“My dear Pierre,—Do not be grieved. I always promised you I would never marry any one but you, but I have been unable to keep my word. What fool was it who years ago said the flesh is weak? My flesh is not like that. It is too strong. It has overwhelmed me. I am married. Yes: it is the end. One is finished when marriage comes. There is nothing left but to sit down and wait until the children arrive.“When we meet, we must not kiss each other as we used to. You may kiss me like a brother; I, in return will, like a sister, kiss you. That will be all, but even that will be nice. Do you think you will ever be able to come to Salonika to be my brother? No?“It is strange that, though I have been married so short a time, I should still be thinking of the boulevards, the Avenue Louise and the Bois de la Cambre—that I should still be thinking of you, and you, and still you. This is naughty of me, I know, but sometimes I wish that in those days I had not been quite so ... what is the word?... timid?—proud?—cruel?“Never mind: do not be angry that I was married six weeks ago. You will soon recover from your disappointment, your love-hunger.“As for me, I am happy. My husband is rich: he adores me. I have many friends. I play the piano better than any one in the whole city of Salonika. And, dear Pierre, I have you to dream of in my idle hours.... Take my advice and marry a nice simple girl and settle down; but she must not be so clever as I am, nor so beautiful, nor so mysterious. And you must not love her as much as you once loved (and perhaps now love?) me.“Do not forget: when we meet we must kiss as sister and brother.“From yourKatya.”
“My dear Pierre,—Do not be grieved. I always promised you I would never marry any one but you, but I have been unable to keep my word. What fool was it who years ago said the flesh is weak? My flesh is not like that. It is too strong. It has overwhelmed me. I am married. Yes: it is the end. One is finished when marriage comes. There is nothing left but to sit down and wait until the children arrive.
“When we meet, we must not kiss each other as we used to. You may kiss me like a brother; I, in return will, like a sister, kiss you. That will be all, but even that will be nice. Do you think you will ever be able to come to Salonika to be my brother? No?
“It is strange that, though I have been married so short a time, I should still be thinking of the boulevards, the Avenue Louise and the Bois de la Cambre—that I should still be thinking of you, and you, and still you. This is naughty of me, I know, but sometimes I wish that in those days I had not been quite so ... what is the word?... timid?—proud?—cruel?
“Never mind: do not be angry that I was married six weeks ago. You will soon recover from your disappointment, your love-hunger.
“As for me, I am happy. My husband is rich: he adores me. I have many friends. I play the piano better than any one in the whole city of Salonika. And, dear Pierre, I have you to dream of in my idle hours.... Take my advice and marry a nice simple girl and settle down; but she must not be so clever as I am, nor so beautiful, nor so mysterious. And you must not love her as much as you once loved (and perhaps now love?) me.
“Do not forget: when we meet we must kiss as sister and brother.
“From yourKatya.”
She read her letter over and liked it.
“If he can leave, he will surely come!” she told herself.
And, rising from her chair, she walked to a large oval mirror and gazed at herself smilingly. Then a thought struck her: she was tired: she would go to bed and rest.
Her bedroom was very long and rather narrow; at each end was a large window. In this room also were many full-length mirrors. Several of them were on movable stands furnished with castors. Three of these she so arranged that they formed a kind of triangle, the mirrors facing inwards. Stripping herself nude, she stepped within the triangle, and placed herself in such a position that she could see the reflection of every part of her body. For a little while she gazed at herself critically, anxiously, a small frown crinkling her forehead; but the frown gradually disappeared, and in a minute or two criticism hadchanged to whole-hearted admiration.
“Why, I do believe I am more beautiful than ever,” she said as she slipped her warm body between the cool sheets.
Placing under the pillow the letter she had written to Pierre Lacroix, she was soon slumbering.
* * * * *
A fortnight later there came for her a letter with the Brussels postmark. She pushed it under her plate, for she and her husband were at breakfast, but as soon as the meal was over she sought her rose-garden, tore open the envelope and read what follows.
“Madame,—What is it you mean by writing to my husband of kisses? It is shameful, incredible! For three days he was strange to me. I knew not why. But now I do know, for this morning I found your letter in a secret pocket of his coat. I do not know you; I do not want to know you. If you write to him again, your letter will be returned to your husband. I have been married to Pierre a year: already I have a baby and another is on the way. Kisses, indeed!“Jeanne Lacroix.”
“Madame,—What is it you mean by writing to my husband of kisses? It is shameful, incredible! For three days he was strange to me. I knew not why. But now I do know, for this morning I found your letter in a secret pocket of his coat. I do not know you; I do not want to know you. If you write to him again, your letter will be returned to your husband. I have been married to Pierre a year: already I have a baby and another is on the way. Kisses, indeed!
“Jeanne Lacroix.”
Katya was both angry and amused.
It amused her to know that her letter had lain close to Pierre’s body for three days, but she was very angry that he had married. Why, he must have sought a bride within a few weeks of her leaving Brussels for Salonika. It was evident he had married a fool, a breeder of children, a jealous woman who could not write a clever letter. It was good that he should have married a fool. But it was an evil thing that he should so soon have forgotten her for whom he had vowed he would remain single for ever....
Her thoughts wandered from her to her husband, and she felt a sudden passionate desire. Having torn Mrs. Lacroix’s letter into tiny pieces, she made a hole in the flower-bed with a broken stick, thrust in the bits of paper, and covered up the hole with the heel of her shoe.
Then she called to her husband who, at her summons, came from the house to meet her.
“Hello!” he said.
She put an arm round his neck and drew his face down to hers.
He smiled and began to tease her.
“Is our honeymoon going to last for ever?” he asked, holding his head back so that his lips did not quite touch hers.
