Had he been a southerner himself, of course he would have taken the girl and left her at his pleasure, the moment the love-glow faded and the romance grew stale. Her body was his for a kiss, for a smile, at the worst for a traitor promise ora roseleaf he. But he was an Englishman—and perhaps only Englishmen can fully understand why Norman, for all that the thought quivered in his mind, withstood, as we say in our canting phrase, temptation.
For my part, I think the phrases we use, specially in books, are canting enough, and the foreigners rightly scorn us. In no tale sinceTom Joneshave we had an honest Englishman who makes love because it is jolly and because he doesn't care. With what a pompous gravity and false seriousness do we talk, we English men of letters, of a little lovemaking which in France they pass with a jest and a smile. Think how our just and righteous novelists fulminate against the miscreants of their own creation. Think of Becky Sharp and her devilish intrigues, of Seaforth and his vile deceitfulness. For Thackeray, the Irregular Unionist (if so we may style those easy livers) is a scourge of high society: for Dickens, he is an ungodly scoundrel, a scourge of low society; for Thomas Hardy, he is a noble fellow disregarding the shackles of convention; while the late George Meredith invariably punishes the amorous by describing them as intellectual failures. To-day Mr Shaw would consider Lovelace disreputable owing to his lack of interest in social problems, while the pale Nietzscheans would worship him with ecstatic gasps as a monstrous fine blonde beast. Our popular novelists are entirely unaware that such horrible scoundrels exist, and our legislators will shortly pass a law which will enable all offenders against monogamy to be flogged. Their agitation will be called a "revival of the old Puritan spirit," and their law will be applied with rigour to the lower classes. The French, I say, call us filthy hypocrites.
And yet the accusation, if levelled against our race and not only against our writers, is not a true one, however plausible. Wearemore restrained than other races, and that neither because we are less passionate nor because we are more timorous. Our athletic youths are purer—do not merely say they are purer, than the diminutive young men abroad. It is really true there is a special kind of nobility-and generosity in the way our gentlemen treat women. There is something in our race that makes us different from other nations. Call our severe principles a fear of convention, an outworn chivalry, if you like; you have not accounted for all cases; perhaps it is true that an Englishman is more likely than any other European to love a woman deeply enough to be content with her for ever. At all events, it should be remarked how those Englishmen who through education or travel have most tolerance for the sins of others and most opportunity for sinning themselves seldom lose their own traditional scruples. And that is why (to come back to our hero) Norman, who would never have dreamed of blaming Tom Jones for his jolly conduct, and who had read with zeal and appreciation novelists of France who held the most scandalous theories concerning the unimportance of it all, was nevertheless unable to make love to a girl whom he intended to desert. Besides, it struck him, the girl had never yet yielded to a lover. For him the dilemma was clear: he must marry this girl or leave her, and the thought came over him like that
One clear niceCool squirt of water o'er the bust,The right thing to extinguish lust.
Now had he accepted this dilemma bravely, and fled that very hour from the siren presence, he would have had only a flirtation and a few kisses to store up against the hour of remorse. But he fought shy of drastic measures and sought to gain time like a Turkish diplomat. Perhaps, too, he wanted to stay in Alsander yet a little longer to inquire into the mystifications of his tramp guide, and await instructions as to the promised "career of good works." At all events, there is no doubt that as far as the procrastination business went, he found suddenly a great inspiration in the curious parting command which the old poet had given him. He would weave a mystery about himself. He would thus not only obey the fantastic injunction of the poet, but find a most practical means of escape from a perilous position.
He shook himself free of the twining arms, roughly and suddenly, as though he had just remembered something, and paced up and down the room as one lost in thought.
"Why, what is it?" said Peronella. She was always alarmed at seeing a man meditate. Such is the profound instinct of women!
But Norman, intent now on playing his part with thoroughness and efficiency, made no answer, and going over to the window frowned gloomily and began to mutter to himself.
"Tell me what is the matter," cried the girl, running over to him. "Are you ill?"
"Ah!" said Norman. "I wish I could tell you what is the matter. There is more the matter than you know of, dear, and my heart is as heavy as lead."
"Why, what ever has happened?" said the girl, and her face grew longer still.
"Forgive me, Peronella. I should not have spoken."
"You say your heart is heavy as lead. Tell me what is troubling you!"
"Oh! a little secret trouble, that is all."
"What trouble can be secret between you and me?"
"Do not speak of it again, dear. Forget it. I am sorry I hinted that anything was wrong."
"You are not deceiving me, Normano? You do not love an English girl?"
"No, it is not that."
"Then what is it? You must tell me."
Norman sat on the table and put his hands on the girl's shoulders.
"Well, then, who do you suppose I am?" he asked, with a half-smile.
"Why, an Englishman, of course."
"An Englishman. But what Englishman? And why should I come to Alsander and live in Alsander?"
"But why not? Other Englishmen have come to Alsander."
"Yes, but to buy and sell."
This crude artifice was quite enough to trouble the wits of Peronella.
"Itisvery strange," she said, musing, "and Cesano said it was strange, but whoareyou, then, by all the Saints?"
"That I cannot tell you, Peronella."
"Well, what have you come for if not to buy and sell? Besides," added Peronella, passionately, "I love you, and that is enough. What do I care who you are?"
"If your love were deep, perhaps you would care who I was."
