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diff --git a/old/4463.txt b/old/4463.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..080a5b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4463.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2366 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v3, +by George Meredith +#69 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk, +thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information +they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. +To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, +rather than having it all here at the beginning. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: The Tragic Comedians, v3 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4463] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 12, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v3, by Meredith +********This file should be named 4463.txt or 4463.zip******** + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + +A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY + +By George Meredith + +1892 + + + +BOOK 3. + + +CHAPTER XII + +She ran out to the shade of the garden walls to be by herself and in the +air, and she read; and instantly her own letter to the baroness crashed +sentence upon sentence, in retort, springing up with the combative +instinct of a beast, to make discord of the stuff she read, and deride +it. Twice she went over the lines with this defensive accompaniment; +then they laid octopus-limbs on her. The writing struck chill as a +glacier cave. Oh, what an answer to that letter of fervid +respectfulness, of innocent supplication for maternal affection, +for some degree of benignant friendship! + +The baroness coldly stated, that she had arrived in the city to do her +best in assisting to arrange matters which had come to a most unfortunate +and impracticable pass. She alluded to her established friendship for +Alvan, but it was chiefly in the interests of Clotilde that the latter +was requested to perceive the necessity for bringing her relations with +Dr. Alvan to an end in the discreetest manner now possible to the +circumstances. This, the baroness pursued, could only be done by her +intervention, and her friendship for Dr. Alvan had caused her to +undertake the little agreeable office. For which purpose, promising her +an exemption from anything in the nature of tragedy scenes, the baroness +desired Clotilde to call on her the following day between certain +specified hours of the afternoon. + +That was all. + +The girl in her letter to the baroness had constrained herself to write, +and therefore to think, in so beautiful a spirit of ignorant innocence, +that the vileness of an answer thus brutally throwing off the mask of +personal disinterestedness appeared to her both an abominable piece of +cynicism on the part of a scandalous old woman, and an insulting +rejection of the cover of decency proposed to the creature by a daisy- +minded maiden. + +She scribbled a single line in receipt of the letter and signed her +initials. + +'The woman is hateful!' she said to her father; she was ready to agree +with him about the woman and Alvan. She was ashamed to have hoped +anything of the woman, and stamped down her disappointment under a +vehement indignation, that disfigured the man as well. He had put the +matter into the hands of this most detestable of women, to settle it as +she might think best! He and she!--the miserable old thing with her +ancient arts and cajoleries had lured him back! She had him fast again, +in spite of--for who could tell? perhaps by reason of her dirty habits: +she smoked dragoon cigars! All day she was emitting tobacco-smoke; it +was notorious, Clotilde had not to learn it from her father; but now she +saw the filthy rag that standard of female independence was--that +petticoated Unfeminine, fouler than masculine! Alvan preferred the +lichen-draped tree to the sunny flower, it was evident, for never a +letter from Alvan had come to her. She thought in wrath, nothing but the +thoughts of wrath, and ran her wits through every reasonable reflection +like a lighted brand that flings its colour, if not fire, upon +surrounding images. Contempt of the square-jawed withered woman was +too great for Clotilde to have a sensation of her driving jealousy until +painful glimpses of the man made jealousy so sharp that she flew for +refuge to contempt of the pair. That beldam had him back: she had him +fast. Oh! let her keep him! Was he to be regretted who could make that +choice? + +Her father did not let the occasion slip to speak insistingly as the +world opined of Alvan and his baroness. He forced her to swallow the +calumny, and draw away with her family against herself through strong +disgust. + +Out of a state of fire Clotilde passed into solid frigidity. She had +neither a throb nor a passion. Wishing seemed to her senseless as life +was. She could hear without a thrill of her frame that Alvan was in the +city, without a question whether it was true. He had not written, and he +had handed her over to the baroness! She did not ask herself how it was +that she had no letter from him, being afraid to think about it, because, +if a letter had been withheld by her father, it was a part of her +whipping; if none had been written, there was nothing to hope for. Her +recent humiliation condemned him by the voice of her sufferings for his +failure to be giant, eagle, angel, or any of the prodigious things he had +taught her to expect; and as he had thus deceived her, the glorious lover +she had imaged in her mind was put aside with some of the angry disdain +she bestowed upon the woman by whom she had been wounded. He ceased to +be a visioned Alvan, and became an obscurity; her principal sentiment in +relation to him was, that he threatened her peace. But for him she would +never have been taught to hate her parents; she would have enjoyed the +quiet domestic evenings with her people, when Marko sang, and her sisters +knitted, and the betrothed sister wore a look very enviable in the +abstract; she would be seeing a future instead of a black iron gate! But +for him she certainly would never have had, that letter from the +baroness! + +On the morning after the information of Alvan's return, her father, who +deserved credit as a tactician, came to her to say that Alvan had sent to +demand his letters and presents. The demand was unlike what her stunned +heart recollected of Alvan; but a hint that the baroness was behind it, +and that a refusal would bring the baroness down on her with another +piece of insolence, was effective. She dealt out the letters, arranged +the presents, made up the books, pamphlets, trinkets, amulet coins, lock +of black hair, and worn post-marked paper addressed in his hand to +Clotilde von Rudiger, carefully; and half as souvenir, half with the +forlorn yearning of the look of lovers when they break asunder--or of one +of them--she signed inside the packet not 'Clotilde,' but the gentlest +title he had bestowed on her, trusting to the pathos of the word 'child' +to tell him that she was enforced and still true, if he should be +interested in knowing it. Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos +on their side. They are consoled too. + +Time passed, whole days: the tender reminder had no effect on him! It +had been her last appeal: she reflected that she had really felt when he +had not been feeling at all: and this marks a division. + +She was next requested to write a letter to Alvan, signifying his release +by the notification of her engagement to Prince Marko. She was +personally to deliver it to a gentleman who was of neither party, and who +would give her a letter from Alvan in exchange, which, while assuring the +gentleman she was acting with perfect freedom, she was to be under her +oath not to read, and dutifully to hand to Marko, her betrothed. Her +father assumed the fact of her renewed engagement to the prince, as her +whole family did; strangely, she thought: it struck her as a fatality. +He said that Alvan was working him great mischief, doing him deadly +injury in his position, and for no just reason, inasmuch as he--a bold, +bad man striving to ruin the family on a point of pride--had declared +that he simply considered himself bound in honour to her, only a little +doubtful of her independent action at present; and a release of him, +accompanied by her plain statement of her being under no compulsion, +voluntarily the betrothed of another, would solve the difficulty. A +certain old woman, it seemed, was anxious to have him formally released. + +With the usual dose for such a patient, of cajoleries and threats, the +General begged her to comply, pulling the hands he squeezed in a way to +strongly emphasize his affectionate entreaty. + +She went straight to Marko, consenting that he should have Alvan's letter +unopened (she cared not to read it, she said), on his promise to give it +up to her within a stated period. There was a kind of prohibited +pleasure, sweet acid, catching discord, in the idea of this lover's +keeping the forbidden thing she could ask for when she was curious about +the other, which at present she was not; dead rather; anxious to please +her parents, and determined to be no rival of the baroness. Marko +promised it readily, adding: 'Only let the storm roll over, that we may +have more liberty, and I myself, when we two are free, will lead you to +Alvan, and leave it to you to choose between us. Your happiness, +beloved, is my sole thought. Submit for the moment.' He spoke sweetly, +with his dearest look, touching her luxurious nature with a belief that +she could love him; untroubled by another, she could love and be true to +him: her maternal inner nature yearned to the frailbodied youth. + +She made a comparison in her mind of Alvan's love and Marko's, and of the +lives of the two men. There was no grisly baroness attached to the +prince's life. + +She wrote the letter to Alvan, feeling in the words that said she was +plighted to Prince Marko, that she said, and clearly said, the baroness +is now relieved of a rival, and may take you! She felt it so acutely as +to feel that she said nothing else. + +Severances are accomplished within the heart stroke by stroke; within the +craven's heart each new step resulting from a blow is temporarily an +absolute severance. Her letter to Alvan written, she thought not +tenderly of him but of the prince, who had always loved a young woman, +and was unhampered by an old one. The composition of the letter, and the +sense that the thing was done, made her stony to Alvan. + +On the introduction of Colonel von Tresten, whose name she knew, but was +dull to it, she delivered him her letter with unaffected composure, +received from him Alvan's in exchange, left the room as if to read it, +and after giving it unopened to Marko, composedly reappeared before the +colonel to state, that the letter could make no difference, and all was +to be as she had written it. + +The colonel bowed stiffly. + +It would have comforted her to have been allowed to say: 'I cease to be +the rival of that execrable harridan!' + +The delivery of so formidable a cat-screech not being possible, she stood +in an attitude of mild resignation, revolving thoughts of her father's +praises of his noble daughter, her mother's kiss, the caresses of her +sisters, and the dark bright eyes of Marko, the peace of the domestic +circle. This was her happiness! And still there was time, still hope +for Alvan to descend and cut the knot. She conceived it slowly, with +some flush of the brain like a remainder of fever, but no throbs of her +pulses. She had been swayed to act against him by tales which in her +heart she did not credit exactly, therefore did not take within herself, +though she let them influence her by the goad of her fears and angers; +and these she could conjure up at will for the defence of her conduct, +aware of their shallowness, and all the while trusting him to come in the +end and hear her reproaches for his delay. He seemed to her now to have +the character of a storm outside a household wrapped in comfortable +monotony. Her natural spiritedness detested the monotony, her craven +soul fawned for the comfort. After her many recent whippings the comfort +was immensely desireable, but a glance at the monotony gave it the look +of a burial, and standing in her attitude of resignation under Colonel +von Tresten's hard military stare she could have shrieked for Alvan to +come, knowing that she would have cowered and trembled at the scene +following his appearance. Yet she would have gone to him; without any +doubt his presence and the sense of his greater power declared by his +coming would have lifted her over to him. The part of her nature adoring +storminess wanted only a present champion to outweigh the other part +which cuddled security. Colonel von Tresten, however, was very far from +offering himself in such a shape to a girl that had jilted the friend he +loved, insulted the woman he esteemed; and he stood there like a figure +of soldierly complacency in marble. Her pencilled acknowledgement of the +baroness's letter, and her reply to it almost as much, was construed as +an intended insult to that lady, whose champion Tresten was. He had +departed before Clotilde heard a step. + +Immediately thereupon it came: to her mind that Tresten was one of +Alvan's bosom friends. How, then, could he be of neither party? And her +father spoke of him as an upright rational man, who, although, strangely +enough, he entertained, as it appeared, something like a profound +reverence for the baroness, could see and confess the downright +impossibility of the marriage Alvan proposed. Tresten, her father said, +talked of his friend Alvan as wild and eccentric, but now becoming +convinced that such a family as hers could never tolerate him-- +considering his age, his birth, his blood, his habits, his politics, +his private entanglements and moral reputation, it was partly hinted. + +She shuddered at this false Tresten. He and the professor might be +strung together for examples of perfidy! His reverence of the baroness +gave his cold blue eyes the iciness of her loathed letter. Alvan, she +remembered, used to exalt him among the gallantest of the warriors +dedicating their swords to freedom. The