“‘Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau,Dans un séjour plus beauElles sont heureuses.Elles sont près des angesAu fond du ciel bleu,Où elles chantent les louangesDe la Mère de Dieu.’
“‘Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau,Dans un séjour plus beauElles sont heureuses.Elles sont près des angesAu fond du ciel bleu,Où elles chantent les louangesDe la Mère de Dieu.’
“‘Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau,Dans un séjour plus beauElles sont heureuses.Elles sont près des angesAu fond du ciel bleu,Où elles chantent les louangesDe la Mère de Dieu.’
“‘Où sont nos amoureuses?
Elles sont au tombeau,
Dans un séjour plus beau
Elles sont heureuses.
Elles sont près des anges
Au fond du ciel bleu,
Où elles chantent les louanges
De la Mère de Dieu.’
“It touched my very soul, and for a minute I hated you. Ah, how much beauty of feeling streams from human hearts, and finds no vessel to receive it!”
Suddenly she arose, and said with a burning glance: “Fyodor Szilaghin is here.”
Christian went to the window. “It is raining,” he said.
Thereupon Eva left the room, singing with a sob in her throat:
“Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau.”
“Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau.”
“Où sont nos amoureuses?Elles sont au tombeau.”
“Où sont nos amoureuses?
Elles sont au tombeau.”
That evening they were walking down the beach. “I met Mlle. Gamaleja,” Eva told him. “Fyodor Szilaghin introduced her to me. She is a Tartar and his mistress. Her beauty is like that of a venomous serpent, and as strange as the landscape of a wild dream. There was a silent challenge in her attitude tome, and a silent combat arose between us. We talked about the diary of Marie Bashkirtseff. She said that such creatures should be strangled at birth. But I see from your expression, dear man, that you have never heard of Marie Bashkirtseff. Well, she was one of those women who are born a century before their time and wither away like flowers in February.”
Christian did not answer. He could not help thinking of the faces of the dead fishermen which he had seen the night before.
“Mlle. Gamaleja was in London recently and brought me a message from the Grand Duke,” Eva continued; “he’ll be here in another week.”
Christian was still silent. Twelve women and nineteen children had stood about the dead men. They had all been scantily clad and absorbed in their icy grief.
They walked up the beach and moved farther away from the tumult of the waves. Eva said: “Why don’t you laugh? Have you forgotten how?” The question was like a cry.
Christian said nothing. “To-morrow,” she remarked swiftly, and caught her veil which was fluttering in the breeze, “to-morrow there’s a village fair at Dudzeele. Come with me to Dudzeele. Pulcinello will be there. We will laugh, Christian, laugh!”
“Last night there was a storm here,” Christian began at last. “You know that, for we were long among the dunes up there. Toward morning I walked toward the beach again, because I couldn’t sleep. Just as I arrived they were carrying away the bloated corpses of the fishermen. Three boats went to pieces during the night; it was quite near Molo, but there was no chance for help. They carried seven men away to the morgue. Some people, all humble folk, went along, and so did I. There in that death chamber a single lantern was burning, and when they put down the drenched bodies, puddles gathered on the floor. Coats had been spread over the faces of the dead men; and of the women I saw but a single one shed tears. She was as ugly as a rotten tree-trunk; but when she wept allher ugliness was gone. Why should I laugh, Eva? Why should I laugh? I must think of the fishermen who earn their bread day after day out on the sea. Why should I laugh? And why to-day?”
With both hands Eva pressed her veil against her cheeks.
In that tone of his, which was never rudely emphatic, Christian continued: “Yesterday at the bar Wiguniewski and Botho Thüngen showed me a man of about fifty, a former star at the opera, who had been famous and made money in his day. The day before he had broken down on the street—from starvation. But in his pocket, they found twenty francs. When he was asked why, having the money, he had not satisfied his hunger, he answered that the money was an advance given him toward travelling expenses. He had been engaged to sing at a cabaret in Havre. It had taken him months to find this employment. But the fare to Havre is thirty-five francs, and for six days he had made frantic efforts to scrape together the additional fifteen francs. He had resisted every temptation to touch the twenty francs, for he knew that if he took but a single centime his life would be finally wrecked. But on this day the date of the beginning of his engagement had lapsed, and he returned the twenty francs to the agent. They pointed this man out to me. Leaning on his arms, he sat before an empty cup. I meant to sit down by him, but he went away. Why should I laugh, Eva, when there are such things to think about? Don’t ask me to-day of all days that I should laugh.”
Eva said nothing. But when they were at home, she flung herself in his arms, as though beside herself, and said: “I must kiss you.”
And she kissed him and bit his lip so hard that drops of blood appeared.
“Go now,” she said with a commanding gesture, “go! But don’t forget that to-morrow we shall visit the fair at Dudzeele.”
They drove to the fair and made their way through the crowds to the little puppet-show. The benches were filled with children; the grown people stood in a semi-circle. From the harbour floated the odours of machine oil, leather, and salt herring; in the air resounded the discords of all kinds of music and of the criers’ voices.
Christian made a path for Eva; half-surprised and half-morosely the people yielded. Eva followed the play with cheerful intensity. She had loved such scenes from childhood, and now they brought back to her with a poignant and melancholy glow the years of her obscure wanderings.