The saying of this sentence was the worst thing Norman ever did in his life. His conscience haunted him for years and never let him forget those dozen careless words and their cynical hypocrisy.
Peronella did not understand him, nor attempt to, but blazed out in a fury, "How dare you come and tell lies and pretend to be what you aren't and deceive us all? It's all lies, you don't care for me one bit, and I am a little fool!" cried Peronella, on the brink of tears and truth.
"How have I deceived you?" said Norman, lamely.
"You never told me who you were. You come and pretend to be what you are not. You make love to me, and now I see you want to run away."
"You never-asked me. I am not running away," said Norman, breathlessly, seeing this card-house toppling.
"I ask you now."
"Look here," said the hypocrite. "Listen to me and trust me. No, you know I am not lying to you. Look into my eyes and see. I ask just one thing of you. Wait three months and you shall have an answer and know who I am."
"Don't tell more lies and talk more nonsense, species of brute," said the girl, savagely.
"Ah, Peronella, I wish I were talking nonsense."
And the infernal fellow put on an air of sorrow and nobility.
"Wait three months," he repeated, "and then see if you want to marry me, or dare to want to marry me," he added with magniloquence, thoroughly ashamed of himself but too deep in the mire to get free.
"O, Normano, what do you mean? Shall I kill you or believe you?"
"Wait a little while, dear," he said, bending over her with a not feigned tenderness. "Wait a little while and you shall see."
Steps were heard on the stair.
"Here is Cesano," said Peronella, and forthwith Cesano came in with an ineffable air of being on his best behaviour. Norman took his opportunity and went, and with a bow which his fuming rival took for supercilious generosity bade them both good-night.
In the loneliness of his bedroom he fell on his bed like a penitent child and cursed himself for a mean scoundrel. As for Peronella, the first words she said to Cesano were:
"There is a mystery about my Englishman, I wonder who he is," and thereupon she repeated to him the whole conversation. True, he had not told her to keep the secret, but in any case she could not have kept one. It was to be the first thing Cesano was to tell Petro the cobbler when he saw him later that evening, and the first thing Petro the cobbler told Father Algio when he came in for a cup of coffee towards midnight, and the first thing Father Algio told to all his numerous acquaintance. Norman woke up next morning famous and a mystery, and was stared at in the street even more than before. Peronella was perhaps pleased to pass for the mistress of a mystery, Cesano's hopes revived and all seemed for the best in the best of all possible worlds—for three spacious months to come, at least. So thought Norman.
This impossible story of a mad king and a throne going begging.An anticipated critic.The unfortunate indisposition of the old King of Bavaria....The Prince of Wied is spoken of as a likely candidate for the throne of Albania.The Daily Papers.
There is a King in a Tragedy of Maeterlinck who woefully exclaims, "Wherever I am, nothing happens." But the old fellow was accustomed to uneventfulness; Norman had reason to expect something better of life, and the mysterious words of the old poet had led him to hope for thrills and sensations. The four days succeeding the day of the interview with Peronella, described in the last chapter, drew blanks in the game of his destiny. On the fifth day he was walking moodily about, trying to extract amusement from the inquisitive glances with which a subtly deceived populace already eyed him, when he heard a voice at his shoulder saying in good English, "Keep it up," but though he turned quickly he could see no one in the street who appeared at all guilty of the observation, which might have been ventriloquial.
Another week passed, and the old resolve to leave Alsander again took possession of Norman's mind. Remorse at his hypocrisy, and longings for Peronella, gnawed his heart: while he felt that if he did not speedily retire from the scene startling harm would come of what was really a loveless passion. He decided, however, not to leave her without getting her a present, which he shrewdly (but I think unjustly) suspected would compensate the girl for the loss of a lover. And of course he remembered that the old Poet, whom by now he had almost given up as a fraud, had given special advice in this matter too. Well, he could but follow it, and see if there was anything to be found for Peronella in the little dark shop the Poet had recommended, and which he himself had discovered almost his first day in Alsander. He therefore invited her to come with him and choose herself a present.
When they arrived in front of the little shop it looked more fascinating than ever. It had evidently been rearranged, and seemed to Norman to exhibit more amusing things in its narrow frontage than all the other shops in Alsander set on end. For it contained snuff-boxes, shawls, dirty old silver, tattered bits of embroidery, carved walking sticks, some worm-eaten books, last century oak settees, Turkish zarfs, Hittite cylinders, Chinese saucers full of Greek and Roman coins, real stones and bits of glass, animals in beaten bronze ware from Damascus, very old leather bottles from England, some forged Egyptian antiquities, some very horrible cameos, some rather pretty intaglios, about three quarters of what had been a fine Persian rug, and boxes of things and cases of things and bales of things and trays of things, and all of them finely powdered with a most pestilential dust.
They entered. Peronella, spitting and sneezing without restraint, exclaimed loudly and bitterly (with utter disregard to the feelings of the shopkeeper, a pretty, slender, dark-eyed, young fellow, who seemed quite out of place among his musty surroundings) that there was nothing to be found there andwhathe had dragged her there forshecouldn't imagine when there was that nice new shop where they sold wonders from Ulmreich ever so much nearer home. Norman, undaunted, was preparing to turn the shop upside down to show Peronella what marvels were to be found there if one only knew, when he was surprised to hear the shopkeeper exclaim quietly and rapidly in English, "Send her away, I want to talk to you." Now this was indeed startling, for it was only an accident that had led him to the shop on that particular day. However, at all events, Norman, eager to fathom the mystery, rose to the occasion. Perhaps this was the poet's hand and he had recommended the shop on purpose.