dedication of the sword, she +felt sure, was an accident: he was a man of blood. And naturally, she +must be hated by the man reverencing the baroness. If ever man had +executioner stamped on his face, it was he! Like the professor, nay, +like Alvan himself, he would not see that she was the victim of tyranny: +none of her signs would they see. They judged of her by her inanimate +frame in the hands of her torturers breaking her on the wheel. She +called to mind a fancy that she had looked at Tresten out of her deadness +earnestly for just one instant: more than an instant she could not, +beneath her father's vigilant watch and into those repellant cold blue +butcher eyes. Tresten might clearly have understood the fleeting look. +What were her words! what her deeds! + +The look was the truth revealed-her soul. It begged for life like an +infant; and the man's face was an iron rock in reply! No wonder--he +worshipped the baroness! So great was Clotilde's hatred of him that it +overflooded the image of Alvan, who called him friend, and deputed him to +act as friend. Such blindness, weakness, folly, on the part of one of +Alvan's pretensions, incurred a shade of her contempt. She had not ever +thought of him coldly: hitherto it would have seemed a sacrilege; but now +she said definitely, the friend of Tresten cannot be the man I supposed +him! and she ascribed her capacity for saying it, and for perceiving and +adding up Alvan's faults of character, to the freezing she had taken from +that most antipathetic person. She confessed to sensations of spite +which would cause her to reject and spurn even his pleadings for Alvan, +if they were imaginable as actual. Their not being imaginable allowed +her to indulge her naughtiness harmlessly, for the gratification of the +idea of wounding some one, though it were her lover, connected with this +Tresten. + +The letter of the baroness and the visit of the woman's admirer had +vitiated Clotilde's blood. She was not only not mistress of her +thoughts, she was undirected either in thinking or wishing by any +desires, except that the people about her should caress and warm her, +until, with no gaze backward, she could say good-bye to them, full of +meaning as a good-bye to the covered grave, as unreluctantly as the +swallow quits her eaves-nest in autumn: and they were to learn that they +were chargeable with the sequel of the history. There would be a sequel, +she was sure, if it came only to punish them for the cruelty which +thwarted her timid anticipation of it by pressing on her natural instinct +at all costs to bargain for an escape from pain, and making her simulate +contentment to cheat her muffled wound and them. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +His love meantime was the mission and the burden of Alvan, and he was not +ashamed to speak of it and plead for it; and the pleading was not done +troubadourishly, in soft flute-notes, as for easement of tuneful emotions +beseeching sympathy. He was liker to a sturdy beggar demanding his +crust, to support life, of corporations that can be talked into admitting +the rights of man; and he vollied close logical argumentation, on the +basis of the laws, in defence of his most natural hunger, thunder in his +breast and bright new heavenly morning alternating or clashing while the +electric wires and post smote him with evil tidings of Clotilde, and the +success of his efforts caught her back to him. Daily many times he +reached to her and lost her, had her in his arms and his arms withered +with emptiness. The ground he won quaked under him. All the evidence +opposed it, but he was in action, and his reason swore that he had her +fast. He had seen and felt his power over her; his reason told him by +what had been that it must be. Could he doubt? He battled for his +reason. Doubt was an extinguishing wave, and he clung to his book of the +Law, besieging Church and State with it, pointing to texts of the law +which proved her free to choose her lord and husband for herself, +expressing his passionate love by his precise interpretation of the law: +and still with the cold sentience gaining on him, against the current of +his tumultuous blood and his hurried intelligence, of her being actually +what he had named her in moments of playful vision--slippery, a serpent, +a winding hare; with the fear that she might slip from him, betray, deny +him, deliver him to ridicule, after he had won his way to her over every +barrier. During his proudest exaltations in success, when his eyes were +sparkling, there was a wry twitch inward upon his heart of hearts. + +But if she was a hare, he was a hunter, little inclining to the chase now +for mere physical recreation. She had roused the sportsman's passion as +well as the man's; he meant to hunt her down, and was not more scrupulous +than our ancient hunters, who hunted for a meal and hunted to kill, with +none of the later hesitations as to circumventing, trapping, snaring by +devices, and the preservation of the animal's coat spotless. Let her +be lured from her home, or plucked from her home, and if reluctant, +disgraced, that she may be dependent utterly on the man stooping to +pick her up! He was equal to the projecting of a scheme socially +infamous, with such fanatical intensity did the thought of his losing +the woman harass him, and the torrent of his passion burst restraint +to get to her to enfold her--this in the same hour of the original wild +monster's persistent and sober exposition of the texts of the law with +the voice of a cultivated modern gentleman; and, let it be said, with a +modern gentleman's design to wed a wife in honour. All means were to be +tried. His eye burned on his prize, mindless of what she was dragged +through, if there was resistance, or whether by the hair of her head or +her skirts, or how she was obtained. His interpretation of the law was +for the powers of earth, and other plans were to propitiate the powers +under the earth, and certain distempered groanings wrenched from him at +intervals he addressed (after they were out of him, reflectively) to the +powers above, so that nothing of him should be lost which might get aid +of anything mundane, infernal, or celestial. + +Thus it is when Venus bites a veritable ancient male. She puts her venom +in a magnificent beast, not a pathetic Phaedra. She does it rarely, for +though to be loved by a bitten giant is one of the dreams of woman, the +considerate Mother of Love knows how needful it is to protect the +sentiment of the passion and save them from an exhibition of the fires of +that dragon's breath. Do they not fly shrieking when they behold it? +Barely are they able to read of it. Men, too, accustomed to minor doses +of the goddess, which moderate, soften, counteract, instead of inflicting +the malady, abhor and have no brotherhood with its turbulent victim. + +It was justly matter for triumph, due to an extraordinary fervour of +pleading upon a plain statement of the case, that Alvan should return +from his foray bringing with him an emissary deputed by General von +Rudiger's official chief to see that the young lady, so passionately +pursued by the foremost of his time in political genius and oratory, was +not subjected to parental tyranny, but stood free to exercise her choice. +Of the few who would ever have thought of attempting, a diminished number +would have equalled that feat. Alvan was no vain boaster; he could gain +the ears of grave men as well as mobs and women. The interview with +Clotilde was therefore assured to him, and the distracting telegrams and +letters forwarded to him by Tresten during his absence were consequently +stabs already promising to heal. They were brutal stabs--her packet of +his letters and presents on his table made them bleed afresh, and the odd +scrawl of the couple of words on the paper set him wondering at the +imbecile irony of her calling herself 'The child' in accompaniment to +such an act, for it reminded him of his epithet for her, while it dealt +him a tremendous blow; it seemed senselessly malign, perhaps flippant, +as she could be, he knew. She could be anything weak and shallow when +out of his hands; she had recently proved it still, in view of the +interview, and on the tide of his labours to come to that wished end, he +struck his breast to brave himself with a good hopeful spirit. 'Once +mine!' he said. + +Moreover, to the better account, Clotilde's English friend had sent him +the lines addressed to her, in which the writer dwelt on her love of him +with a whimper of the voice of love. That was previous to her perjury by +little, by a day-eighteen hours. How lurid a satire was flung on events +by the proximity of the dates! But the closeness of the time between +this love-crooning and the denying of him pointed to a tyrannous +intervention. One could detect it. Full surely the poor craven was +being tyrannized and tutored to deny him! though she was a puss of the +fields too, as the mounted sportsman was not unwilling to think. + +Before visiting his Mentor, Alvan applied for an audience of General von +Rudiger, who granted it at once to a man coming so well armed to claim +the privilege. Tresten walked part of the way to the General's house +with him, and then turned aside to visit the baroness. + +Lucie, Baroness von Crefeldt, was one of those persons who, after a +probationary term in the character of woman, have become men, but of whom +offended man, amazed by the flowering up of that hard rough jaw from the +tender blooming promise of a petticoat, finds it impossible to imagine +they had once on a sweet Spring time the sex's gentleness and charm of +aspect. Mistress Flanders, breeched and hatted like a man, pulling at +the man's short pipe and heartily invoking frouzy deities, committing a +whole sackful of unfeminine etcaetera, is an impenetrable wall to her +maiden past; yet was there an opening day when nothing of us moustached +her. She was a clear-faced girl and mother of young blushes before the +years were at their work of transformation upon her countenance and +behind her bosom. The years were rough artists: perhaps she was +combative, and fought them for touching her ungallantly; and that perhaps +was her first manly step. Baroness Lucie was of high birth, a wife +openly maltreated, a woman of breeding, but with a man's head, capable of +inspiring man-like friendships, and of entertaining them. She was +radically-minded, strongly of the Radical profession of faith, and a +correspondent of revolutionary chiefs; both the trusted adviser and +devoted slave of him whose future glorious career she measured by his +abilities. Rumour blew out a candle and left the wick to smoke in +relation to their former intercourse. The Philistines revenged +themselves on an old aristocratic Radical and a Jew demagogue with the +weapon that scandal hands to virtue. They are virtuous or nothing, and +they must show that they are so when they can; and best do they show it +by publicly dishonouring the friendship of a man and a woman; for to be +in error in malice does not hurt them, but they profoundly feel that they +are fools if they are duped. + +She was aware of the recent course of events; she had as she protested, +nothing to accuse herself of, and she could hardly part her lips without +a self-exculpation. + +'It will fall on me!' she said to Tresten, in her emphatic tone. 'He +will have his interview with the girl. He will subdue the girl. He will +manacle himself in the chains he makes her wear. She will not miss her +chance! I am the object of her detestation. I am the price paid for +their reconcilement. She will seize her opportunity to vilipend me, and +I shall be condemned by the kind of court-martial which hurries over the +forms of a brial to sign the execution-warrant that makes it feel like +justice. You will see. She cannot forgive me for not pretending to +enter into her enthusiasm. She will make him believe I conspired against +her. Men in love are children with their mistresses--the greatest of +them; their heads are under the woman's feet. What have I not done to +aid him! At his instance, I went to the archbishop, to implore one of +the princes of the Church for succour. I knelt to an ecclesiastic. +I did a ludicrous and a shameful thing, knowing it in advance to be a +barren farce. I obeyed his wish. The tale will be laughable. I obeyed +him. I would not have it on my conscience that the commission of any +deed ennomic, however unwonted, was refused by me to serve Alvan. You +are my witness, Tresten, that for a young woman of common honesty I was +ready to pack and march. Qualities of mind-mind! They were out of the +question. He had a taste for a wife. If he had hit on a girl commonly +honest, she might not have harmed him--the contrary; cut his talons. +What is this girl? Exactly what one might be sure his appreciation, in +woman-flesh, would lead him to fix on; a daughter of the Philistines, +naturally, and precisely the one of all on earth likely to confound him +after marriage as she has played fast and loose with him before it. He +has never understood women--cannot read them. Could a girl like that +keep a secret? She's a Cressida--a creature of every camp! Not an idea +of the cause he is vowed to! not a sentiment in harmony with it! She is +viler than any of those Berlin light o' loves on the eve of Jena. Stable +as a Viennese dancing slut home from Mariazell! This is the girl- +transparent to the whole world! But his heart is on her, and he must +have her, I suppose; and I shall have to bear her impertinences, or sign +my demission and cease to labour for the cause at least in conjunction +with Alvan. And how other wise? He is the life of it, and I am doomed +to uselessness.' + +Tresten nodded a protesting assent. + +'Not quite so bad,' he said, with the encouraging smile which could +persuade a friend to put away bilious visions. 'Of the two, if you two +are divisible, we could better dispense with him. She'll slip him, she's +an eel. I have seen eels twine on a prong of the fork that prods them; +but she's an actress, a slippery one through and through, with no real +embrace in her, not even a common muscular contraction. Of every camp! +as you say. She was not worth carrying off. I consented to try it to +quiet him. He sets no bounds to his own devotion to friendship, and we +must take pattern by him. It's a mad love.' + +'A Titan's love!' the baroness exclaimed, groaning. 