“Very well, then,” she said; “Idon’twant to kiss you.”
He looked up the garden to the field where the thick weeds grew profusely many feet high.
“Shall we hide ourselves in the grass?” he asked.
She pretended to draw away from him. So he put his arm about her waist and compelled her to walk by his side. They passed through the flowers and reached the edge of the field. When they stepped into the luxuriant weeds, the grasses almost touched their shoulders. At the field’s centre they stopped.
“I love you much better than Pierre,” she whispered.
“Who is Pierre?” he asked indifferently, taking his lips from her neck in order to speak.
“I don’t know,” she answered, “I have forgotten.”
ToChristina Walshe
AT Kilindir two men loved the same woman. Marania was tall and dark and gentle; he had the devotion of a dog; his instinct for self-sacrifice was as great as that of a good woman for the husband she loves. Sobraji, on the other hand, was small and fair and cunning; as a boy he tortured animals, and as a man he tortured his mother and sisters.
The name of the woman was Pabasca. She was very dainty and pretty, and her cheeks were like red poppies seen in the half-light. But she was also very evil.
It was Sobraji whom Pabasca loved, but Sobraji was poor; Marania, on the other hand, owned land and cattle.
“If I am careful,” said Pabasca to herself one evening, as she sat outside her mother’s cottage, “if I am careful, I can have both Sobraji’s love and Marania’s money. It has been done before—I have seen it.”
This thought had lain broodingly in her mind for weeks, but she had spoken of it to no one—not even to Sobraji. And yet if she were to carry her plan into effect, Sobraji was the one man in all the world who must be told.
It was time something was done, for the ardent love of the two men was wearing her down. Only this morning she had received another of Marania’s strange letters. She could remember some of its phrases.
“Last night I lay awake listening to a nightingale; your voice was in that bird’s throat.... The rushes bending in the wind this afternoon were like your supple body.... I sometimes think your soul is in my hands.”
It was impossible notto be pleased by these phrases that her mean little soul could only half understand, but her pleasure was tinged with contempt.
Sobraji did not make love in that way. He wrote no letters. When he met her at night he whispered amorous indecencies in her ear which made her laugh and laugh.
Nearly every sentence began with: “How I would like to ...!” and there was no end to the ingenious ways of love his cunning mind devised.
But she had kept her body untouched by both men. Though love was heady and intoxicating, she was too calculating, too distrustful, to give her body: when the time came, her body should be sold. But Sobraji had begun to demand, and Marania to pray for, an answer to the question each had put so many times. It was tiresome, she thought, to be driven to speech when she was not ready for speech. If Sobraji came to-night, she would have to tell him her plan.
He did come. It was dark. He crept among the bushes, and she heard him. Then, stealthily, he emerged from the plantation and touched her on the shoulder. His hand slid down her arm to her hip and lingered there. She bent over to him, and he seized her roughly, brutally, as a faun might seize a virgin, and pulled her body to his.
“Oh!” he half whispered, half groaned, “how I would like to....”
Almost she swooned with ecstasy.
“Come into the plantation!” he urged.
She obeyed, and when they were among the trees, he seized her so savagely that she turned upon him with fear and anger.
“What are you doing?” she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders and pushing him violently away.
“Well, you won’t marry me!” he protested. “What is a man to do if the girl he loves won’t marry him? It isn’t as though you don’t love me—you do: you know you do.”
“If I married you, I should starve,” she said; “or, at all events, I should have to work so hard that I should have no joy in you. Listen while I tell you something.”
And then in a very low voice she revealed her plan to him.
“I will be Marania’s wife, but you shall be my lover. We will meet in secret. And some of the money he gives me I will hand over to you.”
She spoke for a long time, her voice excited but very low, urging upon him the advantages of this scheme. She explained how he had everything to gain and nothing to lose, whilst she stood to lose everything.
“But if he found out!” interrupted Sobraji, “he would kill me! Surely he would kill me!”
Pabasca stirred angrily in his arms.
“You must risk that!” she said disgustedly, though she knew very well that Marania was too gentle, too long-suffering, and too profound a believer in Fate, to wish to kill any one.
“When will you marry him?” he asked.
“Soon. Now. In a fortnight.”
“Very well,” said he; “then let me love you now.”
But she drew away from him, pushing him back with her white arms.
“Your beautiful teeth—how white they are!” he said; “and I can almost see your white breasts through your....”
“Hush!” she warned, as she heard footsteps on the pathway leading to the cottage. “It is Marania. I will go to him and tell him I love him and will marry him.”
Sobraji lingered a minute after she had gone, his body a-tremble with desire. Then, in the dark, he parted the bushes with his hands and went his own way.
Marania met Pabasca with a smile that could be seen even in the darkness. He took her hand in his for a moment and patted it gently.
“Though I cannot see you,” he said, “I know you are as beautiful as the night itself.”
He led her down the pathway on to the ill-made road. Embarrassed, she remained silent.
“Listen!” he said; “that’s the nightingale I heard last night—I’m sure it is—the one I wrote to you about.... Did you like my letter?”
“Oh, yes: of course I did. But what did you mean when you said my voice was in its throat?”
“Well, as I lay in bed, it was so easy to imagine that it was you singing.”
“But I never sing.”
“No? But if you did, you would sing like that. Listen!”
They stopped walking, and he placed his hand upon her shoulder.
“When I think of you, that’s how my heart feels,” he said. “All people must be happy when they think of you.”
“Marania, you think too well of me,” she said craftily.
“My heart is empty because you do not love me, and my house is as empty as my heart. Think of it!—that big house with no one in it save myself and my deaf and dumb servant, Cesiphos. It is not a home: it is only a house. No house can be a home without children.”
“Yes, children,” she said softly, deceiving him. “And a woman is not really a woman until she has borne a child.”