"Look here, Peronella," he said, immediately. "If you don't like the dust (and itisdusty here) why don't you go home without me? I'll stay here and find something. Besides, I would much rather bring you home a surprise."
"But suppose I don't like it," she objected. "You told me I might choose, and I'm sure there is nothing in this dusty, musty rat cupboard of a place."
"I'll arrange that it can be changed. Or I'll get something you do like as well," he added, with ridiculous vainglory, for his hundred pounds were ebbing faster than the sands of time.
"Very well," said Peronella, half convinced and pouting. "If you don't want me, I'll go." And more in pique than compliance she left him alone with the fine young shopman, who was really a remarkably graceful young man, and one who obviously had no doubts as to his own good looks. Indeed he had ostentatiously set them off by wearing the national costume of Alsander—puffed breeches, pleated silk shirt, and a short loose coat with wing-like sleeves, of dark blue gracefully lined with gold. This costume appeared all the more striking to Norman, as he had never seen one before; for it is rarely worn by the Alsandrians except on ceremonial occasions.
"What service can I be to you, sir?" said Norman. Himself a shopkeeper, he knew the value of a gentlemanly treatment, and did not allow his curiosity to get the better either of his self-control or of his manners.
"The question," replied the dealer in antiques, in a very soft and gentle voice, "is not so much what you can do for me as what you can do for yourself."
"And what can I do for myself?" inquired Norman, wondering at the fine but feminine beauty of the young man.
"The question is not really so much what you can do for yourself as what you can do for Alsander."
"The question is," retorted Norman, with some heat, "exactly how long the pantomime season is going to last?"
"The reply in general is for as long as woman gives birth to child: in particular, for as long as the A.A.A. is uncertain of your devotion."
"And what is the A.A.A.?"
"It is," replied the shopman, "the Association for the Advancement of Alsander."
"I am sure that it is an admirable society."
"Like all earthly institutions," observed the dandified young shopman, with a sententiousness ill befitting his years, "it has its defects, but want of precaution is not one of them."
"And where does it meet?"
"Here," said the shopman, briefly.
"And when does it meet?"
"Now," was the reply, followed almost immediately by a clatter and a crash as if all the machinery of a steam-mill had started with a jerk. Norman had just time to see the shutters going down; then he found himself in total darkness.
"What in Hell do you mean by this?" he cried out, thunderstruck: but the shopman gave no answer or other sign of existence, and Norman suddenly realized with dismay that he was alone and a prisoner. For a moment or two he groped and fumbled in the dark. Then he remembered his matches. He found three and lit them one by one. They cast all sorts of curious and flickering shadows from odd-shaped objects like crocodile gods and water-skins; one by one they went out. Norman was only the wiser in as far as the little light had lasted long enough for him to find out that the end of the shop had no exit and that his interloctuor had certainly disappeared, and he therefore spared himself the trouble of stumbling about in the dark for a means of escape. "This is fun," he thought boyishly, and sat down on what he had seen to be a horribly dusty and cracked Chippendale chair to await proceedings. When ten minutes had passed he began to scratch his head; after twenty minutes the room had grown insufferably stifling and the philosophic mood had passed: after half-an-hour he had formulated a scheme in accordance with which he would use the hindquarters of a large brass elephant, probably Indian, which he had noticed faintly glimmering on a shelf, as a battering ram. His idea was that with so heavy an implement he could break a hole in the shutters, which seemed to have closed automatically, or at least by hammering attract the attention of some passers by in the street outside. He was about to act on this ingenious plan and had already grasped the elephant firmly by one leg when his ear was attracted by a noise of heavy breathing from behind the shop, and a fumbling sound which suggested the turning of keys. The next instant a sort of panel-door opened at the back of the shop, flooding the place with a light that made Norman blink, and a butler, who, with his side whiskers, livery and portly presence looked so like a butler that he positively made Norman gasp, said in the most servile and insinuating English, "Wouldyou step this way, sir?"
Norman stepped, hoping that a chance had come at last of discovering the meaning, if any, of what he now felt sure was a superb and intricate joke. He followed the butler-like butler down a bare corridor and was ushered into a large room, which he judged from a symbol AA, which was hung on a bit of cardboard on the wall opposite and was the first thing that struck his eye, could be nothing else than the head-quarters of the Alsander Advancement Association. But the room, which was neither sumptuous nor sordid, but eminently respectable, was a disappointment to Norman, and so were the presumed Associates, to whom the same adjectives were applicable. They were sitting at the end of the room behind a long table for all the world as if they were a board of examiners, and were all dressed in badly-cut frock coats. In front of each was a sheet of clean foolscap, pen, ink, and blotting paper. The young shopman sat in the centre in a slightly more comfortable chair, radiant in his extravagant costume as a parrot among crows; but Norman scanned their faces in vain to find the old Poet whom he naturally expected would be present on this mysterious occasion.
"Take a chair, my man, take a chair," said a wizened little old fellow, with a fussy, irritable voice.
"Certainly," said Norman, not pleased with the style of address, and he seated himself opposite the shopman, where the single unoccupied chair in the room was placed.