'The woman!--no +matter how or at what cost! I can admire that primal barbarism of a +great man's passion, which counts for nothing the stains and accidents +fraught with extinction for it to meaner men. It reads ill, it sounds +badly, but there is grand stuff in it. See the royalty of the man, for +whom no degradation of the woman can be, so long as it brings her to him! +He--that great he--covers all. He burns her to ashes, and takes the +flame--the pure spirit of her--to himself. Were men like him!--they +would have less to pardon. We must, as I have ever said, be morally on +alpine elevations to comprehend Alvan; he is Mont Blanc above his +fellows. Do not ask him to be considerate of her. She has planted him +in a storm, and the bigger the mountain, the more savage, monstrous, +cruel--yes, but she blew up the tourmente! That girl is the author of +his madness. It is the snake's nature of the girl which distracts him; +she is in his blood. Had she come to me, I would have helped her to cure +him; or had you succeeded in carrying her off, I would have stood by +their union; or were she a different creature, and not the shifty thing +she is, I could desire him to win her. A peasant girl, a workman's +daughter, a tradesman's, a professional singer, actress, artist--I would +have given my hand to one of these in good faith, thankful to her! As it +is, I have acted in obedience to his wishes, without idle remonstrances-- +I know him too well; and with as much cordiality as I could put into an +evil service. She will drag him down, down, Tresten!' + +'They are not joined yet,' said the colonel. + +'She has him by the worst half of him. Her correspondence with me--her +letter to excuse her insolence, which she does like a prim chit--throws a +light on the girl she is. She will set him aiming at power to trick her +out in the decorations. She will not keep him to his labours to +consolidate the power. She will pervert the aesthetic in him, through +her hold on his material nature, his vanity, his luxuriousness. She is +one of the young women who begin timidly, and when they see that they +enjoy comparative impunity, grow intrepid in dissipation, and that +palling, they are ravenously ambitious. She will drive him at his mark +before the time is ripe--ruin-him. He is a Titan, not a god, though god- +like he seems in comparison with men. He would be fleshly enough in any +hands. This girl will drain him of all his nobler fire.' + +'She shows mighty little of the inclination,' said the colonel. + +'To you. But when they come together? I know his voice!' + +The colonel protested his doubts of their coming together. + +'Ultimately?' the baroness asked, and brooded. 'But she will have to see +him; and then will she resist him? I shall change one view of her if she +does.' + +'She will shirk the interview,' Tresten remarked. 'Supposing they meet: +I don't think much will come of it, unless they meet on a field, and he +has an hour's grace to catch her up and be off with her. She's as calm +as the face of a clock, and wags her Yes and No about him just as +unconcernedly as a clock's pendulum. I've spoken to many a sentinel +outpost who wasn't deader on the subject in monosyllables than +mademoiselle. She has a military erectness, and answers you and looks +you straight at the eyes, perfectly unabashed by your seeing "the girl +she is," as you say. She looked at me downright defying me to despise +her. Alvan has been tricked by her colour: she's icy. She has no +passion. She acts up to him when they're together, and that deceives +him. I doubt her having blood--there's no heat in it, if she has.' + +'And he cajoled Count Hollinger to send an envoy to see him righted!' the +baroness ejaculated. 'Hollinger is not a sentimental person, I assure +you, and not likely to have taken a step apparently hostile to the +Rudigers, if he had not been extraordinarily shaken by Alvan. What +character of man is this Dr. Storchel?' + +Tresten described Count Hollinger's envoy, so quaintly deputed to act the +part of legal umpire in a family business, as a mild man of law with no +ideas or interests outside the law; spectacled, nervous, formal, +a stranger to the passions; and the baroness was amused to hear of +Storchel and Alvan's placid talk together upon themes of law, succeeded +by the little advocate's bewildered fright at one of Alvan's gentler +explosions. Tresten sketched it. The baroness realized it, and shut her +lips tight for a laugh of essential humour. + + + + +CHAPTER HIV + +Late in the day Alvan was himself able to inform her that he had overcome +Clotilde's father after a struggle of hours. The General had not +consented to everything: he had granted enough, evidently in terror of +the man who had captured Count Hollinger; and it way arranged that +Tresten and Storchel were to wait on Clotilde next morning, and hear from +her mouth whether she yielded or not to Alvan's request to speak with her +alone before the official interview in the presence of the notary, when +she was publicly to state her decision and freedom of choice, according +to Count Hollinger's amicable arrangement through his envoy. + +'She will see me-and the thing is done!' said Alvan. 'But I have worked +for it--I have worked! I have been talking to-day for six hours +uninterruptedly at a stretch to her father, who reminds me of a caged +bear I saw at a travelling menagerie, and the beast would perform none of +his evolutions for the edification of us lads till his keeper touched a +particular pole, and the touch of it set him to work like the, winding of +a key. Hollinger's name was my magic wand with the General. I could get +no sense from him, nor any acquiescence in sense, till I called up +Hollinger, when the General's alacrity was immediately that of the bear, +or a little boy castigated for his share of original sin. They have been +hard at her, the whole family! and I shall want the two hours I +stipulated for to the full. What do you say?--come, I wager I do it +within one hour! They have stockaded her pretty closely, and it will be +some time before I shall get her to have a clear view of me behind her +defences; but an hour's an age with a woman. Clotilde? I wager I have +her on her knees in half an hour! These notions of duty, and station, +and her fiddle-de-dee betrothal to that Danube osier with Indian-idol +eyes, count for so much mist. She was and is mine. I swear to strike to +her heart in ten minutes! But, madam, if not, you may pronounce me +incapable of conquering any woman, or of taking an absolute impression of +facts. I say I will do it! I am insane if I may not judge from +antecedents that my voice, my touch, my face, will draw her to me at one +signal--at a look! I am prepared to stake my reason on her running to me +before I speak a word:--and I will not beckon. I promise to fold my arms +and simply look.' + +'Your task of two hours, then, will be accomplished, I compute, in about +half a minute--but it is on the assumption that she consents to see you +alone,' said the baroness. + +Alvan opened his eyes. He perceived in his deep sagaciousness woman at +the bottom of her remark, and replied: 'You will know Clotilde in time. +She points to me straight; but of course if you agitate the compass the +needle's all in a tremble: and the vessel is weak, I admit, but the +instinct's positive. To doubt it would upset my understanding. I have +had three distinct experiences of my influence over her, and each time, +curiously each time exactly in proportion to my degree of resolve--but, +baroness, I tell you it was minutely in proportion to it; weighed down to +the grain!--each time did that girl respond to me with a similar degree +of earnestness. As I waned, she waned; as I heated, so did she, and from +spark-heat to flame and to furnace-heat!' + +'A refraction of the rays according to the altitude of the orb,' observed +the baroness in a tone of assent, and she smiled to herself at the +condition of the man who could accept it for that. + +He did not protest beyond presently a transient frown as at a bad taste +on his tongue, and a rather petulant objection to her use of analogies, +which he called the sapping of language. She forbore to remind him in +retort of his employment of metaphor when the figure served his purpose. + +'Marvellously,' cried Alvan, 'marvellously that girl answered to my lead! +and to-morrow--you'll own me right--I must double the attraction. +I shall have to hand her back to her people for twenty-four hours, and +the dose must be doubled to keep her fast and safe. You see I read her +flatly. I read and am charitable. I have a perfect philosophical +tolerance. I'm in the mood to-day of Horace hymning one of his fair +Greeks.' + +'No, no that is a comparison past my endurance,' interposed the baroness. +'Friend Sigismund, you have no philosophy, you never had any; and the +small crow and croon of Horace would be the last you could take up. It +is the chanted philosophy of comfortable stipendiaries, retired +merchants, gouty patients on a restricted allowance of the grape, old men +who have given over thinking, and young men who never had feeling--the +philosophy of swine grunting their carmen as they turn to fat in the sun. +Horace avaunt! You have too much poetry in you to quote that unsanguine +sensualist for your case. His love distressed his liver, and gave him a +jaundice once or twice, but where his love yields its poor ghost to his +philosophy, yours begins its labours. That everlasting Horace! He is +the versifier of the cushioned enemy, not of us who march along flinty +ways: the piper of the bourgeois in soul, poet of the conforming +unbelievers!' + +'Pyrrha, Lydia, Lalage, Chloe, Glycera,' Alvan murmured, amorous of the +musical names. 'Clotilde is a Greek of one of the Isles, an Ionian. I +see her in the Horatian ode as in one of those old round shield-mirrors +which give you a speck of the figure on a silver-solar beam, brilliant, +not much bigger than a dewdrop. And so should a man's heart reflect her! +Take her on the light in it, she is perfection. We won't take her in the +shady part or on your flat looking-glasses. There never was necessity +for accuracy of line in the portraiture of women. The idea of them is +all we want: it's the best of them. You will own she's Greek; she's a +Perinthian, Andrian, Olythian, Saurian, Messenian. One of those +delicious girls in the New Comedy, I remember, was called THE POSTPONER, +THE DEFERRER, or, as we might say, THE TO-MORROWER. There you have +Clotilde: she's a TO-MORROWER. You climb the peak of to-morrow, and to +see her at all you must see her on the next peak: but she leaves you her +promise to hug on every yesterday, and that keeps you going. Ay, so we +have patience! Feeding on a young woman's promises of yesterday in one's +fortieth year!--it must end to-morrow, though I kill something.' + +Kill, he meant, the aerial wild spirit he could admire as her character, +when he had the prospect of extinguishing it in his grasp. + +'What do you meditate killing?' said the baroness. + +'The fool of the years behind me,' he replied, 'and entering on my forty- +first a sage.' + +'To be the mate and equal of your companion?' + +'To prove I have had good training under the wisest to act as her guide +and master.' + +'If she--' the baroness checked her exclamation, saying: 'She declined to +come to me. I would have plumbed her for some solid ground, something to +rest one's faith on. Your Pyrrhas, Glyceras, and others of the like, +were not stable persons for a man of our days to bind his life to one of +them. Harness is harness, and a light yoke-fellow can make a proud +career deviate.' + +'But I give her a soul!' said Alvan. 'I am the wine, and she the crystal +cup. She has avowed it again and again. You read her as she is when +away from me. Then she is a reed, a weed, what you will; she is unfit to +contend when she stands alone. But when I am beside her, when we are +together--the moment I have her at arms' length she will be part of me by +the magic I have seen each time we encountered. She knows it well.' + +'She may know it too well.' + +'For what?' He frowned. + +'For the chances of your meeting.' + +'You think it possible she will refuse?' + +A blackness passing to lividness crossed his face. He fetched a big +breath. + +'Then finish my history, shut up the book; I am a phantom of a man, and +everything written there is imposture! I can account for all that she +has done hitherto, but not that she should refuse to see me. Not that +she should refuse to see me now when I come armed to demand it! Refuse? +But I have done my work, done what I said I would do. I stand in my +order of battle, and she refuses? No! I stake my head on it! I have +not a clod's perception, I have not a spark of sense to distinguish me +from a flat-headed Lapp, if she refuses:--call me a mountebank who has +gained his position by clever tumbling; a lucky gamester; whatever plays +blind with chance.' + +He started up in agitation. 'Lucie! I am a grinning skull without a +brain if that girl refuses! She will not.' He took his hat to leave, +adding, to seem rational to the cool understanding he addressed: 'She +will not refuse; I am bound to think so in common respect for myself; I +have done tricks to make me appear a rageing ape if she--oh! she cannot, +she will not refuse. Never! I have eyes, I have wits, I am not +tottering yet on my grave--or it's blindly, if I am. I have my clear +judgement, I am not an imbecile. It seems to me a foolish suspicion that +she can possibly refuse. Her manners are generally good; freakish, but +good in the main. Perhaps she takes a sting . . . but there is no +sting here. It would be bad manners to refuse; to say nothing of . . . +she has a heart! Well, then, good manners and right feeling forbid her +to refuse. She is an exceedingly intelligent girl, and I half fear I +have helped you to a wrong impression of her. You will really appreciate +her wit; you will indeed; believe me, you will. We pardon nonsense in a +girl. Married, she will put on the matron with becoming decency, and I +am responsible for her then; I stand surety for her then; when I have her +with me I warrant her mine and all mine, head and heels, at a whistle, +like the Cossack's horse. I fancy that at forty I am about as young as +most young men. I promise her another forty manful working years. Are +you dubious of that?' + +'I nod to you from the palsied summit of ninety,' said the baroness. + +Alvan gave a short laugh and stammered excuses for his naked egoism, +comparing himself to a forester who has sharpened such an appetite in +toiling to slay his roe that he can think of nothing but the fire +preparing the feast. + +'Hymen and things hymenaeal!' he said, laughing at himself for resuming +the offence on the apology for it. 