The Pulcinello, who played the rôle of an outwitted cheat, was forced to confess that no cunning could withstand the magic of the good fairies. His simplicity was too obvious, and his downfall too well deserved to awaken compassion. The rain of blows which were his final portion constituted a satisfying victory of good morals.
Eva applauded, and was as delighted as a child. “Doesn’t it make you laugh, Christian?” she asked.
And Christian laughed, not at the follies of the rogue, but because Eva’s laughter was so infectious.
When the curtain had fallen upon the tiny stage, they followed the stream of people from one amusement to another. A little line of followers was formed in their wake; a whispering passed from mouth to mouth and each pointed out Eva to the other. Several young girls seemed especially stubborn in their desire to follow the exquisitely dressed lady. Eva wore a hat adorned with small roses and a cloak of silk as blue as the sea in sunshine.
One of the maidens had gathered a bunch of lilacs, and in front of an inn she gave the flowers to Eva with a dainty courtesy. Eva thanked her, and held the flowers to her face. Five or six of the girls formed a circle about her, and tookeach others’ hands and danced and trilled a melody of wild delight.
“Now I am caught,” Eva cried merrily to Christian, who had remained outside of the circle and had to endure the mocking glances of the girls.
“Yes, now you are caught,” he answered, and sought to put himself in tune with the mood of the merrymakers.
On the steps of the inn stood a drunken fellow, who watched the scene before him with inexplicable fury. First he exhausted himself in wild abuse, and when no one took notice of him, he seemed overcome by a sort of madness. He picked up a stone from the ground, and hurled it at the group. The girls cried out and dodged. The stone, as large as a man’s fist, narrowly missed the arm of the girl who had presented the flowers, and in its fall hit both of Eva’s feet.
She grew pale and compressed her lips. Several men rushed up to the drunken brute, who staggered into the inn. Christian had also run in that direction; but he turned back, thinking it more important to take care of Eva. The girls surrounded her, sympathized and questioned.
“Can you walk?” he asked. She said yes with a determined little air, but limped when she tried. He caught her up in his arms, and carried her to the car, which was waiting nearby. The girls followed and waved farewell with their kerchiefs. Hoarse cries sounded from the inn.
“Pulcinello grew quite mad,” Eva said. She smiled and suppressed all signs of pain. “It is nothing, darling,” she whispered after a while, “it will pass. Don’t be alarmed.” They drove with racing speed.
Half an hour later she was resting in an armchair in the villa. Christian was kneeling before her, and held her naked feet in his hands.
Susan had been quite terror stricken, when she had whisked off her mistress’s shoes and stockings, and saw to her horror the red bruises made by the stone. She had stammered outcontradictory counsels, had summoned the servants, and excitedly cried out for a physician. At last Eva had asked her to be quiet and to leave the room.
“The pain’s almost gone,” said Eva, and nestled her little feet luxuriously into Christian’s cool hands. A maid brought in a ewer of water and linen cloths for cold bandages.
Christian held and regarded those two naked feet, exquisite organs that were comparable to the hands of a great painter or to the wings of a bird that soars far and high. And while he was taking delight in their form, the clearly defined net of muscles, the lyrical loveliness of the curves, the rosy toes with their translucent nails, an inner monitor arose in him and seemed to say: “You are kneeling, Christian, you are kneeling.” Silently, and not without a certain consternation, he had whispered back: “Yes, I am kneeling, and why should I not?” His eyes met Eva’s, and the gleam of delight in hers heightened his inner discomfort.
Eva said: “Your hands are dear physicians, and it is wonderful to have you kneel before me, sweet friend.”
“What is there wonderful about it?” Christian asked hesitantly.
The twilight had fallen. Through the gently waving curtains the evening star shone in.
Eva shook her head. “I love it. That’s all.” Her hair fell open and rippled down her shoulders. “I love it,” she repeated, and laid her hands on his head, pressing it toward her knees. “I love it.”
“But you are kneeling!” Christian heard that voice again. And suddenly he saw a water jug with a broken handle, and a crooked window rimmed with snow, and a single boot crusted with mud, and a rope dangling from a beam, and an oil lamp with a sooty chimney. He saw these lowly, poverty-stricken things.
“Have you kneeled to many as though you adored them?” Eva asked.
He did not answer, but her naked feet grew heavy in his hands. The sensuous perception which they communicated to him through their warmth, their smoothness, their instinctive flexibility vanished suddenly, and gave way to a feeling in which fear and shame and mournfulness were blended. These human organs, these dancing feet, these limbs of the woman he loved, these rarest and most precious things on earth seemed suddenly ugly and repulsive to him, and those lowly and poverty-stricken objects—the jug with the broken handle, the crooked window with its rim of snow, the muddy boot, the dangling rope, the sooty lamp, these suddenly seemed to him beautiful and worthy of reverence.
“Tell me, have you kneeled to many?” he heard Eva’s voice, with its almost frightened tenderness. And it seemed to him that Ivan Becker gave answer in his stead and said: “That you kneeled down before her—that was it, and that alone. All else was hateful and bitter; but that you kneeled down beside her—ah, that was it!”
