawing me towards the platform under the -musicians’ gallery, where there are tables for the thirsty. Her little -plump white hand lay on my coat-sleeve; the air was heady with -the perfume of her garments; her roguish black eyes were smiling -encouragement into mine; and her red lips were so near, so near, I had -to fight down a wild impulse to stoop and snatch a kiss. She drew me -towards the tables, and, on the way, she stopped before a mirror fixed -in the wall, and rearranged her hair; while I stood close to her, still -holding her hat, and waited, feeling the most exquisite proud swelling -of the heart, as if I owned her. Her hair put right, she searched in -her pocket and produced a small round ivory box, from which—having -unscrewed its cover and handed it to me with a “Tiens ça”—she -extracted a powder-puff; and therewith she proceeded gently, daintily, -to dust her face and throat, examining the effect critically in the -glass the while. In the end she said, “Voilà, that’s better,” -and turned her face to me for corroboration. “That’s better, isn’t -it?” “It’s perfect. But—but you were perfect before, too,” -asseverated I. Oh, what a joy beyond measure thus to be singled out -and made her confidant and adviser in these intimate affairs.... At our -table, leaning back nonchalantly in her chair, as she quaffed her bock -and puffed her cigarette, she looked like a bright-eyed, red-lipped -bacchante. - -I gazed at her in a quite unutterable ecstasy of admiration. My -conscience told me that I ought to pay her a compliment upon her -dancing; but I couldn’t shape one: my wits were paralysed by my -emotions. I could only gaze, and gaze, and revel in my unexpected -fortune. At last, however, the truth burst from me in a sort of -involuntary gasp. - -“But you are adorable—adorable.” - -She gave a quick smile of intelligence, of sympathy, and, with a knowing -toss of the head and a provoking glance, suggested, “Je te mets la -tête en feu, quoi!” She, you perceive, was entirely at her ease, -mistress of the situation. It is conceivable that she had met neophytes -before—that I was by no means to her the unprecedented experience -she was to me. At any rate, she understood my agitation and sought to -reassure me. “Don’t be afraid; I’ll not eat you,” she promised. - -I, in the depths of my mind, had been meditating what I could not but -deem an excessively audacious proposal Her last speech gave me my cue, -and I risked it. - -“Perhaps you would like to eat something else? If—if we should go -somewhere and sup?” - -“Monsieur thinks he will be safer to take precautions,” she laughed. -“Well—I submit.” - -So we removed ourselves to the cloak-room, where she put on her cloak, -and exchanged her slippers for a pair of boots (you can guess, perhaps, -who enjoyed the beatific privilege of buttoning them for her); and then -we left the Closerie des Lilas, falsely so called, with its flaring gas, -its stifling atmosphere, its boisterous merrymakers, and walked arm -in arm—only this time it was my arm that was within hers—down the -Boul’ Miche, past the Luxembourg gardens, where sweet airs blew in our -faces, to the Gambrinus restaurant, in the Rue de Médicis. And there -you should have seen P’tit-Bleu devouring écrevisses. Whatsoever -this young woman’s hand found to do, she did it with her might. She -attacked her écrevisses with the same jubilant abandon with which she -had executed her bewildering single-step. She devoured them with an -energy, an enthusiasm, a thoroughness, that it was invigorating to -witness; smacking her lips, and smiling, and, from time to time, between -the mouthfuls, breathing soft little interjections of content. When the -last pink shell was emptied, she threw herself back, and sighed, and -explained, with delectable unconsciousness, “I was hungry.” But -at my venturing to protest, “Not really?” she broke into mirthful -laughter, and added, “At least, I had the appearance.” Meanwhile, I -must not fail to mention, she had done abundant honour to her share of a -bottle of chablis. - -Don’t be horrified—haven’t the Germans, who ought to know, a -proverb that recommends it? “Wein auf Bier, das rath’ ich Dir.” - -I have said that none of us mourned the absence of a soul in -P’tit-Bleu. Nevertheless, as I looked at her to-night, and realised -what a bright, joyous, good-humoured little thing she was, how healthy, -and natural, and even, in a way, innocent she was, I suddenly felt a -curious depression. She was all this, and yet... For just a moment, -perhaps, I did vaguely mourn the lack of something. Oh, she was well -enough for the present; she was joyous, and good-humoured, and innocent -in a way; she was young and pretty, and the world smiled upon her. -But—for the future? When it occurred to me to think of her future—of -what it must almost certainly be like, of what she must almost -inevitably become—I confess my jaw dropped, and the salt of our -banquet lost its savour. - -“What’s the matter? Why do you look at me like that?” P’tit-Bleu -demanded. - -So I had to pull myself up and be jolly again. It was not altogether -difficult. In the early twenties, troublesome reflections are easily -banished, I believe; and I had a lively comrade. - -After her crayfish were disposed of, P’tit-Bleu called for coffee and -lit a cigarette. And then, between whiffs and sips, she prattled gaily -of the subject which, of all subjects, she was probably best qualified -to treat, and which assuredly, for the time being, possessed most -interest for her listener—P’tit-Bleu. She told me, as it were, the -story of her birth, parentage, life, and exploits. It was the simplest -story, the commonest story. Her mother (la recherche de la paternité -est interdite), her mother had died when she was sixteen, and Jeanne -(that was her baptismal name, Jeanne Mérois) had gone to work in the -shop of a dressmaker, where, sewing hard from eight in the morning till -seven at night, with an hour’s intermission at noon, she could earn, -in good seasons, as much as two-francs-fifty a day. Two and a half -francs a day—say twelve shillings a week—in good seasons; and one -must eat, and lodge, and clothe one’s body, and pay one’s laundress, -in good seasons and in bad. It scarcely satisfied her aspirations, and -she took to dancing. Now she danced three nights a week at Bullier, and -during the day gave lessons in her art to a score of pupils, by which -means she contrived to keep the wolf at a respectful distance from her -door. “Tiens, here’s my card,” she concluded, and handed me -an oblong bit of pasteboard, on which was printed, “P’tit-Bleu, -Professeur de Danse, 22, Rue Monsieur le Prince.” - -“And you have no lover?” questioned I. - -She flashed a look upon me that was quite inexpressibly arch, -and responded instantly, with the charmingest little pout, “But -yes—since I’m supping with him.” - -During the winter that followed, P’tit-Bleu and I supped together -somewhat frequently. She was a mere little animal, she had no soul; but -she was the nicest little animal, and she had instincts. She was -more than good-natured, she was kind-hearted; and, according to her -unconventional standards, she was conscientious. It would have amused -and touched you, for example, if you had been taking her about, to -notice her intense solicitude lest you should conduct her entertainment -upon a scale too lavish, her deprecating frowns, her expostulations, her -restraining hand laid on your arm. And the ordinary run of Latin Quarter -girls derive an incommunicable rapture from seeing their cavaliers -wantonly, purposelessly prodigal. With her own funds, on the contrary, -P’tit-Bleu was free-handed to a fault: Mimi and Zizette knew whom to -go to, when they were hard-up. Neither did she confine her benefactions -to gifts of money, nor limit their operation to her particular sex. -More than one impecunious student owed it to her skilful needle that -his clothes were whole, and his linen maintained in a habitable state. -“Fie, Chalks! Your coat is torn, there are three buttons off your -waistcoat, and your cuffs are frayed to a point that is disgraceful. -I’ll come round to-morrow afternoon, and mend them for you.” And -when poor Berthe Dumours was turned out of the hospital, in the dead of -winter, half-cured, and without a penny in her purse, who took her in, -and nursed her, and provided for her during her convalescence? - -Oh, she was a good little thing. “P’tit-Bleu’s all right. -There’s nothing the matter with P’tit-Bleu,” was Chalks’s method -of phrasing it. - -At the same time, she could be trying, she could be exasperating. And -she had a temper—a temper. What she made me suffer in the way of -jealousy, during that winter, it would be gruesome to recount. She -enjoyed an exceeding great popularity in the Quarter; she was much run -after. It were futile to pretend that she hadn’t her caprices. And she -held herself free as air. She would call no man master. - -You might take what she would give, and welcome; but you must claim -nothing as your due. You mustn’t presume upon the fact that she was -supping with you to-night, to complain if she should sup tomorrow with -another. Her concession of a privilege did not by any means imply -that it was exclusive. She would endure no exactions, no control or -interference, no surveillance, above all, no reproaches. Mercy, how -angry she would become if I ventured any, how hoighty-toighty and -unapproachable. - -“You imagine that I am your property? Did you invent me? One would say -you held a Government patent. All rights reserved! Thank you. You fancy -perhaps that Paris is Constantinople? Ah, mais non!” - -She had a temper and a flow of language. There were points you -couldn’t touch without precipitating hail and lightning. - -Thus my winter was far from a tranquil one, and before it was half over -I had three grey hairs. Honey and wormwood, happiness and heartburn, -reconciliations and frantic little tiffs, carried us blithely on to -Mi-Carême, when things reached a crisis.... - -Mi-Carême fell midway in March that year: a velvety, sweet, sunlit -day, Spring stirring in her sleep. P’tit-Bleu and I had spent the -day together, in the crowded, crowded streets. We had visited the -Boulevards, of course, to watch the triumph of the Queen of Washerwomen; -we had pelted everybody with confetti; and we had been pelted so -profusely in return, that there were confetti in our boots, in our -pockets, down our necks, and numberless confetti clung in the black -meshes of P’tit-Bleu’s hair, like little pink, blue, and yellow -stars. But all day long something in P’tit-Bleu’s manner, something -in her voice, her smile, her carriage, had obscurely troubled me; -something not easy to take hold of, something elusive, unformulable, -but disquieting. A certain indefinite aloofness, perhaps; an accentuated -independence; as if she were preoccupied with secret thoughts, with -intentions, feelings, that she would not let me share. - -And then, at night, we went to the Opera Ball. - -P’tit-Bleu was dressed as an Odalisque: a tiny round Turkish cap set -jauntily sidewise on her head, a short Turkish jacket, both coat and -jacket jingling and glittering with sequins; a long veil of gauze, -wreathed like a scarf round her shoulders; then baggy Turkish trousers -of blue silk, and scarlet Turkish slippers. Oh, she was worth seeing; I -was proud to have her on my arm. Her black crinkling hair, her dancing -eyes, her eager face and red smiling mouth—the Sultan himself might -have envied me such a houri. And many, in effect, were the envious -glances that we encountered, as we made our way into the great -brilliantly lighted ball-room, and moved hither and thither among -the Harlequins and Columbines, the Pierrots, the Toréadors, the -Shepherdesses and Vivandières, the countless fantastic masks, by whom -the place was peopled. P’tit-Bleu had a loup of black velvet, which -sometimes she wore, and sometimes gave to me to carry for her. I don’t -know when she looked the more dangerous, when she had it on, and her -eyes glimmered mysteriously through its peepholes, or when she had it -off. - -Many were the envious glances that we encountered, and presently I -became aware that one individual was following us about: a horrid, -glossy creature, in a dress suit, with a top-hat that was much too -shiny, and a hugh waxed moustache that he kept twirling invidiously: -an undersized, dark, Hebraic-featured man, screamingly “rasta’.” -Whithersoever we turned, he hovered annoyingly near to us, and ogled -P’tit-Bleu under my very beard. This was bad enough; but—do sorrows -ever come as single spies?—conceive my emotions, if you please, when, -by-and-by, suspicion hardened into certitude that P’tit-Bleu was not -merely getting a vainglorious gratification from his attentions, -but that she was positively playing up to them, encouraging him to -persevere! She chattered—to me, indeed, but at him—with a vivacity -there was no misconstruing; laughed noisily, fluttered her fan, flirted -her veil, donned and doffed her loup, and, I daresay, when my back -was turned, exchanged actual eye-shots with the brute.... In due time -quadrilles were organised, and P’tit-Bleu led a set. The glossy -interloper was one of the admiring circle that surrounded her. Ugh! his -complacent, insinuating smile, the conquering air with which he twirled -his moustachios. And P’tit-Bleu.... When, at the finish, she sprang -up, after her grand écart, what do you suppose she did?... The brazen -little minx, instead of rejoining me, slipped her arm through his, and -went tripping off with him to the supper-room. - -Oh, the night I passed, the night of anguish! The visions that tortured -me, as I tramped my floor! The delirious revenges that I plotted, and -gloated over in anticipation! She had left me—the mockery of it!—she -had left me her loup, her little black velvet loup, with its empty -eye-holes, and its horribly reminiscent smell. Everything P’tit-Bleu -owned was scented with peau-d’.spagne. I wreaked my fury upon that -loup, I promise you. I smote it with my palm, I ground it under my heel, -I tore it limb from limb, I called it all manner of abusive names. -Early in the morning I was at P’tit-Bleu’s house; but the concierge -grunted, “Pas rentrée.” Oh, the coals thereof are coals of fire. -I returned to her house a dozen times that day, and at length, towards -nightfall, found her in. We had a stormy session, but, of course, the -last word of it was hers: still, for all slips, she was one of Eve’s -family. Of course she justified herself, and put me in the wrong. I -went away, vowing I would never, never, never see her again. “Va! Ça -m’est bien égal,” she capped the climax by calling after me. Oh, -youth! Oh, storm and stress! And to think that one lives to laugh at its -memory. - -For the rest of that season, P’tit-Bleu and I remained at daggers -drawn. In June I left town for the summer; and then one thing and -another happened, and kept me away till after Christmas. - -When I got back, amongst the many pieces of news that I found waiting -for me, there was one that affected P’tit-Bleu. - -“P’tit-Bleu,” I was told, “is ’collée’ with an -Englishman—but a grey-beard, mon cher—a gaga—an Englishman old -enough to be her grandfather.” - -A stolid, implicit cynicism, I must warn you, was the mode of -the Quarter. The student who did not wish to be contemned for a -sentimentalist, dared never hesitate to believe an evil report, nor to -put the worst possible construction upon all human actions. Therefore, -when I was apprised by common rumour that during the dead season -P’tit-Bleu (for considerations fiscal, bien entendu) had gone to -live “collée” with an Englishman old enough to be her -grandfather—though, as it turned out, the story was the sheerest -fabrication—it never entered my head to doubt it. - -At the same time, I confess, I could not quite share the humour of my -compeers, who regarded the circumstance as a stupendous joke. On the -contrary, I was shocked and sickened. I shouldn’t have imagined her -capable of that. She was a mere little animal; she had no soul; she -was bound, in the nature of things, to go from bad to worse, as I had -permitted myself, indeed, to admonish her, in the last conversation we -had had. “Mark my words, you will go from bad to worse.” But I had -thought her such a nice little animal; in my secret heart, I had hoped -that her progress would be slow—even, faintly, that Providence might -let something happen to arrest it, to divert it. And now....! - -As a matter of fact, Providence had let something happen to divert -it; and that something was this very relation of hers with an old -Englishman, in which the scandal-lovers of the Latin Quarter were -determined to see neither more nor less than a mercenary “collage.” -The diversion in question, however, was an extremely gradual process. -As yet, it is pretty certain, P’tit-Bleu herself had never so much as -dreamed that any diversion was impending. - -But she knew that her relation with the Englishman was an innocent -relation; and of its innocence, I am glad to be able to record, she -succeeded in convincing one, at least, of her friends, tolerably early -in the game. - -In the teeth of my opposition, and at the expense of her own pride, she -forced an explanation, which, I am glad to say, convinced me. - -I had just passed her and her Englishman in the street. They were -crossing the Boulevard St. Michel, and she was hanging on his arm, -looking up into his face, and laughing. She wore a broad-brimmed black -hat, with a red ribbon in it, and a knot of red ribbon at her throat; -there was a lovely suggestion of the same colour in her cheeks; and -never had her eyes gleamed with sincerer fun. - -I assure you, the sensation this spectacle afforded me amounted to a -physical pain—the disgust, the anger. If she could laugh like that, -how little could she feel her position! The hardened shamelessness of -it! - -Turning from her to her companion, I own I was surprised and puzzled. He -was a tall, spare old man, not a grey-beard, but a white-beard, and he -had thin snow-white hair. He was dressed neatly indeed, but the very -reverse of sumptuously. His black overcoat was threadbare, his carefully -polished boots were patched. Yet, everybody averred, it was his -affluence that had attracted her; she had taken up with him during -the dead season, because she had been “à sec.” A detail that did -nothing to relieve my perplexity was the character of his face. Instead -of the florid concupiscent face, with coarse lips and fiery eye-balls, -I had instinctively expected, I saw a thin, pale face, with mild, -melancholy eyes, a gentle face, a refined face, rather a weak face, -certainly the very last face the situation called for. He was a -beast, of course, but he didn’t look like a beast. He looked like a -gentleman, a broken-down, forlorn old gentleman, singularly astray from -his proper orbit. - -They were crossing the Boulevard St. Michel as I was leaving the Café -Vachette; and at the corner of the Rue des Ecoles we came front to -front. P’tit-Bleu glanced up; her eyes brightened, she gave a little -start, and was plainly for stopping to shake hands. I cut her dead.... - -I cut her dead, and held my course serenely down the Boulevard—though -I’m not sure my heart wasn’t pounding. But I could lay as unction -to my soul the consciousness of having done the appropriate thing, of -having marked my righteous indignation. - -In a minute, however, I heard the pat-pat of rapid footsteps on the -pavement behind me, and my name being called. I hurried on, careful not -to turn my head. But, at Cluny, P’tit-Bleu arrived abreast of me. - -“I want to speak to you,” she gasped, out of breath from running. - -I shrugged my shoulders. - -“Will you tell me why you cut me like that just now?” - -“If you don’t know, I doubt if I could make you understand,” I -answered, with an air of, imperial disdain. - -“You bear me a grudge, hein? For what I did last March? Well, then, -you are right. There. I was abominable. But I have been sorry, and I -ask your pardon. Now will you let bygones be bygones? Will you forgive -me?” - -“Oh,” I said, “don’t try to play the simpleton with me. You are -perfectly well aware that isn’t why I cut you.” - -“But why, then?” cried she, admirably counterfeiting (as I took for -granted) a look and accent of bewilderment. - -I walked on without speaking. She kept beside me. - -“But why, then? If it isn’t that, what is it?” - -“Oh, bah!” - -“I insist upon your telling me. Tell me.” - -“Very good, then. I don’t care to know a girl who lives -’collée’ with a gaga,” I said, brutally. - -P’tit-Bleu flushed suddenly, and faced me with blazing eyes. - -“Comment done! You believe that?” she cried. - -“Pooh!” said I. - -“Oh, mais non, mais non, mais non, alors! You don’t believe that?” - -“You pay me a poor compliment. Why should you expect me to be ignorant -of a thing the whole Quarter knows?” - -“Oh, the whole Quarter! What does that matter to me, your Quarter? -Those nasty little students! C’est de la crasse, quoi! They may -believe—they may say—what they like. Oh, ça m’est bien égal!” -with a shake of the head and a skyward gesture. “But you—but my -friends! Am I that sort of girl? Answer.” - -“There’s only one sort of girl in the precincts ot this -University,” declared her disenchanted interlocutor. “You’re all -of one pattern. The man’s an ass who expects any good from any of -you. Don’t pose as better than the others. You’re all a—un tas de -saletés. I’m sick and tired of the whole sordid, squalid lot of you. -I should be greatly obliged, now, if you would have the kindness to -leave me. Go back to your gaga. He’ll be impatient waiting.” - -That speech, I fancied, would rid me of her. But no. - -“You are trying to make me angry, aren’t you? But I refuse to -leave you till you have admitted that you are wrong,” she persisted. -“It’s an outrageous slander. Monsieur Long (that is his name, -Monsieur Long), he lives in the same house with me, on the same landing; -et voilà tout. Dame! Can I prevent him? Am I the landlord? And, for -that, they say I’m ’collée’ with him. I don’t care what they -say. But you! I swear to you it is an infamous lie. Will you come home -with me now, and see?” - -“Oh, that’s mere quibbling. You go with him everywhere, you dine -with him, you are never seen without him.” - -“Dieu de Dieu!” wailed P’tit-Bleu. “How shall I convince you? He -is my neighbour. Is it forbidden to know one’s neighbours? I swear to -you, I give you my word of honour, it is nothing else. How to make you -believe me?” - -“Well, my dear,” said I, “if you wish me to believe you, break -with him. Chuck him up. Drop his acquaintance. Nobody in his senses will -believe you so long as you go trapesing about the Quarter with him.” - -“Oh, but no,” she cried, “I can’t drop his acquaintance.” - -“Ah, there it is,” cried I. - -“There are reasons. There are reasons why I can’t, why I -mustn’t.” - -“I thought so.” - -“Ah, voyons!” she broke out, losing patience. - -“Will you not believe my word of honour? Will you force me to tell you -things that don’t concern you—that I have no right to tell? Well, -then, listen. I cannot drop his acquaintance, because—this is a -secret—he would die of shame if he thought I had betrayed it—you -will never breathe it to a soul—because I have discovered that he has -a—a vice, a weakness. No—but listen. He is an Englishman, a -painter. Oh, a painter of great talent; a painter who has exposed at the -Salon—quoi! A painter who is known in his country. On a même parlé -de lui dans les journaux; voilà! But look. He has a vice. He has half -ruined, half killed himself with a drug. Yes—opium. Oh, but wait, -wait. I will tell you. He came to live in our house last July, in the -room opposite mine. When we met, on the landing, in the staircase, he -took off his hat, and we passed the bonjour. Oh, he is a gentleman; he -has been well brought up. From that we arrived at speaking together a -little, and then at visiting. It was the dead season, I had no affairs. -I would sit in his room in the afternoon, and we would chat. Oh, he is -a fine talker. But, though he had canvases, colours, all that is needed -for painting, he never painted. He would only talk, talk. I said, ’But -you ought to paint.’ He said always, ’Yes, I must begin something -to-morrow.’ Always to-morrow. And then I discovered what it was. He -took opium. He spent all his money for opium. And when he had taken his -opium he would not work, he would only talk, talk, talk, and then sleep, -sleep. You think that is well—hein? That a painter of talent should do -no work, but spend all his money for a drug, for a poison, and then say, -’To-morrow’. You think I could sit still and see him commit these -follies under my eyes and say nothing, do nothing? Ruin his brain, his -health, his career, and waste all his money, for that drug? Oh, mais -non. I made him the sermon. I said, ’You know it is very bad, that -which you are doing there.’ I scolded him. I said, ’But I forbid -you to do that—do you understand? I forbid it.’ I went with him -everywhere, I gave him all my time; and when he would take his drug I -would annoy him, I would make a scene, I would shame him. Well, in the -end, I have acquired an influence over him. He has submitted himself to -me. He is really trying to break the habit. I keep all his money. I give -him his doses. I regulate them, I diminish them. The consequence is, I -make him work. I give him one very small dose in the morning to begin -the day. Then I will give him no more till he has done so much work. -You see? Tu te figures que je suis sa maîtresse? Je suis plutôt -sa nounou—va! Je suis sa caissière. And he is painting a great -picture—you will see. Eh bien, how can I give up his acquaintance? -Can I let him relapse, as he would do to-morrow without me, into his bad -habit?” - -I was walking with long strides, P’tit-Bleu tripping at my elbow; and -before her story was finished we had left the Boulevard behind us, and -reached the middle of the Pont St. Michel. There, I don’t know why, we -halted, and stood looking off towards Notre-Dame. The grim grey front -of the Cathedral glowed softly amethystine in the afternoon sun, and -the sky was infinitely deep and blue above it. One could be intensely -conscious of the splendid penetrating beauty of this picture, without, -somehow, giving the less attention to what P’tit-Bleu was saying. -She talked swiftly, eagerly, with constantly changing, persuasive -intonations, with little brief pauses, hesitations, with many gestures, -with much play of eyes and face. When she had done, I waited a moment. -Then, grudgingly, “Well,” I began, “if what you tell me is -true——” - -“If it is true!” P’tit-Bleu cried, with sudden fierceness. “Do -you dare to say you doubt it?” - -And she gazed intently, fiercely, into my eyes, challenging me, as it -were, to give her the lie. - -Before that gaze my eyes dropped, abashed. - -“No—I don’t doubt it,” I faltered, “I believe you. And—and -allow me to say that you are a—a damned decent little girl.” - -Poor P’tit-Bleu! How shall I tell you the rest of her story—the -story of those long years of love and sacrifice and devotion, and of -continual discouragement, disappointment, with his death at the end of -them, and her disappearance? - -In the beginning she herself was very far from realising what she -had undertaken, what had befallen her. To exercise a little friendly -supervision over her neighbour’s addiction to opium, to husband his -money for him, and spur him on to work—it seemed a mere incident in -her life, an affair by the way. But it became her exclusive occupation, -her whole life’s chief concern. Little by little, one after the other, -she put aside all her former interests, thoughts, associations, dropped -all her former engagements, to give herself as completely to caring for, -guarding, guiding poor old Edward Long, as if she had been a mother, and -he her helpless child. - -Throughout that first winter, indeed, she continued to dance at -Bullier, continued to instruct her corps of pupils, and continued even -occasionally, though much less frequently than of old time, to be seen -at the Vachette, or to sup with a friend at the Gambrinus. But from day -to day Monsieur Edouard (he had soon ceased to be Monsieur Long, -and become Monsieur Edouard) absorbed more and more of her time and -attention; and when the spring came she suddenly burned her ships. - -You must understand that she had one pertinacious adversary in her -efforts to wean him of his vice. Not an avowed adversary, for he -professed the most earnest wish that she might be successful; but an -adversary who was eternally putting spokes in her wheel, all the same. -Yes, Monsieur Edouard himself. Never content with the short rations -to which she had condemned him, he was perpetually on the watch for a -chance to elude her vigilance; she was perpetually discovering that -he had somehow contrived to lay in secret supplies. And every now -and again, openly defying her authority, he would go off for a grand -debauch. Then her task of reducing his daily portion to a minimum must -needs be begun anew. Well, when the spring came, and the Salon opened, -where his picture (her picture?) had been received and very fairly hung, -they went together to the Vernissage. And there he met a whole flock -of English folk—artists and critics, who had “just run over for the -show, you know”—with whom he was acquainted; and they insisted on -carrying him away with them to lunch at the Ambassadeurs. - -I, too, had assisted at the Vernissage; and when I left it, I found -P’tit-Bleu seated alone under the trees in the Champs-Elysées. She -had on a brilliant spring toilette, with a hat and a sunshade.... Oh, -my dear! It is not to be denied that P’tit-Bleu had the courage of -her tastes. But her face was pale, and her lips were drawn down, and her -eyes looked strained and anxious. - -“What’s the row?” I asked. - -And she told me how she had been abandoned—“plantée là” was -her expression—and of course I invited her to lunch with me. But -she scarcely relished the repast. “Pourvu qu’il ne fasse pas de -bêtises!” was her refrain. - -She returned rather early to the Rue Monsieur le Prince, to see if he -had come home; but he hadn’t. Nor did he come home that night, nor -the next day, nor the next. At the week’s end, though, he came: dirty, -haggard, tremulous, with red eyes, and nude—yes, nude—of everything -save his shirt and trousers! He had borrowed a sovereign from one of -his London friends, and when that was gone, he had pledged or sold -everything but his shirt and trousers—hat, boots, coat, everything. -It was an equally haggard and red-eyed P’tit-Bleu who faced him on -his reappearance. And I’ve no doubt she gave him a specimen of her -eloquence. “You figure to yourself that this sort of thing amuses me, -hein? Here are six good days and nights that I haven’t been able to -sleep or rest.” - -Explaining the case to me, she said, “Ah, what I suffered! I could -never have believed that I cared so much for him. But—what would -you?—one attaches oneself, you know. Ah, what I suffered! The anxiety, -the terrors! I expected to hear of him run over in the streets. Well, -now, I must make an end of this business. I’m going to take him away. -So long as he remains in Paris, where there are chemists who will sell -him that filthiness (cette crasse) it is hopeless. No sooner do I get -my house of cards nicely built up, than—piff!—something happens to -knock it over. I am going to take him down into the country, far from -any town, far from the railway, where I can guard him better. I know a -place, a farmhouse, near Villiers-St.-Jacques, where we can get board. -He has a little income, which reaches him every three months from -England. Oh, very little, but if I am careful of it, it will pay our -way. And then—I will make him work.” - -“Oh, no,” I protested. “You’re not going to leave the -Quarter.” And I’m ashamed to acknowledge, I laboured hard to -dissuade her. “Think how we’ll miss you. Think how you’ll bore -yourself. And anyhow, he’s not worth it. And besides, you won’t -succeed. A man who has an appetite for opium will get it, coûte que -coûte. He’d walk twenty miles in bare feet to get it.” This was the -argument that I repeated in a dozen different paraphrases. You see, -I hadn’t realised yet that it didn’t matter an atom whether she -succeeded, or whether he was worth it. He was a mere instrument in the -hands of Providence. Let her succeed or let her fail in keeping him from -opium: the important thing... how shall I put it? This little Undine had -risen out of the black waters of the Latin Quarter, and attached herself -to a mortal. What is it that love gains for Undines? - -“Que veux-tu?” cried P’tit-Bleu. “I am fond of him. I can’t -bear to see him ruining himself. I must do what I can.” - -And the Quarter said, “Ho-ho! You chaps who didn’t believe it was -a ’collage’. He-he! What do you say now? She’s chucked up -everything, to go and live in the country with him.” - -In August or September I ran down to the farmhouse near -Villiers-St.-Jacques, and passed a week with them. I found a mightily -changed Monsieur Edouard, and a curiously changed P’tit-Bleu, as well. -He was fat and rosy, he who had been so thin and white. And she—she -was grave. Yes, P’tit-Bleu was grave: sober, staid, serious. And her -impish, mocking black eyes shone with a strange, serious, calm light. - -Monsieur Edouard (with whom my relations had long before this become -confidential) drew me apart, and told me he was having an exceedingly -bad time of it. - -“She’s really too absurd, you know. She’s a martinet, a tyrant. -Opium is to me what tobacco is to you, and does me no more harm. I need -it for my work. Oh, in moderation; of course one can be excessive. Yet -she refuses to let me have a tenth of my proper quantity. And besides, -how utterly senseless it is, keeping me down here in the country. -I’m dying of ennui. There’s not a person I can have any sort of -intellectual sympathy with, for miles in every direction. An artist -needs the stimulus of contact with his fellows. It’s indispensable. If -she’d only let me run up to Paris for a day or two at a time, once -a month say. Couldn’t you persuade her to let me go back with -you? She’s the most awful screw, you know. It’s the French -lower-middle-class parsimony. I’m never allowed to have twopence in my -pocket. Yet whose money is it? Where does it come from? I really can’t -think why I submit, why I don’t break away from her, and follow my own -wishes. But the poor little thing is fond of me; she attached herself -to me. I don’t know what would become of her if I cast her off. -Oh, don’t fancy that I don’t appreciate her. Her intentions are -excellent. But she lacks wisdom, and she enjoys the exercise of power. I -wish you’d speak with her.” - -P’tit-Bleu also drew me apart. - -“Please don’t call me P’tit-Bleu any more. Call me Jeanne. I have -put all that behind me—all that P’tit-Bleu signifies. I hate to -think of it, to be reminded of it. I should like to forget it.” - -When I had promised not to call her P’tit-Bleu any more, she went on, -replying to my questions, to tell me of their life. - -“Of course, everybody thinks I am his mistress. You can’t convince -them I’m not. But that’s got to be endured. For the rest, all is -going well. You see how he is improved. I give him fifteen drops of -laudanum, morning, noon, and night. Fifteen drops—it is nothing, I -could take it myself, and never know it. And he used to drink off an -ounce—an ounce, mon cher—at a time, and then want more at the end of -an hour. Yes! Oh, he complains, he complains of everything, he frets, -he is not contented. But he has not walked twenty miles in bare feet, as -you said he would. And he is working. You will see his pictures.” - -“And you—how do you pass your time? What do you do?” - -“I pose for him a good deal. And then I have much sewing to do. I take -in sewing for Madame Deschamps, the Deputy’s wife, to help make the -ends meet. And then I read. Madame Deschamps lends me books.” - -“And I suppose you’re bored to death?” - -“Oh, no, I am not bored. I am happy. I never was really happy—dans -le temps.” - -They were living in a very plain way indeed. You know what French -farmhouses are apt to be. His whole income was under a hundred pounds -a year; and out of that (and the trifle she earned by needlework) his -canvases, colours, brushes, frames, had to be paid for, as well as -his opium, and their food, clothing, everything. But -P’tit-Bleu—Jeanne—with that “lower-middle-class parsimony” of -hers, managed somehow. Jeanne! In putting off the name, she had put off -also, in great measure, the attributes of P’tit-Bleu; she had become -Jeanne in nature. She was grave, she was quiet. She wore the severest -black frocks—she made them herself. And I never once noticed the -odour of peau-d’.spagne, from the beginning to the end of my visit. -But—shall I own it? Jeanne was certainly the more estimable of the two -women, but shall I own that I found her far less exciting as a comrade -than P’tit-Bleu had been? She was good, but she wasn’t very lively -or very amusing. - -P’tit-Bleu, the heroine of Bullier, that lover of noisy pleasure, of -daring toilettes, of risky perfumes, of écrevisses and chablis, of -all the rush and dissipation of the Boul’ Miche and the Luxembourg, -quietly settling down into Jeanne of the home-made frocks, in a rough -French farmhouse, to a diet of veal and lentils, lentils and veal, seven -times a week, and no other pastime in life than the devoted, untiring -nursing of an ungrateful old English opium-eater—here was variation -under domestication with a vengeance. - -And on Sunday... P’tit-Bleu went twice to church! - -About ten days after my return to Paris, there came a rat-ta-ta-tat at -my door, and P’tit-BIeu walked in—pale, with wide eyes. “I don’t -know how he has contrived it, but he must have got some money somewhere, -and walked to the railway, and come to town. Anyhow, here are three -days that he has disappeared. What to do? What to do?” She was in a -deplorable state of mind, poor thing, and I scarcely knew how to help -her. I proposed that we should take counsel with a Commissary of Police. -But when that functionary discovered that she was neither the wife nor -daughter of the missing man, he smiled, and remarked, “It is not -our business to recover ladies’ protectors for them.” P’tit-BIeu -walked the streets in quest of him, all day long and very nearly all -night long too, for close upon a fortnight. In the end, she met him on -the quays—dazed, half-imbecile, and again nude of everything save -his shirt and trousers. So, again, having nicely built up her house of -cards—piff!—something had happened to topple it over. - -“Let him go to the devil his own way,” said I. “Really, he’s -unworthy of your pains.” - -“No, I can’t leave him. You see, I’m fond of him,” said she. - -He, however, positively refused to return to the country. “The fact -is,” he explained, “I ought to go to London. Yes, it will be well -for me to pass the winter in London. I should like to have a show there, -a one-man show, you know. I dare say I could sell a good many pictures, -and get orders for portraits.” So they went to London. In the spring -I received a letter from P’tit-Bleu—a letter full of orthographic -faults, if you like—but a letter that I treasure. Here’s a -translation of it: - -“My dear Friend,—I have hesitated much before taking my pen in -hand to write to you. But I have no one else to turn to. We have had -a dreadful winter. Owing to my ignorance of the language one speaks in -this dirty town, I have not been able to exercise over Monsieur Edouard -that supervision of which he has need. In consequence, he has given -himself up to the evil habit which you know, as never before. Every -penny, every last sou, which he could command, has been spent for that -detestable filth. Many times we have passed whole days without eating, -no, not the end of a crust. He has no desire to eat when he has had his -dose. We are living in a slum of the most disgusting, in the quarter of -London they call Soho. Everything we have, save the bare necessary of -covering, has been put with the lender-on-pledges. Yesterday I found a -piece of one shilling in the street. That, however, I have been forced -to dispense for opium, because, when he has had such large quantities, -he would die or go mad if suddenly deprived. - -“I have addressed myself to his family, but without effect. They -refuse to recognise me. Everybody here, of course, figures to himself -that I am his mistress. He has two brothers, one of the army, one an -advocate. I have besieged them in vain. They say, ’We have done -for him all that is possible. We can do no more. He has exhausted -our patience. Now that he has gone a step farther, and, in his age, -disgraced himself by living with a mistress, as well as besotting -himself with opium, we wash our hands of him for good.’ And yet, I -cannot leave him, because I know, without me, he would kill himself -within the month, by his excesses. To his sisters, both of whom are -married and ladies of the world, I have appealed with equal results. -They refuse to regard me otherwise than as his mistress. But I cannot -bear to see that great man, with that mind, that talent, doing himself -to death. And when he is not under the influence of his drug, who is so -great? Who has the wit, the wisdom, the heart, the charm, of Monsieur -Edouard? Who can paint like him? - -“My dear, as a last resource, I take up my pen to ask you for -assistance. If you could see him your heart would be moved. He is so -thin, so thin, and his face has become blue, yes, blue, like the face of -a dead man. Help me to save him from himself. If you can send me a note -of five hundred francs, I can pay off our indebtedness here, and bring -him back to France, where, in a sane country, far from a town, again I -can reduce him to a few drops of laudanum a day, and again see him in -health and at work. That which it costs me to make this request of you, -I have not the words to tell you. But, at the end ot my forces, having -no other means, no other support, I confide myself to your well-tried -amity. - -“I give you a good kiss. Jeanne.” - -If the reading of this letter brought a lump into my throat and -something like tears into my eyes—if I hastened to a banker’s, -and sent P’tit-Bleu the money she asked for, by telegraph—if I -reproached her bitterly and sincerely for not having applied to me -long before,—I hope you will believe that it wasn’t for the sake of -Monsieur Edouard. - -They established themselves at St. Etienne, a hamlet on the coast of -Normandy, to be farther from Paris. Dieppe was their nearest town. They -lived at St.-Etienne for nearly three years. But, periodically, when she -had got her house of cards nicely built up—piff!—he would walk into -Dieppe. - -He walked into Dieppe one day in the autumn of 1885, and it took her a -week to find him. He was always ill, after one of his grand debauches. -This time he was worse than he had ever been before. I can imagine the -care with which she nursed him, her anxious watching by his bedside, her -prayers, her hopes, the blankness when he died. - -She came back to Paris, and called three times at my lodgings. But I -was in England, and didn’t receive the notes she left till nearly six -months afterwards. I have never seen her since, never heard from her. - -What has become of her? It is not pleasant to conjecture. Of course, -after his death, she ought to have died too. But the Angel of this Life, - - -“Whose care is lest men see too much at once,” - - -couldn’t permit any such satisfying termination. So she has simply -disappeared, and, in the flesh, may have come to... one would rather not -conjecture. All the same, I can’t believe that in the spirit she will -have made utter shipwreck. I can’t believe that nothing permanent was -won by those long years of love and pain. Her house of cards was toppled -over, as often as she built it up; but perhaps she was all the while -building another house, a house not made with hands, a house, a temple, -indestructible. - -Poor P’tit-Bleu! - - - - -THE HOUSE OF EULALIE - -It was a pretty little house, in very charming country—in an -untravelled corner of Normandy, near the sea; a country of orchards and -colza fields, of soft green meadows where cattle browsed, and of deep -elm-shaded lanes. - -One was rather surprised to see this little house just here, for all the -other houses in the neighbourhood were rude farm-houses or labourers’ -cottages; and this was a coquettish little chalet, white-walled, with -slim French windows, and balconies of twisted ironwork, and Venetian -blinds: a gay little pleasure-house, standing in a bright little garden, -among rosebushes, and parterres of geraniums, and smooth stretches of -greensward. Beyond the garden there was an orchard—rows and couples -of old gnarled apple-trees, bending towards one another like fantastic -figures arrested in the middle of a dance. Then, turning round, you -looked over feathery colza fields and yellow corn fields, a mile away, -to the sea, and to a winding perspective of white cliffs, which the sea -bathed in transparent greens and purples, luminous shadows of its own -nameless hues. - -A board attached to the wall confirmed, in roughly painted characters, -the information I had had from an agent in Dieppe. The house was to let; -and I had driven out—a drive of two long hours—to inspect it. Now I -stood on the doorstep and rang the bell. It was a big bell, hung in the -porch, with a pendent handle of bronze, wrought in the semblance of a -rope and tassel. Its voice would carry far on that still country air. - -It carried, at any rate, as far as a low thatched farm-house, a hundred -yards down the road. Presently a man and a woman came out of the -farm-house, gazed for an instant in my direction, and then moved towards -me: an old brown man, an old grey woman, the man in corduroys, the woman -wearing a neat white cotton cap and a blue apron, both moving with the -burdened gait of peasants. - -“You are Monsieur and Madame Leroux?” I asked, when we had -accomplished our preliminary good-days; and I explained that I had come -from the agent in Dieppe to look over their house. For the rest, they -must have been expecting me; the agent had said that he would let them -know. - -But, to my perplexity, this business-like announcement seemed somehow -to embarrass them; even, I might have thought, to agitate, to distress -them. They lifted up their worn old faces, and eyed me anxiously. They -exchanged anxious glances with each other. The woman clasped her hands, -nervously working her fingers. The man hesitated and stammered a little, -before he was able to repeat vaguely, “You have come to look over the -house, Monsieur?” - -“Surely,” I said, “the agent has written to you? I understood from -him that you would expect me at this hour to-day.” - -“Oh yes,” the man admitted, “we were expecting you.” But he made -no motion to advance matters. He exchanged another anxious glance with -his wife. She gave her head a sort of helpless nod, and looked down. - -“You see, Monsieur,” the man began, as if he were about to elucidate -the situation, “you see—” But then he faltered, frowning at the -air, as one at a loss for words. - -“The house is already let, perhaps?” suggested I. - -“No, the house is not let,” said he. - -“You had better go and fetch the key,” his wife said at last, in a -dreary way, still looking down. - -He trudged heavily back to the farm-house. While he was gone we stood by -the door in silence, the woman always nervously working the fingers of -her clasped hands. I tried, indeed, to make a little conversation: I -ventured something about the excellence of the site, the beauty of the -view. She replied with a murmur of assent, civilly but wearily; and I -did not feel encouraged to persist. - -By-and-by her husband rejoined us, with the key; and they began silently -to lead me through the house. - -There were two pretty drawing-rooms on the ground floor, a pretty -dining-room, and a delightful kitchen, with a broad hearth of polished -red bricks, a tiled chimney, and shining copper pots and pans. The -drawing-rooms and the dining-room were pleasantly furnished in a light -French fashion, and their windows opened to the sun and to the fragrance -and greenery of the garden. I expressed a good deal of admiration; -whereupon, little by little, the manner of my conductors changed. -From constrained, depressed, it became responsive; even, in the end, -effusive. They met my exclamations with smiles, my inquiries with -voluble eager answers. But it remained an agitated manner, the manner of -people who were shaken by an emotion. Their old hands trembled as they -opened the doors for me or drew up the blinds; their voices trembled. -There was something painful in their very smiles, as if these were but -momentary ripples on the surface of a trouble. - -“Ah,” I said to myself, “they are hard-pressed for money. They -have put their whole capital into this house, very likely. They are -excited by the prospect of securing a tenant.” - -“Now, if you please, Monsieur, we will go upstairs, and see the -bedrooms,” the old man said. - -The bedrooms were airy, cheerful rooms, gaily papered, with chintz -curtains and the usual French bedroom furniture. One of them exhibited -signs of being actually lived in; there were things about it, personal -things, a woman’s things. It was the last room we visited, a front -room, looking off to the sea. There were combs and brushes on the -toilet-table; there were pens, an inkstand, and a portfolio on the -writing-desk; there were books in the bookcase. Framed photographs stood -on the mantelpiece. In the closet dresses were suspended, and shoes and -slippers were primly ranged on the floor. The bed was covered with a -counterpane of blue silk; a crucifix hung on the wall above it; beside -it there was a prie-dieu, with a little porcelain holy-water vase. - -“Oh,” I exclaimed, turning to Monsieur and Madame Leroux, “this -room is occupied?” - -Madame Leroux did not appear to hear me. Her eyes were fixed in a dull -stare before her, her lips were parted slightly. She looked tired, as if -she would be glad when our tour through the house was finished. Monsieur -Leroux threw his hand up towards the ceiling in an odd gesture, and -said, “No, the room is not occupied at present.” - -We went back downstairs, and concluded an agreement. I was to take the -house for the summer. Madame Leroux would cook for me. Monsieur Leroux -would drive into Dieppe on Wednesday to fetch me and my luggage out. - - - - - -On Wednesday we had been driving for something like half an hour without -speaking, when all at once Leroux said to me, “That room, Monsieur, -the room you thought was occupied——” - -“Yes?” I questioned, as he paused. - -“I have a proposition to make,” said he. He spoke, as it seemed -to me, half shyly, half doggedly, gazing the while at the ears of his -horse. - -“What is it?” I asked. - -“If you will leave that room as it is, with the things in it, we will -make a reduction in the rent. If you will let us keep it as it is?” he -repeated, with a curious pleading intensity. “You are alone. The house -will be big enough for you without that room, will it not, Monsieur?” - -Of course, I consented at once. If they wished to keep the room as it -was, they were to do so, by all means. - -“Thank you, thank you very much. My wife will be grateful to you,” -he said. - -For a little while longer we drove on without speaking. Presently, -“You are our first tenant. We have never let the house before,” he -volunteered. - -“Ah? Have you had it long?” I asked. - -“I built it. I built it, five, six, years ago,” said he. Then, after -a pause, he added, “I built it for my daughter.” - -His voice sank, as he said this. But one felt that it was only the -beginning of something he wished to say. - -I invited him to continue by an interested, “Oh?” - -“You see what we are, my wife and I,” he broke out suddenly. “We -are rough people, we are peasants. But my daughter, sir”—he put his -hand on my knee, and looked earnestly into my face—“my daughter was -as fine as satin, as fine as lace.” - -He turned back to his horse, and again drove for a minute or two in -silence. At last, always with his eyes on the horse’s ears, “There -was not a lady in this country finer than my daughter,” he went on, -speaking rapidly, in a thick voice, almost as if to himself. “She was -beautiful, she had the sweetest character, she had the best education. -She was educated at the convent, in Rouen, at the Sacré Cour. Six -years—from twelve to eighteen—she studied at the convent. She knew -English, sir—your language. She took prizes for history. And the -piano! Nobody living can touch the piano as my daughter could. Well,” -he demanded abruptly, with a kind of fierceness, “was a rough -farm-house good enough for her?” He answered his own question. “No, -Monsieur. You would not soil fine lace by putting it in a dirty box. My -daughter was finer than lace. Her hands were softer than Lyons velvet. -And oh,” he cried, “the sweet smell they had, her hands! It was good -to smell her hands. I used to kiss them and smell them, as you would -smell a rose.” His voice died away at the reminiscence, and there was -another interval of silence. By-and-by he began again, “I had plenty -of money. I was the richest farmer of this neighbourhood. I sent to -Rouen for the best architect they have there. Monsieur Clermont, the -best architect of Rouen, laureate of the Fine Arts School of Paris, he -built that house for my daughter; he built it and furnished it, to make -it fit for a countess, so that when she came home for good from the -convent she should have a home worthy of her. Look at this, Monsieur. -Would the grandest palace in the world be too good for her?” - -He had drawn a worn red leather case from his pocket, and taken out a -small photograph, which he handed to me. It was the portrait of a girl, -a delicate-looking girl, of about seventeen. Her face was pretty, with -the irregular prettiness not uncommon in France, and very sweet and -gentle. The old man almost held his breath while I was examining the -photograph. “Est-elle gentille? Est-elle belle, Monsieur?” he -besought me, with a very hunger for sympathy, as I returned it. One -answered, of course, what one could, as best one could. He, with shaking -fingers, replaced the photograph in its case. “Here, Monsieur,” he -said, extracting from an opposite compartment a little white card. It -was the usual French memorial of mourning: an engraving of the Cross and -Dove, under which was printed: “Eulalie-Joséphine-Marie Leroux. Born -the 16th May, 1874. Died the 12th August, 1892. Pray for her.” - -“The good God knows what He does. I built that house for my daughter, -and when it was built the good God took her away. We were mad with -grief, my wife and I; but that could not save her. Perhaps we are still -mad with grief,” the poor old man said simply. “We can think of -nothing else. We never wish to speak of anything else. We could not live -in the house—her house, without her. We never thought to let it. I -built that house for my daughter, I furnished it for her, and when it -was ready for her—she died. Was it not hard, Monsieur? How could I let -the house to strangers? But lately I have had losses. I am compelled -to let it, to pay my debts. I would not let it to everybody. You are an -Englishman. Well, if I did not like you, I would not let it to you for -a million English pounds. But I am glad I have let it to you. You will -respect her memory. And you will allow us to keep that room—her room. -We shall be able to keep it as it was, with her things in it. Yes, that -room which you thought was occupied—that was my daughter’s room.” - -Madame Leroux was waiting for us in the garden of the chalet. She looked -anxiously up at her husband as we arrived. He nodded his head, and -called out, “It is all right. Monsieur agrees.” - -The old woman took my hands, wringing them hysterically almost. “Ah, -Monsieur, you are very good,” she said. She raised her eyes to mine. -But I could not look into her eyes. There was a sorrow in them, an -awfulness, a sacredness of sorrow, which, I felt, it would be like -sacrilege for me to look at. - -We became good friends, the Leroux and I, during the three months I -passed as their tenant. Madame, indeed, did for me and looked after me -with a zeal that was almost maternal. Both of them, as the old man had -said, loved above all things to talk of their daughter, and I hope I was -never loth to listen. Their passion, their grief, their constant thought -of her, appealed to one as very beautiful, as well as very touching. And -something like a pale spirit of the girl seemed gently, sweetly, always -to be present in the house, the house that Love had built for her, not -guessing that Death would come, as soon as it was finished, and call -her away. “Oh, but it is a joy, Monsieur, that you have left us her -room,” the old couple were never tired of repeating. One day Madame -took me up into the room, and showed me Eulalie’s pretty dresses, -her trinkets, her books, the handsomely bound books that she had won -as prizes at the convent. And on another day she showed me some of -Eulalie’s letters, asking me if she hadn’t a beautiful hand-writing, -if the letters were not beautifully expressed. She showed me photographs -of the girl at all ages; a lock of her hair; her baby clothes; -the priest’s certificate of her first communion; the bishop’s -certificate of her confirmation. And she showed me letters from the good -sisters of the Sacred Heart, at Rouen, telling of Eulalie’s progress -in her studies, praising her conduct and her character. “Oh, to think -that she is gone, that she is gone!” the old woman wailed, in a kind -of helpless incomprehension, incredulity, of loss. Then, in a moment, -she murmured, with what submissiveness she could, “Le bon Dieu sait ce -qu’il fait,” crossing herself. - -On the 12th of August, the anniversary of her death, I went with them to -the parish church, where a mass was said for the repose of Eulalie’s -soul. And the kind old curé afterwards came round, and pressed their -hands, and spoke words of comfort to them. - - - - - -In September I left them, returning to Dieppe. One afternoon I chanced -to meet that same old curé in the high street there. We stopped and -spoke together—naturally, of the Leroux, of what excellent people they -were, of how they grieved for their daughter. “Their love was more -than love. They adored the child, they idolised her. I have never -witnessed such affection,” the curé told me. “When she died, I -seriously feared they would lose their reason. They were dazed, they -were beside themselves; for a long while they were quite as if mad. But -God is merciful. They have learned to live with their affliction.” - -“It is very beautiful,” said I, “the way they have sanctified -her memory, the way they worship it. You know, of course, they keep her -room, with her things in it, exactly as she left it. That seems to me -very beautiful.” - -“Her room?” questioned the curé, looking vague. “What room?” - -“Oh, didn’t you know?” I wondered. “Her bedroom in the chalet. -They keep it as she left it, with all her things about, her books, her -dresses.” - -“I don’t think I follow you,” the curé said. “She never had a -bedroom in the chalet.” - -“Oh, I beg your pardon. One of the front rooms on the first floor was -her room,” I informed him. - -But he shook his head. “There is some mistake. She never lived in the -chalet. She died in the old house. The chalet was only just finished -when she died. The workmen were hardly out of it.” - -“No,” I said, “it is you who must be mistaken; you must forget. -I am quite sure. The Leroux have spoken of it to me times without -number.” - -“But, my dear sir,” the curé insisted, “I am not merely sure; I -know. I attended the girl in her last agony. She died in the farm-house. -They had not moved into the chalet. The chalet was being furnished. The -last pieces of furniture were taken in the very day before her death. -The chalet was never lived in. You are the only person who has ever -lived in the chalet. I assure you of the fact.” - -“Well,” I said, “that is very strange, that is very strange -indeed.” And for a minute I was bewildered, I did not know what to -think. But only for a minute. Suddenly I cried out, “Oh, I see—I -see. I understand.” - -I saw, I understood. Suddenly I saw the pious, the beautiful deception -that these poor stricken souls had sought to practise on themselves; the -beautiful, the fond illusion they had created for themselves. They had -built the house for their daughter, and she had died just when it was -ready for her. But they could not bear—they could not bear—to think -that not for one little week even, not even for one poor little day -or hour, had she lived in the house, enjoyed the house. That was the -uttermost farthing of their sorrow, which they could not pay. They -could not acknowledge it to their own stricken hearts. So, piously, -reverently—with closed eyes as it were, that they might not know what -they were doing—they had carried the dead girl’s things to the room -they had meant for her, they had arranged them there, they had said, -“This was her room; this was her room.” They would not admit to -themselves, they would not let themselves stop to think, that she had -never, even for one poor night, slept in it, enjoyed it. They told a -beautiful pious falsehood to themselves. It was a beautiful pious game -of “make-believe,” which, like children, they could play together. -And—the curé had said it: God is merciful. In the end they had been -enabled to confuse their beautiful falsehood with reality, and to -find comfort in it; they had been enabled to forget that their -“make-believe” was a “make-believe,” and to mistake it for a -beautiful comforting truth. The uttermost farthing of their sorrow, -which they could not pay, was not exacted. They were suffered to keep -it; and it became their treasure, precious to them as fine gold. - -Falsehood—truth? Nay, I think there are illusions that are not -falsehoods—that are Truth’s own smiles of pity for us. - - - - -THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE - -I am writing to you from a lost corner of the far south-east of Europe. -The author of my guide-book, in his preface, observes that a traveller -in this part of the world, “unless he has some acquaintance with the -local idioms, is liable to find himself a good deal bewildered about -the names of places.” On Thursday of last week I booked from Charing -Cross, by way of Dover, Paris, and the Orient Express, for Vescova, -the capital of Monterosso; and yesterday afternoon—having changed -on Sunday, at Belgrade, from land to water, and steamed for close upon -forty-eight hours down the Danube—I was put ashore at the town of -Bckob, in the Principality of Tchermnogoria. - -I certainly might well have found myself a good deal bewildered; and if -I did not—for I’m afraid I can’t boast of much acquaintance with -the local idioms—it was no doubt because this isn’t my first visit -to the country. I was here some years ago, and then I learned that -Bckob is pronounced as nearly as may be Vscof, and that Tchermnogoria is -Monterosso literally translated—tchermnoe (the dictionaries certify) -meaning red, and gora, or goria, a hill, a mountain. - -It is our fashion in England to speak of Monterosso, if we speak of it -at all, as I have just done: we say the Principality of Monterosso. But -if we were to inquire at the Foreign Office, I imagine they would tell -us that our fashion of speaking is not strictly correct. In its own -Constitution Monterosso describes itself as a Krolevstvo, and -its Sovereign as the Krol; and in all treaties and diplomatic -correspondence, Krol and Krolevstvo are recognised by those most -authoritative lexicographers, the Powers, as equivalent respectively -to King and Kingdom. Anyhow, call it what you will, Monterosso is -geographically the smallest, though politically the eldest, of the -lower Danubian States. (It is sometimes, by-the-bye, mentioned in the -newspapers of Western Europe as one of the Balkan States, which can -scarcely be accurate, since, as a glance at the map will show, the -nearest spurs of the Balkan Mountains are a good hundred miles distant -from its southern frontier.) Its area is under ten thousand square -miles, but its reigning family, the Pavelovitches, have contrived to -hold their throne, from generation to generation, through thick and -thin, ever since Peter the Great set them on it, at the conclusion of -his war with the Turks, in 1713. - -Vescova is rarely visited by English folk, lying, as it does, something -like a two days’ journey off the beaten track, which leads through -Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople. But, should you ever chance to -come here, you would be surprised to see what a fine town it is, with -its population of upwards of a hundred thousand souls, its broad, -well-paved streets, its substantial yellow-stone houses, its three -theatres, its innumerable churches, its shops and cafés, its gardens, -quays, monuments, its government offices, and its Royal Palace. I -am speaking, of course, of the new town, the modern town, which has -virtually sprung into existence since 1850, and which, the author of my -guide-book says, “disputes with Bukharest the title of the Paris of -the South-east.” The old town—the Turkish town, as they call it—is -another matter: a nightmare-region of filthy alleys, open sewers, -crumbling clay hovels, mud, stench, dogs, and dirty humanity, into which -a well-advised foreigner will penetrate as seldom as convenient. Yet -it is in the centre of the old town that the Cathedral stands, the -Cathedral of Sankt Iakov, an interesting specimen of Fifteenth Century -Saracenic, having been erected by the Sultan Mohammed II., as a mosque. - -Of the Royal Palace I obtain a capital view from the window of my room -in the Hôtel de Russie. - -“A vast irregular pile,” in the language of my guide-book, “it -is built on the summit of an eminence which dominates the town from the -west.” The “eminence” rises gradually from this side to a height -of perhaps a hundred feet, but breaks off abruptly on the other in a -sheer cliff overhanging the Danube. The older portions of the Palace -spring from the very brink of the precipice, so that, leaning from -their ramparts, you could drop a pebble straight into the current, an -appalling depth below. And, still to speak by the book, these older -portions “vie with the Cathedral in architectural interest.” What I -see from my bedroom is a formidable, murderous-looking Saracenic castle: -huge perpendicular quadrangles of blank, windowless, iron-grey stone -wall (curtains, are they technically called?), connecting massive square -towers; and the towers are surmounted by battlements and pierced by -meurtrières. It stands out very bold and black, gloomy and impressive, -when the sun sets behind it, in the late afternoon. I could suppose the -place quite impregnable, if not inaccessible; and it’s a mystery to me -how Peter the Great ever succeeded in taking it, as History will have it -that he did, by assault. - -The modern portions of the Palace are entirely commonplace and cheerful. -The east wing, visible from where I am seated writing, might have been -designed by Baron Haussmann: a long stretch of yellow façade—dazzling -to the sight just now, in the morning sunshine—with a French roof, of -slate, and a box of gay-tinted flowers in each of its countless windows. - -Behind the Palace there is a large and very lovely garden, reserved -to the uses of the Royal Household; and beyond that, the Dunayskiy -Prospekt, a park that covers about sixty acres, and is open to the -public. - -The first floor, the piano nobile, of that east wing is occupied by the -private apartments of the King and Queen. - -I look across the quarter-mile of red-tiled housetops that separate me -from their Majesties’ habitation, and I fancy the life that is going -on within. It is too early in the day for either of them to be abroad, -so they are certainly there, somewhere behind those gleaming windows: -Theodore Krolt and Anéli Kroleva. - -She, I would lay a wager, is in her music-room, at her piano, practising -a song with Florimond. She is dressed in white (I always think of her -as dressed in white—doubtless because she wore a white frock the first -time I saw her), and her brown hair is curling loose about her forehead, -her maids not having yet imprisoned it. I declare, I can almost hear her -voice: tra-la-lira-la-la: mastering a trill; while Florimond, pink, and -plump, and smiling, walks up and down the room, nodding his head to mark -the time, and every now and then interrupting her with a suggestion. - -The King, at this hour, will be in his study, in dressing-gown and -slippers—a tattered old dingy brown dressing-gown, out at elbows—at -his big wildly-littered writing-table, producing “copy,” to -the accompaniment of endless cigarettes and endless glasses of tea. -(Monterossan cigarettes are excellent, and Monterossan tea is always -served in glasses.) The King has literary aspirations, and—like -Frederick the Great—coaxes his muse in French. You will occasionally -see a conte of his in the Nouvelle Revue, signed by the artful -pseudonym, Théodore Montrouge. - -At one o’clock to-day I am to present myself at the Palace, and to be -received by their Majesties in informal audience; and then I am to have -the honour of lunching with them. If I were on the point of lunching -with any other royal family in Europe.... But, thank goodness, I’m -not; and I needn’t pursue the distressing speculation. Queen Anéli -and King Theodore are—for a multitude of reasons—a Queen and King -apart. - -You see, when he began life, Theodore IV. was simply Prince Theodore -Pavelovitch, the younger son of a nephew of the reigning Krol, Paul -III,; and nobody dimly dreamed that he would ever ascend the throne. So -he went to Paris, and “made his studies” in the Latin Quarter, like -any commoner. - -In those days—as, I dare say, it still is in these—the Latin Quarter -was crowded with students from the far South-east. Servians, Roumanians, -Monte-rossans, grew, as it were, on every bush; we even had a sprinkling -of Bulgarians and Montenegrins; and those of them who were not (more -or less vaguely) princes, you could have numbered on your fingers. And, -anyhow, in that democratic and self-sufficient seat of learning, titles -count for little, and foreign countries are a matter of consummate -ignorance and jaunty unconcern. The Duke of Plaza-Toro, should he -venture in the classical Boul’ Miche, would have to cede the pas to -the latest hero of the Beaux-Arts, or bully from the School of Medicine, -even though the hero were the son of a village apothecary, and the bully -reeked to heaven of absinthe and tobacco; while the Prime Minister of -England would find his name, it is more than to be feared, unknown, and -himself regarded as a person of quite extraordinary unimportance. - -So we accepted Prince Theodore Pavelovitch, and tried him by his -individual merits, for all the world as if he were made of the same -flesh and blood as Tom, Dick, and Harry; and thee-and-thou’d him, and -hailed him as mon vieux, as merrily as we did everybody else. Indeed, I -shouldn’t wonder if the majority of those who knew him were serenely -unaware that his origin was royal (he would have been the last to -apprise them of it), and roughly classed him with our other princes -valaques. For convenience sake, we lumped them all—the divers natives -of the lands between the Black Sea and the Adriatic—under the generic -name, Valaques; we couldn’t be bothered with nicer ethnological -distinctions. - -We tried Prince Theodore by his individual merits; but, as his -individual merits happened to be signal, we liked him very much. He -hadn’t a trace of “side;” his pockets were full of money; he -was exceedingly free-handed. No man was readier for a lark, none more -inventive or untiring in the prosecution of one. He was a brilliant -scholar, besides, and almost the best fencer in the Quarter. And he -was pleasantly good-looking—fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a friendly -humorous face, a pointed beard, and a slight, agile, graceful figure. -Everybody liked him, and everybody was sorry when he had to leave us, -and return to his ultra-mundane birthplace. “It can’t be helped,” -he said. “I must go home and do three years of military service. But -then I shall come back. I mean always to live in Paris.” - -That was in ’82. But he never came back. For, before his three years -of military service were completed, the half-dozen cousins and the -brother who stood between him and the throne, had one by one died off, -and Theodore himself had succeeded to the dignity of Krolevitch,—as -they call their Heir-Presumptive. In 1886 he married. And, finally, in -’88, his great-uncle Paul also died—at the age of ninety-seven, if -you please—and Theodore was duly proclaimed Krol. - -He didn’t forget his ancient cronies, though; and I was only one of -those whom he invited to come and stay with him in his Palace. I came, -and stayed.... eleven months! That seems egregious; but what will you -say of another of us, Arthur Fleet (or Florimond, as their Majesties -have nicknamed him), who came at the same time, and has stayed ever -since? The fact is, the King is a tenacious as well as a delightful -host; if he once gets you within his portals, he won’t let you go -without a struggle. “We do bore ourselves so improbably out here, you -know,” he explains. “The society of a Christian is a thing we’d -commit a crime for.” - -Theodore’s consort, Anéli Isabella, Kroleva Tcherrnnogory—vide the -Almanach de Gotha—is the third daughter of the late Prince Maximilian -of Wittenburg; sister, therefore, to that young Prince Waldemar who -comes almost every year to England, and with whose name and exploits -as a yachtsman all conscientious students of the daily press will be -familiar; and cousin to the reigning Grand Duke Ernest. - -Theoretically German, she is, however, to all intents and purposes, -French; for her mother, the Princess Célestine (of Bourbon-Morbihan), -was a Frenchwoman, and, until her marriage, I fancy that more than half -of Anéli’s life was passed between Nice and Paris. She openly avows, -moreover, that she “detests Germany, the German language, the German -people, and all things German, and adores France and the French.” And -her political sympathies are entirely with the Franco-Russ alliance. - -She is a deliciously pretty little lady, with curling soft-brown hair, -a round, very young-looking face, a delicate rose-and-ivory complexion, -and big, bright, innocent brown eyes—innocent, yet with plenty of -potential archness, even potential mischief, lurking in them. She has -beautiful full red lips, besides, and exquisite little white teeth. -Florimond wrote a triolet about her once, in which he described her -as “une fleur en porcelaine.” Her Majesty repudiated the phrase -indignantly. “Why not say a wax-doll, and be done with it?” she -demanded. All the same, “fleur en porcelaine” does, in a manner, -suggest the general effect of her appearance, its daintiness, its -finish, its crisp chiselling, its clear, pure colour. Whereas, nothing -could be more misleading than “wax-doll,” for there is character, -character, in every molecule of her person. - -The Queen’s character, indeed, is what I wish I could give some -idea of It is peculiar, it is distinctive; to me, at any rate, it is -infinitely interesting and diverting; but, by the same token—if I may -hazard so to qualify it—it is a trifle.... a trifle.... difficult. - -“You’re such an arbitrary gent!” I heard Florimond complain to -her, one day. (I heard and trembled, but the Queen only laughed.) And -that will give you an inkling of what I mean. - -If she likes you, if you amuse her, and if you never remotely oppose or -question her desire of the moment, she can be all that is most -gracious, most reasonable, most captivating: an inspiring listener, an -entertaining talker: mingling the naïveté, the inexperience of evil, -the half comical, half appealing unsophistication, of a girl, of a child -almost—of one who has always lived far aloof from the struggle and -uncleanness of the workaday world—with the wit, the humour, the -swift appreciation and responsiveness of an exceedingly impressionable, -clear-sighted, and accomplished woman. - -But... but.... - -Well, I suppose, the right way of putting it would be to say, in the -consecrated formula, that she has the defects of her qualities. Having -preserved something of a child’s simplicity, she has not entirely lost -a child’s wilfulness, a child’s instability of mood, a child’s -trick of wearing its heart upon its sleeve. She has never perfectly -acquired a grown person’s power of controlling or concealing her -emotions. - -If you don’t happen to amuse her—if, by any chance, it is your -misfortune to bore her, no matter how slightly; and, oh, she is -so easily bored!—the atmosphere changes in a twinkling: the sun -disappears, clouds gather, the temperature falls, and (unless you -speedily “brisken up,” or fly her presence) you may prepare for -most uncomfortable weather. If you manifest the faintest hesitation in -complying with her momentary wishes, if you raise the mildest objection -to them—gare à vous! Her face darkens, ominous lightning flashes in -her eyes, her under-lip swells dangerously; she very likely stamps her -foot imperiously; and you are to be accounted lucky if you don’t get a -smart dab from the barbed end of her royal tongue. And if she doesn’t -like you, though she may think she is trying with might and main to -disguise the fact and to treat you courteously, you know it directly, -and you go away with the persuasion that she has been, not merely cold -and abstracted, but downright uncivil. - -In a word, Queen Anéli is hasty, she is impatient. - -And, in addition to that, she is uncertain. You can never tell -beforehand, by any theory of probabilities based on past experience, -what will or will not, on any given occasion, cause her to smile or -frown. The thing she expressed a desire for yesterday, may offend her -to-day, The suggestion that offended her yesterday, to-day she may -welcome with joyous enthusiasm. You must approach her gingerly, -tentatively; you must feel your ground. - -“Oh, most dread Sovereign,” said Florimond, “if you won’t fly -out at me, I would submit, humbly, that you’d better not drive this -afternoon in your victoria, in your sweet new frock, for, unless all -signs fail, it’s going to rain like everything.” - -She didn’t fly out at him exactly; but she retorted succinctly, with -a peremptory gesture, “No, it’s not going to rain,” as who should -say, “It daren’t.” And she drove in her victoria, and spoiled -her sweet new frock. “Not to speak of my sweet new top-hat,” sighs -Florimond, who attended her; “the only Lincoln and Bennett topper in -the whole length and breadth of Monterosso.” - -She is hasty, she is uncertain; and then... she is intense. She talks in -italics, she feels in superlatives; she admits no comparative degree, -no emotional half-tones. When she is not ecstatically happy, she is -desperately miserable; wonders why she was ever born into this worst of -all possible worlds; wishes she were dead; and even sometimes drops dark -hints of meditated suicide. When she is not in the brightest of affable -humours, she is in the blackest of cross ones. She either loves a thing, -or she simply can’t endure it;—the thing may be a town, a musical -composition, a perfume, or a person. She either loves you, or simply -can’t endure you; and she’s very apt to love you and to cease -to love you alternately—or, at least, to give you to understand as -much—three or four times a day. It is winter midnight or summer noon, -a climate of extremes. - -“Do you like the smell of tangerine-skin?” - -Every evening for a week, when, at the end of dinner, the fruit -was handed round, the King asked her that question; and she, never -suspecting his malice, answered invariably, as she crushed a bit between -her fingers, and fervidly inhaled its odour, “Oh, do I like it? I -adore it. It’s perfect rapture.” - -She is hasty, she is uncertain, she is intense. Will you be surprised -when I go on to insist that, down deep, she is altogether well-meaning -and excessively tender-hearted, and when I own that among all the women -I know I can think of none other who seems to me so attractive, so -fascinating, so sweetly feminine and loveable? (Oh, no, I am not in love -with her, not in the least—though I don’t say that I mightn’t be, -if I were a king, or she were not a queen.) If she realises that she has -been unreasonable, she is the first to confess it; she repents honestly, -and makes the devoutest resolutions to amend. If she discovers that she -has hurt anybody’s feelings, her conscience will not give her a single -second of peace, until she has sought her victim out and heaped him with -benefits. If she believes that this or that distasteful task forms in -very truth a part of her duty, she will go to any length of persevering -self-sacrifice to accomplish it. - -She has a hundred generous and kindly impulses, where she has one that -is perverse or inconsiderate. Bring any case of distress or sorrow to -her notice, and see how instantly her eyes soften, how eager she is to -be of help. And in her affections, however mercurial she may appear on -the surface, she is really constant, passionate, and, in great things, -forbearing. She and her husband, for example, though they have been -married perilously near ten years, are little better than a pair of -sweethearts (and jealous sweethearts, at that: you should have been -present on a certain evening when we had been having a long talk and -laugh over old days in the Latin Quarter, and an evil spirit prompted -one of us to regale her Majesty with a highly-coloured account of -Theodore’s youthful infatuation for Nina Childe!... Oh, their faces! -Oh, the silence! ); and then, witness her devotion to her brother, to -her sisters; her fondness for Florimond, for Madame Donarowska, who was -her governess when she was a girl, and now lives with her in the Palace. - -“I am writing a fairy-tale,” Florimond said to her “about Princess -Gugglegoo and Princess Raggle-snag.” - -“Oh?” questioned the Queen. “And who were they?” - -“Princess Gugglegoo was all sweetness and pinkness, softness and -guilelessness, a rose full of honey, and without a thorn; a perfect -little cherub; oh, such a duck! Princess Ragglesnag was all corners and -sharp edges, fire and fret, dark moods and quick angers; oh, such an -intolerant, dictatorial, explosive, tempestuous princess! You could no -more touch her than you could touch a nettle, or a porcupine, or a -live coal, or a Leyden jar, or any other prickly, snaggy, knaggy, -incandescent, electric thing. You were obliged to mind your p’s and -q’s with her! But no matter how carefully you minded them, she was -sure to let you have it, sooner or later; you were sure to rile her, one -way or another: she was that cantankerous and tetchy, and changeable and -unexpected.—And then.... Well, what do you suppose?” - -“I’m waiting to hear,” the Queen replied, a little drily. - -“Oh, there! If you’re going to be grumpy, ma’am, I won’t -play,” cried Florimond. - -“I’m not grumpy. Only, your characters are rather conventionally -drawn. However, go on, go on.” - -“There was a distinct suggestion of menace in your tone. But -never mind. If you didn’t really mean it, we’ll pretend there -wasn’t.—Well, my dears,” he went on, turning, so as to include the -King in his audience, “you never will believe me, but it’s a solemn, -sober fact that these two princesses were twin sisters, and that they -looked so much alike that nobody, not even their own born mother, could -tell them apart. Now, wasn’t that surprising? Only Ragglesnag looked -like Gugglegoo suddenly curdled and gone sour, you know; and Gugglegoo -looked like Ragglesnag suddenly wreathed out in smiles and graces. So -that the courtiers used to say ’Hello! What can have happened? -Here comes dear Princess Gugglegoo looking as black as thunder.’ Or -else—’Bless us and save us! What’s this miracle? Here comes old -Ragglesnag looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,’ Well, -and then....” - -“Oh, you needn’t continue,” the Queen interrupted, bridling. -“You’re tedious and obvious, and utterly unfair and unjust. I hope -I’m not an insipid little fool, like Gugglegoo; but I don’t -think I’m quite a termagant, either, like your horrid exaggerated -Ragglesnag.” - -“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” wailed Florimond. “Why will people go and -make a personal application or everything a fellow says? If I had been -even remotely thinking of your Majesty, I should never have dreamed of -calling her by either of those ridiculous outlandish names. Gugglegoo -and Ragglesnag, indeed!” - -“What would you have called her?” the King asked, who was chuckling -inscrutably in his armchair. - -“Well, I might have called her Ragglegoo, and I might have called her -Gugglesnag. But I hope I’m much too discerning ever to have applied -such a sweeping generalisation to her as Ragglesnag, or such a silly, -sugary sort of barbarism as Gugglegoo.” - -“It’s perfectly useless,” the Queen broke out, bitterly, “to -expect a man—even a comparatively intelligent and highly-developed -man, like Florimond—to understand the subtleties of a woman’s -nature, or to sympathise with the difficulties of her life. When she -isn’t as crude, and as blunt, and as phlegmatic, and as insensitive, -and as transparent and commonplace and all-of-one-piece as themselves, -men always think a woman’s unreasonable and capricious and infantile. -It’s a little too discouraging. Here I wear myself to a shadow, and -bore and worry myself to extermination, with all the petty contemptible -cares and bothers and pomps and ceremonies of this tiresome little -Court; and that’s all the thanks I get—to be laughed at by my -husband, and lectured and ridiculed in stupid allegories by Florimond! -It’s a little too hard. Oh, if you’d only let me go away, and leave -it all behind me! I’d go to Paris and change my name, and become a -concert-singer. It’s the only thing I really care for—to sing -and sing and sing. Oh, if I could only go and make a career as a -concert-singer in Paris! Will you let me? Will you? Will you?” she -demanded, vehemently, of her husband. - -“That’s rather a radical measure to bring up for discussion at this -hour of the night, isn’t it?” the King suggested, laughing. - -“But it’s quite serious enough for you to afford to consider it. And -I don’t see why one hour isn’t as good as another. Will you let me -go to Paris and become a concert-singer?” - -“What! And leave poor me alone and forlorn here in Vescova? Oh, my -dear, you wouldn’t desert your own lawful spouse in that regardless -manner!” - -“I don’t see what ’lawful’ has to do with it. You don’t -half appreciate me. You think I’m childish, and capricious, and -bad-tempered, and everything that’s absurd and idiotic. I don’t -see why I should waste my life and my youth, stagnating in this -out-of-the-way corner of Nowhere, with a man who doesn’t appreciate -me, and who thinks I’m childish and idiotic, when I could go to Paris -and have a life of my own, and a career, and do the only thing in the -world I really care for. Will you let me go? Answer. Will you?” - -But the King only laughed. - -“And besides,” the Queen went on, in a minute, “if you really -missed me, you could come too. You could abdicate. Why shouldn’t you? -Instead of staying here, and boring and worrying ourselves to death -as King and Queen of this ungrateful, insufferable, little unimportant -ninth-rate make-believe of a country, why shouldn’t we abdicate and go -to Paris, and be a Man and a Woman, and have a little Life, instead of -this dreary, artificial, cardboard sort of puppet-show existence? You -could devote yourself to literature, and I’d go on the concert-stage, -and we’d have a delightful little house in the Avenue du Bois de -Boulogne, and be perfectly happy. Of course, Flori-mond would come with -us. Why shouldn’t we? Oh, if you only would Î Will you? Will you, -Theo?” she pleaded earnestly. - -The King looked at his watch. “It’s nearly midnight, my dear,” he -said. “High time, I should think, to adjourn the debate. But if, when -you wake up to-morrow morning, you wish to resume it, Flori-mond and I -will be at your disposal. Meanwhile, we’re losing our beauty-sleep; -and I, for one, am going to bed.” - -“Oh, it’s always like that!” the Queen complained. “You never do -me the honour of taking seriously anything I say. It’s intolerable. I -don’t think any woman was ever so badly treated.” - -She didn’t recur to the subject next day, however, but passed the -entire morning with Florimond, planning the details of a garden-party, -and editing the list of guests; and she threw her whole soul into -it too. So that, when the King looked in upon them a little before -luncheon, Florimond smiled at him significantly (indeed, I’m not -sure he didn’t wink at him) and called out, “Oh, we are enjoying -ourselves. Please don’t interrupt. Go back to your counting-house and -count out your money, and leave us in the parlour to eat our bread and -honey.” - -It is in the nature of things, doubtless, that a temperament such as -I have endeavoured to suggest should find the intensity of its own -feelings reflected by those that it excites in others. One would expect -to hear that the people who like Queen Anéli like her tremendously, and -that the people who don’t like her tremendously don’t like her -at all. And, in effect, that is precisely the lady’s case. She is -tremendously liked by those who are near to her, and who are therefore -in a position to understand her and to make allowances. They love the -woman in her; they laugh at and love the high-spirited, whimsical, -impetuous, ingenuous child. But those who are at a distance from her, -or who meet her only rarely and formally, necessarily fail to understand -her, and are apt, accordingly, neither to admire her greatly, nor to -bear her much good will. And, of course, while the people who are -near to her can be named by twos and threes, those who view her from -a distance must be reckoned with by thousands. And this brings me to a -painful circumstance, which I may as well mention without more ado. At -Vescova—as you could scarcely spend a day in the town and not become -aware—Queen Anéli is anything you please but popular. - -“The inhabitants of Monterosso,” says M. Boridov, in his interesting -history of that country, “fall into three rigidly separated castes: -the nobility, a bare handful of tall, fair-haired, pure-blooded Slavs; -the merchants and manufacturers, almost exclusively Jews and Germans; -and the peasantry, the populace—a short, thick-set, swarthy race, of -Slavic origin, no doubt, and speaking a Slavic tongue, but with most of -the Slavic characteristics obliterated by admixture with the Turk.... -Your true Slav peasant, with his mild blue eyes and his trustful spirit, -is as meek and as long-suffering as a dumb beast of burden. But your -black-browed Monterossan, your Tchermnogorets, is fierce, lawless, -resentful, and vindictive, a Turk’s grandson, the Turk’s first -cousin: though no one detests the Turk more cordially than he.” - -“Well, at Vescova, and, with diminishing force, throughout all -Monterosso, Queen Anéli is entirely misunderstood and sullenly -misliked. Her husband cannot be called precisely the idol of his people, -either; but he is regarded with indulgence, even with hopefulness; he is -a Monterossan, a Pavelovitch: he may turn out well yet. Anéli, on the -contrary, is an alien, a German, a Niemkashka. The feeling against her -begins with the nobility. Save the half-dozen who are about her person, -almost every mother’s son or daughter of them fancies that he or -she has been rudely treated by her, and quite frankly hates her. I am -afraid, indeed, they have some real cause of grievance; for they are -most of them rather tedious, and provincial, and narrow-minded; and they -bore her terribly when they come to Court; and when she is bored, as -we have seen, she is likely to show it pretty plainly. So they say she -gives herself airs. They pretend that when she isn’t absent-minded -and monosyllabic, she is positively snappish. They denounce her as vain, -shallow-pated, and extravagant. They twist and torture every word she -speaks, and everything she does, into subject-matter for unfriendly -criticism; and they quote as from her lips a good many words that she -has never spoken, and they blame her savagely for innumerable things -that she has never thought of doing. But that’s the trouble with the -fierce light that beats upon a throne—it shows the gaping multitude so -much more than is really there. Why, I have been assured by at least a -score of Monterossan ladies that the Queen’s lovely brown hair is a -wig; that her exquisite little teeth are the creation of Dr. Evans, of -Paris; that whenever anything happens to annoy her, she bursts out with -torrents of the most awful French oaths; that she quite frequently slaps -and pinches her maids-of-honour; and that, as for her poor husband, he -gets his hair pulled and his face scratched as often as he and she have -the slightest difference of opinion. Monterossan ladies have gravely -asseverated these charges to me (these, and others more outrageous, -which I won’t repeat), whilst their Monterossan lords nodded -confirmation. It matters little that the charges are preposterous. Give -a Queen a bad name, and nine people in ten will believe she merits it. - -“Anyhow, the nobility of Monterosso, quite frankly hating Queen -Anéli, give her every bad name they can discover in their vocabularies; -and the populace, the mob, without stopping to make original -investigations, have convicted her on faith, and watch her with sullen -captiousness and mislike. When she drives abroad, scarcely a hat is -doffed, never a cheer is raised. On the contrary, one sometimes hears -mutterings and muffled groans; and the glances the passers-by direct at -her are, in the main, the very reverse of affectionate glances. Members -of the shop-keeping class alone show a certain tendency to speak up for -her, because she spends her money pretty freely; but the shop-keeping -class are aliens too, and don’t count—or, rather, they count against -her, ’the dogs of Jews,’ the zhudovskwy sobakwy!” - -But do you imagine Queen Anéli minds? Do you imagine she is hurt, -depressed, disappointed? Not she. She accepts her unpopularity with the -most superb indifference. “What do you suppose I care for the opinion -of such riff-raff?” I recollect her once crying out, with curling lip. -“Any one who has the least individuality, the least character, the -least fineness, the least originality—any one who is in the -least degree natural, unconventional, spontaneous—is bound to be -misconceived and caluminated by the vulgar rank and file. It’s the -meanness and stupidity of average human nature; it’s the proverbial -injustice of men. To be popular, you must either be utterly -insignificant, a complete nonentity, or else a timeserver and a -hypocrite. So long as I have a clear conscience of my own, I don’t -care a button what strangers think and say about me. I don’t intend -to allow my conduct to be influenced in the tiniest particular by the -prejudices of outsiders. Meddlers, busybodies! I will live my own life, -and those who don’t like it may do their worst. I will be myself.” - -“Yes, my dear; but after all,” the King reminded her, “one has, -in this imperfect world, to make certain compromises with one’s -environment, for comfort’s sake. One puts on extra clothing in winter, -for example, however much, on abstract principles, one may despise such -a gross, material, unintelligent thing as the weather. Just so, don’t -you think, one is by way of having a smoother time of it, in the long -run, if one takes a few simple measures to conciliate the people amongst -whom one is compelled to live? Now, for instance, if you would give an -hour or two every day to learning Monterossan.... - -“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t begin that rengaine,” cried her -Majesty. “I’ve told you a hundred million times that I won’t be -bothered learning Monterossan.” - -It is one of her subjects’ sorest points, by the bye, that she has -never condescended to learn their language. When she was first married, -indeed, she announced her intention of studying it. Grammars and -dictionaries were bought; a Professor was nominated; and for almost a -week the Crown Princess (Krolevna), as she then was, did little else -than grind at Monterossan. Her Professor was delighted; he had never -known such a zealous pupil. Her husband was a little anxious. “You -mustn’t work too hard, my dear. An hour or two a day should be quite -enough.” But she answered, “Let me alone. It interests me.” And -for almost a week she was at it early and late, with hammer and tongs; -poring over the endless declensions of Monterossan nouns, the endless -conjugations of Monterossan verbs; wrestling, sotto voce, with the -tongue-tangling difficulties of Monterossan pronunciation; or, with -dishevelled hair and inky fingers, copying long Monterossan sentences -into her exercise book. She is not the sort of person who does things -by halves.—And then, suddenly, she turned volte-face; abandoned the -enterprise for ever. “It’s idiotic,” she exclaimed. “A language -with thirty-seven letters in its alphabet, and no literature! Why should -I addle my brains trying to learn it? Ah, bien, merci! I’ll content -myself with French and English. It’s bad enough, in one short life, to -have had to learn German, when I was a child.” - -And neither argument nor entreaty could induce her to recommence it. The -King, who has never altogether resigned himself to her determination, -seizes from time to time an opportunity to hark back to it; but then he -is silenced, as we have seen, with a “don’t begin that rengaine.” -The disadvantages that result from her ignorance, it must be noticed, -are chiefly moral; it offends Monterossan amour-propre. Practically, she -does perfectly well with French, that being the Court language of the -realm. - -No, Queen Anéli doesn’t care a button. She tosses her head, -and accepts “the proverbial injustice of men” with magnificent -unconcern. Only, sometimes, when the public sentiment against her takes -the form of aggressive disrespect, or when it interferes in any way with -her immediate convenience, it puts her a little out of patience—when, -for instance, the traffic in the street retards the progress of her -carriage, and a passage isn’t cleared for her as rapidly as it might -be for a Queen whom the rabble loved; or when, crossing the pavement on -foot, to enter a church, or a shop, or what not, the idlers that collect -to look, glare at her sulkily, without doing her the common courtesy of -lifting their hats. In such circumstances, I dare say, she is more or -less angered. At all events, a sudden fire will kindle in her eyes, a -sudden colour in her cheeks; she will very likely tap nervously with her -foot, and murmur something about “canaille.” Perhaps anger, though, -is the wrong word for her emotion; perhaps it should be more correctly -called a kind of angry contempt. - -When I first came to Vescova, some years ago, the Prime Minister and -virtual dictator of the country was still M. Tsargradev, the terrible -M. Tsargradev,—or Sargradeff, as most English newspapers write his -name,—and it was during my visit here that his downfall occurred, his -downfall and irretrievable disgrace. - -The character and career of M. Tsargradev would furnish the subject for -an extremely interesting study. The illegitimate son of a Monterossan -nobleman, by a peasant mother, he inherited the unprepossessing physical -peculiarities of his mother’s stock: the sallow skin, the broad face, -the flat features, the prominent cheek-bones, the narrow, oblique-set, -truculent black eyes, the squat, heavy figure. But to these he united a -cleverness, an energy, an ambition, which are as foreign to simple as to -gentle Monterossan blood, and which he doubtless owed to the fusion -of the two; and an unscrupulousness, a perfidy, a cruelty, and yet a -superficial urbanity, that are perhaps not surprising in an ambitious -politician, half an Oriental, who has got to carry the double handicap -of a repulsive personal appearance and a bastard birth. Now, the -Government of Monterosso, as the King has sometimes been heard to -stigmatise it, is deplorably constitutional. By the Constitution of -1869, practically the whole legislative power is vested in the Soviete, -a parliament elected by the votes of all male subjects who have -completed three years of military service. And, in the early days of the -reign of Theodore IV., M. Tsargradev was leader of the Soviete, with a -majority of three to one at his back. - -This redoubtable personage stood foremost in the ranks of those whom our -fiery little Queen Anéli “could not endure.” - -“His horrible soapy smile! His servile, insinuating manner! It makes -you feel as if he were plotting your assassination,” she declared. -“His voice—ugh! It’s exactly like lukewarm oil. He makes my flesh -creep, like some frightful, bloated reptile.” - -“There was a Queen in Thule,” hummed Florimond, “who had a -marvellous command of invective. ’Eaving help your reputation, if you -fell under her illustrious displeasure.” - -“I don’t see why you make fun of me. I’m sure you think as I -do—that he’s a monster of low cunning, and cynicism, and craft, and -treachery, and everything that’s vile and revolting. Don’t you?” -the Queen demanded. - -“To be sure I do, ma’am. I think he’s a bold, bad, dreadful -person. I lie awake half the night, counting up his iniquities in my -mind. And if just now I laughed, it was only to keep from crying.” - -“This sort of talk is all very well,” put in the King; “but the -fact remains that Tsargradev is the master of Monterosso. He could do -any one of us an evil turn at any moment. He could cut down our Civil -List to-morrow, or even send us packing, and establish republic. We’re -dependent for everything upon his pleasure. I think, really, my dear, -you ought to try to be decent to him—if only for prudence’ sake.” - -“Decent to him!” echoed her Majesty. “I like that! As if I -didn’t treat him a hundred million times better than he deserves! I -hope he can’t complain that I’m not decent to him.” - -“You’re not exactly effusive, do you think? I don’t mean that you -stick your tongue out at him, or throw things at his head. But trust him -for understanding. It’s what you leave unsaid and undone, rather -than what you say or do. He’s fully conscious of the sort of place he -occupies in your esteem, and he resents it. He thinks you distrust him, -suspect him, look down upon him....” - -“Well, and so I do,” interrupted the Queen. “And so do you. And so -does everybody who has any right feeling.” - -“Yes; but those of us who are wise in our generation keep our private -sentiments regarding him under lock and key. We remember his power, and -treat him respectfully to his face, however much we may despise him in -secret. What’s the use of quarrelling with our bread and butter? We -should seek to propitiate him, to rub him the right way.” - -“Then you would actually like me to grovel, to toady, to a disgusting -little low-born, black-hearted cad like Tsargradev!” cried the Queen, -with scorn. - -“Oh, dear me, no,” protested her husband. “But there’s a vast -difference between toadying, and being a little tactful, a little -diplomatic. I should like you to treat him with something more than bare -civility.” - -“Well, what can I do that I don’t do?” - -“You never ask him to any but your general public functions, your -State receptions, and that sort of thing. Why don’t you admit him -to your private circle sometimes? Why don’t you invite him to your -private parties, your dinners?” - -“Ah, merci, non! My private parties are my private parties. I ask my -friends, I ask the people I like. Nothing could induce me to ask -that horrid little underbred mongrel creature. He’d be—he’d be -like—like something unclean—something murky and contaminating—in -the room. He’d be like an animal, an ape, a satyr.” - -“Well, my dear,” the King submitted meekly, “I only hope we’ll -never have cause to repent your exclusion of him. I know he bears us -a grudge for it, and he’s not a person whose grudges are to be made -light of.” - -“Bah! I’m not afraid of him,” Anéli retorted. “I know he hates -me. I see it every time he looks at me, with his snaky little eyes, his -forced little smile—that awful, complacent, ingratiating smirk of his, -that shows his teeth, and isn’t even skin deep; a mere film spread -over his face, like pomatum! Oh, I know he hates me. But it’s the -nature of mean, false little beasts like him to hate their betters; -so it can’t be helped. For the rest, he may do his worst. I’m not -afraid,” she concluded airily. - -Not only would she take no steps to propitiate M. Tsargradev, but she -was constantly urging her husband to dismiss him. - -“I’m perfectly certain he has all sorts of dreadful secret vices. I -haven’t the least doubt he’s murdered people. I’m sure he steals. -I’m sure he has a secret understanding with Berlin, and accepts bribes -to manage the affairs of Monterosso as Prince Bismarck wishes. That’s -why we’re more or less in disgrace with our natural allies, Russia and -France. Because Tsargradev is paid to pursue, an anti-Russian, a German, -policy. If you would take my advice, you’d dismiss him, and have -him put in prison. Then you could explain to the Soviete that he is a -murderer, a thief, a traitor, and a monster of secret immorality, and -appoint a decent person in his place.” - -Her husband laughed with great amusement. - -“You don’t appear quite yet to have mastered the principles of -constitutional government, my dear. I could no more dismiss Tsargradev -than you could dismiss the Pope of Rome.” - -“Are you or are you not the King of Monterosso?” - -“I’m Vice-King, perhaps. You’re the King, you know. But that has -nothing to do with it. Tsargradev is leader of the Soviete. The Soviete -pays the bills, and its leader governs. The King’s a mere fifth wheel. -Some day they’ll abolish him. Meanwhile they tolerate him, on the -understanding that he’s not to interfere.” - -“You ought to be ashamed to say so. You ought to take the law and -the Constitution and everything into your own hands. If you -asserted yourself, they’d never dare to resist you. But you always -submit—submit—submit. Of course, everybody takes advantage of a man -who always submits. Show that you have some spirit, some sense of your -own dignity. Order Tsargradev’s dismissal and arrest. You can do -it now, at once, this evening. Then to-morrow you can go down to the -Soviete, and tell them what a scoundrel he is—a thief, a murderer, a -traitor, an impostor, a libertine, everything that’s foul and bad. And -tell them that henceforward you intend to be really King, and not merely -nominally King; and that you’re going to govern exactly as you think -best; and that, if they don’t like that, they will have to make the -best of it. If they resist, you can dissolve them, and order a general -election. Or you can suspend the Constitution, and govern without any -Soviete at all.” - -The King laughed again. - -“I’m afraid the Soviete might ask for a little evidence, a few -proofs, in support of my sweeping charges. I could hardly satisfy them -by declaring that I had my wife’s word for it. But, seriously, you -exaggerate. Tsargradev is anything you like from the point of view of -abstract ethics, but he’s not a criminal. He hasn’t the faintest -motive for doing anything that isn’t in accordance with the law. -He’s simply a vulgar, self-seeking politician, with a touch of the -Tartar. But he’s not a thief, and I imagine his private life is no -worse than most men’s.” - -“Wait, wait, only wait!” cried the Queen. “Time will show. Some -day he’ll come to grief, and then you’ll see that he’s even worse -than I have said. I feel, I know, he’s everything that’s bad. -Trust a woman’s intuitions. They’re much better than what you call -evidence.” - -And she had a nickname for him, which, as well as her general criticisms -of his character, had pretty certainly reached the Premier’s ear; -for, as subsequent events demonstrated, very nearly every servant in the -Palace was a spy in his pay. She called him the nain jaune. - -Subsequent events have also demonstrated that her woman’s intuitions -were indeed trustworthy. Perhaps you will remember the revelations that -were made at the time of M. Tsargradev’s downfall; fairly full reports -of them appeared in the London papers. Murder, peculation, and revolting -secret debaucheries were all, surely enough, proved against him. It was -proved that he was the paid agent of Berlin; it was proved that he had -had recourse to torture in dealing with certain refractory witnesses in -his famous prosecution of Count Osaréki. And then, there was the case -of Colonel Alexandrevitch. He and Tsargradev, at sunset, were strolling -arm-in-arm in the Dunayskiy Prospekt, when the Colonel was shot by some -person concealed in the shrubberies, who was never captured. Tsargradev -and his friends broached the theory, which gained pretty general -acceptance, that the shot had been intended for the Prime Minister -himself, and that the death of Colonel Alexandrevitch was an accident -due to bad aiming. It is now perfectly well established that the death -of the Colonel was due to very good aiming indeed; that the assassin was -M. Tsargradev’s own hireling; and that perhaps the best reason why -the police could never lay hands on him had some connection with the -circumstance that the poor wretch, that very night, was strangled and -cast into the Danube. - -Oh, they manage these things in a highly unlikely and theatrical manner, -in the far south-east of Europe! - -But the particular circumstances of M. Tsargradev’s downfall were -amusingly illustrative of the character of the Queen. Ce que femme -veult, Dieu le veult. And though her husband talked of the Constitution, -and pleaded the necessity of evidence, Anéli was unconvinced. To get -rid of Tsargradev, by one method or another, was her fixed idea, her -determined purpose; she bided her time, and in the end she accomplished -it. - -It befell, during the seventh month of my stay in the Palace, that a -certain great royal wedding was appointed to be celebrated at Dresden: -a festivity to which were bidden all the crowned heads and most of the -royal and semi-royal personages of Christendom, and amongst them the -Krol and Kroleva of Monte-rosso. - -“It will cost us a pretty sum of money,” Theodore grumbled, when the -summons first reached him. “We’ll have to travel in state, with -a full suite; and the whole shot must be paid from our private purse. -There’s no expecting a penny for such a purpose from the Soviete.” - -“I hope,” exclaimed the Queen, looking up from a letter she was -writing, “I hope you don’t for a moment intend to go?” - -“We must go,” answered the King. “There’s no getting out of -it.” - -“Nonsense!” said she. “We’ll send a representative.” - -“I only wish we could,” sighed the King. “But unfortunately -this is an occasion when etiquette requires that we should attend in -person.” - -“Oh, bother etiquette,” said she. “Etiquette was made for slaves. -We’ll send your Cousin Peter. One must find some use for one’s -Cousin Peters.” - -“Yes; but this is a business, alas, in which one’s Cousin Peter -won’t go down. I’m very sorry to say we’ll have to attend in -person.” - -“Nonsense!” she repeated. “Attend in person! How can you think -of such a thing? We’d be bored and fatigued to death. It will be -unspeakable. Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocating German pomposity -and bad taste. Oh, je m’y connais! Red cloth, and military bands, and -interminable banquets, and noise, and confusion, and speeches (oh, the -speeches!), until you’re ready to drop. And besides, we’d be herded -with a crowd of ninth-rate princelings and petty dukes, who smell of -beer and cabbage and brilliantine. We’d be relegated to the fifth or -sixth rank, behind people who are all of them really our inferiors. -Do you suppose I mean to let myself be patronised by a lot of stupid -Hohenzollerns and Grâtzhoffens? No, indeed! You can send your Cousin -Peter.” - -“Ah, my dear, if I were the Tsar of Russia!” laughed her husband. -“Then I could send a present and a poor relation, and all would be -well. But—you speak of ninth-rate princelings. A ninth-rate princeling -like the Krol of Tchermnogoria must make act of presence in his proper -skin. It’s de rigueur. There’s no getting out of it. We must go.” - -“Well, you may go, if you like,” her Majesty declared. “As for -me, I won’t. If you choose to go and be patronised and bored, and -half killed by the fatigue, and half ruined by the expense, I suppose I -can’t prevent you. But, if you want my opinion, I think it’s utter -insane folly.” - -And she re-absorbed herself in her letter, with the air of one who had -been distracted for a moment by a frivolous and tiresome interruption. - -The King did not press the matter that evening, but the next morning he -mustered his courage, and returned to it. - -“My dear,” he began, “I beg you to listen to me patiently for -a moment, and not get angry. What I wish to say is really very -important.” - -“Well, what is it? What is it?” she enquired, with anticipatory -weariness. - -“It’s about going to Dresden. I—I want to assure you that I -dislike the notion of going quite as much as you can. But it’s no -question of choice. There are certain things one has to do, whether -one will or not. I’m exceedingly sorry to have to insist, but we -positively must reconcile ourselves to the sacrifice, and attend the -wedding—both of us. It’s a necessity of our position. If we should -stay away, it would be a breach of international good manners that -people would never forgive us. We should be the scandal, the by-word, of -the Courts of Europe. We’d give the direst offence in twenty different -quarters. We really can’t afford to make enemies of half the -royal families of the civilised world. You can’t imagine the -unpleasantnesses, the complications, our absence would store up for us; -the bad blood it would cause. We’d be put in the black list of our -order, and snubbed, and embarrassed, and practically ostracised, for -years to come. And you know whether we need friends. But the case is so -obvious, it seems a waste of breath to argue it. You surely won’t let -a mere little matter of temporary personal inconvenience get us into -such an ocean of hot water. Come now—be reasonable, and say you will -go.” - -The Queen’s eyes were burning; her under-lip had swollen portentously; -but she did not speak. - -The King waited a moment. Then, “Come, Anéli—don’t be angry. -Answer me. Say that you will go,” he urged, taking her hand. - -She snatched her hand away. I’m afraid she stamped her foot. “No!” -she cried. “Let me alone. I tell you I won’t.” - -“But, my dear....” the King was re-commencing.... - -“No, no, no! And you needn’t call me your dear. If you had the least -love for me, the least common kindness, or consideration for my health -or comfort or happiness, you’d never dream of proposing such a thing. -To drag me half-way across the Continent of Europe, to be all but killed -at the end of the journey by a pack of horrid, coarse, beer-drinking -Germans! And tired out, and irritated, and patronised, and humiliated by -people like ————— and ————! It’s perfectly heartless -of you. And I—when I suggest such a simple natural pleasure as a trip -to Paris, or to the Italian lakes in autumn—you tell me we can’t -afford it! You’re ready to spend thousands on a stupid, utterly -unnecessary and futile absurdity, like this wedding, but you can’t -afford to take me to the Italian lakes! And yet you pretend to love me! -Oh, its awful, awful, awful!” And her voice failed her in a sob; and -she hid her face in her hands, and wept. So the King had to drop the -subject again, and to devote his talents to the task of drying her -tears. - -I don’t know how many times they renewed the discussion, but I do know -that the Queen stood firm in her original refusal, and that at last it -was decided that the King should go without her, and excuse her absence -as best he might on the plea of her precarious state of health. It was -only after this resolution was made and registered, and her husband had -brought himself to accept it with some degree of resignation—it was -only then that her Majesty began to waver and vacillate, and reconsider, -and change her mind. As the date approached for his departure, her -alternations became an affair of hours. It was, “Oh, after all, -I can’t let you go alone, poor Theo. And besides, I should die of -heartbreak, here without you. So—there—I’ll make the best of a bad -business, and go with you”—it was either that, or else, “No, after -all, I can’t. I really can’t. I’m awfully sorry. I shall miss you -horribly. But, when I think of what it means, I haven’t the strength -or courage. I simply can’t”—it was one thing or the other, on and -off, all day. - -“When you finally know your own mind, I shall be glad if you’ll send -for me,” said Theodore. “Because I’ve got to name a Regent. And if -you’re coming with me, I shall name my Uncle Stephen. But if you’re -stopping here, of course I shall name you.” - -There is a bothersome little provision in the Constitution of Monterosso -to the effect that the Sovereign may not cross the frontiers of his -dominions, no matter for how brief a sojourn, without leaving a Regent -in command. Under the good old régime, before the revolution of 1868, -the kings of Tchermnogoria were a good deal inclined to spend the bulk -of their time—and money—in foreign parts. They found Paris, -Monte Carlo, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and even, if you can believe me, -sometimes London, on the whole more agreeable as places of residence -than their hereditary capital. (There was the particularly flagrant case -of Paul II., our Theodore’s great-grandfather, who lived for twenty -years on end in Rome. He fancied himself a statuary, poor gentleman, -and produced—oh, such amazing Groups! Tons of them repose in the Royal -Museum at Vescova; a few brave the sky here and there in lost corners -of the Campagna—he used to present them to the Pope! Perhaps you have -seen his Fountain at Acqu’amarra?) It was to discourage this sort of -royal absenteeism that the patriotic framers of the Constitution slyly -slipped Sub-Clause 18 into Clause ii., of Title 3, of Article XXXVI.: -Concerning the Appointment of a Regent. - -“So,” said Theodore, “when you have finally made up your mind, -I shall be glad if you will let me know; for I’ve got to name a -Regent.” - -But the Queen continued to hesitate; in the morning it was Yes, in the -evening No; and the eleventh hour was drawing near and nearer. The King -was to leave on Monday. On the previous Tuesday, in a melting mood, -Anéli had declared, “There! Once for all, to make an end of it, -I’ll go.” On Wednesday a Commission of Regency, appointing Prince -Stephen, was drawn up. On Thursday it was brought to the Palace for the -royal signature. The King had actually got so far as the d in his name, -when the Queen, faltering at sight of the irrevocable document, laid her -hand on his arm. She was very pale, and her voice was weak. “No, Theo, -don’t sign it. It’s like my death-warrant. I—I haven’t got the -courage. You’ll have to let me stay. You’ll have to go alone.” On -Friday a new commission was prepared, in which Anéli’s name had been -substituted for Stephen’s. On Saturday morning it was presented to the -King. “Shall I sign?” he asked. “Yes, sign,” said she. And he -signed. - -“Ouf!” she cried. “That’s settled.” - -And she hardly once changed her mind again until Sunday night; and even -then she only half changed it. - -“If it weren’t too late,” she announced, “do you know, I believe -I’d decide to go with you, in spite of everything? But of course I -never could get ready to start by to-morrow morning. You couldn’t wait -till Tuesday?” - -The King said he couldn’t. - -“And now, my dears” (as Florimond, who loves to tell the story, is -wont to begin it), “no sooner was her poor confiding husband’s back -a-turned, than what do you suppose this deep, designing, unprincipled, -high-handed young woman up and did?” - -Almost the last words Theodore spoke to her were, “Do, for heaven’s -sake, try to get on pleasantly with Tsargradev. Don’t treat him too -much as if he were the dust under your feet. All you’ll have to do is -to sign your name at the end of the papers he’ll bring you. Sign and -ask no questions, and all will be well.” - -And the very first act of Anéli’s Regency was to degrade M. -Tsargardev from office and to place him under arrest. - -We bade the King good-bye on the deck of the royal yacht Nemisa, which -was to bear him to Belgrade, the first stage of his journey. Cannon -bellowed from the citadel; the bells of all the churches in the town -were clanging in jubilant discord; the river was gay with fluttering -bunting, and the King resplendent in a gold-laced uniform, with the -stars and crosses of I don’t know how many Orders glittering on -his breast. We lingered at the landing-stage, waving our -pocket-handkerchiefs, till the Nemisa turned a promontory and -disappeared; Anéli silent, with a white face, and set, wistful eyes. -And then we got into a great gilt-and-scarlet state-coach, she and -Madame Donarowska, Florimond and I, and were driven back to the Palace; -and during the drive she never once spoke, but leaned her cheek on -Madame Donarowska’s shoulder, and cried as if her heart would break. - -The Palace reached, however—as who should say, “We’re not here to -amuse ourselves”—she promptly dried her tears. - -“Do you know what I’m going to do?” she asked. And, on our -admitting that we didn’t, she continued, blithely, “It’s an ill -wind that blows no good. Theo’s absence will be very hard to bear, but -I must turn it to some profitable account. I must improve the occasion -to straighten out his affairs; I must put his house in order. I’m -going to give Monsieur Tsargradev a taste of retributive justice. -I’m going to do what Theo himself ought to have done long ago. It’s -intolerable that a miscreant like Tsargradev should remain at large in a -civilised country; it’s a disgrace to humanity that such a man should -hold honourable office. I’m going to dismiss him and put him in -prison. And I shall keep him there till a thorough investigation has -been made of his official acts, and the crimes I’m perfectly certain -he’s committed have been proved against him. I’m not going to be -Regent for nothing. I’m going to rule.” - -We, her auditors, looked at each other in consternation. It was a good -minute before either of us could collect himself sufficiently to speak. - -At last, “Oh, lady, lady, august and gracious lady,” groaned -Florimond, “please be nice, and relieve our minds by confessing that -you’re only saying it to tease us. Tell us you’re only joking.” - -“I never was more serious in my life,” she answered. - -“I defy you to look me in the eye and say so without laughing,” he -persisted. “What is the fun of trying to frighten us?” - -“You needn’t be frightened. I know what I’m about,” said she. - -“What you’re about!” he echoed. “Oh me, oh my! You’re about to -bring your house crashing round your ears. You’re about to precipitate -a revolution. You’ll lose your poor unfortunate husband’s kingdom -for him. You’ll—goodness only can tell what you won’t do. Your own -bodily safety—your very life—will be in danger. There’ll be mobs, -there’ll be rioting. Oh, lady, sweet lady, gentle lady, you mustn’t, -you really mustn’t. You’d much better come and sing a song, along -o’ me. Don’t meddle with politics. They’re nothing but sea, sand, -and folly. Music’s the only serious thing in the world. Come—let’s -too-tootle.” - -“It’s all very well to try to turn what I say to jest,” the Queen -replied loftily, “but I assure you I mean every word of it. I’ve -studied the Constitution. I know my rights. The appointment and -revocation of Ministers rest absolutely with the Sovereign. It’s not -a matter of law, it’s merely a matter of custom, a matter of -convenience, that the Ministers should be chosen from the party that has -a majority in the Soviete. Well, when it comes to the case of a ruffian -like Tsargradev, custom and convenience must go by the board, in favour -of right and justice. I’m going to revoke him.” - -“And within an hour of your doing so the whole town of Vescova will -be in revolt. We’ll all have to leave the Palace, and fly for our -precious skins. We’ll be lucky if we get away with them intact. A -pretty piece of business! Tsargradev, from being Grand Vizier, -will become Grand Mogul; and farewell to the illustrious dynasty of -Pavelovitch! Oh, lady, lady! I call it downright unfriendly, downright -inhospitable of you. Where shall my grey hairs find shelter? I’m so -comfortable here under your royal rooftree. You wouldn’t deprive the -gentlest of God’s creatures of a happy home? Better that a thousand -Tsargradevs should flourish like a green bay-tree, than that one upright -man should be turned out of comfortable quarters. There, now, be kind. -As a personal favour to me, won’t you please just leave things as they -are?” - -The Queen laughed a little—not very heartily, though, and not at all -acquiescently. “Monsieur Tsargradev must go to prison,” was her -inexorable word. - -We pleaded, we argued, we exhausted ourselves in warnings and -protestations, but to no purpose. And in the end she lost her patience, -and shut us up categorically. - -“No! Laissez moi tranquille!” she cried. “I’ve heard enough. I -know my own mind. I won’t be bothered.” - -It was with heavy spirits and the dismallest forebodings that we -assisted at her subsequent proceedings. We had an anxious time of it for -many days; and it has never ceased to be a source of astonishment to me -that it all turned out as well as it did. But—ce que femme veult.... - -She began operations by despatching an aide-decamp to M. Tsargradev’s -house, with a note in which she commanded him to wait upon her forthwith -at the Palace, and to deliver up his seals of office. - -At the same time she summoned to her presence General Michaïlov, the -Military Governor of Vescova, and Prince Vasiliev, the leader of the -scant Conservative opposition in the Soviete. - -She awaited these gentleman in the throne-room, surrounded by the -officers of the household in full uniform. Florimond and I hovered -uneasily in the background. - -“By Jove, she does look her part, doesn’t she?” Florimond -whispered to me. - -She wore a robe of black silk, with the yellow ribbon of the Lion of -Monterosso across her breast, and a tiara of diamonds in her hair. Her -eyes glowed with a fire of determination, and her cheeks with a colour -that those who knew her recognised for a danger-signal. She stood on the -steps of the throne, waiting, and tapping nervously with her foot. - -And then the great white-and-gold folding doors were thrown open, and M. -Tsargradev entered, followed by the aide-de-camp who had gone to fetch -him. - -He entered, bowing and smiling, grotesque in his ministerial green and -silver; and the top of his bald head shone as if it had been waxed and -polished. Bowing and smirking, he advanced to the foot of the throne, -where he halted. - -“I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” -said the Queen. She held her head high, and spoke slowly, with superb -haughtiness. - -Tsargradev bowed low, and, always smiling, answered, in a voice -of honey, “If it please your Majesty, I don’t think I quite -understand.” - -“I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” -the Queen repeated, her head higher, her inflection haughtier than ever. - -“Does your Majesty mean that I am to consider myself dismissed from -her service?” he asked, with undiminished sweetness. - -“It is my desire that you should deliver up your seals of office,” -said she. - -Tsargradev’s lips puckered in an effort to suppress a little -good-humoured deprecatory laugh. “But, your Majesty,” he protested, -in the tone of one reasoning with a wayward school-girl, “you -must surely know that you have no power to dismiss a constitutional -Minister.” - -“I must decline to hold any discussion with you. I must insist upon -the immediate surrender of your seals of office.” - -“I must remind your Majesty that I am the representative of the -majority of the Soviete.” - -“I forbid you to answer me. I forbid you to speak in my presence. You -are not here to speak. You are here to restore the seals of your office -to your Sovereign.” - -“That, your Majesty, I must, with all respect, decline to do.” - -“You refuse?” the Queen demanded, with terrific shortness. - -“I cannot admit your Majesty’s right to demand such a thing of me. -It is unconstitutional.” - -“In other words, you refuse to obey my commands? Colonel Karkov!” -she called. - -Her eyes were burning magnificently now; her hands trembled a little. - -Colonel Karkov, the Marshal of the Palace, stepped forward. - -“Arrest that man,” said the Queen, pointing to Tsargradev. - -Colonel Karkov looked doubtful, hesitant. - -“Do you also mean to disobey me?” the Queen cried, with a glance... -oh, a glance! - -Colonel Karkov turned pale, but he hesitated no longer. He bowed to -Tsargradev. “I must ask you to constitute yourself my prisoner,” he -said. - -Tsargradev made a motion as if to speak; but the Queen raised her hand, -and he was silent. - -“Take him away at once,” she said. “Lock him up. He is to be -absolutely prevented from holding any communication with any one outside -the Palace.” - -And, somehow, Colonel Karkov managed to lead Tsargradev from the -presence-chamber. - -And that ended the first act of our comical, precarious little -melodrama. - -After Tsargradev’s departure there was a sudden buzz of conversation -among the courtiers. The Queen sank back, in evident exhaustion, upon -the red velvet cushions of the throne. She closed her eyes and breathed -deeply, holding one of her hands pressed hard against her heart. - -By-and-by she looked up. She was very pale. - -“Now let General Michaïlov and Prince Vasiliev be introduced,” she -said. - -And when they stood before her, “General Michaïlov,” she began, -“I desire you to place the town of Vescova under martial law. You will -station troops about the Palace, about the Chamber of the Soviete, -about the Mint and Government offices, and in all open squares and other -places where crowds would be likely to collect. I have just dismissed -M. Tsargradev from office, and there may be some disturbance. You will -rigorously suppress any signs of disorder. I shall hold you responsible -for the peace of the town and the protection of my person.” - -General Michaïlov, a short, stout, purple-faced old soldier, blinked -and coughed, and was presumably on the point of offering something in -the nature of an objection. - -“You have heard my wishes,” said the Queen. “I shall be glad if -you will see to their immediate execution.” - -The General still seemed to have something on his mind. - -The Queen stamped her foot. “Is everybody in a conspiracy to disobey -me?” she demanded. “I am the representative of your King, who is -Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Are my orders to be questioned?” - -The General bowed, and backed from the room. - -“Prince Vasiliev,” the Queen said, “I have sent for you to ask -you to replace M. Tsargradev as Secretary of State for the Interior, and -President of the Council. You will at once enter into the discharge of -your duties, and proceed to the formation of a Ministry.” - -Prince Vasiliev was a tall, spare, faded old man, with a pointed face -ending in a white imperial. He was a great personal favourite of the -Queen’s. - -“It will be a little difficult, Madame,” said he. - -“No doubt,” assented she. “But it must be done.” - -“I hardly see, Madame, how I can form a Ministry to any purpose, with -an overwhelming majority against me in the Soviete.” - -“You are to dissolve the Soviete and order a general election.” - -“The general election can scarcely be expected to result in a change -of parties, your Majesty.” - -“No; but we shall have gained time. When the new deputies are ready to -take their seats, M. Tsargradev’s case will have been disposed of. -I expect you will find among his papers at the Home Office evidence -sufficient to convict him of all sorts of crimes. If I can deliver -Monterosso from the Tsargradev superstition, my intention will have been -accomplished.” - -“Now let’s lunch,” she said to Florimond and me, at the close of -this historic session. “I’m ravenously hungry.” - -I dare say General Michaïlov did what he could, but his troops -weren’t numerous enough to prevent a good deal of disturbance in the -town; and I suppose he didn’t want to come to bloodshed. For three -days and nights, the streets leading up to the Palace were black with a -howling mob, kept from crossing the Palace courtyard by a guard of only -about a hundred men. Cries of “Long live Tsargradev!” and “Death -to the German woman!” and worse cries still, were constantly audible -from the Palace windows. - -“Canaille!” exclaimed the Queen. “Let them shout themselves -hoarse. Time will show.” - -And she would step out upon her balcony, in full sight of the enemy, and -look down upon them calmly, contemptuously. - -Still, the military did contrive to prevent an actual revolution, and to -maintain the status quo. - -The news reached the King at Vienna. He turned straight round and -hurried home. - -“Oh, my dear, my dear!” he groaned. “You have made a mess of -things.” - -“You think so? Read this.” - -It was a copy of the morning’s Gazette, containing Prince Vasiliev’s -report of the interesting discoveries he had made amongst the papers -Tsargradev had left behind him at the Home Office. - -There was an immediate revulsion of public feeling. The secret -understanding with Berlin was the thing that “did it.” The -Monterossans are hereditarily, temperamentally, and from motives of -policy, Russophils. - -They couldn’t forgive Tsargradev his secret treaty with Berlin; and -they promptly proceeded to execrate him as much as they had loved him. - -For State reasons, however, it was decided not to prosecute him. On his -release from prison, he asked for his passport, that he might go abroad. -He has remained an exile ever since, and (according to Florimond, at any -rate) “is spending his declining years colouring a meerschaum.” - -“People talk of the ingratitude of princes,” said the Queen, last -night. “But what of the ingratitude of nations? The Monterossans -hated me because I dismissed M. Tsargradev; and then, when they saw him -revealed in his true colours, they still hated me, in spite of it. They -are quick to resent what they imagine to be an injury; but they never -recognise a benefit. Oh, the folly of universal suffrage! The folly of -constitutional government! I used to say, ’Surely a good despot is -better than a mob.’ But now I’m convinced that a bad despot, -even, is better. Come, Florimond, let us sing.... you know.... that -song....” - -“God save—the best of despots?” suggested Florimond. - - - - -COUSIN ROSALYS - -Isn’t it a pretty name, Rosalys? But, for me, it is so much more; it -is a sort of romantic symbol. I look at it written there on the page, -and the sentiment of things changes: it is as if I were listening to -distant music; it is as if the white paper turned softly pink, and -breathed a perfume—never so faint a perfume of hyacinths. Rosalys, -Cousin Rosalys.... London and this sad-coloured February morning become -shadowy, remote. I think of another world, another era. Somebody has -said that old memories and fond regrets are the day-dreams of the -disappointed, the illusions of the age of disillusion. Well, if they -are illusions, thank goodness they are where experience can’t touch -them—on the safe side of time. - - - - - -Cousin Rosalys—I call her cousin. But, as we often used to remind -ourselves, with a kind of esoteric satisfaction, we were not “real” -cousins. She was the niece of my Aunt Elizabeth, and lived with her -in Rome; but my Aunt Elizabeth was not my “real” aunt—only my -great-aunt by marriage, the widow of my father’s uncle. It was Aunt -Elizabeth herself however, who dubbed us cousins, when she introduced -us to each other; and at that epoch, for both of us, Aunt Elizabeth’s -lightest words were in the nature of decrees, she was such a terrible -old lady. - -I’m sure I don’t know why she was terrible, I don’t know how she -contrived it; she never said anything, never did anything, -especially terrifying; she wasn’t especially wise or especially -witty—intellectually, indeed, I suspect she might have passed for a -paragon of respectable commonplaceness: but I do know that everybody -stood in awe of her. I suppose it must simply have been her atmosphere, -her odylic force; a sort of metaphysical chill that enveloped her, -and was felt by all who approached her—some people are like that. -Everybody stood in awe of her, everybody deferred to her: relations, -friends, even her Director, and the cloud of priests that pervaded her -establishment and gave it its character. For, like so many other old -ladies who lived in Rome in those days, my Aunt Elizabeth was nothing if -not Catholic, if not Ecclesiastical. You would have guessed as much, -I think, from her exterior. She looked Catholic, she looked -Ecclesiastical. There was something Gothic in her anatomy, in the -architecture of her face: in her high-bridged nose, in the pointed -arch her hair made as it parted above her forehead, in her prominent -cheek-bones, her straight-lipped mouth and long attenuated chin, in the -angularities of her figure. No doubt the simile must appear far-sought, -but upon my word her face used to remind me of a chapel—a chapel built -of marble, fallen somewhat into decay. I’m not sure whether she was -a tall woman, or whether she only had a false air of tallness, being -excessively thin and holding herself rigidly erect. - -She always dressed in black, in hard black silk cut to the severest -patterns. Somehow, the very jewels she wore—not merely the cross on -her bosom, but the rings on her fingers, the watch-chain round her neck, -her watch itself, her old-fashioned, gold-faced watch—seemed of a mode -canonical. - -She was nothing if not Catholic, if not Ecclesiastical; but I don’t -in the least mean that she was particularly devout. She observed all -requisite forms, of course: went, as occasion demanded, to mass, to -vespers, to confession; but religious fervour was the last thing she -suggested, the last thing she affected. I never heard her talk of Faith -or Salvation, of Sin or Grace, nor indeed of any matters spiritual. -She was quite frankly a woman of the world, and it was the Church as a -worldly institution, the Church corporal, the Papacy, Papal politics, -that absorbed her interests. The loss of the Temporal Power was the -wrong that filled the universe for her, its restoration the cause for -which she lived. That it was a forlorn cause she would never for an -instant even hypothetically admit. “Remember Avignon, remember the -Seventy Years,” she used to say, with a nod that seemed to attribute -apodictic value to the injunction. - -“Mark my words, she’ll live to be Pope yet,” a ribald young man -murmured behind her chair. “Oh, you tell me she is a woman. I’ll -assume it for the sake of the argument—I’d do anything for the -sake of an argument. But remember Joan, remember Pope Joan!” And he -mimicked his Aunt Elizabeth’s inflection and her conclusive nod. - - - - - -I had not been in Rome since that universe-filling wrong was -perpetrated—not since I was a child of six or seven—when, a -youth approaching twenty, I went there in the autumn of 1879; and I -recollected Aunt Elizabeth only vaguely, as a lady with a face like a -chapel, in whose presence—I had almost written in whose precincts—it -had required some courage to breathe. But my mother’s last words, -when I left her in Paris, had been, “Now mind you call on your Aunt -Elizabeth at once. You mustn’t let a day pass. I am writing to her to -tell her that you are coming. She will expect you to call at once.” -So, on the morrow of my arrival, I made an exceedingly careful toilet (I -remember to this day the pains I bestowed upon my tie, the revisions to -which I submitted it!), and, with an anxious heart, presented myself at -the huge brown Roman palace, a portion of which my formidable relative -inhabited; a palace with grated windows, and a vaulted, crypt-like -porte-cochère, and a tremendous Swiss concierge, in knee-breeches and a -cocked hat: the Palazzo Zacchinelli. - -The Swiss, flourishing his staff of office, marshalled me (I can’t -use a less imposing word for the ceremony) slowly, solemnly, across a -courtyard, and up a great stone staircase, at the top of which he -handed me on to a functionary in black—a functionary with an ominously -austere countenance, like an usher to the Inquisition. Poor old -Archimede! Later, when I had come to know him well and tip him, I found -he was the mildest creature, the amiablest, the most obliging, and that -tenebrious mien of his only a congenital accident, like a lisp or a -club-foot. But for the present he dismayed me, and I surrendered myself -with humility and meekness to his guardianship. He conducted me through -a series of vast chambers—you know those enormous, ungenial Roman -rooms, their sombre tapestried walls, their formal furniture, their -cheerless, perpetual twilight—and out upon a terrace. - -The terrace lay in full sunshine. There was a garden below it, a garden -with orange-trees, and rosebushes, and camellias, with stretches of -greensward, with shrubberies, with a great fountain plashing in the -midst of it, and broken, moss-grown statues: a Roman garden, from -which a hundred sweet airs came up, in the gentle Roman weather. The -balustrade of the terrace was set at intervals with flowering plants, in -big urn-shaped vases; I don’t remember what the flowers were, but they -were pink, and many of their petals had fallen, and lay scattered on the -grey terrace pavement. At the far end, under an awning brave with red -and yellow stripes, two ladies were seated—a lady in black, presumably -the object of my pious pilgrimage; and a lady in white, whom, even from -a distance, I discovered to be young and pretty. A little round table -stood between them, with a carafe of water and some tumblers glistening -crisply on it. The lady in black was fanning herself with a black lace -fan. The lady in white held a book in her hand, from which I think she -had been reading aloud. A tiny imp of a red Pomeranian dog had started -forward, and was barking furiously. - -This scene must have made a deeper impression upon my perceptions -than any that I was conscious of at the moment, because it has always -remained as fresh in my memory as you see it now. It has always been a -picture that I could turn to when I would, and find unfaded: the garden, -the blue sky, the warm September sunshine, the long terrace, and the two -ladies seated at the end of it, looking towards me, an elderly lady in -black, and a young lady in white, with dark hair. - -My aunt quieted Sandro (that was the dog’s name), and giving me her -hand, said “How do you do?” rather drily. And then, for what seemed -a terribly long time, though no doubt it was only a few seconds, she -kept me standing before her, while she scrutinised me through a double -eye-glass, which she held by a mother-of-pearl handle; and I was acutely -aware of the awkward figure I must be cutting to the vision of that -strange young lady. - -At last, “I should never have recognised you. As a child you were the -image of your father. Now you resemble your mother,” Aunt Elizabeth -declared; and lowering her glass, she added, “This is your cousin -Rosalys.” - -I wondered, as I made my bow, why I had never heard before that I had -such a pretty cousin, with such a pretty name. She smiled on me very -kindly, and I noticed how bright her eyes were, and how white and -delicate her face. The little blue veins showed through the skin, and -there was no more than just the palest, palest thought of colour in her -cheeks. But her lips—exquisitely curved, sensitive lips—were warm -red. She smiled on me very kindly, and I daresay my heart responded with -an instant palpitation. She was a girl, and she was pretty; and her -name was Rosalys; and we were cousins; and I was eighteen. And above -us glowed the blue sky of Italy, and round us the golden sunshine; -and there, beside the terrace, lay the beautiful old Roman garden, the -fragrant, romantic garden.... If at eighteen one isn’t susceptible and -sentimental and impetuous, and prepared to respond with an instant -sweet commotion to the smiles of one’s pretty cousins (especially when -they’re named Rosalys), I protest one is unworthy of one’s youth. -One might as well be thirty-five, and a literary hack in London. - -After that introduction, however, my aunt immediately reclaimed my -attention. She proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions, about myself, -about my people, uninteresting questions, disconcerting questions, which -she posed with the air of one who knew the answers beforehand, and was -only asking as an examiner asks, to test you. And all the while, the -expression of her face, of her deprecating straight-lipped mouth, of her -half-closed sceptical old eyes, seemed to imply that she already had -her opinion of me, and that it wouldn’t in the least be affected -by anything I could say for myself, and that it was distinctly not a -flattering opinion. - -“Well, and what brings you to Rome?” That was one of her questions. -I felt like a suspicious character haled before the local magistrate to -give an account of his presence in the parish; putting on the best face -I could, I pleaded superior orders. I had taken my baccalauréat in the -summer; and my father desired me to pass some months in Italy, for -the purpose of “patching up my Italian, which had suffered from the -ravages of time,” before I returned to Paris, and settled down to the -study of a profession. - -“H’m,” said she, manifesting no emotion at what (in my simplicity) -I deemed rather a felicitous metaphor; and then, as it were, she let me -off with a warning. “Look out that you don’t fall into bad company. -Rome is full of dangerous people—painters, Bohemians, republicans, -atheists. You must be careful. I shall keep my eye upon you.” - -By-and-by, to my relief, my aunt’s director arrived, Monsignor -Parlaghi, a tall, fat, cheerful, bustling man, who wore a silk cassock -edged with purple, and a purple netted sash. When he sat down and -crossed his legs, one saw a square-toed shoe with a silver buckle, and -an inch or two of purple silk stocking. He began at once to talk with -his penitent, about some matter to which I (happily) was a stranger; and -that gave me my chance to break the ice with Rosalys. - -She had risen to greet the Monsignore, and now stood by the balustrade -of the terrace, half turned towards the garden, a slender, fragile -figure, all in white. Her dark hair swept away from her forehead in -lovely, long undulations, and her white face, beneath it, seemed almost -spirit-like in its delicacy, almost immaterial. - -“I am richer than I thought. I did not know I had a Cousin Rosalys,” -said I. - -It looks like a sufficiently easy thing to say, doesn’t it? And -besides, hadn’t I carefully composed and corrected and conned it -beforehand in the silence of my mind? But I remember the mighty effort -of will it cost me to get it said. I suppose it is in the design of -nature that Eighteen should find it nervous work to break the ice with -pretty girls. At any rate, I remember how my heart fluttered, and what -a hollow, unfamiliar sound my voice had; I remember that in the very -middle of the enterprise my pluck and my presence of mind suddenly -deserted me, and everything became a blank, and for one horrible moment -I thought I was going to break down utterly, and stand there staring, -blushing, speechless. But then I made a further mighty effort of will, -a desperate effort, and somehow, though they nearly choked me, the -premeditated words came out. - -“Oh, we’re not real cousins,” said she, letting her eyes shine for -a second on my face. And she explained to me just what the connection -between us was. “But we will call ourselves cousins,” she concluded. - -The worst was over; the worst, though Eighteen was still, no doubt, -conscious of perturbations. I don’t know how long we stood chatting -together there by the balustrade, but presently I said something about -the garden, and she proposed that we should go down into it. So she led -me to the other end of the terrace, where there was a flight of steps, -and we went down into the garden. - -The merest trifles, in such weather, with a pretty new-found Cousin -Rosalys for a comrade, are delightful, when one is eighteen, aren’t -they? It was delightful to feel the yielding turf under our feet, the -cool grass curling round our ankles—for in Roman gardens, in those old -days, it wasn’t the fashion to clip the grass close, as on an English -lawn. It was delightful to walk in the shade of the orange-trees, and -breathe the air sweetened by them. The stillness the dreamy stillness of -the soft, sunny afternoon was delightful; the crumbling old statues were -delightful, statues of fauns and dryads, of Pagan gods and goddesses, -Pan and Bacchus and Diana, their noses broken for the most part, -their bodies clothed in mosses and leafy vines. And the flowers were -delightful; the cyclamens, with which—so abundant were they—the -walls of the garden fairly dripped, as with a kind of pink foam; and the -roses, and the waxen red and white camellias. It was delightful to stop -before the great brown old fountain, and listen to its tinkle-tinkle of -cold water, and peer into its basin, all green with weeds, and watch the -antics of the goldfishes, and the little rainbows the sun struck from -the spray. And my Cousin Rosalys’s white frock was delightful, and her -voice was delightful; and that perturbation in my heart was exquisitely -delightful—something between a thrill and a tremor—a delicious -mixture of fear and wonderment and beatitude. I had dragged myself -hither to pay a duty-call upon my grim old dragon of a great-aunt -Elizabeth; and here I was wandering amid the hundred delights of a -romantic Italian garden, with a lovely, white-robed, bright-eyed sylph -of a Cousin Rosalys. - -Don’t ask me what we talked about. I have only the most fragmentary -recollection. I remember she told me that her father and mother had died -in India, when she was a child, and that her father (Aunt Elizabeth’s -“ever so much younger brother”) had been in the army, and that she -had lived with Aunt Elizabeth since she was twelve. And I remember she -asked me to speak French with her, because in Rome she almost always -spoke Italian or English, and she didn’t want to forget her French; -and “You’re, of course, almost a Frenchman, living in Paris.” So -we spoke French together, saying ma cousine and mon cousin, which was -very intimate and pleasant; and she spoke it so well that I expressed -some surprise. “If you don’t put on at least a slight accent, I -shall tell you you’re almost a Frenchman too,” I threatened. “Oh, -I had French nurses when I was little,” she said, “and afterwards -a French governess, till I was sixteen. I’m eighteen now. How old -are you?” I had heard that girls always liked a man to be older than -themselves, and I answered that I was nearly twenty. Well, and isn’t -eighteen nearly twenty?.... Anyhow, as I walked back to my lodgings -that afternoon, through the busy, twisted, sunlit Roman streets, Cousin -Rosalys filled all my heart and all my thoughts with a white radiance. - - - - - -You will conceive whether or not, during the months that followed, I was -an assiduous visitor at the Palazzo Zacchinelli. But I couldn’t spend -all my time there, and in my enforced absences I needed consolation. I -imagine I treated Aunt Elizabeth’s advice about avoiding bad company -as youth is wont to treat the counsels of crabbed age. Doubtless my most -frequent associates were those very painters and Bohemians against whom -she had particularly cautioned me—whether they were also republicans -and atheists, I don’t think I ever knew; I can’t remember that I -inquired, and religion and politics were subjects they seldom touched -upon spontaneously. I dare say I joined the artists’ club, in the -Via Margutta, the Circolo Internazionale degli Artisti; I am afraid -the Caffe Greco was my favourite café; I am afraid I even bought a -wide-awake hat, and wore it on the back of my head, and tried to look as -much like a painter and Bohemian myself as nature would permit. - -Bad company? I don’t know. It seemed to me very good company indeed. -There was Jack Everett, tall and slim and athletic, with his eager -aquiline face, his dark curling hair, the most poetic-looking creature, -humorous, whimsical, melancholy, imaginative, who used to quote Byron, -and plan our best practical jokes, and do the loveliest little cupids -and roses in water-colours. He has since married the girl he was even -then in love with, and is still living in Rome, and painting cupids and -roses. And there was d’.vignac, le vicomte, a young Frenchman, who -had been in the Diplomatic Service, and—superlative -distinction!—“ruined himself for a woman,” and now was striving -to keep body and soul together by giving fencing lessons; witty, kindly, -pathetic d’.vignac—we have vanished altogether from each other’s -ken. There was Ulysse Tavoni, the musician, who, when somebody asked him -what instrument he played, answered cheerily, “All instruments.” I -can testify from personal observation that he played the piano and the -flute, the guitar, mandoline, fiddle, and French horn, the ’cello and -the zither. And there was Kônig, the Austrian sculptor, a tiny man with -a ferocious black moustache, whom my landlady (he having called upon -me one day when I was out), unable to remember his transalpine name, -described to perfection as “un Orlando Furioso—ma molto piccolo.” -There was a dear, dreamy, languid, sentimental Pole, blue-eyed and -yellow-haired, also a sculptor, whose name I have totally forgotten, -though we were sworn to “hearts’ brotherhood,” He had the most -astonishing talent for imitating the sounds of animals, the neighing of -a horse, the crowing of a cock; and when he brayed like a donkey, all -the donkeys within earshot were deceived, and answered him. And then -there was Father Flynn, a jolly old bibulous priest from Cork. An uncle -of his had fought at Waterloo; it was great to hear him tell of his -uncle’s part in the fortunes of the day. It was great, too (for Father -Flynn was a fervid Irish patriot), to hear him roar out the “Wearing -of the Green.” Between the stanzas he would brandish his blackthorn, -stick at Everett, and call him a “murthering English tyrant,” to our -huge delectation. - -There were others and others and others; but these six are those who -come back first to my memory. They seemed to me very good company -indeed; very merry, and genial, and amusing; and the life we led -together seemed a very pleasant life. Oh, our pleasures were of the -simplest nature, the traditional pleasures of Bohemia; smoking and -drinking and talking, rambling arm-in-arm through the streets, -lounging in studios, going to the play or perhaps the circus, or making -excursions into the country. Only, the capital of our Bohemia was Rome. -The streets through which we rambled were Roman streets, with their -inexhaustible picturesqueness, their unending vicissitudes: with their -pink and yellow houses, their shrines, their fountains, their gardens, -their motley wayfarers—monks and soldiers; shaggy pifferari, and -contadine in their gaudy costumes, and models masquerading as contadine; -penitents, beggars, water-carriers, hawkers; priests in their vestments, -bearing the Host, attended by acolytes, with burning tapers, who rang -little bells, whilst men uncovered and women crossed themselves; and -everywhere, everywhere, English tourists, with their noses in Baedeker. -It was Rome with its bright sun, and its deep shadows; with its Ghetto, -its Tiber, its Castel Sant’ Angelo; with its churches, and palaces, -and ruins; with its Villa Borghese and its Pincian Hill; with its waving -green Campagna at its gates. We smoked and talked and drank—Chianti, -of course, and sunny Orvieto, and fabled Est-Est-Est, all in those -delightful pear-shaped, wicker-covered flasks, which of themselves, I -fancy, would confer a flavour upon indifferent wine. We made excursions -to Tivoli and Frascati, to Monte Cavo and Nemi, to Acqua Acetosa. We -patronised Pulcinella, and the marionettes, and (better still) the -imitation marionettes. We blew horns on the night of Epiphany, we danced -at masked balls, we put on dominoes and romped in the Corso during -carnival, throwing flowers and confetti, and struggling to extinguish -other people’s moccoli. And on rainy days (with an effort I can -remember that there were some rainy days) Everett and I would sit with -d’.vignac in his fencing gallery, and talk and smoke, and smoke and -talk and talk. D’.vignac was six-and-twenty, Everett was twenty-two, -and I was “nearly twenty.” D’.vignac would tell us of his past, of -his adventures in Spain and Japan and South America, and of the lady -for the love of whom he had come to grief. Everett and I would sigh -profoundly, and shake our heads, and exchange sympathetic glances, and -assure him that we knew what love was—we were victims of unfortunate -attachments ourselves. To each other we had confided everything, Everett -and I. He had told me all about his unrequited passion for Maud Eaton, -and I had rhapsodised to him by the hour about Cousin Rosalys. “But -you, old chap, you’re to be envied,” he would cry. “Here you are -in the same town with her, by Jove! You can see her, you can plead your -cause. Think of that. I wish I had half your luck. Maud is far away in -England, buried in a country-house down in Lancashire. She might as well -be on another planet, for all the good I get of her. But you—why, you -can see your Cousin Rosalys this very hour if you like! Oh, heavens, -what wouldn’t I give for half your luck!” The wheel of Time, the -wheel of Time! Everett and Maud are married, but Cousin Rosalys and -I.... Heigh-ho! I wonder whether, in our thoughts of ancient days, it is -more what we remember or what we forget that makes them sweet? Anyhow, -for the moment, we forget the dismal things that have happened since. - - - - - -Yes, I was in the same town with her, by Jove; I could see her. And -indeed I did see her many times every week. Like the villain in a -melodrama, I led a double life. When I was not disguised as a Bohemian, -in a velvet jacket and a wide-awake, smoking and talking and holding -wassail with my boon companions, you might have observed a young -man attired in the height of the prevailing fashion (his top-hat and -varnished boots flashing fire in the eyes of the Roman populace), going -to call on his Aunt Elizabeth. And his Aunt Elizabeth, pleased by such -dutiful attentions, rewarded him with frequent invitations to dinner. -Her other guests would be old ladies like herself, and old gentlemen, -and priests, priests, priests. So that Rosalys and I, the only young -ones present, were naturally paired together. After dinner Rosalys would -play and sing, while I hung over her piano. Oh, how beautifully she -played Chopin! How ravishingly she sang! Schubert’s Wohin, and -Rôslein, Rôslein, Rôslein roth; and Gounod’s Sérénade and his -Barcarolle: - - -“Dites la jeune belle, - -Où voulez-vous aller?” - - -And how angelically beautiful she looked! Her delicate, pale face, -and her dark, undulating hair, and her soft red lips; and then her -eyes—her luminous, mysterious dark eyes, in whose depths, far, far -within, you could discern her spirit shining starlike. And her hands, -white and slender and graceful, images in miniature of herself; with -what incommunicable wonder and admiration I used to watch them as they -moved above the keys. “A woman who plays Chopin ought to have three -hands—two to play with, and one for the man who’s listening to -hold.” That was a pleasantry which I meditated much in secret, and a -thousand times aspired to murmur in the player’s ear, but invariably, -when it came to the point of doing so, my courage failed me. “You -can see her, you can plead your cause.” Bless me, I never dared even -vaguely to hint that I had any cause to plead. I imagine young love -is always terribly afraid of revealing itself to its object, terribly -afraid and terribly desirous. Whenever I was not in Cousin Rosalys’s -presence, my heart was consumed with longing to tell her that I loved -her, to ask her whether perhaps she might be not wholly indifferent -to me; I made the boldest resolutions, committed to memory the most -persuasive declarations. But from the instant I was in her presence -again—mercy, what panic seized me! - -I could have died sooner than speak the words that I was dying to speak, -ask the question I was dying to ask. - -I called assiduously at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and my aunt bade me to -dinner a good deal, and then one afternoon every week she used to drive -with Rosalys on the Pincian. There was one afternoon every week when all -Rome drove on the Pincian; was it Saturday? At any rate, you may be very -sure I did not let such opportunities escape me for getting a bow and -a smile from my cousin. Sometimes she would leave the carriage and join -me, while Aunt Elizabeth, with Sandro in her lap, drove on, round -and round the consecrated circle; and we would stroll together in the -winding alleys, or stand by the terrace and look off over the roofs of -the city, and watch the sunset blaze and fade behind St. Peter’s. You -know that unexampled view—the roofs of Rome spread out beneath you -like the surface of a troubled sea, and the dome of St. Peter’s, an -island rising in the distance, and the sunset sky behind it. We would -stand there in silence perhaps, at most saying very little, while the -sunset burned itself out; and for one of us, at least, it was a moment -of ineffable, impossible enchantment. She was so near to me—so near, -the slender figure in the pretty frock, with the dark hair, and the -captivating hat, and the furs; with her soft glowing eyes, with her -exquisite fragrance of girlhood; she was so near to me, so alone with -me, despite the crowd about us, and I loved her so! Oh, why couldn’t -I tell her? Why couldn’t she divine it? People said that women always -knew by intuition when men were in love with them. Why couldn’t -Rosalys divine that I loved her, how I loved her, and make me a sign, -and so enable me to speak? - -Presently—and all too soon—she would return to the carriage, and -drive away with Aunt Elizabeth; and I, in the lugubrious twilight, would -descend the great marble Spanish staircase (a perilous path, amongst -models and beggars and other things) to the Piazza, and seek out Jack -Everett at the Caffé Greco. Thence he and I would go off to dine -together somewhere, condoling with each other upon our ill-starred -passions. After dinner, pulling our hats over our eyes, two desperately -tragic forms, we would set ourselves upon the traces of d’.vignac and -Kônig and Father Flynn, determined to forget our sorrows in an evening -of dissipation, saying regretfully, “These are the evil courses to -which the love of woman has reduced us—a couple of the best-meaning -fellows in Christendom, and surely born for better ends.” When we were -children (hasn’t Kenneth Grahame written it for us in a golden book?) -we played at conspirators and pirates. When we were a little older, and -Byron or Musset had superseded Fenimore Cooper, some of us found there -was an unique excitement to be got from the game of Blighted Beings. - -Oh, why couldn’t I tell her? Why couldn’t she divine it, and make me -an encouraging sign? - - - - - -But, of course, in the end I did tell her. It was on the night of my -birthday. I had dined at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and with the dessert -a great cake was brought in and set before me. A number of little red -candles were burning round it, and embossed upon it in frosting was this -device: - - -A birthday-piece - -From Rosalys, - -Wishing birthdays more in plenty - -To her cousin “nearly twenty.” - - -And counting the candles, I perceived they were nineteen. - -Probably my joy was somewhat tempered by confusion, to think that my -little equivocation on the subject of my age had been discovered. As -I looked up from the cake to its giver, I met a pair of eyes that were -gleaming with mischievous raillery; and she shook her head at me, and -murmured, “Oh, you fibber!” - -“How on earth did you find out?” I wondered. - -“Oh—a little bird,” laughed she. - -“I don’t think it’s at all respectful of you to call Aunt -Elizabeth a little bird,” said I. - -After dinner we went out upon the terrace. It was a warm night, and -there was a moon. A moonlit night in Italy—dark velvet shot with -silver. And the air was intoxicant with the scent of hyacinths. We -were in March; the garden had become a wilderness of spring flowers, -narcissuses and jonquils, crocuses, anemones, tulips, and hyacinths; -hyacinths, everywhere hyacinths. Rosalys had thrown a bit of white lace -over her hair. Oh, I assure you, in the moonlight, with the white lace -over her hair, with her pale face, and her eyes, her shining, mysterious -eyes—oh, I promise you, she was lovely. - -“How beautiful the garden is, in the moonlight, isn’t it?” she -said. “The shadows, and the statues, and the fountains. And how sweet -the air is. They’re the hyacinths that smell so sweet. The hyacinth is -your birthday flower, you know. Hyacinths bring happiness to people born -in March.” - -I looked into her eyes, and my heart thrilled and thrilled. And then, -somehow, somehow... Oh, I don’t remember what I said; only somehow, -somehow... Ah, but I do remember very clearly what she answered—so -softly, so softly, while her hand lay in mine. I remember it very -clearly, and at the memory, even now, years afterwards, I confess my -heart thrills again. - -We were joined, in a minute or two, by Monsignor Parlaghi, and we tried -to behave as if he were not unwelcome. - - - - - -Adam and Eve were driven from Eden for their guilt; but it was Innocence -that lost our Eden for Rosalys and me. In our egregious innocence, we -had determined that I should call upon Aunt Elizabeth in the morning, -and formally demand her sanction to our engagement! Do I need to -recount the history of that interview? Of my aunt’s incredulity, -that gradually changed to scorn and anger? Of how I was fleered at and -flouted, and taunted with my youth, and called a fool and a coxcomb, -and sent about my business with the information that the portals of the -Palazzo Zacchinelli would remain eternally closed against me for the -future, and that my people “would be written to”? I was not even -allowed to see my cousin to say good-bye. “And mind you, we’ll have -no letter writing,” cried Aunt Elizabeth. “I shall forbid Rosalys to -receive any letters from you.” - -Guilt (we are taught) can be annulled, and its punishment remitted, -if we do heartily repent. But innocence? Goodness knows how heartily -I repented; yet I never found that a pennyweight of the punishment was -remitted. At the week’s end I got a letter from my people recalling me -to Paris. And I never saw Rosalys again. And some years afterwards she -married an Italian, a nephew of Cardinal Badascalchi. And in 1887, at -Viareggio, she died.... - - - - - -Eh bien, voilà! There is the little inachieved, the little unfulfilled -romance, written for me in her name, Cousin Rosalys. What of it? Oh, -nothing—except—except... Oh, nothing. “All good things come to him -who waits.” Perhaps. But we know how apt they are to come too late; -and—sometimes they come too early. - - - - -FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE I - -In the first-floor sitting-room of a lodging-house in Great College -Street, Westminster, a young man—he was tall and thin, with a good -deal of rather longish light-coloured hair, somewhat tumbled about; -and he wore a pince-nez, and was in slippers and the oldest of tattered -coats—a man of thirty-something was seated at a writing-table, -diligently scribbling at what an accustomed eye might have recognised as -“copy,” and negligently allowing the smoke from a cigarette to curl -round and stain the thumb and forefinger of his idle hand, when the -lodging-house maid-servant opened his door, and announced excitedly, -“A lady to see you, sir.” - -With the air of one taken altogether by surprise, and at a cruel -disadvantage, the writer dropped his pen, and jumped up. He was in -slippers and a disgraceful coat, not to dwell upon the condition of -his hair. “You ought to have kept her downstairs until———” he -began, frowning upon the maid; and at that point his visitor entered the -room. - -She was a handsome, dashing-looking young woman, in a toilette that -breathed the very last and crispest savour of Parisian elegance: a hat -that was a tangle of geraniums, an embroidered jacket, white gloves, a -skirt that frou-froued breezily as she moved; and she carried an amazing -silver-hilted sunshade, a thing like a folded gonfalon, a thing of red -silk gleaming through draperies of black lace. - -Poising lightly near the threshold, with a little smile of -interrogation, this bewildering vision said, “Have I the honour of -addressing Mr. William Stretton?” - -The young man bowed a vague acknowledgment of that name; but his gaze, -through the lenses of his pince-nez, was all perplexity and question. - -“I’m very fortunate in finding you at home. I’ve called to see you -about a matter of business,” she informed him. - -“Oh?” he wondered. Then he added, with a pathetic shake of the head, -“I’m the last man in the world whom any one could wisely choose -to see about a matter of business; but such as I am, I’m all at your -disposal.” - -“So much the better,” she rejoined cheerily. “I infinitely prefer -to transact business with people who are unbusinesslike. One has some -chance of overreaching them.” - -“You’ll have every chance of over-reaching me,” sighed he. - -“What a jolly quarter of the town you live in,” she commented. -“It’s so picturesque and Gothic and dilapidated, with such an -atmosphere of academic calm. It reminds me of Oxford.” - -“Yes,” assented he, “it is a bit like Oxford. Was your business -connected——?” - -“Oh, it is like Oxford?” she interrupted. “Then never tell me -again that there’s nothing in intuitions. I’ve never been in Oxford, -but directly I passed the gateway of Dean’s Yard, I felt reminded of -it.” - -“There’s undoubtedly a lot in intuitions,” he agreed; “and for -the future I shall carefully abstain from telling you there isn’t.” - -“Those things are gardens, over the way, behind the wall, aren’t -they?” she asked, looking out of the window. - -“Yes,” he said, “those things are gardens, the gardens of the -Abbey. The canons and people have their houses there.” - -“Very comfortable and nice,” said she. “Plenty of grass. And the -trees aren’t bad, either, for town trees. It must be rather fun to -be a canon. As I live,” she cried, turning back into the room, -“you’ve got a Pleyel. This is the first Pleyel I’ve seen in -England. Let me congratulate you on your taste in pianos.” And with -her gloved hands she struck a chord and made a run or two. “You’ll -need the tuner soon, though. It’s just the shadow of a shadow out. I -was brought up on Pleyels. Do you know, I’ve half a mind to make you a -confidence?” she questioned brightly. - -“Oh, do make it, I pray you,” he encouraged her. - -“Well, then, I believe, if you were to offer me a chair, I believe I -could bring myself to sit down,” she admitted. - -“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed; and she sank rustling into the -chair that he pushed forward. - -“Well, now for my business,” said she. “Would you just put this -thing somewhere?” She offered him her sunshade, which he took and -handled somewhat gingerly. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid. It’s quite -tame,” she laughed, “though I admit it looks a bit ferocious. What -a sweet room you’ve got—so manny, and smoky, and booky. Are they all -real books?” - -“More or less real,” he answered; “as real as any books ever are -that a fellow gets for review.” - -“Oh, you got them for review?” she repeated, with vivacity. “How -terribly exciting. I’ve never seen a book before that’s actually -passed through a reviewer’s hands. They don’t look much the worse -for it. Whatever else you said about them, I trust you didn’t deny -that they make nice domestic ornaments. But this isn’t business. You -wouldn’t call this business?” she enquired, with grave curiosity. - -“No, I should call this pleasure,” he assured her, laughing. - -“Would you?” She raised her eyebrows. “Ah, but then you’re -English.” - -“Aren’t you?” asked he. - -“Do I look English?” - -“I’m not sure.” He hesitated for a second, studying her. “You -certainly don’t dress English.” - -“Heaven forbid Δ She made a fervent gesture. “I’m a miserable -sinner, but at least I’m incapable of that. However, if you were -really kind, you’d affect just a little curiosity to know the errand -to which you owe my presence.” - -“I’m devoured by curiosity,” he declared. - -Again she raised her eyebrows. “You are? Then why don’t you show -it?” - -“Perhaps because I have a sense of humour—amongst other reasons,” -he suggested, smiling. - -“Well, since you’re devoured by curiosity, you must know,” she -began; but broke off suddenly—“Apropos, I wonder whether you could -be induced to tell me something.” - -“I daresay I could, if it’s anything within my sphere of -knowledge.” He paused, expectant. - -“Then tell me, please, why you keep your Japanese fan in your -fireplace,” she requested. - -“Why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t it strike you as a good place for it?” - -“Admirable. But my interest was psychological. I was wondering by what -mental processes you came to hit upon it.” - -“Well, then, to be frank, it wasn’t I who hit upon it; it isn’t -my Japanese fan. It’s a conceit of my landlady’s. This is an age of -paradox, you know. Would you prefer silver paper?” - -“Must one have one or the other?” - -“You’re making it painfully clear,” he cautioned her, “that -you’ve never lived in lodgings.” - -“If you go on at this rate,” she retorted, laughing, “I shall -never get my task accomplished. Here are twenty times that I’ve -commenced it, and twenty times you’ve put me off. Shall we now, at -last, proceed seriously to business?” - -“Not on my account, I beg. I’m not in the slightest hurry,” -protested he. - -“You said you were devoured by curiosity.” - -“Did I say that?” He knitted his brow. - -“Certainly you did.” - -“It must have been aphasia. I meant contentment,” he explained. - -“Devoured by contentment?” - -“Why not, as well as by curiosity?” - -“The phrase is novel,” she mused. - -“It’s the occupation of my life to seek for novel phrases,” he -reminded her. “I’m what somebody or other has called a literary -man.” - -“And you enjoy what somebody or other has called beating about the -bush?” - -“Hugely—with such a fellow-beater,” he responded. - -“You drive me to extremities.” She shook her head. “I see -there’s nothing for it but to plunge in médias res. You must know, -then, that I have been asked to call upon you by a friend—by my friend -Miss Johannah Rothe—I beg your pardon; I never can remember that -she’s changed her name—my friend Miss Johannah Silver—but Silver -née Rothe—of Silver Towers, in the County of Sussex.” - -“Ah?” said he. “Ah, yes. Then never tell me again that there’s -nothing in intuitions. I’ve never met Miss Silver, but directly you -crossed the threshold of this room, I began to feel vaguely reminded of -her.” - -“Oh, there’s a lot in intuitions,” she agreed. “But don’t -think to disconcert me. My friend Miss Silver——” - -It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Your friend?” - -“Considering the sacrifice I’m making on her behalf to-day, it’s -strange you should throw doubt upon my friendship for her,” she -argued. - -“You make your sacrifices with a cheerful countenance. I should -never have guessed that you weren’t entirely happy. But forgive -my interruption. You were about to say that your friend Miss -Silver——” - -“My occasional friend,” she substituted. “Sometimes, I confess, we -quarrel like everything, and remain at daggers drawn for months. She’s -such a flightly creature, dear Johannah, she not infrequently gets me -into a perfect peck of trouble. But since she’s fallen heir to all -this money, you’d be surprised to behold the devotion her friends -have shown her. I couldn’t very well refuse to follow their example. -One’s human, you see; and one can’t dress like this for nothing, can -one?” - -“Upon my word, I’m not in a position to answer you. I’ve never -tried,” laughed he. - -“In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think we may safely -assume one can’t,” said she. “However, here you are, beating about -the bush again. I come to you as Johannah’s emissary. She desires me -to ask you several questions.” - -“Yes?” said he, a trifle uncomfortably. - -“She would be glad to know,” his visitor declared, looking straight -into his eyes, and smiling a little gravely, “why you have been so -excessively nasty to her?” - -“Have I been nasty to her?” he asked, with an innocence that was -palpably counterfeit. - -“Don’t you think you have?” She still looked gravely, smilingly, -into his eyes. - -“I don’t see how.” He maintained his feint of innocence. - -“Don’t you think you’ve responded somewhat ungraciously to her -overtures of friendship?” she suggested. “Do you think it was nice -to answer her letters with those curt little formal notes of yours? -Look. Johannah sat down to write to you. And she began her letter Dear -Mr. Stretton. And then she simply couldn’t. So she tore up the sheet, -and began another My Dear Cousin Will. And what did she receive in -reply? A note beginning Dear Miss Silver. Do you think that was kind? -Don’t you think it was the least bit mortifying? And why have you -refused in such a stiff-necked way to go down to see her at Silver -Towers?” - -“Oh,” he protested, “in all fairness, in all logic, your questions -ought to be put the other way round.” - -“Bother logic! But put them any way you like,” said she. - -“What right had Miss Silver to expect me to multiply the complications -of my life by rushing into an ecstatic friendship with her? And why, -being very well as I am in town just now, why should I disarrange myself -by a journey into the country?” - -“Why indeed?” she echoed. “I’m sure I can give no reason. Why -should one ever do any one else a kindness? Your cousin has conceived a -great desire to meet you.” - -“Oh, a great desire!” He tossed his head. “One knows these great -desires. She’ll live it down. A man named Burrell has been stuffing -her up.” - -“Stuffing her up?” She smiled enquiringly. “The expression is new -to me.” - -“Greening her, filling her head with all sorts of nonsensical -delusions, painting my portrait for her in all the colours of the -rainbow. Oh, I know my Burrell. He’s tried to stuff me up, too, about -her.” - -“Oh? Has he? What has he said?” she questioned eagerly. - -“The usual rubbishy things one does say, when one wants to stuff a -fellow up.” - -“For instance?” - -“Oh, that she’s tremendously good-looking, with hair and eyes and -things, and very charming.” - -“What a dear good person the man named Burrell must be,” she -murmured. - -“He’s not a bad chap,” he conceded, “but you must remember that -he’s her solicitor.” - -“And, remembering that, you weren’t to be stuffed?” she said. - -“If she was charming and good-looking, it was a reason the more for -avoiding her,” said he. - -“Oh?” She looked perplexed. - -“There’s nothing on earth so tiresome as charming women. They’re -all exactly alike,” asserted he. - -“Thank you,” his guest exclaimed, bowing. - -“Oh, nobody could pretend that you’re exactly alike,” he assured -her hastily. “I own at once that you’re delightfully different. But -Burrell has no knack for character drawing.” - -“You’re extremely flattering. But aren’t you taking a slightly -one-sided point of view? Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, -that it is Johannah’s bad luck to be charming and good-looking. -Nevertheless, she still has claims on you.” - -“Has she?” - -“She’s your cousin.” - -“Oh, by the left hand,” said he. - -She stared for an instant, biting her lip. Then she laughed. - -“And only my second or third cousin at that,” he went on serenely. - -She looked at him with eyes that were half whimsical, half pleading. -“Would you mind being quite serious for a moment?” she asked. -“Because Johannah’s situation, absurd as it seems, really is -terribly serious for Johannah. I should like to submit it to your better -judgment. We’ll drop the question of cousinship, if you wish—though -it’s the simple fact that you’re her only blood-relation in this -country, where she feels herself the forlornest sort of alien. She’s -passed her entire life in Italy and France, you know, and this is the -first visit she’s made to England since her childhood. But we’ll -drop the question of cousinship. At any rate, Johannah is a human -being. Well, consider her plight a little. She finds herself in the most -painful, the most humiliating circumstances that can be imagined; -and you’re the only person living who can make them easier for her. -Involuntarily—in spite of herself—she’s come into possession of -a fortune that naturally, morally, belongs to you. She can’t help it. -It’s been left to her by will—by the will of a man who never saw -her, never had any kind of relations with her, but chose her for his -heir just because her mother, who died when Johannah was a baby, had -chanced to be his cousin. And there the poor girl is. Can’t you see -how like a thief she must feel at the best? Can’t you see how much -worse you make it for her, when she holds out her hand, and you refuse -to take it? Is that magnanimous of you? Isn’t it cruel? You couldn’t -treat her with greater unkindness if she’d actually designed, and -schemed, and intrigued, to do you out of your inheritance, instead of -coming into it in the passive way she has. After all, she’s a human -being, she’s a woman. Think of her pride.” - -“Think of mine,” said he. - -“I can’t see that your pride is involved.” - -“To put it plainly, I’m the late Sir William Silver’s illegitimate -son.” - -“Well? What of that?” - -“Do you fancy I should enjoy being taken up and patronised by his -legitimate heir?” - -“Oh!” she cried, starting to her feet. “You can’t think I would -be capable of anything so base as that.” - -And he saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. - -“I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said. -“You would be utterly incapable of anything that was not generous -and noble. But you must remember that I had never seen you. How could I -know?” - -“Well, now that you have seen me,” she responded, her eyes all -smiles again, “now that I have put my pride in my pocket, and bearded -you in your den, I don’t mind confiding in you that it’s nearly -lunchtime, and also that I’m ravenously hungry. Could you ring your -bell, and order up something in the nature of meat and drink? And while -you are about it, you might tell your landlady or some one to pack your -bag. We take,” she mentioned, examining a tiny watch, that seemed -nothing more than a frivolous incrustation of little diamonds and -rubies, “we take the three-sixteen for Silver Towers.” II. - -Seated opposite her in the railway-carriage, as their train bore them -through the pleasant dales and woods of Surrey, Will Stretton fell to -studying his cousin’s appearance. “Burrell was right,” he told -himself; “she really is tremendously good-looking,” and that, in -spite of a perfectly reckless irregularity of feature. Her nose was too -small, but it was a delicate, pert, pretty nose, notwithstanding. Her -mouth was too large, but it was a beautiful mouth, all the same, softly -curved and red as scarlet, with sensitive, humorous little quirks in -its corners. Her eyes he could admire without reservation, brown and -pellucid, with the wittiest, teasingest, mockingest lights dancing in -them, yet at the same time a deeper light that was pensive, tender, -womanly. Her hair, too, he decided, was quite lovely, abundant, -undulating, black, blue-black even, but fine, but silky, escaping in a -flutter of small curls above her brow. “It’s like black foam,” -he said. And he would have been ready to go to war for her complexion, -though it was so un-English a complexion that one might have mistaken -her for a native of the France or Italy she had inhabitated: warm, dusky -white, with an elusive shadow of rose glowing through it. Yes, she was -tremendously good-looking, he concluded. She looked fresh and strong and -real. She looked alert, alive, full of the spring and the joy of life. -She looked as if she could feel quick and deep, as if her blood flowed -swiftly, and was red. He liked her face, and he liked her figure—it -was supple and vigorous. He liked the way she dressed—there was -something daring and spirited in the uncompromising, unabashed luxury of -it. “Who ever saw such a hat—or such a sunshade?” he reflected. - -“There’ll be no coach-and-four to meet us at the station,” she -warned him, as they neared their journey’s end, “because I have no -horses. But we’ll probably find Madame Dornaye there, piaffer-ing in -person. Can you resign yourself to the prospect of driving up to your -ancestral mansion in a hired fly?” - -“I could even, at a pinch, resign myself to walking,” he declared. -“But who is Madame Dornaye?” - -“Madame Dornaye is my burnt-offering to that terrible sort of -fetich called the County. She’s what might be technically termed my -chaperon.” - -“Oh, to be sure,” he said; “I had forgotten. Of course, you’d -have a chaperon.” - -“By no means of course,” she corrected him. “Until the other day -I’d never thought of such a thing. But it’s all along o’ the man -named Burrell. He insisted that I mustn’t live alone—that I was too -young. He has such violent hallucinations about people’s ages. He -said the County would be horrified. I must have an old woman, a sound, -reliable old woman, to live with me. I begged and implored him to come -and try it, but he protested with tears in his eyes that he wasn’t -an old woman. So I sent for Madame Dornaye, who is, every inch of her. -She’s the widow of a man who used to be a professor at the Sorbonne, -or something. I’ve known her for at least a hundred years. She’s -connected in some roundabout way with the family of my father’s -stepmother. She’s like a little dry brown leaf; and she plays Chopin -comme pas un; and she lends me a false air of respectability, I suppose. -She calls me Jeanne ma fille, if you can believe it, as if my name -weren’t common Johannah. If you chance to please her, she’ll very -likely call you Jean mon fils. But see how things turn out. The man -named Burrell also insisted that I must put on mourning, as a symbol of -my grief for the late Sir William. That I positively refused to think -of. So the County’s horrified, all the same—which proves the -futility of concessions.” - -“Oh?” questioned Will. “What does the County do?” - -“It comes and calls on me, and walks round me, and stares, with a -funny little deprecating smile, as it I were some outlandish and not -very proper animal, cast up by the sea. To begin with, there’s the -vicar, with all his wives and daughters. Their emotions are complicated -by the fact that I am a Papist. Then there’s old Lord Belgard; and -there’s Mrs. Breckenbridge, with her marriageable sons; and there’s -the Bishop of Salchester, with his Bishopess, Dean, and Chapter. The -dear good people make up parties in the afternoon, to come and have a -look at me; and they sip my tea with an air of guilt, as if it smacked -of profligacy; and they suppress demure little knowing glances among -themselves. And then at last they go away, shaking their heads, and -talking me over in awe-struck voices.” - -“I can see them, I can hear them,” Will laughed. - -“Haven’t you in English a somewhat homely proverbial expression -about the fat and the fire?” asked Johannah. - -“About the fat getting into the fire? Yes,” said Will. - -“Well, then, to employ that somewhat homely proverbial expression,” -she went on, “the fat got into the fire at the Bishop’s palace. Mrs. -Rawley was kind enough to write and ask us to dinner, and she added that -she had heard I sang, and wouldn’t I bring some music? But nobody had -ever told me that it’s bad form in England to sing well. So, -after dinner, when Mrs. Rawley said, ’Now, Miss Silver, do sing us -something,’ I made the incredible blunder of singing as well as -I could. I sang the Erlkônig, and Madame Dornaye played the -accompaniment, and we both did our very bestest, in our barefaced, -Continental way. We were a little surprised, and vastly enlightened, -to perceive that we’d shocked everybody. And by-and-by the Bishop’s -daughters consented to sing in their turn, and then we saw the correct -British style of doing it. If you don’t want to be considered rowdyish -and noisy in a British drawing-room, you must sing under your breath, -faintly, faintingly, as if you were afraid somebody might hear you.” - -“My poor dear young lady,” her cousin commiserated her, “fancy -your only just discovering that. It’s one of the foundation-stones of -our social constitution. If you sing with any art or with any feeling, -you expose yourself to being mistaken for a paid professional.” - -“Another thing that’s horrified the County,” pursued Johannah, -“is the circumstance that I keep no horses. I don’t like -horses—except in pictures. In pictures, I admit at once, they make a -very pleasant decorative motive. But in life—they’re too strong and -too unintelligent; and they’re perpetually bolting. By-the-bye, please -choose a good feeble jaded one, when you engage our fly. I’m devoted -to donkeys, though. They’re every bit as decorative as the horse, -and they’re really wise—they only baulk. I had a perfect love of -a little donkey in Italy; his name was Angelo. If I decide to stay in -England, I shall have a spanking team of four donkeys, with scarlet -trappings and silver bells. But the County say ’Oh, you must have -horses,’ and casts its eyes appealingly to heaven when I say I -won’t.” - -“The County lacks a sense of situations,” he reflected. “It’s -really a deliciously fresh one—a big country house, and not a horse in -the stables.” - -“Apropos of the house, that brings me to another point,” said she. -“The County feels very strongly that I ought to put the house in -repair—that dear old wonderful, rambling, crumbling house. They take -it as the final crushing evidence of my depravity, that I prefer to -leave it in its present condition of picturesque decay. I’m sure you -agree with me, that it would be high treason to allow a carpenter or -mason to lay a hand on it. By-the-bye, I hope you have no conscientious -scruples against speaking French; for Madame Dornaye only knows two -words of English, and those she mispronounces. There she is—yes, that -little black and grey thing, in the frock. She’s come to meet me, -because we had a bet. You owe me five shillings,” she called out to -Madame Dornaye, as Will helped her from the carriage. “You see, I’ve -brought him.” - -Madame Dornaye, who had a pair of humorous old French eyes, responded, -blinking them, “Oh, before I pay you, I shall have to be convinced -that it is really he.” - -“I’m afraid it’s really he,” laughed Will; “but rather than -let so immaterial a detail cost you five shillings, I’m prepared to -maintain with my dying breath that there’s no such person.” - -“Don’t mind him,” interposed Johannah. “He’s trying to flatter -you up, because he wants you to call him Jean mon fils, as if his name -weren’t common William.” Then, to him, “Go,” she said, with an -imperious gesture, “go and find a vehicle with a good tired horse.” - -And when the vehicle with the good tired horse had brought them to -their destination, and they stood before the hall-door of Silver Towers, -Johannah looked up at the escutcheon carved in the pale-grey stone above -it, and said pensively, “On a field argent, a heart gules, crowned -with an imperial crown or; and the motto, ’Qu’il régne!’ If, when -you got my first letter, Cousin Will, if you’d remembered the arms -of our family, and the motto—if you had ’let it reign’—I should -have been spared the trouble and expense of a journey to town to-day.” - -“But I should have missed a precious experience,” said he. “You -forget what I couldn’t help being supremely conscious of—that I bear -those arms with a difference. I hope, though, that you won’t begrudge -the journey to town. I think there are certain aspects of your character -that I might never have discovered if I’d met you in any other way.” - -That evening Johannah wrote a letter: - -“Dear Mr. Burrell,—Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut. The first part -of my rash little prophecy has already come true. Will Stretton is -staying in this house, a contented guest. At the present moment he’s -hovering about the piano, where Madame Dornaye is playing Chopin; and -he’s just remarked that he never hears Chopin without thinking of -those lines of Browning’s: - - -’I discern - -Infinite passion, and the pain - -Of finite hearts that yearn.’ - - -I quite agree with you, he is a charming creature. So now I repeat the -second part of my rash little prophecy: Before the summer’s over he -will have accepted at least a good half of his paternal fortune. Ce que -femme veut, le diable ne saurait pas l’empêcher. He will, he -shall, even if I have to marry him to make him.—Yours ever, Johannah -Silver.” III - -Will left his room somewhat early the next morning, and went down into -the garden. The sun was shining briskly, the dew still sparkled on the -grass, the air was heady with a hundred keen earth-odours. A mile away, -beyond the wide green levels of Sumpter Meads, the sea glowed blue -as the blue of larkspur, under the blue June sky. And everywhere, -everywhere, innumerable birds piped and twittered, filling the world -with a sense of gay activity, of whole-hearted, high-hearted life. - -“What! up already?” a voice called softly, from behind him. - -He turned, and met Johannah. - -“Why not, since you are?” he responded. - -She laughed, and gave him her hand, a warm, elastic hand, firm of grasp. -In a garden-hat and a white frock, her eyes beaming, her cheeks faintly -flushed, she seemed to him a sort of beautiful incarnation of the spirit -of the summer morning, its freshness, and sweetness, and richness. - -“Oh, we furriners,” she explained; “we’re all shocking -early risers. In Italy we love the day when it is young, and deem it -middle-aged by eight o’clock. But in England I had heard it was the -fashion to lie late.” - -“I woke, and couldn’t go to sleep again, so I tossed the fashion -to the winds. Perhaps it was a sort of dim presentiment that I should -surprise Aurora walking in the garden, that banished slumber,” he -suggested, with a flourish. - -“Flowery speeches are best met by flowery deeds,” said she. “Come -with me to the rosery, and I will give you a red, red rose.” - -And in the rosery, as she stood close to him, pinning the red, red rose -in his coat, her smooth cheek and fragrant hair so near, so near, he -felt his heart all at once begin to throb, and he had to control a -sudden absurd longing to put his arms round her and kiss her. “Good -heavens,” he said to himself, “I must be on my guard.” - -“There,” she cried, bestowing upon her task a gentle pat, by way of -finish, “that makes us quits.” And she raised her eyes to his, and -held them for an instant with a smile that did anything but soothe the -trouble in his heart, such a sly little teasing, cryptic smile. Could -it possibly be, he wondered wildly, that she had divined his monstrous -impulse, and was coquetting with it? - -“Now let’s be serious,” she said, leading the way back to the -lawn. “It’s like a hanging-garden, high up here, with the meads and -the sea below, isn’t it? And àpropos of the sea, I would beg you to -observe its colour. Is it blue? I would also ask you kindly to cast an -eye on that line of cliffs, there to the eastward, as it goes winding in -and out away to the vanishing point. Are the cliffs white?” - -“Oh, yes, the cliffs are white,” agreed the unwary Will. - -“How can you tell such dreadful fibs?” she caught him up. “The -cliffs are prismatic. White, indeed! when they gleam with every -transparent tint from rose to violet, as if the light that falls on -them had passed through rubies and amethysts, and all sorts of precious -stones. That is an optical effect due doubtless to reflection or -refraction or something—no?” - -“I should say it was almost certainly due to something,” he -acquiesced. - -“And now,” she continued, “will you obligingly turn your attention -to the birds? Tweet-weet-willow-will-weet. I don’t know what it means, -but they repeat it so often and so earnestly, I’m sure it must be -true.” - -“It’s relatively true,” said he. “It means that it’s a -fine morning, and their digestion’s good, and their affairs are -prospering—nothing more than that. They’re material-minded little -beasts, you know.” - -“All truth is relative,” said she, “and one’s relatively a -material-minded little beast oneself. Is the greensward beyond -there (relatively) spangled with buttercups and daisies? Is the park -(relatively) leafy, and shadowy, and mysterious, and delightful? Is the -may in bloom? Voyons donc! you’ll never be denying that the may’s -in bloom. And is the air like an elixir? I vow, it goes to one’s head -like some ethereal elixir. And yet you have the effrontery to tell -me that you’re pining for the flesh-pots of Great College Street, -Westminster, S.W.” - -“Oh, did I tell you that? Ah, well, it must have been with intent to -deceive, for nothing could be farther from the truth,” he owned. - -“The relative truth? Then you’re not homesick?” - -“Not consciously,” said he. - -“Neither am I,” said she. - -“Why should you be?” he asked. - -“This is positively the first day since my arrival in England that I -haven’t been, more or less,” she answered. - -“Oh?” he wondered sympathetically. - -“You can’t think how dépaysée I’ve felt. After having lived -all one’s life in Prague, suddenly to find oneself translated to the -mistress-ship of an English country house,” she submitted. - -“In Prague? I thought you had lived in Rome and Paris, chiefly,” he -exclaimed. - -“Prague is a figure of rhetoric,” she reminded him. “I mean the -capital of Bohemia. Wasn’t my father a sculptor? And wasn’t I born -in a studio? And haven’t my playmates and companions always been of -Florizel the loyal subjects? So whether you call it Rome or Paris or -Florence or Naples, it was Prague, none the less.” - -“At that rate, I live in Prague myself, and we’re compatriots,” -said Will. - -“That’s no doubt why I don’t feel homesick any more,” she -responded, smiling. “Where two of the faithful are gathered together -they can form a miniature Prague of their own. If I decide to stay in -England, I shall send for a lot of my Prague friends to come and visit -me, and you can send for an equal number of yours; and then we’ll turn -this bright particular corner of the British Empire into a province of -Bohemia, and the County may be horrified with reason. But meanwhile, -let’s be Pragueians in practice as well as theory. Let’s go to the -strawberry beds, and steal some strawberries,” was her conclusion. - -She walked a little in front of him. Her garden-hat had come off, -and she was swinging it at her side, by its ribbons. Will noticed the -strong, lithe sway and rhythm of her body, as she moved. “What a woman -she is,” he thought; “how one feels her sex.” And with that, -he all at once became aware of a singular depression. “Surely,” a -malevolent little voice within him argued, “woman that she is, and -having passed all her life with the subjects of Florizel, surely, -surely, she must have had... experiences. She must have loved—she must -have been loved.” And (as if it was any of his business!) a kind of -vague jealousy of her past, a kind of suspiciousness and irrelevant -resentment, began to burn, a small dull spot of pain, somewhere in his -breast. - -She, apparently, was in the highest spirits. There was something -expressive of joyousness in the mere way she tripped over the grass, -swinging her garden-hat like a basket; and presently she fell to -singing, merrily, in a light voice, that prettiest of old French songs, -Les Trots Princesses, dancing forward to its measure: - - -“Derrièr’ chez mon père, - -(Vole, vole, mon cour, vole!) - -Derrièr’ chez mon père, - -Ya un pommier doux, - -Tout doux, et iou, - -Ya un pommier doux.” - - -“Don’t you like that song?” she asked. “The tune of it is like -the smell of faded rose-leaves, isn’t it?” - -And suddenly she began to sing a different one, possibly an -improvisation: - - -“ And so they set forth for the strawberry beds, - -The strawberry beds, the strawberry beds, - -And so they set forth for the strawberry beds, - -On Christmas day in the morning.” - - -And when they had reached the strawberry beds, she knelt, and plucked a -great red berry, and then leapt up again, and held it to her cousin’s -lips, saying, “Bite—but spare my fingers.” And so, laughing, she -fed it to him, while he, laughing too, consumed it. But when her pink -finger-tips all but touched his lips, his heart had a convulsion, and -it was only by main-force that he restrained his kisses. And he said -to himself, “I must go back to town to-morrow. This will never do. -It would be the devil to pay if I should let myself fall in love with -her.” - -“Oh, yes, I’ve felt terribly dépaysée,” she told him again, -herself nibbling a berry. “I’ve felt like the traditional cat in -the strange garret. And then, besides, there was my change of name. I -can’t reconcile myself to being called Miss Silver. I can’t realise -the character. It’s like an affectation, like making-believe. Directly -I relax my vigilance, I forget, and sink back into Johannah Rothe. I’m -always Johannah Rothe when I’m alone. Directly I’m alone, I push a -big ouf, and send Miss Silver to Cracklimbo. Then somebody comes, -and, with a weary sigh, I don my sheep’s clothing again. Of course, -there’s nothing in a name, and yet there’s everything. There’s a -furious amount of mental discomfort when the name doesn’t fit.” - -“It’s a discomfort that will pass,” he said consolingly. “The -change of name is a mere formality—a condition attached to coming into -a property. In England, you know, it’s a rather frequent condition.” - -“I’m aware of that,” she informed him. “But to me,” she went -on, “it seems symbolic—symbolic of my whole situation, which is -false, abnormal. Silver? Silver? It’s a name meant for a fair person, -with light hair and a white skin. And here I am, as black as any Gipsy. -And then! It’s a condition attached to coming into a property. Well, I -come into a property to which I have no more moral right than I have to -the coat on your back; and I’m obliged to do it under an alias, like a -thief in the night.” - -“Oh, my dear young lady,” he cried out, “you’ve the very best of -rights, moral as well as legal. You come into a property that is left to -you by will, and you’re the last representative of the family in whose -hands it has been for I forget how many hundreds of years.” - -“That,” said she, “is a question I shall not refuse to discuss -with you upon some more fitting occasion. For the present I am tempted -to perpetrate a simply villainous pun, but I forbear. Suffice it to say -that I consider the property that I’ve come into as nothing more nor -less than a present made me by my cousin, William Stretton. No—don’t -interrupt!” she forbade him. “I happen to know my facts. I happen to -know that if Will Stretton hadn’t, for reasons in the highest degree -honourable to himself, quarrelled and broken with his father, and -refused to receive a penny from him, I happen to know, I say, that Sir -William Silver would have left Will Stretton everything he possessed -in the world. Oh, it’s not in vain that I’ve pumped the man named -Burrell. So, you see, I’m indebted to my Quixotic cousin for something -in the neighbourhood, I’m told, of eight thousand a year. Rather a -handsome little present, isn’t it? Furthermore, let me add in passing, -I absolutely forbid my cousin to call me his dear young lady, as if he -were seven hundred years my senior and only a casual acquaintance. A -really nice cousin would take the liberty of calling me by my Christian -name.” - -“I’ll take the liberty of calling you by some exceedingly -unChristian name,” he menaced, “if you don’t leave off talking -that impossible rot about my making you a present.” - -“I wasn’t talking impossible rot about your making me a present,” -she contradicted. “I was merely telling you how dépaysée I’d -felt. The rest was parenthetic. So now, then, keep your promise, call me -Johannah.” - -“Johannah,” he called, submissively. - -“Will,” said she. “And when you feel, Will, that on the whole, -Will, you’ve had strawberries enough, Will, quite to destroy your -appetite, perhaps it would be as well if we should go in to breakfast, -Willie.” IV. - -They were seated on the turf, under a great tree, in the park, amid -a multitude of bright-coloured cushions, Johannah, Will, and Madame -Dornaye. It was three weeks later—whence it may be inferred that he -had abandoned his resolution to “go back to town to-morrow.” He was -smoking a cigarette; Madame Dornaye was knitting; Johannah, hatless, in -an indescribable confection of cream-coloured muslin, her head pillowed -in a scarlet cushion against the body of the tree, was gazing off -towards the sea with dreamy eyes. - -“Will,” she called languidly, by-and-by. - -“Yes?” he responded. - -“Do you happen by any chance to belong to that sect of philosophers -who regard gold as a precious metal?” - -“From the little I’ve seen of it, I am inclined to regard it as -precious—yes,” he answered. - -“Well, then, I wouldn’t be so lavish of it, if I were you,” said -she. - -“If you don’t take care,” said he, “you’ll force me to admit -that I haven’t an idea of what you’re driving at.” - -“I’m driving at your silence. You’re as silent as a statue. Please -talk a little.” - -“What shall I talk about?” - -“Anything. Nothing. Tell us a story,” she decided. - -“I don’t know any stories.” - -“Then the least you can do is to invent one,” was her plausible -retort. - -“What sort of a story would you like?” - -“There’s only one sort of story a woman ever sincerely -likes—especially on a hot summer’s afternoon, in the country,” she -affirmed. - -“Oh, I couldn’t possibly invent a love-story,” he disclaimed. - -“Then tell us a true one. You needn’t be afraid of shocking Madame -Dornaye. She’s a realist herself.” - -“Jeanne ma fille!” murmured Madame Dornaye, reprovingly. - -“The only true love-story I could tell has a somewhat singular -defect,” said he. “There’s no heroine.” - -“That’s like the story of what’s-his-name—Narcissus,” Johannah -said. - -“With the vastest difference. The hero of my story wasn’t in love -with his own image. He was in love with a beautiful princess,” Will -explained. - -“Then how can you have the face to say that there’s no heroine?” -she demanded. - -“There isn’t any heroine. At the same time, there’s nothing else. -The story’s all about her. You see, she never existed.” - -“You said it was a true love-story,” she reproached him. - -“So it is—literally true.” - -“I asked for a story, and you give me a riddle.” She shook her head. - -“Oh, no, it’s a story all the same,” he reassured her. “Its -title is Much Ado about Nobody.” - -“Oh? It runs in my head that I’ve met with something or other with a -similar title before,” she considered. - -“Precisely,” said he. “Something or other by one of the -Elizabethans. That’s how it came to occur to me. I take my goods where -I find them. However, do you want to hear the story?” - -“Oh, if you’re determined to tell it, I daresay I can steel myself -to listen,” she answered, with resignation. - -“On second thoughts, I’m determined not to tell it,” he teased. - -“Bother! Don’t be disagreeable. Tell it at once,” she commanded. - -“Well, then, there isn’t any story,” he admitted. “It’s simply -an absurd little freak of child psychology. It’s the story of a boy -who fell in love with a girl—a girl that never was, on sea or land. -It happened in Regent Street, of all romantic places, ’one day still -fierce ’mid many a day struck calm.’ I had gone with my mother to -her milliner’s. I think I was ten or eleven. And while my mother was -transacting her business with the milliner, I devoted my attention to -the various hats and bonnets that were displayed about the shop. And -presently I hit on one that gave me a sensation. It was a straw hat, -with brown ribbons, and cherries, great glossy red and purple cherries. -I looked at it, and suddenly I got a vision—a vision of a girl. Oh, -the loveliest, loveliest girl! She was about eighteen (a self-respecting -boy of eleven, you know, always chooses a girl of about eighteen to fall -in love with), and she had the brightest brown eyes, and the rosiest -cheeks, and the curlingest hair, and a smile and a laugh that made -one’s heart thrill and thrill with unutterable blisses. And there hung -her hat, as if she had just come in and taken it off, and passed into -another room. There hung her hat, suggestive of her as only people’s -hats know how to be suggestive; and there sat I, my eyes devouring it, -my soul transported. The very air of the shop seemed all at once to -have become fragrant—with the fragrance that had been shaken from her -garments as she passed. I went home, hopelessly, frantically in love. I -loved that non-existent young woman with a passion past expressing, for -at least half a year. I was always thinking of her; she was always with -me, everywhere. How I used to talk to her, and tell her all my childish -fancies, desires, questionings; how I used to sit at her feet and -listen! She never laughed at me. Sometimes she would let me kiss her—I -declare, my heart still jumps at the memory of it. Sometimes I would -hold her hand or play with her hair. And all the real girls I met -seemed so tame and commonplace by contrast with her. And then, little -by little, I suppose, her image faded away.—Rather an odd experience, -wasn’t it?” - -“Very, very odd; very strange and very pretty,” Johannah murmured. -“It seems as if it ought to have some allegorical significance, though -I can’t perceive one. It would be interesting to know what sort -of real girl, if any, ended by becoming the owner of that hat. You -weren’t shocked, were you?” she inquired of Madame Dornaye. - -“Not by the story. But the heat is too much for me,” said that -lady, gathering up her knitting. “I am going to the house to make a -siesta.” - -Will rose, as she did, and stood looking vaguely after her, as she moved -away. Johannah nestled her head deeper in her cushion, and half closed -her eyes. And for a while neither she nor her cousin spoke. A faint, -faint breeze whispered in the tree-tops; now a twig snapped, now a bird -dropped a solitary liquid note. For the rest, all was still summer heat -and woodland perfume. Here and there the greensward round them, dark in -the shadow of dense foliage, was diapered with vivid yellow by sunbeams -that filtered through. - -“Oh, dear me,” Johannah sighed at last. - -“What is it?” Will demanded. - -“Here you are, silent as eternity again. Come and sit -down—here—near to me.” - -She indicated a position with a lazy movement of her hand. He obediently -sank upon the grass. - -“You’re always silent nowadays, when we’re alone,” she -complained. - -“Am I? I hadn’t noticed that.” - -“Then you’re extremely unobservant. Directly we’re alone, you -appear to lose the power of speech. You mope and moon, and gaze off at -things beyond the horizon, and never open your mouth. One might suppose -you had something on your mind. Have you? What is it? Confide it to me, -and you can’t think how relieved you’ll feel,” she urged. - -“I haven’t anything on my mind,” said he. - -“Oh? Ah, then you’re silent with me because I bore you? You find me -an uninspiring talk-mate? Thank you,” she bridled. - -“You know perfectly well that that’s preposterous nonsense,” -answered Will. - -“Well, then, what is it? Why do you never talk to me when we’re -alone?” she persisted. - -“But I do talk to you. I talk too much. Perhaps I’m afraid of boring -you,” he said. - -“You know perfectly well that that’s a preposterous subterfuge,” -said she. “You’ve got something on your mind. You’re keeping -something back.” She paused for a second; then, softly, wistfully, -“Tell me what it is, Will, please.” And she looked eagerly, -pleadingly, into his eyes. - -He looked away from her. “Upon my word, there’s nothing to tell,” -he said, but his tone was a little forced. - -She broke into a merry peal of laughter, looking at him now with eyes -that were derisive. - -“What are you laughing at?” he asked. - -“At you, Will,” said she. “What else could you imagine?” - -“I’m flattered to think you find me so amusing.” - -“Oh, you’re supremely amusing. ’Refrain thou shalt; thou shalt -refrain!’ Is that your motto, Will? If I were a man, I’d choose -another. ’Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold!’ That should be -my motto if I were a man.” - -“But as you’re a woman———” he began. - -“It’s my motto, all the same,” she interrupted. “Do you mean to -say you’ve not discovered that yet? Oh, Will, if I were you, and -you were I, how differently we should be employing this heaven-sent -summer’s afternoon.” She gazed at the sky, and sighed. - -“What should we be doing?” asked he. - -“That’s a secret. Pray the fairies to-night to transpose our souls, -and you’ll know by to-morrow morning—if the fairies grant your -prayer. But in the meanwhile, you must try to entertain me. Tell me -another story.” - -“I can’t think of any more stories till I’ve had my tea.” - -“You shan’t have any tea unless you earn it,” she stipulated. -“Now that Madame Dornaye’s no longer present, you can tell me -of some of your grown-up love affairs, some of your flesh-and-blood -ones.” - -“I’ve never had a grown-up love affair,” he said. - -“Oh, come! you can’t expect me to believe that,” she cried. - -“It’s the truth, all the same.” - -“Well, then, it’s high time you should have one,” was her -conclusion. “How old did you say you were?” - -“I’m thirty-three.” - -She lifted up her hands in astonishment. “And you’ve never had -a love affair! Fi donc! I’m barely twenty-eight, and I’ve had a -hundred.” - -“Have you?” he asked, a little ruefully. - -“No, I haven’t. But everybody’s had at least one. So tell me -yours.” - -“Upon my word, I’ve not had even one,” he reiterated. - -“It seems incredible. How have you contrived it?” - -“The circumstances of my birth contrived it for me. It would be -impossible for me to have a love affair with a woman I could love,” he -said. - -“Impossible? For goodness sake, why?” she wondered. - -“What woman would accept the addresses of a man without a name?” - -“Haven’t you a name? Methought I’d heard your name was William -Stretton.” - -“You know what I mean.” - -“Then permit me to remark,” she answered him, “that what you mean -is quite superlatively silly. If you loved a woman, wouldn’t you tell -her so?” - -“Not if I could help it.” - -“But suppose the woman loved you?” - -“Oh, it wouldn’t come to that.” - -“But suppose it had come to that?” she persevered. “Suppose -she’d set her heart upon you? Would it be fair to her not to tell -her?” - -“What would be the good of my telling her, since I couldn’t possibly -ask her to marry me?” - -“The fact might interest her, apart from the question of its -consequences,” Johannah suggested. “But suppose she told you? -Suppose she asked you to marry her?” - -“She wouldn’t,” said he. - -“All hypotheses are admissible. Suppose she should?” - -“I couldn’t marry her,” he declared. - -“You’d find it rather an awkward job refusing, wouldn’t you?” -she quizzed. “And what reasons could you give?” - -“Ten thousand reasons. I’m a bastard. That begins and ends it. It -would dishonour her, and it would dishonour me; and, worst of all, it -would dishonour my mother.” - -“It would certainly not dishonour you, nor the woman you married. -That’s the sheerest, antiquated, exploded rubbish. And how on earth -could it dishonour your mother?” - -“For me to take as my wife a woman who could not respect her?” Will -questioned. “My mother’s memory for me is the sacredest of sacred -things. You know something of her history. You know that she was in -every sense but a legal sense my father’s wife. You know why they -couldn’t be married legally. You know, too, how he treated her—and -how she died. Do you suppose I could marry a woman who would always -think of my mother as of one who had done something shameful?” - -“Oh, but no woman with a spark of nobility in her soul would or could -do that,” Johannah cried. - -“Every woman brought up in the usual way, with the usual prejudices, -the usual traditions, thinks evil of the woman who has had an -illegitimate child,” asserted he. - -“Not every woman. I, for instance. Do you imagine that I could think -evil of your mother, Will?” She looked at him intensely, earnestly. - -“Oh, you’re entirely different from other women. You’re——” -But he stopped at that. - -“Then—just for the sake of a case in point—if I were the woman -you chanced to be in love with, and if I simultaneously chanced to be -in love with you, you could see your way to marrying me?” she pursued -him. - -“What’s the use of discussing that?” - -“For its metaphysical interest. Answer me.” - -“There are other reasons why I couldn’t marry you.” - -“I’m not good-looking enough?” she cried. - -“Don’t be silly.” - -“Not young enough?” - -“Oh, I say! Let’s talk of something reasonable.” - -“Not old enough, perhaps?” - -He was silent. - -“Not wise enough? Not foolish enough?” she persisted. - -“You’re foolish enough, in all conscience,” said he. “Well, -then, why? What are the reasons why you couldn’t marry me?” - -“What is the good of talking about this?” he groaned. - -“I want to know. A man has the hardihood to inform me to my face that -he’d spurn my hand, even if I offered it to him. I insist upon knowing -why.” She feigned high indignation. - -“You know why. And you know that ’spurn’ is very far from the -right word,” was his rejoinder. - -“I don’t know why. I insist upon your telling me,” she repeated, -fierily. - -“You know that you’re Sir William Silver’s heiress, I suppose,” -he suggested. - -“Oh, come! that’s not my fault. How could that matter?” - -“Look here, I’m not going to make an ass of myself by explaining the -obvious,” he declared. - -“I daresay I’m very stupid, but it isn’t obvious to me.” - -“Well, then, let’s drop the subject,” he proposed. - -“I’ll not drop the subject till you’ve elucidated it. If you were -in love with me, Will, and I were in love with you, how on earth could -it matter, my being Sir William Silvers heiress?” - -“Wouldn’t I seem a bit mercenary’ if I asked you to marry me?” - -“Oh, Will!” she remonstrated. “Don’t tell me you’re such a -prig as that. What! if you loved me, if I loved you, you’d give me -up, you’d break my heart, just for fear lest idiotic people, whose -opinions don’t matter any more than the opinions of so many deep-sea -fish, might think you mercenary! When you and I both knew in our own two -souls that you really weren’t mercenary’ in the least! You’d pay -me a poor compliment, Will. Isn’t it conceivable that a man might love -me for myself?” - -“You state the case too simply. You make no allowances for the shades -and complexities of a man’s feelings.” - -“Bother shades and complexities. Love burns them up. Your shades and -complexities are nothing but priggishness and vanity,” she asserted -hotly. “But there! I’m actually getting angry over a purely -supposititious question. For, of course, we don’t really love each -other the least bit, do we, Will?” she asked him softly. - -He appeared to be giving his whole attention to the rolling of a -cigarette; he did not answer. But his fingers trembled, and presently he -tore his paper, spilling half the tobacco in his lap. - -Johannah watched him from eyes full of languid, half mocking, half -pensive laughter. - -“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed again, by-and-by. - -He looked at her; and he had to catch his breath. Lying there on the -turf, the skirts of her frock flowing round her in a sort of little -billowy white pool, her head deep in the scarlet cushion, her black -hair straying wantonly where it would about her face and brow, her eyes -lambent with that lazy, pensive laughter, one of her hands, pink and -white, warm and soft, fallen open on the grass between her and her -cousin, her whole person seeming to breathe a subtle scent of womanhood, -and the luxury and mystery of womanhood—oh, the sight of her, the -sense of her, there in the wide green stillness of the summer day, set -his heart burning and beating poignantly. - -“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed, “I wish the man I am in love -with were only here.” - -“Oh! You are in love with some one?” he questioned, with a little -start. - -“Rather!” said she. “In love! I should think so. Oh, I love him, -love him, love him. Ah, if he were here! He wouldn’t waste this golden -afternoon as you’re doing. He’d take my hand—he’d hold it, -and press it, and kiss it; and he’d pour his soul out in tumultuous -celebration of my charms, in fiery avowals of his passion. If he were -here! Ah, me!” - -“Where is he?” Will asked, in a dry’ voice. - -“Ah, where indeed? I wish I knew.” - -“I’ve never heard you speak of him before,” he reflected. - -“There’s none so deaf as he that will not hear. I’ve spoken of -him to you at least a thousand times. He forms the staple of my -conversation.” - -“I must be veryy deaf indeed. I swear this is absolutely news to -me.” - -“Oh, Will, you are such a goose—or such a hypocrite,” said she. -“But it’s tea-time. Help me up.” - -She held out her hand, and, he took it and helped her up. But she -tottered a little before she got her balance (or made, at least, a feint -of doing so), and grasped his hand tight as if to save herself, and all -but fell into his arms. - -He drew back a step. - -She looked straight into his eyes. “You’re a goose, and a hypocrite, -and a prig, and—a dear,” she said. V. - -Their tea was served in the garden, and whilst they were dallying over -it, a footman brought Johannah a visiting-card. - -She glanced at the card; and Will, watching her, noticed that a look of -annoyance—it might even have been a look of distress—came into her -face. - -Then she threw the card on the tea-table, and rose. “I shan’t be -gone long,” she said, and set out for the house. - -The card lay plainly legible under the eyes of Will and Madame Dornaye. -“Mr. George Aymer, 36, Boulevard Rochechouart” was the legend -inscribed upon it. - -“Tiens,” said Madame Dornaye; “Jeanne told me she had ceased to -see him.” - -Will suppressed a desire to ask, “Who is he?” - -But Madame Dornaye answered him all the same. - -“You have heard of him? He is a known personage in Paris, although -English. He is a painter, a painter of great talent; very young, but -already decorated. And of a surprising beauty—the face of an angel. -With that, a thorough-paced rascal. Oh, yes, whatever is vilest, -whatever is basest. Even in Montmartre, even in the corruptest world of -Paris, among the lowest journalists and painters, he is notorious for -his corruption. Johannah used to see a great deal of him. She would not -believe the evil stories that were told about him. And with his rare -talent and his beautiful face, he has the most plausible manners, the -most winning address. We were afraid that she might end by marrying him. -But at last she found him out for herself, and gave him up. She told me -she had altogether ceased to see him. I wonder what ill wind blows him -here.” - -Johannah entered the drawing-room. - -A man in grey tweeds, the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour gleaming -in his buttonhole, was standing near a window: a man, indeed, as Madame -Dornaye had described him, with a face of surprising beauty—a fine, -clear, open-air complexion, a clean-cut, even profile, a sensitive, soft -mouth, big, frank, innocent blue eyes, and waving hair of the palest -Saxon yellow. He could scarcely have been thirty; and the exceeding -beauty of his face, its beauty and its sweetness, made one overlook his -figure, which was a trifle below the medium height, and thick-set, with -remarkably square, broad shoulders, and long arms. - -Johannah greeted him with some succinctness. “What do you want?” she -asked, remaining close to the door. - -“I want to have a talk with you,” he answered, moving towards her. -He drawled slightly; his voice was low and soft, conciliatory, caressing -almost. And his big blue eyes shone with a faint, sweet, appealing -smile. - -“Would you mind staying where you are?” said she. “You can make -yourself audible from across the room.” - -“What are you afraid of?” he asked, his smile brightening with -innocent wonder. - -“Afraid? You do yourself too much honour. One does not like to -find oneself in close proximity with objects that disgust one,” she -explained. - -He laughed; but instead of moving further towards her, he dropped into a -chair. “You were always brutally outspoken,” he murmured. - -“Yes; and with advancing years I’ve become even more so,” said -Johannah, who continued to stand. - -“You’re quite sure, though, that you’re not afraid of me?” he -questioned. - -“Oh, for that, as sure as sure can be. If you’ve based any sort of -calculations upon the theory that I would be afraid of you, you’ll -have to throw them over.” - -He flushed a little, as if with anger; but in a moment he said calmly, -“You’ve come into a perfect pot of money since I last had the -pleasure of meeting you.” - -“Yes, into something like eight thousand a year, if the figures -interest you.” - -“I never had any head for figures,” he answered, smiling. “But -eight thousand sounds stupendous. And a lovely place, into the bargain. -The park, or so much of it as one sees from the avenue, could not be -better. And I permitted myself to admire the façade of the house and -the view of the sea.” - -“They’re not bad,” Johannah assented. - -“It’s heart-rending,” he remarked, “the way things are shared -in this world. Here are you, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, you who -have done nothing all your life but take your pleasure; and I, who’ve -toiled like a galley-slave, I remain as poor as any church-mouse. It’s -monstrous.” - -Johannah did not answer. - -“And now,” he went on, “I suppose you’ve settled down and become -respectable? No more Bohemia? No more cakes and ale? Only champagne -and truffles? A County Family! Fancy your being a County Family, all -by yourself, as it were! You must feel rather like the reformed rake of -tradition—don’t you?” - -“I mentioned that I am not afraid of you,” she reminded him, “but -that doesn’t in the least imply that I find you amusing. The plain -truth is, I find you deadly tiresome. If you have anything special to -say to me, may I ask you to say it quickly?” - -Again he flushed a little; then again, in a moment, answered smoothly, -“I’ll say it in a sentence. I’ve come all the way to England, for -the purpose of offering you my hand in marriage.” And he raised his -bright blue eyes to her face with a look that really was seraphic. - -“I decline the offer. If you’ve nothing further to keep you here, -I’ll ring to have you shown out.” - -Still again he flushed, yet once more controlled himself. “You decline -the offer! Allons donc! When I am prepared to do the right thing, and -make an honest woman of you.” - -“I decline the offer,” Johannah repeated. - -“That’s foolish of you,” said he. - -“If you could dream how remotely your opinion interests me, you -wouldn’t trouble to express it,” said she. - -His anger this time got the better of him. He scowled, and looked at her -from the corners of his eyes. “You had better not exasperate me,” he -said in a suppressed voice. - -“Oh,” said she, “you must suffer me to be the mistress of my own -actions in my own house. Now—if you are quite ready to go?” she -suggested, putting her hand upon the bell-cord. - -“I’m not ready to go yet. I want to talk with you. To cut a long -business short, you’re rich. I’m pitiably poor. You know how poor -I am. You know how I have to live, the hardships, the privations I’m -obliged to put up with.” - -“Have you come here to beg?” Johannah asked. - -“No, I’ve come to appeal to your good-nature. You refuse to marry -me. That’s absurd of you, but—tant pis! Whether you marry me or -not, you haven’t the heart to leave me to rot in poverty, while you -luxuriate in plenty. Considering our oldtime relations, the thing’s -impossible on the face of it.” - -“Ah, I understand. You have come here to beg,” she said. - -“No,” said he. “One begs when one has no power to enforce.” - -“What is the use of these glittering aphorisms?” she asked wearily. - -“If you are ready to behave well to me, I’ll behave handsomely -to you. But if you refuse to recognise my claims upon you, I’m in a -position to take reprisals,” he said very quietly. - -Johannah did not answer. - -“I’m miserably, tragically poor; you’re rich. At this moment -I’ve not got ten pounds in the world; and I owe hundreds. I’ve not -sold a picture since March. You have eight thousand a year. You can’t -expect me to sit down under it in silence. As the French attorneys -phrase it, cet état de choses ne peut pas durer.” - -Still Johannah answered nothing. - -“You must come to my relief,” said he. “You must make it -possible for me to go on. If you have any right feeling, you’ll do it -spontaneously. If not—you know I can compel you.” - -“Oh, then, for goodness’ sake, compel me, and so make an end of this -entirely tedious visit,” she broke out. - -“I’d immensely rather not compel you. If you will lend me a helping -hand from time to time, I’ll promise never to take a step to harm you. -I shall be moderate. You’ve got eight thousand a year. You’d -never miss a hundred now and then. You might simply occasionally buy a -picture. That would be the best way. You might buy my pictures.” - -“I should be glad to know definitely,” remarked Johannah, “whether -I have to deal with a blackmailer or a bagman.” - -“Damn you,” he exploded, with sudden savagery, flushing very red -indeed. - -Johannah was silent. - -After a pause, he said, “I’m staying at the inn in the village—at -the Silver Arms.” - -Johannah did not speak. - -“I’ve already scraped acquaintance with the parson,” he went on. -Then, as she still was silent, “I wonder what would become of your -social position in this County if I should have a good long talk about -you with the parson.” - -“To a man of your intelligence, the solution of that problem can -surely present no difficulty,” she replied wearily. - -“You admit that your social position would be smashed up?” - -“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put it -together again,” she said. - -“I’m glad to find at least that you acknowledge my power,” said -he. - -“You have it in your power to tell people that I was once -inconceivably simple enough to believe that you were an honourable man, -that I once had the inconceivable bad taste to be fond of you. What -woman’s character could survive that revelation?” - -“And I could add—couldn’t I?—that you once had the inconceivable -weakness to become my mistress?” - -“Oh, you could add no end of details,” she admitted. - -“Well, then?” he questioned. - -“Well, then?” questioned she. - -“It comes to this, that if you don’t want your social position, your -reputation, to be utterly smashed up, you must make terms with me.” - -“It’s a little unfortunate, from that way of looking at it,” she -pointed out, “that I shouldn’t happen to care a rush about my social -position—as you call it.” - -“I think I’ll have a good long talk with the parson,” he said. - -“Do by all means,” said she. - -“You’d better be careful. I may take you at your word,” he -threatened. - -“I wish you would. Take me at my word—-and go,” she urged. - -“You mean to say you seriously don’t care?” - -“Not a rush, not a button,” she assured him. - -“Oh, come! You’ll never try to brazen the thing out,” he -exclaimed. - -“I wish you’d go and have your long talk with the parson,” she -said impatiently. - -“It would be so easy for you to give me a little help,” he pleaded. - -“It would be so easy for you to ’smash up’ my reputation with the -parson,” she rejoined. - -“You never used to be close-fisted. It’s incomprehensible that you -should refuse me a little help. Look. I’m willing to be more than -fair. Give me a hundred pounds, a bare little hundred pounds, and I’ll -send you a lovely picture.” - -“Thank you, I don’t want a picture.” - -“You won’t give me a hundred pounds—a beggarly hundred pounds?” -He looked incredulous. - -“I won’t give you a farthing.” - -“Well, then, by God, you jade,” he cried, springing to his feet, his -face crimson, “by God, I’ll make you. I swear I’ll ruin you. Look -out!” - -“Are you really going at last?” she asked brightly. - -“No, I’m not going till it suits my pleasure. You’ve got a sort of -bastard cousin staying here with you, I’m told,” he answered. - -“I would advise you to moderate your tone or your language,” said -she. “If my sort of bastard cousin should by any chance happen to hear -you referring to him in those terms, he would not be pleased.” - -“I want to see him,” said he. - -“I would advise you not to see him,” she returned. - -“I want to see him,” he insisted. - -“If you really wish to see him, I’ll send for him,” she consented. -“But it’s only right to warn you that he’s not at all a patient -sort of man. If I send for him, he will quite certainly make things -disagreeable for you.” - -“I’m not afraid of him. You know well enough that I’m not a -coward.” - -“My cousin is more than a head taller than you are,” she mused. -“He would be perfectly able and perfectly sure to kick you. If -there’s any other possible way of getting rid of you, I’d rather not -trouble him.” - -“I think I had better have a talk with your cousin, as well as with -the parson,” he considered. - -“I think you had better confine your attentions to the parson. I do, -upon my word,” she counselled him. - -“I am going to make a concession,” said Aymer. “I’m going to -give you a night in which to think this thing over. If you care to send -me a note, with a cheque in it, so that I shall receive it at the inn by -to-morrow at ten o’clock, I’ll take the next earliest train back to -town, and I’ll send you a picture in return. If no note comes by ten -o’clock, I’ll call on the parson, and tell him all I know about you; -and I’ll write a letter to your cousin. Now, good day.” - -Johannah rang, and Aymer was shown out. VI - -“|I shan’t be gone long,” Johannah had said, when she left Madame -Dornaye and Will at tea in the garden; but time passed, and she did -not come back. Will, mounting through various stages and degrees of -nervousness, restlessness, anxiety, at last said, “What on earth can -be keeping her?” and Madame Dornaye replied, “That is precisely what -I am asking myself.” They waited a little longer, and then, “Shall -we go back to the house?” he suggested. But when they reached the -house they found the drawing-room empty, and—no trace of Johannah. - -“She may be in her room. I’ll go and see,” said Madame Dornaye. - -More time passed, and still no Johannah. Nor did Madame Dornaye return -to explain her absence. - -Will walked about in a state of acute misery. What could it be? What -could have happened? What could this painter, this George Aymer, -this thorough-paced rascal with the beautiful face, this man of whom -Johannah, in days gone by, “had seen a great deal,” so that her -friends had feared “she might end by marrying him”—what could he -have called upon her for? What could have passed between them? Why -had she disappeared? Where was she now? Where was he? Where was Madame -Dornaye, who had gone to look for her? Could—could it possibly -be—that he—this man notorious for his corruption even in the -corruptest world of Paris—could it be that he was the man Johannah -meant when she had talked of the man she was in love with? And Will, -fatuous imbecile, had vainly allowed himself to imagine.... Oh, why -did she not come back? What could be keeping her away from him all this -time?... “I have had a hundred, I have had a hundred.” The phrase -echoed and echoed in his memory. She had said, “I have had a -hundred love affairs.” Oh, to be sure, in the next breath, she had -contradicted herself, she had said, “No, I haven’t.” But she had -added, “Everybody has had at least one.” So she had had at least -one. With this man, George Aymer? Madame Dornaye said she had broken -with him, ceased to see him. But—it was certain she had seen him -to-day. But—lovers’ quarrels are made up; lovers break with each -other, and then come together again, are reunited. Perhaps... Perhaps... -Oh, where was she? Why did she remain away in this mysterious fashion? -What could she be doing? What could she be doing? - -The dressing-bell rang, and he went to dress for dinner. - -“Anyhow, I shall see her now, I shall see her at dinner,” he kept -telling himself, as he dressed. - -But when he came downstairs the drawing-room was still empty. He walked -backwards and forwards. - -“We shall have to dine without our hostess,” Madame Dornaye said, -entering presently. “Jeanne has a bad headache, and will stay in her -room.” VII - -Will left the house early the next morning, and went out into the -garden. The sun was shining, the dew sparkled on the grass, the air was -keen and sweet with the odours of the earth. A mile away the sea -glowed blue as larkspur; and overhead innumerable birds gaily piped and -twittered. But oh, the difference, the difference! His eyes could see no -colour, his ears could hear no music. His brain felt as if it had been -stretched and strained, like a thing of india-rubber; a lump ached in -his throat; his heart was sick with the suspense of waiting, with the -questionings, the fears, suspicions, that had beset it through the -night. - -“Will!” Johannah’s voice called behind him. - -He turned. - -“Thank God!” The words came without conscious volition on his part. -“I thought I was never going to see you again.” - -“I have been waiting for you,” said she. - -She wore her garden-hat and her white frock; but her face was pale, and -her eyes looked dark and anxious. - -He had taken her hand, and was clinging to it, pressing it, hard, so -hard that it must have hurt her, in the violence of his emotion. - -“Oh, wait, Will, wait,” she said, trying to draw her hand away; and -her eyes filled with sudden tears. - -He let go her hand, and looked into her tearful eyes, helpless, -speechless, longing to speak, unable, in the confusion of his thoughts -and feelings, to find a word. - -“I must tell you something, Will. Come with me somewhere—where we -can be alone. I must tell you something.” - -She moved off, away from the house, he keeping beside her. They passed -out of the garden, into the deep shade of the park. - -“Do you remember,” she began, all at once, “do you remember what -I said yesterday, about my motto? That my motto was ’Be bold, be bold, -and everywhere be bold’.” - -“Yes,” he said. - -“I am going to be very bold indeed now, Will. I am going to tell you -something—something that will make you hate me perhaps—that will -make you despise me perhaps,” she faltered. - -“You could not possibly tell me anything that could make me hate you -or despise you. But you must not tell me anything at all, unless it is -something you are perfectly sure you will be happier for having told -me,” he said. - -“It is something I wish to tell you, something I must tell you,” -said she. Then after a little pause, “Oh, how shall I begin it?” But -before he could have spoken, “Do you think that a woman—do you -think that a girl, when she is very young, when she is very immature and -impressionable, and very impulsive, and ignorant, and when she is alone -in the world, without a father or mother—do you think that if she -makes some terrible mistake, if she is terribly deceived, if somebody -whom she believes to be good and noble and unhappy and misunderstood, -somebody whom she—whom she loves—do you think that if she makes some -terrible mistake—if she—if she—oh, my God!—if——-” She held -her breath for a second, then suddenly, “Can’t you understand what -I mean?” she broke down in a sort of wail, and hid her face in her -hands, and sobbed. - -Will stood beside her, holding his arms out towards her. “Johannah! -Johannah!” was all he could say. - -She dropped her hands, and looked at him with great painful eyes. -“Tell me—do you think that a woman can never be forgiven? Do you -think that she is soiled, degraded, changed utterly? Do you think that -when she—that when she did what she did—it was a sin, a crime, not -only a terrible mistake, and that her whole nature is changed? Most -people think so. They think that a mark has been left upon her, branded -upon her; that she can never, never be the same again. Do you think so, -Will? Oh, it is not true; I know it is not true. A woman can leave -that mistake, that terror, that horror—she can leave it behind her as -completely as she can leave any other dreadful thing. She can blot it -out of her life, like a nightmare. She isn’t changed—she remains the -same woman. She isn’t utterly changed, and soiled, and defiled. In her -own conscience, no matter what other people think, she knows, she knows -she isn’t. When she wakes up to find that the man she had believed in, -the man she had loved, when she wakes up to find that he isn’t in any -way what she had thought him, that he is base and evil and ignoble, and -when all her love for him dies in horror and misery—oh, do you think -that she must never, never, as long as she lives, hold up her head -again, never be happy again, never love any one again? Look at me, Will. -I am myself. I am what God made me. Do you think that I am utterly vile -because—because———” But her voice failed again, and her eyes -again filled with tears. - -“Oh, Johannah, don’t ask me what I think of you. I could not tell -you what I think of you. You are as God made you. God never made—never -made any one else so splendid.” - -And in a moment his arms were round her, and she was weeping her heart -out on his shoulder. - - - - -ROOMS - -Would Madame like a little orange-flower water in her milk?” the -waiter asked. Madame thought she would, and the waiter went off to fetch -it. - -We were seated on the terrace of a café at Rouen, a café on the quays. -There was a long rank, three deep, of small marble tables, untenanted -for the most part, sheltered by a bright red-and-white striped -awning, and screened from the street by a hedge of oleanders in big -green-painted tubs; so that one had a fine sense of cosiness and -seclusion, of refreshing shade and coolness and repose. Beyond the -oleanders, one was dimly conscious of hot sunshine, of the going and -coming of people on the pavement, of the passing of carts and tram-cars -in the grey road, and then of the river—the slate-coloured river, -with its bridges and its puffing penny steamboats, its tall ships out of -Glasgow or Copenhagen or Barcelona, its high green banks, farther away, -where it wound into the country, and the pure sky above it. From all -the interesting things the café provided, lucent-tinted syrups, -fiery-hearted, aromatic cordials, Madame (with subtle feminine -unexpectedness) had chosen a glass of milk. But the waiter had -suggested orange-flower water, to give it savour; and now he brought the -orange-flower water in a dark-blue bottle. - -It was partly, I daresay, the sight of the dark-blue bottle, but it was -chiefly, perhaps, the smell of the orange-flower water, that suddenly, -suddenly, whisked my thoughts far away from Rouen, far away from 1897, -back ten, twenty, I would rather not count how many years back in the -past, to my childhood, to Saint-Graal, and to my grandmother’s room in -our old rambling house there. For my grandmother always kept a dark-blue -bottle of orange-flower water in her closet, and the air of her room was -always faintly sweet with the perfume of it. - -Suddenly, suddenly, a sort of ghost of my grandmother’s room rose -before me; and as I peered into it and about it, a ghost of the old -emotion her room used to stir in me rose too, an echo of the old wonder, -the old feeling of strangeness and mystery. It was a big room—or, at -least, it seemed big to a child—a corner room, on the first floor, -with windows on two sides. The windows on one side looked through the -branches of a great elm, a city of birds and squirrels, out upon the -lawn, with the pond at the bottom of it. On the other side, the windows -looked over the terrace, into the shrubberies and winding paths of the -garden. The walls of the room were hung with white paper, upon which, at -regular intervals, was repeated a landscape in blue, a stretch of meadow -with cows in it, and a hillside topped by a ruined castle. In a corner, -the inmost corner, stood my grandmother’s four-post bed, with its -canopy and curtains of dark-green tapestry. Then, of course, there was -the fireplace, surmounted by a high, slender mantelpiece, on which -were ranged a pair of silver candlesticks, a silver tray containing the -snuffers and the extinguisher, and, in the middle, a solemn old buhl -clock. From above the mantelpiece a picture looked down at you, the only -picture in the room, the life-size portrait of a gentleman in a white -stock and an embroidered waistcoat—the portrait of my grandfather, -indeed, who had died long years before I was born, when my mother was a -schoolgirl. And then there was the rest of the furniture of the room—a -chair at each window, and between the various windows my grandmother’s -dressing-table, her work-table, her armoire-à-glace, her great mahogany -bureau, a writing-desk above, a chest-of-drawers below. In two or three -places—besides the big double door that led into her room from the -outer passage—the wall was broken by smaller doors, doors papered over -like the wall itself, and even with it, so that you would scarcely have -noticed them. One of these was the door of my grandmother’s oratory, -with its praying-desk and its little altar. The others were the doors of -her closets: the deep black closet, where her innumerable dresses -were suspended, and the closets where she kept her bandboxes and her -sunshades and her regiment of bottles—chief among them the tall -dark-blue bottle of orange-flower water. - -I don’t know, I can’t think, why this room should always have -awakened in me a feeling of strangeness and mystery, why it should -always have set me off day-dreaming and wondering; but it always did. -The mahogany bureau, the tapestried four-post bed, the portrait of my -grandfather, the recurrent landscape on the wall-paper, the deep -black closet where the dresses hung, the faint smell of orange-flower -water—each of these was a surface, a curtain, behind which, on the -impenetrable other side of which, vaguely, wonderingly, I divined -strange vistas, a whole strange world. Each of these silently hinted to -me of strange happenings, strange existences, strange conditions. And -vaguely, longingly, I would try to formulate my feeling into some sort -of distinct mental vision, try to translate into my own language their -occult suggestions. They were hieroglyphs, full of meaning, if only I -could understand. Was it because the things in my grandmother’s room -were all old things, old-fashioned things? Was the strange world they -spoke of simply the world as it had been in years gone by, before I came -into it, before even my mother and father came into it, when people long -since dead were alive, important, the people of the day, and when these -faded, old-fashioned things were fresh and new? I doubt if it could -have been entirely this. There were plenty of old things in our house -at Saint-Graal—in the hall, the library, the garret, everywhere; -the house itself was very old indeed; yet no other part of it gave me -anything like the same emotion. - -My Uncle Edmond’s room, for instance, gave me a directly contrary -emotion, though here, too, all the furniture was old-fashioned. It gave -me a sense of brisk, almost of stern, actuality; of present facts and -occupations; of alert, busy manhood. As I followed Alexandre into it, in -the morning, when he went to dust it and put it in order, I was filled -with a kind of fearful admiration: the fear, the admiration, of the -small for the big, of the weak for the strong, of the helpless for the -commanding. The arrangement of the room, the lines of the room, the very -colours of the room, seemed strong, and commanding, and severe. Yet, -when you came to examine it, the only really severe-looking object was -the bedstead; this being devoid of curtains, its four varnished pillars -shone somewhat hard and bare. For the rest, there was just the natural -furniture of a sleeping-room: a dressing-table, covered with a man’s -toilet accessories—combs and brushes, razors, scissors, shoehorns, -button-hooks, shirt-studs, and bottles enclosing I know not what -necessary fluids; a bigger table, with writing-materials on it, with an -old epaulette-box used now to hold tobacco, and endless pipes and little -pink books of cigarette-papers; a bureau like my grandmother’s; a -glazed bookcase; and the proper complement of chairs. The walls of the -room were painted white, and ornamented by two pictures, facing each -other: two steel-engravings, companion-pieces, after Rembrandt, I -believe. “Le Philosophe en Contemplation” was the legend printed -under one; and under the other, “Le Philosophe en Méditation.” I -can only remember that the philosopher had a long grey beard, and that -in both pictures he was seated in a huge easy-chair. My Uncle Edmond had -been in the army when he was a young man, and in his closets (besides -his ordinary clothes and his countless pairs of boots) there were old -uniform coats, with silver buttons, old belts, clasps, spurs, and -then, best of all, three or four swords, and a rosewood case or two of -pistols. Needless to say whether my awe and my admiration mounted to -their climax when I peeped in upon these historic trophies. And just as -the smell of orange-flower water pervaded my grandmother’s room, so -another, a very different smell, pervaded my Uncle Edmond’s, a dry, -clean smell, slightly pungent, bitter, but not at all unpleasant. I -could never discover what it came from, I can’t even now conjecture; -but it seemed to me a manly smell, just the smell that a man’s room -ought to have. In my too-fruitless efforts to imitate Uncle Edmond’s -room in the organisation of my own, it was that smell, more than -anything else, which baffled me. I could not achieve the remotest -semblance of it. Of course, I was determined that when I grew up I -should have a room exactly like my uncle’s in every particular, and I -trusted, no doubt, that it would acquire the smell, with time. - -But of all the rooms at Saint-Graal, the one that gave you the -thrillingest, the most exquisite emotion, was my mother’s. If my -grandmother’s room represented the silence and the strangeness of the -past, and my uncle’s the actuality and activity of the present, -my mother’s room represented the Eternal Feminine, smiling at you, -enthralling you, in its loveliest incarnation; singing to you, amid -delicate luxuries, of youth and beauty and happiness, and the fine -romance of mirth. In my mother’s room, for example, so far from being -old-fashioned, the furniture was of the very latest, daintiest design, -fresh from Paris. The wallpaper was cream-coloured, with garlands -of pink and blue flowers trailing over it, and here and there a -shepherd’s hat and a shepherd’s pipes tied together by a long -fluttering blue ribbon. The chairs and the sofa were covered with -chintz, gayer even, if that were possible, than this paper: chintz on -which pretty little bright-blue birds flew about among poppies, red as -scarlet, and pale-green leaves. The window-curtains and the bed-curtains -were of the same merry chintz; the bed-quilt was an eider-down of the -softest blush-rose silk; the bedstead was enamelled white, and so highly -polished that you could see an obscure reflection of your features in -it. And then, the dressing-table, with its wide bevelled mirror, and the -glistening treasures displayed upon it!—the open jewel-case, and -the rings, brooches, bracelets, necklaces, that sparkled in it; the -silver-backed brushes, the silver-topped bottles, the silver-framed -hand-glass; the hundred shining trifles. One whole side of the room had -been converted into a vast bay-window; this looked due south, over -the floweriest part of our flower-garden, over the rich green country -beyond, miles away, to where the Pyrenees gloomed purple. As a shield -against the sun the window was fitted with Venetian blinds, besides the -curtains; and every morning, when I crept in from my own adjoining -room, to pay my mother a visit, it was given me to witness a marvellous -transformation scene. At first all was dark, or nearly dark, so that -you could only distinguish things as shadowy masses. But presently my -mother’s maid, Aurélie, arrived with the chocolate, and drew back the -curtains, filling the room with a momentary twilight; then she opened -the Venetian blinds, and suddenly there was a gush of sunlight, and the -room gleamed and glittered like a room in a crystal palace. Sweet airs -came in from the garden, bird-notes came in, the day came in, dancing -and laughing joyously; and my mother and I joyously laughed back at it. -Another transformation scene, at which I was permitted to assist, took -place in this room in the evening, when my mother dressed for dinner. -I would sit at a distance, not to be in the way, and watch the ceremony -with eyes as round as O’s doubtless, and certainly with an enravished -soul; while Aurélie did my mother’s hair (sprinkling it, as a -culmination, with a pinch of diamond-dust, according to the mode of -the period), and moved to and from the wardrobe, where my mother’s -bewildering confections of silks and laces were enshrined, and her satin -slippers glimmered in a row on their shelf. And after the toilet was -completed, and my mother, in dazzling loveliness, had kissed me good-bye -and vanished, I would linger a little, to gaze about the temple in which -such miracles could happen; taking up and studying one by one the combs, -brushes, powder-puffs, or what not, as you would study the -instruments employed by a conjurer; and removing the stoppers from the -scent-bottles, to inhale their delicious fragrance.... - -“Don’t you think,” asked my companion, “that it’s time you -paid the waiter and we were off?” - -I looked up, and suddenly there was Rouen—Rouen, the café on the -quays, Madame’s empty glass of milk, and Madame herself questioning me -from anxious eyes. - -“Yes,” I said, “I think it’s time we were off; and what’s -more, I’ll tell you this: every room in the universe has not only -its peculiar physiognomy and its peculiar significance, but it wakes a -particular sentiment also, and has a special smell.” - -“Oh, I see,” said Madame; “that’s why you’ve been silent all -this while.” - -So I paid the waiter, and we took the puffing little steamboat, down -the river, between its green banks and its flowery islets, back to La -Bouille. - - - - -ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE I - -I wonder why I dreamed last night of Zabetta. It is years since she made -her brief little transit through my life, and passed out of it utterly. -It is years since the very recollection of her—which for years, like -an accusing spirit, had haunted me too often—like a spirit was laid. -It is long enough, in all conscience, since I have even thought of her, -casually, for an instant. And then, last night, after a perfectly usual -London day and evening, I went to bed and dreamed of her vividly. What -had happened to bring her to my mind? Or is it simply that the god of -dreams is a capricious god? - -The influence of my dream, at any rate,—the bittersweet savour of -it,—has pursued me through my waking hours. All day long to-day -Zabetta has been my phantom guest. She has walked with me in the -streets; she has waited at my elbow while I wrote or talked or read. -Now, at tea-time, she is present with me by my study fireside, in the -twilight. Her voice sounds faintly, plaintively, in my ears; her eyes -gaze at me sadly from a pale reproachful face.... She bids me to the -theatre of memory, where my youth is rehearsed before me in mimic show. -There was one—no, there were two little scenes in which Zabetta played -the part of leading lady. II - -I do not care to specify the year in which it happened; it happened -a terrible number of years ago; it happened when I was twenty. I had -passed the winter in Naples,—oh, it had been a golden winter!—and -now April had come, and my last Neapolitan day. Tomorrow I was to take -ship for Marseilles, on the way to join my mother in Paris. - -It was in the afternoon; and I was climbing one of those crooked -staircase alleys that scale the hillsides behind the town, the -salita—is there, in Naples, a Salita Santa Margherita? I had lunched -(for the last time!) at the Café d’.urope, and had then set forth -upon a last haphazard ramble through the streets. It was tremulous -spring weather, with blue skies, soft breezes, and a tender sun; the -sort of weather that kindles perilous ardours even in the blood of -middle age, and turns the blood of youth to wildfire. - -Women sat combing their hair, and singing, and gossiping, before -the doorways of their pink and yellow houses; children sprawled, and -laughed, and quarrelled in the dirt. Pifferari, in sheep-skins and -sandals, followed by prowling, gaunt-limbed dogs, droned monotonous -nasal melodies from their bagpipes. Priests picked their way gingerly -over the muddy cobble stones, sleek, black-a-vised priests, with -exaggerated hats, like Don Basilio’s in the Barbiere. Now and then one -passed a fat brown monk; or a soldier; or a white-robed penitent, whose -eyes glimmered uncannily from the peep-holes of the hood that hid -his face; or a comely contadina, in her smart costume, with a -pomegranate-blossom flaming behind her ear, and red lips that curved -defiantly as she met the covetous glances wildfire-and-twenty no doubt -bestowed upon her—whereat, perhaps, wildfire-and-twenty halted and -hesitated for an instant, debating whether to accept the challenge and -turn and follow her. A flock of milk-purveying goats jangled their bells -a few yards below me. Hawkers screamed their merchandise, fish, -and vegetables, and early fruit—apricots, figs, green almonds. -Brown-skinned, barelegged boys shouted at long-suffering donkeys, -and whacked their flanks with sticks. And everybody, more or less, -importuned you for coppers. “Mossou, mossou! Un piccolo soldo, per -l’amor di Dio!” The air was vibrant with Southern human noises -and dense with Southern human smells—amongst which, here and there, -wandered strangely a lost waft of perfume from some neighbouring garden, -a scent of jasmine or of orange flowers. - -And then, suddenly, the salita took a turn, and broadened into a small -piazza. At one hand there was a sheer terrace, dropping to tiled roofs -twenty feet below; and hence one got a splendid view, over the town, of -the blue bay, with its shipping, and of Capri, all rose and purple in -the distance, and of Vesuvius with its silver wreath of smoke. At the -other hand loomed a vast, discoloured, pink-stuccoed palace, with grated -windows, and a porte-cochère black as the mouth of a cavern; and the -upper stories of the palace were in ruins, and out of one corner of -their crumbling walls a palm-tree grew. The third side of the piazza -was inevitably occupied by a church, a little pearl-grey rococo edifice, -with a bell, no deeper toned than a common dinner-bell, which was now -frantically ringing. About the doors of the church countless written -notices were pasted, advertising indulgences; beggars clung to the -steps, like monster snails; and the greasy leathern portière was -constantly being drawn aside, to let some one enter or come out. III - -It was here that I met Zabetta. - -The heavy portière swung open, and a young girl stepped from the -darkness behind it into the sunshine. - -I saw a soft face, with brown eyes; a plain black frock, with a little -green nosegay stuck in its belt; and a small round scarlet hat. - -A hideous old beggar woman stretched a claw towards this apparition, -mumbling something. The apparition smiled, and sought in its pocket, and -made the beggar woman the richer by a soldo. - -I was twenty, and the April wind was magical. I thought I had never seen -so beautiful a smile, a smile so radiant, so tender. - -I watched the young girl as she tripped down the church steps, and -crossed the piazza, coming towards me. Her smile lingered, fading -slowly, slowly, from her face. - -As she neared me, her eyes met mine. For a second we looked straight -into each other’s eyes.... - -Oh, there was nothing bold, nothing sophisticated or immodest, in -the momentary gaze she gave me. It was a natural, spontaneous gaze -of perfectly frank, of perfectly innocent and impulsive interest, in -exchange for mine of open admiration. But it touched the wildfire in my -veins, and made it leap tumultuously. IV - -Happiness often passes close to us without our suspecting it, the -proverb says. - -The young girl moved on; and I stood still, feeling dimly that something -precious had passed close to me. I had not turned back to follow any -of the brazenly provocative contadine. But now I could not help it. -Something precious had passed within arm’s reach of me. I must not let -it go, without at least a semblance of pursuing it. If I waited there -passive till she was out of sight, my regrets would be embittered by the -recollection that I had not even tried. - -I followed her eagerly, but vaguely, in a tremor or unformulated -hopes and fears. I had no definite intentions, no designs. Presently, -doubtless, she would come to her journey’s end—she would disappear -in a house or shop—and I should have my labour for my pains. -Nevertheless, I followed. What would you? She was young, she was pretty, -she was neatly dressed. She had big bright brown eyes, and a slender -waist, and a little round scarlet hat set jauntily upon a mass of waving -soft brown hair. And she walked gracefully, with delicious undulations, -as if to music, lifting her skirts up from the pavement, and so -disclosing the daintiest of feet, in trim buttoned boots of glazed -leather, with high Italian heels. And her smile was lovely—and I was -twenty—and it was April. I must not let her escape me, without at -least a semblance of pursuit. - -She led me down the salita that I had just ascended. She could scarcely -know that she was being followed, for she had not once glanced behind -her. V - -At first I followed meekly, unperceived, and contented to remain so. - -But little by little a desire for more aggressive measures grew within -me. I said, “Why not—instead of following meekly—why not overtake -and outdistance her, then turn round, and come face to face with her -again? And if again her eyes should meet mine as frankly as they met -them in the piazza....” - -The mere imagination of their doing so made my heart stop beating. - -I quickened my pace. I drew nearer and nearer to her. I came abreast of -her—oh, how the wildfire trembled! I pressed on for a bit, and then, -true to my resolution, turned back. - -Her eyes did meet mine again quite frankly. What was more, they -brightened with a little light of surprise, I might almost have fancied -a little light of pleasure. - -If the mere imagination of the thing had made my heart stop beating, the -thing itself set it to pounding, racing, uncontrollably, so that I felt -all but suffocated, and had to catch my breath. - -She knew now that the young man she had passed in the piazza had -followed her of set purpose; and she was surprised, but, seemingly, -not displeased. They were wonderfully gentle, wonderfully winning eyes, -those eyes she raised so frankly to my desirous ones; and innocent, -innocent, with all the unsuspecting innocence of childhood. In years she -might be seventeen, older perhaps; but there was a child’s fearless -unconsciousness of evil in her wide brown eyes. She had not yet been -taught (or, anyhow, she clearly didn’t believe) that it is dangerous -and unbecoming to exchange glances with a stranger in the streets. - -She was as good as smiling on me. Might I dare the utmost? Might I -venture to speak to her?... My heart was throbbing too violently. I -could not have found an articulate human word, nor a shred of voice, nor -a pennyweight of self-assurance, in my body. . - -So, thrilling with excitement, quailing in panic, I passed her again. - -I passed her, and kept on up the narrow alley for half a dozen steps, -when again I turned. - -She was standing where I had left her, looking after me. There was the -expression of unabashed disappointment in her dark eyes now, which, in a -minute, melted to an expression of appeal. - -“Oh, aren’t you going to speak to me, after all?” they pleaded. - -Wooed by those soft monitors, I plucked up a sort of desperate courage. -Hot coals burned in my cheeks, something flattered terribly in my -breast; I was literally quaking in every limb. My spirit was exultant, -but my flesh was faint. Her eyes drew me, drew me.... I fancy myself -awkwardly raising my hat; I hear myself accomplish a half-smothered -salutation. - -“Buon’ giorno, Signorina.” - -Her face lit up with that celestial smile of hers; and in a voice -that was like ivory and white velvet, she returned, “Buon’ giorno, -Signorino.” VI - -And then I don’t know how long we stood together in silence. - -This would never do, I recognised. I must not stand before her in -silence, like a guilty schoolboy. I must feign composure. I must carry -off the situation lightly, like a man of the world, a man of experience. -I groped anxiously in the confusion ot my wits for something that might -pass for an apposite remark. - -At last I had a flash or inspiration. “What—what fine weather,” I -gasped. “Che bel tempo!” - -“Oh, molto bello,” she responded. It was like a cadenza on a flute. - -“You—you are going into the town?” I questioned. - -“Yes,” said she. - -“May I—may I have the pleasure———” I faltered. - -“But yes,” she consented, with an inflection that wondered. “What -else have you spoken to me for?” - -And we set off down the salita, side by side. VII - -She had exquisite little white ears, with little coral earrings, like -drops of blood; and a perfect rosebud mouth, a mouth that matched her -eyes for innocence and sweetness. Her scarlet hat burned in the sun, and -her brown hair shook gently under it. She had plump little soft white -hands. - -Presently, when I had begun to feel more at my ease, I hazarded a -question. “You are a republican, Signorina?” - -“No,” she assured me, with a puzzled elevation of the brows. - -“Ah, well, then you are a cardinal,” I concluded. - -She gave a silvery trill of laughter, and asked, “Why must I be either -a republican or a cardinal?” - -“You wear a scarlet hat—a bonnet rouge,” I explained. - -At which she laughed again, crisply, merrily. - -“You are French,” she said. - -“Oh, am I?” - -“Aren’t you?” - -“As you wish, Signorina; but I had never thought so.” - -And still again she laughed. - -“You have come from church,” said I. - -“Già,” she assented; “from confession.” - -“Really? And did you have a great many wickednesses to confess?” - -“Oh, yes; many, many,” she answered, simply. - -“And now have you got a heavy penance to perform?” - -“No; only twenty aves. And I must turn my tongue seven times in my -mouth before I speak, whenever I am angry.” - -“Ah, then you are given to being angry? You have a bad temper?” - -“Oh, dreadful, dreadful,” she cried, nodding her head. - -It was my turn to laugh now. “Then I must be careful not to vex -you.” - -“Yes. But I will turn my tongue seven times before I speak, if you -do,” she promised. - -“Are you going far?” I asked. - -“I am going nowhere. I am taking a walk.” - -“Shall we go to the Villa Nazionale, and watch the driving?” - -“Or to the Toledo, and look at the shop-windows?” - -“We can do both. We will begin at the Toledo, and end in the Villa.” - -“Bene,” she acquiesced. - -After a little silence, “I am so glad I met you,” I informed her, -looking into her eyes. - -He eyes softened adorably. “I am so glad too,” she said. - -“You are lovely, you are sweet,” I vowed, with enthusiasm. - -“Oh, no!” she protested. “I am as God made me.” - -“You are lovely, you are sweet. I thought—when I first saw you, -above there, in the piazza—when you came out of church, and gave the -soldo to the old beggar woman—I thought you had the loveliest smile I -had ever seen.” - -A beautiful blush suffused her face, and her eyes swam in a mist of -pleasure. “É vero?” she questioned. - -“Oh, vero, vero. That is why I followed you. You don’t mind my -having followed you?” - -“Oh, no; I am glad.” - -After another interval of silence, “You are not Neapolitan?” I said. -“You don’t speak like a Neapolitan.” - -“No; I am Florentine. We live in Naples for my father’s health. He -is not strong. He cannot endure the cold winters of the North.” - -I murmured something sympathetic; and she went on, “My father is a -violinist. To-day he has gone to Capri, to play at a festival. He will -not be back until to-morrow. So I was very lonesome.” - -“You have no mother?” - -“My mother is dead,” she said, crossing herself. In a moment she -added, with a touch of pride, “During the season my father plays in -the orchestra of the San Carlo.” - -“I am sure I know what your name is,” said I. - -“Oh? How can you know? What is it?” - -“I think your name is Rosabella.” - -“Ah, then you are wrong. My name is Elisabetta. But in Naples -everybody says Zabetta. And yours?” - -“Guess.” - -“Oh, I cannot guess. Not—not Federico?” - -“Do I look as if my name were Federico?” - -She surveyed me gravely for a minute, then shook her head pensively. -“No; I do not think your name is Federico.” - -And therewith I told her my name, and made her repeat it till she could -pronounce it without a struggle. - -It sounded very pretty, coming from her pretty lips, quite Southern and -romantic, with its r’s tremendously enriched. - -“Anyhow, I know your age,” said I. - -“What is it?” - -“You are seventeen.” - -“No—ever so much older.” - -“Eighteen then.” - -“I shall be nineteen in July.” VIII - -Before the brilliant shop-windows of the Toledo we dallied for an hour -or more, Zabetta’s eyes sparkling with delight as they rested on the -bright-hued silks, the tortoiseshell and coral, the gold and silver -filagree-work, that were there displayed. But when she admired some one -particular object above another, and I besought her to let me buy it for -her, she refused austerely. “But no, no, no! It is impossible.” -Then we went on to the Villa, and strolled by the sea-wall, between -the blue-green water and the multicoloured procession of people in -carriages. And by-and-by Zabetta confessed that she was tired, and -proposed that we should sit down on one of the benches. “A café would -be better fun,” submitted her companion. And we placed ourselves at -one of the out-of-door tables of the café in the garden, where, after -some urging, I prevailed upon Zabetta to drink a cup of chocolate. -Meanwhile, with the ready confidence of youth, we had each been -desultorily autobiographical; and if our actual acquaintance was only -the affair of an afternoon, I doubt if in a year we could have felt that -we knew each other better. - -“I must go home,” Zabetta said at last. - -“Oh, not yet, not yet,” cried I. - -“It will be dinner-time. I must go home to dinner.” - -“But your father is at Capri. You will have to dine alone.” - -“Yes.” - -“Then don’t. Come with me instead, and dine at a restaurant.” - -Her eyes glowed wistfully for an instant; but she replied, “Oh, no; I -cannot.” - -“Yes, you can. Come.” - -“Oh, no; impossible.” - -“Why?” - -“Oh, because.” - -“Because what?” - -“There is my cat. She will have nothing to eat.” - -“Your cook will give her something.” - -“My cook!” laughed Zabetta. “My cook is here before you.” - -“Well, you must be a kind mistress. You must give your cook an evening -out.” - -“But my poor cat?” - -“Your cat can catch a mouse.” - -“There are no mice in our house. She has frightened them all away.” - -“Then she can wait. A little fast will be good for her soul.” - -Zabetta laughed, and I said, “Andiamo!” - -At the restaurant we climbed to the first floor, and they gave us a -table near the window, whence we could look out over the villa to the -sea beyond. The sun was sinking, and the sky was gay with rainbow tints, -like mother-of-pearl. - -Zabetta’s face shone joyfully. “This is only the second time in my -life that I have dined in a restaurant,” she told me. “And the other -time was very long ago, when I was quite young. And it wasn’t nearly -so grand a restaurant as this, either.” - -“And now what would you like to eat?” I asked, picking up the bill -of fare. - -“May I look?” said she. - -I handed her the document, and she studied it at length. I think, -indeed, she read it through. In the end she appeared rather bewildered. - -“Oh, there is so much. I don’t know. Will you choose, please?” - -I made a shift at choosing, and the sympathetic waiter flourished -kitchenwards with my commands. - -“What is that little green nosegay you wear in your belt, Zabetta?” -I inquired. - -“Oh, this—it is rosemary. Smell it,” she said, breaking off a -sprig and offering it to me. - -“Rosemary—that’s for remembrance,” quoted I. - -“What does that mean? What language is that?” she asked. - -I tried to translate it to her. And then I taught her to say it in -English. “Rrosemérri—tsat is forr rremembrrance.” - -“Will you write it down for me?” she requested. “It is pretty.” - -And I wrote it for her on the back of one of my cards. IX - -After dinner we crossed the garden again, and again stood by the -sea-wall. Over us the soft spring night was like a dark sapphire. Points -of red, green, and yellow fire burned from the ships in the bay, and -seemed of the same company as the stars above them. A rosy aureole in -the sky, to the eastward, marked the smouldering crater of Vesuvius. -Away in the Chiaja a man was singing comic songs, to an accompaniment -of mandolines and guitars; comic songs that sounded pathetic, as they -reached us in the distance. - -I asked Zabetta how she wished to finish the evening. - -“I don’t care,” said she. - -“Would you like to go the play?” - -“If you wish.” - -“What do you wish?” - -“I think I should like to stay here a little longer. It is -pleasant.” - -We leaned on the parapet, close to each other. Her face was very pale in -the starlight; her eyes were infinitely deep, and dark, and tender. One -of her little hands lay on the stone wall, like a white flower. I took -it. It was warm and soft. She did not attempt to withdraw it. I bent -over it and kissed it. I kissed it many times. Then I kissed her lips. -“Zabetta—I love you—I love you,” I murmured fervently.—Don’t -imagine that I didn’t mean it. It was April, and I was twenty. - -“I love you, Zabetta. Dearest little Zabetta! I love you so.” - -“É vero?” she questioned, scarcely above her breath. - -“Oh, si; é vero, vero, vero,” I asseverated. “And you? And -you?” - -“Yes, I love you,” she whispered. - -And then I could say no more. The ecstasy that filled my heart was too -poignant. We stood there speechless, hand in hand, and breathed the air -of heaven. - -By-and-by Zabetta drew her bunch of rosemary from her belt, and -divided it into two parts. One part she gave to me, the other she kept. -“Rosemary—it is for constancy,” she said. I pressed the cool herb -to my face for a moment, inhaling its bitter-sweet fragrance; then I -fastened it in my buttonhole. On my watch-chain I wore—what everybody -in Naples used to wear—a little coral hand, a little clenched coral -hand, holding a little golden dagger. I detached it now, and made -Zabetta take it. “Coral—that is also for constancy,” I reminded -her; “and besides, it protects one from the Evil Eye.” X - -At last Zabetta asked me what time it was; and when she learned that it -was half-past nine, she insisted that she really must go home. “They -shut the outer door of the house we live in at ten o’clock, and I have -no key.” - -“You can ring up the porter.” - -“Oh, there is no porter.” - -“But if we had gone to the theatre?” - -“I should have had to leave you in the middle of the play.” - -“Ah, well,” I consented; and we left the villa and took a cab. - -“Are you happy, Zabetta?” I asked her, as the cab rattled us towards -our parting. - -“Oh, so happy, so happy! I have never been so happy before.” - -“Dearest Zabetta!” - -“You will love me always?” - -“Always, always.” - -“We will see each other every day. We will see each other -to-morrow?” - -“Oh, to-morrow!” I groaned suddenly, the actualities of life rushing -all at once upon my mind. - -“What is it? What of to-morrow?” - -“Oh, to-morrow, to-morrow!” - -“What? What?” Her voice was breathless with suspense, with alarm. -“Oh, I had forgotten. You will think I am a beast.” - -“What is it? For heaven’s sake, tell me.” - -“You will think I am a beast. You will think I have deceived you. -To-morrow—I cannot help it—I am not my own master—I am summoned by -my parents—to-morrow I am going away—I am leaving Naples.” - -“You are leaving Naples?” - -“I am going to Paris.” - -“To Paris?” - -“Yes.” - -There was a breathing-space of silence. Then, “Oh, Dio!” sobbed -Zabetta; and she began to cry as if her heart would break. - -I seized her hands; I drew her to me. I tried to comfort her. But she -only cried and cried and cried. - -“Zabetta... Zabetta.... Don’t cry... Forgive me.... Oh, don’t cry -like that.” - -“Oh, Dio! Oh, caro Dio!” she sobbed. - -“Zabetta—listen to me,” I began. “I have something to say to -you....” - -“Cosa?” she asked faintly. - -“Zabetta—do you really love me?” - -“Oh, tanto, tanto!” - -“Then, listen, Zabetta. If you really love me—come with me.” - -“Come with you. How?” - -“Come with me to Paris.” - -“To Paris?” - -“Yes, to-morrow.” - -There was another instant of silence, and then again Zabetta began to -cry. - -“Will you? Will you? Will you come with me to Paris?” I implored -her. - -“Oh, I would, I would. But I can’t. I can’t.” - -“Why not?” - -“Oh, I can’t.” - -“Why? Why can’t you?” - -“Oh, my father—I cannot leave my father.” - -“Your father? But—if you love me———” - -“He is old. He is ill. He has no one but me. I cannot leave him.” - -“Zabetta!” - -“No, no. I cannot leave him. Oh, Dio mio!” - -“But Zabetta————” - -“No. It would be a sin. Oh, the worst of sins. He is old and ill. I -cannot leave him. Don’t ask me. It would be dreadful.” - -“But then? Then what? What shall we do?” - -“Oh, I don’t know. I wish I were dead.” - -The cab came to a standstill, and Zabetta said, “Here we are.” I -helped her to descend. We were before a dark porte-cochêre, in some -dark back-street, high up the hillside. - -“Addio,” said Zabetta, holding out her hand. - -“You won’t come with me?” - -“I can’t. I can’t. Addio.” - -“Oh, Zabetta! Do you———Oh, say, say that you forgive me.” - -“Yes. Addio.” - -“And, Zabetta, you—you have my address. It is on the card I gave -you. If you ever need anything—if you are ever in trouble of any -kind—remember you have my address—you will write to me.” - -“Yes. Addio.” - -“Addio.” - -She stood for a second, looking up at me from great brimming eyes, and -then she turned away and vanished in the darkness of the porte-cochère. -I got into the cab, and was driven to my hotel. XI - -And here, one might have supposed, was an end of the episode; but no. - -I went to Paris, I went to New York, I returned to Paris, I came on -to London; and in this journeying more than a year was lost. In the -beginning I had suffered as much as you could wish me in the way of -contrition, in the way of regret too. I blamed myself and pitied myself -with almost equal fervour. I had trifled with a gentle human heart; -I had been compelled to let a priceless human treasure slip from my -possession. But—I was twenty. And there were other girls in the world. -And a year is a long time, when we are twenty. Little by little the -image of Zabetta faded, faded. By the year’s end, I am afraid it had -become very pale indeed.... - -It was late June, and I was in London, when the post brought me a -letter. The letter bore an Italian stamp, and had originally -been directed to my old address in Paris. Thence (as the numerous -redirections on the big square foreign envelope attested) it had been -forwarded to New York; thence back again to Paris; and thence finally to -London. - -The letter was written in the neatest of tiny copperplates; and this is -a translation of what it said: - -“Dear Friend,—My poor father died last month in the German Hospital, -after an illness of twenty-one days. Pray for his soul. - -“I am now alone and free, and if you still wish it, can come to you. -It was impossible for me to come when you asked me; but you have not -ceased to be my constant thought. I keep your coral hand.—Your ever -faithful Zabetta Collaluce.” - -Enclosed in the letter there was a sprig of some dried, -bitter-sweet-smelling herb; and, in pencil, below the -signature—laboriously traced, as I could guess, from what I -had written for her on my visiting-card,—the English phrase: -“Rosemary—that’s for remembrance.” - -The letter was dated early in May, which made it six weeks old. - -What could I do? What answer could I send? - -Of course, you know what I did do. I procrastinated and vacillated, and -ended by sending no answer at all. I could not write and say “Yes, -come to me.” But how could I write and say “No, do not come?"? -Besides, would she not have given up hoping for an answer, by this time? -It was six weeks since she had written. I tried to think that the worst -was over. - -But my remorse took a new and a longer and a stronger lease of life. -A vision of Zabetta, pale, with anxious eyes, standing at her window, -waiting, waiting for a word that never came,—for months I could not -chase it from my conscience; it was years before it altogether ceased -its accusing visits. XII - -And then, last night, after a perfectly usual London day and evening, -I went to bed and dreamed of her vividly; and all day long to-day the -fragrance of my dream has clung about me,—a bitter-sweet fragrance, -like that of rosemary itself. Where is Zabetta now? What is her life? -How have the years treated her?... In my dream she was still eighteen. -In reality—it is melancholy to think how far from eighteen she has had -leisure, since that April afternoon, to drift. - -Youth faces forward, impatient of the present, panting to anticipate the -future. But we who have crossed a certain sad meridian, we turn our -gaze backwards, and tell the relentless gods what we would sacrifice to -recover a little of the past, one of those shining days when to us also -it was given to sojourn among the Fortunate Islands. Ah, si jeunesse -savait!... - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comedies and Errors, by Henry Harland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES AND ERRORS *** - -***** This file should be named 52701-0.txt or 52701-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/7/0/52701/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Comedies and Errors - -Author: Henry Harland - -Release Date: August 2, 2016 [EBook #52701] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES AND ERRORS *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - -</pre> - - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - COMEDIES AND ERRORS - </h1> - <h2> - By Henry Harland - </h2> - <h4> - John Lane: The Bodley Head London and New York - </h4> - <h3> - 1898 - </h3> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> - </p> - <div class="fig" style="width:50%;"> - <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br /> - </div> - <h5> - <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a> - </h5> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <b>CONTENTS</b> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE CONFIDANTE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> MERELY PLAYERS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE FRIEND OF MAN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> TIRALA-TIRALA... </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE INVISIBLE PRINCE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> P’TIT-BLEU </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE HOUSE OF EULALIE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> COUSIN ROSALYS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> ROOMS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE CONFIDANTE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>very one who knew - Rome fifteen or twenty years ago must remember Miss Belmont. She lived in - the Palazzo Sebastiani, a merry little old Englishwoman, the business, the - passion, of whose existence it was to receive. All the rooms of her vast - apartment on the <i>piano nobile</i> were arranged as reception-rooms, - even the last of the suite, in the corner of which a low divan, covered by - a Persian carpet, with a prie-dieu beside it, and a crucifix attached to - the wall above, was understood to serve at night as Miss Belmont’s bed. - Her day, as indicated by her visiting-card, was Thursday; but to those who - stood in her good books her day was every day, and—save for a brief - hour in the afternoon, when, with the rest of Rome, she drove in the Villa - Borghese—all day long. Then almost every evening she gave a little - dinner. I have mentioned that she was old. She was proud of her age, and - especially proud of not looking it. “I am seventy-three,” she used to - boast, confronting you with the erect figure, the bright eyes, the firm - cheeks, of a well-preserved woman of sixty. Her rooms were filled with - beautiful and precious things, paintings, porcelains and bronzes, - carvings, brocades, picked up in every province of the Continent, “the - spoils of a lifetime spent in rummaging,” she said. All English folk who - arrived in Rome decently accredited were asked to her at-homes, and all - good Black Italians attended them. As a loyal Black herself, Miss Belmont, - of course, knew no one in any way affiliated with the Quirinal. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - One of Miss Belmont’s Thursday afternoons has always persisted in my - memory with a quite peculiar vividness. It was fifteen years ago, if you - will; and yet I remember it, even the details of it, as clearly as I can - remember the happenings of last week—as clearly indeed, but oh, how - much more pleasantly! Was the world really a sweeter, fresher place - fifteen years ago? Has it really grown stale in fifteen little years? It - seemed, at any rate, very sweet and fresh, to my undisciplined - perceptions, on that particular Thursday afternoon. - </p> - <p> - We were in December, and there was never so light a touch of frost on the - air, making it keen and exhilarating. I remember walking down a long - narrow street, at the end of which the sky hung like a tapestry, splendid - with the colours of the sunset: a street all clamour and business and - bustle, as Roman streets are apt to be when there is a touch of the <i>tramontano</i> - on the air. Cobblers worked noisily, tap-tap-tapping, in their out-of-door - stalls; hawkers cried their wares, and old women stopped to haggle with - them; wandering musicians thrummed their guitars and mandolines, singing - “Funiculi, Funiculà,” more or less in tune; and cabs rattled perilously - over the cobble-stones, whilst their drivers shrieked warnings at the - foot-passengers, citizens soldiers, beggars, priests, like the populace in - a comic opera. - </p> - <p> - But within the Palazzo Sebastiani the scene was as different as might be. - Thick curtains were drawn over the windows; innumerable wax candles burned - and flickered in sconces along the walls; there were flowers everywhere, - lilies and roses, and the air was heady with their fragrance; there were - people everywhere too, men in frock-coats, women in furs and velvets, - monsignori from the Vatican lending a purple note. And there was a - continuous, confused, rising, falling, murmur of conversation. - </p> - <p> - When I had made my obeisance to Miss Belmont, she said, “Come. I want to - introduce you to the Contessa Bracca.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Now, this will seem improbable, of course; but you know how one sometimes - has premonitions; and, upon my word, it is the literal fact: I had never - heard of the Contessa Bracca, her name could convey nothing to me; and - yet, when Miss Belmont said she wished to present me to her, I felt a - sudden knock in my heart, I felt that something important was about to - happen to me. Why?... - </p> - <p> - She was seated in an old high-backed chair of carved ebony, inlaid with - mother-of-pearl, one of Miss Belmont’s curiosities. She wore a jaunty - little toque of Astrakhan lamb’s-wool, with an aigrette springing from it, - and a smart Astrakhan jacket. It was a singularly pleasant face, a - singularly pretty and witty and interesting face, that looked up in the - soft candle-light, and smiled, as Miss Belmont accomplished the - presentation; it was a singularly pleasant voice, gentle, yet crisp, - characteristic, that greeted me. - </p> - <p> - But Miss Belmont had spoken to the Contessa in English; and the Contessa - spoke to me in English, with no trace of an accent. I was surprised; and I - was shy and awkward. So I could think of nothing better than to exclaim— - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you are English!” - </p> - <p> - She smiled—it was a quiet little amused but kindly smile, rather a - lightening of her eyes than a movement of her features—and said, - “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “I thought you would be Italian,” I confessed. - </p> - <p> - She was still smiling. “And are you inconsolable to find that I’m not?” - she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no. On the contrary, I am very glad,” I assured her, with sincerity. - </p> - <p> - At this, her smile rippled into laughter; and she murmured something in - which I caught the words “youth” and “engaging candour.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’m not so furiously young,” I protested. - </p> - <p> - She raised her eyebrows, gazing at me quizzically. - </p> - <p> - “Aren’t you?” she inquired. - </p> - <p> - “I’m twenty-two,” I announced, with satisfaction. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear!” She laughed again. “And twenty-two you regard as the beginning - of old age?” she suggested. - </p> - <p> - “At all events, one is no longer a child at twenty-two,” I argued - solemnly, “especially if one has seen the world a bit.” - </p> - <p> - My conversation appeared to divert her more than I could have hoped; for - still again she laughed. - </p> - <p> - Then, “Ah, wait till you’re my age—wait till you’re a hundred and - fifteen,” she pronounced in a hollow voice, making her face long, and - shaking her head. - </p> - <p> - It was my turn to laugh now. Afterwards, “I don’t believe you’re much - older than I am,” I confided to her, with bluff geniality. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the difference between twenty-two and thirty—especially when - one has seen the world a bit?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “You’re never thirty,” I expostulated. - </p> - <p> - “An experienced old fellow of two-and-twenty,” she observed, “must surely - be aware that people do sometimes live to attain the age of thirty.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re not thirty,” I reiterated. - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps not,” she said; “but unless I’m careful, I shall be, before I - know it. Have you been long in Rome?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’m an old Roman,” I replied airily. “We used to come here when I was - a child. And I was here again when I was eighteen, and again when I was - twenty.” - </p> - <p> - “Mercy!” she cried. “Then you will be able to put me up to the tricks of - the town.” - </p> - <p> - “Why, but you live here, don’t you?” I wondered simply. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I suppose I live here,” she assented. “I live in the Palazzo - Stricci, you must come and see me. I’m at home on Mondays.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, thank you; I’ll come the very first Monday that ever is,” I vowed. - For, though she had teased me and laughed at me, I thought she was very - charming, all the same. - </p> - <p> - “Well, and how did you get on with the Countess Bracca?” Miss Belmont - asked. When I had answered her, she proceeded, as her wont was, to - volunteer certain information. “She was a Miss Wilthorpe, you know—the - Cumberland Wilthorpes, a staunch old Catholic family. Her mother was a - Frenchwoman, a Montargier. Monsignor Wilthorpe is her cousin. Her husband, - Count Bracca, held a commission in the Guardia Nobile—between - ourselves, a creature of starch and whalebone, a pompous noodle. She was - married to him when she was eighteen. He died three or four years ago: a - good thing too. But she has continued to live in Rome, in the winter. In - the summer she goes to England, to her people. Did she ask you to go and - see her? Go, on the first occasion. Cultivate her. She’s clever. She’ll do - you good. She’ll form you,” Miss Belmont concluded, looking at me with a - critical eye. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - On Monday, at the Palazzo Stricci, I was ushered through an immense sombre - drawing-room, and beyond, into a gay little blue-and-white boudoir. The - Contessa was there alone. “I am glad you have come early,” she was good - enough to say. “We can have a talk together, before any one else arrives.” - </p> - <p> - She wore a delightful white frock, of some flexile woollen fabric - embroidered in white silk with leaves and flowers. And I discovered that - she had very lovely hair, great quantities of it, undulating richly away - from her forehead; hair of an indescribable light warm brown, a sort of - fawn colour, with reflections dimly red. She was seated in the corner of a - sofa, leaning upon a cushion of blue satin covered with white lace. I had - not noticed her hair the other day at Miss Belmont’s, in the vague - candle-light. Now I could not take my eyes from it. It filled me with - astonishment and admiration. - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I said—I suppose I blushed and stammered, but I had to say it—“you—you - must let me tell you—what—what wonderful hair you have.” - </p> - <p> - The poor lady! She shook her head; she lay back in her place and laughed. - “Forgive me, forgive me for laughing,” she said. “But—your - compliment—it was a trifle point-blank—I was slightly - unprepared for it. However, you’re quite right. It’s not bad hair,” she - conceded amiably. “And it was very—very natural and—and nice—of - you to mention it. Now sit down here, and we will have a good long talk,” - she added. “You must tell me all about yourself. We must get acquainted.” - </p> - <p> - There was always, perhaps, the tiniest point of raillery in that crisp - voice, in those gleaming eyes, of hers; but it did not prevent them from - being friendly and interested. She went on to ask me all manner of - friendly, interested questions, adopting, apparently as a matter of - course, the tone of maturity addressing ingenuous youth; and I found - myself somehow accepting that relation without resentment. Where had I - made my studies? What was I going to do in the world? She asked me - everything; and I, guilelessly, fatuously no doubt, responded. I imagine I - expatiated at some length, and with some fervour, upon my literary - aspirations, whilst she encouraged me with her kind-glowing eyes; and I am - afraid—I am afraid I even went so far as to allow her to persuade me - to repeat divers of my poems. In those days one wrote things one fondly - nicknamed poems. Anyhow, I know that I was enjoying myself very much - indeed—when we were interrupted by the entrance of another caller. - </p> - <p> - And then a whole stream of callers passed through her dainty room: men and - women, old and young; all of them people with a great deal of manner, and - not much else—certainly with precious little wit. The men were - faultlessly dressed, they had their hair very sleekly brushed, they - caressed their hats, grinned vacuously, and clacked out set phrases; the - women gossiped turbulently in Italian; and my hostess gave them tea, and - smiled (was there just a tinge of irony in her smile?), and listened with - marvellous endurance. But I thought to myself, “Oh, if this is the kind of - human society you are condemned to, how ineffably you must be bored!” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - I met her a few days later in the Villa Borghese. I was one of many - hundred people walking there, in the afternoon; her victoria was one of - the long procession of carriages. She made her coachman draw up, and - signed to me to come and speak with her. - </p> - <p> - “If I should get down and walk with you a bit, do you think you would be - heart-broken?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - I offered her my hand, and helped her to alight. She had on the toque and - jacket of Astrakhan in which I had first seen her, and she carried an - Astrakhan muff. The fresh air had brought a beautiful soft colour to her - cheeks; her hair glowed beautifully in the sunlight. As she walked beside - me, I perceived that she was nearly as tall as I was, and I noticed the - strong, fine, elastic contours of her figure. We turned away from the - road, and walked on the grass, among the solemn old trees; and we - talked... I can’t in the least remember of what—of nothings, very - likely—only, I do remember that we talked and talked, and that I - found our talk exceedingly agreeable. I remember, too, that at a given - moment we passed a company of students from the German College, their - scarlet cassocks flashing in the sun; and I remember how each of those - poor priestlings stole an admiring glance at her from the corner of his - eyes. But upon my calling her attention to the circumstance, though she - couldn’t help smiling, she tried to frown, and reproved me. “Hush. You - shouldn’t observe such things. You must never allow yourself to think - lightly of the clergy.” - </p> - <p> - When I had conducted her back to her carriage, she said, “Can’t I set you - down somewhere?” So I got in and drove with her, through the animated - Roman streets, to the door of my lodgings. On the way, “You must come and - dine with me some evening,” she said. “When will you come? Will you come - on Wednesday? Quite quietly, you know.” And I assured her that I should be - delighted to come on Wednesday. - </p> - <p> - But afterwards, when I was alone, I repeatedly caught myself thinking of - her—thinking of her with enthusiasm. “She <i>is</i> a nice woman,” I - thought. “She’s an awfully nice woman. Except my own mother, I believe - she’s the nicest woman I have ever known.” - </p> - <p> - It may interest you to learn that I took occasion to tell her as much on - Wednesday. - </p> - <p> - The other guests at her dinner had been Miss Belmont and the Contessa’s - cousin, Monsignor Wilthorpe, a tall, iron-grey, frigid man, of - forty-something; and they left together very early, Miss Belmont - remarking, “People who are not in their first youth can’t afford to lose - their beauty-sleep. Come, Monsignore, you must drive me home.” I feared it - was my duty to leave directly after them, but upon my rising to do so the - Contessa cried out, “What! Do you begrudge losing your beauty-sleep too? - It’s not yet ten o’clock.” I was only too glad to stay. - </p> - <p> - We went from the great melancholy drawing-room, where we had taken our - coffee, into her boudoir. I can’t tell you how cosy and charming and - intimate it seemed, in the lamplight, with its bright colours, and with - all her little personal possessions scattered about, her books, bibelots, - writing-materials. - </p> - <p> - “Are you allowed to smoke?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know. Am I?” was my retort. - </p> - <p> - She laughed. “Yes. I think you deserve to, after that.” - </p> - <p> - I lighted a cigarette, with gratitude; while she sat down at her piano and - began to play. - </p> - <p> - “Do you care for Bach? No, you are too young to care for Bach. But you - will come to him. At your age one loves Chopin. Chopin interprets the - strenuous moments of life, the moments that seem all important when they - are present, but matter so little in the long run. Bach interprets life as - a whole, seen from a distance, seen in perspective, in its masses and - proportions, in its serene symmetry, when nothing is strenuous, when - everything seems right and in its place, when even sorrow seems right. At - my age one prefers Bach.” - </p> - <p> - She said all this as she was playing, speaking slowly, dreamily, between - the chords. “If that is Bach which you are playing now, I like it very - much,” I made bold to affirm. - </p> - <p> - “It’s the third fugue,” said she. “But it’s precocious of you to like it.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I give you my word, I’m not half so juvenile as you’re always trying - to make me out,” said I. - </p> - <p> - She looked at me with her indulgent, quizzical smile. “No, to be sure. - You’re a cynical old man of the world—of twenty-two,” she teased. - </p> - <p> - Presently she abandoned the piano, and took her place of the other day, in - the corner of her sofa. - </p> - <p> - “Tell me,” she said, “what do you do here in Rome? What are your - occupations? How do you spend your time?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my occupations are entirely commonplace,” I answered her. “In the - morning’ I try to write. Then in the afternoon I pay calls, or go to some - one’s studio, or to the museums, or what not. And in the evening I - generally dine with some men I know at the Caffé di Roma.” - </p> - <p> - “And so, with one thing and another, you’re quite happy?” she suggested. - </p> - <p> - But this recalled me, of a sudden, to the rôle I was at that season - playing to myself in the human comedy. Ingenuous young men (a. friend of - mine often says), if they happen to have an active imagination, are the - most inveterate, the most incorrigible of poseurs. To make the matter - worse, they’re the first—if not the only—ones to be taken in - by their pose. They believe in it heartily; they’re supremely unconscious - that they’re posing. And so they go on, slipping from one pose to another, - till in the end, by accident as like as not, they find the pose that suits - them. And when a man has found the pose that suits him (I am still quoting - my friend) we say that he has “found himself.” - </p> - <p> - The Contessa’s suggestion recalled me to my pose of the season. I - repudiated the idea of happiness with scorn. - </p> - <p> - “Happy!” I echoed bitterly. “I should think not. I shall never be happy - again.” - </p> - <p> - “Mercy upon me!” she exclaimed. “Si jeune, et déjà Moldave-Valaque!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I informed her, with Byronic gloom, “it isn’t a laughing matter. I’m - the most miserable of men.” - </p> - <p> - “Poor boy,” she said compassionately; and her eyes shone with compassion - too, though perhaps there still lingered in them just the faintest - afterglow of amusement. “Why are you miserable? What is it all about?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I said, “it’s the usual story. When a man’s hopelessly unhappy, when - his last illusion has been destroyed, it’s always—I’m sorry to say - it to you, but you know whether it’s true—it’s always a member of - your sex that’s to blame.” - </p> - <p> - Had she a struggle to keep from laughing? If so, she came out of it - victorious. Indeed, the compassion in her eyes seemed to deepen. “Poor - boy,” she repeated. “What have they done to you? Tell me all about it. It - will do you good to tell me. Let me be your confidante,” she urged gently. - </p> - <p> - And thereupon (oh, fatuity!) I strode up and down her floor, and narrated - the whole history of my desperate, my fatal passion for Elsie Milray: how - beautiful Elsie was, how mysteriously, incommunicably fascinating; how I - had adored her; how she had encouraged me, led me on, trifled with me, and - finally thrown me over—for Captain Bullen, a fellow in the - Engineers, old enough to be—well, almost old enough to be her - father. I fancy I swung my arms about a good deal, and quoted Heine and - Rossetti, and generally made myself very tiresome and ridiculous; but my - kind confidante listened with patience, with every appearance of taking my - narration seriously. - </p> - <p> - “So you see,” I concluded, “I’ve been hard hit, hit in a vital spot. My - wound is one of those that never heal.” - </p> - <p> - Even that did not provoke her to laughter. She gazed at me meditatively - for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Your wound will heal. When our - wounds are fresh, it always seems as if they would never heal. But they do - heal. Yours will heal. You must try to think of other things. You must try - to interest yourself in other girls—oh, platonically, I mean, of - course. There are lots of nice girls in the world, you know. You must try - not to think of Elsie. It’s no good thinking of her, now that she’s - engaged to Captain Bullen. But—but when you can’t help thinking of - her, then you must come to me and talk it out. That is always better, - healthier, than brooding upon a grief in silence. You must come to me - whenever you feel you wish to. I shall always be glad when you come.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re a—you’re an angel of kindness,” I declared, with emotion. “I—I - was thinking only the other day, when you had driven me home from the - Borghese, I was thinking that, except my own mother, you’re the—the - best and dearest woman in the world.” - </p> - <p> - But at this, she could be grave no longer. She laughed gaily. “If I come - next to your mother in your affections,” she said, “it’s almost as if I - were your grandmother, isn’t it? Yes, that is it. I’ll be a grandmother to - you.” And she made me a comical little <i>moue</i>. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - After that, it was my excellent fortune to see the Contessa Bracca rather - frequently. I called on her a good deal; she asked me to dine and lunch - with her a good deal; I spent a surprising number of afternoons and - evenings in her blue-and-white retiring-room. Then she used to take me to - drive with her in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian; and sometimes we - would go for walks together in the Campagna. Of course, I was a regular - visitor in her box at the opera: otherwise, the land had not been Italy, - nor the town Rome. I liked her and enjoyed her inexpressibly; she was so - witty and lively, so sympathetic, such a frank good comrade; she was so - pretty and delicate and distinguished. “I can never make you understand,” - I confessed to her, “how much fuller and richer and more delightful life - is since I have known you.” I was, in fact, quite improbably happy, though - I scarcely suspected it at the time. I had not forgotten that my rôle was - the disconsolate lover; I must still now and again perorate about Elsie, - and grieve over my painted wounds. The Contessa always listened patiently, - with an air of commiseration. And I read her every line I wrote (poor - woman!) whilst she criticised, suggested, encouraged. The calf is a queer - animal. - </p> - <p> - You may wonder how she managed to put up with me, why I did not bore her - to extermination. I can’t answer—unless, indeed, it was simply that - she had a sense of humour, as well as a kind heart. I am glad to be able - to remember, besides, that our talks were by no means confined to subjects - that had their source in my callow egotism. We talked of many things, we - talked of everything: of books, pictures, music; of life, nature, - religion; of Rome, its churches and palaces, its galleries and gardens; of - people, of the people we knew in common, of their traits, their qualities, - defects, absurdities. We talked of everything; sometimes—but all too - infrequently—we talked of her. All too infrequently. I can’t think - how she contrived it; she was as far as possible from giving the - impression of being reserved with me; yet, somehow, it was very seldom - indeed that we talked of her. Somehow, for the most part—with no - sign of effort, easily, imperceptibly even—she avoided or evaded the - subject, or turned it if it was introduced. Only, once in a long while, - once in a long, long while, she would, just for an instant, as it were, - lift a corner of the curtain; tell me some little anecdote, some little - incident, out of her life; allow me never so fleeting a glimpse into the - more intimate regions of her experience. - </p> - <p> - One day, for example, one afternoon in February, when a faint breath of - spring was on the air, we had driven out to Acqua Acetosa, and there we - had left her carriage and strolled in the open country, plucking armfuls - of flowers, anemones, jonquils, competing with each other to see who could - gather the greatest number in the fewest minutes, and laughing and romping - mirthfully. Her hair had got into some disarray, her cheeks glowed, her - eyes sparkled; and her face looked so young, so young, that I exclaimed, - “Do you know, you are exactly like a girl to-day. I told you once that you - were the nicest woman I had ever known; but to-day I shall have to take - that back, and tell you you’re the nicest girl.” - </p> - <p> - She laughed, sweetly, joyously. “I <i>am</i> a girl to-day,” she said. But - then, all at once, her eyes became sober, thoughtful; there was even a - shadow of trouble in them. “You see, I never was really a girl,” she went - on. “I am living my girlhood now—as a kind of accidental - after-thought—because I have happened to make friends with a boy. I - am sowing my wild oats—gathering my wild flowers—at the - eleventh hour.” - </p> - <p> - “How do you mean—you were never really a girl?” I questioned - stupidly. - </p> - <p> - You will guess what I felt—her eyes suddenly filled with tears. - </p> - <p> - I was stammering out some apology, but she stopped me. “No, no. It isn’t - your fault. I’m not crying. It’s all right. I meant I was never a girl, - because I was married at eighteen. That is all. And I’ve had to be dull - and middle-aged ever since,” she added, smiling again. “You dull and - middle-aged!” I scoffed at the notion. But her tears, and then her word - about her marriage, had touched me poignantly. She had never mentioned, - she had never remotely alluded to her marriage, before, in all our - intercourse. Certainly, I knew, from things Miss Belmont had said, that it - had not been a happy marriage. The Con-tessa’s word about it now, brief as - it was, slight as it was, moved me like a cry of pain. I felt a great - anguish, a great anger, to think that circumstances had been cruel to her - in the past; a great yearning in some way to be of comfort to her. - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I cried out—tactlessly, if you will; but my emotion was - dominant; I could not stop to reflect—“oh, why—why didn’t I - know you in those days? Why wasn’t I here—to—to help you—to - defend you—to—to make it easier for you?” - </p> - <p> - We were in the carriage by this time, rolling swiftly back towards Rome. - She did not speak. I did not look at her. But I felt her hand laid gently - upon mine, her little light gloved hand; and then her hand pressed mine, a - long soft pressure that said vastly more than speech; and then her hand - rested there, lightly, lightly, and we were both silent, till we reached - the Porta del Popolo. - </p> - <p> - When I had left her, I was conscious of a curious elation, a curious - exaltation. It was almost as if my confidante had made me her confidant. A - new honour had been conferred upon me, a new trust and responsibility. - “Oh, I will devote my life to her,” I vowed fervently, in my soul. “I will - devote my life to making her happy, to compensating her in some measure - for what she has suffered in the past. When shall I see her again?” I was - consumed with eagerness, with impatience, to see her again. - </p> - <p> - I saw her, as a matter of fact, no later than the next day. I called on - her in the afternoon. I went to her, meditating heroics. I would lay my - life at her feet, I would ask her to let me be her knight, her servant. I - looked forward to rather a fine moment. But it takes two to make a - melodrama. She met me in a mood that sealed the heroics in my bosom; a - teasing, elusive mood, her eyes, her voice, all mockery, all mischief. - “Tiens, c’est mon petit-fils,” she cried, on my arrival. “Bonjour, Toto. - How nice of you to come and see your granny.” There were days when she was - like this, when she would never drop her joke about being my grandmother, - and perpetually called me “Toto,” and talked to me as if I were - approaching seven. “Now, sit down on the floor before the fire,” she said, - “and gwandmamma will tell you a stor-wy.” A sprite danced in her eyes. Her - drawling enunciation of the last word was irresistible. I laughed, despite - myself; and thoughts of high rhetoric had summarily to be dismissed. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - When I look back upon my life as it was in those days, I protest I am - filled with a sort of envy. A boy of twenty-something, his pockets - comfortably supplied with money; free from morning to night, from night to - morning, to do as his fancy prompted; with numberless pleasant - acquaintances; and in the most beautiful country, the most interesting - city, of two hemispheres—in Italy, in Rome: yes, indeed, as I look - back at him, I am filled with envy. - </p> - <p> - But then, when I think of <i>her</i>.... I think of her, and she becomes - visible before me, visible in all her exquisite grace and fineness, her - exquisite femininity. I see her intimate little room, its gay blue and - white, its pretty furniture, its hundred pretty personal trifles, tokens - of her habitation; I breathe the air of it, the faint, soft perfume that - was always on its air; I see her fan, her open book, her handkerchief - forgotten on a table. I see her, in the room. I see her delicate white - face, witty, alert, sensitive; I see her laughing eyes, her hair, the - sumptuous masses of her hair. I see her hands, I touch them, slender, - fragile, but warm, but firm and responsive. I see the delicious toilet she - is wearing, I hear the brisk frou-frou of it. I hear her voice. I see her - at her piano, I see her as she plays, the bend of her head, the motion of - her body. I see her as she glances up at me, whimsically smiling, asking - me something, telling me something. I gaze long at her, hungrily. And - then, remembering that there was a time when I could see her like this in - very reality as often as I would—oh, I can only cry out to myself of - those days, “You lucky heathen, you lucky, lucky heathen! How little you - realised, how little you merited, your extraordinary fortune!” - </p> - <p> - Of course, I was in love with her. But as yet, upon my conscience, I did - not know it. I knew that I was tremendously fond of her, that I was never - so happy as when in her presence, that I was always more or less - unsatisfied and restless when out of it. I knew that I was always more or - less unsatisfied and restless, too, when other men were hovering about - her, when she was laughing and talking with other men. I knew that I - wished to be her knight, her servant, to dedicate my existence to her - welfare. But beyond that, I had not analysed my sentiment, nor given it a - name. - </p> - <p> - And so, if you please, I was still able to go on prating to her of Elsie - Milray! - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - However, there came a day when I ceased to prate of Elsie... It was during - the Carnival. Miss Belmont had taken a room in the Corso, from the balcony - of which, that afternoon, she and various of her friends had watched the - merrymaking. The Contessa Bracca was expected, but the hours wore away, - and she did not turn up. I waited for her, hoped for her, from minute to - minute, to the last. Then I went home in a fine state of depression. - </p> - <p> - After dinner—and after much irresolution, ending in an abrupt - resolve—I ventured to present myself at the Palazzo Stricci. - </p> - <p> - “I was alarmed about you. I was afraid you might be ill,” I explained. I - felt a great rush of relief, of warmth and peace, at seeing her. - </p> - <p> - She was seated in a low easy-chair, by her writing-table, with a volume of - the “Récit d’une Sour” open in her lap. - </p> - <p> - “No, I’m not ill,” she said, rising, and putting her book aside. “I’m not - sorry you thought so, though, since it has procured me the pleasure of a - visit from you,” she added, smiling, as she gave me her hand. - </p> - <p> - But her face was pale, her smile seemed like a pale light that just - flickered on it for an instant, and went out. - </p> - <p> - I looked at her with anxiety. “You <i>are</i> ill,” I said. “There’s - something the matter. What is it? Tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “No, no. Really. I’m all right,” she insisted, with a little movement of - the head, that was meant to be reassuring. “Sit down, and light a - cigarette, and give me a true and faithful account of the day’s doings. - Who was there?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know. You weren’t. That was the important thing. We missed you - awfully. Your absence entirely spoiled the afternoon,” I declared. - </p> - <p> - She raised her eyebrows. “I can imagine how they must all have pined for - me. Did they commission you to speak for them?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I pined for you, at any rate,” I said. “I kept looking for you, - expecting you. Every minute, up to the very end, I still hoped for you. If - you’re not ill, or anything, why didn’t you come?” - </p> - <p> - “Vanity. I was having a plain day, I didn’t like to show myself.” - </p> - <p> - I looked at her with anxiety, narrowly. “I say,” I blurted out, “what’s - the use of beating about the bush? I know there’s something wrong. I - should have to be blind not to see it. If you’re not ill, then you’re - unhappy about something. I can’t help it—if you don’t like my - speaking of it, send me away. But I can’t sit here and talk small-talk, - when I know that you’re unhappy.” - </p> - <p> - “If you know that I’m unhappy, you might sit here and talk small-talk, to - cheer me up,” she suggested. - </p> - <p> - “You—you’ve been crying,” I exclaimed, all at once understanding an - odd brightness in her eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Well, and even so? Hasn’t one a right to cry, if it amuses one?” she - questioned. - </p> - <p> - “What have you been crying about?” questioned I. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been crying over my faded beauty—because I’ve had a plain - day.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t try to turn the matter to a jest,” I pleaded. “I - can’t bear to think of you crying. I can’t bear to think of you unhappy. - What is it? I wish you’d tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you really wish it?” she asked, with a sudden approach to gravity. - </p> - <p> - “Yes—yes,” I answered eagerly. “If you’re unhappy, I want to know - it, I want to share it with you. You’re so good, you’re so dear, I wish I - could take every pain in the world away from you, I wish I could protect - you from every breath of pain.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes softened beautifully, they shone into mine with a beautiful - gentleness. “You’re a dear boy,” she said. “You’re a great comfort to your - grandmother.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then,” I urged, “the least you can do is to tell me what has - happened to make my grandmother unhappy.” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing has happened. I’ve been thinking. That’s all.” - </p> - <p> - “Thinking what? What have you been thinking?” - </p> - <p> - “Thinking——————-” she began, as if she - was about to answer; but then she made a teasing little face at me, and - declaimed— - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “Oh, thinking, if you like, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - How utterly dissociated was I, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - A priest and celibate, from the sad strange wife - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of Guido.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And she laughed. - </p> - <p> - I threw up my hands in despair. “You’re hopeless,” I said. “It’s no good - ever expecting you to be serious.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m serious enough, in all conscience,” said she, “but I conceal it. I - let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek. And so—I - have plain days.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t believe you’ve ever had a plain day in your life,” asserted I. - “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” - </p> - <p> - “I would beg you to observe that you’re sitting here and talking - small-talk, after all,” she laughed, “That isn’t small-talk. It’s the - solemn truth. But look here. I’m not going to let you evade the question. - What have you been unhappy about?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not unhappy any more. So what does it matter?” - </p> - <p> - “I want to know. Tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been puzzling over a dilemma,” she said, “an excessively perplexed - one.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes? Go on,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been wondering whether I’d better marry Ciccolesi, or retire into a - convent.” - </p> - <p> - “Ciccolesi!” I cried, in astonishment, in dismay. “Marry Ciccolesi! You!” - </p> - <p> - “The Cavalière Ciccolesi. You’ve met him here on Mondays, A brown man, - with curly hair. He’s done me the honour of offering me his hand. Would - you advise me to accept it?” - </p> - <p> - “Accept it?” I cried. “Good Lord! You must be—have you lost your - reason? Ciccolesi—that automaton—that cardboard stalking-horse—that - Neapolitan jackanapes! You—think of marrying him!” - </p> - <p> - I could only walk up and down the room and wave my hands. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well,” said she, “then I see there’s nothing for it but the other - alternative—to retire into a convent.” - </p> - <p> - I halted and stared at her. - </p> - <p> - “What—what on earth has happened to make you talk like this?” I - demanded, in a sort of gasp. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been reflecting upon the futility of my life,” she said. “I get up - in the morning, and eat my breakfast. Then I fritter away an hour or two, - and eat my luncheon. Then I fritter away the afternoon, and eat my dinner. - Then I fritter away the evening, and go to bed. I live, apparently, to eat - and sleep, like the beasts that perish. We must reform all that. I must do - something to make myself of use in the world. And since you seem - disinclined to sanction a marriage with Ciccolesi, what do you say to my - joining some charitable sisterhood?” - </p> - <p> - She spoke lightly, even, if you will, half-jocosely. But there was a real - bitterness unmistakable behind her tone. There was a bitterness in her - smile. - </p> - <p> - And I—I was overwhelmed, penetrated, by a distress, by an emotion, - such as I had never known before. I looked at her through a sort of mist—of - pain, of passion; with a kind of aching helplessness; longing to say - something, to do something, I could not tell what. Her smile had faded - out; her face was white, set; her eyes were sombre. I looked at her, I - longed to say something, to do something, and I could not move or speak. - My mind was all a whirl, a bewilderment—till, somehow, gradually, - from some place in the background of it, her name, her Christian name, - struggled forward into consciousness. I seemed to see it before me, like a - written word, her name, Gabrielle. And then I heard myself calling it. - </p> - <p> - “Gabrielle! Gabrielle!” - </p> - <p> - I heard my voice, I found myself kneeling beside her, holding her hands, - speaking close to her face. - </p> - <p> - “Gabrielle! I can’t let you—I can’t allow you to think such things. - <i>Your</i> life futile! Your beautiful, beautiful life! Gabrielle—my - love! Oh, my love, my love!”... - </p> - <p> - By-and-by, laughing, sobbing, her eyes melting with a heavenly tenderness, - she said, “It’s absurd, it’s impossible. You’re only a boy. I’m a woman. - I’m seven years older than you—in years. I’m immeasurably older in - everything else. But I can’t help it—I love you. You’re only a boy—and - yet—you’re such an honest, frank, sweet boy—and my life has - been passed with such artificial people, such unreal people—you’re - the only <i>man</i> I have ever known.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - The next morning one of her servants brought me a letter. Here it is. - </p> - <p> - “Dearest Friend,—Please do not come to see me this afternoon. I - shall not be at home. I am leaving town. I am going to the Convent of - Saint Veronica; I shall pass Lent there, with the good sisters. - </p> - <p> - “Dearest, do not be angry with me. I cannot accept your love, I have no - right to accept it. Our friendship, our companionship, has been infinitely - precious to me; it has given me a belief in human nature which I never had - before. But you are young, you are still <i>growing</i>—in mind, in - spirit. You must be free. I cannot cramp your youth, your growth, by - accepting your love. Look, my dear, it would be an <i>impasse</i>. We - could not marry. It would be monstrous if I should let you marry me—at - the end of a year, at the end of six months, you would hate me, you would - feel that I had spoiled your life. Yes, it is true. You must be free—you - must grow. You must not handicap yourself at twenty-two by marrying a - woman seven years your senior. - </p> - <p> - “Well, what then? Nothing but this—I must not accept your love, - dear, I must give you up. You will go on, on; you will grow, you will - outgrow the love you bear me now. You will live your life. And some day - you will meet a woman of your own age. - </p> - <p> - “I know the pain this letter will give you; I know, I know. You will be - unhappy, you will be angry with me. Dearest, try to forgive me. I am doing - the only thing there is for me to do. You will be glad of it in the - future. You will shudder to think, ’What if that woman had taken me at my - word!’—Oh, why weren’t you born ten years earlier, or I ten years - later? - </p> - <p> - “I am going to the Convent of Saint Veronica, to pass Lent. Perhaps I - shall stay longer. Perhaps—do not cry out, it is not a sudden - resolution—perhaps I shall remain there, as an oblate. I could teach - music, French. I must do something. I must not lead this idle futile life. - Do not think of me as undergoing hardships. The rule for an oblate is not - severe. - </p> - <p> - “Good-bye, dear. I pray God to bless you in every way. - </p> - <p> - “Good-bye, good-bye. - </p> - <p> - “Gabrielle.” - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Don’t ask me what I felt, what I did.... - </p> - <p> - Lent dragged itself away, but she did not return to Rome. - </p> - <p> - Then one day I received by post a copy of the <i>Osservatore Romano</i>, - with a marked paragraph. It announced that the Contessa Bracca had been - received into the Pious Community of Saint Veronica as a noble oblate. - </p> - <p> - Her letter, and that paragraph, cut from the <i>Osservatore Romano</i>, - lie before me now, on my writing-table. Don’t ask me what I feel, as I - look at them. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - MERELY PLAYERS - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>y dear,” said the - elder man, “as I’ve told you a thousand times, what you need is a - love-affair with a red-haired woman.” - </p> - <p> - “Bother women,” said the younger man, “and hang love-affairs. Women are a - pack of samenesses, and love-affairs are damnable iterations.” - </p> - <p> - They were seated at a round table, gay with glass and silver, fruit and - wine, in a pretty, rather high-ceiled little grey-and-gold breakfast-room. - The French window stood wide open to the soft June day. From the window - you could step out upon a small balcony; the balcony overhung a terrace; - and a broad flight of steps from the terrace led down into a garden. You - could not perceive the boundaries of the garden; in all directions it - offered an indefinite perspective, a landscape of green lawns and shadowy - alleys, bright parterres of flowers, fountains, and tall bending trees. - </p> - <p> - I have spoken of the elder man and the younger, though really there could - have been but a trifling disparity in their ages: the elder was perhaps - thirty, the younger seven- or eight-and-twenty. In other respects, - however, they were as unlike as unlike may be. Thirty was plump and rosy - and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and merry big blue - eyes; eight-and-twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking, his face pale - and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished their coffee, and - now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much - careful discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin - man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse. - </p> - <p> - “Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-affairs are - damnable iterations.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “I said - red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the same.” - </p> - <p> - “The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young man argued - wearily. - </p> - <p> - “It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired women who - are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an altitude. - </p> - <p> - “In that case,” said he, “I admit there is a difference—they have - white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff. “Is all this - apropos of boots?” he questioned. - </p> - <p> - The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s apropos of your immortal soul,” he - answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine for a mind diseased. The only - thing that will wake you up, and put a little life and human nature in - you, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman. Red in the hair means fire - in the heart. It means all sorts of things. If you really wish to please - me, Uncle, you’ll go and fall in love with a red-haired woman.” - </p> - <p> - The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged his - shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette. - </p> - <p> - The elder man left the table, and went to the open window. “Heavens, what - weather!” he exclaimed fervently. “The day is made of perfumed velvet. The - air is a love-philtre. The whole world sings romance. And yet you—insensible - monster!—you can sit there torpidly—-” But abruptly he fell - silent. - </p> - <p> - His attention had been caught by something below, in the garden. He - watched it for an instant from his place by the window; then he stepped - forth upon the balcony, still watching. Suddenly, facing halfway round, - “By my bauble, Nunky,” he called to his companion, and his voice was tense - with surprised exultancy, “she’s got red hair!” - </p> - <p> - The younger man looked up with vague eyes. “Who? What?” he asked - languidly. - </p> - <p> - “Come here, come here,” his friend urged, beckoning him. “There,” he - indicated, when the pale man had joined him, “below there—to the - right—picking roses. She’s got red hair. She’s sent by Providence.” - </p> - <p> - A woman in a white frock was picking roses, in one of the alleys of the - garden; rather a tall woman. Her back was turned towards her observers; - but she wore only a light scarf of lace over her head, and her hair—dim - gold in its shadows—where the sun touched it, showed a soul of red. - </p> - <p> - The younger man frowned, and asked sharply, “Who the devil is she?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the other. “One of the Queen’s women, - probably. But whoever she is, she’s got red hair.” - </p> - <p> - The younger man frowned more fiercely still. “What is she doing in the - King’s private garden? This is a pretty state of things.” He stamped his - foot angrily. “Go down and turn her out. And I wish measures to be taken, - that such trespassing may not occur again.” - </p> - <p> - But the elder man laughed. “Hoity-toity! Calm yourself, Uncle. What would - you have? The King is at a safe distance, hiding in one of his northern - hunting-boxes, sulking, and nursing his spleen, as is his wont. When the - King’s away, the palace mice will play—at <i>lèse majesté</i>, the - thrilling game. If you wish to stop them, persuade the King to come home - and show his face. Otherwise, we’ll gather our rosebuds while we may; and - I’m not the man to cross a red-haired woman.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re the Constable of Bellefontaine,” retorted his friend, “and it’s - your business to see that the King’s orders are respected.” - </p> - <p> - “The King’s orders are so seldom respectable; and then, I’ve a grand - talent for neglecting my business. I’m trying to elevate the Constableship - of Bellefontaine into a sinecure,” the plump man explained genially. “But - I’m pained to see that your sense of humour is not escaping the general - decay of your faculties. What you need is a love-affair with a red-haired - woman; and yonder’s a red-haired woman, dropped from the skies for your - salvation. Go—engage her in talk—and fall in love with her. - There’s a dear,” he pleaded. - </p> - <p> - “Dropped from the skies,” the pale man repeated, with mild scorn. “As if I - didn’t know my Hilary! Of course, you’ve had her up your sleeve the whole - time.” - </p> - <p> - “Upon my soul and honour, you are utterly mistaken. Upon my soul and - honour, I’ve never set eyes on her before,” Hilary asseverated warmly. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well, if that’s the case,” suggested the pale man, turning back into - the room, “let us make an earnest endeavour to talk of something else.” - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he next afternoon - they were walking in the park, at some distance from the palace, when they - came to a bridge over a bit of artificial water; and there was the woman - of yesterday, leaning on the parapet, throwing bread-crumbs to the carp. - She looked up as they passed, and bowed, with a little smile, in - acknowledgment of their raised hats. - </p> - <p> - When they were out of earshot, “H’m,” muttered Hilary, “viewed at close - quarters, she’s a trifle disenchanting.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” questioned his friend. “I thought her very good-looking.” - </p> - <p> - “She has too short a nose,” Hilary complained. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the good of criticising particular features? The general effect of - her face was highly pleasing. She looked intelligent, interesting; she - looked as if she would have something to say,” the younger man insisted. - </p> - <p> - “It’s very possible she has a tongue in her head,” admitted Hilary; “but - we were judging her by the rules of beauty. For my fancy, she’s too tall.” - </p> - <p> - “She’s tall, but she’s well-proportioned. Indeed, her figure struck me as - exceptionally fine. There was something sumptuous and noble about it,” - declared the other. - </p> - <p> - “There are scores of women with fine figures in this world,” said Hilary. - “But I’m sorely disappointed in her hair. Her hair is nothing like so red - as I’d imagined.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re daft on the subject of red hair. Her hair’s not carrot-colour, if - you come to that. But there’s plenty of red in it, burning through it. The - red is managed with discretion—suggestively. And did you notice her - eyes? She has remarkably nice eyes—eyes with an expression. I - thought her eyes and mouth were charming when she smiled,” the pale man - affirmed. - </p> - <p> - “When she smiled? I didn’t see her smile,” reflected Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “Of course she smiled—when we bowed,” his friend reminded him. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Ferdinand Augustus,” Hilary remonstrated, “will you never learn to - treat words with some consideration? You call that smiling! Two men take - off their hats, and a woman gives them just a look of bare acknowledgment; - and Ferdinand Augustus calls it smiling!” - </p> - <p> - “Would you have wished for a broad grin?” asked Ferdinand Augustus. “Her - face lighted up most graciously. I thought her eyes were charming. Oh, - she’s certainly a good-looking woman, a distinctly handsome woman.” - </p> - <p> - “Handsome is that handsome does,” said Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “I miss the relevancy of that,” said Ferdinand Augustus. - </p> - <p> - “She’s a trespasser.’.was you yourself flew in a passion about it - yesterday. Yesterday she was plucking the King’s roses; to-day she’s - feeding the King’s carp.” - </p> - <p> - “‘When the King’s away, the palace mice will play.’ I venture to recall - your own words to you,” Ferdinand remarked. - </p> - <p> - “That’s all very well. Besides, I spoke in jest. But there are limits. And - it’s I who am responsible. I’m the Constable of Bellefontaine. Her - trespassing appears to be habitual, We’ve caught her at it ourselves, two - days in succession. I shall give instructions to the keepers to warn her - not to touch a flower, nor feed a bird, beast, or fish, in the whole of - this demesne. Really, I admire the cool way in which she went on tossing - bread-crumbs to the King’s carp under my very beard!” exclaimed Hilary, - working himself into a fine state of indignation. - </p> - <p> - “Very likely she didn’t know who you were,” his friend reasoned. “And - anyhow, your zeal is mighty sudden. You appear to have been letting things - go at loose ends for I don’t know how long; and all at once you take fire - like tinder because a poor woman amuses herself by throwing bread to the - carp. It’s simply spite: you’re disappointed in the colour of her hair. I - shall esteem it a favour if you’ll leave the keeper’s instructions as they - are. She’s a damned good-looking woman; and I’ll beg you not to interfere - with her diversions.” - </p> - <p> - “I can deny you nothing, Uncle,” said Hilary, by this time restored to his - accustomed easy temper; “and therefore she may make hay of the whole - blessed establishment, if she pleases. But as for her good looks—that, - you’ll admit, is entirely a question of taste.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well, then the conclusion is that your taste needs cultivation,” - laughed Ferdinand. “By-the-bye, I shall be glad if you will find out who - she is.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you very much,” cried Hilary. “I have a reputation to safeguard. Do - you think I’m going to compromise myself, and set all my underlings - a-sniggling, by making inquiries about the identity of a woman?” - </p> - <p> - “But,” persisted Ferdinand, “if I ask you to do so, as your———-” - </p> - <p> - “What?” was Hilary’s brusque interruption. - </p> - <p> - “As your guest,” said Ferdinand. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Mille regrets, impossible</i>, as the French have it,” Hilary - returned. “But as your host, I give you carte-blanche to make your own - inquiries for yourself—if you think she’s worth the trouble. Being a - stranger here, you have, as it were, no character to lose.” - </p> - <p> - “After all, it doesn’t matter,” said Ferdinand Augustus, with resignation. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p> - But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found - himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge over - the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning upon the - parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus raised his - hat; the woman bowed and smiled. - </p> - <p> - “It’s a fine day,” said Ferdinand Augustus. - </p> - <p> - “It’s a fine day—but a weary one,” the woman responded, with an odd - little movement of the head. - </p> - <p> - Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation; perhaps - he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At any rate, - he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this time, he - reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what did she - mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the day as fine, - that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was astonishing that - any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had really a splendid - figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was distinguished. Her eyes - and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling eyes, her softly curved red mouth, - suggested many agreeable possibilities—possibilities of wit, and of - something else. It was not till four hours later that he noticed the sound - of her voice. At dinner, in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a - subject in no obvious way connected with her (about the Orient Express, - indeed—its safety, speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to - him, and he checked a remark upon the advantages of the corridor carriage, - to exclaim in his soul, “She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it - would be a mezzo.” - </p> - <p> - The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps in - the direction of the bridge. - </p> - <p> - “It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said, lifting his hat. - </p> - <p> - “But a weary one,” said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement of - the head. - </p> - <p> - “Not a weary one for the carp,” he hinted, glancing down at the water, - which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, they have no human feelings,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?” he inquired. - </p> - <p> - “They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of carp - feelings,” she answered him. - </p> - <p> - He laughed. “At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re of the same way - of thinking.” - </p> - <p> - “Are we?” asked she, raising surprised eyebrows. - </p> - <p> - “You take a healthy pessimistic view of things,” he submitted. - </p> - <p> - “I? Oh, dear, no. I have never taken a pessimistic view of anything in my - life.” - </p> - <p> - “Except of this poor summer’s afternoon, which has the fatal gift of - beauty. You said it was a weary one.” - </p> - <p> - “People have sympathies,” she explained; “and besides, that is a - watchword.” And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a new - commotion among the carp. - </p> - <p> - Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but, - perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for - enlightment. “Let us hope that the fine weather will last,” he said, with - a polite salutation, and resumed his walk. - </p> - <p> - But, on the morrow, “You make a daily practice of casting your bread upon - the waters,” was his greeting to her. “Do you expect to find it at the - season’s end?” - </p> - <p> - “I find it at once,” was her response, “in entertainment.” - </p> - <p> - “It entertains you to see those shameless little gluttons making an - exhibition of themselves!” he cried out. - </p> - <p> - “You must not speak disrespectfully of them,” she reproved him. “Some of - them are very old. Carp often live to be two hundred, and they grow grey, - for all the world like men.” - </p> - <p> - “They’re like men in twenty particulars,” asserted he, “though you, - yesterday, denied it. See how the big ones elbow the little ones aside; - see how fierce they all are in the scramble for your bounty. You wake - their most evil passions. But the spectacle is instructive. It’s a - miniature presentment of civilisation. Oh, carp are simply brimfull of - human nature. You mentioned yesterday that they have no human feelings. - You put your finger on the chief point of resemblance. It’s the absence of - human feeling that makes them so hideously human.” - </p> - <p> - She looked at him with eyes that were interested, amused, yet not - altogether without a shade of raillery in their depths. “That is what you - call a healthy pessimistic view of things?” she questioned. - </p> - <p> - “It is an inevitable view if one honestly uses one’s sight, or reads one’s - newspaper.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, then I would rather not honestly use my sight,” said she; “and as for - the newspaper, I only read the fashions. Your healthy pessimistic view of - things can hardly add much to the joy of life.” - </p> - <p> - “The joy of life!”. he expostulated. “There’s no joy in life. Life is one - fabric of hardship, peril, and insipidity.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, how can you say that,” cried she, “in the face of such beauty as we - have about us here? With the pure sky and the sunshine, and the wonderful - peace of the day; and then these lawns and glades and the great green - trees; and the sweet air, and the singing birds! No joy in life!” - </p> - <p> - “This isn’t life,” he answered. “People who shut themselves up in an - artificial park are fugitives from life. Life begins at the park gates, - with the natural countryside, and the squalid peasantry, and the sordid - farmers, and the Jew money-lenders, and the uncertain crops.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it’s all life,” insisted she, “the park and the countryside, and the - virgin forest and the deep sea, with all things in them. It’s all life. - I’m alive, and I daresay you are. You would exclude from life all that is - nice in life, and then say of the remainder, that only is life. You’re not - logical.” - </p> - <p> - “Heaven forbid,” he murmured devoutly. “I’m sure you’re not, either. Only - stupid people are logical.” She laughed lightly. “My poor carp little - dream to what far paradoxes they have led,” she mused, looking into the - water, which was now quite tranquil. “They have sailed away to their - mysterious affairs among the lily-roots. I should like to be a carp for a - few minutes, to see what it is like in those cool, dark places under the - water. I am sure there are all sorts of strange things and treasures. Do - you believe there are really water-maidens, like Undine?” - </p> - <p> - “Not nowadays,” he informed her, with the confident fluency of one who - knew. “There used to be; but, like so many other charming things, they - disappeared with the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and - the rise of the Lutheran heresy. Their prophetic souls——” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but they had no souls, you remember,” she corrected him. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon; that was the belief that prevailed among their mortal - contemporaries, but it has since been ascertained that they had souls, and - very good ones. Their prophetic souls warned them what a dreary, dried-up - planet the earth was destined to become, with the steam-engine, the - electric telegraph, compulsory education (falsely so called), - constitutional government, and the supremacy of commerce. So the elder - ones died, dissolved in tears; and the younger ones migrated by - evaporation to Neptune.” - </p> - <p> - “Dear me, dear me,” she marvelled. “How extraordinary that we should just - have happened to light upon a topic about which you appear to have such a - quantity of special knowledge! And now,” she added, bending her head by - way of valediction, “I must be returning to my duties.” - </p> - <p> - And she moved off, towards the palace. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, for three - or four days, he did not see her, though he paid frequent enough visits to - the feeding-place of the carp. - </p> - <p> - “I wish it would rain,” he confessed to Hilary. “I hate the derisive - cheerfulness of this weather. The birds sing, and the flowers smile, and - every prospect breathes sodden satisfaction; and only man is bored.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I own I find you dull company,” Hilary responded, “and if I thought - it would brisk you up, I’d pray with all my heart for rain. But what you - need, as I’ve told you a thousand times, is a love-affair with a - red-haired woman.” - </p> - <p> - “Love-affairs are tedious repetitions,” said Ferdinand. “You play with - your new partner precisely the same game you played with the old: the same - preliminary skirmishes, the same assault, the same feints of resistance, - the same surrender, the same subsequent disenchantment. They’re all the - same, down to the very same scenes, words, gestures, suspicions, vows, - exactions, recriminations, and final break-ups. It’s a delusion of - inexperience to suppose that in changing your mistress you change the - sport. It’s the same trite old book, that you’ve read and read in - different editions, until you’re sick of the very mention of it. To the - deuce with love-affairs. But there’s such a thing as rational - conversation, with no sentimental nonsense. Now, I’ll not deny that I - should rather like to have an occasional bit of rational conversation with - that red-haired woman we met the other day in the park. Only, the devil of - it is, she never appears.” - </p> - <p> - “And then, besides, her hair isn’t red,” added Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “I wonder how you can talk such folly,” said Ferdinand. - </p> - <p> - “<i>C’est mon métier</i>, Uncle. You should answer me! according to it. - Her hair’s not red. What little red there’s in it, it requires strong - sunlight to bring out. In shadow her hair’s a sort of dull - brownish-yellow,” Hilary persisted. - </p> - <p> - “You’re colour-blind,” retorted Ferdinand. “But I won’t quarrel with you. - The point is, she never appears. So how can I have my bits of rational - conversation with her?” - </p> - <p> - “How, indeed?” echoed Hilary, with pathos. - </p> - <p> - “And therefore you’re invoking storm and whirlwind. But hang a horseshoe - over your bed to-night, turn round three times as you extinguish your - candle, and let your last thought before you fall asleep be the thought of - a newt’s liver and a blind man’s dog; and it’s highly possible she will - appear to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - I don’t know whether Ferdinand Augustus accomplished the rites that Hilary - prescribed, but it is certain that she did appear on the morrow: not by - the pool of the carp, but in quite another region of Bellefontaine, where - Ferdinand Augustus was wandering at hazard, somewhat disconsolately. There - was a wide green meadow, sprinkled with buttercups and daisies; and under - a great tree, at this end of it, he suddenly espied her. She was seated on - the moss, stroking with one finger-tip a cockchafer that was perched upon - another, and regarding the little monster with intent meditative eyes. She - wore a frock the bodice part of which was all drooping creamy lace; she - had thrown her hat and gloves aside; her hair was in some slight, soft - disarray; her loose sleeve had fallen back, disclosing a very perfect - wrist and the beginning of a smooth white arm. Altogether she made an - extremely pleasing picture, sweetly, warmly feminine. Ferdinand Augustus - stood still, and watched her for an instant before he spoke. Then—— - </p> - <p> - “I have come to intercede with you on behalf of your carp,” he announced. - “They are rending heaven with complaints of your desertion.” - </p> - <p> - She looked up, with a whimsical, languid little smile. “Are they?” she - asked lightly. “I’m rather tired of carp.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head sorrowfully. “You will permit me to admire your fine, - frank disregard of <i>their</i> feelings.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, they have the past to remember,” she said. “And perhaps some day I - shall go back to them. For the moment I amuse myself very well with - cockchafers. They’re less tumultuous. And then, carp won’t come and perch - on your finger. And then, one likes a change.—Now fly away, fly - away, fly away home; your house is on fire, and your children will burn,” - she crooned to the cockchafer, giving it never so gentle a push. But - instead of flying away, it dropped upon the moss, and thence began to - stumble, clumsily, blunderingly, towards the open meadow. - </p> - <p> - “You shouldn’t have caused the poor beast such a panic,” he reproached - her. “You should have broken the dreadful news gradually. As you see, your - sudden blurting of it out has deprived him of the use of his faculties. - Don’t believe her,” he called after the cockchafer. “She’s practising upon - your credulity. Your house isn’t on fire, and your children are all safe - at school.” - </p> - <p> - “Your consideration is entirely misplaced,” she assured him, with the same - slight whimsical smile. “The cockchafer knows perfectly well that his - house isn’t on fire, because he hasn’t got any house. Cockchafers never - have houses. His apparent concern is sheer affectation. He’s an - exceedingly hypocritical little cockchafer.” - </p> - <p> - “I should call him an exceedingly polite little cockchafer. Hypocrisy is - the compliment courtesy owes to falsehood. He pretended to believe you. He - would not have the air of doubting a lady’s word.” - </p> - <p> - “You came as the emissary of the carp,” she said, “and now you stay to - defend the character of their rival.” - </p> - <p> - “To be candid, I don’t care a hang for the carp,” he confessed brazenly. - “The unadorned fact is that I’m immensely glad to see you.” - </p> - <p> - She gave a little laugh, and bowed with exaggerated ceremony. “<i>Grand - merci, Monsieur; vous me faites trop d’honneur</i>,” she murmured. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, not more than you deserve. I’m a just man, and I give you your - due. I was boring myself into melancholy madness. The afternoon lay before - me like a bumper of dust and ashes, that I must somehow empty. And then I - saw you, and you dashed the goblet from my lips. Thank goodness (I said to - myself), at last there’s a human soul to talk with; the very thing I was - pining for, a clever and sympathetic woman.” - </p> - <p> - “You take a great deal for granted,” laughed she. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I know you’re clever, and it pleases me to fancy that you’re - sympathetic. If you’re not,” he pleaded, “don’t tell me so. Let me cherish - my illusion.” - </p> - <p> - She shook her head doubtfully. “I’m a poor hand at dissembling.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s an art you should study,” said he. “If we begin by feigning an - emotion, we’re as like as not to end by genuinely feeling it.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve observed for myself,” she informed him, “that if we begin by - genuinely feeling an emotion, but rigorously conceal it, we’re as like as - not to end by feeling it no longer. It dies of suffocation. I’ve had that - experience quite lately. There was a certain person whom I heartily - despised and hated; and then, as chance would have it, I was thrown two or - three times into his company; and for motives of expediency I disguised my - antagonism. In the end, do you know, I found myself rather liking him?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, women are fearfully and wonderfully made,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “And so are some men,” said she. “Could you oblige me with the name and - address of a competent witch or warlock?” she added irrelevantly. - </p> - <p> - “What under the sun can you want with such an unholy thing?” he exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “I want a hate-charm—something that I can take at night to revive my - hatred of the man I was speaking of.” - </p> - <p> - “Look here,” he warned her, “I’ve not come all this distance, under a - scorching sun, to stand here now and talk of another man. Cultivate a - contemptuous indifference towards him. Banish him from your mind and - conversation.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll try,” she consented; “though, if you were familiar with the - circumstances, you’d recognise a certain difficulty in doing that.” She - reached for her gloves, and began to put one on. “Will you be so good as - to tell me the time of day?” - </p> - <p> - He looked at his watch. “It’s nowhere near time for you to be moving yet.” - </p> - <p> - “You must not trifle about affairs of state,” she said. “At a definite - hour I have business at the palace.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, for that matter, so have I. But it’s half-past four. To call - half-past four a definite hour would be to do a violence to the language.” - </p> - <p> - “It is earlier than I thought,” she admitted, discontinuing her operation - with the glove. - </p> - <p> - He smiled approval. “Your heart is in the right place, after all. It would - have been inhuman to abandon me. Oh, yes, pleasantry apart, I am in a - condition of mind in which solitude spells misery. And yet I am on - speaking terms with but three living people whose society I prefer to it.” - </p> - <p> - “You are indeed in sad case, then,” she compassionated him. “But why - should solitude spell misery? A man of wit like you should have plenty of - resources within himself.” - </p> - <p> - “Am I a man of wit?” he asked innocently. - </p> - <p> - Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “What is your opinion?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know,” he reflected. “Perhaps I might have been, if I had met a - woman like you earlier in life.” - </p> - <p> - “At all events,” she laughed, “if you are not a man of wit, it is not for - lack of courage. But why does solitude spell misery? Have you great crimes - upon your conscience?” - </p> - <p> - “No, nothing so amusing. But when one is alone, one thinks; and when one - thinks—that way madness lies.” - </p> - <p> - “Then do you never think when you are engaged in conversation?” She raised - her eyebrows questioningly. - </p> - <p> - “You should be able to judge of that by the quality of my remarks. At any - rate, I feel.” - </p> - <p> - “What do you feel?” - </p> - <p> - “When I am engaged in conversation with you, I feel a general sense of - agreeable stimulation; and, in addition to that, at this particular moment———But - are you sure you really wish to know?” he broke off. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, tell me,” she said, with curiosity. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, a furious desire to smoke a cigarette.” - </p> - <p> - She laughed merrily. “I am so sorry I have no cigarettes to offer you.” - </p> - <p> - “My pockets happen to be stuffed with them.” - </p> - <p> - “Then, do, please, light one.” - </p> - <p> - He produced his cigarette-case, but he seemed to hesitate about lighting a - cigarette. - </p> - <p> - “Have you no matches?” she inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, thank you, I have matches. I was only thinking.” - </p> - <p> - “It has become a solitude, then?” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “It is a case of conscience, it is an ethical dilemma. How do I know—the - modern woman is capable of anything—how do I know that you may not - yourself be a smoker? But if you are, it will give you pain to see me - enjoying my cigarette, while you are without one.” - </p> - <p> - “It would be civil to begin by offering me one,” she suggested. - </p> - <p> - “That is exactly the liberty I dared not take—oh, there are limits - to my boldness. But you have saved the situation.” And he offered her his - cigarette-case. - </p> - <p> - She shook her head. “Thank you, I don’t smoke.” And her eyes were full of - teasing laughter, so that he laughed too, as he finally applied a - match-flame to his cigarette. “But you may allow me to examine your - cigarette-case,” she went on. “It looks like a pretty bit of silver.” And - when he had handed it to her, she exclaimed, “It is engraved with the - royal arms.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Why not?” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Does it belong to the King?” - </p> - <p> - “It was a present from the King.” - </p> - <p> - “To you? You are a friend of the King?” she asked, with some eagerness. - </p> - <p> - “I will not deceive you,” he replied. “No, not to me. The King gave it to - Hilary Clairevoix, the Constable of Bellefontaine; and Hilary, who’s a - careless fellow, left it lying about in his music-room, and I came along - and pocketed it. It is a pretty bit of silver, and I shall never restore - it to its rightful owner if I can help it.” - </p> - <p> - “But you are a friend of the King’s?” she repeated, with insistence. - </p> - <p> - “I have not that honour. Indeed, I have never seen him. I am a friend of - Hilary’s; I am his guest. He has stayed with me in England—I am an - Englishman—and now I am returning his visit.” - </p> - <p> - “That is well,” said she. “If you were a friend of the King, you would be - an enemy of mine.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” he wondered. “Why is that?” - </p> - <p> - “I hate the King,” she answered simply. - </p> - <p> - “Dear me, what a capacity you have for hating! This is the second hatred - you have avowed within the hour. What has the King done to displease you?” - </p> - <p> - “You are an Englishman. Has the King’s reputation not reached England yet? - He is the scandal of Europe. What has he done? But no—do not - encourage me to speak of him. I should grow too heated,” she said - strenuously. - </p> - <p> - “On the contrary, I pray of you, go on,” urged Ferdinand Augustus. “Your - King is a character that interests me more than you can think. His - reputation has indeed reached England, and I have conceived a great - curiosity about him. One only hears vague rumours, to be sure, nothing - specific; but one has learned to think of him as original and romantic. - You know him. Tell me a lot about him.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I do not know him personally. That is an affliction I have as yet - been spared.” Then, suddenly, “Mercy upon me, what have I said!” she - cried. “I must ’knock wood,’ or the evil spirits will bring me that - mischance to-morrow.” And she fervently tapped the bark of the tree beside - her with her knuckles. - </p> - <p> - Ferdinand Augustus laughed. “But if you do not know him personally, why do - you hate him?” - </p> - <p> - “I know him very well by reputation. I know how he lives, I know what he - does and leaves undone. If you are curious about him, ask your friend - Hilary. He is the King’s foster-brother. <i>He</i> could tell you - stories,” she added meaningly. - </p> - <p> - “I have asked him. But Hilary’s lips are sealed. He depends upon the - King’s protection for his fortune, and the palace-walls (I suppose he - fears) have ears. But you can speak without danger. He is the scandal of - Europe? There’s nothing I love like scandal. Tell me all about him.” - </p> - <p> - “You have not come all this distance, under a scorching sun, to stand here - now and talk of another man,” she reminded him. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but kings are different,” he argued. “Tell me about your King.” - </p> - <p> - “I can tell you at once,” said she, “that our King is the frankest egotist - in two hemispheres. You have learned to think of him as original and - romantic? No; he is simply intensely selfish and intensely silly. He is a - King Do-Nothing, a Roi Fainéant, who shirks and evades all the duties and - responsibilities of his position; who builds extravagant chateaux in - remote parts of the country, and hides in them, alone with a few obscure - companions; who will never visit his capital, never show his face to his - subjects; who takes no sort of interest in public business or the welfare - of his kingdom, and leaves the entire government to his ministers; who - will not even hold a court, or give balls or banquets; who, in short, does - nothing that a king ought to do, and might, for all the good we get of - him, be a mere stranger in the land, a mere visitor, like yourself. So - closely does he seclude himself that I doubt if there be a hundred people - in the whole country who have ever seen him, to know him. If he travels - from one place to another, it is always in the strictest incognito, and - those who then chance to meet him never have any reason to suspect that he - is not a private person. His very effigy on the coin of the realm is - reputed to be false, resembling him in no wise. But I could go on for - ever,” she said, bringing her indictment to a termination. - </p> - <p> - “Really,” said Ferdinand Augustus, “I cannot see that you have alleged - anything very damaging. A Roi Fainéant? But every king of a modern - constitutional state is, willy-nilly, that. He can do nothing but sign - bills which he generally disapproves of, lay foundation-stones, set the - fashion in hats, and bow and look pleasant as he drives through the - streets. He has no power for good, and mighty little for evil. He is just - a State Prisoner. It seems to me that your particular King has shown some - sense in trying to escape so much as he may of the prison’s irksomeness. I - should call it rare bad luck to be born a king. Either you’ve got to shirk - your kingship, and then fair ladies dub you the scandal of Europe; or else - you’ve got to accept it, and then you’re as happy as a man in a - strait-waistcoat. And then, and then! Oh, I can think of a thousand - unpleasantnesses attendant upon the condition of a king. Your King, as I - understand it, has said to himself, ’Hang it all, I didn’t ask to be born - a king, but since that is my misfortune, I will seek to mitigate it as - much as I am able. I am, on the whole, a human being, with a human life to - live, and only, probably, threescore-and-ten years in which to live it. - Very good; I will live my life. I will lay no foundation-stones, nor drive - about the streets bowing and looking pleasant. I will live my life, alone - with the few people I find to my liking. I will take the cash and let the - credit go.’ I am bound to say,” concluded Ferdinand Augustus, “that your - King has done exactly what I should have done in his place.” - </p> - <p> - “You will never, at least,” said she, “defend the shameful manner in which - he has behaved towards the Queen. It is for that, I hate him. It is for - that, that we, the Queen’s gentlewomen, have adopted ’7’ is a weary day as - a watchword. It will be a weary day until we see the King on his knees at - the Queen’s feet, craving her forgiveness.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh? What has he done to the Queen?” asked Ferdinand. - </p> - <p> - “What has he done! Humiliated her as never woman was humiliated before. He - married her by proxy at her father’s court; and she was conducted with - great pomp and circumstance into his kingdom—to find what? That he - had fled to one of his absurd castles in the north, and refused to see - her! He has remained there ever since, hiding like—but there is - nothing in created space to compare him to. Is it the behaviour of a - gentleman, of a gallant man, not to say a king?” she cried warmly, looking - up at him with shining eyes, her cheeks faintly flushed. - </p> - <p> - Ferdinand Augustus bowed. “The Queen is fortunate in her advocate. I have - not heard the King’s side of the story. I can, however, imagine excuses - for him. Suppose that his ministers, for reasons of policy, importuned and - importuned him to marry a certain princess, until he yielded in mere - fatigue. In that case, why should he be bothered further? Why should he - add one to the tedious complications of existence by meeting the bride he - never desired? Is it not sufficient that, by his complaisance, she should - have gained the rank and title of a queen? Besides, he may be in love with - another woman. Or perhaps—but who can tell? He may have twenty - reasons. And anyhow, you cannot deny to the situation the merit of being - highly ridiculous. A husband and wife who are not personally acquainted! - It is a delicious commentary upon the whole system of marriages by proxy. - You confirm my notion that your King is original.” - </p> - <p> - “He may have twenty reasons,” answered she, “but he had better have twenty - terrors. It is perfectly certain that the Queen will be revenged.” - </p> - <p> - “How so?” asked Ferdinand Augustus. - </p> - <p> - “The Queen is young, high-spirited, moderately good-looking, and - unspeakably incensed. Trust a young, high-spirited, and handsome woman, - outraged by her husband, to know how to avenge herself. Oh, some day he - will see.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well, he must take his chances,” Ferdinand sighed. “Perhaps he is - liberal-minded enough not to care.” - </p> - <p> - “I am far from meaning the vulgar revenge you fancy,” she put in quickly. - “The Queen’s revenge will be subtle and unexpected. She is no fool, and - she will not rest until she has achieved it. Oh, he will see!” - </p> - <p> - “I had imagined it was the curse of royalty to be without true friends,” - said Ferdinand Augustus. “The Queen has a very ardent one in you.” - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid I cannot altogether acquit myself of interested motives,” she - disclaimed modestly. “I am of her Majesty’s household, and my fortunes - must rise and fall with hers. But I am honestly indignant with the King.” - </p> - <p> - “The poor King! Upon my soul, he has my sympathy,” said Ferdinand. - </p> - <p> - “You are terribly ironical,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “Irony was ten thousand leagues from my intention,” he protested. “In all - sincerity the object of your indignation has my sympathy. I trust you will - not consider it an impertinence if I say that I already count you among - the few people I have met whose good opinion is a matter to be coveted.” - </p> - <p> - She had risen while he was speaking, and now she bobbed him a little - curtsey. “I will show my appreciation of yours, by taking flight before - anything can happen to alter it,” she laughed, moving away. - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p> - “You are singularly animated to-night,” said Hilary, contemplating him - across the dinner-table; “yet, at the same time, singularly abstracted. - You have the air of a man who is rolling something pleasant under his - tongue, something sweet and secret: it might be a hope, it might be a - recollection. Where have you passed the afternoon? You’ve been about some - mischief, I’ll warrant. By Jove, you set me thinking. I’ll wager a penny - you’ve been having a bit of rational conversation with that brown-haired - woman.” - </p> - <p> - “Her hair is red,” Ferdinand Augustus rejoined, with firmness. “And her - conversation,” he added sadly, “is anything you please but rational. She - spent her whole time picking flaws in the character of the King. She - talked downright treason. She said he was the scandal of Europe and the - frankest egotist in two hemispheres.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah? She appears to have some instinct for the correct use of language,” - commented Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “All the same, I rather like her,” Ferdinand went on, “and I’m half - inclined to undertake her conversion. She has a gorgeous figure—there’s - something rich and voluptuous about it. And there are depths of promise in - her eyes; there are worlds of humour and of passion. And she has a mouth—oh, - of a fulness, of a softness, of a warmth! And a chin, and a throat, and - hands! And then, her voice. There’s a mellowness yet a crispness, there’s - a vibration, there’s a something in her voice that assures you of a golden - temperament beneath it. In short, I’m half inclined to follow your advice, - and go in for a love-adventure with her.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but love-adventures—I have it on high authority—are - damnable iterations,” objected Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “That is very true; they are,” Ferdinand agreed. “But the life of man is - woven of damnable iterations. Tell me of any single thing that isn’t a - damnable iteration, and I’ll give you a quarter of my fortune. The day and - the night, the seasons and the years, the fair weather and the foul, - breakfast and luncheon and dinner—all are damnable iterations. If - there’s any reality behind the doctrine of metempsychosis, death, too, is - a damnable iteration. There’s no escaping damnable iterations: there’s - nothing new under the sun. But as long as one is alive, one must do - something. It’s sure to be something in its essence identical with - something one has done before; but one must do something. Why not, then, a - love-adventure with a woman that attracts you?” - </p> - <p> - “Women are a pack of samenesses,” said Hilary despondently. - </p> - <p> - “Quite so,” assented Ferdinand. “Women, and men too, are a pack of - samenesses. We’re all struck with the same die, of the same metal, at the - same mint. Our resemblance is intrinsic, fundamental; our differences are - accidental and skin deep. We have the same features, organs, dimensions, - with but a hair’s-breadth variation; the same needs, instincts, - propensities; the same hopes, fears, ideas. One man’s meat is another - man’s meat; one man’s poison is another man’s poison. We are as like to - one another as the leaves on the same tree. Skin us, and (save for your - fat) the most skilled anatomist could never distinguish you from me. Women - are a pack of samenesses; but, hang it all, one has got to make the best - of a monotonous universe. And this particular woman, with her red hair and - her eyes, strikes me as attractive. She has some fire in her composition, - some fire and flavour. Anyhow, she attracts me; and—I think I shall - try my luck.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Nunky, Nunky,” murmured Hilary, shaking his head, “I am shocked by - your lack of principle. Have you forgotten that you are a married man?” - </p> - <p> - “That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a clear - conscience. If I were single, she might, justifiably enough, form - matrimonial expectations for herself.” - </p> - <p> - “Not if she knew you,” said Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, but she doesn’t know me—and shan’t,” said Ferdinand Augustus. - “I will take care of that.” - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, for what - seemed to him an eternity, he never once encountered her. Morning and - afternoon, day after day, he roamed the park of Bellefontaine from end to - end, in all directions, but never once caught sight of so much as the - flutter of her garments. And the result was that he began to grow - seriously sentimental. “<i>Im wunderschônen Monat Mai!</i>” It was June, - to be sure; but the meteorological influences were, for that, only the - more potent. He remembered her shining eyes now as not merely whimsical - and ardent, but as pensive, appealing, tender; he remembered her face as a - face seen in starlight, ethereal and mystic; and her voice as low music - far away. He recalled their last meeting as a treasure he had possessed - and lost; he blamed himself for the frivolity of his talk and manner, and - for the ineffectual impression of him this must have left upon her. - Perpetually thinking of her, he was perpetually sighing, perpetually - suffering strange, sudden, half painful, half delicious commotions in the - tissues of his heart. Every morning he rose with a replenished fund of - hope: this day at last would produce her. Every night he went to bed - pitying himself as bankrupt of hope. And all the while, though he pined to - talk of her, a curious bashfulness withheld him; so that, between him and - Hilary, for quite a fortnight she was not mentioned. It was Hilary who - broke the silence. - </p> - <p> - “Why so pale and wan?” Hilary asked him. “Will, when looking well won’t - move her, looking ill prevail?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I am seriously love-sick,” cried Ferdinand Augustus, welcoming the - subject. “I went in for a sensation, and I’ve got a real emotion.” - </p> - <p> - “Poor youth! And she won’t look at you, I suppose?” was Hilary’s method of - commiseration. - </p> - <p> - “I have not seen her for a mortal fortnight. She has completely vanished. - And for the first time in my life I’m seriously in love.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re incapable of being seriously in love,” said Hilary. - </p> - <p> - “I had always thought so myself,” admitted Ferdinand Augustus. “The most I - had ever felt for any woman was a sort of mere lukewarm desire, a sort of - mere meaningless titillation. But this woman is different. She’s as - different to other women as wine is different to toast-and-water. She has - the <i>feu-sacré</i>. She’s done something to the very inmost soul of me; - she’s laid it bare, and set it quivering and yearning. She’s made herself - indispensable to me; I can’t live without her. Ah, you don’t know what - she’s like. She’s like some strange, beautiful, burning spirit. Oh, for an - hour with her I’d give my kingdom. To touch her hand—to look into - those eyes of hers—to hear her speak to me! I tell you squarely, if - she’d have me, I’d throw up the whole scheme of my existence, I’d fly with - her to the uttermost ends of the earth. But she has totally disappeared, - and I can do nothing to recover her without betraying my identity; and - that would spoil everything. I want her to love me for myself, believing - me to be a plain man, like you or anybody. If she knew who I am, how could - I ever be sure?” - </p> - <p> - “You <i>are</i> in a bad way,” said Hilary, looking at him with amusement. - “And yet, I’m gratified to see it. Her hair is not so red as I could wish, - but, after all, it’s reddish; and you appear to be genuinely aflame. It - will do you no end of good; it will make a man of you—a plain man, - like me or anybody. But your impatience is not reasoned. A fortnight? You - have not met her for a fortnight? My dear, to a plain man (like me or - anybody) a fortnight’s nothing. It’s just an appetiser. Watch and wait, - and you’ll meet her before you know it. And now, if you will excuse me, I - have business in another quarter of the palace.” - </p> - <p> - Ferdinand Augustus, left to himself, went down into the garden. It was a - wonderful summer’s evening, made indeed (if I may steal a phrase from - Hilary) of perfumed velvet. The sun had set an hour since, but the western - sky was still splendid, like a dark banner, with sombre reds and purples; - and in the east hung the full moon, so brilliant, so apposite, as to seem - somehow almost like a piece of premeditated decoration. The waters of the - fountains flashed silverly in its light; glossy leaves gave back dim - reflections; here and there, embowered among the trees, white statues - gleamed ghost-like. Away in the park somewhere, innumerable frogs were - croaking, croaking; subdued by distance, the sound gained a quality that - was plaintive and unearthly. The long façade of the palace lay obscure in - shadow; only at the far end, in the Queen’s apartments, were the windows - alight. But, quite close at hand, the moon caught a corner of the terrace; - and here, presently, Ferdinand Augustus became aware of a human figure. A - woman was standing alone by the balustrade, gazing out into the wondrous - night. Ferdinand Augustus’s heart began to pound; and it was a full minute - before he could command himself sufficiently to move or speak. - </p> - <p> - At last, however, he approached her. “Good evening,” he said, looking up - from the pathway. - </p> - <p> - She glanced down at him, leaning upon the balustrade. “Oh, how do you do?” - She smiled her surprise. She was in evening dress, a white robe - embroidered with pearls, and she wore a tiara of pearls in her hair. She - had a light cloak thrown over her shoulders, a little cape trimmed with - swan’s-down. “Heavens!” thought Ferdinand Augustus. “How magnificent she - is!” - </p> - <p> - “It’s a hundred years since I have seen you,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, is it so long as that? I should have imagined it was something like a - fortnight. Time passes quickly.” - </p> - <p> - “That is a question of psychology. But now at last I find you when I least - expect you.” - </p> - <p> - “I have slipped out for a moment,” she explained, “to enjoy this beautiful - prospect. One has no such view from the Queen’s end of the terrace. One - cannot see the moon.” - </p> - <p> - “I cannot see the moon from where I am standing,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “No, because you have turned your back upon it,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “I have chosen between two visions. If you were to authorise me to join - you, aloft there, I could see both.” - </p> - <p> - “I have no power to authorise you,” she laughed, “the terrace is not my - property. But if you choose to take the risks——” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” he cried, “you are good, you are kind.” And in an instant he had - joined her on the terrace, and his heart was fluttering wildly with its - sense of her nearness to him. He could not speak. - </p> - <p> - “Well, now you can see the moon. Is it all your fancy painted?” she asked, - with her whimsical smile. Her face was exquisitely pale in the moonlight, - her eyes glowed. Her voice was very soft. - </p> - <p> - His heart was fluttering wildly, poignantly. “Oh,” he began, but broke - off. His breath trembled. “I cannot speak,” he said. - </p> - <p> - She arched her eyebrows; “Then we have made some mistake. This will never - be you, in that case.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, it is I. It is the other fellow, the gabbler, who is not - myself,” he contrived to tell her. - </p> - <p> - “You lead a double life, like the villain in the play?” she suggested. - </p> - <p> - “You must have your laugh at my expense; have it, and welcome. But I know - what I know,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “What do you know?” she asked quickly. - </p> - <p> - “I know that I am in love with you,” he answered. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, only that,” she said, with an air of relief. - </p> - <p> - “Only that. But that is a great deal. I know that I love you—oh, - yes, unutterably. If you could see yourself! You are absolutely unique - among women. I would never have believed it possible for any woman to make - me feel what you have made me feel. I have never spoken like this to any - woman in all my life. Oh, you may laugh. It is the truth, upon my word of - honour. If you could look into your eyes—yes, even when you are - laughing at me! I can see your wonderful burning spirit shining deep, deep - in your eyes. You do not dream how different you are to other women. You - are a wonderful burning poem. They are platitudes. Oh, I love you - unutterably. There has not been an hour since I last saw you that I have - not thought of you, loved you, longed for you. And now here you stand, you - yourself, beside me! If you could see into my heart, if you could see what - I feel!” - </p> - <p> - She looked at the moon, with a strange little smile, and was silent. - </p> - <p> - “Will you not speak to me?” he cried. - </p> - <p> - “What would you have me say?” she asked, still looking away. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you know, you know what I would have you say.” - </p> - <p> - “I am afraid you will not like the only thing I can say.” She turned, and - met his eyes. “I am a married woman, and—I am in love with my - husband.” - </p> - <p> - Ferdinand Augustus stood aghast. “Oh, my God!” he groaned. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, though he has given me little enough reason to do so, I have fallen - in love with him,” she went on pitilessly. “So you must get over your - fancy for me. After all, I am a total stranger to you. You do not even - know my name.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you tell me your name?” asked Ferdinand humbly. “It will be - something to remember.” - </p> - <p> - “My name is Marguerite.” - </p> - <p> - “Marguerite! Marguerite!” He repeated it caressingly. “It is a beautiful - name. But it is also the name of the Queen.” - </p> - <p> - “I am the only person named Marguerite in the Queen’s court,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “What!” cried Ferdinand Augustus. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it is a wise husband who knows his own wife,” laughed she. - </p> - <p> - And then.... But I think I have told enough. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE FRIEND OF MAN - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he other evening, - in the Casino, the satisfaction of losing my money at petits-chevaux - having begun to flag a little, I wandered into the Cercle, the reserved - apartments in the west wing of the building, where they were playing - baccarat. - </p> - <p> - Thanks to the heat, the windows were open wide; and through them one could - see, first, a vivid company of men and women, strolling backwards and - forwards, and chattering busily, in the electric glare on the terrace; and - then, beyond them, the sea—smooth, motionless, sombre; silent, - despite its perpetual whisper; inscrutable, sinister; merging itself with - the vast blackness of space. Here and there the black was punctured by a - pin-point of fire, a tiny vacillating pin-point of fire; and a landsman’s - heart quailed for a moment at the thought of lonely vessels braving the - mysteries and terrors and the awful solitudes of the sea at night.... - </p> - <p> - So that the voice of the croupier, perfunctory, machine-like, had almost a - human, almost a genial effect, as it rapped out suddenly, calling upon the - players to mark their play. “Marquez vos jeux, messieurs. Quarante louis - par tableau.” It brought one back to light and warmth and security, to the - familiar earth, and the neighbourhood of men. - </p> - <p> - One’s pleasure was fugitive, however. - </p> - <p> - The neighbourhood of men, indeed! The neighbourhood of some two score very - commonplace, very sordid men, seated or standing about an ugly green - table, intent upon a game of baccarat, in a long, rectangular, ugly, - gas-lit room. The banker dealt, and the croupier shouted, and the punters - punted, and the ivory counters and mother-of-pearl plaques were swept now - here, now there; and that was all. Everybody was smoking, of course; but - the smell of the live cigarettes couldn’t subdue the odour of dead ones, - the stagnant, acrid odour of stale tobacco, with which the walls and - hangings of the place were saturated. - </p> - <p> - The thing and the people were as banale, as unremunerative, as things and - people for the most part are; and dispiriting, dispiriting. There was a - hardness in the banality, a sort of cold ferocity, ill-repressed. One - turned away, bored, revolted. It was better, after all, to look at the - sea; to think of the lonely vessel, far out there, where a pin-point of - fire still faintly blinked and glimmered in the illimitable darkness.... - </p> - <p> - But the voice of the croupier was insistent. - </p> - <p> - “Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Cinquante louis par tableau. Vos jeux sont - faits? Rien ne va plus.” It was suggestive, persuasive, besides, to one - who has a bit of a gambler’s soul. I saw myself playing, I felt the - poignant tremor of the instant of suspense, while the result is uncertain, - the glow that comes if you have won, the twinge if you have lost. “La - banque est aux enchères,” the voice announced presently; and I moved - towards the table. - </p> - <p> - The sums bid were not extravagant. Ten, fifteen, twenty louis; thirty, - fifty, eighty, a hundred. - </p> - <p> - “Cent louis? Cent? Cent?—Cent louis à la banque,” cried the - inevitable voice. - </p> - <p> - I glanced at the man who had taken the bank for a hundred louis. I glanced - at him, and, all at once, by no means without emotion, I recognised him. - </p> - <p> - He was a tall, thin man, and very old. He had the hands of a very old man, - dried-up, shrunken hands, with mottled-yellow skin, dark veins that stood - out like wires, and parched finger-nails. His face, too, was - mottled-yellow, deepening to brown about the eyes, with grey wrinkles, and - purplish lips. He was clearly very old; eighty, or more than eighty. - </p> - <p> - He was dressed entirely in black: a black frock-coat, black trousers, a - black waistcoat, cut low, and exposing an unusual quantity of shirt-front, - three black studs, and a black tie, a stiff, narrow bow. These latter - details, however, save when some chance motion on his part revealed them, - were hidden by his beard, a broad, abundant beard, that fell a good ten - inches down his breast. His hair, also, was abundant, and he wore it long; - trained straight back from his forehead, hanging in a fringe about the - collar of his coat. Hair and beard, despite his manifest great age, were - without a spear of white. They were of a dry, inanimate brown, a hue to - which they had faded (one surmised) from black. - </p> - <p> - If it was surprising to see so old a man at a baccarat table, it was still - more surprising to see just this sort of man. He looked like anything in - the world, rather than a gambler. With his tall wasted figure, with his - patriarchal beard, his long hair trained in that rigid fashion straight - back from his forehead; with his stern aquiline profile, his dark eyes, - deep-set and wide-apart, melancholy, thoughtful: he looked—what - shall I say? He looked like anything in the world, rather than a gambler. - He looked like a <i>savant</i>, he looked like a philosopher; he looked - intellectual, refined, ascetic even; he looked as if he had ideas, - convictions; he looked grave and wise and sad. Holding the bank at - baccarat, in this vulgar company at the Grand Cercle of the Casino, - dealing the cards with his withered hands, studying them with his deep - meditative eyes, he looked improbable, inadmissible, he looked supremely - out of place. - </p> - <p> - I glanced at him, and wondered. And then, suddenly, my heart gave a jump, - my throat began to tingle. - </p> - <p> - I had recognised him. It was rather more than ten years since I had seen - him last; and in ten years he had changed, he had decayed, terribly. But I - was quite sure, quite sure. - </p> - <p> - “By Jove,” I thought, “it’s Ambrose—it’s Augustus Ambrose! It’s the - Friend of Man!” - </p> - <p> - Augustus Ambrose? I daresay the name conveys nothing to you? And yet, - forty, thirty, twenty years ago, Augustus Ambrose was not without his - measure of celebrity in the world. If hardly any one had read his - published writings, if few had any but the dimmest notion of what his - theories and aims were, almost everybody had at least heard of him, almost - everybody knew at least that there was such a man, and that the man had - theories and aims—of some queer radical sort. One knew, in vague - fashion, that he had disciples, that there were people here and there who - called themselves “Ambrosites.” - </p> - <p> - I say twenty years ago. But twenty years ago he was already pretty well - forgotten. I imagine the moment of his utmost notoriety would have fallen - somewhere in the fifties or the sixties, somewhere between ’55 and ’68. - </p> - <p> - And if my sudden recognition of him in the Casino made my heart give a - jump, there was sufficient cause. During the greater part of my childhood, - Augustus Ambrose lived with us, was virtually a member of our family. Then - I saw a good deal of him again, when I was eighteen, nineteen; and still - again, when I was four- or five-and-twenty. - </p> - <p> - He lived with us, indeed, from the time when I was scarcely more than a - baby till I was ten or eleven; so that in my very farthest memories he is - a personage—looking backwards, I see him in the earliest, palest - dawn: a tall man, dressed in black, with long hair and a long beard, who - was always in our house, and who used to be frightfully severe; who would - turn upon me with a most terrifying frown if I misconducted myself in his - presence, who would loom up unexpectedly from behind closed doors, and - utter a soul-piercing <i>hist-hist</i>, if I was making a noise: a sort of - domesticated Croquemitaine, whom we had always with us. - </p> - <p> - Always? Not quite always, though; for, when I stop to think, I remember - there would be breathing spells: periods during which he would disappear—during - which you could move about the room, and ask questions, and even (at a - pinch) upset things, without being frowned at; during which you could - shout lustily at your play, unoppressed by the fear of a black figure - suddenly opening the door and freezing you with a <i>hist-hist</i>; during - which, in fine, you could forget the humiliating circumstance that - children are called into existence to be seen and not heard, with its - irksome moral that they should never speak unless they are spoken to. - Then, one morning, I would wake up, and find that he was in the house - again. He had returned during the night. - </p> - <p> - That was his habit, to return at night. But on one occasion, at least, he - returned in the daytime. I remember driving with my father and mother, in - our big open carriage, to the railway station, and then driving back home - with Mr. Ambrose added to our party. Why I—a child of six or seven, - between whom and our guest surely no love was lost—why I was taken - upon this excursion, I can’t at all conjecture; I suppose my people had - their reasons. Anyhow, I recollect the drive home with particular - distinctness. Two things impressed me. First, Mr. Ambrose, who always - dressed in black, wore a <i>brown</i> overcoat; I remember gazing at it - with bemused eyes, and reflecting that it was exactly the colour of gravy. - And secondly, I gathered from his conversation that he had been in prison! - Yes. I gathered that he had been in Rome (we were living in Florence), and - that one day he had been taken up by the policemen, and put in prison! - </p> - <p> - Of course, I could say nothing; but what I felt, what I thought! Mercy - upon us, that we should know a man, that a man should live with us, who - had been taken up and put in prison! I fancied him dragged through the - streets by two gendarmes, struggling with them, and followed by a crowd of - dirty people. I felt that our family was disgraced, we who had been the - pink of respectability; my cheeks burned, and I hung my head. I could say - nothing; but oh, the grief, the shame, I nursed in secret! Mr. Ambrose, - who lived with us, whose standards of conduct (for children, at any rate) - were so painfully exalted, Mr. Ambrose had done something terrible, and - had been found out, and put in prison for it! Mr. Ambrose, who always - dressed in black, had suddenly tossed his bonnet over the mills, and - displayed himself cynically in an overcoat of rakish, dare-devil brown—the - colour of gravy! Somehow, the notion pursued me, there must be a - connection between his overcoat and his crime. - </p> - <p> - The enormity of the affair preyed upon my spirit, day after day, night - after night, until, in the end, I could endure it silently no longer; and - I spoke to my mother. - </p> - <p> - “Is Mr. Ambrose a burglar?” I enquired. - </p> - <p> - I remember my mother’s perplexity, and then, when I had alleged the - reasons for my question, her exceeding mirth. I remember her calling my - father; and my father, also, laughed prodigiously, and he went to the - door, and cried, “Ambrose! Ambrose!” And when Mr. Ambrose came, and the - incident was related to him, even he laughed a little, even his stern face - relaxed. - </p> - <p> - When, by-and-by, they had all stopped laughing, and Mr. Ambrose had gone - back to his own room, my father and mother, between them, explained the - matter to me. “Mr. Ambrose, I must understand, (they said), was one of the - greatest, and wisest, and best men in the world. He spent his whole life - “doing good.” When he was at home, with us, he was working hard, all day - long and late into the night, writing books H to “do good”—that was - why he so often had a headache and couldn’t bear any noise in the house. - And when he went away, when he was absent, it was to “do good” somewhere - else. I had seen the poor people in the streets? I knew that there were - thousands and thousands of people in the world, grown-up people, and - children like myself, who had to wear ragged clothing, and live in - dreadful houses, and eat bad food, or go hungry perhaps, all because they - were so poor? Well, Mr. Ambrose spent his whole life doing good to those - poor people, working hard for them, so that some day they might be rich, - and clean, and happy, like us. But in Rome there was a very wicked, very - cruel man, a cardinal: Cardinal Antonelli was his name. And Cardinal - Antonelli hated people who did good, and was always trying to kidnap them - and put them in prison. And that was what had happened to Mr. Ambrose. He - had been doing good to the poor people in Rome, and Cardinal Antonelli had - got wind of it, and had sent his awful <i>sbirri</i> to seize him and put - him in prison. But the Pope was a very good man, too; very just, and kind, - and merciful; as good as it was possible for any man to be. Only, - generally, he was so busy with the great spiritual cares of his office, - that he couldn’t pay much attention to the practical government of his - City. He left that to Cardinal Antonelli, never suspecting how wicked he - was, for the Cardinal constantly deceived him. But when the Pope heard - that the great and good Mr. Ambrose had been put in prison, his Holiness - was shocked and horrified, and very angry; and he sent for the Cardinal, - and gave him a sound piece of his mind, and ordered him to let Mr. Ambrose - out directly. And so Mr. Ambrose had been let out, and had come back to - us.” - </p> - <p> - It was a relief, no doubt, to learn that our guest was not a burglar, but - I am afraid the knowledge of his excessive goodness left me somewhat cold. - Or, rather, if it influenced my feeling for him in any way, I fancy it - only magnified my awe. He was one of the greatest, and wisest, and best - men in the world, and he spent his entire time doing good to the poor. <i>Bene</i>; - that was very nice for the poor. But for me? It did not make him a bit - less severe, or cross, or testy; it did not make him a bit less an - uncomfortable person to have in the house. - </p> - <p> - Indeed, the character, in a story such as I had heard, most likely to - affect a child’s imagination, would pretty certainly have been, not the - hero, but the villain. Mr. Ambrose and his virtues moved one to scant - enthusiasm; but Cardinal Antonelli! In describing him as wicked, and - cruel, and deceitful, my people were simply using the language, expressing - the sentiment, of the country and the epoch: of Italy before 1870. In - those days, if you were a Liberal, if you sympathised with the Italian - party, as opposed to the Papal, and especially if you were a Catholic - withal, and so could think no evil of the Pope himself—then Heaven - help the reputation of Cardinal Antonelli! For my part, I saw a big man in - a cassock, with a dark, wolfish face, and a bunch of great iron keys at - his girdle, who prowled continually about the streets of Rome, attended by - a gang of ruffian shim, seeking whom he could kidnap and put in prison. So - that when, not very long after this, we went to Rome for a visit, my heart - misgave me; it seemed as if we were marching headlong into the ogre’s den, - wantonly courting peril. And during the month or two of our sojourn there, - I believe I was never quite easy in my mind. At any moment we might all be - captured, loaded with chains, and cast into prison: horrible stone - dungeons, dark and wet, infested by rats and spiders, where we should have - to sleep on straw, where they would give us nothing but bread and water to - eat and drink. - </p> - <p> - Charlatan. Impostor. - </p> - <p> - I didn’t know what the words meant, but they stuck in my memory, and I - felt that they were somehow appropriate. It was during that same visit to - Rome that I had heard them. My Aunt Elizabeth, with whom we were staying, - had applied them, in her vigorous way, to Mr. Ambrose (whom we had left - behind us, in Florence). “Poh! An empty windbag, a canting egotist, a - twopenny-halfpenny charlatan, a cheap impostor,” she had exclaimed, in the - course of a discussion with my father. - </p> - <p> - Charlatan, impostor: yes, that was it. A man who never did anything but - make himself disagreeable—who never petted you, or played with you, - or told you stories, or gave you things—who never, in fact, took any - notice of you at all, except to frown, and say <i>hist-hist</i>, when you - were enjoying yourself—well, he might be one of the greatest, and - best, and wisest men in the world, but, anyhow, he was a charlatan and an - impostor. I had Aunt Elizabeth’s authority for that. - </p> - <p> - One day, after our return to Florence, my second-cousin Isabel (she was - thirteen, and I was in love with her)—my second-cousin Isabel was - playing the piano, alone with me, in the schoolroom, when Mr. Ambrose - opened the door, and said, in his testiest manner: “Stop that noise—stop - that noise!” - </p> - <p> - “He’s a horrid pig,” cried Isabel, as soon as his back was turned. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no; he isn’t a pig,” I protested. “He’s one of the greatest, and - wisest, and best men in the world, so of course he can’t be a horrid pig. - But I’ll tell you what he <i>is</i>. He’s a charlatan and an impostor.” - </p> - <p> - “Really? How do you know?” Isabel wondered. “I heard Aunt Elizabeth tell - my father so.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, well, then it must be true,” Isabel assented. - </p> - <p> - He lived with us till I was ten or eleven, at first in Florence, and - afterwards in Paris. All day long he would sit in his room and write, (on - the most beautiful, smooth, creamy paper—what wouldn’t I have given - to have acquired some of it for my own literary purposes!) and in the - evening he would receive visitors: oh, such funny people, so unlike the - people who came to see my mother and father. The men, for example, almost - all of them, as Mr. Ambrose himself did, wore their hair long, so that it - fell about their collars; whilst almost all the women had their hair cut - short. And then, they dressed so funnily: the women in the plainest - garments—skirts and jackets, without a touch of ornament; the men in - sombreros and Spanish cloaks, instead of ordinary hats and coats. They - would come night after night, and pass rapidly through the outer regions - of our establishment, and disappear in Mr. Ambrose’s private room. And - thence I could hear their voices, murmuring, murmuring, after I had gone - to bed. At the same time, very likely, in another part of the house, my - mother would be entertaining another company, such a different company—beautiful - ladies, in bright-hued silks, with shining jewels, and diamond-dust in - their hair (yes, in that ancient period, ladies of fashion, on the - Continent at least, used to powder their hair with a glittering substance - known as “diamond-dust”) and officers in gold-embroidered uniforms, and - men in dress-suits. And there would be music, and dancing, or theatricals, - or a masquerade, and always a lovely supper—to some of whose - unconsumed delicacies I would fall heir next day. - </p> - <p> - Only four of Mr. Ambrose’s visitors at all detach themselves, as - individuals, from the cloud. - </p> - <p> - One was Mr. Oddo Yodo. Mr. Oddo Yodo was a small, grey-bearded, - dark-skinned Hungarian gentleman, with another name, something like Polak - or Bolak. But I called him Mr. Oddo Yodo, because whenever we met, on his - way to or from the chamber of Mr. Ambrose, he would bow to me, and smile - pleasantly, and say: “Oddo Yodo, Oddo Yodo.” I discovered, in the end, - that he was paying me the compliment of saluting me in my native tongue. - </p> - <p> - Another was an Irishman, named Slevin. I remember him, a burly creature, - with a huge red beard, because one day he arrived at our house in a state - of appalling drunkenness. I remember the incredulous dismay with which I - saw a man in that condition enter our very house. I remember our old - servant, Alexandre, supporting him to Mr. Ambrose’s door, nodding his head - and making a face the while, to signify his opinion. - </p> - <p> - Still another was a pale young Italian priest, with a tonsure, round and - big as a five-shilling piece, shorn in the midst of a dense growth of - blue-black hair, upon which I always vaguely longed to put my finger, to - see how it would feel. I forget his name, but I shall never forget the - man, for he had an extraordinary talent; he could write <i>upside-down</i>. - He would take a sheet of paper, and, beginning with the last letter, write - my name for me upside-down, terminating it at the first initial with a - splendid flourish. You will not wonder that I remember him. - </p> - <p> - The visitor that I remember best, though, was a woman named Arseneff. She - had short sandy hair, and she dressed in the ugliest black frocks, and she - wore steel-rimmed spectacles; but she was a dear soul, notwithstanding. - One afternoon she was shown into the room where I chanced to be studying - my arithmetic lesson, to wait for Mr. Ambrose. And first, she sat down - beside me, in the kindest fashion, and helped me out with my sums; and - then (it is conceivable that I may have encouraged her by some - cross-questioning) she told me the saddest, saddest story about herself. - She told me that her husband had been the editor of a newspaper in Russia, - and that he had published an article in his paper, saying that there ought - to be schools where the poor people, who had to work all day, could go in - the evening, and learn to read and write. And just for that, for nothing - more than that, her husband and her two sons, who were his - assistant-editors, had been arrested, and chained up with murderers and - thieves and all the worst sorts of criminals, and forced to march, <i>on - foot</i>, across thousands of miles of snow-covered country, to Siberia, - where they had to work as convicts in the mines. And her husband, she - said, had died of it; but her two sons were still there, working as - convicts in the mines. She showed me their photographs, and she showed me - a button, rather a pretty button of coloured glass, with gilt specks in - it, that she had cut from the coat of one of them, when he had been - arrested and taken from her. Poor Arséneff; my heart went out to her, and - we became fast friends. She was never tired of talking, nor I of hearing, - of her sons; and she gave me a good deal of practical assistance in my - arithmetical researches, so that, at the Lycée where I was then an <i>externe</i>, - I passed for an authority on Long Division. - </p> - <p> - Mr. Ambrose’s visitors came night after night, and shut themselves up with - him in his room, and stayed there, talking, talking, till long past - bed-time; but I never knew what it was all about. Indeed, I can’t remember - that I ever felt any curiosity to know. It was simply a fact, a quite - uninteresting fact, which one witnessed, and accepted, and thought no more - of. Mr. Ambrose was an Olympian. Kenneth Grahame has reminded us with what - superior unconcern, at the Golden Age, one regards the habits and doings - and affairs of the Olympians. - </p> - <p> - And then, quite suddenly, Mr. Ambrose left us. He packed up his things and - his books, and went away; and I understood, somehow, that he would not be - coming back. I did not ask where he was going, nor why he was going. His - departure, like his presence, was a fact which I accepted without - curiosity. Not without satisfaction, though; it was distinctly nice to - feel that the house was rid of him. - </p> - <p> - And then seven or eight years passed, the longest seven or eight years, I - suppose, that one is likely ever to encounter, the seven or eight years in - the course of which one grows from a child of ten or eleven to a youth - approaching twenty. And during those years I had plenty of other things to - think of than Mr. Ambrose. It was time more than enough for him to become - a mere dim outline on the remote horizon. - </p> - <p> - My childish conception of the man, as you perceive, was sufficiently - rudimental. He represented to me the incarnation of a single principle: - severity; as I, no doubt, represented to him the incarnation of vexatious - noise. For the rest, we overlooked each other. I had been told that he was - one of the greatest and wisest and best men in the world: you have seen - how little that mattered to me. It would probably have mattered quite as - little if the information had been more specific, if I had been told - everything there was to tell about him, all that I have learned since. How - could it have mattered to a child to know that the testy old man who sat - in his room all day and wrote, and every evening received a stream of - shabby visitors, was the prophet of a new social faith, the founder of a - new sect, the author of a new system for the regeneration of mankind, of a - new system of human government, a new system of ethics, a new system of - economics? What could such a word as “anthropocracy” have conveyed to me? - Or such a word as “philarchy”? Or such a phrase as “Unification <i>versus</i> - Civilisation"? - </p> - <p> - My childish conception of the man was extremely rudimental. But I saw a - good deal of him again when I was eighteen, nineteen; and at eighteen, - nineteen, one begins, more or less, to observe and appreciate, to receive - impressions and to form conclusions. Anyhow, the impressions I received of - Mr. Ambrose, the conclusions I formed respecting him, when I was eighteen - or nineteen, are still very fresh in my mind; and I can’t help believing - that on the whole they were tolerably just. I think they were just, - because they seem to explain him; they seem to explain him in big and in - little. They explain his career, his failure, his table manners, his - testiness, his disregard of other people’s rights and feelings, his - apparent selfishness; they explain the queerest of the many queer things - he did. They explain his taking the bank the other night at baccarat, for - instance; and they explain what happened afterwards, before the night was - done. - </p> - <p> - One evening, when I was eighteen or nineteen, coming home from the Latin - Quarter, where I was a student, to dine with my people, in the Rue - Oudinot, I found Mr. Ambrose in the drawing-room. Or, if you will, I found - a stranger in the drawing-room, but a stranger whom it took me only a - minute or two to recognise. My father, at my entrance, had smiled, with a - little air of mystery, and said to me, “Here is an old friend of yours. - Can you tell who it is?” And the stranger, also—somewhat faintly—smiling, - had risen, and offered me his hand. I looked at him—looked at him—and, - in a minute,% I exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Ambrose!” - </p> - <p> - I can see him now almost as clearly as I saw him then, when he stood - before me, faintly smiling: tall and thin, stooping a little, dressed in - black, with a long broad beard, long hair, and a pale, worn, aquiline - face. It is the face especially that comes back to me, pale and worn and - finely aquiline, the face, the high white brow, the deep eyes set wide - apart, the faint, faded smile: a striking face—an intellectual face—a - handsome face, despite many wrinkles—an indescribably sad face, even - a tragic face—and yet, for some reason, a face that was not - altogether sympathetic. Something, something in it, had the effect rather - of chilling you, of leaving you where you were, than of warming and - attracting you; something hard to fix, perhaps impossible to name. A - certain suggestion of remoteness, of aloofness? A suggestion of - abstraction from his surroundings and his company, of inattention, of - indifference to them? Of absorption in matters alien to them, outside - their sphere? I did not know. But there was surely something in his face - not perfectly sympathetic. - </p> - <p> - I had exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Ambrose!” To that he had responded, “Ah, you - have a good memory.” And then we shook hands, and he sat down again. His - hand was thin and delicate, and slightly cold. His voice was a trifle dry, - ungenial. Then he asked me the inevitable half-dozen questions about - myself—how old I was, what I was studying, and so forth—but - though he asked them with an evident intention of being friendly, one felt - that he was all the while half thinking of something else, and that he - never really took in one’s answers. - </p> - <p> - And gradually he seemed to become unconscious of my presence, resuming the - conversation with my father, which, I suppose, had been interrupted by my - arrival. - </p> - <p> - “The world has forgotten me. My followers have dropped away. You yourself—where - is your ancient ardour? The cause I have lived for stands still. My - propaganda is arrested. I am poor, I am obscure, I am friendless, and I am - sixty-five years old. But the great ideals, the great truths, I have - taught, remain. They are like gold which I have mined. There the gold - lies, between the covers of my books, as in so many caskets. Some day, in - its necessities, the world will find it. What is excellent cannot perish. - It may lie hid, but it cannot perish.” - </p> - <p> - That is one of the things I remember his saying to my father, on that - first evening of our renewed acquaintance. And, at table, I noticed, he - ate and drank in a joyless, absent-minded manner, and made unusual uses of - his knife and fork, and very unusual noises. And, by-and-by, in the midst - of a silence, my mother spoke to a servant, whereupon, suddenly, he - glanced up, with vague eyes, and the frown of one troubled in the depths - of a brown study, and I could have sworn it was on the tip of his tongue - to say <i>hist-hist!</i> - </p> - <p> - He stayed with us for several months—from the beginning of November - till February or March, I think—and during that period I saw him - very nearly every day, and heard him accomplish a tremendous deal of talk. - </p> - <p> - I tried, besides, to read some of his books, an effort, however, from - which I retired, baffled and bewildered: they were a thousand miles above - the apprehension of a nineteen-year-old <i>potache</i>; and I did actually - read to its end a book about him: <i>Augustus Ambrose, the Friend of Man: - an Account of his Life, and an Analysis of his Teachings. By one of his - Followers. Turin: privately printed</i>, 1858. Of the identity of that - “Follower,” by-the-bye, I got an inkling, from a rather conscious, half - sheepish smile, which I detected in the face of my own father, when he saw - the volume in my hands. I read his <i>Life</i> to its end; and I tried to - read <i>The Foundations of Mono-pantology, and Anthropocracy: a Remedy for - the Diseases of the Body Politic, and Philarchy: a Vision </i>; and I - listened while he accomplished a tremendous deal of talk. His talk was - always (for my taste) too impersonal; it was always of ideas, of theories, - never of concrete things, never of individual men and women. Indeed, the - mention of an individual would often only serve him as an excuse for a new - flight into the abstract. For example, I had learned, from the <i>Life</i>, - that he had been an associate of Mazzini’s and Garibaldi’s in ’48, and - that it was no less a person than Victor Emmanuel himself, who had named - him—in an official proclamation, too—“the Friend of Man.” So, - one day, I asked him to tell me something about Victor Emmanuel, and - Mazzini, and Garibaldi. “You knew them. I should be so glad to hear about - them from one who knew them.” - </p> - <p> - “Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour—I knew them all; I knew - them well. I worked with them, fought under them, wrote for them, spoke - for them, throughout the long struggle for the unification of Italy. I did - so because unification is my supreme ideal, the grandest ideal the human - mind has ever formed. I worked for the unification of Italy, because I was - and am working for the unification of mankind, and the unification of - Italy was a step towards, and an illustration of, that sublime object. Let - others prate of civilisation; civilisation means nothing more than the - invention and multiplication of material conveniences—nothing more - than that. But unification—the unification of mankind—that is - the crusade which I have preached, the cause for which I have lived. To - unify the scattered nations of this earth into one single nation, one - single solidarity, under one government, speaking one language, professing - and obeying one religion, pursuing one aim. The religion—Christianity, - with a purified Papacy. The government—anthropocratic philarchy, the - reign of men by the law of Love. The language—Albigo. Albigo, which - means, at the same time, both human and universal—from Albi, - pertaining to man, and God, pertaining to the whole, the all. Albigo: a - language which I have discovered, as the result of years of research, to - exist already, and everywhere, as the base, the common principle, of all - known languages, and which I have extracted, in its original simplicity, - from the overgrowths which time and separateness have allowed to - accumulate upon it. Albigo: the tongue which all men speak unconsciously: - the universal human tongue. And, finally, the aim—the common, single - aim—the highest possible spiritual development of man, the highest - possible culture of the human soul.” - </p> - <p> - That is what I received in response to my request for a few personal - reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, and Mazzini. - </p> - <p> - You will infer that Mr. Ambrose lacked humour. But his most conspicuous - trait, his preponderant trait—the trait which, I think, does more - than any other to explain him, him and his fortunes and his actions—was - the trait I had vaguely noticed in our first five minutes’ intercourse, - after my re-introduction to him; the trait which, I have conjectured, - perhaps gave its unsympathetic quality to his face: abstraction from his - surroundings and his company, inattention, indifference, to them. - </p> - <p> - On that first evening, you may remember, he had asked me certain - questions; but I had felt that he was thinking of something else. I had - answered them, but I had felt that he never heard my answers. - </p> - <p> - That little negative incident, I believe, gives the key to his character, - to his fortunes, to his actions. - </p> - <p> - The Friend of Man was totally deaf and blind and insensible to <i>men</i>. - Man, as a metaphysical concept, was the major premiss of his philosophy; - men, as individuals, he was totally unable to realise. He could not see - you, he could not hear you, he could get no “realising sense” of you. You - spoke, but your voice was an unintelligible murmur in his ears; it was - like the sound of the wind—it might annoy him, disturb him (in which - case he would seek to silence it with a <i>hist-hist</i>), it could not - signify to him. You stood up, in front of him; but you were invisible to - him; he saw beyond you. And even when he spoke, he did not speak to you, - he spoke to the walls and ceiling—he thought aloud. He took no - account of his auditor’s capacities, of the subject that would interest - him, of the language he would understand. You asked him to tell you about - Mazzini, and he discoursed of Albigo and the Unification of Mankind. And - then, when he ceased to speak, directly he fell silent and somebody else - took the word, the gates of his mind were shut; he withdrew behind them, - returned to his private meditations, and so remained, detached, solitary, - preoccupied, till the time came when he was moved to speak again. He was - the Friend of Man, but men did not exist for him. He was like a - mathematician busied with a calculation, eager for the sum-total, but - heedless of the separate integers. My father—my mother—I—whosoever - approached him—was a phantasm: a convenient phantasm, possibly, with - a house where he might be lodged and fed, with a purse whence might be - supplied the funds requisite for the publication of his works; or possibly - a troublesome phantasm, that worried him by shouting at its play: but a - phantasm, none the less. - </p> - <p> - Years ago, my downright Aunt Elizabeth had disposed of him with two words: - a charlatan, an impostor. My Aunt Elizabeth was utterly mistaken. Mr. - Ambrose’s sincerity was absolute. The one thing he professed belief in, he - believed in with an intensity that rendered him unconscious of all things - else; his one conviction was so predominant as to exclude all other - convictions. What was the one thing he believed in, the one thing he was - convinced of? It would be easy to reply, himself; to declare that, at - least, when she had called him an egotist, my Aunt Elizabeth had been - right. It would be easy, but I am sure it would be untrue. The thing he - believed in, the thing he was convinced of, the only thing in this whole - universe which he saw, was his vision. That, I am persuaded, is the - explanation of the man. It explains him in big and in little. It explains - his career, his fortunes, his failure, his table-manners, his testiness, - and the queerest of his actions. - </p> - <p> - He saw nothing in this universe but his vision; he did not see the earth - beneath him, nor the people round him. Is that not enough to explain - everything, almost to justify anything? Doesn’t it explain his failure, - for example? The fact that the world ignored him, that his followers - dropped away from him, that nobody read his books? For, since he was never - convinced of the world, how could he convince the world? Since he had no - “realising sense” of men, how could he hold men? Since, in writing his - books, he took no account of human nature, no account of human taste, - endurance—since he wrote his books, as he spoke his speeches, not to - you or me, not to flesh and blood, but to the walls and ceiling, to space, - to the unpeopled air—how was it possible that he should have human - readers? It explains his failure, the failure of a long life of - unremitting labour. He was learned, he was in earnest, he was - indefatigable; and the net product of his learning, his earnestness, his - industry, was nil, because there can be no reciprocity established between - something and nothing. - </p> - <p> - It explains his failure; and it explains—it almost excuses—in - a sense it even almost justifies—the queerest of his actions. Other - people did not exist for him; therefore other people had no feelings to be - considered, no rights, no possessions, to be respected. They did not - exist, therefore they were in no way to be reckoned with. Their - observation was not to be avoided, their power was not to be feared. They - could not <i>do</i> anything; they could not see what <i>he</i> did. - </p> - <p> - The queerest of his actions? You will suppose that I must have some very - queer action still to record. Well, there was his action the other night - at the Casino, for one thing; I haven’t yet done with that. But the - queerest of all his actions, I think, was his treatment of Israela, his - step-daughter Israela.... - </p> - <p> - During the visit Mr. Ambrose paid us in Paris, when I was nineteen, he, - whose early disciples had dropped away, made a new disciple: a Madame - Fontanas, a Mexican woman—of Jewish extraction, I imagine—a - widow, with a good deal of money. Israela, her daughter, was a fragile, - pale-faced, dark-haired, great-eyed little girl, of twelve or thirteen. - Madame Fontanas sat at Mr. Ambrose’s feet, and listened, and believed. - Perhaps she conceived an affection for him; perhaps she only thought that - here was a great philosopher, a great philanthropist, and that he ought to - have some one to take permanent care of him, and reduce the material - friction of his path to a minimum. Anyhow, when the spring came, she - married him. I have no definite information on the subject, but I am sure - in my own mind that it was she who took the initiative—that she - offered, and he vaguely accepted, her hand. Anyhow, in the spring she - married him, and carried him off to her Mexican estates. - </p> - <p> - Five or six years later (by the sheerest hazard) I found him living in - London with Israela; in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in a dreary - street, in Pimlico. I met him one afternoon, by the sheerest hazard, in - Piccadilly, and accompanied him home. (It was characteristic of him, - by-the-bye, that, though we met face to face, and I stopped and exclaimed - and held out my hand, he gazed at me with blank eyes, and I was obliged to - repeat my name twice before he could recall me.) He was living in London, - for the present, he told me, in order to see a work through the press. “A - great work, the crown, the summary of all my work. <i>The Final Extensions - of Monopantology.</i> - </p> - <p> - “It is in twelve volumes, with plates, coloured plates.” - </p> - <p> - “And Mrs. Ambrose is well?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my wife—my wife is dead. She died two or three years ago,” he - answered, with the air of one dismissing an irrelevance. - </p> - <p> - “And Israela?” I pursued, by-and-by. - </p> - <p> - “Israela?” His brows knitted themselves perplexedly, then, in an instant, - cleared. “Oh, Israela. Ah, yes. Israela is living with me.” - </p> - <p> - And upon my suggesting that I should like to call upon her, he replied - that he was on his way home now, and, if I cared to do so, I might come - with him. - </p> - <p> - They were living in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in the dreariest of - streets. But Israela welcomed me with a warmth I had not anticipated. “Oh, - I am so glad to see you, so glad, so glad,” she cried, and her big, dark - eyes filled with tears, and she clung to my hand. I was surprised by her - emotion, because, after all, I was scarcely other than a stranger to her; - a man she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl, and even then had seen - only once or twice. I understood it afterwards, however: when one day she - confided to me that—excepting Mr. Ambrose himself, and servants and - tradesmen—I was the first human being she had exchanged a word with - since they had come to London! “We don’t know anybody—not a soul, - not a soul. He doesn’t want to know people—he is so absorbed in his - work. I could not make acquaintances alone. And we had been here four - months, before he met you and brought you home.” - </p> - <p> - Israela was tall, and very slight; very delicate-looking, with a face - intensely pale, all the paler for the soft dark hair that curled above it, - and the great dark eyes that looked out of it. Considering that she must - have inherited a decent fortune from her mother, I wondered, rather, to - see her so plainly dressed: she wore the plainest straight black frocks. - And, of course, I wondered also to find them living in such dismal - lodgings. However, it was not for me to ask questions; and if presently - the mystery cleared itself up, it was by a sort of accident. - </p> - <p> - I called at the house in Pimlico as often as I could; and I took Israela - out a good deal, to lunch or dine at restaurants; and when the weather - smiled, we would make little jaunts into the country, to Hampton Court, or - Virginia Water, or where not. And one day she came to tea with me, at my - chambers. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you’ve got a piano,” was her first observation, and she flew to the - instrument, and seated herself, and began to play. She played without - pause for nearly an hour, I think: Chopin, Chopin, Chopin. And when she - rose, I said, “Would you mind telling me why you—a brilliant pianist - like you—why you haven’t a piano in your own rooms?” - </p> - <p> - “We can’t afford one,” she answered simply. - </p> - <p> - “What do you mean—you can’t afford one?” - </p> - <p> - “He says we can’t afford one. Don’t you know—we are very poor?” - </p> - <p> - “You can’t be very poor,” I exclaimed. “Your mother was rich.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, my mother was rich. I don’t know what has become of her money.” - </p> - <p> - “Didn’t she leave a will?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, she left a will. She left a will making my step-father my - guardian, my trustee.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what has he done with your money?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know. I only know that we are very poor—that we can’t - afford any luxuries—that we can just barely contrive to live, in the - quietest manner. He hardly ever gives me any money for myself. A few - shillings, very rarely, when I ask him.” - </p> - <p> - “My dear child,” I cried, “I see it all, I see it perfectly. You’ve got - plenty of money, you’ve got your mother’s fortune. But he’s spending it - for his own purposes. He’s paying for the printing of his gigantic book - with it. Twelve volumes, and plates, coloured plates! It’s exactly like - him. The only thing he’s conscious of is the importance of publishing his - book. He needs money. He takes it where he finds it. He’s spending your - money for the printing of his book; and that’s why you have to live in - dreary lodgings in the dreariest part of London, and do without a piano. - <i>He</i> doesn’t care how he lives—he doesn’t know—he’s - unconscious of everything but his book. My dear child, you must stop him, - you mustn’t let him go on.” - </p> - <p> - Israela was incredulous at first, but I argued and insisted, till, in the - end, she said, “Perhaps you are right. But even so, what can I do? How can - I stop him?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, that’s a question for a solicitor. We must see a solicitor. A - solicitor will know how to stop him.” - </p> - <p> - But at this proposal, Israela shook her head. “Oh, no, I will have no - solicitor. Even supposing your idea is true, I can’t set a lawyer upon my - mother’s husband. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps he is right. - Perhaps the publication of his book <i>is</i> very important. I’m sure my - mother would have thought so. It was her money. Perhaps he is right to - spend it for the publication of his book.” - </p> - <p> - Israela positively declined to consult a solicitor; and so they continued - to live narrowly in Pimlico, and he proceeded with the issue of <i>The - Final Extensions of Monopantology</i>, in twelve volumes, with coloured - plates. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile, the brown London autumn had turned into a black London winter; - and Israela, delicate-looking at its outset, grew more and more - delicate-looking every day. - </p> - <p> - “After all, what does it matter? The money will be his, and he can do as - he wishes with it honestly as soon as I am dead,” she said to me, one - evening, with a smile I did not like. - </p> - <p> - “What on earth do you mean?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “I am going to die,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “You’re mad, you’re morbid,” I cried. “You mustn’t say such things. You’re - not <i>ill?</i> What on earth do you mean?” - </p> - <p> - “I am going to die. I know it. I feel it. I am not ill? I don’t know. I - think I am ill. I feel as if I were going to be ill. I am going to die—I - know I am going to die.” - </p> - <p> - I did what I could to dissipate such black presentiments. I refused to - talk of them. I did what I could to lend a little gaiety to her life. But - Israela grew whiter and more delicate-looking day by day. I was her only - visitor. I had asked if I might not bring a friend or two to see her, but - she had answered, “I’m afraid he would not like it. People coming and - going would disturb him. He can’t bear any noise,” So I was her only - visitor—till, by-and-by, another became necessary. - </p> - <p> - I wonder whether Mr. Ambrose ever really knew that Israela was lying in - her bed at the point of death, and that the man who called twice every day - to see her was a doctor? True, in an absent-minded fashion, he used to - inquire how she was, he used even occasionally to enter the sick-room, and - look at her, and lay his hand on her brow, as if to take her temperature; - but I wonder whether he ever actually <i>realised</i> her condition? He - was terribly preoccupied just then with Volume VIII, At all events, on a - certain melancholy morning in April, he allowed me to conduct him to a - carriage and to help him in; and together we drove to Kensal Green. He was - silent during the drive—thinking hard, I fancied, about some matter - very foreign to our errand.... And as soon as the parson there had rattled - through his office and concluded it, Israela’s step-father pulled out his - watch, and said to me, “Ah, I must hurry off, I must hurry off. I’ve got a - long day’s work before me still.” - </p> - <p> - That was something like ten years ago—the last time I had seen - him.... Until now, to-night, on this sultry night of August, ten years - afterwards, here he had suddenly reappeared to me, holding the bank at - baccarat, at the Grand Cercle of the Casino: Augustus Ambrose, the Friend - of Man, the dreamer, the visionary, holding the bank at baccarat, at the - Grand Cercle of the Casino! - </p> - <p> - I looked at him, in simple astonishment at first, and then gradually I - shaped a theory. “He has probably come pretty nearly to the end of - Israela’s fortune; it would be like him to spend interest and principal as - well. And now he finds himself in need of money. And he is just - unpractical enough to fancy that he can supply his needs by play. Or—or - is it possible he has a system? Perhaps he imagines he has a system.” And - then I thought how old he had grown, how terribly, terribly he had - decayed. - </p> - <p> - I looked at him. He was dealing. He dealt to the right, to the left, and - to himself. But when he glanced at his own two cards, he made a little - face. The next instant he had dropped them under the table, and helped - himself to two fresh ones.... - </p> - <p> - The thing was done without the faintest effort at concealment, in a room - where at least forty pairs of eyes were fixed upon him. - </p> - <p> - There was, of course, an immediate uproar. In an instant every one was on - his feet; Mr. Ambrose was surrounded. Men were shaking their fists in his - face, screaming at him excitedly, calling him ugly names. He gazed at them - placidly, vaguely. It was clear he did not grasp the situation. - </p> - <p> - Somebody must needs intervene. - </p> - <p> - “I saw what Monsieur did. I am sure it was with no ill intention. He made - no effort at concealment. It was done in a fit of absence of mind. Look at - him. He is a very old man. You can see he is bewildered. He does not even - yet understand what has happened. He should never have come here, at his - age. He should never have been allowed to take the bank. Let the croupier - pay both sides. Then I will take Monsieur away.” - </p> - <p> - Somehow I got him out of the Casino, and led him to his hotel, a small - hotel in the least favoured quarter of the town, the name of which I had a - good deal of difficulty in extracting from him. On the way thither - scarcely a word passed between us. I forbore to tell him who I was; of - course, he did not recognise me. But all the while a pertinacious little - voice within me insisted: “He did it deliberately. He deliberately tried - to cheat. With his gaze concentrated on his vision, he could see nothing - else; he could see no harm in trying to cheat at cards. He needed money—it - didn’t matter how he obtained it. The other players were phantasms—where’s - the harm in cheating phantasms? Only he forgot—or, rather, he never - realised—that the phantasms had eyes, that they could see. That’s - why he made no effort at concealment.”—Was the voice right or wrong? - </p> - <p> - I parted with him at the door of his hotel; but the next day a feeling - grew within me that I ought to call upon him, that I ought at least to - call and take his news. They told me that he had left by an early train - for Paris. - </p> - <p> - As I have been writing these last pages, a line of Browning’s has kept - thrumming through my head. “This high man, with a great thing to pursue... - This high man, with a great thing to pursue...” How does it apply to Mr. - Ambrose? I don’t know—unless, indeed, a high man, with a great thing - to pursue, is to be excused, is to be pitied, rather than blamed, if he - loses his sense, his conscience, of other things, of small things. After - all, wasn’t it because he lost his conscience of small things, that he - missed his great thing? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - TIRALA-TIRALA... - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wonder what the - secret of it is—why that little fragment of a musical phrase has - always had this instant, irresistible power to move me. The tune of which - it formed a part I have never heard; whether it was a merry tune or a sad - tune, a pretty tune or a stupid one, I have no means of guessing. A - sequence of six notes, like six words taken from the middle of a sentence, - it stands quite by itself, detached, fortuitous. If I were to pick it out - for you on the piano, you would scoff at it; you would tell me that it is - altogether pointless and unsuggestive, that any six notes, struck at - haphazard, would signify as much. And I certainly could not, with the - least show of reason, maintain the contrary. I could only wonder the more - why it has always had, for me, this very singular charm. As when I was a - child, so now, after all these years, it is a sort of talisman in my - hands, a thing to conjure with. I have but to breathe it never so softly - to myself, and (if I choose) the actual world melts away, and I am - journeying on wings in dreamland. Whether I choose or not, it always - thrills my heart with responsive echoes, it always wakes a sad, sweet - emotion. - </p> - <p> - I remember quite clearly the day when I first heard it; quite clearly, - though it was more—oh, more than five-and-twenty years ago, and the - days that went before and came after it have entirely lost their outlines, - and merged into a vague golden blur. That day, too, as I look backwards, - glows in the distance with a golden light; and if I were to speak upon my - impulse, I should vow it was a smiling day of June, clothed in sunshine - and crowned with roses. But then, if I were to speak upon my impulse, I - should vow that it was June at Saint-Graal the whole year round. When I - stop to think, I remember that it was a rainy day, and that the ground was - sprinkled with dead leaves. I remember standing at a window in my - grandmother’s room, and gazing out with rueful eyes. It rained doggedly, - relentlessly—even, it seemed to me, defiantly, spitefully, as if it - took a malicious pleasure in penning me up within doors. The mountains, - the Pyrenees, a few miles to the south, were completely hidden by the veil - of waters. The sodden leaves, brown patches on the lawn and in the - pathways, struggled convulsively, like wounded birds, to fly from the - gusts of wind, but fell back fluttering heavily. One could almost have - touched the clouds, they hung so low, big ragged tufts of sad-coloured - cotton-wool, blown rapidly through the air, just above the writhing - tree-tops. Everywhere in the house there was a faint fragrance of burning - wood: fires had been lighted to keep the dampness out. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Indeed, if it had been a fair day, my adventure could scarcely have - befallen. I should have been abroad, in the garden or the forest, playing - with André, our farmer’s son; angling, with a bit of red worsted as bait, - for frogs in the pond; trying to catch lizards on the terrace; lying under - a tree with <i>Don Quixote</i> or <i>Le Capitaine Fracasse</i>; visiting - Manuela in her cottage; or perhaps, best of all, spending the afternoon - with Hélène, at Granjolaye. It was because the rain interdicted these - methods of amusement that I betook myself for solace to <i>Constantinople</i>. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - I don’t know why—I don’t think any one knew why—that part of - our house was called Constantinople; but it had been called so from time - immemorial, and we all accepted it as a matter of course. It was the - topmost story of the East Wing—three rooms: one little room, by way - of ante-chamber, into which you entered from a corkscrew staircase; then - another little room at your left; and then a big room, a long dim room, - with only two windows, one at either end. And these rooms served as a sort - of Hades for departed household gods. They were crowded, crowded to - overflowing, with such wonderful old things! Old furniture—old - straight-backed chairs, old card-tables, with green cloth tops, and brass - claws for feet, old desks and cabinets, the dismembered relics of old - four-post bedsteads; old clothes—old hats, boots, cloaks—green - silk calashes, like bonnets meant for the ladies of Brobdingnag—and - old hoop-petticoats, the skeletons of dead toilets; old books, newspapers, - pictures; old lamps and candlesticks, clocks, fire-irons, vases; an old - sedan-chair; old spurs, old swords, old guns and pistols; generations upon - generations of superannuated utilities and vanities, slumbering in one - another’s shadows, under a common sheet of dust, and giving off a thin, - penetrating, ancient smell. - </p> - <p> - When it rained, Constantinople was my ever-present refuge. It was a land - of penumbra and mystery, a realm of perpetual wonderment, a mine of - inexhaustible surprises. I never visited it without finding something new, - without getting a sensation. One day, when André was there with me, we - both saw a ghost—yes, as plainly as at this moment I see the paper - I’m writing on; but I won’t turn aside now to speak of that. And as for my - finds, on two or three occasions, at least, they had more than a - subjective metaphysical importance. The first was a chest filled with - jewellery and trinkets, an iron chest, studded with nails, in size and - shape like a small trunk, with a rounded lid. I dragged it out of a dark - corner, from amidst a quantity of rubbish, and (it wasn’t even locked!) - fancy the eyes I made when I beheld its contents: half-a-dozen elaborately - carved, high-back tortoise-shell combs, ranged in a morocco case; a - beautiful old-fashioned watch, in the form of a miniature guitar; an - enamelled snuff-box; and then no end of rings, brooches, buckles, seals, - and watch-keys, set with precious stones—not very precious stones, - perhaps—only garnets, amethysts, carnelians; but mercy, how they - glittered! I ran off in great excitement to call my grandmother; and she - called my uncle Edmond; and he, alas, applied the laws of seigniory to the - transaction, and I saw my trover appropriated. My other important finds - were appropriated also, but about them I did not care so much—they - were only papers. One was a certificate, dated in the Year III, and - attesting that my grandfather’s father had taken the oath of allegiance to - the Republic. As I was a fierce Legitimist, this document afforded me but - moderate satisfaction. The other was a Map of the World, covering a sheet - of cardboard nearly a yard square, executed in pen-and-ink, but with such - a complexity of hair-lines, delicate shading, and ornate lettering, that, - until you had examined it closely, you would have thought it a carefully - finished steel-engraving. It was signed “Herminie de Pontacq, 1818”; that - is to say, by my grandmother herself, who in 1818 had been twelve years - old; dear me, only twelve years old! It was delightful and marvellous to - think that my own grandmother, in 1818, had been so industrious, and - painstaking, and accomplished a little girl. I assure you, I felt almost - as proud as if I had done it myself. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - The small room at the left of the ante-chamber was consecrated to the <i>roba</i> - of an uncle of my grandfather’s, who had been a sugar-planter in the - province of New Orleans, in the reign of Louis XVI. He had also been a - colonel, and so the room was called the Colonel’s room. Here were - numberless mementos of the South: great palm-leaf fans, conch-shells, and - branches of coral, broad-brimmed hats of straw, monstrous white umbrellas, - and, in a corner, a collection of long slender wands, ending in thick - plumes of red and yellow feathers. These, I was informed, the - sugar-planter’s slaves, standing behind his chair, would flourish about - his head, to warn off the importunate winged insects that abound <i>là-bas</i>. - He had died at Paris in 1793, and of nothing more romantic than a - malignant fever, foolish person, when he might so easily have been - guillotined! (It was a matter of permanent regret with me that <i>none</i> - of our family had been guillotined.) But his widow had survived him for - more than forty years, and her my grandmother remembered perfectly. A fat - old Spanish Créole lady, fat and very lazy—oh, but very lazy indeed. - At any rate, she used to demand the queerest services of the negress who - was in constant attendance upon her. “Nanette, Nanette, tourne tête à moi. - Veux”—summon your fortitude—“veux cracher!” Ah, well, we are - told, they made less case of such details in those robust old times. How - would she have fared, poor soul, had she fallen amongst us squeamish - decadents? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - It was into the Colonel’s room that I turned to-day. There was a cupboard - in its wall that I had never thoroughly examined. The lower shelves, - indeed, I knew by heart; they held, for the most part, empty medicine - bottles. But the upper ones? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - I shut my eyes for a moment, and the flavour of that far-away afternoon - comes back fresher in my memory than yesterday’s. I am perched on a chair, - in the dim light of Constantinople, at Saint-Graal; my nostrils are full - of a musty, ancient smell; I can hear the rain pat-pattering on the roof, - the wind whistling at the window, and, faintly, in a distant quarter of - the house, my cousin Elodie playing her exercises monotonously on the - piano. I am balancing myself on tip-toe, craning my neck, with only one - care, one preoccupation, in the world—to get a survey of the top - shelf of the closet in the Colonel’s room. The next to the top, and the - next below that, I already command; they are vacant of everything save - dust. But the top one is still above my head, and how to reach it seems a - terribly vexed problem, of which, for a little while, motionless, with - bent brows, I am rapt in meditation. And then, suddenly, I have an - inspiration—I see my way. - </p> - <p> - It was not for nothing that my great-aunt Radigonde (think of having had a - great-aunt named Radigonde, and yet never having seen her! She died before - I was born—isn’t Fate unkind?)—it was not for nothing that my - great-aunt Radigonde, from 1820 till its extinction in 1838, had - subscribed to the <i>Revue Rose—La Revue Rose; Echo du Bon Ton; - Miroir de la Mode; paraissant tous les mois; dirigée par une Dame de la - Cour</i>; nor was it in vain, either, that my great-aunt Radigonde had had - the annual volumes of this fashionable intelligencer bound. Three or four - of them now, piled one above the other on my chair, lent me the altitude I - needed; and the top shelf yielded up its secret. - </p> - <p> - It was an abominably dusty secret, and it was quite a business to wipe it - off. Then I perceived that it was a box, a square box, about eighteen - inches long and half as deep, made of polished mahogany, inlaid with - scrolls and flourishes of satin-wood. Opened, it proved to be a - dressing-case. It was lined with pink velvet and white brocaded silk. - There was a looking-glass, in a pink velvet frame, with an edge of gold - lace, that swung up on a hinged support of tarnished ormolu; a sere and - yellow looking-glass, that gave back a reluctant, filmy image of my face. - There were half-a-dozen pear-shaped bottles, of wine-coloured glass, with - tarnished gilt tops. There was a thing that looked like the paw of a small - animal, the fur of which, at one end, was reddened, as if it had been - rubbed in some red powder. The velvet straps that had once presumably held - combs and brushes, had been despoiled by an earlier hand than mine; but of - two pockets in the lid the treasures were intact: a tortoise-shell - housewife, containing a pair of scissors, a thimble, and a bodkin, and a - tortoise-shell purse, each prettily incrusted with silver and lined with - thin pink silk. - </p> - <p> - In front, between two of the gilt-topped bottles, an oval of pink velvet, - with a tiny bird in ormolu perched upon it, was evidently movable—a - cover to something. When I had lifted it, I saw, first, a little pane of - glass, and then, through that, the brass cylinder and long steel comb of a - musical box. Wasn’t it an amiable conceit, whereby my lady should be - entertained with tinkling harmonies the while her eyes and fingers were - busied in the composition of her face? Was it a frequent one in old - dressing-cases? - </p> - <p> - Oh, yes, the key was there—a gilt key, coquettishly decorated with a - bow of pink ribbon; and when I had wound the mechanism up, the cylinder, - to my great relief, began to turn—to my relief, for I had feared - that the spring might be broken, or something; springs are so apt to be - broken in this disappointing world. The cylinder began to turn—but, - alas, in silence, or almost in silence, emitting only a faintly audible, - rusty gr-r-r-r, a sort of guttural grumble; until, all at once, when I was - least expecting it—tirala-tirala—it trilled out clearly, - crisply, six silvery notes, and then relapsed into its rusty gr-r-r-r. - </p> - <p> - So it would go on and on till it ran down. A minute or two of creaking and - croaking, as it were, whilst it cleared its old asthmatic throat, then a - sudden silvery tirala-tirala, then a catch, a cough, and - mutter-mutter-mutter. Or was it more like an old woman maundering in her - sleep, who should suddenly quaver out a snatch from a ditty of her - girlhood, and afterwards mumble incoherently again? - </p> - <p> - I suppose the pin-points on the cylinder, all save just those six, were - worn away; or, possibly, those teeth of the steel comb were the only ones - that retained elasticity enough to vibrate. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - A sequence of six notes, as inconclusive as six words plucked at random - from the middle of a sentence; as void of musical value as six such words - would be of literary value. I wonder why it has always had this instant, - irresistible power to move me. It has always been a talisman in my hands, - a thing to conjure with. As when I was a child, so now, after twenty - years, I have but to breathe it to myself, and, if I will, the actual - world melts away, and I am journeying in dreamland. Whether I will or not, - it always stirs a sad, sweet emotion in my heart. I wonder why. - Tirala-tirala—I dare say, for another, any six notes, struck at - haphazard, would signify as much. But for me—ah, if I could seize - the sentiment it has for me, and translate it into English words, I should - have achieved a sort of miracle. For me, it is the voice of a spirit, - sighing something unutterable. It is an elixir, distilled of unearthly - things, six lucent drops; I drink them, and I am transported into another - atmosphere, and I see visions. It is Aladdin’s lamp; I touch it, and - cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces are mine in the twinkling of an - eye. It is my wishing-cap, my magic-carpet, my key to the Castle of - Enchantment. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - The Castle of Enchantment.... - </p> - <p> - When I was a child the Castle of Enchantment meant—the Future; the - great mysterious Future, away, away there, beneath the uttermost horizon, - where the sky is luminious with tints of rose and pearl; the ineffable - Future, when I should be grownup, when I should be a Man, and when the - world would be my garden, the world and life, and all their riches, mine - to explore, to adventure in, to do as I pleased with! The Future and the - World, the real World, the World that lay beyond our village, beyond the - Forest of Granjolaye, farther than Bayonne, farther even than Pau; the - World one read of and heard strange legends of: Paris, and Bagdad, and - England, and Peru. Oh, how I longed to see it; how hard it was to wait; - how desperately hard to think of the immense number of long years that - must be worn through somehow, before it could come true. - </p> - <p> - But—tirala-tirala!—my little broken bar of music was a - touchstone. At the sound of it, at the thought of it, the Present was - spirited away; Saint-Graal and all our countryside were left a thousand - miles behind; and the Future and the World opened their portals to me, and - I wandered in them where I would. In a sort of trance, with wide eyes and - bated breath, I wandered in them, through enraptured hours. Believe me, it - was a Future, it was a World, of quite unstinted magnificence. My - many-pinnacled Castle of Enchantment was built of gold and silver, ivory, - alabaster, and mother-of-pearl; the fountains in its courts ran with - perfumed waters; and its pleasaunce was an orchard of pomegranates—one - had no need to spare one’s colours. I dare say, too, that it was rather - vague, wrapped in a good deal of roseate haze, and of an architecture that - could scarcely have been reduced to ground-plans and elevations; but what - of that? And oh, the people, the people by whom the World and the Future - were inhabited, the cavalcading knights, the beautiful princesses! And - their virtues, and their graces, and their talents Î There were no ugly - people, of course, no stupid people, no disagreeable people; everybody was - young and handsome, gallant, generous, and splendidly dressed. And - everybody was astonishingly nice to me, and it never seemed to occur to - anybody that I wasn’t to have my own way in everything. And I had it. Love - and wealth, glory, and all manner of romance—I had them for the - wishing. The stars left their courses to fight for me. And the winds of - heaven vied with each other to prosper my galleons. - </p> - <p> - To be sure, it was nothing more nor other than the day-dream of every - child. But it happened that that little accidental fragment of a phrase of - music had a quite peculiar power to send me off dreaming it. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - I suppose it must be that we pass the Castle of Enchantment while we are - asleep. For surely, at first, it is before us—we are moving towards - it; we can see it shining in the distance; we shall reach it to-morrow, - next week, next year. And then—and then, one morning, we wake up, - and lo! it is behind us. We have passed it—we are sailing away from - it—we can’t turn back. We have passed the Castle of Enchantment! And - yet, it was only to reach it that we made our weary voyage, toiling - through hardships and perils and discouragements, forcing our impatient - hearts to wait; it was only the hope, the certain hope, of reaching it at - last, that made our toiling and our waiting possible. And now—we - have passed it. We are sailing away from it. We can’t turn back. We can - only <i>look</i> back—with the bitterness that every heart knows. If - we look forward, what is there to see, save grey waters, and then a - darkness that we fear to enter? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - When I was a child, it was the great world and the future into which my - talisman carried me, dreaming desirous dreams; the great world, all gold - and marble, peopled by beautiful princesses and cavalcading knights; the - future, when I should be grown-up, when I should be a Man. - </p> - <p> - Well, I am grown-up now, and I have seen something of the great world—something - of its gold and marble, its cavalcading knights and beautiful princesses. - But if I care to dream desirous dreams, I touch my talisman, and wish - myself back in the little world of my childhood. Tirala-tirala—I - breathe it softly, softly; and the sentiment of my childhood comes and - fills my room like a fragrance. I am at Saint-Graal again; and my - grandmother is seated at her window, knitting; and André is bringing up - the milk from the farm; and my cousin Elodie is playing her exercises on - the piano; and Hélène and I are walking in the garden—Hélène in her - short white frock, with a red sash, and her black hair loose down her - back. All round us grow innumerable flowers, and innumerable birds are - singing in the air, and the frogs are croaking, croaking in our pond. And - farther off, the sun shines tranquilly on the chestnut-trees of the Forest - of Granjolaye; and farther still, the Pyrenees gloom purple.... It is not - much, perhaps it is not very wonderful; but oh, how my heart yearns to - recover it, how it aches to realise that it never can. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - In the Morning (says Paraschkine) the Eastern Rim of the Earth was piled - high with Emeralds and Rubies, as if the Gods had massed their Riches - there; but he—ingenuous Pilgrim—who set forth to reach this - Treasure-hoard, and to make the Gods’ Riches his, seemed presently to have - lost his Way; he could no longer discern the faintest Glint of the Gems - that had tempted him: until, in the Afternoon, chancing to turn his Head, - he saw a bewildering Sight—the Emeralds and Rubies were behind him, - immeasurably far behind, piled up in the West. - </p> - <p> - <i>Where</i> is the Castle of Enchantment? <i>When</i> do we pass it? Ah, - well, thank goodness, we all have talismans (like my little broken bit of - a forgotten tune) whereby we are enabled sometimes to visit it in spirit, - and to lose ourselves during enraptured moments among its glistening, - labyrinthine halls. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE INVISIBLE PRINCE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t a masked ball - given by the Countess Wohenhoffen, in Vienna, during carnival week, a year - ago, a man draped in the embroidered silks of a Chinese mandarin, his - features entirely concealed by an enormous Chinese head in cardboard, was - standing in the Wintergarten, the big, dimly lighted conservatory, near - the door of one of the gilt-and-white reception-rooms, rather a - stolid-seeming witness of the multi-coloured romp within, when a voice - behind him said, “How do you do, Mr. Field?”—a woman’s voice, an - English voice. - </p> - <p> - The mandarin turned round. - </p> - <p> - From a black mask, a pair of blue-grey eyes looked into his broad, bland - Chinese face; and a black domino dropped him an extravagant little - curtsey. - </p> - <p> - “How do you do?” he responded. “I’m afraid I’m not Mr. Field; but I’ll - gladly pretend I am, if you’ll stop and talk with me. I was dying for a - little human conversation.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you’re afraid you’re not Mr. Field, are you?” the mask replied - derisively. “Then why did you turn when I called his name?” - </p> - <p> - “You mustn’t hope to disconcert me with questions like that,” said he. “I - turned because I liked your voice.” - </p> - <p> - He might quite reasonably have liked her voice, a delicate, clear, soft - voice, somewhat high in register, with an accent, crisp, chiselled, - concise, that suggested wit as well as distinction. She was rather tall, - for a woman; one could divine her slender and graceful, under the - voluminous folds of her domino. - </p> - <p> - She moved a little away from the door, deeper into the conservatory. The - mandarin kept beside her. There, amongst the palms, a <i>fontaine - lumineuse</i> was playing, rhythmically changing colour. Now it was a - shower of rubies; now of emeralds or amethysts, of sapphires, topazes, or - opals. - </p> - <p> - “How pretty,” she said, “and how frightfully ingenious. I am wondering - whether this wouldn’t be a good place to sit down. What do you think?” And - she pointed with a fan to a rustic bench. - </p> - <p> - “I think it would be no more than fair to give it a trial,” he assented. - </p> - <p> - So they sat down on the rustic bench, by the <i>fontaine lumineuse</i>. - </p> - <p> - “In view of your fear that you’re not Mr. Field, it’s rather a coincidence - that at a masked ball in Vienna you should just happen to be English, - isn’t it?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, everybody’s more or less English, in these days, you know,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “There’s some truth in that,” she admitted, with a laugh. “What a - diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy - arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass, and - look like stars. They do look like stars, don’t they? Slightly - over-dressed, showy stars, indeed; stars in the German taste; but stars, - all the same. Then, by day, you know, the purple glass is removed, and you - get the sun—the real sun. Do you notice the delicious fragrance of - lilac? If one hadn’t too exacting an imagination, one might almost - persuade oneself that one was in a proper open-air garden, on a night in - May.... Yes, everybody is more or less English, in these days. That’s - precisely the sort of thing I should have expected Victor Field to say.” - </p> - <p> - “By-the-bye,” questioned the mandarin, “if you don’t mind increasing my - stores of knowledge, who <i>is</i> this fellow Field?” - </p> - <p> - “This fellow Field? Ah, who indeed?” said she. “That’s just what I wish - you’d tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll tell you with pleasure, after you’ve supplied me with the necessary - data,” he promised cheerfully. - </p> - <p> - “Well, by some accounts, he’s a little literary man in London,” she - remarked. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come! You never imagined that I was a little literary man in London,” - protested he. - </p> - <p> - “You might be worse,” she retorted. “However, if the phrase offends you, - I’ll say a rising young literary man, instead. He writes things, you - know.” - </p> - <p> - “Poor chap, does he? But then, that’s a way they have, rising young - literary persons?” His tone was interrogative. - </p> - <p> - “Doubtless,” she agreed. “Poems and stories and things. And book reviews, - I suspect. And even, perhaps, leading articles in the newspapers.” - </p> - <p> - “<i>Toute la lyre enfin?</i> What they call a penny-a-liner?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m sure I don’t know what he’s paid. I should think he’d get rather more - than a penny. He’s fairly successful. The things he does aren’t bad,” she - said. - </p> - <p> - “I must look ’em up,” said he. “But meantime, will you tell me how you - came to mistake me for him? Has he the Chinese type? Besides, what on - earth should a little London literary man be doing at the Countess - Wohenhoffen’s?” - </p> - <p> - “He was standing near the door, over there,” she told him, sweetly, “dying - for a little human conversation, till I took pity on him. No, he hasn’t - exactly the Chinese type, but he’s wearing a Chinese costume, and I should - suppose he’d feel uncommonly hot in that exasperatingly placid Chinese - head. <i>I’m</i> nearly suffocated, and I’m only wearing a <i>loup</i>. - For the rest, why <i>shouldn’t</i> he be here?” - </p> - <p> - “If your <i>loup</i> bothers you, pray take it off. Don’t mind me,” he - urged gallantly. - </p> - <p> - “You’re extremely good,” she responded. “But if I should take off my <i>loup</i>, - you’d be sorry. Of course, manlike, you’re hoping that I’m young and - pretty.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, and aren’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m a perfect fright. I’m an old maid.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. Manlike, I confess I <i>was</i> hoping you’d be young and - pretty. Now my hope has received the strongest confirmation. I’m sure you - are,” he declared triumphantly. - </p> - <p> - “Your argument, with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile and - superficial. Don’t pin your faith to it. Why <i>shouldn’t</i> Victor Field - be here?” she persisted. - </p> - <p> - “The Countess only receives tremendous swells. It’s the most exclusive - house in Europe.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you a tremendous swell?” she wondered. - </p> - <p> - “Rather!” he asseverated. “Aren’t you?” - </p> - <p> - She laughed a little, and stroked her fan, a big fan of fluffy black - feathers. - </p> - <p> - “That’s very jolly,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “What?” said she. - </p> - <p> - “That thing in your lap.” - </p> - <p> - “My fan?” - </p> - <p> - “I expect you’d call it a fan.” - </p> - <p> - “For goodness’ sake, what would <i>you</i> call it?” cried she. - </p> - <p> - “I should call it a fan.” - </p> - <p> - She gave another little laugh. “You have a nice instinct for the <i>mot - juste</i>,” she informed him. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no,” he disclaimed, modestly. “But I can call a fan a fan, when I - think it won’t shock the sensibilities of my hearer.” - </p> - <p> - “If the Countess only receives tremendous swells,” said she, “you must - remember that Victor Field belongs to the Aristocracy of Talent.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, <i>quant à ça</i>, so, from the Wohenhoffens’ point of view, do the - barber and the horse-leech. In this house, the Aristocracy of Talent dines - with the butler.” - </p> - <p> - “Is the Countess such a snob?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “No; she’s an Austrian. They draw the line so absurdly tight in Austria.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, you leave me no alternative,” she argued, “but to conclude - that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn’t you notice, I bobbed him a - curtsey?” - </p> - <p> - “I took the curtsey as a tribute to my Oriental magnificence,” he - confessed. “Field doesn’t sound like an especially patrician name. I’d - give anything to discover who you are. Can’t you be induced to tell me? - I’ll bribe, entreat, threaten—I’ll do anything you think might - persuade you.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll tell you at once, if you’ll own up that you’re Victor Field,” said - she. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’ll own up that I’m Queen Elizabeth if you’ll tell me who you are. - The end justifies the means.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you <i>are</i> Victor Field?” she pursued him eagerly. - </p> - <p> - “If you don’t mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing it?” he - reflected. “Yes. And now, who are you?” - </p> - <p> - “No; I must have an unequivocal avowal,” she stipulated. “Are you or are - you not Victor Field?” - </p> - <p> - “Let us put it at this,” he proposed, “that I’m a good serviceable - imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article is not - procurable.” - </p> - <p> - “Of course, your real name isn’t anything like Victor Field,” she - declared, pensively. - </p> - <p> - “I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one hand - and take back with the other.” - </p> - <p> - “Your real name——” she began. “Wait a moment... Yes, now I - have it. Your real name... It’s rather long. You don’t think it will bore - you?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, if it’s really my real name, I daresay I’m hardened to it,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph Emmanuel - Maria Anna.” - </p> - <p> - “Mercy upon me,” he cried, “what a name! You ought to have broken it to me - in instalments. And it’s all Christian name at that. Can’t you spare me - just a little rag of a surname, for decency’s sake?” he pleaded. - </p> - <p> - “The surnames of royalties don’t matter, Monseigneur,” she said, with a - flourish. - </p> - <p> - “Royalties? What? Dear me, here’s rapid promotion! I am royal now! And a - moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London.” - </p> - <p> - “<i>L’un n’empêche pas l’autre</i>. Have you never heard the story of the - Invisible Prince?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “I adore irrelevancy,” said he. “I seem to have read something about an - invisible prince, when I was young. A fairy tale, wasn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “The irrelevancy is only apparent. The story I mean is a story of real - life. Have you ever heard of the Duke of Zeln?” - </p> - <p> - “Zeln? Zeln?” he repeated, reflectively. “No, I don’t think so.” - </p> - <p> - She clapped her hands. “Really, you do it admirably. If I weren’t - perfectly sure of my facts, I believe I should be taken in. Zeln, as any - history would tell you, as any old atlas would show you, was a little - independent duchy in the centre of Germany.” - </p> - <p> - “Poor dear thing! Like Jonah in the centre of the whale,” he murmured, - sympathetically. - </p> - <p> - “Hush. Don’t interrupt. Zeln was a little independent German duchy, and - the Duke of Zeln was its sovereign. After the war with France it was - absorbed by Prussia. But the ducal family still rank as royal highnesses. - Of course, you’ve heard of the Leczinskis?” - </p> - <p> - “Lecz———-what?” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Leczinski,” she repeated. - </p> - <p> - “How do you spell it?” - </p> - <p> - “L—e—c—z—i—n—s—k—i.” - </p> - <p> - “Good. Capital. You have a real gift for spelling,” he exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Will you be quiet,” she said, severely, “and answer my question? Are you - familiar with the name?” - </p> - <p> - “I should never venture to be familiar with a name I didn’t know,” he - asserted. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you don’t know it? You have never heard of Stanislas Leczinski, who - was king of Poland? Of Marie Leczinska, who married Louis XV.?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, to be sure. I remember. The lady whose portrait one sees at - Versailles.” - </p> - <p> - “Quite so. Very well,” she continued, “the last representative of the - Leczinskis, in the elder line, was the Princess Anna Leczinska, who, in - 1858, married the Duke of Zeln. She was the daughter of John Leczinski, - Duke of Grodnia and Governor of Galicia, and of the Archduchess Henrietta - d’.ste, a cousin of the Emperor of Austria. She was also a great heiress, - and an extremely handsome woman. But the Duke of Zeln was a bad lot, a - viveur, a gambler, a spendthrift. His wife, like a fool, made her entire - fortune over to him, and he proceeded to play ducks and drakes with it. By - the time their son was born he’d got rid of the last farthing. Their son - wasn’t born till ’63, five years after their marriage. Well, and then, - what do you suppose the Duke did?” - </p> - <p> - “Reformed, of course. The wicked husband always reforms when a child is - born, and there’s no more money,” he generalised. - </p> - <p> - “You know perfectly well what he did,” said she. “He petitioned the German - Diet to annul the marriage. You see, having exhausted the dowry of the - Princess Anna, it occurred to him that if she could only be got out of the - way, he might marry another heiress, and have the spending of another - fortune.” - </p> - <p> - “Clever dodge,” he observed. “Did it come off?” - </p> - <p> - “It came off, all too well. He based his petition on the ground that the - marriage had never been.... I forget what the technical term is. Anyhow, - he pretended that the princess had never been his wife except in name, and - that the child couldn’t possibly be his. The Emperor of Austria stood by - his connection, like the loyal gentleman he is; used every scrap of - influence he possessed to help her. But the duke, who was a Protestant - (the princess was of course a Catholic), the duke persuaded all the - Protestant States in the Diet to vote in his favour. The Emperor of - Austria was powerless, the Pope was powerless. And the Diet annulled the - marriage.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah,” said the mandarin. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” she went on. “The marriage was annulled, and the child declared - illegitimate. Ernest Augustus, as the duke was somewhat inconsequently - named, married again, and had other children, the eldest of whom is the - present bearer of the title—the same Duke of Zeln one hears of, - quarrelling with the croupiers at Monte Carlo. The Princess Anna, with her - baby, came to Austria. The Emperor gave her a pension, and lent her one of - his country houses to live in—Schloss Sanct-Andreas. Our hostess, - by-the-bye, the Countess Wohenhoffen, was her intimate friend and her <i>première - dame d’honneur</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah,” said the mandarin. - </p> - <p> - “But the poor princess had suffered more than she could bear. She died - when her child was four years old. The Countess Wohenhoffen took the - infant, by the Emperor’s desire, and brought him up with her own son - Peter. He was called Prince Louis Leczinski. Of course, in all moral - right, he was the Hereditary Prince of Zeln. His legitimacy, for the rest, - and his mother’s innocence, are perfectly well established, in every sense - but a legal sense, by the fact that he has all the physical - characteristics of the Zeln stock. He has the Zeln nose and the Zeln chin, - which are as distinctive as the Habsburg lip.” - </p> - <p> - “I hope, for the poor young man’s sake, though, that they’re not so - unbecoming?” questioned the mandarin. - </p> - <p> - “They’re not exactly pretty,” answered the mask. “The nose is a thought - too long, the chin is a trifle too short. However, I daresay the poor - young man is satisfied. As I was about to tell you, the Countess - Wohenhoflen brought him up, and the Emperor destined him for the Church. - He even went to Rome and entered the Austrian College. He’d have been on - the high road to a cardinalate by this time if he’d stuck to the - priesthood, for he had strong interest. But, lo and behold, when he was - about twenty, he chucked the whole thing up.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah? <i>Histoire de femme?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Very likely,” she assented, “though I’ve never heard any one say so. At - all events, he left Rome, and started upon his travels. He had no money of - his own, but the Emperor made him an allowance. He started upon his - travels, and he went to India, and he went to America, and he went to - South Africa, and then, finally, in ’87 or ’88, he went—no one knows - where. He totally disappeared, vanished into space. He’s not been heard of - since. Some people think he’s dead. But the greater number suppose that he - tired of his false position in the world, and one fine day determined to - escape from it, by sinking his identity, changing his name, and going in - for a new life under new conditions. They call him the Invisible Prince. - His position <i>was</i> rather an ambiguous one, wasn’t it? You see, he - was neither one thing nor the other. He had no <i>état-civil</i>. In the - eyes of the law he was a bastard, yet he knew himself to be the legitimate - son of the Duke of Zeln. He was a citizen of no country, yet he was the - rightful heir to a throne. He was the last descendant of Stanislas - Leczinski, yet it was without authority that he bore his name. And then, - of course, the rights and wrongs of the matter were only known to a few. - The majority of people simply remembered that there had been a scandal. - And (as a wag once said of him) wherever he went, he left his mother’s - reputation behind him. No wonder he found the situation irksome. Well, - there is the story of the Invisible Prince.” - </p> - <p> - “And a very exciting, melodramatic little story, too. For my part, I - suspect your Prince met a boojum. I love to listen to stories. Won’t you - tell me another? Do, please,” he pressed her. - </p> - <p> - “No, he didn’t meet a boojum,” she returned. “He went to England, and set - up for an author. The Invisible Prince and Victor Field are one and the - same person.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I say! Not really!” he exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, really.” - </p> - <p> - “What makes you think so?” he wondered. - </p> - <p> - “I’m sure of it,” said she. “To begin with, I must confide to you that - Victor Field is a man I’ve never met.” - </p> - <p> - “Never met...?” he gasped. “But, by the blithe way in which you were - laying his sins at my door, a little while ago, I supposed you were sworn - confederates.” - </p> - <p> - “What’s the good of masked balls, if you can’t talk to people you’ve never - met?” she submitted. “I’ve never met him, but I’m one of his admirers. I - like his little poems. And I’m the happy possessor of a portrait of him. - It’s a print after a photograph. I cut it from an illustrated paper.” - </p> - <p> - “I really almost wish I <i>was</i> Victor Field,” he sighed. “I should - feel such a glow of gratified vanity.” - </p> - <p> - “And the Countess Wohenhoffen,” she added, “has at least twenty portraits - of the Invisible Prince—photographs, miniatures, life-size - paintings, taken from the time he was born, almost, to the time of his - disappearance. Victor Field and Louis Leczinski have countenances as like - each other as two halfpence.” - </p> - <p> - “An accidental resemblance, doubtless.” - </p> - <p> - “No, it isn’t an accidental resemblance,” she affirmed. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, then you think it’s intentional?” he quizzed. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one or - two odd little circumstances. <i>Primo</i>, Victor Field is a guest at the - Wohenhoffens’ ball.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he <i>is</i> a guest here?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, he is,” she said. “You are wondering how I know. Nothing simpler. - The same costumier who made my domino, supplied his Chinese dress. I - noticed it at his shop. It struck me as rather nice, and I asked whom it - was for. The costumier said, for an Englishman at the Hôtel de Bade. Then - he looked in his book, and told me the Englishman’s name. It was Victor - Field. So, when I saw the same Chinese dress here to-night, I knew it - covered the person of one of my favourite authors. But I own, like you, I - was a good deal surprised. What on earth should a little London literary - man be doing at the Countess Wohenhoffen’s? And then I remembered the - astonishing resemblance between Victor Field and Louis Leczinski; and I - remembered that to Louis Leczinski the Countess Wohenhoffen had been a - second mother; and I reflected that though he chose to be as one dead and - buried for the rest of the world, Louis Leczinski might very probably keep - up private relations with the Countess. He might very probably come to her - ball, incognito, and safely masked. I observed also that the Countess’s - rooms were decorated throughout with <i>white lilac</i>. But the white - lilac is the emblematic flower of the Leczinskis; green and white are - their family colours. Wasn’t the choice of white lilac on this occasion - perhaps designed as a secret compliment to the Prince? I was taught in the - schoolroom that two and two make four.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, one can see that you’ve enjoyed a liberal education,” he apprised - her. “But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You do it with a - grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make four; but - first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there couldn’t be - more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, during carnival week! - Dear, good, sweet lady, it’s of all disguises the disguise they’re driving - hardest, this particular season. And then to build up an elaborate theory - of identities upon the mere chance resemblance of a pair of photographs! - Photographs indeed! Photographs don’t give the complexion. Say that your - Invisible Prince is dark, what’s to prevent your literary man from being - fair or sandy? Or <i>vice versa?</i> And then, how is a little German - Polish princeling to write poems and things in English? No, no, no; your - reasoning hasn’t a leg to stand on.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t mind its not having legs,” she laughed, “so long as it - convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you yourself - said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. German princes - are especially so. They all learn English, as a second mother-tongue. You - see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred up for the marriage - market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good sound remunerative - English marriage, than a knowledge of the language. However, don’t be - frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor Field would prefer not - to let the world know who he is. I happen to have discovered his secret. - He may trust to my discretion.” - </p> - <p> - “You still persist in imagining that I’m Victor Field?” he murmured sadly. - </p> - <p> - “I should have to be extremely simple-minded,” she announced, “to imagine - anything else. You wouldn’t be a male human being if you had sat here for - half an hour patiently talking about another man.” - </p> - <p> - “Your argument,” said he, “with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile - and superficial. I thank you for teaching me that word. I’d sit here till - doomsday talking about my worst enemy, for the pleasure of talking with - you.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps we have been talking of your worst enemy. Whom do the moralists - pretend a man’s worst enemy is wont to be?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “I wish you would tell me the name of the person the moralists would - consider your worst enemy,” he replied. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll tell you directly, as I said before, if you’ll own up,” she offered. - </p> - <p> - “Your price is prohibitive. I’ve nothing to own up to.” - </p> - <p> - “Well then—good night,” she said. - </p> - <p> - Lightly, swiftly, she fled from the conservatory, and was soon - irrecoverable in the crowd. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - The next morning Victor Field left Vienna for London; but before he left - he wrote a letter to Peter Wohenhoffen. In the course of it he said: - “There was an Englishwoman at your ball last night with the reasoning - powers of a detective in a novel. By divers processes of elimination and - induction, she had formed all sorts of theories about no end of things. - Among others, for instance, he was willing to bet her hali-dome that a - certain Prince Louis Leczinski, who seems to have gone on the spree some - years ago, and never to have come home again—she was willing to bet - anything you like that Leczinski and I—moi qui vous parle—were - to all intents and purposes the same. Who was she, please? Rather a tall - woman, in a black domino, with grey eyes, or greyish-blue, and a nice - voice.” - </p> - <p> - In the answer which he received from Peter Wohenhoffen towards the end of - the week, Peter said: “There were nineteen Englishwomen at my mother’s - party, all of them rather tall, with nice voices, and grey or blue-grey - eyes. I don’t know what colours their dominoes were. Here is a list of - them.” - </p> - <p> - The names that followed were names of people whom Victor Field almost - certainly would never meet. The people Victor knew in London were the sort - of people a little literary man might be expected to know. Most of them - were respectable; some of them even deemed themselves rather smart, and - patronised him right Britishly. But the nineteen names in Peter - Wohenhoffen’s list (”Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried Victor) were names to make you - gasp. - </p> - <p> - All the same, he went a good deal to Hyde Park during the season, and - watched the driving. - </p> - <p> - “Which of all those haughty high-born beauties is she?” he wondered - futilely. - </p> - <p> - And then the season passed, and then the year; and little by little, of - course, he ceased to think about her. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - One afternoon last May, a man, habited in accordance with the fashion of - the period, stopped before a hairdresser’s shop in Knightsbridge - somewhere, and, raising his hat, bowed to the three waxen ladies who - simpered from the window. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! It’s Mr. Field!” a voice behind him cried. “What are those cryptic - rites that you’re performing? What on earth are you bowing into a - hairdresser’s window for?”—a smooth, melodious voice, tinged by an - inflection that was half ironical, half bewildered. - </p> - <p> - “I was saluting the type of English beauty,” he answered, turning. - “Fortunately, there are divergencies from it,” he added, as he met the - puzzled smile of his interlocutrice; a puzzled smile indeed, but, like the - voice, by no means without its touch of irony. - </p> - <p> - She gave a little laugh; and then, examining the models critically, “Oh?” - she questioned. “Would you call that the type? You place the type high. - Their features are quite faultless, and who ever saw such complexions?” - </p> - <p> - “It’s the type, all the same,” said he. “Just as the imitation marionette - is the type of English breeding.” - </p> - <p> - “The imitation marionette? I’m afraid I don’t follow,” she confessed. - </p> - <p> - “The imitation marionettes. You’ve seen them at little theatres in Italy. - They’re actors who imitate puppets. Men and women who try to behave as if - they weren’t human, as if they were made of starch and whalebone, instead - of flesh and blood.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, yes,” she assented, with another little laugh. “That would be rather - typical of our insular methods. But do you know what an engaging, what a - reviving spectacle you presented, as you stood there flourishing your hat? - What do you imagine people thought? And what would have happened to you if - I had just chanced to be a policeman instead of a friend?” - </p> - <p> - “Would you have clapped your handcuffs on me?” he enquired. “I suppose my - conduct did seem rather suspicious. I was in the deepest depth of - dejection. One must give some expression to one’s sorrow.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you going towards Kensington?” she asked, preparing to move on. - </p> - <p> - “Before I commit myself, I should like to be sure whether you are,” he - replied. - </p> - <p> - “You can easily discover with a little perseverance.” - </p> - <p> - He placed himself beside her, and together they walked towards Kensington. - </p> - <p> - She was rather taller than the usual woman, and slender. She was - exceedingly well-dressed; smartly, becomingly; a jaunty little hat of - strangely twisted straw, with an aigrette springing defiantly from it; a - jacket covered with mazes and labyrinths of embroidery; at her throat a - big knot of white lace, the ends of which fell winding in a creamy cascade - to her waist (do they call the thing a <i>jabot?</i>); and then.... - </p> - <p> - But what can a man trust himself to write of these esoteric matters? She - carried herself extremely well, too: with grace, with distinction, her - head held high, even thrown back a little, superciliously. She had an - immense quantity of very lovely hair. Red hair? Yellow hair? Red hair with - yellow lights burning in it? Yellow hair with red fires shimmering through - it? In a single loose, full billow it swept away from her forehead, and - then flowed into half-a-thousand rippling, crinkling, capricious - undulations. And her skin had the sensitive colouring, the fineness of - texture, that are apt to accompany red hair when it’s yellow, yellow hair - when it’s red. Her face, with its pensive, quizzical eyes, it’s tip-tilted - nose, it’s rather large mouth, and the little mocking quirks and curves - the lips took, was an alert, arch, witty face; a delicate high-bred face; - and withal a somewhat sensuous, emotional face; the face of a woman with a - vast deal of humour in her soul, a vast deal of mischief; of a woman who - would love to tease you, and mystify you, and lead you on, and put you - off; and yet who, in her own way, at her own time, would know supremely - well how to be kind. - </p> - <p> - But it was mischief rather than kindness that glimmered in her eyes at - present, as she asked, “You were in the deepest depths of dejection. Poor - man! Why?” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t precisely determine,” said he, “whether the sympathy that seems - to vibrate in your voice is genuine or counterfeit.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps it’s half and half,” she suggested. “But my curiosity is unmixed. - Tell me your troubles.” - </p> - <p> - “The catalogue is long. I’ve sixteen hundred million. The weather, for - example. The shameless beauty of this radiant spring day. It’s enough to - stir all manner of wild pangs and longings in the heart of an - octogenarian. But, anyhow, when one’s life is passed in a dungeon, one - can’t perpetually be singing and dancing from mere exuberance of joy, can - one?” - </p> - <p> - “Is your life passed in a dungeon?” she exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Indeed, indeed, it is. Isn’t yours?” - </p> - <p> - “It had never occurred to me that it was.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re lucky. Mine is passed in the dungeons of Castle Ennui,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Castle Ennui. Ah, yes. You mean you’re bored?” - </p> - <p> - “At this particular moment I’m savouring the most exquisite excitement,” - he professed. “But in general, when I am not working or sleeping, I’m - bored to extermination—incomparably bored. If only one could work - and sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year round! There’s no - use trying to play in London. It’s so hard to find a playmate. The English - people take their pleasures without salt.” - </p> - <p> - “The dungeons of Castle Ennui,” she repeated meditatively. “Yes, we are - fellow-prisoners. I’m bored to extermination too. Still,” she added, “one - is allowed out on parole, now and again. And sometimes one has really - quite delightful little experiences.” - </p> - <p> - “It would ill become me, in the present circumstances, to dispute that,” - he answered, bowing. - </p> - <p> - “But the castle waits to reclaim us afterwards, doesn’t it?” she mused. - “That’s rather a happy image, Castle Ennui.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m extremely glad you approve of it. Castle Ennui is the Bastille of - modern life. It is built of prunes and prisms; it has its outer court of - Convention, and its inner court of Propriety; it is moated round by - Respectability, and the shackles its inmates wear are forged of dull - little duties and arbitrary little rules. You can only escape from it at - the risk of breaking your social neck, or remaining a fugitive from social - justice to the end of your days. Yes, it is a fairly decent little image.” - </p> - <p> - “A bit out of something you’re preparing for the press?” she hinted. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, how unkind of you!” he cried. “It was absolutely extemporaneous.” - </p> - <p> - “One can never tell, with <i>vous autres gens-de-lettres</i>“ she laughed. - </p> - <p> - “It would be friendlier to say <i>nous autres gens desprit</i>,’ he - submitted. - </p> - <p> - “Aren’t we proving to what degree <i>nous autres gens d’esprit sont bêtes</i>,” - she remarked, “by continuing to walk along this narrow pavement, when we - can get into Kensington Gardens by merely crossing the street? Would it - take you out of your way?” - </p> - <p> - “I have no way. I was sauntering for pleasure, if you can believe me. I - wish I could hope that you have no way either. Then we could stop here, - and crack little jokes together the livelong afternoon,” he said, as they - entered the Gardens. - </p> - <p> - “Alas, my way leads straight back to the Castle. I’ve promised to call on - an old woman in Campden Hill,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “Disappoint her. It’s good for old women to be disappointed. It whips up - their circulation.” - </p> - <p> - “I shouldn’t much regret disappointing the old woman,” she admitted, “and - I should rather like an hour or two of stolen freedom. I don’t mind owning - that I’ve generally found you, as men go, a moderately interesting man to - talk with. But the deuce of it is... You permit the expression?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m devoted to the expression.” - </p> - <p> - “The deuce of it is, I’m supposed to be driving,” she explained. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that doesn’t matter. So many suppositions in this world are - baseless,” he reminded her. - </p> - <p> - “But there’s the prison van,” she said. “It’s one of the tiresome rules in - the female wing of Castle Ennui that you’re always supposed, more or less, - to be driving. And though you may cheat the authorities by slipping out of - the prison van directly it’s turned the corner, and sending it on ahead, - there it remains, a factor that can’t be eliminated. The prison van will - relentlessly await my arrival in the old woman’s street.” - </p> - <p> - “That only adds to the sport. Let it wait. When a factor can’t be - eliminated, it should be haughtily ignored. Besides, there are higher - considerations. If you leave me, what shall I do with the rest of this - weary day?” - </p> - <p> - “You can go to your club.” - </p> - <p> - He threw up his hand. “Merciful lady! What sin have I committed? I never - go to my club, except when I’ve been wicked, as a penance. If you will - permit me to employ a metaphor—oh, but a tried and trusty metaphor—when - one ship on the sea meets another in distress, it stops and comforts it, - and forgets all about its previous engagements and the prison van and - everything. Shall we cross to the north, and see whether the Serpentine is - in its place? Or would you prefer to inspect the eastern front of the - Palace? Or may I offer you a penny chair?” - </p> - <p> - “I think a penny chair would be the maddest of the three dissipations,” - she decided. - </p> - <p> - And they sat down in penny chairs. - </p> - <p> - “It’s rather jolly here, isn’t it?” said he. “The trees, with their black - trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen such sumptuous - foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the sunlight, and the - atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn’t it like pearl-dust and gold-dust - floating in the air? It’s all got up to imitate the background of a - Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and ribald, and supply a - proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white the clouds are. Do you - think they’re made of cotton-wool? And what do you suppose they paint the - sky with? There never was such a brilliant, breath-taking blue. It’s much - too nice to be natural. And they’ve sprinkled the whole place with scent, - haven’t they? You notice how fresh and sweet it smells. If only one could - get rid of the sparrows—the cynical little beasts! hear how they’re - chortling—and the people, and the nursemaids and children. I have - never been able to understand why they admit the public to the parks.” - </p> - <p> - “Go on,” she encouraged him. “You’re succeeding admirably in your effort - to be ribald.” - </p> - <p> - “But that last remark wasn’t ribald in the least—it was desperately - sincere. I do think it’s inconsiderate of them to admit the public to the - parks. They ought to exclude all the lower classes, the People, at one - fell swoop, and then to discriminate tremendously amongst the others.” - </p> - <p> - “Mercy, what undemocratic sentiments!” she cried. “The People, the poor - dear People—what have they done?” - </p> - <p> - “Everything. What haven’t they done? One could forgive their being dirty - and stupid and noisy and rude; one could forgive their ugliness, the - ineffable banality of their faces, their goggle-eyes, their protruding - teeth, their ungainly motions; but the trait one can’t forgive is their - venality. They’re so mercenary. They’re always thinking how much they can - get out of you—everlastingly touching their hats and expecting you - to put your hand in your pocket. Oh, no, believe me, there’s no health in - the People. Ground down under the iron heel of despotism, reduced to a - condition of hopeless serfdom, I don’t say that they might not develop - redeeming virtues. But free, but sovereign, as they are in these days, - they’re everything that is squalid and sordid and offensive. Besides, they - read such abominably bad literature.” - </p> - <p> - “In that particular they’re curiously like the aristocracy, aren’t they?” - said she. “By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another book of - poems?” - </p> - <p> - “Apropos of bad literature?” - </p> - <p> - “Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems.” - </p> - <p> - “So do I,” said he. “It’s useless to pretend that we haven’t tastes in - common.” - </p> - <p> - They were both silent for a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable - little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a - merry trill of laughter. - </p> - <p> - “What are you laughing at?” he demanded. - </p> - <p> - “I’m hugely amused,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “I wasn’t aware that I’d said anything especially good.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re building better than you know. But if I am amused, <i>you</i> look - ripe for tears. What is the matter?” - </p> - <p> - “Every heart knows its own bitterness,” he answered. “Don’t pay the least - attention to me. You mustn’t let moodiness of mine cast a blight upon your - high spirits.” - </p> - <p> - “No fear,” she assured him. “There are pleasures that nothing can rob of - their sweetness. Life is not all dust and ashes. There are bright spots.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I’ve no doubt there are,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “And thrilling little adventures—no?” she questioned. - </p> - <p> - “For the bold, I dare say.” - </p> - <p> - “None but the bold deserve them. Sometimes it’s one thing, and sometimes - it’s another.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s very certain,” he agreed. - </p> - <p> - “Sometimes, for instance,” she went on, “one meets a man one knows, and - speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, almost directly, - what do you suppose one discovers?” - </p> - <p> - “What?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “One discovers that the wretch hasn’t the ghost of a notion who one is—that - he’s totally and absolutely forgotten one!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I say! Really?” he exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, really. You can’t deny that <i>that’s</i> an exhilarating little - adventure.” - </p> - <p> - “I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man’s embarrassment,” he - reflected. - </p> - <p> - “Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a <i>sang - froid!</i> They’ll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and - talk with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong - afternoon cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint - of their perplexity. They’ll brazen it out.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don’t you think?” he said. - “Internally, poor dears, they’re very likely suffering agonies of - discomfiture.” - </p> - <p> - “We’ll hope they are. Could they decently do less?” said she. - </p> - <p> - “And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,” he - urged. “If I were a man in such a situation I’d throw myself upon the - woman’s mercy. I’d say, ’Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your - name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip - of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory - chooses to play the fool. If you’ve a spark of Christian kindness in your - soul, you’ll come to my rescue with a little clue.’.rdquo; - </p> - <p> - “If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I fear - you’d throw yourself on her mercy in vain,” she warned him. - </p> - <p> - “What <i>is</i> the good of tantalising people?” - </p> - <p> - “Besides,” she continued, “the woman might reasonably feel slightly - humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner.” - </p> - <p> - “The humiliation surely would be all the man’s. Have you heard from the - Wohenhoffens lately?” - </p> - <p> - “The—what? The—who?” She raised her eyebrows. - </p> - <p> - “The Wohenhoffens,” he repeated. - </p> - <p> - “What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, nothing. My enquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge. It - occurred to me vaguely that you might have worn a black domino at a masked - ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn’t?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I did,” - she teased. - </p> - <p> - “She was rather tall, like you, and she had grey eyes, and a nice voice, - and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. She was - monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have made her - a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have always been - anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her to marry me. I’m - strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was she?” he pleaded. - </p> - <p> - “If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?” she - asked. - </p> - <p> - “Try it and see.” - </p> - <p> - “<i>Ce n’est pas la peine</i>. It occasionally happens that a woman’s - already got a husband.” - </p> - <p> - “She said she was an old maid.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Upon my word!” - </p> - <p> - “Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so insipid as - a young girl? <i>Were</i> you the woman of the black domino?” he - persisted. - </p> - <p> - “I should need further information, before being able to make up my mind. - Are the—what’s their name?—Wohenheimer?—are the - Wohenheimers people one can safely confess to knowing? Oh, you’re a man, - and don’t count. But a woman? It sounds a trifle Jewish, Wohenheimer. But - of course there are Jews and Jews.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re playing with me like the cat in the adage,” he sighed. “It’s too - cruel. No one is responsible for his memory.” - </p> - <p> - “And to think that this man took me down to dinner not two months ago!” - she murmured in her veil. - </p> - <p> - “You’re as hard as nails. In whose house? Or—stay. Prompt me a - little. Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come - with a rush.” - </p> - <p> - “My name is Matilda Muggins.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to believe - you,” said he. “Have you really got a husband?” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you doubt it?” said she. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t doubt it. Have you?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know what to answer.” - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you know whether you’ve got a husband?” he protested. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know what I’d better let you believe. Yes, on the whole, I think - you may as well assume that I’ve got a husband,” she concluded. - </p> - <p> - “And a lover, too?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Really! I like your impertinence!” She bridled. “I only asked to show a - polite interest. I knew the answer would be an indignant negative. You’re - an Englishwoman, and you’re <i>nice</i>. Oh, one can see with half an eye - that you’re <i>nice</i>. But that a nice Englishwoman should have a lover - is as inconceivable as that she should have side-whiskers. It’s only the - reg’lar bad-uns in England who have lovers. There’s nothing between the - family pew and the divorce court. One nice Englishwoman is a match for the - whole Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne.” - </p> - <p> - “To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For a - man of the name of Field, you’re uncommonly foreign. You <i>look</i> - rather foreign too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven’t at all an English - cast of countenance,” she considered. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought up - abroad,” he explained. - </p> - <p> - “Where your features unconsciously assimilated themselves to a foreign - type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign things, - no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little foreign - notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and - misconceptions concerning England?” she questioned. - </p> - <p> - “Most of them,” he assented. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Perfide Albion?</i> English hypocrisy?” she pursued. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there’s only one - objection to their hypocrisy—it so rarely covers any wickedness. - It’s such a disappointment to see a creature stalking towards you, - laboriously draped in sheep’s clothing, and then to discover that it’s - only a sheep. You, for instance, as I took the liberty of intimating a - moment ago, in spite of your perfectly respectable appearance, are a - perfectly respectable woman. If you weren’t, wouldn’t I be making furious - love to you, though!” - </p> - <p> - “As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn’t make furious love to me, - if it would amuse you. There’s no harm in firing your pistol at a person - who’s bullet-proof,” she laughed. - </p> - <p> - “No; it’s merely a wanton waste of powder and shot,” said he. “However, I - shouldn’t stick at that. The deuce of it is.... You permit the - expression?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m devoted to the expression.” - </p> - <p> - “The deuce of it is, you profess to be married.” - </p> - <p> - “Do you mean to say that you, with your unprincipled foreign notions, - would be restrained by any such consideration as that?” she wondered. - </p> - <p> - “I shouldn’t be for an instant—if I weren’t in love with you.” - </p> - <p> - “<i>Comment donc? Déjà?</i>” she cried with a laugh. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, <i>déjà!</i> Why not? Consider the weather—consider the scene. - Is the air soft, is it fragrant? Look at the sky—good heavens!—and - the clouds, and the shadows on the grass, and the sunshine between the - trees. The world is made of light today, of light and colour, and perfume - and music. <i>Tutt’ intorno canta amort amor, amore!</i> What would you - have? One recognises one’s affinity. One doesn’t need a lifetime. You - began the business at the Wohenhoffens’ ball. To-day you’ve merely put on - the finishing touches.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, then I <i>am</i> the woman you met at the masked ball?” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “Look me in the eye, and tell me you’re not,” he defied her. - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t the faintest interest in telling you I’m not. On the contrary, - it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am.” - </p> - <p> - “She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything,” he - confided. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as her - instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a watch - about you?” she inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Will you be good enough to tell me what o’clock it is?” - </p> - <p> - “What are your motives for asking?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m expected at home at five.” - </p> - <p> - “Where do you live?” - </p> - <p> - “What are the motives for asking?” - </p> - <p> - “I want to call upon you.” - </p> - <p> - “You might wait till you’re invited.