She had read that in a book and had wondered at it; she was very glad that she had remembered it now.
“Won’t you marry me, Pabasca?” he asked hopelessly, for he had asked this question many times, and had always been blankly refused.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
His heart leapt and he drew nearer to her, placing his arm about her waist. They were still standing, and the nightingale was pouring out his heart. He held her firmly and, stretching out his arm to its utmost limit, his hand closed gently on her breast.
“You are changing?” he asked; “you are growing to like me better—to love me?”
Her body yielded to his embrace and she turned to face him.
“Kiss me, Marania,” she said, panting a little, and pouting her lips.
But he kissed her brow instead of her mouth. A wave of irritation passed over her.
“You do not love me!” she said.
“Not love you, little dear?”
He held her away from him for a few moments, looking inquiringly into her face; but she closed her eyes and set her mouth. “How stupid he is!” she thought. He could just see the dusky red of her cheeks. The nightingale’s song ceased suddenly.
“Not love you?” he repeated. “Why, you are everything to me—the moon and the stars, my food and drink, my dreams and my work. You are a part of everything that is good.”
He again drew her to his breast. Her thoughts fastened on Sobraji, her imagination transforming Marania’s body into that of the man she loved. She threw her arms about him wildly.
“Kiss me!” she murmured; “kiss me on the mouth!”
Incredulous, he hesitated a moment; then, with a smothered cry, he placed his lips on hers, and he stood in that deep silence lost in the sweet bitterness of unaccomplished love.
Cesiphos, the deaf and dumb servant of Marania, had no interest in life save to please his master. His happiness was greatest when Marania, with a smile and a sign, thanked him for some work he had done. On these occasions, Cesiphos would return to his quarters with a glad heart and singing eyes. His master was pleased with him: that was all that mattered.
But when Marania brought home his wife, Pabasca, Cesiphos felt cold and angry. No longer would he be first in his master’s eyes. The work in which he took so much delight would be done not for Marania alone, but for Marania’s wife also; moreover, Pabasca herself would superintend the working of the household, and he, Cesiphos, would be relegated to the position simply of a paid servant.
But matters did not turn out quite as Cesiphos had anticipated. It is true that he had to work for Pabasca as well as for his master, but he was mistaken in thinking she would superintend the household. Pabasca did nothing at all. She conducted herself like a Salonika lady. All day long she was idle and peevish, and whilst Marania was sweating in the fields she was either lying in bed or wandering aimlessly about the house.
One day when Cesiphos was working with the other men in the orchard, he looked down from the ladder on which he was standing and saw Pabasca staring at him in a most curious manner. He flushed hotly and went on with his work, and though he could feel that his master’s wife was still gazing upon him, he did not look down again. His figure stretched to its full extent was that of a giant, and his long arms, busy among the branches, were brown and muscular.
Like many people of bright intellect who aredeprived of one or more senses, Cesiphos appeared to possess a sixth sense, and there was little that transpired in Marania’s household of which he was not conscious. He soon discovered that Pabasca had no love for her husband; so he watched her—always watched, suspicious, contemptuous, angry.
There came a day when Marania announced that he was going to Salonika for four days on business. When he signalled this news to Cesiphos and told him that he was leaving his wife in his servant’s charge, Cesiphos, proud and grave, inclined his head, and then turned his gaze swiftly upon Pabasca who, in return, gave him the curious look she had bestowed upon him in the orchard. It was a look of invitation, of lust. Cesiphos’ stern face did not betray that he had understood, or even noticed, the look she had given him.
At midday Marania departed, and immediately he had gone Pabasca’s spirits rose. She took from a cupboard her three dresses and, leaving her bedroom door open, tried on each in turn. Then she went into the room which Cesiphos used as a kitchen and prepared herself a meal. Towards dusk she left the house, but returned soon and went to bed.
Cesiphos sat up smoking his pipe. After a time, he rose, climbed rather noisily upstairs, went to his room and closed the door. For a little while he stood motionless as though listening; then, having taken off his boots, he opened his bedroom door with elaborate carefulness, stepped on to the little landing, closed the door silently, and crept soundlessly downstairs.
Some instinct told him that Pabasca would not sleep alone that night, and he knew very well that her visitor would be Sobraji, for many times before her marriage, Cesiphos had seen her and Sobraji together at night in lonely places. In all probability, Pabasca had given him the key of the front entrance; indeed, when Cesiphos examined the door and found it unbolted, he was sure of this. So he took up his place in the entrance and waited.
After Cesiphos had waited a long time, the door opened slowly and Sobraji entered. In the darkness he did not see Marania’s servant crouching there, and without hurry he closed the door behind him and locked it.
Then suddenly Cesiphos sprang upon him, his large hands encircling Sobraji’s throat; squeezing his victim hard, he banged his head against the wall, until the little man hung heavy and limp in Cesiphos’ hands. Then the servant unlocked the door and opened it; gathering Sobraji in his arms, he threw him out into the night and locked the door upon him.
During his struggle with Sobraji, Cesiphos had been too excited to pay any attention to Pabasca, who, almost as soon as the struggle had begun, had come downstairs with a lamp. She had stood quietly by watching eagerly. It was too late for her to interrupt; indeed, after her first shock of surprise and dismay, she had no wish to do so. She was thrilled by Cesiphos’ strength, by his skill, by his machine-like calmness.
Cesiphos, having locked the door, turned round and saw Pabasca. The light of the lamp fell full on her face, and she smiled at him. In return, he frowned, looked away from her, and quickly made his way upstairs. He entered his room and closed his door. Almost immediately Pabasca followed him, and placed the lamp upon the floor.
