CHAPTER LXXXVI
Wherein our Hero, and Another, go Home
Thesunlight that had painted the white face of Paris with a hundred hues all day had given place to a gentle drizzle as the twilight fell; and the steady downpour had driven Noll into a restaurant which he was not in the habit of frequenting; it had kept him there in its bright rooms until he knew every face and every trick of gesture of the people who sat about him.
The night was well advanced when he sallied out into the light rain; turning up his collar, he strode homewards.
He paid small heed to the rain; and as he turned out of the well-washed street into the courtyard where he had his lodging, and climbed the stairs to his room, he scarcely noticed that he was wet.
The rustle of women’s petticoats was in his ears, and when he walked abroad in these days he was aglow with the sense of the warm regard of women’s eyes, that glanced upon him from the dark shadows of rakish hats; the walk and movement of women found a rhythmic echo in his thinking. The warmth of the coming summer was in his blood. His instincts were jigging to the dancing measure of the season.
As he flung off his wet clothes he was seized with a whim to go to the tavern ofThe Golden Sun; and he decided to humour the whim.
He lit a candle and flipped through a book until it was close on midnight. But he was restless—and he arose eagerly when it was time to go....
As Noll, reaching the bottom step, fumbled at the door that led into the tavern ofThe Golden Sun, a young woman in black came languidly down the stairs, and he held the door open for her to pass in.
The light fell on the delicate features of Madelaine. She smiled with pleasure, seeing him.
They entered and stood together—a song was being sung—and as the last chords were struck, she slipped her hand within his arm; and he left it there. She shared the cordial greeting that Noll received from the faded poets and frequenters of the place. Shewas very beautiful—but her face pathetically pale. Noll noticed a dizzy tendency to cling to his arm, as though she feared to fall. He found a table, and made her sit down beside him.
“Madelaine,” said he—“you look as if you wanted food.”
She sighed sadly:
“Ah, yes—for years,” she said.
He called for a drink and some biscuits for her; and whilst they were being brought, he asked her:
“What became of you, Madelaine—after the old widow Snacheur was killed?”
She sighed sadly:
“I went to work in a millinery shop.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “They starved me too,” she said—“just like the widow Snacheur. So——”
She slipped her hand through his arm, laid her head against his shoulder, and smiled:
“But do not let us think of these things—it is so warm here.”
The touch of the affectionate hands, the childlike caress of the girl, the confidence and the clinging of her warm body to him, thrilled him. She was in all the fresh beauty of her young womanhood; and the simple black gown, threadbare and worn as it was, only enhanced the beauty of her skin and pronounced the delicacy of her colour and the richness of her splendid hair.
The girl increased the restlessness that had possessed the youth all day. She brought to him the sweet whiteness and the subtle grace of Betty—filled his senses with the atmosphere of the handsome girl who had filled all his dreams from boyhood. It brought to him the most importunate craving of man, the love of woman.
Noll sat brooding for awhile. Yet even in the vigorous lust of life that held his young years, even as he sat there in the thrill of his sweetest memories, he vaguely felt the gentle presence of these simple faded artistic folk about him; and he realized how indelibly the word Failure was written across them all. The coats were, if anything, more faded; the shoes more worn; the eyes alone lit up with the wonted glow of delight in art. A little praise was their rich barmecidal feast.
The greybeards, and the youths, and those between, they were all still hoping to create the masterpiece—there was not, amongst them all, energy enough to create more than the delicate measure of a gust of chamber-music.
A burst of applause followed the recital of a poem.
Noll roused with a start:
“Come, Madelaine,” said he—“this heavy air is making you faint. Come with me and we’ll have some supper.”
She gathered her skirts with wonted grace of gesture and took his arm; and they made their way out of the room almost unnoticed.
As the doors closed on them, she turned in the dim ill-lit passage, drew down his face to her between her two hands, and kissed him.
She clung to him:
“Thou must give me a bed too,” she whispered hoarsely; “I have no bed.”
She was trembling.
“You are tired, Madelaine,” he said.
She nodded:
“I have had no sleep for three nights.”
“What have you been doing?” he asked.
“I walked about the streets,” she answered simply.
“Come,” he said, “we must first sup.”
She gathered up her skirts, and slipped her hand through his arm. They climbed up to the courtyard, and so into the street, and out into the night.
Madelaine sat on the side of the bed and undressed.
It was a sadly simple undressing.
She was languid with sleep.
Noll went and looked out of the window, where Paris lay below him, blinking her thousand eyes....
He roused and went to the bed.
The dark head on the pillow lay very still. The girl was fast asleep.
Noll went back to the window—it was the window from which Horace had gazed down upon the world the night before Noll and Betty had come to Paris.
And as Noll so stood, his brows hard knit upon the problems of his life, the night slowly passed.
The rustle of a woman’s skirt had been in his ears all day—in his blood. This girl had brought back to him, of a sudden, the fragrance of his marriage.
And this beautiful winsome girl—what was to be the end?
The very question sobered him.