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, invite me—quick!” - </p> - <p> - “Never.” - </p> - <p> - “Never?” - </p> - <p> - “Never, never, never,” she asseverated. “A man who’s forgotten me as you - have!” - </p> - <p> - “But if I’ve only met you once at a masked ball........” - </p> - <p> - “Can’t you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for that - woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?” she demanded. - </p> - <p> - “But if you won’t invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to see you - again?” - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t an idea,” she answered, cheerfully. “I must go now. Good bye.” - She rose. - </p> - <p> - “One moment,” he interposed. “Before you go will you allow me to look at - the palm of your left hand?” - </p> - <p> - “What for?” - </p> - <p> - “I can tell fortunes. I’m extremely good at it,” he boasted. “I’ll tell - you yours.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, very well,” she assented, sitting down again: and guilelessly she - pulled off her glove. - </p> - <p> - He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft, with - rosy, tapering fingers. - </p> - <p> - “Oho! you <i>are</i> an old maid after all,” he cried. “There’s no wedding - ring.” - </p> - <p> - “You villain!” she gasped, snatching the hand away. - </p> - <p> - “I promised to tell your fortune. Haven’t I told it correctly?” - </p> - <p> - “You needn’t rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don’t like to be - reminded of their condition.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you marry <i>me?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you ask?” - </p> - <p> - “Partly from curiosity. Partly because it’s the only way I can think of, - to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will you?” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “The stars forbid. And I’m ambitious. In my horoscope it is written that I - shall either never marry at all, or—marry royalty.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?” - </p> - <p> - “If you care to follow me,” she said, rising again, “you can come and help - me to commit a little theft.” - </p> - <p> - He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path, - where she stopped before a bush of white lilac. - </p> - <p> - “There are no keepers in sight, are there?” she questioned. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t see any,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods,” said she, breaking - off a spray, and handing it to him. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you. But I’d rather have an answer to my question.” - </p> - <p> - “Isn’t that an answer?” - </p> - <p> - “Is it?” - </p> - <p> - “White lilac—to the Invisible Prince?” - </p> - <p> - “The Invisible Prince.... Then you <i>are</i> the black domino!” he - exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I suppose so,” she consented. - </p> - <p> - “And you <i>will</i> marry me?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner.” - </p> - <p> - “But will you marry me?” - </p> - <p> - “I thought you wished me to cheat my horoscope?” - </p> - <p> - “How could you find a better means of doing so?” - </p> - <p> - “What! if I should marry Louis Leczinski...?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, to be sure. You would have it that I was Louis Leczinski. But, on - that subject, I must warn you seriously——” - </p> - <p> - “One instant,” she interrupted. “People must look other people straight in - the face when they’re giving serious warnings. Look straight into my eyes, - and continue your serious warning.” - </p> - <p> - “I must really warn you seriously,” said he, biting his lip, “that if you - persist in that preposterous delusion about my being Louis Leczinski, - you’ll be most awfully sold. I have nothing on earth to do with Louis - Leczinski. Your ingenious little theories, as I tried to convince you at - the time, were absolute romance.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyebrows raised a little, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on his—oh, - in the drollest fashion, with a gaze that seemed to say “How admirably you - do it! I wonder whether you imagine I believe you. Oh, you fibber! Aren’t - you ashamed to tell me such abominable fibs?”... - </p> - <p> - They stood still, eyeing each other thus, for something like twenty - seconds, and then they both laughed and walked on. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - P’TIT-BLEU - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>’tit-Bleu, poor - P’tit-Bleu! I can’t name her without a sigh; I can’t think of her without - a kind of heartache. Yet, all things considered, I wonder whether hers was - really a destiny to sorrow over. True, she has disappeared; and it is not - pleasant to conjecture what she may have come to, what may have befallen - her, in the flesh, since her disappearance. But when I remember those - beautiful preceding years of self-abnegation, of great love, and pain, and - devotion, I find myself instinctively believing that something good she - must have permanently gained; some treasure that nothing, not the worst - imaginable subsequent disaster, can quite have taken from her. It is not - pleasant to conjecture what she may have done or suffered in the flesh; - but in the spirit, one may hope, she cannot have gone altogether to the - bad, nor fared altogether ill. - </p> - <p> - In the spirit! Dear me, there was a time when it would have seemed - derisory to speak of the spirit in the same breath with P’tit-Bleu. In the - early days of my acquaintance with her, for example, I should have stared - if anybody had spoken of her spirit. If anybody had asked me to describe - her, I should have said, “She is a captivating little animal, pretty and - sprightly, but as soulless—as soulless as a squirrel.” Oh, a - warm-blooded little animal, good-natured, quick-witted, full of life and - the joy of life; a delightful little animal to play with, to fondle; but - just a little animal, none the less: a little mass of soft, rosy, jocund, - sensual, soulless matter. And in her full red lips, her roguish black - eyes, her plump little hands, her trim, tight little figure—in her - smile, her laugh—in the toss of her head—in her saucy, - slightly swaggering carriage—I fancy you would have read my - appreciation justified. No doubt there must have been the spark 01 a soul - smouldering somewhere in her (how, otherwise, account for what happened - later on?), but it was far too tiny a spark to be perceptible to the - casual observer. Soul, however, I need hardly add, was the last thing we - of the University were accustomed to look for in our feminine companions; - I must not for an instant seem to imply that the lack of a soul in - P’tit-Bleu was a subject of mourning with any of us. That a Latin Quarter - girl should be soulless was as much a part of the natural order of - creation, as that she should be beardless. They were all of them little - animals, and P’tit-Bleu diverged from the type principally in this, that - where the others, in most instances, were stupid, objectionable little - animals, she was a diverting one. She was made of sugar and spice and a - hundred nice ingredients, whilst they were made of the dullest, vulgarest - clay. - </p> - <p> - In my own case, P’tit-Bleu was the object, not indeed of love, but of a - violent infatuation, at first sight. - </p> - <p> - At Bullier, one evening, a chain of students, some twenty linked hand in - hand, were chasing her round and round the hall, shouting after her, in - rough staccato, something that sounded like, “Ti-<i>bah!</i> Ti-<i>bah</i>! - Ti-<i>bah</i>!”—while she, a sprite-like little form, in a black - skirt and a scarlet bodice, fled before them with leaps and bounds, and - laughed defiantly. - </p> - <p> - I hadn’t the vaguest notion what “Ti-<i>bah</i>! Ti-<i>bah</i>! Ti-<i>bah</i>!” - meant, but that laughing face, with the red lips and the roguish eyes, - seemed to me immensely fascinating. Among the faces of the other young - ladies present—faces of dough, faces of tallow, faces all weariness, - staleness, and banality, common, coarse, pointless, insipid faces—it - shone like an epigram amongst platitudes, a thing of fire amongst things - of dust. I turned to some one near me, and asked who she was. - </p> - <p> - “It’s P’tit-Bleu, the dancing girl. She’s going to do a quadrille.” - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu.... It’s the fashion, you know, in Paris, for the girls who “do - quadrilles” to adopt unlikely nicknames: aren’t the reigning favourites at - this moment Chapeau-Mou and Fifi-la-Galette? P’tit-Bleu had derived hers - from that vehement little “wine of the barrier,” which, the song declares, - “vous met la tête en feu.” It was the tune of the same song, that, in - another minute, I heard the band strike up, in the balcony over our heads. - P’tit-Bleu came to a standstill in the middle of the floor, where she was - joined by three minor dancing-girls, to make two couples. The chain of - students closed in a circle round her. And the rest of us thronged behind - them, pressing forward, and craning our necks. Then, as the band played, - everybody sang, in noisy chorus: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu-eu, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Ça vous met la tête en feu! - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Ça vous ra-ra-ra-ra-ra, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Ça vous ra-ra-ravigotte!” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu stood with her hands on her hips, her arms a-kimbo, her head - thrown impudently back, her eyes sparkling mischievously, her lips curling - in a perpetual play of smiles, while her three subalterns accomplished - their tame preliminary measures; and then P’tit-Bleu pirouetted forward, - and began her own indescribable pas-seul—oh, indescribable for a - hundred reasons. She wore scarlet satin slippers, embroidered with black - beads, and black silk stockings with scarlet clocks, and simply cataracts - and cataracts of white diaphanous frills under her demure black skirt. And - she danced with constantly increasing fervour, kicked higher and higher, - ever more boldly and more bravely. Presently her hat fell off, and she - tossed it from her, calling to the member of the crowd who had the luck to - catch it, “Tiens mon chapeau!” And then her waving black hair flowed down - her back, and flew loose about her face and shoulders. And the whole time, - she laughed—laughed—laughed. With her swift whirlings, her - astonishing undulations, and the flashing of the red and black and white, - one’s eyes were dazzled. “Ça vous met la tête en feu!” My head burned and - reeled, as I watched her, and I thought, “What a delicious, bewitching - little creature! What wouldn’t I give to know her!” My head burned, and my - heart yearned covetously; but I was a new-comer in the Quarter, and - ignorant of its easy etiquette, and terribly young and timid, and I should - never have dared to speak to her without a proper introduction. She danced - with constantly increasing fervour, faster, faster, furiously fast: till, - suddenly—<i>zip!</i>—down she slid upon the floor, in the <i>grand - écart,</i> and sat there (if one may call that posture sitting), smiling - calmly up at us, whilst everybody thundered, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” - </p> - <p> - In an instant, though, she was on her feet again, and had darted out of - the circle to the side of the youth who had caught her hat. He offered it - to her with a bow, but his pulses were thumping tempestuously, and no - doubt she could read his envy in his eyes. Anyhow, all at once, she put - her arm through his, and said—oh, thrills and wonders!—“Allons, - mon petit, I authorise you to treat me to a bock.” - </p> - <p> - It seemed as if impossible heavens had opened to me; yet there she was, - clinging to my arm, and drawing me towards the platform under the - musicians’ gallery, where there are tables for the thirsty. Her little - plump white hand lay on my coat-sleeve; the air was heady with the perfume - of her garments; her roguish black eyes were smiling encouragement into - mine; and her red lips were so near, so near, I had to fight down a wild - impulse to stoop and snatch a kiss. She drew me towards the tables, and, - on the way, she stopped before a mirror fixed in the wall, and rearranged - her hair; while I stood close to her, still holding her hat, and waited, - feeling the most exquisite proud swelling of the heart, as if I owned her. - Her hair put right, she searched in her pocket and produced a small round - ivory box, from which—having unscrewed its cover and handed it to me - with a “<i>Tiens ça</i>”—she extracted a powder-puff; and therewith - she proceeded gently, daintily, to dust her face and throat, examining the - effect critically in the glass the while. In the end she said, “<i>Voilà</i>, - that’s better,” and turned her face to me for corroboration. “That’s - better, isn’t it?” “It’s perfect. But—but you were perfect before, - too,” asseverated I. Oh, what a joy beyond measure thus to be singled out - and made her confidant and adviser in these intimate affairs.... At our - table, leaning back nonchalantly in her chair, as she quaffed her bock and - puffed her cigarette, she looked like a bright-eyed, red-lipped bacchante. - </p> - <p> - I gazed at her in a quite unutterable ecstasy of admiration. My conscience - told me that I ought to pay her a compliment upon her dancing; but I - couldn’t shape one: my wits were paralysed by my emotions. I could only - gaze, and gaze, and revel in my unexpected fortune. At last, however, the - truth burst from me in a sort of involuntary gasp. - </p> - <p> - “But you are adorable—adorable.” - </p> - <p> - She gave a quick smile of intelligence, of sympathy, and, with a knowing - toss of the head and a provoking glance, suggested, “Je te mets la tête en - feu, quoi!” She, you perceive, was entirely at her ease, mistress of the - situation. It is conceivable that she had met neophytes before—that - I was by no means to her the unprecedented experience she was to me. At - any rate, she understood my agitation and sought to reassure me. “Don’t be - afraid; I’ll not eat you,” she promised. - </p> - <p> - I, in the depths of my mind, had been meditating what I could not but deem - an excessively audacious proposal Her last speech gave me my cue, and I - risked it. - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps you would like to eat something else? If—if we should go - somewhere and sup?” - </p> - <p> - “Monsieur thinks he will be safer to take precautions,” she laughed. “Well—I - submit.” - </p> - <p> - So we removed ourselves to the cloak-room, where she put on her cloak, and - exchanged her slippers for a pair of boots (you can guess, perhaps, who - enjoyed the beatific privilege of buttoning them for her); and then we - left the Closerie des Lilas, falsely so called, with its flaring gas, its - stifling atmosphere, its boisterous merrymakers, and walked arm in arm—only - this time it was <i>my</i> arm that was within <i>hers</i>—down the - Boul’ Miche, past the Luxembourg gardens, where sweet airs blew in our - faces, to the Gambrinus restaurant, in the Rue de Médicis. And there you - should have seen P’tit-Bleu devouring écrevisses. Whatsoever this young - woman’s hand found to do, she did it with her might. She attacked her - écrevisses with the same jubilant abandon with which she had executed her - bewildering single-step. She devoured them with an energy, an enthusiasm, - a thoroughness, that it was invigorating to witness; smacking her lips, - and smiling, and, from time to time, between the mouthfuls, breathing soft - little interjections of content. When the last pink shell was emptied, she - threw herself back, and sighed, and explained, with delectable - unconsciousness, “I was hungry.” But at my venturing to protest, “Not - really?” she broke into mirthful laughter, and added, “At least, I had the - appearance.” Meanwhile, I must not fail to mention, she had done abundant - honour to her share of a bottle of chablis. - </p> - <p> - Don’t be horrified—haven’t the Germans, who ought to know, a proverb - that recommends it? “Wein auf Bier, das rath’ ich Dir.” - </p> - <p> - I have said that none of us mourned the absence of a soul in P’tit-Bleu. - Nevertheless, as I looked at her to-night, and realised what a bright, - joyous, good-humoured little thing she was, how healthy, and natural, and - even, in a way, innocent she was, I suddenly felt a curious depression. - She was all this, and yet... For just a moment, perhaps, I did vaguely - mourn the lack of something. Oh, she was well enough for the present; she - was joyous, and good-humoured, and innocent in a way; she was young and - pretty, and the world smiled upon her. But—for the future? When it - occurred to me to think of her future—of what it must almost - certainly be like, of what she must almost inevitably become—I - confess my jaw dropped, and the salt of our banquet lost its savour. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the matter? Why do you look at me like that?” P’tit-Bleu demanded. - </p> - <p> - So I had to pull myself up and be jolly again. It was not altogether - difficult. In the early twenties, troublesome reflections are easily - banished, I believe; and I had a lively comrade. - </p> - <p> - After her crayfish were disposed of, P’tit-Bleu called for coffee and lit - a cigarette. And then, between whiffs and sips, she prattled gaily of the - subject which, of all subjects, she was probably best qualified to treat, - and which assuredly, for the time being, possessed most interest for her - listener—P’tit-Bleu. She told me, as it were, the story of her - birth, parentage, life, and exploits. It was the simplest story, the - commonest story. Her mother (<i>la recherche de la paternité est interdite</i>), - her mother had died when she was sixteen, and Jeanne (that was her - baptismal name, Jeanne Mérois) had gone to work in the shop of a - dressmaker, where, sewing hard from eight in the morning till seven at - night, with an hour’s intermission at noon, she could earn, in good - seasons, as much as two-francs-fifty a day. Two and a half francs a day—say - twelve shillings a week—in good seasons; and one must eat, and - lodge, and clothe one’s body, and pay one’s laundress, in good seasons and - in bad. It scarcely satisfied her aspirations, and she took to dancing. - Now she danced three nights a week at Bullier, and during the day gave - lessons in her art to a score of pupils, by which means she contrived to - keep the wolf at a respectful distance from her door. “Tiens, here’s my - card,” she concluded, and handed me an oblong bit of pasteboard, on which - was printed, “P’tit-Bleu, Professeur de Danse, 22, Rue Monsieur le - Prince.” - </p> - <p> - “And you have no lover?” questioned I. - </p> - <p> - She flashed a look upon me that was quite inexpressibly arch, and - responded instantly, with the charmingest little pout, “But yes—since - I’m supping with him.” - </p> - <p> - During the winter that followed, P’tit-Bleu and I supped together somewhat - frequently. She was a mere little animal, she had no soul; but she was the - nicest little animal, and she had instincts. She was more than - good-natured, she was kind-hearted; and, according to her unconventional - standards, she was conscientious. It would have amused and touched you, - for example, if you had been taking her about, to notice her intense - solicitude lest you should conduct her entertainment upon a scale too - lavish, her deprecating frowns, her expostulations, her restraining hand - laid on your arm. And the ordinary run of Latin Quarter girls derive an - incommunicable rapture from seeing their cavaliers wantonly, purposelessly - prodigal. With her own funds, on the contrary, P’tit-Bleu was free-handed - to a fault: Mimi and Zizette knew whom to go to, when they were hard-up. - Neither did she confine her benefactions to gifts of money, nor limit - their operation to her particular sex. More than one impecunious student - owed it to her skilful needle that his clothes were whole, and his linen - maintained in a habitable state. “Fie, Chalks! Your coat is torn, there - are three buttons off your waistcoat, and your cuffs are frayed to a point - that is disgraceful. I’ll come round to-morrow afternoon, and mend them - for you.” And when poor Berthe Dumours was turned out of the hospital, in - the dead of winter, half-cured, and without a penny in her purse, who took - her in, and nursed her, and provided for her during her convalescence? - </p> - <p> - Oh, she was a good little thing. “P’tit-Bleu’s all right. There’s nothing - the matter with P’tit-Bleu,” was Chalks’s method of phrasing it. - </p> - <p> - At the same time, she could be trying, she could be exasperating. And she - had a temper—a temper. What she made me suffer in the way of - jealousy, during that winter, it would be gruesome to recount. She enjoyed - an exceeding great popularity in the Quarter; she was much run after. It - were futile to pretend that she hadn’t her caprices. And she held herself - free as air. She would call no man master. - </p> - <p> - You might take what she would give, and welcome; but you must claim - nothing as your due. You mustn’t presume upon the fact that she was - supping with you to-night, to complain if she should sup tomorrow with - another. Her concession of a privilege did not by any means imply that it - was exclusive. She would endure no exactions, no control or interference, - no surveillance, above all, no reproaches. Mercy, how angry she would - become if I ventured any, how hoighty-toighty and unapproachable. - </p> - <p> - “You imagine that I am your property? Did you invent me? One would say you - held a Government patent. All rights reserved! Thank you. You fancy - perhaps that Paris is Constantinople? Ah, mais non!” - </p> - <p> - She had a temper and a flow of language. There were points you couldn’t - touch without precipitating hail and lightning. - </p> - <p> - Thus my winter was far from a tranquil one, and before it was half over I - had three grey hairs. Honey and wormwood, happiness and heartburn, - reconciliations and frantic little tiffs, carried us blithely on to - Mi-Carême, when things reached a crisis.... - </p> - <p> - Mi-Carême fell midway in March that year: a velvety, sweet, sunlit day, - Spring stirring in her sleep. P’tit-Bleu and I had spent the day together, - in the crowded, crowded streets. We had visited the Boulevards, of course, - to watch the triumph of the Queen of Washerwomen; we had pelted everybody - with confetti; and we had been pelted so profusely in return, that there - were confetti in our boots, in our pockets, down our necks, and numberless - confetti clung in the black meshes of P’tit-Bleu’s hair, like little pink, - blue, and yellow stars. But all day long something in P’tit-Bleu’s manner, - something in her voice, her smile, her carriage, had obscurely troubled - me; something not easy to take hold of, something elusive, unformulable, - but disquieting. A certain indefinite aloofness, perhaps; an accentuated - independence; as if she were preoccupied with secret thoughts, with - intentions, feelings, that she would not let me share. - </p> - <p> - And then, at night, we went to the Opera Ball. - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu was dressed as an Odalisque: a tiny round Turkish cap set - jauntily sidewise on her head, a short Turkish jacket, both coat and - jacket jingling and glittering with sequins; a long veil of gauze, - wreathed like a scarf round her shoulders; then baggy Turkish trousers of - blue silk, and scarlet Turkish slippers. Oh, she was worth seeing; I was - proud to have her on my arm. Her black crinkling hair, her dancing eyes, - her eager face and red smiling mouth—the Sultan himself might have - envied me such a houri. And many, in effect, were the envious glances that - we encountered, as we made our way into the great brilliantly lighted - ball-room, and moved hither and thither among the Harlequins and - Columbines, the Pierrots, the Toréadors, the Shepherdesses and - Vivandières, the countless fantastic masks, by whom the place was peopled. - P’tit-Bleu had a <i>loup</i> of black velvet, which sometimes she wore, - and sometimes gave to me to carry for her. I don’t know when she looked - the more dangerous, when she had it on, and her eyes glimmered - mysteriously through its peepholes, or when she had it off. - </p> - <p> - Many were the envious glances that we encountered, and presently I became - aware that one individual was following us about: a horrid, glossy - creature, in a dress suit, with a top-hat that was much too shiny, and a - hugh waxed moustache that he kept twirling invidiously: an undersized, - dark, Hebraic-featured man, screamingly “rasta’.” Whithersoever we turned, - he hovered annoyingly near to us, and ogled P’tit-Bleu under my very - beard. This was bad enough; but—do sorrows ever come as single - spies?—conceive my emotions, if you please, when, by-and-by, - suspicion hardened into certitude that P’tit-Bleu was not merely getting a - vainglorious gratification from his attentions, but that she was - positively playing up to them, encouraging him to persevere! She chattered—to - me, indeed, but at him—with a vivacity there was no misconstruing; - laughed noisily, fluttered her fan, flirted her veil, donned and doffed - her loup, and, I daresay, when my back was turned, exchanged actual - eye-shots with the brute.... In due time quadrilles were organised, and - P’tit-Bleu led a set. The glossy interloper was one of the admiring circle - that surrounded her. Ugh! his complacent, insinuating smile, the - conquering air with which he twirled his moustachios. And P’tit-Bleu.... - When, at the finish, she sprang up, after her <i>grand écart</i>, what do - you suppose she did?... The brazen little minx, instead of rejoining <i>me</i>, - slipped her arm through <i>his</i>, and went tripping off with him to the - supper-room. - </p> - <p> - Oh, the night I passed, the night of anguish! The visions that tortured - me, as I tramped my floor! The delirious revenges that I plotted, and - gloated over in anticipation! She had left me—the mockery of it!—she - had left me her loup, her little black velvet loup, with its empty - eye-holes, and its horribly reminiscent smell. Everything P’tit-Bleu owned - was scented with peau-d’.spagne. I wreaked my fury upon that loup, I - promise you. I smote it with my palm, I ground it under my heel, I tore it - limb from limb, I called it all manner of abusive names. Early in the - morning I was at P’tit-Bleu’s house; but the concierge grunted, “Pas - rentrée.” Oh, the coals thereof are coals of fire. I returned to her house - a dozen times that day, and at length, towards nightfall, found her in. We - had a stormy session, but, of course, the last word of it was hers: still, - for all slips, she was one of Eve’s family. Of course she justified - herself, and put me in the wrong. I went away, vowing I would never, - never, never see her again. “Va! Ça m’est bien égal,” she capped the - climax by calling after me. Oh, youth! Oh, storm and stress! And to think - that one lives to laugh at its memory. - </p> - <p> - For the rest of that season, P’tit-Bleu and I remained at daggers drawn. - In June I left town for the summer; and then one thing and another - happened, and kept me away till after Christmas. - </p> - <p> - When I got back, amongst the many pieces of news that I found waiting for - me, there was one that affected P’tit-Bleu. - </p> - <p> - “P’tit-Bleu,” I was told, “is ’collée’ with an Englishman—but a - grey-beard, mon cher—a gaga—an Englishman old enough to be her - grandfather.” - </p> - <p> - A stolid, implicit cynicism, I must warn you, was the mode of the Quarter. - The student who did not wish to be contemned for a sentimentalist, dared - never hesitate to believe an evil report, nor to put the worst possible - construction upon all human actions. Therefore, when I was apprised by - common rumour that during the dead season P’tit-Bleu (for considerations - fiscal, <i>bien entendu</i>) had gone to live “collée” with an Englishman - old enough to be her grandfather—though, as it turned out, the story - was the sheerest fabrication—it never entered my head to doubt it. - </p> - <p> - At the same time, I confess, I could not quite share the humour of my - compeers, who regarded the circumstance as a stupendous joke. On the - contrary, I was shocked and sickened. I shouldn’t have imagined her - capable of that. She was a mere little animal; she had no soul; she was - bound, in the nature of things, to go from bad to worse, as I had - permitted myself, indeed, to admonish her, in the last conversation we had - had. “Mark my words, you will go from bad to worse.” But I had thought her - such a nice little animal; in my secret heart, I had hoped that her - progress would be slow—even, faintly, that Providence might let - something happen to arrest it, to divert it. And now....! - </p> - <p> - As a matter of fact, Providence <i>had</i> let something happen to divert - it; and that something was this very relation of hers with an old - Englishman, in which the scandal-lovers of the Latin Quarter were - determined to see neither more nor less than a mercenary “collage.” The - diversion in question, however, was an extremely gradual process. As yet, - it is pretty certain, P’tit-Bleu herself had never so much as dreamed that - any diversion was impending. - </p> - <p> - But she knew that her relation with the Englishman was an innocent - relation; and of its innocence, I am glad to be able to record, she - succeeded in convincing one, at least, of her friends, tolerably early in - the game. - </p> - <p> - In the teeth of my opposition, and at the expense of her own pride, she - forced an explanation, which, I am glad to say, convinced me. - </p> - <p> - I had just passed her and her Englishman in the street. They were crossing - the Boulevard St. Michel, and she was hanging on his arm, looking up into - his face, and laughing. She wore a broad-brimmed black hat, with a red - ribbon in it, and a knot of red ribbon at her throat; there was a lovely - suggestion of the same colour in her cheeks; and never had her eyes - gleamed with sincerer fun. - </p> - <p> - I assure you, the sensation this spectacle afforded me amounted to a - physical pain—the disgust, the anger. If she could laugh like that, - how little could she feel her position! The hardened shamelessness of it! - </p> - <p> - Turning from her to her companion, I own I was surprised and puzzled. He - was a tall, spare old man, not a grey-beard, but a white-beard, and he had - thin snow-white hair. He was dressed neatly indeed, but the very reverse - of sumptuously. His black overcoat was threadbare, his carefully polished - boots were patched. Yet, everybody averred, it was his affluence that had - attracted her; she had taken up with him during the dead season, because - she had been “à sec.” A detail that did nothing to relieve my perplexity - was the character of his face. Instead of the florid concupiscent face, - with coarse lips and fiery eye-balls, I had instinctively expected, I saw - a thin, pale face, with mild, melancholy eyes, a gentle face, a refined - face, rather a weak face, certainly the very last face the situation - called for. He <i>was</i> a beast, of course, but he didn’t look like a - beast. He looked like a gentleman, a broken-down, forlorn old gentleman, - singularly astray from his proper orbit. - </p> - <p> - They were crossing the Boulevard St. Michel as I was leaving the Café - Vachette; and at the corner of the Rue des Ecoles we came front to front. - P’tit-Bleu glanced up; her eyes brightened, she gave a little start, and - was plainly for stopping to shake hands. I cut her dead.... - </p> - <p> - I cut her dead, and held my course serenely down the Boulevard—though - I’m not sure my heart wasn’t pounding. But I could lay as unction to my - soul the consciousness of having done the appropriate thing, of having - marked my righteous indignation. - </p> - <p> - In a minute, however, I heard the pat-pat of rapid footsteps on the - pavement behind me, and my name being called. I hurried on, careful not to - turn my head. But, at Cluny, P’tit-Bleu arrived abreast of me. - </p> - <p> - “I want to speak to you,” she gasped, out of breath from running. - </p> - <p> - I shrugged my shoulders. - </p> - <p> - “Will you tell me why you cut me like that just now?” - </p> - <p> - “If you don’t know, I doubt if I could make you understand,” I answered, - with an air of, imperial disdain. - </p> - <p> - “You bear me a grudge, hein? For what I did last March? Well, then, you - are right. There. I was abominable. But I have been sorry, and I ask your - pardon. Now will you let bygones be bygones? Will you forgive me?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I said, “don’t try to play the simpleton with me. You are perfectly - well aware that isn’t why I cut you.” - </p> - <p> - “But why, then?” cried she, admirably counterfeiting (as I took for - granted) a look and accent of bewilderment. - </p> - <p> - I walked on without speaking. She kept beside me. - </p> - <p> - “But why, then? If it isn’t that, what is it?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bah!” - </p> - <p> - “I insist upon your telling me. Tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “Very good, then. I don’t care to know a girl who lives ’collée’ with a - gaga,” I said, brutally. - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu flushed suddenly, and faced me with blazing eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Comment done! You believe that?” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “Pooh!” said I. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, mais non, mais non, mais non, alors! You don’t believe that?” - </p> - <p> - “You pay me a poor compliment. Why should you expect me to be ignorant of - a thing the whole Quarter knows?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, the whole Quarter! What does that matter to me, your Quarter? Those - nasty little students! C’est de la crasse, quoi! They may believe—they - may say—what they like. Oh, ça m’est bien égal!” with a shake of the - head and a skyward gesture. “But you—but my friends! Am I that sort - of girl? Answer.” - </p> - <p> - “There’s only one sort of girl in the precincts ot this University,” - declared her disenchanted interlocutor. “You’re all of one pattern. The - man’s an ass who expects any good from any of you. Don’t pose as better - than the others. You’re all a—un tas de saletés. I’m sick and tired - of the whole sordid, squalid lot of you. I should be greatly obliged, now, - if you would have the kindness to leave me. Go back to your gaga. He’ll be - impatient waiting.” - </p> - <p> - That speech, I fancied, would rid me of her. But no. - </p> - <p> - “You are trying to make me angry, aren’t you? But I refuse to leave you - till you have admitted that you are wrong,” she persisted. “It’s an - outrageous slander. Monsieur Long (that is his name, Monsieur Long), he - lives in the same house with me, on the same landing; et voilà tout. Dame! - Can I prevent him? Am I the landlord? And, for that, they say I’m ’collée’ - with him. I don’t care what they say. But you! I swear to you it is an - infamous lie. Will you come home with me now, and see?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that’s mere quibbling. You go with him everywhere, you dine with him, - you are never seen without him.” - </p> - <p> - “Dieu de Dieu!” wailed P’tit-Bleu. “How shall I convince you? He is my - neighbour. Is it forbidden to know one’s neighbours? I swear to you, I - give you my word of honour, it is nothing else. How to make you believe - me?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, my dear,” said I, “if you wish me to believe you, break with him. - Chuck him up. Drop his acquaintance. Nobody in his senses will believe you - so long as you go trapesing about the Quarter with him.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but no,” she cried, “I can’t drop his acquaintance.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, there it is,” cried I. - </p> - <p> - “There are reasons. There are reasons why I can’t, why I mustn’t.” - </p> - <p> - “I thought so.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, voyons!” she broke out, losing patience. - </p> - <p> - “Will you not believe my word of honour? Will you force me to tell you - things that don’t concern you—that I have no right to tell? Well, - then, listen. I cannot drop his acquaintance, because—this is a - secret—he would die of shame if he thought I had betrayed it—you - will never breathe it to a soul—because I have discovered that he - has a—a vice, a weakness. No—but listen. He is an Englishman, - a painter. Oh, a painter of great talent; a painter who has exposed at the - Salon—quoi! A painter who is known in his country. On a même parlé - de lui dans les journaux; voilà! But look. He has a vice. He has half - ruined, half killed himself with a drug. Yes—opium. Oh, but wait, - wait. I will tell you. He came to live in our house last July, in the room - opposite mine. When we met, on the landing, in the staircase, he took off - his hat, and we passed the bonjour. Oh, he is a gentleman; he has been - well brought up. From that we arrived at speaking together a little, and - then at visiting. It was the dead season, I had no affairs. I would sit in - his room in the afternoon, and we would chat. Oh, he is a fine talker. - But, though he had canvases, colours, all that is needed for painting, he - never painted. He would only talk, talk. I said, ’But you ought to paint.’ - He said always, ’Yes, I must begin something to-morrow.’ Always to-morrow. - And then I discovered what it was. He took opium. He spent all his money - for opium. And when he had taken his opium he would not work, he would - only talk, talk, talk, and then sleep, sleep. You think that is well—hein? - That a painter of talent should do no work, but spend all his money for a - drug, for a poison, and then say, ’To-morrow’. You think I could sit still - and see him commit these follies under my eyes and say nothing, do - nothing? Ruin his brain, his health, his career, and waste all his money, - for that drug? Oh, mais non. I made him the sermon. I said, ’You know it - is very bad, that which you are doing there.’ I scolded him. I said, ’But - I forbid you to do that—do you understand? I forbid it.’ I went with - him everywhere, I gave him all my time; and when he would take his drug I - would annoy him, I would make a scene, I would shame him. Well, in the - end, I have acquired an influence over him. He has submitted himself to - me. He is really trying to break the habit. I keep all his money. I give - him his doses. I regulate them, I diminish them. The consequence is, I - make him work. I give him one very small dose in the morning to begin the - day. Then I will give him no more till he has done so much work. You see? - Tu te figures que je suis sa maîtresse? Je suis plutôt sa nounou—va! - Je suis sa caissière. And he is painting a great picture—you will - see. Eh bien, how can I give up his acquaintance? Can I let him relapse, - as he would do to-morrow without me, into his bad habit?” - </p> - <p> - I was walking with long strides, P’tit-Bleu tripping at my elbow; and - before her story was finished we had left the Boulevard behind us, and - reached the middle of the Pont St. Michel. There, I don’t know why, we - halted, and stood looking off towards Notre-Dame. The grim grey front of - the Cathedral glowed softly amethystine in the afternoon sun, and the sky - was infinitely deep and blue above it. One could be intensely conscious of - the splendid penetrating beauty of this picture, without, somehow, giving - the less attention to what P’tit-Bleu was saying. She talked swiftly, - eagerly, with constantly changing, persuasive intonations, with little - brief pauses, hesitations, with many gestures, with much play of eyes and - face. When she had done, I waited a moment. Then, grudgingly, “Well,” I - began, “if what you tell me is true——” - </p> - <p> - “<i>If</i> it is true!” P’tit-Bleu cried, with sudden fierceness. “Do you - dare to say you doubt it?” - </p> - <p> - And she gazed intently, fiercely, into my eyes, challenging me, as it - were, to give her the lie. - </p> - <p> - Before that gaze my eyes dropped, abashed. - </p> - <p> - “No—I don’t doubt it,” I faltered, “I believe you. And—and - allow me to say that you are a—a damned decent little girl.” - </p> - <p> - Poor P’tit-Bleu! How shall I tell you the rest of her story—the - story of those long years of love and sacrifice and devotion, and of - continual discouragement, disappointment, with his death at the end of - them, and her disappearance? - </p> - <p> - In the beginning she herself was very far from realising what she had - undertaken, what had befallen her. To exercise a little friendly - supervision over her neighbour’s addiction to opium, to husband his money - for him, and spur him on to work—it seemed a mere incident in her - life, an affair by the way. But it became her exclusive occupation, her - whole life’s chief concern. Little by little, one after the other, she put - aside all her former interests, thoughts, associations, dropped all her - former engagements, to give herself as completely to caring for, guarding, - guiding poor old Edward Long, as if she had been a mother, and he her - helpless child. - </p> - <p> - Throughout that first winter, indeed, she continued to dance at Bullier, - continued to instruct her corps of pupils, and continued even - occasionally, though much less frequently than of old time, to be seen at - the Vachette, or to sup with a friend at the Gambrinus. But from day to - day Monsieur Edouard (he had soon ceased to be Monsieur Long, and become - Monsieur Edouard) absorbed more and more of her time and attention; and - when the spring came she suddenly burned her ships. - </p> - <p> - You must understand that she had one pertinacious adversary in her efforts - to wean him of his vice. Not an avowed adversary, for he professed the - most earnest wish that she might be successful; but an adversary who was - eternally putting spokes in her wheel, all the same. Yes, Monsieur Edouard - himself. Never content with the short rations to which she had condemned - him, he was perpetually on the watch for a chance to elude her vigilance; - she was perpetually discovering that he had somehow contrived to lay in - secret supplies. And every now and again, openly defying her authority, he - would go off for a grand debauch. Then her task of reducing his daily - portion to a minimum must needs be begun anew. Well, when the spring came, - and the Salon opened, where his picture (<i>her</i> picture?) had been - received and very fairly hung, they went together to the Vernissage. And - there he met a whole flock of English folk—artists and critics, who - had “just run over for the show, you know”—with whom he was - acquainted; and they insisted on carrying him away with them to lunch at - the Ambassadeurs. - </p> - <p> - I, too, had assisted at the Vernissage; and when I left it, I found - P’tit-Bleu seated alone under the trees in the Champs-Elysées. She had on - a brilliant spring toilette, with a hat and a sunshade.... Oh, my dear! It - is not to be denied that P’tit-Bleu had the courage of her tastes. But her - face was pale, and her lips were drawn down, and her eyes looked strained - and anxious. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the row?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - And she told me how she had been abandoned—“plantée là” was her - expression—and of course I invited her to lunch with me. But she - scarcely relished the repast. “Pourvu qu’il ne fasse pas de bêtises!” was - her refrain. - </p> - <p> - She returned rather early to the Rue Monsieur le Prince, to see if he had - come home; but he hadn’t. Nor did he come home that night, nor the next - day, nor the next. At the week’s end, though, he came: dirty, haggard, - tremulous, with red eyes, and nude—yes, nude—of everything - save his shirt and trousers! He had borrowed a sovereign from one of his - London friends, and when that was gone, he had pledged or sold everything - but his shirt and trousers—hat, boots, coat, everything. It was an - equally haggard and red-eyed P’tit-Bleu who faced him on his reappearance. - And I’ve no doubt she gave him a specimen of her eloquence. “You figure to - yourself that this sort of thing amuses me, hein? Here are six good days - and nights that I haven’t been able to sleep or rest.” - </p> - <p> - Explaining the case to me, she said, “Ah, what I suffered! I could never - have believed that I cared so much for him. But—what would you?—one - attaches oneself, you know. Ah, what I suffered! The anxiety, the terrors! - I expected to hear of him run over in the streets. Well, now, I must make - an end of this business. I’m going to take him away. So long as he remains - in Paris, where there are chemists who will sell him that filthiness - (cette crasse) it is hopeless. No sooner do I get my house of cards nicely - built up, than—piff!—something happens to knock it over. I am - going to take him down into the country, far from any town, far from the - railway, where I can guard him better. I know a place, a farmhouse, near - Villiers-St.-Jacques, where we can get board. He has a little income, - which reaches him every three months from England. Oh, very little, but if - I am careful of it, it will pay our way. And then—I will make him - work.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no,” I protested. “You’re not going to leave the Quarter.” And I’m - ashamed to acknowledge, I laboured hard to dissuade her. “Think how we’ll - miss you. Think how you’ll bore yourself. And anyhow, he’s not worth it. - And besides, you won’t succeed. A man who has an appetite for opium will - get it, coûte que coûte. He’d walk twenty miles in bare feet to get it.” - This was the argument that I repeated in a dozen different paraphrases. - You see, I hadn’t realised yet that it didn’t matter an atom whether she - succeeded, or whether he was worth it. He was a mere instrument in the - hands of Providence. Let her succeed or let her fail in keeping him from - opium: the important thing... how shall I put it? This little Undine had - risen out of the black waters of the Latin Quarter, and attached herself - to a mortal. What is it that love gains for Undines? - </p> - <p> - “Que veux-tu?” cried P’tit-Bleu. “I am fond of him. I can’t bear to see - him ruining himself. I must do what I can.” - </p> - <p> - And the Quarter said, “Ho-ho! You chaps who didn’t believe it was a - ’collage’. He-he! What do you say now? She’s chucked up everything, to go - and live in the country with him.” - </p> - <p> - In August or September I ran down to the farmhouse near - Villiers-St.-Jacques, and passed a week with them. I found a mightily - changed Monsieur Edouard, and a curiously changed P’tit-Bleu, as well. He - was fat and rosy, he who had been so thin and white. And she—she was - <i>grave</i>. Yes, P’tit-Bleu was grave: sober, staid, serious. And her - impish, mocking black eyes shone with a strange, serious, calm light. - </p> - <p> - Monsieur Edouard (with whom my relations had long before this become - confidential) drew me apart, and told me he was having an exceedingly bad - time of it. - </p> - <p> - “She’s really too absurd, you know. She’s a martinet, a tyrant. Opium is - to me what tobacco is to you, and does me no more harm. I need it for my - work. Oh, in moderation; of course one can be excessive. Yet she refuses - to let me have a tenth of my proper quantity. And besides, how utterly - senseless it is, keeping me down here in the country. I’m dying of ennui. - There’s not a person I can have any sort of intellectual sympathy with, - for miles in every direction. An artist needs the stimulus of contact with - his fellows. It’s indispensable. If she’d only let me run up to Paris for - a day or two at a time, once a month say. Couldn’t you persuade her to let - me go back with you? She’s the most awful screw, you know. It’s the French - lower-middle-class parsimony. I’m never allowed to have twopence in my - pocket. Yet whose money is it? Where does it come from? I really can’t - think why I submit, why I don’t break away from her, and follow my own - wishes. But the poor little thing is fond of me; she attached herself to - me. I don’t know what would become of her if I cast her off. Oh, don’t - fancy that I don’t appreciate her. Her intentions are excellent. But she - lacks wisdom, and she enjoys the exercise of power. I wish you’d speak - with her.” - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu also drew me apart. - </p> - <p> - “Please don’t call me P’tit-Bleu any more. Call me Jeanne. I have put all - that behind me—all that P’tit-Bleu signifies. I hate to think of it, - to be reminded of it. I should like to forget it.” - </p> - <p> - When I had promised not to call her P’tit-Bleu any more, she went on, - replying to my questions, to tell me of their life. - </p> - <p> - “Of course, everybody thinks I am his mistress. You can’t convince them - I’m not. But that’s got to be endured. For the rest, all is going well. - You see how he is improved. I give him fifteen drops of laudanum, morning, - noon, and night. Fifteen drops—it is nothing, I could take it - myself, and never know it. And he used to drink off an ounce—an - ounce, mon cher—at a time, and then want more at the end of an hour. - Yes! Oh, he complains, he complains of everything, he frets, he is not - contented. But he has not walked twenty miles in bare feet, as you said he - would. And he is working. You will see his pictures.” - </p> - <p> - “And you—how do you pass your time? What do you do?” - </p> - <p> - “I pose for him a good deal. And then I have much sewing to do. I take in - sewing for Madame Deschamps, the Deputy’s wife, to help make the ends - meet. And then I read. Madame Deschamps lends me books.” - </p> - <p> - “And I suppose you’re bored to death?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, I am not bored. I am happy. I never was really happy—dans - le temps.” - </p> - <p> - They were living in a very plain way indeed. You know what French - farmhouses are apt to be. His whole income was under a hundred pounds a - year; and out of that (and the trifle she earned by needlework) his - canvases, colours, brushes, frames, had to be paid for, as well as his - opium, and their food, clothing, everything. But P’tit-Bleu—Jeanne—with - that “lower-middle-class parsimony” of hers, managed somehow. Jeanne! In - putting off the name, she had put off also, in great measure, the - attributes of P’tit-Bleu; she had become Jeanne in nature. She was grave, - she was quiet. She wore the severest black frocks—she made them - herself. And I never once noticed the odour of peau-d’.spagne, from the - beginning to the end of my visit. But—shall I own it? Jeanne was - certainly the more estimable of the two women, but shall I own that I - found her far less exciting as a comrade than P’tit-Bleu had been? She was - good, but she wasn’t very lively or very amusing. - </p> - <p> - P’tit-Bleu, the heroine of Bullier, that lover of noisy pleasure, of - daring toilettes, of risky perfumes, of écrevisses and chablis, of all the - rush and dissipation of the Boul’ Miche and the Luxembourg, quietly - settling down into Jeanne of the home-made frocks, in a rough French - farmhouse, to a diet of veal and lentils, lentils and veal, seven times a - week, and no other pastime in life than the devoted, untiring nursing of - an ungrateful old English opium-eater—here was variation under - domestication with a vengeance. - </p> - <p> - And on Sunday... P’tit-Bleu went twice to church! - </p> - <p> - About ten days after my return to Paris, there came a rat-ta-ta-tat at my - door, and P’tit-BIeu walked in—pale, with wide eyes. “I don’t know - how he has contrived it, but he must have got some money somewhere, and - walked to the railway, and come to town. Anyhow, here are three days that - he has disappeared. What to do? What to do?” She was in a deplorable state - of mind, poor thing, and I scarcely knew how to help her. I proposed that - we should take counsel with a Commissary of Police. But when that - functionary discovered that she was neither the wife nor daughter of the - missing man, he smiled, and remarked, “It is not our business to recover - ladies’ protectors for them.” P’tit-BIeu walked the streets in quest of - him, all day long and very nearly all night long too, for close upon a - fortnight. In the end, she met him on the quays—dazed, - half-imbecile, and again nude of everything save his shirt and trousers. - So, again, having nicely built up her house of cards—piff!—something - had happened to topple it over. - </p> - <p> - “Let him go to the devil his own way,” said I. “Really, he’s unworthy of - your pains.” - </p> - <p> - “No, I can’t leave him. You see, I’m fond of him,” said she. - </p> - <p> - He, however, positively refused to return to the country. “The fact is,” - he explained, “I ought to go to London. Yes, it will be well for me to - pass the winter in London. I should like to have a show there, a one-man - show, you know. I dare say I could sell a good many pictures, and get - orders for portraits.” So they went to London. In the spring I received a - letter from P’tit-Bleu—a letter full of orthographic faults, if you - like—but a letter that I treasure. Here’s a translation of it: - </p> - <p> - “My dear Friend,—I have hesitated much before taking my pen in hand - to write to you. But I have no one else to turn to. We have had a dreadful - winter. Owing to my ignorance of the language one speaks in this dirty - town, I have not been able to exercise over Monsieur Edouard that - supervision of which he has need. In consequence, he has given himself up - to the evil habit which you know, as never before. Every penny, every last - sou, which he could command, has been spent for that detestable filth. - Many times we have passed whole days without eating, no, not the end of a - crust. He has no desire to eat when he has had his dose. We are living in - a slum of the most disgusting, in the quarter of London they call Soho. - Everything we have, save the bare necessary of covering, has been put with - the lender-on-pledges. Yesterday I found a piece of one shilling in the - street. That, however, I have been forced to dispense for opium, because, - when he has had such large quantities, he would die or go mad if suddenly - deprived. - </p> - <p> - “I have addressed myself to his family, but without effect. They refuse to - recognise me. Everybody here, of course, figures to himself that I am his - mistress. He has two brothers, one of the army, one an advocate. I have - besieged them in vain. They say, ’We have done for him all that is - possible. We can do no more. He has exhausted our patience. Now that he - has gone a step farther, and, in his age, disgraced himself by living with - a mistress, as well as besotting himself with opium, we wash our hands of - him for good.’ And yet, I cannot leave him, because I know, without me, he - would kill himself within the month, by his excesses. To his sisters, both - of whom are married and ladies of the world, I have appealed with equal - results. They refuse to regard me otherwise than as his mistress. But I - cannot bear to see that great man, with that mind, that talent, doing - himself to death. And when he is not under the influence of his drug, who - is so great? Who has the wit, the wisdom, the heart, the charm, of - Monsieur Edouard? Who can paint like him? - </p> - <p> - “My dear, as a last resource, I take up my pen to ask you for assistance. - If you could see him your heart would be moved. He is so thin, so thin, - and his face has become <i>blue</i>, yes, blue, like the face of a dead - man. Help me to save him from himself. If you can send me a note of five - hundred francs, I can pay off our indebtedness here, and bring him back to - France, where, in a sane country, far from a town, again I can reduce him - to a few drops of laudanum a day, and again see him in health and at work. - That which it costs me to make this request of you, I have not the words - to tell you. But, at the end ot my forces, having no other means, no other - support, I confide myself to your well-tried amity. - </p> - <p> - “I give you a good kiss. Jeanne.” - </p> - <p> - If the reading of this letter brought a lump into my throat and something - like tears into my eyes—if I hastened to a banker’s, and sent - P’tit-Bleu the money she asked for, by telegraph—if I reproached her - bitterly and sincerely for not having applied to me long before,—I - hope you will believe that it wasn’t for the sake of Monsieur Edouard. - </p> - <p> - They established themselves at St. Etienne, a hamlet on the coast of - Normandy, to be farther from Paris. Dieppe was their nearest town. They - lived at St.-Etienne for nearly three years. But, periodically, when she - had got her house of cards nicely built up—piff!—he would walk - into Dieppe. - </p> - <p> - He walked into Dieppe one day in the autumn of 1885, and it took her a - week to find him. He was always ill, after one of his grand debauches. - This time he was worse than he had ever been before. I can imagine the - care with which she nursed him, her anxious watching by his bedside, her - prayers, her hopes, the blankness when he died. - </p> - <p> - She came back to Paris, and called three times at my lodgings. But I was - in England, and didn’t receive the notes she left till nearly six months - afterwards. I have never seen her since, never heard from her. - </p> - <p> - What has become of her? It is not pleasant to conjecture. Of course, after - his death, she ought to have died too. But the Angel of this Life, - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “Whose care is lest men see too much at once,” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - couldn’t permit any such satisfying termination. So she has simply - disappeared, and, in the flesh, may have come to... one would rather not - conjecture. All the same, I can’t believe that in the spirit she will have - made utter shipwreck. I can’t believe that nothing permanent was won by - those long years of love and pain. Her house of cards was toppled over, as - often as she built it up; but perhaps she was all the while building - another house, a house not made with hands, a house, a temple, - indestructible. - </p> - <p> - Poor P’tit-Bleu! - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE HOUSE OF EULALIE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was a pretty - little house, in very charming country—in an untravelled corner of - Normandy, near the sea; a country of orchards and colza fields, of soft - green meadows where cattle browsed, and of deep elm-shaded lanes. - </p> - <p> - One was rather surprised to see this little house just here, for all the - other houses in the neighbourhood were rude farm-houses or labourers’ - cottages; and this was a coquettish little chalet, white-walled, with slim - French windows, and balconies of twisted ironwork, and Venetian blinds: a - gay little pleasure-house, standing in a bright little garden, among - rosebushes, and parterres of geraniums, and smooth stretches of - greensward. Beyond the garden there was an orchard—rows and couples - of old gnarled apple-trees, bending towards one another like fantastic - figures arrested in the middle of a dance. Then, turning round, you looked - over feathery colza fields and yellow corn fields, a mile away, to the - sea, and to a winding perspective of white cliffs, which the sea bathed in - transparent greens and purples, luminous shadows of its own nameless hues. - </p> - <p> - A board attached to the wall confirmed, in roughly painted characters, the - information I had had from an agent in Dieppe. The house was to let; and I - had driven out—a drive of two long hours—to inspect it. Now I - stood on the doorstep and rang the bell. It was a big bell, hung in the - porch, with a pendent handle of bronze, wrought in the semblance of a rope - and tassel. Its voice would carry far on that still country air. - </p> - <p> - It carried, at any rate, as far as a low thatched farm-house, a hundred - yards down the road. Presently a man and a woman came out of the - farm-house, gazed for an instant in my direction, and then moved towards - me: an old brown man, an old grey woman, the man in corduroys, the woman - wearing a neat white cotton cap and a blue apron, both moving with the - burdened gait of peasants. - </p> - <p> - “You are Monsieur and Madame Leroux?” I asked, when we had accomplished - our preliminary good-days; and I explained that I had come from the agent - in Dieppe to look over their house. For the rest, they must have been - expecting me; the agent had said that he would let them know. - </p> - <p> - But, to my perplexity, this business-like announcement seemed somehow to - embarrass them; even, I might have thought, to agitate, to distress them. - They lifted up their worn old faces, and eyed me anxiously. They exchanged - anxious glances with each other. The woman clasped her hands, nervously - working her fingers. The man hesitated and stammered a little, before he - was able to repeat vaguely, “You have come to look over the house, - Monsieur?” - </p> - <p> - “Surely,” I said, “the agent has written to you? I understood from him - that you would expect me at this hour to-day.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes,” the man admitted, “we were expecting you.” But he made no motion - to advance matters. He exchanged another anxious glance with his wife. She - gave her head a sort of helpless nod, and looked down. - </p> - <p> - “You see, Monsieur,” the man began, as if he were about to elucidate the - situation, “you see—” But then he faltered, frowning at the air, as - one at a loss for words. - </p> - <p> - “The house is already let, perhaps?” suggested I. - </p> - <p> - “No, the house is not let,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “You had better go and fetch the key,” his wife said at last, in a dreary - way, still looking down. - </p> - <p> - He trudged heavily back to the farm-house. While he was gone we stood by - the door in silence, the woman always nervously working the fingers of her - clasped hands. I tried, indeed, to make a little conversation: I ventured - something about the excellence of the site, the beauty of the view. She - replied with a murmur of assent, civilly but wearily; and I did not feel - encouraged to persist. - </p> - <p> - By-and-by her husband rejoined us, with the key; and they began silently - to lead me through the house. - </p> - <p> - There were two pretty drawing-rooms on the ground floor, a pretty - dining-room, and a delightful kitchen, with a broad hearth of polished red - bricks, a tiled chimney, and shining copper pots and pans. The - drawing-rooms and the dining-room were pleasantly furnished in a light - French fashion, and their windows opened to the sun and to the fragrance - and greenery of the garden. I expressed a good deal of admiration; - whereupon, little by little, the manner of my conductors changed. From - constrained, depressed, it became responsive; even, in the end, effusive. - They met my exclamations with smiles, my inquiries with voluble eager - answers. But it remained an agitated manner, the manner of people who were - shaken by an emotion. Their old hands trembled as they opened the doors - for me or drew up the blinds; their voices trembled. There was something - painful in their very smiles, as if these were but momentary ripples on - the surface of a trouble. - </p> - <p> - “Ah,” I said to myself, “they are hard-pressed for money. They have put - their whole capital into this house, very likely. They are excited by the - prospect of securing a tenant.” - </p> - <p> - “Now, if you please, Monsieur, we will go upstairs, and see the bedrooms,” - the old man said. - </p> - <p> - The bedrooms were airy, cheerful rooms, gaily papered, with chintz - curtains and the usual French bedroom furniture. One of them exhibited - signs of being actually lived in; there were things about it, personal - things, a woman’s things. It was the last room we visited, a front room, - looking off to the sea. There were combs and brushes on the toilet-table; - there were pens, an inkstand, and a portfolio on the writing-desk; there - were books in the bookcase. Framed photographs stood on the mantelpiece. - In the closet dresses were suspended, and shoes and slippers were primly - ranged on the floor. The bed was covered with a counterpane of blue silk; - a crucifix hung on the wall above it; beside it there was a <i>prie-dieu</i>, - with a little porcelain holy-water vase. - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” I exclaimed, turning to Monsieur and Madame Leroux, “this room is - occupied?” - </p> - <p> - Madame Leroux did not appear to hear me. Her eyes were fixed in a dull - stare before her, her lips were parted slightly. She looked tired, as if - she would be glad when our tour through the house was finished. Monsieur - Leroux threw his hand up towards the ceiling in an odd gesture, and said, - “No, the room is not occupied at present.” - </p> - <p> - We went back downstairs, and concluded an agreement. I was to take the - house for the summer. Madame Leroux would cook for me. Monsieur Leroux - would drive into Dieppe on Wednesday to fetch me and my luggage out. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - On Wednesday we had been driving for something like half an hour without - speaking, when all at once Leroux said to me, “That room, Monsieur, the - room you thought was occupied——” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” I questioned, as he paused. - </p> - <p> - “I have a proposition to make,” said he. He spoke, as it seemed to me, - half shyly, half doggedly, gazing the while at the ears of his horse. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “If you will leave that room as it is, with the things in it, we will make - a reduction in the rent. If you will let us keep it as it is?” he - repeated, with a curious pleading intensity. “You are alone. The house - will be big enough for you without that room, will it not, Monsieur?” - </p> - <p> - Of course, I consented at once. If they wished to keep the room as it was, - they were to do so, by all means. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, thank you very much. My wife will be grateful to you,” he - said. - </p> - <p> - For a little while longer we drove on without speaking. Presently, “You - are our first tenant. We have never let the house before,” he volunteered. - </p> - <p> - “Ah? Have you had it long?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “I built it. I built it, five, six, years ago,” said he. Then, after a - pause, he added, “I built it for my daughter.” - </p> - <p> - His voice sank, as he said this. But one felt that it was only the - beginning of something he wished to say. - </p> - <p> - I invited him to continue by an interested, “Oh?” - </p> - <p> - “You see what we are, my wife and I,” he broke out suddenly. “We are rough - people, we are peasants. But my daughter, sir”—he put his hand on my - knee, and looked earnestly into my face—“my daughter was as fine as - satin, as fine as lace.” - </p> - <p> - He turned back to his horse, and again drove for a minute or two in - silence. At last, always with his eyes on the horse’s ears, “There was not - a lady in this country finer than my daughter,” he went on, speaking - rapidly, in a thick voice, almost as if to himself. “She was beautiful, - she had the sweetest character, she had the best education. She was - educated at the convent, in Rouen, at the Sacré Cour. Six years—from - twelve to eighteen—she studied at the convent. She knew English, sir—your - language. She took prizes for history. And the piano! Nobody living can - touch the piano as my daughter could. Well,” he demanded abruptly, with a - kind of fierceness, “was a rough farm-house good enough for her?” He - answered his own question. “No, Monsieur. You would not soil fine lace by - putting it in a dirty box. My daughter was finer than lace. Her hands were - softer than Lyons velvet. And oh,” he cried, “the sweet smell they had, - her hands! It was good to smell her hands. I used to kiss them and smell - them, as you would smell a rose.” His voice died away at the reminiscence, - and there was another interval of silence. By-and-by he began again, “I - had plenty of money. I was the richest farmer of this neighbourhood. I - sent to Rouen for the best architect they have there. Monsieur Clermont, - the best architect of Rouen, laureate of the Fine Arts School of Paris, he - built that house for my daughter; he built it and furnished it, to make it - fit for a countess, so that when she came home for good from the convent - she should have a home worthy of her. Look at this, Monsieur. Would the - grandest palace in the world be too good for her?” - </p> - <p> - He had drawn a worn red leather case from his pocket, and taken out a - small photograph, which he handed to me. It was the portrait of a girl, a - delicate-looking girl, of about seventeen. Her face was pretty, with the - irregular prettiness not uncommon in France, and very sweet and gentle. - The old man almost held his breath while I was examining the photograph. - “Est-elle gentille? Est-elle belle, Monsieur?” he besought me, with a very - hunger for sympathy, as I returned it. One answered, of course, what one - could, as best one could. He, with shaking fingers, replaced the - photograph in its case. “Here, Monsieur,” he said, extracting from an - opposite compartment a little white card. It was the usual French memorial - of mourning: an engraving of the Cross and Dove, under which was printed: - “Eulalie-Joséphine-Marie Leroux. Born the 16th May, 1874. Died the 12th - August, 1892. Pray for her.” - </p> - <p> - “The good God knows what He does. I built that house for my daughter, and - when it was built the good God took her away. We were mad with grief, my - wife and I; but that could not save her. Perhaps we are still mad with - grief,” the poor old man said simply. “We can think of nothing else. We - never wish to speak of anything else. We could not live in the house—her - house, without her. We never thought to let it. I built that house for my - daughter, I furnished it for her, and when it was ready for her—she - died. Was it not hard, Monsieur? How could I let the house to strangers? - But lately I have had losses. I am compelled to let it, to pay my debts. I - would not let it to everybody. You are an Englishman. Well, if I did not - like you, I would not let it to you for a million English pounds. But I am - glad I have let it to you. You will respect her memory. And you will allow - us to keep that room—her room. We shall be able to keep it as it - was, with her things in it. Yes, that room which you thought was occupied—that - was my daughter’s room.” - </p> - <p> - Madame Leroux was waiting for us in the garden of the chalet. She looked - anxiously up at her husband as we arrived. He nodded his head, and called - out, “It is all right. Monsieur agrees.” - </p> - <p> - The old woman took my hands, wringing them hysterically almost. “Ah, - Monsieur, you are very good,” she said. She raised her eyes to mine. But I - could not look into her eyes. There was a sorrow in them, an awfulness, a - sacredness of sorrow, which, I felt, it would be like sacrilege for me to - look at. - </p> - <p> - We became good friends, the Leroux and I, during the three months I passed - as their tenant. Madame, indeed, did for me and looked after me with a - zeal that was almost maternal. Both of them, as the old man had said, - loved above all things to talk of their daughter, and I hope I was never - loth to listen. Their passion, their grief, their constant thought of her, - appealed to one as very beautiful, as well as very touching. And something - like a pale spirit of the girl seemed gently, sweetly, always to be - present in the house, the house that Love had built for her, not guessing - that Death would come, as soon as it was finished, and call her away. “Oh, - but it is a joy, Monsieur, that you have left us her room,” the old couple - were never tired of repeating. One day Madame took me up into the room, - and showed me Eulalie’s pretty dresses, her trinkets, her books, the - handsomely bound books that she had won as prizes at the convent. And on - another day she showed me some of Eulalie’s letters, asking me if she - hadn’t a beautiful hand-writing, if the letters were not beautifully - expressed. She showed me photographs of the girl at all ages; a lock of - her hair; her baby clothes; the priest’s certificate of her first - communion; the bishop’s certificate of her confirmation. And she showed me - letters from the good sisters of the Sacred Heart, at Rouen, telling of - Eulalie’s progress in her studies, praising her conduct and her character. - “Oh, to think that she is gone, that she is gone!” the old woman wailed, - in a kind of helpless incomprehension, incredulity, of loss. Then, in a - moment, she murmured, with what submissiveness she could, “Le bon Dieu - sait ce qu’il fait,” crossing herself. - </p> - <p> - On the 12th of August, the anniversary of her death, I went with them to - the parish church, where a mass was said for the repose of Eulalie’s soul. - And the kind old curé afterwards came round, and pressed their hands, and - spoke words of comfort to them. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - In September I left them, returning to Dieppe. One afternoon I chanced to - meet that same old curé in the high street there. We stopped and spoke - together—naturally, of the Leroux, of what excellent people they - were, of how they grieved for their daughter. “Their love was more than - love. They adored the child, they idolised her. I have never witnessed - such affection,” the curé told me. “When she died, I seriously feared they - would lose their reason. They were dazed, they were beside themselves; for - a long while they were quite as if mad. But God is merciful. They have - learned to live with their affliction.” - </p> - <p> - “It is very beautiful,” said I, “the way they have sanctified her memory, - the way they worship it. You know, of course, they keep her room, with her - things in it, exactly as she left it. That seems to me very beautiful.” - </p> - <p> - “Her room?” questioned the curé, looking vague. “What room?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, didn’t you know?” I wondered. “Her bedroom in the chalet. They keep - it as she left it, with all her things about, her books, her dresses.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think I follow you,” the curé said. “She never had a bedroom in - the chalet.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I beg your pardon. One of the front rooms on the first floor was her - room,” I informed him. - </p> - <p> - But he shook his head. “There is some mistake. She never lived in the - chalet. She died in the old house. The chalet was only just finished when - she died. The workmen were hardly out of it.” - </p> - <p> - “No,” I said, “it is you who must be mistaken; you must forget. I am quite - sure. The Leroux have spoken of it to me times without number.” - </p> - <p> - “But, my dear sir,” the curé insisted, “I am not merely sure; I know. I - attended the girl in her last agony. She died in the farm-house. They had - not moved into the chalet. The chalet was being furnished. The last pieces - of furniture were taken in the very day before her death. The chalet was - never lived in. You are the only person who has ever lived in the chalet. - I assure you of the fact.” - </p> - <p> - “Well,” I said, “that is very strange, that is very strange indeed.” And - for a minute I was bewildered, I did not know what to think. But only for - a minute. Suddenly I cried out, “Oh, I see—I see. I understand.” - </p> - <p> - I saw, I understood. Suddenly I saw the pious, the beautiful deception - that these poor stricken souls had sought to practise on themselves; the - beautiful, the fond illusion they had created for themselves. They had - built the house for their daughter, and she had died just when it was - ready for her. But they could not bear—they could not bear—to - think that not for one little week even, not even for one poor little day - or hour, had she lived in the house, enjoyed the house. That was the - uttermost farthing of their sorrow, which they could not pay. They could - not acknowledge it to their own stricken hearts. So, piously, reverently—with - closed eyes as it were, that they might not know what they were doing—they - had carried the dead girl’s things to the room they had meant for her, - they had arranged them there, they had said, “This was her room; this <i>was</i> - her room.” They would not admit to themselves, they would not let - themselves stop to think, that she had never, even for one poor night, - slept in it, enjoyed it. They told a beautiful pious falsehood to - themselves. It was a beautiful pious game of “make-believe,” which, like - children, they could play together. And—the curé had said it: God is - merciful. In the end they had been enabled to confuse their beautiful - falsehood with reality, and to find comfort in it; they had been enabled - to forget that their “make-believe” was a “make-believe,” and to mistake - it for a beautiful comforting truth. The uttermost farthing of their - sorrow, which they could not pay, was not exacted. They were suffered to - keep it; and it became their treasure, precious to them as fine gold. - </p> - <p> - Falsehood—truth? Nay, I think there are illusions that are not - falsehoods—that are Truth’s own smiles of pity for us. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> am writing to you - from a lost corner of the far south-east of Europe. The author of my - guide-book, in his preface, observes that a traveller in this part of the - world, “unless he has some acquaintance with the local idioms, is liable - to find himself a good deal bewildered about the names of places.” On - Thursday of last week I booked from Charing Cross, by way of Dover, Paris, - and the Orient Express, for Vescova, the capital of Monterosso; and - yesterday afternoon—having changed on Sunday, at Belgrade, from land - to water, and steamed for close upon forty-eight hours down the Danube—I - was put ashore at the town of <i>Bckob</i>, in the Principality of - Tchermnogoria. - </p> - <p> - I certainly might well have found myself a good deal bewildered; and if I - did not—for I’m afraid I can’t boast of much acquaintance with the - local idioms—it was no doubt because this isn’t my first visit to - the country. I was here some years ago, and then I learned that <i>Bckob</i> - is pronounced as nearly as may be Vscof, and that Tchermnogoria is - Monterosso literally translated—<i>tchermnoe</i> (the dictionaries - certify) meaning red, and <i>gora</i>, or <i>goria</i>, a hill, a - mountain. - </p> - <p> - It is our fashion in England to speak of Monterosso, if we speak of it at - all, as I have just done: we say the Principality of Monterosso. But if we - were to inquire at the Foreign Office, I imagine they would tell us that - our fashion of speaking is not strictly correct. In its own Constitution - Monterosso describes itself as a <i>Krolevstvo</i>, and its Sovereign as - the <i>Krol</i>; and in all treaties and diplomatic correspondence, <i>Krol</i> - and <i>Krolevstvo</i> are recognised by those most authoritative - lexicographers, the Powers, as equivalent respectively to King and - Kingdom. Anyhow, call it what you will, Monterosso is geographically the - smallest, though politically the eldest, of the lower Danubian States. (It - is sometimes, by-the-bye, mentioned in the newspapers of Western Europe as - one of the Balkan States, which can scarcely be accurate, since, as a - glance at the map will show, the nearest spurs of the Balkan Mountains are - a good hundred miles distant from its southern frontier.) Its area is - under ten thousand square miles, but its reigning family, the - Pavelovitches, have contrived to hold their throne, from generation to - generation, through thick and thin, ever since Peter the Great set them on - it, at the conclusion of his war with the Turks, in 1713. - </p> - <p> - Vescova is rarely visited by English folk, lying, as it does, something - like a two days’ journey off the beaten track, which leads through - Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople. But, should you ever chance to come - here, you would be surprised to see what a fine town it is, with its - population of upwards of a hundred thousand souls, its broad, well-paved - streets, its substantial yellow-stone houses, its three theatres, its - innumerable churches, its shops and cafés, its gardens, quays, monuments, - its government offices, and its Royal Palace. I am speaking, of course, of - the new town, the modern town, which has virtually sprung into existence - since 1850, and which, the author of my guide-book says, “disputes with - Bukharest the title of the Paris of the South-east.” The old town—the - Turkish town, as they call it—is another matter: a nightmare-region - of filthy alleys, open sewers, crumbling clay hovels, mud, stench, dogs, - and dirty humanity, into which a well-advised foreigner will penetrate as - seldom as convenient. Yet it is in the centre of the old town that the - Cathedral stands, the Cathedral of Sankt Iakov, an interesting specimen of - Fifteenth Century Saracenic, having been erected by the Sultan Mohammed - II., as a mosque. - </p> - <p> - Of the Royal Palace I obtain a capital view from the window of my room in - the Hôtel de Russie. - </p> - <p> - “A vast irregular pile,” in the language of my guide-book, “it is built on - the summit of an eminence which dominates the town from the west.” The - “eminence” rises gradually from this side to a height of perhaps a hundred - feet, but breaks off abruptly on the other in a sheer cliff overhanging - the Danube. The older portions of the Palace spring from the very brink of - the precipice, so that, leaning from their ramparts, you could drop a - pebble straight into the current, an appalling depth below. And, still to - speak by the book, these older portions “vie with the Cathedral in - architectural interest.” What I see from my bedroom is a formidable, - murderous-looking Saracenic castle: huge perpendicular quadrangles of - blank, windowless, iron-grey stone wall (<i>curtains</i>, are they - technically called?), connecting massive square towers; and the towers are - surmounted by battlements and pierced by meurtrières. It stands out very - bold and black, gloomy and impressive, when the sun sets behind it, in the - late afternoon. I could suppose the place quite impregnable, if not - inaccessible; and it’s a mystery to me how Peter the Great ever succeeded - in taking it, as History will have it that he did, by assault. - </p> - <p> - The modern portions of the Palace are entirely commonplace and cheerful. - The east wing, visible from where I am seated writing, might have been - designed by Baron Haussmann: a long stretch of yellow façade—dazzling - to the sight just now, in the morning sunshine—with a French roof, - of slate, and a box of gay-tinted flowers in each of its countless - windows. - </p> - <p> - Behind the Palace there is a large and very lovely garden, reserved to the - uses of the Royal Household; and beyond that, the Dunayskiy Prospekt, a - park that covers about sixty acres, and is open to the public. - </p> - <p> - The first floor, the <i>piano nobile</i>, of that east wing is occupied by - the private apartments of the King and Queen. - </p> - <p> - I look across the quarter-mile of red-tiled housetops that separate me - from their Majesties’ habitation, and I fancy the life that is going on - within. It is too early in the day for either of them to be abroad, so - they are certainly there, somewhere behind those gleaming windows: - Theodore <i>Krol</i>t and Anéli <i>Kroleva</i>. - </p> - <p> - She, I would lay a wager, is in her music-room, at her piano, practising a - song with Florimond. She is dressed in white (I always think of her as - dressed in white—doubtless because she wore a white frock the first - time I saw her), and her brown hair is curling loose about her forehead, - her maids not having yet imprisoned it. I declare, I can almost hear her - voice: <i>tra-la-lira-la-la</i>: mastering a trill; while Florimond, pink, - and plump, and smiling, walks up and down the room, nodding his head to - mark the time, and every now and then interrupting her with a suggestion. - </p> - <p> - The King, at this hour, will be in his study, in dressing-gown and - slippers—a tattered old dingy brown dressing-gown, out at elbows—at - his big wildly-littered writing-table, producing “copy,” to the - accompaniment of endless cigarettes and endless glasses of tea. - (Monterossan cigarettes are excellent, and Monterossan tea is always - served in glasses.) The King has literary aspirations, and—like - Frederick the Great—coaxes his muse in French. You will occasionally - see a <i>conte</i> of his in the <i>Nouvelle Revue</i>, signed by the - artful pseudonym, Théodore Montrouge. - </p> - <p> - At one o’clock to-day I am to present myself at the Palace, and to be - received by their Majesties in informal audience; and then I am to have - the honour of lunching with them. If I were on the point of lunching with - any other royal family in Europe.... But, thank goodness, I’m not; and I - needn’t pursue the distressing speculation. Queen Anéli and King Theodore - are—for a multitude of reasons—a Queen and King apart. - </p> - <p> - You see, when he began life, Theodore IV. was simply Prince Theodore - Pavelovitch, the younger son of a nephew of the reigning Krol, Paul III,; - and nobody dimly dreamed that he would ever ascend the throne. So he went - to Paris, and “made his studies” in the Latin Quarter, like any commoner. - </p> - <p> - In those days—as, I dare say, it still is in these—the Latin - Quarter was crowded with students from the far South-east. Servians, - Roumanians, Monte-rossans, grew, as it were, on every bush; we even had a - sprinkling of Bulgarians and Montenegrins; and those of them who were not - (more or less vaguely) princes, you could have numbered on your fingers. - And, anyhow, in that democratic and self-sufficient seat of learning, - titles count for little, and foreign countries are a matter of consummate - ignorance and jaunty unconcern. The Duke of Plaza-Toro, should he venture - in the classical Boul’ Miche, would have to cede the <i>pas</i> to the - latest hero of the Beaux-Arts, or bully from the School of Medicine, even - though the hero were the son of a village apothecary, and the bully reeked - to heaven of absinthe and tobacco; while the Prime Minister of England - would find his name, it is more than to be feared, unknown, and himself - regarded as a person of quite extraordinary unimportance. - </p> - <p> - So we accepted Prince Theodore Pavelovitch, and tried him by his - individual merits, for all the world as if he were made of the same flesh - and blood as Tom, Dick, and Harry; and thee-and-thou’d him, and hailed him - as <i>mon vieux</i>, as merrily as we did everybody else. Indeed, I - shouldn’t wonder if the majority of those who knew him were serenely - unaware that his origin was royal (he would have been the last to apprise - them of it), and roughly classed him with our other <i>princes valaques</i>. - For convenience sake, we lumped them all—the divers natives of the - lands between the Black Sea and the Adriatic—under the generic name, - Valaques; we couldn’t be bothered with nicer ethnological distinctions. - </p> - <p> - We tried Prince Theodore by his individual merits; but, as his individual - merits happened to be signal, we liked him very much. He hadn’t a trace of - “side;” his pockets were full of money; he was exceedingly free-handed. No - man was readier for a lark, none more inventive or untiring in the - prosecution of one. He was a brilliant scholar, besides, and almost the - best fencer in the Quarter. And he was pleasantly good-looking—fair-haired, - blue-eyed, with a friendly humorous face, a pointed beard, and a slight, - agile, graceful figure. Everybody liked him, and everybody was sorry when - he had to leave us, and return to his ultra-mundane birthplace. “It can’t - be helped,” he said. “I must go home and do three years of military - service. But then I shall come back. I mean always to live in Paris.” - </p> - <p> - That was in ’82. But he never came back. For, before his three years of - military service were completed, the half-dozen cousins and the brother - who stood between him and the throne, had one by one died off, and - Theodore himself had succeeded to the dignity of <i>Krolevitch</i>,—as - they call their Heir-Presumptive. In 1886 he married. And, finally, in - ’88, his great-uncle Paul also died—at the age of ninety-seven, if - you please—and Theodore was duly proclaimed Krol. - </p> - <p> - He didn’t forget his ancient cronies, though; and I was only one of those - whom he invited to come and stay with him in his Palace. I came, and - stayed.... eleven months! That seems egregious; but what will you say of - another of us, Arthur Fleet (or Florimond, as their Majesties have - nicknamed him), who came at the same time, and has stayed ever since? The - fact is, the King is a tenacious as well as a delightful host; if he once - gets you within his portals, he won’t let you go without a struggle. “We - do bore ourselves so improbably out here, you know,” he explains. “The - society of a Christian is a thing we’d commit a crime for.” - </p> - <p> - Theodore’s consort, Anéli Isabella, <i>Kroleva Tcherrnnogory—vide</i> - the <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>—is the third daughter of the late - Prince Maximilian of Wittenburg; sister, therefore, to that young Prince - Waldemar who comes almost every year to England, and with whose name and - exploits as a yachtsman all conscientious students of the daily press will - be familiar; and cousin to the reigning Grand Duke Ernest. - </p> - <p> - Theoretically German, she is, however, to all intents and purposes, - French; for her mother, the Princess Célestine (of Bourbon-Morbihan), was - a Frenchwoman, and, until her marriage, I fancy that more than half of - Anéli’s life was passed between Nice and Paris. She openly avows, - moreover, that she “detests Germany, the German language, the German - people, and all things German, and adores France and the French.” And her - political sympathies are entirely with the Franco-Russ alliance. - </p> - <p> - She is a deliciously pretty little lady, with curling soft-brown hair, a - round, very young-looking face, a delicate rose-and-ivory complexion, and - big, bright, innocent brown eyes—innocent, yet with plenty of - potential archness, even potential mischief, lurking in them. She has - beautiful full red lips, besides, and exquisite little white teeth. - Florimond wrote a triolet about her once, in which he described her as - “une fleur en porcelaine.” Her Majesty repudiated the phrase indignantly. - “Why not say a wax-doll, and be done with it?” she demanded. All the same, - “fleur en porcelaine” does, in a manner, suggest the general effect of her - appearance, its daintiness, its finish, its crisp chiselling, its clear, - pure colour. Whereas, nothing could be more misleading than “wax-doll,” - for there is character, character, in every molecule of her person. - </p> - <p> - The Queen’s character, indeed, is what I wish I could give some idea of It - is peculiar, it is distinctive; to me, at any rate, it is infinitely - interesting and diverting; but, by the same token—if I may hazard so - to qualify it—it is a trifle.... a trifle.... difficult. - </p> - <p> - “You’re such an arbitrary gent!” I heard Florimond complain to her, one - day. (I heard and trembled, but the Queen only laughed.) And that will - give you an inkling of what I mean. - </p> - <p> - If she likes you, if you amuse her, and if you never remotely oppose or - question her desire of the moment, she can be all that is most gracious, - most reasonable, most captivating: an inspiring listener, an entertaining - talker: mingling the naïveté, the inexperience of evil, the half comical, - half appealing unsophistication, of a girl, of a child almost—of one - who has always lived far aloof from the struggle and uncleanness of the - workaday world—with the wit, the humour, the swift appreciation and - responsiveness of an exceedingly impressionable, clear-sighted, and - accomplished woman. - </p> - <p> - But... but.... - </p> - <p> - Well, I suppose, the right way of putting it would be to say, in the - consecrated formula, that she has the defects of her qualities. Having - preserved something of a child’s simplicity, she has not entirely lost a - child’s wilfulness, a child’s instability of mood, a child’s trick of - wearing its heart upon its sleeve. She has never perfectly acquired a - grown person’s power of controlling or concealing her emotions. - </p> - <p> - If you <i>don’t</i> happen to amuse her—if, by any chance, it is - your misfortune to <i>bore</i> her, no matter how slightly; and, oh, she - is so easily bored!—the atmosphere changes in a twinkling: the sun - disappears, clouds gather, the temperature falls, and (unless you speedily - “brisken up,” or fly her presence) you may prepare for most uncomfortable - weather. If you manifest the faintest hesitation in complying with her - momentary wishes, if you raise the mildest objection to them—<i>gare - à vous!</i> Her face darkens, ominous lightning flashes in her eyes, her - under-lip swells dangerously; she very likely stamps her foot imperiously; - and you are to be accounted lucky if you don’t get a smart dab from the - barbed end of her royal tongue. And if she doesn’t like you, though she - may think she is trying with might and main to disguise the fact and to - treat you courteously, you know it directly, and you go away with the - persuasion that she has been, not merely cold and abstracted, but - downright uncivil. - </p> - <p> - In a word, Queen Anéli is hasty, she is impatient. - </p> - <p> - And, in addition to that, she is uncertain. You can never tell beforehand, - by any theory of probabilities based on past experience, what will or will - not, on any given occasion, cause her to smile or frown. The thing she - expressed a desire for yesterday, may offend her to-day, The suggestion - that offended her yesterday, to-day she may welcome with joyous - enthusiasm. You must approach her gingerly, tentatively; you must feel - your ground. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, most dread Sovereign,” said Florimond, “if you won’t fly out at me, I - would submit, humbly, that you’d better not drive this afternoon in your - victoria, in your sweet new frock, for, unless all signs fail, it’s going - to rain like everything.” - </p> - <p> - She didn’t fly out at him exactly; but she retorted succinctly, with a - peremptory gesture, “No, it’s <i>not</i> going to rain,” as who should - say, “It daren’t.” And she drove in her victoria, and spoiled her sweet - new frock. “Not to speak of my sweet new top-hat,” sighs Florimond, who - attended her; “the only Lincoln and Bennett topper in the whole length and - breadth of Monterosso.” - </p> - <p> - She is hasty, she is uncertain; and then... she is <i>intense</i>. She - talks in italics, she feels in superlatives; she admits no comparative - degree, no emotional half-tones. When she is not <i>ecstatically</i> - happy, she is <i>desperately</i> miserable; wonders why she was ever born - into this worst of all possible worlds; wishes she were dead; and even - sometimes drops dark hints of meditated suicide. When she is not in the - brightest of affable humours, she is in the blackest of cross ones. She - either <i>loves</i> a thing, or she <i>simply can’t endure it</i>;—the - thing may be a town, a musical composition, a perfume, or a person. She - either loves you, or simply can’t endure you; and she’s very apt to love - you and to cease to love you alternately—or, at least, to give you - to understand as much—three or four times a day. It is winter - midnight or summer noon, a climate of extremes. - </p> - <p> - “Do you like the smell of tangerine-skin?” - </p> - <p> - Every evening for a week, when, at the end of dinner, the fruit was handed - round, the King asked her that question; and she, never suspecting his - malice, answered invariably, as she crushed a bit between her fingers, and - fervidly inhaled its odour, “Oh, do I <i>like</i> it? I <i>adore</i> it. - It’s perfect <i>rapture</i>.” - </p> - <p> - She is hasty, she is uncertain, she is intense. Will you be surprised when - I go on to insist that, down deep, she is altogether well-meaning and - excessively tender-hearted, and when I own that among all the women I know - I can think of none other who seems to me so attractive, so fascinating, - so sweetly feminine and loveable? (Oh, no, I am not <i>in love</i> with - her, not in the least—though I don’t say that I mightn’t be, if I - were a king, or she were not a queen.) If she realises that she has been - unreasonable, she is the first to confess it; she repents honestly, and - makes the devoutest resolutions to amend. If she discovers that she has - hurt anybody’s feelings, her conscience will not give her a single second - of peace, until she has sought her victim out and heaped him with - benefits. If she believes that this or that distasteful task forms in very - truth a part of her duty, she will go to any length of persevering - self-sacrifice to accomplish it. - </p> - <p> - She has a hundred generous and kindly impulses, where she has one that is - perverse or inconsiderate. Bring any case of distress or sorrow to her - notice, and see how instantly her eyes soften, how eager she is to be of - help. And in her affections, however mercurial she may appear on the - surface, she is really constant, passionate, and, in great things, - forbearing. She and her husband, for example, though they have been - married perilously near ten years, are little better than a pair of - sweethearts (and jealous sweethearts, at that: you should have been - present on a certain evening when we had been having a long talk and laugh - over old days in the Latin Quarter, and an evil spirit prompted one of us - to regale her Majesty with a highly-coloured account of Theodore’s - youthful infatuation for Nina Childe!... Oh, their faces! Oh, the silence! - ); and then, witness her devotion to her brother, to her sisters; her - fondness for Florimond, for Madame Donarowska, who was her governess when - she was a girl, and now lives with her in the Palace. - </p> - <p> - “I am writing a fairy-tale,” Florimond said to her “about Princess - Gugglegoo and Princess Raggle-snag.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” questioned the Queen. “And who were <i>they?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Princess Gugglegoo was all sweetness and pinkness, softness and - guilelessness, a rose full of honey, and without a thorn; a perfect little - cherub; oh, such a duck! Princess Ragglesnag was all corners and sharp - edges, fire and fret, dark moods and quick angers; oh, such an intolerant, - dictatorial, explosive, tempestuous princess! You could no more touch her - than you could touch a nettle, or a porcupine, or a live coal, or a Leyden - jar, or any other prickly, snaggy, knaggy, incandescent, electric thing. - You were obliged to mind your p’s and q’s with her! But no matter how - carefully you minded them, she was sure to let you have it, sooner or - later; you were sure to <i>rile</i> her, one way or another: she was that - cantankerous and tetchy, and changeable and unexpected.—And then.... - Well, what do you suppose?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m waiting to hear,” the Queen replied, a little drily. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there! If you’re going to be grumpy, ma’am, I won’t play,” cried - Florimond. - </p> - <p> - “I’m not grumpy. Only, your characters are rather conventionally drawn. - However, go on, go on.” - </p> - <p> - “There was a distinct suggestion of menace in your tone. But never mind. - If you didn’t really mean it, we’ll pretend there wasn’t.—Well, my - dears,” he went on, turning, so as to include the King in his audience, - “you never <i>will</i> believe me, but it’s a solemn, sober fact that - these two princesses were twin sisters, and that they looked so much alike - that nobody, not even their own born mother, could tell them apart. Now, - wasn’t <i>that</i> surprising? Only Ragglesnag looked like Gugglegoo - suddenly curdled and gone sour, you know; and Gugglegoo looked like - Ragglesnag suddenly wreathed out in smiles and graces. So that the - courtiers used to say ’Hello! What <i>can</i> have happened? Here comes - dear Princess Gugglegoo looking as black as thunder.’ Or else—’Bless - us and save us! What’s <i>this</i> miracle? Here comes old Ragglesnag - looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,’ Well, and then....” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you needn’t continue,” the Queen interrupted, bridling. “You’re - tedious and obvious, and utterly unfair and unjust. I hope I’m not an - insipid little fool, like Gugglegoo; but I don’t think I’m quite a - termagant, either, like your horrid exaggerated Ragglesnag.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” wailed Florimond. “Why <i>will</i> people go and - make a personal application or everything a fellow says? If I had been - even remotely thinking of your Majesty, I should never have dreamed of - calling her by either of those ridiculous outlandish names. Gugglegoo and - Ragglesnag, indeed!” - </p> - <p> - “What <i>would</i> you have called her?” the King asked, who was chuckling - inscrutably in his armchair. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I <i>might</i> have called her Ragglegoo, and I <i>might</i> have - called her Gugglesnag. But I hope I’m much too discerning ever to have - applied such a sweeping generalisation to her as Ragglesnag, or such a - silly, sugary sort of barbarism as Gugglegoo.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s perfectly useless,” the Queen broke out, bitterly, “to expect a <i>man</i>—even - a comparatively intelligent and highly-developed man, like Florimond—to - understand the subtleties of a woman’s nature, or to sympathise with the - difficulties of her life. When she isn’t as crude, and as blunt, and as - phlegmatic, and as insensitive, and as transparent and commonplace and - all-of-one-piece as themselves, men always think a woman’s unreasonable - and capricious and infantile. It’s a little <i>too</i> discouraging. Here - I wear myself to a shadow, and bore and worry myself to extermination, - with all the petty contemptible cares and bothers and pomps and ceremonies - of this tiresome little Court; and that’s all the thanks I get—to be - laughed at by my husband, and lectured and ridiculed in stupid allegories - by Florimond! It’s a little <i>too</i> hard. Oh, if you’d only let me go - away, and leave it all behind me! I’d go to Paris and change my name, and - become a concert-singer. It’s the only thing I really care for—to - sing and sing and sing. Oh, if I could only go and make a career as a - concert-singer in Paris! Will you let me? Will you? <i>Will</i> you?” she - demanded, vehemently, of her husband. - </p> - <p> - “That’s rather a radical measure to bring up for discussion at this hour - of the night, isn’t it?” the King suggested, laughing. - </p> - <p> - “But it’s quite serious enough for you to afford to consider it. And I - don’t see why one hour isn’t as good as another. <i>Will</i> you let me go - to Paris and become a concert-singer?” - </p> - <p> - “What! And leave poor me alone and forlorn here in Vescova? Oh, my dear, - you wouldn’t desert your own lawful spouse in that regardless manner!” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t see what ’lawful’ has to do with it. You don’t half appreciate - me. You think I’m childish, and capricious, and bad-tempered, and - everything that’s absurd and idiotic. I don’t see why I should waste my - life and my youth, stagnating in this out-of-the-way corner of Nowhere, - with a man who doesn’t appreciate me, and who thinks I’m childish and - idiotic, when I could go to Paris and have a life of my own, and a career, - and do the only thing in the world I really care for. Will you let me go? - Answer. Will you?” - </p> - <p> - But the King only laughed. - </p> - <p> - “And besides,” the Queen went on, in a minute, “if you really missed me, - you could come too. You could abdicate. Why shouldn’t you? Instead of - staying here, and boring and worrying ourselves to death as King and Queen - of this ungrateful, insufferable, little unimportant ninth-rate - make-believe of a country, why shouldn’t we abdicate and go to Paris, and - be a Man and a Woman, and have a little Life, instead of this dreary, - artificial, cardboard sort of puppet-show existence? You could devote - yourself to literature, and I’d go on the concert-stage, and we’d have a - delightful little house in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and be - perfectly happy. Of course, Flori-mond would come with us. Why shouldn’t - we? Oh, if you only would Î Will you? Will you, Theo?” she pleaded - earnestly. - </p> - <p> - The King looked at his watch. “It’s nearly midnight, my dear,” he said. - “High time, I should think, to adjourn the debate. But if, when you wake - up to-morrow morning, you wish to resume it, Flori-mond and I will be at - your disposal. Meanwhile, we’re losing our beauty-sleep; and I, for one, - am going to bed.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it’s always like that!” the Queen complained. “You never do me the - honour of taking seriously anything I say. It’s intolerable. I don’t think - any woman was ever so badly treated.” - </p> - <p> - She didn’t recur to the subject next day, however, but passed the entire - morning with Florimond, planning the details of a garden-party, and - editing the list of guests; and she threw her whole soul into it too. So - that, when the King looked in upon them a little before luncheon, - Florimond smiled at him significantly (indeed, I’m not sure he didn’t <i>wink</i> - at him) and called out, “Oh, we <i>are</i> enjoying ourselves. Please - don’t interrupt. Go back to your counting-house and count out your money, - and leave us in the parlour to eat our bread and honey.” - </p> - <p> - It is in the nature of things, doubtless, that a temperament such as I - have endeavoured to suggest should find the intensity of its own feelings - reflected by those that it excites in others. One would expect to hear - that the people who like Queen Anéli like her tremendously, and that the - people who don’t like her tremendously don’t like her at all. And, in - effect, that is precisely the lady’s case. She is tremendously liked by - those who are near to her, and who are therefore in a position to - understand her and to make allowances. They love the woman in her; they - laugh at and love the high-spirited, whimsical, impetuous, ingenuous - child. But those who are at a distance from her, or who meet her only - rarely and formally, necessarily fail to understand her, and are apt, - accordingly, neither to admire her greatly, nor to bear her much good - will. And, of course, while the people who are near to her can be named by - twos and threes, those who view her from a distance must be reckoned with - by thousands. And this brings me to a painful circumstance, which I may as - well mention without more ado. At Vescova—as you could scarcely - spend a day in the town and not become aware—Queen Anéli is anything - you please but popular. - </p> - <p> - “The inhabitants of Monterosso,” says M. Boridov, in his interesting - history of that country, “fall into three rigidly separated castes: the - nobility, a bare handful of tall, fair-haired, pure-blooded Slavs; the - merchants and manufacturers, almost exclusively Jews and Germans; and the - peasantry, the populace—a short, thick-set, swarthy race, of Slavic - origin, no doubt, and speaking a Slavic tongue, but with most of the - Slavic characteristics obliterated by admixture with the Turk.... Your - true Slav peasant, with his mild blue eyes and his trustful spirit, is as - meek and as long-suffering as a dumb beast of burden. But your - black-browed Monterossan, your Tchermnogorets, is fierce, lawless, - resentful, and vindictive, a Turk’s grandson, the Turk’s first cousin: - though no one detests the Turk more cordially than he.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, at Vescova, and, with diminishing force, throughout all Monterosso, - Queen Anéli is entirely misunderstood and sullenly misliked. Her husband - cannot be called precisely the idol of his people, either; but he is - regarded with indulgence, even with hopefulness; he is a Monterossan, a - Pavelovitch: he may turn out well yet. Anéli, on the contrary, is an - alien, a German, a <i>Niemkashka</i>. The feeling against her begins with - the nobility. Save the half-dozen who are about her person, almost every - mother’s son or daughter of them fancies that he or she has been rudely - treated by her, and quite frankly hates her. I am afraid, indeed, they - have some real cause of grievance; for they are most of them rather - tedious, and provincial, and narrow-minded; and they bore her terribly - when they come to Court; and when she is bored, as we have seen, she is - likely to show it pretty plainly. So they say she gives herself airs. They - pretend that when she isn’t absent-minded and monosyllabic, she is - positively snappish. They denounce her as vain, shallow-pated, and - extravagant. They twist and torture every word she speaks, and everything - she does, into subject-matter for unfriendly criticism; and they quote as - from her lips a good many words that she has never spoken, and they blame - her savagely for innumerable things that she has never thought of doing. - But that’s the trouble with the fierce light that beats upon a throne—it - shows the gaping multitude so much more than is really there. Why, I have - been assured by at least a score of Monterossan ladies that the Queen’s - lovely brown hair is a wig; that her exquisite little teeth are the - creation of Dr. Evans, of Paris; that whenever anything happens to annoy - her, she bursts out with torrents of the most awful French oaths; that she - quite frequently slaps and pinches her maids-of-honour; and that, as for - her poor husband, he gets his hair pulled and his face scratched as often - as he and she have the slightest difference of opinion. Monterossan ladies - have gravely asseverated these charges to me (these, and others more - outrageous, which I won’t repeat), whilst their Monterossan lords nodded - confirmation. It matters little that the charges are preposterous. Give a - Queen a bad name, and nine people in ten will believe she merits it. - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow, the nobility of Monterosso, quite frankly hating Queen Anéli, - give her every bad name they can discover in their vocabularies; and the - populace, the mob, without stopping to make original investigations, have - convicted her on faith, and watch her with sullen captiousness and - mislike. When she drives abroad, scarcely a hat is doffed, never a cheer - is raised. On the contrary, one sometimes hears mutterings and muffled - groans; and the glances the passers-by direct at her are, in the main, the - very reverse of affectionate glances. Members of the shop-keeping class - alone show a certain tendency to speak up for her, because she spends her - money pretty freely; but the shop-keeping class are aliens too, and don’t - count—or, rather, they count against her, ’the dogs of Jews,’ the <i>zhudovskwy - sobakwy!</i>” - </p> - <p> - But do you imagine Queen Anéli minds? Do you imagine she is hurt, - depressed, disappointed? Not she. She accepts her unpopularity with the - most superb indifference. “What do you suppose I care for the opinion of - such riff-raff?” I recollect her once crying out, with curling lip. “Any - one who has the least individuality, the least character, the least - fineness, the least originality—any one who is in the least degree - natural, unconventional, spontaneous—is bound to be misconceived and - caluminated by the vulgar rank and file. It’s the meanness and stupidity - of average human nature; it’s the proverbial injustice of men. To be - popular, you must either be utterly insignificant, a complete nonentity, - or else a timeserver and a hypocrite. So long as I have a clear conscience - of my own, I don’t care a button what strangers think and say about me. I - don’t intend to allow my conduct to be influenced in the tiniest - particular by the prejudices of outsiders. Meddlers, busybodies! I will - live my own life, and those who don’t like it may do their worst. I will - be myself.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, my dear; but after all,” the King reminded her, “one has, in this - imperfect world, to make certain compromises with one’s environment, for - comfort’s sake. One puts on extra clothing in winter, for example, however - much, on abstract principles, one may despise such a gross, material, - unintelligent thing as the weather. Just so, don’t you think, one is by - way of having a smoother time of it, in the long run, if one takes a few - simple measures to conciliate the people amongst whom one is compelled to - live? Now, for instance, if you would give an hour or two every day to - learning Monterossan.... - </p> - <p> - “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t begin <i>that</i> rengaine,” cried her - Majesty. “I’ve told you a hundred million times that I won’t be bothered - learning Monterossan.” - </p> - <p> - It is one of her subjects’ sorest points, by the bye, that she has never - condescended to learn their language. When she was first married, indeed, - she announced her intention of studying it. Grammars and dictionaries were - bought; a Professor was nominated; and for almost a week the Crown - Princess (Krolevna), as she then was, did little else than grind at - Monterossan. Her Professor was delighted; he had never known such a - zealous pupil. Her husband was a little anxious. “You mustn’t work too - hard, my dear. An hour or two a day should be quite enough.” But she - answered, “Let me alone. It interests me.” And for almost a week she was - at it early and late, with hammer and tongs; poring over the endless - declensions of Monterossan nouns, the endless conjugations of Monterossan - verbs; wrestling, <i>sotto voce</i>, with the tongue-tangling difficulties - of Monterossan pronunciation; or, with dishevelled hair and inky fingers, - copying long Monterossan sentences into her exercise book. She is not the - sort of person who does things by halves.—And then, suddenly, she - turned volte-face; abandoned the enterprise for ever. “It’s idiotic,” she - exclaimed. “A language with thirty-seven letters in its alphabet, and no - literature! Why should I addle my brains trying to learn it? Ah, bien, - merci! I’ll content myself with French and English. It’s bad enough, in - one short life, to have had to learn German, when I was a child.” - </p> - <p> - And neither argument nor entreaty could induce her to recommence it. The - King, who has never altogether resigned himself to her determination, - seizes from time to time an opportunity to hark back to it; but then he is - silenced, as we have seen, with a “don’t begin <i>that</i> rengaine.” The - disadvantages that result from her ignorance, it must be noticed, are - chiefly moral; it offends Monterossan amour-propre. Practically, she does - perfectly well with French, that being the Court language of the realm. - </p> - <p> - No, Queen Anéli doesn’t care a button. She tosses her head, and accepts - “the proverbial injustice of men” with magnificent unconcern. Only, - sometimes, when the public sentiment against her takes the form of - aggressive disrespect, or when it interferes in any way with her immediate - convenience, it puts her a little out of patience—when, for - instance, the traffic in the street retards the progress of her carriage, - and a passage isn’t cleared for her as rapidly as it might be for a Queen - whom the rabble loved; or when, crossing the pavement on foot, to enter a - church, or a shop, or what not, the idlers that collect to look, glare at - her sulkily, without doing her the common courtesy of lifting their hats. - In such circumstances, I dare say, she is more or less angered. At all - events, a sudden fire will kindle in her eyes, a sudden colour in her - cheeks; she will very likely tap nervously with her foot, and murmur - something about “canaille.” Perhaps anger, though, is the wrong word for - her emotion; perhaps it should be more correctly called a kind of angry - contempt. - </p> - <p> - When I first came to Vescova, some years ago, the Prime Minister and - virtual dictator of the country was still M. Tsargradev, the terrible M. - Tsargradev,—or Sargradeff, as most English newspapers write his - name,—and it was during my visit here that his downfall occurred, - his downfall and irretrievable disgrace. - </p> - <p> - The character and career of M. Tsargradev would furnish the subject for an - extremely interesting study. The illegitimate son of a Monterossan - nobleman, by a peasant mother, he inherited the unprepossessing physical - peculiarities of his mother’s stock: the sallow skin, the broad face, the - flat features, the prominent cheek-bones, the narrow, oblique-set, - truculent black eyes, the squat, heavy figure. But to these he united a - cleverness, an energy, an ambition, which are as foreign to simple as to - gentle Monterossan blood, and which he doubtless owed to the fusion of the - two; and an unscrupulousness, a perfidy, a cruelty, and yet a superficial - urbanity, that are perhaps not surprising in an ambitious politician, half - an Oriental, who has got to carry the double handicap of a repulsive - personal appearance and a bastard birth. Now, the Government of - Monterosso, as the King has sometimes been heard to stigmatise it, is - deplorably constitutional. By the Constitution of 1869, practically the - whole legislative power is vested in the Soviete, a parliament elected by - the votes of all male subjects who have completed three years of military - service. And, in the early days of the reign of Theodore IV., M. - Tsargradev was leader of the Soviete, with a majority of three to one at - his back. - </p> - <p> - This redoubtable personage stood foremost in the ranks of those whom our - fiery little Queen Anéli “could not endure.” - </p> - <p> - “His horrible soapy smile! His servile, insinuating manner! It makes you - feel as if he were plotting your assassination,” she declared. “His voice—ugh! - It’s exactly like lukewarm oil. He makes my flesh creep, like some - frightful, bloated reptile.” - </p> - <p> - “There was a Queen in Thule,” hummed Florimond, “who had a marvellous - command of invective. ’Eaving help your reputation, if you fell under her - illustrious displeasure.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t see why you make fun of me. I’m sure you think as I do—that - he’s a monster of low cunning, and cynicism, and craft, and treachery, and - everything that’s vile and revolting. Don’t you?” the Queen demanded. - </p> - <p> - “To be sure I do, ma’am. I think he’s a bold, bad, dreadful person. I lie - awake half the night, counting up his iniquities in my mind. And if just - now I laughed, it was only to keep from crying.” - </p> - <p> - “This sort of talk is all very well,” put in the King; “but the fact - remains that Tsargradev is the master of Monterosso. He could do any one - of us an evil turn at any moment. He could cut down our Civil List - to-morrow, or even send us packing, and establish republic. We’re - dependent for everything upon his pleasure. I think, really, my dear, you - ought to try to be decent to him—if only for prudence’ sake.” - </p> - <p> - “Decent to him!” echoed her Majesty. “I like that! As if I didn’t treat - him a hundred million times better than he deserves! I hope he can’t - complain that I’m not decent to him.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re not exactly effusive, do you think? I don’t mean that you stick - your tongue out at him, or throw things at his head. But trust him for - understanding. It’s what you leave unsaid and undone, rather than what you - say or do. He’s fully conscious of the sort of place he occupies in your - esteem, and he resents it. He thinks you distrust him, suspect him, look - down upon him....” - </p> - <p> - “Well, and so I do,” interrupted the Queen. “And so do you. And so does - everybody who has any right feeling.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but those of us who are wise in our generation keep our private - sentiments regarding him under lock and key. We remember his power, and - treat him respectfully to his face, however much we may despise him in - secret. What’s the use of quarrelling with our bread and butter? We should - seek to propitiate him, to rub him the right way.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you would actually like me to <i>grovel</i>, to <i>toady</i>, to a - disgusting little low-born, black-hearted cad like Tsargradev!” cried the - Queen, with scorn. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear me, no,” protested her husband. “But there’s a vast difference - between toadying, and being a little tactful, a little diplomatic. I - should like you to treat him with something more than bare civility.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what can I do that I don’t do?” - </p> - <p> - “You never ask him to any but your general public functions, your State - receptions, and that sort of thing. Why don’t you admit him to your - private circle sometimes? Why don’t you invite him to your private - parties, your dinners?” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, merci, non! My private parties are my private parties. I ask my - friends, I ask the people I like. Nothing could induce me to ask that - horrid little underbred mongrel creature. He’d be—he’d be like—like - something unclean—something murky and contaminating—in the - room. He’d be like an animal, an ape, a satyr.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, my dear,” the King submitted meekly, “I only hope we’ll never have - cause to repent your exclusion of him. I know he bears us a grudge for it, - and he’s not a person whose grudges are to be made light of.” - </p> - <p> - “Bah! I’m not afraid of him,” Anéli retorted. “I know he hates me. I see - it every time he looks at me, with his snaky little eyes, his forced - little smile—that awful, complacent, ingratiating smirk of his, that - shows his teeth, and isn’t even skin deep; a mere film spread over his - face, like pomatum! Oh, I know he hates me. But it’s the nature of mean, - false little beasts like him to hate their betters; so it can’t be helped. - For the rest, he may do his worst. I’m not afraid,” she concluded airily. - </p> - <p> - Not only would she take no steps to propitiate M. Tsargradev, but she was - constantly urging her husband to dismiss him. - </p> - <p> - “I’m perfectly certain he has all sorts of dreadful secret vices. I - haven’t the least doubt he’s murdered people. I’m sure he steals. I’m sure - he has a secret understanding with Berlin, and accepts bribes to manage - the affairs of Monterosso as Prince Bismarck wishes. That’s why we’re more - or less in disgrace with our natural allies, Russia and France. Because - Tsargradev is paid to pursue, an anti-Russian, a German, policy. If you - would take my advice, you’d dismiss him, and have him put in prison. Then - you could explain to the Soviete that he is a murderer, a thief, a - traitor, and a monster of secret immorality, and appoint a decent person - in his place.” - </p> - <p> - Her husband laughed with great amusement. - </p> - <p> - “You don’t appear quite yet to have mastered the principles of - constitutional government, my dear. I could no more dismiss Tsargradev - than you could dismiss the Pope of Rome.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you or are you not the King of Monterosso?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m Vice-King, perhaps. You’re the King, you know. But that has nothing - to do with it. Tsargradev is leader of the Soviete. The Soviete pays the - bills, and its leader governs. The King’s a mere fifth wheel. Some day - they’ll abolish him. Meanwhile they tolerate him, on the understanding - that he’s not to interfere.” - </p> - <p> - “You ought to be ashamed to say so. You ought to take the law and the - Constitution and everything into your own hands. If you asserted yourself, - they’d never dare to resist you. But you always submit—submit—submit. - Of course, everybody takes advantage of a man who always submits. Show - that you have some spirit, some sense of your own dignity. Order - Tsargradev’s dismissal and arrest. You can do it now, at once, this - evening. Then to-morrow you can go down to the Soviete, and tell them what - a scoundrel he is—a thief, a murderer, a traitor, an impostor, a - libertine, everything that’s foul and bad. And tell them that henceforward - you intend to be really King, and not merely nominally King; and that - you’re going to govern exactly as you think best; and that, if they don’t - like that, they will have to make the best of it. If they resist, you can - dissolve them, and order a general election. Or you can suspend the - Constitution, and govern without any Soviete at all.” - </p> - <p> - The King laughed again. - </p> - <p> - “I’m afraid the Soviete might ask for a little evidence, a few proofs, in - support of my sweeping charges. I could hardly satisfy them by declaring - that I had my wife’s word for it. But, seriously, you exaggerate. - Tsargradev is anything you like from the point of view of abstract ethics, - but he’s not a criminal. He hasn’t the faintest motive for doing anything - that isn’t in accordance with the law. He’s simply a vulgar, self-seeking - politician, with a touch of the Tartar. But he’s not a thief, and I - imagine his private life is no worse than most men’s.” - </p> - <p> - “Wait, wait, only wait!” cried the Queen. “Time will show. Some day he’ll - come to grief, and then you’ll see that he’s even worse than I have said. - I <i>feel</i>, I <i>know</i>, he’s everything that’s bad. Trust a woman’s - intuitions. They’re much better than what you call <i>evidence</i>.” - </p> - <p> - And she had a nickname for him, which, as well as her general criticisms - of his character, had pretty certainly reached the Premier’s ear; for, as - subsequent events demonstrated, very nearly every servant in the Palace - was a spy in his pay. She called him the nain jaune. - </p> - <p> - Subsequent events have also demonstrated that her woman’s intuitions were - indeed trustworthy. Perhaps you will remember the revelations that were - made at the time of M. Tsargradev’s downfall; fairly full reports of them - appeared in the London papers. Murder, peculation, and revolting secret - debaucheries were all, surely enough, proved against him. It was proved - that he was the paid agent of Berlin; it was proved that he had had - recourse to <i>torture</i> in dealing with certain refractory witnesses in - his famous prosecution of Count Osaréki. And then, there was the case of - Colonel Alexandrevitch. He and Tsargradev, at sunset, were strolling - arm-in-arm in the Dunayskiy Prospekt, when the Colonel was shot by some - person concealed in the shrubberies, who was never captured. Tsargradev - and his friends broached the theory, which gained pretty general - acceptance, that the shot had been intended for the Prime Minister - himself, and that the death of Colonel Alexandrevitch was an accident due - to bad aiming. It is now perfectly well established that the death of the - Colonel was due to very good aiming indeed; that the assassin was M. - Tsargradev’s own hireling; and that perhaps the best reason why the police - could never lay hands on him had some connection with the circumstance - that the poor wretch, that very night, was strangled and cast into the - Danube. - </p> - <p> - Oh, they manage these things in a highly unlikely and theatrical manner, - in the far south-east of Europe! - </p> - <p> - But the particular circumstances of M. Tsargradev’s downfall were - amusingly illustrative of the character of the Queen. <i>Ce que femme - veult, Dieu le veult.</i> And though her husband talked of the - Constitution, and pleaded the necessity of evidence, Anéli was - unconvinced. To get rid of Tsargradev, by one method or another, was her - fixed idea, her determined purpose; she bided her time, and in the end she - accomplished it. - </p> - <p> - It befell, during the seventh month of my stay in the Palace, that a - certain great royal wedding was appointed to be celebrated at Dresden: a - festivity to which were bidden all the crowned heads and most of the royal - and semi-royal personages of Christendom, and amongst them the Krol and - Kroleva of Monte-rosso. - </p> - <p> - “It will cost us a pretty sum of money,” Theodore grumbled, when the - summons first reached him. “We’ll have to travel in state, with a full - suite; and the whole shot must be paid from our private purse. There’s no - expecting a penny for such a purpose from the Soviete.” - </p> - <p> - “I hope,” exclaimed the Queen, looking up from a letter she was writing, - “I hope you don’t for a moment intend to go?” - </p> - <p> - “We <i>must</i> go,” answered the King. “There’s no getting out of it.” - </p> - <p> - “Nonsense!” said she. “We’ll send a representative.” - </p> - <p> - “I only wish we could,” sighed the King. “But unfortunately this is an - occasion when etiquette requires that we should attend in person.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bother etiquette,” said she. “Etiquette was made for slaves. We’ll - send your Cousin Peter. One must find some use for one’s Cousin Peters.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes; but this is a business, alas, in which one’s Cousin Peter won’t go - down. I’m very sorry to say we’ll have to attend in person.” - </p> - <p> - “Nonsense!” she repeated. “Attend in person! How can you think of such a - thing? We’d be bored and fatigued to death. It will be unspeakable. - Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocating German pomposity and bad taste. Oh, - je m’y connais! Red cloth, and military bands, and interminable banquets, - and noise, and confusion, and speeches (oh, the speeches!), until you’re - ready to drop. And besides, we’d be herded with a crowd of ninth-rate - princelings and petty dukes, who smell of beer and cabbage and - brilliantine. We’d be relegated to the fifth or sixth rank, behind people - who are all of them really our inferiors. Do you suppose I mean to let - myself be patronised by a lot of stupid Hohenzollerns and Grâtzhoffens? - No, indeed! You can send your Cousin Peter.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, my dear, if I were the Tsar of Russia!” laughed her husband. “Then I - could send a present and a poor relation, and all would be well. But—you - speak of ninth-rate princelings. A ninth-rate princeling like the Krol of - Tchermnogoria must make act of presence in his proper skin. It’s <i>de - rigueur</i>. There’s no getting out of it. We must go.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, <i>you</i> may go, if you like,” her Majesty declared. “As for me, - I <i>won’t</i>. If <i>you</i> choose to go and be patronised and bored, - and half killed by the fatigue, and half ruined by the expense, I suppose - I can’t prevent you. But, if you want my opinion, I think it’s utter - insane folly.” - </p> - <p> - And she re-absorbed herself in her letter, with the air of one who had - been distracted for a moment by a frivolous and tiresome interruption. - </p> - <p> - The King did not press the matter that evening, but the next morning he - mustered his courage, and returned to it. - </p> - <p> - “My dear,” he began, “I beg you to listen to me patiently for a moment, - and not get angry. What I wish to say is really very important.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, what is it? What is it?” she enquired, with anticipatory weariness. - </p> - <p> - “It’s about going to Dresden. I—I want to assure you that I dislike - the notion of going quite as much as you can. But it’s no question of - choice. There are certain things one has to do, whether one will or not. - I’m exceedingly sorry to have to insist, but we positively must reconcile - ourselves to the sacrifice, and attend the wedding—both of us. It’s - a necessity of our position. If we should stay away, it would be a breach - of international good manners that people would never forgive us. We - should be the scandal, the by-word, of the Courts of Europe. We’d give the - direst offence in twenty different quarters. We really can’t afford to - make enemies of half the royal families of the civilised world. You can’t - imagine the unpleasantnesses, the complications, our absence would store - up for us; the bad blood it would cause. We’d be put in the black list of - our order, and snubbed, and embarrassed, and practically ostracised, for - years to come. And you know whether we need friends. But the case is so - obvious, it seems a waste of breath to argue it. You surely won’t let a - mere little matter of temporary personal inconvenience get us into such an - ocean of hot water. Come now—be reasonable, and say you will go.” - </p> - <p> - The Queen’s eyes were burning; her under-lip had swollen portentously; but - she did not speak. - </p> - <p> - The King waited a moment. Then, “Come, Anéli—don’t be angry. Answer - me. Say that you will go,” he urged, taking her hand. - </p> - <p> - She snatched her hand away. I’m afraid she stamped her foot. “No!” she - cried. “Let me alone. I tell you I <i>won’t.</i>” - </p> - <p> - “But, my dear....” the King was re-commencing.... - </p> - <p> - “No, no, no! And you needn’t call me your dear. If you had the least love - for me, the least common kindness, or consideration for my health or - comfort or happiness, you’d never dream of proposing such a thing. To drag - me half-way across the Continent of Europe, to be all but killed at the - end of the journey by a pack of horrid, coarse, beer-drinking Germans! And - tired out, and irritated, and patronised, and humiliated by people like - ————— and ————! It’s - perfectly heartless of you. And I—when I suggest such a simple - natural pleasure as a trip to Paris, or to the Italian lakes in autumn—you - tell me we can’t afford it! You’re ready to spend thousands on a stupid, - utterly unnecessary and futile absurdity, like this wedding, but you can’t - afford to take me to the Italian lakes! And yet you pretend to love me! - Oh, its awful, awful, awful!” And her voice failed her in a sob; and she - hid her face in her hands, and wept. So the King had to drop the subject - again, and to devote his talents to the task of drying her tears. - </p> - <p> - I don’t know how many times they renewed the discussion, but I do know - that the Queen stood firm in her original refusal, and that at last it was - decided that the King should go without her, and excuse her absence as - best he might on the plea of her precarious state of health. It was only - after this resolution was made and registered, and her husband had brought - himself to accept it with some degree of resignation—it was only - then that her Majesty began to waver and vacillate, and reconsider, and - change her mind. As the date approached for his departure, her - alternations became an affair of hours. It was, “Oh, after all, I can’t - let you go alone, poor Theo. And besides, I should die of heartbreak, here - without you. So—there—I’ll make the best of a bad business, - and go with you”—it was either that, or else, “No, after all, I <i>can’t</i>. - I really can’t. I’m awfully sorry. I shall miss you horribly. But, when I - think of what it <i>means</i>, I haven’t the strength or courage. I simply - can’t”—it was one thing or the other, on and off, all day. - </p> - <p> - “When you finally know your own mind, I shall be glad if you’ll send for - me,” said Theodore. “Because I’ve got to name a Regent. And if you’re - coming with me, I shall name my Uncle Stephen. But if you’re stopping - here, of course I shall name you.” - </p> - <p> - There is a bothersome little provision in the Constitution of Monterosso - to the effect that the Sovereign may not cross the frontiers of his - dominions, no matter for how brief a sojourn, without leaving a Regent in - command. Under the good old régime, before the revolution of 1868, the - kings of Tchermnogoria were a good deal inclined to spend the bulk of - their time—and money—in foreign parts. They found Paris, Monte - Carlo, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and even, if you can believe me, sometimes - London, on the whole more agreeable as places of residence than their - hereditary capital. (There was the particularly flagrant case of Paul II., - our Theodore’s great-grandfather, who lived for twenty years on end in - Rome. He fancied himself a statuary, poor gentleman, and produced—oh, - such amazing Groups! Tons of them repose in the Royal Museum at Vescova; a - few brave the sky here and there in lost corners of the Campagna—he - used to present them to the Pope! Perhaps you have seen his Fountain at - Acqu’amarra?) It was to discourage this sort of royal absenteeism that the - patriotic framers of the Constitution slyly slipped Sub-Clause 18 into - Clause ii., of Title 3, of Article XXXVI.: <i>Concerning the Appointment - of a Regent.</i> - </p> - <p> - “So,” said Theodore, “when you have finally made up your mind, I shall be - glad if you will let me know; for I’ve got to name a Regent.” - </p> - <p> - But the Queen continued to hesitate; in the morning it was Yes, in the - evening No; and the eleventh hour was drawing near and nearer. The King - was to leave on Monday. On the previous Tuesday, in a melting mood, Anéli - had declared, “There! Once for all, to make an end of it, I’ll go.” On - Wednesday a Commission of Regency, appointing Prince Stephen, was drawn - up. On Thursday it was brought to the Palace for the royal signature. The - King had actually got so far as the <i>d</i> in his name, when the Queen, - faltering at sight of the irrevocable document, laid her hand on his arm. - She was very pale, and her voice was weak. “No, Theo, don’t sign it. It’s - like my death-warrant. I—I haven’t got the courage. You’ll have to - let me stay. You’ll have to go alone.” On Friday a new commission was - prepared, in which Anéli’s name had been substituted for Stephen’s. On - Saturday morning it was presented to the King. “Shall I sign?” he asked. - “Yes, sign,” said she. And he signed. - </p> - <p> - “Ouf!” she cried. “<i>That’s</i> settled.” - </p> - <p> - And she hardly once changed her mind again until Sunday night; and even - then she only half changed it. - </p> - <p> - “If it weren’t too late,” she announced, “do you know, I believe I’d - decide to go with you, in spite of everything? But of course I never could - get ready to start by to-morrow morning. You couldn’t wait till Tuesday?” - </p> - <p> - The King said he couldn’t. - </p> - <p> - “And now, my dears” (as Florimond, who loves to tell the story, is wont to - begin it), “no sooner was her poor confiding husband’s back a-turned, than - what do you suppose this deep, designing, unprincipled, high-handed young - woman up and did?” - </p> - <p> - Almost the last words Theodore spoke to her were, “Do, for heaven’s sake, - try to get on pleasantly with Tsargradev. Don’t treat him too much as if - he were the dust under your feet. All you’ll have to do is to sign your - name at the end of the papers he’ll bring you. Sign and ask no questions, - and all will be well.” - </p> - <p> - And the very first act of Anéli’s Regency was to degrade M. Tsargardev - from office and to place him under arrest. - </p> - <p> - We bade the King good-bye on the deck of the royal yacht <i>Nemisa</i>, - which was to bear him to Belgrade, the first stage of his journey. Cannon - bellowed from the citadel; the bells of all the churches in the town were - clanging in jubilant discord; the river was gay with fluttering bunting, - and the King resplendent in a gold-laced uniform, with the stars and - crosses of I don’t know how many Orders glittering on his breast. We - lingered at the landing-stage, waving our pocket-handkerchiefs, till the - <i>Nemisa</i> turned a promontory and disappeared; Anéli silent, with a - white face, and set, wistful eyes. And then we got into a great - gilt-and-scarlet state-coach, she and Madame Donarowska, Florimond and I, - and were driven back to the Palace; and during the drive she never once - spoke, but leaned her cheek on Madame Donarowska’s shoulder, and cried as - if her heart would break. - </p> - <p> - The Palace reached, however—as who should say, “We’re not here to - amuse ourselves”—she promptly dried her tears. - </p> - <p> - “Do you know what I’m going to do?” she asked. And, on our admitting that - we didn’t, she continued, blithely, “It’s an ill wind that blows no good. - Theo’s absence will be very hard to bear, but I must turn it to some - profitable account. I must improve the occasion to straighten out his - affairs; I must put his house in order. I’m going to give Monsieur - Tsargradev a taste of retributive justice. I’m going to do what Theo - himself ought to have done long ago. It’s intolerable that a miscreant - like Tsargradev should remain at large in a civilised country; it’s a - disgrace to humanity that such a man should hold honourable office. I’m - going to dismiss him and put him in prison. And I shall keep him there - till a thorough investigation has been made of his official acts, and the - crimes I’m perfectly certain he’s committed have been proved against him. - I’m not going to be Regent for nothing. I’m going to <i>rule</i>.” - </p> - <p> - We, her auditors, looked at each other in consternation. It was a good - minute before either of us could collect himself sufficiently to speak. - </p> - <p> - At last, “Oh, lady, lady, august and gracious lady,” groaned Florimond, - “please be nice, and relieve our minds by confessing that you’re only - saying it to tease us. Tell us you’re only joking.” - </p> - <p> - “I never was more serious in my life,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “I defy you to look me in the eye and say so without laughing,” he - persisted. “What <i>is</i> the fun of trying to frighten us?” - </p> - <p> - “You needn’t be frightened. I know what I’m about,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “What you’re about!” he echoed. “Oh me, oh my! You’re about to bring your - house crashing round your ears. You’re about to precipitate a revolution. - You’ll lose your poor unfortunate husband’s kingdom for him. You’ll—goodness - only can tell what you <i>won’t</i> do. Your own bodily safety—your - very life—will be in danger. There’ll be mobs, there’ll be rioting. - Oh, lady, sweet lady, gentle lady, you mustn’t, you really mustn’t. You’d - much better come and sing a song, along o’ me. Don’t meddle with politics. - They’re nothing but sea, sand, and folly. Music’s the only serious thing - in the world. Come—let’s too-tootle.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s all very well to try to turn what I say to jest,” the Queen replied - loftily, “but I assure you I mean every word of it. I’ve studied the - Constitution. I know my rights. The appointment and revocation of - Ministers rest absolutely with the Sovereign. It’s not a matter of law, - it’s merely a matter of custom, a matter of convenience, that the - Ministers should be chosen from the party that has a majority in the - Soviete. Well, when it comes to the case of a ruffian like Tsargradev, - custom and convenience must go by the board, in favour of right and - justice. I’m going to revoke him.” - </p> - <p> - “And within an hour of your doing so the whole town of Vescova will be in - revolt. We’ll all have to leave the Palace, and fly for our precious - skins. We’ll be lucky if we get away with them intact. A pretty piece of - business! Tsargradev, from being Grand Vizier, will become Grand Mogul; - and farewell to the illustrious dynasty of Pavelovitch! Oh, lady, lady! I - call it downright unfriendly, downright inhospitable of you. Where shall - my grey hairs find shelter? I’m <i>so</i> comfortable here under your - royal rooftree. You wouldn’t deprive the gentlest of God’s creatures of a - happy home? Better that a thousand Tsargradevs should flourish like a - green bay-tree, than that one upright man should be turned out of - comfortable quarters. There, now, be kind. As a personal favour to me, - won’t you please just leave things as they are?” - </p> - <p> - The Queen laughed a little—not very heartily, though, and not at all - acquiescently. “Monsieur Tsargradev must go to prison,” was her inexorable - word. - </p> - <p> - We pleaded, we argued, we exhausted ourselves in warnings and - protestations, but to no purpose. And in the end she lost her patience, - and shut us up categorically. - </p> - <p> - “No! Laissez moi tranquille!” she cried. “I’ve heard enough. I know my own - mind. I won’t be bothered.” - </p> - <p> - It was with heavy spirits and the dismallest forebodings that we assisted - at her subsequent proceedings. We had an anxious time of it for many days; - and it has never ceased to be a source of astonishment to me that it all - turned out as well as it did. But—<i>ce que femme veult</i>.... - </p> - <p> - She began operations by despatching an aide-decamp to M. Tsargradev’s - house, with a note in which she commanded him to wait upon her forthwith - at the Palace, and to deliver up his seals of office. - </p> - <p> - At the same time she summoned to her presence General Michaïlov, the - Military Governor of Vescova, and Prince Vasiliev, the leader of the scant - Conservative opposition in the Soviete. - </p> - <p> - She awaited these gentleman in the throne-room, surrounded by the officers - of the household in full uniform. Florimond and I hovered uneasily in the - background. - </p> - <p> - “By Jove, she does look her part, doesn’t she?” Florimond whispered to me. - </p> - <p> - She wore a robe of black silk, with the yellow ribbon of the Lion of - Monterosso across her breast, and a tiara of diamonds in her hair. Her - eyes glowed with a fire of determination, and her cheeks with a colour - that those who knew her recognised for a danger-signal. She stood on the - steps of the throne, waiting, and tapping nervously with her foot. - </p> - <p> - And then the great white-and-gold folding doors were thrown open, and M. - Tsargradev entered, followed by the aide-de-camp who had gone to fetch - him. - </p> - <p> - He entered, bowing and smiling, grotesque in his ministerial green and - silver; and the top of his bald head shone as if it had been waxed and - polished. Bowing and smirking, he advanced to the foot of the throne, - where he halted. - </p> - <p> - “I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” said - the Queen. She held her head high, and spoke slowly, with superb - haughtiness. - </p> - <p> - Tsargradev bowed low, and, always smiling, answered, in a voice of honey, - “If it please your Majesty, I don’t think I quite understand.” - </p> - <p> - “I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” the - Queen repeated, her head higher, her inflection haughtier than ever. - </p> - <p> - “Does your Majesty mean that I am to consider myself dismissed from her - service?” he asked, with undiminished sweetness. - </p> - <p> - “It is my desire that you should deliver up your seals of office,” said - she. - </p> - <p> - Tsargradev’s lips puckered in an effort to suppress a little good-humoured - deprecatory laugh. “But, your Majesty,” he protested, in the tone of one - reasoning with a wayward school-girl, “you must surely know that you have - no power to dismiss a constitutional Minister.” - </p> - <p> - “I must decline to hold any discussion with you. I must insist upon the - immediate surrender of your seals of office.” - </p> - <p> - “I must remind your Majesty that I am the representative of the majority - of the Soviete.” - </p> - <p> - “I forbid you to answer me. I forbid you to speak in my presence. You are - not here to speak. You are here to restore the seals of your office to - your Sovereign.” - </p> - <p> - “That, your Majesty, I must, with all respect, decline to do.” - </p> - <p> - “You refuse?” the Queen demanded, with terrific shortness. - </p> - <p> - “I cannot admit your Majesty’s right to demand such a thing of me. It is - unconstitutional.” - </p> - <p> - “In other words, you refuse to obey my commands? Colonel Karkov!” she - called. - </p> - <p> - Her eyes were burning magnificently now; her hands trembled a little. - </p> - <p> - Colonel Karkov, the Marshal of the Palace, stepped forward. - </p> - <p> - “Arrest that man,” said the Queen, pointing to Tsargradev. - </p> - <p> - Colonel Karkov looked doubtful, hesitant. - </p> - <p> - “Do you also mean to disobey me?” the Queen cried, with a glance... oh, a - glance! - </p> - <p> - Colonel Karkov turned pale, but he hesitated no longer. He bowed to - Tsargradev. “I must ask you to constitute yourself my prisoner,” he said. - </p> - <p> - Tsargradev made a motion as if to speak; but the Queen raised her hand, - and he was silent. - </p> - <p> - “Take him away at once,” she said. “Lock him up. He is to be absolutely - prevented from holding any communication with any one outside the Palace.” - </p> - <p> - And, somehow, Colonel Karkov managed to lead Tsargradev from the - presence-chamber. - </p> - <p> - And that ended the first act of our comical, precarious little melodrama. - </p> - <p> - After Tsargradev’s departure there was a sudden buzz of conversation among - the courtiers. The Queen sank back, in evident exhaustion, upon the red - velvet cushions of the throne. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, - holding one of her hands pressed hard against her heart. - </p> - <p> - By-and-by she looked up. She was very pale. - </p> - <p> - “Now let General Michaïlov and Prince Vasiliev be introduced,” she said. - </p> - <p> - And when they stood before her, “General Michaïlov,” she began, “I desire - you to place the town of Vescova under martial law. You will station - troops about the Palace, about the Chamber of the Soviete, about the Mint - and Government offices, and in all open squares and other places where - crowds would be likely to collect. I have just dismissed M. Tsargradev - from office, and there may be some disturbance. You will rigorously - suppress any signs of disorder. I shall hold you responsible for the peace - of the town and the protection of my person.” - </p> - <p> - General Michaïlov, a short, stout, purple-faced old soldier, blinked and - coughed, and was presumably on the point of offering something in the - nature of an objection. - </p> - <p> - “You have heard my wishes,” said the Queen. “I shall be glad if you will - see to their immediate execution.” - </p> - <p> - The General still seemed to have something on his mind. - </p> - <p> - The Queen stamped her foot. “Is everybody in a conspiracy to disobey me?” - she demanded. “I am the representative of your King, who is - Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Are my orders to be questioned?” - </p> - <p> - The General bowed, and backed from the room. - </p> - <p> - “Prince Vasiliev,” the Queen said, “I have sent for you to ask you to - replace M. Tsargradev as Secretary of State for the Interior, and - President of the Council. You will at once enter into the discharge of - your duties, and proceed to the formation of a Ministry.” - </p> - <p> - Prince Vasiliev was a tall, spare, faded old man, with a pointed face - ending in a white imperial. He was a great personal favourite of the - Queen’s. - </p> - <p> - “It will be a little difficult, Madame,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “No doubt,” assented she. “But it must be done.” - </p> - <p> - “I hardly see, Madame, how I can form a Ministry to any purpose, with an - overwhelming majority against me in the Soviete.” - </p> - <p> - “You are to dissolve the Soviete and order a general election.” - </p> - <p> - “The general election can scarcely be expected to result in a change of - parties, your Majesty.” - </p> - <p> - “No; but we shall have gained time. When the new deputies are ready to - take their seats, M. Tsargradev’s case will have been disposed of. I - expect you will find among his papers at the Home Office evidence - sufficient to convict him of all sorts of crimes. If I can deliver - Monterosso from the Tsargradev superstition, my intention will have been - accomplished.” - </p> - <p> - “Now let’s lunch,” she said to Florimond and me, at the close of this - historic session. “I’m ravenously hungry.” - </p> - <p> - I dare say General Michaïlov did what he could, but his troops weren’t - numerous enough to prevent a good deal of disturbance in the town; and I - suppose he didn’t want to come to bloodshed. For three days and nights, - the streets leading up to the Palace were black with a howling mob, kept - from crossing the Palace courtyard by a guard of only about a hundred men. - Cries of “Long live Tsargradev!” and “Death to the German woman!” and - worse cries still, were constantly audible from the Palace windows. - </p> - <p> - “Canaille!” exclaimed the Queen. “Let them shout themselves hoarse. Time - will show.” - </p> - <p> - And she would step out upon her balcony, in full sight of the enemy, and - look down upon them calmly, contemptuously. - </p> - <p> - Still, the military did contrive to prevent an actual revolution, and to - maintain the <i>status quo</i>. - </p> - <p> - The news reached the King at Vienna. He turned straight round and hurried - home. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my dear, my dear!” he groaned. “You <i>have</i> made a mess of - things.” - </p> - <p> - “You think so? Read this.” - </p> - <p> - It was a copy of the morning’s Gazette, containing Prince Vasiliev’s - report of the interesting discoveries he had made amongst the papers - Tsargradev had left behind him at the Home Office. - </p> - <p> - There was an immediate revulsion of public feeling. The secret - understanding with Berlin was the thing that “did it.” The Monterossans - are hereditarily, temperamentally, and from motives of policy, Russophils. - </p> - <p> - They couldn’t forgive Tsargradev his secret treaty with Berlin; and they - promptly proceeded to execrate him as much as they had loved him. - </p> - <p> - For State reasons, however, it was decided not to prosecute him. On his - release from prison, he asked for his passport, that he might go abroad. - He has remained an exile ever since, and (according to Florimond, at any - rate) “is spending his declining years colouring a meerschaum.” - </p> - <p> - “People talk of the ingratitude of princes,” said the Queen, last night. - “But what of the ingratitude of nations? The Monterossans hated me because - I dismissed M. Tsargradev; and then, when they saw him revealed in his - true colours, they still hated me, in spite of it. They are quick to - resent what they imagine to be an injury; but they never recognise a - benefit. Oh, the folly of universal suffrage! The folly of constitutional - government! I used to say, ’Surely a good despot is better than a mob.’ - But now I’m convinced that a <i>bad</i> despot, even, is better. Come, - Florimond, let us sing.... you know.... that song....” - </p> - <p> - “God save—the best of despots?” suggested Florimond. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - COUSIN ROSALYS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>sn’t it a pretty - name, Rosalys? But, for me, it is so much more; it is a sort of romantic - symbol. I look at it written there on the page, and the sentiment of - things changes: it is as if I were listening to distant music; it is as if - the white paper turned softly pink, and breathed a perfume—never so - faint a perfume of hyacinths. Rosalys, Cousin Rosalys.... London and this - sad-coloured February morning become shadowy, remote. I think of another - world, another era. Somebody has said that old memories and fond regrets - are the day-dreams of the disappointed, the illusions of the age of - disillusion. Well, if they are illusions, thank goodness they are where - experience can’t touch them—on the safe side of time. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Cousin Rosalys—I call her cousin. But, as we often used to remind - ourselves, with a kind of esoteric satisfaction, we were not “real” - cousins. She was the niece of my Aunt Elizabeth, and lived with her in - Rome; but my Aunt Elizabeth was not my “real” aunt—only my - great-aunt by marriage, the widow of my father’s uncle. It was Aunt - Elizabeth herself however, who dubbed us cousins, when she introduced us - to each other; and at that epoch, for both of us, Aunt Elizabeth’s - lightest words were in the nature of decrees, she was such a terrible old - lady. - </p> - <p> - I’m sure I don’t know why she was terrible, I don’t know how she contrived - it; she never said anything, never did anything, especially terrifying; - she wasn’t especially wise or especially witty—intellectually, - indeed, I suspect she might have passed for a paragon of respectable - commonplaceness: but I do know that everybody stood in awe of her. I - suppose it must simply have been her atmosphere, her odylic force; a sort - of metaphysical chill that enveloped her, and was felt by all who - approached her—some people <i>are</i> like that. Everybody stood in - awe of her, everybody deferred to her: relations, friends, even her - Director, and the cloud of priests that pervaded her establishment and - gave it its character. For, like so many other old ladies who lived in - Rome in those days, my Aunt Elizabeth was nothing if not Catholic, if not - Ecclesiastical. You would have guessed as much, I think, from her - exterior. She <i>looked</i> Catholic, she <i>looked</i> Ecclesiastical. - There was something Gothic in her anatomy, in the architecture of her - face: in her high-bridged nose, in the pointed arch her hair made as it - parted above her forehead, in her prominent cheek-bones, her - straight-lipped mouth and long attenuated chin, in the angularities of her - figure. No doubt the simile must appear far-sought, but upon my word her - face used to remind me of a chapel—a chapel built of marble, fallen - somewhat into decay. I’m not sure whether she was a tall woman, or whether - she only had a false air of tallness, being excessively thin and holding - herself rigidly erect. - </p> - <p> - She always dressed in black, in hard black silk cut to the severest - patterns. Somehow, the very jewels she wore—not merely the cross on - her bosom, but the rings on her fingers, the watch-chain round her neck, - her watch itself, her old-fashioned, gold-faced watch—seemed of a - mode canonical. - </p> - <p> - She was nothing if not Catholic, if not Ecclesiastical; but I don’t in the - least mean that she was particularly devout. She observed all requisite - forms, of course: went, as occasion demanded, to mass, to vespers, to - confession; but religious fervour was the last thing she suggested, the - last thing she affected. I never heard her talk of Faith or Salvation, of - Sin or Grace, nor indeed of any matters spiritual. She was quite frankly a - woman of the world, and it was the Church as a worldly institution, the - Church corporal, the Papacy, Papal politics, that absorbed her interests. - The loss of the Temporal Power was the wrong that filled the universe for - her, its restoration the cause for which she lived. That it was a forlorn - cause she would never for an instant even hypothetically admit. “Remember - Avignon, remember the Seventy Years,” she used to say, with a nod that - seemed to attribute apodictic value to the injunction. - </p> - <p> - “Mark my words, she’ll live to be Pope yet,” a ribald young man murmured - behind her chair. “Oh, you tell me she is a woman. I’ll assume it for the - sake of the argument—I’d do anything for the sake of an argument. - But remember Joan, remember Pope Joan!” And he mimicked his Aunt - Elizabeth’s inflection and her conclusive nod. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - I had not been in Rome since that universe-filling wrong was perpetrated—not - since I was a child of six or seven—when, a youth approaching - twenty, I went there in the autumn of 1879; and I recollected Aunt - Elizabeth only vaguely, as a lady with a face like a chapel, in whose - presence—I had almost written in whose precincts—it had - required some courage to breathe. But my mother’s last words, when I left - her in Paris, had been, “Now mind you call on your Aunt Elizabeth at once. - You mustn’t let a day pass. I am writing to her to tell her that you are - coming. She will expect you to call at once.” So, on the morrow of my - arrival, I made an exceedingly careful toilet (I remember to this day the - pains I bestowed upon my tie, the revisions to which I submitted it!), - and, with an anxious heart, presented myself at the huge brown Roman - palace, a portion of which my formidable relative inhabited; a palace with - grated windows, and a vaulted, crypt-like porte-cochère, and a tremendous - Swiss concierge, in knee-breeches and a cocked hat: the Palazzo - Zacchinelli. - </p> - <p> - The Swiss, flourishing his staff of office, marshalled me (I can’t use a - less imposing word for the ceremony) slowly, solemnly, across a courtyard, - and up a great stone staircase, at the top of which he handed me on to a - functionary in black—a functionary with an ominously austere - countenance, like an usher to the Inquisition. Poor old Archimede! Later, - when I had come to know him well and tip him, I found he was the mildest - creature, the amiablest, the most obliging, and that tenebrious mien of - his only a congenital accident, like a lisp or a club-foot. But for the - present he dismayed me, and I surrendered myself with humility and - meekness to his guardianship. He conducted me through a series of vast - chambers—you know those enormous, ungenial Roman rooms, their sombre - tapestried walls, their formal furniture, their cheerless, perpetual - twilight—and out upon a terrace. - </p> - <p> - The terrace lay in full sunshine. There was a garden below it, a garden - with orange-trees, and rosebushes, and camellias, with stretches of - greensward, with shrubberies, with a great fountain plashing in the midst - of it, and broken, moss-grown statues: a Roman garden, from which a - hundred sweet airs came up, in the gentle Roman weather. The balustrade of - the terrace was set at intervals with flowering plants, in big urn-shaped - vases; I don’t remember what the flowers were, but they were pink, and - many of their petals had fallen, and lay scattered on the grey terrace - pavement. At the far end, under an awning brave with red and yellow - stripes, two ladies were seated—a lady in black, presumably the - object of my pious pilgrimage; and a lady in white, whom, even from a - distance, I discovered to be young and pretty. A little round table stood - between them, with a carafe of water and some tumblers glistening crisply - on it. The lady in black was fanning herself with a black lace fan. The - lady in white held a book in her hand, from which I think she had been - reading aloud. A tiny imp of a red Pomeranian dog had started forward, and - was barking furiously. - </p> - <p> - This scene must have made a deeper impression upon my perceptions than any - that I was conscious of at the moment, because it has always remained as - fresh in my memory as you see it now. It has always been a picture that I - could turn to when I would, and find unfaded: the garden, the blue sky, - the warm September sunshine, the long terrace, and the two ladies seated - at the end of it, looking towards me, an elderly lady in black, and a - young lady in white, with dark hair. - </p> - <p> - My aunt quieted Sandro (that was the dog’s name), and giving me her hand, - said “How do you do?” rather drily. And then, for what seemed a terribly - long time, though no doubt it was only a few seconds, she kept me standing - before her, while she scrutinised me through a double eye-glass, which she - held by a mother-of-pearl handle; and I was acutely aware of the awkward - figure I must be cutting to the vision of that strange young lady. - </p> - <p> - At last, “I should never have recognised you. As a child you were the - image of your father. Now you resemble your mother,” Aunt Elizabeth - declared; and lowering her glass, she added, “This is your cousin - Rosalys.” - </p> - <p> - I wondered, as I made my bow, why I had never heard before that I had such - a pretty cousin, with such a pretty name. She smiled on me very kindly, - and I noticed how bright her eyes were, and how white and delicate her - face. The little blue veins showed through the skin, and there was no more - than just the palest, palest thought of colour in her cheeks. But her lips—exquisitely - curved, sensitive lips—were warm red. She smiled on me very kindly, - and I daresay my heart responded with an instant palpitation. She was a - girl, and she was pretty; and her name was Rosalys; and we were cousins; - and I was eighteen. And above us glowed the blue sky of Italy, and round - us the golden sunshine; and there, beside the terrace, lay the beautiful - old Roman garden, the fragrant, romantic garden.... If at eighteen one - isn’t susceptible and sentimental and impetuous, and prepared to respond - with an instant sweet commotion to the smiles of one’s pretty cousins - (especially when they’re named Rosalys), I protest one is unworthy of - one’s youth. One might as well be thirty-five, and a literary hack in - London. - </p> - <p> - After that introduction, however, my aunt immediately reclaimed my - attention. She proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions, about myself, - about my people, uninteresting questions, disconcerting questions, which - she posed with the air of one who knew the answers beforehand, and was - only asking as an examiner asks, to test you. And all the while, the - expression of her face, of her deprecating straight-lipped mouth, of her - half-closed sceptical old eyes, seemed to imply that she already had her - opinion of me, and that it wouldn’t in the least be affected by anything I - could say for myself, and that it was distinctly not a flattering opinion. - </p> - <p> - “Well, and what brings you to Rome?” That was one of her questions. I felt - like a suspicious character haled before the local magistrate to give an - account of his presence in the parish; putting on the best face I could, I - pleaded superior orders. I had taken my <i>baccalauréat</i> in the summer; - and my father desired me to pass some months in Italy, for the purpose of - “patching up my Italian, which had suffered from the ravages of time,” - before I returned to Paris, and settled down to the study of a profession. - </p> - <p> - “H’m,” said she, manifesting no emotion at what (in my simplicity) I - deemed rather a felicitous metaphor; and then, as it were, she let me off - with a warning. “Look out that you don’t fall into bad company. Rome is - full of dangerous people—painters, Bohemians, republicans, atheists. - You must be careful. I shall keep my eye upon you.” - </p> - <p> - By-and-by, to my relief, my aunt’s director arrived, Monsignor Parlaghi, a - tall, fat, cheerful, bustling man, who wore a silk cassock edged with - purple, and a purple netted sash. When he sat down and crossed his legs, - one saw a square-toed shoe with a silver buckle, and an inch or two of - purple silk stocking. He began at once to talk with his penitent, about - some matter to which I (happily) was a stranger; and that gave me my - chance to break the ice with Rosalys. - </p> - <p> - She had risen to greet the Monsignore, and now stood by the balustrade of - the terrace, half turned towards the garden, a slender, fragile figure, - all in white. Her dark hair swept away from her forehead in lovely, long - undulations, and her white face, beneath it, seemed almost spirit-like in - its delicacy, almost immaterial. - </p> - <p> - “I am richer than I thought. I did not know I had a Cousin Rosalys,” said - I. - </p> - <p> - It looks like a sufficiently easy thing to say, doesn’t it? And besides, - hadn’t I carefully composed and corrected and conned it beforehand in the - silence of my mind? But I remember the mighty effort of will it cost me to - get it said. I suppose it is in the design of nature that Eighteen should - find it nervous work to break the ice with pretty girls. At any rate, I - remember how my heart fluttered, and what a hollow, unfamiliar sound my - voice had; I remember that in the very middle of the enterprise my pluck - and my presence of mind suddenly deserted me, and everything became a - blank, and for one horrible moment I thought I was going to break down - utterly, and stand there staring, blushing, speechless. But then I made a - further mighty effort of will, a desperate effort, and somehow, though - they nearly choked me, the premeditated words came out. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, we’re not <i>real</i> cousins,” said she, letting her eyes shine for - a second on my face. And she explained to me just what the connection - between us was. “But we will call ourselves cousins,” she concluded. - </p> - <p> - The worst was over; the worst, though Eighteen was still, no doubt, - conscious of perturbations. I don’t know how long we stood chatting - together there by the balustrade, but presently I said something about the - garden, and she proposed that we should go down into it. So she led me to - the other end of the terrace, where there was a flight of steps, and we - went down into the garden. - </p> - <p> - The merest trifles, in such weather, with a pretty new-found Cousin - Rosalys for a comrade, are delightful, when one is eighteen, aren’t they? - It was delightful to feel the yielding turf under our feet, the cool grass - curling round our ankles—for in Roman gardens, in those old days, it - wasn’t the fashion to clip the grass close, as on an English lawn. It was - delightful to walk in the shade of the orange-trees, and breathe the air - sweetened by them. The stillness the dreamy stillness of the soft, sunny - afternoon was delightful; the crumbling old statues were delightful, - statues of fauns and dryads, of Pagan gods and goddesses, Pan and Bacchus - and Diana, their noses broken for the most part, their bodies clothed in - mosses and leafy vines. And the flowers were delightful; the cyclamens, - with which—so abundant were they—the walls of the garden - fairly dripped, as with a kind of pink foam; and the roses, and the waxen - red and white camellias. It was delightful to stop before the great brown - old fountain, and listen to its tinkle-tinkle of cold water, and peer into - its basin, all green with weeds, and watch the antics of the goldfishes, - and the little rainbows the sun struck from the spray. And my Cousin - Rosalys’s white frock was delightful, and her voice was delightful; and - that perturbation in my heart was exquisitely delightful—something - between a thrill and a tremor—a delicious mixture of fear and - wonderment and beatitude. I had dragged myself hither to pay a duty-call - upon my grim old dragon of a great-aunt Elizabeth; and here I was - wandering amid the hundred delights of a romantic Italian garden, with a - lovely, white-robed, bright-eyed sylph of a Cousin Rosalys. - </p> - <p> - Don’t ask me what we talked about. I have only the most fragmentary - recollection. I remember she told me that her father and mother had died - in India, when she was a child, and that her father (Aunt Elizabeth’s - “ever so much younger brother“) had been in the army, and that she had - lived with Aunt Elizabeth since she was twelve. And I remember she asked - me to speak French with her, because in Rome she almost always spoke - Italian or English, and she didn’t want to forget her French; and “You’re, - of course, almost a Frenchman, living in Paris.” So we spoke French - together, saying <i>ma cousine</i> and <i>mon cousin</i>, which was very - intimate and pleasant; and she spoke it so well that I expressed some - surprise. “If you don’t put on at least a <i>slight</i> accent, I shall - tell you you’re almost a Frenchman too,” I threatened. “Oh, I had French - nurses when I was little,” she said, “and afterwards a French governess, - till I was sixteen. I’m eighteen now. How old are you?” I had heard that - girls always liked a man to be older than themselves, and I answered that - I was nearly twenty. Well, and isn’t eighteen nearly twenty?.... Anyhow, - as I walked back to my lodgings that afternoon, through the busy, twisted, - sunlit Roman streets, Cousin Rosalys filled all my heart and all my - thoughts with a white radiance. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - You will conceive whether or not, during the months that followed, I was - an assiduous visitor at the Palazzo Zacchinelli. But I couldn’t spend <i>all</i> - my time there, and in my enforced absences I needed consolation. I imagine - I treated Aunt Elizabeth’s advice about avoiding bad company as youth is - wont to treat the counsels of crabbed age. Doubtless my most frequent - associates were those very painters and Bohemians against whom she had - particularly cautioned me—whether they were also republicans and - atheists, I don’t think I ever knew; I can’t remember that I inquired, and - religion and politics were subjects they seldom touched upon - spontaneously. I dare say I joined the artists’ club, in the Via Margutta, - the Circolo Internazionale degli Artisti; I am afraid the Caffe Greco was - my favourite café; I am afraid I even bought a wide-awake hat, and wore it - on the back of my head, and tried to look as much like a painter and - Bohemian myself as nature would permit. - </p> - <p> - Bad company? I don’t know. It seemed to me very good company indeed. There - was Jack Everett, tall and slim and athletic, with his eager aquiline - face, his dark curling hair, the most poetic-looking creature, humorous, - whimsical, melancholy, imaginative, who used to quote Byron, and plan our - best practical jokes, and do the loveliest little cupids and roses in - water-colours. He has since married the girl he was even then in love - with, and is still living in Rome, and painting cupids and roses. And - there was d’.vignac, <i>le vicomte</i>, a young Frenchman, who had been in - the Diplomatic Service, and—superlative distinction!—“ruined - himself for a woman,” and now was striving to keep body and soul together - by giving fencing lessons; witty, kindly, pathetic d’.vignac—we have - vanished altogether from each other’s ken. There was Ulysse Tavoni, the - musician, who, when somebody asked him what instrument he played, answered - cheerily, “All instruments.” I can testify from personal observation that - he played the piano and the flute, the guitar, mandoline, fiddle, and - French horn, the ’cello and the zither. And there was Kônig, the Austrian - sculptor, a tiny man with a ferocious black moustache, whom my landlady - (he having called upon me one day when I was out), unable to remember his - transalpine name, described to perfection as “un Orlando Furioso—ma - molto piccolo.” There was a dear, dreamy, languid, sentimental Pole, - blue-eyed and yellow-haired, also a sculptor, whose name I have totally - forgotten, though we were sworn to “hearts’ brotherhood,” He had the most - astonishing talent for imitating the sounds of animals, the neighing of a - horse, the crowing of a cock; and when he brayed like a donkey, all the - donkeys within earshot were deceived, and answered him. And then there was - Father Flynn, a jolly old bibulous priest from Cork. An uncle of his had - fought at Waterloo; it was great to hear him tell of his uncle’s part in - the fortunes of the day. It was great, too (for Father Flynn was a fervid - Irish patriot), to hear him roar out the “Wearing of the Green.” Between - the stanzas he would brandish his blackthorn, stick at Everett, and call - him a “murthering English tyrant,” to our huge delectation. - </p> - <p> - There were others and others and others; but these six are those who come - back first to my memory. They seemed to me very good company indeed; very - merry, and genial, and amusing; and the life we led together seemed a very - pleasant life. Oh, our pleasures were of the simplest nature, the - traditional pleasures of Bohemia; smoking and drinking and talking, - rambling arm-in-arm through the streets, lounging in studios, going to the - play or perhaps the circus, or making excursions into the country. Only, - the capital of our Bohemia was Rome. The streets through which we rambled - were Roman streets, with their inexhaustible picturesqueness, their - unending vicissitudes: with their pink and yellow houses, their shrines, - their fountains, their gardens, their motley wayfarers—monks and - soldiers; shaggy pifferari, and contadine in their gaudy costumes, and - models masquerading as contadine; penitents, beggars, water-carriers, - hawkers; priests in their vestments, bearing the Host, attended by - acolytes, with burning tapers, who rang little bells, whilst men uncovered - and women crossed themselves; and everywhere, everywhere, English - tourists, with their noses in Baedeker. It was Rome with its bright sun, - and its deep shadows; with its Ghetto, its Tiber, its Castel Sant’ Angelo; - with its churches, and palaces, and ruins; with its Villa Borghese and its - Pincian Hill; with its waving green Campagna at its gates. We smoked and - talked and drank—Chianti, of course, and sunny Orvieto, and fabled - Est-Est-Est, all in those delightful pear-shaped, wicker-covered flasks, - which of themselves, I fancy, would confer a flavour upon indifferent - wine. We made excursions to Tivoli and Frascati, to Monte Cavo and Nemi, - to Acqua Acetosa. We patronised Pulcinella, and the marionettes, and - (better still) the <i>imitation</i> marionettes. We blew horns on the - night of Epiphany, we danced at masked balls, we put on dominoes and - romped in the Corso during carnival, throwing flowers and confetti, and - struggling to extinguish other people’s <i>moccoli</i>. And on rainy days - (with an effort I can remember that there were <i>some</i> rainy days) - Everett and I would sit with d’.vignac in his fencing gallery, and talk - and smoke, and smoke and talk and talk. D’.vignac was six-and-twenty, - Everett was twenty-two, and I was “nearly twenty.” D’.vignac would tell us - of his past, of his adventures in Spain and Japan and South America, and - of the lady for the love of whom he had come to grief. Everett and I would - sigh profoundly, and shake our heads, and exchange sympathetic glances, - and assure him that we knew what love was—we were victims of - unfortunate attachments ourselves. To each other we had confided - everything, Everett and I. He had told me all about his unrequited passion - for Maud Eaton, and I had rhapsodised to him by the hour about Cousin - Rosalys. “But you, old chap, you’re to be envied,” he would cry. “Here you - are in the same town with her, by Jove! You can <i>see</i> her, you can - plead your cause. Think of that. I wish I had half your luck. Maud is far - away in England, buried in a country-house down in Lancashire. She might - as well be on another planet, for all the good I get of her. But you—why, - you can see your Cousin Rosalys this very hour if you like! Oh, heavens, - what wouldn’t I give for half your luck!” The wheel of Time, the wheel of - Time! Everett and Maud are married, but Cousin Rosalys and I.... Heigh-ho! - I wonder whether, in our thoughts of ancient days, it is more what we - remember or what we forget that makes them sweet? Anyhow, for the moment, - we forget the dismal things that have happened since. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Yes, I was in the same town with her, by Jove; I could <i>see</i> her. And - indeed I did see her many times every week. Like the villain in a - melodrama, I led a double life. When I was not disguised as a Bohemian, in - a velvet jacket and a wide-awake, smoking and talking and holding wassail - with my boon companions, you might have observed a young man attired in - the height of the prevailing fashion (his top-hat and varnished boots - flashing fire in the eyes of the Roman populace), going to call on his - Aunt Elizabeth. And his Aunt Elizabeth, pleased by such dutiful - attentions, rewarded him with frequent invitations to dinner. Her other - guests would be old ladies like herself, and old gentlemen, and priests, - priests, priests. So that Rosalys and I, the only young ones present, were - naturally paired together. After dinner Rosalys would play and sing, while - I hung over her piano. Oh, how beautifully she played Chopin! How - ravishingly she sang! Schubert’s <i>Wohin, and Rôslein, Rôslein, Rôslein - roth;</i> and Gounod’s <i>Sérénade</i> and his <i>Barcarolle</i>: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “Dites la jeune belle, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Où voulez-vous aller?” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And how angelically beautiful she looked! Her delicate, pale face, and her - dark, undulating hair, and her soft red lips; and then her eyes—her - luminous, mysterious dark eyes, in whose depths, far, far within, you - could discern her spirit shining starlike. And her hands, white and - slender and graceful, images in miniature of herself; with what - incommunicable wonder and admiration I used to watch them as they moved - above the keys. “A woman who plays Chopin ought to have three hands—two - to play with, and one for the man who’s listening to hold.” That was a - pleasantry which I meditated much in secret, and a thousand times aspired - to murmur in the player’s ear, but invariably, when it came to the point - of doing so, my courage failed me. “You can see her, you can plead your - cause.” Bless me, I never dared even vaguely to hint that I had any cause - to plead. I imagine young love is always terribly afraid of revealing - itself to its object, terribly afraid and terribly desirous. Whenever I - was not in Cousin Rosalys’s presence, my heart was consumed with longing - to tell her that I loved her, to ask her whether perhaps she might be not - wholly indifferent to me; I made the boldest resolutions, committed to - memory the most persuasive declarations. But from the instant I <i>was</i> - in her presence again—mercy, what panic seized me! - </p> - <p> - I could have died sooner than speak the words that I was dying to speak, - ask the question I was dying to ask. - </p> - <p> - I called assiduously at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and my aunt bade me to - dinner a good deal, and then one afternoon every week she used to drive - with Rosalys on the Pincian. There was one afternoon every week when all - Rome drove on the Pincian; was it Saturday? At any rate, you may be very - sure I did not let such opportunities escape me for getting a bow and a - smile from my cousin. Sometimes she would leave the carriage and join me, - while Aunt Elizabeth, with Sandro in her lap, drove on, round and round - the consecrated circle; and we would stroll together in the winding - alleys, or stand by the terrace and look off over the roofs of the city, - and watch the sunset blaze and fade behind St. Peter’s. You know that - unexampled view—the roofs of Rome spread out beneath you like the - surface of a troubled sea, and the dome of St. Peter’s, an island rising - in the distance, and the sunset sky behind it. We would stand there in - silence perhaps, at most saying very little, while the sunset burned - itself out; and for one of us, at least, it was a moment of ineffable, - impossible enchantment. She was so near to me—so near, the slender - figure in the pretty frock, with the dark hair, and the captivating hat, - and the furs; with her soft glowing eyes, with her exquisite fragrance of - girlhood; she was so near to me, so alone with me, despite the crowd about - us, and I loved her so! Oh, why couldn’t I tell her? Why couldn’t she - divine it? People said that women always knew by intuition when men were - in love with them. Why couldn’t Rosalys divine that I loved her, <i>how</i> - I loved her, and make me a sign, and so enable me to speak? - </p> - <p> - Presently—and all too soon—she would return to the carriage, - and drive away with Aunt Elizabeth; and I, in the lugubrious twilight, - would descend the great marble Spanish staircase (a perilous path, amongst - models and beggars and other things) to the Piazza, and seek out Jack - Everett at the Caffé Greco. Thence he and I would go off to dine together - somewhere, condoling with each other upon our ill-starred passions. After - dinner, pulling our hats over our eyes, two desperately tragic forms, we - would set ourselves upon the traces of d’.vignac and Kônig and Father - Flynn, determined to forget our sorrows in an evening of dissipation, - saying regretfully, “These are the evil courses to which the love of woman - has reduced us—a couple of the best-meaning fellows in Christendom, - and surely born for better ends.” When we were children (hasn’t Kenneth - Grahame written it for us in a golden book?) we played at conspirators and - pirates. When we were a little older, and Byron or Musset had superseded - Fenimore Cooper, some of us found there was an unique excitement to be got - from the game of Blighted Beings. - </p> - <p> - Oh, why couldn’t I tell her? Why couldn’t she divine it, and make me an - encouraging sign? - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - But, of course, in the end I did tell her. It was on the night of my - birthday. I had dined at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and with the dessert a - great cake was brought in and set before me. A number of little red - candles were burning round it, and embossed upon it in frosting was this - device: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - A birthday-piece - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - From Rosalys, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Wishing birthdays more in plenty - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - To her cousin “nearly twenty.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And counting the candles, I perceived they were <i>nineteen.</i> - </p> - <p> - Probably my joy was somewhat tempered by confusion, to think that my - little equivocation on the subject of my age had been discovered. As I - looked up from the cake to its giver, I met a pair of eyes that were - gleaming with mischievous raillery; and she shook her head at me, and - murmured, “Oh, you fibber!” - </p> - <p> - “How on earth did you find out?” I wondered. - </p> - <p> - “Oh—a little bird,” laughed she. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think it’s at all respectful of you to call Aunt Elizabeth a - little bird,” said I. - </p> - <p> - After dinner we went out upon the terrace. It was a warm night, and there - was a moon. A moonlit night in Italy—dark velvet shot with silver. - And the air was intoxicant with the scent of hyacinths. We were in March; - the garden had become a wilderness of spring flowers, narcissuses and - jonquils, crocuses, anemones, tulips, and hyacinths; hyacinths, everywhere - hyacinths. Rosalys had thrown a bit of white lace over her hair. Oh, I - assure you, in the moonlight, with the white lace over her hair, with her - pale face, and her eyes, her shining, mysterious eyes—oh, I promise - you, she was lovely. - </p> - <p> - “How beautiful the garden is, in the moonlight, isn’t it?” she said. “The - shadows, and the statues, and the fountains. And how sweet the air is. - They’re the hyacinths that smell so sweet. The hyacinth is your birthday - flower, you know. Hyacinths bring happiness to people born in March.” - </p> - <p> - I looked into her eyes, and my heart thrilled and thrilled. And then, - somehow, somehow... Oh, I don’t remember what I said; only somehow, - somehow... Ah, but I do remember very clearly what she answered—so - softly, so softly, while her hand lay in mine. I remember it very clearly, - and at the memory, even now, years afterwards, I confess my heart thrills - again. - </p> - <p> - We were joined, in a minute or two, by Monsignor Parlaghi, and we tried to - behave as if he were not unwelcome. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - Adam and Eve were driven from Eden for their guilt; but it was Innocence - that lost our Eden for Rosalys and me. In our egregious innocence, we had - determined that I should call upon Aunt Elizabeth in the morning, and - formally demand her sanction to our engagement! Do I need to recount the - history of that interview? Of my aunt’s incredulity, that gradually - changed to scorn and anger? Of how I was fleered at and flouted, and - taunted with my youth, and called a fool and a coxcomb, and sent about my - business with the information that the portals of the Palazzo Zacchinelli - would remain eternally closed against me for the future, and that my - people “would be written to"? I was not even allowed to see my cousin to - say good-bye. “And mind you, we’ll have no letter writing,” cried Aunt - Elizabeth. “I shall forbid Rosalys to receive any letters from you.” - </p> - <p> - Guilt (we are taught) can be annulled, and its punishment remitted, if we - do heartily repent. But innocence? Goodness knows how heartily I repented; - yet I never found that a pennyweight of the punishment was remitted. At - the week’s end I got a letter from my people recalling me to Paris. And I - never saw Rosalys again. And some years afterwards she married an Italian, - a nephew of Cardinal Badascalchi. And in 1887, at Viareggio, she died.... - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <p> - <i>Eh bien, voilà!</i> There is the little inachieved, the little - unfulfilled romance, written for me in her name, Cousin Rosalys. What of - it? Oh, nothing—except—except... Oh, nothing. <i>”All good - things come to him who waits.” Perhaps. But we know how apt they are to - come too late; and—sometimes they come too early.</i> - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n the first-floor - sitting-room of a lodging-house in Great College Street, Westminster, a - young man—he was tall and thin, with a good deal of rather longish - light-coloured hair, somewhat tumbled about; and he wore a pince-nez, and - was in slippers and the oldest of tattered coats—a man of - thirty-something was seated at a writing-table, diligently scribbling at - what an accustomed eye might have recognised as “copy,” and negligently - allowing the smoke from a cigarette to curl round and stain the thumb and - forefinger of his idle hand, when the lodging-house maid-servant opened - his door, and announced excitedly, “A lady to see you, sir.” - </p> - <p> - With the air of one taken altogether by surprise, and at a cruel - disadvantage, the writer dropped his pen, and jumped up. He was in - slippers and a disgraceful coat, not to dwell upon the condition of his - hair. “You ought to have kept her downstairs until———” - he began, frowning upon the maid; and at that point his visitor entered - the room. - </p> - <p> - She was a handsome, dashing-looking young woman, in a toilette that - breathed the very last and crispest savour of Parisian elegance: a hat - that was a tangle of geraniums, an embroidered jacket, white gloves, a - skirt that frou-froued breezily as she moved; and she carried an amazing - silver-hilted sunshade, a thing like a folded gonfalon, a thing of red - silk gleaming through draperies of black lace. - </p> - <p> - Poising lightly near the threshold, with a little smile of interrogation, - this bewildering vision said, “Have I the honour of addressing Mr. William - Stretton?” - </p> - <p> - The young man bowed a vague acknowledgment of that name; but his gaze, - through the lenses of his pince-nez, was all perplexity and question. - </p> - <p> - “I’m very fortunate in finding you at home. I’ve called to see you about a - matter of business,” she informed him. - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” he wondered. Then he added, with a pathetic shake of the head, “I’m - the last man in the world whom any one could wisely choose to see about a - matter of business; but such as I am, I’m all at your disposal.” - </p> - <p> - “So much the better,” she rejoined cheerily. “I infinitely prefer to - transact business with people who are unbusinesslike. One has some chance - of overreaching them.” - </p> - <p> - “You’ll have every chance of over-reaching me,” sighed he. - </p> - <p> - “What a jolly quarter of the town you live in,” she commented. “It’s so - picturesque and Gothic and dilapidated, with such an atmosphere of - academic calm. It reminds me of Oxford.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” assented he, “it <i>is</i> a bit like Oxford. Was your business - connected——?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it <i>is</i> like Oxford?” she interrupted. “Then never tell me again - that there’s nothing in intuitions. I’ve never been in Oxford, but - directly I passed the gateway of Dean’s Yard, I felt reminded of it.” - </p> - <p> - “There’s undoubtedly a lot in intuitions,” he agreed; “and for the future - I shall carefully abstain from telling you there isn’t.” - </p> - <p> - “Those things are gardens, over the way, behind the wall, aren’t they?” - she asked, looking out of the window. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he said, “those things are gardens, the gardens of the Abbey. The - canons and people have their houses there.” - </p> - <p> - “Very comfortable and nice,” said she. “Plenty of grass. And the trees - aren’t bad, either, for town trees. It must be rather fun to be a canon. - As I live,” she cried, turning back into the room, “you’ve got a Pleyel. - This is the first Pleyel I’ve seen in England. Let me congratulate you on - your taste in pianos.” And with her gloved hands she struck a chord and - made a run or two. “You’ll need the tuner soon, though. It’s just the - shadow of a shadow out. I was brought up on Pleyels. Do you know, I’ve - half a mind to make you a confidence?” she questioned brightly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, do make it, I pray you,” he encouraged her. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, I believe, if you were to offer me a chair, I believe I could - bring myself to sit down,” she admitted. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed; and she sank rustling into the chair - that he pushed forward. - </p> - <p> - “Well, now for my business,” said she. “Would you just put this thing - somewhere?” She offered him her sunshade, which he took and handled - somewhat gingerly. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid. It’s quite tame,” she - laughed, “though I admit it looks a bit ferocious. What a sweet room - you’ve got—so manny, and smoky, and booky. Are they all real books?” - </p> - <p> - “More or less real,” he answered; “as real as any books ever are that a - fellow gets for review.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you got them for review?” she repeated, with vivacity. “How terribly - exciting. I’ve never seen a book before that’s actually passed through a - reviewer’s hands. They don’t look much the worse for it. Whatever else you - said about them, I trust you didn’t deny that they make nice domestic - ornaments. But this isn’t business. <i>You</i> wouldn’t call this - business?” she enquired, with grave curiosity. - </p> - <p> - “No, I should call this pleasure,” he assured her, laughing. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Would</i> you?” She raised her eyebrows. “Ah, but then you’re - English.” - </p> - <p> - “Aren’t you?” asked he. - </p> - <p> - “Do I look English?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not sure.” He hesitated for a second, studying her. “You certainly - don’t dress English.” - </p> - <p> - “Heaven forbid Δ She made a fervent gesture. “I’m a miserable sinner, but - at least I’m incapable of that. However, if you were really kind, you’d - affect just a little curiosity to know the errand to which you owe my - presence.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m devoured by curiosity,” he declared. - </p> - <p> - Again she raised her eyebrows. “You are? Then why don’t you show it?” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps because I have a sense of humour—amongst other reasons,” he - suggested, smiling. - </p> - <p> - “Well, since you’re devoured by curiosity, you must know,” she began; but - broke off suddenly—“Apropos, I wonder whether <i>you</i> could be - induced to tell <i>me</i> something.” - </p> - <p> - “I daresay I could, if it’s anything within my sphere of knowledge.” He - paused, expectant. - </p> - <p> - “Then tell me, please, why you keep your Japanese fan in your fireplace,” - she requested. - </p> - <p> - “Why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t it strike you as a good place for it?” - </p> - <p> - “Admirable. But my interest was psychological. I was wondering by what - mental processes you came to hit upon it.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, to be frank, it wasn’t I who hit upon it; it isn’t my - Japanese fan. It’s a conceit of my landlady’s. This is an age of paradox, - you know. Would you prefer silver paper?” - </p> - <p> - “<i>Must</i> one have one or the other?” - </p> - <p> - “You’re making it painfully clear,” he cautioned her, “that you’ve never - lived in lodgings.” - </p> - <p> - “If you go on at this rate,” she retorted, laughing, “I shall never get my - task accomplished. Here are twenty times that I’ve commenced it, and - twenty times you’ve put me off. Shall we now, at last, proceed seriously - to business?” - </p> - <p> - “Not on my account, I beg. I’m not in the slightest hurry,” protested he. - </p> - <p> - “You said you were devoured by curiosity.” - </p> - <p> - “Did I say that?” He knitted his brow. - </p> - <p> - “Certainly you did.” - </p> - <p> - “It must have been aphasia. I meant contentment,” he explained. - </p> - <p> - “Devoured by contentment?” - </p> - <p> - “Why not, as well as by curiosity?” - </p> - <p> - “The phrase is novel,” she mused. - </p> - <p> - “It’s the occupation of my life to seek for novel phrases,” he reminded - her. “I’m what somebody or other has called a literary man.” - </p> - <p> - “And you enjoy what somebody or other has called beating about the bush?” - </p> - <p> - “Hugely—with such a fellow-beater,” he responded. - </p> - <p> - “You drive me to extremities.” She shook her head. “I see there’s nothing - for it but to plunge in <i>médias res</i>. You must know, then, that I - have been asked to call upon you by a friend—by my friend Miss - Johannah Rothe—I beg your pardon; I never <i>can</i> remember that - she’s changed her name—my friend Miss Johannah Silver—but - Silver <i>née</i> Rothe—of Silver Towers, in the County of Sussex.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah?” said he. “Ah, yes. Then never tell me again that there’s nothing in - intuitions. I’ve never met Miss Silver, but directly you crossed the - threshold of this room, I began to feel vaguely reminded of her.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there’s a lot in intuitions,” she agreed. “But don’t think to - disconcert me. My friend Miss Silver——” - </p> - <p> - It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Your <i>friend?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “Considering the sacrifice I’m making on her behalf to-day, it’s strange - you should throw doubt upon my friendship for her,” she argued. - </p> - <p> - “You make your sacrifices with a cheerful countenance. I should never have - guessed that you weren’t entirely happy. But forgive my interruption. You - were about to say that your friend Miss Silver——” - </p> - <p> - “My occasional friend,” she substituted. “Sometimes, I confess, we quarrel - like everything, and remain at daggers drawn for months. She’s such a - flightly creature, dear Johannah, she not infrequently gets me into a - perfect peck of trouble. But since she’s fallen heir to all this money, - you’d be surprised to behold the devotion her friends have shown her. I - couldn’t very well refuse to follow their example. One’s human, you see; - and one can’t dress like this for nothing, can one?” - </p> - <p> - “Upon my word, I’m not in a position to answer you. I’ve never tried,” - laughed he. - </p> - <p> - “In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think we may safely assume - one can’t,” said she. “However, here you are, beating about the bush - again. I come to you as Johannah’s emissary. She desires me to ask you - several questions.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” said he, a trifle uncomfortably. - </p> - <p> - “She would be glad to know,” his visitor declared, looking straight into - his eyes, and smiling a little gravely, “why you have been so excessively - nasty to her?” - </p> - <p> - “Have I been nasty to her?” he asked, with an innocence that was palpably - counterfeit. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you think you have?” She still looked gravely, smilingly, into his - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t see how.” He maintained his feint of innocence. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you think you’ve responded somewhat ungraciously to her overtures - of friendship?” she suggested. “Do you think it was nice to answer her - letters with those curt little formal notes of yours? Look. Johannah sat - down to write to you. And she began her letter <i>Dear Mr. Stretton</i>. - And then she simply couldn’t. So she tore up the sheet, and began another - <i>My Dear Cousin Will</i>. And what did she receive in reply? A note - beginning <i>Dear Miss Silver</i>. Do you think that was kind? Don’t you - think it was the least bit mortifying? And why have you refused in such a - stiff-necked way to go down to see her at Silver Towers?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” he protested, “in all fairness, in all logic, your questions ought - to be put the other way round.” - </p> - <p> - “Bother logic! But put them any way you like,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “What right had Miss Silver to expect me to multiply the complications of - my life by rushing into an ecstatic friendship with her? And why, being - very well as I am in town just now, why should I disarrange myself by a - journey into the country?” - </p> - <p> - “Why indeed?” she echoed. “I’m sure I can give no reason. Why should one - ever do any one else a kindness? Your cousin has conceived a great desire - to meet you.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, a great desire!” He tossed his head. “One knows these great desires. - She’ll live it down. A man named Burrell has been stuffing her up.” - </p> - <p> - “Stuffing her up?” She smiled enquiringly. “The expression is new to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Greening her, filling her head with all sorts of nonsensical delusions, - painting my portrait for her in all the colours of the rainbow. Oh, I know - my Burrell. He’s tried to stuff <i>me</i> up, too, about her.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh? Has he? What has he said?” she questioned eagerly. - </p> - <p> - “The usual rubbishy things one does say, when one wants to stuff a fellow - up.” - </p> - <p> - “For instance?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, that she’s tremendously good-looking, with hair and eyes and things, - and very charming.” - </p> - <p> - “What a dear good person the man named Burrell must be,” she murmured. - </p> - <p> - “He’s not a bad chap,” he conceded, “but you must remember that he’s her - solicitor.” - </p> - <p> - “And, remembering that, you weren’t to be stuffed?” she said. - </p> - <p> - “If she was charming and good-looking, it was a reason the more for - avoiding her,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” She looked perplexed. - </p> - <p> - “There’s nothing on earth so tiresome as charming women. They’re all - exactly alike,” asserted he. - </p> - <p> - “Thank you,” his guest exclaimed, bowing. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, nobody could pretend that <i>you’re</i> exactly alike,” he assured - her hastily. “I own at once that you’re delightfully different. But - Burrell has no knack for character drawing.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re extremely flattering. But aren’t you taking a slightly one-sided - point of view? Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that it is - Johannah’s bad luck to be charming and good-looking. Nevertheless, she - still has claims on you.” - </p> - <p> - “Has she?” - </p> - <p> - “She’s your cousin.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, by the left hand,” said he. - </p> - <p> - She stared for an instant, biting her lip. Then she laughed. - </p> - <p> - “And only my second or third cousin at that,” he went on serenely. - </p> - <p> - She looked at him with eyes that were half whimsical, half pleading. - “Would you mind being quite serious for a moment?” she asked. “Because - Johannah’s situation, absurd as it seems, really is terribly serious for - Johannah. I should like to submit it to your better judgment. We’ll drop - the question of cousinship, if you wish—though it’s the simple fact - that you’re her only blood-relation in this country, where she feels - herself the forlornest sort of alien. She’s passed her entire life in - Italy and France, you know, and this is the first visit she’s made to - England since her childhood. But we’ll drop the question of cousinship. At - any rate, Johannah is a human being. Well, consider her plight a little. - She finds herself in the most painful, the most humiliating circumstances - that can be imagined; and you’re the only person living who can make them - easier for her. Involuntarily—in spite of herself—she’s come - into possession of a fortune that naturally, morally, belongs to you. She - can’t help it. It’s been left to her by will—by the will of a man - who never saw her, never had any kind of relations with her, but chose her - for his heir just because her mother, who died when Johannah was a baby, - had chanced to be his cousin. And there the poor girl is. Can’t you see - how like a thief she must feel at the best? Can’t you see how much worse - you make it for her, when she holds out her hand, and you refuse to take - it? Is that magnanimous of you? Isn’t it cruel? You couldn’t treat her - with greater unkindness if she’d actually designed, and schemed, and - intrigued, to do you out of your inheritance, instead of coming into it in - the passive way she has. After all, she’s a human being, she’s a woman. - Think of her pride.” - </p> - <p> - “Think of mine,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “I can’t see that your pride is involved.” - </p> - <p> - “To put it plainly, I’m the late Sir William Silver’s illegitimate son.” - </p> - <p> - “Well? What of that?” - </p> - <p> - “Do you fancy I should enjoy being taken up and patronised by his - legitimate heir?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” she cried, starting to her feet. “You can’t think I would be capable - of anything so base as that.” - </p> - <p> - And he saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said. “You - would be utterly incapable of anything that was not generous and noble. - But you must remember that I had never seen you. How could I know?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, now that you <i>have</i> seen me,” she responded, her eyes all - smiles again, “now that I have put my pride in my pocket, and bearded you - in your den, I don’t mind confiding in you that it’s nearly lunchtime, and - also that I’m ravenously hungry. Could you ring your bell, and order up - something in the nature of meat and drink? And while you are about it, you - might tell your landlady or some one to pack your bag. We take,” she - mentioned, examining a tiny watch, that seemed nothing more than a - frivolous incrustation of little diamonds and rubies, “we take the - three-sixteen for Silver Towers.” - </p> - <h3> - II. - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>eated opposite her - in the railway-carriage, as their train bore them through the pleasant - dales and woods of Surrey, Will Stretton fell to studying his cousin’s - appearance. “Burrell was right,” he told himself; “she really is - tremendously good-looking,” and that, in spite of a perfectly reckless - irregularity of feature. Her nose was too small, but it was a delicate, - pert, pretty nose, notwithstanding. Her mouth was too large, but it was a - beautiful mouth, all the same, softly curved and red as scarlet, with - sensitive, humorous little quirks in its corners. Her eyes he could admire - without reservation, brown and pellucid, with the wittiest, teasingest, - mockingest lights dancing in them, yet at the same time a deeper light - that was pensive, tender, womanly. Her hair, too, he decided, was quite - lovely, abundant, undulating, black, blue-black even, but fine, but silky, - escaping in a flutter of small curls above her brow. “It’s like black - foam,” he said. And he would have been ready to go to war for her - complexion, though it was so un-English a complexion that one might have - mistaken her for a native of the France or Italy she had inhabitated: - warm, dusky white, with an elusive shadow of rose glowing through it. Yes, - she was tremendously good-looking, he concluded. She looked fresh and - strong and real. She looked alert, alive, full of the spring and the joy - of life. She looked as if she could feel quick and deep, as if her blood - flowed swiftly, and was red. He liked her face, and he liked her figure—it - was supple and vigorous. He liked the way she dressed—there was - something daring and spirited in the uncompromising, unabashed luxury of - it. “Who ever saw such a hat—or such a sunshade?” he reflected. - </p> - <p> - “There’ll be no coach-and-four to meet us at the station,” she warned him, - as they neared their journey’s end, “because I have no horses. But we’ll - probably find Madame Dornaye there, <i>piaffer</i>-ing in person. Can you - resign yourself to the prospect of driving up to your ancestral mansion in - a hired fly?” - </p> - <p> - “I could even, at a pinch, resign myself to walking,” he declared. “But - who is Madame Dornaye?” - </p> - <p> - “Madame Dornaye is my burnt-offering to that terrible sort of fetich - called the County. She’s what might be technically termed my chaperon.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, to be sure,” he said; “I had forgotten. Of course, you’d have a - chaperon.” - </p> - <p> - “By no means of course,” she corrected him. “Until the other day I’d never - thought of such a thing. But it’s all along o’ the man named Burrell. He - insisted that I mustn’t live alone—that I was too young. He has such - violent hallucinations about people’s ages. He said the County would be - horrified. I must have an old woman, a sound, reliable old woman, to live - with me. I begged and implored <i>him</i> to come and try it, but he - protested with tears in his eyes that he wasn’t an old woman. So I sent - for Madame Dornaye, who is, every inch of her. She’s the widow of a man - who used to be a professor at the Sorbonne, or something. I’ve known her - for at least a hundred years. She’s connected in some roundabout way with - the family of my father’s stepmother. She’s like a little dry brown leaf; - and she plays Chopin <i>comme pas un</i>; and she lends me a false air of - respectability, I suppose. She calls me <i>Jeanne ma fille</i>, if you can - believe it, as if my name weren’t common Johannah. If you chance to please - her, she’ll very likely call you <i>Jean mon fils</i>. But see how things - turn out. The man named Burrell also insisted that I must put on mourning, - as a symbol of my grief for the late Sir William. That I positively - refused to think of. So the County’s horrified, all the same—which - proves the futility of concessions.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” questioned Will. “What does the County do?” - </p> - <p> - “It comes and calls on me, and walks round me, and stares, with a funny - little deprecating smile, as it I were some outlandish and not very proper - animal, cast up by the sea. To begin with, there’s the vicar, with all his - wives and daughters. <i>Their</i> emotions are complicated by the fact - that I am a Papist. Then there’s old Lord Belgard; and there’s Mrs. - Breckenbridge, with her marriageable sons; and there’s the Bishop of - Salchester, with his Bishopess, Dean, and Chapter. The dear good people - make up parties in the afternoon, to come and have a look at me; and they - sip my tea with an air of guilt, as if it smacked of profligacy; and they - suppress demure little knowing glances among themselves. And then at last - they go away, shaking their heads, and talking me over in awe-struck - voices.” - </p> - <p> - “I can see them, I can hear them,” Will laughed. - </p> - <p> - “Haven’t you in English a somewhat homely proverbial expression about the - fat and the fire?” asked Johannah. - </p> - <p> - “About the fat getting into the fire? Yes,” said Will. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, to employ that somewhat homely proverbial expression,” she - went on, “the fat got into the fire at the Bishop’s palace. Mrs. Rawley - was kind enough to write and ask us to dinner, and she added that she had - heard I sang, and wouldn’t I bring some music? But nobody had ever told me - that it’s bad form in England to sing <i>well</i>. So, after dinner, when - Mrs. Rawley said, ’Now, Miss Silver, do sing us something,’ I made the - incredible blunder of singing as well as I could. I sang the <i>Erlkônig</i>, - and Madame Dornaye played the accompaniment, and we both did our very - bestest, in our barefaced, Continental way. We were a little surprised, - and vastly enlightened, to perceive that we’d shocked everybody. And - by-and-by the Bishop’s daughters consented to sing in their turn, and then - we saw the correct British style of doing it. If you don’t want to be - considered rowdyish and noisy in a British drawing-room, you must sing - under your breath, faintly, faintingly, as if you were afraid somebody - might hear you.” - </p> - <p> - “My poor dear young lady,” her cousin commiserated her, “fancy your only - just discovering that. It’s one of the foundation-stones of our social - constitution. If you sing with any art or with any feeling, you expose - yourself to being mistaken for a paid professional.” - </p> - <p> - “Another thing that’s horrified the County,” pursued Johannah, “is the - circumstance that I keep no horses. I don’t like horses—except in - pictures. In pictures, I admit at once, they make a very pleasant - decorative motive. But in life—they’re too strong and too - unintelligent; and they’re perpetually bolting. By-the-bye, please choose - a good feeble jaded one, when you engage our fly. I’m devoted to donkeys, - though. They’re every bit as decorative as the horse, and they’re really - wise—they only baulk. I had a perfect love of a little donkey in - Italy; his name was Angelo. If I decide to stay in England, I shall have a - spanking team of four donkeys, with scarlet trappings and silver bells. - But the County say ’Oh, you <i>must</i> have horses,’ and casts its eyes - appealingly to heaven when I say I <i>won’t</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “The County lacks a sense of situations,” he reflected. “It’s really a - deliciously fresh one—a big country house, and not a horse in the - stables.” - </p> - <p> - “Apropos of the house, that brings me to another point,” said she. “The - County feels very strongly that I ought to put the house in repair—that - dear old wonderful, rambling, crumbling house. They take it as the final - crushing evidence of my depravity, that I prefer to leave it in its - present condition of picturesque decay. I’m sure you agree with me, that - it would be high treason to allow a carpenter or mason to lay a hand on - it. By-the-bye, I hope you have no conscientious scruples against speaking - French; for Madame Dornaye only knows two words of English, and those she - mispronounces. There she is—yes, that little black and grey thing, - in the frock. She’s come to meet me, because we had a bet. You owe me five - shillings,” she called out to Madame Dornaye, as Will helped her from the - carriage. “You see, I’ve brought him.” - </p> - <p> - Madame Dornaye, who had a pair of humorous old French eyes, responded, - blinking them, “Oh, before I pay you, I shall have to be convinced that it - is really he.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m afraid it’s really he,” laughed Will; “but rather than let so - immaterial a detail cost you five shillings, I’m prepared to maintain with - my dying breath that there’s no such person.” - </p> - <p> - “Don’t mind him,” interposed Johannah. “He’s trying to flatter you up, - because he wants you to call him <i>Jean mon fils</i>, as if his name - weren’t common William.” Then, to him, “Go,” she said, with an imperious - gesture, “go and find a vehicle with a good tired horse.” - </p> - <p> - And when the vehicle with the good tired horse had brought them to their - destination, and they stood before the hall-door of Silver Towers, - Johannah looked up at the escutcheon carved in the pale-grey stone above - it, and said pensively, “On a field argent, a heart gules, crowned with an - imperial crown or; and the motto, ’Qu’il régne!’ If, when you got my first - letter, Cousin Will, if you’d remembered the arms of our family, and the - motto—if you had ’let it reign’—I should have been spared the - trouble and expense of a journey to town to-day.” - </p> - <p> - “But I should have missed a precious experience,” said he. “You forget - what I couldn’t help being supremely conscious of—that I bear those - arms with a difference. I hope, though, that you won’t begrudge the - journey to town. I think there are certain aspects of your character that - I might never have discovered if I’d met you in any other way.” - </p> - <p> - That evening Johannah wrote a letter: - </p> - <p> - “Dear Mr. Burrell,—<i>Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut</i>. The first - part of my rash little prophecy has already come true. Will Stretton is - staying in this house, a contented guest. At the present moment he’s - hovering about the piano, where Madame Dornaye is playing Chopin; and he’s - just remarked that he never hears Chopin without thinking of those lines - of Browning’s: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent30"> - ’I discern - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Infinite passion, and the pain - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - Of finite hearts that yearn.’ - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - I quite agree with you, he <i>is</i> a charming creature. So now I repeat - the second part of my rash little prophecy: Before the summer’s over he - will have accepted at least a good half of his paternal fortune. <i>Ce que - femme veut, le diable ne saurait pas l’empêcher.</i> He will, he shall, - even if I have to marry him to make him.—Yours ever, Johannah - Silver.” - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ill left his room - somewhat early the next morning, and went down into the garden. The sun - was shining briskly, the dew still sparkled on the grass, the air was - heady with a hundred keen earth-odours. A mile away, beyond the wide green - levels of Sumpter Meads, the sea glowed blue as the blue of larkspur, - under the blue June sky. And everywhere, everywhere, innumerable birds - piped and twittered, filling the world with a sense of gay activity, of - whole-hearted, high-hearted life. - </p> - <p> - “What! up already?” a voice called softly, from behind him. - </p> - <p> - He turned, and met Johannah. - </p> - <p> - “Why not, since you are?” he responded. - </p> - <p> - She laughed, and gave him her hand, a warm, elastic hand, firm of grasp. - In a garden-hat and a white frock, her eyes beaming, her cheeks faintly - flushed, she seemed to him a sort of beautiful incarnation of the spirit - of the summer morning, its freshness, and sweetness, and richness. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, we furriners,” she explained; “we’re all shocking early risers. In - Italy we love the day when it is young, and deem it middle-aged by eight - o’clock. But in England I had heard it was the fashion to lie late.” - </p> - <p> - “I woke, and couldn’t go to sleep again, so I tossed the fashion to the - winds. Perhaps it was a sort of dim presentiment that I should surprise - Aurora walking in the garden, that banished slumber,” he suggested, with a - flourish. - </p> - <p> - “Flowery speeches are best met by flowery deeds,” said she. “Come with me - to the rosery, and I will give you a red, red rose.” - </p> - <p> - And in the rosery, as she stood close to him, pinning the red, red rose in - his coat, her smooth cheek and fragrant hair so near, so near, he felt his - heart all at once begin to throb, and he had to control a sudden absurd - longing to put his arms round her and kiss her. “Good heavens,” he said to - himself, “I must be on my guard.” - </p> - <p> - “There,” she cried, bestowing upon her task a gentle pat, by way of - finish, “that makes us quits.” And she raised her eyes to his, and held - them for an instant with a smile that did anything but soothe the trouble - in his heart, such a sly little teasing, cryptic smile. Could it possibly - be, he wondered wildly, that she had divined his monstrous impulse, and - was coquetting with it? - </p> - <p> - “Now let’s be serious,” she said, leading the way back to the lawn. “It’s - like a hanging-garden, high up here, with the meads and the sea below, - isn’t it? And àpropos of the sea, I would beg you to observe its colour. - Is it blue? I would also ask you kindly to cast an eye on that line of - cliffs, there to the eastward, as it goes winding in and out away to the - vanishing point. Are the cliffs white?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, the cliffs are white,” agreed the unwary Will. - </p> - <p> - “How can you tell such dreadful fibs?” she caught him up. “The cliffs are - prismatic. White, indeed! when they gleam with every transparent tint from - rose to violet, as if the light that falls on them had passed through - rubies and amethysts, and all sorts of precious stones. That is an optical - effect due doubtless to reflection or refraction or something—no?” - </p> - <p> - “I should say it was almost certainly due to something,” he acquiesced. - </p> - <p> - “And now,” she continued, “will you obligingly turn your attention to the - birds? Tweet-weet-willow-will-weet. I don’t know what it means, but they - repeat it so often and so earnestly, I’m sure it must be true.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s relatively true,” said he. “It means that it’s a fine morning, and - their digestion’s good, and their affairs are prospering—nothing - more than that. They’re material-minded little beasts, you know.” - </p> - <p> - “All truth is relative,” said she, “and one’s relatively a material-minded - little beast oneself. Is the greensward beyond there (relatively) spangled - with buttercups and daisies? Is the park (relatively) leafy, and shadowy, - and mysterious, and delightful? Is the may in bloom? <i>Voyons donc!</i> - you’ll never be denying that the may’s in bloom. And is the air like an - elixir? I vow, it goes to one’s head like some ethereal elixir. And yet - you have the effrontery to tell me that you’re pining for the flesh-pots - of Great College Street, Westminster, S.W.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, did I tell you that? Ah, well, it must have been with intent to - deceive, for nothing could be farther from the truth,” he owned. - </p> - <p> - “The relative truth? Then you’re not homesick?” - </p> - <p> - “Not consciously,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Neither am I,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “Why should you be?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “This is positively the first day since my arrival in England that I - haven’t been, more or less,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “Oh?” he wondered sympathetically. - </p> - <p> - “You can’t think how <i>dépaysée</i> I’ve felt. After having lived all - one’s life in Prague, suddenly to find oneself translated to the - mistress-ship of an English country house,” she submitted. - </p> - <p> - “In Prague? I thought you had lived in Rome and Paris, chiefly,” he - exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Prague is a figure of rhetoric,” she reminded him. “I mean the capital of - Bohemia. Wasn’t my father a sculptor? And wasn’t I born in a studio? And - haven’t my playmates and companions always been of Florizel the loyal - subjects? So whether you call it Rome or Paris or Florence or Naples, it - was Prague, none the less.” - </p> - <p> - “At that rate, I live in Prague myself, and we’re compatriots,” said Will. - </p> - <p> - “That’s no doubt why I don’t feel homesick any more,” she responded, - smiling. “Where two of the faithful are gathered together they can form a - miniature Prague of their own. If I decide to stay in England, I shall - send for a lot of my Prague friends to come and visit me, and you can send - for an equal number of yours; and then we’ll turn this bright particular - corner of the British Empire into a province of Bohemia, and the County - may be horrified with reason. But meanwhile, let’s be Pragueians in - practice as well as theory. Let’s go to the strawberry beds, and steal - some strawberries,” was her conclusion. - </p> - <p> - She walked a little in front of him. Her garden-hat had come off, and she - was swinging it at her side, by its ribbons. Will noticed the strong, - lithe sway and rhythm of her body, as she moved. “What a <i>woman</i> she - is,” he thought; “how one feels her sex.” And with that, he all at once - became aware of a singular depression. “Surely,” a malevolent little voice - within him argued, “woman that she is, and having passed all her life with - the subjects of Florizel, surely, surely, she must have had... - experiences. She must have loved—she must have been loved.” And (as - if it was any of his business!) a kind of vague jealousy of her past, a - kind of suspiciousness and irrelevant resentment, began to burn, a small - dull spot of pain, somewhere in his breast. - </p> - <p> - She, apparently, was in the highest spirits. There was something - expressive of joyousness in the mere way she tripped over the grass, - swinging her garden-hat like a basket; and presently she fell to singing, - merrily, in a light voice, that prettiest of old French songs, <i>Les - Trots Princesses</i>, dancing forward to its measure: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - “Derrièr’ chez mon père, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - (Vole, vole, mon cour, vole!) - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Derrièr’ chez mon père, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Ya un pommier doux, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Tout doux, et iou, - </p> - <p class="indent20"> - Ya un pommier doux.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you like that song?” she asked. “The tune of it is like the smell - of faded rose-leaves, isn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - And suddenly she began to sing a different one, possibly an improvisation: - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - “ And so they set forth for the strawberry beds, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - The strawberry beds, the strawberry beds, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - And so they set forth for the strawberry beds, - </p> - <p class="indent15"> - On Christmas day in the morning.” - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - And when they had reached the strawberry beds, she knelt, and plucked a - great red berry, and then leapt up again, and held it to her cousin’s - lips, saying, “Bite—but spare my fingers.” And so, laughing, she fed - it to him, while he, laughing too, consumed it. But when her pink - finger-tips all but touched his lips, his heart had a convulsion, and it - was only by main-force that he restrained his kisses. And he said to - himself, “I must go back to town to-morrow. This will never do. It would - be the devil to pay if I should let myself fall in love with her.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes, I’ve felt terribly <i>dépaysée</i>,” she told him again, herself - nibbling a berry. “I’ve felt like the traditional cat in the strange - garret. And then, besides, there was my change of name. I can’t reconcile - myself to being called Miss Silver. I can’t realise the character. It’s - like an affectation, like making-believe. Directly I relax my vigilance, I - forget, and sink back into Johannah Rothe. I’m always Johannah Rothe when - I’m alone. Directly I’m alone, I push a big <i>ouf</i>, and send Miss - Silver to Cracklimbo. Then somebody comes, and, with a weary sigh, I don - my sheep’s clothing again. Of course, there’s nothing in a name, and yet - there’s everything. There’s a furious amount of mental discomfort when the - name doesn’t fit.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s a discomfort that will pass,” he said consolingly. “The change of - name is a mere formality—a condition attached to coming into a - property. In England, you know, it’s a rather frequent condition.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m aware of that,” she informed him. “But to me,” she went on, “it seems - symbolic—symbolic of my whole situation, which is false, abnormal. - Silver? Silver? It’s a name meant for a fair person, with light hair and a - white skin. And here I am, as black as any Gipsy. And then! It’s a - condition attached to coming into a property. Well, I come into a property - to which I have no more moral right than I have to the coat on your back; - and I’m obliged to do it under an <i>alias</i>, like a thief in the - night.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my dear young lady,” he cried out, “you’ve the very best of rights, - moral as well as legal. You come into a property that is left to you by - will, and you’re the last representative of the family in whose hands it - has been for I forget how many hundreds of years.” - </p> - <p> - “That,” said she, “is a question I shall not refuse to discuss with you - upon some more fitting occasion. For the present I am tempted to - perpetrate a simply villainous pun, but I forbear. Suffice it to say that - I consider the property that I’ve come into as nothing more nor less than - a present made me by my cousin, William Stretton. No—don’t - interrupt!” she forbade him. “I happen to know my facts. I happen to know - that if Will Stretton hadn’t, for reasons in the highest degree honourable - to himself, quarrelled and broken with his father, and refused to receive - a penny from him, I happen to know, I say, that Sir William Silver would - have left Will Stretton everything he possessed in the world. Oh, it’s not - in vain that I’ve pumped the man named Burrell. So, you see, I’m indebted - to my Quixotic cousin for something in the neighbourhood, I’m told, of - eight thousand a year. Rather a handsome little present, isn’t it? - Furthermore, let me add in passing, I absolutely forbid my cousin to call - me his dear young lady, as if he were seven hundred years my senior and - only a casual acquaintance. A really nice cousin would take the liberty of - calling me by my Christian name.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll take the liberty of calling you by some exceedingly <i>un</i>Christian - name,” he menaced, “if you don’t leave off talking that impossible rot - about my making you a present.” - </p> - <p> - “I wasn’t talking impossible rot about your making me a present,” she - contradicted. “I was merely telling you how <i>dépaysée</i> I’d felt. The - rest was parenthetic. So now, then, keep your promise, call me Johannah.” - </p> - <p> - “Johannah,” he called, submissively. - </p> - <p> - “Will,” said she. “And when you feel, Will, that on the whole, Will, - you’ve had strawberries enough, Will, quite to destroy your appetite, - perhaps it would be as well if we should go in to breakfast, Willie.” - </p> - <h3> - IV. - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>hey were seated on - the turf, under a great tree, in the park, amid a multitude of - bright-coloured cushions, Johannah, Will, and Madame Dornaye. It was three - weeks later—whence it may be inferred that he had abandoned his - resolution to “go back to town to-morrow.” He was smoking a cigarette; - Madame Dornaye was knitting; Johannah, hatless, in an indescribable - confection of cream-coloured muslin, her head pillowed in a scarlet - cushion against the body of the tree, was gazing off towards the sea with - dreamy eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Will,” she called languidly, by-and-by. - </p> - <p> - “Yes?” he responded. - </p> - <p> - “Do you happen by any chance to belong to that sect of philosophers who - regard gold as a precious metal?” - </p> - <p> - “From the little I’ve seen of it, I am inclined to regard it as precious—yes,” - he answered. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, I wouldn’t be so lavish of it, if I were you,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “If you don’t take care,” said he, “you’ll force me to admit that I - haven’t an idea of what you’re driving at.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m driving at your silence. You’re as silent as a statue. Please talk a - little.” - </p> - <p> - “What shall I talk about?” - </p> - <p> - “Anything. Nothing. Tell us a story,” she decided. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know any stories.” - </p> - <p> - “Then the least you can do is to invent one,” was her plausible retort. - </p> - <p> - “What sort of a story would you like?” - </p> - <p> - “There’s only one sort of story a woman ever sincerely likes—especially - on a hot summer’s afternoon, in the country,” she affirmed. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I couldn’t possibly invent a love-story,” he disclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “Then tell us a true one. You needn’t be afraid of shocking Madame - Dornaye. She’s a realist herself.” - </p> - <p> - “Jeanne ma fille!” murmured Madame Dornaye, reprovingly. - </p> - <p> - “The only true love-story I could tell has a somewhat singular defect,” - said he. “There’s no heroine.” - </p> - <p> - “That’s like the story of what’s-his-name—Narcissus,” Johannah said. - </p> - <p> - “With the vastest difference. The hero of my story wasn’t in love with his - own image. He was in love with a beautiful princess,” Will explained. - </p> - <p> - “Then how can you have the face to say that there’s no heroine?” she - demanded. - </p> - <p> - “There isn’t any heroine. At the same time, there’s nothing else. The - story’s all about her. You see, she never existed.” - </p> - <p> - “You said it was a <i>true</i> love-story,” she reproached him. - </p> - <p> - “So it is—literally true.” - </p> - <p> - “I asked for a story, and you give me a riddle.” She shook her head. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no, it’s a story all the same,” he reassured her. “Its title is <i>Much - Ado about Nobody</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh? It runs in my head that I’ve met with something or other with a - similar title before,” she considered. - </p> - <p> - “Precisely,” said he. “Something or other by one of the Elizabethans. - That’s how it came to occur to me. I take my goods where I find them. - However, do you want to hear the story?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, if you’re determined to tell it, I daresay I can steel myself to - listen,” she answered, with resignation. - </p> - <p> - “On second thoughts, I’m determined not to tell it,” he teased. - </p> - <p> - “Bother! Don’t be disagreeable. Tell it at once,” she commanded. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, there isn’t any story,” he admitted. “It’s simply an absurd - little freak of child psychology. It’s the story of a boy who fell in love - with a girl—a girl that never was, on sea or land. It happened in - Regent Street, of all romantic places, ’one day still fierce ’mid many a - day struck calm.’ I had gone with my mother to her milliner’s. I think I - was ten or eleven. And while my mother was transacting her business with - the milliner, I devoted my attention to the various hats and bonnets that - were displayed about the shop. And presently I hit on one that gave me a - sensation. It was a straw hat, with brown ribbons, and cherries, great - glossy red and purple cherries. I looked at it, and suddenly I got a - vision—a vision of a girl. Oh, the loveliest, loveliest girl! She - was about eighteen (a self-respecting boy of eleven, you know, always - chooses a girl of about eighteen to fall in love with), and she had the - brightest brown eyes, and the rosiest cheeks, and the curlingest hair, and - a smile and a laugh that made one’s heart thrill and thrill with - unutterable blisses. And there hung her hat, as if she had just come in - and taken it off, and passed into another room. There hung her hat, - suggestive of her as only people’s hats know how to be suggestive; and - there sat I, my eyes devouring it, my soul transported. The very air of - the shop seemed all at once to have become fragrant—with the - fragrance that had been shaken from her garments as she passed. I went - home, hopelessly, frantically in love. I loved that non-existent young - woman with a passion past expressing, for at least half a year. I was - always thinking of her; she was always with me, everywhere. How I used to - talk to her, and tell her all my childish fancies, desires, questionings; - how I used to sit at her feet and listen! She never laughed at me. - Sometimes she would let me kiss her—I declare, my heart still jumps - at the memory of it. Sometimes I would hold her hand or play with her - hair. And all the <i>real</i> girls I met seemed so tame and commonplace - by contrast with her. And then, little by little, I suppose, her image - faded away.—Rather an odd experience, wasn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “Very, very odd; very strange and very pretty,” Johannah murmured. “It - seems as if it ought to have some allegorical significance, though I can’t - perceive one. It would be interesting to know what sort of real girl, if - any, ended by becoming the owner of that hat. You weren’t shocked, were - you?” she inquired of Madame Dornaye. - </p> - <p> - “Not by the story. But the heat is too much for me,” said that lady, - gathering up her knitting. “I am going to the house to make a siesta.” - </p> - <p> - Will rose, as she did, and stood looking vaguely after her, as she moved - away. Johannah nestled her head deeper in her cushion, and half closed her - eyes. And for a while neither she nor her cousin spoke. A faint, faint - breeze whispered in the tree-tops; now a twig snapped, now a bird dropped - a solitary liquid note. For the rest, all was still summer heat and - woodland perfume. Here and there the greensward round them, dark in the - shadow of dense foliage, was diapered with vivid yellow by sunbeams that - filtered through. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear me,” Johannah sighed at last. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” Will demanded. - </p> - <p> - “Here you are, silent as eternity again. Come and sit down—here—near - to me.” - </p> - <p> - She indicated a position with a lazy movement of her hand. He obediently - sank upon the grass. - </p> - <p> - “You’re always silent nowadays, when we’re alone,” she complained. - </p> - <p> - “Am I? I hadn’t noticed that.” - </p> - <p> - “Then you’re extremely unobservant. Directly we’re alone, you appear to - lose the power of speech. You mope and moon, and gaze off at things beyond - the horizon, and never open your mouth. One might suppose you had - something on your mind. Have you? What is it? Confide it to me, and you - can’t think how relieved you’ll feel,” she urged. - </p> - <p> - “I haven’t anything on my mind,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “Oh? Ah, then you’re silent with me because I bore you? You find me an - uninspiring talk-mate? Thank you,” she bridled. - </p> - <p> - “You know perfectly well that that’s preposterous nonsense,” answered - Will. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, what is it? Why do you never talk to me when we’re alone?” - she persisted. - </p> - <p> - “But I do talk to you. I talk too much. Perhaps <i>I’m</i> afraid of - boring <i>you</i>,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “You know perfectly well that that’s a preposterous subterfuge,” said she. - “You’ve got something on your mind. You’re keeping something back.” She - paused for a second; then, softly, wistfully, “Tell me what it is, Will, - <i>please</i>.” And she looked eagerly, pleadingly, into his eyes. - </p> - <p> - He looked away from her. “Upon my word, there’s nothing to tell,” he said, - but his tone was a little forced. - </p> - <p> - She broke into a merry peal of laughter, looking at him now with eyes that - were derisive. - </p> - <p> - “What are you laughing at?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “At you, Will,” said she. “What else could you imagine?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m flattered to think you find me so amusing.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you’re supremely amusing. ’Refrain thou shalt; thou shalt refrain!’ - Is that your motto, Will? If I were a man, I’d choose another. ’Be bold, - be bold, and everywhere be bold!’ That should be my motto if I were a - man.” - </p> - <p> - “But as you’re a woman———” he began. - </p> - <p> - “It’s my motto, all the same,” she interrupted. “Do you mean to say you’ve - not discovered that yet? Oh, Will, if I were you, and you were I, how - differently we should be employing this heaven-sent summer’s afternoon.” - She gazed at the sky, and sighed. - </p> - <p> - “What should we be doing?” asked he. - </p> - <p> - “That’s a secret. Pray the fairies to-night to transpose our souls, and - you’ll know by to-morrow morning—if the fairies grant your prayer. - But in the meanwhile, you must try to entertain me. Tell me another - story.” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t think of any more stories till I’ve had my tea.” - </p> - <p> - “You shan’t have any tea unless you earn it,” she stipulated. “Now that - Madame Dornaye’s no longer present, you can tell me of some of your - grown-up love affairs, some of your flesh-and-blood ones.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve never had a grown-up love affair,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come! you can’t expect me to believe that,” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “It’s the truth, all the same.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, it’s high time you <i>should</i> have one,” was her - conclusion. “How old did you say you were?” - </p> - <p> - “I’m thirty-three.” - </p> - <p> - She lifted up her hands in astonishment. “And you’ve never had a love - affair! <i>Fi donc!</i> I’m barely twenty-eight, and I’ve had a hundred.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you?” he asked, a little ruefully. - </p> - <p> - “No, I haven’t. But everybody’s had at least one. So tell me yours.” - </p> - <p> - “Upon my word, I’ve not had even one,” he reiterated. - </p> - <p> - “It seems incredible. How have you contrived it?” - </p> - <p> - “The circumstances of my birth contrived it for me. It would be impossible - for me to have a love affair with a woman I could love,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Impossible? For goodness sake, why?” she wondered. - </p> - <p> - “What woman would accept the addresses of a man without a name?” - </p> - <p> - “Haven’t you a name? Methought I’d heard your name was William Stretton.” - </p> - <p> - “You know what I mean.” - </p> - <p> - “Then permit me to remark,” she answered him, “that what you mean is quite - superlatively silly. If you loved a woman, wouldn’t you tell her so?” - </p> - <p> - “Not if I could help it.” - </p> - <p> - “But suppose the woman loved you?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it wouldn’t come to that.” - </p> - <p> - “But suppose it <i>had</i> come to that?” she persevered. “Suppose she’d - set her heart upon you? Would it be fair to her not to tell her?” - </p> - <p> - “What would be the good of my telling her, since I couldn’t possibly ask - her to marry me?” - </p> - <p> - “The fact might interest her, apart from the question of its - consequences,” Johannah suggested. “But suppose <i>she</i> told you? - Suppose <i>she</i> asked <i>you</i> to marry <i>her?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “She wouldn’t,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “All hypotheses are admissible. Suppose she should?” - </p> - <p> - “I couldn’t marry her,” he declared. - </p> - <p> - “You’d find it rather an awkward job refusing, wouldn’t you?” she quizzed. - “And what reasons could you give?” - </p> - <p> - “Ten thousand reasons. I’m a bastard. That begins and ends it. It would - dishonour her, and it would dishonour me; and, worst of all, it would - dishonour my mother.” - </p> - <p> - “It would certainly <i>not</i> dishonour you, nor the woman you married. - That’s the sheerest, antiquated, exploded rubbish. And how on earth could - it dishonour your mother?” - </p> - <p> - “For me to take as my wife a woman who could not respect her?” Will - questioned. “My mother’s memory for me is the sacredest of sacred things. - You know something of her history. You know that she was in every sense - but a legal sense my father’s wife. You know why they couldn’t be married - legally. You know, too, how he treated her—and how she died. Do you - suppose I could marry a woman who would always think of my mother as of - one who had done something shameful?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, but no woman with a spark of nobility in her soul would or could do - that,” Johannah cried. - </p> - <p> - “Every woman brought up in the usual way, with the usual prejudices, the - usual traditions, thinks evil of the woman who has had an illegitimate - child,” asserted he. - </p> - <p> - “Not every woman. I, for instance. Do you imagine that I could think evil - of your mother, Will?” She looked at him intensely, earnestly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you’re entirely different from other women. You’re——” But - he stopped at that. - </p> - <p> - “Then—just for the sake of a case in point—if <i>I</i> were - the woman you chanced to be in love with, and if I simultaneously chanced - to be in love with you, you <i>could</i> see your way to marrying <i>me?</i>” - she pursued him. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the use of discussing that?” - </p> - <p> - “For its metaphysical interest. Answer me.” - </p> - <p> - “There are other reasons why I couldn’t marry <i>you</i>.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not good-looking enough?” she cried. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t be silly.” - </p> - <p> - “Not young enough?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I say! Let’s talk of something reasonable.” - </p> - <p> - “Not old enough, perhaps?” - </p> - <p> - He was silent. - </p> - <p> - “Not wise enough? Not foolish enough?” she persisted. - </p> - <p> - “You’re foolish enough, in all conscience,” said he. “Well, then, why? - What are the reasons why you couldn’t marry <i>me?</i>” - </p> - <p> - “What <i>is</i> the good of talking about this?” he groaned. - </p> - <p> - “I want to know. A man has the hardihood to inform me to my face that he’d - spurn my hand, even if I offered it to him. I insist upon knowing why.” - She feigned high indignation. - </p> - <p> - “You know why. And you know that ’spurn’ is very far from the right word,” - was his rejoinder. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know why. I insist upon your telling me,” she repeated, fierily. - </p> - <p> - “You know that you’re Sir William Silver’s heiress, I suppose,” he - suggested. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come! that’s not <i>my</i> fault. How could <i>that</i> matter?” - </p> - <p> - “Look here, I’m not going to make an ass of myself by explaining the - obvious,” he declared. - </p> - <p> - “I daresay I’m very stupid, but it isn’t obvious to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, let’s drop the subject,” he proposed. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll not drop the subject till you’ve elucidated it. If you were in love - with me, Will, and I were in love with you, how on earth could it matter, - my being Sir William Silvers heiress?” - </p> - <p> - “Wouldn’t I seem a bit mercenary’ if I asked you to marry me?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Will!” she remonstrated. “Don’t tell me you’re such a prig as that. - What! if you loved me, if I loved you, you’d give me up, you’d break my - heart, just for fear lest idiotic people, whose opinions don’t matter any - more than the opinions of so many deep-sea fish, might think you - mercenary! When you and I both knew in our own two souls that you really - weren’t mercenary’ in the least! You’d pay me a poor compliment, Will. - Isn’t it conceivable that a man might love me for myself?” - </p> - <p> - “You state the case too simply. You make no allowances for the shades and - complexities of a man’s feelings.” - </p> - <p> - “Bother shades and complexities. Love burns them up. Your shades and - complexities are nothing but priggishness and vanity,” she asserted hotly. - “But there! I’m actually getting angry over a purely supposititious - question. For, of course, we don’t really love each other the least bit, - do we, Will?” she asked him softly. - </p> - <p> - He appeared to be giving his whole attention to the rolling of a - cigarette; he did not answer. But his fingers trembled, and presently he - tore his paper, spilling half the tobacco in his lap. - </p> - <p> - Johannah watched him from eyes full of languid, half mocking, half pensive - laughter. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed again, by-and-by. - </p> - <p> - He looked at her; and he had to catch his breath. Lying there on the turf, - the skirts of her frock flowing round her in a sort of little billowy - white pool, her head deep in the scarlet cushion, her black hair straying - wantonly where it would about her face and brow, her eyes lambent with - that lazy, pensive laughter, one of her hands, pink and white, warm and - soft, fallen open on the grass between her and her cousin, her whole - person seeming to breathe a subtle scent of womanhood, and the luxury and - mystery of womanhood—oh, the sight of her, the sense of her, there - in the wide green stillness of the summer day, set his heart burning and - beating poignantly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed, “I wish the man I <i>am</i> in love with - were only here.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh! You <i>are</i> in love with some one?” he questioned, with a little - start. - </p> - <p> - “Rather!” said she. “In love! I should think so. Oh, I love him, love him, - love him. Ah, if he were here! <i>He</i> wouldn’t waste this golden - afternoon as you’re doing. He’d take my hand—he’d hold it, and press - it, and kiss it; and he’d pour his soul out in tumultuous celebration of - my charms, in fiery avowals of his passion. If he were here! Ah, me!” - </p> - <p> - “Where is he?” Will asked, in a dry’ voice. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, where indeed? I wish I knew.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve never heard you speak of him before,” he reflected. - </p> - <p> - “There’s none so deaf as he that <i>will</i> not hear. I’ve spoken of him - to you at least a thousand times. He forms the staple of my conversation.” - </p> - <p> - “I must be veryy deaf indeed. I swear this is absolutely news to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Will, you <i>are</i> such a goose—or such a hypocrite,” said - she. “But it’s tea-time. Help me up.” - </p> - <p> - She held out her hand, and, he took it and helped her up. But she tottered - a little before she got her balance (or made, at least, a feint of doing - so), and grasped his hand tight as if to save herself, and all but fell - into his arms. - </p> - <p> - He drew back a step. - </p> - <p> - She looked straight into his eyes. “You’re a goose, and a hypocrite, and a - prig, and—a <i>dear</i>,” she said. - </p> - <h3> - V. - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>heir tea was - served in the garden, and whilst they were dallying over it, a footman - brought Johannah a visiting-card. - </p> - <p> - She glanced at the card; and Will, watching her, noticed that a look of - annoyance—it might even have been a look of distress—came into - her face. - </p> - <p> - Then she threw the card on the tea-table, and rose. “I shan’t be gone - long,” she said, and set out for the house. - </p> - <p> - The card lay plainly legible under the eyes of Will and Madame Dornaye. - “Mr. George Aymer, 36, Boulevard Rochechouart” was the legend inscribed - upon it. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Tiens</i>,” said Madame Dornaye; “Jeanne told me she had ceased to see - him.” - </p> - <p> - Will suppressed a desire to ask, “Who is he?” - </p> - <p> - But Madame Dornaye answered him all the same. - </p> - <p> - “You have heard of him? He is a known personage in Paris, although - English. He is a painter, a painter of great talent; very young, but - already decorated. And of a surprising beauty—the face of an angel. - With that, a thorough-paced rascal. Oh, yes, whatever is vilest, whatever - is basest. Even in Montmartre, even in the corruptest world of Paris, - among the lowest journalists and painters, he is notorious for his - corruption. Johannah used to see a great deal of him. She would not - believe the evil stories that were told about him. And with his rare - talent and his beautiful face, he has the most plausible manners, the most - winning address. We were afraid that she might end by marrying him. But at - last she found him out for herself, and gave him up. She told me she had - altogether ceased to see him. I wonder what ill wind blows him here.” - </p> - <p> - Johannah entered the drawing-room. - </p> - <p> - A man in grey tweeds, the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour gleaming in - his buttonhole, was standing near a window: a man, indeed, as Madame - Dornaye had described him, with a face of surprising beauty—a fine, - clear, open-air complexion, a clean-cut, even profile, a sensitive, soft - mouth, big, frank, innocent blue eyes, and waving hair of the palest Saxon - yellow. He could scarcely have been thirty; and the exceeding beauty of - his face, its beauty and its sweetness, made one overlook his figure, - which was a trifle below the medium height, and thick-set, with remarkably - square, broad shoulders, and long arms. - </p> - <p> - Johannah greeted him with some succinctness. “What do you want?” she - asked, remaining close to the door. - </p> - <p> - “I want to have a talk with you,” he answered, moving towards her. He - drawled slightly; his voice was low and soft, conciliatory, caressing - almost. And his big blue eyes shone with a faint, sweet, appealing smile. - </p> - <p> - “Would you mind staying where you are?” said she. “You can make yourself - audible from across the room.” - </p> - <p> - “What are you afraid of?” he asked, his smile brightening with innocent - wonder. - </p> - <p> - “Afraid? You do yourself too much honour. One does not like to find - oneself in close proximity with objects that disgust one,” she explained. - </p> - <p> - He laughed; but instead of moving further towards her, he dropped into a - chair. “You were always brutally outspoken,” he murmured. - </p> - <p> - “Yes; and with advancing years I’ve become even more so,” said Johannah, - who continued to stand. - </p> - <p> - “You’re quite sure, though, that you’re not afraid of me?” he questioned. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, for that, as sure as sure can be. If you’ve based any sort of - calculations upon the theory that I would be afraid of you, you’ll have to - throw them over.” - </p> - <p> - He flushed a little, as if with anger; but in a moment he said calmly, - “You’ve come into a perfect pot of money since I last had the pleasure of - meeting you.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, into something like eight thousand a year, if the figures interest - you.” - </p> - <p> - “I never had any head for figures,” he answered, smiling. “But eight - thousand sounds stupendous. And a lovely place, into the bargain. The - park, or so much of it as one sees from the avenue, could not be better. - And I permitted myself to admire the façade of the house and the view of - the sea.” - </p> - <p> - “They’re not bad,” Johannah assented. - </p> - <p> - “It’s heart-rending,” he remarked, “the way things are shared in this - world. Here are you, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, you who have done - nothing all your life but take your pleasure; and I, who’ve toiled like a - galley-slave, I remain as poor as any church-mouse. It’s monstrous.” - </p> - <p> - Johannah did not answer. - </p> - <p> - “And now,” he went on, “I suppose you’ve settled down and become - respectable? No more Bohemia? No more cakes and ale? Only champagne and - truffles? A County Family! Fancy your being a County Family, all by - yourself, as it were! You must feel rather like the reformed rake of - tradition—don’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “I mentioned that I am not afraid of you,” she reminded him, “but that - doesn’t in the least imply that I find you amusing. The plain truth is, I - find you deadly tiresome. If you have anything special to say to me, may I - ask you to say it quickly?” - </p> - <p> - Again he flushed a little; then again, in a moment, answered smoothly, - “I’ll say it in a sentence. I’ve come all the way to England, for the - purpose of offering you my hand in marriage.” And he raised his bright - blue eyes to her face with a look that really was seraphic. - </p> - <p> - “I decline the offer. If you’ve nothing further to keep you here, I’ll - ring to have you shown out.” - </p> - <p> - Still again he flushed, yet once more controlled himself. “You decline the - offer! <i>Allons donc!</i> When I am prepared to do the right thing, and - make an honest woman of you.” - </p> - <p> - “I decline the offer,” Johannah repeated. - </p> - <p> - “That’s foolish of you,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “If you could dream how remotely your opinion interests me, you wouldn’t - trouble to express it,” said she. - </p> - <p> - His anger this time got the better of him. He scowled, and looked at her - from the corners of his eyes. “You had better not exasperate me,” he said - in a suppressed voice. - </p> - <p> - “Oh,” said she, “you must suffer me to be the mistress of my own actions - in my own house. Now—if you are quite ready to go?” she suggested, - putting her hand upon the bell-cord. - </p> - <p> - “I’m not ready to go yet. I want to talk with you. To cut a long business - short, you’re rich. I’m pitiably poor. You know how poor I am. You know - how I have to live, the hardships, the privations I’m obliged to put up - with.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you come here to beg?” Johannah asked. - </p> - <p> - “No, I’ve come to appeal to your good-nature. You refuse to marry me. - That’s absurd of you, but—<i>tant pis!</i> Whether you marry me or - not, you haven’t the heart to leave me to rot in poverty, while you - luxuriate in plenty. Considering our oldtime relations, the thing’s - impossible on the face of it.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, I understand. You <i>have</i> come here to beg,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “No,” said he. “One begs when one has no power to enforce.” - </p> - <p> - “What is the use of these glittering aphorisms?” she asked wearily. - </p> - <p> - “If you are ready to behave well to me, I’ll behave handsomely to you. But - if you refuse to recognise my claims upon you, I’m in a position to take - reprisals,” he said very quietly. - </p> - <p> - Johannah did not answer. - </p> - <p> - “I’m miserably, tragically poor; you’re rich. At this moment I’ve not got - ten pounds in the world; and I owe hundreds. I’ve not sold a picture since - March. You have eight thousand a year. You can’t expect me to sit down - under it in silence. As the French attorneys phrase it, <i>cet état de - choses ne peut pas durer</i>.” - </p> - <p> - Still Johannah answered nothing. - </p> - <p> - “You must come to my relief,” said he. “You must make it possible for me - to go on. If you have any right feeling, you’ll do it spontaneously. If - not—you know I can compel you.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, then, for goodness’ sake, compel me, and so make an end of this - entirely tedious visit,” she broke out. - </p> - <p> - “I’d immensely rather not compel you. If you will lend me a helping hand - from time to time, I’ll promise never to take a step to harm you. I shall - be moderate. You’ve got eight thousand a year. You’d never miss a hundred - now and then. You might simply occasionally buy a picture. That would be - the best way. You might buy my pictures.” - </p> - <p> - “I should be glad to know definitely,” remarked Johannah, “whether I have - to deal with a blackmailer or a bagman.” - </p> - <p> - “Damn you,” he exploded, with sudden savagery, flushing very red indeed. - </p> - <p> - Johannah was silent. - </p> - <p> - After a pause, he said, “I’m staying at the inn in the village—at - the Silver Arms.” - </p> - <p> - Johannah did not speak. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve already scraped acquaintance with the parson,” he went on. Then, as - she still was silent, “I wonder what would become of your social position - in this County if I should have a good long talk about you with the - parson.” - </p> - <p> - “To a man of your intelligence, the solution of that problem can surely - present no difficulty,” she replied wearily. - </p> - <p> - “You admit that your social position would be smashed up?” - </p> - <p> - “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put it together - again,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “I’m glad to find at least that you acknowledge my power,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “You have it in your power to tell people that I was once inconceivably - simple enough to believe that you were an honourable man, that I once had - the inconceivable bad taste to be fond of you. What woman’s character - could survive <i>that</i> revelation?” - </p> - <p> - “And I could add—couldn’t I?—that you once had the - inconceivable weakness to become my mistress?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you could add no end of details,” she admitted. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then?” he questioned. - </p> - <p> - “Well, then?” questioned she. - </p> - <p> - “It comes to this, that if you don’t want your social position, your - reputation, to be utterly smashed up, you must make terms with me.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s a little unfortunate, from that way of looking at it,” she pointed - out, “that I shouldn’t happen to care a rush about my social position—as - you call it.” - </p> - <p> - “I think I’ll have a good long talk with the parson,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Do by all means,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “You’d better be careful. I may take you at your word,” he threatened. - </p> - <p> - “I wish you would. Take me at my word—-and go,” she urged. - </p> - <p> - “You mean to say you seriously don’t care?” - </p> - <p> - “Not a rush, not a button,” she assured him. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, come! You’ll never try to brazen the thing out,” he exclaimed. - </p> - <p> - “I wish you’d go and have your long talk with the parson,” she said - impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “It would be so easy for you to give me a little help,” he pleaded. - </p> - <p> - “It would be so easy for you to ’smash up’ my reputation with the parson,” - she rejoined. - </p> - <p> - “You never used to be close-fisted. It’s incomprehensible that you should - refuse me a little help. Look. I’m willing to be more than fair. Give me a - hundred pounds, a bare little hundred pounds, and I’ll send you a lovely - picture.” - </p> - <p> - “Thank you, I don’t want a picture.” - </p> - <p> - “You won’t give me a hundred pounds—a beggarly hundred pounds?” He - looked incredulous. - </p> - <p> - “I won’t give you a farthing.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, then, by God, you jade,” he cried, springing to his feet, his face - crimson, “by God, I’ll make you. I swear I’ll ruin you. Look out!” - </p> - <p> - “Are you really going at last?” she asked brightly. - </p> - <p> - “No, I’m not going till it suits my pleasure. You’ve got a sort of bastard - cousin staying here with you, I’m told,” he answered. - </p> - <p> - “I would advise you to moderate your tone or your language,” said she. “If - my sort of bastard cousin should by any chance happen to hear you - referring to him in those terms, he would not be pleased.” - </p> - <p> - “I want to see him,” said he. - </p> - <p> - “I would advise you not to see him,” she returned. - </p> - <p> - “I want to see him,” he insisted. - </p> - <p> - “If you really wish to see him, I’ll send for him,” she consented. “But - it’s only right to warn you that he’s not at all a patient sort of man. If - I send for him, he will quite certainly make things disagreeable for you.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not afraid of him. You know well enough that I’m not a coward.” - </p> - <p> - “My cousin is more than a head taller than you are,” she mused. “He would - be perfectly able and perfectly sure to kick you. If there’s any other - possible way of getting rid of you, I’d rather not trouble him.” - </p> - <p> - “I think I had better have a talk with your cousin, as well as with the - parson,” he considered. - </p> - <p> - “I think you had better confine your attentions to the parson. I do, upon - my word,” she counselled him. - </p> - <p> - “I am going to make a concession,” said Aymer. “I’m going to give you a - night in which to think this thing over. If you care to send me a note, - with a cheque in it, so that I shall receive it at the inn by to-morrow at - ten o’clock, I’ll take the next earliest train back to town, and I’ll send - you a picture in return. If no note comes by ten o’clock, I’ll call on the - parson, and tell him all I know about you; and I’ll write a letter to your - cousin. Now, good day.” - </p> - <p> - Johannah rang, and Aymer was shown out. - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p> - “|I shan’t be gone long,” Johannah had said, when she left Madame Dornaye - and Will at tea in the garden; but time passed, and she did not come back. - Will, mounting through various stages and degrees of nervousness, - restlessness, anxiety, at last said, “What on earth can be keeping her?” - and Madame Dornaye replied, “That is precisely what I am asking myself.” - They waited a little longer, and then, “Shall we go back to the house?” he - suggested. But when they reached the house they found the drawing-room - empty, and—no trace of Johannah. - </p> - <p> - “She may be in her room. I’ll go and see,” said Madame Dornaye. - </p> - <p> - More time passed, and still no Johannah. Nor did Madame Dornaye return to - explain her absence. - </p> - <p> - Will walked about in a state of acute misery. What could it be? What could - have happened? What could this painter, this George Aymer, this - thorough-paced rascal with the beautiful face, this man of whom Johannah, - in days gone by, “had seen a great deal,” so that her friends had feared - “she might end by marrying him”—what could he have called upon her - for? What could have passed between them? Why had she disappeared? Where - was she now? Where was he? Where was Madame Dornaye, who had gone to look - for her? Could—could it possibly be—that he—this man - notorious for his corruption even in the corruptest world of Paris—could - it be that he was the man Johannah meant when she had talked of the man - she was in love with? And Will, fatuous imbecile, had vainly allowed - himself to imagine.... Oh, why did she not come back? What <i>could</i> be - keeping her away from him all this time?... “I have had a hundred, I have - had a hundred.” The phrase echoed and echoed in his memory. She had said, - “I have had a hundred love affairs.” Oh, to be sure, in the next breath, - she had contradicted herself, she had said, “No, I haven’t.” But she had - added, “Everybody has had at least one.” So she had had at least one. With - this man, George Aymer? Madame Dornaye said she had broken with him, - ceased to see him. But—it was certain she had seen him to-day. But—lovers’ - quarrels are made up; lovers break with each other, and then come together - again, are reunited. Perhaps... Perhaps... Oh, where was she? Why did she - remain away in this mysterious fashion? What could she be doing? What - could she be doing? - </p> - <p> - The dressing-bell rang, and he went to dress for dinner. - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow, I shall see her now, I shall see her at dinner,” he kept telling - himself, as he dressed. - </p> - <p> - But when he came downstairs the drawing-room was still empty. He walked - backwards and forwards. - </p> - <p> - “We shall have to dine without our hostess,” Madame Dornaye said, entering - presently. “Jeanne has a bad headache, and will stay in her room.” - </p> - <h3> - VII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ill left the house - early the next morning, and went out into the garden. The sun was shining, - the dew sparkled on the grass, the air was keen and sweet with the odours - of the earth. A mile away the sea glowed blue as larkspur; and overhead - innumerable birds gaily piped and twittered. But oh, the difference, the - difference! His eyes could see no colour, his ears could hear no music. - His brain felt as if it had been stretched and strained, like a thing of - india-rubber; a lump ached in his throat; his heart was sick with the - suspense of waiting, with the questionings, the fears, suspicions, that - had beset it through the night. - </p> - <p> - “Will!” Johannah’s voice called behind him. - </p> - <p> - He turned. - </p> - <p> - “Thank God!” The words came without conscious volition on his part. “I - thought I was never going to see you again.” - </p> - <p> - “I have been waiting for you,” said she. - </p> - <p> - She wore her garden-hat and her white frock; but her face was pale, and - her eyes looked dark and anxious. - </p> - <p> - He had taken her hand, and was clinging to it, pressing it, hard, so hard - that it must have hurt her, in the violence of his emotion. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, wait, Will, wait,” she said, trying to draw her hand away; and her - eyes filled with sudden tears. - </p> - <p> - He let go her hand, and looked into her tearful eyes, helpless, - speechless, longing to speak, unable, in the confusion of his thoughts and - feelings, to find a word. - </p> - <p> - “I must tell you something, Will. Come with me somewhere—where we - can be alone. I must tell you something.” - </p> - <p> - She moved off, away from the house, he keeping beside her. They passed out - of the garden, into the deep shade of the park. - </p> - <p> - “<i>Do</i> you remember,” she began, all at once, “do you remember what I - said yesterday, about my motto? That my motto was ’Be bold, be bold, and - everywhere be bold’.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “I am going to be very bold indeed now, Will. I am going to tell you - something—something that will make you hate me perhaps—that - will make you despise me perhaps,” she faltered. - </p> - <p> - “You could not possibly tell me anything that could make me hate you or - despise you. But you must not tell me anything at all, unless it is - something you are perfectly sure you will be happier for having told me,” - he said. - </p> - <p> - “It is something I wish to tell you, something I must tell you,” said she. - Then after a little pause, “Oh, how shall I begin it?” But before he could - have spoken, “Do you think that a woman—do you think that a girl, - when she is very young, when she is very immature and impressionable, and - very impulsive, and ignorant, and when she is alone in the world, without - a father or mother—do you think that if she makes some terrible - mistake, if she is terribly deceived, if somebody whom she believes to be - good and noble and unhappy and misunderstood, somebody whom she—whom - she loves—do you think that if she makes some terrible mistake—if - she—if she—oh, my God!—if——-” She held her - breath for a second, then suddenly, “Can’t you understand what I <i>mean?</i>” - she broke down in a sort of wail, and hid her face in her hands, and - sobbed. - </p> - <p> - Will stood beside her, holding his arms out towards her. “Johannah! - Johannah!” was all he could say. - </p> - <p> - She dropped her hands, and looked at him with great painful eyes. “Tell me—do - you think that a woman can never be forgiven? Do you think that she is - soiled, degraded, changed utterly? Do you think that when she—that - when she did what she did—it was a sin, a crime, not only a terrible - mistake, and that her whole nature is changed? Most people think so. They - think that a mark has been left upon her, branded upon her; that she can - never, never be the same again. Do you think so, Will? Oh, it is not true; - I know it is not true. A woman can leave that mistake, that terror, that - horror—she can leave it behind her as completely as she can leave - any other dreadful thing. She can blot it out of her life, like a - nightmare. She <i>isn’t</i> changed—she remains the same woman. She - isn’t utterly changed, and soiled, and defiled. In her own conscience, no - matter what other people think, she knows, she knows she isn’t. When she - wakes up to find that the man she had believed in, the man she had loved, - when she wakes up to find that he isn’t in any way what she had thought - him, that he is base and evil and ignoble, and when all her love for him - dies in horror and misery—oh, do you think that she must never, - never, as long as she lives, hold up her head again, never be happy again, - never love any one again? Look at me, Will. I am myself. I am what God - made me. Do you think that I am utterly vile because—because———” - But her voice failed again, and her eyes again filled with tears. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Johannah, don’t ask me what I think of you. I could not tell you what - I think of you. You are as God made you. God never made—never made - any one else so splendid.” - </p> - <p> - And in a moment his arms were round her, and she was weeping her heart out - on his shoulder. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - ROOMS - </h2> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ould Madame like a - little orange-flower water in her milk?” the waiter asked. Madame thought - she would, and the waiter went off to fetch it. - </p> - <p> - We were seated on the terrace of a café at Rouen, a café on the quays. - There was a long rank, three deep, of small marble tables, untenanted for - the most part, sheltered by a bright red-and-white striped awning, and - screened from the street by a hedge of oleanders in big green-painted - tubs; so that one had a fine sense of cosiness and seclusion, of - refreshing shade and coolness and repose. Beyond the oleanders, one was - dimly conscious of hot sunshine, of the going and coming of people on the - pavement, of the passing of carts and tram-cars in the grey road, and then - of the river—the slate-coloured river, with its bridges and its - puffing penny steamboats, its tall ships out of Glasgow or Copenhagen or - Barcelona, its high green banks, farther away, where it wound into the - country, and the pure sky above it. From all the interesting things the - café provided, lucent-tinted syrups, fiery-hearted, aromatic cordials, - Madame (with subtle feminine unexpectedness) had chosen a glass of milk. - But the waiter had suggested orange-flower water, to give it savour; and - now he brought the orange-flower water in a dark-blue bottle. - </p> - <p> - It was partly, I daresay, the sight of the dark-blue bottle, but it was - chiefly, perhaps, the smell of the orange-flower water, that suddenly, - suddenly, whisked my thoughts far away from Rouen, far away from 1897, - back ten, twenty, I would rather not count how many years back in the - past, to my childhood, to Saint-Graal, and to my grandmother’s room in our - old rambling house there. For my grandmother always kept a dark-blue - bottle of orange-flower water in her closet, and the air of her room was - always faintly sweet with the perfume of it. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, suddenly, a sort of ghost of my grandmother’s room rose before - me; and as I peered into it and about it, a ghost of the old emotion her - room used to stir in me rose too, an echo of the old wonder, the old - feeling of strangeness and mystery. It was a big room—or, at least, - it seemed big to a child—a corner room, on the first floor, with - windows on two sides. The windows on one side looked through the branches - of a great elm, a city of birds and squirrels, out upon the lawn, with the - pond at the bottom of it. On the other side, the windows looked over the - terrace, into the shrubberies and winding paths of the garden. The walls - of the room were hung with white paper, upon which, at regular intervals, - was repeated a landscape in blue, a stretch of meadow with cows in it, and - a hillside topped by a ruined castle. In a corner, the inmost corner, - stood my grandmother’s four-post bed, with its canopy and curtains of - dark-green tapestry. Then, of course, there was the fireplace, surmounted - by a high, slender mantelpiece, on which were ranged a pair of silver - candlesticks, a silver tray containing the snuffers and the extinguisher, - and, in the middle, a solemn old buhl clock. From above the mantelpiece a - picture looked down at you, the only picture in the room, the life-size - portrait of a gentleman in a white stock and an embroidered waistcoat—the - portrait of my grandfather, indeed, who had died long years before I was - born, when my mother was a schoolgirl. And then there was the rest of the - furniture of the room—a chair at each window, and between the - various windows my grandmother’s dressing-table, her work-table, her - armoire-à-glace, her great mahogany bureau, a writing-desk above, a - chest-of-drawers below. In two or three places—besides the big - double door that led into her room from the outer passage—the wall - was broken by smaller doors, doors papered over like the wall itself, and - even with it, so that you would scarcely have noticed them. One of these - was the door of my grandmother’s oratory, with its praying-desk and its - little altar. The others were the doors of her closets: the deep black - closet, where her innumerable dresses were suspended, and the closets - where she kept her bandboxes and her sunshades and her regiment of bottles—chief - among them the tall dark-blue bottle of orange-flower water. - </p> - <p> - I don’t know, I can’t think, why this room should always have awakened in - me a feeling of strangeness and mystery, why it should always have set me - off day-dreaming and wondering; but it always did. The mahogany bureau, - the tapestried four-post bed, the portrait of my grandfather, the - recurrent landscape on the wall-paper, the deep black closet where the - dresses hung, the faint smell of orange-flower water—each of these - was a surface, a curtain, behind which, on the impenetrable other side of - which, vaguely, wonderingly, I divined strange vistas, a whole strange - world. Each of these silently hinted to me of strange happenings, strange - existences, strange conditions. And vaguely, longingly, I would try to - formulate my feeling into some sort of distinct mental vision, try to - translate into my own language their occult suggestions. They were - hieroglyphs, full of meaning, if only I could understand. Was it because - the things in my grandmother’s room were all old things, old-fashioned - things? Was the strange world they spoke of simply the world as it had - been in years gone by, before I came into it, before even my mother and - father came into it, when people long since dead were alive, important, - the people of the day, and when these faded, old-fashioned things were - fresh and new? I doubt if it could have been entirely this. There were - plenty of old things in our house at Saint-Graal—in the hall, the - library, the garret, everywhere; the house itself was very old indeed; yet - no other part of it gave me anything like the same emotion. - </p> - <p> - My Uncle Edmond’s room, for instance, gave me a directly contrary emotion, - though here, too, all the furniture was old-fashioned. It gave me a sense - of brisk, almost of stern, actuality; of present facts and occupations; of - alert, busy manhood. As I followed Alexandre into it, in the morning, when - he went to dust it and put it in order, I was filled with a kind of - fearful admiration: the fear, the admiration, of the small for the big, of - the weak for the strong, of the helpless for the commanding. The - arrangement of the room, the lines of the room, the very colours of the - room, seemed strong, and commanding, and severe. Yet, when you came to - examine it, the only really severe-looking object was the bedstead; this - being devoid of curtains, its four varnished pillars shone somewhat hard - and bare. For the rest, there was just the natural furniture of a - sleeping-room: a dressing-table, covered with a man’s toilet accessories—combs - and brushes, razors, scissors, shoehorns, button-hooks, shirt-studs, and - bottles enclosing I know not what necessary fluids; a bigger table, with - writing-materials on it, with an old epaulette-box used now to hold - tobacco, and endless pipes and little pink books of cigarette-papers; a - bureau like my grandmother’s; a glazed bookcase; and the proper complement - of chairs. The walls of the room were painted white, and ornamented by two - pictures, facing each other: two steel-engravings, companion-pieces, after - Rembrandt, I believe. “Le Philosophe en Contemplation” was the legend - printed under one; and under the other, “Le Philosophe en Méditation.” I - can only remember that the philosopher had a long grey beard, and that in - both pictures he was seated in a huge easy-chair. My Uncle Edmond had been - in the army when he was a young man, and in his closets (besides his - ordinary clothes and his countless pairs of boots) there were old uniform - coats, with silver buttons, old belts, clasps, spurs, and then, best of - all, three or four swords, and a rosewood case or two of pistols. Needless - to say whether my awe and my admiration mounted to their climax when I - peeped in upon these historic trophies. And just as the smell of - orange-flower water pervaded my grandmother’s room, so another, a very - different smell, pervaded my Uncle Edmond’s, a dry, clean smell, slightly - pungent, bitter, but not at all unpleasant. I could never discover what it - came from, I can’t even now conjecture; but it seemed to me a manly smell, - just the smell that a man’s room ought to have. In my too-fruitless - efforts to imitate Uncle Edmond’s room in the organisation of my own, it - was that smell, more than anything else, which baffled me. I could not - achieve the remotest semblance of it. Of course, I was determined that - when I grew up I should have a room exactly like my uncle’s in every - particular, and I trusted, no doubt, that it would acquire the smell, with - time. - </p> - <p> - But of all the rooms at Saint-Graal, the one that gave you the - thrillingest, the most exquisite emotion, was my mother’s. If my - grandmother’s room represented the silence and the strangeness of the - past, and my uncle’s the actuality and activity of the present, my - mother’s room represented the Eternal Feminine, smiling at you, - enthralling you, in its loveliest incarnation; singing to you, amid - delicate luxuries, of youth and beauty and happiness, and the fine romance - of mirth. In my mother’s room, for example, so far from being - old-fashioned, the furniture was of the very latest, daintiest design, - fresh from Paris. The wallpaper was cream-coloured, with garlands of pink - and blue flowers trailing over it, and here and there a shepherd’s hat and - a shepherd’s pipes tied together by a long fluttering blue ribbon. The - chairs and the sofa were covered with chintz, gayer even, if that were - possible, than this paper: chintz on which pretty little bright-blue birds - flew about among poppies, red as scarlet, and pale-green leaves. The - window-curtains and the bed-curtains were of the same merry chintz; the - bed-quilt was an eider-down of the softest blush-rose silk; the bedstead - was enamelled white, and so highly polished that you could see an obscure - reflection of your features in it. And then, the dressing-table, with its - wide bevelled mirror, and the glistening treasures displayed upon it!—the - open jewel-case, and the rings, brooches, bracelets, necklaces, that - sparkled in it; the silver-backed brushes, the silver-topped bottles, the - silver-framed hand-glass; the hundred shining trifles. One whole side of - the room had been converted into a vast bay-window; this looked due south, - over the floweriest part of our flower-garden, over the rich green country - beyond, miles away, to where the Pyrenees gloomed purple. As a shield - against the sun the window was fitted with Venetian blinds, besides the - curtains; and every morning, when I crept in from my own adjoining room, - to pay my mother a visit, it was given me to witness a marvellous - transformation scene. At first all was dark, or nearly dark, so that you - could only distinguish things as shadowy masses. But presently my mother’s - maid, Aurélie, arrived with the chocolate, and drew back the curtains, - filling the room with a momentary twilight; then she opened the Venetian - blinds, and suddenly there was a gush of sunlight, and the room gleamed - and glittered like a room in a crystal palace. Sweet airs came in from the - garden, bird-notes came in, the day came in, dancing and laughing - joyously; and my mother and I joyously laughed back at it. Another - transformation scene, at which I was permitted to assist, took place in - this room in the evening, when my mother dressed for dinner. I would sit - at a distance, not to be in the way, and watch the ceremony with eyes as - round as O’s doubtless, and certainly with an enravished soul; while - Aurélie did my mother’s hair (sprinkling it, as a culmination, with a - pinch of diamond-dust, according to the mode of the period), and moved to - and from the wardrobe, where my mother’s bewildering confections of silks - and laces were enshrined, and her satin slippers glimmered in a row on - their shelf. And after the toilet was completed, and my mother, in - dazzling loveliness, had kissed me good-bye and vanished, I would linger a - little, to gaze about the temple in which such miracles could happen; - taking up and studying one by one the combs, brushes, powder-puffs, or - what not, as you would study the instruments employed by a conjurer; and - removing the stoppers from the scent-bottles, to inhale their delicious - fragrance.... - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you think,” asked my companion, “that it’s time you paid the waiter - and we were off?” - </p> - <p> - I looked up, and suddenly there was Rouen—Rouen, the café on the - quays, Madame’s empty glass of milk, and Madame herself questioning me - from anxious eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” I said, “I think it’s time we were off; and what’s more, I’ll tell - you this: every room in the universe has not only its peculiar physiognomy - and its peculiar significance, but it wakes a particular sentiment also, - and has a special smell.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I see,” said Madame; “that’s why you’ve been silent all this while.” - </p> - <p> - So I paid the waiter, and we took the puffing little steamboat, down the - river, between its green banks and its flowery islets, back to La Bouille. - </p> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE - </h2> - <h3> - I - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wonder why I - dreamed last night of Zabetta. It is years since she made her brief little - transit through my life, and passed out of it utterly. It is years since - the very recollection of her—which for years, like an accusing - spirit, had haunted me too often—like a spirit was laid. It is long - enough, in all conscience, since I have even thought of her, casually, for - an instant. And then, last night, after a perfectly usual London day and - evening, I went to bed and dreamed of her vividly. What had happened to - bring her to my mind? Or is it simply that the god of dreams is a - capricious god? - </p> - <p> - The influence of my dream, at any rate,—the bittersweet savour of - it,—has pursued me through my waking hours. All day long to-day - Zabetta has been my phantom guest. She has walked with me in the streets; - she has waited at my elbow while I wrote or talked or read. Now, at - tea-time, she is present with me by my study fireside, in the twilight. - Her voice sounds faintly, plaintively, in my ears; her eyes gaze at me - sadly from a pale reproachful face.... She bids me to the theatre of - memory, where my youth is rehearsed before me in mimic show. There was one—no, - there were two little scenes in which Zabetta played the part of leading - lady. - </p> - <h3> - II - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> do not care to - specify the year in which it happened; it happened a terrible number of - years ago; it happened when I was twenty. I had passed the winter in - Naples,—oh, it had been a golden winter!—and now April had - come, and my last Neapolitan day. Tomorrow I was to take ship for - Marseilles, on the way to join my mother in Paris. - </p> - <p> - It was in the afternoon; and I was climbing one of those crooked staircase - alleys that scale the hillsides behind the town, the salita—is - there, in Naples, a Salita Santa Margherita? I had lunched (for the last - time!) at the Café d’.urope, and had then set forth upon a last haphazard - ramble through the streets. It was tremulous spring weather, with blue - skies, soft breezes, and a tender sun; the sort of weather that kindles - perilous ardours even in the blood of middle age, and turns the blood of - youth to wildfire. - </p> - <p> - Women sat combing their hair, and singing, and gossiping, before the - doorways of their pink and yellow houses; children sprawled, and laughed, - and quarrelled in the dirt. Pifferari, in sheep-skins and sandals, - followed by prowling, gaunt-limbed dogs, droned monotonous nasal melodies - from their bagpipes. Priests picked their way gingerly over the muddy - cobble stones, sleek, black-a-vised priests, with exaggerated hats, like - Don Basilio’s in the <i>Barbiere</i>. Now and then one passed a fat brown - monk; or a soldier; or a white-robed penitent, whose eyes glimmered - uncannily from the peep-holes of the hood that hid his face; or a comely - contadina, in her smart costume, with a pomegranate-blossom flaming behind - her ear, and red lips that curved defiantly as she met the covetous - glances wildfire-and-twenty no doubt bestowed upon her—whereat, - perhaps, wildfire-and-twenty halted and hesitated for an instant, debating - whether to accept the challenge and turn and follow her. A flock of - milk-purveying goats jangled their bells a few yards below me. Hawkers - screamed their merchandise, fish, and vegetables, and early fruit—apricots, - figs, green almonds. Brown-skinned, barelegged boys shouted at - long-suffering donkeys, and whacked their flanks with sticks. And - everybody, more or less, importuned you for coppers. “Mossou, mossou! Un - piccolo soldo, per l’amor di Dio!” The air was vibrant with Southern human - noises and dense with Southern human smells—amongst which, here and - there, wandered strangely a lost waft of perfume from some neighbouring - garden, a scent of jasmine or of orange flowers. - </p> - <p> - And then, suddenly, the salita took a turn, and broadened into a small - piazza. At one hand there was a sheer terrace, dropping to tiled roofs - twenty feet below; and hence one got a splendid view, over the town, of - the blue bay, with its shipping, and of Capri, all rose and purple in the - distance, and of Vesuvius with its silver wreath of smoke. At the other - hand loomed a vast, discoloured, pink-stuccoed palace, with grated - windows, and a porte-cochère black as the mouth of a cavern; and the upper - stories of the palace were in ruins, and out of one corner of their - crumbling walls a palm-tree grew. The third side of the piazza was - inevitably occupied by a church, a little pearl-grey rococo edifice, with - a bell, no deeper toned than a common dinner-bell, which was now - frantically ringing. About the doors of the church countless written - notices were pasted, advertising indulgences; beggars clung to the steps, - like monster snails; and the greasy leathern portière was constantly being - drawn aside, to let some one enter or come out. - </p> - <h3> - III - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was here that I - met Zabetta. - </p> - <p> - The heavy portière swung open, and a young girl stepped from the darkness - behind it into the sunshine. - </p> - <p> - I saw a soft face, with brown eyes; a plain black frock, with a little - green nosegay stuck in its belt; and a small round scarlet hat. - </p> - <p> - A hideous old beggar woman stretched a claw towards this apparition, - mumbling something. The apparition smiled, and sought in its pocket, and - made the beggar woman the richer by a soldo. - </p> - <p> - I was twenty, and the April wind was magical. I thought I had never seen - so beautiful a smile, a smile so radiant, so tender. - </p> - <p> - I watched the young girl as she tripped down the church steps, and crossed - the piazza, coming towards me. Her smile lingered, fading slowly, slowly, - from her face. - </p> - <p> - As she neared me, her eyes met mine. For a second we looked straight into - each other’s eyes.... - </p> - <p> - Oh, there was nothing bold, nothing sophisticated or immodest, in the - momentary gaze she gave me. It was a natural, spontaneous gaze of - perfectly frank, of perfectly innocent and impulsive interest, in exchange - for mine of open admiration. But it touched the wildfire in my veins, and - made it leap tumultuously. - </p> - <h3> - IV - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>appiness often - passes close to us without our suspecting it, the proverb says. - </p> - <p> - The young girl moved on; and I stood still, feeling dimly that something - precious had passed close to me. I had not turned back to follow any of - the brazenly provocative contadine. But now I could not help it. Something - precious had passed within arm’s reach of me. I must not let it go, - without at least a semblance of pursuing it. If I waited there passive - till she was out of sight, my regrets would be embittered by the - recollection that I had not even tried. - </p> - <p> - I followed her eagerly, but vaguely, in a tremor or unformulated hopes and - fears. I had no definite intentions, no designs. Presently, doubtless, she - would come to her journey’s end—she would disappear in a house or - shop—and I should have my labour for my pains. Nevertheless, I - followed. What would you? She was young, she was pretty, she was neatly - dressed. She had big bright brown eyes, and a slender waist, and a little - round scarlet hat set jauntily upon a mass of waving soft brown hair. And - she walked gracefully, with delicious undulations, as if to music, lifting - her skirts up from the pavement, and so disclosing the daintiest of feet, - in trim buttoned boots of glazed leather, with high Italian heels. And her - smile was lovely—and I was twenty—and it was April. I must not - let her escape me, without at least a semblance of pursuit. - </p> - <p> - She led me down the salita that I had just ascended. She could scarcely - know that she was being followed, for she had not once glanced behind her. - </p> - <h3> - V - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t first I followed - meekly, unperceived, and contented to remain so. - </p> - <p> - But little by little a desire for more aggressive measures grew within me. - I said, “Why not—instead of following meekly—why not overtake - and outdistance her, then turn round, and come face to face with her - again? And if again her eyes should meet mine as frankly as they met them - in the piazza....” - </p> - <p> - The mere imagination of their doing so made my heart stop beating. - </p> - <p> - I quickened my pace. I drew nearer and nearer to her. I came abreast of - her—oh, how the wildfire trembled! I pressed on for a bit, and then, - true to my resolution, turned back. - </p> - <p> - Her eyes did meet mine again quite frankly. What was more, they brightened - with a little light of surprise, I might almost have fancied a little - light of pleasure. - </p> - <p> - If the mere imagination of the thing had made my heart stop beating, the - thing itself set it to pounding, racing, uncontrollably, so that I felt - all but suffocated, and had to catch my breath. - </p> - <p> - She knew now that the young man she had passed in the piazza had followed - her of set purpose; and she was surprised, but, seemingly, not displeased. - They were wonderfully gentle, wonderfully winning eyes, those eyes she - raised so frankly to my desirous ones; and innocent, innocent, with all - the unsuspecting innocence of childhood. In years she might be seventeen, - older perhaps; but there was a child’s fearless unconsciousness of evil in - her wide brown eyes. She had not yet been taught (or, anyhow, she clearly - didn’t believe) that it is dangerous and unbecoming to exchange glances - with a stranger in the streets. - </p> - <p> - She was as good as smiling on me. Might I dare the utmost? Might I venture - to speak to her?... My heart was throbbing too violently. I could not have - found an articulate human word, nor a shred of voice, nor a pennyweight of - self-assurance, in my body. . - </p> - <p> - So, thrilling with excitement, quailing in panic, I passed her again. - </p> - <p> - I passed her, and kept on up the narrow alley for half a dozen steps, when - again I turned. - </p> - <p> - She was standing where I had left her, looking after me. There was the - expression of unabashed disappointment in her dark eyes now, which, in a - minute, melted to an expression of appeal. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, aren’t you going to speak to me, after all?” they pleaded. - </p> - <p> - Wooed by those soft monitors, I plucked up a sort of desperate courage. - Hot coals burned in my cheeks, something flattered terribly in my breast; - I was literally quaking in every limb. My spirit was exultant, but my - flesh was faint. Her eyes drew me, drew me.... I fancy myself awkwardly - raising my hat; I hear myself accomplish a half-smothered salutation. - </p> - <p> - “Buon’ giorno, Signorina.” - </p> - <p> - Her face lit up with that celestial smile of hers; and in a voice that was - like ivory and white velvet, she returned, “Buon’ giorno, Signorino.” - </p> - <h3> - VI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then I don’t - know how long we stood together in silence. - </p> - <p> - This would never do, I recognised. I must not stand before her in silence, - like a guilty schoolboy. I must feign composure. I must carry off the - situation lightly, like a man of the world, a man of experience. I groped - anxiously in the confusion ot my wits for something that might pass for an - apposite remark. - </p> - <p> - At last I had a flash or inspiration. “What—what fine weather,” I - gasped. “Che bel tempo!” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, molto bello,” she responded. It was like a cadenza on a flute. - </p> - <p> - “You—you are going into the town?” I questioned. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “May I—may I have the pleasure———” I faltered. - </p> - <p> - “But yes,” she consented, with an inflection that wondered. “What else - have you spoken to me for?” - </p> - <p> - And we set off down the salita, side by side. - </p> - <h3> - VII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>he had exquisite - little white ears, with little coral earrings, like drops of blood; and a - perfect rosebud mouth, a mouth that matched her eyes for innocence and - sweetness. Her scarlet hat burned in the sun, and her brown hair shook - gently under it. She had plump little soft white hands. - </p> - <p> - Presently, when I had begun to feel more at my ease, I hazarded a - question. “You are a republican, Signorina?” - </p> - <p> - “No,” she assured me, with a puzzled elevation of the brows. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well, then you are a cardinal,” I concluded. - </p> - <p> - She gave a silvery trill of laughter, and asked, “Why must I be either a - republican or a cardinal?” - </p> - <p> - “You wear a scarlet hat—a <i>bonnet rouge"</i>, I explained. - </p> - <p> - At which she laughed again, crisply, merrily. - </p> - <p> - “You are French,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, am I?” - </p> - <p> - “Aren’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “As you wish, Signorina; but I had never thought so.” - </p> - <p> - And still again she laughed. - </p> - <p> - “You have come from church,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “Già,” she assented; “from confession.” - </p> - <p> - “Really? And did you have a great many wickednesses to confess?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, yes; many, many,” she answered, simply. - </p> - <p> - “And now have you got a heavy penance to perform?” - </p> - <p> - “No; only twenty <i>aves</i>. And I must turn my tongue seven times in my - mouth before I speak, whenever I am angry.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, then you are given to being angry? You have a bad temper?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, dreadful, dreadful,” she cried, nodding her head. - </p> - <p> - It was my turn to laugh now. “Then I must be careful not to vex you.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. But I will turn my tongue seven times before I speak, if you do,” - she promised. - </p> - <p> - “Are you going far?” I asked. - </p> - <p> - “I am going nowhere. I am taking a walk.” - </p> - <p> - “Shall we go to the Villa Nazionale, and watch the driving?” - </p> - <p> - “Or to the Toledo, and look at the shop-windows?” - </p> - <p> - “We can do both. We will begin at the Toledo, and end in the Villa.” - </p> - <p> - “Bene,” she acquiesced. - </p> - <p> - After a little silence, “I am so glad I met you,” I informed her, looking - into her eyes. - </p> - <p> - He eyes softened adorably. “I am so glad too,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “You are lovely, you are sweet,” I vowed, with enthusiasm. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no!” she protested. “I am as God made me.” - </p> - <p> - “You are lovely, you are sweet. I thought—when I first saw you, - above there, in the piazza—when you came out of church, and gave the - soldo to the old beggar woman—I thought you had the loveliest smile - I had ever seen.” - </p> - <p> - A beautiful blush suffused her face, and her eyes swam in a mist of - pleasure. “É vero?” she questioned. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, vero, vero. That is why I followed you. You don’t mind my having - followed you?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no; I am glad.” - </p> - <p> - After another interval of silence, “You are not Neapolitan?” I said. “You - don’t speak like a Neapolitan.” - </p> - <p> - “No; I am Florentine. We live in Naples for my father’s health. He is not - strong. He cannot endure the cold winters of the North.” - </p> - <p> - I murmured something sympathetic; and she went on, “My father is a - violinist. To-day he has gone to Capri, to play at a festival. He will not - be back until to-morrow. So I was very lonesome.” - </p> - <p> - “You have no mother?” - </p> - <p> - “My mother is dead,” she said, crossing herself. In a moment she added, - with a touch of pride, “During the season my father plays in the orchestra - of the San Carlo.” - </p> - <p> - “I am sure I know what your name is,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “Oh? How can you know? What is it?” - </p> - <p> - “I think your name is Rosabella.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, then you are wrong. My name is Elisabetta. But in Naples everybody - says Zabetta. And yours?” - </p> - <p> - “Guess.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I cannot guess. Not—not Federico?” - </p> - <p> - “Do I look as if my name were Federico?” - </p> - <p> - She surveyed me gravely for a minute, then shook her head pensively. “No; - I do not think your name is Federico.” - </p> - <p> - And therewith I told her my name, and made her repeat it till she could - pronounce it without a struggle. - </p> - <p> - It sounded very pretty, coming from her pretty lips, quite Southern and - romantic, with its r’s tremendously enriched. - </p> - <p> - “Anyhow, I know your age,” said I. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” - </p> - <p> - “You are seventeen.” - </p> - <p> - “No—ever so much older.” - </p> - <p> - “Eighteen then.” - </p> - <p> - “I shall be nineteen in July.” - </p> - <h3> - VIII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>efore the - brilliant shop-windows of the Toledo we dallied for an hour or more, - Zabetta’s eyes sparkling with delight as they rested on the bright-hued - silks, the tortoiseshell and coral, the gold and silver filagree-work, - that were there displayed. But when she admired some one particular object - above another, and I besought her to let me buy it for her, she refused - austerely. “But no, no, no! It is impossible.” Then we went on to the - Villa, and strolled by the sea-wall, between the blue-green water and the - multicoloured procession of people in carriages. And by-and-by Zabetta - confessed that she was tired, and proposed that we should sit down on one - of the benches. “A café would be better fun,” submitted her companion. And - we placed ourselves at one of the out-of-door tables of the café in the - garden, where, after some urging, I prevailed upon Zabetta to drink a cup - of chocolate. Meanwhile, with the ready confidence of youth, we had each - been desultorily autobiographical; and if our actual acquaintance was only - the affair of an afternoon, I doubt if in a year we could have felt that - we knew each other better. - </p> - <p> - “I must go home,” Zabetta said at last. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, not yet, not yet,” cried I. - </p> - <p> - “It will be dinner-time. I must go home to dinner.” - </p> - <p> - “But your father is at Capri. You will have to dine alone.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “Then don’t. Come with me instead, and dine at a restaurant.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes glowed wistfully for an instant; but she replied, “Oh, no; I - cannot.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, you can. Come.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, no; impossible.” - </p> - <p> - “Why?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, because.” - </p> - <p> - “Because what?” - </p> - <p> - “There is my cat. She will have nothing to eat.” - </p> - <p> - “Your cook will give her something.” - </p> - <p> - “My cook!” laughed Zabetta. “My cook is here before you.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, you must be a kind mistress. You must give your cook an evening - out.” - </p> - <p> - “But my poor cat?” - </p> - <p> - “Your cat can catch a mouse.” - </p> - <p> - “There are no mice in our house. She has frightened them all away.” - </p> - <p> - “Then she can wait. A little fast will be good for her soul.” - </p> - <p> - Zabetta laughed, and I said, “Andiamo!” - </p> - <p> - At the restaurant we climbed to the first floor, and they gave us a table - near the window, whence we could look out over the villa to the sea - beyond. The sun was sinking, and the sky was gay with rainbow tints, like - mother-of-pearl. - </p> - <p> - Zabetta’s face shone joyfully. “This is only the second time in my life - that I have dined in a restaurant,” she told me. “And the other time was - very long ago, when I was quite young. And it wasn’t nearly so grand a - restaurant as this, either.” - </p> - <p> - “And now what would you like to eat?” I asked, picking up the bill of - fare. - </p> - <p> - “May I look?” said she. - </p> - <p> - I handed her the document, and she studied it at length. I think, indeed, - she read it through. In the end she appeared rather bewildered. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there is so much. I don’t know. Will you choose, please?” - </p> - <p> - I made a shift at choosing, and the sympathetic waiter flourished - kitchenwards with my commands. - </p> - <p> - “What is that little green nosegay you wear in your belt, Zabetta?” I - inquired. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, this—it is rosemary. Smell it,” she said, breaking off a sprig - and offering it to me. - </p> - <p> - “Rosemary—that’s for remembrance,” quoted I. - </p> - <p> - “What does that mean? What language is that?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - I tried to translate it to her. And then I taught her to say it in - English. “Rrosemérri—tsat is forr rremembrrance.” - </p> - <p> - “Will you write it down for me?” she requested. “It is pretty.” - </p> - <p> - And I wrote it for her on the back of one of my cards. - </p> - <h3> - IX - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter dinner we - crossed the garden again, and again stood by the sea-wall. Over us the - soft spring night was like a dark sapphire. Points of red, green, and - yellow fire burned from the ships in the bay, and seemed of the same - company as the stars above them. A rosy aureole in the sky, to the - eastward, marked the smouldering crater of Vesuvius. Away in the Chiaja a - man was singing comic songs, to an accompaniment of mandolines and - guitars; comic songs that sounded pathetic, as they reached us in the - distance. - </p> - <p> - I asked Zabetta how she wished to finish the evening. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t care,” said she. - </p> - <p> - “Would you like to go the play?” - </p> - <p> - “If you wish.” - </p> - <p> - “What do <i>you</i> wish?” - </p> - <p> - “I think I should like to stay here a little longer. It is pleasant.” - </p> - <p> - We leaned on the parapet, close to each other. Her face was very pale in - the starlight; her eyes were infinitely deep, and dark, and tender. One of - her little hands lay on the stone wall, like a white flower. I took it. It - was warm and soft. She did not attempt to withdraw it. I bent over it and - kissed it. I kissed it many times. Then I kissed her lips. “Zabetta—I - love you—I love you,” I murmured fervently.—Don’t imagine that - I didn’t mean it. It was April, and I was twenty. - </p> - <p> - “I love you, Zabetta. Dearest little Zabetta! I love you so.” - </p> - <p> - “É vero?” she questioned, scarcely above her breath. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, si; é vero, vero, vero,” I asseverated. “And you? And you?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I love you,” she whispered. - </p> - <p> - And then I could say no more. The ecstasy that filled my heart was too - poignant. We stood there speechless, hand in hand, and breathed the air of - heaven. - </p> - <p> - By-and-by Zabetta drew her bunch of rosemary from her belt, and divided it - into two parts. One part she gave to me, the other she kept. “Rosemary—it - is for constancy,” she said. I pressed the cool herb to my face for a - moment, inhaling its bitter-sweet fragrance; then I fastened it in my - buttonhole. On my watch-chain I wore—what everybody in Naples used - to wear—a little coral hand, a little clenched coral hand, holding a - little golden dagger. I detached it now, and made Zabetta take it. “Coral—that - is also for constancy,” I reminded her; “and besides, it protects one from - the Evil Eye.” - </p> - <h3> - X - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t last Zabetta - asked me what time it was; and when she learned that it was half-past - nine, she insisted that she really must go home. “They shut the outer door - of the house we live in at ten o’clock, and I have no key.” - </p> - <p> - “You can ring up the porter.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there is no porter.” - </p> - <p> - “But if we had gone to the theatre?” - </p> - <p> - “I should have had to leave you in the middle of the play.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, well,” I consented; and we left the villa and took a cab. - </p> - <p> - “Are you happy, Zabetta?” I asked her, as the cab rattled us towards our - parting. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, so happy, so happy! I have never been so happy before.” - </p> - <p> - “Dearest Zabetta!” - </p> - <p> - “You will love me always?” - </p> - <p> - “Always, always.” - </p> - <p> - “We will see each other every day. We will see each other to-morrow?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, to-morrow!” I groaned suddenly, the actualities of life rushing all - at once upon my mind. - </p> - <p> - “What is it? What of to-morrow?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, to-morrow, to-morrow!” - </p> - <p> - “What? What?” Her voice was breathless with suspense, with alarm. “Oh, I - had forgotten. You will think I am a beast.” - </p> - <p> - “What is it? For heaven’s sake, tell me.” - </p> - <p> - “You will think I am a beast. You will think I have deceived you. - To-morrow—I cannot help it—I am not my own master—I am - summoned by my parents—to-morrow I am going away—I am leaving - Naples.” - </p> - <p> - “You are leaving Naples?” - </p> - <p> - “I am going to Paris.” - </p> - <p> - “To Paris?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - There was a breathing-space of silence. Then, “Oh, Dio!” sobbed Zabetta; - and she began to cry as if her heart would break. - </p> - <p> - I seized her hands; I drew her to me. I tried to comfort her. But she only - cried and cried and cried. - </p> - <p> - “Zabetta... Zabetta.... Don’t cry... Forgive me.... Oh, don’t cry like - that.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Dio! Oh, caro Dio!” she sobbed. - </p> - <p> - “Zabetta—listen to me,” I began. “I have something to say to - you....” - </p> - <p> - “Cosa?” she asked faintly. - </p> - <p> - “Zabetta—do you really love me?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, tanto, tanto!” - </p> - <p> - “Then, listen, Zabetta. If you really love me—come with me.” - </p> - <p> - “Come with you. How?” - </p> - <p> - “Come with me to Paris.” - </p> - <p> - “To Paris?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - There was another instant of silence, and then again Zabetta began to cry. - </p> - <p> - “Will you? Will you? Will you come with me to Paris?” I implored her. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I would, I would. But I can’t. I can’t.” - </p> - <p> - “Why not?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I can’t.” - </p> - <p> - “Why? Why can’t you?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my father—I cannot leave my father.” - </p> - <p> - “Your father? But—if you love me———” - </p> - <p> - “He is old. He is ill. He has no one but me. I cannot leave him.” - </p> - <p> - “Zabetta!” - </p> - <p> - “No, no. I cannot leave him. Oh, Dio mio!” - </p> - <p> - “But Zabetta————” - </p> - <p> - “No. It would be a sin. Oh, the worst of sins. He is old and ill. I cannot - leave him. Don’t ask me. It would be dreadful.” - </p> - <p> - “But then? Then what? What shall we do?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t know. I wish I were dead.” - </p> - <p> - The cab came to a standstill, and Zabetta said, “Here we are.” I helped - her to descend. We were before a dark porte-cochêre, in some dark - back-street, high up the hillside. - </p> - <p> - “Addio,” said Zabetta, holding out her hand. - </p> - <p> - “You won’t come with me?” - </p> - <p> - “I can’t. I can’t. Addio.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Zabetta! Do you———Oh, say, say that you forgive - me.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Addio.” - </p> - <p> - “And, Zabetta, you—you have my address. It is on the card I gave - you. If you ever need anything—if you are ever in trouble of any - kind—remember you have my address—you will write to me.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes. Addio.” - </p> - <p> - “Addio.” - </p> - <p> - She stood for a second, looking up at me from great brimming eyes, and - then she turned away and vanished in the darkness of the porte-cochère. I - got into the cab, and was driven to my hotel. - </p> - <h3> - XI - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd here, one might - have supposed, was an end of the episode; but no. - </p> - <p> - I went to Paris, I went to New York, I returned to Paris, I came on to - London; and in this journeying more than a year was lost. In the beginning - I had suffered as much as you could wish me in the way of contrition, in - the way of regret too. I blamed myself and pitied myself with almost equal - fervour. I had trifled with a gentle human heart; I had been compelled to - let a priceless human treasure slip from my possession. But—I was - twenty. And there were other girls in the world. And a year is a long - time, when we are twenty. Little by little the image of Zabetta faded, - faded. By the year’s end, I am afraid it had become very pale indeed.... - </p> - <p> - It was late June, and I was in London, when the post brought me a letter. - The letter bore an Italian stamp, and had originally been directed to my - old address in Paris. Thence (as the numerous redirections on the big - square foreign envelope attested) it had been forwarded to New York; - thence back again to Paris; and thence finally to London. - </p> - <p> - The letter was written in the neatest of tiny copperplates; and this is a - translation of what it said: - </p> - <p> - “Dear Friend,—My poor father died last month in the German Hospital, - after an illness of twenty-one days. Pray for his soul. - </p> - <p> - “I am now alone and free, and if you still wish it, can come to you. It - was impossible for me to come when you asked me; but you have not ceased - to be my constant thought. I keep your coral hand.—Your ever - faithful Zabetta Collaluce.” - </p> - <p> - Enclosed in the letter there was a sprig of some dried, - bitter-sweet-smelling herb; and, in pencil, below the signature—laboriously - traced, as I could guess, from what I had written for her on my - visiting-card,—the English phrase: “Rosemary—that’s for - remembrance.” - </p> - <p> - The letter was dated early in May, which made it six weeks old. - </p> - <p> - What could I do? What answer could I send? - </p> - <p> - Of course, you know what I did do. I procrastinated and vacillated, and - ended by sending no answer at all. I could not write and say “Yes, come to - me.” But how could I write and say “No, do not come“? Besides, would she - not have given up hoping for an answer, by this time? It was six weeks - since she had written. I tried to think that the worst was over. - </p> - <p> - But my remorse took a new and a longer and a stronger lease of life. A - vision of Zabetta, pale, with anxious eyes, standing at her window, - waiting, waiting for a word that never came,—for months I could not - chase it from my conscience; it was years before it altogether ceased its - accusing visits. - </p> - <h3> - XII - </h3> - <p class="pfirst"> - <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, last - night, after a perfectly usual London day and evening, I went to bed and - dreamed of her vividly; and all day long to-day the fragrance of my dream - has clung about me,—a bitter-sweet fragrance, like that of rosemary - itself. Where is Zabetta now? What is her life? How have the years treated - her?... In my dream she was still eighteen. In reality—it is - melancholy to think how far from eighteen she has had leisure, since that - April afternoon, to drift. - </p> - <p> - Youth faces forward, impatient of the present, panting to anticipate the - future. But we who have crossed a certain sad meridian, we turn our gaze - backwards, and tell the relentless gods what we would sacrifice to recover - a little of the past, one of those shining days when to us also it was - given to sojourn among the Fortunate Islands. <i>Ah, si jeunesse - savait!...</i> - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Comedies and Errors, by Henry Harland - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMEDIES AND ERRORS *** - -***** This file should be named 52701-h.htm or 52701-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/7/0/52701/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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-Title: Comedies and Errors
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-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- COMEDIES AND ERRORS
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Henry Harland
- </h2>
- <h4>
- John Lane: The Bodley Head London and New York
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1898
- </h3>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0001.jpg" alt="0001 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0001.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br /><a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0007.jpg" alt="0007 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
- <h5>
- <a href="images/0007.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
- </h5>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE CONFIDANTE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> MERELY PLAYERS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE FRIEND OF MAN </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> TIRALA-TIRALA... </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE INVISIBLE PRINCE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> P’TIT-BLEU </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE HOUSE OF EULALIE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> COUSIN ROSALYS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> ROOMS </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE </a>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE CONFIDANTE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>very one who knew
- Rome fifteen or twenty years ago must remember Miss Belmont. She lived in
- the Palazzo Sebastiani, a merry little old Englishwoman, the business, the
- passion, of whose existence it was to receive. All the rooms of her vast
- apartment on the <i>piano nobile</i> were arranged as reception-rooms,
- even the last of the suite, in the corner of which a low divan, covered by
- a Persian carpet, with a prie-dieu beside it, and a crucifix attached to
- the wall above, was understood to serve at night as Miss Belmont’s bed.
- Her day, as indicated by her visiting-card, was Thursday; but to those who
- stood in her good books her day was every day, and—save for a brief
- hour in the afternoon, when, with the rest of Rome, she drove in the Villa
- Borghese—all day long. Then almost every evening she gave a little
- dinner. I have mentioned that she was old. She was proud of her age, and
- especially proud of not looking it. “I am seventy-three,” she used to
- boast, confronting you with the erect figure, the bright eyes, the firm
- cheeks, of a well-preserved woman of sixty. Her rooms were filled with
- beautiful and precious things, paintings, porcelains and bronzes,
- carvings, brocades, picked up in every province of the Continent, “the
- spoils of a lifetime spent in rummaging,” she said. All English folk who
- arrived in Rome decently accredited were asked to her at-homes, and all
- good Black Italians attended them. As a loyal Black herself, Miss Belmont,
- of course, knew no one in any way affiliated with the Quirinal.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- One of Miss Belmont’s Thursday afternoons has always persisted in my
- memory with a quite peculiar vividness. It was fifteen years ago, if you
- will; and yet I remember it, even the details of it, as clearly as I can
- remember the happenings of last week—as clearly indeed, but oh, how
- much more pleasantly! Was the world really a sweeter, fresher place
- fifteen years ago? Has it really grown stale in fifteen little years? It
- seemed, at any rate, very sweet and fresh, to my undisciplined
- perceptions, on that particular Thursday afternoon.
- </p>
- <p>
- We were in December, and there was never so light a touch of frost on the
- air, making it keen and exhilarating. I remember walking down a long
- narrow street, at the end of which the sky hung like a tapestry, splendid
- with the colours of the sunset: a street all clamour and business and
- bustle, as Roman streets are apt to be when there is a touch of the <i>tramontano</i>
- on the air. Cobblers worked noisily, tap-tap-tapping, in their out-of-door
- stalls; hawkers cried their wares, and old women stopped to haggle with
- them; wandering musicians thrummed their guitars and mandolines, singing
- “Funiculi, Funiculà,” more or less in tune; and cabs rattled perilously
- over the cobble-stones, whilst their drivers shrieked warnings at the
- foot-passengers, citizens soldiers, beggars, priests, like the populace in
- a comic opera.
- </p>
- <p>
- But within the Palazzo Sebastiani the scene was as different as might be.
- Thick curtains were drawn over the windows; innumerable wax candles burned
- and flickered in sconces along the walls; there were flowers everywhere,
- lilies and roses, and the air was heady with their fragrance; there were
- people everywhere too, men in frock-coats, women in furs and velvets,
- monsignori from the Vatican lending a purple note. And there was a
- continuous, confused, rising, falling, murmur of conversation.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I had made my obeisance to Miss Belmont, she said, “Come. I want to
- introduce you to the Contessa Bracca.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, this will seem improbable, of course; but you know how one sometimes
- has premonitions; and, upon my word, it is the literal fact: I had never
- heard of the Contessa Bracca, her name could convey nothing to me; and
- yet, when Miss Belmont said she wished to present me to her, I felt a
- sudden knock in my heart, I felt that something important was about to
- happen to me. Why?...
- </p>
- <p>
- She was seated in an old high-backed chair of carved ebony, inlaid with
- mother-of-pearl, one of Miss Belmont’s curiosities. She wore a jaunty
- little toque of Astrakhan lamb’s-wool, with an aigrette springing from it,
- and a smart Astrakhan jacket. It was a singularly pleasant face, a
- singularly pretty and witty and interesting face, that looked up in the
- soft candle-light, and smiled, as Miss Belmont accomplished the
- presentation; it was a singularly pleasant voice, gentle, yet crisp,
- characteristic, that greeted me.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Miss Belmont had spoken to the Contessa in English; and the Contessa
- spoke to me in English, with no trace of an accent. I was surprised; and I
- was shy and awkward. So I could think of nothing better than to exclaim—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you are English!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She smiled—it was a quiet little amused but kindly smile, rather a
- lightening of her eyes than a movement of her features—and said,
- “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought you would be Italian,” I confessed.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was still smiling. “And are you inconsolable to find that I’m not?”
- she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no. On the contrary, I am very glad,” I assured her, with sincerity.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this, her smile rippled into laughter; and she murmured something in
- which I caught the words “youth” and “engaging candour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I’m not so furiously young,” I protested.
- </p>
- <p>
- She raised her eyebrows, gazing at me quizzically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren’t you?” she inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m twenty-two,” I announced, with satisfaction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear!” She laughed again. “And twenty-two you regard as the beginning
- of old age?” she suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At all events, one is no longer a child at twenty-two,” I argued
- solemnly, “especially if one has seen the world a bit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- My conversation appeared to divert her more than I could have hoped; for
- still again she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, “Ah, wait till you’re my age—wait till you’re a hundred and
- fifteen,” she pronounced in a hollow voice, making her face long, and
- shaking her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was my turn to laugh now. Afterwards, “I don’t believe you’re much
- older than I am,” I confided to her, with bluff geniality.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the difference between twenty-two and thirty—especially when
- one has seen the world a bit?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re never thirty,” I expostulated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “An experienced old fellow of two-and-twenty,” she observed, “must surely
- be aware that people do sometimes live to attain the age of thirty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re not thirty,” I reiterated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps not,” she said; “but unless I’m careful, I shall be, before I
- know it. Have you been long in Rome?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I’m an old Roman,” I replied airily. “We used to come here when I was
- a child. And I was here again when I was eighteen, and again when I was
- twenty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mercy!” she cried. “Then you will be able to put me up to the tricks of
- the town.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, but you live here, don’t you?” I wondered simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I suppose I live here,” she assented. “I live in the Palazzo
- Stricci, you must come and see me. I’m at home on Mondays.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, thank you; I’ll come the very first Monday that ever is,” I vowed.
- For, though she had teased me and laughed at me, I thought she was very
- charming, all the same.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and how did you get on with the Countess Bracca?” Miss Belmont
- asked. When I had answered her, she proceeded, as her wont was, to
- volunteer certain information. “She was a Miss Wilthorpe, you know—the
- Cumberland Wilthorpes, a staunch old Catholic family. Her mother was a
- Frenchwoman, a Montargier. Monsignor Wilthorpe is her cousin. Her husband,
- Count Bracca, held a commission in the Guardia Nobile—between
- ourselves, a creature of starch and whalebone, a pompous noodle. She was
- married to him when she was eighteen. He died three or four years ago: a
- good thing too. But she has continued to live in Rome, in the winter. In
- the summer she goes to England, to her people. Did she ask you to go and
- see her? Go, on the first occasion. Cultivate her. She’s clever. She’ll do
- you good. She’ll form you,” Miss Belmont concluded, looking at me with a
- critical eye.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- On Monday, at the Palazzo Stricci, I was ushered through an immense sombre
- drawing-room, and beyond, into a gay little blue-and-white boudoir. The
- Contessa was there alone. “I am glad you have come early,” she was good
- enough to say. “We can have a talk together, before any one else arrives.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She wore a delightful white frock, of some flexile woollen fabric
- embroidered in white silk with leaves and flowers. And I discovered that
- she had very lovely hair, great quantities of it, undulating richly away
- from her forehead; hair of an indescribable light warm brown, a sort of
- fawn colour, with reflections dimly red. She was seated in the corner of a
- sofa, leaning upon a cushion of blue satin covered with white lace. I had
- not noticed her hair the other day at Miss Belmont’s, in the vague
- candle-light. Now I could not take my eyes from it. It filled me with
- astonishment and admiration.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I said—I suppose I blushed and stammered, but I had to say it—“you—you
- must let me tell you—what—what wonderful hair you have.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The poor lady! She shook her head; she lay back in her place and laughed.
- “Forgive me, forgive me for laughing,” she said. “But—your
- compliment—it was a trifle point-blank—I was slightly
- unprepared for it. However, you’re quite right. It’s not bad hair,” she
- conceded amiably. “And it was very—very natural and—and nice—of
- you to mention it. Now sit down here, and we will have a good long talk,”
- she added. “You must tell me all about yourself. We must get acquainted.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was always, perhaps, the tiniest point of raillery in that crisp
- voice, in those gleaming eyes, of hers; but it did not prevent them from
- being friendly and interested. She went on to ask me all manner of
- friendly, interested questions, adopting, apparently as a matter of
- course, the tone of maturity addressing ingenuous youth; and I found
- myself somehow accepting that relation without resentment. Where had I
- made my studies? What was I going to do in the world? She asked me
- everything; and I, guilelessly, fatuously no doubt, responded. I imagine I
- expatiated at some length, and with some fervour, upon my literary
- aspirations, whilst she encouraged me with her kind-glowing eyes; and I am
- afraid—I am afraid I even went so far as to allow her to persuade me
- to repeat divers of my poems. In those days one wrote things one fondly
- nicknamed poems. Anyhow, I know that I was enjoying myself very much
- indeed—when we were interrupted by the entrance of another caller.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then a whole stream of callers passed through her dainty room: men and
- women, old and young; all of them people with a great deal of manner, and
- not much else—certainly with precious little wit. The men were
- faultlessly dressed, they had their hair very sleekly brushed, they
- caressed their hats, grinned vacuously, and clacked out set phrases; the
- women gossiped turbulently in Italian; and my hostess gave them tea, and
- smiled (was there just a tinge of irony in her smile?), and listened with
- marvellous endurance. But I thought to myself, “Oh, if this is the kind of
- human society you are condemned to, how ineffably you must be bored!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I met her a few days later in the Villa Borghese. I was one of many
- hundred people walking there, in the afternoon; her victoria was one of
- the long procession of carriages. She made her coachman draw up, and
- signed to me to come and speak with her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I should get down and walk with you a bit, do you think you would be
- heart-broken?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- I offered her my hand, and helped her to alight. She had on the toque and
- jacket of Astrakhan in which I had first seen her, and she carried an
- Astrakhan muff. The fresh air had brought a beautiful soft colour to her
- cheeks; her hair glowed beautifully in the sunlight. As she walked beside
- me, I perceived that she was nearly as tall as I was, and I noticed the
- strong, fine, elastic contours of her figure. We turned away from the
- road, and walked on the grass, among the solemn old trees; and we
- talked... I can’t in the least remember of what—of nothings, very
- likely—only, I do remember that we talked and talked, and that I
- found our talk exceedingly agreeable. I remember, too, that at a given
- moment we passed a company of students from the German College, their
- scarlet cassocks flashing in the sun; and I remember how each of those
- poor priestlings stole an admiring glance at her from the corner of his
- eyes. But upon my calling her attention to the circumstance, though she
- couldn’t help smiling, she tried to frown, and reproved me. “Hush. You
- shouldn’t observe such things. You must never allow yourself to think
- lightly of the clergy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- When I had conducted her back to her carriage, she said, “Can’t I set you
- down somewhere?” So I got in and drove with her, through the animated
- Roman streets, to the door of my lodgings. On the way, “You must come and
- dine with me some evening,” she said. “When will you come? Will you come
- on Wednesday? Quite quietly, you know.” And I assured her that I should be
- delighted to come on Wednesday.
- </p>
- <p>
- But afterwards, when I was alone, I repeatedly caught myself thinking of
- her—thinking of her with enthusiasm. “She <i>is</i> a nice woman,” I
- thought. “She’s an awfully nice woman. Except my own mother, I believe
- she’s the nicest woman I have ever known.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It may interest you to learn that I took occasion to tell her as much on
- Wednesday.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other guests at her dinner had been Miss Belmont and the Contessa’s
- cousin, Monsignor Wilthorpe, a tall, iron-grey, frigid man, of
- forty-something; and they left together very early, Miss Belmont
- remarking, “People who are not in their first youth can’t afford to lose
- their beauty-sleep. Come, Monsignore, you must drive me home.” I feared it
- was my duty to leave directly after them, but upon my rising to do so the
- Contessa cried out, “What! Do you begrudge losing your beauty-sleep too?
- It’s not yet ten o’clock.” I was only too glad to stay.
- </p>
- <p>
- We went from the great melancholy drawing-room, where we had taken our
- coffee, into her boudoir. I can’t tell you how cosy and charming and
- intimate it seemed, in the lamplight, with its bright colours, and with
- all her little personal possessions scattered about, her books, bibelots,
- writing-materials.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you allowed to smoke?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know. Am I?” was my retort.