He breathed deeply, with closed eyes, and became pale. And he relived, more closely and truly than ever, that hour of fate. He felt the breath of Becker’s kiss upon his forehead, and understood its meaning. He understood the feverish transformations of an evil conscience that had caused him to identify himself with that jug, that window, that boot and rope and lamp, only to flee, only to gain time. And he understood now that despite his change from form to form, he had well seen and heard the beggar, the woman, Ivan Michailovitch, the sick, half-naked children, but that his whole soul had gathered itself together in the effort to guard himself against them for but a little while, before they would hurl themselves upon him with all their torment, despair, madness, cruelty, like wild dogs upon a piece of meat.
His respite had come to an end. With an expression of haste and firmness at once he arose. “Let me go, Eva,” he said, “send me away. It is better that you send me away thanthat I wrench myself loose, nerve by nerve, inch by inch. I cannot stay with you nor live for you.” Yet in this very moment his love for her gathered within him like a storm of flames, and he would have torn the heart from his breast to have unsaid the irrevocable words.
She sprang up swiftly as an arrow. Then she stood very still, with both hands in her hair.
He walked to the window. He saw the whole space of heaven before him, the evening star and the unresting sea. And he knew that it was all illusion, this great peace, this glittering star, this gently phosphorescent deep, that it was but a garment and a painted curtain by which the soul must not let itself be quieted. Behind it were terror and horror and unfathomable pain. He understood, he understood at last.
He understood those thousands and thousands on the shore of the Thames and their sombre silence. He understood the shipman’s daughter, whose violated body had lain on coarse linen. He understood Adda Castillo and her will to destruction. He understood Jean Cardillac’s melancholy seeking for help, and his sorrow over his wife and child. He understood that ancient rake who cried out behind the gates of his cloister: “What shall I do? My Lord and Saviour, what shall I do?” He understood Dietrich, the deaf and dumb lad who had drowned himself, and Becker’s words concerning his dripping coat, and Franz Lothar’s horror at the intertwined bodies of the Hungarian men and maids, and the panting hunger of Amadeus Voss and his saying concerning the silver cord and the pitcher broken at the fountain. He understood the stony grief of the fishermen’s wives, and the opera singer who had twenty francs in his pocket.
He understood. He understood.
“Christian!” Eva cried out in a tone as though she were peering into the darkness.
“The night has come upon us,” Christian said, and trembled.
“Christian!” she cried.
Suddenly he became aware of Amadeus Voss, who emerged out there from among the dark trees, and who seemed to have awaited him, for he made signs to him at the window. With a hasty good-night Christian left the room.
Eva looked after him and did not move.
A little later, forgetting the ache in her feet, she went into her dressing-room, opened her jewel case, took Ignifer out, and regarded the stone long and with brooding seriousness.
Then she put it into her hair, and went to the mirror—cool in body, pale of face, quiet-eyed. She folded her arms, lost in this vision of herself.
Christian and Amadeus walked across the dam toward Duinbergen.
“I have a confession to make to you, Wahnschaffe,” Amadeus Voss began. “I’ve been gambling, playing roulette, over at Ostende.”
“I’ve heard about it,” said Christian absent-mindedly. “And, of course, you lost?”
“The devil appeared to me,” said Amadeus, in hollow tones.
“How much did you lose?” Christian asked.
“Maybe you think it was some refined modern devil, a hallucination, or a product of the poetic fancy,” Amadeus continued in his breathless and strangely hostile way. “Oh, no, it was a regular, old-fashioned devil with a goat’s beard and great claws. And he spoke to me: ‘Take of their superfluity; clothe your sensitiveness in armour; let them not intimidate you, nor the breath of their insolently beautiful world drive you into the cloudy closets of your torment.’ And with his cunning fingers he guided the little, jumping ball for me. The light of the lamps seemed to cry, the rouge fell from the cheeks of the women, the spittle of poisonous greed ran down the beards of the men. I won, Christian Wahnschaffe, I won! Ten thousand, twelve thousand—I hardly remember how much.The thousand franc notes looked like tatters of a faded flag. There were gleaming halls, stairs, gardens, white tables, champagne coolers, platters of oysters; and I breathed deep and lived and was like a lord. Strange men congratulated me, honoured me with their company, ate with me—experienced people, spick and span and respectable. In the Hotel de la Plage my goat-footed devil finally became transformed into a worthy symbol. He became a spider that had a huge egg between its feet and sucked insatiably.”
“I believe you ought to go to bed and have a long sleep,” said Christian drily. “How much did you lose in the end?”
“I have lost sleep,” Amadeus admitted. “How much I lost? About fourteen thousand. Prince Wiguniewski advanced the money; he thought you’d return it. He’s a very distinguished person, I must say. Not a muscle in his face moves when he’s courteous; nothing betrays the fact that he scents the proletarian in me.”
“I’ll straighten out the affair with him,” said Christian.
“It is not enough, Wahnschaffe,” Amadeus answered, and his voice shook, “it is not enough!”
“Why isn’t it enough?”
“Because I must go on gambling and win the money back. I can’t remain your debtor.”
“You will only increase your indebtedness, Amadeus. But I won’t prevent you, if you’ll make up your mind to name a limit.”
Amadeus laughed hoarsely. “I knew you’d be magnanimous, Christian Wahnschaffe. Plunge the thorn deeper into my wound. Go on!”
“I don’t understand you, Amadeus,” Christian said calmly. “Ask as much money of me as you please. To be sure, I’d prefer to have you ask it for another purpose.”