Suddenly it was as though he had left the din of the noisy thoroughfare of life and had entered the majestic silence of a mighty cathedral; and from the great mysterious deeps a whisper came to his ears, each syllable roundly phrased, clear, unhesitating, a chapter of this strange book of life that he had so lately read—the book that had fired his blood and aroused his energy. The breath of these pages seemed to give him decision and free air, where before he had been drifting aimlessly, going he knew not whither, caring not overmuch. This book had braced him—it was a call to battle. He had had enough of beds of roses and daffodils and idyllic trances. The phrasing ofThe Masterfolkcame to him now:
“Nature has ordered that certain things shall be; and to him who disobeys her ordering she is cruelly merciless. She has decreed that he shall be most dominant, shall breed the fittest race, shall know the fullest life, shall achieve the highest destiny, who abides by the woman he loves. And him who is unclean she flings upon the dunghill—him and his seed for ever. Of the love of man for woman, Nature has spoken with no uncertain voice; and Nature’s judgment is final. He that fears to love a woman setshimself against the supreme law of life; he ends in unnatural vice; he is against the design of life; celibacy Nature will none of—for celibacy stultifies life and ends the race. Promiscuous love she condemns utterly and punishes heavily with loathsome disease and with foul decay; the races of promiscuous love are become of the scum of the earth, and are dying out. Against the love of many women also, once and for all, she has spoken. The peoples of many wives Nature is sweeping into the waste corners of the world. Nature is her own jury—Nature alone her own judge. She hath not said the Masterfolk cannot break from her ordering, but that they shall not. On every breach of her vigorous laws Nature waits with weaponed hand. At the elbow of every vice stands foul-breathed disease.
There is no sin in the love of man and woman. The woman has committed no sin in loving—she has but accepted the overwhelming urging of life. It is her chiefest glory. Man has committed no sin in loving; his life has ordered it; and the Masterfolk obey life. It is his chiefest glory. Who so glum a dullard but smiles to see lovers meeting! But he sins foully who is guilty of the repudiation—foully against the woman, criminally against his race, blasphemously against his godhood, and damnably against his manhood. Such are not of the Masterfolk.
They of the inferior manhood, lacking in the force of character necessary to the full acceptance of the duties of the Masterfolk in love, have not the virile force to abide by a woman of the Masterfolk; and these come out when the lamps are lit and there are shadows in the land, and skulk about the by-lanes, and commit mean adulteries with frail women, and have the habit of repudiating debt. Such cannot breed the Masterfolk. They shall not. For these cower from the strengthening risks that dog a strenuous life; they would have the delight of marriage without the courage....”
Noll opened the window.
There came from the street below the hoarse cry of a prostitute.
He went into the room, lit a candle, and sat down at his desk. Everything in the place whispered of Betty this night.
He wrote a letter:
“Dear Madelaine,I am called home.I leave my rooms and all in them to your care, knowing that they will be in good hands. I leave you also all the money I can spare, to keep you in decency and comfort until I return.I shall send, early in the day, for the large leather bag which you will find labelled and ready by the door.Noll.”
“Dear Madelaine,
I am called home.
I leave my rooms and all in them to your care, knowing that they will be in good hands. I leave you also all the money I can spare, to keep you in decency and comfort until I return.
I shall send, early in the day, for the large leather bag which you will find labelled and ready by the door.
Noll.”
And when he had sealed this letter he wrote another:
“Dear Babette,I hear that you arrived in Paris with Horace yesterday. By the time you get this letter I shall have left my house in theclouds. Last night I found Madelaine atThe Golden Sun. She was without home, without means, except the sweating pay of mean industries on which no honest woman can live; she was without a bed. But her blood is dancing with life—not with a desire to cower in sweating-dens. She was drifting. I gave her all these things that I might, last night—and she is now asleep here.Come to her as soon as you get this, and let her feel that she is not alone. She will babble all her news to you—it will be better for her than babbling it to me.Tell Horace not to go back to the haunts of his youth. The wine is not nearly so good as we thought it. The illusion is the sweet thing. Don’t break the butterfly.Tell him also that both of you have much of my heart.Yours,Noll.P.S.—I am tired of myself. I am off to find Betty.”
“Dear Babette,
I hear that you arrived in Paris with Horace yesterday. By the time you get this letter I shall have left my house in theclouds. Last night I found Madelaine atThe Golden Sun. She was without home, without means, except the sweating pay of mean industries on which no honest woman can live; she was without a bed. But her blood is dancing with life—not with a desire to cower in sweating-dens. She was drifting. I gave her all these things that I might, last night—and she is now asleep here.
Come to her as soon as you get this, and let her feel that she is not alone. She will babble all her news to you—it will be better for her than babbling it to me.
Tell Horace not to go back to the haunts of his youth. The wine is not nearly so good as we thought it. The illusion is the sweet thing. Don’t break the butterfly.
Tell him also that both of you have much of my heart.
Yours,Noll.
P.S.—I am tired of myself. I am off to find Betty.”