- </p>
- <p>
- She laughed. “Yes. I think you deserve to, after that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I lighted a cigarette, with gratitude; while she sat down at her piano and
- began to play.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you care for Bach? No, you are too young to care for Bach. But you
- will come to him. At your age one loves Chopin. Chopin interprets the
- strenuous moments of life, the moments that seem all important when they
- are present, but matter so little in the long run. Bach interprets life as
- a whole, seen from a distance, seen in perspective, in its masses and
- proportions, in its serene symmetry, when nothing is strenuous, when
- everything seems right and in its place, when even sorrow seems right. At
- my age one prefers Bach.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She said all this as she was playing, speaking slowly, dreamily, between
- the chords. “If that is Bach which you are playing now, I like it very
- much,” I made bold to affirm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s the third fugue,” said she. “But it’s precocious of you to like it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I give you my word, I’m not half so juvenile as you’re always trying
- to make me out,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at me with her indulgent, quizzical smile. “No, to be sure.
- You’re a cynical old man of the world—of twenty-two,” she teased.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently she abandoned the piano, and took her place of the other day, in
- the corner of her sofa.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tell me,” she said, “what do you do here in Rome? What are your
- occupations? How do you spend your time?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my occupations are entirely commonplace,” I answered her. “In the
- morning’ I try to write. Then in the afternoon I pay calls, or go to some
- one’s studio, or to the museums, or what not. And in the evening I
- generally dine with some men I know at the Caffé di Roma.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so, with one thing and another, you’re quite happy?” she suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- But this recalled me, of a sudden, to the rôle I was at that season
- playing to myself in the human comedy. Ingenuous young men (a. friend of
- mine often says), if they happen to have an active imagination, are the
- most inveterate, the most incorrigible of poseurs. To make the matter
- worse, they’re the first—if not the only—ones to be taken in
- by their pose. They believe in it heartily; they’re supremely unconscious
- that they’re posing. And so they go on, slipping from one pose to another,
- till in the end, by accident as like as not, they find the pose that suits
- them. And when a man has found the pose that suits him (I am still quoting
- my friend) we say that he has “found himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Contessa’s suggestion recalled me to my pose of the season. I
- repudiated the idea of happiness with scorn.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Happy!” I echoed bitterly. “I should think not. I shall never be happy
- again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mercy upon me!” she exclaimed. “Si jeune, et déjà Moldave-Valaque!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I informed her, with Byronic gloom, “it isn’t a laughing matter. I’m
- the most miserable of men.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor boy,” she said compassionately; and her eyes shone with compassion
- too, though perhaps there still lingered in them just the faintest
- afterglow of amusement. “Why are you miserable? What is it all about?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I said, “it’s the usual story. When a man’s hopelessly unhappy, when
- his last illusion has been destroyed, it’s always—I’m sorry to say
- it to you, but you know whether it’s true—it’s always a member of
- your sex that’s to blame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Had she a struggle to keep from laughing? If so, she came out of it
- victorious. Indeed, the compassion in her eyes seemed to deepen. “Poor
- boy,” she repeated. “What have they done to you? Tell me all about it. It
- will do you good to tell me. Let me be your confidante,” she urged gently.
- </p>
- <p>
- And thereupon (oh, fatuity!) I strode up and down her floor, and narrated
- the whole history of my desperate, my fatal passion for Elsie Milray: how
- beautiful Elsie was, how mysteriously, incommunicably fascinating; how I
- had adored her; how she had encouraged me, led me on, trifled with me, and
- finally thrown me over—for Captain Bullen, a fellow in the
- Engineers, old enough to be—well, almost old enough to be her
- father. I fancy I swung my arms about a good deal, and quoted Heine and
- Rossetti, and generally made myself very tiresome and ridiculous; but my
- kind confidante listened with patience, with every appearance of taking my
- narration seriously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So you see,” I concluded, “I’ve been hard hit, hit in a vital spot. My
- wound is one of those that never heal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Even that did not provoke her to laughter. She gazed at me meditatively
- for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Your wound will heal. When our
- wounds are fresh, it always seems as if they would never heal. But they do
- heal. Yours will heal. You must try to think of other things. You must try
- to interest yourself in other girls—oh, platonically, I mean, of
- course. There are lots of nice girls in the world, you know. You must try
- not to think of Elsie. It’s no good thinking of her, now that she’s
- engaged to Captain Bullen. But—but when you can’t help thinking of
- her, then you must come to me and talk it out. That is always better,
- healthier, than brooding upon a grief in silence. You must come to me
- whenever you feel you wish to. I shall always be glad when you come.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re a—you’re an angel of kindness,” I declared, with emotion. “I—I
- was thinking only the other day, when you had driven me home from the
- Borghese, I was thinking that, except my own mother, you’re the—the
- best and dearest woman in the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But at this, she could be grave no longer. She laughed gaily. “If I come
- next to your mother in your affections,” she said, “it’s almost as if I
- were your grandmother, isn’t it? Yes, that is it. I’ll be a grandmother to
- you.” And she made me a comical little <i>moue</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- After that, it was my excellent fortune to see the Contessa Bracca rather
- frequently. I called on her a good deal; she asked me to dine and lunch
- with her a good deal; I spent a surprising number of afternoons and
- evenings in her blue-and-white retiring-room. Then she used to take me to
- drive with her in the Villa Borghese or on the Pincian; and sometimes we
- would go for walks together in the Campagna. Of course, I was a regular
- visitor in her box at the opera: otherwise, the land had not been Italy,
- nor the town Rome. I liked her and enjoyed her inexpressibly; she was so
- witty and lively, so sympathetic, such a frank good comrade; she was so
- pretty and delicate and distinguished. “I can never make you understand,”
- I confessed to her, “how much fuller and richer and more delightful life
- is since I have known you.” I was, in fact, quite improbably happy, though
- I scarcely suspected it at the time. I had not forgotten that my rôle was
- the disconsolate lover; I must still now and again perorate about Elsie,
- and grieve over my painted wounds. The Contessa always listened patiently,
- with an air of commiseration. And I read her every line I wrote (poor
- woman!) whilst she criticised, suggested, encouraged. The calf is a queer
- animal.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may wonder how she managed to put up with me, why I did not bore her
- to extermination. I can’t answer—unless, indeed, it was simply that
- she had a sense of humour, as well as a kind heart. I am glad to be able
- to remember, besides, that our talks were by no means confined to subjects
- that had their source in my callow egotism. We talked of many things, we
- talked of everything: of books, pictures, music; of life, nature,
- religion; of Rome, its churches and palaces, its galleries and gardens; of
- people, of the people we knew in common, of their traits, their qualities,
- defects, absurdities. We talked of everything; sometimes—but all too
- infrequently—we talked of her. All too infrequently. I can’t think
- how she contrived it; she was as far as possible from giving the
- impression of being reserved with me; yet, somehow, it was very seldom
- indeed that we talked of her. Somehow, for the most part—with no
- sign of effort, easily, imperceptibly even—she avoided or evaded the
- subject, or turned it if it was introduced. Only, once in a long while,
- once in a long, long while, she would, just for an instant, as it were,
- lift a corner of the curtain; tell me some little anecdote, some little
- incident, out of her life; allow me never so fleeting a glimpse into the
- more intimate regions of her experience.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day, for example, one afternoon in February, when a faint breath of
- spring was on the air, we had driven out to Acqua Acetosa, and there we
- had left her carriage and strolled in the open country, plucking armfuls
- of flowers, anemones, jonquils, competing with each other to see who could
- gather the greatest number in the fewest minutes, and laughing and romping
- mirthfully. Her hair had got into some disarray, her cheeks glowed, her
- eyes sparkled; and her face looked so young, so young, that I exclaimed,
- “Do you know, you are exactly like a girl to-day. I told you once that you
- were the nicest woman I had ever known; but to-day I shall have to take
- that back, and tell you you’re the nicest girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She laughed, sweetly, joyously. “I <i>am</i> a girl to-day,” she said. But
- then, all at once, her eyes became sober, thoughtful; there was even a
- shadow of trouble in them. “You see, I never was really a girl,” she went
- on. “I am living my girlhood now—as a kind of accidental
- after-thought—because I have happened to make friends with a boy. I
- am sowing my wild oats—gathering my wild flowers—at the
- eleventh hour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you mean—you were never really a girl?” I questioned
- stupidly.
- </p>
- <p>
- You will guess what I felt—her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- I was stammering out some apology, but she stopped me. “No, no. It isn’t
- your fault. I’m not crying. It’s all right. I meant I was never a girl,
- because I was married at eighteen. That is all. And I’ve had to be dull
- and middle-aged ever since,” she added, smiling again. “You dull and
- middle-aged!” I scoffed at the notion. But her tears, and then her word
- about her marriage, had touched me poignantly. She had never mentioned,
- she had never remotely alluded to her marriage, before, in all our
- intercourse. Certainly, I knew, from things Miss Belmont had said, that it
- had not been a happy marriage. The Con-tessa’s word about it now, brief as
- it was, slight as it was, moved me like a cry of pain. I felt a great
- anguish, a great anger, to think that circumstances had been cruel to her
- in the past; a great yearning in some way to be of comfort to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I cried out—tactlessly, if you will; but my emotion was
- dominant; I could not stop to reflect—“oh, why—why didn’t I
- know you in those days? Why wasn’t I here—to—to help you—to
- defend you—to—to make it easier for you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- We were in the carriage by this time, rolling swiftly back towards Rome.
- She did not speak. I did not look at her. But I felt her hand laid gently
- upon mine, her little light gloved hand; and then her hand pressed mine, a
- long soft pressure that said vastly more than speech; and then her hand
- rested there, lightly, lightly, and we were both silent, till we reached
- the Porta del Popolo.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I had left her, I was conscious of a curious elation, a curious
- exaltation. It was almost as if my confidante had made me her confidant. A
- new honour had been conferred upon me, a new trust and responsibility.
- “Oh, I will devote my life to her,” I vowed fervently, in my soul. “I will
- devote my life to making her happy, to compensating her in some measure
- for what she has suffered in the past. When shall I see her again?” I was
- consumed with eagerness, with impatience, to see her again.
- </p>
- <p>
- I saw her, as a matter of fact, no later than the next day. I called on
- her in the afternoon. I went to her, meditating heroics. I would lay my
- life at her feet, I would ask her to let me be her knight, her servant. I
- looked forward to rather a fine moment. But it takes two to make a
- melodrama. She met me in a mood that sealed the heroics in my bosom; a
- teasing, elusive mood, her eyes, her voice, all mockery, all mischief.
- “Tiens, c’est mon petit-fils,” she cried, on my arrival. “Bonjour, Toto.
- How nice of you to come and see your granny.” There were days when she was
- like this, when she would never drop her joke about being my grandmother,
- and perpetually called me “Toto,” and talked to me as if I were
- approaching seven. “Now, sit down on the floor before the fire,” she said,
- “and gwandmamma will tell you a stor-wy.” A sprite danced in her eyes. Her
- drawling enunciation of the last word was irresistible. I laughed, despite
- myself; and thoughts of high rhetoric had summarily to be dismissed.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- When I look back upon my life as it was in those days, I protest I am
- filled with a sort of envy. A boy of twenty-something, his pockets
- comfortably supplied with money; free from morning to night, from night to
- morning, to do as his fancy prompted; with numberless pleasant
- acquaintances; and in the most beautiful country, the most interesting
- city, of two hemispheres—in Italy, in Rome: yes, indeed, as I look
- back at him, I am filled with envy.
- </p>
- <p>
- But then, when I think of <i>her</i>.... I think of her, and she becomes
- visible before me, visible in all her exquisite grace and fineness, her
- exquisite femininity. I see her intimate little room, its gay blue and
- white, its pretty furniture, its hundred pretty personal trifles, tokens
- of her habitation; I breathe the air of it, the faint, soft perfume that
- was always on its air; I see her fan, her open book, her handkerchief
- forgotten on a table. I see her, in the room. I see her delicate white
- face, witty, alert, sensitive; I see her laughing eyes, her hair, the
- sumptuous masses of her hair. I see her hands, I touch them, slender,
- fragile, but warm, but firm and responsive. I see the delicious toilet she
- is wearing, I hear the brisk frou-frou of it. I hear her voice. I see her
- at her piano, I see her as she plays, the bend of her head, the motion of
- her body. I see her as she glances up at me, whimsically smiling, asking
- me something, telling me something. I gaze long at her, hungrily. And
- then, remembering that there was a time when I could see her like this in
- very reality as often as I would—oh, I can only cry out to myself of
- those days, “You lucky heathen, you lucky, lucky heathen! How little you
- realised, how little you merited, your extraordinary fortune!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, I was in love with her. But as yet, upon my conscience, I did
- not know it. I knew that I was tremendously fond of her, that I was never
- so happy as when in her presence, that I was always more or less
- unsatisfied and restless when out of it. I knew that I was always more or
- less unsatisfied and restless, too, when other men were hovering about
- her, when she was laughing and talking with other men. I knew that I
- wished to be her knight, her servant, to dedicate my existence to her
- welfare. But beyond that, I had not analysed my sentiment, nor given it a
- name.
- </p>
- <p>
- And so, if you please, I was still able to go on prating to her of Elsie
- Milray!
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- However, there came a day when I ceased to prate of Elsie... It was during
- the Carnival. Miss Belmont had taken a room in the Corso, from the balcony
- of which, that afternoon, she and various of her friends had watched the
- merrymaking. The Contessa Bracca was expected, but the hours wore away,
- and she did not turn up. I waited for her, hoped for her, from minute to
- minute, to the last. Then I went home in a fine state of depression.
- </p>
- <p>
- After dinner—and after much irresolution, ending in an abrupt
- resolve—I ventured to present myself at the Palazzo Stricci.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was alarmed about you. I was afraid you might be ill,” I explained. I
- felt a great rush of relief, of warmth and peace, at seeing her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was seated in a low easy-chair, by her writing-table, with a volume of
- the “Récit d’une Sour” open in her lap.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I’m not ill,” she said, rising, and putting her book aside. “I’m not
- sorry you thought so, though, since it has procured me the pleasure of a
- visit from you,” she added, smiling, as she gave me her hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- But her face was pale, her smile seemed like a pale light that just
- flickered on it for an instant, and went out.
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked at her with anxiety. “You <i>are</i> ill,” I said. “There’s
- something the matter. What is it? Tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no. Really. I’m all right,” she insisted, with a little movement of
- the head, that was meant to be reassuring. “Sit down, and light a
- cigarette, and give me a true and faithful account of the day’s doings.
- Who was there?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know. You weren’t. That was the important thing. We missed you
- awfully. Your absence entirely spoiled the afternoon,” I declared.
- </p>
- <p>
- She raised her eyebrows. “I can imagine how they must all have pined for
- me. Did they commission you to speak for them?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I pined for you, at any rate,” I said. “I kept looking for you,
- expecting you. Every minute, up to the very end, I still hoped for you. If
- you’re not ill, or anything, why didn’t you come?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Vanity. I was having a plain day, I didn’t like to show myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked at her with anxiety, narrowly. “I say,” I blurted out, “what’s
- the use of beating about the bush? I know there’s something wrong. I
- should have to be blind not to see it. If you’re not ill, then you’re
- unhappy about something. I can’t help it—if you don’t like my
- speaking of it, send me away. But I can’t sit here and talk small-talk,
- when I know that you’re unhappy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you know that I’m unhappy, you might sit here and talk small-talk, to
- cheer me up,” she suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You—you’ve been crying,” I exclaimed, all at once understanding an
- odd brightness in her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and even so? Hasn’t one a right to cry, if it amuses one?” she
- questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What have you been crying about?” questioned I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve been crying over my faded beauty—because I’ve had a plain
- day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t try to turn the matter to a jest,” I pleaded. “I
- can’t bear to think of you crying. I can’t bear to think of you unhappy.
- What is it? I wish you’d tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you really wish it?” she asked, with a sudden approach to gravity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—yes,” I answered eagerly. “If you’re unhappy, I want to know
- it, I want to share it with you. You’re so good, you’re so dear, I wish I
- could take every pain in the world away from you, I wish I could protect
- you from every breath of pain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyes softened beautifully, they shone into mine with a beautiful
- gentleness. “You’re a dear boy,” she said. “You’re a great comfort to your
- grandmother.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then,” I urged, “the least you can do is to tell me what has
- happened to make my grandmother unhappy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing has happened. I’ve been thinking. That’s all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thinking what? What have you been thinking?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thinking——————-” she began, as if she
- was about to answer; but then she made a teasing little face at me, and
- declaimed—
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- “Oh, thinking, if you like,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- How utterly dissociated was I,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- A priest and celibate, from the sad strange wife
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Of Guido.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- And she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- I threw up my hands in despair. “You’re hopeless,” I said. “It’s no good
- ever expecting you to be serious.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m serious enough, in all conscience,” said she, “but I conceal it. I
- let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek. And so—I
- have plain days.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t believe you’ve ever had a plain day in your life,” asserted I.
- “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I would beg you to observe that you’re sitting here and talking
- small-talk, after all,” she laughed, “That isn’t small-talk. It’s the
- solemn truth. But look here. I’m not going to let you evade the question.
- What have you been unhappy about?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not unhappy any more. So what does it matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to know. Tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve been puzzling over a dilemma,” she said, “an excessively perplexed
- one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes? Go on,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve been wondering whether I’d better marry Ciccolesi, or retire into a
- convent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ciccolesi!” I cried, in astonishment, in dismay. “Marry Ciccolesi! You!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Cavalière Ciccolesi. You’ve met him here on Mondays, A brown man,
- with curly hair. He’s done me the honour of offering me his hand. Would
- you advise me to accept it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Accept it?” I cried. “Good Lord! You must be—have you lost your
- reason? Ciccolesi—that automaton—that cardboard stalking-horse—that
- Neapolitan jackanapes! You—think of marrying him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I could only walk up and down the room and wave my hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well,” said she, “then I see there’s nothing for it but the other
- alternative—to retire into a convent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I halted and stared at her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What—what on earth has happened to make you talk like this?” I
- demanded, in a sort of gasp.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve been reflecting upon the futility of my life,” she said. “I get up
- in the morning, and eat my breakfast. Then I fritter away an hour or two,
- and eat my luncheon. Then I fritter away the afternoon, and eat my dinner.
- Then I fritter away the evening, and go to bed. I live, apparently, to eat
- and sleep, like the beasts that perish. We must reform all that. I must do
- something to make myself of use in the world. And since you seem
- disinclined to sanction a marriage with Ciccolesi, what do you say to my
- joining some charitable sisterhood?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She spoke lightly, even, if you will, half-jocosely. But there was a real
- bitterness unmistakable behind her tone. There was a bitterness in her
- smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- And I—I was overwhelmed, penetrated, by a distress, by an emotion,
- such as I had never known before. I looked at her through a sort of mist—of
- pain, of passion; with a kind of aching helplessness; longing to say
- something, to do something, I could not tell what. Her smile had faded
- out; her face was white, set; her eyes were sombre. I looked at her, I
- longed to say something, to do something, and I could not move or speak.
- My mind was all a whirl, a bewilderment—till, somehow, gradually,
- from some place in the background of it, her name, her Christian name,
- struggled forward into consciousness. I seemed to see it before me, like a
- written word, her name, Gabrielle. And then I heard myself calling it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gabrielle! Gabrielle!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I heard my voice, I found myself kneeling beside her, holding her hands,
- speaking close to her face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gabrielle! I can’t let you—I can’t allow you to think such things.
- <i>Your</i> life futile! Your beautiful, beautiful life! Gabrielle—my
- love! Oh, my love, my love!”...
- </p>
- <p>
- By-and-by, laughing, sobbing, her eyes melting with a heavenly tenderness,
- she said, “It’s absurd, it’s impossible. You’re only a boy. I’m a woman.
- I’m seven years older than you—in years. I’m immeasurably older in
- everything else. But I can’t help it—I love you. You’re only a boy—and
- yet—you’re such an honest, frank, sweet boy—and my life has
- been passed with such artificial people, such unreal people—you’re
- the only <i>man</i> I have ever known.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The next morning one of her servants brought me a letter. Here it is.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dearest Friend,—Please do not come to see me this afternoon. I
- shall not be at home. I am leaving town. I am going to the Convent of
- Saint Veronica; I shall pass Lent there, with the good sisters.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dearest, do not be angry with me. I cannot accept your love, I have no
- right to accept it. Our friendship, our companionship, has been infinitely
- precious to me; it has given me a belief in human nature which I never had
- before. But you are young, you are still <i>growing</i>—in mind, in
- spirit. You must be free. I cannot cramp your youth, your growth, by
- accepting your love. Look, my dear, it would be an <i>impasse</i>. We
- could not marry. It would be monstrous if I should let you marry me—at
- the end of a year, at the end of six months, you would hate me, you would
- feel that I had spoiled your life. Yes, it is true. You must be free—you
- must grow. You must not handicap yourself at twenty-two by marrying a
- woman seven years your senior.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what then? Nothing but this—I must not accept your love,
- dear, I must give you up. You will go on, on; you will grow, you will
- outgrow the love you bear me now. You will live your life. And some day
- you will meet a woman of your own age.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know the pain this letter will give you; I know, I know. You will be
- unhappy, you will be angry with me. Dearest, try to forgive me. I am doing
- the only thing there is for me to do. You will be glad of it in the
- future. You will shudder to think, ’What if that woman had taken me at my
- word!’—Oh, why weren’t you born ten years earlier, or I ten years
- later?
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to the Convent of Saint Veronica, to pass Lent. Perhaps I
- shall stay longer. Perhaps—do not cry out, it is not a sudden
- resolution—perhaps I shall remain there, as an oblate. I could teach
- music, French. I must do something. I must not lead this idle futile life.
- Do not think of me as undergoing hardships. The rule for an oblate is not
- severe.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good-bye, dear. I pray God to bless you in every way.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good-bye, good-bye.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gabrielle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Don’t ask me what I felt, what I did....
- </p>
- <p>
- Lent dragged itself away, but she did not return to Rome.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then one day I received by post a copy of the <i>Osservatore Romano</i>,
- with a marked paragraph. It announced that the Contessa Bracca had been
- received into the Pious Community of Saint Veronica as a noble oblate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her letter, and that paragraph, cut from the <i>Osservatore Romano</i>,
- lie before me now, on my writing-table. Don’t ask me what I feel, as I
- look at them.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- MERELY PLAYERS
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>y dear,” said the
- elder man, “as I’ve told you a thousand times, what you need is a
- love-affair with a red-haired woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bother women,” said the younger man, “and hang love-affairs. Women are a
- pack of samenesses, and love-affairs are damnable iterations.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They were seated at a round table, gay with glass and silver, fruit and
- wine, in a pretty, rather high-ceiled little grey-and-gold breakfast-room.
- The French window stood wide open to the soft June day. From the window
- you could step out upon a small balcony; the balcony overhung a terrace;
- and a broad flight of steps from the terrace led down into a garden. You
- could not perceive the boundaries of the garden; in all directions it
- offered an indefinite perspective, a landscape of green lawns and shadowy
- alleys, bright parterres of flowers, fountains, and tall bending trees.
- </p>
- <p>
- I have spoken of the elder man and the younger, though really there could
- have been but a trifling disparity in their ages: the elder was perhaps
- thirty, the younger seven- or eight-and-twenty. In other respects,
- however, they were as unlike as unlike may be. Thirty was plump and rosy
- and full-blown, with a laughing good-humoured face, and merry big blue
- eyes; eight-and-twenty, thin, tall, and listless-looking, his face pale
- and aquiline, his eyes dark, morose. They had finished their coffee, and
- now the plump man was nibbling sweetmeats, which he selected with much
- careful discrimination from an assortment in a porcelain dish. The thin
- man was drinking something green, possibly chartreuse.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Women are a pack of samenesses,” he grumbled, “and love-affairs are
- damnable iterations.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” cried out his comrade, in a tone of plaintive protest, “I said
- red-haired. You can’t pretend that red-haired women are the same.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The same, with the addition of a little henna,” the pale young man argued
- wearily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It may surprise you to learn that I was thinking of red-haired women who
- are born red-haired,” his friend remarked, from an altitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In that case,” said he, “I admit there is a difference—they have
- white eyelashes.” And he emptied his glass of green stuff. “Is all this
- apropos of boots?” he questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- The other regarded him solemnly. “It’s apropos of your immortal soul,” he
- answered, nodding his head. “It’s medicine for a mind diseased. The only
- thing that will wake you up, and put a little life and human nature in
- you, is a love-affair with a red-haired woman. Red in the hair means fire
- in the heart. It means all sorts of things. If you really wish to please
- me, Uncle, you’ll go and fall in love with a red-haired woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The younger man, whom the elder addressed as Uncle, shrugged his
- shoulders, and gave a little sniff. Then he lighted a cigarette.
- </p>
- <p>
- The elder man left the table, and went to the open window. “Heavens, what
- weather!” he exclaimed fervently. “The day is made of perfumed velvet. The
- air is a love-philtre. The whole world sings romance. And yet you—insensible
- monster!—you can sit there torpidly—-” But abruptly he fell
- silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- His attention had been caught by something below, in the garden. He
- watched it for an instant from his place by the window; then he stepped
- forth upon the balcony, still watching. Suddenly, facing halfway round,
- “By my bauble, Nunky,” he called to his companion, and his voice was tense
- with surprised exultancy, “she’s got red hair!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The younger man looked up with vague eyes. “Who? What?” he asked
- languidly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come here, come here,” his friend urged, beckoning him. “There,” he
- indicated, when the pale man had joined him, “below there—to the
- right—picking roses. She’s got red hair. She’s sent by Providence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A woman in a white frock was picking roses, in one of the alleys of the
- garden; rather a tall woman. Her back was turned towards her observers;
- but she wore only a light scarf of lace over her head, and her hair—dim
- gold in its shadows—where the sun touched it, showed a soul of red.
- </p>
- <p>
- The younger man frowned, and asked sharply, “Who the devil is she?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the other. “One of the Queen’s women,
- probably. But whoever she is, she’s got red hair.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The younger man frowned more fiercely still. “What is she doing in the
- King’s private garden? This is a pretty state of things.” He stamped his
- foot angrily. “Go down and turn her out. And I wish measures to be taken,
- that such trespassing may not occur again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But the elder man laughed. “Hoity-toity! Calm yourself, Uncle. What would
- you have? The King is at a safe distance, hiding in one of his northern
- hunting-boxes, sulking, and nursing his spleen, as is his wont. When the
- King’s away, the palace mice will play—at <i>lèse majesté</i>, the
- thrilling game. If you wish to stop them, persuade the King to come home
- and show his face. Otherwise, we’ll gather our rosebuds while we may; and
- I’m not the man to cross a red-haired woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re the Constable of Bellefontaine,” retorted his friend, “and it’s
- your business to see that the King’s orders are respected.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The King’s orders are so seldom respectable; and then, I’ve a grand
- talent for neglecting my business. I’m trying to elevate the Constableship
- of Bellefontaine into a sinecure,” the plump man explained genially. “But
- I’m pained to see that your sense of humour is not escaping the general
- decay of your faculties. What you need is a love-affair with a red-haired
- woman; and yonder’s a red-haired woman, dropped from the skies for your
- salvation. Go—engage her in talk—and fall in love with her.
- There’s a dear,” he pleaded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dropped from the skies,” the pale man repeated, with mild scorn. “As if I
- didn’t know my Hilary! Of course, you’ve had her up your sleeve the whole
- time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon my soul and honour, you are utterly mistaken. Upon my soul and
- honour, I’ve never set eyes on her before,” Hilary asseverated warmly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well, if that’s the case,” suggested the pale man, turning back into
- the room, “let us make an earnest endeavour to talk of something else.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he next afternoon
- they were walking in the park, at some distance from the palace, when they
- came to a bridge over a bit of artificial water; and there was the woman
- of yesterday, leaning on the parapet, throwing bread-crumbs to the carp.
- She looked up as they passed, and bowed, with a little smile, in
- acknowledgment of their raised hats.
- </p>
- <p>
- When they were out of earshot, “H’m,” muttered Hilary, “viewed at close
- quarters, she’s a trifle disenchanting.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” questioned his friend. “I thought her very good-looking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She has too short a nose,” Hilary complained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the good of criticising particular features? The general effect of
- her face was highly pleasing. She looked intelligent, interesting; she
- looked as if she would have something to say,” the younger man insisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s very possible she has a tongue in her head,” admitted Hilary; “but
- we were judging her by the rules of beauty. For my fancy, she’s too tall.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s tall, but she’s well-proportioned. Indeed, her figure struck me as
- exceptionally fine. There was something sumptuous and noble about it,”
- declared the other.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are scores of women with fine figures in this world,” said Hilary.
- “But I’m sorely disappointed in her hair. Her hair is nothing like so red
- as I’d imagined.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re daft on the subject of red hair. Her hair’s not carrot-colour, if
- you come to that. But there’s plenty of red in it, burning through it. The
- red is managed with discretion—suggestively. And did you notice her
- eyes? She has remarkably nice eyes—eyes with an expression. I
- thought her eyes and mouth were charming when she smiled,” the pale man
- affirmed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “When she smiled? I didn’t see her smile,” reflected Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course she smiled—when we bowed,” his friend reminded him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Ferdinand Augustus,” Hilary remonstrated, “will you never learn to
- treat words with some consideration? You call that smiling! Two men take
- off their hats, and a woman gives them just a look of bare acknowledgment;
- and Ferdinand Augustus calls it smiling!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you have wished for a broad grin?” asked Ferdinand Augustus. “Her
- face lighted up most graciously. I thought her eyes were charming. Oh,
- she’s certainly a good-looking woman, a distinctly handsome woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Handsome is that handsome does,” said Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I miss the relevancy of that,” said Ferdinand Augustus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s a trespasser.’.was you yourself flew in a passion about it
- yesterday. Yesterday she was plucking the King’s roses; to-day she’s
- feeding the King’s carp.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “‘When the King’s away, the palace mice will play.’ I venture to recall
- your own words to you,” Ferdinand remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s all very well. Besides, I spoke in jest. But there are limits. And
- it’s I who am responsible. I’m the Constable of Bellefontaine. Her
- trespassing appears to be habitual, We’ve caught her at it ourselves, two
- days in succession. I shall give instructions to the keepers to warn her
- not to touch a flower, nor feed a bird, beast, or fish, in the whole of
- this demesne. Really, I admire the cool way in which she went on tossing
- bread-crumbs to the King’s carp under my very beard!” exclaimed Hilary,
- working himself into a fine state of indignation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very likely she didn’t know who you were,” his friend reasoned. “And
- anyhow, your zeal is mighty sudden. You appear to have been letting things
- go at loose ends for I don’t know how long; and all at once you take fire
- like tinder because a poor woman amuses herself by throwing bread to the
- carp. It’s simply spite: you’re disappointed in the colour of her hair. I
- shall esteem it a favour if you’ll leave the keeper’s instructions as they
- are. She’s a damned good-looking woman; and I’ll beg you not to interfere
- with her diversions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can deny you nothing, Uncle,” said Hilary, by this time restored to his
- accustomed easy temper; “and therefore she may make hay of the whole
- blessed establishment, if she pleases. But as for her good looks—that,
- you’ll admit, is entirely a question of taste.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well, then the conclusion is that your taste needs cultivation,”
- laughed Ferdinand. “By-the-bye, I shall be glad if you will find out who
- she is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you very much,” cried Hilary. “I have a reputation to safeguard. Do
- you think I’m going to compromise myself, and set all my underlings
- a-sniggling, by making inquiries about the identity of a woman?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But,” persisted Ferdinand, “if I ask you to do so, as your———-”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” was Hilary’s brusque interruption.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As your guest,” said Ferdinand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Mille regrets, impossible</i>, as the French have it,” Hilary
- returned. “But as your host, I give you carte-blanche to make your own
- inquiries for yourself—if you think she’s worth the trouble. Being a
- stranger here, you have, as it were, no character to lose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “After all, it doesn’t matter,” said Ferdinand Augustus, with resignation.
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p>
- But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found
- himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge over
- the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning upon the
- parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus raised his
- hat; the woman bowed and smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a fine day,” said Ferdinand Augustus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a fine day—but a weary one,” the woman responded, with an odd
- little movement of the head.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation; perhaps
- he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At any rate,
- he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this time, he
- reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what did she
- mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the day as fine,
- that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was astonishing that
- any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had really a splendid
- figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was distinguished. Her eyes
- and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling eyes, her softly curved red mouth,
- suggested many agreeable possibilities—possibilities of wit, and of
- something else. It was not till four hours later that he noticed the sound
- of her voice. At dinner, in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a
- subject in no obvious way connected with her (about the Orient Express,
- indeed—its safety, speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to
- him, and he checked a remark upon the advantages of the corridor carriage,
- to exclaim in his soul, “She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it
- would be a mezzo.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The consequence was that the following day he again bent his footsteps in
- the direction of the bridge.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a lovely afternoon,” he said, lifting his hat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But a weary one,” said she, smiling, with a little pensive movement of
- the head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not a weary one for the carp,” he hinted, glancing down at the water,
- which boiled and bubbled with a greedy multitude.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, they have no human feelings,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you call hunger a human feeling?” he inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They have no human feelings; but I never said we hadn’t plenty of carp
- feelings,” she answered him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He laughed. “At all events, I’m pleased to find that we’re of the same way
- of thinking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are we?” asked she, raising surprised eyebrows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You take a healthy pessimistic view of things,” he submitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I? Oh, dear, no. I have never taken a pessimistic view of anything in my
- life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Except of this poor summer’s afternoon, which has the fatal gift of
- beauty. You said it was a weary one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “People have sympathies,” she explained; “and besides, that is a
- watchword.” And she scattered a handful of crumbs, thereby exciting a new
- commotion among the carp.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her explanation no doubt struck Ferdinand Augustus as obscure; but,
- perhaps he felt that he scarcely knew her well enough to press for
- enlightment. “Let us hope that the fine weather will last,” he said, with
- a polite salutation, and resumed his walk.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, on the morrow, “You make a daily practice of casting your bread upon
- the waters,” was his greeting to her. “Do you expect to find it at the
- season’s end?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I find it at once,” was her response, “in entertainment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It entertains you to see those shameless little gluttons making an
- exhibition of themselves!” he cried out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must not speak disrespectfully of them,” she reproved him. “Some of
- them are very old. Carp often live to be two hundred, and they grow grey,
- for all the world like men.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They’re like men in twenty particulars,” asserted he, “though you,
- yesterday, denied it. See how the big ones elbow the little ones aside;
- see how fierce they all are in the scramble for your bounty. You wake
- their most evil passions. But the spectacle is instructive. It’s a
- miniature presentment of civilisation. Oh, carp are simply brimfull of
- human nature. You mentioned yesterday that they have no human feelings.
- You put your finger on the chief point of resemblance. It’s the absence of
- human feeling that makes them so hideously human.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at him with eyes that were interested, amused, yet not
- altogether without a shade of raillery in their depths. “That is what you
- call a healthy pessimistic view of things?” she questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is an inevitable view if one honestly uses one’s sight, or reads one’s
- newspaper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, then I would rather not honestly use my sight,” said she; “and as for
- the newspaper, I only read the fashions. Your healthy pessimistic view of
- things can hardly add much to the joy of life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The joy of life!”. he expostulated. “There’s no joy in life. Life is one
- fabric of hardship, peril, and insipidity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, how can you say that,” cried she, “in the face of such beauty as we
- have about us here? With the pure sky and the sunshine, and the wonderful
- peace of the day; and then these lawns and glades and the great green
- trees; and the sweet air, and the singing birds! No joy in life!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This isn’t life,” he answered. “People who shut themselves up in an
- artificial park are fugitives from life. Life begins at the park gates,
- with the natural countryside, and the squalid peasantry, and the sordid
- farmers, and the Jew money-lenders, and the uncertain crops.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it’s all life,” insisted she, “the park and the countryside, and the
- virgin forest and the deep sea, with all things in them. It’s all life.
- I’m alive, and I daresay you are. You would exclude from life all that is
- nice in life, and then say of the remainder, that only is life. You’re not
- logical.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heaven forbid,” he murmured devoutly. “I’m sure you’re not, either. Only
- stupid people are logical.” She laughed lightly. “My poor carp little
- dream to what far paradoxes they have led,” she mused, looking into the
- water, which was now quite tranquil. “They have sailed away to their
- mysterious affairs among the lily-roots. I should like to be a carp for a
- few minutes, to see what it is like in those cool, dark places under the
- water. I am sure there are all sorts of strange things and treasures. Do
- you believe there are really water-maidens, like Undine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not nowadays,” he informed her, with the confident fluency of one who
- knew. “There used to be; but, like so many other charming things, they
- disappeared with the invention of printing, the discovery of America, and
- the rise of the Lutheran heresy. Their prophetic souls——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but they had no souls, you remember,” she corrected him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon; that was the belief that prevailed among their mortal
- contemporaries, but it has since been ascertained that they had souls, and
- very good ones. Their prophetic souls warned them what a dreary, dried-up
- planet the earth was destined to become, with the steam-engine, the
- electric telegraph, compulsory education (falsely so called),
- constitutional government, and the supremacy of commerce. So the elder
- ones died, dissolved in tears; and the younger ones migrated by
- evaporation to Neptune.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear me, dear me,” she marvelled. “How extraordinary that we should just
- have happened to light upon a topic about which you appear to have such a
- quantity of special knowledge! And now,” she added, bending her head by
- way of valediction, “I must be returning to my duties.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she moved off, towards the palace.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, for three
- or four days, he did not see her, though he paid frequent enough visits to
- the feeding-place of the carp.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish it would rain,” he confessed to Hilary. “I hate the derisive
- cheerfulness of this weather. The birds sing, and the flowers smile, and
- every prospect breathes sodden satisfaction; and only man is bored.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I own I find you dull company,” Hilary responded, “and if I thought
- it would brisk you up, I’d pray with all my heart for rain. But what you
- need, as I’ve told you a thousand times, is a love-affair with a
- red-haired woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Love-affairs are tedious repetitions,” said Ferdinand. “You play with
- your new partner precisely the same game you played with the old: the same
- preliminary skirmishes, the same assault, the same feints of resistance,
- the same surrender, the same subsequent disenchantment. They’re all the
- same, down to the very same scenes, words, gestures, suspicions, vows,
- exactions, recriminations, and final break-ups. It’s a delusion of
- inexperience to suppose that in changing your mistress you change the
- sport. It’s the same trite old book, that you’ve read and read in
- different editions, until you’re sick of the very mention of it. To the
- deuce with love-affairs. But there’s such a thing as rational
- conversation, with no sentimental nonsense. Now, I’ll not deny that I
- should rather like to have an occasional bit of rational conversation with
- that red-haired woman we met the other day in the park. Only, the devil of
- it is, she never appears.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And then, besides, her hair isn’t red,” added Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wonder how you can talk such folly,” said Ferdinand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>C’est mon métier</i>, Uncle. You should answer me! according to it.
- Her hair’s not red. What little red there’s in it, it requires strong
- sunlight to bring out. In shadow her hair’s a sort of dull
- brownish-yellow,” Hilary persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re colour-blind,” retorted Ferdinand. “But I won’t quarrel with you.
- The point is, she never appears. So how can I have my bits of rational
- conversation with her?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How, indeed?” echoed Hilary, with pathos.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And therefore you’re invoking storm and whirlwind. But hang a horseshoe
- over your bed to-night, turn round three times as you extinguish your
- candle, and let your last thought before you fall asleep be the thought of
- a newt’s liver and a blind man’s dog; and it’s highly possible she will
- appear to-morrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I don’t know whether Ferdinand Augustus accomplished the rites that Hilary
- prescribed, but it is certain that she did appear on the morrow: not by
- the pool of the carp, but in quite another region of Bellefontaine, where
- Ferdinand Augustus was wandering at hazard, somewhat disconsolately. There
- was a wide green meadow, sprinkled with buttercups and daisies; and under
- a great tree, at this end of it, he suddenly espied her. She was seated on
- the moss, stroking with one finger-tip a cockchafer that was perched upon
- another, and regarding the little monster with intent meditative eyes. She
- wore a frock the bodice part of which was all drooping creamy lace; she
- had thrown her hat and gloves aside; her hair was in some slight, soft
- disarray; her loose sleeve had fallen back, disclosing a very perfect
- wrist and the beginning of a smooth white arm. Altogether she made an
- extremely pleasing picture, sweetly, warmly feminine. Ferdinand Augustus
- stood still, and watched her for an instant before he spoke. Then——
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have come to intercede with you on behalf of your carp,” he announced.
- “They are rending heaven with complaints of your desertion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked up, with a whimsical, languid little smile. “Are they?” she
- asked lightly. “I’m rather tired of carp.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shook his head sorrowfully. “You will permit me to admire your fine,
- frank disregard of <i>their</i> feelings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, they have the past to remember,” she said. “And perhaps some day I
- shall go back to them. For the moment I amuse myself very well with
- cockchafers. They’re less tumultuous. And then, carp won’t come and perch
- on your finger. And then, one likes a change.—Now fly away, fly
- away, fly away home; your house is on fire, and your children will burn,”
- she crooned to the cockchafer, giving it never so gentle a push. But
- instead of flying away, it dropped upon the moss, and thence began to
- stumble, clumsily, blunderingly, towards the open meadow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shouldn’t have caused the poor beast such a panic,” he reproached
- her. “You should have broken the dreadful news gradually. As you see, your
- sudden blurting of it out has deprived him of the use of his faculties.
- Don’t believe her,” he called after the cockchafer. “She’s practising upon
- your credulity. Your house isn’t on fire, and your children are all safe
- at school.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your consideration is entirely misplaced,” she assured him, with the same
- slight whimsical smile. “The cockchafer knows perfectly well that his
- house isn’t on fire, because he hasn’t got any house. Cockchafers never
- have houses. His apparent concern is sheer affectation. He’s an
- exceedingly hypocritical little cockchafer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should call him an exceedingly polite little cockchafer. Hypocrisy is
- the compliment courtesy owes to falsehood. He pretended to believe you. He
- would not have the air of doubting a lady’s word.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You came as the emissary of the carp,” she said, “and now you stay to
- defend the character of their rival.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be candid, I don’t care a hang for the carp,” he confessed brazenly.
- “The unadorned fact is that I’m immensely glad to see you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave a little laugh, and bowed with exaggerated ceremony. “<i>Grand
- merci, Monsieur; vous me faites trop d’honneur</i>,” she murmured.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, not more than you deserve. I’m a just man, and I give you your
- due. I was boring myself into melancholy madness. The afternoon lay before
- me like a bumper of dust and ashes, that I must somehow empty. And then I
- saw you, and you dashed the goblet from my lips. Thank goodness (I said to
- myself), at last there’s a human soul to talk with; the very thing I was
- pining for, a clever and sympathetic woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You take a great deal for granted,” laughed she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I know you’re clever, and it pleases me to fancy that you’re
- sympathetic. If you’re not,” he pleaded, “don’t tell me so. Let me cherish
- my illusion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She shook her head doubtfully. “I’m a poor hand at dissembling.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s an art you should study,” said he. “If we begin by feigning an
- emotion, we’re as like as not to end by genuinely feeling it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve observed for myself,” she informed him, “that if we begin by
- genuinely feeling an emotion, but rigorously conceal it, we’re as like as
- not to end by feeling it no longer. It dies of suffocation. I’ve had that
- experience quite lately. There was a certain person whom I heartily
- despised and hated; and then, as chance would have it, I was thrown two or
- three times into his company; and for motives of expediency I disguised my
- antagonism. In the end, do you know, I found myself rather liking him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, women are fearfully and wonderfully made,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so are some men,” said she. “Could you oblige me with the name and
- address of a competent witch or warlock?” she added irrelevantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What under the sun can you want with such an unholy thing?” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want a hate-charm—something that I can take at night to revive my
- hatred of the man I was speaking of.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here,” he warned her, “I’ve not come all this distance, under a
- scorching sun, to stand here now and talk of another man. Cultivate a
- contemptuous indifference towards him. Banish him from your mind and
- conversation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll try,” she consented; “though, if you were familiar with the
- circumstances, you’d recognise a certain difficulty in doing that.” She
- reached for her gloves, and began to put one on. “Will you be so good as
- to tell me the time of day?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked at his watch. “It’s nowhere near time for you to be moving yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must not trifle about affairs of state,” she said. “At a definite
- hour I have business at the palace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, for that matter, so have I. But it’s half-past four. To call
- half-past four a definite hour would be to do a violence to the language.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is earlier than I thought,” she admitted, discontinuing her operation
- with the glove.
- </p>
- <p>
- He smiled approval. “Your heart is in the right place, after all. It would
- have been inhuman to abandon me. Oh, yes, pleasantry apart, I am in a
- condition of mind in which solitude spells misery. And yet I am on
- speaking terms with but three living people whose society I prefer to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are indeed in sad case, then,” she compassionated him. “But why
- should solitude spell misery? A man of wit like you should have plenty of
- resources within himself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Am I a man of wit?” he asked innocently.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyes gleamed mischievously. “What is your opinion?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know,” he reflected. “Perhaps I might have been, if I had met a
- woman like you earlier in life.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At all events,” she laughed, “if you are not a man of wit, it is not for
- lack of courage. But why does solitude spell misery? Have you great crimes
- upon your conscience?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, nothing so amusing. But when one is alone, one thinks; and when one
- thinks—that way madness lies.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then do you never think when you are engaged in conversation?” She raised
- her eyebrows questioningly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You should be able to judge of that by the quality of my remarks. At any
- rate, I feel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you feel?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “When I am engaged in conversation with you, I feel a general sense of
- agreeable stimulation; and, in addition to that, at this particular moment———But
- are you sure you really wish to know?” he broke off.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, tell me,” she said, with curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, a furious desire to smoke a cigarette.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She laughed merrily. “I am so sorry I have no cigarettes to offer you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My pockets happen to be stuffed with them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, do, please, light one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He produced his cigarette-case, but he seemed to hesitate about lighting a
- cigarette.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you no matches?” she inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, thank you, I have matches. I was only thinking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It has become a solitude, then?” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is a case of conscience, it is an ethical dilemma. How do I know—the
- modern woman is capable of anything—how do I know that you may not
- yourself be a smoker? But if you are, it will give you pain to see me
- enjoying my cigarette, while you are without one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be civil to begin by offering me one,” she suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is exactly the liberty I dared not take—oh, there are limits
- to my boldness. But you have saved the situation.” And he offered her his
- cigarette-case.
- </p>
- <p>
- She shook her head. “Thank you, I don’t smoke.” And her eyes were full of
- teasing laughter, so that he laughed too, as he finally applied a
- match-flame to his cigarette. “But you may allow me to examine your
- cigarette-case,” she went on. “It looks like a pretty bit of silver.” And
- when he had handed it to her, she exclaimed, “It is engraved with the
- royal arms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Why not?” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Does it belong to the King?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was a present from the King.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To you? You are a friend of the King?” she asked, with some eagerness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will not deceive you,” he replied. “No, not to me. The King gave it to
- Hilary Clairevoix, the Constable of Bellefontaine; and Hilary, who’s a
- careless fellow, left it lying about in his music-room, and I came along
- and pocketed it. It is a pretty bit of silver, and I shall never restore
- it to its rightful owner if I can help it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you are a friend of the King’s?” she repeated, with insistence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have not that honour. Indeed, I have never seen him. I am a friend of
- Hilary’s; I am his guest. He has stayed with me in England—I am an
- Englishman—and now I am returning his visit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is well,” said she. “If you were a friend of the King, you would be
- an enemy of mine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” he wondered. “Why is that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hate the King,” she answered simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear me, what a capacity you have for hating! This is the second hatred
- you have avowed within the hour. What has the King done to displease you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are an Englishman. Has the King’s reputation not reached England yet?
- He is the scandal of Europe. What has he done? But no—do not
- encourage me to speak of him. I should grow too heated,” she said
- strenuously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “On the contrary, I pray of you, go on,” urged Ferdinand Augustus. “Your
- King is a character that interests me more than you can think. His
- reputation has indeed reached England, and I have conceived a great
- curiosity about him. One only hears vague rumours, to be sure, nothing
- specific; but one has learned to think of him as original and romantic.
- You know him. Tell me a lot about him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I do not know him personally. That is an affliction I have as yet
- been spared.” Then, suddenly, “Mercy upon me, what have I said!” she
- cried. “I must ’knock wood,’ or the evil spirits will bring me that
- mischance to-morrow.” And she fervently tapped the bark of the tree beside
- her with her knuckles.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ferdinand Augustus laughed. “But if you do not know him personally, why do
- you hate him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know him very well by reputation. I know how he lives, I know what he
- does and leaves undone. If you are curious about him, ask your friend
- Hilary. He is the King’s foster-brother. <i>He</i> could tell you
- stories,” she added meaningly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have asked him. But Hilary’s lips are sealed. He depends upon the
- King’s protection for his fortune, and the palace-walls (I suppose he
- fears) have ears. But you can speak without danger. He is the scandal of
- Europe? There’s nothing I love like scandal. Tell me all about him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have not come all this distance, under a scorching sun, to stand here
- now and talk of another man,” she reminded him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but kings are different,” he argued. “Tell me about your King.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can tell you at once,” said she, “that our King is the frankest egotist
- in two hemispheres. You have learned to think of him as original and
- romantic? No; he is simply intensely selfish and intensely silly. He is a
- King Do-Nothing, a Roi Fainéant, who shirks and evades all the duties and
- responsibilities of his position; who builds extravagant chateaux in
- remote parts of the country, and hides in them, alone with a few obscure
- companions; who will never visit his capital, never show his face to his
- subjects; who takes no sort of interest in public business or the welfare
- of his kingdom, and leaves the entire government to his ministers; who
- will not even hold a court, or give balls or banquets; who, in short, does
- nothing that a king ought to do, and might, for all the good we get of
- him, be a mere stranger in the land, a mere visitor, like yourself. So
- closely does he seclude himself that I doubt if there be a hundred people
- in the whole country who have ever seen him, to know him. If he travels
- from one place to another, it is always in the strictest incognito, and
- those who then chance to meet him never have any reason to suspect that he
- is not a private person. His very effigy on the coin of the realm is
- reputed to be false, resembling him in no wise. But I could go on for
- ever,” she said, bringing her indictment to a termination.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really,” said Ferdinand Augustus, “I cannot see that you have alleged
- anything very damaging. A Roi Fainéant? But every king of a modern
- constitutional state is, willy-nilly, that. He can do nothing but sign
- bills which he generally disapproves of, lay foundation-stones, set the
- fashion in hats, and bow and look pleasant as he drives through the
- streets. He has no power for good, and mighty little for evil. He is just
- a State Prisoner. It seems to me that your particular King has shown some
- sense in trying to escape so much as he may of the prison’s irksomeness. I
- should call it rare bad luck to be born a king. Either you’ve got to shirk
- your kingship, and then fair ladies dub you the scandal of Europe; or else
- you’ve got to accept it, and then you’re as happy as a man in a
- strait-waistcoat. And then, and then! Oh, I can think of a thousand
- unpleasantnesses attendant upon the condition of a king. Your King, as I
- understand it, has said to himself, ’Hang it all, I didn’t ask to be born
- a king, but since that is my misfortune, I will seek to mitigate it as
- much as I am able. I am, on the whole, a human being, with a human life to
- live, and only, probably, threescore-and-ten years in which to live it.
- Very good; I will live my life. I will lay no foundation-stones, nor drive
- about the streets bowing and looking pleasant. I will live my life, alone
- with the few people I find to my liking. I will take the cash and let the
- credit go.’ I am bound to say,” concluded Ferdinand Augustus, “that your
- King has done exactly what I should have done in his place.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will never, at least,” said she, “defend the shameful manner in which
- he has behaved towards the Queen. It is for that, I hate him. It is for
- that, that we, the Queen’s gentlewomen, have adopted ’7’ is a weary day as
- a watchword. It will be a weary day until we see the King on his knees at
- the Queen’s feet, craving her forgiveness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh? What has he done to the Queen?” asked Ferdinand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What has he done! Humiliated her as never woman was humiliated before. He
- married her by proxy at her father’s court; and she was conducted with
- great pomp and circumstance into his kingdom—to find what? That he
- had fled to one of his absurd castles in the north, and refused to see
- her! He has remained there ever since, hiding like—but there is
- nothing in created space to compare him to. Is it the behaviour of a
- gentleman, of a gallant man, not to say a king?” she cried warmly, looking
- up at him with shining eyes, her cheeks faintly flushed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ferdinand Augustus bowed. “The Queen is fortunate in her advocate. I have
- not heard the King’s side of the story. I can, however, imagine excuses
- for him. Suppose that his ministers, for reasons of policy, importuned and
- importuned him to marry a certain princess, until he yielded in mere
- fatigue. In that case, why should he be bothered further? Why should he
- add one to the tedious complications of existence by meeting the bride he
- never desired? Is it not sufficient that, by his complaisance, she should
- have gained the rank and title of a queen? Besides, he may be in love with
- another woman. Or perhaps—but who can tell? He may have twenty
- reasons. And anyhow, you cannot deny to the situation the merit of being
- highly ridiculous. A husband and wife who are not personally acquainted!
- It is a delicious commentary upon the whole system of marriages by proxy.
- You confirm my notion that your King is original.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He may have twenty reasons,” answered she, “but he had better have twenty
- terrors. It is perfectly certain that the Queen will be revenged.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How so?” asked Ferdinand Augustus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Queen is young, high-spirited, moderately good-looking, and
- unspeakably incensed. Trust a young, high-spirited, and handsome woman,
- outraged by her husband, to know how to avenge herself. Oh, some day he
- will see.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well, he must take his chances,” Ferdinand sighed. “Perhaps he is
- liberal-minded enough not to care.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am far from meaning the vulgar revenge you fancy,” she put in quickly.
- “The Queen’s revenge will be subtle and unexpected. She is no fool, and
- she will not rest until she has achieved it. Oh, he will see!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I had imagined it was the curse of royalty to be without true friends,”
- said Ferdinand Augustus. “The Queen has a very ardent one in you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am afraid I cannot altogether acquit myself of interested motives,” she
- disclaimed modestly. “I am of her Majesty’s household, and my fortunes
- must rise and fall with hers. But I am honestly indignant with the King.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The poor King! Upon my soul, he has my sympathy,” said Ferdinand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are terribly ironical,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Irony was ten thousand leagues from my intention,” he protested. “In all
- sincerity the object of your indignation has my sympathy. I trust you will
- not consider it an impertinence if I say that I already count you among
- the few people I have met whose good opinion is a matter to be coveted.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She had risen while he was speaking, and now she bobbed him a little
- curtsey. “I will show my appreciation of yours, by taking flight before
- anything can happen to alter it,” she laughed, moving away.
- </p>
- <h3>
- V
- </h3>
- <p>
- “You are singularly animated to-night,” said Hilary, contemplating him
- across the dinner-table; “yet, at the same time, singularly abstracted.
- You have the air of a man who is rolling something pleasant under his
- tongue, something sweet and secret: it might be a hope, it might be a
- recollection. Where have you passed the afternoon? You’ve been about some
- mischief, I’ll warrant. By Jove, you set me thinking. I’ll wager a penny
- you’ve been having a bit of rational conversation with that brown-haired
- woman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her hair is red,” Ferdinand Augustus rejoined, with firmness. “And her
- conversation,” he added sadly, “is anything you please but rational. She
- spent her whole time picking flaws in the character of the King. She
- talked downright treason. She said he was the scandal of Europe and the
- frankest egotist in two hemispheres.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah? She appears to have some instinct for the correct use of language,”
- commented Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All the same, I rather like her,” Ferdinand went on, “and I’m half
- inclined to undertake her conversion. She has a gorgeous figure—there’s
- something rich and voluptuous about it. And there are depths of promise in
- her eyes; there are worlds of humour and of passion. And she has a mouth—oh,
- of a fulness, of a softness, of a warmth! And a chin, and a throat, and
- hands! And then, her voice. There’s a mellowness yet a crispness, there’s
- a vibration, there’s a something in her voice that assures you of a golden
- temperament beneath it. In short, I’m half inclined to follow your advice,
- and go in for a love-adventure with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but love-adventures—I have it on high authority—are
- damnable iterations,” objected Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is very true; they are,” Ferdinand agreed. “But the life of man is
- woven of damnable iterations. Tell me of any single thing that isn’t a
- damnable iteration, and I’ll give you a quarter of my fortune. The day and
- the night, the seasons and the years, the fair weather and the foul,
- breakfast and luncheon and dinner—all are damnable iterations. If
- there’s any reality behind the doctrine of metempsychosis, death, too, is
- a damnable iteration. There’s no escaping damnable iterations: there’s
- nothing new under the sun. But as long as one is alive, one must do
- something. It’s sure to be something in its essence identical with
- something one has done before; but one must do something. Why not, then, a
- love-adventure with a woman that attracts you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Women are a pack of samenesses,” said Hilary despondently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so,” assented Ferdinand. “Women, and men too, are a pack of
- samenesses. We’re all struck with the same die, of the same metal, at the
- same mint. Our resemblance is intrinsic, fundamental; our differences are
- accidental and skin deep. We have the same features, organs, dimensions,
- with but a hair’s-breadth variation; the same needs, instincts,
- propensities; the same hopes, fears, ideas. One man’s meat is another
- man’s meat; one man’s poison is another man’s poison. We are as like to
- one another as the leaves on the same tree. Skin us, and (save for your
- fat) the most skilled anatomist could never distinguish you from me. Women
- are a pack of samenesses; but, hang it all, one has got to make the best
- of a monotonous universe. And this particular woman, with her red hair and
- her eyes, strikes me as attractive. She has some fire in her composition,
- some fire and flavour. Anyhow, she attracts me; and—I think I shall
- try my luck.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Nunky, Nunky,” murmured Hilary, shaking his head, “I am shocked by
- your lack of principle. Have you forgotten that you are a married man?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That will be my safeguard. I can make love to her with a clear
- conscience. If I were single, she might, justifiably enough, form
- matrimonial expectations for herself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not if she knew you,” said Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, but she doesn’t know me—and shan’t,” said Ferdinand Augustus.
- “I will take care of that.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, for what
- seemed to him an eternity, he never once encountered her. Morning and
- afternoon, day after day, he roamed the park of Bellefontaine from end to
- end, in all directions, but never once caught sight of so much as the
- flutter of her garments. And the result was that he began to grow
- seriously sentimental. “<i>Im wunderschônen Monat Mai!</i>” It was June,
- to be sure; but the meteorological influences were, for that, only the
- more potent. He remembered her shining eyes now as not merely whimsical
- and ardent, but as pensive, appealing, tender; he remembered her face as a
- face seen in starlight, ethereal and mystic; and her voice as low music
- far away. He recalled their last meeting as a treasure he had possessed
- and lost; he blamed himself for the frivolity of his talk and manner, and
- for the ineffectual impression of him this must have left upon her.
- Perpetually thinking of her, he was perpetually sighing, perpetually
- suffering strange, sudden, half painful, half delicious commotions in the
- tissues of his heart. Every morning he rose with a replenished fund of
- hope: this day at last would produce her. Every night he went to bed
- pitying himself as bankrupt of hope. And all the while, though he pined to
- talk of her, a curious bashfulness withheld him; so that, between him and
- Hilary, for quite a fortnight she was not mentioned. It was Hilary who
- broke the silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why so pale and wan?” Hilary asked him. “Will, when looking well won’t
- move her, looking ill prevail?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I am seriously love-sick,” cried Ferdinand Augustus, welcoming the
- subject. “I went in for a sensation, and I’ve got a real emotion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor youth! And she won’t look at you, I suppose?” was Hilary’s method of
- commiseration.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have not seen her for a mortal fortnight. She has completely vanished.
- And for the first time in my life I’m seriously in love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re incapable of being seriously in love,” said Hilary.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I had always thought so myself,” admitted Ferdinand Augustus. “The most I
- had ever felt for any woman was a sort of mere lukewarm desire, a sort of
- mere meaningless titillation. But this woman is different. She’s as
- different to other women as wine is different to toast-and-water. She has
- the <i>feu-sacré</i>. She’s done something to the very inmost soul of me;
- she’s laid it bare, and set it quivering and yearning. She’s made herself
- indispensable to me; I can’t live without her. Ah, you don’t know what
- she’s like. She’s like some strange, beautiful, burning spirit. Oh, for an
- hour with her I’d give my kingdom. To touch her hand—to look into
- those eyes of hers—to hear her speak to me! I tell you squarely, if
- she’d have me, I’d throw up the whole scheme of my existence, I’d fly with
- her to the uttermost ends of the earth. But she has totally disappeared,
- and I can do nothing to recover her without betraying my identity; and
- that would spoil everything. I want her to love me for myself, believing
- me to be a plain man, like you or anybody. If she knew who I am, how could
- I ever be sure?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You <i>are</i> in a bad way,” said Hilary, looking at him with amusement.
- “And yet, I’m gratified to see it. Her hair is not so red as I could wish,
- but, after all, it’s reddish; and you appear to be genuinely aflame. It
- will do you no end of good; it will make a man of you—a plain man,
- like me or anybody. But your impatience is not reasoned. A fortnight? You
- have not met her for a fortnight? My dear, to a plain man (like me or
- anybody) a fortnight’s nothing. It’s just an appetiser. Watch and wait,
- and you’ll meet her before you know it. And now, if you will excuse me, I
- have business in another quarter of the palace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Ferdinand Augustus, left to himself, went down into the garden. It was a
- wonderful summer’s evening, made indeed (if I may steal a phrase from
- Hilary) of perfumed velvet. The sun had set an hour since, but the western
- sky was still splendid, like a dark banner, with sombre reds and purples;
- and in the east hung the full moon, so brilliant, so apposite, as to seem
- somehow almost like a piece of premeditated decoration. The waters of the
- fountains flashed silverly in its light; glossy leaves gave back dim
- reflections; here and there, embowered among the trees, white statues
- gleamed ghost-like. Away in the park somewhere, innumerable frogs were
- croaking, croaking; subdued by distance, the sound gained a quality that
- was plaintive and unearthly. The long façade of the palace lay obscure in
- shadow; only at the far end, in the Queen’s apartments, were the windows
- alight. But, quite close at hand, the moon caught a corner of the terrace;
- and here, presently, Ferdinand Augustus became aware of a human figure. A
- woman was standing alone by the balustrade, gazing out into the wondrous
- night. Ferdinand Augustus’s heart began to pound; and it was a full minute
- before he could command himself sufficiently to move or speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last, however, he approached her. “Good evening,” he said, looking up
- from the pathway.
- </p>
- <p>
- She glanced down at him, leaning upon the balustrade. “Oh, how do you do?”
- She smiled her surprise. She was in evening dress, a white robe
- embroidered with pearls, and she wore a tiara of pearls in her hair. She
- had a light cloak thrown over her shoulders, a little cape trimmed with
- swan’s-down. “Heavens!” thought Ferdinand Augustus. “How magnificent she
- is!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a hundred years since I have seen you,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, is it so long as that? I should have imagined it was something like a
- fortnight. Time passes quickly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is a question of psychology. But now at last I find you when I least
- expect you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have slipped out for a moment,” she explained, “to enjoy this beautiful
- prospect. One has no such view from the Queen’s end of the terrace. One
- cannot see the moon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot see the moon from where I am standing,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, because you have turned your back upon it,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have chosen between two visions. If you were to authorise me to join
- you, aloft there, I could see both.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have no power to authorise you,” she laughed, “the terrace is not my
- property. But if you choose to take the risks——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” he cried, “you are good, you are kind.” And in an instant he had
- joined her on the terrace, and his heart was fluttering wildly with its
- sense of her nearness to him. He could not speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, now you can see the moon. Is it all your fancy painted?” she asked,
- with her whimsical smile. Her face was exquisitely pale in the moonlight,
- her eyes glowed. Her voice was very soft.
- </p>
- <p>
- His heart was fluttering wildly, poignantly. “Oh,” he began, but broke
- off. His breath trembled. “I cannot speak,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- She arched her eyebrows; “Then we have made some mistake. This will never
- be you, in that case.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, it is I. It is the other fellow, the gabbler, who is not
- myself,” he contrived to tell her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You lead a double life, like the villain in the play?” she suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must have your laugh at my expense; have it, and welcome. But I know
- what I know,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you know?” she asked quickly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know that I am in love with you,” he answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, only that,” she said, with an air of relief.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Only that. But that is a great deal. I know that I love you—oh,
- yes, unutterably. If you could see yourself! You are absolutely unique
- among women. I would never have believed it possible for any woman to make
- me feel what you have made me feel. I have never spoken like this to any
- woman in all my life. Oh, you may laugh. It is the truth, upon my word of
- honour. If you could look into your eyes—yes, even when you are
- laughing at me! I can see your wonderful burning spirit shining deep, deep
- in your eyes. You do not dream how different you are to other women. You
- are a wonderful burning poem. They are platitudes. Oh, I love you
- unutterably. There has not been an hour since I last saw you that I have
- not thought of you, loved you, longed for you. And now here you stand, you
- yourself, beside me! If you could see into my heart, if you could see what
- I feel!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at the moon, with a strange little smile, and was silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you not speak to me?” he cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would you have me say?” she asked, still looking away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you know, you know what I would have you say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am afraid you will not like the only thing I can say.” She turned, and
- met his eyes. “I am a married woman, and—I am in love with my
- husband.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Ferdinand Augustus stood aghast. “Oh, my God!” he groaned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, though he has given me little enough reason to do so, I have fallen
- in love with him,” she went on pitilessly. “So you must get over your
- fancy for me. After all, I am a total stranger to you. You do not even
- know my name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you tell me your name?” asked Ferdinand humbly. “It will be
- something to remember.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My name is Marguerite.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Marguerite! Marguerite!” He repeated it caressingly. “It is a beautiful
- name. But it is also the name of the Queen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am the only person named Marguerite in the Queen’s court,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” cried Ferdinand Augustus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it is a wise husband who knows his own wife,” laughed she.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then.... But I think I have told enough.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE FRIEND OF MAN
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he other evening,
- in the Casino, the satisfaction of losing my money at petits-chevaux
- having begun to flag a little, I wandered into the Cercle, the reserved
- apartments in the west wing of the building, where they were playing
- baccarat.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thanks to the heat, the windows were open wide; and through them one could
- see, first, a vivid company of men and women, strolling backwards and
- forwards, and chattering busily, in the electric glare on the terrace; and
- then, beyond them, the sea—smooth, motionless, sombre; silent,
- despite its perpetual whisper; inscrutable, sinister; merging itself with
- the vast blackness of space. Here and there the black was punctured by a
- pin-point of fire, a tiny vacillating pin-point of fire; and a landsman’s
- heart quailed for a moment at the thought of lonely vessels braving the
- mysteries and terrors and the awful solitudes of the sea at night....
- </p>
- <p>
- So that the voice of the croupier, perfunctory, machine-like, had almost a
- human, almost a genial effect, as it rapped out suddenly, calling upon the
- players to mark their play. “Marquez vos jeux, messieurs. Quarante louis
- par tableau.” It brought one back to light and warmth and security, to the
- familiar earth, and the neighbourhood of men.
- </p>
- <p>
- One’s pleasure was fugitive, however.
- </p>
- <p>
- The neighbourhood of men, indeed! The neighbourhood of some two score very
- commonplace, very sordid men, seated or standing about an ugly green
- table, intent upon a game of baccarat, in a long, rectangular, ugly,
- gas-lit room. The banker dealt, and the croupier shouted, and the punters
- punted, and the ivory counters and mother-of-pearl plaques were swept now
- here, now there; and that was all. Everybody was smoking, of course; but
- the smell of the live cigarettes couldn’t subdue the odour of dead ones,
- the stagnant, acrid odour of stale tobacco, with which the walls and
- hangings of the place were saturated.
- </p>
- <p>
- The thing and the people were as banale, as unremunerative, as things and
- people for the most part are; and dispiriting, dispiriting. There was a
- hardness in the banality, a sort of cold ferocity, ill-repressed. One
- turned away, bored, revolted. It was better, after all, to look at the
- sea; to think of the lonely vessel, far out there, where a pin-point of
- fire still faintly blinked and glimmered in the illimitable darkness....
- </p>
- <p>
- But the voice of the croupier was insistent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Faites vos jeux, messieurs. Cinquante louis par tableau. Vos jeux sont
- faits? Rien ne va plus.” It was suggestive, persuasive, besides, to one
- who has a bit of a gambler’s soul. I saw myself playing, I felt the
- poignant tremor of the instant of suspense, while the result is uncertain,
- the glow that comes if you have won, the twinge if you have lost. “La
- banque est aux enchères,” the voice announced presently; and I moved
- towards the table.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sums bid were not extravagant. Ten, fifteen, twenty louis; thirty,
- fifty, eighty, a hundred.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cent louis? Cent? Cent?—Cent louis à la banque,” cried the
- inevitable voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- I glanced at the man who had taken the bank for a hundred louis. I glanced
- at him, and, all at once, by no means without emotion, I recognised him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was a tall, thin man, and very old. He had the hands of a very old man,
- dried-up, shrunken hands, with mottled-yellow skin, dark veins that stood
- out like wires, and parched finger-nails. His face, too, was
- mottled-yellow, deepening to brown about the eyes, with grey wrinkles, and
- purplish lips. He was clearly very old; eighty, or more than eighty.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was dressed entirely in black: a black frock-coat, black trousers, a
- black waistcoat, cut low, and exposing an unusual quantity of shirt-front,
- three black studs, and a black tie, a stiff, narrow bow. These latter
- details, however, save when some chance motion on his part revealed them,
- were hidden by his beard, a broad, abundant beard, that fell a good ten
- inches down his breast. His hair, also, was abundant, and he wore it long;
- trained straight back from his forehead, hanging in a fringe about the
- collar of his coat. Hair and beard, despite his manifest great age, were
- without a spear of white. They were of a dry, inanimate brown, a hue to
- which they had faded (one surmised) from black.
- </p>
- <p>
- If it was surprising to see so old a man at a baccarat table, it was still
- more surprising to see just this sort of man. He looked like anything in
- the world, rather than a gambler. With his tall wasted figure, with his
- patriarchal beard, his long hair trained in that rigid fashion straight
- back from his forehead; with his stern aquiline profile, his dark eyes,
- deep-set and wide-apart, melancholy, thoughtful: he looked—what
- shall I say? He looked like anything in the world, rather than a gambler.
- He looked like a <i>savant</i>, he looked like a philosopher; he looked
- intellectual, refined, ascetic even; he looked as if he had ideas,
- convictions; he looked grave and wise and sad. Holding the bank at
- baccarat, in this vulgar company at the Grand Cercle of the Casino,
- dealing the cards with his withered hands, studying them with his deep
- meditative eyes, he looked improbable, inadmissible, he looked supremely
- out of place.
- </p>
- <p>
- I glanced at him, and wondered. And then, suddenly, my heart gave a jump,
- my throat began to tingle.
- </p>
- <p>
- I had recognised him. It was rather more than ten years since I had seen
- him last; and in ten years he had changed, he had decayed, terribly. But I
- was quite sure, quite sure.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By Jove,” I thought, “it’s Ambrose—it’s Augustus Ambrose! It’s the
- Friend of Man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Augustus Ambrose? I daresay the name conveys nothing to you? And yet,
- forty, thirty, twenty years ago, Augustus Ambrose was not without his
- measure of celebrity in the world. If hardly any one had read his
- published writings, if few had any but the dimmest notion of what his
- theories and aims were, almost everybody had at least heard of him, almost
- everybody knew at least that there was such a man, and that the man had
- theories and aims—of some queer radical sort. One knew, in vague
- fashion, that he had disciples, that there were people here and there who
- called themselves “Ambrosites.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I say twenty years ago. But twenty years ago he was already pretty well
- forgotten. I imagine the moment of his utmost notoriety would have fallen
- somewhere in the fifties or the sixties, somewhere between ’55 and ’68.
- </p>
- <p>
- And if my sudden recognition of him in the Casino made my heart give a
- jump, there was sufficient cause. During the greater part of my childhood,
- Augustus Ambrose lived with us, was virtually a member of our family. Then
- I saw a good deal of him again, when I was eighteen, nineteen; and still
- again, when I was four- or five-and-twenty.
- </p>
- <p>
- He lived with us, indeed, from the time when I was scarcely more than a
- baby till I was ten or eleven; so that in my very farthest memories he is
- a personage—looking backwards, I see him in the earliest, palest
- dawn: a tall man, dressed in black, with long hair and a long beard, who
- was always in our house, and who used to be frightfully severe; who would
- turn upon me with a most terrifying frown if I misconducted myself in his
- presence, who would loom up unexpectedly from behind closed doors, and
- utter a soul-piercing <i>hist-hist</i>, if I was making a noise: a sort of
- domesticated Croquemitaine, whom we had always with us.
- </p>
- <p>
- Always? Not quite always, though; for, when I stop to think, I remember
- there would be breathing spells: periods during which he would disappear—during
- which you could move about the room, and ask questions, and even (at a
- pinch) upset things, without being frowned at; during which you could
- shout lustily at your play, unoppressed by the fear of a black figure
- suddenly opening the door and freezing you with a <i>hist-hist</i>; during
- which, in fine, you could forget the humiliating circumstance that
- children are called into existence to be seen and not heard, with its
- irksome moral that they should never speak unless they are spoken to.
- Then, one morning, I would wake up, and find that he was in the house
- again. He had returned during the night.
- </p>
- <p>
- That was his habit, to return at night. But on one occasion, at least, he
- returned in the daytime. I remember driving with my father and mother, in
- our big open carriage, to the railway station, and then driving back home
- with Mr. Ambrose added to our party. Why I—a child of six or seven,
- between whom and our guest surely no love was lost—why I was taken
- upon this excursion, I can’t at all conjecture; I suppose my people had
- their reasons. Anyhow, I recollect the drive home with particular
- distinctness. Two things impressed me. First, Mr. Ambrose, who always
- dressed in black, wore a <i>brown</i> overcoat; I remember gazing at it
- with bemused eyes, and reflecting that it was exactly the colour of gravy.
- And secondly, I gathered from his conversation that he had been in prison!
- Yes. I gathered that he had been in Rome (we were living in Florence), and
- that one day he had been taken up by the policemen, and put in prison!
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, I could say nothing; but what I felt, what I thought! Mercy
- upon us, that we should know a man, that a man should live with us, who
- had been taken up and put in prison! I fancied him dragged through the
- streets by two gendarmes, struggling with them, and followed by a crowd of
- dirty people. I felt that our family was disgraced, we who had been the
- pink of respectability; my cheeks burned, and I hung my head. I could say
- nothing; but oh, the grief, the shame, I nursed in secret! Mr. Ambrose,
- who lived with us, whose standards of conduct (for children, at any rate)
- were so painfully exalted, Mr. Ambrose had done something terrible, and
- had been found out, and put in prison for it! Mr. Ambrose, who always
- dressed in black, had suddenly tossed his bonnet over the mills, and
- displayed himself cynically in an overcoat of rakish, dare-devil brown—the
- colour of gravy! Somehow, the notion pursued me, there must be a
- connection between his overcoat and his crime.
- </p>
- <p>
- The enormity of the affair preyed upon my spirit, day after day, night
- after night, until, in the end, I could endure it silently no longer; and
- I spoke to my mother.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is Mr. Ambrose a burglar?” I enquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- I remember my mother’s perplexity, and then, when I had alleged the
- reasons for my question, her exceeding mirth. I remember her calling my
- father; and my father, also, laughed prodigiously, and he went to the
- door, and cried, “Ambrose! Ambrose!” And when Mr. Ambrose came, and the
- incident was related to him, even he laughed a little, even his stern face
- relaxed.
- </p>
- <p>
- When, by-and-by, they had all stopped laughing, and Mr. Ambrose had gone
- back to his own room, my father and mother, between them, explained the
- matter to me. “Mr. Ambrose, I must understand, (they said), was one of the
- greatest, and wisest, and best men in the world. He spent his whole life
- “doing good.” When he was at home, with us, he was working hard, all day
- long and late into the night, writing books H to “do good”—that was
- why he so often had a headache and couldn’t bear any noise in the house.
- And when he went away, when he was absent, it was to “do good” somewhere
- else. I had seen the poor people in the streets? I knew that there were
- thousands and thousands of people in the world, grown-up people, and
- children like myself, who had to wear ragged clothing, and live in
- dreadful houses, and eat bad food, or go hungry perhaps, all because they
- were so poor? Well, Mr. Ambrose spent his whole life doing good to those
- poor people, working hard for them, so that some day they might be rich,
- and clean, and happy, like us. But in Rome there was a very wicked, very
- cruel man, a cardinal: Cardinal Antonelli was his name. And Cardinal
- Antonelli hated people who did good, and was always trying to kidnap them
- and put them in prison. And that was what had happened to Mr. Ambrose. He
- had been doing good to the poor people in Rome, and Cardinal Antonelli had
- got wind of it, and had sent his awful <i>sbirri</i> to seize him and put
- him in prison. But the Pope was a very good man, too; very just, and kind,
- and merciful; as good as it was possible for any man to be. Only,
- generally, he was so busy with the great spiritual cares of his office,
- that he couldn’t pay much attention to the practical government of his
- City. He left that to Cardinal Antonelli, never suspecting how wicked he
- was, for the Cardinal constantly deceived him. But when the Pope heard
- that the great and good Mr. Ambrose had been put in prison, his Holiness
- was shocked and horrified, and very angry; and he sent for the Cardinal,
- and gave him a sound piece of his mind, and ordered him to let Mr. Ambrose
- out directly. And so Mr. Ambrose had been let out, and had come back to
- us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a relief, no doubt, to learn that our guest was not a burglar, but
- I am afraid the knowledge of his excessive goodness left me somewhat cold.
- Or, rather, if it influenced my feeling for him in any way, I fancy it
- only magnified my awe. He was one of the greatest, and wisest, and best
- men in the world, and he spent his entire time doing good to the poor. <i>Bene</i>;
- that was very nice for the poor. But for me? It did not make him a bit
- less severe, or cross, or testy; it did not make him a bit less an
- uncomfortable person to have in the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- Indeed, the character, in a story such as I had heard, most likely to
- affect a child’s imagination, would pretty certainly have been, not the
- hero, but the villain. Mr. Ambrose and his virtues moved one to scant
- enthusiasm; but Cardinal Antonelli! In describing him as wicked, and
- cruel, and deceitful, my people were simply using the language, expressing
- the sentiment, of the country and the epoch: of Italy before 1870. In
- those days, if you were a Liberal, if you sympathised with the Italian
- party, as opposed to the Papal, and especially if you were a Catholic
- withal, and so could think no evil of the Pope himself—then Heaven
- help the reputation of Cardinal Antonelli! For my part, I saw a big man in
- a cassock, with a dark, wolfish face, and a bunch of great iron keys at
- his girdle, who prowled continually about the streets of Rome, attended by
- a gang of ruffian shim, seeking whom he could kidnap and put in prison. So
- that when, not very long after this, we went to Rome for a visit, my heart
- misgave me; it seemed as if we were marching headlong into the ogre’s den,
- wantonly courting peril. And during the month or two of our sojourn there,
- I believe I was never quite easy in my mind. At any moment we might all be
- captured, loaded with chains, and cast into prison: horrible stone
- dungeons, dark and wet, infested by rats and spiders, where we should have
- to sleep on straw, where they would give us nothing but bread and water to
- eat and drink.
- </p>
- <p>
- Charlatan. Impostor.
- </p>
- <p>
- I didn’t know what the words meant, but they stuck in my memory, and I
- felt that they were somehow appropriate. It was during that same visit to
- Rome that I had heard them. My Aunt Elizabeth, with whom we were staying,
- had applied them, in her vigorous way, to Mr. Ambrose (whom we had left
- behind us, in Florence). “Poh! An empty windbag, a canting egotist, a
- twopenny-halfpenny charlatan, a cheap impostor,” she had exclaimed, in the
- course of a discussion with my father.
- </p>
- <p>
- Charlatan, impostor: yes, that was it. A man who never did anything but
- make himself disagreeable—who never petted you, or played with you,
- or told you stories, or gave you things—who never, in fact, took any
- notice of you at all, except to frown, and say <i>hist-hist</i>, when you
- were enjoying yourself—well, he might be one of the greatest, and
- best, and wisest men in the world, but, anyhow, he was a charlatan and an
- impostor. I had Aunt Elizabeth’s authority for that.
- </p>
- <p>
- One day, after our return to Florence, my second-cousin Isabel (she was
- thirteen, and I was in love with her)—my second-cousin Isabel was
- playing the piano, alone with me, in the schoolroom, when Mr. Ambrose
- opened the door, and said, in his testiest manner: “Stop that noise—stop
- that noise!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He’s a horrid pig,” cried Isabel, as soon as his back was turned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no; he isn’t a pig,” I protested. “He’s one of the greatest, and
- wisest, and best men in the world, so of course he can’t be a horrid pig.
- But I’ll tell you what he <i>is</i>. He’s a charlatan and an impostor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really? How do you know?” Isabel wondered. “I heard Aunt Elizabeth tell
- my father so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, well, then it must be true,” Isabel assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- He lived with us till I was ten or eleven, at first in Florence, and
- afterwards in Paris. All day long he would sit in his room and write, (on
- the most beautiful, smooth, creamy paper—what wouldn’t I have given
- to have acquired some of it for my own literary purposes!) and in the
- evening he would receive visitors: oh, such funny people, so unlike the
- people who came to see my mother and father. The men, for example, almost
- all of them, as Mr. Ambrose himself did, wore their hair long, so that it
- fell about their collars; whilst almost all the women had their hair cut
- short. And then, they dressed so funnily: the women in the plainest
- garments—skirts and jackets, without a touch of ornament; the men in
- sombreros and Spanish cloaks, instead of ordinary hats and coats. They
- would come night after night, and pass rapidly through the outer regions
- of our establishment, and disappear in Mr. Ambrose’s private room. And
- thence I could hear their voices, murmuring, murmuring, after I had gone
- to bed. At the same time, very likely, in another part of the house, my
- mother would be entertaining another company, such a different company—beautiful
- ladies, in bright-hued silks, with shining jewels, and diamond-dust in
- their hair (yes, in that ancient period, ladies of fashion, on the
- Continent at least, used to powder their hair with a glittering substance
- known as “diamond-dust”) and officers in gold-embroidered uniforms, and
- men in dress-suits. And there would be music, and dancing, or theatricals,
- or a masquerade, and always a lovely supper—to some of whose
- unconsumed delicacies I would fall heir next day.
- </p>
- <p>
- Only four of Mr. Ambrose’s visitors at all detach themselves, as
- individuals, from the cloud.
- </p>
- <p>
- One was Mr. Oddo Yodo. Mr. Oddo Yodo was a small, grey-bearded,
- dark-skinned Hungarian gentleman, with another name, something like Polak
- or Bolak. But I called him Mr. Oddo Yodo, because whenever we met, on his
- way to or from the chamber of Mr. Ambrose, he would bow to me, and smile
- pleasantly, and say: “Oddo Yodo, Oddo Yodo.” I discovered, in the end,
- that he was paying me the compliment of saluting me in my native tongue.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another was an Irishman, named Slevin. I remember him, a burly creature,
- with a huge red beard, because one day he arrived at our house in a state
- of appalling drunkenness. I remember the incredulous dismay with which I
- saw a man in that condition enter our very house. I remember our old
- servant, Alexandre, supporting him to Mr. Ambrose’s door, nodding his head
- and making a face the while, to signify his opinion.
- </p>
- <p>
- Still another was a pale young Italian priest, with a tonsure, round and
- big as a five-shilling piece, shorn in the midst of a dense growth of
- blue-black hair, upon which I always vaguely longed to put my finger, to
- see how it would feel. I forget his name, but I shall never forget the
- man, for he had an extraordinary talent; he could write <i>upside-down</i>.
- He would take a sheet of paper, and, beginning with the last letter, write
- my name for me upside-down, terminating it at the first initial with a
- splendid flourish. You will not wonder that I remember him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The visitor that I remember best, though, was a woman named Arseneff. She
- had short sandy hair, and she dressed in the ugliest black frocks, and she
- wore steel-rimmed spectacles; but she was a dear soul, notwithstanding.
- One afternoon she was shown into the room where I chanced to be studying
- my arithmetic lesson, to wait for Mr. Ambrose. And first, she sat down
- beside me, in the kindest fashion, and helped me out with my sums; and
- then (it is conceivable that I may have encouraged her by some
- cross-questioning) she told me the saddest, saddest story about herself.
- She told me that her husband had been the editor of a newspaper in Russia,
- and that he had published an article in his paper, saying that there ought
- to be schools where the poor people, who had to work all day, could go in
- the evening, and learn to read and write. And just for that, for nothing
- more than that, her husband and her two sons, who were his
- assistant-editors, had been arrested, and chained up with murderers and
- thieves and all the worst sorts of criminals, and forced to march, <i>on
- foot</i>, across thousands of miles of snow-covered country, to Siberia,
- where they had to work as convicts in the mines. And her husband, she
- said, had died of it; but her two sons were still there, working as
- convicts in the mines. She showed me their photographs, and she showed me
- a button, rather a pretty button of coloured glass, with gilt specks in
- it, that she had cut from the coat of one of them, when he had been
- arrested and taken from her. Poor Arséneff; my heart went out to her, and
- we became fast friends. She was never tired of talking, nor I of hearing,
- of her sons; and she gave me a good deal of practical assistance in my
- arithmetical researches, so that, at the Lycée where I was then an <i>externe</i>,
- I passed for an authority on Long Division.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Ambrose’s visitors came night after night, and shut themselves up with
- him in his room, and stayed there, talking, talking, till long past
- bed-time; but I never knew what it was all about. Indeed, I can’t remember
- that I ever felt any curiosity to know. It was simply a fact, a quite
- uninteresting fact, which one witnessed, and accepted, and thought no more
- of. Mr. Ambrose was an Olympian. Kenneth Grahame has reminded us with what
- superior unconcern, at the Golden Age, one regards the habits and doings
- and affairs of the Olympians.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, quite suddenly, Mr. Ambrose left us. He packed up his things and
- his books, and went away; and I understood, somehow, that he would not be
- coming back. I did not ask where he was going, nor why he was going. His
- departure, like his presence, was a fact which I accepted without
- curiosity. Not without satisfaction, though; it was distinctly nice to
- feel that the house was rid of him.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then seven or eight years passed, the longest seven or eight years, I
- suppose, that one is likely ever to encounter, the seven or eight years in
- the course of which one grows from a child of ten or eleven to a youth
- approaching twenty. And during those years I had plenty of other things to
- think of than Mr. Ambrose. It was time more than enough for him to become
- a mere dim outline on the remote horizon.
- </p>
- <p>
- My childish conception of the man, as you perceive, was sufficiently
- rudimental. He represented to me the incarnation of a single principle:
- severity; as I, no doubt, represented to him the incarnation of vexatious
- noise. For the rest, we overlooked each other. I had been told that he was
- one of the greatest and wisest and best men in the world: you have seen
- how little that mattered to me. It would probably have mattered quite as
- little if the information had been more specific, if I had been told
- everything there was to tell about him, all that I have learned since. How
- could it have mattered to a child to know that the testy old man who sat
- in his room all day and wrote, and every evening received a stream of
- shabby visitors, was the prophet of a new social faith, the founder of a
- new sect, the author of a new system for the regeneration of mankind, of a
- new system of human government, a new system of ethics, a new system of
- economics? What could such a word as “anthropocracy” have conveyed to me?
- Or such a word as “philarchy”? Or such a phrase as “Unification <i>versus</i>
- Civilisation"?
- </p>
- <p>
- My childish conception of the man was extremely rudimental. But I saw a
- good deal of him again when I was eighteen, nineteen; and at eighteen,
- nineteen, one begins, more or less, to observe and appreciate, to receive
- impressions and to form conclusions. Anyhow, the impressions I received of
- Mr. Ambrose, the conclusions I formed respecting him, when I was eighteen
- or nineteen, are still very fresh in my mind; and I can’t help believing
- that on the whole they were tolerably just. I think they were just,
- because they seem to explain him; they seem to explain him in big and in
- little. They explain his career, his failure, his table manners, his
- testiness, his disregard of other people’s rights and feelings, his
- apparent selfishness; they explain the queerest of the many queer things
- he did. They explain his taking the bank the other night at baccarat, for
- instance; and they explain what happened afterwards, before the night was
- done.
- </p>
- <p>
- One evening, when I was eighteen or nineteen, coming home from the Latin
- Quarter, where I was a student, to dine with my people, in the Rue
- Oudinot, I found Mr. Ambrose in the drawing-room. Or, if you will, I found
- a stranger in the drawing-room, but a stranger whom it took me only a
- minute or two to recognise. My father, at my entrance, had smiled, with a
- little air of mystery, and said to me, “Here is an old friend of yours.
- Can you tell who it is?” And the stranger, also—somewhat faintly—smiling,
- had risen, and offered me his hand. I looked at him—looked at him—and,
- in a minute,% I exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Ambrose!”
- </p>
- <p>
- I can see him now almost as clearly as I saw him then, when he stood
- before me, faintly smiling: tall and thin, stooping a little, dressed in
- black, with a long broad beard, long hair, and a pale, worn, aquiline
- face. It is the face especially that comes back to me, pale and worn and
- finely aquiline, the face, the high white brow, the deep eyes set wide
- apart, the faint, faded smile: a striking face—an intellectual face—a
- handsome face, despite many wrinkles—an indescribably sad face, even
- a tragic face—and yet, for some reason, a face that was not
- altogether sympathetic. Something, something in it, had the effect rather
- of chilling you, of leaving you where you were, than of warming and
- attracting you; something hard to fix, perhaps impossible to name. A
- certain suggestion of remoteness, of aloofness? A suggestion of
- abstraction from his surroundings and his company, of inattention, of
- indifference to them? Of absorption in matters alien to them, outside
- their sphere? I did not know. But there was surely something in his face
- not perfectly sympathetic.
- </p>
- <p>
- I had exclaimed, “It’s Mr. Ambrose!” To that he had responded, “Ah, you
- have a good memory.” And then we shook hands, and he sat down again. His
- hand was thin and delicate, and slightly cold. His voice was a trifle dry,
- ungenial. Then he asked me the inevitable half-dozen questions about
- myself—how old I was, what I was studying, and so forth—but
- though he asked them with an evident intention of being friendly, one felt
- that he was all the while half thinking of something else, and that he
- never really took in one’s answers.
- </p>
- <p>
- And gradually he seemed to become unconscious of my presence, resuming the
- conversation with my father, which, I suppose, had been interrupted by my
- arrival.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The world has forgotten me. My followers have dropped away. You yourself—where
- is your ancient ardour? The cause I have lived for stands still. My
- propaganda is arrested. I am poor, I am obscure, I am friendless, and I am
- sixty-five years old. But the great ideals, the great truths, I have
- taught, remain. They are like gold which I have mined. There the gold
- lies, between the covers of my books, as in so many caskets. Some day, in
- its necessities, the world will find it. What is excellent cannot perish.
- It may lie hid, but it cannot perish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That is one of the things I remember his saying to my father, on that
- first evening of our renewed acquaintance. And, at table, I noticed, he
- ate and drank in a joyless, absent-minded manner, and made unusual uses of
- his knife and fork, and very unusual noises. And, by-and-by, in the midst
- of a silence, my mother spoke to a servant, whereupon, suddenly, he
- glanced up, with vague eyes, and the frown of one troubled in the depths
- of a brown study, and I could have sworn it was on the tip of his tongue
- to say <i>hist-hist!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- He stayed with us for several months—from the beginning of November
- till February or March, I think—and during that period I saw him
- very nearly every day, and heard him accomplish a tremendous deal of talk.
- </p>
- <p>
- I tried, besides, to read some of his books, an effort, however, from
- which I retired, baffled and bewildered: they were a thousand miles above
- the apprehension of a nineteen-year-old <i>potache</i>; and I did actually
- read to its end a book about him: <i>Augustus Ambrose, the Friend of Man:
- an Account of his Life, and an Analysis of his Teachings. By one of his
- Followers. Turin: privately printed</i>, 1858. Of the identity of that
- “Follower,” by-the-bye, I got an inkling, from a rather conscious, half
- sheepish smile, which I detected in the face of my own father, when he saw
- the volume in my hands. I read his <i>Life</i> to its end; and I tried to
- read <i>The Foundations of Mono-pantology, and Anthropocracy: a Remedy for
- the Diseases of the Body Politic, and Philarchy: a Vision </i>; and I
- listened while he accomplished a tremendous deal of talk. His talk was
- always (for my taste) too impersonal; it was always of ideas, of theories,
- never of concrete things, never of individual men and women. Indeed, the
- mention of an individual would often only serve him as an excuse for a new
- flight into the abstract. For example, I had learned, from the <i>Life</i>,
- that he had been an associate of Mazzini’s and Garibaldi’s in ’48, and
- that it was no less a person than Victor Emmanuel himself, who had named
- him—in an official proclamation, too—“the Friend of Man.” So,
- one day, I asked him to tell me something about Victor Emmanuel, and
- Mazzini, and Garibaldi. “You knew them. I should be so glad to hear about
- them from one who knew them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour—I knew them all; I knew
- them well. I worked with them, fought under them, wrote for them, spoke
- for them, throughout the long struggle for the unification of Italy. I did
- so because unification is my supreme ideal, the grandest ideal the human
- mind has ever formed. I worked for the unification of Italy, because I was
- and am working for the unification of mankind, and the unification of
- Italy was a step towards, and an illustration of, that sublime object. Let
- others prate of civilisation; civilisation means nothing more than the
- invention and multiplication of material conveniences—nothing more
- than that. But unification—the unification of mankind—that is
- the crusade which I have preached, the cause for which I have lived. To
- unify the scattered nations of this earth into one single nation, one
- single solidarity, under one government, speaking one language, professing
- and obeying one religion, pursuing one aim. The religion—Christianity,
- with a purified Papacy. The government—anthropocratic philarchy, the
- reign of men by the law of Love. The language—Albigo. Albigo, which
- means, at the same time, both human and universal—from Albi,
- pertaining to man, and God, pertaining to the whole, the all. Albigo: a
- language which I have discovered, as the result of years of research, to
- exist already, and everywhere, as the base, the common principle, of all
- known languages, and which I have extracted, in its original simplicity,
- from the overgrowths which time and separateness have allowed to
- accumulate upon it. Albigo: the tongue which all men speak unconsciously:
- the universal human tongue. And, finally, the aim—the common, single
- aim—the highest possible spiritual development of man, the highest
- possible culture of the human soul.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That is what I received in response to my request for a few personal
- reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, and Mazzini.
- </p>
- <p>
- You will infer that Mr. Ambrose lacked humour. But his most conspicuous
- trait, his preponderant trait—the trait which, I think, does more
- than any other to explain him, him and his fortunes and his actions—was
- the trait I had vaguely noticed in our first five minutes’ intercourse,
- after my re-introduction to him; the trait which, I have conjectured,
- perhaps gave its unsympathetic quality to his face: abstraction from his
- surroundings and his company, inattention, indifference, to them.
- </p>
- <p>
- On that first evening, you may remember, he had asked me certain
- questions; but I had felt that he was thinking of something else. I had
- answered them, but I had felt that he never heard my answers.
- </p>
- <p>
- That little negative incident, I believe, gives the key to his character,
- to his fortunes, to his actions.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Friend of Man was totally deaf and blind and insensible to <i>men</i>.
- Man, as a metaphysical concept, was the major premiss of his philosophy;
- men, as individuals, he was totally unable to realise. He could not see
- you, he could not hear you, he could get no “realising sense” of you. You
- spoke, but your voice was an unintelligible murmur in his ears; it was
- like the sound of the wind—it might annoy him, disturb him (in which
- case he would seek to silence it with a <i>hist-hist</i>), it could not
- signify to him. You stood up, in front of him; but you were invisible to
- him; he saw beyond you. And even when he spoke, he did not speak to you,
- he spoke to the walls and ceiling—he thought aloud. He took no
- account of his auditor’s capacities, of the subject that would interest
- him, of the language he would understand. You asked him to tell you about
- Mazzini, and he discoursed of Albigo and the Unification of Mankind. And
- then, when he ceased to speak, directly he fell silent and somebody else
- took the word, the gates of his mind were shut; he withdrew behind them,
- returned to his private meditations, and so remained, detached, solitary,
- preoccupied, till the time came when he was moved to speak again. He was
- the Friend of Man, but men did not exist for him. He was like a
- mathematician busied with a calculation, eager for the sum-total, but
- heedless of the separate integers. My father—my mother—I—whosoever
- approached him—was a phantasm: a convenient phantasm, possibly, with
- a house where he might be lodged and fed, with a purse whence might be
- supplied the funds requisite for the publication of his works; or possibly
- a troublesome phantasm, that worried him by shouting at its play: but a
- phantasm, none the less.
- </p>
- <p>
- Years ago, my downright Aunt Elizabeth had disposed of him with two words:
- a charlatan, an impostor. My Aunt Elizabeth was utterly mistaken. Mr.
- Ambrose’s sincerity was absolute. The one thing he professed belief in, he
- believed in with an intensity that rendered him unconscious of all things
- else; his one conviction was so predominant as to exclude all other
- convictions. What was the one thing he believed in, the one thing he was
- convinced of? It would be easy to reply, himself; to declare that, at
- least, when she had called him an egotist, my Aunt Elizabeth had been
- right. It would be easy, but I am sure it would be untrue. The thing he
- believed in, the thing he was convinced of, the only thing in this whole
- universe which he saw, was his vision. That, I am persuaded, is the
- explanation of the man. It explains him in big and in little. It explains
- his career, his fortunes, his failure, his table-manners, his testiness,
- and the queerest of his actions.
- </p>
- <p>
- He saw nothing in this universe but his vision; he did not see the earth
- beneath him, nor the people round him. Is that not enough to explain
- everything, almost to justify anything? Doesn’t it explain his failure,
- for example? The fact that the world ignored him, that his followers
- dropped away from him, that nobody read his books? For, since he was never
- convinced of the world, how could he convince the world? Since he had no
- “realising sense” of men, how could he hold men? Since, in writing his
- books, he took no account of human nature, no account of human taste,
- endurance—since he wrote his books, as he spoke his speeches, not to
- you or me, not to flesh and blood, but to the walls and ceiling, to space,
- to the unpeopled air—how was it possible that he should have human
- readers? It explains his failure, the failure of a long life of
- unremitting labour. He was learned, he was in earnest, he was
- indefatigable; and the net product of his learning, his earnestness, his
- industry, was nil, because there can be no reciprocity established between
- something and nothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- It explains his failure; and it explains—it almost excuses—in
- a sense it even almost justifies—the queerest of his actions. Other
- people did not exist for him; therefore other people had no feelings to be
- considered, no rights, no possessions, to be respected. They did not
- exist, therefore they were in no way to be reckoned with. Their
- observation was not to be avoided, their power was not to be feared. They
- could not <i>do</i> anything; they could not see what <i>he</i> did.
- </p>
- <p>
- The queerest of his actions? You will suppose that I must have some very
- queer action still to record. Well, there was his action the other night
- at the Casino, for one thing; I haven’t yet done with that. But the
- queerest of all his actions, I think, was his treatment of Israela, his
- step-daughter Israela....
- </p>
- <p>
- During the visit Mr. Ambrose paid us in Paris, when I was nineteen, he,
- whose early disciples had dropped away, made a new disciple: a Madame
- Fontanas, a Mexican woman—of Jewish extraction, I imagine—a
- widow, with a good deal of money. Israela, her daughter, was a fragile,
- pale-faced, dark-haired, great-eyed little girl, of twelve or thirteen.
- Madame Fontanas sat at Mr. Ambrose’s feet, and listened, and believed.
- Perhaps she conceived an affection for him; perhaps she only thought that
- here was a great philosopher, a great philanthropist, and that he ought to
- have some one to take permanent care of him, and reduce the material
- friction of his path to a minimum. Anyhow, when the spring came, she
- married him. I have no definite information on the subject, but I am sure
- in my own mind that it was she who took the initiative—that she
- offered, and he vaguely accepted, her hand. Anyhow, in the spring she
- married him, and carried him off to her Mexican estates.
- </p>
- <p>
- Five or six years later (by the sheerest hazard) I found him living in
- London with Israela; in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in a dreary
- street, in Pimlico. I met him one afternoon, by the sheerest hazard, in
- Piccadilly, and accompanied him home. (It was characteristic of him,
- by-the-bye, that, though we met face to face, and I stopped and exclaimed
- and held out my hand, he gazed at me with blank eyes, and I was obliged to
- repeat my name twice before he could recall me.) He was living in London,
- for the present, he told me, in order to see a work through the press. “A
- great work, the crown, the summary of all my work. <i>The Final Extensions
- of Monopantology.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is in twelve volumes, with plates, coloured plates.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And Mrs. Ambrose is well?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my wife—my wife is dead. She died two or three years ago,” he
- answered, with the air of one dismissing an irrelevance.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And Israela?” I pursued, by-and-by.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Israela?” His brows knitted themselves perplexedly, then, in an instant,
- cleared. “Oh, Israela. Ah, yes. Israela is living with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And upon my suggesting that I should like to call upon her, he replied
- that he was on his way home now, and, if I cared to do so, I might come
- with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were living in the dreariest of dreary lodgings, in the dreariest of
- streets. But Israela welcomed me with a warmth I had not anticipated. “Oh,
- I am so glad to see you, so glad, so glad,” she cried, and her big, dark
- eyes filled with tears, and she clung to my hand. I was surprised by her
- emotion, because, after all, I was scarcely other than a stranger to her;
- a man she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl, and even then had seen
- only once or twice. I understood it afterwards, however: when one day she
- confided to me that—excepting Mr. Ambrose himself, and servants and
- tradesmen—I was the first human being she had exchanged a word with
- since they had come to London! “We don’t know anybody—not a soul,
- not a soul. He doesn’t want to know people—he is so absorbed in his
- work. I could not make acquaintances alone. And we had been here four
- months, before he met you and brought you home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Israela was tall, and very slight; very delicate-looking, with a face
- intensely pale, all the paler for the soft dark hair that curled above it,
- and the great dark eyes that looked out of it. Considering that she must
- have inherited a decent fortune from her mother, I wondered, rather, to
- see her so plainly dressed: she wore the plainest straight black frocks.
- And, of course, I wondered also to find them living in such dismal
- lodgings. However, it was not for me to ask questions; and if presently
- the mystery cleared itself up, it was by a sort of accident.
- </p>
- <p>
- I called at the house in Pimlico as often as I could; and I took Israela
- out a good deal, to lunch or dine at restaurants; and when the weather
- smiled, we would make little jaunts into the country, to Hampton Court, or
- Virginia Water, or where not. And one day she came to tea with me, at my
- chambers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you’ve got a piano,” was her first observation, and she flew to the
- instrument, and seated herself, and began to play. She played without
- pause for nearly an hour, I think: Chopin, Chopin, Chopin. And when she
- rose, I said, “Would you mind telling me why you—a brilliant pianist
- like you—why you haven’t a piano in your own rooms?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We can’t afford one,” she answered simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean—you can’t afford one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He says we can’t afford one. Don’t you know—we are very poor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can’t be very poor,” I exclaimed. “Your mother was rich.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, my mother was rich. I don’t know what has become of her money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Didn’t she leave a will?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, she left a will. She left a will making my step-father my
- guardian, my trustee.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what has he done with your money?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know. I only know that we are very poor—that we can’t
- afford any luxuries—that we can just barely contrive to live, in the
- quietest manner. He hardly ever gives me any money for myself. A few
- shillings, very rarely, when I ask him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear child,” I cried, “I see it all, I see it perfectly. You’ve got
- plenty of money, you’ve got your mother’s fortune. But he’s spending it
- for his own purposes. He’s paying for the printing of his gigantic book
- with it. Twelve volumes, and plates, coloured plates! It’s exactly like
- him. The only thing he’s conscious of is the importance of publishing his
- book. He needs money. He takes it where he finds it. He’s spending your
- money for the printing of his book; and that’s why you have to live in
- dreary lodgings in the dreariest part of London, and do without a piano.
- <i>He</i> doesn’t care how he lives—he doesn’t know—he’s
- unconscious of everything but his book. My dear child, you must stop him,
- you mustn’t let him go on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Israela was incredulous at first, but I argued and insisted, till, in the
- end, she said, “Perhaps you are right. But even so, what can I do? How can
- I stop him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, that’s a question for a solicitor. We must see a solicitor. A
- solicitor will know how to stop him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But at this proposal, Israela shook her head. “Oh, no, I will have no
- solicitor. Even supposing your idea is true, I can’t set a lawyer upon my
- mother’s husband. After all, what does it matter? Perhaps he is right.
- Perhaps the publication of his book <i>is</i> very important. I’m sure my
- mother would have thought so. It was her money. Perhaps he is right to
- spend it for the publication of his book.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Israela positively declined to consult a solicitor; and so they continued
- to live narrowly in Pimlico, and he proceeded with the issue of <i>The
- Final Extensions of Monopantology</i>, in twelve volumes, with coloured
- plates.
- </p>
- <p>
- Meanwhile, the brown London autumn had turned into a black London winter;
- and Israela, delicate-looking at its outset, grew more and more
- delicate-looking every day.
- </p>
- <p>
- “After all, what does it matter? The money will be his, and he can do as
- he wishes with it honestly as soon as I am dead,” she said to me, one
- evening, with a smile I did not like.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What on earth do you mean?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to die,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re mad, you’re morbid,” I cried. “You mustn’t say such things. You’re
- not <i>ill?</i> What on earth do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to die. I know it. I feel it. I am not ill? I don’t know. I
- think I am ill. I feel as if I were going to be ill. I am going to die—I
- know I am going to die.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I did what I could to dissipate such black presentiments. I refused to
- talk of them. I did what I could to lend a little gaiety to her life. But
- Israela grew whiter and more delicate-looking day by day. I was her only
- visitor. I had asked if I might not bring a friend or two to see her, but
- she had answered, “I’m afraid he would not like it. People coming and
- going would disturb him. He can’t bear any noise,” So I was her only
- visitor—till, by-and-by, another became necessary.
- </p>
- <p>
- I wonder whether Mr. Ambrose ever really knew that Israela was lying in
- her bed at the point of death, and that the man who called twice every day
- to see her was a doctor? True, in an absent-minded fashion, he used to
- inquire how she was, he used even occasionally to enter the sick-room, and
- look at her, and lay his hand on her brow, as if to take her temperature;
- but I wonder whether he ever actually <i>realised</i> her condition? He
- was terribly preoccupied just then with Volume VIII, At all events, on a
- certain melancholy morning in April, he allowed me to conduct him to a
- carriage and to help him in; and together we drove to Kensal Green. He was
- silent during the drive—thinking hard, I fancied, about some matter
- very foreign to our errand.... And as soon as the parson there had rattled
- through his office and concluded it, Israela’s step-father pulled out his
- watch, and said to me, “Ah, I must hurry off, I must hurry off. I’ve got a
- long day’s work before me still.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was something like ten years ago—the last time I had seen
- him.... Until now, to-night, on this sultry night of August, ten years
- afterwards, here he had suddenly reappeared to me, holding the bank at
- baccarat, at the Grand Cercle of the Casino: Augustus Ambrose, the Friend
- of Man, the dreamer, the visionary, holding the bank at baccarat, at the
- Grand Cercle of the Casino!
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked at him, in simple astonishment at first, and then gradually I
- shaped a theory. “He has probably come pretty nearly to the end of
- Israela’s fortune; it would be like him to spend interest and principal as
- well. And now he finds himself in need of money. And he is just
- unpractical enough to fancy that he can supply his needs by play. Or—or
- is it possible he has a system? Perhaps he imagines he has a system.” And
- then I thought how old he had grown, how terribly, terribly he had
- decayed.
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked at him. He was dealing. He dealt to the right, to the left, and
- to himself. But when he glanced at his own two cards, he made a little
- face. The next instant he had dropped them under the table, and helped
- himself to two fresh ones....
- </p>
- <p>
- The thing was done without the faintest effort at concealment, in a room
- where at least forty pairs of eyes were fixed upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was, of course, an immediate uproar. In an instant every one was on
- his feet; Mr. Ambrose was surrounded. Men were shaking their fists in his
- face, screaming at him excitedly, calling him ugly names. He gazed at them
- placidly, vaguely. It was clear he did not grasp the situation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Somebody must needs intervene.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I saw what Monsieur did. I am sure it was with no ill intention. He made
- no effort at concealment. It was done in a fit of absence of mind. Look at
- him. He is a very old man. You can see he is bewildered. He does not even
- yet understand what has happened. He should never have come here, at his
- age. He should never have been allowed to take the bank. Let the croupier
- pay both sides. Then I will take Monsieur away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Somehow I got him out of the Casino, and led him to his hotel, a small
- hotel in the least favoured quarter of the town, the name of which I had a
- good deal of difficulty in extracting from him. On the way thither
- scarcely a word passed between us. I forbore to tell him who I was; of
- course, he did not recognise me. But all the while a pertinacious little
- voice within me insisted: “He did it deliberately. He deliberately tried
- to cheat. With his gaze concentrated on his vision, he could see nothing
- else; he could see no harm in trying to cheat at cards. He needed money—it
- didn’t matter how he obtained it. The other players were phantasms—where’s
- the harm in cheating phantasms? Only he forgot—or, rather, he never
- realised—that the phantasms had eyes, that they could see. That’s
- why he made no effort at concealment.”—Was the voice right or wrong?
- </p>
- <p>
- I parted with him at the door of his hotel; but the next day a feeling
- grew within me that I ought to call upon him, that I ought at least to
- call and take his news. They told me that he had left by an early train
- for Paris.
- </p>
- <p>
- As I have been writing these last pages, a line of Browning’s has kept
- thrumming through my head. “This high man, with a great thing to pursue...
- This high man, with a great thing to pursue...” How does it apply to Mr.
- Ambrose? I don’t know—unless, indeed, a high man, with a great thing
- to pursue, is to be excused, is to be pitied, rather than blamed, if he
- loses his sense, his conscience, of other things, of small things. After
- all, wasn’t it because he lost his conscience of small things, that he
- missed his great thing?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- TIRALA-TIRALA...
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wonder what the
- secret of it is—why that little fragment of a musical phrase has
- always had this instant, irresistible power to move me. The tune of which
- it formed a part I have never heard; whether it was a merry tune or a sad
- tune, a pretty tune or a stupid one, I have no means of guessing. A
- sequence of six notes, like six words taken from the middle of a sentence,
- it stands quite by itself, detached, fortuitous. If I were to pick it out
- for you on the piano, you would scoff at it; you would tell me that it is
- altogether pointless and unsuggestive, that any six notes, struck at
- haphazard, would signify as much. And I certainly could not, with the
- least show of reason, maintain the contrary. I could only wonder the more
- why it has always had, for me, this very singular charm. As when I was a
- child, so now, after all these years, it is a sort of talisman in my
- hands, a thing to conjure with. I have but to breathe it never so softly
- to myself, and (if I choose) the actual world melts away, and I am
- journeying on wings in dreamland. Whether I choose or not, it always
- thrills my heart with responsive echoes, it always wakes a sad, sweet
- emotion.
- </p>
- <p>
- I remember quite clearly the day when I first heard it; quite clearly,
- though it was more—oh, more than five-and-twenty years ago, and the
- days that went before and came after it have entirely lost their outlines,
- and merged into a vague golden blur. That day, too, as I look backwards,
- glows in the distance with a golden light; and if I were to speak upon my
- impulse, I should vow it was a smiling day of June, clothed in sunshine
- and crowned with roses. But then, if I were to speak upon my impulse, I
- should vow that it was June at Saint-Graal the whole year round. When I
- stop to think, I remember that it was a rainy day, and that the ground was
- sprinkled with dead leaves. I remember standing at a window in my
- grandmother’s room, and gazing out with rueful eyes. It rained doggedly,
- relentlessly—even, it seemed to me, defiantly, spitefully, as if it
- took a malicious pleasure in penning me up within doors. The mountains,
- the Pyrenees, a few miles to the south, were completely hidden by the veil
- of waters. The sodden leaves, brown patches on the lawn and in the
- pathways, struggled convulsively, like wounded birds, to fly from the
- gusts of wind, but fell back fluttering heavily. One could almost have
- touched the clouds, they hung so low, big ragged tufts of sad-coloured
- cotton-wool, blown rapidly through the air, just above the writhing
- tree-tops. Everywhere in the house there was a faint fragrance of burning
- wood: fires had been lighted to keep the dampness out.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Indeed, if it had been a fair day, my adventure could scarcely have
- befallen. I should have been abroad, in the garden or the forest, playing
- with André, our farmer’s son; angling, with a bit of red worsted as bait,
- for frogs in the pond; trying to catch lizards on the terrace; lying under
- a tree with <i>Don Quixote</i> or <i>Le Capitaine Fracasse</i>; visiting
- Manuela in her cottage; or perhaps, best of all, spending the afternoon
- with Hélène, at Granjolaye. It was because the rain interdicted these
- methods of amusement that I betook myself for solace to <i>Constantinople</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I don’t know why—I don’t think any one knew why—that part of
- our house was called Constantinople; but it had been called so from time
- immemorial, and we all accepted it as a matter of course. It was the
- topmost story of the East Wing—three rooms: one little room, by way
- of ante-chamber, into which you entered from a corkscrew staircase; then
- another little room at your left; and then a big room, a long dim room,
- with only two windows, one at either end. And these rooms served as a sort
- of Hades for departed household gods. They were crowded, crowded to
- overflowing, with such wonderful old things! Old furniture—old
- straight-backed chairs, old card-tables, with green cloth tops, and brass
- claws for feet, old desks and cabinets, the dismembered relics of old
- four-post bedsteads; old clothes—old hats, boots, cloaks—green
- silk calashes, like bonnets meant for the ladies of Brobdingnag—and
- old hoop-petticoats, the skeletons of dead toilets; old books, newspapers,
- pictures; old lamps and candlesticks, clocks, fire-irons, vases; an old
- sedan-chair; old spurs, old swords, old guns and pistols; generations upon
- generations of superannuated utilities and vanities, slumbering in one
- another’s shadows, under a common sheet of dust, and giving off a thin,
- penetrating, ancient smell.
- </p>
- <p>
- When it rained, Constantinople was my ever-present refuge. It was a land
- of penumbra and mystery, a realm of perpetual wonderment, a mine of
- inexhaustible surprises. I never visited it without finding something new,
- without getting a sensation. One day, when André was there with me, we
- both saw a ghost—yes, as plainly as at this moment I see the paper
- I’m writing on; but I won’t turn aside now to speak of that. And as for my
- finds, on two or three occasions, at least, they had more than a
- subjective metaphysical importance. The first was a chest filled with
- jewellery and trinkets, an iron chest, studded with nails, in size and
- shape like a small trunk, with a rounded lid. I dragged it out of a dark
- corner, from amidst a quantity of rubbish, and (it wasn’t even locked!)
- fancy the eyes I made when I beheld its contents: half-a-dozen elaborately
- carved, high-back tortoise-shell combs, ranged in a morocco case; a
- beautiful old-fashioned watch, in the form of a miniature guitar; an
- enamelled snuff-box; and then no end of rings, brooches, buckles, seals,
- and watch-keys, set with precious stones—not very precious stones,
- perhaps—only garnets, amethysts, carnelians; but mercy, how they
- glittered! I ran off in great excitement to call my grandmother; and she
- called my uncle Edmond; and he, alas, applied the laws of seigniory to the
- transaction, and I saw my trover appropriated. My other important finds
- were appropriated also, but about them I did not care so much—they
- were only papers. One was a certificate, dated in the Year III, and
- attesting that my grandfather’s father had taken the oath of allegiance to
- the Republic. As I was a fierce Legitimist, this document afforded me but
- moderate satisfaction. The other was a Map of the World, covering a sheet
- of cardboard nearly a yard square, executed in pen-and-ink, but with such
- a complexity of hair-lines, delicate shading, and ornate lettering, that,
- until you had examined it closely, you would have thought it a carefully
- finished steel-engraving. It was signed “Herminie de Pontacq, 1818”; that
- is to say, by my grandmother herself, who in 1818 had been twelve years
- old; dear me, only twelve years old! It was delightful and marvellous to
- think that my own grandmother, in 1818, had been so industrious, and
- painstaking, and accomplished a little girl. I assure you, I felt almost
- as proud as if I had done it myself.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The small room at the left of the ante-chamber was consecrated to the <i>roba</i>
- of an uncle of my grandfather’s, who had been a sugar-planter in the
- province of New Orleans, in the reign of Louis XVI. He had also been a
- colonel, and so the room was called the Colonel’s room. Here were
- numberless mementos of the South: great palm-leaf fans, conch-shells, and
- branches of coral, broad-brimmed hats of straw, monstrous white umbrellas,
- and, in a corner, a collection of long slender wands, ending in thick
- plumes of red and yellow feathers. These, I was informed, the
- sugar-planter’s slaves, standing behind his chair, would flourish about
- his head, to warn off the importunate winged insects that abound <i>là-bas</i>.
- He had died at Paris in 1793, and of nothing more romantic than a
- malignant fever, foolish person, when he might so easily have been
- guillotined! (It was a matter of permanent regret with me that <i>none</i>
- of our family had been guillotined.) But his widow had survived him for
- more than forty years, and her my grandmother remembered perfectly. A fat
- old Spanish Créole lady, fat and very lazy—oh, but very lazy indeed.
- At any rate, she used to demand the queerest services of the negress who
- was in constant attendance upon her. “Nanette, Nanette, tourne tête à moi.
- Veux”—summon your fortitude—“veux cracher!” Ah, well, we are
- told, they made less case of such details in those robust old times. How
- would she have fared, poor soul, had she fallen amongst us squeamish
- decadents?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- It was into the Colonel’s room that I turned to-day. There was a cupboard
- in its wall that I had never thoroughly examined. The lower shelves,
- indeed, I knew by heart; they held, for the most part, empty medicine
- bottles. But the upper ones?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I shut my eyes for a moment, and the flavour of that far-away afternoon
- comes back fresher in my memory than yesterday’s. I am perched on a chair,
- in the dim light of Constantinople, at Saint-Graal; my nostrils are full
- of a musty, ancient smell; I can hear the rain pat-pattering on the roof,
- the wind whistling at the window, and, faintly, in a distant quarter of
- the house, my cousin Elodie playing her exercises monotonously on the
- piano. I am balancing myself on tip-toe, craning my neck, with only one
- care, one preoccupation, in the world—to get a survey of the top
- shelf of the closet in the Colonel’s room. The next to the top, and the
- next below that, I already command; they are vacant of everything save
- dust. But the top one is still above my head, and how to reach it seems a
- terribly vexed problem, of which, for a little while, motionless, with
- bent brows, I am rapt in meditation. And then, suddenly, I have an
- inspiration—I see my way.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not for nothing that my great-aunt Radigonde (think of having had a
- great-aunt named Radigonde, and yet never having seen her! She died before
- I was born—isn’t Fate unkind?)—it was not for nothing that my
- great-aunt Radigonde, from 1820 till its extinction in 1838, had
- subscribed to the <i>Revue Rose—La Revue Rose; Echo du Bon Ton;
- Miroir de la Mode; paraissant tous les mois; dirigée par une Dame de la
- Cour</i>; nor was it in vain, either, that my great-aunt Radigonde had had
- the annual volumes of this fashionable intelligencer bound. Three or four
- of them now, piled one above the other on my chair, lent me the altitude I
- needed; and the top shelf yielded up its secret.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was an abominably dusty secret, and it was quite a business to wipe it
- off. Then I perceived that it was a box, a square box, about eighteen
- inches long and half as deep, made of polished mahogany, inlaid with
- scrolls and flourishes of satin-wood. Opened, it proved to be a
- dressing-case. It was lined with pink velvet and white brocaded silk.
- There was a looking-glass, in a pink velvet frame, with an edge of gold
- lace, that swung up on a hinged support of tarnished ormolu; a sere and
- yellow looking-glass, that gave back a reluctant, filmy image of my face.
- There were half-a-dozen pear-shaped bottles, of wine-coloured glass, with
- tarnished gilt tops. There was a thing that looked like the paw of a small
- animal, the fur of which, at one end, was reddened, as if it had been
- rubbed in some red powder. The velvet straps that had once presumably held
- combs and brushes, had been despoiled by an earlier hand than mine; but of
- two pockets in the lid the treasures were intact: a tortoise-shell
- housewife, containing a pair of scissors, a thimble, and a bodkin, and a
- tortoise-shell purse, each prettily incrusted with silver and lined with
- thin pink silk.
- </p>
- <p>
- In front, between two of the gilt-topped bottles, an oval of pink velvet,
- with a tiny bird in ormolu perched upon it, was evidently movable—a
- cover to something. When I had lifted it, I saw, first, a little pane of
- glass, and then, through that, the brass cylinder and long steel comb of a
- musical box. Wasn’t it an amiable conceit, whereby my lady should be
- entertained with tinkling harmonies the while her eyes and fingers were
- busied in the composition of her face? Was it a frequent one in old
- dressing-cases?
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, yes, the key was there—a gilt key, coquettishly decorated with a
- bow of pink ribbon; and when I had wound the mechanism up, the cylinder,
- to my great relief, began to turn—to my relief, for I had feared
- that the spring might be broken, or something; springs are so apt to be
- broken in this disappointing world. The cylinder began to turn—but,
- alas, in silence, or almost in silence, emitting only a faintly audible,
- rusty gr-r-r-r, a sort of guttural grumble; until, all at once, when I was
- least expecting it—tirala-tirala—it trilled out clearly,
- crisply, six silvery notes, and then relapsed into its rusty gr-r-r-r.
- </p>
- <p>
- So it would go on and on till it ran down. A minute or two of creaking and
- croaking, as it were, whilst it cleared its old asthmatic throat, then a
- sudden silvery tirala-tirala, then a catch, a cough, and
- mutter-mutter-mutter. Or was it more like an old woman maundering in her
- sleep, who should suddenly quaver out a snatch from a ditty of her
- girlhood, and afterwards mumble incoherently again?
- </p>
- <p>
- I suppose the pin-points on the cylinder, all save just those six, were
- worn away; or, possibly, those teeth of the steel comb were the only ones
- that retained elasticity enough to vibrate.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- A sequence of six notes, as inconclusive as six words plucked at random
- from the middle of a sentence; as void of musical value as six such words
- would be of literary value. I wonder why it has always had this instant,
- irresistible power to move me. It has always been a talisman in my hands,
- a thing to conjure with. As when I was a child, so now, after twenty
- years, I have but to breathe it to myself, and, if I will, the actual
- world melts away, and I am journeying in dreamland. Whether I will or not,
- it always stirs a sad, sweet emotion in my heart. I wonder why.
- Tirala-tirala—I dare say, for another, any six notes, struck at
- haphazard, would signify as much. But for me—ah, if I could seize
- the sentiment it has for me, and translate it into English words, I should
- have achieved a sort of miracle. For me, it is the voice of a spirit,
- sighing something unutterable. It is an elixir, distilled of unearthly
- things, six lucent drops; I drink them, and I am transported into another
- atmosphere, and I see visions. It is Aladdin’s lamp; I touch it, and
- cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces are mine in the twinkling of an
- eye. It is my wishing-cap, my magic-carpet, my key to the Castle of
- Enchantment.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The Castle of Enchantment....
- </p>
- <p>
- When I was a child the Castle of Enchantment meant—the Future; the
- great mysterious Future, away, away there, beneath the uttermost horizon,
- where the sky is luminious with tints of rose and pearl; the ineffable
- Future, when I should be grownup, when I should be a Man, and when the
- world would be my garden, the world and life, and all their riches, mine
- to explore, to adventure in, to do as I pleased with! The Future and the
- World, the real World, the World that lay beyond our village, beyond the
- Forest of Granjolaye, farther than Bayonne, farther even than Pau; the
- World one read of and heard strange legends of: Paris, and Bagdad, and
- England, and Peru. Oh, how I longed to see it; how hard it was to wait;
- how desperately hard to think of the immense number of long years that
- must be worn through somehow, before it could come true.
- </p>
- <p>
- But—tirala-tirala!—my little broken bar of music was a
- touchstone. At the sound of it, at the thought of it, the Present was
- spirited away; Saint-Graal and all our countryside were left a thousand
- miles behind; and the Future and the World opened their portals to me, and
- I wandered in them where I would. In a sort of trance, with wide eyes and
- bated breath, I wandered in them, through enraptured hours. Believe me, it
- was a Future, it was a World, of quite unstinted magnificence. My
- many-pinnacled Castle of Enchantment was built of gold and silver, ivory,
- alabaster, and mother-of-pearl; the fountains in its courts ran with
- perfumed waters; and its pleasaunce was an orchard of pomegranates—one
- had no need to spare one’s colours. I dare say, too, that it was rather
- vague, wrapped in a good deal of roseate haze, and of an architecture that
- could scarcely have been reduced to ground-plans and elevations; but what
- of that? And oh, the people, the people by whom the World and the Future
- were inhabited, the cavalcading knights, the beautiful princesses! And
- their virtues, and their graces, and their talents Î There were no ugly
- people, of course, no stupid people, no disagreeable people; everybody was
- young and handsome, gallant, generous, and splendidly dressed. And
- everybody was astonishingly nice to me, and it never seemed to occur to
- anybody that I wasn’t to have my own way in everything. And I had it. Love
- and wealth, glory, and all manner of romance—I had them for the
- wishing. The stars left their courses to fight for me. And the winds of
- heaven vied with each other to prosper my galleons.
- </p>
- <p>
- To be sure, it was nothing more nor other than the day-dream of every
- child. But it happened that that little accidental fragment of a phrase of
- music had a quite peculiar power to send me off dreaming it.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I suppose it must be that we pass the Castle of Enchantment while we are
- asleep. For surely, at first, it is before us—we are moving towards
- it; we can see it shining in the distance; we shall reach it to-morrow,
- next week, next year. And then—and then, one morning, we wake up,
- and lo! it is behind us. We have passed it—we are sailing away from
- it—we can’t turn back. We have passed the Castle of Enchantment! And
- yet, it was only to reach it that we made our weary voyage, toiling
- through hardships and perils and discouragements, forcing our impatient
- hearts to wait; it was only the hope, the certain hope, of reaching it at
- last, that made our toiling and our waiting possible. And now—we
- have passed it. We are sailing away from it. We can’t turn back. We can
- only <i>look</i> back—with the bitterness that every heart knows. If
- we look forward, what is there to see, save grey waters, and then a
- darkness that we fear to enter?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- When I was a child, it was the great world and the future into which my
- talisman carried me, dreaming desirous dreams; the great world, all gold
- and marble, peopled by beautiful princesses and cavalcading knights; the
- future, when I should be grown-up, when I should be a Man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Well, I am grown-up now, and I have seen something of the great world—something
- of its gold and marble, its cavalcading knights and beautiful princesses.
- But if I care to dream desirous dreams, I touch my talisman, and wish
- myself back in the little world of my childhood. Tirala-tirala—I
- breathe it softly, softly; and the sentiment of my childhood comes and
- fills my room like a fragrance. I am at Saint-Graal again; and my
- grandmother is seated at her window, knitting; and André is bringing up
- the milk from the farm; and my cousin Elodie is playing her exercises on
- the piano; and Hélène and I are walking in the garden—Hélène in her
- short white frock, with a red sash, and her black hair loose down her
- back. All round us grow innumerable flowers, and innumerable birds are
- singing in the air, and the frogs are croaking, croaking in our pond. And
- farther off, the sun shines tranquilly on the chestnut-trees of the Forest
- of Granjolaye; and farther still, the Pyrenees gloom purple.... It is not
- much, perhaps it is not very wonderful; but oh, how my heart yearns to
- recover it, how it aches to realise that it never can.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- In the Morning (says Paraschkine) the Eastern Rim of the Earth was piled
- high with Emeralds and Rubies, as if the Gods had massed their Riches
- there; but he—ingenuous Pilgrim—who set forth to reach this
- Treasure-hoard, and to make the Gods’ Riches his, seemed presently to have
- lost his Way; he could no longer discern the faintest Glint of the Gems
- that had tempted him: until, in the Afternoon, chancing to turn his Head,
- he saw a bewildering Sight—the Emeralds and Rubies were behind him,
- immeasurably far behind, piled up in the West.
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Where</i> is the Castle of Enchantment? <i>When</i> do we pass it? Ah,
- well, thank goodness, we all have talismans (like my little broken bit of
- a forgotten tune) whereby we are enabled sometimes to visit it in spirit,
- and to lose ourselves during enraptured moments among its glistening,
- labyrinthine halls.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE INVISIBLE PRINCE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t a masked ball
- given by the Countess Wohenhoffen, in Vienna, during carnival week, a year
- ago, a man draped in the embroidered silks of a Chinese mandarin, his
- features entirely concealed by an enormous Chinese head in cardboard, was
- standing in the Wintergarten, the big, dimly lighted conservatory, near
- the door of one of the gilt-and-white reception-rooms, rather a
- stolid-seeming witness of the multi-coloured romp within, when a voice
- behind him said, “How do you do, Mr. Field?”—a woman’s voice, an
- English voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- The mandarin turned round.
- </p>
- <p>
- From a black mask, a pair of blue-grey eyes looked into his broad, bland
- Chinese face; and a black domino dropped him an extravagant little
- curtsey.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you do?” he responded. “I’m afraid I’m not Mr. Field; but I’ll
- gladly pretend I am, if you’ll stop and talk with me. I was dying for a
- little human conversation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you’re afraid you’re not Mr. Field, are you?” the mask replied
- derisively. “Then why did you turn when I called his name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mustn’t hope to disconcert me with questions like that,” said he. “I
- turned because I liked your voice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He might quite reasonably have liked her voice, a delicate, clear, soft
- voice, somewhat high in register, with an accent, crisp, chiselled,
- concise, that suggested wit as well as distinction. She was rather tall,
- for a woman; one could divine her slender and graceful, under the
- voluminous folds of her domino.
- </p>
- <p>
- She moved a little away from the door, deeper into the conservatory. The
- mandarin kept beside her. There, amongst the palms, a <i>fontaine
- lumineuse</i> was playing, rhythmically changing colour. Now it was a
- shower of rubies; now of emeralds or amethysts, of sapphires, topazes, or
- opals.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How pretty,” she said, “and how frightfully ingenious. I am wondering
- whether this wouldn’t be a good place to sit down. What do you think?” And
- she pointed with a fan to a rustic bench.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think it would be no more than fair to give it a trial,” he assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- So they sat down on the rustic bench, by the <i>fontaine lumineuse</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In view of your fear that you’re not Mr. Field, it’s rather a coincidence
- that at a masked ball in Vienna you should just happen to be English,
- isn’t it?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, everybody’s more or less English, in these days, you know,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s some truth in that,” she admitted, with a laugh. “What a
- diverting piece of artifice this Wintergarten is, to be sure. Fancy
- arranging the electric lights to shine through a dome of purple glass, and
- look like stars. They do look like stars, don’t they? Slightly
- over-dressed, showy stars, indeed; stars in the German taste; but stars,
- all the same. Then, by day, you know, the purple glass is removed, and you
- get the sun—the real sun. Do you notice the delicious fragrance of
- lilac? If one hadn’t too exacting an imagination, one might almost
- persuade oneself that one was in a proper open-air garden, on a night in
- May.... Yes, everybody is more or less English, in these days. That’s
- precisely the sort of thing I should have expected Victor Field to say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By-the-bye,” questioned the mandarin, “if you don’t mind increasing my
- stores of knowledge, who <i>is</i> this fellow Field?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This fellow Field? Ah, who indeed?” said she. “That’s just what I wish
- you’d tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll tell you with pleasure, after you’ve supplied me with the necessary
- data,” he promised cheerfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, by some accounts, he’s a little literary man in London,” she
- remarked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come! You never imagined that I was a little literary man in London,”
- protested he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You might be worse,” she retorted. “However, if the phrase offends you,
- I’ll say a rising young literary man, instead. He writes things, you
- know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor chap, does he? But then, that’s a way they have, rising young
- literary persons?” His tone was interrogative.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Doubtless,” she agreed. “Poems and stories and things. And book reviews,
- I suspect. And even, perhaps, leading articles in the newspapers.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Toute la lyre enfin?</i> What they call a penny-a-liner?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m sure I don’t know what he’s paid. I should think he’d get rather more
- than a penny. He’s fairly successful. The things he does aren’t bad,” she
- said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must look ’em up,” said he. “But meantime, will you tell me how you
- came to mistake me for him? Has he the Chinese type? Besides, what on
- earth should a little London literary man be doing at the Countess
- Wohenhoffen’s?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He was standing near the door, over there,” she told him, sweetly, “dying
- for a little human conversation, till I took pity on him. No, he hasn’t
- exactly the Chinese type, but he’s wearing a Chinese costume, and I should
- suppose he’d feel uncommonly hot in that exasperatingly placid Chinese
- head. <i>I’m</i> nearly suffocated, and I’m only wearing a <i>loup</i>.
- For the rest, why <i>shouldn’t</i> he be here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If your <i>loup</i> bothers you, pray take it off. Don’t mind me,” he
- urged gallantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re extremely good,” she responded. “But if I should take off my <i>loup</i>,
- you’d be sorry. Of course, manlike, you’re hoping that I’m young and
- pretty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and aren’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m a perfect fright. I’m an old maid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. Manlike, I confess I <i>was</i> hoping you’d be young and
- pretty. Now my hope has received the strongest confirmation. I’m sure you
- are,” he declared triumphantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your argument, with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile and
- superficial. Don’t pin your faith to it. Why <i>shouldn’t</i> Victor Field
- be here?” she persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Countess only receives tremendous swells. It’s the most exclusive
- house in Europe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you a tremendous swell?” she wondered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather!” he asseverated. “Aren’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She laughed a little, and stroked her fan, a big fan of fluffy black
- feathers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s very jolly,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That thing in your lap.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My fan?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I expect you’d call it a fan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For goodness’ sake, what would <i>you</i> call it?” cried she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should call it a fan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave another little laugh. “You have a nice instinct for the <i>mot
- juste</i>,” she informed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no,” he disclaimed, modestly. “But I can call a fan a fan, when I
- think it won’t shock the sensibilities of my hearer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If the Countess only receives tremendous swells,” said she, “you must
- remember that Victor Field belongs to the Aristocracy of Talent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, <i>quant à ça</i>, so, from the Wohenhoffens’ point of view, do the
- barber and the horse-leech. In this house, the Aristocracy of Talent dines
- with the butler.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is the Countess such a snob?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; she’s an Austrian. They draw the line so absurdly tight in Austria.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, you leave me no alternative,” she argued, “but to conclude
- that Victor Field is a tremendous swell. Didn’t you notice, I bobbed him a
- curtsey?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I took the curtsey as a tribute to my Oriental magnificence,” he
- confessed. “Field doesn’t sound like an especially patrician name. I’d
- give anything to discover who you are. Can’t you be induced to tell me?
- I’ll bribe, entreat, threaten—I’ll do anything you think might
- persuade you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll tell you at once, if you’ll own up that you’re Victor Field,” said
- she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I’ll own up that I’m Queen Elizabeth if you’ll tell me who you are.
- The end justifies the means.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you <i>are</i> Victor Field?” she pursued him eagerly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you don’t mind suborning perjury, why should I mind committing it?” he
- reflected. “Yes. And now, who are you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; I must have an unequivocal avowal,” she stipulated. “Are you or are
- you not Victor Field?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us put it at this,” he proposed, “that I’m a good serviceable
- imitation; an excellent substitute when the genuine article is not
- procurable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, your real name isn’t anything like Victor Field,” she
- declared, pensively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never said it was. But I admire the way in which you give with one hand
- and take back with the other.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your real name——” she began. “Wait a moment... Yes, now I
- have it. Your real name... It’s rather long. You don’t think it will bore
- you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, if it’s really my real name, I daresay I’m hardened to it,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your real name is Louis Charles Ferdinand Stanislas John Joseph Emmanuel
- Maria Anna.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mercy upon me,” he cried, “what a name! You ought to have broken it to me
- in instalments. And it’s all Christian name at that. Can’t you spare me
- just a little rag of a surname, for decency’s sake?” he pleaded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The surnames of royalties don’t matter, Monseigneur,” she said, with a
- flourish.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Royalties? What? Dear me, here’s rapid promotion! I am royal now! And a
- moment ago I was a little penny-a-liner in London.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>L’un n’empêche pas l’autre</i>. Have you never heard the story of the
- Invisible Prince?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I adore irrelevancy,” said he. “I seem to have read something about an
- invisible prince, when I was young. A fairy tale, wasn’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The irrelevancy is only apparent. The story I mean is a story of real
- life. Have you ever heard of the Duke of Zeln?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Zeln? Zeln?” he repeated, reflectively. “No, I don’t think so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She clapped her hands. “Really, you do it admirably. If I weren’t
- perfectly sure of my facts, I believe I should be taken in. Zeln, as any
- history would tell you, as any old atlas would show you, was a little
- independent duchy in the centre of Germany.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor dear thing! Like Jonah in the centre of the whale,” he murmured,
- sympathetically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hush. Don’t interrupt. Zeln was a little independent German duchy, and
- the Duke of Zeln was its sovereign. After the war with France it was
- absorbed by Prussia. But the ducal family still rank as royal highnesses.
- Of course, you’ve heard of the Leczinskis?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lecz———-what?” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Leczinski,” she repeated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How do you spell it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “L—e—c—z—i—n—s—k—i.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good. Capital. You have a real gift for spelling,” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you be quiet,” she said, severely, “and answer my question? Are you
- familiar with the name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should never venture to be familiar with a name I didn’t know,” he
- asserted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, you don’t know it? You have never heard of Stanislas Leczinski, who
- was king of Poland? Of Marie Leczinska, who married Louis XV.?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, to be sure. I remember. The lady whose portrait one sees at
- Versailles.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so. Very well,” she continued, “the last representative of the
- Leczinskis, in the elder line, was the Princess Anna Leczinska, who, in
- 1858, married the Duke of Zeln. She was the daughter of John Leczinski,
- Duke of Grodnia and Governor of Galicia, and of the Archduchess Henrietta
- d’.ste, a cousin of the Emperor of Austria. She was also a great heiress,
- and an extremely handsome woman. But the Duke of Zeln was a bad lot, a
- viveur, a gambler, a spendthrift. His wife, like a fool, made her entire
- fortune over to him, and he proceeded to play ducks and drakes with it. By
- the time their son was born he’d got rid of the last farthing. Their son
- wasn’t born till ’63, five years after their marriage. Well, and then,
- what do you suppose the Duke did?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Reformed, of course. The wicked husband always reforms when a child is
- born, and there’s no more money,” he generalised.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know perfectly well what he did,” said she. “He petitioned the German
- Diet to annul the marriage. You see, having exhausted the dowry of the
- Princess Anna, it occurred to him that if she could only be got out of the
- way, he might marry another heiress, and have the spending of another
- fortune.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Clever dodge,” he observed. “Did it come off?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It came off, all too well. He based his petition on the ground that the
- marriage had never been.... I forget what the technical term is. Anyhow,
- he pretended that the princess had never been his wife except in name, and
- that the child couldn’t possibly be his. The Emperor of Austria stood by
- his connection, like the loyal gentleman he is; used every scrap of
- influence he possessed to help her. But the duke, who was a Protestant
- (the princess was of course a Catholic), the duke persuaded all the
- Protestant States in the Diet to vote in his favour. The Emperor of
- Austria was powerless, the Pope was powerless. And the Diet annulled the
- marriage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah,” said the mandarin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” she went on. “The marriage was annulled, and the child declared
- illegitimate. Ernest Augustus, as the duke was somewhat inconsequently
- named, married again, and had other children, the eldest of whom is the
- present bearer of the title—the same Duke of Zeln one hears of,
- quarrelling with the croupiers at Monte Carlo. The Princess Anna, with her
- baby, came to Austria. The Emperor gave her a pension, and lent her one of
- his country houses to live in—Schloss Sanct-Andreas. Our hostess,
- by-the-bye, the Countess Wohenhoffen, was her intimate friend and her <i>première
- dame d’honneur</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah,” said the mandarin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the poor princess had suffered more than she could bear. She died
- when her child was four years old. The Countess Wohenhoffen took the
- infant, by the Emperor’s desire, and brought him up with her own son
- Peter. He was called Prince Louis Leczinski. Of course, in all moral
- right, he was the Hereditary Prince of Zeln. His legitimacy, for the rest,
- and his mother’s innocence, are perfectly well established, in every sense
- but a legal sense, by the fact that he has all the physical
- characteristics of the Zeln stock. He has the Zeln nose and the Zeln chin,
- which are as distinctive as the Habsburg lip.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope, for the poor young man’s sake, though, that they’re not so
- unbecoming?” questioned the mandarin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They’re not exactly pretty,” answered the mask. “The nose is a thought
- too long, the chin is a trifle too short. However, I daresay the poor
- young man is satisfied. As I was about to tell you, the Countess
- Wohenhoflen brought him up, and the Emperor destined him for the Church.
- He even went to Rome and entered the Austrian College. He’d have been on
- the high road to a cardinalate by this time if he’d stuck to the
- priesthood, for he had strong interest. But, lo and behold, when he was
- about twenty, he chucked the whole thing up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah? <i>Histoire de femme?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very likely,” she assented, “though I’ve never heard any one say so. At
- all events, he left Rome, and started upon his travels. He had no money of
- his own, but the Emperor made him an allowance. He started upon his
- travels, and he went to India, and he went to America, and he went to
- South Africa, and then, finally, in ’87 or ’88, he went—no one knows
- where. He totally disappeared, vanished into space. He’s not been heard of
- since. Some people think he’s dead. But the greater number suppose that he
- tired of his false position in the world, and one fine day determined to
- escape from it, by sinking his identity, changing his name, and going in
- for a new life under new conditions. They call him the Invisible Prince.
- His position <i>was</i> rather an ambiguous one, wasn’t it? You see, he
- was neither one thing nor the other. He had no <i>état-civil</i>. In the
- eyes of the law he was a bastard, yet he knew himself to be the legitimate
- son of the Duke of Zeln. He was a citizen of no country, yet he was the
- rightful heir to a throne. He was the last descendant of Stanislas
- Leczinski, yet it was without authority that he bore his name. And then,
- of course, the rights and wrongs of the matter were only known to a few.
- The majority of people simply remembered that there had been a scandal.
- And (as a wag once said of him) wherever he went, he left his mother’s
- reputation behind him. No wonder he found the situation irksome. Well,
- there is the story of the Invisible Prince.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And a very exciting, melodramatic little story, too. For my part, I
- suspect your Prince met a boojum. I love to listen to stories. Won’t you
- tell me another? Do, please,” he pressed her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, he didn’t meet a boojum,” she returned. “He went to England, and set
- up for an author. The Invisible Prince and Victor Field are one and the
- same person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I say! Not really!” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, really.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What makes you think so?” he wondered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m sure of it,” said she. “To begin with, I must confide to you that
- Victor Field is a man I’ve never met.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never met...?” he gasped. “But, by the blithe way in which you were
- laying his sins at my door, a little while ago, I supposed you were sworn
- confederates.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the good of masked balls, if you can’t talk to people you’ve never
- met?” she submitted. “I’ve never met him, but I’m one of his admirers. I
- like his little poems. And I’m the happy possessor of a portrait of him.