“How magnanimous again, how magnanimous!” Amadeus jeered. “But suppose that naming a limit is just what I won’t do? Suppose I want to strip off my beggar’s shame and become frankly a robber? Would you cast me off in that case?”
“I don’t know what I should do,” Christian answered. “Perhaps I should try to convince you that you are not acting justly.”
These sober and simple words made a visible impression on Amadeus Voss. He lowered his head and, after a while, he said: “It crushes the heart—that interval between the hopping of the little ball and the decision of the judge. The faded bank notes rustle up, or a round roll of gold is driven up on a shovel. I invented a system. I divided eight letters into groups of three and five. Once I won seventeen hundred with my system, another time three thousand. You mustn’t leave me in the lurch, Wahnschaffe. I have a soul, too. Three and five—that’s my problem. I’ll break the bank. I’ll break the bank thrice—ten times! It is possible, and therefore it can be done. Can three and five withstand a cloudburst of gold? Would Danaë repel Perseus, or would she demand that he bring her first the head of the Gorgon Medusa?”
He fell silent very suddenly. Christian had laid an arm about his shoulder, and this familiar caress was so new and unexpected that Amadeus breathed deep as a child in its sleep. “Think of what has happened, Amadeus,” said Christian. “Do think of the words you said to me: ‘It is possible that you need me; it is certain that without you I am lost.’ Have you forgotten so soon, dear friend?”
Amadeus started. He stood still and grasped Christian’s hands: “For the love of God ... no one has ever spoken to me thus ... no one!”
“You will not forget it then, Amadeus?” Christian said softly.
A weakness overcame Amadeus Voss. He looked about him with unquiet eyes, and saw a low post to which the ships’ hawsers were made fast. He sat down on it, and buried his face in his hands. Then he spoke through his hands: “Lookyou, dear brother, I am a beaten dog; that and nothing else. I feel as though I had leaned too long against a cold, hard, tinted church wall. The chill has remained in my very marrow, and I struggle because I don’t want that feeling to enslave me. Often I think I should like to love a woman. I cannot live without love; and yet I live on without it, day after day. Always without love! The accursed wall is so cold. I cannot and would not and must not live without love. I am only human, and I must know woman’s love, or I shall freeze to death or be turned to stone or utterly destroyed. Yet I am a Christian, and it is hard for a Christian who bears a certain image in his heart to give himself up to woman. Help me to find a woman, brother, I beseech you.”
Christian looked out upon the dark sea. “How can I help him?” he thought, and felt all the coldness of the world and the confusion of mortal things.
While he stood and reflected he heard from afar across the dunes a cry, first dulled by the distance, then nearer and clearer, and then farther away again. It was such a cry as a man might utter, at his utmost need, in the very face of death. Amadeus Voss also lifted his head to listen. They looked at each other.
“We must go,” said Christian.
They hurried in the direction of the cry, but the dunes and the beach were equally desolate. Thrice again they heard the cry in the same fashion, approaching and receding, but their seeking and listening and hurrying were in vain. When they were about to return Voss said: “It was not human. It came from something in nature. It was a spirit cry. Such things happen oftener than men believe. It summons us somewhere. One of us two has received a summons.”
“It may be,” said Christian, smiling. His sense for reality could accept such an interpretation of things only in jest.
On his way to Scotland Crammon stopped over for a day in Frankfort. He informed Christian’s mother of his presence, and she begged him with friendly urgency to come to her.
It was the end of June. They had tea on a balcony wreathed in fresh green. Frau Wahnschaffe had ordered no other callers to be admitted. For a while the conversation trickled along indifferently, and there were long pauses. She wanted Crammon to give her some news of Christian, from whom she had not heard since he had left Christian’s Rest. But first, since Crammon was a confidant and a witness in the suit, it was necessary to mention Judith’s divorce and approaching remarriage to Edgar Lorm, and Frau Wahnschaffe’s pride rebelled at touching on things that could, nevertheless, not be silently passed over.
She sought a starting point in vain. Crammon, outwardly smooth, but really in a malicious and woodenly stubborn mood, recognized her difficulty, but would do nothing to help her.
“Why do you stay at a hotel, Herr von Crammon?” she asked. “We have a right to you and it isn’t nice of you to neglect us.”
“Don’t grudge an old tramp his freedom, dear lady,” Crammon answered, “and anyhow it would give me a heartache to have to leave this magic castle after just a day.”
Frau Wahnschaffe nibbled at a biscuit. “Anything is better than a hotel,” she said. “It’s always a bit depressing, and not least so when it’s most luxurious. And it isn’t really nice. You are next door to quite unknown people. And the noises! But, after all, what distinction in life is there left to-day? It’s no longer in fashion.” She sighed. Now she thought she had found the conversational bridge she needed, and gave herself a jolt. “What do you think of Judith?” she said in a dull, even voice. “A lamentable mistake. I thought her marriageto Imhof far from appropriate and regretted it. But this! I can hardly look my acquaintances in the face. I always feared the child’s inordinate ambitions, her utter lack of restraint. Now she throws herself at the head of an actor. And to add to the painful complications, there is her bizarre renunciation of her fortune. Incomprehensible! There’s some secret behind that, Herr von Crammon. Does she realize clearly what it will mean to live on a more or less limited salary? It’s incomprehensible.”