Approaching Cesiphos, she took his hand, gazed lingeringly into his eyes for a moment. He shook himself free from her, and his eyes blazed. Again she approached him, her arms outstretched; but his anger became so fierce and his face worked so terribly, that she shrank from him, and, leaving the lamp on the floor, hurriedly went to her own room.
During the days that passed before Marania’s return, Cesiphos went about his work with a grave face. Whenever he was in Pabasca’s presence, he averted his eyes. Each night when he went to rest, she could hear him dragging his bed across the floor and fixing it against the door.
His simple nature was badly bruised by what had happened. He had always known that life was not all good, but evil had never come so close to him as now. All through the day and during a portion of each night he tortured himself by asking how much, or how little, he must tell his master when he returned. Clearly it was his duty to disclose to Marania the conduct of Sobraji, but it seemed to him unwise to tell the story in such a way that Pabasca would be implicated. Besides, he had no proof that Pabasca had expected Sobraji to visit her, though in his heart he knew that an assignation had been made andnearly kept.
Upon one thing he was resolved: he would say nothing about Pabasca’s overtures to himself, for that might lead to unimaginable misery for all of them. Nevertheless, it tortured him to keep any of these things secret, but he knew not a soul to whom he could unburden his mind.
On the evening of the fourth day Cesiphos slipped unseen from the house and went to the station to meet his master. It was a cool evening with a feeling of largeness in the air, but Cesiphos was weighed down with anxiety and nervousness. How much should he tell? In what manner should he tell it? Should he break straight into the subject, or should he introduce it in a roundabout fashion?
These questions which he had been asking himself for four days were still unanswered when he saw Marania, carrying two very large parcels, step from the train. Cesiphos hurried up to him, and Marania placed both parcels on the ground whilst he shook hands with his servant. He was in good spirits and glad to be home again. Cesiphos, having picked up one of the parcels, led the way from the station, his chin upon his breast, his heart heavy within him.
They had covered but a short distance when Cesiphos plucked his master’s sleeve and indicated that he wished to speak with him. With a sigh of impatience, Marania put his package on the ground and sat upon it. Cesiphos followed his example, and began to talk on his fingers by the light of the moon.
“Master, I have something I would tell you.”
Marania bowed his head.
“Very late in the night following the day you left, Sobraji entered your house. He had a key, the door was unbolted.”
He stopped, hoping his master would say something; but Marania only stared at him wonderingly and again bowed his head.
“I was waiting for him....”
Marania interrupted his servant by placing a hand upon his arm.
“Why were you waiting for him?”
Cesiphos fumbled with his fingers, but spelled out not a single word. Marania struck him lightly on the arm and again asked:
“Why?”
“Because ... because, somehow, I thought he was coming. The door was unbolted.”
His master shook him angrily.
“Why were you waiting for him?” he asked a third time. “How did you know he was coming?”
Cesiphos began to tremble. He did not know why he had believed Sobraji would come that night. Something in his mind had whispered it to him—instinct, suspicion, hatred. But he could not explain this to Marania. So he sat fumbling with his fingers. At length his master signed to him:
“Go on with your story.”
“I was waiting for him behind the door. He entered and closed it after him. I sprang upon him and nearly choked him. I banged his head against the wall. Then I opened the door and threw him outside.”
“Does your mistress know of this?”
“Yes. She came down with a lamp in her hand and watched us.”
His hands stopped working. Very deliberately Marania rose, lifted his parcel and proceeded on his way home, Cesiphos followed him in deep dejection. The servant knew that his master had not accepted his story: yet it was true—every word of it.
They soon reached Marania’s farm. Pabasca was waiting outside to receive her husband. She ran to him with a cry of delight and threw her arms about his neck. He embraced her, at first tenderly, then with passion.
In the meantime, Cesiphos had carried his package into the house and had begun to prepare food for his master. It was with a great effort that he moved his body about, so sick he felt, so dismayed, so full of apprehension. Through the open door he saw his master and mistress go to their living-room. He could feel them talking together. For a long time they talked until, suddenly, with blazing eyes, Marania entered, rushed up to his servant and dealt him a heavy blow between the eyes. Cesiphos staggered and fell. He rose, whimpering.
Marania then went to the entrance-door and opened it wide. Pointing with one hand to the door, he seized his servant with the other and violently dragged him into the passage. Still whimpering Cesiphos stumbled into the night. The master whom he had loved and served now hated him.
Marania locked and bolted the door, and returned to his wife.
But though she was weeping he would not comfort her, and that night and for ever afterwards he slept in the room that Cesiphos had occupied.
ToG. A. E. Marshall
IT has always seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that Victor Lovelace should have been able to speak five languages. He was English, and Englishmen are notoriously stupid in this respect. But Lovelace spoke his languages perfectly, and as he was extremely obliging and full of information he was far and away the most popular waiter at the Jupiter Hotel in Athens.
I have never believed Lovelace was his real name; but that concerns neither you nor me. Lovelace has a romantic sound, and this young man of twenty-three looked romantic. Tall he was and slim: he carried himself well: unlike all the other waiters in the whole world, he looked you in the eyes when he spoke to you, and the eyes that looked into yours were large, brilliant, and unquestionably full of passion.
In April 1914, I stayed at the Jupiter Hotel, and at dinner on the day of my arrival I sat down at a table occupied solely by an Englishwoman who appeared to be travelling alone. Lovelace waited on us. Before we were half-way through our dinner I was convinced that the Englishwoman—her name was Dorothy Langdon—was in love with him. Whenever he brought her food, she looked quickly up into his eyes, and once I observed her touch his hand lingeringly as she assisted him in supporting the dish from which she was helping herself to vegetables.
I confess I was interested: people always do interest me. And I said to myself: “Is this love? Or is it passion—a very frenzy of the senses?”