'I could talk with interest of a +trousseau. I have debated in my mind with parliamentary acrimony about a +choice of wedding-presents. As she is legally free to bestow her hand on +me--and only a brute's horns could contest the fact--she may decide to be +married the day after to-morrow, and get the trousseau in Paris. She has +a turn for startling. I can imagine that if I proposed a run for it she +would be readier to spring to be on the road with me than in acquiescing +in a quiet arrangement about a ceremonial day; partly because, in the +first case, she would throw herself and the rest of the adventure on me, +at no other cost than the enjoyment of one of her impulses; and in the +second, because she is a girl who would require a full band of the best +Berlin orchestra in perpetual play to keep up her spirits among her +people during the preparations for espousing a democrat, demagogue, and +Jew, of a presumed inferior station by birth to her own. Give Momus a +sister, Clotilde is the lady! I know her. I would undertake to put a +spell on her and keep her contented on a frontier--not Russian, any +barbarous frontier where there is a sun. She must have sun. One might +wrap her in sables, but sun is best. She loves it best, though she looks +remarkably well in sables. Never shall I forget . . . she is +frileuse, and shivers into them! There are Frenchmen who could paint it +--only Frenchmen. Our artists, no. She is very French. Born in France +she would have been a matchless Parisienne. Oh! she's a riddle of +course. I don't pretend to spell every letter of her. The returning of +my presents is odd. No, I maintain that she is a coward acting under +domination, and there's no other way of explaining the puzzle. I was out +of sight, they bullied her, and she yielded--bewilderingly, past +comprehension it seems--cat!--until you remember what she's made of: +she's a reed. Now I reappear armed with powers to give her a free +course, and she, that abject whom you beheld recently renouncing me, is, +you will see, the young Aurora she was when she came striking at my door +on the upper Alp. That was a morning! That morning is Clotilde till my +eyes turn over! She is all young heaven and the mountains for me! She's +the filmy light above the mountains that weds white snow and sky. By the +way, I dreamt last night she was half a woman, half a tree, and her hair +was like a dead yewbough, which is as you know of a brown burnt-out +colour, suitable to the popular conception of widows. She stood, and +whatever turning you took, you struck back on her. Whether my widow, I +can't say: she must first be my wife. Oh, for tomorrow!' + +'What sort of evening is it?' said the baroness. + +'A Mont Blanc evening: I saw him as I came along,' Alvan replied, and +seized his hat to be out to look on the sovereign mountain again. They +touched hands. He promised to call in the forenoon next day. + +'Be cool,' she counselled him. + +'Oh!' He flung back his head, making light of the crisis. 'After all, +it's only a girl. But, you know, what I set myself to win! . . . The +thing's too small--I have been at such pains about it that I should be +ridiculous if I allowed myself to be beaten. There is no other reason +for the trouble we 're at, except that, as I have said a thousand times, +she suits me. No man can be cooler than I.' + +'Keep so,' said the baroness. + +He walked to where the strenuous blue lake, finding outlet, propels a +shoulder, like a bright-muscled athlete in action, and makes the Rhone- +stream. There he stood for an hour, disfevered by the limpid liquid +tumult, inspirited by the glancing volumes of a force that knows no +abatement, and is the skiey Alps behind, the great historic citied plains +ahead. + +His meditation ended with a resolution half in the form of a prayer (to +mixed deities undefined) never to ask for a small thing any more if this +one were granted him! + +He had won it, of course, having brought all his powers to bear on the +task; and he rejoiced in winning it: his heart leapt, his imagination +spun radiant webs of colour: but he was a little ashamed of his frenzies, +though he did not distinctly recall them; he fancied he had made some +noise, loud or not, because his intentions were so pure that it was +infamous to thwart them. At a certain age honest men made sacrifice of +their liberty to society, and he had been ready to perform the duty of +husbanding a woman. A man should have a wife and rear children, not to +be forgotten in the land, and to help mankind by transmitting to future +times qualities he has proved priceless: he thought of the children, and +yearned to the generations of men physically and morally through them. + +This was his apology to the world for his distantly-recollected excesses +of temper. + +Was she so small a thing? Not if she succumbed. She was petty, +vexatious, irritating, stinging, while she resisted: she cast an evil +beam on his reputation, strength and knowledge of himself, and roused the +giants of his nature to discharge missiles at her, justified as they were +by his pure intentions and the approbation of society. But he had a +broad full heart for the woman who would come to him, forgiving her, +uplifting her, richly endowing her. No meanness of heart was in him. He +lay down at night thinking of Clotilde in an abandonment of tenderness. +'Tomorrow! you bird of to-morrow!' he let fly his good-night to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +He slept. Near upon morning he roused with his tender fit strong on him, +but speechless in the waking as it had been dreamless in sleep. It was a +happy load on his breast, a life about to be born, and he thought that a +wife beside him would give it language. She should have, for she would +call out, his thousand flitting ideas now dropped on barren ground for +want of her fair bosom to inspire, to vivify, to receive. Poetry laid a +hand on him: his desire of the wife, the children, the citizen's good +name--of these our simple civilized ambitions--was lowly of the earth, +throbbing of earth, and at the same time magnified beyond scope of speech +in vast images and emblems resembling ranges of Olympian cloud round the +blue above earth, all to be decipherable, all utterable, when she was by. +What commoner word!--yet wife seemed to him the word most reverberating +of the secret sought after by man, fullest at once of fruit and of +mystery, or of that light in the heart of mystery which makes it +magically fruitful. + +He felt the presence of Clotilde behind the word; but in truth the +delicate sensations breeding these half-thoughts of his, as he lay +between sleeping and waking, shrank from conjuring up the face of the +woman who had wounded them, and a certain instinct to preserve and be +sure of his present breathing-space of luxurious tranquillity kept her +veiled. Soon he would see her as his wife, and then she would be she, +unveiled ravishingly, the only she, the only wife! He knew the cloud he +clasped for Clotilde enough to be at pains to shun a possible prospect of +his execrating it. Oh, the only she, the only wife! the wild man's +reclaimer! the sweet abundant valley and channel of his river of +existence henceforward! Doubting her in the slightest was doubting her +human. It is the brain, the satanic brain which will ever be pressing to +cast its shadows: the heart is clearer and truer. + +He multiplied images, projected visions, nestled in his throbs to drug +and dance his brain. He snatched at the beauty of a day that outrolled +the whole Alpine hand-in-hand of radiant heaven-climbers for an assurance +of predestined celestial beneficence; and again, shadowily thoughtful of +the littleness of the thing he exalted and claimed, he staked his reason +on the positive blessing to come to him before nightfall, telling himself +calmly that he did so because there would be madness in expecting it +otherwise: he asked for so little! Since he asked for so little, to +suppose that it would not be granted was irrational. None but a very +coward could hesitate to stake his all on the issue. + +Singularly small indeed the other aims in life appeared by comparison +with this one, but his intellect, in the act of pleading excuses for his +impatience, distinguished why it should be so. The crust, which is not +much, is everything to the starving beggar; and he was eager for the +crust that he might become sound and whole again, able to give their just +proportion to things, as at present he acknowledged himself hardly able +to do. He could not pursue two thoughts on a political question, or +grasp the idea of a salutary energy in the hosts animated by his +leadership. There would have to be an end of it speedily, else men might +name him worthless dog! + +Morning swam on the lake in her beautiful nakedness, a wedding of white +and blue, of purest white and bluest blue. Alvan crossed the island +bridges when the sun had sprung on his shivering fair prey, to make the +young fresh Morning rosy, and was glittering along the smooth lake- +waters. Workmen only were abroad, and Alvan was glad to be out with them +to feel with them as one of them. Close beside him the vivid genius of +the preceding century, whose love of workmen was a salt of heaven in his +human corruptness, looked down on the lake in marble. Alvan cherished a +worship of him as of one that had first thrilled him with the feeling of +our common humanity, with the tenderness for the poor, with the knowledge +of our frailty. Him, as well as the great Englishman and a Frenchman, +his mind called Father, and his conscience replied to that progenitor's +questioning of him, but said 'You know the love of woman: He loved +indeed, but he was not an amatory trifler. He too was a worker, a +champion worker. He doated on the prospect of plunging into his work; +the vision of jolly giant labours told of peace obtained, and there could +be no peace without his prize. + +He listened to the workmen's foot-falls. The solitary sound and steady +motion of their feet were eloquent of early morning in a city, not less +than the changes of light in heaven above the roofs. With the golden +light came numbers, workmen still. Their tread on the stones roused some +of his working thoughts, like an old tune in his head, and he watched the +scattered files passing on, disciplined by their daily necessities, +easily manageable if their necessities are but justly considered. These +numbers are the brute force of earth, which must have the earth in time, +as they had it in the dawn of our world, and then they entered into +bondage for not knowing how to use it. They will have it again: they +have it partially, at times, in the despot, who is only the reflex of +their brute force, and can give them only a shadow of their claim. They +will have it all, when they have illumination to see and trust to the +leadership of a greater force than they--in force of brain, in the +spiritual force of ideas; ideas founded on justice; and not the justice +of these days of the governing few whose wits are bent to steady our +column of civilized humanity by a combination of props and jugglers' +arts, but a justice coming of the recognized needs of majorities, which +will base the column on a broad plinth for safety-broad as the base of +yonder mountain's towering white immensity--and will be the guarantee for +the solid uplifting of our civilization at last. 'Right, thou!' he +apostrophized--the old Ironer, at a point of his meditation. 'And right, +thou! more largely right!' he thought, further advanced in it, of the +great Giuseppe, the Genoese. 'And right am I too, between that metal- +rail of a politician and the deep dreamer, each of them incomplete for +want of an element of the other!' Practically and in vision right was +Alvan, for those two opposites met fusing in him: like the former, he +counted on the supremacy of might; like the latter, he distinguished +where it lay in perpetuity. + +During his younger years he had been like neither in the moral curb they +could put on themselves--particularly the southern-blooded man. He had +resembled the naturally impatient northerner most, though not so supple +for business as he. But now he possessed the calmness of the Genoese; +he had strong self-command now; he had the principle that life is too +short for the indulgence of public fretfulness or of private quarrels; +too valuable for fruitless risks; too sacred, one may say, for the +shedding of blood on personal grounds. Oh! he had himself well under, +fear not. + +He could give and take from opposition. And rightly so, seeing that he +confessed to his own bent for sarcastically stinging: he was therefore +bound to endure a retort. Speech for speech, pamphlet for pamphlet, he +could be temperate. Nay, he defied an adversary to produce in him the +sensation of intemperateness; so there would not be much danger of his +being excited to betray it. Shadowily he thought of the hard words +hurled at him by the Rudigers, and of the injury Clotilde's father did +him by plotting to rob him of his daughter. But how had an Alvan +replied?--with the arts of peaceful fence victoriously. He conceived of +no temptation to his repressed irascibility save the political. A day +might come for him and the vehement old Ironer to try their mettle in a +tussle. On that day he would have to be wary, but, as Alvan felt +assured, he would be more master of himself than his antagonist. He was +for the young world, in the brain of a new order of things; the other +based his unbending system on the visions of a feudal chief, and would +win a great step perchance, but there he would stop: he was not with the +future! + +This immediate prospect of a return to serenity after his recent +charioteering, had set him thinking of himself and his days to come, +which hung before him in a golden haze that was tranquillizing. He had a +name, he had a station: he wanted power and he saw it approaching. + +He wanted a wife too. Colonel von Tresten took coffee with him previous +to the start with Dr. Storchel to General von Rudiger's house. Alvan +consequently was unable any longer to think of a wife in the abstract. +He wanted Clotilde. Here was a man going straight to her, going to see +her, positively to see her and hear her voice!