“You need have no anxiety,” Crammon assured her. “Edgar Lorm has a princely income and is a great artist.”
“Ah, artists!” Frau Wahnschaffe interrupted him, with a touch of impatience and a contemptuous gesture. “That means little. One pays them; occasionally one pays them well. But they are uncertain people, always on the knife’s edge. It’s customary now to make a great deal of them, even in our circles. I’ve never understood that. Judith will have to pay terribly for her folly, and Wahnschaffe and I are suffering a bitter disappointment.” She sighed, and looked at Crammon surreptitiously before she asked with apparent indifference, “Did you hear from Christian recently?”
Crammon said that he had not.
“We have been without news of him for two months,” Frau Wahnschaffe added. Another shy glance at Crammon told her that he could not give her the information she sought. He was not sufficiently master of himself at this moment to conceal the cause of his long and secret sorrow.
A peacock proudly passed the balcony, spread the gleaming magnificence of his feathers in the sunlight, and uttered a repulsive cry.
“I’ve been told that he’s travelling with the son of the forester,” said Crammon, and pulled up his eyebrows so high that his face looked like the gargoyle of a mediæval devil. “Where he has gone to, I can only suppose; but I have no right to express such suppositions. I hope our paths will cross.We parted in perfect friendship. It is possible that we shall find each other again on the same basis.”
“I have heard of the forester’s son,” Frau Wahnschaffe murmured. “It’s strange, after all. Is it a very recent friendship?”
“Yes, most recent. I have no explanation to offer. There’s nothing about a forester’s son that should cause one any anxiety in itself; but one should like to know the character of the attraction.”
“Sometimes hideous thoughts come to me,” said Frau Wahnschaffe softly, and the skin about her nose turned grey. Abruptly she bent forward, and in her usually empty eyes there arose so sombre and frightened a glow, that Crammon suddenly changed his entire opinion of this woman’s real nature.
“Herr von Crammon,” she began, in a hoarse and almost croaking voice, “you are Christian’s friend; at least, you caused me to believe so. Then act the part of a friend. Go to him; I expect it of you; don’t delay.”
“I shall do all that is in my power,” Crammon answered. “It was my intention to look him up in any event. First I’m going to Dumbarton for ten days. Then I shall seek him out. I shall certainly find him, and I don’t believe that there is any ground for real anxiety. I still believe that Christian is under the protection of some special deity; but I admit that it’s just as well to see from time to time whether the angel in question is fulfilling his duties properly.”
“You will write me whatever happens,” Frau Wahnschaffe said, and Crammon gave his promise. She nodded to him when he took his leave. The glow in her eyes had died out, and when she was alone she sank into dull brooding.
Crammon spent the evening with acquaintances in the city. He returned to the hotel late, and sat awhile in the lobby, immovable, unapproachable, nourishing his misanthropy on the aspect of the passersby. Then he examined the little directory on which the names of the guests appeared. “What arethese people doing here?” he asked himself. “How important that looks: ‘Max Ostertag (retired banker) and wife.’ Why Ostertag of all things? Why Max? Why: and wife?”
Embittered he went up to his room. Embittered and world-weary he wandered up and down the long corridor. In front of each door, both to the right and to the left, stood two pairs of boots—one pair of men’s and one pair of women’s. In this pairing of the boots he saw a boastful and shameless exhibitionism of marital intimacies; for the shape and make of the boots assured him of the legal and officially blameless status of their owners. He seemed to see in those boots a morose evidence of overlong, stale unions, a vulgar breadth of tread caused by the weight of money, a commonness of mind, a self-righteous Pharisaism.
He couldn’t resist the foolish temptation of creating confusion among the boots of these Philistines. He looked about carefully, took a pair of men’s boots, and joined them to a pair of women’s boots at another door. And he continued until the original companionship of the boots was utterly destroyed. Then he went to bed with a pleasant sensation, comparable to that of a writer of farces who has succeeded in creating an improbable and scarcely extricable confusion amid the puppets of his plot.
In the morning he was awakened by the noise of violent and angry disputes in the hall. He raised his head, listened with satisfaction, smiled slothfully, stretched himself, yawned, and enjoyed the quarrelling voices as devoutly as though they were music.
When on the day after his nocturnal wandering Christian came to see Eva, he was astonished to find her surrounded by a crowd of Russians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Belgians. Until this day she had withdrawn herself from society entirely, or else had received only at hours previously agreed upon between Christian and herself. This unexpected change suddenly made a mere guest of him, and pushed him from the centre to the circumference of the circle.
The conversation turned on the arrival of Count Maidanoff, and there was a general exchange of speculation, both in regard to the duration and the purpose of his visit. A political setting of the stage had been feigned with conscious hypocrisy. There was to be a visit to the king, and ministerial conferences. He had first stopped at the Hotel Lettoral in Knocke, but had soon moved to the large and magnificent Villa Herzynia, which his favourite and friend, Prince Szilaghin, had rented.
Szilaghin appeared soon after Christian. Wiguniewski, obviously under orders, introduced the two men.