"I hear," observed the little old man gain, but in grave and serious tones, "that you are a candidate for the Crown of Alsander."
Les cris ne sont pas des chants.Paul Fort
Norman was about to laugh at this unusual question when he seemed to catch the eyes of the Board of Examiners at once (for he could think of them under no other designation). All the eyes seemed to be looking at him with such peering intentness that he began to believe that they were all unintentional and not intentional lunatics, and therefore dangerous. So he simply bowed. If it is a joke, thought Norman, that will be in keeping; if it is not, it will be expected of me. And he thought himself clever.
"Very good," said the little man, abruptly. "I think, Doctor," he continued, turning to a prominent Hebrew on his left, "that the preliminary examination should be conducted by you in person."
"I will begin at once. Take off your clothes," said the Doctor, addressing the last remark to Norman in a tone of command.
"But really...." began Norman, in expostulation.
"Absolutely necessary, I assure you," continued the Doctor. "For the proper exercise of monarchical functions nothing, not even courtesy, not even common sense, is more important than a sound physical condition. To judge of that condition it is imperative that you should take off your clothes. I may add," he continued, not unkindly, "that considering your general appearance I do not think that you will have much difficulty in satisfying the examiners on that score."
Norman was so puzzled by the evident gravity of the heavy-bearded doctor's speech and demeanour that he began to believe that a certain mad seriousness underlay the whole proceedings. It seemed to him unlikely that a dozen lunatics possessed of a common mania should find such a facility of meeting together in solemn assembly, even in Alsander. The poet, whom he still believed to be the prime instigator of this curious comedy, though eccentric, was no madman. So, having rapidly summed up in his mind the pros and cons of the case, Norman cautiously took off his coat.
However nothing less than complete nudity would satisfy the Doctor, and Norman, with growing reluctance, shed garment upon garment till, in the words of the Eastern poet, "the shining almond came out of his dusky shell," and "the petals of the rose lay strewn? upon the ground." However, at a word from the shopman, who seemed in authority, Norman was permitted to retain as much clothing as would satisfy the by-laws of a very free bathing resort. The Doctor then rose, came round the table, and, seizing hold of the unfortunate, tapped him, pinched him, prodded him, poked him, felt his muscles, sounded his chest, examined his tongue, blew in his ears, slapped his stomach and tried his pulse. All this to the intense aggravation of his victim.
But when the Doctor finally commanded him to rim round the room as he was and climb along the rope that dangled from the ceiling, the boy succumbed to over-mastering indignation.
"I am not going to stand any more damned nonsense from you or anybody else," cried Norman. "This joke has gone quite far enough, and though it may amuse you vastly to make a fool of me I'll knock down the next one of you who tries it on."
The effect of his words was as instantaneous as he could have wished; there could be no mistaking the anger that flashed in the eyes of these curious examiners. Even Norman, in the heat of his excitement, noticed that, though he failed to notice that the youthful President's face (for the young shopkeeper seemed to be President, to judge from his central chair) remained unmoved save for a slight ocular twinkle. It was the President, however, who addressed him: "I am afraid," he said, "that we shall have to ask you to dress and leave us at once."
"I won't leave the room until you apologize to me, and if you don't apologize I'll punch your head." And Norman, all but naked as he was, began to bend up and down a very decent right arm and seemed well capable of executing his threat.
"You should be more patient, sir," observed the President, waving towards Norman his gold-embroidered sleeve with a conciliating smile. "I assure you that it is to your advantage to obey us, and very much to your disadvantage to be rude. I admit that our demands, coming from total strangers, seem both impertinent and extravagant, but I assure you that they are necessary, and I should like to impress you with the earnestness of this apparently inane procedure. The Doctor only desires to see your muscles in motion. I assure you, your body is not a thing of which you need be ashamed. Should you disobey, you will be in serious danger."
"I don't believe you. You dare not touch me. I am an Englishman," retorted Norman, refusing to be conciliated.
"I am afraid," replied the President, ringing a little electric bell which was under his hand, "that we shall have to give you immediate proof of the earnestness of our intentions and our power to cause you a disadvantage."
At once four guards entered the room, whom Norman from their uniform and faces recognized to be the very palace guards who had let him and the supposed beggar pass into the palace the day of their memorable visit. Unfortunately for Norman, they wore no longer the air of benevolent sleepiness which had characterized them on that former occasion; they were obviously wide awake and attentive to command.
"Do you still refuse to perform the exercises demanded of you?" inquired the President.
"Yes," said Norman, stubbornly.
"Haul him up," said the President quietly, but with anger in his eyes.
Norman found his wrists seized before he could make the slightest resistance, and he was swung up on to the back of the tallest of the guards.
"Do you refuse also to apologize?" said the Doctor.
"Yes."
"Let him go away quietly," said the President.
"Why should we hurt him? We cannot expect him to understand us."
"I insist on an apology. I will not leave the room without it," said Norman. "As for you, you soppy little fool...."
His bewilderment rapidly gave place to alarm. He wished he had not been quite so rude to the President, who, after all, had been polite. Still, he hoped he might be simply undergoing some form of Test by Verification, like the legendary Masonic hot poker. At least, I suppose it is legendary. But when from the tail of his eye he beheld from his undignified perch a horsewhip in the hands of one of the guards, he tried to remember the sufferings of his days in the village school at Blaindon, which, after all, were not of such remote antiquity.