- It’s a print after a photograph. I cut it from an illustrated paper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I really almost wish I <i>was</i> Victor Field,” he sighed. “I should
- feel such a glow of gratified vanity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the Countess Wohenhoffen,” she added, “has at least twenty portraits
- of the Invisible Prince—photographs, miniatures, life-size
- paintings, taken from the time he was born, almost, to the time of his
- disappearance. Victor Field and Louis Leczinski have countenances as like
- each other as two halfpence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “An accidental resemblance, doubtless.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, it isn’t an accidental resemblance,” she affirmed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, then you think it’s intentional?” he quizzed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t be absurd. I might have thought it accidental, except for one or
- two odd little circumstances. <i>Primo</i>, Victor Field is a guest at the
- Wohenhoffens’ ball.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, he <i>is</i> a guest here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, he is,” she said. “You are wondering how I know. Nothing simpler.
- The same costumier who made my domino, supplied his Chinese dress. I
- noticed it at his shop. It struck me as rather nice, and I asked whom it
- was for. The costumier said, for an Englishman at the Hôtel de Bade. Then
- he looked in his book, and told me the Englishman’s name. It was Victor
- Field. So, when I saw the same Chinese dress here to-night, I knew it
- covered the person of one of my favourite authors. But I own, like you, I
- was a good deal surprised. What on earth should a little London literary
- man be doing at the Countess Wohenhoffen’s? And then I remembered the
- astonishing resemblance between Victor Field and Louis Leczinski; and I
- remembered that to Louis Leczinski the Countess Wohenhoffen had been a
- second mother; and I reflected that though he chose to be as one dead and
- buried for the rest of the world, Louis Leczinski might very probably keep
- up private relations with the Countess. He might very probably come to her
- ball, incognito, and safely masked. I observed also that the Countess’s
- rooms were decorated throughout with <i>white lilac</i>. But the white
- lilac is the emblematic flower of the Leczinskis; green and white are
- their family colours. Wasn’t the choice of white lilac on this occasion
- perhaps designed as a secret compliment to the Prince? I was taught in the
- schoolroom that two and two make four.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, one can see that you’ve enjoyed a liberal education,” he apprised
- her. “But where were you taught to jump to conclusions? You do it with a
- grace, an assurance. I too have heard that two and two make four; but
- first you must catch your two and two. Really, as if there couldn’t be
- more than one Chinese costume knocking about Vienna, during carnival week!
- Dear, good, sweet lady, it’s of all disguises the disguise they’re driving
- hardest, this particular season. And then to build up an elaborate theory
- of identities upon the mere chance resemblance of a pair of photographs!
- Photographs indeed! Photographs don’t give the complexion. Say that your
- Invisible Prince is dark, what’s to prevent your literary man from being
- fair or sandy? Or <i>vice versa?</i> And then, how is a little German
- Polish princeling to write poems and things in English? No, no, no; your
- reasoning hasn’t a leg to stand on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I don’t mind its not having legs,” she laughed, “so long as it
- convinces me. As for writing poems and things in English, you yourself
- said that everybody is more or less English, in these days. German princes
- are especially so. They all learn English, as a second mother-tongue. You
- see, like Circassian beauties, they are mostly bred up for the marriage
- market; and nothing is a greater help towards a good sound remunerative
- English marriage, than a knowledge of the language. However, don’t be
- frightened. I must take it for granted that Victor Field would prefer not
- to let the world know who he is. I happen to have discovered his secret.
- He may trust to my discretion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You still persist in imagining that I’m Victor Field?” he murmured sadly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should have to be extremely simple-minded,” she announced, “to imagine
- anything else. You wouldn’t be a male human being if you had sat here for
- half an hour patiently talking about another man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your argument,” said he, “with a meretricious air of subtlety, is facile
- and superficial. I thank you for teaching me that word. I’d sit here till
- doomsday talking about my worst enemy, for the pleasure of talking with
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps we have been talking of your worst enemy. Whom do the moralists
- pretend a man’s worst enemy is wont to be?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish you would tell me the name of the person the moralists would
- consider your worst enemy,” he replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll tell you directly, as I said before, if you’ll own up,” she offered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your price is prohibitive. I’ve nothing to own up to.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well then—good night,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lightly, swiftly, she fled from the conservatory, and was soon
- irrecoverable in the crowd.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- The next morning Victor Field left Vienna for London; but before he left
- he wrote a letter to Peter Wohenhoffen. In the course of it he said:
- “There was an Englishwoman at your ball last night with the reasoning
- powers of a detective in a novel. By divers processes of elimination and
- induction, she had formed all sorts of theories about no end of things.
- Among others, for instance, he was willing to bet her hali-dome that a
- certain Prince Louis Leczinski, who seems to have gone on the spree some
- years ago, and never to have come home again—she was willing to bet
- anything you like that Leczinski and I—moi qui vous parle—were
- to all intents and purposes the same. Who was she, please? Rather a tall
- woman, in a black domino, with grey eyes, or greyish-blue, and a nice
- voice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the answer which he received from Peter Wohenhoffen towards the end of
- the week, Peter said: “There were nineteen Englishwomen at my mother’s
- party, all of them rather tall, with nice voices, and grey or blue-grey
- eyes. I don’t know what colours their dominoes were. Here is a list of
- them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The names that followed were names of people whom Victor Field almost
- certainly would never meet. The people Victor knew in London were the sort
- of people a little literary man might be expected to know. Most of them
- were respectable; some of them even deemed themselves rather smart, and
- patronised him right Britishly. But the nineteen names in Peter
- Wohenhoffen’s list (”Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried Victor) were names to make you
- gasp.
- </p>
- <p>
- All the same, he went a good deal to Hyde Park during the season, and
- watched the driving.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Which of all those haughty high-born beauties is she?” he wondered
- futilely.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then the season passed, and then the year; and little by little, of
- course, he ceased to think about her.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- One afternoon last May, a man, habited in accordance with the fashion of
- the period, stopped before a hairdresser’s shop in Knightsbridge
- somewhere, and, raising his hat, bowed to the three waxen ladies who
- simpered from the window.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! It’s Mr. Field!” a voice behind him cried. “What are those cryptic
- rites that you’re performing? What on earth are you bowing into a
- hairdresser’s window for?”—a smooth, melodious voice, tinged by an
- inflection that was half ironical, half bewildered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was saluting the type of English beauty,” he answered, turning.
- “Fortunately, there are divergencies from it,” he added, as he met the
- puzzled smile of his interlocutrice; a puzzled smile indeed, but, like the
- voice, by no means without its touch of irony.
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave a little laugh; and then, examining the models critically, “Oh?”
- she questioned. “Would you call that the type? You place the type high.
- Their features are quite faultless, and who ever saw such complexions?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s the type, all the same,” said he. “Just as the imitation marionette
- is the type of English breeding.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The imitation marionette? I’m afraid I don’t follow,” she confessed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The imitation marionettes. You’ve seen them at little theatres in Italy.
- They’re actors who imitate puppets. Men and women who try to behave as if
- they weren’t human, as if they were made of starch and whalebone, instead
- of flesh and blood.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, yes,” she assented, with another little laugh. “That would be rather
- typical of our insular methods. But do you know what an engaging, what a
- reviving spectacle you presented, as you stood there flourishing your hat?
- What do you imagine people thought? And what would have happened to you if
- I had just chanced to be a policeman instead of a friend?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you have clapped your handcuffs on me?” he enquired. “I suppose my
- conduct did seem rather suspicious. I was in the deepest depth of
- dejection. One must give some expression to one’s sorrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you going towards Kensington?” she asked, preparing to move on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Before I commit myself, I should like to be sure whether you are,” he
- replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can easily discover with a little perseverance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He placed himself beside her, and together they walked towards Kensington.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was rather taller than the usual woman, and slender. She was
- exceedingly well-dressed; smartly, becomingly; a jaunty little hat of
- strangely twisted straw, with an aigrette springing defiantly from it; a
- jacket covered with mazes and labyrinths of embroidery; at her throat a
- big knot of white lace, the ends of which fell winding in a creamy cascade
- to her waist (do they call the thing a <i>jabot?</i>); and then....
- </p>
- <p>
- But what can a man trust himself to write of these esoteric matters? She
- carried herself extremely well, too: with grace, with distinction, her
- head held high, even thrown back a little, superciliously. She had an
- immense quantity of very lovely hair. Red hair? Yellow hair? Red hair with
- yellow lights burning in it? Yellow hair with red fires shimmering through
- it? In a single loose, full billow it swept away from her forehead, and
- then flowed into half-a-thousand rippling, crinkling, capricious
- undulations. And her skin had the sensitive colouring, the fineness of
- texture, that are apt to accompany red hair when it’s yellow, yellow hair
- when it’s red. Her face, with its pensive, quizzical eyes, it’s tip-tilted
- nose, it’s rather large mouth, and the little mocking quirks and curves
- the lips took, was an alert, arch, witty face; a delicate high-bred face;
- and withal a somewhat sensuous, emotional face; the face of a woman with a
- vast deal of humour in her soul, a vast deal of mischief; of a woman who
- would love to tease you, and mystify you, and lead you on, and put you
- off; and yet who, in her own way, at her own time, would know supremely
- well how to be kind.
- </p>
- <p>
- But it was mischief rather than kindness that glimmered in her eyes at
- present, as she asked, “You were in the deepest depths of dejection. Poor
- man! Why?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can’t precisely determine,” said he, “whether the sympathy that seems
- to vibrate in your voice is genuine or counterfeit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps it’s half and half,” she suggested. “But my curiosity is unmixed.
- Tell me your troubles.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The catalogue is long. I’ve sixteen hundred million. The weather, for
- example. The shameless beauty of this radiant spring day. It’s enough to
- stir all manner of wild pangs and longings in the heart of an
- octogenarian. But, anyhow, when one’s life is passed in a dungeon, one
- can’t perpetually be singing and dancing from mere exuberance of joy, can
- one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is your life passed in a dungeon?” she exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, indeed, it is. Isn’t yours?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It had never occurred to me that it was.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re lucky. Mine is passed in the dungeons of Castle Ennui,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Castle Ennui. Ah, yes. You mean you’re bored?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At this particular moment I’m savouring the most exquisite excitement,”
- he professed. “But in general, when I am not working or sleeping, I’m
- bored to extermination—incomparably bored. If only one could work
- and sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year round! There’s no
- use trying to play in London. It’s so hard to find a playmate. The English
- people take their pleasures without salt.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The dungeons of Castle Ennui,” she repeated meditatively. “Yes, we are
- fellow-prisoners. I’m bored to extermination too. Still,” she added, “one
- is allowed out on parole, now and again. And sometimes one has really
- quite delightful little experiences.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would ill become me, in the present circumstances, to dispute that,”
- he answered, bowing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the castle waits to reclaim us afterwards, doesn’t it?” she mused.
- “That’s rather a happy image, Castle Ennui.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m extremely glad you approve of it. Castle Ennui is the Bastille of
- modern life. It is built of prunes and prisms; it has its outer court of
- Convention, and its inner court of Propriety; it is moated round by
- Respectability, and the shackles its inmates wear are forged of dull
- little duties and arbitrary little rules. You can only escape from it at
- the risk of breaking your social neck, or remaining a fugitive from social
- justice to the end of your days. Yes, it is a fairly decent little image.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A bit out of something you’re preparing for the press?” she hinted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, how unkind of you!” he cried. “It was absolutely extemporaneous.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One can never tell, with <i>vous autres gens-de-lettres</i>“ she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be friendlier to say <i>nous autres gens desprit</i>,’ he
- submitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren’t we proving to what degree <i>nous autres gens d’esprit sont bêtes</i>,”
- she remarked, “by continuing to walk along this narrow pavement, when we
- can get into Kensington Gardens by merely crossing the street? Would it
- take you out of your way?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have no way. I was sauntering for pleasure, if you can believe me. I
- wish I could hope that you have no way either. Then we could stop here,
- and crack little jokes together the livelong afternoon,” he said, as they
- entered the Gardens.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alas, my way leads straight back to the Castle. I’ve promised to call on
- an old woman in Campden Hill,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Disappoint her. It’s good for old women to be disappointed. It whips up
- their circulation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shouldn’t much regret disappointing the old woman,” she admitted, “and
- I should rather like an hour or two of stolen freedom. I don’t mind owning
- that I’ve generally found you, as men go, a moderately interesting man to
- talk with. But the deuce of it is... You permit the expression?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m devoted to the expression.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The deuce of it is, I’m supposed to be driving,” she explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that doesn’t matter. So many suppositions in this world are
- baseless,” he reminded her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But there’s the prison van,” she said. “It’s one of the tiresome rules in
- the female wing of Castle Ennui that you’re always supposed, more or less,
- to be driving. And though you may cheat the authorities by slipping out of
- the prison van directly it’s turned the corner, and sending it on ahead,
- there it remains, a factor that can’t be eliminated. The prison van will
- relentlessly await my arrival in the old woman’s street.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That only adds to the sport. Let it wait. When a factor can’t be
- eliminated, it should be haughtily ignored. Besides, there are higher
- considerations. If you leave me, what shall I do with the rest of this
- weary day?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can go to your club.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He threw up his hand. “Merciful lady! What sin have I committed? I never
- go to my club, except when I’ve been wicked, as a penance. If you will
- permit me to employ a metaphor—oh, but a tried and trusty metaphor—when
- one ship on the sea meets another in distress, it stops and comforts it,
- and forgets all about its previous engagements and the prison van and
- everything. Shall we cross to the north, and see whether the Serpentine is
- in its place? Or would you prefer to inspect the eastern front of the
- Palace? Or may I offer you a penny chair?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think a penny chair would be the maddest of the three dissipations,”
- she decided.
- </p>
- <p>
- And they sat down in penny chairs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s rather jolly here, isn’t it?” said he. “The trees, with their black
- trunks, and their leaves, and things. Have you ever seen such sumptuous
- foliage? And the greensward, and the shadows, and the sunlight, and the
- atmosphere, and the mistiness—isn’t it like pearl-dust and gold-dust
- floating in the air? It’s all got up to imitate the background of a
- Watteau. We must do our best to be frivolous and ribald, and supply a
- proper foreground. How big and fleecy and white the clouds are. Do you
- think they’re made of cotton-wool? And what do you suppose they paint the
- sky with? There never was such a brilliant, breath-taking blue. It’s much
- too nice to be natural. And they’ve sprinkled the whole place with scent,
- haven’t they? You notice how fresh and sweet it smells. If only one could
- get rid of the sparrows—the cynical little beasts! hear how they’re
- chortling—and the people, and the nursemaids and children. I have
- never been able to understand why they admit the public to the parks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go on,” she encouraged him. “You’re succeeding admirably in your effort
- to be ribald.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But that last remark wasn’t ribald in the least—it was desperately
- sincere. I do think it’s inconsiderate of them to admit the public to the
- parks. They ought to exclude all the lower classes, the People, at one
- fell swoop, and then to discriminate tremendously amongst the others.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mercy, what undemocratic sentiments!” she cried. “The People, the poor
- dear People—what have they done?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Everything. What haven’t they done? One could forgive their being dirty
- and stupid and noisy and rude; one could forgive their ugliness, the
- ineffable banality of their faces, their goggle-eyes, their protruding
- teeth, their ungainly motions; but the trait one can’t forgive is their
- venality. They’re so mercenary. They’re always thinking how much they can
- get out of you—everlastingly touching their hats and expecting you
- to put your hand in your pocket. Oh, no, believe me, there’s no health in
- the People. Ground down under the iron heel of despotism, reduced to a
- condition of hopeless serfdom, I don’t say that they might not develop
- redeeming virtues. But free, but sovereign, as they are in these days,
- they’re everything that is squalid and sordid and offensive. Besides, they
- read such abominably bad literature.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In that particular they’re curiously like the aristocracy, aren’t they?”
- said she. “By-the-bye, when are you going to publish another book of
- poems?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Apropos of bad literature?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not altogether bad. I rather like your poems.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So do I,” said he. “It’s useless to pretend that we haven’t tastes in
- common.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They were both silent for a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable
- little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a
- merry trill of laughter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you laughing at?” he demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m hugely amused,” she answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wasn’t aware that I’d said anything especially good.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re building better than you know. But if I am amused, <i>you</i> look
- ripe for tears. What is the matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every heart knows its own bitterness,” he answered. “Don’t pay the least
- attention to me. You mustn’t let moodiness of mine cast a blight upon your
- high spirits.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No fear,” she assured him. “There are pleasures that nothing can rob of
- their sweetness. Life is not all dust and ashes. There are bright spots.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I’ve no doubt there are,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And thrilling little adventures—no?” she questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “For the bold, I dare say.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “None but the bold deserve them. Sometimes it’s one thing, and sometimes
- it’s another.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s very certain,” he agreed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sometimes, for instance,” she went on, “one meets a man one knows, and
- speaks to him. And he answers with a glibness! And then, almost directly,
- what do you suppose one discovers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “One discovers that the wretch hasn’t the ghost of a notion who one is—that
- he’s totally and absolutely forgotten one!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I say! Really?” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, really. You can’t deny that <i>that’s</i> an exhilarating little
- adventure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should think it might be. One could enjoy the man’s embarrassment,” he
- reflected.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or his lack of embarrassment. Some men are of an assurance, of a <i>sang
- froid!</i> They’ll place themselves beside you, and walk with you, and
- talk with you, and even propose that you should pass the livelong
- afternoon cracking jokes with them in a garden, and never breathe a hint
- of their perplexity. They’ll brazen it out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don’t you think?” he said.
- “Internally, poor dears, they’re very likely suffering agonies of
- discomfiture.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We’ll hope they are. Could they decently do less?” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And fancy the mental struggles that must be going on in their brains,” he
- urged. “If I were a man in such a situation I’d throw myself upon the
- woman’s mercy. I’d say, ’Beautiful, sweet lady! I know I know you. Your
- name, your entirely charming and appropriate name, is trembling on the tip
- of my tongue. But, for some unaccountable reason, my brute of a memory
- chooses to play the fool. If you’ve a spark of Christian kindness in your
- soul, you’ll come to my rescue with a little clue.’.rdquo;
- </p>
- <p>
- “If the woman had a Christian sense of the ridiculous in her soul, I fear
- you’d throw yourself on her mercy in vain,” she warned him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What <i>is</i> the good of tantalising people?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Besides,” she continued, “the woman might reasonably feel slightly
- humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The humiliation surely would be all the man’s. Have you heard from the
- Wohenhoffens lately?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The—what? The—who?” She raised her eyebrows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Wohenhoffens,” he repeated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons? Are they things?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, nothing. My enquiry was merely dictated by a thirst for knowledge. It
- occurred to me vaguely that you might have worn a black domino at a masked
- ball they gave, the Wohenhoffens. Are you sure you didn’t?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve a great mind to punish your forgetfulness by pretending that I did,”
- she teased.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She was rather tall, like you, and she had grey eyes, and a nice voice,
- and a laugh that was sweeter than the singing of nightingales. She was
- monstrously clever, too, with a flow of language that would have made her
- a leader in any sphere. She was also a perfect fiend. I have always been
- anxious to meet her again, in order that I might ask her to marry me. I’m
- strongly disposed to believe that she was you. Was she?” he pleaded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I say yes, will you at once proceed to ask me to marry you?” she
- asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Try it and see.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Ce n’est pas la peine</i>. It occasionally happens that a woman’s
- already got a husband.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She said she was an old maid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you dare to insinuate that I look like an old maid?” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon my word!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you wish me to insinuate that you look like anything so insipid as
- a young girl? <i>Were</i> you the woman of the black domino?” he
- persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should need further information, before being able to make up my mind.
- Are the—what’s their name?—Wohenheimer?—are the
- Wohenheimers people one can safely confess to knowing? Oh, you’re a man,
- and don’t count. But a woman? It sounds a trifle Jewish, Wohenheimer. But
- of course there are Jews and Jews.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re playing with me like the cat in the adage,” he sighed. “It’s too
- cruel. No one is responsible for his memory.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And to think that this man took me down to dinner not two months ago!”
- she murmured in her veil.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re as hard as nails. In whose house? Or—stay. Prompt me a
- little. Tell me the first syllable of your name. Then the rest will come
- with a rush.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My name is Matilda Muggins.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve a great mind to punish your untruthfulness by pretending to believe
- you,” said he. “Have you really got a husband?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you doubt it?” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t doubt it. Have you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know what to answer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you know whether you’ve got a husband?” he protested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know what I’d better let you believe. Yes, on the whole, I think
- you may as well assume that I’ve got a husband,” she concluded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And a lover, too?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really! I like your impertinence!” She bridled. “I only asked to show a
- polite interest. I knew the answer would be an indignant negative. You’re
- an Englishwoman, and you’re <i>nice</i>. Oh, one can see with half an eye
- that you’re <i>nice</i>. But that a nice Englishwoman should have a lover
- is as inconceivable as that she should have side-whiskers. It’s only the
- reg’lar bad-uns in England who have lovers. There’s nothing between the
- family pew and the divorce court. One nice Englishwoman is a match for the
- whole Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To hear you talk, one might fancy you were not English yourself. For a
- man of the name of Field, you’re uncommonly foreign. You <i>look</i>
- rather foreign too, you know, by-the-bye. You haven’t at all an English
- cast of countenance,” she considered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve enjoyed the advantages of a foreign education. I was brought up
- abroad,” he explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where your features unconsciously assimilated themselves to a foreign
- type? Where you learned a hundred thousand strange little foreign things,
- no doubt? And imbibed a hundred thousand unprincipled little foreign
- notions? And all the ingenuous little foreign prejudices and
- misconceptions concerning England?” she questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Most of them,” he assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Perfide Albion?</i> English hypocrisy?” she pursued.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, the English are consummate hypocrites. But there’s only one
- objection to their hypocrisy—it so rarely covers any wickedness.
- It’s such a disappointment to see a creature stalking towards you,
- laboriously draped in sheep’s clothing, and then to discover that it’s
- only a sheep. You, for instance, as I took the liberty of intimating a
- moment ago, in spite of your perfectly respectable appearance, are a
- perfectly respectable woman. If you weren’t, wouldn’t I be making furious
- love to you, though!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As I am, I can see no reason why you shouldn’t make furious love to me,
- if it would amuse you. There’s no harm in firing your pistol at a person
- who’s bullet-proof,” she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; it’s merely a wanton waste of powder and shot,” said he. “However, I
- shouldn’t stick at that. The deuce of it is.... You permit the
- expression?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m devoted to the expression.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The deuce of it is, you profess to be married.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you mean to say that you, with your unprincipled foreign notions,
- would be restrained by any such consideration as that?” she wondered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shouldn’t be for an instant—if I weren’t in love with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Comment donc? Déjà?</i>” she cried with a laugh.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, <i>déjà!</i> Why not? Consider the weather—consider the scene.
- Is the air soft, is it fragrant? Look at the sky—good heavens!—and
- the clouds, and the shadows on the grass, and the sunshine between the
- trees. The world is made of light today, of light and colour, and perfume
- and music. <i>Tutt’ intorno canta amort amor, amore!</i> What would you
- have? One recognises one’s affinity. One doesn’t need a lifetime. You
- began the business at the Wohenhoffens’ ball. To-day you’ve merely put on
- the finishing touches.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, then I <i>am</i> the woman you met at the masked ball?” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look me in the eye, and tell me you’re not,” he defied her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven’t the faintest interest in telling you I’m not. On the contrary,
- it rather pleases me to let you imagine that I am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She owed me a grudge, you know. I hoodwinked her like everything,” he
- confided.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, did you? Then, as a sister woman, I should be glad to serve as her
- instrument of vengeance. Do you happen to have such a thing as a watch
- about you?” she inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you be good enough to tell me what o’clock it is?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are your motives for asking?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m expected at home at five.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where do you live?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are the motives for asking?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to call upon you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You might wait till you’re invited.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, invite me—quick!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never, never, never,” she asseverated. “A man who’s forgotten me as you
- have!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if I’ve only met you once at a masked ball........”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can’t you be brought to realise that every time you mistake me for that
- woman of the masked ball you turn the dagger in the wound?” she demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if you won’t invite me to call upon you, how and when am I to see you
- again?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven’t an idea,” she answered, cheerfully. “I must go now. Good bye.”
- She rose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “One moment,” he interposed. “Before you go will you allow me to look at
- the palm of your left hand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can tell fortunes. I’m extremely good at it,” he boasted. “I’ll tell
- you yours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, very well,” she assented, sitting down again: and guilelessly she
- pulled off her glove.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft, with
- rosy, tapering fingers.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oho! you <i>are</i> an old maid after all,” he cried. “There’s no wedding
- ring.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You villain!” she gasped, snatching the hand away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I promised to tell your fortune. Haven’t I told it correctly?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You needn’t rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don’t like to be
- reminded of their condition.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you marry <i>me?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why do you ask?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Partly from curiosity. Partly because it’s the only way I can think of,
- to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can’t,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The stars forbid. And I’m ambitious. In my horoscope it is written that I
- shall either never marry at all, or—marry royalty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you care to follow me,” she said, rising again, “you can come and help
- me to commit a little theft.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path,
- where she stopped before a bush of white lilac.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are no keepers in sight, are there?” she questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t see any,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods,” said she, breaking
- off a spray, and handing it to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you. But I’d rather have an answer to my question.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Isn’t that an answer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “White lilac—to the Invisible Prince?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The Invisible Prince.... Then you <i>are</i> the black domino!” he
- exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I suppose so,” she consented.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you <i>will</i> marry me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But will you marry me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought you wished me to cheat my horoscope?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How could you find a better means of doing so?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What! if I should marry Louis Leczinski...?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, to be sure. You would have it that I was Louis Leczinski. But, on
- that subject, I must warn you seriously——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “One instant,” she interrupted. “People must look other people straight in
- the face when they’re giving serious warnings. Look straight into my eyes,
- and continue your serious warning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must really warn you seriously,” said he, biting his lip, “that if you
- persist in that preposterous delusion about my being Louis Leczinski,
- you’ll be most awfully sold. I have nothing on earth to do with Louis
- Leczinski. Your ingenious little theories, as I tried to convince you at
- the time, were absolute romance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyebrows raised a little, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on his—oh,
- in the drollest fashion, with a gaze that seemed to say “How admirably you
- do it! I wonder whether you imagine I believe you. Oh, you fibber! Aren’t
- you ashamed to tell me such abominable fibs?”...
- </p>
- <p>
- They stood still, eyeing each other thus, for something like twenty
- seconds, and then they both laughed and walked on.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- P’TIT-BLEU
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">P</span>’tit-Bleu, poor
- P’tit-Bleu! I can’t name her without a sigh; I can’t think of her without
- a kind of heartache. Yet, all things considered, I wonder whether hers was
- really a destiny to sorrow over. True, she has disappeared; and it is not
- pleasant to conjecture what she may have come to, what may have befallen
- her, in the flesh, since her disappearance. But when I remember those
- beautiful preceding years of self-abnegation, of great love, and pain, and
- devotion, I find myself instinctively believing that something good she
- must have permanently gained; some treasure that nothing, not the worst
- imaginable subsequent disaster, can quite have taken from her. It is not
- pleasant to conjecture what she may have done or suffered in the flesh;
- but in the spirit, one may hope, she cannot have gone altogether to the
- bad, nor fared altogether ill.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the spirit! Dear me, there was a time when it would have seemed
- derisory to speak of the spirit in the same breath with P’tit-Bleu. In the
- early days of my acquaintance with her, for example, I should have stared
- if anybody had spoken of her spirit. If anybody had asked me to describe
- her, I should have said, “She is a captivating little animal, pretty and
- sprightly, but as soulless—as soulless as a squirrel.” Oh, a
- warm-blooded little animal, good-natured, quick-witted, full of life and
- the joy of life; a delightful little animal to play with, to fondle; but
- just a little animal, none the less: a little mass of soft, rosy, jocund,
- sensual, soulless matter. And in her full red lips, her roguish black
- eyes, her plump little hands, her trim, tight little figure—in her
- smile, her laugh—in the toss of her head—in her saucy,
- slightly swaggering carriage—I fancy you would have read my
- appreciation justified. No doubt there must have been the spark 01 a soul
- smouldering somewhere in her (how, otherwise, account for what happened
- later on?), but it was far too tiny a spark to be perceptible to the
- casual observer. Soul, however, I need hardly add, was the last thing we
- of the University were accustomed to look for in our feminine companions;
- I must not for an instant seem to imply that the lack of a soul in
- P’tit-Bleu was a subject of mourning with any of us. That a Latin Quarter
- girl should be soulless was as much a part of the natural order of
- creation, as that she should be beardless. They were all of them little
- animals, and P’tit-Bleu diverged from the type principally in this, that
- where the others, in most instances, were stupid, objectionable little
- animals, she was a diverting one. She was made of sugar and spice and a
- hundred nice ingredients, whilst they were made of the dullest, vulgarest
- clay.
- </p>
- <p>
- In my own case, P’tit-Bleu was the object, not indeed of love, but of a
- violent infatuation, at first sight.
- </p>
- <p>
- At Bullier, one evening, a chain of students, some twenty linked hand in
- hand, were chasing her round and round the hall, shouting after her, in
- rough staccato, something that sounded like, “Ti-<i>bah!</i> Ti-<i>bah</i>!
- Ti-<i>bah</i>!”—while she, a sprite-like little form, in a black
- skirt and a scarlet bodice, fled before them with leaps and bounds, and
- laughed defiantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- I hadn’t the vaguest notion what “Ti-<i>bah</i>! Ti-<i>bah</i>! Ti-<i>bah</i>!”
- meant, but that laughing face, with the red lips and the roguish eyes,
- seemed to me immensely fascinating. Among the faces of the other young
- ladies present—faces of dough, faces of tallow, faces all weariness,
- staleness, and banality, common, coarse, pointless, insipid faces—it
- shone like an epigram amongst platitudes, a thing of fire amongst things
- of dust. I turned to some one near me, and asked who she was.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s P’tit-Bleu, the dancing girl. She’s going to do a quadrille.”
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu.... It’s the fashion, you know, in Paris, for the girls who “do
- quadrilles” to adopt unlikely nicknames: aren’t the reigning favourites at
- this moment Chapeau-Mou and Fifi-la-Galette? P’tit-Bleu had derived hers
- from that vehement little “wine of the barrier,” which, the song declares,
- “vous met la tête en feu.” It was the tune of the same song, that, in
- another minute, I heard the band strike up, in the balcony over our heads.
- P’tit-Bleu came to a standstill in the middle of the floor, where she was
- joined by three minor dancing-girls, to make two couples. The chain of
- students closed in a circle round her. And the rest of us thronged behind
- them, pressing forward, and craning our necks. Then, as the band played,
- everybody sang, in noisy chorus:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- “P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu, P’tit-Bleu-eu,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Ça vous met la tête en feu!
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Ça vous ra-ra-ra-ra-ra,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Ça vous ra-ra-ravigotte!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu stood with her hands on her hips, her arms a-kimbo, her head
- thrown impudently back, her eyes sparkling mischievously, her lips curling
- in a perpetual play of smiles, while her three subalterns accomplished
- their tame preliminary measures; and then P’tit-Bleu pirouetted forward,
- and began her own indescribable pas-seul—oh, indescribable for a
- hundred reasons. She wore scarlet satin slippers, embroidered with black
- beads, and black silk stockings with scarlet clocks, and simply cataracts
- and cataracts of white diaphanous frills under her demure black skirt. And
- she danced with constantly increasing fervour, kicked higher and higher,
- ever more boldly and more bravely. Presently her hat fell off, and she
- tossed it from her, calling to the member of the crowd who had the luck to
- catch it, “Tiens mon chapeau!” And then her waving black hair flowed down
- her back, and flew loose about her face and shoulders. And the whole time,
- she laughed—laughed—laughed. With her swift whirlings, her
- astonishing undulations, and the flashing of the red and black and white,
- one’s eyes were dazzled. “Ça vous met la tête en feu!” My head burned and
- reeled, as I watched her, and I thought, “What a delicious, bewitching
- little creature! What wouldn’t I give to know her!” My head burned, and my
- heart yearned covetously; but I was a new-comer in the Quarter, and
- ignorant of its easy etiquette, and terribly young and timid, and I should
- never have dared to speak to her without a proper introduction. She danced
- with constantly increasing fervour, faster, faster, furiously fast: till,
- suddenly—<i>zip!</i>—down she slid upon the floor, in the <i>grand
- écart,</i> and sat there (if one may call that posture sitting), smiling
- calmly up at us, whilst everybody thundered, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!”
- </p>
- <p>
- In an instant, though, she was on her feet again, and had darted out of
- the circle to the side of the youth who had caught her hat. He offered it
- to her with a bow, but his pulses were thumping tempestuously, and no
- doubt she could read his envy in his eyes. Anyhow, all at once, she put
- her arm through his, and said—oh, thrills and wonders!—“Allons,
- mon petit, I authorise you to treat me to a bock.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed as if impossible heavens had opened to me; yet there she was,
- clinging to my arm, and drawing me towards the platform under the
- musicians’ gallery, where there are tables for the thirsty. Her little
- plump white hand lay on my coat-sleeve; the air was heady with the perfume
- of her garments; her roguish black eyes were smiling encouragement into
- mine; and her red lips were so near, so near, I had to fight down a wild
- impulse to stoop and snatch a kiss. She drew me towards the tables, and,
- on the way, she stopped before a mirror fixed in the wall, and rearranged
- her hair; while I stood close to her, still holding her hat, and waited,
- feeling the most exquisite proud swelling of the heart, as if I owned her.
- Her hair put right, she searched in her pocket and produced a small round
- ivory box, from which—having unscrewed its cover and handed it to me
- with a “<i>Tiens ça</i>”—she extracted a powder-puff; and therewith
- she proceeded gently, daintily, to dust her face and throat, examining the
- effect critically in the glass the while. In the end she said, “<i>Voilà</i>,
- that’s better,” and turned her face to me for corroboration. “That’s
- better, isn’t it?” “It’s perfect. But—but you were perfect before,
- too,” asseverated I. Oh, what a joy beyond measure thus to be singled out
- and made her confidant and adviser in these intimate affairs.... At our
- table, leaning back nonchalantly in her chair, as she quaffed her bock and
- puffed her cigarette, she looked like a bright-eyed, red-lipped bacchante.
- </p>
- <p>
- I gazed at her in a quite unutterable ecstasy of admiration. My conscience
- told me that I ought to pay her a compliment upon her dancing; but I
- couldn’t shape one: my wits were paralysed by my emotions. I could only
- gaze, and gaze, and revel in my unexpected fortune. At last, however, the
- truth burst from me in a sort of involuntary gasp.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But you are adorable—adorable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave a quick smile of intelligence, of sympathy, and, with a knowing
- toss of the head and a provoking glance, suggested, “Je te mets la tête en
- feu, quoi!” She, you perceive, was entirely at her ease, mistress of the
- situation. It is conceivable that she had met neophytes before—that
- I was by no means to her the unprecedented experience she was to me. At
- any rate, she understood my agitation and sought to reassure me. “Don’t be
- afraid; I’ll not eat you,” she promised.
- </p>
- <p>
- I, in the depths of my mind, had been meditating what I could not but deem
- an excessively audacious proposal Her last speech gave me my cue, and I
- risked it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps you would like to eat something else? If—if we should go
- somewhere and sup?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Monsieur thinks he will be safer to take precautions,” she laughed. “Well—I
- submit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So we removed ourselves to the cloak-room, where she put on her cloak, and
- exchanged her slippers for a pair of boots (you can guess, perhaps, who
- enjoyed the beatific privilege of buttoning them for her); and then we
- left the Closerie des Lilas, falsely so called, with its flaring gas, its
- stifling atmosphere, its boisterous merrymakers, and walked arm in arm—only
- this time it was <i>my</i> arm that was within <i>hers</i>—down the
- Boul’ Miche, past the Luxembourg gardens, where sweet airs blew in our
- faces, to the Gambrinus restaurant, in the Rue de Médicis. And there you
- should have seen P’tit-Bleu devouring écrevisses. Whatsoever this young
- woman’s hand found to do, she did it with her might. She attacked her
- écrevisses with the same jubilant abandon with which she had executed her
- bewildering single-step. She devoured them with an energy, an enthusiasm,
- a thoroughness, that it was invigorating to witness; smacking her lips,
- and smiling, and, from time to time, between the mouthfuls, breathing soft
- little interjections of content. When the last pink shell was emptied, she
- threw herself back, and sighed, and explained, with delectable
- unconsciousness, “I was hungry.” But at my venturing to protest, “Not
- really?” she broke into mirthful laughter, and added, “At least, I had the
- appearance.” Meanwhile, I must not fail to mention, she had done abundant
- honour to her share of a bottle of chablis.
- </p>
- <p>
- Don’t be horrified—haven’t the Germans, who ought to know, a proverb
- that recommends it? “Wein auf Bier, das rath’ ich Dir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I have said that none of us mourned the absence of a soul in P’tit-Bleu.
- Nevertheless, as I looked at her to-night, and realised what a bright,
- joyous, good-humoured little thing she was, how healthy, and natural, and
- even, in a way, innocent she was, I suddenly felt a curious depression.
- She was all this, and yet... For just a moment, perhaps, I did vaguely
- mourn the lack of something. Oh, she was well enough for the present; she
- was joyous, and good-humoured, and innocent in a way; she was young and
- pretty, and the world smiled upon her. But—for the future? When it
- occurred to me to think of her future—of what it must almost
- certainly be like, of what she must almost inevitably become—I
- confess my jaw dropped, and the salt of our banquet lost its savour.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the matter? Why do you look at me like that?” P’tit-Bleu demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- So I had to pull myself up and be jolly again. It was not altogether
- difficult. In the early twenties, troublesome reflections are easily
- banished, I believe; and I had a lively comrade.
- </p>
- <p>
- After her crayfish were disposed of, P’tit-Bleu called for coffee and lit
- a cigarette. And then, between whiffs and sips, she prattled gaily of the
- subject which, of all subjects, she was probably best qualified to treat,
- and which assuredly, for the time being, possessed most interest for her
- listener—P’tit-Bleu. She told me, as it were, the story of her
- birth, parentage, life, and exploits. It was the simplest story, the
- commonest story. Her mother (<i>la recherche de la paternité est interdite</i>),
- her mother had died when she was sixteen, and Jeanne (that was her
- baptismal name, Jeanne Mérois) had gone to work in the shop of a
- dressmaker, where, sewing hard from eight in the morning till seven at
- night, with an hour’s intermission at noon, she could earn, in good
- seasons, as much as two-francs-fifty a day. Two and a half francs a day—say
- twelve shillings a week—in good seasons; and one must eat, and
- lodge, and clothe one’s body, and pay one’s laundress, in good seasons and
- in bad. It scarcely satisfied her aspirations, and she took to dancing.
- Now she danced three nights a week at Bullier, and during the day gave
- lessons in her art to a score of pupils, by which means she contrived to
- keep the wolf at a respectful distance from her door. “Tiens, here’s my
- card,” she concluded, and handed me an oblong bit of pasteboard, on which
- was printed, “P’tit-Bleu, Professeur de Danse, 22, Rue Monsieur le
- Prince.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you have no lover?” questioned I.
- </p>
- <p>
- She flashed a look upon me that was quite inexpressibly arch, and
- responded instantly, with the charmingest little pout, “But yes—since
- I’m supping with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- During the winter that followed, P’tit-Bleu and I supped together somewhat
- frequently. She was a mere little animal, she had no soul; but she was the
- nicest little animal, and she had instincts. She was more than
- good-natured, she was kind-hearted; and, according to her unconventional
- standards, she was conscientious. It would have amused and touched you,
- for example, if you had been taking her about, to notice her intense
- solicitude lest you should conduct her entertainment upon a scale too
- lavish, her deprecating frowns, her expostulations, her restraining hand
- laid on your arm. And the ordinary run of Latin Quarter girls derive an
- incommunicable rapture from seeing their cavaliers wantonly, purposelessly
- prodigal. With her own funds, on the contrary, P’tit-Bleu was free-handed
- to a fault: Mimi and Zizette knew whom to go to, when they were hard-up.
- Neither did she confine her benefactions to gifts of money, nor limit
- their operation to her particular sex. More than one impecunious student
- owed it to her skilful needle that his clothes were whole, and his linen
- maintained in a habitable state. “Fie, Chalks! Your coat is torn, there
- are three buttons off your waistcoat, and your cuffs are frayed to a point
- that is disgraceful. I’ll come round to-morrow afternoon, and mend them
- for you.” And when poor Berthe Dumours was turned out of the hospital, in
- the dead of winter, half-cured, and without a penny in her purse, who took
- her in, and nursed her, and provided for her during her convalescence?
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, she was a good little thing. “P’tit-Bleu’s all right. There’s nothing
- the matter with P’tit-Bleu,” was Chalks’s method of phrasing it.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the same time, she could be trying, she could be exasperating. And she
- had a temper—a temper. What she made me suffer in the way of
- jealousy, during that winter, it would be gruesome to recount. She enjoyed
- an exceeding great popularity in the Quarter; she was much run after. It
- were futile to pretend that she hadn’t her caprices. And she held herself
- free as air. She would call no man master.
- </p>
- <p>
- You might take what she would give, and welcome; but you must claim
- nothing as your due. You mustn’t presume upon the fact that she was
- supping with you to-night, to complain if she should sup tomorrow with
- another. Her concession of a privilege did not by any means imply that it
- was exclusive. She would endure no exactions, no control or interference,
- no surveillance, above all, no reproaches. Mercy, how angry she would
- become if I ventured any, how hoighty-toighty and unapproachable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You imagine that I am your property? Did you invent me? One would say you
- held a Government patent. All rights reserved! Thank you. You fancy
- perhaps that Paris is Constantinople? Ah, mais non!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She had a temper and a flow of language. There were points you couldn’t
- touch without precipitating hail and lightning.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus my winter was far from a tranquil one, and before it was half over I
- had three grey hairs. Honey and wormwood, happiness and heartburn,
- reconciliations and frantic little tiffs, carried us blithely on to
- Mi-Carême, when things reached a crisis....
- </p>
- <p>
- Mi-Carême fell midway in March that year: a velvety, sweet, sunlit day,
- Spring stirring in her sleep. P’tit-Bleu and I had spent the day together,
- in the crowded, crowded streets. We had visited the Boulevards, of course,
- to watch the triumph of the Queen of Washerwomen; we had pelted everybody
- with confetti; and we had been pelted so profusely in return, that there
- were confetti in our boots, in our pockets, down our necks, and numberless
- confetti clung in the black meshes of P’tit-Bleu’s hair, like little pink,
- blue, and yellow stars. But all day long something in P’tit-Bleu’s manner,
- something in her voice, her smile, her carriage, had obscurely troubled
- me; something not easy to take hold of, something elusive, unformulable,
- but disquieting. A certain indefinite aloofness, perhaps; an accentuated
- independence; as if she were preoccupied with secret thoughts, with
- intentions, feelings, that she would not let me share.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, at night, we went to the Opera Ball.
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu was dressed as an Odalisque: a tiny round Turkish cap set
- jauntily sidewise on her head, a short Turkish jacket, both coat and
- jacket jingling and glittering with sequins; a long veil of gauze,
- wreathed like a scarf round her shoulders; then baggy Turkish trousers of
- blue silk, and scarlet Turkish slippers. Oh, she was worth seeing; I was
- proud to have her on my arm. Her black crinkling hair, her dancing eyes,
- her eager face and red smiling mouth—the Sultan himself might have
- envied me such a houri. And many, in effect, were the envious glances that
- we encountered, as we made our way into the great brilliantly lighted
- ball-room, and moved hither and thither among the Harlequins and
- Columbines, the Pierrots, the Toréadors, the Shepherdesses and
- Vivandières, the countless fantastic masks, by whom the place was peopled.
- P’tit-Bleu had a <i>loup</i> of black velvet, which sometimes she wore,
- and sometimes gave to me to carry for her. I don’t know when she looked
- the more dangerous, when she had it on, and her eyes glimmered
- mysteriously through its peepholes, or when she had it off.
- </p>
- <p>
- Many were the envious glances that we encountered, and presently I became
- aware that one individual was following us about: a horrid, glossy
- creature, in a dress suit, with a top-hat that was much too shiny, and a
- hugh waxed moustache that he kept twirling invidiously: an undersized,
- dark, Hebraic-featured man, screamingly “rasta’.” Whithersoever we turned,
- he hovered annoyingly near to us, and ogled P’tit-Bleu under my very
- beard. This was bad enough; but—do sorrows ever come as single
- spies?—conceive my emotions, if you please, when, by-and-by,
- suspicion hardened into certitude that P’tit-Bleu was not merely getting a
- vainglorious gratification from his attentions, but that she was
- positively playing up to them, encouraging him to persevere! She chattered—to
- me, indeed, but at him—with a vivacity there was no misconstruing;
- laughed noisily, fluttered her fan, flirted her veil, donned and doffed
- her loup, and, I daresay, when my back was turned, exchanged actual
- eye-shots with the brute.... In due time quadrilles were organised, and
- P’tit-Bleu led a set. The glossy interloper was one of the admiring circle
- that surrounded her. Ugh! his complacent, insinuating smile, the
- conquering air with which he twirled his moustachios. And P’tit-Bleu....
- When, at the finish, she sprang up, after her <i>grand écart</i>, what do
- you suppose she did?... The brazen little minx, instead of rejoining <i>me</i>,
- slipped her arm through <i>his</i>, and went tripping off with him to the
- supper-room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, the night I passed, the night of anguish! The visions that tortured
- me, as I tramped my floor! The delirious revenges that I plotted, and
- gloated over in anticipation! She had left me—the mockery of it!—she
- had left me her loup, her little black velvet loup, with its empty
- eye-holes, and its horribly reminiscent smell. Everything P’tit-Bleu owned
- was scented with peau-d’.spagne. I wreaked my fury upon that loup, I
- promise you. I smote it with my palm, I ground it under my heel, I tore it
- limb from limb, I called it all manner of abusive names. Early in the
- morning I was at P’tit-Bleu’s house; but the concierge grunted, “Pas
- rentrée.” Oh, the coals thereof are coals of fire. I returned to her house
- a dozen times that day, and at length, towards nightfall, found her in. We
- had a stormy session, but, of course, the last word of it was hers: still,
- for all slips, she was one of Eve’s family. Of course she justified
- herself, and put me in the wrong. I went away, vowing I would never,
- never, never see her again. “Va! Ça m’est bien égal,” she capped the
- climax by calling after me. Oh, youth! Oh, storm and stress! And to think
- that one lives to laugh at its memory.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the rest of that season, P’tit-Bleu and I remained at daggers drawn.
- In June I left town for the summer; and then one thing and another
- happened, and kept me away till after Christmas.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I got back, amongst the many pieces of news that I found waiting for
- me, there was one that affected P’tit-Bleu.
- </p>
- <p>
- “P’tit-Bleu,” I was told, “is ’collée’ with an Englishman—but a
- grey-beard, mon cher—a gaga—an Englishman old enough to be her
- grandfather.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A stolid, implicit cynicism, I must warn you, was the mode of the Quarter.
- The student who did not wish to be contemned for a sentimentalist, dared
- never hesitate to believe an evil report, nor to put the worst possible
- construction upon all human actions. Therefore, when I was apprised by
- common rumour that during the dead season P’tit-Bleu (for considerations
- fiscal, <i>bien entendu</i>) had gone to live “collée” with an Englishman
- old enough to be her grandfather—though, as it turned out, the story
- was the sheerest fabrication—it never entered my head to doubt it.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the same time, I confess, I could not quite share the humour of my
- compeers, who regarded the circumstance as a stupendous joke. On the
- contrary, I was shocked and sickened. I shouldn’t have imagined her
- capable of that. She was a mere little animal; she had no soul; she was
- bound, in the nature of things, to go from bad to worse, as I had
- permitted myself, indeed, to admonish her, in the last conversation we had
- had. “Mark my words, you will go from bad to worse.” But I had thought her
- such a nice little animal; in my secret heart, I had hoped that her
- progress would be slow—even, faintly, that Providence might let
- something happen to arrest it, to divert it. And now....!
- </p>
- <p>
- As a matter of fact, Providence <i>had</i> let something happen to divert
- it; and that something was this very relation of hers with an old
- Englishman, in which the scandal-lovers of the Latin Quarter were
- determined to see neither more nor less than a mercenary “collage.” The
- diversion in question, however, was an extremely gradual process. As yet,
- it is pretty certain, P’tit-Bleu herself had never so much as dreamed that
- any diversion was impending.
- </p>
- <p>
- But she knew that her relation with the Englishman was an innocent
- relation; and of its innocence, I am glad to be able to record, she
- succeeded in convincing one, at least, of her friends, tolerably early in
- the game.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the teeth of my opposition, and at the expense of her own pride, she
- forced an explanation, which, I am glad to say, convinced me.
- </p>
- <p>
- I had just passed her and her Englishman in the street. They were crossing
- the Boulevard St. Michel, and she was hanging on his arm, looking up into
- his face, and laughing. She wore a broad-brimmed black hat, with a red
- ribbon in it, and a knot of red ribbon at her throat; there was a lovely
- suggestion of the same colour in her cheeks; and never had her eyes
- gleamed with sincerer fun.
- </p>
- <p>
- I assure you, the sensation this spectacle afforded me amounted to a
- physical pain—the disgust, the anger. If she could laugh like that,
- how little could she feel her position! The hardened shamelessness of it!
- </p>
- <p>
- Turning from her to her companion, I own I was surprised and puzzled. He
- was a tall, spare old man, not a grey-beard, but a white-beard, and he had
- thin snow-white hair. He was dressed neatly indeed, but the very reverse
- of sumptuously. His black overcoat was threadbare, his carefully polished
- boots were patched. Yet, everybody averred, it was his affluence that had
- attracted her; she had taken up with him during the dead season, because
- she had been “à sec.” A detail that did nothing to relieve my perplexity
- was the character of his face. Instead of the florid concupiscent face,
- with coarse lips and fiery eye-balls, I had instinctively expected, I saw
- a thin, pale face, with mild, melancholy eyes, a gentle face, a refined
- face, rather a weak face, certainly the very last face the situation
- called for. He <i>was</i> a beast, of course, but he didn’t look like a
- beast. He looked like a gentleman, a broken-down, forlorn old gentleman,
- singularly astray from his proper orbit.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were crossing the Boulevard St. Michel as I was leaving the Café
- Vachette; and at the corner of the Rue des Ecoles we came front to front.
- P’tit-Bleu glanced up; her eyes brightened, she gave a little start, and
- was plainly for stopping to shake hands. I cut her dead....
- </p>
- <p>
- I cut her dead, and held my course serenely down the Boulevard—though
- I’m not sure my heart wasn’t pounding. But I could lay as unction to my
- soul the consciousness of having done the appropriate thing, of having
- marked my righteous indignation.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a minute, however, I heard the pat-pat of rapid footsteps on the
- pavement behind me, and my name being called. I hurried on, careful not to
- turn my head. But, at Cluny, P’tit-Bleu arrived abreast of me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to speak to you,” she gasped, out of breath from running.
- </p>
- <p>
- I shrugged my shoulders.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you tell me why you cut me like that just now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you don’t know, I doubt if I could make you understand,” I answered,
- with an air of, imperial disdain.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You bear me a grudge, hein? For what I did last March? Well, then, you
- are right. There. I was abominable. But I have been sorry, and I ask your
- pardon. Now will you let bygones be bygones? Will you forgive me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I said, “don’t try to play the simpleton with me. You are perfectly
- well aware that isn’t why I cut you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But why, then?” cried she, admirably counterfeiting (as I took for
- granted) a look and accent of bewilderment.
- </p>
- <p>
- I walked on without speaking. She kept beside me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But why, then? If it isn’t that, what is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, bah!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I insist upon your telling me. Tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good, then. I don’t care to know a girl who lives ’collée’ with a
- gaga,” I said, brutally.
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu flushed suddenly, and faced me with blazing eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Comment done! You believe that?” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pooh!” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, mais non, mais non, mais non, alors! You don’t believe that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You pay me a poor compliment. Why should you expect me to be ignorant of
- a thing the whole Quarter knows?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, the whole Quarter! What does that matter to me, your Quarter? Those
- nasty little students! C’est de la crasse, quoi! They may believe—they
- may say—what they like. Oh, ça m’est bien égal!” with a shake of the
- head and a skyward gesture. “But you—but my friends! Am I that sort
- of girl? Answer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s only one sort of girl in the precincts ot this University,”
- declared her disenchanted interlocutor. “You’re all of one pattern. The
- man’s an ass who expects any good from any of you. Don’t pose as better
- than the others. You’re all a—un tas de saletés. I’m sick and tired
- of the whole sordid, squalid lot of you. I should be greatly obliged, now,
- if you would have the kindness to leave me. Go back to your gaga. He’ll be
- impatient waiting.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That speech, I fancied, would rid me of her. But no.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are trying to make me angry, aren’t you? But I refuse to leave you
- till you have admitted that you are wrong,” she persisted. “It’s an
- outrageous slander. Monsieur Long (that is his name, Monsieur Long), he
- lives in the same house with me, on the same landing; et voilà tout. Dame!
- Can I prevent him? Am I the landlord? And, for that, they say I’m ’collée’
- with him. I don’t care what they say. But you! I swear to you it is an
- infamous lie. Will you come home with me now, and see?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that’s mere quibbling. You go with him everywhere, you dine with him,
- you are never seen without him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dieu de Dieu!” wailed P’tit-Bleu. “How shall I convince you? He is my
- neighbour. Is it forbidden to know one’s neighbours? I swear to you, I
- give you my word of honour, it is nothing else. How to make you believe
- me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, my dear,” said I, “if you wish me to believe you, break with him.
- Chuck him up. Drop his acquaintance. Nobody in his senses will believe you
- so long as you go trapesing about the Quarter with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but no,” she cried, “I can’t drop his acquaintance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, there it is,” cried I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are reasons. There are reasons why I can’t, why I mustn’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thought so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, voyons!” she broke out, losing patience.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you not believe my word of honour? Will you force me to tell you
- things that don’t concern you—that I have no right to tell? Well,
- then, listen. I cannot drop his acquaintance, because—this is a
- secret—he would die of shame if he thought I had betrayed it—you
- will never breathe it to a soul—because I have discovered that he
- has a—a vice, a weakness. No—but listen. He is an Englishman,
- a painter. Oh, a painter of great talent; a painter who has exposed at the
- Salon—quoi! A painter who is known in his country. On a même parlé
- de lui dans les journaux; voilà! But look. He has a vice. He has half
- ruined, half killed himself with a drug. Yes—opium. Oh, but wait,
- wait. I will tell you. He came to live in our house last July, in the room
- opposite mine. When we met, on the landing, in the staircase, he took off
- his hat, and we passed the bonjour. Oh, he is a gentleman; he has been
- well brought up. From that we arrived at speaking together a little, and
- then at visiting. It was the dead season, I had no affairs. I would sit in
- his room in the afternoon, and we would chat. Oh, he is a fine talker.
- But, though he had canvases, colours, all that is needed for painting, he
- never painted. He would only talk, talk. I said, ’But you ought to paint.’
- He said always, ’Yes, I must begin something to-morrow.’ Always to-morrow.
- And then I discovered what it was. He took opium. He spent all his money
- for opium. And when he had taken his opium he would not work, he would
- only talk, talk, talk, and then sleep, sleep. You think that is well—hein?
- That a painter of talent should do no work, but spend all his money for a
- drug, for a poison, and then say, ’To-morrow’. You think I could sit still
- and see him commit these follies under my eyes and say nothing, do
- nothing? Ruin his brain, his health, his career, and waste all his money,
- for that drug? Oh, mais non. I made him the sermon. I said, ’You know it
- is very bad, that which you are doing there.’ I scolded him. I said, ’But
- I forbid you to do that—do you understand? I forbid it.’ I went with
- him everywhere, I gave him all my time; and when he would take his drug I
- would annoy him, I would make a scene, I would shame him. Well, in the
- end, I have acquired an influence over him. He has submitted himself to
- me. He is really trying to break the habit. I keep all his money. I give
- him his doses. I regulate them, I diminish them. The consequence is, I
- make him work. I give him one very small dose in the morning to begin the
- day. Then I will give him no more till he has done so much work. You see?
- Tu te figures que je suis sa maîtresse? Je suis plutôt sa nounou—va!
- Je suis sa caissière. And he is painting a great picture—you will
- see. Eh bien, how can I give up his acquaintance? Can I let him relapse,
- as he would do to-morrow without me, into his bad habit?”
- </p>
- <p>
- I was walking with long strides, P’tit-Bleu tripping at my elbow; and
- before her story was finished we had left the Boulevard behind us, and
- reached the middle of the Pont St. Michel. There, I don’t know why, we
- halted, and stood looking off towards Notre-Dame. The grim grey front of
- the Cathedral glowed softly amethystine in the afternoon sun, and the sky
- was infinitely deep and blue above it. One could be intensely conscious of
- the splendid penetrating beauty of this picture, without, somehow, giving
- the less attention to what P’tit-Bleu was saying. She talked swiftly,
- eagerly, with constantly changing, persuasive intonations, with little
- brief pauses, hesitations, with many gestures, with much play of eyes and
- face. When she had done, I waited a moment. Then, grudgingly, “Well,” I
- began, “if what you tell me is true——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>If</i> it is true!” P’tit-Bleu cried, with sudden fierceness. “Do you
- dare to say you doubt it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she gazed intently, fiercely, into my eyes, challenging me, as it
- were, to give her the lie.
- </p>
- <p>
- Before that gaze my eyes dropped, abashed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—I don’t doubt it,” I faltered, “I believe you. And—and
- allow me to say that you are a—a damned decent little girl.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor P’tit-Bleu! How shall I tell you the rest of her story—the
- story of those long years of love and sacrifice and devotion, and of
- continual discouragement, disappointment, with his death at the end of
- them, and her disappearance?
- </p>
- <p>
- In the beginning she herself was very far from realising what she had
- undertaken, what had befallen her. To exercise a little friendly
- supervision over her neighbour’s addiction to opium, to husband his money
- for him, and spur him on to work—it seemed a mere incident in her
- life, an affair by the way. But it became her exclusive occupation, her
- whole life’s chief concern. Little by little, one after the other, she put
- aside all her former interests, thoughts, associations, dropped all her
- former engagements, to give herself as completely to caring for, guarding,
- guiding poor old Edward Long, as if she had been a mother, and he her
- helpless child.
- </p>
- <p>
- Throughout that first winter, indeed, she continued to dance at Bullier,
- continued to instruct her corps of pupils, and continued even
- occasionally, though much less frequently than of old time, to be seen at
- the Vachette, or to sup with a friend at the Gambrinus. But from day to
- day Monsieur Edouard (he had soon ceased to be Monsieur Long, and become
- Monsieur Edouard) absorbed more and more of her time and attention; and
- when the spring came she suddenly burned her ships.
- </p>
- <p>
- You must understand that she had one pertinacious adversary in her efforts
- to wean him of his vice. Not an avowed adversary, for he professed the
- most earnest wish that she might be successful; but an adversary who was
- eternally putting spokes in her wheel, all the same. Yes, Monsieur Edouard
- himself. Never content with the short rations to which she had condemned
- him, he was perpetually on the watch for a chance to elude her vigilance;
- she was perpetually discovering that he had somehow contrived to lay in
- secret supplies. And every now and again, openly defying her authority, he
- would go off for a grand debauch. Then her task of reducing his daily
- portion to a minimum must needs be begun anew. Well, when the spring came,
- and the Salon opened, where his picture (<i>her</i> picture?) had been
- received and very fairly hung, they went together to the Vernissage. And
- there he met a whole flock of English folk—artists and critics, who
- had “just run over for the show, you know”—with whom he was
- acquainted; and they insisted on carrying him away with them to lunch at
- the Ambassadeurs.
- </p>
- <p>
- I, too, had assisted at the Vernissage; and when I left it, I found
- P’tit-Bleu seated alone under the trees in the Champs-Elysées. She had on
- a brilliant spring toilette, with a hat and a sunshade.... Oh, my dear! It
- is not to be denied that P’tit-Bleu had the courage of her tastes. But her
- face was pale, and her lips were drawn down, and her eyes looked strained
- and anxious.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the row?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- And she told me how she had been abandoned—“plantée là” was her
- expression—and of course I invited her to lunch with me. But she
- scarcely relished the repast. “Pourvu qu’il ne fasse pas de bêtises!” was
- her refrain.
- </p>
- <p>
- She returned rather early to the Rue Monsieur le Prince, to see if he had
- come home; but he hadn’t. Nor did he come home that night, nor the next
- day, nor the next. At the week’s end, though, he came: dirty, haggard,
- tremulous, with red eyes, and nude—yes, nude—of everything
- save his shirt and trousers! He had borrowed a sovereign from one of his
- London friends, and when that was gone, he had pledged or sold everything
- but his shirt and trousers—hat, boots, coat, everything. It was an
- equally haggard and red-eyed P’tit-Bleu who faced him on his reappearance.
- And I’ve no doubt she gave him a specimen of her eloquence. “You figure to
- yourself that this sort of thing amuses me, hein? Here are six good days
- and nights that I haven’t been able to sleep or rest.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Explaining the case to me, she said, “Ah, what I suffered! I could never
- have believed that I cared so much for him. But—what would you?—one
- attaches oneself, you know. Ah, what I suffered! The anxiety, the terrors!
- I expected to hear of him run over in the streets. Well, now, I must make
- an end of this business. I’m going to take him away. So long as he remains
- in Paris, where there are chemists who will sell him that filthiness
- (cette crasse) it is hopeless. No sooner do I get my house of cards nicely
- built up, than—piff!—something happens to knock it over. I am
- going to take him down into the country, far from any town, far from the
- railway, where I can guard him better. I know a place, a farmhouse, near
- Villiers-St.-Jacques, where we can get board. He has a little income,
- which reaches him every three months from England. Oh, very little, but if
- I am careful of it, it will pay our way. And then—I will make him
- work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no,” I protested. “You’re not going to leave the Quarter.” And I’m
- ashamed to acknowledge, I laboured hard to dissuade her. “Think how we’ll
- miss you. Think how you’ll bore yourself. And anyhow, he’s not worth it.
- And besides, you won’t succeed. A man who has an appetite for opium will
- get it, coûte que coûte. He’d walk twenty miles in bare feet to get it.”
- This was the argument that I repeated in a dozen different paraphrases.
- You see, I hadn’t realised yet that it didn’t matter an atom whether she
- succeeded, or whether he was worth it. He was a mere instrument in the
- hands of Providence. Let her succeed or let her fail in keeping him from
- opium: the important thing... how shall I put it? This little Undine had
- risen out of the black waters of the Latin Quarter, and attached herself
- to a mortal. What is it that love gains for Undines?
- </p>
- <p>
- “Que veux-tu?” cried P’tit-Bleu. “I am fond of him. I can’t bear to see
- him ruining himself. I must do what I can.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And the Quarter said, “Ho-ho! You chaps who didn’t believe it was a
- ’collage’. He-he! What do you say now? She’s chucked up everything, to go
- and live in the country with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In August or September I ran down to the farmhouse near
- Villiers-St.-Jacques, and passed a week with them. I found a mightily
- changed Monsieur Edouard, and a curiously changed P’tit-Bleu, as well. He
- was fat and rosy, he who had been so thin and white. And she—she was
- <i>grave</i>. Yes, P’tit-Bleu was grave: sober, staid, serious. And her
- impish, mocking black eyes shone with a strange, serious, calm light.
- </p>
- <p>
- Monsieur Edouard (with whom my relations had long before this become
- confidential) drew me apart, and told me he was having an exceedingly bad
- time of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s really too absurd, you know. She’s a martinet, a tyrant. Opium is
- to me what tobacco is to you, and does me no more harm. I need it for my
- work. Oh, in moderation; of course one can be excessive. Yet she refuses
- to let me have a tenth of my proper quantity. And besides, how utterly
- senseless it is, keeping me down here in the country. I’m dying of ennui.
- There’s not a person I can have any sort of intellectual sympathy with,
- for miles in every direction. An artist needs the stimulus of contact with
- his fellows. It’s indispensable. If she’d only let me run up to Paris for
- a day or two at a time, once a month say. Couldn’t you persuade her to let
- me go back with you? She’s the most awful screw, you know. It’s the French
- lower-middle-class parsimony. I’m never allowed to have twopence in my
- pocket. Yet whose money is it? Where does it come from? I really can’t
- think why I submit, why I don’t break away from her, and follow my own
- wishes. But the poor little thing is fond of me; she attached herself to
- me. I don’t know what would become of her if I cast her off. Oh, don’t
- fancy that I don’t appreciate her. Her intentions are excellent. But she
- lacks wisdom, and she enjoys the exercise of power. I wish you’d speak
- with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu also drew me apart.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Please don’t call me P’tit-Bleu any more. Call me Jeanne. I have put all
- that behind me—all that P’tit-Bleu signifies. I hate to think of it,
- to be reminded of it. I should like to forget it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- When I had promised not to call her P’tit-Bleu any more, she went on,
- replying to my questions, to tell me of their life.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course, everybody thinks I am his mistress. You can’t convince them
- I’m not. But that’s got to be endured. For the rest, all is going well.
- You see how he is improved. I give him fifteen drops of laudanum, morning,
- noon, and night. Fifteen drops—it is nothing, I could take it
- myself, and never know it. And he used to drink off an ounce—an
- ounce, mon cher—at a time, and then want more at the end of an hour.
- Yes! Oh, he complains, he complains of everything, he frets, he is not
- contented. But he has not walked twenty miles in bare feet, as you said he
- would. And he is working. You will see his pictures.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you—how do you pass your time? What do you do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I pose for him a good deal. And then I have much sewing to do. I take in
- sewing for Madame Deschamps, the Deputy’s wife, to help make the ends
- meet. And then I read. Madame Deschamps lends me books.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I suppose you’re bored to death?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, I am not bored. I am happy. I never was really happy—dans
- le temps.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They were living in a very plain way indeed. You know what French
- farmhouses are apt to be. His whole income was under a hundred pounds a
- year; and out of that (and the trifle she earned by needlework) his
- canvases, colours, brushes, frames, had to be paid for, as well as his
- opium, and their food, clothing, everything. But P’tit-Bleu—Jeanne—with
- that “lower-middle-class parsimony” of hers, managed somehow. Jeanne! In
- putting off the name, she had put off also, in great measure, the
- attributes of P’tit-Bleu; she had become Jeanne in nature. She was grave,
- she was quiet. She wore the severest black frocks—she made them
- herself. And I never once noticed the odour of peau-d’.spagne, from the
- beginning to the end of my visit. But—shall I own it? Jeanne was
- certainly the more estimable of the two women, but shall I own that I
- found her far less exciting as a comrade than P’tit-Bleu had been? She was
- good, but she wasn’t very lively or very amusing.
- </p>
- <p>
- P’tit-Bleu, the heroine of Bullier, that lover of noisy pleasure, of
- daring toilettes, of risky perfumes, of écrevisses and chablis, of all the
- rush and dissipation of the Boul’ Miche and the Luxembourg, quietly
- settling down into Jeanne of the home-made frocks, in a rough French
- farmhouse, to a diet of veal and lentils, lentils and veal, seven times a
- week, and no other pastime in life than the devoted, untiring nursing of
- an ungrateful old English opium-eater—here was variation under
- domestication with a vengeance.
- </p>
- <p>
- And on Sunday... P’tit-Bleu went twice to church!
- </p>
- <p>
- About ten days after my return to Paris, there came a rat-ta-ta-tat at my
- door, and P’tit-BIeu walked in—pale, with wide eyes. “I don’t know
- how he has contrived it, but he must have got some money somewhere, and
- walked to the railway, and come to town. Anyhow, here are three days that
- he has disappeared. What to do? What to do?” She was in a deplorable state
- of mind, poor thing, and I scarcely knew how to help her. I proposed that
- we should take counsel with a Commissary of Police. But when that
- functionary discovered that she was neither the wife nor daughter of the
- missing man, he smiled, and remarked, “It is not our business to recover
- ladies’ protectors for them.” P’tit-BIeu walked the streets in quest of
- him, all day long and very nearly all night long too, for close upon a
- fortnight. In the end, she met him on the quays—dazed,
- half-imbecile, and again nude of everything save his shirt and trousers.
- So, again, having nicely built up her house of cards—piff!—something
- had happened to topple it over.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let him go to the devil his own way,” said I. “Really, he’s unworthy of
- your pains.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I can’t leave him. You see, I’m fond of him,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- He, however, positively refused to return to the country. “The fact is,”
- he explained, “I ought to go to London. Yes, it will be well for me to
- pass the winter in London. I should like to have a show there, a one-man
- show, you know. I dare say I could sell a good many pictures, and get
- orders for portraits.” So they went to London. In the spring I received a
- letter from P’tit-Bleu—a letter full of orthographic faults, if you
- like—but a letter that I treasure. Here’s a translation of it:
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Friend,—I have hesitated much before taking my pen in hand
- to write to you. But I have no one else to turn to. We have had a dreadful
- winter. Owing to my ignorance of the language one speaks in this dirty
- town, I have not been able to exercise over Monsieur Edouard that
- supervision of which he has need. In consequence, he has given himself up
- to the evil habit which you know, as never before. Every penny, every last
- sou, which he could command, has been spent for that detestable filth.
- Many times we have passed whole days without eating, no, not the end of a
- crust. He has no desire to eat when he has had his dose. We are living in
- a slum of the most disgusting, in the quarter of London they call Soho.
- Everything we have, save the bare necessary of covering, has been put with
- the lender-on-pledges. Yesterday I found a piece of one shilling in the
- street. That, however, I have been forced to dispense for opium, because,
- when he has had such large quantities, he would die or go mad if suddenly
- deprived.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have addressed myself to his family, but without effect. They refuse to
- recognise me. Everybody here, of course, figures to himself that I am his
- mistress. He has two brothers, one of the army, one an advocate. I have
- besieged them in vain. They say, ’We have done for him all that is
- possible. We can do no more. He has exhausted our patience. Now that he
- has gone a step farther, and, in his age, disgraced himself by living with
- a mistress, as well as besotting himself with opium, we wash our hands of
- him for good.’ And yet, I cannot leave him, because I know, without me, he
- would kill himself within the month, by his excesses. To his sisters, both
- of whom are married and ladies of the world, I have appealed with equal
- results. They refuse to regard me otherwise than as his mistress. But I
- cannot bear to see that great man, with that mind, that talent, doing
- himself to death. And when he is not under the influence of his drug, who
- is so great? Who has the wit, the wisdom, the heart, the charm, of
- Monsieur Edouard? Who can paint like him?
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear, as a last resource, I take up my pen to ask you for assistance.
- If you could see him your heart would be moved. He is so thin, so thin,
- and his face has become <i>blue</i>, yes, blue, like the face of a dead
- man. Help me to save him from himself. If you can send me a note of five
- hundred francs, I can pay off our indebtedness here, and bring him back to
- France, where, in a sane country, far from a town, again I can reduce him
- to a few drops of laudanum a day, and again see him in health and at work.
- That which it costs me to make this request of you, I have not the words
- to tell you. But, at the end ot my forces, having no other means, no other
- support, I confide myself to your well-tried amity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I give you a good kiss. Jeanne.”
- </p>
- <p>
- If the reading of this letter brought a lump into my throat and something
- like tears into my eyes—if I hastened to a banker’s, and sent
- P’tit-Bleu the money she asked for, by telegraph—if I reproached her
- bitterly and sincerely for not having applied to me long before,—I
- hope you will believe that it wasn’t for the sake of Monsieur Edouard.
- </p>
- <p>
- They established themselves at St. Etienne, a hamlet on the coast of
- Normandy, to be farther from Paris. Dieppe was their nearest town. They
- lived at St.-Etienne for nearly three years. But, periodically, when she
- had got her house of cards nicely built up—piff!—he would walk
- into Dieppe.
- </p>
- <p>
- He walked into Dieppe one day in the autumn of 1885, and it took her a
- week to find him. He was always ill, after one of his grand debauches.
- This time he was worse than he had ever been before. I can imagine the
- care with which she nursed him, her anxious watching by his bedside, her
- prayers, her hopes, the blankness when he died.
- </p>
- <p>
- She came back to Paris, and called three times at my lodgings. But I was
- in England, and didn’t receive the notes she left till nearly six months
- afterwards. I have never seen her since, never heard from her.
- </p>
- <p>
- What has become of her? It is not pleasant to conjecture. Of course, after
- his death, she ought to have died too. But the Angel of this Life,
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- “Whose care is lest men see too much at once,”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- couldn’t permit any such satisfying termination. So she has simply
- disappeared, and, in the flesh, may have come to... one would rather not
- conjecture. All the same, I can’t believe that in the spirit she will have
- made utter shipwreck. I can’t believe that nothing permanent was won by
- those long years of love and pain. Her house of cards was toppled over, as
- often as she built it up; but perhaps she was all the while building
- another house, a house not made with hands, a house, a temple,
- indestructible.
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor P’tit-Bleu!
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE HOUSE OF EULALIE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was a pretty
- little house, in very charming country—in an untravelled corner of
- Normandy, near the sea; a country of orchards and colza fields, of soft
- green meadows where cattle browsed, and of deep elm-shaded lanes.
- </p>
- <p>
- One was rather surprised to see this little house just here, for all the
- other houses in the neighbourhood were rude farm-houses or labourers’
- cottages; and this was a coquettish little chalet, white-walled, with slim
- French windows, and balconies of twisted ironwork, and Venetian blinds: a
- gay little pleasure-house, standing in a bright little garden, among
- rosebushes, and parterres of geraniums, and smooth stretches of
- greensward. Beyond the garden there was an orchard—rows and couples
- of old gnarled apple-trees, bending towards one another like fantastic
- figures arrested in the middle of a dance. Then, turning round, you looked
- over feathery colza fields and yellow corn fields, a mile away, to the
- sea, and to a winding perspective of white cliffs, which the sea bathed in
- transparent greens and purples, luminous shadows of its own nameless hues.
- </p>
- <p>
- A board attached to the wall confirmed, in roughly painted characters, the
- information I had had from an agent in Dieppe. The house was to let; and I
- had driven out—a drive of two long hours—to inspect it. Now I
- stood on the doorstep and rang the bell. It was a big bell, hung in the
- porch, with a pendent handle of bronze, wrought in the semblance of a rope
- and tassel. Its voice would carry far on that still country air.
- </p>
- <p>
- It carried, at any rate, as far as a low thatched farm-house, a hundred
- yards down the road. Presently a man and a woman came out of the
- farm-house, gazed for an instant in my direction, and then moved towards
- me: an old brown man, an old grey woman, the man in corduroys, the woman
- wearing a neat white cotton cap and a blue apron, both moving with the
- burdened gait of peasants.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are Monsieur and Madame Leroux?” I asked, when we had accomplished
- our preliminary good-days; and I explained that I had come from the agent
- in Dieppe to look over their house. For the rest, they must have been
- expecting me; the agent had said that he would let them know.
- </p>
- <p>
- But, to my perplexity, this business-like announcement seemed somehow to
- embarrass them; even, I might have thought, to agitate, to distress them.
- They lifted up their worn old faces, and eyed me anxiously. They exchanged
- anxious glances with each other. The woman clasped her hands, nervously
- working her fingers. The man hesitated and stammered a little, before he
- was able to repeat vaguely, “You have come to look over the house,
- Monsieur?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely,” I said, “the agent has written to you? I understood from him
- that you would expect me at this hour to-day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes,” the man admitted, “we were expecting you.” But he made no motion
- to advance matters. He exchanged another anxious glance with his wife. She
- gave her head a sort of helpless nod, and looked down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You see, Monsieur,” the man began, as if he were about to elucidate the
- situation, “you see—” But then he faltered, frowning at the air, as
- one at a loss for words.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The house is already let, perhaps?” suggested I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, the house is not let,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You had better go and fetch the key,” his wife said at last, in a dreary
- way, still looking down.
- </p>
- <p>
- He trudged heavily back to the farm-house. While he was gone we stood by
- the door in silence, the woman always nervously working the fingers of her
- clasped hands. I tried, indeed, to make a little conversation: I ventured
- something about the excellence of the site, the beauty of the view. She
- replied with a murmur of assent, civilly but wearily; and I did not feel
- encouraged to persist.
- </p>
- <p>
- By-and-by her husband rejoined us, with the key; and they began silently
- to lead me through the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were two pretty drawing-rooms on the ground floor, a pretty
- dining-room, and a delightful kitchen, with a broad hearth of polished red
- bricks, a tiled chimney, and shining copper pots and pans. The
- drawing-rooms and the dining-room were pleasantly furnished in a light
- French fashion, and their windows opened to the sun and to the fragrance
- and greenery of the garden. I expressed a good deal of admiration;
- whereupon, little by little, the manner of my conductors changed. From
- constrained, depressed, it became responsive; even, in the end, effusive.
- They met my exclamations with smiles, my inquiries with voluble eager
- answers. But it remained an agitated manner, the manner of people who were
- shaken by an emotion. Their old hands trembled as they opened the doors
- for me or drew up the blinds; their voices trembled. There was something
- painful in their very smiles, as if these were but momentary ripples on
- the surface of a trouble.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah,” I said to myself, “they are hard-pressed for money. They have put
- their whole capital into this house, very likely. They are excited by the
- prospect of securing a tenant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, if you please, Monsieur, we will go upstairs, and see the bedrooms,”
- the old man said.
- </p>
- <p>
- The bedrooms were airy, cheerful rooms, gaily papered, with chintz
- curtains and the usual French bedroom furniture. One of them exhibited
- signs of being actually lived in; there were things about it, personal
- things, a woman’s things. It was the last room we visited, a front room,
- looking off to the sea. There were combs and brushes on the toilet-table;
- there were pens, an inkstand, and a portfolio on the writing-desk; there
- were books in the bookcase. Framed photographs stood on the mantelpiece.
- In the closet dresses were suspended, and shoes and slippers were primly
- ranged on the floor. The bed was covered with a counterpane of blue silk;
- a crucifix hung on the wall above it; beside it there was a <i>prie-dieu</i>,
- with a little porcelain holy-water vase.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” I exclaimed, turning to Monsieur and Madame Leroux, “this room is
- occupied?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Madame Leroux did not appear to hear me. Her eyes were fixed in a dull
- stare before her, her lips were parted slightly. She looked tired, as if
- she would be glad when our tour through the house was finished. Monsieur
- Leroux threw his hand up towards the ceiling in an odd gesture, and said,
- “No, the room is not occupied at present.”
- </p>
- <p>
- We went back downstairs, and concluded an agreement. I was to take the
- house for the summer. Madame Leroux would cook for me. Monsieur Leroux
- would drive into Dieppe on Wednesday to fetch me and my luggage out.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- On Wednesday we had been driving for something like half an hour without
- speaking, when all at once Leroux said to me, “That room, Monsieur, the
- room you thought was occupied——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” I questioned, as he paused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have a proposition to make,” said he. He spoke, as it seemed to me,
- half shyly, half doggedly, gazing the while at the ears of his horse.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you will leave that room as it is, with the things in it, we will make
- a reduction in the rent. If you will let us keep it as it is?” he
- repeated, with a curious pleading intensity. “You are alone. The house
- will be big enough for you without that room, will it not, Monsieur?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, I consented at once. If they wished to keep the room as it was,
- they were to do so, by all means.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, thank you very much. My wife will be grateful to you,” he
- said.
- </p>
- <p>
- For a little while longer we drove on without speaking. Presently, “You
- are our first tenant. We have never let the house before,” he volunteered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah? Have you had it long?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I built it. I built it, five, six, years ago,” said he. Then, after a
- pause, he added, “I built it for my daughter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- His voice sank, as he said this. But one felt that it was only the
- beginning of something he wished to say.
- </p>
- <p>
- I invited him to continue by an interested, “Oh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You see what we are, my wife and I,” he broke out suddenly. “We are rough
- people, we are peasants. But my daughter, sir”—he put his hand on my
- knee, and looked earnestly into my face—“my daughter was as fine as
- satin, as fine as lace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned back to his horse, and again drove for a minute or two in
- silence. At last, always with his eyes on the horse’s ears, “There was not
- a lady in this country finer than my daughter,” he went on, speaking
- rapidly, in a thick voice, almost as if to himself. “She was beautiful,
- she had the sweetest character, she had the best education. She was
- educated at the convent, in Rouen, at the Sacré Cour. Six years—from
- twelve to eighteen—she studied at the convent. She knew English, sir—your
- language. She took prizes for history. And the piano! Nobody living can
- touch the piano as my daughter could. Well,” he demanded abruptly, with a
- kind of fierceness, “was a rough farm-house good enough for her?” He
- answered his own question. “No, Monsieur. You would not soil fine lace by
- putting it in a dirty box. My daughter was finer than lace. Her hands were
- softer than Lyons velvet. And oh,” he cried, “the sweet smell they had,
- her hands! It was good to smell her hands. I used to kiss them and smell
- them, as you would smell a rose.” His voice died away at the reminiscence,
- and there was another interval of silence. By-and-by he began again, “I
- had plenty of money. I was the richest farmer of this neighbourhood. I
- sent to Rouen for the best architect they have there. Monsieur Clermont,
- the best architect of Rouen, laureate of the Fine Arts School of Paris, he
- built that house for my daughter; he built it and furnished it, to make it
- fit for a countess, so that when she came home for good from the convent
- she should have a home worthy of her. Look at this, Monsieur. Would the
- grandest palace in the world be too good for her?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He had drawn a worn red leather case from his pocket, and taken out a
- small photograph, which he handed to me. It was the portrait of a girl, a
- delicate-looking girl, of about seventeen. Her face was pretty, with the
- irregular prettiness not uncommon in France, and very sweet and gentle.
- The old man almost held his breath while I was examining the photograph.
- “Est-elle gentille? Est-elle belle, Monsieur?” he besought me, with a very
- hunger for sympathy, as I returned it. One answered, of course, what one
- could, as best one could. He, with shaking fingers, replaced the
- photograph in its case. “Here, Monsieur,” he said, extracting from an
- opposite compartment a little white card. It was the usual French memorial
- of mourning: an engraving of the Cross and Dove, under which was printed:
- “Eulalie-Joséphine-Marie Leroux. Born the 16th May, 1874. Died the 12th
- August, 1892. Pray for her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The good God knows what He does. I built that house for my daughter, and
- when it was built the good God took her away. We were mad with grief, my
- wife and I; but that could not save her. Perhaps we are still mad with
- grief,” the poor old man said simply. “We can think of nothing else. We
- never wish to speak of anything else. We could not live in the house—her
- house, without her. We never thought to let it. I built that house for my
- daughter, I furnished it for her, and when it was ready for her—she
- died. Was it not hard, Monsieur? How could I let the house to strangers?
- But lately I have had losses. I am compelled to let it, to pay my debts. I
- would not let it to everybody. You are an Englishman. Well, if I did not
- like you, I would not let it to you for a million English pounds. But I am
- glad I have let it to you. You will respect her memory. And you will allow
- us to keep that room—her room. We shall be able to keep it as it
- was, with her things in it. Yes, that room which you thought was occupied—that
- was my daughter’s room.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Madame Leroux was waiting for us in the garden of the chalet. She looked
- anxiously up at her husband as we arrived. He nodded his head, and called
- out, “It is all right. Monsieur agrees.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old woman took my hands, wringing them hysterically almost. “Ah,
- Monsieur, you are very good,” she said. She raised her eyes to mine. But I
- could not look into her eyes. There was a sorrow in them, an awfulness, a
- sacredness of sorrow, which, I felt, it would be like sacrilege for me to
- look at.
- </p>
- <p>
- We became good friends, the Leroux and I, during the three months I passed
- as their tenant. Madame, indeed, did for me and looked after me with a
- zeal that was almost maternal. Both of them, as the old man had said,
- loved above all things to talk of their daughter, and I hope I was never
- loth to listen. Their passion, their grief, their constant thought of her,
- appealed to one as very beautiful, as well as very touching. And something
- like a pale spirit of the girl seemed gently, sweetly, always to be
- present in the house, the house that Love had built for her, not guessing
- that Death would come, as soon as it was finished, and call her away. “Oh,
- but it is a joy, Monsieur, that you have left us her room,” the old couple
- were never tired of repeating. One day Madame took me up into the room,
- and showed me Eulalie’s pretty dresses, her trinkets, her books, the
- handsomely bound books that she had won as prizes at the convent. And on
- another day she showed me some of Eulalie’s letters, asking me if she
- hadn’t a beautiful hand-writing, if the letters were not beautifully
- expressed. She showed me photographs of the girl at all ages; a lock of
- her hair; her baby clothes; the priest’s certificate of her first
- communion; the bishop’s certificate of her confirmation. And she showed me
- letters from the good sisters of the Sacred Heart, at Rouen, telling of
- Eulalie’s progress in her studies, praising her conduct and her character.
- “Oh, to think that she is gone, that she is gone!” the old woman wailed,
- in a kind of helpless incomprehension, incredulity, of loss. Then, in a
- moment, she murmured, with what submissiveness she could, “Le bon Dieu
- sait ce qu’il fait,” crossing herself.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the 12th of August, the anniversary of her death, I went with them to
- the parish church, where a mass was said for the repose of Eulalie’s soul.
- And the kind old curé afterwards came round, and pressed their hands, and
- spoke words of comfort to them.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- In September I left them, returning to Dieppe. One afternoon I chanced to
- meet that same old curé in the high street there. We stopped and spoke
- together—naturally, of the Leroux, of what excellent people they
- were, of how they grieved for their daughter. “Their love was more than
- love. They adored the child, they idolised her. I have never witnessed
- such affection,” the curé told me. “When she died, I seriously feared they
- would lose their reason. They were dazed, they were beside themselves; for
- a long while they were quite as if mad. But God is merciful. They have
- learned to live with their affliction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is very beautiful,” said I, “the way they have sanctified her memory,
- the way they worship it. You know, of course, they keep her room, with her
- things in it, exactly as she left it. That seems to me very beautiful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Her room?” questioned the curé, looking vague. “What room?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, didn’t you know?” I wondered. “Her bedroom in the chalet. They keep
- it as she left it, with all her things about, her books, her dresses.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t think I follow you,” the curé said. “She never had a bedroom in
- the chalet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I beg your pardon. One of the front rooms on the first floor was her
- room,” I informed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- But he shook his head. “There is some mistake. She never lived in the
- chalet. She died in the old house. The chalet was only just finished when
- she died. The workmen were hardly out of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” I said, “it is you who must be mistaken; you must forget. I am quite
- sure. The Leroux have spoken of it to me times without number.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, my dear sir,” the curé insisted, “I am not merely sure; I know. I
- attended the girl in her last agony. She died in the farm-house. They had
- not moved into the chalet. The chalet was being furnished. The last pieces
- of furniture were taken in the very day before her death. The chalet was
- never lived in. You are the only person who has ever lived in the chalet.
- I assure you of the fact.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” I said, “that is very strange, that is very strange indeed.” And
- for a minute I was bewildered, I did not know what to think. But only for
- a minute. Suddenly I cried out, “Oh, I see—I see. I understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I saw, I understood. Suddenly I saw the pious, the beautiful deception
- that these poor stricken souls had sought to practise on themselves; the
- beautiful, the fond illusion they had created for themselves. They had
- built the house for their daughter, and she had died just when it was
- ready for her. But they could not bear—they could not bear—to
- think that not for one little week even, not even for one poor little day
- or hour, had she lived in the house, enjoyed the house. That was the
- uttermost farthing of their sorrow, which they could not pay. They could
- not acknowledge it to their own stricken hearts. So, piously, reverently—with
- closed eyes as it were, that they might not know what they were doing—they
- had carried the dead girl’s things to the room they had meant for her,
- they had arranged them there, they had said, “This was her room; this <i>was</i>
- her room.” They would not admit to themselves, they would not let
- themselves stop to think, that she had never, even for one poor night,
- slept in it, enjoyed it. They told a beautiful pious falsehood to
- themselves. It was a beautiful pious game of “make-believe,” which, like
- children, they could play together. And—the curé had said it: God is
- merciful. In the end they had been enabled to confuse their beautiful
- falsehood with reality, and to find comfort in it; they had been enabled
- to forget that their “make-believe” was a “make-believe,” and to mistake
- it for a beautiful comforting truth. The uttermost farthing of their
- sorrow, which they could not pay, was not exacted. They were suffered to
- keep it; and it became their treasure, precious to them as fine gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- Falsehood—truth? Nay, I think there are illusions that are not
- falsehoods—that are Truth’s own smiles of pity for us.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- THE QUEEN’. PLEASURE
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> am writing to you
- from a lost corner of the far south-east of Europe. The author of my
- guide-book, in his preface, observes that a traveller in this part of the
- world, “unless he has some acquaintance with the local idioms, is liable
- to find himself a good deal bewildered about the names of places.” On
- Thursday of last week I booked from Charing Cross, by way of Dover, Paris,
- and the Orient Express, for Vescova, the capital of Monterosso; and
- yesterday afternoon—having changed on Sunday, at Belgrade, from land
- to water, and steamed for close upon forty-eight hours down the Danube—I
- was put ashore at the town of <i>Bckob</i>, in the Principality of
- Tchermnogoria.
- </p>
- <p>
- I certainly might well have found myself a good deal bewildered; and if I
- did not—for I’m afraid I can’t boast of much acquaintance with the
- local idioms—it was no doubt because this isn’t my first visit to
- the country. I was here some years ago, and then I learned that <i>Bckob</i>
- is pronounced as nearly as may be Vscof, and that Tchermnogoria is
- Monterosso literally translated—<i>tchermnoe</i> (the dictionaries
- certify) meaning red, and <i>gora</i>, or <i>goria</i>, a hill, a
- mountain.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is our fashion in England to speak of Monterosso, if we speak of it at
- all, as I have just done: we say the Principality of Monterosso. But if we
- were to inquire at the Foreign Office, I imagine they would tell us that
- our fashion of speaking is not strictly correct. In its own Constitution
- Monterosso describes itself as a <i>Krolevstvo</i>, and its Sovereign as
- the <i>Krol</i>; and in all treaties and diplomatic correspondence, <i>Krol</i>
- and <i>Krolevstvo</i> are recognised by those most authoritative
- lexicographers, the Powers, as equivalent respectively to King and
- Kingdom. Anyhow, call it what you will, Monterosso is geographically the
- smallest, though politically the eldest, of the lower Danubian States. (It
- is sometimes, by-the-bye, mentioned in the newspapers of Western Europe as
- one of the Balkan States, which can scarcely be accurate, since, as a
- glance at the map will show, the nearest spurs of the Balkan Mountains are
- a good hundred miles distant from its southern frontier.) Its area is
- under ten thousand square miles, but its reigning family, the
- Pavelovitches, have contrived to hold their throne, from generation to
- generation, through thick and thin, ever since Peter the Great set them on
- it, at the conclusion of his war with the Turks, in 1713.
- </p>
- <p>
- Vescova is rarely visited by English folk, lying, as it does, something
- like a two days’ journey off the beaten track, which leads through
- Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople. But, should you ever chance to come
- here, you would be surprised to see what a fine town it is, with its
- population of upwards of a hundred thousand souls, its broad, well-paved
- streets, its substantial yellow-stone houses, its three theatres, its
- innumerable churches, its shops and cafés, its gardens, quays, monuments,
- its government offices, and its Royal Palace. I am speaking, of course, of
- the new town, the modern town, which has virtually sprung into existence
- since 1850, and which, the author of my guide-book says, “disputes with
- Bukharest the title of the Paris of the South-east.” The old town—the
- Turkish town, as they call it—is another matter: a nightmare-region
- of filthy alleys, open sewers, crumbling clay hovels, mud, stench, dogs,
- and dirty humanity, into which a well-advised foreigner will penetrate as
- seldom as convenient. Yet it is in the centre of the old town that the
- Cathedral stands, the Cathedral of Sankt Iakov, an interesting specimen of
- Fifteenth Century Saracenic, having been erected by the Sultan Mohammed
- II., as a mosque.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of the Royal Palace I obtain a capital view from the window of my room in
- the Hôtel de Russie.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A vast irregular pile,” in the language of my guide-book, “it is built on
- the summit of an eminence which dominates the town from the west.” The
- “eminence” rises gradually from this side to a height of perhaps a hundred
- feet, but breaks off abruptly on the other in a sheer cliff overhanging
- the Danube. The older portions of the Palace spring from the very brink of
- the precipice, so that, leaning from their ramparts, you could drop a
- pebble straight into the current, an appalling depth below. And, still to
- speak by the book, these older portions “vie with the Cathedral in
- architectural interest.” What I see from my bedroom is a formidable,
- murderous-looking Saracenic castle: huge perpendicular quadrangles of
- blank, windowless, iron-grey stone wall (<i>curtains</i>, are they
- technically called?), connecting massive square towers; and the towers are
- surmounted by battlements and pierced by meurtrières. It stands out very
- bold and black, gloomy and impressive, when the sun sets behind it, in the
- late afternoon. I could suppose the place quite impregnable, if not
- inaccessible; and it’s a mystery to me how Peter the Great ever succeeded
- in taking it, as History will have it that he did, by assault.
- </p>
- <p>
- The modern portions of the Palace are entirely commonplace and cheerful.
- The east wing, visible from where I am seated writing, might have been
- designed by Baron Haussmann: a long stretch of yellow façade—dazzling
- to the sight just now, in the morning sunshine—with a French roof,
- of slate, and a box of gay-tinted flowers in each of its countless
- windows.
- </p>
- <p>
- Behind the Palace there is a large and very lovely garden, reserved to the
- uses of the Royal Household; and beyond that, the Dunayskiy Prospekt, a
- park that covers about sixty acres, and is open to the public.
- </p>
- <p>
- The first floor, the <i>piano nobile</i>, of that east wing is occupied by
- the private apartments of the King and Queen.
- </p>
- <p>
- I look across the quarter-mile of red-tiled housetops that separate me
- from their Majesties’ habitation, and I fancy the life that is going on
- within. It is too early in the day for either of them to be abroad, so
- they are certainly there, somewhere behind those gleaming windows:
- Theodore <i>Krol</i>t and Anéli <i>Kroleva</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- She, I would lay a wager, is in her music-room, at her piano, practising a
- song with Florimond. She is dressed in white (I always think of her as
- dressed in white—doubtless because she wore a white frock the first
- time I saw her), and her brown hair is curling loose about her forehead,
- her maids not having yet imprisoned it. I declare, I can almost hear her
- voice: <i>tra-la-lira-la-la</i>: mastering a trill; while Florimond, pink,
- and plump, and smiling, walks up and down the room, nodding his head to
- mark the time, and every now and then interrupting her with a suggestion.
- </p>
- <p>
- The King, at this hour, will be in his study, in dressing-gown and
- slippers—a tattered old dingy brown dressing-gown, out at elbows—at
- his big wildly-littered writing-table, producing “copy,” to the
- accompaniment of endless cigarettes and endless glasses of tea.
- (Monterossan cigarettes are excellent, and Monterossan tea is always
- served in glasses.) The King has literary aspirations, and—like
- Frederick the Great—coaxes his muse in French. You will occasionally
- see a <i>conte</i> of his in the <i>Nouvelle Revue</i>, signed by the
- artful pseudonym, Théodore Montrouge.
- </p>
- <p>
- At one o’clock to-day I am to present myself at the Palace, and to be
- received by their Majesties in informal audience; and then I am to have
- the honour of lunching with them. If I were on the point of lunching with
- any other royal family in Europe.... But, thank goodness, I’m not; and I
- needn’t pursue the distressing speculation. Queen Anéli and King Theodore
- are—for a multitude of reasons—a Queen and King apart.
- </p>
- <p>
- You see, when he began life, Theodore IV. was simply Prince Theodore
- Pavelovitch, the younger son of a nephew of the reigning Krol, Paul III,;
- and nobody dimly dreamed that he would ever ascend the throne. So he went
- to Paris, and “made his studies” in the Latin Quarter, like any commoner.
- </p>
- <p>
- In those days—as, I dare say, it still is in these—the Latin
- Quarter was crowded with students from the far South-east. Servians,
- Roumanians, Monte-rossans, grew, as it were, on every bush; we even had a
- sprinkling of Bulgarians and Montenegrins; and those of them who were not
- (more or less vaguely) princes, you could have numbered on your fingers.
- And, anyhow, in that democratic and self-sufficient seat of learning,
- titles count for little, and foreign countries are a matter of consummate
- ignorance and jaunty unconcern. The Duke of Plaza-Toro, should he venture
- in the classical Boul’ Miche, would have to cede the <i>pas</i> to the
- latest hero of the Beaux-Arts, or bully from the School of Medicine, even
- though the hero were the son of a village apothecary, and the bully reeked
- to heaven of absinthe and tobacco; while the Prime Minister of England
- would find his name, it is more than to be feared, unknown, and himself
- regarded as a person of quite extraordinary unimportance.
- </p>
- <p>
- So we accepted Prince Theodore Pavelovitch, and tried him by his
- individual merits, for all the world as if he were made of the same flesh
- and blood as Tom, Dick, and Harry; and thee-and-thou’d him, and hailed him
- as <i>mon vieux</i>, as merrily as we did everybody else. Indeed, I
- shouldn’t wonder if the majority of those who knew him were serenely
- unaware that his origin was royal (he would have been the last to apprise
- them of it), and roughly classed him with our other <i>princes valaques</i>.
- For convenience sake, we lumped them all—the divers natives of the
- lands between the Black Sea and the Adriatic—under the generic name,
- Valaques; we couldn’t be bothered with nicer ethnological distinctions.
- </p>
- <p>
- We tried Prince Theodore by his individual merits; but, as his individual
- merits happened to be signal, we liked him very much. He hadn’t a trace of
- “side;” his pockets were full of money; he was exceedingly free-handed. No
- man was readier for a lark, none more inventive or untiring in the
- prosecution of one. He was a brilliant scholar, besides, and almost the
- best fencer in the Quarter. And he was pleasantly good-looking—fair-haired,
- blue-eyed, with a friendly humorous face, a pointed beard, and a slight,
- agile, graceful figure. Everybody liked him, and everybody was sorry when
- he had to leave us, and return to his ultra-mundane birthplace. “It can’t
- be helped,” he said. “I must go home and do three years of military
- service. But then I shall come back. I mean always to live in Paris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That was in ’82. But he never came back. For, before his three years of
- military service were completed, the half-dozen cousins and the brother
- who stood between him and the throne, had one by one died off, and
- Theodore himself had succeeded to the dignity of <i>Krolevitch</i>,—as
- they call their Heir-Presumptive. In 1886 he married. And, finally, in
- ’88, his great-uncle Paul also died—at the age of ninety-seven, if
- you please—and Theodore was duly proclaimed Krol.
- </p>
- <p>
- He didn’t forget his ancient cronies, though; and I was only one of those
- whom he invited to come and stay with him in his Palace. I came, and
- stayed.... eleven months! That seems egregious; but what will you say of
- another of us, Arthur Fleet (or Florimond, as their Majesties have
- nicknamed him), who came at the same time, and has stayed ever since? The
- fact is, the King is a tenacious as well as a delightful host; if he once
- gets you within his portals, he won’t let you go without a struggle. “We
- do bore ourselves so improbably out here, you know,” he explains. “The
- society of a Christian is a thing we’d commit a crime for.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Theodore’s consort, Anéli Isabella, <i>Kroleva Tcherrnnogory—vide</i>
- the <i>Almanach de Gotha</i>—is the third daughter of the late
- Prince Maximilian of Wittenburg; sister, therefore, to that young Prince
- Waldemar who comes almost every year to England, and with whose name and
- exploits as a yachtsman all conscientious students of the daily press will
- be familiar; and cousin to the reigning Grand Duke Ernest.
- </p>
- <p>
- Theoretically German, she is, however, to all intents and purposes,
- French; for her mother, the Princess Célestine (of Bourbon-Morbihan), was
- a Frenchwoman, and, until her marriage, I fancy that more than half of
- Anéli’s life was passed between Nice and Paris. She openly avows,
- moreover, that she “detests Germany, the German language, the German
- people, and all things German, and adores France and the French.” And her
- political sympathies are entirely with the Franco-Russ alliance.
- </p>
- <p>
- She is a deliciously pretty little lady, with curling soft-brown hair, a
- round, very young-looking face, a delicate rose-and-ivory complexion, and
- big, bright, innocent brown eyes—innocent, yet with plenty of
- potential archness, even potential mischief, lurking in them. She has
- beautiful full red lips, besides, and exquisite little white teeth.
- Florimond wrote a triolet about her once, in which he described her as
- “une fleur en porcelaine.” Her Majesty repudiated the phrase indignantly.
- “Why not say a wax-doll, and be done with it?” she demanded. All the same,
- “fleur en porcelaine” does, in a manner, suggest the general effect of her
- appearance, its daintiness, its finish, its crisp chiselling, its clear,
- pure colour. Whereas, nothing could be more misleading than “wax-doll,”
- for there is character, character, in every molecule of her person.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Queen’s character, indeed, is what I wish I could give some idea of It
- is peculiar, it is distinctive; to me, at any rate, it is infinitely
- interesting and diverting; but, by the same token—if I may hazard so
- to qualify it—it is a trifle.... a trifle.... difficult.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re such an arbitrary gent!” I heard Florimond complain to her, one
- day. (I heard and trembled, but the Queen only laughed.) And that will
- give you an inkling of what I mean.
- </p>
- <p>
- If she likes you, if you amuse her, and if you never remotely oppose or
- question her desire of the moment, she can be all that is most gracious,
- most reasonable, most captivating: an inspiring listener, an entertaining
- talker: mingling the naïveté, the inexperience of evil, the half comical,
- half appealing unsophistication, of a girl, of a child almost—of one
- who has always lived far aloof from the struggle and uncleanness of the
- workaday world—with the wit, the humour, the swift appreciation and
- responsiveness of an exceedingly impressionable, clear-sighted, and
- accomplished woman.
- </p>
- <p>
- But... but....
- </p>
- <p>
- Well, I suppose, the right way of putting it would be to say, in the
- consecrated formula, that she has the defects of her qualities. Having
- preserved something of a child’s simplicity, she has not entirely lost a
- child’s wilfulness, a child’s instability of mood, a child’s trick of
- wearing its heart upon its sleeve. She has never perfectly acquired a
- grown person’s power of controlling or concealing her emotions.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you <i>don’t</i> happen to amuse her—if, by any chance, it is
- your misfortune to <i>bore</i> her, no matter how slightly; and, oh, she
- is so easily bored!—the atmosphere changes in a twinkling: the sun
- disappears, clouds gather, the temperature falls, and (unless you speedily
- “brisken up,” or fly her presence) you may prepare for most uncomfortable
- weather. If you manifest the faintest hesitation in complying with her
- momentary wishes, if you raise the mildest objection to them—<i>gare
- à vous!</i> Her face darkens, ominous lightning flashes in her eyes, her
- under-lip swells dangerously; she very likely stamps her foot imperiously;
- and you are to be accounted lucky if you don’t get a smart dab from the
- barbed end of her royal tongue. And if she doesn’t like you, though she
- may think she is trying with might and main to disguise the fact and to
- treat you courteously, you know it directly, and you go away with the
- persuasion that she has been, not merely cold and abstracted, but
- downright uncivil.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a word, Queen Anéli is hasty, she is impatient.
- </p>
- <p>
- And, in addition to that, she is uncertain. You can never tell beforehand,
- by any theory of probabilities based on past experience, what will or will
- not, on any given occasion, cause her to smile or frown. The thing she
- expressed a desire for yesterday, may offend her to-day, The suggestion
- that offended her yesterday, to-day she may welcome with joyous
- enthusiasm. You must approach her gingerly, tentatively; you must feel
- your ground.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, most dread Sovereign,” said Florimond, “if you won’t fly out at me, I
- would submit, humbly, that you’d better not drive this afternoon in your
- victoria, in your sweet new frock, for, unless all signs fail, it’s going
- to rain like everything.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She didn’t fly out at him exactly; but she retorted succinctly, with a
- peremptory gesture, “No, it’s <i>not</i> going to rain,” as who should
- say, “It daren’t.” And she drove in her victoria, and spoiled her sweet
- new frock. “Not to speak of my sweet new top-hat,” sighs Florimond, who
- attended her; “the only Lincoln and Bennett topper in the whole length and
- breadth of Monterosso.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She is hasty, she is uncertain; and then... she is <i>intense</i>. She
- talks in italics, she feels in superlatives; she admits no comparative
- degree, no emotional half-tones. When she is not <i>ecstatically</i>
- happy, she is <i>desperately</i> miserable; wonders why she was ever born
- into this worst of all possible worlds; wishes she were dead; and even
- sometimes drops dark hints of meditated suicide. When she is not in the
- brightest of affable humours, she is in the blackest of cross ones. She
- either <i>loves</i> a thing, or she <i>simply can’t endure it</i>;—the
- thing may be a town, a musical composition, a perfume, or a person. She
- either loves you, or simply can’t endure you; and she’s very apt to love
- you and to cease to love you alternately—or, at least, to give you
- to understand as much—three or four times a day. It is winter
- midnight or summer noon, a climate of extremes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you like the smell of tangerine-skin?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Every evening for a week, when, at the end of dinner, the fruit was handed
- round, the King asked her that question; and she, never suspecting his
- malice, answered invariably, as she crushed a bit between her fingers, and
- fervidly inhaled its odour, “Oh, do I <i>like</i> it? I <i>adore</i> it.
- It’s perfect <i>rapture</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She is hasty, she is uncertain, she is intense. Will you be surprised when
- I go on to insist that, down deep, she is altogether well-meaning and
- excessively tender-hearted, and when I own that among all the women I know
- I can think of none other who seems to me so attractive, so fascinating,
- so sweetly feminine and loveable? (Oh, no, I am not <i>in love</i> with
- her, not in the least—though I don’t say that I mightn’t be, if I
- were a king, or she were not a queen.) If she realises that she has been
- unreasonable, she is the first to confess it; she repents honestly, and
- makes the devoutest resolutions to amend. If she discovers that she has
- hurt anybody’s feelings, her conscience will not give her a single second
- of peace, until she has sought her victim out and heaped him with
- benefits. If she believes that this or that distasteful task forms in very
- truth a part of her duty, she will go to any length of persevering
- self-sacrifice to accomplish it.
- </p>
- <p>
- She has a hundred generous and kindly impulses, where she has one that is
- perverse or inconsiderate. Bring any case of distress or sorrow to her
- notice, and see how instantly her eyes soften, how eager she is to be of
- help. And in her affections, however mercurial she may appear on the
- surface, she is really constant, passionate, and, in great things,
- forbearing. She and her husband, for example, though they have been
- married perilously near ten years, are little better than a pair of
- sweethearts (and jealous sweethearts, at that: you should have been
- present on a certain evening when we had been having a long talk and laugh
- over old days in the Latin Quarter, and an evil spirit prompted one of us
- to regale her Majesty with a highly-coloured account of Theodore’s
- youthful infatuation for Nina Childe!... Oh, their faces! Oh, the silence!
- ); and then, witness her devotion to her brother, to her sisters; her
- fondness for Florimond, for Madame Donarowska, who was her governess when
- she was a girl, and now lives with her in the Palace.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am writing a fairy-tale,” Florimond said to her “about Princess
- Gugglegoo and Princess Raggle-snag.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” questioned the Queen. “And who were <i>they?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Princess Gugglegoo was all sweetness and pinkness, softness and
- guilelessness, a rose full of honey, and without a thorn; a perfect little
- cherub; oh, such a duck! Princess Ragglesnag was all corners and sharp
- edges, fire and fret, dark moods and quick angers; oh, such an intolerant,
- dictatorial, explosive, tempestuous princess! You could no more touch her
- than you could touch a nettle, or a porcupine, or a live coal, or a Leyden
- jar, or any other prickly, snaggy, knaggy, incandescent, electric thing.
- You were obliged to mind your p’s and q’s with her! But no matter how
- carefully you minded them, she was sure to let you have it, sooner or
- later; you were sure to <i>rile</i> her, one way or another: she was that
- cantankerous and tetchy, and changeable and unexpected.—And then....
- Well, what do you suppose?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m waiting to hear,” the Queen replied, a little drily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there! If you’re going to be grumpy, ma’am, I won’t play,” cried
- Florimond.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not grumpy. Only, your characters are rather conventionally drawn.
- However, go on, go on.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There was a distinct suggestion of menace in your tone. But never mind.
- If you didn’t really mean it, we’ll pretend there wasn’t.—Well, my
- dears,” he went on, turning, so as to include the King in his audience,
- “you never <i>will</i> believe me, but it’s a solemn, sober fact that
- these two princesses were twin sisters, and that they looked so much alike
- that nobody, not even their own born mother, could tell them apart. Now,
- wasn’t <i>that</i> surprising? Only Ragglesnag looked like Gugglegoo
- suddenly curdled and gone sour, you know; and Gugglegoo looked like
- Ragglesnag suddenly wreathed out in smiles and graces. So that the
- courtiers used to say ’Hello! What <i>can</i> have happened? Here comes
- dear Princess Gugglegoo looking as black as thunder.’ Or else—’Bless
- us and save us! What’s <i>this</i> miracle? Here comes old Ragglesnag
- looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,’ Well, and then....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you needn’t continue,” the Queen interrupted, bridling. “You’re
- tedious and obvious, and utterly unfair and unjust. I hope I’m not an
- insipid little fool, like Gugglegoo; but I don’t think I’m quite a
- termagant, either, like your horrid exaggerated Ragglesnag.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” wailed Florimond. “Why <i>will</i> people go and
- make a personal application or everything a fellow says? If I had been
- even remotely thinking of your Majesty, I should never have dreamed of
- calling her by either of those ridiculous outlandish names. Gugglegoo and
- Ragglesnag, indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What <i>would</i> you have called her?” the King asked, who was chuckling
- inscrutably in his armchair.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I <i>might</i> have called her Ragglegoo, and I <i>might</i> have
- called her Gugglesnag. But I hope I’m much too discerning ever to have
- applied such a sweeping generalisation to her as Ragglesnag, or such a
- silly, sugary sort of barbarism as Gugglegoo.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s perfectly useless,” the Queen broke out, bitterly, “to expect a <i>man</i>—even
- a comparatively intelligent and highly-developed man, like Florimond—to
- understand the subtleties of a woman’s nature, or to sympathise with the
- difficulties of her life. When she isn’t as crude, and as blunt, and as
- phlegmatic, and as insensitive, and as transparent and commonplace and
- all-of-one-piece as themselves, men always think a woman’s unreasonable
- and capricious and infantile. It’s a little <i>too</i> discouraging. Here
- I wear myself to a shadow, and bore and worry myself to extermination,
- with all the petty contemptible cares and bothers and pomps and ceremonies
- of this tiresome little Court; and that’s all the thanks I get—to be
- laughed at by my husband, and lectured and ridiculed in stupid allegories
- by Florimond! It’s a little <i>too</i> hard. Oh, if you’d only let me go
- away, and leave it all behind me! I’d go to Paris and change my name, and
- become a concert-singer. It’s the only thing I really care for—to
- sing and sing and sing. Oh, if I could only go and make a career as a
- concert-singer in Paris! Will you let me? Will you? <i>Will</i> you?” she
- demanded, vehemently, of her husband.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s rather a radical measure to bring up for discussion at this hour
- of the night, isn’t it?” the King suggested, laughing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But it’s quite serious enough for you to afford to consider it. And I
- don’t see why one hour isn’t as good as another. <i>Will</i> you let me go
- to Paris and become a concert-singer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What! And leave poor me alone and forlorn here in Vescova? Oh, my dear,
- you wouldn’t desert your own lawful spouse in that regardless manner!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t see what ’lawful’ has to do with it. You don’t half appreciate
- me. You think I’m childish, and capricious, and bad-tempered, and
- everything that’s absurd and idiotic. I don’t see why I should waste my
- life and my youth, stagnating in this out-of-the-way corner of Nowhere,
- with a man who doesn’t appreciate me, and who thinks I’m childish and
- idiotic, when I could go to Paris and have a life of my own, and a career,
- and do the only thing in the world I really care for. Will you let me go?
- Answer. Will you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- But the King only laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And besides,” the Queen went on, in a minute, “if you really missed me,
- you could come too. You could abdicate. Why shouldn’t you? Instead of
- staying here, and boring and worrying ourselves to death as King and Queen
- of this ungrateful, insufferable, little unimportant ninth-rate
- make-believe of a country, why shouldn’t we abdicate and go to Paris, and
- be a Man and a Woman, and have a little Life, instead of this dreary,
- artificial, cardboard sort of puppet-show existence? You could devote
- yourself to literature, and I’d go on the concert-stage, and we’d have a
- delightful little house in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and be
- perfectly happy. Of course, Flori-mond would come with us. Why shouldn’t
- we? Oh, if you only would Î Will you? Will you, Theo?” she pleaded
- earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The King looked at his watch. “It’s nearly midnight, my dear,” he said.
- “High time, I should think, to adjourn the debate. But if, when you wake
- up to-morrow morning, you wish to resume it, Flori-mond and I will be at
- your disposal. Meanwhile, we’re losing our beauty-sleep; and I, for one,
- am going to bed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it’s always like that!” the Queen complained. “You never do me the
- honour of taking seriously anything I say. It’s intolerable. I don’t think
- any woman was ever so badly treated.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She didn’t recur to the subject next day, however, but passed the entire
- morning with Florimond, planning the details of a garden-party, and
- editing the list of guests; and she threw her whole soul into it too. So
- that, when the King looked in upon them a little before luncheon,
- Florimond smiled at him significantly (indeed, I’m not sure he didn’t <i>wink</i>
- at him) and called out, “Oh, we <i>are</i> enjoying ourselves. Please
- don’t interrupt. Go back to your counting-house and count out your money,
- and leave us in the parlour to eat our bread and honey.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is in the nature of things, doubtless, that a temperament such as I
- have endeavoured to suggest should find the intensity of its own feelings
- reflected by those that it excites in others. One would expect to hear
- that the people who like Queen Anéli like her tremendously, and that the
- people who don’t like her tremendously don’t like her at all. And, in
- effect, that is precisely the lady’s case. She is tremendously liked by
- those who are near to her, and who are therefore in a position to
- understand her and to make allowances. They love the woman in her; they
- laugh at and love the high-spirited, whimsical, impetuous, ingenuous
- child. But those who are at a distance from her, or who meet her only
- rarely and formally, necessarily fail to understand her, and are apt,
- accordingly, neither to admire her greatly, nor to bear her much good
- will. And, of course, while the people who are near to her can be named by
- twos and threes, those who view her from a distance must be reckoned with
- by thousands. And this brings me to a painful circumstance, which I may as
- well mention without more ado. At Vescova—as you could scarcely
- spend a day in the town and not become aware—Queen Anéli is anything
- you please but popular.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The inhabitants of Monterosso,” says M. Boridov, in his interesting
- history of that country, “fall into three rigidly separated castes: the
- nobility, a bare handful of tall, fair-haired, pure-blooded Slavs; the
- merchants and manufacturers, almost exclusively Jews and Germans; and the
- peasantry, the populace—a short, thick-set, swarthy race, of Slavic
- origin, no doubt, and speaking a Slavic tongue, but with most of the
- Slavic characteristics obliterated by admixture with the Turk.... Your
- true Slav peasant, with his mild blue eyes and his trustful spirit, is as
- meek and as long-suffering as a dumb beast of burden. But your
- black-browed Monterossan, your Tchermnogorets, is fierce, lawless,
- resentful, and vindictive, a Turk’s grandson, the Turk’s first cousin:
- though no one detests the Turk more cordially than he.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, at Vescova, and, with diminishing force, throughout all Monterosso,
- Queen Anéli is entirely misunderstood and sullenly misliked. Her husband
- cannot be called precisely the idol of his people, either; but he is
- regarded with indulgence, even with hopefulness; he is a Monterossan, a
- Pavelovitch: he may turn out well yet. Anéli, on the contrary, is an
- alien, a German, a <i>Niemkashka</i>. The feeling against her begins with
- the nobility. Save the half-dozen who are about her person, almost every
- mother’s son or daughter of them fancies that he or she has been rudely
- treated by her, and quite frankly hates her. I am afraid, indeed, they
- have some real cause of grievance; for they are most of them rather
- tedious, and provincial, and narrow-minded; and they bore her terribly
- when they come to Court; and when she is bored, as we have seen, she is
- likely to show it pretty plainly. So they say she gives herself airs. They
- pretend that when she isn’t absent-minded and monosyllabic, she is
- positively snappish. They denounce her as vain, shallow-pated, and
- extravagant. They twist and torture every word she speaks, and everything
- she does, into subject-matter for unfriendly criticism; and they quote as
- from her lips a good many words that she has never spoken, and they blame
- her savagely for innumerable things that she has never thought of doing.
- But that’s the trouble with the fierce light that beats upon a throne—it
- shows the gaping multitude so much more than is really there. Why, I have
- been assured by at least a score of Monterossan ladies that the Queen’s
- lovely brown hair is a wig; that her exquisite little teeth are the
- creation of Dr. Evans, of Paris; that whenever anything happens to annoy
- her, she bursts out with torrents of the most awful French oaths; that she
- quite frequently slaps and pinches her maids-of-honour; and that, as for
- her poor husband, he gets his hair pulled and his face scratched as often
- as he and she have the slightest difference of opinion. Monterossan ladies
- have gravely asseverated these charges to me (these, and others more
- outrageous, which I won’t repeat), whilst their Monterossan lords nodded
- confirmation. It matters little that the charges are preposterous. Give a
- Queen a bad name, and nine people in ten will believe she merits it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anyhow, the nobility of Monterosso, quite frankly hating Queen Anéli,
- give her every bad name they can discover in their vocabularies; and the
- populace, the mob, without stopping to make original investigations, have
- convicted her on faith, and watch her with sullen captiousness and
- mislike. When she drives abroad, scarcely a hat is doffed, never a cheer
- is raised. On the contrary, one sometimes hears mutterings and muffled
- groans; and the glances the passers-by direct at her are, in the main, the
- very reverse of affectionate glances. Members of the shop-keeping class
- alone show a certain tendency to speak up for her, because she spends her
- money pretty freely; but the shop-keeping class are aliens too, and don’t
- count—or, rather, they count against her, ’the dogs of Jews,’ the <i>zhudovskwy
- sobakwy!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- But do you imagine Queen Anéli minds? Do you imagine she is hurt,
- depressed, disappointed? Not she. She accepts her unpopularity with the
- most superb indifference. “What do you suppose I care for the opinion of
- such riff-raff?” I recollect her once crying out, with curling lip. “Any
- one who has the least individuality, the least character, the least
- fineness, the least originality—any one who is in the least degree
- natural, unconventional, spontaneous—is bound to be misconceived and
- caluminated by the vulgar rank and file. It’s the meanness and stupidity
- of average human nature; it’s the proverbial injustice of men. To be
- popular, you must either be utterly insignificant, a complete nonentity,
- or else a timeserver and a hypocrite. So long as I have a clear conscience
- of my own, I don’t care a button what strangers think and say about me. I
- don’t intend to allow my conduct to be influenced in the tiniest
- particular by the prejudices of outsiders. Meddlers, busybodies! I will
- live my own life, and those who don’t like it may do their worst. I will
- be myself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, my dear; but after all,” the King reminded her, “one has, in this
- imperfect world, to make certain compromises with one’s environment, for
- comfort’s sake. One puts on extra clothing in winter, for example, however
- much, on abstract principles, one may despise such a gross, material,
- unintelligent thing as the weather. Just so, don’t you think, one is by
- way of having a smoother time of it, in the long run, if one takes a few
- simple measures to conciliate the people amongst whom one is compelled to
- live? Now, for instance, if you would give an hour or two every day to
- learning Monterossan....
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t begin <i>that</i> rengaine,” cried her
- Majesty. “I’ve told you a hundred million times that I won’t be bothered
- learning Monterossan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is one of her subjects’ sorest points, by the bye, that she has never
- condescended to learn their language. When she was first married, indeed,
- she announced her intention of studying it. Grammars and dictionaries were
- bought; a Professor was nominated; and for almost a week the Crown
- Princess (Krolevna), as she then was, did little else than grind at
- Monterossan. Her Professor was delighted; he had never known such a
- zealous pupil. Her husband was a little anxious. “You mustn’t work too
- hard, my dear. An hour or two a day should be quite enough.” But she
- answered, “Let me alone. It interests me.” And for almost a week she was
- at it early and late, with hammer and tongs; poring over the endless
- declensions of Monterossan nouns, the endless conjugations of Monterossan
- verbs; wrestling, <i>sotto voce</i>, with the tongue-tangling difficulties
- of Monterossan pronunciation; or, with dishevelled hair and inky fingers,
- copying long Monterossan sentences into her exercise book. She is not the
- sort of person who does things by halves.—And then, suddenly, she
- turned volte-face; abandoned the enterprise for ever. “It’s idiotic,” she
- exclaimed. “A language with thirty-seven letters in its alphabet, and no
- literature! Why should I addle my brains trying to learn it? Ah, bien,
- merci! I’ll content myself with French and English. It’s bad enough, in
- one short life, to have had to learn German, when I was a child.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And neither argument nor entreaty could induce her to recommence it. The
- King, who has never altogether resigned himself to her determination,
- seizes from time to time an opportunity to hark back to it; but then he is
- silenced, as we have seen, with a “don’t begin <i>that</i> rengaine.” The
- disadvantages that result from her ignorance, it must be noticed, are
- chiefly moral; it offends Monterossan amour-propre. Practically, she does
- perfectly well with French, that being the Court language of the realm.
- </p>
- <p>
- No, Queen Anéli doesn’t care a button. She tosses her head, and accepts
- “the proverbial injustice of men” with magnificent unconcern. Only,
- sometimes, when the public sentiment against her takes the form of
- aggressive disrespect, or when it interferes in any way with her immediate
- convenience, it puts her a little out of patience—when, for
- instance, the traffic in the street retards the progress of her carriage,
- and a passage isn’t cleared for her as rapidly as it might be for a Queen
- whom the rabble loved; or when, crossing the pavement on foot, to enter a
- church, or a shop, or what not, the idlers that collect to look, glare at
- her sulkily, without doing her the common courtesy of lifting their hats.
- In such circumstances, I dare say, she is more or less angered. At all
- events, a sudden fire will kindle in her eyes, a sudden colour in her
- cheeks; she will very likely tap nervously with her foot, and murmur
- something about “canaille.” Perhaps anger, though, is the wrong word for
- her emotion; perhaps it should be more correctly called a kind of angry
- contempt.
- </p>
- <p>
- When I first came to Vescova, some years ago, the Prime Minister and
- virtual dictator of the country was still M. Tsargradev, the terrible M.
- Tsargradev,—or Sargradeff, as most English newspapers write his
- name,—and it was during my visit here that his downfall occurred,
- his downfall and irretrievable disgrace.
- </p>
- <p>
- The character and career of M. Tsargradev would furnish the subject for an
- extremely interesting study. The illegitimate son of a Monterossan
- nobleman, by a peasant mother, he inherited the unprepossessing physical
- peculiarities of his mother’s stock: the sallow skin, the broad face, the
- flat features, the prominent cheek-bones, the narrow, oblique-set,
- truculent black eyes, the squat, heavy figure. But to these he united a
- cleverness, an energy, an ambition, which are as foreign to simple as to
- gentle Monterossan blood, and which he doubtless owed to the fusion of the
- two; and an unscrupulousness, a perfidy, a cruelty, and yet a superficial
- urbanity, that are perhaps not surprising in an ambitious politician, half
- an Oriental, who has got to carry the double handicap of a repulsive
- personal appearance and a bastard birth. Now, the Government of
- Monterosso, as the King has sometimes been heard to stigmatise it, is
- deplorably constitutional. By the Constitution of 1869, practically the
- whole legislative power is vested in the Soviete, a parliament elected by
- the votes of all male subjects who have completed three years of military
- service. And, in the early days of the reign of Theodore IV., M.
- Tsargradev was leader of the Soviete, with a majority of three to one at
- his back.
- </p>
- <p>
- This redoubtable personage stood foremost in the ranks of those whom our
- fiery little Queen Anéli “could not endure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “His horrible soapy smile! His servile, insinuating manner! It makes you
- feel as if he were plotting your assassination,” she declared. “His voice—ugh!
- It’s exactly like lukewarm oil. He makes my flesh creep, like some
- frightful, bloated reptile.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There was a Queen in Thule,” hummed Florimond, “who had a marvellous
- command of invective. ’Eaving help your reputation, if you fell under her
- illustrious displeasure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t see why you make fun of me. I’m sure you think as I do—that
- he’s a monster of low cunning, and cynicism, and craft, and treachery, and
- everything that’s vile and revolting. Don’t you?” the Queen demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be sure I do, ma’am. I think he’s a bold, bad, dreadful person. I lie
- awake half the night, counting up his iniquities in my mind. And if just
- now I laughed, it was only to keep from crying.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This sort of talk is all very well,” put in the King; “but the fact
- remains that Tsargradev is the master of Monterosso. He could do any one
- of us an evil turn at any moment. He could cut down our Civil List
- to-morrow, or even send us packing, and establish republic. We’re
- dependent for everything upon his pleasure. I think, really, my dear, you
- ought to try to be decent to him—if only for prudence’ sake.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Decent to him!” echoed her Majesty. “I like that! As if I didn’t treat
- him a hundred million times better than he deserves! I hope he can’t
- complain that I’m not decent to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re not exactly effusive, do you think? I don’t mean that you stick
- your tongue out at him, or throw things at his head. But trust him for
- understanding. It’s what you leave unsaid and undone, rather than what you
- say or do. He’s fully conscious of the sort of place he occupies in your
- esteem, and he resents it. He thinks you distrust him, suspect him, look
- down upon him....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and so I do,” interrupted the Queen. “And so do you. And so does
- everybody who has any right feeling.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but those of us who are wise in our generation keep our private
- sentiments regarding him under lock and key. We remember his power, and
- treat him respectfully to his face, however much we may despise him in
- secret. What’s the use of quarrelling with our bread and butter? We should
- seek to propitiate him, to rub him the right way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you would actually like me to <i>grovel</i>, to <i>toady</i>, to a
- disgusting little low-born, black-hearted cad like Tsargradev!” cried the
- Queen, with scorn.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear me, no,” protested her husband. “But there’s a vast difference
- between toadying, and being a little tactful, a little diplomatic. I
- should like you to treat him with something more than bare civility.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what can I do that I don’t do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You never ask him to any but your general public functions, your State
- receptions, and that sort of thing. Why don’t you admit him to your
- private circle sometimes? Why don’t you invite him to your private
- parties, your dinners?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, merci, non! My private parties are my private parties. I ask my
- friends, I ask the people I like. Nothing could induce me to ask that
- horrid little underbred mongrel creature. He’d be—he’d be like—like
- something unclean—something murky and contaminating—in the
- room. He’d be like an animal, an ape, a satyr.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, my dear,” the King submitted meekly, “I only hope we’ll never have
- cause to repent your exclusion of him. I know he bears us a grudge for it,
- and he’s not a person whose grudges are to be made light of.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bah! I’m not afraid of him,” Anéli retorted. “I know he hates me. I see
- it every time he looks at me, with his snaky little eyes, his forced
- little smile—that awful, complacent, ingratiating smirk of his, that
- shows his teeth, and isn’t even skin deep; a mere film spread over his
- face, like pomatum! Oh, I know he hates me. But it’s the nature of mean,
- false little beasts like him to hate their betters; so it can’t be helped.
- For the rest, he may do his worst. I’m not afraid,” she concluded airily.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not only would she take no steps to propitiate M. Tsargradev, but she was
- constantly urging her husband to dismiss him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m perfectly certain he has all sorts of dreadful secret vices. I
- haven’t the least doubt he’s murdered people. I’m sure he steals. I’m sure
- he has a secret understanding with Berlin, and accepts bribes to manage
- the affairs of Monterosso as Prince Bismarck wishes. That’s why we’re more
- or less in disgrace with our natural allies, Russia and France. Because
- Tsargradev is paid to pursue, an anti-Russian, a German, policy. If you
- would take my advice, you’d dismiss him, and have him put in prison. Then
- you could explain to the Soviete that he is a murderer, a thief, a
- traitor, and a monster of secret immorality, and appoint a decent person
- in his place.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her husband laughed with great amusement.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You don’t appear quite yet to have mastered the principles of
- constitutional government, my dear. I could no more dismiss Tsargradev
- than you could dismiss the Pope of Rome.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you or are you not the King of Monterosso?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m Vice-King, perhaps. You’re the King, you know. But that has nothing
- to do with it. Tsargradev is leader of the Soviete. The Soviete pays the
- bills, and its leader governs. The King’s a mere fifth wheel. Some day
- they’ll abolish him. Meanwhile they tolerate him, on the understanding
- that he’s not to interfere.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You ought to be ashamed to say so. You ought to take the law and the
- Constitution and everything into your own hands. If you asserted yourself,
- they’d never dare to resist you. But you always submit—submit—submit.
- Of course, everybody takes advantage of a man who always submits. Show
- that you have some spirit, some sense of your own dignity. Order
- Tsargradev’s dismissal and arrest. You can do it now, at once, this
- evening. Then to-morrow you can go down to the Soviete, and tell them what
- a scoundrel he is—a thief, a murderer, a traitor, an impostor, a
- libertine, everything that’s foul and bad. And tell them that henceforward
- you intend to be really King, and not merely nominally King; and that
- you’re going to govern exactly as you think best; and that, if they don’t
- like that, they will have to make the best of it. If they resist, you can
- dissolve them, and order a general election. Or you can suspend the
- Constitution, and govern without any Soviete at all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The King laughed again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m afraid the Soviete might ask for a little evidence, a few proofs, in
- support of my sweeping charges. I could hardly satisfy them by declaring
- that I had my wife’s word for it. But, seriously, you exaggerate.
- Tsargradev is anything you like from the point of view of abstract ethics,
- but he’s not a criminal. He hasn’t the faintest motive for doing anything
- that isn’t in accordance with the law. He’s simply a vulgar, self-seeking
- politician, with a touch of the Tartar. But he’s not a thief, and I
- imagine his private life is no worse than most men’s.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wait, wait, only wait!” cried the Queen. “Time will show. Some day he’ll
- come to grief, and then you’ll see that he’s even worse than I have said.
- I <i>feel</i>, I <i>know</i>, he’s everything that’s bad. Trust a woman’s
- intuitions. They’re much better than what you call <i>evidence</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she had a nickname for him, which, as well as her general criticisms
- of his character, had pretty certainly reached the Premier’s ear; for, as
- subsequent events demonstrated, very nearly every servant in the Palace
- was a spy in his pay. She called him the nain jaune.
- </p>
- <p>
- Subsequent events have also demonstrated that her woman’s intuitions were
- indeed trustworthy. Perhaps you will remember the revelations that were
- made at the time of M. Tsargradev’s downfall; fairly full reports of them
- appeared in the London papers. Murder, peculation, and revolting secret
- debaucheries were all, surely enough, proved against him. It was proved
- that he was the paid agent of Berlin; it was proved that he had had
- recourse to <i>torture</i> in dealing with certain refractory witnesses in
- his famous prosecution of Count Osaréki. And then, there was the case of
- Colonel Alexandrevitch. He and Tsargradev, at sunset, were strolling
- arm-in-arm in the Dunayskiy Prospekt, when the Colonel was shot by some
- person concealed in the shrubberies, who was never captured. Tsargradev
- and his friends broached the theory, which gained pretty general
- acceptance, that the shot had been intended for the Prime Minister
- himself, and that the death of Colonel Alexandrevitch was an accident due
- to bad aiming. It is now perfectly well established that the death of the
- Colonel was due to very good aiming indeed; that the assassin was M.
- Tsargradev’s own hireling; and that perhaps the best reason why the police
- could never lay hands on him had some connection with the circumstance
- that the poor wretch, that very night, was strangled and cast into the
- Danube.
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, they manage these things in a highly unlikely and theatrical manner,
- in the far south-east of Europe!
- </p>
- <p>
- But the particular circumstances of M. Tsargradev’s downfall were
- amusingly illustrative of the character of the Queen. <i>Ce que femme
- veult, Dieu le veult.</i> And though her husband talked of the
- Constitution, and pleaded the necessity of evidence, Anéli was
- unconvinced. To get rid of Tsargradev, by one method or another, was her
- fixed idea, her determined purpose; she bided her time, and in the end she
- accomplished it.
- </p>
- <p>
- It befell, during the seventh month of my stay in the Palace, that a
- certain great royal wedding was appointed to be celebrated at Dresden: a
- festivity to which were bidden all the crowned heads and most of the royal
- and semi-royal personages of Christendom, and amongst them the Krol and
- Kroleva of Monte-rosso.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will cost us a pretty sum of money,” Theodore grumbled, when the
- summons first reached him. “We’ll have to travel in state, with a full
- suite; and the whole shot must be paid from our private purse. There’s no
- expecting a penny for such a purpose from the Soviete.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hope,” exclaimed the Queen, looking up from a letter she was writing,
- “I hope you don’t for a moment intend to go?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We <i>must</i> go,” answered the King. “There’s no getting out of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nonsense!” said she. “We’ll send a representative.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I only wish we could,” sighed the King. “But unfortunately this is an
- occasion when etiquette requires that we should attend in person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, bother etiquette,” said she. “Etiquette was made for slaves. We’ll
- send your Cousin Peter. One must find some use for one’s Cousin Peters.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; but this is a business, alas, in which one’s Cousin Peter won’t go
- down. I’m very sorry to say we’ll have to attend in person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nonsense!” she repeated. “Attend in person! How can you think of such a
- thing? We’d be bored and fatigued to death. It will be unspeakable.
- Nothing but dull, stodgy, suffocating German pomposity and bad taste. Oh,
- je m’y connais! Red cloth, and military bands, and interminable banquets,
- and noise, and confusion, and speeches (oh, the speeches!), until you’re
- ready to drop. And besides, we’d be herded with a crowd of ninth-rate
- princelings and petty dukes, who smell of beer and cabbage and
- brilliantine. We’d be relegated to the fifth or sixth rank, behind people
- who are all of them really our inferiors. Do you suppose I mean to let
- myself be patronised by a lot of stupid Hohenzollerns and Grâtzhoffens?
- No, indeed! You can send your Cousin Peter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, my dear, if I were the Tsar of Russia!” laughed her husband. “Then I
- could send a present and a poor relation, and all would be well. But—you
- speak of ninth-rate princelings. A ninth-rate princeling like the Krol of
- Tchermnogoria must make act of presence in his proper skin. It’s <i>de
- rigueur</i>. There’s no getting out of it. We must go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, <i>you</i> may go, if you like,” her Majesty declared. “As for me,
- I <i>won’t</i>. If <i>you</i> choose to go and be patronised and bored,
- and half killed by the fatigue, and half ruined by the expense, I suppose
- I can’t prevent you. But, if you want my opinion, I think it’s utter
- insane folly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she re-absorbed herself in her letter, with the air of one who had
- been distracted for a moment by a frivolous and tiresome interruption.
- </p>
- <p>
- The King did not press the matter that evening, but the next morning he
- mustered his courage, and returned to it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear,” he began, “I beg you to listen to me patiently for a moment,
- and not get angry. What I wish to say is really very important.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, what is it? What is it?” she enquired, with anticipatory weariness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s about going to Dresden. I—I want to assure you that I dislike
- the notion of going quite as much as you can. But it’s no question of
- choice. There are certain things one has to do, whether one will or not.
- I’m exceedingly sorry to have to insist, but we positively must reconcile
- ourselves to the sacrifice, and attend the wedding—both of us. It’s
- a necessity of our position. If we should stay away, it would be a breach
- of international good manners that people would never forgive us. We
- should be the scandal, the by-word, of the Courts of Europe. We’d give the
- direst offence in twenty different quarters. We really can’t afford to
- make enemies of half the royal families of the civilised world. You can’t
- imagine the unpleasantnesses, the complications, our absence would store
- up for us; the bad blood it would cause. We’d be put in the black list of
- our order, and snubbed, and embarrassed, and practically ostracised, for
- years to come. And you know whether we need friends. But the case is so
- obvious, it seems a waste of breath to argue it. You surely won’t let a
- mere little matter of temporary personal inconvenience get us into such an
- ocean of hot water. Come now—be reasonable, and say you will go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Queen’s eyes were burning; her under-lip had swollen portentously; but
- she did not speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- The King waited a moment. Then, “Come, Anéli—don’t be angry. Answer
- me. Say that you will go,” he urged, taking her hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- She snatched her hand away. I’m afraid she stamped her foot. “No!” she
- cried. “Let me alone. I tell you I <i>won’t.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, my dear....” the King was re-commencing....
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no, no! And you needn’t call me your dear. If you had the least love
- for me, the least common kindness, or consideration for my health or
- comfort or happiness, you’d never dream of proposing such a thing. To drag
- me half-way across the Continent of Europe, to be all but killed at the
- end of the journey by a pack of horrid, coarse, beer-drinking Germans! And
- tired out, and irritated, and patronised, and humiliated by people like
- ————— and ————! It’s
- perfectly heartless of you. And I—when I suggest such a simple
- natural pleasure as a trip to Paris, or to the Italian lakes in autumn—you
- tell me we can’t afford it! You’re ready to spend thousands on a stupid,
- utterly unnecessary and futile absurdity, like this wedding, but you can’t
- afford to take me to the Italian lakes! And yet you pretend to love me!
- Oh, its awful, awful, awful!” And her voice failed her in a sob; and she
- hid her face in her hands, and wept. So the King had to drop the subject
- again, and to devote his talents to the task of drying her tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- I don’t know how many times they renewed the discussion, but I do know
- that the Queen stood firm in her original refusal, and that at last it was
- decided that the King should go without her, and excuse her absence as
- best he might on the plea of her precarious state of health. It was only
- after this resolution was made and registered, and her husband had brought
- himself to accept it with some degree of resignation—it was only
- then that her Majesty began to waver and vacillate, and reconsider, and
- change her mind. As the date approached for his departure, her
- alternations became an affair of hours. It was, “Oh, after all, I can’t
- let you go alone, poor Theo. And besides, I should die of heartbreak, here
- without you. So—there—I’ll make the best of a bad business,
- and go with you”—it was either that, or else, “No, after all, I <i>can’t</i>.
- I really can’t. I’m awfully sorry. I shall miss you horribly. But, when I
- think of what it <i>means</i>, I haven’t the strength or courage. I simply
- can’t”—it was one thing or the other, on and off, all day.
- </p>
- <p>
- “When you finally know your own mind, I shall be glad if you’ll send for
- me,” said Theodore. “Because I’ve got to name a Regent. And if you’re
- coming with me, I shall name my Uncle Stephen. But if you’re stopping
- here, of course I shall name you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a bothersome little provision in the Constitution of Monterosso
- to the effect that the Sovereign may not cross the frontiers of his
- dominions, no matter for how brief a sojourn, without leaving a Regent in
- command. Under the good old régime, before the revolution of 1868, the
- kings of Tchermnogoria were a good deal inclined to spend the bulk of
- their time—and money—in foreign parts. They found Paris, Monte
- Carlo, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and even, if you can believe me, sometimes
- London, on the whole more agreeable as places of residence than their
- hereditary capital. (There was the particularly flagrant case of Paul II.,
- our Theodore’s great-grandfather, who lived for twenty years on end in
- Rome. He fancied himself a statuary, poor gentleman, and produced—oh,
- such amazing Groups! Tons of them repose in the Royal Museum at Vescova; a
- few brave the sky here and there in lost corners of the Campagna—he
- used to present them to the Pope! Perhaps you have seen his Fountain at
- Acqu’amarra?) It was to discourage this sort of royal absenteeism that the
- patriotic framers of the Constitution slyly slipped Sub-Clause 18 into
- Clause ii., of Title 3, of Article XXXVI.: <i>Concerning the Appointment
- of a Regent.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “So,” said Theodore, “when you have finally made up your mind, I shall be
- glad if you will let me know; for I’ve got to name a Regent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- But the Queen continued to hesitate; in the morning it was Yes, in the
- evening No; and the eleventh hour was drawing near and nearer. The King
- was to leave on Monday. On the previous Tuesday, in a melting mood, Anéli
- had declared, “There! Once for all, to make an end of it, I’ll go.” On
- Wednesday a Commission of Regency, appointing Prince Stephen, was drawn
- up. On Thursday it was brought to the Palace for the royal signature. The
- King had actually got so far as the <i>d</i> in his name, when the Queen,
- faltering at sight of the irrevocable document, laid her hand on his arm.
- She was very pale, and her voice was weak. “No, Theo, don’t sign it. It’s
- like my death-warrant. I—I haven’t got the courage. You’ll have to
- let me stay. You’ll have to go alone.” On Friday a new commission was
- prepared, in which Anéli’s name had been substituted for Stephen’s. On
- Saturday morning it was presented to the King. “Shall I sign?” he asked.
- “Yes, sign,” said she. And he signed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ouf!” she cried. “<i>That’s</i> settled.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she hardly once changed her mind again until Sunday night; and even
- then she only half changed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If it weren’t too late,” she announced, “do you know, I believe I’d
- decide to go with you, in spite of everything? But of course I never could
- get ready to start by to-morrow morning. You couldn’t wait till Tuesday?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The King said he couldn’t.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now, my dears” (as Florimond, who loves to tell the story, is wont to
- begin it), “no sooner was her poor confiding husband’s back a-turned, than
- what do you suppose this deep, designing, unprincipled, high-handed young
- woman up and did?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Almost the last words Theodore spoke to her were, “Do, for heaven’s sake,
- try to get on pleasantly with Tsargradev. Don’t treat him too much as if
- he were the dust under your feet. All you’ll have to do is to sign your
- name at the end of the papers he’ll bring you. Sign and ask no questions,
- and all will be well.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And the very first act of Anéli’s Regency was to degrade M. Tsargardev
- from office and to place him under arrest.
- </p>
- <p>
- We bade the King good-bye on the deck of the royal yacht <i>Nemisa</i>,
- which was to bear him to Belgrade, the first stage of his journey. Cannon
- bellowed from the citadel; the bells of all the churches in the town were
- clanging in jubilant discord; the river was gay with fluttering bunting,
- and the King resplendent in a gold-laced uniform, with the stars and
- crosses of I don’t know how many Orders glittering on his breast. We
- lingered at the landing-stage, waving our pocket-handkerchiefs, till the
- <i>Nemisa</i> turned a promontory and disappeared; Anéli silent, with a
- white face, and set, wistful eyes. And then we got into a great
- gilt-and-scarlet state-coach, she and Madame Donarowska, Florimond and I,
- and were driven back to the Palace; and during the drive she never once
- spoke, but leaned her cheek on Madame Donarowska’s shoulder, and cried as
- if her heart would break.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Palace reached, however—as who should say, “We’re not here to
- amuse ourselves”—she promptly dried her tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you know what I’m going to do?” she asked. And, on our admitting that
- we didn’t, she continued, blithely, “It’s an ill wind that blows no good.