“I’m going to have a few friends with me to-morrow night,” Szilaghin said, with the peculiar courtesy of a great comedian. “I trust you will do me the honour of joining us.” Coldly he examined Christian, whose nerves grew painfully taut under that glance. He bowed and determined not to go.
Eva was in the room that gave on the balcony, and was posing for the sculptress, Beatrix Vanleer. The latter sat with a block of paper and made sketches. Meantime Eva chatted with several gentlemen. She held out her hand for Christian to kiss, and ignored his questioning gaze.
In her cinnamon dress, with her hair high on her head and a diadem of ivory, she seemed extraordinarily strange to him. Her face had the appearance of delicate enamel. About her chin there was a hostile air. Gentle vibrations about the muscles at her temples seemed to portend an inner storm. But these perceptions were fleeting. What Christian felt about her was primarily a paralyzing coldness.
When Mlle. Vanleer had finished for the day, Eva walked up and down talking to a certain young Princess Helfersdorff. She led her to the balcony, which was bathed in the sunlight, and then into her boudoir, where she liked to be when she reador rested from her exercises. Christian followed the two women, and felt, for the first time in his life, that he was being humiliated. But it did not depress him as profoundly as, an hour ago, the mere thought of such an experience would have done.
The Marquis Tavera joined him. Standing on the threshold of the boudoir, they talked of indifferent things. Christian heard Eva tell the young princess that she expected to go to Hamburg within a week. The North German Lloyd was planning a great festivity on the occasion of the launching of a magnificent ship, and she had been asked to dance. “I’m really delighted at the prospect,” she added cheerfully. “I’m little more than a name to most Germans yet. Now they’ll be able to see me and tell me what I amount to and where I belong.”
The young lady looked at the dancer with enthusiasm. Christian thought: “I must speak to her at once.” In every word of Eva’s he felt an arrow of hostility or scorn aimed at him. He left Tavera, and entered the room. The decisiveness of his movement forced Eva to look at him. She smiled in surprise. A scarcely perceptible shrug marked her astonishment and censure.
Tavera had turned to the princess, and when these two moved toward the door, Eva seemed inclined to follow them. A gesture of Christian, which she saw on glancing back, determined her to wait. Christian closed the door, and Eva’s expression of amazement became intense. But he felt that this was but acting. He slipped into a sudden embarrassment, and could find no words.
Eva walked up and down, touching some object here and there. “Well?” she asked, and looked at him coldly.
“This Szilaghin is an insufferable creature,” Christian murmured, with lowered eyes. “I remember I once saw a mani-coloured marine animal in an aquarium. It was very beautiful and also extremely horrible. I couldn’t get rid of its image.I wanted constantly to go back to it, and yet felt constantly an ugly horror of it.”
“O la, la!” said Eva. Nothing else. And in this soft exclamation there was contempt, impatience, and curiosity. Then she stood before him. “I am not fond of being caged,” she said in a hard voice. “I am not fond of being caught and isolated from my guests to be told trivial things. You must forgive me, but it doesn’t interest me what impression Prince Szilaghin makes on you. Or, to be quite truthful, it interests me no longer.”
Christian looked at her dumbly. It seemed to him that he was being chastised, beaten, and he turned very pale. The feeling of humiliation grew like a fever. “He invited me to his house to-morrow,” he stammered, “and I merely wanted to tell you that I’m not going.”
“You must go,” Eva replied swiftly. “I beg of you to go.” Avoiding the astonished question in his eyes, she added: “Maidanoff will be there. I wish you to see him.”
“For what reason?”
“You are to know what I grasp at, what I do, whither I go. Can you read faces? I dare say not. Nevertheless, come!”
“What have you determined on?” he asked, awkwardly and shyly.
She gave her body a little, impatient shake. “Nothing that was not settled long ago,” she answered, with a glassy coolness in her voice. “Did you think that I would drag on our lovely, wild May into a melancholy November? You might have spared us both your frankness of last night. The dream was over no moment sooner for you than for me. You should have known that. And if you did not know it, you should have feigned that knowledge. A gentleman of faultless taste does not throw down his cards while his partner is preparing to make a last bet. You do not deserve the honourable farewell that I gave you. I should have led you about,chained, like those stupid little beasts who are always whining for permission to ruin themselves for my sake. They call this thing their passion. It is a fire like any other; but I would not use it to kindle a lamp, if I needed light to unlace my shoes.”
She had crossed her arms and laughed softly, and moved toward the door.
“You have misunderstood me,” said Christian overwhelmed. “You misunderstand me wholly.” He raised his hands and barred her way. “Do you not understand? If I had words.... But I love you so! I cannot imagine life without you. And yet (how shall I put it into words?) I feel like a man who owes colossal sums and is constantly dunned and tormented, and does not know wherewith to pay nor whom. Do try to understand! I was hasty, foolish. But I thought that you might help me.”
It was the cry of a soul in need. But Eva did not or would not heed it. She had built of her love a soaring arch. She thought it had fallen, and no abyss seemed deep enough for its ruins to be hurled. She had neither ears now nor eyes. She had decided her fate even now; and though it frightened her, to recede was contrary to her pride and her very blood. A sovereign gesture silenced Christian. “Enough!” she said. “Of all the ugly things between two people, nothing is uglier than an explanation that involves the emotions. I have no understanding for hypochondria, and epilogues bore me. As for your creditors, see that you seek them out and pay them. It is troublesome to keep house with unpaid bills.”
