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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4464-0.txt b/4464-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85770b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/4464-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6440 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tragic Comedians, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4464] +Last Updated: August 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + +A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY + +By George Meredith + +1892 + + + +BOOK 1. + +The word ‘fantastical’ is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an +utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem +an appointed instrument for reviewers of books of imaginative matter +distasteful to those expository pens. Upon examination, claimants to the +epithet will be found outside of books and of poets, in many quarters, +Nature being one of the prominent, if not the foremost. Wherever she can +get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As +for that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and +the angry captain, called Human Nature, ‘fantastical’ fits it no less +completely than a continental baby’s skull-cap the stormy infant. + +Our sympathies, one may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen +shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and worthy of +study. + +The pair of tragic comedians of whom there will be question pass under +this word as under their banner and motto. Their acts are incredible: +they drank sunlight and drove their bark in a manner to eclipse +historical couples upon our planet. Yet they do belong to history, they +breathed the stouter air than fiction’s, the last chapter of them is +written in red blood, and the man pouring out that last chapter, was +of a mighty nature not unheroical, a man of the active grappling modern +brain which wrestles with facts, to keep the world alive, and can create +them, to set it spinning. + +A Faust-like legend might spring from him: he had a devil. He was the +leader of a host, the hope of a party, venerated by his followers, well +hated by his enemies, respected by the intellectual chiefs of his time, +in the pride of his manhood and his labours when he fell. And why this +man should have come to his end through love, and the woman who loved +him have laid her hand in the hand of the slayer, is the problem we have +to study, nothing inventing, in the spirit and flesh of both. To ask if +it was love is useless. Love may be celestial fire before it enters into +the systems of mortals. It will then take the character of its place +of abode, and we have to look not so much for the pure thing as for the +passion. Did it move them, hurry them, animating the giants and gnomes +of one, the elves and sprites of the other, and putting animal nature +out of its fashionable front rank? The bare railway-line of their story +tells of a passion honest enough to entitle it to be related. Nor is +there anything invented, because an addition of fictitious incidents +could never tell us how she came to do this, he to do that; or how the +comic in their natures led by interplay to the tragic issue. They are +real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to the world +by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us, that fiction, if it can imagine +events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read +us no such furrowing lesson in life. + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + + + +CHAPTER I + +An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the +pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her +web is for the devouring lion. At an early age Clotilde von Rudiger was +dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in +her seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn +a lively fancy, a womanly person, and singular attractions of colour, +eyes, and style. She belonged by birth to the small aristocracy of her +native land. Nature had disposed her to coquettry, which is a pastime +counting among the arts of fence, and often innocent, often serviceable, +though sometimes dangerous, in the centres of polished barbarism known +as aristocratic societies, where nature is not absent, but on the +contrary very extravagant, tropical, by reason of her idle hours for +the imbibing of copious draughts of sunlight. The young lady of charming +countenance and sprightly manners is too much besought to choose for her +choice to be decided; the numbers beseeching prevent her from choosing +instantly, after the fashion of holiday schoolboys crowding a buffet of +pastry. These are not coquettish, they clutch what is handy: and little +so is the starved damsel of the sequestered village, whose one object +of the worldly picturesque is the passing curate; her heart is his for +a nod. But to be desired ardently of trooping hosts is an incentive to +taste to try for yourself. Men (the jury of householders empanelled to +deliver verdicts upon the ways of women) can almost understand that. And +as it happens, tasting before