--almost instantly to hear +her voice, and see her eyes and hair, touch her hand. Oh! and rally +her, rouse her wit; and be able to tell him the flower she wore for the +day, and where she wore it--at her temples, or sliding to the back hair, +or in her bosom, or at her waist! She had innumerable tricks of +indication in these shifty pretty ways of hers, and was full of varying +speech to the cunning reader of her. + +'But keep her to seriousness,' Alvan said. 'Our meeting must be early +to-day--early in the afternoon. She is not unlikely to pretend to +trifle. She has not seen me for some time, and will probably enough play +at emancipation and speak of the "singular impatience of the seigneur +Alvan." Don't you hear her? I swear to those very words! She "loves +her liberty," and she curves her fan and taps her foot. "The seigneur +Alvan appears pressed for time:" She has "letters to write to friends to- +day." Stop that! I can't join in play: to-morrow, if she likes; not to- +day. Or not till I have her by the hand. She shall be elf and fairy, +French coquette, whatever she pleases to-morrow, and I'll be satisfied. +All I beg is for plain dealing on a business matter. This is a business +matter, a business meeting. I thoroughly know the girl's heart, and know +that in winning the interview I win her. Only'--he pressed his friend's +arm--'but, my dear Tresten, you understand. You're a luckier fellow than +I--for the time, at all events. Make it as short as you can. You'll +find me here. I shall take a book--one of the Pandects. I don't suppose +I shall work. I feel idle. Any book handy; anything will interest me. +I should walk or row on the lake, but I would rather be sure of readiness +for your return. You meet Storchel at the General's house?' + +'The appointment was at the house,' Tresten said. + +'I have not seen him this morning. I know of nothing to prepare him for. +You see, it was invariable with her: as soon as she met me she had twice +her spirit: and that she knows;--she was a new woman, ten times the +happier for having some grains of my courage. So she'll be glad to come +to terms and have me by to support her. Press it, if necessary; +otherwise she might be disappointed, my dear fellow. Storchel looks on, +and observes, and that 's about all he can do, or need do. Up Mont Blanc +to-day, Tresten! It's the very day for an ascent:--one of the rare +crystalline jewels coming in a Swiss August; we should see the kingdoms +of the earth--and a Republic! But I could climb with all my heart in a +snowstorm to-day. Andes on Himalayas! as high as you like. The Republic +by the way, small enough in the ring of empires and monarchies, if you +measure it geometrically! You remember the laugh at the exact elevation +of Mount Olympus? But Zeus's eagle sat on it, and top me Olympus, after +you have imagined the eagle aloft there! after Homer, is the meaning. +That will be one of the lessons for our young Republicans--to teach them +not to give themselves up to the embrace of dead materialism because, +as they fancy, they have had to depend on material weapons for carving +their way, and have had no help from other quarters. A suicidal +delusion! The spiritual weapon has done most, and always does. They are +sons of an idea. They deny their parentage when they scoff at idealism. +It's a tendency we shall have to guard against; it leads back to the old +order of things, if we do not trim our light. She is waiting for you! +Go. You will find me here. And don't forget my instructions. Appoint +for the afternoon--not late. Too near night will seem like Orpheus going +below, and I hope to meet a living woman, not a ghost--ha! coloured like +a lantern in a cavern, good Lord! Covered with lichen! Say three +o'clock, not later. The reason is, I want to have it over early and be +sure of what I am doing; I'm bothered by it; I shall have to make +arrangements . . . a thousand little matters . . . telegraph to +Paris, I daresay; she's fond of Paris, and I must learn who's there to +meet her. Now start. I'll walk a dozen steps with you. I think of her +as if, since we parted, she had been sitting on a throne in Erebus, and +must be ghastly. I had a dream of a dead tree that upset me. In fact, +you see I must have it over. The whole affair makes me feel too young.' + +Tresten advised him to spend an hour with the baroness. + +'I can't; she makes me feel too old,' said Alvan. 'She talks. She +listens, but I don't want to speak. Dead silence!--let it be a dash of +the pen till you return. As for these good people hurrying to their +traffic, and tourists and loungers, they have a trick for killing time +without hurting him. I wish I had. I try to smother a minute, and up +the old fellow jumps quivering all over and threatening me body and soul. +They don't appear as if they had news on their faces this morning. I've +not seen a newspaper and won't look at one. Here we separate. Be formal +in mentioning me to her but be particularly civil. I know you have the +right tone: she's a critical puss. Days like these are the days for her +to be out. There goes a parasol like one I 've seen her carry. Stay-- +no! Don't forget my instructions. Paris for a time. It may be the +Pyrenees. Paris on our way back. She would like the Pyrenees. It's not +too late for society at Luchon and Cauterets. She likes mountains, she +mounts well: in any case, plenty of mules can be had. Paris to wind up +with. Paris will be fuller about the beginning of October.' + +He had quitted Tresten, and was talking to himself, cheating' himself, +not discordantly at all. The poet of the company within him claimed the +word and was allowed by the others to dilate on Clotilde's likings, and +the honeymoon or post-honeymoon amusements to be provided for her in +Pyrenean valleys, and Parisian theatres and salons. She was friande of +chocolates, bon-bons: she enjoyed fine pastry, had a real relish of good +wine. She should have the best of everything; he knew the spots of the +very best that Paris could supply, in confiseurs and restaurants, and in +millinery likewise. A lively recollection of the prattle of Parisian +ladies furnished names and addresses likely to prove invaluable to +Clotilde. He knew actors and actresses, and managers of theatres, and +mighty men in letters. She should have the cream of Paris. Does she +hint at rewarding him for his trouble? The thought of her indebted lips, +half closed, asking him how to repay him, sprang his heart to his throat. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Then he found himself saying: 'At the age I touch!' . . . + +At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly. If the love is plucked +from them, the life goes with it. + +He backed on his physical pride, a stout bulwark. His forty years--the +forty, the fifty, the sixty of Alvan, matched the twenties and thirties +of other men. + +Still it was true that he had reached an age when the desire to plant his +affections in a dear fair bosom fixedly was natural. Fairer, dearer than +she was never one on earth! He stood bareheaded for coolness, looking in +the direction Tresten had taken, his forehead shining and eyes charged +with the electrical activity of the mind, reading intensely all who +passed him, without a thought upon any of these objects in their passage. +The people were read, penetrated, and flung off as from a whirring of +wheels; to cut their place in memory sharp as in steel when imagination +shall by and by renew the throbbing of that hour, if the wheels be not +stilled. The world created by the furnaces of vitality inside him +absorbed his mind; and strangely, while receiving multitudinous vivid +impressions, he did not commune with one, was unaware of them. His thick +black hair waved and glistened over the fine aquiline of his face. His +throat was open to the breeze. His great breast and head were joined by +a massive column of throat that gave volume for the coursing of the blood +to fire the battery of thought, perchance in a tempest overflood it, +extinguish it. His fortieth year was written on his complexion and +presence: it was the fortieth of a giant growth that will bend at the +past eightieth as little as the rock-pine, should there come no uprooting +tempest. It said manhood, and breathed of settled strength of muscle, +nerve, and brain. + +Of the people passing, many knew him not, but marked him; some knew him +by repute, one or two his person. To all of them he was a noticeable +figure; even those of sheeplike nature, having an inclination to start +upon the second impulse in the flanks of curious sheep when their first +had been arrested by the appearance of one not of their kind, +acknowledged the eminence of his bearing. There may have been a +passenger in the street who could tell the double tale of the stick he +swung in his hand, showing a gleam of metal, whereon were engraved names +of the lurid historic original owner, and of the donor and the recipient. +According to the political sentiments of the narrator would his tale be +coloured, and a simple walking-stick would be clothed in Tarquin guilt +for striking off heads of the upper ranks of Frenchmen till the blood of +them topped the handle, or else wear hues of wonder, seem very memorable; +fit at least for a museum. If the Christian aristocrat might shrink from +it in terror and loathing, the Paynim Republican of deep dye would be +ready to kiss it with veneration. But, assuming them to have a certain +bond of manliness, both agree in pronouncing the deed a right valiant and +worthy one, which caused this instrument to be presented to Alvan by a +famous doctor, who, hearing of his repudiation of the duel, and of his +gallant and triumphant defence of himself against a troop of ruffians, +enemies or scum of their city, at night, by the aid of a common stout +pedestrian stick, alone in a dark alley of the public park, sent him, +duly mounted and engraved, an illustrious fellow to the weapon of +defence, as a mode of commemorating his just abhorrence of bloodshed and +his peaceful bravery. + +Observers of him would probably speculate on his features and the +carriage of his person as he went by them; with a result in their minds +that can be of no import to us, men's general speculations being directed +by their individual aims and their moods, their timidities, prejudices, +envies, rivalries; but none could contest that he was a potential figure. +If to know him the rising demagogue of the time dressed him in such +terrors as to make him appear an impending Attila of the voracious hordes +which live from hand to mouth, without intervention of a banker and +property to cry truce to the wolf, he would have shone under a different +aspect enough to send them to the poets to solve their perplexity, had +the knowledge been subjoined that this terrific devastator swinging the +sanguinary stick was a slave of love, who staked his all upon his love, +loved up to his capacity desperately, loved a girl, and hung upon her +voice to hear whether his painful knocking at a door should gain him +admittance to the ranks of the orderly citizens of the legitimately- +satiated passions, or else--the voice of a girl annihilate him. + +He loved like the desert-bred Eastern, as though his blood had never +ceased to be steeped in its fountain Orient; loved barbarously, but with +a compelling resolve to control his blood and act and be the civilized +man, sober by virtue of his lady's gracious aid. In fact, it was the +civilized man in him that had originally sought the introduction to her, +with a bribe to the untameable. The former had once led, and hoped to +lead again. Alvan was a revolutionist in imagination, the workman's +friend in rational sympathy, their leader upon mathematical calculation, +but a lawyer, a reasoner in law, and therefore of necessity a cousin +germane, leaning to become an ally, of the Philistines--the founders and +main supporters of his book of the Law. And so, between the nature of +his blood, and the inclination of his mind, Alvan set his heart on a +damsel of the Philistines, endowed with their trained elegancies and +governed by some of their precepts, but suitable to his wildness in her +reputation for originality, suiting him in her cultivated liveliness and +her turn for luxury. Only the Philistines breed these choice beauties, +put forth these delicate fresh young buds of girls; and only here and +there among them is there an exquisite, eccentric, yet passably decorous +Clotilde. What his brother politicians never discovered in him, and the +baroness partly suspected, through her interpretation of things opposing +her sentiments, Clotilde uncloaks. Catching and mastering her, his +wilder animation may be appeased, but his political life is threatened +with a diversion of its current, for he will be uxorious, impassioned to +gratify the tastes and whims of a youthful wife; the Republican will be +in danger of playing prematurely for power to seat her beside him high: +while at the same time, children, perchance, and his hardening lawyer's +head are secretly Philistinizing the demagogue, blunting the fine edge of +his Radicalism, turning him into a slow-stepping Liberal, otherwise your +half-Conservative in his convictions. Can she think it much to have +married that drab-coloured unit? Power must be grasped . . . . + +His watch told him that Tresten was now beholding her, or just about to. +The stillness of the heavens was remarkable. The hour held breath. She +delayed her descent from her chamber. He saw how she touched at her +hair, more distinctly than he saw the lake before his eyes. He watched +her, and the growl of a coming roar from him rebuked her tricky +deliberateness. Deciding at last, she slips down the stairs like a +waterfall, and is in the room, erect, composed--if you do not lay ear +against her bosom. Tresten stares at