She went from the room.
Christian stood very still. Slowly he lowered his head, and hid his face in his hands.
Next day Christian received a telegram from Crammon, in which the latter announced his arrival for the middle of thefollowing week. He gazed meditatively at the slip of paper, and had to reconstruct an image of Crammon from memory, feature by feature. But it escaped him again at once.
At Fyodor Szilaghin’s he found about twenty people. There were eight or ten Russians, including Wiguniewski. Then there were the brothers Maelbeek, young Belgian aristocrats, a French naval captain, Tavera, Bradshaw, the Princess Helfersdorff and her mother (a very common looking person), Beatrix Vanleer, and Sinaide Gamaleja.
Christian arrived a little later than the others, and Szilaghin was half-sitting, half-lying on achaise-longue. A young wolf crouched on his knees, and on the arm of thechaise-longuesat a green parrot. He smiled and excused himself for not arising, pointing to the animals as though they held him fast.
From Wiguniewski’s anecdotes Christian knew of Szilaghin’s fondness for such trickery. At Oxford he had once gone boating alone and at night with an eagle chained to his skiff; at Rome he had once rented a palace, and given a ball to the dregs of the city’s life—beggars, cripples, prostitutes, and pimps. The boastfulness of such things was obvious. But as Christian stood there and saw him with those animals, the impression he received was not only one of frantic high spirits, but also one of despair. A retroactive oppression crept over him.
The lighting of the rooms was strikingly dim and scattered. A thunderstorm was approaching, and the windows were all open on account of the sultry heat; and every flicker of lightning flashed an unexpected brightness into the rooms.
At the invitation of several guests, Sinaide Gamaleja sat down with a lute under a cluster of long-stemmed roses, and began to sing a Russian song. Over her shoulders lay a gold-embroidered shawl, and her hair was held by a band of diamonds. Her figure was fragile. She had broad cheekbones, a wide mouth, and dully-glowing, heavy-lidded eyes.
The greyish-yellow wolf on Szilaghin’s knees raised his head,and blinked sleepily at the singer. The melody had awakened in him a dream of his native steppes. But the parrot stirred too, and, croaking an unintelligible word, he preened himself and displayed the gorgeous plumage of his throat. Szilaghin raised a finger and bade the bird be silent; obediently it hid its beak in the feathers which a breeze lifted. A voluble old Russian kept talking to Szilaghin. The latter overheard him contemptuously, and joined in the singing of the song’s second stanza.
His voice was melodious—a deep, dark baritone. But to Christian there seemed something corrupt in its music, as corrupt as the half-shut, angry, melancholy eyes with their contempt of mankind; as corrupt as the well-chiselled, waxen face, that could pass for eighteen, yet harboured all the experiences of an evil old age; as corrupt as the long, pale, sinuous, nerveless hand or the sweetish, weary, clever smile.
The Maelbeeks, Wiguniewski, the Captain, and Tavera had settled down to a game of baccarat in the adjoining room. In the pauses of the singing, one could hear the click of gold and the tap of the cards on the table. These strange noises excited the parrot; he forgot the command of his master, and uttered a discordant cry. Sinaide Gamaleja threw the animal a furious glance, and for a moment her hand twitched on the strings.
At that moment Szilaghin arose, grasped the bird’s feet with one hand, its head with the other, and twisted the head of the screaming, agonizedly fluttering animal around and around as on an axis. Then he tossed the green, dead thing aside with an expression of disgust, and calmly intoned the third stanza of the song.
A flame of satisfaction appeared in Sinaide Gamaleja’s eyes. The old Russian, who had visited his endless babble on the sculptress, fell suddenly silent. The wolf yawned, and, as though to confirm the fact of his own obedience, snuggled his chin against his master’s arm.
Christian looked down at the dead bird, whose tatteredplumage gleamed in the lightning that flashed across the floor like a fantastic emerald. Suddenly the dead animal became to him the seal and symbol of all the corruption, vanity, unveracity, bedizenment, and danger of all he saw and felt. He looked at Szilaghin, at Sinaide, at the chattering dotard, at the gamesters, and turned away. There was an acridness in his throat and a burning in his eyes. He approached the window. The foliage rustled out there, and the thunder pealed. And the question arose within him: Whence does all this evil come? Whence does it come, and why is it so hard to separate oneself from it?
The night, the rain, and the storm drove him forth, lured him out. He ached to lose himself in the darkness, far from men. He was afraid for the first time in his life that he would shed tears. Never, in all his conscious memory, had he wept. His whole body was shaken by an emotional tumult such as he had never known, and he repressed it only by using his utmost energy. Just as he was about to touch the knob of the door, a lackey opened it, and Maidanoff and Eva appeared on the threshold. Christian stood quite still; but every vestige of colour left his face.
A vivid stir went through the company. Szilaghin jumped up to welcome these two. Maidanoff’s weather-beaten leanness contrasted in a striking and sombre fashion with Eva’s flower-like symmetry of form. She wore a garment diaphanous as breathing; it was held to her shoulders by ropes of pearls. Her skin had a faintly golden glow; her throat and arms and bosom pulsed with life.