He wondered, like the schoolboy, how many? If, that is, he really was to suffer after all.
His apprehensions were confirmed and relieved by the President, who exclaimed in a wickedly gentle voice, "I'm very sorry, but I suppose you must give him a dozen." The maniac examiners were quite capable, he had felt convinced, of beating him to death, and a dozen? Why, a dozen was about the extent of the good old pedagogic punishments, which he had endured stolidly in his time, and many of them.
A new question surged through his mind. What was the brawny guard about to aim at? Was the supreme indignity to be conferred upon him before all these pompous personages to emphasize his unfitness for dignity? Norman hoped so, for to tell the truth, he didn't care a damn about the dignity, but he thought it would hurt less and was more used to it. Meantime he had never felt so cold, and the rough cloth of the guard who was holding his wrists so tightly grated unpleasantly against his naked chest.
His dignity was not damaged. His shoulders were. He discovered his old pedagogue to have been the mildest and most inefficient flagellator in the world. Let us leave him to his punishment and philosophize a little.
Philosophy and the whip? Is there not always some subtle connexion? Has not a whipping always meant for us something more than a whipping? Is it not a symbol? Think of this, youthful reader, if you are still in the happy days of subjection and possibility, and may it comfort you in the hour of trial. The Spartans formed their character, the Romans ruled the world, with whippings. With little whips the Kings of Egypt made the Jews work with their hands—honest manual toil, to which that race no longer much inclines; he built his pyramid and flogged a great nation into life. But the East, the golden East in the golden days—that was the world for whippings. In other climes and other times, whipping has been a symbol of degradation; in murderous Russia it has been, they say it is, something too foul for the philosopher to look at. But when there were Caliphs in Bagdad, then whipping was the joyous symbol of democracy. Are you rich and powerful, the Caliph's friend? Tread delicately on those rich carpets: the day comes when to put foot to the finest Bokhara may be a torment to make you howl. Are you a poor pedlar selling glasses from a tray? Repine not at your barefoot treading of the cobbled lanes: it is all practice for the soles; you shall fare better than your proud neighbour on the day of affliction. Quick! Bow your head: put your hands in the sleeves of your tattered abba. The great Vizier is coming, the Window of Heaven, the Tulip of the Garden of Government, the Sun's Moon, the Vizier. And behind him, O Allah! the blazing luminary of the universe itself! Where shall you hide from those dazzling rays? The Caliph comes. Some insolent retainer has kicked over all your glasses. Your little fortune has gone. No longer will you cry:
"O sunset, O sunrise, O ocean drops my glasses,O emeralds, O rubies, O sapphires, O my glasses!"
Your wife will curse you, your children will starve; your dreams of a little ease are shattered with the shining crystals; your fortune lies with them prostrate in the dirt. You crouch in the doorway. But ho! what is that? The Vizier's horse has shied, he is kicking, he has kicked the Sun of the Universe off his saddle. All that splendour is smirching the bashful mud! Forgetting yourself, you rush to help him; your dirty, horny fingers pick up Perfection, careless of sacrilege. You wait and tremble, for Perfection is himself again. The Vizier is pale. The Monarch gives a sign to the blackest of his black negroes. Down comes the Tulip of the Garden of Government. The Vizierial beard is in the dirt; the Sun's Moon's feet are all in air and looped into a pole: the blows fall, the Tulip howls—and you? The Caliph has embraced you and made you Vizier on the spot. Such is a whipping in the East.
So much, then, for whipping from the point of view of historical geography. It has other aspects—too vast for mention here. The individual aspect, or the whippings inflicted on the famous, on Psyche by Venus, on Aristotle by Phyllis, on St Paul by the Romans, on-Henry Plantagenet by the monks, on Milton by his College, on Voltaire by a lackey, on Shelley by a schoolmaster. We read of the latter that he writhed on the floor not because he was hurt but out of shame. Ethereal Shelley!
Or take the literary aspect. Take the heroes of famous books—what whacks and thwacks they encounter, especially in all books that are an epitome of world life. FromApuleiustoDon Quixote, fromGil BlastoTom Jones,fromCandidetoRichard Feverel, there is no great book without its whipping.
And there are those who say children should not be whipped! They are right, dear youthful reader, they are entirely right. It is we who should be whipped, we adults, we pompous people, we who are so ready to torture the young and who have quite forgotten the bitterness of the torture we inflict. It is we who should be whipped, we who dread the dentist, we whose waistcoats bulge and blossom into gold watch chains. And criminals? O we flog them still, but only the poor, violent, rough fellow who does a bit of straightforward business. It is that fat financier whose juicy back I want to see streaked with red like a rasher of bacon; it is that ape-like vestryman whose yells would be music to my ears; it is, above all, the proprietor of pills that I would strap down to his alliterative and appropriate post, the pillory.
None of the above reflections occurred to Norman. His literary knowledge did not help him. He seemed to have spent whole years being whipped. He felt as if his lungs would burst. But the executioner laid on steadily and evenly, till the victim's back looked like a sheet of music paper. Then he was abruptly let down and writhed for half a minute with rapidly decreasing pain. And about this let the philosopher say one word more. Whipping is not strictly torture. It does not deform. It leaves no ill effects. And therefore many a parent who would shudder to use rack or thumb-screw to our children, think nothing of whipping them. But it need not hurt much less.