- Theo’s absence will be very hard to bear, but I must turn it to some
- profitable account. I must improve the occasion to straighten out his
- affairs; I must put his house in order. I’m going to give Monsieur
- Tsargradev a taste of retributive justice. I’m going to do what Theo
- himself ought to have done long ago. It’s intolerable that a miscreant
- like Tsargradev should remain at large in a civilised country; it’s a
- disgrace to humanity that such a man should hold honourable office. I’m
- going to dismiss him and put him in prison. And I shall keep him there
- till a thorough investigation has been made of his official acts, and the
- crimes I’m perfectly certain he’s committed have been proved against him.
- I’m not going to be Regent for nothing. I’m going to <i>rule</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- We, her auditors, looked at each other in consternation. It was a good
- minute before either of us could collect himself sufficiently to speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last, “Oh, lady, lady, august and gracious lady,” groaned Florimond,
- “please be nice, and relieve our minds by confessing that you’re only
- saying it to tease us. Tell us you’re only joking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never was more serious in my life,” she answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I defy you to look me in the eye and say so without laughing,” he
- persisted. “What <i>is</i> the fun of trying to frighten us?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You needn’t be frightened. I know what I’m about,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What you’re about!” he echoed. “Oh me, oh my! You’re about to bring your
- house crashing round your ears. You’re about to precipitate a revolution.
- You’ll lose your poor unfortunate husband’s kingdom for him. You’ll—goodness
- only can tell what you <i>won’t</i> do. Your own bodily safety—your
- very life—will be in danger. There’ll be mobs, there’ll be rioting.
- Oh, lady, sweet lady, gentle lady, you mustn’t, you really mustn’t. You’d
- much better come and sing a song, along o’ me. Don’t meddle with politics.
- They’re nothing but sea, sand, and folly. Music’s the only serious thing
- in the world. Come—let’s too-tootle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s all very well to try to turn what I say to jest,” the Queen replied
- loftily, “but I assure you I mean every word of it. I’ve studied the
- Constitution. I know my rights. The appointment and revocation of
- Ministers rest absolutely with the Sovereign. It’s not a matter of law,
- it’s merely a matter of custom, a matter of convenience, that the
- Ministers should be chosen from the party that has a majority in the
- Soviete. Well, when it comes to the case of a ruffian like Tsargradev,
- custom and convenience must go by the board, in favour of right and
- justice. I’m going to revoke him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And within an hour of your doing so the whole town of Vescova will be in
- revolt. We’ll all have to leave the Palace, and fly for our precious
- skins. We’ll be lucky if we get away with them intact. A pretty piece of
- business! Tsargradev, from being Grand Vizier, will become Grand Mogul;
- and farewell to the illustrious dynasty of Pavelovitch! Oh, lady, lady! I
- call it downright unfriendly, downright inhospitable of you. Where shall
- my grey hairs find shelter? I’m <i>so</i> comfortable here under your
- royal rooftree. You wouldn’t deprive the gentlest of God’s creatures of a
- happy home? Better that a thousand Tsargradevs should flourish like a
- green bay-tree, than that one upright man should be turned out of
- comfortable quarters. There, now, be kind. As a personal favour to me,
- won’t you please just leave things as they are?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Queen laughed a little—not very heartily, though, and not at all
- acquiescently. “Monsieur Tsargradev must go to prison,” was her inexorable
- word.
- </p>
- <p>
- We pleaded, we argued, we exhausted ourselves in warnings and
- protestations, but to no purpose. And in the end she lost her patience,
- and shut us up categorically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! Laissez moi tranquille!” she cried. “I’ve heard enough. I know my own
- mind. I won’t be bothered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was with heavy spirits and the dismallest forebodings that we assisted
- at her subsequent proceedings. We had an anxious time of it for many days;
- and it has never ceased to be a source of astonishment to me that it all
- turned out as well as it did. But—<i>ce que femme veult</i>....
- </p>
- <p>
- She began operations by despatching an aide-decamp to M. Tsargradev’s
- house, with a note in which she commanded him to wait upon her forthwith
- at the Palace, and to deliver up his seals of office.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the same time she summoned to her presence General Michaïlov, the
- Military Governor of Vescova, and Prince Vasiliev, the leader of the scant
- Conservative opposition in the Soviete.
- </p>
- <p>
- She awaited these gentleman in the throne-room, surrounded by the officers
- of the household in full uniform. Florimond and I hovered uneasily in the
- background.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By Jove, she does look her part, doesn’t she?” Florimond whispered to me.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wore a robe of black silk, with the yellow ribbon of the Lion of
- Monterosso across her breast, and a tiara of diamonds in her hair. Her
- eyes glowed with a fire of determination, and her cheeks with a colour
- that those who knew her recognised for a danger-signal. She stood on the
- steps of the throne, waiting, and tapping nervously with her foot.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then the great white-and-gold folding doors were thrown open, and M.
- Tsargradev entered, followed by the aide-de-camp who had gone to fetch
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He entered, bowing and smiling, grotesque in his ministerial green and
- silver; and the top of his bald head shone as if it had been waxed and
- polished. Bowing and smirking, he advanced to the foot of the throne,
- where he halted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” said
- the Queen. She held her head high, and spoke slowly, with superb
- haughtiness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tsargradev bowed low, and, always smiling, answered, in a voice of honey,
- “If it please your Majesty, I don’t think I quite understand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have sent for you to demand the return of your seals of office,” the
- Queen repeated, her head higher, her inflection haughtier than ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Does your Majesty mean that I am to consider myself dismissed from her
- service?” he asked, with undiminished sweetness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is my desire that you should deliver up your seals of office,” said
- she.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tsargradev’s lips puckered in an effort to suppress a little good-humoured
- deprecatory laugh. “But, your Majesty,” he protested, in the tone of one
- reasoning with a wayward school-girl, “you must surely know that you have
- no power to dismiss a constitutional Minister.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must decline to hold any discussion with you. I must insist upon the
- immediate surrender of your seals of office.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must remind your Majesty that I am the representative of the majority
- of the Soviete.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I forbid you to answer me. I forbid you to speak in my presence. You are
- not here to speak. You are here to restore the seals of your office to
- your Sovereign.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That, your Majesty, I must, with all respect, decline to do.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You refuse?” the Queen demanded, with terrific shortness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot admit your Majesty’s right to demand such a thing of me. It is
- unconstitutional.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In other words, you refuse to obey my commands? Colonel Karkov!” she
- called.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyes were burning magnificently now; her hands trembled a little.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Karkov, the Marshal of the Palace, stepped forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Arrest that man,” said the Queen, pointing to Tsargradev.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Karkov looked doubtful, hesitant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you also mean to disobey me?” the Queen cried, with a glance... oh, a
- glance!
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Karkov turned pale, but he hesitated no longer. He bowed to
- Tsargradev. “I must ask you to constitute yourself my prisoner,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Tsargradev made a motion as if to speak; but the Queen raised her hand,
- and he was silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take him away at once,” she said. “Lock him up. He is to be absolutely
- prevented from holding any communication with any one outside the Palace.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And, somehow, Colonel Karkov managed to lead Tsargradev from the
- presence-chamber.
- </p>
- <p>
- And that ended the first act of our comical, precarious little melodrama.
- </p>
- <p>
- After Tsargradev’s departure there was a sudden buzz of conversation among
- the courtiers. The Queen sank back, in evident exhaustion, upon the red
- velvet cushions of the throne. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply,
- holding one of her hands pressed hard against her heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- By-and-by she looked up. She was very pale.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now let General Michaïlov and Prince Vasiliev be introduced,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- And when they stood before her, “General Michaïlov,” she began, “I desire
- you to place the town of Vescova under martial law. You will station
- troops about the Palace, about the Chamber of the Soviete, about the Mint
- and Government offices, and in all open squares and other places where
- crowds would be likely to collect. I have just dismissed M. Tsargradev
- from office, and there may be some disturbance. You will rigorously
- suppress any signs of disorder. I shall hold you responsible for the peace
- of the town and the protection of my person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- General Michaïlov, a short, stout, purple-faced old soldier, blinked and
- coughed, and was presumably on the point of offering something in the
- nature of an objection.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have heard my wishes,” said the Queen. “I shall be glad if you will
- see to their immediate execution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The General still seemed to have something on his mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Queen stamped her foot. “Is everybody in a conspiracy to disobey me?”
- she demanded. “I am the representative of your King, who is
- Commander-in-Chief of the Army. Are my orders to be questioned?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The General bowed, and backed from the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Prince Vasiliev,” the Queen said, “I have sent for you to ask you to
- replace M. Tsargradev as Secretary of State for the Interior, and
- President of the Council. You will at once enter into the discharge of
- your duties, and proceed to the formation of a Ministry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Prince Vasiliev was a tall, spare, faded old man, with a pointed face
- ending in a white imperial. He was a great personal favourite of the
- Queen’s.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be a little difficult, Madame,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No doubt,” assented she. “But it must be done.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hardly see, Madame, how I can form a Ministry to any purpose, with an
- overwhelming majority against me in the Soviete.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are to dissolve the Soviete and order a general election.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The general election can scarcely be expected to result in a change of
- parties, your Majesty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; but we shall have gained time. When the new deputies are ready to
- take their seats, M. Tsargradev’s case will have been disposed of. I
- expect you will find among his papers at the Home Office evidence
- sufficient to convict him of all sorts of crimes. If I can deliver
- Monterosso from the Tsargradev superstition, my intention will have been
- accomplished.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now let’s lunch,” she said to Florimond and me, at the close of this
- historic session. “I’m ravenously hungry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I dare say General Michaïlov did what he could, but his troops weren’t
- numerous enough to prevent a good deal of disturbance in the town; and I
- suppose he didn’t want to come to bloodshed. For three days and nights,
- the streets leading up to the Palace were black with a howling mob, kept
- from crossing the Palace courtyard by a guard of only about a hundred men.
- Cries of “Long live Tsargradev!” and “Death to the German woman!” and
- worse cries still, were constantly audible from the Palace windows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Canaille!” exclaimed the Queen. “Let them shout themselves hoarse. Time
- will show.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And she would step out upon her balcony, in full sight of the enemy, and
- look down upon them calmly, contemptuously.
- </p>
- <p>
- Still, the military did contrive to prevent an actual revolution, and to
- maintain the <i>status quo</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- The news reached the King at Vienna. He turned straight round and hurried
- home.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my dear, my dear!” he groaned. “You <i>have</i> made a mess of
- things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You think so? Read this.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a copy of the morning’s Gazette, containing Prince Vasiliev’s
- report of the interesting discoveries he had made amongst the papers
- Tsargradev had left behind him at the Home Office.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was an immediate revulsion of public feeling. The secret
- understanding with Berlin was the thing that “did it.” The Monterossans
- are hereditarily, temperamentally, and from motives of policy, Russophils.
- </p>
- <p>
- They couldn’t forgive Tsargradev his secret treaty with Berlin; and they
- promptly proceeded to execrate him as much as they had loved him.
- </p>
- <p>
- For State reasons, however, it was decided not to prosecute him. On his
- release from prison, he asked for his passport, that he might go abroad.
- He has remained an exile ever since, and (according to Florimond, at any
- rate) “is spending his declining years colouring a meerschaum.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “People talk of the ingratitude of princes,” said the Queen, last night.
- “But what of the ingratitude of nations? The Monterossans hated me because
- I dismissed M. Tsargradev; and then, when they saw him revealed in his
- true colours, they still hated me, in spite of it. They are quick to
- resent what they imagine to be an injury; but they never recognise a
- benefit. Oh, the folly of universal suffrage! The folly of constitutional
- government! I used to say, ’Surely a good despot is better than a mob.’
- But now I’m convinced that a <i>bad</i> despot, even, is better. Come,
- Florimond, let us sing.... you know.... that song....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “God save—the best of despots?” suggested Florimond.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- COUSIN ROSALYS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>sn’t it a pretty
- name, Rosalys? But, for me, it is so much more; it is a sort of romantic
- symbol. I look at it written there on the page, and the sentiment of
- things changes: it is as if I were listening to distant music; it is as if
- the white paper turned softly pink, and breathed a perfume—never so
- faint a perfume of hyacinths. Rosalys, Cousin Rosalys.... London and this
- sad-coloured February morning become shadowy, remote. I think of another
- world, another era. Somebody has said that old memories and fond regrets
- are the day-dreams of the disappointed, the illusions of the age of
- disillusion. Well, if they are illusions, thank goodness they are where
- experience can’t touch them—on the safe side of time.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Cousin Rosalys—I call her cousin. But, as we often used to remind
- ourselves, with a kind of esoteric satisfaction, we were not “real”
- cousins. She was the niece of my Aunt Elizabeth, and lived with her in
- Rome; but my Aunt Elizabeth was not my “real” aunt—only my
- great-aunt by marriage, the widow of my father’s uncle. It was Aunt
- Elizabeth herself however, who dubbed us cousins, when she introduced us
- to each other; and at that epoch, for both of us, Aunt Elizabeth’s
- lightest words were in the nature of decrees, she was such a terrible old
- lady.
- </p>
- <p>
- I’m sure I don’t know why she was terrible, I don’t know how she contrived
- it; she never said anything, never did anything, especially terrifying;
- she wasn’t especially wise or especially witty—intellectually,
- indeed, I suspect she might have passed for a paragon of respectable
- commonplaceness: but I do know that everybody stood in awe of her. I
- suppose it must simply have been her atmosphere, her odylic force; a sort
- of metaphysical chill that enveloped her, and was felt by all who
- approached her—some people <i>are</i> like that. Everybody stood in
- awe of her, everybody deferred to her: relations, friends, even her
- Director, and the cloud of priests that pervaded her establishment and
- gave it its character. For, like so many other old ladies who lived in
- Rome in those days, my Aunt Elizabeth was nothing if not Catholic, if not
- Ecclesiastical. You would have guessed as much, I think, from her
- exterior. She <i>looked</i> Catholic, she <i>looked</i> Ecclesiastical.
- There was something Gothic in her anatomy, in the architecture of her
- face: in her high-bridged nose, in the pointed arch her hair made as it
- parted above her forehead, in her prominent cheek-bones, her
- straight-lipped mouth and long attenuated chin, in the angularities of her
- figure. No doubt the simile must appear far-sought, but upon my word her
- face used to remind me of a chapel—a chapel built of marble, fallen
- somewhat into decay. I’m not sure whether she was a tall woman, or whether
- she only had a false air of tallness, being excessively thin and holding
- herself rigidly erect.
- </p>
- <p>
- She always dressed in black, in hard black silk cut to the severest
- patterns. Somehow, the very jewels she wore—not merely the cross on
- her bosom, but the rings on her fingers, the watch-chain round her neck,
- her watch itself, her old-fashioned, gold-faced watch—seemed of a
- mode canonical.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was nothing if not Catholic, if not Ecclesiastical; but I don’t in the
- least mean that she was particularly devout. She observed all requisite
- forms, of course: went, as occasion demanded, to mass, to vespers, to
- confession; but religious fervour was the last thing she suggested, the
- last thing she affected. I never heard her talk of Faith or Salvation, of
- Sin or Grace, nor indeed of any matters spiritual. She was quite frankly a
- woman of the world, and it was the Church as a worldly institution, the
- Church corporal, the Papacy, Papal politics, that absorbed her interests.
- The loss of the Temporal Power was the wrong that filled the universe for
- her, its restoration the cause for which she lived. That it was a forlorn
- cause she would never for an instant even hypothetically admit. “Remember
- Avignon, remember the Seventy Years,” she used to say, with a nod that
- seemed to attribute apodictic value to the injunction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mark my words, she’ll live to be Pope yet,” a ribald young man murmured
- behind her chair. “Oh, you tell me she is a woman. I’ll assume it for the
- sake of the argument—I’d do anything for the sake of an argument.
- But remember Joan, remember Pope Joan!” And he mimicked his Aunt
- Elizabeth’s inflection and her conclusive nod.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I had not been in Rome since that universe-filling wrong was perpetrated—not
- since I was a child of six or seven—when, a youth approaching
- twenty, I went there in the autumn of 1879; and I recollected Aunt
- Elizabeth only vaguely, as a lady with a face like a chapel, in whose
- presence—I had almost written in whose precincts—it had
- required some courage to breathe. But my mother’s last words, when I left
- her in Paris, had been, “Now mind you call on your Aunt Elizabeth at once.
- You mustn’t let a day pass. I am writing to her to tell her that you are
- coming. She will expect you to call at once.” So, on the morrow of my
- arrival, I made an exceedingly careful toilet (I remember to this day the
- pains I bestowed upon my tie, the revisions to which I submitted it!),
- and, with an anxious heart, presented myself at the huge brown Roman
- palace, a portion of which my formidable relative inhabited; a palace with
- grated windows, and a vaulted, crypt-like porte-cochère, and a tremendous
- Swiss concierge, in knee-breeches and a cocked hat: the Palazzo
- Zacchinelli.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Swiss, flourishing his staff of office, marshalled me (I can’t use a
- less imposing word for the ceremony) slowly, solemnly, across a courtyard,
- and up a great stone staircase, at the top of which he handed me on to a
- functionary in black—a functionary with an ominously austere
- countenance, like an usher to the Inquisition. Poor old Archimede! Later,
- when I had come to know him well and tip him, I found he was the mildest
- creature, the amiablest, the most obliging, and that tenebrious mien of
- his only a congenital accident, like a lisp or a club-foot. But for the
- present he dismayed me, and I surrendered myself with humility and
- meekness to his guardianship. He conducted me through a series of vast
- chambers—you know those enormous, ungenial Roman rooms, their sombre
- tapestried walls, their formal furniture, their cheerless, perpetual
- twilight—and out upon a terrace.
- </p>
- <p>
- The terrace lay in full sunshine. There was a garden below it, a garden
- with orange-trees, and rosebushes, and camellias, with stretches of
- greensward, with shrubberies, with a great fountain plashing in the midst
- of it, and broken, moss-grown statues: a Roman garden, from which a
- hundred sweet airs came up, in the gentle Roman weather. The balustrade of
- the terrace was set at intervals with flowering plants, in big urn-shaped
- vases; I don’t remember what the flowers were, but they were pink, and
- many of their petals had fallen, and lay scattered on the grey terrace
- pavement. At the far end, under an awning brave with red and yellow
- stripes, two ladies were seated—a lady in black, presumably the
- object of my pious pilgrimage; and a lady in white, whom, even from a
- distance, I discovered to be young and pretty. A little round table stood
- between them, with a carafe of water and some tumblers glistening crisply
- on it. The lady in black was fanning herself with a black lace fan. The
- lady in white held a book in her hand, from which I think she had been
- reading aloud. A tiny imp of a red Pomeranian dog had started forward, and
- was barking furiously.
- </p>
- <p>
- This scene must have made a deeper impression upon my perceptions than any
- that I was conscious of at the moment, because it has always remained as
- fresh in my memory as you see it now. It has always been a picture that I
- could turn to when I would, and find unfaded: the garden, the blue sky,
- the warm September sunshine, the long terrace, and the two ladies seated
- at the end of it, looking towards me, an elderly lady in black, and a
- young lady in white, with dark hair.
- </p>
- <p>
- My aunt quieted Sandro (that was the dog’s name), and giving me her hand,
- said “How do you do?” rather drily. And then, for what seemed a terribly
- long time, though no doubt it was only a few seconds, she kept me standing
- before her, while she scrutinised me through a double eye-glass, which she
- held by a mother-of-pearl handle; and I was acutely aware of the awkward
- figure I must be cutting to the vision of that strange young lady.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last, “I should never have recognised you. As a child you were the
- image of your father. Now you resemble your mother,” Aunt Elizabeth
- declared; and lowering her glass, she added, “This is your cousin
- Rosalys.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I wondered, as I made my bow, why I had never heard before that I had such
- a pretty cousin, with such a pretty name. She smiled on me very kindly,
- and I noticed how bright her eyes were, and how white and delicate her
- face. The little blue veins showed through the skin, and there was no more
- than just the palest, palest thought of colour in her cheeks. But her lips—exquisitely
- curved, sensitive lips—were warm red. She smiled on me very kindly,
- and I daresay my heart responded with an instant palpitation. She was a
- girl, and she was pretty; and her name was Rosalys; and we were cousins;
- and I was eighteen. And above us glowed the blue sky of Italy, and round
- us the golden sunshine; and there, beside the terrace, lay the beautiful
- old Roman garden, the fragrant, romantic garden.... If at eighteen one
- isn’t susceptible and sentimental and impetuous, and prepared to respond
- with an instant sweet commotion to the smiles of one’s pretty cousins
- (especially when they’re named Rosalys), I protest one is unworthy of
- one’s youth. One might as well be thirty-five, and a literary hack in
- London.
- </p>
- <p>
- After that introduction, however, my aunt immediately reclaimed my
- attention. She proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions, about myself,
- about my people, uninteresting questions, disconcerting questions, which
- she posed with the air of one who knew the answers beforehand, and was
- only asking as an examiner asks, to test you. And all the while, the
- expression of her face, of her deprecating straight-lipped mouth, of her
- half-closed sceptical old eyes, seemed to imply that she already had her
- opinion of me, and that it wouldn’t in the least be affected by anything I
- could say for myself, and that it was distinctly not a flattering opinion.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, and what brings you to Rome?” That was one of her questions. I felt
- like a suspicious character haled before the local magistrate to give an
- account of his presence in the parish; putting on the best face I could, I
- pleaded superior orders. I had taken my <i>baccalauréat</i> in the summer;
- and my father desired me to pass some months in Italy, for the purpose of
- “patching up my Italian, which had suffered from the ravages of time,”
- before I returned to Paris, and settled down to the study of a profession.
- </p>
- <p>
- “H’m,” said she, manifesting no emotion at what (in my simplicity) I
- deemed rather a felicitous metaphor; and then, as it were, she let me off
- with a warning. “Look out that you don’t fall into bad company. Rome is
- full of dangerous people—painters, Bohemians, republicans, atheists.
- You must be careful. I shall keep my eye upon you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- By-and-by, to my relief, my aunt’s director arrived, Monsignor Parlaghi, a
- tall, fat, cheerful, bustling man, who wore a silk cassock edged with
- purple, and a purple netted sash. When he sat down and crossed his legs,
- one saw a square-toed shoe with a silver buckle, and an inch or two of
- purple silk stocking. He began at once to talk with his penitent, about
- some matter to which I (happily) was a stranger; and that gave me my
- chance to break the ice with Rosalys.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had risen to greet the Monsignore, and now stood by the balustrade of
- the terrace, half turned towards the garden, a slender, fragile figure,
- all in white. Her dark hair swept away from her forehead in lovely, long
- undulations, and her white face, beneath it, seemed almost spirit-like in
- its delicacy, almost immaterial.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am richer than I thought. I did not know I had a Cousin Rosalys,” said
- I.
- </p>
- <p>
- It looks like a sufficiently easy thing to say, doesn’t it? And besides,
- hadn’t I carefully composed and corrected and conned it beforehand in the
- silence of my mind? But I remember the mighty effort of will it cost me to
- get it said. I suppose it is in the design of nature that Eighteen should
- find it nervous work to break the ice with pretty girls. At any rate, I
- remember how my heart fluttered, and what a hollow, unfamiliar sound my
- voice had; I remember that in the very middle of the enterprise my pluck
- and my presence of mind suddenly deserted me, and everything became a
- blank, and for one horrible moment I thought I was going to break down
- utterly, and stand there staring, blushing, speechless. But then I made a
- further mighty effort of will, a desperate effort, and somehow, though
- they nearly choked me, the premeditated words came out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, we’re not <i>real</i> cousins,” said she, letting her eyes shine for
- a second on my face. And she explained to me just what the connection
- between us was. “But we will call ourselves cousins,” she concluded.
- </p>
- <p>
- The worst was over; the worst, though Eighteen was still, no doubt,
- conscious of perturbations. I don’t know how long we stood chatting
- together there by the balustrade, but presently I said something about the
- garden, and she proposed that we should go down into it. So she led me to
- the other end of the terrace, where there was a flight of steps, and we
- went down into the garden.
- </p>
- <p>
- The merest trifles, in such weather, with a pretty new-found Cousin
- Rosalys for a comrade, are delightful, when one is eighteen, aren’t they?
- It was delightful to feel the yielding turf under our feet, the cool grass
- curling round our ankles—for in Roman gardens, in those old days, it
- wasn’t the fashion to clip the grass close, as on an English lawn. It was
- delightful to walk in the shade of the orange-trees, and breathe the air
- sweetened by them. The stillness the dreamy stillness of the soft, sunny
- afternoon was delightful; the crumbling old statues were delightful,
- statues of fauns and dryads, of Pagan gods and goddesses, Pan and Bacchus
- and Diana, their noses broken for the most part, their bodies clothed in
- mosses and leafy vines. And the flowers were delightful; the cyclamens,
- with which—so abundant were they—the walls of the garden
- fairly dripped, as with a kind of pink foam; and the roses, and the waxen
- red and white camellias. It was delightful to stop before the great brown
- old fountain, and listen to its tinkle-tinkle of cold water, and peer into
- its basin, all green with weeds, and watch the antics of the goldfishes,
- and the little rainbows the sun struck from the spray. And my Cousin
- Rosalys’s white frock was delightful, and her voice was delightful; and
- that perturbation in my heart was exquisitely delightful—something
- between a thrill and a tremor—a delicious mixture of fear and
- wonderment and beatitude. I had dragged myself hither to pay a duty-call
- upon my grim old dragon of a great-aunt Elizabeth; and here I was
- wandering amid the hundred delights of a romantic Italian garden, with a
- lovely, white-robed, bright-eyed sylph of a Cousin Rosalys.
- </p>
- <p>
- Don’t ask me what we talked about. I have only the most fragmentary
- recollection. I remember she told me that her father and mother had died
- in India, when she was a child, and that her father (Aunt Elizabeth’s
- “ever so much younger brother“) had been in the army, and that she had
- lived with Aunt Elizabeth since she was twelve. And I remember she asked
- me to speak French with her, because in Rome she almost always spoke
- Italian or English, and she didn’t want to forget her French; and “You’re,
- of course, almost a Frenchman, living in Paris.” So we spoke French
- together, saying <i>ma cousine</i> and <i>mon cousin</i>, which was very
- intimate and pleasant; and she spoke it so well that I expressed some
- surprise. “If you don’t put on at least a <i>slight</i> accent, I shall
- tell you you’re almost a Frenchman too,” I threatened. “Oh, I had French
- nurses when I was little,” she said, “and afterwards a French governess,
- till I was sixteen. I’m eighteen now. How old are you?” I had heard that
- girls always liked a man to be older than themselves, and I answered that
- I was nearly twenty. Well, and isn’t eighteen nearly twenty?.... Anyhow,
- as I walked back to my lodgings that afternoon, through the busy, twisted,
- sunlit Roman streets, Cousin Rosalys filled all my heart and all my
- thoughts with a white radiance.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- You will conceive whether or not, during the months that followed, I was
- an assiduous visitor at the Palazzo Zacchinelli. But I couldn’t spend <i>all</i>
- my time there, and in my enforced absences I needed consolation. I imagine
- I treated Aunt Elizabeth’s advice about avoiding bad company as youth is
- wont to treat the counsels of crabbed age. Doubtless my most frequent
- associates were those very painters and Bohemians against whom she had
- particularly cautioned me—whether they were also republicans and
- atheists, I don’t think I ever knew; I can’t remember that I inquired, and
- religion and politics were subjects they seldom touched upon
- spontaneously. I dare say I joined the artists’ club, in the Via Margutta,
- the Circolo Internazionale degli Artisti; I am afraid the Caffe Greco was
- my favourite café; I am afraid I even bought a wide-awake hat, and wore it
- on the back of my head, and tried to look as much like a painter and
- Bohemian myself as nature would permit.
- </p>
- <p>
- Bad company? I don’t know. It seemed to me very good company indeed. There
- was Jack Everett, tall and slim and athletic, with his eager aquiline
- face, his dark curling hair, the most poetic-looking creature, humorous,
- whimsical, melancholy, imaginative, who used to quote Byron, and plan our
- best practical jokes, and do the loveliest little cupids and roses in
- water-colours. He has since married the girl he was even then in love
- with, and is still living in Rome, and painting cupids and roses. And
- there was d’.vignac, <i>le vicomte</i>, a young Frenchman, who had been in
- the Diplomatic Service, and—superlative distinction!—“ruined
- himself for a woman,” and now was striving to keep body and soul together
- by giving fencing lessons; witty, kindly, pathetic d’.vignac—we have
- vanished altogether from each other’s ken. There was Ulysse Tavoni, the
- musician, who, when somebody asked him what instrument he played, answered
- cheerily, “All instruments.” I can testify from personal observation that
- he played the piano and the flute, the guitar, mandoline, fiddle, and
- French horn, the ’cello and the zither. And there was Kônig, the Austrian
- sculptor, a tiny man with a ferocious black moustache, whom my landlady
- (he having called upon me one day when I was out), unable to remember his
- transalpine name, described to perfection as “un Orlando Furioso—ma
- molto piccolo.” There was a dear, dreamy, languid, sentimental Pole,
- blue-eyed and yellow-haired, also a sculptor, whose name I have totally
- forgotten, though we were sworn to “hearts’ brotherhood,” He had the most
- astonishing talent for imitating the sounds of animals, the neighing of a
- horse, the crowing of a cock; and when he brayed like a donkey, all the
- donkeys within earshot were deceived, and answered him. And then there was
- Father Flynn, a jolly old bibulous priest from Cork. An uncle of his had
- fought at Waterloo; it was great to hear him tell of his uncle’s part in
- the fortunes of the day. It was great, too (for Father Flynn was a fervid
- Irish patriot), to hear him roar out the “Wearing of the Green.” Between
- the stanzas he would brandish his blackthorn, stick at Everett, and call
- him a “murthering English tyrant,” to our huge delectation.
- </p>
- <p>
- There were others and others and others; but these six are those who come
- back first to my memory. They seemed to me very good company indeed; very
- merry, and genial, and amusing; and the life we led together seemed a very
- pleasant life. Oh, our pleasures were of the simplest nature, the
- traditional pleasures of Bohemia; smoking and drinking and talking,
- rambling arm-in-arm through the streets, lounging in studios, going to the
- play or perhaps the circus, or making excursions into the country. Only,
- the capital of our Bohemia was Rome. The streets through which we rambled
- were Roman streets, with their inexhaustible picturesqueness, their
- unending vicissitudes: with their pink and yellow houses, their shrines,
- their fountains, their gardens, their motley wayfarers—monks and
- soldiers; shaggy pifferari, and contadine in their gaudy costumes, and
- models masquerading as contadine; penitents, beggars, water-carriers,
- hawkers; priests in their vestments, bearing the Host, attended by
- acolytes, with burning tapers, who rang little bells, whilst men uncovered
- and women crossed themselves; and everywhere, everywhere, English
- tourists, with their noses in Baedeker. It was Rome with its bright sun,
- and its deep shadows; with its Ghetto, its Tiber, its Castel Sant’ Angelo;
- with its churches, and palaces, and ruins; with its Villa Borghese and its
- Pincian Hill; with its waving green Campagna at its gates. We smoked and
- talked and drank—Chianti, of course, and sunny Orvieto, and fabled
- Est-Est-Est, all in those delightful pear-shaped, wicker-covered flasks,
- which of themselves, I fancy, would confer a flavour upon indifferent
- wine. We made excursions to Tivoli and Frascati, to Monte Cavo and Nemi,
- to Acqua Acetosa. We patronised Pulcinella, and the marionettes, and
- (better still) the <i>imitation</i> marionettes. We blew horns on the
- night of Epiphany, we danced at masked balls, we put on dominoes and
- romped in the Corso during carnival, throwing flowers and confetti, and
- struggling to extinguish other people’s <i>moccoli</i>. And on rainy days
- (with an effort I can remember that there were <i>some</i> rainy days)
- Everett and I would sit with d’.vignac in his fencing gallery, and talk
- and smoke, and smoke and talk and talk. D’.vignac was six-and-twenty,
- Everett was twenty-two, and I was “nearly twenty.” D’.vignac would tell us
- of his past, of his adventures in Spain and Japan and South America, and
- of the lady for the love of whom he had come to grief. Everett and I would
- sigh profoundly, and shake our heads, and exchange sympathetic glances,
- and assure him that we knew what love was—we were victims of
- unfortunate attachments ourselves. To each other we had confided
- everything, Everett and I. He had told me all about his unrequited passion
- for Maud Eaton, and I had rhapsodised to him by the hour about Cousin
- Rosalys. “But you, old chap, you’re to be envied,” he would cry. “Here you
- are in the same town with her, by Jove! You can <i>see</i> her, you can
- plead your cause. Think of that. I wish I had half your luck. Maud is far
- away in England, buried in a country-house down in Lancashire. She might
- as well be on another planet, for all the good I get of her. But you—why,
- you can see your Cousin Rosalys this very hour if you like! Oh, heavens,
- what wouldn’t I give for half your luck!” The wheel of Time, the wheel of
- Time! Everett and Maud are married, but Cousin Rosalys and I.... Heigh-ho!
- I wonder whether, in our thoughts of ancient days, it is more what we
- remember or what we forget that makes them sweet? Anyhow, for the moment,
- we forget the dismal things that have happened since.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Yes, I was in the same town with her, by Jove; I could <i>see</i> her. And
- indeed I did see her many times every week. Like the villain in a
- melodrama, I led a double life. When I was not disguised as a Bohemian, in
- a velvet jacket and a wide-awake, smoking and talking and holding wassail
- with my boon companions, you might have observed a young man attired in
- the height of the prevailing fashion (his top-hat and varnished boots
- flashing fire in the eyes of the Roman populace), going to call on his
- Aunt Elizabeth. And his Aunt Elizabeth, pleased by such dutiful
- attentions, rewarded him with frequent invitations to dinner. Her other
- guests would be old ladies like herself, and old gentlemen, and priests,
- priests, priests. So that Rosalys and I, the only young ones present, were
- naturally paired together. After dinner Rosalys would play and sing, while
- I hung over her piano. Oh, how beautifully she played Chopin! How
- ravishingly she sang! Schubert’s <i>Wohin, and Rôslein, Rôslein, Rôslein
- roth;</i> and Gounod’s <i>Sérénade</i> and his <i>Barcarolle</i>:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- “Dites la jeune belle,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- Où voulez-vous aller?”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- And how angelically beautiful she looked! Her delicate, pale face, and her
- dark, undulating hair, and her soft red lips; and then her eyes—her
- luminous, mysterious dark eyes, in whose depths, far, far within, you
- could discern her spirit shining starlike. And her hands, white and
- slender and graceful, images in miniature of herself; with what
- incommunicable wonder and admiration I used to watch them as they moved
- above the keys. “A woman who plays Chopin ought to have three hands—two
- to play with, and one for the man who’s listening to hold.” That was a
- pleasantry which I meditated much in secret, and a thousand times aspired
- to murmur in the player’s ear, but invariably, when it came to the point
- of doing so, my courage failed me. “You can see her, you can plead your
- cause.” Bless me, I never dared even vaguely to hint that I had any cause
- to plead. I imagine young love is always terribly afraid of revealing
- itself to its object, terribly afraid and terribly desirous. Whenever I
- was not in Cousin Rosalys’s presence, my heart was consumed with longing
- to tell her that I loved her, to ask her whether perhaps she might be not
- wholly indifferent to me; I made the boldest resolutions, committed to
- memory the most persuasive declarations. But from the instant I <i>was</i>
- in her presence again—mercy, what panic seized me!
- </p>
- <p>
- I could have died sooner than speak the words that I was dying to speak,
- ask the question I was dying to ask.
- </p>
- <p>
- I called assiduously at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and my aunt bade me to
- dinner a good deal, and then one afternoon every week she used to drive
- with Rosalys on the Pincian. There was one afternoon every week when all
- Rome drove on the Pincian; was it Saturday? At any rate, you may be very
- sure I did not let such opportunities escape me for getting a bow and a
- smile from my cousin. Sometimes she would leave the carriage and join me,
- while Aunt Elizabeth, with Sandro in her lap, drove on, round and round
- the consecrated circle; and we would stroll together in the winding
- alleys, or stand by the terrace and look off over the roofs of the city,
- and watch the sunset blaze and fade behind St. Peter’s. You know that
- unexampled view—the roofs of Rome spread out beneath you like the
- surface of a troubled sea, and the dome of St. Peter’s, an island rising
- in the distance, and the sunset sky behind it. We would stand there in
- silence perhaps, at most saying very little, while the sunset burned
- itself out; and for one of us, at least, it was a moment of ineffable,
- impossible enchantment. She was so near to me—so near, the slender
- figure in the pretty frock, with the dark hair, and the captivating hat,
- and the furs; with her soft glowing eyes, with her exquisite fragrance of
- girlhood; she was so near to me, so alone with me, despite the crowd about
- us, and I loved her so! Oh, why couldn’t I tell her? Why couldn’t she
- divine it? People said that women always knew by intuition when men were
- in love with them. Why couldn’t Rosalys divine that I loved her, <i>how</i>
- I loved her, and make me a sign, and so enable me to speak?
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently—and all too soon—she would return to the carriage,
- and drive away with Aunt Elizabeth; and I, in the lugubrious twilight,
- would descend the great marble Spanish staircase (a perilous path, amongst
- models and beggars and other things) to the Piazza, and seek out Jack
- Everett at the Caffé Greco. Thence he and I would go off to dine together
- somewhere, condoling with each other upon our ill-starred passions. After
- dinner, pulling our hats over our eyes, two desperately tragic forms, we
- would set ourselves upon the traces of d’.vignac and Kônig and Father
- Flynn, determined to forget our sorrows in an evening of dissipation,
- saying regretfully, “These are the evil courses to which the love of woman
- has reduced us—a couple of the best-meaning fellows in Christendom,
- and surely born for better ends.” When we were children (hasn’t Kenneth
- Grahame written it for us in a golden book?) we played at conspirators and
- pirates. When we were a little older, and Byron or Musset had superseded
- Fenimore Cooper, some of us found there was an unique excitement to be got
- from the game of Blighted Beings.
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, why couldn’t I tell her? Why couldn’t she divine it, and make me an
- encouraging sign?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- But, of course, in the end I did tell her. It was on the night of my
- birthday. I had dined at the Palazzo Zacchinelli, and with the dessert a
- great cake was brought in and set before me. A number of little red
- candles were burning round it, and embossed upon it in frosting was this
- device:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- A birthday-piece
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- From Rosalys,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Wishing birthdays more in plenty
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- To her cousin “nearly twenty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- And counting the candles, I perceived they were <i>nineteen.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- Probably my joy was somewhat tempered by confusion, to think that my
- little equivocation on the subject of my age had been discovered. As I
- looked up from the cake to its giver, I met a pair of eyes that were
- gleaming with mischievous raillery; and she shook her head at me, and
- murmured, “Oh, you fibber!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “How on earth did you find out?” I wondered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—a little bird,” laughed she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t think it’s at all respectful of you to call Aunt Elizabeth a
- little bird,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- After dinner we went out upon the terrace. It was a warm night, and there
- was a moon. A moonlit night in Italy—dark velvet shot with silver.
- And the air was intoxicant with the scent of hyacinths. We were in March;
- the garden had become a wilderness of spring flowers, narcissuses and
- jonquils, crocuses, anemones, tulips, and hyacinths; hyacinths, everywhere
- hyacinths. Rosalys had thrown a bit of white lace over her hair. Oh, I
- assure you, in the moonlight, with the white lace over her hair, with her
- pale face, and her eyes, her shining, mysterious eyes—oh, I promise
- you, she was lovely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How beautiful the garden is, in the moonlight, isn’t it?” she said. “The
- shadows, and the statues, and the fountains. And how sweet the air is.
- They’re the hyacinths that smell so sweet. The hyacinth is your birthday
- flower, you know. Hyacinths bring happiness to people born in March.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked into her eyes, and my heart thrilled and thrilled. And then,
- somehow, somehow... Oh, I don’t remember what I said; only somehow,
- somehow... Ah, but I do remember very clearly what she answered—so
- softly, so softly, while her hand lay in mine. I remember it very clearly,
- and at the memory, even now, years afterwards, I confess my heart thrills
- again.
- </p>
- <p>
- We were joined, in a minute or two, by Monsignor Parlaghi, and we tried to
- behave as if he were not unwelcome.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Adam and Eve were driven from Eden for their guilt; but it was Innocence
- that lost our Eden for Rosalys and me. In our egregious innocence, we had
- determined that I should call upon Aunt Elizabeth in the morning, and
- formally demand her sanction to our engagement! Do I need to recount the
- history of that interview? Of my aunt’s incredulity, that gradually
- changed to scorn and anger? Of how I was fleered at and flouted, and
- taunted with my youth, and called a fool and a coxcomb, and sent about my
- business with the information that the portals of the Palazzo Zacchinelli
- would remain eternally closed against me for the future, and that my
- people “would be written to"? I was not even allowed to see my cousin to
- say good-bye. “And mind you, we’ll have no letter writing,” cried Aunt
- Elizabeth. “I shall forbid Rosalys to receive any letters from you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Guilt (we are taught) can be annulled, and its punishment remitted, if we
- do heartily repent. But innocence? Goodness knows how heartily I repented;
- yet I never found that a pennyweight of the punishment was remitted. At
- the week’s end I got a letter from my people recalling me to Paris. And I
- never saw Rosalys again. And some years afterwards she married an Italian,
- a nephew of Cardinal Badascalchi. And in 1887, at Viareggio, she died....
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Eh bien, voilà!</i> There is the little inachieved, the little
- unfulfilled romance, written for me in her name, Cousin Rosalys. What of
- it? Oh, nothing—except—except... Oh, nothing. <i>”All good
- things come to him who waits.” Perhaps. But we know how apt they are to
- come too late; and—sometimes they come too early.</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- FLOWER O’ THE CLOVE
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n the first-floor
- sitting-room of a lodging-house in Great College Street, Westminster, a
- young man—he was tall and thin, with a good deal of rather longish
- light-coloured hair, somewhat tumbled about; and he wore a pince-nez, and
- was in slippers and the oldest of tattered coats—a man of
- thirty-something was seated at a writing-table, diligently scribbling at
- what an accustomed eye might have recognised as “copy,” and negligently
- allowing the smoke from a cigarette to curl round and stain the thumb and
- forefinger of his idle hand, when the lodging-house maid-servant opened
- his door, and announced excitedly, “A lady to see you, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With the air of one taken altogether by surprise, and at a cruel
- disadvantage, the writer dropped his pen, and jumped up. He was in
- slippers and a disgraceful coat, not to dwell upon the condition of his
- hair. “You ought to have kept her downstairs until———”
- he began, frowning upon the maid; and at that point his visitor entered
- the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was a handsome, dashing-looking young woman, in a toilette that
- breathed the very last and crispest savour of Parisian elegance: a hat
- that was a tangle of geraniums, an embroidered jacket, white gloves, a
- skirt that frou-froued breezily as she moved; and she carried an amazing
- silver-hilted sunshade, a thing like a folded gonfalon, a thing of red
- silk gleaming through draperies of black lace.
- </p>
- <p>
- Poising lightly near the threshold, with a little smile of interrogation,
- this bewildering vision said, “Have I the honour of addressing Mr. William
- Stretton?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The young man bowed a vague acknowledgment of that name; but his gaze,
- through the lenses of his pince-nez, was all perplexity and question.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m very fortunate in finding you at home. I’ve called to see you about a
- matter of business,” she informed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” he wondered. Then he added, with a pathetic shake of the head, “I’m
- the last man in the world whom any one could wisely choose to see about a
- matter of business; but such as I am, I’m all at your disposal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So much the better,” she rejoined cheerily. “I infinitely prefer to
- transact business with people who are unbusinesslike. One has some chance
- of overreaching them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’ll have every chance of over-reaching me,” sighed he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a jolly quarter of the town you live in,” she commented. “It’s so
- picturesque and Gothic and dilapidated, with such an atmosphere of
- academic calm. It reminds me of Oxford.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” assented he, “it <i>is</i> a bit like Oxford. Was your business
- connected——?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it <i>is</i> like Oxford?” she interrupted. “Then never tell me again
- that there’s nothing in intuitions. I’ve never been in Oxford, but
- directly I passed the gateway of Dean’s Yard, I felt reminded of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s undoubtedly a lot in intuitions,” he agreed; “and for the future
- I shall carefully abstain from telling you there isn’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Those things are gardens, over the way, behind the wall, aren’t they?”
- she asked, looking out of the window.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” he said, “those things are gardens, the gardens of the Abbey. The
- canons and people have their houses there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very comfortable and nice,” said she. “Plenty of grass. And the trees
- aren’t bad, either, for town trees. It must be rather fun to be a canon.
- As I live,” she cried, turning back into the room, “you’ve got a Pleyel.
- This is the first Pleyel I’ve seen in England. Let me congratulate you on
- your taste in pianos.” And with her gloved hands she struck a chord and
- made a run or two. “You’ll need the tuner soon, though. It’s just the
- shadow of a shadow out. I was brought up on Pleyels. Do you know, I’ve
- half a mind to make you a confidence?” she questioned brightly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, do make it, I pray you,” he encouraged her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, I believe, if you were to offer me a chair, I believe I could
- bring myself to sit down,” she admitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed; and she sank rustling into the chair
- that he pushed forward.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, now for my business,” said she. “Would you just put this thing
- somewhere?” She offered him her sunshade, which he took and handled
- somewhat gingerly. “Oh, you needn’t be afraid. It’s quite tame,” she
- laughed, “though I admit it looks a bit ferocious. What a sweet room
- you’ve got—so manny, and smoky, and booky. Are they all real books?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “More or less real,” he answered; “as real as any books ever are that a
- fellow gets for review.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you got them for review?” she repeated, with vivacity. “How terribly
- exciting. I’ve never seen a book before that’s actually passed through a
- reviewer’s hands. They don’t look much the worse for it. Whatever else you
- said about them, I trust you didn’t deny that they make nice domestic
- ornaments. But this isn’t business. <i>You</i> wouldn’t call this
- business?” she enquired, with grave curiosity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I should call this pleasure,” he assured her, laughing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Would</i> you?” She raised her eyebrows. “Ah, but then you’re
- English.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren’t you?” asked he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do I look English?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not sure.” He hesitated for a second, studying her. “You certainly
- don’t dress English.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heaven forbid Δ She made a fervent gesture. “I’m a miserable sinner, but
- at least I’m incapable of that. However, if you were really kind, you’d
- affect just a little curiosity to know the errand to which you owe my
- presence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m devoured by curiosity,” he declared.
- </p>
- <p>
- Again she raised her eyebrows. “You are? Then why don’t you show it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps because I have a sense of humour—amongst other reasons,” he
- suggested, smiling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, since you’re devoured by curiosity, you must know,” she began; but
- broke off suddenly—“Apropos, I wonder whether <i>you</i> could be
- induced to tell <i>me</i> something.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I daresay I could, if it’s anything within my sphere of knowledge.” He
- paused, expectant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then tell me, please, why you keep your Japanese fan in your fireplace,”
- she requested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why shouldn’t I? Doesn’t it strike you as a good place for it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Admirable. But my interest was psychological. I was wondering by what
- mental processes you came to hit upon it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, to be frank, it wasn’t I who hit upon it; it isn’t my
- Japanese fan. It’s a conceit of my landlady’s. This is an age of paradox,
- you know. Would you prefer silver paper?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Must</i> one have one or the other?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re making it painfully clear,” he cautioned her, “that you’ve never
- lived in lodgings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you go on at this rate,” she retorted, laughing, “I shall never get my
- task accomplished. Here are twenty times that I’ve commenced it, and
- twenty times you’ve put me off. Shall we now, at last, proceed seriously
- to business?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not on my account, I beg. I’m not in the slightest hurry,” protested he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You said you were devoured by curiosity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did I say that?” He knitted his brow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly you did.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must have been aphasia. I meant contentment,” he explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Devoured by contentment?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not, as well as by curiosity?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The phrase is novel,” she mused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s the occupation of my life to seek for novel phrases,” he reminded
- her. “I’m what somebody or other has called a literary man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you enjoy what somebody or other has called beating about the bush?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hugely—with such a fellow-beater,” he responded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You drive me to extremities.” She shook her head. “I see there’s nothing
- for it but to plunge in <i>médias res</i>. You must know, then, that I
- have been asked to call upon you by a friend—by my friend Miss
- Johannah Rothe—I beg your pardon; I never <i>can</i> remember that
- she’s changed her name—my friend Miss Johannah Silver—but
- Silver <i>née</i> Rothe—of Silver Towers, in the County of Sussex.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah?” said he. “Ah, yes. Then never tell me again that there’s nothing in
- intuitions. I’ve never met Miss Silver, but directly you crossed the
- threshold of this room, I began to feel vaguely reminded of her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there’s a lot in intuitions,” she agreed. “But don’t think to
- disconcert me. My friend Miss Silver——”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Your <i>friend?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Considering the sacrifice I’m making on her behalf to-day, it’s strange
- you should throw doubt upon my friendship for her,” she argued.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You make your sacrifices with a cheerful countenance. I should never have
- guessed that you weren’t entirely happy. But forgive my interruption. You
- were about to say that your friend Miss Silver——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My occasional friend,” she substituted. “Sometimes, I confess, we quarrel
- like everything, and remain at daggers drawn for months. She’s such a
- flightly creature, dear Johannah, she not infrequently gets me into a
- perfect peck of trouble. But since she’s fallen heir to all this money,
- you’d be surprised to behold the devotion her friends have shown her. I
- couldn’t very well refuse to follow their example. One’s human, you see;
- and one can’t dress like this for nothing, can one?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon my word, I’m not in a position to answer you. I’ve never tried,”
- laughed he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think we may safely assume
- one can’t,” said she. “However, here you are, beating about the bush
- again. I come to you as Johannah’s emissary. She desires me to ask you
- several questions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” said he, a trifle uncomfortably.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She would be glad to know,” his visitor declared, looking straight into
- his eyes, and smiling a little gravely, “why you have been so excessively
- nasty to her?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have I been nasty to her?” he asked, with an innocence that was palpably
- counterfeit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you think you have?” She still looked gravely, smilingly, into his
- eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t see how.” He maintained his feint of innocence.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you think you’ve responded somewhat ungraciously to her overtures
- of friendship?” she suggested. “Do you think it was nice to answer her
- letters with those curt little formal notes of yours? Look. Johannah sat
- down to write to you. And she began her letter <i>Dear Mr. Stretton</i>.
- And then she simply couldn’t. So she tore up the sheet, and began another
- <i>My Dear Cousin Will</i>. And what did she receive in reply? A note
- beginning <i>Dear Miss Silver</i>. Do you think that was kind? Don’t you
- think it was the least bit mortifying? And why have you refused in such a
- stiff-necked way to go down to see her at Silver Towers?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” he protested, “in all fairness, in all logic, your questions ought
- to be put the other way round.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bother logic! But put them any way you like,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What right had Miss Silver to expect me to multiply the complications of
- my life by rushing into an ecstatic friendship with her? And why, being
- very well as I am in town just now, why should I disarrange myself by a
- journey into the country?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why indeed?” she echoed. “I’m sure I can give no reason. Why should one
- ever do any one else a kindness? Your cousin has conceived a great desire
- to meet you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, a great desire!” He tossed his head. “One knows these great desires.
- She’ll live it down. A man named Burrell has been stuffing her up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stuffing her up?” She smiled enquiringly. “The expression is new to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Greening her, filling her head with all sorts of nonsensical delusions,
- painting my portrait for her in all the colours of the rainbow. Oh, I know
- my Burrell. He’s tried to stuff <i>me</i> up, too, about her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh? Has he? What has he said?” she questioned eagerly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The usual rubbishy things one does say, when one wants to stuff a fellow
- up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For instance?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, that she’s tremendously good-looking, with hair and eyes and things,
- and very charming.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a dear good person the man named Burrell must be,” she murmured.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He’s not a bad chap,” he conceded, “but you must remember that he’s her
- solicitor.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, remembering that, you weren’t to be stuffed?” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If she was charming and good-looking, it was a reason the more for
- avoiding her,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” She looked perplexed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s nothing on earth so tiresome as charming women. They’re all
- exactly alike,” asserted he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you,” his guest exclaimed, bowing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, nobody could pretend that <i>you’re</i> exactly alike,” he assured
- her hastily. “I own at once that you’re delightfully different. But
- Burrell has no knack for character drawing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re extremely flattering. But aren’t you taking a slightly one-sided
- point of view? Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that it is
- Johannah’s bad luck to be charming and good-looking. Nevertheless, she
- still has claims on you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Has she?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s your cousin.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, by the left hand,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- She stared for an instant, biting her lip. Then she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And only my second or third cousin at that,” he went on serenely.
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at him with eyes that were half whimsical, half pleading.
- “Would you mind being quite serious for a moment?” she asked. “Because
- Johannah’s situation, absurd as it seems, really is terribly serious for
- Johannah. I should like to submit it to your better judgment. We’ll drop
- the question of cousinship, if you wish—though it’s the simple fact
- that you’re her only blood-relation in this country, where she feels
- herself the forlornest sort of alien. She’s passed her entire life in
- Italy and France, you know, and this is the first visit she’s made to
- England since her childhood. But we’ll drop the question of cousinship. At
- any rate, Johannah is a human being. Well, consider her plight a little.
- She finds herself in the most painful, the most humiliating circumstances
- that can be imagined; and you’re the only person living who can make them
- easier for her. Involuntarily—in spite of herself—she’s come
- into possession of a fortune that naturally, morally, belongs to you. She
- can’t help it. It’s been left to her by will—by the will of a man
- who never saw her, never had any kind of relations with her, but chose her
- for his heir just because her mother, who died when Johannah was a baby,
- had chanced to be his cousin. And there the poor girl is. Can’t you see
- how like a thief she must feel at the best? Can’t you see how much worse
- you make it for her, when she holds out her hand, and you refuse to take
- it? Is that magnanimous of you? Isn’t it cruel? You couldn’t treat her
- with greater unkindness if she’d actually designed, and schemed, and
- intrigued, to do you out of your inheritance, instead of coming into it in
- the passive way she has. After all, she’s a human being, she’s a woman.
- Think of her pride.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Think of mine,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can’t see that your pride is involved.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To put it plainly, I’m the late Sir William Silver’s illegitimate son.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well? What of that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you fancy I should enjoy being taken up and patronised by his
- legitimate heir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” she cried, starting to her feet. “You can’t think I would be capable
- of anything so base as that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And he saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said. “You
- would be utterly incapable of anything that was not generous and noble.
- But you must remember that I had never seen you. How could I know?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, now that you <i>have</i> seen me,” she responded, her eyes all
- smiles again, “now that I have put my pride in my pocket, and bearded you
- in your den, I don’t mind confiding in you that it’s nearly lunchtime, and
- also that I’m ravenously hungry. Could you ring your bell, and order up
- something in the nature of meat and drink? And while you are about it, you
- might tell your landlady or some one to pack your bag. We take,” she
- mentioned, examining a tiny watch, that seemed nothing more than a
- frivolous incrustation of little diamonds and rubies, “we take the
- three-sixteen for Silver Towers.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- II.
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>eated opposite her
- in the railway-carriage, as their train bore them through the pleasant
- dales and woods of Surrey, Will Stretton fell to studying his cousin’s
- appearance. “Burrell was right,” he told himself; “she really is
- tremendously good-looking,” and that, in spite of a perfectly reckless
- irregularity of feature. Her nose was too small, but it was a delicate,
- pert, pretty nose, notwithstanding. Her mouth was too large, but it was a
- beautiful mouth, all the same, softly curved and red as scarlet, with
- sensitive, humorous little quirks in its corners. Her eyes he could admire
- without reservation, brown and pellucid, with the wittiest, teasingest,
- mockingest lights dancing in them, yet at the same time a deeper light
- that was pensive, tender, womanly. Her hair, too, he decided, was quite
- lovely, abundant, undulating, black, blue-black even, but fine, but silky,
- escaping in a flutter of small curls above her brow. “It’s like black
- foam,” he said. And he would have been ready to go to war for her
- complexion, though it was so un-English a complexion that one might have
- mistaken her for a native of the France or Italy she had inhabitated:
- warm, dusky white, with an elusive shadow of rose glowing through it. Yes,
- she was tremendously good-looking, he concluded. She looked fresh and
- strong and real. She looked alert, alive, full of the spring and the joy
- of life. She looked as if she could feel quick and deep, as if her blood
- flowed swiftly, and was red. He liked her face, and he liked her figure—it
- was supple and vigorous. He liked the way she dressed—there was
- something daring and spirited in the uncompromising, unabashed luxury of
- it. “Who ever saw such a hat—or such a sunshade?” he reflected.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’ll be no coach-and-four to meet us at the station,” she warned him,
- as they neared their journey’s end, “because I have no horses. But we’ll
- probably find Madame Dornaye there, <i>piaffer</i>-ing in person. Can you
- resign yourself to the prospect of driving up to your ancestral mansion in
- a hired fly?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I could even, at a pinch, resign myself to walking,” he declared. “But
- who is Madame Dornaye?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madame Dornaye is my burnt-offering to that terrible sort of fetich
- called the County. She’s what might be technically termed my chaperon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, to be sure,” he said; “I had forgotten. Of course, you’d have a
- chaperon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “By no means of course,” she corrected him. “Until the other day I’d never
- thought of such a thing. But it’s all along o’ the man named Burrell. He
- insisted that I mustn’t live alone—that I was too young. He has such
- violent hallucinations about people’s ages. He said the County would be
- horrified. I must have an old woman, a sound, reliable old woman, to live
- with me. I begged and implored <i>him</i> to come and try it, but he
- protested with tears in his eyes that he wasn’t an old woman. So I sent
- for Madame Dornaye, who is, every inch of her. She’s the widow of a man
- who used to be a professor at the Sorbonne, or something. I’ve known her
- for at least a hundred years. She’s connected in some roundabout way with
- the family of my father’s stepmother. She’s like a little dry brown leaf;
- and she plays Chopin <i>comme pas un</i>; and she lends me a false air of
- respectability, I suppose. She calls me <i>Jeanne ma fille</i>, if you can
- believe it, as if my name weren’t common Johannah. If you chance to please
- her, she’ll very likely call you <i>Jean mon fils</i>. But see how things
- turn out. The man named Burrell also insisted that I must put on mourning,
- as a symbol of my grief for the late Sir William. That I positively
- refused to think of. So the County’s horrified, all the same—which
- proves the futility of concessions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” questioned Will. “What does the County do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It comes and calls on me, and walks round me, and stares, with a funny
- little deprecating smile, as it I were some outlandish and not very proper
- animal, cast up by the sea. To begin with, there’s the vicar, with all his
- wives and daughters. <i>Their</i> emotions are complicated by the fact
- that I am a Papist. Then there’s old Lord Belgard; and there’s Mrs.
- Breckenbridge, with her marriageable sons; and there’s the Bishop of
- Salchester, with his Bishopess, Dean, and Chapter. The dear good people
- make up parties in the afternoon, to come and have a look at me; and they
- sip my tea with an air of guilt, as if it smacked of profligacy; and they
- suppress demure little knowing glances among themselves. And then at last
- they go away, shaking their heads, and talking me over in awe-struck
- voices.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can see them, I can hear them,” Will laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Haven’t you in English a somewhat homely proverbial expression about the
- fat and the fire?” asked Johannah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “About the fat getting into the fire? Yes,” said Will.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, to employ that somewhat homely proverbial expression,” she
- went on, “the fat got into the fire at the Bishop’s palace. Mrs. Rawley
- was kind enough to write and ask us to dinner, and she added that she had
- heard I sang, and wouldn’t I bring some music? But nobody had ever told me
- that it’s bad form in England to sing <i>well</i>. So, after dinner, when
- Mrs. Rawley said, ’Now, Miss Silver, do sing us something,’ I made the
- incredible blunder of singing as well as I could. I sang the <i>Erlkônig</i>,
- and Madame Dornaye played the accompaniment, and we both did our very
- bestest, in our barefaced, Continental way. We were a little surprised,
- and vastly enlightened, to perceive that we’d shocked everybody. And
- by-and-by the Bishop’s daughters consented to sing in their turn, and then
- we saw the correct British style of doing it. If you don’t want to be
- considered rowdyish and noisy in a British drawing-room, you must sing
- under your breath, faintly, faintingly, as if you were afraid somebody
- might hear you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My poor dear young lady,” her cousin commiserated her, “fancy your only
- just discovering that. It’s one of the foundation-stones of our social
- constitution. If you sing with any art or with any feeling, you expose
- yourself to being mistaken for a paid professional.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Another thing that’s horrified the County,” pursued Johannah, “is the
- circumstance that I keep no horses. I don’t like horses—except in
- pictures. In pictures, I admit at once, they make a very pleasant
- decorative motive. But in life—they’re too strong and too
- unintelligent; and they’re perpetually bolting. By-the-bye, please choose
- a good feeble jaded one, when you engage our fly. I’m devoted to donkeys,
- though. They’re every bit as decorative as the horse, and they’re really
- wise—they only baulk. I had a perfect love of a little donkey in
- Italy; his name was Angelo. If I decide to stay in England, I shall have a
- spanking team of four donkeys, with scarlet trappings and silver bells.
- But the County say ’Oh, you <i>must</i> have horses,’ and casts its eyes
- appealingly to heaven when I say I <i>won’t</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The County lacks a sense of situations,” he reflected. “It’s really a
- deliciously fresh one—a big country house, and not a horse in the
- stables.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Apropos of the house, that brings me to another point,” said she. “The
- County feels very strongly that I ought to put the house in repair—that
- dear old wonderful, rambling, crumbling house. They take it as the final
- crushing evidence of my depravity, that I prefer to leave it in its
- present condition of picturesque decay. I’m sure you agree with me, that
- it would be high treason to allow a carpenter or mason to lay a hand on
- it. By-the-bye, I hope you have no conscientious scruples against speaking
- French; for Madame Dornaye only knows two words of English, and those she
- mispronounces. There she is—yes, that little black and grey thing,
- in the frock. She’s come to meet me, because we had a bet. You owe me five
- shillings,” she called out to Madame Dornaye, as Will helped her from the
- carriage. “You see, I’ve brought him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Madame Dornaye, who had a pair of humorous old French eyes, responded,
- blinking them, “Oh, before I pay you, I shall have to be convinced that it
- is really he.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m afraid it’s really he,” laughed Will; “but rather than let so
- immaterial a detail cost you five shillings, I’m prepared to maintain with
- my dying breath that there’s no such person.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t mind him,” interposed Johannah. “He’s trying to flatter you up,
- because he wants you to call him <i>Jean mon fils</i>, as if his name
- weren’t common William.” Then, to him, “Go,” she said, with an imperious
- gesture, “go and find a vehicle with a good tired horse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And when the vehicle with the good tired horse had brought them to their
- destination, and they stood before the hall-door of Silver Towers,
- Johannah looked up at the escutcheon carved in the pale-grey stone above
- it, and said pensively, “On a field argent, a heart gules, crowned with an
- imperial crown or; and the motto, ’Qu’il régne!’ If, when you got my first
- letter, Cousin Will, if you’d remembered the arms of our family, and the
- motto—if you had ’let it reign’—I should have been spared the
- trouble and expense of a journey to town to-day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I should have missed a precious experience,” said he. “You forget
- what I couldn’t help being supremely conscious of—that I bear those
- arms with a difference. I hope, though, that you won’t begrudge the
- journey to town. I think there are certain aspects of your character that
- I might never have discovered if I’d met you in any other way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That evening Johannah wrote a letter:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear Mr. Burrell,—<i>Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut</i>. The first
- part of my rash little prophecy has already come true. Will Stretton is
- staying in this house, a contented guest. At the present moment he’s
- hovering about the piano, where Madame Dornaye is playing Chopin; and he’s
- just remarked that he never hears Chopin without thinking of those lines
- of Browning’s:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent30">
- ’I discern
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Infinite passion, and the pain
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- Of finite hearts that yearn.’
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- I quite agree with you, he <i>is</i> a charming creature. So now I repeat
- the second part of my rash little prophecy: Before the summer’s over he
- will have accepted at least a good half of his paternal fortune. <i>Ce que
- femme veut, le diable ne saurait pas l’empêcher.</i> He will, he shall,
- even if I have to marry him to make him.—Yours ever, Johannah
- Silver.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ill left his room
- somewhat early the next morning, and went down into the garden. The sun
- was shining briskly, the dew still sparkled on the grass, the air was
- heady with a hundred keen earth-odours. A mile away, beyond the wide green
- levels of Sumpter Meads, the sea glowed blue as the blue of larkspur,
- under the blue June sky. And everywhere, everywhere, innumerable birds
- piped and twittered, filling the world with a sense of gay activity, of
- whole-hearted, high-hearted life.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What! up already?” a voice called softly, from behind him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned, and met Johannah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not, since you are?” he responded.
- </p>
- <p>
- She laughed, and gave him her hand, a warm, elastic hand, firm of grasp.
- In a garden-hat and a white frock, her eyes beaming, her cheeks faintly
- flushed, she seemed to him a sort of beautiful incarnation of the spirit
- of the summer morning, its freshness, and sweetness, and richness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, we furriners,” she explained; “we’re all shocking early risers. In
- Italy we love the day when it is young, and deem it middle-aged by eight
- o’clock. But in England I had heard it was the fashion to lie late.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I woke, and couldn’t go to sleep again, so I tossed the fashion to the
- winds. Perhaps it was a sort of dim presentiment that I should surprise
- Aurora walking in the garden, that banished slumber,” he suggested, with a
- flourish.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Flowery speeches are best met by flowery deeds,” said she. “Come with me
- to the rosery, and I will give you a red, red rose.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And in the rosery, as she stood close to him, pinning the red, red rose in
- his coat, her smooth cheek and fragrant hair so near, so near, he felt his
- heart all at once begin to throb, and he had to control a sudden absurd
- longing to put his arms round her and kiss her. “Good heavens,” he said to
- himself, “I must be on my guard.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There,” she cried, bestowing upon her task a gentle pat, by way of
- finish, “that makes us quits.” And she raised her eyes to his, and held
- them for an instant with a smile that did anything but soothe the trouble
- in his heart, such a sly little teasing, cryptic smile. Could it possibly
- be, he wondered wildly, that she had divined his monstrous impulse, and
- was coquetting with it?
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now let’s be serious,” she said, leading the way back to the lawn. “It’s
- like a hanging-garden, high up here, with the meads and the sea below,
- isn’t it? And àpropos of the sea, I would beg you to observe its colour.
- Is it blue? I would also ask you kindly to cast an eye on that line of
- cliffs, there to the eastward, as it goes winding in and out away to the
- vanishing point. Are the cliffs white?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, the cliffs are white,” agreed the unwary Will.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How can you tell such dreadful fibs?” she caught him up. “The cliffs are
- prismatic. White, indeed! when they gleam with every transparent tint from
- rose to violet, as if the light that falls on them had passed through
- rubies and amethysts, and all sorts of precious stones. That is an optical
- effect due doubtless to reflection or refraction or something—no?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should say it was almost certainly due to something,” he acquiesced.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now,” she continued, “will you obligingly turn your attention to the
- birds? Tweet-weet-willow-will-weet. I don’t know what it means, but they
- repeat it so often and so earnestly, I’m sure it must be true.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s relatively true,” said he. “It means that it’s a fine morning, and
- their digestion’s good, and their affairs are prospering—nothing
- more than that. They’re material-minded little beasts, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All truth is relative,” said she, “and one’s relatively a material-minded
- little beast oneself. Is the greensward beyond there (relatively) spangled
- with buttercups and daisies? Is the park (relatively) leafy, and shadowy,
- and mysterious, and delightful? Is the may in bloom? <i>Voyons donc!</i>
- you’ll never be denying that the may’s in bloom. And is the air like an
- elixir? I vow, it goes to one’s head like some ethereal elixir. And yet
- you have the effrontery to tell me that you’re pining for the flesh-pots
- of Great College Street, Westminster, S.W.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, did I tell you that? Ah, well, it must have been with intent to
- deceive, for nothing could be farther from the truth,” he owned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The relative truth? Then you’re not homesick?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not consciously,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Neither am I,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why should you be?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is positively the first day since my arrival in England that I
- haven’t been, more or less,” she answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh?” he wondered sympathetically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can’t think how <i>dépaysée</i> I’ve felt. After having lived all
- one’s life in Prague, suddenly to find oneself translated to the
- mistress-ship of an English country house,” she submitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In Prague? I thought you had lived in Rome and Paris, chiefly,” he
- exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Prague is a figure of rhetoric,” she reminded him. “I mean the capital of
- Bohemia. Wasn’t my father a sculptor? And wasn’t I born in a studio? And
- haven’t my playmates and companions always been of Florizel the loyal
- subjects? So whether you call it Rome or Paris or Florence or Naples, it
- was Prague, none the less.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At that rate, I live in Prague myself, and we’re compatriots,” said Will.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s no doubt why I don’t feel homesick any more,” she responded,
- smiling. “Where two of the faithful are gathered together they can form a
- miniature Prague of their own. If I decide to stay in England, I shall
- send for a lot of my Prague friends to come and visit me, and you can send
- for an equal number of yours; and then we’ll turn this bright particular
- corner of the British Empire into a province of Bohemia, and the County
- may be horrified with reason. But meanwhile, let’s be Pragueians in
- practice as well as theory. Let’s go to the strawberry beds, and steal
- some strawberries,” was her conclusion.
- </p>
- <p>
- She walked a little in front of him. Her garden-hat had come off, and she
- was swinging it at her side, by its ribbons. Will noticed the strong,
- lithe sway and rhythm of her body, as she moved. “What a <i>woman</i> she
- is,” he thought; “how one feels her sex.” And with that, he all at once
- became aware of a singular depression. “Surely,” a malevolent little voice
- within him argued, “woman that she is, and having passed all her life with
- the subjects of Florizel, surely, surely, she must have had...
- experiences. She must have loved—she must have been loved.” And (as
- if it was any of his business!) a kind of vague jealousy of her past, a
- kind of suspiciousness and irrelevant resentment, began to burn, a small
- dull spot of pain, somewhere in his breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- She, apparently, was in the highest spirits. There was something
- expressive of joyousness in the mere way she tripped over the grass,
- swinging her garden-hat like a basket; and presently she fell to singing,
- merrily, in a light voice, that prettiest of old French songs, <i>Les
- Trots Princesses</i>, dancing forward to its measure:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- “Derrièr’ chez mon père,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- (Vole, vole, mon cour, vole!)
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- Derrièr’ chez mon père,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- Ya un pommier doux,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- Tout doux, et iou,
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- Ya un pommier doux.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you like that song?” she asked. “The tune of it is like the smell
- of faded rose-leaves, isn’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- And suddenly she began to sing a different one, possibly an improvisation:
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- “ And so they set forth for the strawberry beds,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- The strawberry beds, the strawberry beds,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- And so they set forth for the strawberry beds,
- </p>
- <p class="indent15">
- On Christmas day in the morning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- And when they had reached the strawberry beds, she knelt, and plucked a
- great red berry, and then leapt up again, and held it to her cousin’s
- lips, saying, “Bite—but spare my fingers.” And so, laughing, she fed
- it to him, while he, laughing too, consumed it. But when her pink
- finger-tips all but touched his lips, his heart had a convulsion, and it
- was only by main-force that he restrained his kisses. And he said to
- himself, “I must go back to town to-morrow. This will never do. It would
- be the devil to pay if I should let myself fall in love with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, I’ve felt terribly <i>dépaysée</i>,” she told him again, herself
- nibbling a berry. “I’ve felt like the traditional cat in the strange
- garret. And then, besides, there was my change of name. I can’t reconcile
- myself to being called Miss Silver. I can’t realise the character. It’s
- like an affectation, like making-believe. Directly I relax my vigilance, I
- forget, and sink back into Johannah Rothe. I’m always Johannah Rothe when
- I’m alone. Directly I’m alone, I push a big <i>ouf</i>, and send Miss
- Silver to Cracklimbo. Then somebody comes, and, with a weary sigh, I don
- my sheep’s clothing again. Of course, there’s nothing in a name, and yet
- there’s everything. There’s a furious amount of mental discomfort when the
- name doesn’t fit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a discomfort that will pass,” he said consolingly. “The change of
- name is a mere formality—a condition attached to coming into a
- property. In England, you know, it’s a rather frequent condition.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m aware of that,” she informed him. “But to me,” she went on, “it seems
- symbolic—symbolic of my whole situation, which is false, abnormal.
- Silver? Silver? It’s a name meant for a fair person, with light hair and a
- white skin. And here I am, as black as any Gipsy. And then! It’s a
- condition attached to coming into a property. Well, I come into a property
- to which I have no more moral right than I have to the coat on your back;
- and I’m obliged to do it under an <i>alias</i>, like a thief in the
- night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my dear young lady,” he cried out, “you’ve the very best of rights,
- moral as well as legal. You come into a property that is left to you by
- will, and you’re the last representative of the family in whose hands it
- has been for I forget how many hundreds of years.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That,” said she, “is a question I shall not refuse to discuss with you
- upon some more fitting occasion. For the present I am tempted to
- perpetrate a simply villainous pun, but I forbear. Suffice it to say that
- I consider the property that I’ve come into as nothing more nor less than
- a present made me by my cousin, William Stretton. No—don’t
- interrupt!” she forbade him. “I happen to know my facts. I happen to know
- that if Will Stretton hadn’t, for reasons in the highest degree honourable
- to himself, quarrelled and broken with his father, and refused to receive
- a penny from him, I happen to know, I say, that Sir William Silver would
- have left Will Stretton everything he possessed in the world. Oh, it’s not
- in vain that I’ve pumped the man named Burrell. So, you see, I’m indebted
- to my Quixotic cousin for something in the neighbourhood, I’m told, of
- eight thousand a year. Rather a handsome little present, isn’t it?
- Furthermore, let me add in passing, I absolutely forbid my cousin to call
- me his dear young lady, as if he were seven hundred years my senior and
- only a casual acquaintance. A really nice cousin would take the liberty of
- calling me by my Christian name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll take the liberty of calling you by some exceedingly <i>un</i>Christian
- name,” he menaced, “if you don’t leave off talking that impossible rot
- about my making you a present.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wasn’t talking impossible rot about your making me a present,” she
- contradicted. “I was merely telling you how <i>dépaysée</i> I’d felt. The
- rest was parenthetic. So now, then, keep your promise, call me Johannah.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Johannah,” he called, submissively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will,” said she. “And when you feel, Will, that on the whole, Will,
- you’ve had strawberries enough, Will, quite to destroy your appetite,
- perhaps it would be as well if we should go in to breakfast, Willie.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV.
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>hey were seated on
- the turf, under a great tree, in the park, amid a multitude of
- bright-coloured cushions, Johannah, Will, and Madame Dornaye. It was three
- weeks later—whence it may be inferred that he had abandoned his
- resolution to “go back to town to-morrow.” He was smoking a cigarette;
- Madame Dornaye was knitting; Johannah, hatless, in an indescribable
- confection of cream-coloured muslin, her head pillowed in a scarlet
- cushion against the body of the tree, was gazing off towards the sea with
- dreamy eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will,” she called languidly, by-and-by.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes?” he responded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you happen by any chance to belong to that sect of philosophers who
- regard gold as a precious metal?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “From the little I’ve seen of it, I am inclined to regard it as precious—yes,”
- he answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, I wouldn’t be so lavish of it, if I were you,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you don’t take care,” said he, “you’ll force me to admit that I
- haven’t an idea of what you’re driving at.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m driving at your silence. You’re as silent as a statue. Please talk a
- little.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What shall I talk about?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anything. Nothing. Tell us a story,” she decided.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know any stories.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then the least you can do is to invent one,” was her plausible retort.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What sort of a story would you like?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s only one sort of story a woman ever sincerely likes—especially
- on a hot summer’s afternoon, in the country,” she affirmed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I couldn’t possibly invent a love-story,” he disclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then tell us a true one. You needn’t be afraid of shocking Madame
- Dornaye. She’s a realist herself.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jeanne ma fille!” murmured Madame Dornaye, reprovingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The only true love-story I could tell has a somewhat singular defect,”
- said he. “There’s no heroine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s like the story of what’s-his-name—Narcissus,” Johannah said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “With the vastest difference. The hero of my story wasn’t in love with his
- own image. He was in love with a beautiful princess,” Will explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then how can you have the face to say that there’s no heroine?” she
- demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There isn’t any heroine. At the same time, there’s nothing else. The
- story’s all about her. You see, she never existed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You said it was a <i>true</i> love-story,” she reproached him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So it is—literally true.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I asked for a story, and you give me a riddle.” She shook her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, it’s a story all the same,” he reassured her. “Its title is <i>Much
- Ado about Nobody</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh? It runs in my head that I’ve met with something or other with a
- similar title before,” she considered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Precisely,” said he. “Something or other by one of the Elizabethans.
- That’s how it came to occur to me. I take my goods where I find them.
- However, do you want to hear the story?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, if you’re determined to tell it, I daresay I can steel myself to
- listen,” she answered, with resignation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “On second thoughts, I’m determined not to tell it,” he teased.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bother! Don’t be disagreeable. Tell it at once,” she commanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, there isn’t any story,” he admitted. “It’s simply an absurd
- little freak of child psychology. It’s the story of a boy who fell in love
- with a girl—a girl that never was, on sea or land. It happened in
- Regent Street, of all romantic places, ’one day still fierce ’mid many a
- day struck calm.’ I had gone with my mother to her milliner’s. I think I
- was ten or eleven. And while my mother was transacting her business with
- the milliner, I devoted my attention to the various hats and bonnets that
- were displayed about the shop. And presently I hit on one that gave me a
- sensation. It was a straw hat, with brown ribbons, and cherries, great
- glossy red and purple cherries. I looked at it, and suddenly I got a
- vision—a vision of a girl. Oh, the loveliest, loveliest girl! She
- was about eighteen (a self-respecting boy of eleven, you know, always
- chooses a girl of about eighteen to fall in love with), and she had the
- brightest brown eyes, and the rosiest cheeks, and the curlingest hair, and
- a smile and a laugh that made one’s heart thrill and thrill with
- unutterable blisses. And there hung her hat, as if she had just come in
- and taken it off, and passed into another room. There hung her hat,
- suggestive of her as only people’s hats know how to be suggestive; and
- there sat I, my eyes devouring it, my soul transported. The very air of
- the shop seemed all at once to have become fragrant—with the
- fragrance that had been shaken from her garments as she passed. I went
- home, hopelessly, frantically in love. I loved that non-existent young
- woman with a passion past expressing, for at least half a year. I was
- always thinking of her; she was always with me, everywhere. How I used to
- talk to her, and tell her all my childish fancies, desires, questionings;
- how I used to sit at her feet and listen! She never laughed at me.
- Sometimes she would let me kiss her—I declare, my heart still jumps
- at the memory of it. Sometimes I would hold her hand or play with her
- hair. And all the <i>real</i> girls I met seemed so tame and commonplace
- by contrast with her. And then, little by little, I suppose, her image
- faded away.—Rather an odd experience, wasn’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very, very odd; very strange and very pretty,” Johannah murmured. “It
- seems as if it ought to have some allegorical significance, though I can’t
- perceive one. It would be interesting to know what sort of real girl, if
- any, ended by becoming the owner of that hat. You weren’t shocked, were
- you?” she inquired of Madame Dornaye.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not by the story. But the heat is too much for me,” said that lady,
- gathering up her knitting. “I am going to the house to make a siesta.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Will rose, as she did, and stood looking vaguely after her, as she moved
- away. Johannah nestled her head deeper in her cushion, and half closed her
- eyes. And for a while neither she nor her cousin spoke. A faint, faint
- breeze whispered in the tree-tops; now a twig snapped, now a bird dropped
- a solitary liquid note. For the rest, all was still summer heat and
- woodland perfume. Here and there the greensward round them, dark in the
- shadow of dense foliage, was diapered with vivid yellow by sunbeams that
- filtered through.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear me,” Johannah sighed at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?” Will demanded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here you are, silent as eternity again. Come and sit down—here—near
- to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She indicated a position with a lazy movement of her hand. He obediently
- sank upon the grass.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re always silent nowadays, when we’re alone,” she complained.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Am I? I hadn’t noticed that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you’re extremely unobservant. Directly we’re alone, you appear to
- lose the power of speech. You mope and moon, and gaze off at things beyond
- the horizon, and never open your mouth. One might suppose you had
- something on your mind. Have you? What is it? Confide it to me, and you
- can’t think how relieved you’ll feel,” she urged.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I haven’t anything on my mind,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh? Ah, then you’re silent with me because I bore you? You find me an
- uninspiring talk-mate? Thank you,” she bridled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know perfectly well that that’s preposterous nonsense,” answered
- Will.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, what is it? Why do you never talk to me when we’re alone?”
- she persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I do talk to you. I talk too much. Perhaps <i>I’m</i> afraid of
- boring <i>you</i>,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know perfectly well that that’s a preposterous subterfuge,” said she.
- “You’ve got something on your mind. You’re keeping something back.” She
- paused for a second; then, softly, wistfully, “Tell me what it is, Will,
- <i>please</i>.” And she looked eagerly, pleadingly, into his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked away from her. “Upon my word, there’s nothing to tell,” he said,
- but his tone was a little forced.
- </p>
- <p>
- She broke into a merry peal of laughter, looking at him now with eyes that
- were derisive.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you laughing at?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At you, Will,” said she. “What else could you imagine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m flattered to think you find me so amusing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you’re supremely amusing. ’Refrain thou shalt; thou shalt refrain!’
- Is that your motto, Will? If I were a man, I’d choose another. ’Be bold,
- be bold, and everywhere be bold!’ That should be my motto if I were a
- man.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But as you’re a woman———” he began.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s my motto, all the same,” she interrupted. “Do you mean to say you’ve
- not discovered that yet? Oh, Will, if I were you, and you were I, how
- differently we should be employing this heaven-sent summer’s afternoon.”
- She gazed at the sky, and sighed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What should we be doing?” asked he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s a secret. Pray the fairies to-night to transpose our souls, and
- you’ll know by to-morrow morning—if the fairies grant your prayer.
- But in the meanwhile, you must try to entertain me. Tell me another
- story.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can’t think of any more stories till I’ve had my tea.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You shan’t have any tea unless you earn it,” she stipulated. “Now that
- Madame Dornaye’s no longer present, you can tell me of some of your
- grown-up love affairs, some of your flesh-and-blood ones.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve never had a grown-up love affair,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come! you can’t expect me to believe that,” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s the truth, all the same.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, it’s high time you <i>should</i> have one,” was her
- conclusion. “How old did you say you were?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m thirty-three.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She lifted up her hands in astonishment. “And you’ve never had a love
- affair! <i>Fi donc!</i> I’m barely twenty-eight, and I’ve had a hundred.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you?” he asked, a little ruefully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I haven’t. But everybody’s had at least one. So tell me yours.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon my word, I’ve not had even one,” he reiterated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It seems incredible. How have you contrived it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The circumstances of my birth contrived it for me. It would be impossible
- for me to have a love affair with a woman I could love,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible? For goodness sake, why?” she wondered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What woman would accept the addresses of a man without a name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Haven’t you a name? Methought I’d heard your name was William Stretton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know what I mean.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then permit me to remark,” she answered him, “that what you mean is quite
- superlatively silly. If you loved a woman, wouldn’t you tell her so?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not if I could help it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But suppose the woman loved you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, it wouldn’t come to that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But suppose it <i>had</i> come to that?” she persevered. “Suppose she’d
- set her heart upon you? Would it be fair to her not to tell her?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What would be the good of my telling her, since I couldn’t possibly ask
- her to marry me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The fact might interest her, apart from the question of its
- consequences,” Johannah suggested. “But suppose <i>she</i> told you?
- Suppose <i>she</i> asked <i>you</i> to marry <i>her?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “She wouldn’t,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “All hypotheses are admissible. Suppose she should?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I couldn’t marry her,” he declared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’d find it rather an awkward job refusing, wouldn’t you?” she quizzed.
- “And what reasons could you give?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ten thousand reasons. I’m a bastard. That begins and ends it. It would
- dishonour her, and it would dishonour me; and, worst of all, it would
- dishonour my mother.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would certainly <i>not</i> dishonour you, nor the woman you married.
- That’s the sheerest, antiquated, exploded rubbish. And how on earth could
- it dishonour your mother?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For me to take as my wife a woman who could not respect her?” Will
- questioned. “My mother’s memory for me is the sacredest of sacred things.
- You know something of her history. You know that she was in every sense
- but a legal sense my father’s wife. You know why they couldn’t be married
- legally. You know, too, how he treated her—and how she died. Do you
- suppose I could marry a woman who would always think of my mother as of
- one who had done something shameful?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, but no woman with a spark of nobility in her soul would or could do
- that,” Johannah cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every woman brought up in the usual way, with the usual prejudices, the
- usual traditions, thinks evil of the woman who has had an illegitimate
- child,” asserted he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not every woman. I, for instance. Do you imagine that I could think evil
- of your mother, Will?” She looked at him intensely, earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you’re entirely different from other women. You’re——” But
- he stopped at that.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then—just for the sake of a case in point—if <i>I</i> were
- the woman you chanced to be in love with, and if I simultaneously chanced
- to be in love with you, you <i>could</i> see your way to marrying <i>me?</i>”
- she pursued him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What’s the use of discussing that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For its metaphysical interest. Answer me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are other reasons why I couldn’t marry <i>you</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not good-looking enough?” she cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t be silly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not young enough?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I say! Let’s talk of something reasonable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not old enough, perhaps?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not wise enough? Not foolish enough?” she persisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re foolish enough, in all conscience,” said he. “Well, then, why?
- What are the reasons why you couldn’t marry <i>me?</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What <i>is</i> the good of talking about this?” he groaned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to know. A man has the hardihood to inform me to my face that he’d
- spurn my hand, even if I offered it to him. I insist upon knowing why.”
- She feigned high indignation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know why. And you know that ’spurn’ is very far from the right word,”
- was his rejoinder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know why. I insist upon your telling me,” she repeated, fierily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know that you’re Sir William Silver’s heiress, I suppose,” he
- suggested.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come! that’s not <i>my</i> fault. How could <i>that</i> matter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here, I’m not going to make an ass of myself by explaining the
- obvious,” he declared.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I daresay I’m very stupid, but it isn’t obvious to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, let’s drop the subject,” he proposed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ll not drop the subject till you’ve elucidated it. If you were in love
- with me, Will, and I were in love with you, how on earth could it matter,
- my being Sir William Silvers heiress?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wouldn’t I seem a bit mercenary’ if I asked you to marry me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Will!” she remonstrated. “Don’t tell me you’re such a prig as that.
- What! if you loved me, if I loved you, you’d give me up, you’d break my
- heart, just for fear lest idiotic people, whose opinions don’t matter any
- more than the opinions of so many deep-sea fish, might think you
- mercenary! When you and I both knew in our own two souls that you really
- weren’t mercenary’ in the least! You’d pay me a poor compliment, Will.
- Isn’t it conceivable that a man might love me for myself?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You state the case too simply. You make no allowances for the shades and
- complexities of a man’s feelings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bother shades and complexities. Love burns them up. Your shades and
- complexities are nothing but priggishness and vanity,” she asserted hotly.
- “But there! I’m actually getting angry over a purely supposititious
- question. For, of course, we don’t really love each other the least bit,
- do we, Will?” she asked him softly.
- </p>
- <p>
- He appeared to be giving his whole attention to the rolling of a
- cigarette; he did not answer. But his fingers trembled, and presently he
- tore his paper, spilling half the tobacco in his lap.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah watched him from eyes full of languid, half mocking, half pensive
- laughter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed again, by-and-by.
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked at her; and he had to catch his breath. Lying there on the turf,
- the skirts of her frock flowing round her in a sort of little billowy
- white pool, her head deep in the scarlet cushion, her black hair straying
- wantonly where it would about her face and brow, her eyes lambent with
- that lazy, pensive laughter, one of her hands, pink and white, warm and
- soft, fallen open on the grass between her and her cousin, her whole
- person seeming to breathe a subtle scent of womanhood, and the luxury and
- mystery of womanhood—oh, the sight of her, the sense of her, there
- in the wide green stillness of the summer day, set his heart burning and
- beating poignantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she sighed, “I wish the man I <i>am</i> in love with
- were only here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! You <i>are</i> in love with some one?” he questioned, with a little
- start.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather!” said she. “In love! I should think so. Oh, I love him, love him,
- love him. Ah, if he were here! <i>He</i> wouldn’t waste this golden
- afternoon as you’re doing. He’d take my hand—he’d hold it, and press
- it, and kiss it; and he’d pour his soul out in tumultuous celebration of
- my charms, in fiery avowals of his passion. If he were here! Ah, me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is he?” Will asked, in a dry’ voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, where indeed? I wish I knew.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve never heard you speak of him before,” he reflected.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s none so deaf as he that <i>will</i> not hear. I’ve spoken of him
- to you at least a thousand times. He forms the staple of my conversation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must be veryy deaf indeed. I swear this is absolutely news to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Will, you <i>are</i> such a goose—or such a hypocrite,” said
- she. “But it’s tea-time. Help me up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She held out her hand, and, he took it and helped her up. But she tottered
- a little before she got her balance (or made, at least, a feint of doing
- so), and grasped his hand tight as if to save herself, and all but fell
- into his arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- He drew back a step.
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked straight into his eyes. “You’re a goose, and a hypocrite, and a
- prig, and—a <i>dear</i>,” she said.
- </p>
- <h3>
- V.
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>heir tea was
- served in the garden, and whilst they were dallying over it, a footman
- brought Johannah a visiting-card.
- </p>
- <p>
- She glanced at the card; and Will, watching her, noticed that a look of
- annoyance—it might even have been a look of distress—came into
- her face.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then she threw the card on the tea-table, and rose. “I shan’t be gone
- long,” she said, and set out for the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- The card lay plainly legible under the eyes of Will and Madame Dornaye.
- “Mr. George Aymer, 36, Boulevard Rochechouart” was the legend inscribed
- upon it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Tiens</i>,” said Madame Dornaye; “Jeanne told me she had ceased to see
- him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Will suppressed a desire to ask, “Who is he?”
- </p>
- <p>
- But Madame Dornaye answered him all the same.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have heard of him? He is a known personage in Paris, although
- English. He is a painter, a painter of great talent; very young, but
- already decorated. And of a surprising beauty—the face of an angel.
- With that, a thorough-paced rascal. Oh, yes, whatever is vilest, whatever
- is basest. Even in Montmartre, even in the corruptest world of Paris,
- among the lowest journalists and painters, he is notorious for his
- corruption. Johannah used to see a great deal of him. She would not
- believe the evil stories that were told about him. And with his rare
- talent and his beautiful face, he has the most plausible manners, the most
- winning address. We were afraid that she might end by marrying him. But at
- last she found him out for herself, and gave him up. She told me she had
- altogether ceased to see him. I wonder what ill wind blows him here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah entered the drawing-room.
- </p>
- <p>
- A man in grey tweeds, the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour gleaming in
- his buttonhole, was standing near a window: a man, indeed, as Madame
- Dornaye had described him, with a face of surprising beauty—a fine,
- clear, open-air complexion, a clean-cut, even profile, a sensitive, soft
- mouth, big, frank, innocent blue eyes, and waving hair of the palest Saxon
- yellow. He could scarcely have been thirty; and the exceeding beauty of
- his face, its beauty and its sweetness, made one overlook his figure,
- which was a trifle below the medium height, and thick-set, with remarkably
- square, broad shoulders, and long arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah greeted him with some succinctness. “What do you want?” she
- asked, remaining close to the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to have a talk with you,” he answered, moving towards her. He
- drawled slightly; his voice was low and soft, conciliatory, caressing
- almost. And his big blue eyes shone with a faint, sweet, appealing smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you mind staying where you are?” said she. “You can make yourself
- audible from across the room.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What are you afraid of?” he asked, his smile brightening with innocent
- wonder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Afraid? You do yourself too much honour. One does not like to find
- oneself in close proximity with objects that disgust one,” she explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- He laughed; but instead of moving further towards her, he dropped into a
- chair. “You were always brutally outspoken,” he murmured.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes; and with advancing years I’ve become even more so,” said Johannah,
- who continued to stand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re quite sure, though, that you’re not afraid of me?” he questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, for that, as sure as sure can be. If you’ve based any sort of
- calculations upon the theory that I would be afraid of you, you’ll have to
- throw them over.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He flushed a little, as if with anger; but in a moment he said calmly,
- “You’ve come into a perfect pot of money since I last had the pleasure of
- meeting you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, into something like eight thousand a year, if the figures interest
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never had any head for figures,” he answered, smiling. “But eight
- thousand sounds stupendous. And a lovely place, into the bargain. The
- park, or so much of it as one sees from the avenue, could not be better.
- And I permitted myself to admire the façade of the house and the view of
- the sea.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They’re not bad,” Johannah assented.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s heart-rending,” he remarked, “the way things are shared in this
- world. Here are you, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, you who have done
- nothing all your life but take your pleasure; and I, who’ve toiled like a
- galley-slave, I remain as poor as any church-mouse. It’s monstrous.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah did not answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now,” he went on, “I suppose you’ve settled down and become
- respectable? No more Bohemia? No more cakes and ale? Only champagne and
- truffles? A County Family! Fancy your being a County Family, all by
- yourself, as it were! You must feel rather like the reformed rake of
- tradition—don’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I mentioned that I am not afraid of you,” she reminded him, “but that
- doesn’t in the least imply that I find you amusing. The plain truth is, I
- find you deadly tiresome. If you have anything special to say to me, may I
- ask you to say it quickly?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Again he flushed a little; then again, in a moment, answered smoothly,
- “I’ll say it in a sentence. I’ve come all the way to England, for the
- purpose of offering you my hand in marriage.” And he raised his bright
- blue eyes to her face with a look that really was seraphic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I decline the offer. If you’ve nothing further to keep you here, I’ll
- ring to have you shown out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still again he flushed, yet once more controlled himself. “You decline the
- offer! <i>Allons donc!</i> When I am prepared to do the right thing, and
- make an honest woman of you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I decline the offer,” Johannah repeated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s foolish of you,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you could dream how remotely your opinion interests me, you wouldn’t
- trouble to express it,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- His anger this time got the better of him. He scowled, and looked at her
- from the corners of his eyes. “You had better not exasperate me,” he said
- in a suppressed voice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh,” said she, “you must suffer me to be the mistress of my own actions
- in my own house. Now—if you are quite ready to go?” she suggested,
- putting her hand upon the bell-cord.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not ready to go yet. I want to talk with you. To cut a long business
- short, you’re rich. I’m pitiably poor. You know how poor I am. You know
- how I have to live, the hardships, the privations I’m obliged to put up
- with.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you come here to beg?” Johannah asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I’ve come to appeal to your good-nature. You refuse to marry me.
- That’s absurd of you, but—<i>tant pis!</i> Whether you marry me or
- not, you haven’t the heart to leave me to rot in poverty, while you
- luxuriate in plenty. Considering our oldtime relations, the thing’s
- impossible on the face of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, I understand. You <i>have</i> come here to beg,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said he. “One begs when one has no power to enforce.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is the use of these glittering aphorisms?” she asked wearily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you are ready to behave well to me, I’ll behave handsomely to you. But
- if you refuse to recognise my claims upon you, I’m in a position to take
- reprisals,” he said very quietly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah did not answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m miserably, tragically poor; you’re rich. At this moment I’ve not got
- ten pounds in the world; and I owe hundreds. I’ve not sold a picture since
- March. You have eight thousand a year. You can’t expect me to sit down
- under it in silence. As the French attorneys phrase it, <i>cet état de
- choses ne peut pas durer</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still Johannah answered nothing.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must come to my relief,” said he. “You must make it possible for me
- to go on. If you have any right feeling, you’ll do it spontaneously. If
- not—you know I can compel you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, then, for goodness’ sake, compel me, and so make an end of this
- entirely tedious visit,” she broke out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’d immensely rather not compel you. If you will lend me a helping hand
- from time to time, I’ll promise never to take a step to harm you. I shall
- be moderate. You’ve got eight thousand a year. You’d never miss a hundred
- now and then. You might simply occasionally buy a picture. That would be
- the best way. You might buy my pictures.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should be glad to know definitely,” remarked Johannah, “whether I have
- to deal with a blackmailer or a bagman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Damn you,” he exploded, with sudden savagery, flushing very red indeed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah was silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a pause, he said, “I’m staying at the inn in the village—at
- the Silver Arms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah did not speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’ve already scraped acquaintance with the parson,” he went on. Then, as
- she still was silent, “I wonder what would become of your social position
- in this County if I should have a good long talk about you with the
- parson.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To a man of your intelligence, the solution of that problem can surely
- present no difficulty,” she replied wearily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You admit that your social position would be smashed up?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put it together
- again,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m glad to find at least that you acknowledge my power,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have it in your power to tell people that I was once inconceivably
- simple enough to believe that you were an honourable man, that I once had
- the inconceivable bad taste to be fond of you. What woman’s character
- could survive <i>that</i> revelation?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I could add—couldn’t I?—that you once had the
- inconceivable weakness to become my mistress?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, you could add no end of details,” she admitted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then?” he questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then?” questioned she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It comes to this, that if you don’t want your social position, your
- reputation, to be utterly smashed up, you must make terms with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It’s a little unfortunate, from that way of looking at it,” she pointed
- out, “that I shouldn’t happen to care a rush about my social position—as
- you call it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think I’ll have a good long talk with the parson,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do by all means,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’d better be careful. I may take you at your word,” he threatened.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish you would. Take me at my word—-and go,” she urged.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You mean to say you seriously don’t care?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not a rush, not a button,” she assured him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, come! You’ll never try to brazen the thing out,” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wish you’d go and have your long talk with the parson,” she said
- impatiently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be so easy for you to give me a little help,” he pleaded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It would be so easy for you to ’smash up’ my reputation with the parson,”
- she rejoined.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You never used to be close-fisted. It’s incomprehensible that you should
- refuse me a little help. Look. I’m willing to be more than fair. Give me a
- hundred pounds, a bare little hundred pounds, and I’ll send you a lovely
- picture.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, I don’t want a picture.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You won’t give me a hundred pounds—a beggarly hundred pounds?” He
- looked incredulous.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I won’t give you a farthing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, by God, you jade,” he cried, springing to his feet, his face
- crimson, “by God, I’ll make you. I swear I’ll ruin you. Look out!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you really going at last?” she asked brightly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, I’m not going till it suits my pleasure. You’ve got a sort of bastard
- cousin staying here with you, I’m told,” he answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I would advise you to moderate your tone or your language,” said she. “If
- my sort of bastard cousin should by any chance happen to hear you
- referring to him in those terms, he would not be pleased.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to see him,” said he.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I would advise you not to see him,” she returned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to see him,” he insisted.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you really wish to see him, I’ll send for him,” she consented. “But
- it’s only right to warn you that he’s not at all a patient sort of man. If
- I send for him, he will quite certainly make things disagreeable for you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m not afraid of him. You know well enough that I’m not a coward.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My cousin is more than a head taller than you are,” she mused. “He would
- be perfectly able and perfectly sure to kick you. If there’s any other
- possible way of getting rid of you, I’d rather not trouble him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think I had better have a talk with your cousin, as well as with the
- parson,” he considered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think you had better confine your attentions to the parson. I do, upon
- my word,” she counselled him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to make a concession,” said Aymer. “I’m going to give you a
- night in which to think this thing over. If you care to send me a note,
- with a cheque in it, so that I shall receive it at the inn by to-morrow at
- ten o’clock, I’ll take the next earliest train back to town, and I’ll send
- you a picture in return. If no note comes by ten o’clock, I’ll call on the
- parson, and tell him all I know about you; and I’ll write a letter to your
- cousin. Now, good day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Johannah rang, and Aymer was shown out.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p>
- “|I shan’t be gone long,” Johannah had said, when she left Madame Dornaye
- and Will at tea in the garden; but time passed, and she did not come back.
- Will, mounting through various stages and degrees of nervousness,
- restlessness, anxiety, at last said, “What on earth can be keeping her?”
- and Madame Dornaye replied, “That is precisely what I am asking myself.”
- They waited a little longer, and then, “Shall we go back to the house?” he
- suggested. But when they reached the house they found the drawing-room
- empty, and—no trace of Johannah.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She may be in her room. I’ll go and see,” said Madame Dornaye.
- </p>
- <p>
- More time passed, and still no Johannah. Nor did Madame Dornaye return to
- explain her absence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Will walked about in a state of acute misery. What could it be? What could
- have happened? What could this painter, this George Aymer, this
- thorough-paced rascal with the beautiful face, this man of whom Johannah,
- in days gone by, “had seen a great deal,” so that her friends had feared
- “she might end by marrying him”—what could he have called upon her
- for? What could have passed between them? Why had she disappeared? Where
- was she now? Where was he? Where was Madame Dornaye, who had gone to look
- for her? Could—could it possibly be—that he—this man
- notorious for his corruption even in the corruptest world of Paris—could
- it be that he was the man Johannah meant when she had talked of the man
- she was in love with? And Will, fatuous imbecile, had vainly allowed
- himself to imagine.... Oh, why did she not come back? What <i>could</i> be
- keeping her away from him all this time?... “I have had a hundred, I have
- had a hundred.” The phrase echoed and echoed in his memory. She had said,
- “I have had a hundred love affairs.” Oh, to be sure, in the next breath,
- she had contradicted herself, she had said, “No, I haven’t.” But she had
- added, “Everybody has had at least one.” So she had had at least one. With
- this man, George Aymer? Madame Dornaye said she had broken with him,
- ceased to see him. But—it was certain she had seen him to-day. But—lovers’
- quarrels are made up; lovers break with each other, and then come together
- again, are reunited. Perhaps... Perhaps... Oh, where was she? Why did she
- remain away in this mysterious fashion? What could she be doing? What
- could she be doing?
- </p>
- <p>
- The dressing-bell rang, and he went to dress for dinner.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anyhow, I shall see her now, I shall see her at dinner,” he kept telling
- himself, as he dressed.
- </p>
- <p>
- But when he came downstairs the drawing-room was still empty. He walked
- backwards and forwards.
- </p>
- <p>
- “We shall have to dine without our hostess,” Madame Dornaye said, entering
- presently. “Jeanne has a bad headache, and will stay in her room.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- VII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ill left the house
- early the next morning, and went out into the garden. The sun was shining,
- the dew sparkled on the grass, the air was keen and sweet with the odours
- of the earth. A mile away the sea glowed blue as larkspur; and overhead
- innumerable birds gaily piped and twittered. But oh, the difference, the
- difference! His eyes could see no colour, his ears could hear no music.
- His brain felt as if it had been stretched and strained, like a thing of
- india-rubber; a lump ached in his throat; his heart was sick with the
- suspense of waiting, with the questionings, the fears, suspicions, that
- had beset it through the night.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will!” Johannah’s voice called behind him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank God!” The words came without conscious volition on his part. “I
- thought I was never going to see you again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been waiting for you,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wore her garden-hat and her white frock; but her face was pale, and
- her eyes looked dark and anxious.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had taken her hand, and was clinging to it, pressing it, hard, so hard
- that it must have hurt her, in the violence of his emotion.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, wait, Will, wait,” she said, trying to draw her hand away; and her
- eyes filled with sudden tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- He let go her hand, and looked into her tearful eyes, helpless,
- speechless, longing to speak, unable, in the confusion of his thoughts and
- feelings, to find a word.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must tell you something, Will. Come with me somewhere—where we
- can be alone. I must tell you something.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She moved off, away from the house, he keeping beside her. They passed out
- of the garden, into the deep shade of the park.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Do</i> you remember,” she began, all at once, “do you remember what I
- said yesterday, about my motto? That my motto was ’Be bold, be bold, and
- everywhere be bold’.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to be very bold indeed now, Will. I am going to tell you
- something—something that will make you hate me perhaps—that
- will make you despise me perhaps,” she faltered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You could not possibly tell me anything that could make me hate you or
- despise you. But you must not tell me anything at all, unless it is
- something you are perfectly sure you will be happier for having told me,”
- he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is something I wish to tell you, something I must tell you,” said she.
- Then after a little pause, “Oh, how shall I begin it?” But before he could
- have spoken, “Do you think that a woman—do you think that a girl,
- when she is very young, when she is very immature and impressionable, and
- very impulsive, and ignorant, and when she is alone in the world, without
- a father or mother—do you think that if she makes some terrible
- mistake, if she is terribly deceived, if somebody whom she believes to be
- good and noble and unhappy and misunderstood, somebody whom she—whom
- she loves—do you think that if she makes some terrible mistake—if
- she—if she—oh, my God!—if——-” She held her
- breath for a second, then suddenly, “Can’t you understand what I <i>mean?</i>”
- she broke down in a sort of wail, and hid her face in her hands, and
- sobbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Will stood beside her, holding his arms out towards her. “Johannah!
- Johannah!” was all he could say.
- </p>
- <p>
- She dropped her hands, and looked at him with great painful eyes. “Tell me—do
- you think that a woman can never be forgiven? Do you think that she is
- soiled, degraded, changed utterly? Do you think that when she—that
- when she did what she did—it was a sin, a crime, not only a terrible
- mistake, and that her whole nature is changed? Most people think so. They
- think that a mark has been left upon her, branded upon her; that she can
- never, never be the same again. Do you think so, Will? Oh, it is not true;
- I know it is not true. A woman can leave that mistake, that terror, that
- horror—she can leave it behind her as completely as she can leave
- any other dreadful thing. She can blot it out of her life, like a
- nightmare. She <i>isn’t</i> changed—she remains the same woman. She
- isn’t utterly changed, and soiled, and defiled. In her own conscience, no
- matter what other people think, she knows, she knows she isn’t. When she
- wakes up to find that the man she had believed in, the man she had loved,
- when she wakes up to find that he isn’t in any way what she had thought
- him, that he is base and evil and ignoble, and when all her love for him
- dies in horror and misery—oh, do you think that she must never,
- never, as long as she lives, hold up her head again, never be happy again,
- never love any one again? Look at me, Will. I am myself. I am what God
- made me. Do you think that I am utterly vile because—because———”
- But her voice failed again, and her eyes again filled with tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Johannah, don’t ask me what I think of you. I could not tell you what
- I think of you. You are as God made you. God never made—never made
- any one else so splendid.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And in a moment his arms were round her, and she was weeping her heart out
- on his shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- ROOMS
- </h2>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ould Madame like a
- little orange-flower water in her milk?” the waiter asked. Madame thought
- she would, and the waiter went off to fetch it.
- </p>
- <p>
- We were seated on the terrace of a café at Rouen, a café on the quays.
- There was a long rank, three deep, of small marble tables, untenanted for
- the most part, sheltered by a bright red-and-white striped awning, and
- screened from the street by a hedge of oleanders in big green-painted
- tubs; so that one had a fine sense of cosiness and seclusion, of
- refreshing shade and coolness and repose. Beyond the oleanders, one was
- dimly conscious of hot sunshine, of the going and coming of people on the
- pavement, of the passing of carts and tram-cars in the grey road, and then
- of the river—the slate-coloured river, with its bridges and its
- puffing penny steamboats, its tall ships out of Glasgow or Copenhagen or
- Barcelona, its high green banks, farther away, where it wound into the
- country, and the pure sky above it. From all the interesting things the
- café provided, lucent-tinted syrups, fiery-hearted, aromatic cordials,
- Madame (with subtle feminine unexpectedness) had chosen a glass of milk.
- But the waiter had suggested orange-flower water, to give it savour; and
- now he brought the orange-flower water in a dark-blue bottle.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was partly, I daresay, the sight of the dark-blue bottle, but it was
- chiefly, perhaps, the smell of the orange-flower water, that suddenly,
- suddenly, whisked my thoughts far away from Rouen, far away from 1897,
- back ten, twenty, I would rather not count how many years back in the
- past, to my childhood, to Saint-Graal, and to my grandmother’s room in our
- old rambling house there. For my grandmother always kept a dark-blue
- bottle of orange-flower water in her closet, and the air of her room was
- always faintly sweet with the perfume of it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly, suddenly, a sort of ghost of my grandmother’s room rose before
- me; and as I peered into it and about it, a ghost of the old emotion her
- room used to stir in me rose too, an echo of the old wonder, the old
- feeling of strangeness and mystery. It was a big room—or, at least,
- it seemed big to a child—a corner room, on the first floor, with
- windows on two sides. The windows on one side looked through the branches
- of a great elm, a city of birds and squirrels, out upon the lawn, with the
- pond at the bottom of it. On the other side, the windows looked over the
- terrace, into the shrubberies and winding paths of the garden. The walls
- of the room were hung with white paper, upon which, at regular intervals,
- was repeated a landscape in blue, a stretch of meadow with cows in it, and
- a hillside topped by a ruined castle. In a corner, the inmost corner,
- stood my grandmother’s four-post bed, with its canopy and curtains of
- dark-green tapestry. Then, of course, there was the fireplace, surmounted
- by a high, slender mantelpiece, on which were ranged a pair of silver
- candlesticks, a silver tray containing the snuffers and the extinguisher,
- and, in the middle, a solemn old buhl clock. From above the mantelpiece a
- picture looked down at you, the only picture in the room, the life-size
- portrait of a gentleman in a white stock and an embroidered waistcoat—the
- portrait of my grandfather, indeed, who had died long years before I was
- born, when my mother was a schoolgirl. And then there was the rest of the
- furniture of the room—a chair at each window, and between the
- various windows my grandmother’s dressing-table, her work-table, her
- armoire-à-glace, her great mahogany bureau, a writing-desk above, a
- chest-of-drawers below. In two or three places—besides the big
- double door that led into her room from the outer passage—the wall
- was broken by smaller doors, doors papered over like the wall itself, and
- even with it, so that you would scarcely have noticed them. One of these
- was the door of my grandmother’s oratory, with its praying-desk and its
- little altar. The others were the doors of her closets: the deep black
- closet, where her innumerable dresses were suspended, and the closets
- where she kept her bandboxes and her sunshades and her regiment of bottles—chief
- among them the tall dark-blue bottle of orange-flower water.
- </p>
- <p>
- I don’t know, I can’t think, why this room should always have awakened in
- me a feeling of strangeness and mystery, why it should always have set me
- off day-dreaming and wondering; but it always did. The mahogany bureau,
- the tapestried four-post bed, the portrait of my grandfather, the
- recurrent landscape on the wall-paper, the deep black closet where the
- dresses hung, the faint smell of orange-flower water—each of these
- was a surface, a curtain, behind which, on the impenetrable other side of
- which, vaguely, wonderingly, I divined strange vistas, a whole strange
- world. Each of these silently hinted to me of strange happenings, strange
- existences, strange conditions. And vaguely, longingly, I would try to
- formulate my feeling into some sort of distinct mental vision, try to
- translate into my own language their occult suggestions. They were
- hieroglyphs, full of meaning, if only I could understand. Was it because
- the things in my grandmother’s room were all old things, old-fashioned
- things? Was the strange world they spoke of simply the world as it had
- been in years gone by, before I came into it, before even my mother and
- father came into it, when people long since dead were alive, important,
- the people of the day, and when these faded, old-fashioned things were
- fresh and new? I doubt if it could have been entirely this. There were
- plenty of old things in our house at Saint-Graal—in the hall, the
- library, the garret, everywhere; the house itself was very old indeed; yet
- no other part of it gave me anything like the same emotion.
- </p>
- <p>
- My Uncle Edmond’s room, for instance, gave me a directly contrary emotion,
- though here, too, all the furniture was old-fashioned. It gave me a sense
- of brisk, almost of stern, actuality; of present facts and occupations; of
- alert, busy manhood. As I followed Alexandre into it, in the morning, when
- he went to dust it and put it in order, I was filled with a kind of
- fearful admiration: the fear, the admiration, of the small for the big, of
- the weak for the strong, of the helpless for the commanding. The
- arrangement of the room, the lines of the room, the very colours of the
- room, seemed strong, and commanding, and severe. Yet, when you came to
- examine it, the only really severe-looking object was the bedstead; this
- being devoid of curtains, its four varnished pillars shone somewhat hard
- and bare. For the rest, there was just the natural furniture of a
- sleeping-room: a dressing-table, covered with a man’s toilet accessories—combs
- and brushes, razors, scissors, shoehorns, button-hooks, shirt-studs, and
- bottles enclosing I know not what necessary fluids; a bigger table, with
- writing-materials on it, with an old epaulette-box used now to hold
- tobacco, and endless pipes and little pink books of cigarette-papers; a
- bureau like my grandmother’s; a glazed bookcase; and the proper complement
- of chairs. The walls of the room were painted white, and ornamented by two
- pictures, facing each other: two steel-engravings, companion-pieces, after
- Rembrandt, I believe. “Le Philosophe en Contemplation” was the legend
- printed under one; and under the other, “Le Philosophe en Méditation.” I
- can only remember that the philosopher had a long grey beard, and that in
- both pictures he was seated in a huge easy-chair. My Uncle Edmond had been
- in the army when he was a young man, and in his closets (besides his
- ordinary clothes and his countless pairs of boots) there were old uniform
- coats, with silver buttons, old belts, clasps, spurs, and then, best of
- all, three or four swords, and a rosewood case or two of pistols. Needless
- to say whether my awe and my admiration mounted to their climax when I
- peeped in upon these historic trophies. And just as the smell of
- orange-flower water pervaded my grandmother’s room, so another, a very
- different smell, pervaded my Uncle Edmond’s, a dry, clean smell, slightly
- pungent, bitter, but not at all unpleasant. I could never discover what it
- came from, I can’t even now conjecture; but it seemed to me a manly smell,
- just the smell that a man’s room ought to have. In my too-fruitless
- efforts to imitate Uncle Edmond’s room in the organisation of my own, it
- was that smell, more than anything else, which baffled me. I could not
- achieve the remotest semblance of it. Of course, I was determined that
- when I grew up I should have a room exactly like my uncle’s in every
- particular, and I trusted, no doubt, that it would acquire the smell, with
- time.
- </p>
- <p>
- But of all the rooms at Saint-Graal, the one that gave you the
- thrillingest, the most exquisite emotion, was my mother’s. If my
- grandmother’s room represented the silence and the strangeness of the
- past, and my uncle’s the actuality and activity of the present, my
- mother’s room represented the Eternal Feminine, smiling at you,
- enthralling you, in its loveliest incarnation; singing to you, amid
- delicate luxuries, of youth and beauty and happiness, and the fine romance
- of mirth. In my mother’s room, for example, so far from being
- old-fashioned, the furniture was of the very latest, daintiest design,
- fresh from Paris. The wallpaper was cream-coloured, with garlands of pink
- and blue flowers trailing over it, and here and there a shepherd’s hat and
- a shepherd’s pipes tied together by a long fluttering blue ribbon. The
- chairs and the sofa were covered with chintz, gayer even, if that were
- possible, than this paper: chintz on which pretty little bright-blue birds
- flew about among poppies, red as scarlet, and pale-green leaves. The
- window-curtains and the bed-curtains were of the same merry chintz; the
- bed-quilt was an eider-down of the softest blush-rose silk; the bedstead
- was enamelled white, and so highly polished that you could see an obscure
- reflection of your features in it. And then, the dressing-table, with its
- wide bevelled mirror, and the glistening treasures displayed upon it!—the
- open jewel-case, and the rings, brooches, bracelets, necklaces, that
- sparkled in it; the silver-backed brushes, the silver-topped bottles, the
- silver-framed hand-glass; the hundred shining trifles. One whole side of
- the room had been converted into a vast bay-window; this looked due south,
- over the floweriest part of our flower-garden, over the rich green country
- beyond, miles away, to where the Pyrenees gloomed purple. As a shield
- against the sun the window was fitted with Venetian blinds, besides the
- curtains; and every morning, when I crept in from my own adjoining room,
- to pay my mother a visit, it was given me to witness a marvellous
- transformation scene. At first all was dark, or nearly dark, so that you
- could only distinguish things as shadowy masses. But presently my mother’s
- maid, Aurélie, arrived with the chocolate, and drew back the curtains,
- filling the room with a momentary twilight; then she opened the Venetian
- blinds, and suddenly there was a gush of sunlight, and the room gleamed
- and glittered like a room in a crystal palace. Sweet airs came in from the
- garden, bird-notes came in, the day came in, dancing and laughing
- joyously; and my mother and I joyously laughed back at it. Another
- transformation scene, at which I was permitted to assist, took place in
- this room in the evening, when my mother dressed for dinner. I would sit
- at a distance, not to be in the way, and watch the ceremony with eyes as
- round as O’s doubtless, and certainly with an enravished soul; while
- Aurélie did my mother’s hair (sprinkling it, as a culmination, with a
- pinch of diamond-dust, according to the mode of the period), and moved to
- and from the wardrobe, where my mother’s bewildering confections of silks
- and laces were enshrined, and her satin slippers glimmered in a row on
- their shelf. And after the toilet was completed, and my mother, in
- dazzling loveliness, had kissed me good-bye and vanished, I would linger a
- little, to gaze about the temple in which such miracles could happen;
- taking up and studying one by one the combs, brushes, powder-puffs, or
- what not, as you would study the instruments employed by a conjurer; and
- removing the stoppers from the scent-bottles, to inhale their delicious
- fragrance....
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you think,” asked my companion, “that it’s time you paid the waiter
- and we were off?”
- </p>
- <p>
- I looked up, and suddenly there was Rouen—Rouen, the café on the
- quays, Madame’s empty glass of milk, and Madame herself questioning me
- from anxious eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” I said, “I think it’s time we were off; and what’s more, I’ll tell
- you this: every room in the universe has not only its peculiar physiognomy
- and its peculiar significance, but it wakes a particular sentiment also,
- and has a special smell.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I see,” said Madame; “that’s why you’ve been silent all this while.”
- </p>
- <p>
- So I paid the waiter, and we took the puffing little steamboat, down the
- river, between its green banks and its flowery islets, back to La Bouille.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE
- </h2>
- <h3>
- I
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> wonder why I
- dreamed last night of Zabetta. It is years since she made her brief little
- transit through my life, and passed out of it utterly. It is years since
- the very recollection of her—which for years, like an accusing
- spirit, had haunted me too often—like a spirit was laid. It is long
- enough, in all conscience, since I have even thought of her, casually, for
- an instant. And then, last night, after a perfectly usual London day and
- evening, I went to bed and dreamed of her vividly. What had happened to
- bring her to my mind? Or is it simply that the god of dreams is a
- capricious god?
- </p>
- <p>
- The influence of my dream, at any rate,—the bittersweet savour of
- it,—has pursued me through my waking hours. All day long to-day
- Zabetta has been my phantom guest. She has walked with me in the streets;
- she has waited at my elbow while I wrote or talked or read. Now, at
- tea-time, she is present with me by my study fireside, in the twilight.
- Her voice sounds faintly, plaintively, in my ears; her eyes gaze at me
- sadly from a pale reproachful face.... She bids me to the theatre of
- memory, where my youth is rehearsed before me in mimic show. There was one—no,
- there were two little scenes in which Zabetta played the part of leading
- lady.
- </p>
- <h3>
- II
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> do not care to
- specify the year in which it happened; it happened a terrible number of
- years ago; it happened when I was twenty. I had passed the winter in
- Naples,—oh, it had been a golden winter!—and now April had
- come, and my last Neapolitan day. Tomorrow I was to take ship for
- Marseilles, on the way to join my mother in Paris.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in the afternoon; and I was climbing one of those crooked staircase
- alleys that scale the hillsides behind the town, the salita—is
- there, in Naples, a Salita Santa Margherita? I had lunched (for the last
- time!) at the Café d’.urope, and had then set forth upon a last haphazard
- ramble through the streets. It was tremulous spring weather, with blue
- skies, soft breezes, and a tender sun; the sort of weather that kindles
- perilous ardours even in the blood of middle age, and turns the blood of
- youth to wildfire.
- </p>
- <p>
- Women sat combing their hair, and singing, and gossiping, before the
- doorways of their pink and yellow houses; children sprawled, and laughed,
- and quarrelled in the dirt. Pifferari, in sheep-skins and sandals,
- followed by prowling, gaunt-limbed dogs, droned monotonous nasal melodies
- from their bagpipes. Priests picked their way gingerly over the muddy
- cobble stones, sleek, black-a-vised priests, with exaggerated hats, like
- Don Basilio’s in the <i>Barbiere</i>. Now and then one passed a fat brown
- monk; or a soldier; or a white-robed penitent, whose eyes glimmered
- uncannily from the peep-holes of the hood that hid his face; or a comely
- contadina, in her smart costume, with a pomegranate-blossom flaming behind
- her ear, and red lips that curved defiantly as she met the covetous
- glances wildfire-and-twenty no doubt bestowed upon her—whereat,
- perhaps, wildfire-and-twenty halted and hesitated for an instant, debating
- whether to accept the challenge and turn and follow her. A flock of
- milk-purveying goats jangled their bells a few yards below me. Hawkers
- screamed their merchandise, fish, and vegetables, and early fruit—apricots,
- figs, green almonds. Brown-skinned, barelegged boys shouted at
- long-suffering donkeys, and whacked their flanks with sticks. And
- everybody, more or less, importuned you for coppers. “Mossou, mossou! Un
- piccolo soldo, per l’amor di Dio!” The air was vibrant with Southern human
- noises and dense with Southern human smells—amongst which, here and
- there, wandered strangely a lost waft of perfume from some neighbouring
- garden, a scent of jasmine or of orange flowers.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then, suddenly, the salita took a turn, and broadened into a small
- piazza. At one hand there was a sheer terrace, dropping to tiled roofs
- twenty feet below; and hence one got a splendid view, over the town, of
- the blue bay, with its shipping, and of Capri, all rose and purple in the
- distance, and of Vesuvius with its silver wreath of smoke. At the other
- hand loomed a vast, discoloured, pink-stuccoed palace, with grated
- windows, and a porte-cochère black as the mouth of a cavern; and the upper
- stories of the palace were in ruins, and out of one corner of their
- crumbling walls a palm-tree grew. The third side of the piazza was
- inevitably occupied by a church, a little pearl-grey rococo edifice, with
- a bell, no deeper toned than a common dinner-bell, which was now
- frantically ringing. About the doors of the church countless written
- notices were pasted, advertising indulgences; beggars clung to the steps,
- like monster snails; and the greasy leathern portière was constantly being
- drawn aside, to let some one enter or come out.
- </p>
- <h3>
- III
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was here that I
- met Zabetta.
- </p>
- <p>
- The heavy portière swung open, and a young girl stepped from the darkness
- behind it into the sunshine.
- </p>
- <p>
- I saw a soft face, with brown eyes; a plain black frock, with a little
- green nosegay stuck in its belt; and a small round scarlet hat.
- </p>
- <p>
- A hideous old beggar woman stretched a claw towards this apparition,
- mumbling something. The apparition smiled, and sought in its pocket, and
- made the beggar woman the richer by a soldo.
- </p>
- <p>
- I was twenty, and the April wind was magical. I thought I had never seen
- so beautiful a smile, a smile so radiant, so tender.
- </p>
- <p>
- I watched the young girl as she tripped down the church steps, and crossed
- the piazza, coming towards me. Her smile lingered, fading slowly, slowly,
- from her face.
- </p>
- <p>
- As she neared me, her eyes met mine. For a second we looked straight into
- each other’s eyes....
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh, there was nothing bold, nothing sophisticated or immodest, in the
- momentary gaze she gave me. It was a natural, spontaneous gaze of
- perfectly frank, of perfectly innocent and impulsive interest, in exchange
- for mine of open admiration. But it touched the wildfire in my veins, and
- made it leap tumultuously.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IV
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>appiness often
- passes close to us without our suspecting it, the proverb says.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young girl moved on; and I stood still, feeling dimly that something
- precious had passed close to me. I had not turned back to follow any of
- the brazenly provocative contadine. But now I could not help it. Something
- precious had passed within arm’s reach of me. I must not let it go,
- without at least a semblance of pursuing it. If I waited there passive
- till she was out of sight, my regrets would be embittered by the
- recollection that I had not even tried.
- </p>
- <p>
- I followed her eagerly, but vaguely, in a tremor or unformulated hopes and
- fears. I had no definite intentions, no designs. Presently, doubtless, she
- would come to her journey’s end—she would disappear in a house or
- shop—and I should have my labour for my pains. Nevertheless, I
- followed. What would you? She was young, she was pretty, she was neatly
- dressed. She had big bright brown eyes, and a slender waist, and a little
- round scarlet hat set jauntily upon a mass of waving soft brown hair. And
- she walked gracefully, with delicious undulations, as if to music, lifting
- her skirts up from the pavement, and so disclosing the daintiest of feet,
- in trim buttoned boots of glazed leather, with high Italian heels. And her
- smile was lovely—and I was twenty—and it was April. I must not
- let her escape me, without at least a semblance of pursuit.
- </p>
- <p>
- She led me down the salita that I had just ascended. She could scarcely
- know that she was being followed, for she had not once glanced behind her.
- </p>
- <h3>
- V
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t first I followed
- meekly, unperceived, and contented to remain so.
- </p>
- <p>
- But little by little a desire for more aggressive measures grew within me.
- I said, “Why not—instead of following meekly—why not overtake
- and outdistance her, then turn round, and come face to face with her
- again? And if again her eyes should meet mine as frankly as they met them
- in the piazza....”
- </p>
- <p>
- The mere imagination of their doing so made my heart stop beating.
- </p>
- <p>
- I quickened my pace. I drew nearer and nearer to her. I came abreast of
- her—oh, how the wildfire trembled! I pressed on for a bit, and then,
- true to my resolution, turned back.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyes did meet mine again quite frankly. What was more, they brightened
- with a little light of surprise, I might almost have fancied a little
- light of pleasure.
- </p>
- <p>
- If the mere imagination of the thing had made my heart stop beating, the
- thing itself set it to pounding, racing, uncontrollably, so that I felt
- all but suffocated, and had to catch my breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- She knew now that the young man she had passed in the piazza had followed
- her of set purpose; and she was surprised, but, seemingly, not displeased.
- They were wonderfully gentle, wonderfully winning eyes, those eyes she
- raised so frankly to my desirous ones; and innocent, innocent, with all
- the unsuspecting innocence of childhood. In years she might be seventeen,
- older perhaps; but there was a child’s fearless unconsciousness of evil in
- her wide brown eyes. She had not yet been taught (or, anyhow, she clearly
- didn’t believe) that it is dangerous and unbecoming to exchange glances
- with a stranger in the streets.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was as good as smiling on me. Might I dare the utmost? Might I venture
- to speak to her?... My heart was throbbing too violently. I could not have
- found an articulate human word, nor a shred of voice, nor a pennyweight of
- self-assurance, in my body. .
- </p>
- <p>
- So, thrilling with excitement, quailing in panic, I passed her again.
- </p>
- <p>
- I passed her, and kept on up the narrow alley for half a dozen steps, when
- again I turned.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was standing where I had left her, looking after me. There was the
- expression of unabashed disappointment in her dark eyes now, which, in a
- minute, melted to an expression of appeal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, aren’t you going to speak to me, after all?” they pleaded.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wooed by those soft monitors, I plucked up a sort of desperate courage.
- Hot coals burned in my cheeks, something flattered terribly in my breast;
- I was literally quaking in every limb. My spirit was exultant, but my
- flesh was faint. Her eyes drew me, drew me.... I fancy myself awkwardly
- raising my hat; I hear myself accomplish a half-smothered salutation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Buon’ giorno, Signorina.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her face lit up with that celestial smile of hers; and in a voice that was
- like ivory and white velvet, she returned, “Buon’ giorno, Signorino.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- VI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then I don’t
- know how long we stood together in silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- This would never do, I recognised. I must not stand before her in silence,
- like a guilty schoolboy. I must feign composure. I must carry off the
- situation lightly, like a man of the world, a man of experience. I groped
- anxiously in the confusion ot my wits for something that might pass for an
- apposite remark.
- </p>
- <p>
- At last I had a flash or inspiration. “What—what fine weather,” I
- gasped. “Che bel tempo!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, molto bello,” she responded. It was like a cadenza on a flute.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You—you are going into the town?” I questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I—may I have the pleasure———” I faltered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But yes,” she consented, with an inflection that wondered. “What else
- have you spoken to me for?”
- </p>
- <p>
- And we set off down the salita, side by side.
- </p>
- <h3>
- VII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>he had exquisite
- little white ears, with little coral earrings, like drops of blood; and a
- perfect rosebud mouth, a mouth that matched her eyes for innocence and
- sweetness. Her scarlet hat burned in the sun, and her brown hair shook
- gently under it. She had plump little soft white hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently, when I had begun to feel more at my ease, I hazarded a
- question. “You are a republican, Signorina?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” she assured me, with a puzzled elevation of the brows.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well, then you are a cardinal,” I concluded.
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave a silvery trill of laughter, and asked, “Why must I be either a
- republican or a cardinal?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You wear a scarlet hat—a <i>bonnet rouge"</i>, I explained.
- </p>
- <p>
- At which she laughed again, crisply, merrily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are French,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, am I?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aren’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As you wish, Signorina; but I had never thought so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And still again she laughed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have come from church,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Già,” she assented; “from confession.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Really? And did you have a great many wickednesses to confess?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes; many, many,” she answered, simply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now have you got a heavy penance to perform?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; only twenty <i>aves</i>. And I must turn my tongue seven times in my
- mouth before I speak, whenever I am angry.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, then you are given to being angry? You have a bad temper?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dreadful, dreadful,” she cried, nodding her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was my turn to laugh now. “Then I must be careful not to vex you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. But I will turn my tongue seven times before I speak, if you do,”
- she promised.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you going far?” I asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going nowhere. I am taking a walk.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shall we go to the Villa Nazionale, and watch the driving?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or to the Toledo, and look at the shop-windows?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We can do both. We will begin at the Toledo, and end in the Villa.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bene,” she acquiesced.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a little silence, “I am so glad I met you,” I informed her, looking
- into her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- He eyes softened adorably. “I am so glad too,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are lovely, you are sweet,” I vowed, with enthusiasm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no!” she protested. “I am as God made me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are lovely, you are sweet. I thought—when I first saw you,
- above there, in the piazza—when you came out of church, and gave the
- soldo to the old beggar woman—I thought you had the loveliest smile
- I had ever seen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A beautiful blush suffused her face, and her eyes swam in a mist of
- pleasure. “É vero?” she questioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, vero, vero. That is why I followed you. You don’t mind my having
- followed you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no; I am glad.”
- </p>
- <p>
- After another interval of silence, “You are not Neapolitan?” I said. “You
- don’t speak like a Neapolitan.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; I am Florentine. We live in Naples for my father’s health. He is not
- strong. He cannot endure the cold winters of the North.”
- </p>
- <p>
- I murmured something sympathetic; and she went on, “My father is a
- violinist. To-day he has gone to Capri, to play at a festival. He will not
- be back until to-morrow. So I was very lonesome.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have no mother?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My mother is dead,” she said, crossing herself. In a moment she added,
- with a touch of pride, “During the season my father plays in the orchestra
- of the San Carlo.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sure I know what your name is,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh? How can you know? What is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think your name is Rosabella.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, then you are wrong. My name is Elisabetta. But in Naples everybody
- says Zabetta. And yours?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Guess.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I cannot guess. Not—not Federico?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do I look as if my name were Federico?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She surveyed me gravely for a minute, then shook her head pensively. “No;
- I do not think your name is Federico.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And therewith I told her my name, and made her repeat it till she could
- pronounce it without a struggle.
- </p>
- <p>
- It sounded very pretty, coming from her pretty lips, quite Southern and
- romantic, with its r’s tremendously enriched.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Anyhow, I know your age,” said I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are seventeen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—ever so much older.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Eighteen then.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall be nineteen in July.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- VIII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>efore the
- brilliant shop-windows of the Toledo we dallied for an hour or more,
- Zabetta’s eyes sparkling with delight as they rested on the bright-hued
- silks, the tortoiseshell and coral, the gold and silver filagree-work,
- that were there displayed. But when she admired some one particular object
- above another, and I besought her to let me buy it for her, she refused
- austerely. “But no, no, no! It is impossible.” Then we went on to the
- Villa, and strolled by the sea-wall, between the blue-green water and the
- multicoloured procession of people in carriages. And by-and-by Zabetta
- confessed that she was tired, and proposed that we should sit down on one
- of the benches. “A café would be better fun,” submitted her companion. And
- we placed ourselves at one of the out-of-door tables of the café in the
- garden, where, after some urging, I prevailed upon Zabetta to drink a cup
- of chocolate. Meanwhile, with the ready confidence of youth, we had each
- been desultorily autobiographical; and if our actual acquaintance was only
- the affair of an afternoon, I doubt if in a year we could have felt that
- we knew each other better.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must go home,” Zabetta said at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, not yet, not yet,” cried I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be dinner-time. I must go home to dinner.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But your father is at Capri. You will have to dine alone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then don’t. Come with me instead, and dine at a restaurant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eyes glowed wistfully for an instant; but she replied, “Oh, no; I
- cannot.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, you can. Come.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no; impossible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, because.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because what?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is my cat. She will have nothing to eat.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your cook will give her something.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My cook!” laughed Zabetta. “My cook is here before you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you must be a kind mistress. You must give your cook an evening
- out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But my poor cat?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your cat can catch a mouse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There are no mice in our house. She has frightened them all away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then she can wait. A little fast will be good for her soul.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Zabetta laughed, and I said, “Andiamo!”
- </p>
- <p>
- At the restaurant we climbed to the first floor, and they gave us a table
- near the window, whence we could look out over the villa to the sea
- beyond. The sun was sinking, and the sky was gay with rainbow tints, like
- mother-of-pearl.
- </p>
- <p>
- Zabetta’s face shone joyfully. “This is only the second time in my life
- that I have dined in a restaurant,” she told me. “And the other time was
- very long ago, when I was quite young. And it wasn’t nearly so grand a
- restaurant as this, either.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And now what would you like to eat?” I asked, picking up the bill of
- fare.
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I look?” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- I handed her the document, and she studied it at length. I think, indeed,
- she read it through. In the end she appeared rather bewildered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there is so much. I don’t know. Will you choose, please?”
- </p>
- <p>
- I made a shift at choosing, and the sympathetic waiter flourished
- kitchenwards with my commands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is that little green nosegay you wear in your belt, Zabetta?” I
- inquired.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, this—it is rosemary. Smell it,” she said, breaking off a sprig
- and offering it to me.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rosemary—that’s for remembrance,” quoted I.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What does that mean? What language is that?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- I tried to translate it to her. And then I taught her to say it in
- English. “Rrosemérri—tsat is forr rremembrrance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you write it down for me?” she requested. “It is pretty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And I wrote it for her on the back of one of my cards.
- </p>
- <h3>
- IX
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>fter dinner we
- crossed the garden again, and again stood by the sea-wall. Over us the
- soft spring night was like a dark sapphire. Points of red, green, and
- yellow fire burned from the ships in the bay, and seemed of the same
- company as the stars above them. A rosy aureole in the sky, to the
- eastward, marked the smouldering crater of Vesuvius. Away in the Chiaja a
- man was singing comic songs, to an accompaniment of mandolines and
- guitars; comic songs that sounded pathetic, as they reached us in the
- distance.
- </p>
- <p>
- I asked Zabetta how she wished to finish the evening.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t care,” said she.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you like to go the play?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you wish.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do <i>you</i> wish?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think I should like to stay here a little longer. It is pleasant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- We leaned on the parapet, close to each other. Her face was very pale in
- the starlight; her eyes were infinitely deep, and dark, and tender. One of
- her little hands lay on the stone wall, like a white flower. I took it. It
- was warm and soft. She did not attempt to withdraw it. I bent over it and
- kissed it. I kissed it many times. Then I kissed her lips. “Zabetta—I
- love you—I love you,” I murmured fervently.—Don’t imagine that
- I didn’t mean it. It was April, and I was twenty.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I love you, Zabetta. Dearest little Zabetta! I love you so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “É vero?” she questioned, scarcely above her breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, si; é vero, vero, vero,” I asseverated. “And you? And you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, I love you,” she whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- And then I could say no more. The ecstasy that filled my heart was too
- poignant. We stood there speechless, hand in hand, and breathed the air of
- heaven.
- </p>
- <p>
- By-and-by Zabetta drew her bunch of rosemary from her belt, and divided it
- into two parts. One part she gave to me, the other she kept. “Rosemary—it
- is for constancy,” she said. I pressed the cool herb to my face for a
- moment, inhaling its bitter-sweet fragrance; then I fastened it in my
- buttonhole. On my watch-chain I wore—what everybody in Naples used
- to wear—a little coral hand, a little clenched coral hand, holding a
- little golden dagger. I detached it now, and made Zabetta take it. “Coral—that
- is also for constancy,” I reminded her; “and besides, it protects one from
- the Evil Eye.”
- </p>
- <h3>
- X
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>t last Zabetta
- asked me what time it was; and when she learned that it was half-past
- nine, she insisted that she really must go home. “They shut the outer door
- of the house we live in at ten o’clock, and I have no key.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can ring up the porter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, there is no porter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But if we had gone to the theatre?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should have had to leave you in the middle of the play.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, well,” I consented; and we left the villa and took a cab.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you happy, Zabetta?” I asked her, as the cab rattled us towards our
- parting.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, so happy, so happy! I have never been so happy before.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dearest Zabetta!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will love me always?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Always, always.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We will see each other every day. We will see each other to-morrow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, to-morrow!” I groaned suddenly, the actualities of life rushing all
- at once upon my mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it? What of to-morrow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, to-morrow, to-morrow!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What? What?” Her voice was breathless with suspense, with alarm. “Oh, I
- had forgotten. You will think I am a beast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it? For heaven’s sake, tell me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will think I am a beast. You will think I have deceived you.
- To-morrow—I cannot help it—I am not my own master—I am
- summoned by my parents—to-morrow I am going away—I am leaving
- Naples.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are leaving Naples?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am going to Paris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To Paris?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a breathing-space of silence. Then, “Oh, Dio!” sobbed Zabetta;
- and she began to cry as if her heart would break.
- </p>
- <p>
- I seized her hands; I drew her to me. I tried to comfort her. But she only
- cried and cried and cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Zabetta... Zabetta.... Don’t cry... Forgive me.... Oh, don’t cry like
- that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Dio! Oh, caro Dio!” she sobbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Zabetta—listen to me,” I began. “I have something to say to
- you....”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cosa?” she asked faintly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Zabetta—do you really love me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, tanto, tanto!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then, listen, Zabetta. If you really love me—come with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come with you. How?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come with me to Paris.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To Paris?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, to-morrow.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was another instant of silence, and then again Zabetta began to cry.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you? Will you? Will you come with me to Paris?” I implored her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I would, I would. But I can’t. I can’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I can’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why? Why can’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my father—I cannot leave my father.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your father? But—if you love me———”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is old. He is ill. He has no one but me. I cannot leave him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Zabetta!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no. I cannot leave him. Oh, Dio mio!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But Zabetta————”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. It would be a sin. Oh, the worst of sins. He is old and ill. I cannot
- leave him. Don’t ask me. It would be dreadful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But then? Then what? What shall we do?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, I don’t know. I wish I were dead.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The cab came to a standstill, and Zabetta said, “Here we are.” I helped
- her to descend. We were before a dark porte-cochêre, in some dark
- back-street, high up the hillside.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Addio,” said Zabetta, holding out her hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You won’t come with me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can’t. I can’t. Addio.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Zabetta! Do you———Oh, say, say that you forgive
- me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Addio.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, Zabetta, you—you have my address. It is on the card I gave
- you. If you ever need anything—if you are ever in trouble of any
- kind—remember you have my address—you will write to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes. Addio.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Addio.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She stood for a second, looking up at me from great brimming eyes, and
- then she turned away and vanished in the darkness of the porte-cochère. I
- got into the cab, and was driven to my hotel.
- </p>
- <h3>
- XI
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd here, one might
- have supposed, was an end of the episode; but no.
- </p>
- <p>
- I went to Paris, I went to New York, I returned to Paris, I came on to
- London; and in this journeying more than a year was lost. In the beginning
- I had suffered as much as you could wish me in the way of contrition, in
- the way of regret too. I blamed myself and pitied myself with almost equal
- fervour. I had trifled with a gentle human heart; I had been compelled to
- let a priceless human treasure slip from my possession. But—I was
- twenty. And there were other girls in the world. And a year is a long
- time, when we are twenty. Little by little the image of Zabetta faded,
- faded. By the year’s end, I am afraid it had become very pale indeed....
- </p>
- <p>
- It was late June, and I was in London, when the post brought me a letter.
- The letter bore an Italian stamp, and had originally been directed to my
- old address in Paris. Thence (as the numerous redirections on the big
- square foreign envelope attested) it had been forwarded to New York;
- thence back again to Paris; and thence finally to London.
- </p>
- <p>
- The letter was written in the neatest of tiny copperplates; and this is a
- translation of what it said:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear Friend,—My poor father died last month in the German Hospital,
- after an illness of twenty-one days. Pray for his soul.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am now alone and free, and if you still wish it, can come to you. It
- was impossible for me to come when you asked me; but you have not ceased
- to be my constant thought. I keep your coral hand.—Your ever
- faithful Zabetta Collaluce.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Enclosed in the letter there was a sprig of some dried,
- bitter-sweet-smelling herb; and, in pencil, below the signature—laboriously
- traced, as I could guess, from what I had written for her on my
- visiting-card,—the English phrase: “Rosemary—that’s for
- remembrance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The letter was dated early in May, which made it six weeks old.
- </p>
- <p>
- What could I do? What answer could I send?
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, you know what I did do. I procrastinated and vacillated, and
- ended by sending no answer at all. I could not write and say “Yes, come to
- me.” But how could I write and say “No, do not come“? Besides, would she
- not have given up hoping for an answer, by this time? It was six weeks
- since she had written. I tried to think that the worst was over.
- </p>
- <p>
- But my remorse took a new and a longer and a stronger lease of life. A
- vision of Zabetta, pale, with anxious eyes, standing at her window,
- waiting, waiting for a word that never came,—for months I could not
- chase it from my conscience; it was years before it altogether ceased its
- accusing visits.
- </p>
- <h3>
- XII
- </h3>
- <p class="pfirst">
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd then, last
- night, after a perfectly usual London day and evening, I went to bed and
- dreamed of her vividly; and all day long to-day the fragrance of my dream
- has clung about me,—a bitter-sweet fragrance, like that of rosemary
- itself. Where is Zabetta now? What is her life? How have the years treated
- her?... In my dream she was still eighteen. In reality—it is
- melancholy to think how far from eighteen she has had leisure, since that
- April afternoon, to drift.
- </p>
- <p>
- Youth faces forward, impatient of the present, panting to anticipate the
- future. But we who have crossed a certain sad meridian, we turn our gaze
- backwards, and tell the relentless gods what we would sacrifice to recover
- a little of the past, one of those shining days when to us also it was
- given to sojourn among the Fortunate Islands. <i>Ah, si jeunesse
- savait!...</i>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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