Lovelace, for his part, showed neither desire nor distress. Perhaps he was a little more assiduous in his waiting on the lady than he was in attending to my wants; but this might mean simply that she was a woman and I was merely a man.
During dinner Miss Langdon and I talked.
“You arrived to-day?” she asked.
“Yes, I came from Marseilles by theIspahan. Do you know the Messageries Maritimes boats?”
“Jolly little things, aren’t they?” she said, smiling. “I like the cosmopolitan passengers they carry, and I love curry for breakfast.”
She was very fair. Her neck, wrists and ankles were exquisite, as thoroughbred as the human animal can ever hope to be.
“What I liked most of all,” said I, “was the rummy little music room on the deck with the piano that made such tender, melting sounds. I used to feel tremendously sentimental in the evenings. There was an Italian girl who sang Neapolitan songs as though she really meant them.”
“I know,” she said eagerly; “wouldn’t it be fine if all life were like that? But I suppose it wouldn’t, really. Sweetness so soon cloys.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “we all require bitter days in between: they add zest to our appetite when the good days come along.”
We talked obvious things of this kind all through the meal.
“Will Madame have coffee here or in the lounge?” asked Lovelace when we had finished our fruit.
She looked up at him and smiled divinely, and in return he smiled a pleasant English smile that meant nothing of what she wished it to mean.
“It all depends on Monsieur,” she said, turning to me. “Shall we have coffee here?”
“As you please,” said I.
“Very well, then, here.”
She took the cigarette case that was lying on the table at her side and offered me a smoke.
“This hotel is very pleasant,” she remarked; “have you ever stayed here before?”
“No, this is my first visit to Athens. And you?”
“I also have never been here before.”
Our little table was in a corner of the room farthest away from the door. All the diners except ourselves had left. Lovelace stood some little way off, waiting I suppose, to minister to our possible wants. Suddenly, he put down the table-napkin he was holding, and began to move towards the door. Though my companion was not facing him, she saw—or felt—his withdrawal.
“Lovelace!” she called softly.
He turned and approached our table.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To wait on the ladies and gentlemen in the lounge,” he answered.
“Must you go?”
“Not if Madame desires me to stay.”
“You may please yourself, of course. But if you went I should miss you.”
Without embarrassment he bowed, walked a few paces away, and stationed himself out of reach of our talk.
I do not think my attempt to look unconcerned was entirely successful, and I betrayed myself, I am sure, by asking:
“Have you been here very long?”
(What I meant, of course, was: “Do you know Lovelace well?”).
“Just five days,” she said, as though I had asked the most ordinary question in the world. Then, after a pause, she asked: “I surprise you?”
“No, why?”
She smiled.
“You lie so well,” she said, “that I feel I can trust you.”
I feebly protested my sincerity.
“I knew him last year in Oxford,” she explained; “but he refuses to know me now. He is afraid of me.”
“Surely not!” I exclaimed. “Why should he be afraid?”
She did not answer me, but went on to speak of other things.
“Will you promise me something?” she asked.
“Of course I will. What is it?”
“I want you to promise always to sit at this table for your meals. They never lay more than two places here. If you speak to the head waiter, he will reserve that place for you.”
“You are very kind,” I said; “I shall be delighted. Thanks awfully for asking me.”
And, this time, I meant every word I said.
In a few minutes we rose from the table and prepared to leave the room. She preceded me, and, in passing Lovelace, gazed at him with a look so despairing and beseeching that I could but wonder he maintained so undisturbed a countenance.
Having reached the door, she turned.
“Good night, Lovelace,” she said.
And behind me I heard his voice, low and grave:
“Good night, Madame.”
If she was beautiful that night, she was still more beautiful next morning at breakfast. Poets have described the kind of woman she was: I cannot. I can but give you a few clumsy hints. She was as delicate as porcelain. Her hair had the colour and the sheen of polished brass, and her face, when composed, was all innocence and trust. Her innocence was a lure. One felt her sex. In the corner of her lips there lurked a mysterious suggestion of cruelty—or was it of hunger?
Though she chattered a good deal whilst we ate, I felt that she was preoccupied. Whenever Lovelace approached her, she seemed to expand and open like a flower in the sun; whenever he withdrew, she closed in upon herself again. She rarely spoke to him without addressing him by name.
Of the two it was he who interested me most, and after breakfast I sought an opportunity of talking to him.
I asked him about—the best means of getting there, its distance from Athens, and so on.
He answered my questions with politeness, but without deference; his manner was easy, even polished. It was quite evident he was a gentleman, and a gentleman of culture and experience.
I told him that I had recently attended a course of lectures at Oxford on the social life of ancient Athens, and at the word Oxford he started a little and flushed. A minute later I noticed he was trembling and that his cheeks were pale.
“She is getting on his nerves,” I said to myself.
I had little compunction in trying to solve this mystery, for I had, so to speak, been dragged in to sit and watch its development. And after my ten minutes’ conversation with Lovelace I formed the theory that he was as deeply in love with Miss Langdon as she was with him; but whereas her love was mingled with triumph and cruelty, his was strained with fear. His love urged him to remain, but his fear, I thought, was continually warning him to escape.
Though I had business elsewhere, I returned to the Hotel Jupiter for lunch, thinking I might witness the “curtain” of the first act of this almost silent drama; but she did not appear. Lovelace was pale and, I thought, anxious; but he kept himself so well under control, and he smiled so pleasantly when I made a joke about King Constantine, whom I had that morning seen outside the Palace, that I felt his seeming anxiety must be only the product of my imagination. His attitude towards me was both aloof and friendly: he was determined to keep his “place,” yet I was sure he liked me. I had copies of that month’sFortnightly ReviewandNineteenth Centuryin my bedroom, also three or four recent numbers ofPunch; these I brought downstairs and gave to him, though I remember that, as I did so, the thought flashed into my mind that I might appear to him to be trying to purchase his confidence. But if he had such a suspicion, he did not show it.