Norman, in absolute silence, put on his clothes. The examiners meanwhile filed out of the hall; the young shopman-president alone remained. For a mad moment Norman thought he saw tears in the President's eyes and pity in his face; but his own vision was dim, and certainly it seemed improbable that the brute who had ordered the whipping should be affected thereby to tears. When Norman was dressed the President said, "Follow me, I will let you out." Norman obeyed silently. They went alone together into the little shop. The boy had already begun to plot revenge, and now thought he saw his opportunity. Calculating the moment and the distance, he suddenly sprang like a tiger on the President. His effort was attended by no success. He found himself lying on the floor as swiftly as a skater who has tripped on a stone.
"Do you think I was not prepared?" said the President, smiling, as Norman picked himself up. And somehow, for all that his back was still aching, the charm and beauty of the young man, his soft voice and his insinuating smile, changed Norman's wrath into a sort of shame.
"So that's all I'm to get for coming with you," said Norman, like a rueful schoolboy. "You've forgotten even the present suitable for a lady."
"You're a wonderful person," muttered the President. "It's a pity we had to reject you." And opening a drawer he drew out a very beautiful jewelled clasp.
Norman muttered, "How much?" and felt in his pocket. He knew the receipts of Price's Bon Marché would not have paid for it in fifty years—if the stones were real.
"You have earned it this time," said the President, "and please not to take me for a shopkeeper again," and, opening the door into the street, he waited for Norman to go out. The boy hesitated.
"Tell me, to whom does all this belong?" he asked, voicing questions that troubled his mind. "And where is the Old Poet? And why did he choose me as a subject for his unpleasant jokes?"
"Good evening," said the President, pointedly. "I have nothing further to say to you but this, that if you say one word, one little word, to a soul of what has happened to-night—there are worse things awaiting for you than whipping." And with these ominous words he closed the door and shut Norman out into the street.
"This comes," said Norman, bitterly, "of following the advice of poets!"
Again in the mist and shadow of sleepHe saw his native land.
The hero of this and all our adventures, feeling unheroic and disinclined for further traffic with his fellows, did not proceed to the board of the Widow Prasko, or to the no less hospitable embrace of her lovely daughter, but nursed revenge and a sore back by a walk on the walls. The path along the summit of these old fortifications is broad and smooth: it commands sea, mountains, town and all four corners of the heavens; many lovers, dreamers and successful suicides have passed that way. Yet surely it would need more than the vivid recollection of a sound thrashing to make a man leave such a prospect as that wall affords, especially westward, to the mountains and the setting sun. So Norman walked along the walls and not off them.
How to attain satisfaction? Whom to seek in this dilemma? How to be revenged and not ridiculed? How, above all, to get level with those lunatics without again being stripped and whipped like a schoolboy or enduring a worse thing, according to the strange young President's threat? What was the meaning of it, the sense of it, the clue to this mysterious and painful practical joke? Where, above all, was that ancient scoundrel of a poet and in what disguise, and why was he not present at the scene? Had the old curiosity shop been invented from the very beginning simply to attract him? How could they have known he would take the Poet's hint and look there for the present? How was it they were all prepared for him when he came? And, finally, what was the real value of the handsome buckle which he was to give Peronella? He pulled it out of his pocket: if the stones were real, and they looked it, he judged it to be worth a fabulous sum. For a moment he thought it might all have been a plot of Cesano's to befool him. But common sense soon rejected that theory: so artistic and elaborate a practical joke was far beyond the conception of that thin-brained cavalier. Norman walked twice round the walls in hopeless bewilderment, and longed to find a trusty soul to whom he could impart the whole affair. Then, as for the third time he faced the East, the sun of inspiration blazed full on the fields of his intellect.
Visions of Britain's might awake to protect her humblest subject rolled across his mind; of Dreadnoughts blackening the horizon, of a ten minutes' bombardment, of being hauled from prison by merry bluejackets pouring brandy down his throat, of shaking hands with a clean-shaven Admiral, of a protectorate over Alsander, and the immediate repaving of the roads and reconstruction of the sewers.
Was there no British Consulate in Alsander?
Comforted by a resolve to appeal to the might of Britain, he returned at once to the board of the Widow Prasko and the no less hospitable arms of her charming daughter. They had been quite anxious about him.
"And where is it?" was the girl's first question.
He pulled out the exquisite toy, and Peronella cooed with delight.
"My dear Peronella, it is far, far too good for you," said her mother, beaming with ostensible gratification, and burning to know whether any of the stones could possibly not be paste.
"Did you really find that in that poky little shop?" said Peronella.
"Oh, yes," said Norman. "It is a wonderful place, if you really only knew it."
"And look at that pattern round the border," said the observant widow. "How nicely it's worked, and so small."
"It is indeed," said the boy, examining it for the first time and turning a little pale.
This was the pattern:—\AA/: and it reminded him unpleasantly of the symbol he had seen that afternoon.
However, Norman, strong in his new imperial faith, went to his room, nearly cricked his neck examining the stripes in the mirror to see if they were still there and in good order for exhibition, turned in and slept.