The vision absorbed Christian. He stared at her. His name was spoken, with other names that were new to Maidanoff; and still he stared at that unfathomable and fatal image. His heart, in its sudden, monstrous loneliness, turned to ice; he felt both wild and stricken with dumbness; the tension of his soul became unendurable. Curious glances sought him out. He failed to move at the proper moment, and the moan thatarose from the confusion of his utter grief had made a thing of mockery and scorn of him, before he fled past barren walls and stupid lackeys into the open.
The rain came down in torrents. He did not call his car, but walked along the road.
After losing twenty-eight thousand francs, the amount that he had gradually borrowed from Mr. Bradshaw and Prince Wiguniewski, Amadeus Voss got up from the gaming table, and staggered into the open. He had a dim notion that he would seek out Christian, to tell him that he would be able to settle the debt within twenty-four hours.
He went to the telegraph office, and sent a message to Christian. Then he stood beneath a chestnut tree in bloom, and muttered: “Brother, brother.”
A woman came along the road, and he joined her. But suddenly he burst out into wild laughter, turned down a side street, and went on alone.
He walked and walked for six endless hours. At two o’clock in the morning he was in Heyst. His brain seemed to have become an insensitive lump, incapable of light or reason.
Masses of dark grey clouds that floated in the sky assumed to him the aspect of women’s bodies. The clouds, which the hot night drove toward the north, were like cloaks over the forms he desired. He felt an obscure yearning for all the love in all the lands in which he had no part.
At the garden-gate of the villa he stopped and stared up at Christian’s windows. They were open and showed light. “Brother,” he muttered again, “brother!” Christian appeared at the window. The sight of him filled Voss with a sudden, overwhelming hatred. “Take care, Wahnschaffe!” he cried.
Christian left the window, and soon appeared at the gate. Amadeus awaited him with clenched fists. But when Christianapproached, he turned and fled down the street, and Christian looked after him. Then his steps became slower, and Christian followed.
After Voss had wandered about aimlessly for a time, he felt a torturing thirst. He happened to pass a sailors’ tavern, considered for a moment, and entered. He ordered grog, but did not touch the glass. Five or six men sat at various tables. Three slept; the eyes of the others had a drunken stare. The tavern keeper, an obese fellow with a criminal face, sat behind the bar, and watched this elegantly attired guest, whose face was so pale and so disturbed. He concluded that the late comer was in a mood of despair, and beckoned to the bar-maid, a dark-haired, dirty Walloon, to sit down by him.
Impudently she did so, and started to talk. He did not understand her. She gave a coarse laugh, and put a hand on his knee. Behind her thin and ragged bodice her breasts stirred like animals. She had a primitive, animal odour. He turned dizzy. Then a lust to murder stirred in him.
He drew from his pocket all the money he had left. There were seventy francs—three gold and five silver coins. “The magic numbers,” he muttered, and grew a shade paler, “three and five!”
The Walloon woman turned greedy and caressing eyes upon the coins. The tavern keeper, scenting business, dragged his bulk forward.
“Strip off your clothes, and it’s yours!” said Amadeus Voss.
She looked at him stupidly. The tavern keeper understood German and translated the words. She laughed shrilly, and pointed toward the door. Amadeus shook his head. “No; now; here!” He was stubborn. The girl turned to her employer, and the two consulted in whispers. Her gestures made it evident that she cared little for the presence of the drunken or snoring men. She disappeared behind a brown partition that had once been yellow. The tavern keepergathered the money on the table, waddled from window to window to see that the red hangings covered all the panes, and then stood guard at the door.
Amadeus sat there as though steeped in seething water. A few minutes passed. Then the Walloon woman appeared from behind the partition. The sailors looked up. One arose and gesticulated; one uttered a wild laugh. The woman stood with lowered eyes—stubborn, careless, rubbing one foot with the other. She was rather fat, quite without charm, and the lines of her body had been destroyed.
But to Amadeus Voss she was like a supernatural vision, and he gazed upon her as though his whole soul was in that gaze. His arms reached out, and his fingers became claws, and his lips twitched. The fishermen and the tavern keeper no longer saw the woman. They saw him. They felt fear. So unwonted was the sight that they did not observe the opening of the door. The tavern keeper’s whistled warning came too late. Christian, who entered, still saw the naked woman as she hurried toward the partition.
He approached Amadeus. But the latter took no notice of him. He stared spell-bound at the spot where the woman had stood.
Christian laid a hand upon his shoulder. Amadeus roused himself from his absorption, turned slow, questioning eyes upon his friend, and strangely uttered with his quivering lips these words: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”
Then he broke down, his forehead dropped on the table, and a shudder shook his body.
The tavern keeper muttered morosely.
“Come, Amadeus,” said Christian very quietly.
The drunken fishermen and sailors stared.
Amadeus arose, and groped like a blind man for Christian’s hand.
“Come, Amadeus,” Christian repeated, and his voice seemed to make a deep impression on Voss, for he followed him withouthesitation. The tavern keeper and the sailors accompanied them into the street.
The tavern keeper said to the men with him: “Those are what you call gentlemen. Look how they behave! It shows you why the world is ruled so ill.”
“The dawn is breaking,” said one of the fishermen, and pointed to a purple streak in the eastern heaven.
Christian and Amadeus likewise stared at the purple seam of the east, and Amadeus spoke again: “Est Deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.”