you have sounded the sense of your taste +will frequently mislead by a step or two difficult to retrieve: the +young coquette must then be cruel, as necessarily we kick the waters to +escape drowning: and she is not in all cases dealing with simple +blocks or limp festoons, she comes upon veteran tricksters that have a +knowledge of her sex, capable of outfencing her nascent individuality. +The more imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future +days, the more is she a prey to the enemy in her time of ignorance. + +Clotilde’s younger maiden hours and their love episodes are wrapped in +the mists Diana considerately drops over her adventurous favourites. She +was not under a French mother’s rigid supervision. In France the mother +resolves that her daughter shall be guarded from the risks of that +unequal rencounter between foolish innocence and the predatory. Vigilant +foresight is not so much practised where the world is less accurately +comprehended. Young people of Clotilde’s upper world everywhere, and the +young women of it especially, are troubled by an idea drawn from what +they inhale and guess at in the spirituous life surrounding them, that +the servants of the devil are the valiant host, this world’s elect, +getting and deserving to get the best it can give in return for a little +dashing audacity, a flavour of the Fronde in their conduct; they sin, +but they have the world; and then they repent perhaps, but they have had +the world. The world is the golden apple. Thirst for it is common during +youth: and one would think the French mother worthy of the crown of +wisdom if she were not so scrupulously provident in excluding love from +the calculations on behalf of her girl. + +Say (for Diana’s mists are impenetrable and freeze curiosity) that +Clotilde was walking with Count Constantine, the brilliant Tartar +trained in Paris, when first she met Prince Marko Romaris, at the +Hungarian Baths on the borders of the Styrian highlands. The scene at +all events is pretty, and weaves a fable out of a variety of floating +threads. A stranger to the Baths, dressed in white and scarlet, sprang +from his carriage into a group of musical gypsies round an inn at the +arch of the chestnut avenue, after pulling up to listen to them for a +while. The music had seized him. He snatched bow and fiddle from one +of the ring, and with a few strokes kindled their faces. Then seating +himself, on a bench he laid the fiddle on his knee, and pinched the +strings and flung up his voice, not ceasing to roll out the spontaneous +notes when Clotilde and her cavalier, and other couples of the party, +came nigh; for he was on the tide of the song, warm in it, and loved +it too well to suffer intruders to break the flow, or to think of them. +They were close by when the last of it rattled (it was a popular song of +a fiery tribe) to its finish: He rose and saluted Clotilde, smiled and +jumped back to his carriage, sending a cry of adieu to the swarthy, +lank-locked, leather-hued circle, of which his dark oriental eyes and +skin of burnished walnut made him look an offshoot, but one of the +celestial branch. + +He was in her father’s reception-room when she reached home: he was +paying a visit of ceremony on behalf of his family to General von +Rudiger; which helped her to remember that he had been expected, and +also that his favourite colours were known to be white and scarlet. In +those very colours, strange to tell, Clotilde was dressed; Prince Marko +had recognized her by miraculous divination, he assured her he could +have staked his life on the guess as he bowed to her. Adieu to Count +Constantine. Fate had interposed the prince opportunely, we have to +suppose, for she received a strong impression of his coming straight +from her invisible guardian; and the stroke was consequently trenchant +which sent the conquering Tartar raving of her fickleness. She struck, +like fate, one blow. She discovered that the prince, in addition to his +beauty and sweet manners and gift of song, was good; she fell in love +with goodness, whereof Count Constantine was not an example: so she set +her face another way, soon discovering that there may be fragility in +goodness. And now first her imagination conceived the hero who was to +subdue her. Could Prince Marko be he, soft as he was, pliable, a docile +infant, burning to please her, enraptured in obeying?