Rising betimes the next morning he set out upon his quest. It was a long one, and the said new-born faith in the omnipotence of the British flag underwent a severe trial during this voyage of exploration, for some people seemed never to have heard of "British" and some never to have heard of "Consulate." Those who understood the meaning of these magic words in general failed to illuminate him in particular. Peronella and her mother belonged to this latter category, and so did most of the people he met in the street. At last he was informed in a draper's shop that it was down in a street off the Palace square. He arrived at the house indicated after a diligent and toilsome search and found it to let and uninhabited. He spent another half-hour scouring the cafes for the caretaker. The caretaker, having been plied with many drinks, directed him to a street off the Cathedral square at the other end of the town. Having arrived there, he discovered the street and the number. He found himself in front of a preposterously tall house in a state of violent ruin, which appeared about to fall on his head. It bore no outward consular sign at first glance, but by standing well back on the opposite side of the narrow street and craning his neck Norman could just discern what might be a coat-of-arms above a window on the top floor. He began the ascent of a staircase which deserved all the epithets usually applied to such staircases. He discovered during the long and intricate ascent that the house, or rather tower, contained a singular variety of inmates. On the ground floor was a shop where an extremely aged man with large spectacles was carefully affixing small bits of gold braid to form one of the gorgeous patterns which adorn the festal dress of Alsandrian beauty. The first floor was devoted to the offices of an insurance company, which Norman hoped had insured its own premises. On the second floor a photographer exhibited the terrifying results of his art. The contents of the third floor were to be judged from a show-case fixed on the wall in which whole mouthfuls of false teeth were symmetrically arranged. But the entrance to the fourth floor was guarded by a portal on which, by the aid of a match, Norman discovered bell-push and the gratifying legend, "British Consulate."
The door opened mechanically. "A very advanced door," thought Norman as he stepped in, "for this locality." He found himself in a small and neat office, at the first glance not remarkable. Afterwards he noticed, to his surprise, that it was full of contrivances, such as wires and switches and taps—something between a railway signal-box and the manager's bureau in a telephone exchange. Its only occupant was a thin man, with ruffled, mud-coloured hair, who was rattling on a typewriter with as much vigour as an amateur pianist thumping the presto of the "Moonlight."
"What do you want?" said the typist-clerk, very rapidly and sharply, in the tone of a vixenish and virtuous housewife accosted by blundering vice in a dark street.
"I should like to see the Consul," replied Norman.
"Why?" said the clerk, clicking on a new line and rattling off again.
"Even the British Consulate has gone mad in Alsander," thought Norman, in despair. "Or does he mean to be rude?"
"I have some urgent private affairs to discuss," he said.
"Passport?" urged the clerk.
"I'm afraid I haven't got one," said Norman.
"Name?" insisted the clerk.
"Price," snapped Norman, thankful it was monosyllabic.
The clerk seized a table telephone with one hand, while he still fumbled the keys with the other.
"Price—private—no passport," he shouted into the vulcanite ear.
"I must have come to the American Consulate by mistake," thought Norman, amazed at this un-British efficiency.
"In!" roared a voice into the telephone.
Norman could clearly hear it; it came from the next room.
The clerk pushed a button, the inner door opened, and Norman found himself in the presence of H.B.M. Consul,[1]Alsander.
The appearance of the Consul and his apartment, although peculiar, was the reverse of terrifying, as Norman was glad to find, after the mechanical horrors of the clerk's abode. In fact, it had hardly the appearance of a office at all. It was true the Consul was sitting at a large desk and wearing a very smart frockcoat, and that on the desk in conspicuous positions were volumes labelled Foreign Office Year Book, Circulars, Trade Reports, Miscellaneous, Shipping, Marriage Register, etc. But the walls of the room; presented a curiously unofficial appearance. They were papered with a thick-looking dull black paper, and ornamented with designs in black and white by Aubrey Beardsley. The carpet was a dull purple, indeed the room was in such harmony (except for the vivid letter-box red of the Foreign Office Year Book) that Norman felt his light-coloured waistcoat and pink cheeks to be unpardonable. The Consul himself was dressed with such a subtle lack of ostentation and was himself of such unostentatious appearance that Norman could not for a whole second discover him at all. At length he made out that the official had long drooping whiskers and was smoking a calabash and writing with his left hand, his right being apparently paralysed.
"Good morning," he said to Norman, in a very cheerful voice, rising to receive him.
"Forgive my left," he continued, cordially, as he extended that member. "A little accident, you know, Bulgarian bomb at Monastir, in the old days before the war. Compensation, you know. Well, then. However, there we are. Sit down. Take a chair. Or fill a pipe."
"I am so sorry to take up your time," said Norman, settling down in an all-black armchair and reaching out for a match.
"My dear sir," said the Consul. "I am delighted to see you. I may tell you I have been Consul in Alsander for two years and this is the first time I have received a visit in my official capacity. Have you"—his voice sunk into an expectative whisper—"have you a passport, signed and in order?"
"I am very much afraid," said Norman, "I neglected to get one."
"That is unfortunate, most unfortunate. But"—here his voice sunk to a guilty whisper "I might give you one. At all events, I assure you I am delighted to see you. Alsander is very slow, very slow, indeed."
"But you must be very busy," hazarded Norman. "I have never seen anyone so busy as your clerk."
"Ah, my dear sir, we must keep up appearances, you know. I let him think that I never have a moment to spare. I may tell you that I have been here two years and have not written an official letter since the day I announced my arrival. Such a change from Pernambuco, my previous post. There I never had a minute!"