I spent that afternoon in the Museum, visiting the Temple of Jupiter before returning to the hotel. The enervating climate of Athens in the early spring had tired me, and I felt a little depressed as I walked across the Palace Square. On entering the hotel I heard a woman’s voice singing in the drawing-room. Opening the door, I discovered Miss Langdon, the only occupant of the room, sitting at the piano, accompanying herself. Seeing me, she rose.
“May I come in and listen?” I asked.
“Do. I love having an audience. Do you play?”
“Yes. Rather well. At least, I accompany well. You were singing Reynaldo Hahn, weren’t you?”
“Yes—I’ve only just got to know him. Rather like overripe fruit, don’t you think? Only, of course, the very best fruit.”
She laughed.
“Come and play for me,” she said.
“Thanks awfully. I was hoping you would ask me to.”
Quite the most exciting occupation in the world is to read new pianoforte music for a good singer. Reynaldo Hahn is the most atmospheric of composers, the most delicate, the most decadent: not a great man, of course, but an interesting man. Like my companion’s voice, his music has no colour: it consists of whites, blacks, and innumerable shades of grey.
“You play almost as well as I sing,” she remarked, after we had gone through an entire volume of songs.
“You make me play well,” I said; “you are sympathetic. That’s a silly word—but you know what I mean.”
“But it’s really very heartless music,” said she; “it’s so sentimental, so insincere. It suits me. I can’t do the real things—not even the modern people—Hugo Wolfe, for example. The great men lacerate me so, and I don’t like being lacerated.”
“No,” said I mischievously, “you’d rather lacerate other people. Your friend from Oxford for example.”
“Ah! Lovelace, you mean. I thought you would be curious about him.”
“Well, I confess it: Iamcurious.”
She laughed teasingly.
“If you wait long enough, you will find out everything. But there goes the first dinner-gong, and you’re not dressed.”
I hurried away to change. Though I dressed as speedily as possible, the dinner had begun when I entered the dining-room. As I noticed that Lovelace was bending low over the table at which Miss Langdon sat, and that she was speaking to him with some vehemence, I approached them very slowly and deliberately; even so, their conversation was not finished when I had sat down at my place.
“ ...And what happened to Walter had nothing to do with me,” she protested, though she knew I was present; “and if it had—what then? Am I to love all the men who love me? Are men children that they require nurses?”
“No, Madame,” he said. “Will Madame take thick or clear soup?”
“I will take no soup at all. Write down your answer on a piece of paper and bring it with the entrée.”
He departed, white and trembling, and for a minute my sympathy was entirely with him.
“What surprises me,” I said to her, “is that you asked me always to sit at your table.”
Though a minute previously she had been speaking passionately, almost angrily, to Lovelace, she now turned to me a face at once gentle and beseeching.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Well—no. To be perfectly frank, youdomake me feel a little uncomfortable. Lovelace is a gentleman. Even if he weren’t, I shouldn’t like to interrupt your private conversations with him.”
“But you don’t,” she protested.
“Well, then, I don’t like overhearing them.”
“That,” said she, “is unavoidable. Believe me, you are doing me a kindness by sharing my table. If you didn’t sit there somebody else would—and I trust you. Really, you are doing me a great kindness.”
“Very well, then. If that is the case, I don’t mind—or, at all events, I shall try to mind as little as possible.”
Presently, Lovelace brought our entrées.
“Where is my answer?” she asked.
Without a moment’s pause, he replied:
“The answer, Madame, is ‘No.’”
“But,” said she firmly, as though stating an incontrovertible fact, “but youwillchange your mind.”
When he had left our table, she turned to me with a smile.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked.
“Well, I have often thought I was in love. But it soon passed. It always passes.”
She shook her head and smiled.
Immediately after dinner she disappeared.
The night was ghostly with a swollen moon. Looking from my bedroom window at about ten o’clock I saw white buildings with ink-black shadows. The streets were almost deserted. Somebody out there was singing a restless song, and the restlessness of the music awakened in me an almost insufferable pain—an ache—a dark turbulence of the spirit. I felt my heart beating wildly, and in my soul there was a deep desire to scatter myself on the night. What was the matter? Was I in love once more? And if so, with what?—with whom?... When one asks questions of this kind, one already knows the answers; nevertheless, one does not stop asking those questions. I was in love withher.
I left my room and sought her vainly in the lounge and in the drawing-room. Then I went to the deserted entrance-hall and thence to the open door. On the top step Lovelace was standing irresolutely, his hat on. I stepped up to him.
“Don’t go!” I said in a low voice.
It was a random shot, but it hit the mark.
“I don’t wish to,” he said, “but she draws and pulls.”
He was trembling violently.
“I thought of visiting the Acropolis,” I said, though indeed I had no such thought.
“After dusk one requires a ticket to pass through the gates,” he said. “Sheis there. She will be standing like one of the Caryatides, the moon on her face, hatless. And perhaps her feet will be bare.”
“Oh, but this is madness!” I exclaimed. “What is she to you or you to her?”
“I wonder,” he answered helplessly. Then, obeying an impulse he seemed unable to control, he held out a ticket.
“Take this!” he said. “It will admit you through the gates. She will be waiting.”
“No,” said I. “It is you she wants.”
“But I can’t go. I may not. I daren’t. I told her I wouldn’t.”
And, with a deep sigh, he turned and walked into the hotel.