Noll sealed the letter and wrote a third—to the concierge:
“Madame,I am called away to England. Mademoiselle Madelaine Le Trouvé has been good enough to take charge of the rooms until madame and myself return. Pray give the enclosed to your little ones ‘from the Englishman who knows how to laugh.’Agréez, etc.,Oliver Baddlesmere.”
“Madame,
I am called away to England. Mademoiselle Madelaine Le Trouvé has been good enough to take charge of the rooms until madame and myself return. Pray give the enclosed to your little ones ‘from the Englishman who knows how to laugh.’
Agréez, etc.,Oliver Baddlesmere.”
He stole to where Madelaine slept, and on the chair by her bed he put her letter and some banknotes.
He collected clothes from about the room, packed them into his large leather kit-bag, and carried it to where the candle gave light. From the walls he took down the portraits of Betty and one or two trinkets, and very carefully wrapped them up. They too went into the bag.
He was near singing more than once. The place was astir with the sound of Betty’s skirts, the echo of her gaiety, the sound of her light footstep. The air was sweet with the breath of her uncomplaining good-nature.
He shut up the bag, tied a label upon it, put on his cloak and hat, blew out the candle, and softly let himself out of the room.
In the darkness Noll stood upon the bridge at the end of the Boule Miche, the pleasant highway of youth. But he now knew no indecisions.
He realized that his mere intellect had led him into the veriest pedantries—had nearly led him into irretrievable blunders. He saw that man’s highest was rooted in the body, that heaven was no fantastic dream, but here and now for the winning on this healthybrown earth. He had been letting it slip by him, whilst he dreamed of pasteboard nothingnesses.
He realized that the emotion felt was nearer to the centre of life than all thought. He cast from him the devil of mere intellect, and it went out of him demurely into the darkness, like some poor thin-souled nun, who crushes down into barrenness the splendid emotions of the life within her which are her very godhood, in fantastic hope to win an eternity of vague bliss, she who by the very act shows her inability to enjoy bliss—for, heaven and hell and all the eternities shall yield her no such bliss as the dear human loves may do—the æons of immortality shall never bring her the delight that she might know in an hour of a lover’s embrace or the dear touch of a nestling child at her lean breasts.
As the awakened youth stood there, the black night passed over the edge of the populous city, and its smoky shadow slowly followed it. The lights of the lamps paled in the dawn; the stars went out; and out of the daffodil east the day came up—and there was light in the world.
Before the day was well begun, Noll went home.
******
In the still grey dawn, in dripping drizzle, Gavroche the anarchist slouched forth from prison-cell to his harsh doom.
He was dejected.
He missed the band, the public eye, the shouts of the comrades.
What, Gavroche! this is thy dramatic moment—thou hast the stage all to thy sole swaggering self—and though thou roused at daybreak from thy broodings to lilt a braggart song with all thy best intent to play the reckless swashbuckler, the florid eager pressman can only report that thou didst sing “somewhat palsily.”
Tush, man! Is it thus thou goest to thy end? Hath thy desire to be Ruthless Overman brought only this about—that thou art to become no better than manure? Where is now thy dream of Ruthless Overman? Nay, what avails at all now thy Overmanhood, Gavroche? does not thy neck feel rather with unpleasant shiver of discomfort the overlordship of the Commonweal? The aristocrat despised it yesterday, and thou to-day. Hast thou, even thus late, a glimmering that thy vaunted Ruthless Brutality is to be snipped by the might of this Commonweal, thy unspeakable windpipe slit at a stroke of the ordered shear that falls on the bidding of that overwhelming force which is the public good—thepower of that sneered-at race that is to thy silly little individual hand’s strength as the might of the sea to the spite of some flab stinging medusa!
Yet, if the insignificance of thy little petty self irk thy conceit at this moment, what of the scented, gloved, and dandified gentlemen who write the anarchic words that have led thy conceit to seek some shabby fame in flinging a bomb amongst innocent people! What of them whose lyric pens have pointed the way to the Uselessness of the old and sick and far-too-many and superfluous ones! What of them that go scot-free—whose philosophies led thee to kill the old miser-woman and to slay the drunken carter to thine own Egoism’s enrichment? Tsh! thou wert but a tool after all, thou with all thy strange gabble of Ruthless Overman, putting to the touch of practice what the gloved gentlemen were content to prate of—Might being Right and the rest.
Well, thou goest to thy dunghill alone—they to their social triumphs. And, when all’s said, the aristocratic ideal has brought rich harvests as well as the shearing of necks to its idolaters—and they have had their emotional moments in intervals of starving the race and filching from the poor and from the widow and the fatherless.
Nay, doth not Europe, bereft of protestations, bow, hat in hand, to the Almanach de Gotha? And the fine gentry therein, weak-knee’d and inbred and ridiculous, do they not claim divine rights and special places reserved in church and the tribute of the Formalities all set and square to their comical little greatnesses? And multitude of lackeys!... Gods! are they not even Envied!
Verily, Gavroche, thou hast been lacking in the diplomacies. It is that which has been thy chief offence against thyself. These others bray as loudly—but the accent is more tuneful.
So, the same dawn, the self-same lamp of day, sees us all going each on our so different way.