"But he's typing like mad," said Norman, surprised, and quite unable to rid himself of the impression of the furious energy which had seemed to him to pervade the outer office.
A faint smile suffused the countenance of the Consul as he explained.
"Oh, I keep him employed, copying scraps of old blue books, you know, and that sort of thing. Might be useful some day."
"You must find life monotonous."
"Ah, yes. Such a change from Pernambuco. No casino, no theatre. The theatre at Pernambuco was delightful. This, you know, is one of our quietest posts. Even Archangel, where I was Vice-Consul twenty-three years ago, was a lot more lively. But I do not complain. The climate is good, the salary tolerable—poli kala, as I learnt to say in Patras."
"You have travelled, sir," said Norman, politely.
"Oh, one knocks about a bit and sees things in the Service. Hallo!"
The last ejaculation was not addressed to Norman, but to the telephone, whose bell was ringing violently.
"Let him wait," said the Consul.
"Perhaps," hazarded Norman, "if you are busy this morning I had better tell my story at once."
"Certainly. But you need not hurry at all. It's only Dr Sforelli come for his game of chess. You know him perhaps? You have heard of him only?... Yes, the report was correct; he is one of the ablest men in Alsander. His father's name was Cohen, by the way."
"Cohen Sforelli?" inquired Norman.
"Just Cohen," said the Consul. "Are you an Anti-Semite?"
"I never thought about it," said Norman, determined that he would begin his tale at all costs. "But I am Anti-Alsandrian at present."
"Been trying to sell something? Hallo, there! Let him wait. Only Olivarbo. You know Count Olivarbo? For an Alsandrian, a man of some ability."
"I hope he has not rung you up on urgent business."
"Oh, dear no. I am teaching him golf. Of course, I am a little handicapped"—he glanced pathetically at his limp member—"but the rules and the style, you know, and so on."
"Well, sir, if you don't mind, my business is rather serious, and I should like to come straight to the point. And to begin with, I should like to ask you whether you have heard of the Alsander Advancement Association."
"Never. Is it a co-operative store?"
"No, it purports to be a secret society, for the object—well, I don't know for what object."
"Of advancing Alsander?"
"I suppose so. But it seems to be really a conspirators' club to play bad practical jokes on innocent strangers. I was entrapped by one of its members."
"This is very interesting, very interesting, indeed. I may have to take a note of this. Hallo. Who's that? My dear Cocasso, I really can't this afternoon. I am being consulted on important business. Look up Cassolis, he plays. My dear sir"—this to Norman—"you were entrapped?"
"I was entrapped. The society sat in state and pretended to examine me for the position of King of Alsander."
"Well, well, why not? I was examined to become Vice-Consul. We must all be examined, you know."
"Yes, but that was not all. I was stripped and mauled about by a fool who pretended to be a doctor."
"Stripped? Dear me! Stripped naked?"
"Yes, but worse was in store for me. Because I demanded an apology for their nonsense, I was beaten."
"Beaten? Dear me! Beaten with a stick? Gracious heavens! Very extraordinary! I must make a note of that. And what would you like me to do?"
"Why, what do you usually do when a British subject is stripped and beaten by a lot of dirty Dagoes?"
"I do not remember such an occurrence; so I have no precedent for dealing with this case. British subjects do not usually expose themselves, you see, to such odd adventures."
"Do understand that it is serious, sir," pursued Norman, whose fury had been gradually mounting in face of this official apathy. "What's the good of being an Englishman if one can't travel unmolested? What's the good of all those Dreadnoughts? What are they wasting coal in the North Sea for? Why don't they come here?"
"I must remind you," said the Consul, severely, "that you have no passport. I cannot possibly send for the Fleet if you have no passport. For all I know you might be Siamese."
"Do I look it?" cried Norman, in dismay.
"Perhaps there are light-haired Siamese mountaineers who have learnt English from Indian friends. 'Quien Sabe?' as we said at Barcelona."
"It is a shame, sir—you are fooling me!" Norman's temper had quite gone.
"Have you only just found that out?" said the Consul, his eyes twinkling.
"I shall write to theTimes," cried Norman, rising from his chair to leave.
"My brother," said the Consul, with a smile, "edits the correspondence columns of that august journal. Of course, he will print your letter. But he will also print"—here the Consul rose and his tone grew severer still—"a note to say that I treated you with all civility although you had no passport and no letter of introduction, and that you deceived me to my certain knowledge by telling half-truths."
"Half-truths!" exclaimed Norman.
"What about the jewelled buckle that was presented to you by the society?"
"Why, I had forgotten about it."
"And—a much more serious matter—what about the injunction to silence which was laid on you by the President?"
"You did not let me finish my story. What do you know about the jewelled buckle? How do you know there was an injunction to silence?"
"That injunction to silence you had better have obeyed, sir. However, you may rely on my discretion. If you insist on demanding reparation, I am bound to state your case before higher authorities, but I warn you you will get none, and you will endanger your life and perhaps mine. The present made to you was an ample reparation for your temporary inconvenience. I will give you a few minutes to consider the matter."
Norman sat down, bewildered. Before he could think of anything the telephone bell rang again.
"Come in," called the Consul. Norman rose politely as the newcomer entered.
"Mr Norman Price. Signor Arnolfo," said the Consul, introducing them.
Norman was about to shake hands, but his hand fell. Signor Arnolfo, a young man in the national costume, was the handsome President himself!