All that night I lay midway between reality and dreams. My senses mingled, and I knew not what was reality and what was phantasy. Was it possible I should see her at breakfast next morning? Was there really such a woman or had I imagined her? Had I been dreaming these last thirty-six hours?
The spirit of her was in my brain and in my veins like a drug. At length I must have slept, for I heard whisperings and a voice of menace, and again a loud voice threatening mankind and me, and then voluptuous sighings and secret whisperings; mænads rushed to and fro in ghostly meadows, and on them the moon poured golden blood; and then again the voice reached me and each word it uttered was like a heavy weight falling upon my bleeding heart.
I awoke and sat up in bed and:
“Lovelace! Lovelace!” I heard, or seemed to hear, breathed through the corridor.
“The huntress!” I exclaimed. “The authentic vampire! The incarnation of hungry sex!”
Shuddering I rose, raised the blind and leant through the open window. The world outside was unreal: it brought me no solace. The houses were insubstantial; the solidity of my own body was incommunicable to my senses; all the world was an illusion; nothing existed save the brain that had placed things there....
A cold bath early next morning did little to restore my nerves to health. My soul was sick: it was covered with indestructible dust from thevampire’s wings.
I arrived at our table before she did. Lovelace brought me food. Though his manner was calm, his face was deathly pale. Had he, like myself, been agonized through the night? I spoke to him, and he looked into my eyes distrustfully.
“I am going to Eleusis to-day,” I said. “Can you get a few sandwiches made up for me? And some fruit and a bottle of wine?”
“Yes, certainly. I will tell the head waiter. But be careful. Don’t go into any of the cottages, for fever is raging there.”
“Thanks, I won’t.... I say, Lovelace.” I spoke low, and he bent down to catch my words. “Lovelace, I say. Tell me: what is the meaning of all this—of everything? Do you not believe I am your friend?”
“But you love her!”
“Or hate her!” I exclaimed. “Which is it?”
“They are both the same,” he said.
And then, most quietly and with a wild mænad-look in her eyes and about her lips, she sat down and:
“Good morning, Lovelace,” she said.
“Good morning, Madame.”
I could see that he was putting forth a great effort in order to master himself.
She turned to me and began to talk of the weather. With difficulty I met her gaze. Yes, there was a wild look in her eyes; it was as though she had learned some secret in the night. Though she sat quite calmly, she seemed to be shedding vitality all around her. Her presence quickened me. And the sound of her voice was both a lure and an excitement.
“I am going to Eleusis to-day,” I told her, “but I shall be back for dinner.”
“And what do you expect to find there?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid. Just a heap of broken marble.”
“But underneath the marble are the Mysteries—the Eleusinian Mysteries. Do you know what they were?”
“No,” said I; “does any one?”
“Yes: I do. They were sex mysteries. The Ancient Greeks worshipped woman in the form of a goddess. They sacrificed to her. In those days they feared women, and they were continually trying to propitiate them. But since then they have tamed my sex. Only a few of us remain.”
“‘Us'?” I queried.
“Yes—the devastators—the women who have no use for a man once they have known him. You have heard of the marriage in the sky?”
I shook my head.
“The queen bee marries the best male of the hive high in the blue of heaven, out of sight. The ecstasy over, the male drops down to earth, dead. You will find it all in Fabre.”
“Yes? And then?”
“Nothing—that’s the end of it.”
“Was that the end of Walter?” I asked, goaded on by I know not what. And, as she did not reply, I added: “Is that to be the end of Lovelace? Is that why he is afraid of you? Do you carry about with you some evil spell?—some enchantment of death?”
She drew away from me a little and sat back in her chair.
“You are afraid of me,” she said.
“I think not,” I answered, “but you disturb my dreams. Most horribly you disturb them.”
“So already it has begun to work on you,” she said with mild interest.
“Have you cast a spell upon me?” I asked. “Am I in a state of semi-hypnosis?”
“I have done nothing. It is not you whom I want. It is Lovelace.”
I made but a scanty meal, and as I walked to the station I was resolved that Miss Langdon should not enter my thoughts all day. She had spoken the truth: I was afraid of her. I feared her as the drunkard fears alcohol, as the morphinomaniac fears his drug.
But who can command his thoughts when those thoughts have for their breeding-place senses that have been whipped to excitement by the invitation of sex? I was unhappy all day.
From Eleusis I walked along a narrow track to the sea. I bathed, and then sat naked in the sun. Again I bathed among the rocks, and once more sat gazing upon the blue islands and the purple islands and the green land near. No human being was in sight, no dwelling-place, no sign of life. Even the sky was empty of birds.
It was not difficult for me to imagine it was two thousand years ago. Then everything—sky, sea, and land—would appear exactly asit did now. Perhaps in those times men were wiser than they are to-day. True, mankind had collected and co-ordinated a few million facts unknown to the men and women who worshipped and sacrificed in the Temple of Demeter, but, after all, what are facts? Are they not the very masks of truth, as a man’s face is the mask of his soul?...
Almost could I see her in the divine Temple, worshipped and feared.... Woman enthroned; man on his knees, craving a boon. Woman in league with Nature: man Nature’s victim. Woman accepting; man giving....
I dressed, and ate the food I had brought with me. The wine enervated me, and soon I slept.
Again she sent her thoughts to me, and my dreams were soaked through and through with her rapacious personality. I was being nailed down under a rich carpet in Samarcand. In another room of the Palace were proud music and rejoicings....
Haunted myself by those dreams, I will not stain this page by recording them....
I awoke.
“If sleep means this,” I exclaimed aloud, “I’ll sleep no more.”
On my way back to Athens I told myself that on the following day I would set out for Corinth. I would escape. But I must see the Parthenon first. I would borrow Lovelace’s ticket and go to-night. There would be a moon....