her, owns she is worth a struggle. +Love does this, friend Tresten! Love, that stamps out prejudice and bids +inequality be smooth. Tresten stares and owns she is worth heavier +labours, worse than his friend has endured. Love does it! Love, that +hallows a stranger's claim to the flower of a proud garden: Love has won +her the freedom to suffer herself to be chosen by the stranger. What +matters which of them toiled to bring them to so sweet an end! It was +not either of them, but Love. By and by, after acting serenest innocent, +suddenly broken, she will be copious of sad confessions. That will be in +their secresy: in the close and boundless together of clasped hands. +Deep eyes, that give him in realms of light within light all that he has +dreamed of rapturousness and blessedness, you are threatened with a +blinding kiss if you look abashed:--if her voice shall dare repeat +another of those foolish self-reproaches, it shall be construed as a +petition for further kisses. Silence! he said to her, imagining that he +had been silent, and enjoying silence with a perfect quietude beyond the +trouble of a thought of her kisses and his happiness. His full heart +craved for the infinity of silence. + +Another moment and he was counting to her the days, hours, minutes, which +had been the gulf of torture between then and now--the separation and the +reunion: he was voluble, living to speak, and a pause was only for the +drawing of most blissful breath. + +His watch went slowly. She was beginning to drop her eyelids in front of +Tresten. Oh! he knew her so well. He guessed the length of her acting, +and the time for her earnestness. She would have to act a coquette at +first to give herself a countenance; and who would not pardon the girl +for putting on a mask? who would fail to see the mask? But he knew her +so well: she would not trifle very long: his life on it, that she will +soon falter! her bosom will lift, lift and check: a word from Tresten +then, if he is a friend, and she melts to the truth in her. Alvan heard +her saying: 'I will see him yes, to-day. Let him appoint. He may come +when he likes--come at once' + +'My life on it!' he swore by his unerring knowledge of her, the certainty +that she loved him. + +He had walked into a quarter of the town strange to him, he thought; he +had no recollection of the look of the street. A friend came up and put +him in the right way, walking back with him. This was General Leczel, a +famous leader of one of the heroical risings whose passage through blood +and despair have led to the broader law men ask for when they name +freedom devotedly. Alvan stated the position of his case to Leczel with +continental frankness regarding a natural theme, and then pursued the +talk on public affairs, to the note of: 'What but knocks will ever open +the Black-Yellow Head to the fact that we are no longer in the first +years of the eighteenth century!' + +Leczel left him at his hotel steps, promising to call on him before +night. Tresten had not returned, neither he nor the advocate, and he had +been absent fully an hour. He was not in sight right or left. Alvan +went to his room, looked at his watch, and out of the window, incapable +of imagining any event. He began to breathe as if an atmosphere thick as +water were pressing round him. Unconsciously he had staked his all on +the revelation the moment was to bring. So little a thing! His +intellect weighed the littleness of it, but he had become level with it; +he magnified it with the greatness of his desire, and such was his nature +that the great desire of a thing withheld from him and his own, as he +could think, made the world a whirlpool till he had it. He waited, +figureable by nothing so much as a wild horse in captivity sniffing the +breeze, when the flanks of the quivering beast are like a wind-struck +barley-field, and his nerves are cords, and his nostrils trumpet him: he +is flame kept under and straining to rise. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The baroness expected to see Alvan in the morning, for he kept +appointments, and he had said he would come. She conceived that she was +independent of personal wishes on the subject of Clotilde; the fury of +his passion prohibited her forming any of the wishes we send up to +destiny when matters interesting us are in suspense, whether we have +liberated minds or not. She thought the girl would grant the interview; +was sure the creature would yield in his presence; and then there was an +end to the shining of Alvan! Supposing the other possibility, he had +shown her such fierce illuminations of eye and speech that she foresaw it +would be a blazing of the insurrectionary beacon-fires of hell with him. +He was a man of angels and devils. The former had long been conquering, +but the latter were far from extinct. His passion for this shallow girl +had consigned him to the lower host. Let him be thwarted, his +desperation would be unlikely to stop at legal barriers. His lawyer's +head would be up and armed astoundingly to oppose the law; he would read, +argue, and act with hot conviction upon the reverse of every text of law. +She beheld him storming the father's house to have out Clotilde, +reluctant or conniving; and he harangued the people, he bore off his +captive, he held her firmly as he had sworn he would; he defied +authority, he was a public rebel--he with his detected little secret aim, +which he nursed like a shamed mother of an infant, fond but afraid to be +proud of it! She had seen that he aimed at standing well with the world +and being one with it honourably: holding to his principles of course: +but a disposition that way had been perceived, and the vision of him in +open rebellion because of his shy catching at the thread of an alliance +with the decorous world, carved an ironic line on her jaw. + +Full surely he would not be baffled without smiting the world on the +face. And he might suffer for it; the Rudigers would suffer likewise. + +She considered them very foolish people. Her survey of the little +nobility beneath her station had previously enabled her to account for +their disgust of such a suitor as Alvan, and maintain that they would +oppose him tooth and nail. Owing to his recent success, the anticipation +of a peaceful surrender to him seemed now on the whole to carry most +weight. This girl gives Alvan her hand and her family repudiate her. +Volatile, flippant, shallow as she is, she must have had some turn for +him; a physical spell was on her once, and it will be renewed when they +meet. It sometimes inspires a semblance of courage; she may determine; +she may be stedfast long enough for him to take his measures to bear her +away. And the Brocken witches congratulate him on his prize! + +Almost better would it be, she thought, that circumstance should thwart +him and kindle his own demon element. + +The forenoon, the noon, the afternoon, went round. + +Late in the evening her door was flung wide for Colonel von Tresten. + +She looked her interrogative 'Well?' His features were not used to betray +the course of events. + +'How has it gone?' she said. + +He replied: 'As I told you. I fancied I gauged the hussy pretty +closely.' + +'She will not see him?' + +'Not she.' + +The baroness crossed her arms. + +'And Alvan?' + +The colonel shrugged. It was not done to tease a tremulous woman, for +she was calm. It painted the necessary consequence of the refusal: an +explosion of AEtna, and she saw it. + +'Where is he now?' said she. + +'At his hotel.' + +'Alone?' + +'Leczel is with him.' + +'That looks like war.' + +Tresten shrugged again. 'It might have been foreseen by everybody +concerned in the affair. The girl does not care for him one corner of +an eye! She stood up before us cool as at a dancing-lesson, swore she +had never committed herself to an oath to him, sneered at him. She +positively sneered. Her manner to me assures me without question that +if he had stood in my place she would have insulted him: + +'Scarcely. She would do in his absence what she would not do under his +eyes,' remarked the baroness. 'It's decided, then?' + +'Quite.' + +'Will he be here to-night?' + +'I think not.' + +'Was she really insolent?' + +'For a girl in her position, she was.' + +'Did you repeat her words to him?' + +'Some of them.' + +'What description of insolence?' + +'She spoke of his vanity . . . .' + +'Proceed.' + +'It was more her manner to me, as the one of the two appearing as his +friend. She was tolerably civil to Storchel: and the difference of +behaviour must have been designed, for she not only looked at Storchel in +a way to mark the difference, she addressed him rather eagerly before we +turned on our heels, to tell him she would write to him, and let him have +her reply in a letter. He will get some coquettish rigmarole.' + +'That seems monstrous!--if one could be astonished by her,' said the +baroness. 'When is she to write?' + +'She may write: the letter will find no receiver,' said Tresten, +significantly raising his eyebrows. 'The legal gentleman is gone--blown +from a gun! He's off home. He informed me that he should write to the +General, throwing up his office, and an end to his share in the +business.' + +'There was no rudeness to the poor man?' + +'Dear me, no. But imagine a quiet little advocate, very precise and +silky--you've had a hint of him--and all of a sudden the client he has by +the ear swells into a tremendous beast--a combination of lion and +elephant--bellows and shakes the room, stops and stamps before him, +discharging an unintelligible flood of racy vernacular punctuated in +thunder. You hear him and see him! Alvan lost his head--some of his +hair too. The girl is not worth a lock. But he's past reason.' + +'He takes it so,' said the baroness, musing. 'It will be the sooner +over. She never cared for him a jot. And there's the sting. He has +called up the whole world in an amphitheatre to see a girl laugh him to +scorn. Hard for any man to bear!--Alvan of all men! Why does he not +come here? He might rage at me for a day and a night, and I would rock +him to sleep in the end. However, he has done nothing?' + +That was the point. The baroness perceived it to be a serious point, and +repeated the question sharply. 'Has he been to the house?--no?-- +writing?' + +Tresten dropped a nod. + +'Not to the girl, I suppose. To the father?' said she. + +'He has written to the General.' + +'You should have stopped it.' + +'Tell a vedette to stop cavalry. You're not thinking of the man. He's +in a white frenzy.' + +'I will go to him.' + +'You will do wrong. Leave him to spout the stuff and get rid of his +poison. I remember a sister of poor Nuciotti's going to him after he had +let his men walk into a trap--and that was through a woman: and he was +quieted; and the chief overlooked it; and two days after, Nuciotti blew +his brains out. He'd have been alive now if he had been left alone. +Furious cursing is a natural relief to some men, like women's weeping. +He has written a savage letter to her father, sending the girl to the +deuce with the name she deserves, and challengeing the General.' + +'That letter is despatched?' + +'Rudiger has it by this time.' + +The baroness fixed her eyes on Tresten: she struck her lap. 'Alvan! Is +it he? But the General is old, gouty, out of the lists. There can be no +fighting. He apologized to you for his daughter's insolence to me. He +will not fight, be sure.' + +'Perhaps not,' Tresten said. + +'As for the girl, Alvan has the fullest right to revile her: it cannot be +too widely known. I could cry: "What wisdom there is in men when they +are mad!" We must allow it to counterbalance breaches of ordinary +courtesy. "With the name--she deserves," you say? + +He pitched the very name at her character plainly?--called her what she +is?' + +The baroness could have borne to hear it: she had no feminine horror of +the staining epithet for that sex. But a sense of the distinction +between camps and courts restrained the soldier. He spoke of a discharge +of cuttlefish ink at the character of the girl, and added: 'The bath's a +black one for her, and they had better keep it private. Regrettable, no +doubt, but it 's probably true, and he 's out of his mind. It would be +dangerous to check him: he'd force his best friend to fight. Leczel is +with him and gives him head. It 's about time for me to go back to him, +for there may be business.' + +The baroness thought it improbable. She was hoping that with Alvan's +eruption the drop-scene would fall. + +Tresten spoke of the possibility. He knew the contents of the letter, +and knew further that a copy of it, with none of the pregnant syllables +expunged, had been forwarded to Prince Marko. He counselled calm waiting +for a certain number of hours. The baroness committed herself to a +promise to wait. Now that Alvan had broken off from the baleful girl, +the worst must have been passed, she thought. + +He had broken with the girl: she reviewed him under the light of that +sole fact. So the edge of the cloud obscuring him was lifted, and he +would again be the man she prized and hoped much of! How thickly he had +been obscured was visible to her through a retreating sensation of scorn +of him for his mad excesses, which she had not known herself to entertain +while he was writhing in the toils, and very bluntly and dismissingly +felt now that his madness was at its climax. An outrageous lunatic fit, +that promised to release him from his fatal passion, seemed, on the +contrary, respectable in essence if not in the display. Wives he should +have by fifties and hundreds if he wanted them, she thought in her great- +heartedness, reflecting on the one whose threatened pretensions to be his +mate were slain by the title flung at her, and merited. The word (she +could guess it) was an impassable gulf, a wound beyond healing. It +pronounced in a single breath the girl's right name and his pledge of a +return to sanity. For it was the insanest he could do; it uttered +anathema on his love of her; it painted his white glow of unreason and +fierce ire at the scorn which her behaviour flung upon every part of his +character that was tenderest with him. After speaking such things a man +comes to his senses or he dies. So thought the baroness, and she was not +more than commonly curious to hear how the Rudigers had taken the insult +they had brought on themselves, and not unwilling to wait to see Alvan +till he was cool. His vanity, when threatening to bleed to the death, +would not be civil to the surgeon before the second or third dressing of +his wound. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +In the house of the Rudigers there was commotion. Clotilde sat apart +from it, locked in her chamber. She had performed her crowning act of +obedience to her father by declining the interview with Alvan, and as a +consequence she was full of grovelling revolt. + +Two things had helped her to carry out her engagement to submit in this +final instance of dutifulness--one was the sight of that hateful rigid +face and glacier eye of Tresten; the other was the loophole she left for +subsequent insurgency by engaging to write to Count Hollinger's envoy, +Dr. Storchel. She had gazed most earnestly at him, that he might not +mistake her meaning, and the little man's pair of spectacles had, she +fancied, been dim. He was touched. Here was a friend! Here was the +friend she required, the external aid, the fresh evasion, the link with +Alvan! Now to write to him to bind him to his beautiful human emotion. +By contrast with the treacherous Tresten, whose iciness roused her to +defiance, the nervous little advocate seemed an emissary of the skies, +and she invoked her treasure-stores of the craven's craftiness in revolt +to compose a letter that should move him, melt the good angel to espouse +her cause. He was to be taught to understand--nay, angelically he would +understand at once--why she had behaved apparently so contradictorily. +Fettered, cruelly constrained by threats and wily sermons upon her duty +to her family, terrorized, a prisoner 'beside this blue lake, in sight of +the sublimest scenery of earth,' and hating his associate--hating him, +she repeated and underscored--she had belied herself; she was willing to +meet Alvan, she wished to meet him. She could open her heart to Alvan's +true friend--his only true friend. He would instantly discern her +unhappy plight. In the presence of his associate she could explain +nothing, do nothing but what she had done. He had frozen her. She had +good reason to know that man for her enemy. She could prove him a +traitor to Alvan. Certain though she was from the first moment of Dr. +Storchel's integrity and kindness of heart, she had stood petrified +before him, as if affected by some wicked spell. She owned she had +utterly belied herself; she protested she had been no free agent. + +The future labours in her cause were thrown upon Dr. Storchel's +shoulders, but with such compliments to him on his mission from above +as emissary angels are presumed to be sensibly affected by. + +The letter was long, involved, rather eloquent when she forgot herself +and wrote herself, and intentionally very feminine, after the manner of +supplicatory ladies appealing to lawyers, whom they would sway by the +feeble artlessness of a sex that must confide in their possession of a +heart, their heads being too awful. + +She was directing the letter when Marko Romaris gave his name outside her +door. He was her intimate, her trustiest ally; he was aware of her +design to communicate with Dr. Storchel, and came to tell her it would be +a waste of labour. He stood there singularly pale and grave, unlike the +sprightly slave she petted on her search for a tyrant. 'Too late,' he +said, pointing to the letter she held. 'Dr. Storchel has gone.' + +She could not believe it, for Storchel had informed her that he would +remain three days. Her powers of belief were more heavily taxed when +Marko said: 'Alvan has challenged your father to fight him.' With that +he turned on his heel; he had to assist in the deliberations of the +family. + +She clasped her temples. The collision of ideas driven together by Alvan +and a duel--Alvan challengeing her father--Alvan, the contemner of the +senseless appeal to arms for the settlement 'of personal disputes!-- +darkened her mind. She ran about the house plying all whom she met for +news and explanations; but her young brother was absent, her sisters were +ignorant, and her parents were closeted in consultation with the +gentleman. At night Marko sent her word that she might sleep in peace, +for things would soon be arranged and her father had left the city. + +She went to her solitude to study the hard riddle of her shattered +imagination of Alvan. The fragments would not suffer joining, they +assailed her in huge heaps; and she did not ask herself whether she had +ever known him, but what disruption it was that had unsettled the reason +of the strongest man alive. At times he came flashing through the scud +of her thoughts magnificently in person, and how to stamp that splendid +figure of manhood on a madman's conduct was the task she supposed herself +to be attempting while she shrank from it, and worshipped the figure, +abhorred the deed. She could not unite them. He was like some great +cathedral organ foully handled in the night by demons. He, whose lucent +reason was an unclouded sky over every complexity of our sphere, he to +crave to fight! to seek the life-blood of the father of his beloved! +More unintelligible than this was it to reflect that he must know the +challenge to be of itself a bar to his meeting his Clotilde ever again. +She led her senses round to weep, and produced a state of mental drowning +for a truce to the bitter riddle. + +Quiet reigned in the household next day, and for the length of the day. +Her father had departed, her mother treated her vixenishly, snubbing her +for a word, but the ugly business of yesterday seemed a matter settled +and dismissed. Alvan, then, had been appeased. He was not a man of +blood: he was the humanest of men. She was able to reconstruct him under +the beams of his handsome features and his kingly smile. She could +occasionally conjure them up in their vividness; but had she not in truth +been silly to yield to spite and send him back the photographs of him +with his presents, so that he should have the uttermost remnant of the +gifts he asked for? Had he really asked to have anything back? She +inclined to doubt all that had been done and said since their separation +--if only it were granted her to look on a photograph showing him as he +was actually before their misunderstanding! The sun-tracing would not +deceive, as her own tricks of imageing might do: seeing him as he was +then, the hour would be revived,--she would certainly feel him as he +lived and breathed now. Thus she fancied, on the effort to get him to +her heart after the shock he had dealt it, for he had become almost a +stranger, as a god that has taken human shape and character. + +Next to the sight of Alvan her friend Marko was welcome. The youth +visited her in the evening, and with the glitter of his large black eyes +bent to her, and began talking incomprehensibly of leave-taking and +farewell, until she cried aloud that she had riddles enough: one was too +much. What had he to say? She gave him her hand to encourage him. She +listened, and soon it was her hand that mastered his in the grasp, though +she was putting questions incredulously, with an understanding duller +than her instinct. Or how if the frightful instinct while she listened +shot lightnings in her head, whose revelations were too intelligible to +be looked at? We think it devilish when our old nature is incandescent +to talk to us in this way, kindled by its vilest in hoping, hungering, +and fearing; and we call on the civilized mind to disown it. The +tightened grasp of her hand confessed her understanding of the thing she +pressed to hear repeated, for the sake of seeming to herself to repudiate +it under an accumulating horror, at the same time that the repetition +doubly and trebly confirmed it, so as to exonerate her criminal +sensations by casting the whole burden on the material fact. + +Marko, with her father's consent and the approval of the friends of the +family, had taken up Alvan's challenge! That was the tale. She saw him +dead in the act of telling it. + +'What?' she cried: 'what?' and then: 'You?' and her fingers were bonier +in their clutch: 'Let me hear. It can't be!' She snapped at herself for +not pitying him more but a sword had flashed to cut her gordian knot: she +her saw him dead, the obstacle removed, the man whom her parents opposed +to Alvan swept away: she saw him as a black gate breaking to a flood of +light. She had never invoked it, never wished, never dreamed it, but if +it was to be? . . . 'Oh! impossible. One of us is crazy. You to +fight? . . . they put it upon you? You fight him? But it is cruel, +it is abominable. Incredible! You have accepted the challenge, you +say?' + +He answered that he had, and gazed into her eyes for love. + +She blinked over them, crying out against parents and friends for their +heartlessness in permitting him to fight. + +'This is positive? This is really true?' she said, burning and dreading +to realize the magical change it pointed on, and touching him with her +other hand, loathing herself, loathing parents and friends who had +brought her to the plight of desiring some terrible event in sheer +necessity. Not she, it was the situation they had created which was +guilty! By dint of calling out on their heartlessness, and a spur of +conscience, she roused the feeling of compassion: + +'But, Marko! Marko! poor child! you cannot fight; you have never fired +a pistol or a gun in your life. Your health was always too delicate for +these habits of men; and you could not pull a trigger taking aim, do you +not know?' + +'I have been practising for a couple of hours to-day,' he said. + +Compassion thrilled her. 'A couple of hours! Unhappy boy! But do you +not know that he is a dead shot? He is famous for his aim. He never +misses. He can do all the duellist's wonders both with sword and pistol, +and that is why he was respected when he refused the duel because he-- +before these parents of mine drove him . . . and me! I think we are +both mad--he despised duelling. He! He! Alvan! who has challenged my +father! I have heard him speak of duelling as cowardly. But what is he? +what has he changed to? And it would be cowardly to kill you, Marko.' + +'I take my chance,' Marko said. + +'You have no chance. His aim is unerring.' She insisted on the +deadliness of his aim, and dwelt on it with a gloating delight that her +conscience approved, for she was persuading the youth to shun his fatal +aim. + +If you stood against him he would not spare you--perhaps not; I fear he +would not, as far as I know him now. He can be terrible in wrath. I +think he would warn you; but two men face to face! and he suspecting that +you cross his path! Find some way of avoiding him. Do, I entreat you. +By your love of me! Oh! no blood. I do not want to lose you. I could +not bear it.' + +'Would you regret me?' said he. + +Her eyes fell on his, and the beauty of those great dark eyes made her +fondness for him legible. He caused her a spasm of anguish, foreknowing +him doomed. She thought that haply this devoted heart was predestined to +be the sacrifice which should bring her round to Alvan. She murmured +phrases of dissuasion until her hollow voice broke; she wept for being +speechless, and turned upon Providence and her parents, in railing at +whom a voice of no ominous empty sound was given her; and still she felt +more warmly than railing expressed, only her voice shrank back from a +tone of feeling. She consoled herself with the reflection that utterance +was inadequate. Besides, her active good sense echoed Marko ringingly +when he cited the usages of their world and the impossibility of his +withdrawing or wishing to withdraw from the line of a challenge accepted. +It was destiny. She bowed her head lower and lower, oppressed without +and within, unwilling to look at him. She did not look when he left her. + +The silence of him encouraged her head to rise. She stared about: his +phantom seemed present, and for a time she beheld him both upright in +life and stretched in death. It could not be her fault that he should +die! it was the fatality. How strange it was! Providence, after +bitterly misusing her, offered this reparation through the death of +Marko. + +Possibly she ought to run out and beseech Alvan to spare the innocent +youth. She stood up trembling on her legs. She called to Alvan. 