There were no boundsto my relief when Lovelace, bringing me my soup at dinner-time told me, in answer to my inquiry, that Miss Langdon was resting.
“Madame has a headache,” he said, “and will dine in her own room.”
Immeasurable relief—yes! But profound disappointment and anxiety also!
What an unaccountable hunger mine was! Love-hunger! The wish to love what one fears and perhaps hates!
“You look ill, Lovelace,” I said.
“I am feeling ill,” he confessed.
“And so am I. Not sick in body, but sick in soul.”
“I also,” he said.
“Come nearer, Lovelace. Bend down. Now—” I lowered my voice almost to a whisper—“won’t you tell me?Pleasetell me.”
“It’s happened before in the world,” he said, “many times. Keats wrote about it in his ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’”
“But this is different,” I urged.
“No, I think not. It is much the same.”
“But that was poetry and this is madness.”
“All things are very much the same. Even fire and water are not so much opposed as we sometimes believe, and I remember being taught at school that diamonds and charcoal are first cousins.”
“Yes—but about Walter. Who was Walter? What did she do to him?”
“She killed him,” said Lovelace; “he shot himself. He was my brother.”
“Oh, do forgive me for asking you. I had no idea—I say, Lovelace, I’m leaving to-morrow. I can’t stand it any longer.”
“You are very wise. I am going also.”
He moved away—this man who was a stranger to me, but whom I seemed to know so well.
I could eat very little, so I left the dining-room for the lounge, where I ordered a large brandy-and-soda. I stayed there smoking and drinking for some time, but she did not come, and, at length, I rose and sought Lovelace. He was wandering about aimlessly in the hall.
“I’m going to the Acropolis,” I said; “would you be so kind as to lend me your ticket—that is, if you are not going to use it yourself.”
He gave me a strange, inquiring look.
“Certainly. I have it with me—here it is.”
I went alone, half hoping, wholly fearing, that Miss Langdon might be there.
Passing the Temple of Jupiter, I walked up the steep road that winds along the side of the Acropolis. Nothing stirred. The moon seemed to be fixed in the sky by its own cold passion. The thick dust on the road looked like powdered silver. A few crickets chirped. Up above, within the Parthenon itself no doubt, a man was singing one of theDichterliebe. It was a night of intolerable heartache. My soul seemed to melt and diffuse itself through every part of my body....
I arrived at the gates and, refusing the proffered services of a guide, was admitted. Above me the columns of the Parthenon gleamed coldly in the light of the moon. I mounted the marble steps, reached the nearest column, and touched it. For a moment I felt soothed. Sitting down, I pondered on that turn of Fate which had brought me to Athens, had directed me to that hotel, had guided me to that table. Even here where I sat her spirit was about me. Oh, if only she were there by my side! If only my lips were on hers and her hand on my heart!
Almost suffocated with longing, I arose and wandered to and fro, looking at everything, but seeing nothing.
Then, near the Caryatides, I stumbled upon her. She was lying full-length on the ground.
“So you have come, Victor,” she said.
For a moment I paused, breathless and afraid.
“No: it is I.”
“You?”
“Lovelace lent me his ticket.”
“Thinking he himself would escape?”
“I don’t know what he thought. I am not in Lovelace’s confidence.”
“Sit down by my side!” she commanded.
I dropped to the ground and lay down; my lips closed on hers; she rested in my arms. Neither of us spoke; nor did we move. For some minutes we had remained thus, when I began to experience a sensation of vague discomfort which rapidly changed to one of fear. Something inimical and powerful emanated from her body to mine. I withdrew my lips and she sought them with hers. I slackened my arms and hers tightened about me.
“Let me go!” I exclaimed. “What are you? For God’s sake, let me go!”
Brutally I tore her arms away and flung her from me as a man would fling away a snake that had coiled round him in his sleep. She sighed deeply and moaned.
“Pray do not leave me. I am ill.”
But I walked rapidly away, unheeding. In an instant she was with me, soft-footed, eager-eyed. She watched me as a panther watches its prey. Her mouth smiled with mysterious knowledge, and her intuitive elflike hands were spread out before her. In my terror I imagined I could feel evil oozing from her pores.
“Stay with me! Love me!” she said in a voice of most treacherous music.
I turned upon her with arms upraised and fists clenched, threatening her, but she sank all shuddering upon my breast.
It was then that I was overcome by panic fear. Tearing her from me, I ran to the entrance-gate, rushed down the pathway and on to the road, and escaped to the hotel. Then I sought Lovelace.
“Here is your pass,” I said.
“Ah, you have escaped! She was there?”
“It was an ‘escape’ then?” I asked. “She reallyisevil?”
“She is very much to be feared,” he said.
That night I slept not at all. I did not wish to sleep: I was afraid to surrender myself to the Unknown. I kept my light burning and, to pass thetime, ruled many sheets of paper with the bass and treble clefs, and began to write down Beethoven’s “Sonate Pathétique” from memory. Strange how this noble music seemed to decay as it passed through my mind! Strange how the familiar melodies were tinged with wickedness!...
Night passed and dawn came early. At seven o’clock I rang my bell and when the chambermaid appeared I ordered my breakfast.
“Will Monsieur have it in his room?”
“No” said I. “I will have it downstairs in half an hour. Please have my bill made out ready for me.”
The dining-room was deserted as I sat down. A waiter came.
“Where is Lovelace?” I asked.
The man hesitated a moment.
“Where is Lovelace?” I asked again; “I wish to see him before I leave.”
“Lovelace, sir? Monsieur will not betray my confidence?”
“No, no. What is it? What has happened?”
“We have orders not to speak of it. But Lovelace was found dead in his bedroom an hour ago. He has shot himself.”