'Do +not put blood between us. Oh! I love you more than ever. Why did you +let that horrible man you take for a friend come here? I hate him, and +cannot feel my love of you when I see him. He chills me to the bone. +He made me say the reverse of what was in my heart. But spare poor +Marko! You have no cause for jealousy. You would be above it, if you +had. Do not aim; fire in the air. Do not let me kiss that hand and +think . . .' + +She sank to her chair, exclaiming: 'I am a prisoner!' She could not walk +two steps; she was imprisoned by the interdict of the house and the +paralysis of her limbs. Providence decreed that she must abide the +result. Dread Power! To be dragged to her happiness through a river of +blood was indeed dreadful, but the devotional sense of reliance upon +hidden wisdom in the direction of human affairs when it appears +considerate of our wishes, inspirited her to be ready for what Providence +was about to do, mysterious in its beneficence that it was! It is the +dark goddess Fortune to the craven. The craven with desires will offer +up bloody sacrifices to it submissively. The craven, with desires +expecting to be blest, is a zealot of the faith which ascribes the +direction of events to the outer world. Her soul was in full song to +that contriving agency, and she with the paralyzed limbs became +practically active, darting here and there over the room, burning +letters, packing a portable bundle of clothes, in preparation for the +domestic confusion of the morrow when the body of Marko would be driven +to their door, and amid the wailing and the hubbub she would escape +unnoticed to Alvan, Providence-guided! Out of the house would then +signify assuredly to Alvan's arms. + +The prospect might have seemed too heavenly to be realizable had she not +been sensible of paying heavily for it; and thus, as he would wish to be, +was Marko of double service to her; for she was truly fond of the +beautiful and chivalrous youth, and far from wishing to lose him. His +blood was on the heads of those who permitted him to face the danger! +She would have felt for him still more tenderly if it were permitted to a +woman's heart to enfold two men at a time. This, it would seem, she +cannot do: she is compelled by the painful restriction sadly to consent +that one of them should be swept away. + +Night passed dragging and galloping. In the very early light she thought +of adding some ornaments to her bundle of necessaries. She learnt of the +object of her present faith to be provident on her own behalf, and +dressed in two of certain garments which would have swollen her bundle +too much. + +This was the day of Providence: she had strung herself to do her part in +it and gone through the pathos of her fatalism above stairs in her +bedroom before Marko took his final farewell of her, so she could speak +her 'Heaven be with you!' unshaken, though sadly. Her father had +returned. To be away from him, and close to her bundle, she hurried to +her chamber and awaited the catastrophe, like one expecting to be raised +from the vaults. Carriage, wheels would give her the first intimation of +it. Slow, very slow, would imply badly wounded, she thought: dead, if +the carriage stopped some steps from the house and one of the seconds of +the poor boy descended to make the melancholy announcement. She could +not but apprehend the remorselessness of the decree. Death, it would +probably be! Alvan had resolved to sweep him off the earth. She could +not blame Alvan for his desperate passion, though pitying the victim of +it. In any case the instant of the arrival of the carriage was her +opportunity marked by the finger of Providence rendered visible, and she +sat rocking her parcel on her lap. Her love of Alvan now was mixed with +an alluring terror of him as an immediate death-dealer who stood against +red-streaked heavens, more grandly satanic in his angry mightiness than +she had ever realized that figure, and she, trembled and shuddered, +fearing to meet him, yearning to be taken to him, to close her eyes on +his breast in blindest happiness. She gave the very sob for the +occasion. + +A carriage drove at full speed to the door. Full speed could not be the +pace for a funeral load. That was a visitor to her father on business. +She waited for fresh wheels, telling herself she would be patient and +must be ready. + +Her pathos ways ready and scarcely controllable. The tear thickened on +her eyelid as she projected her mind on the grief she would soon be +undergoing for Marko: or at least she would undergo it subsequently; she +would certainly mourn for him. She dared not proceed to an accumulated +enumeration of his merits, as her knowledge of the secret of pathos knew +to be most moving, in an extreme fear that she might weaken her required +energies for action at the approaching signal. + +Feet came rushing up the stairs: her door was thrown open, and the living +Marko, stranger than a dead, stood present. He had in his look an +expectation that she would be glad to behold him, and he asked her, and +she said: 'Oh, yes, she was glad, of course.' She was glad that Alvan +had pardoned him for his rashness; she was vexed that her projected +confusion of the household had been thwarted: vexed, petrified with +astonishment. + +'But how if I tell you that Alvan is wounded?' he almost wept to say. + +Clotilde informs the world that she laughed on hearing this. She was +unaware of her ground for laughing: It was the laugh of the tragic +comedian. + +Could one believe in a Providence capable of letting such a sapling and +weakling strike down the most magnificent stature upon earth? + +'You--him!' she said, in the tremendous compression of her contempt. + +She laughed. The world is upside down--a world without light, or +pointing finger, or affection for special favourites, and therefore +bereft of all mysterious and attractive wisdom, a crazy world, a corpse +of a world--if this be true! + +But it can still be disbelieved. + +He stood by her dejectedly, and she sent him flying with a repulsive, +'Leave me!' The youth had too much on his conscience to let him linger. +His manner of going smote her brain. + +Was it credible? Was it possible to think of Alvan wounded?--the giant +laid on his back and in the hands of the leech? Assuredly it was a +mockery of all calculations. She could not conjure up the picture of +him, and her emotions were merely struck and stunned. If this be true! + +But it can be resolutely disbelieved. + +We can put it before Providence to cleanse itself of this thing, or +suffer the consequence that we now and for ever quit our worship, lose +our faith in it and our secret respect. She heard Marko's tale +confirmed, whispers of leaden import, physicians' rumours, and she +doubted. She clung insanely to her incredulity. Laughter had been +slain, but not her belief in the invincibility of Alvan; she could not +imagine him overthrown in a conflict--and by a hand that she had taken +and twisted in her woman's hand subduingly! He, the unerring shot, +laid low by one who had never burnt powder till the day before the duel! +It was easier to remain incredulous notwithstanding the gradational +distinctness of the whispers. She dashed her 'Impossible!' at +Providence, conceived the tale in wilful and almost buoyant self- +deception to be a conspiracy in the family to hide from her Alvan's +magnanimous dismissal of poor Marko from the field of strife. That was +the most evident fact. She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting +each and hugging it after the false life was out. + +So violent was the opposition to reason in the idea of Alvans descending +to the duel and falling by the hand of Marko, that it cried to be +rebutted by laughter: and she could not, she could laugh no more, nor +imagine laughing, though she could say of the people of the house, 'They +act it well!' and hate them for the serious whispering air, and the +dropping of medical terms and weights of drugs, which robbed her of what +her instinct told her was the surest weapon for combating deception. +Them, however, and their acting she could have with stood enough to +silently discredit them through sheer virulence of a hatred that proved +them to be duly credited. But her savage wilfulness could not resist the +look of Marko. She had to yield up her breast to the truth, and +stimulate further unbelief lest her loaded heart should force her to run +to the wounded lion's bedside, and hear his reproaches. She had to cheat +her heart, and the weak thing consented to it, loathing her for the +imposture. Seeing Marko too, assured of it by his broken look, the +terrible mournfulness less than the horrible irony of the truth gnawed +within her. It spoke to her in metal, not in flesh. It haunted her +feelings and her faint imaginations alienly. It discoloured, it scorned +the earth, and earth's teachings, and the understanding of life. +Rational clearness at all avenues was blurred by it. The thought that +Alvan lay wounded and in danger, was one thought: that Marko had +stretched him there, was quite another, and was a livid eclipsing thought +through which her grief had to work its way to get to heat and a state of +burning. She knew not in truth what to feel: the craven's dilemma when +yet feeling much. Anger at Providence--rose uppermost. She had so +shifted and wound about, and so pulled her heart to pieces, that she +could no longer sanely and with wholeness encounter a shock: she had no +sensation firm enough to be stamped by a signet. + +Even on the fatal third day, when Marko, white as his shrouded +antagonist, led her to the garden of the house, and there said the word +of death, an execrating amazement, framing the thought 'Why is it not +Alvan who speaks?' rose beside her gaping conception of her loss. She +framed it as an earnest interrogation for the half minute before misery +had possession of her, coming down like a cloud. Providence then was too +shadowy a thing to upbraid. She could not blame herself, for the +intensity of her suffering testified to the bitter realness of her love +of the dead man. Her craven's instinct to make a sacrifice of others +flew with claws of hatred at her parents. These she offered up, and the +spirit presiding in her appears to have accepted them as proper +substitutes for her conscience. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Alvan was dead. The shot of his adversary, accidentally well-directed, +had struck him mortally. He died on the morning of the third day after +the duel. There had been no hope that he could survive, and his agonies +made a speedy dissolution desirable by those most wishing him to live. + +The baroness had her summons to hurry to him after his first swoon. She +was his nurse and late confidante a tearless woman, rigid in service. +Death relaxed his hold in her hand. He met his fate like the valiant +soul he was. Haply if he had lingered without the sweats of bodily +tortures to stay reflectiveness, he, also, in the strangeness of his +prostration, might have cast a thought on the irony of the fates felling +a man like him by a youngster's hand and for a shallow girl! He might +have fathered some jest at life, with rueful relish of the flavour: for +such is our manner of commenting on ourselves when we come to shipwreck +through unseaworthy pretensions. There was no interval on his passage +from anguish to immobility. + +Silent was that house of many chambers. That mass of humanity profusely +mixed of good and evil, of generous ire and mutinous, of the passion for +the future of mankind and vanity of person, magnanimity and sensualism, +high judgement, reckless indiscipline, chivalry, savagery, solidity, +fragmentariness, was dust. + +The two men composing it, the untamed and the candidate for citizenship, +in mutual dissension pulled it down. He perished of his weakness, but it +was a strong man that fell. If his end was unheroic, the blot does not +overshadow his life. His end was a derision because the animal in him +ran him unchained and bounding to it. A stormy blood made wreck of a +splendid intelligence. Yet they that pronounce over him the ordinary +fatalistic epitaph of the foregone and done, which is the wisdom of men +measuring the dead by the last word of a lamentable history, should pause +to think whether fool or madman is the title for one who was a zealous +worker, respected by great heads of his time, acknowledged the head of +the voluminous coil of the working people, and who, as we have seen, +insensibly though these wrought within him, was getting to purer fires +through his coarser when the final intemperateness drove him to ruin. +As little was he the vanished God whom his working people hailed +deploringly on the long procession of his remains from city to city under +charge of the baroness. That last word of his history ridicules the +eulogy of partisan and devotee, and to commit the excess of worshipping +is to conjure up by contrast a vulgar giant: for truth will have her just +proportions, and vindicates herself upon a figure over-idealized by +bidding it grimace, leaving appraisers to get the balance of the two +extremes. He was neither fool nor madman, nor man to be adored: his last +temptation caught him in the season before he had subdued his blood, and +amid the multitudinously simple of this world, stamped him a tragic +comedian: that is, a grand pretender, a self-deceiver, one of the lividly +ludicrous, whom we cannot laugh at, but must contemplate, to distinguish +where their character strikes the note of discord with life; for +otherwise, in the reflection of their history, life will seem a thing +demoniacally inclined by fits to antic and dive into gulfs. The +characters of the hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic; not +many are of a stature and a complexity calling for the junction of the +two Muses to name them. + +While for his devotees he lay still warm in the earth, that other, the +woman, poor Clotilde, astonished her compatriots by passing comedy and +tragic comedy with the gift of her hand to the hand which had slain +Alvan. In sooth, the explanation is not so hard when we recollect our +knowledge of her. It was a gentle youth; her parents urged her to it: a +particular letter, the letter of the challenge to her father, besliming +her, was shown;--a hideous provocation pushed to the foullest. Who can +blame Prince Marko? who had ever given sign of more noble bravery than +he? He had stood to defend her name and fame. He was very love, the +never extinguished torch of love. And he hung on her for the little of +life appearing to remain to him. Before heaven he was guiltless. He was +good. Her misery had shrunk her into nothingness, and she rose out of +nothingness cold and bloodless, bearing a thought that she might make a +good youth happy, or nurse him sinking--be of that use. Besides he was a +refuge from the roof of her parents. She shut her eyes on the past, sure +of his goodness; goodness, on her return to some sense of being, she +prized above other virtues, and perhaps she had a fancy that to be allied +to it was to be doing good. After a few months she buried him. From +that day, or it may be, on her marriage day, her heart was Alvan's. +Years later she wrote her version of the story, not sparing herself so +much as she supposed. Providence and her parents were not forgiven. But +as we are in her debt for some instruction, she may now be suffered to +go. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A tragic comedian: that is, a grand pretender, a self-deceiver +At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly +Hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic +Men in love are children with their mistresses +Providence and her parents were not forgiven +She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each +Trick for killing time without hurting him +Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side + + + + +[The End] + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v3, by Meredith +********This file should be named gm69v10.txt or gm69v10.zip******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm69v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm69v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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