--the hero who +would wrestle with her, overcome and hold her bound? Siegfried could +not be dreamed in him, or a Siegfried’s baby son-in-arms. She caught a +glorious image of the woman rejecting him and his rival, and it informed +her that she, dissatisfied with an Adonis, and more than a match for +a famous conqueror, was a woman of decisive and independent, perhaps +unexampled, force of character. Her idea of a spiritual superiority that +could soar over those two men, the bad and the good--the bad because +of his vileness, the good because of his frailness--whispered to her of +deserving, possibly of attracting, the best of men: the best, that is, +in the woman’s view of us--the strongest, the great eagle of men, lord +of earth and air. + +One who will dominate me, she thought. + +Now when a young lady of lively intelligence and taking charm has +brought her mind to believe that she possesses force of character, she +persuades the rest of the world easily to agree with her, and so long as +her pretensions are not directly opposed to their habits of thought, her +parents will be the loudest in proclaiming it, fortifying so the maid’s +presumption, which is ready to take root in any shadow of subserviency. +Her father was a gouty general of infantry in the diplomatic service, +disinclined to unnecessary disputes, out of consideration for his +vehement irritability when roused. Her mother had been one of the +beauties of her set, and was preserving an attenuated reign, through +the conversational arts, to save herself from fading into the wall. Her +brothers and sisters were not of an age to contest her lead. The temper +of the period was revolutionary in society by reflection of the state of +politics, and juniors were sturdy democrats, letting their elders know +that they had come to their inheritance, while the elders, confused +by the impudent topsy-turvy, put on the gaping mask (not unfamiliar +to history) of the disestablished conservative, whose astounded state +paralyzes his wrath. + +Clotilde maintained a decent measure in the liberty she claimed, and +it was exercised in wildness of dialogue rather than in capricious +behaviour. If her flowing tongue was imperfectly controlled, it was +because she discoursed by preference to men upon our various affairs and +tangles, and they encouraged her with the tickled wonder which bids the +bold advance yet farther into bogland. Becoming the renowned original of +her society, wherever it might be, in Germany, Italy, Southern France, +she grew chillily sensible of the solitude decreed for their heritage to +our loftiest souls. Her Indian Bacchus, as a learned professor supplied +Prince Marko’s title for her, was a pet, not a companion. She to him was +what she sought for in another. As much as she pitied herself for not +lighting on the predestined man, she pitied him for having met the +woman, so that her tenderness for both inspired many signs of warm +affection, not very unlike the thing it moaned secretly the not being. +For she could not but distinguish a more poignant sorrow in the seeing +of the object we yearn to vainly than in vainly yearning to one unseen. +Dressed, to delight him, in Prince Marko’s colours, the care she +bestowed on her dressing was for the one absent, the shrouded comer: +so she pleased the prince to be pleasing to her soul’s lord, and this, +owing to an appearance of satisfactory deception that it bore, led to +her thinking guiltily. We may ask it: an eagle is expected, and how +is he to declare his eagleship save by breaking through our mean +conventional systems, tearing links asunder, taking his own in the teeth +of vulgar ordinances? Clotilde’s imagination drew on her reading for the +knots it tied and untied, and its ideas of grandeur. Her reading was an +interfusion of philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded. +She tried hard, but could get no other terrible tangle for her hero’s +exhibition of flaming azure divineness than the vile one of the wedded +woman. Further thinking of it, she revived and recovered; she despised +the complication, yet without perceiving how else he was to manifest +himself legitimately in a dull modern world. The rescuing her from +death would be a poor imitation of worn-out heroes. His publication of a +trumpeting book fell appallingly flat in her survey. Deeds of gallantry +done as an officer in war (defending his country too) distinguished the +soldier, but failed to add the eagle feather to the man. She had a mind +of considerable soaring scope, and eclectic: it analyzed a Napoleon, +and declined the position of his empress. The man must be a gentleman. +Poets, princes, warriors, potentates, marched before her speculative +fancy unselected. + +So far, as far as she can be portrayed introductorily, she is not +without exemplars in the sex. Young women have been known to turn +from us altogether, never to turn back, so poor and shrunken, or so +fleshly-bulgy have we all appeared in the fairy jacket they wove for the +right one of us to wear becomingly. But the busy great world was round +Clotilde while she was malleable, though she might be losing her +fresh ideas of the hammer and the block, and that is a world of much +solicitation to induce a vivid girl to merge an ideal in a living image. +Supposing, when she has accomplished it, that men justify her choice, +the living will retain the colours of the ideal. We have it on record +that he may seem an eagle. + +‘You talk curiously like Alvan, do you know,’ a gentleman of her country +said to her as they were descending the rock of Capri, one day. He said +it musingly. + +He belonged to a circle beneath her own: the learned and artistic. +She had not heard of this Alvan, or had forgotten him; but professing +universal knowledge, especially of celebrities, besides having an +envious eye for that particular circle, which can pretend to be the +choicest of all, she was unwilling to betray her ignorance, and she +dimpled her cheek, as one who had often heard the thing said to her +before. She smiled musingly. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +‘Who is the man they call Alvan?’ She put the question at the first +opportunity to an aunt of hers. + +Up went five-fingered hands. This violent natural sign of horror was +comforting: she saw that he was a celebrity indeed. + +‘Alvan! My dear Clotilde! What on earth can you want to know about a +creature who is the worst of demagogues, a disreputable person, and a +Jew!’ + +Clotilde remarked that she had asked only who he was. ‘Is he clever?’ + +‘He is one of the basest of those wretches who are for upsetting the +Throne and Society to gratify their own wicked passions: that is what he +is.’ + +‘But is he clever?’ + +‘Able as Satan himself, they say. He is a really dangerous, bad man. You +could not have been curious about a worse one.’ + +‘Politically, you mean.’ + +‘Of course I do.’ + +The lady had not thought of any other kind of danger from a man of that +station. + +The likening of one to Satan does not always exclude meditation upon +him. Clotilde was anxious to learn in what way her talk resembled +Alvan’s. He being that furious creature, she thought of herself at her +wildest, which was in her estimation her best; and consequently, she +being by no means a furious creature, though very original, she could +not meditate on him without softening the outlines given him by report; +all because of the likeness between them; and, therefore, as she had +knowingly been taken for furious by very foolish people, she settled +it that Alvan was also a victim of the prejudices he scorned. It had +pleased her at times to scorn our prejudices and feel the tremendous +weight she brought on herself by the indulgence. She drew on her +recollections of the Satanic in her bosom when so situated, and never +having admired herself more ardently than when wearing that aspect, she +would have admired the man who had won the frightful title in public, +except for one thing--he was a Jew. + +The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew. Her parents had +the same abhorrence of Jewry. One of the favourite similes of the family +for whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew: +and it was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in +the veins of the latest generation and might have been traced on the +maternal side. + +Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards +is the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent +impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance +repulsive. She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan. Luckily for the +gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet +him again in Italy. + +She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she +summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish, +still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice +of the art she could at any time blow up a company--scatter mature and +seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our +stout sex a shaking. + +Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling +into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient +lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the +brain of her race is located. There it occurred that a dashing officer +of social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for +a comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making: ‘I +see you know Alvan.’ + +Alvan once more. + +‘Indeed I do not,’ she said, for she was addressing an officer high +above Alvan in social rank; and she shrugged, implying that she was +almost past contradiction of the charge. + +‘Surely you must,’ said he; ‘where is the lady who could talk and think +as you do without knowing Alvan and sharing his views!’ + +Clotilde was both startled and nettled. + +‘But I do not know him at all; I have never met him, never seen him. +I am unlikely to meet the kind of person,’ she protested; and she was +amazed yet secretly rejoiced on hearing him, a noble of her own circle, +and a dashing officer, rejoin: ‘Come, come, let us be honest. That is +all very well for the little midges floating round us to say of Alvan, +but we two can clasp hands and avow proudly that we both know and love +the man.’ + +‘Were it true, I would own it at once, but I repeat, that he is a +total stranger to me,’ she said, seeing the Jew under quite a different +illumination. + +‘Actually?’ + +‘In honour.’ + +‘You have never met, never seen him, never read any of his writings?’ + +‘Never. I have heard his name, that is all.’ + +‘Then,’ the officer’s voice was earnest, ‘I pity him, and you no less, +while you remain strangers, for you were made for one another. Those +ideas you have expressed, nay, the very words, are Alvan’s: I have heard +him use them. He has just the same original views of society and history +as yours; they’re identical; your features are not unlike... you talk +alike: I could fancy your voice the sister of his. You look incredulous? +You were speaking of Pompeius, and you said “Plutarch’s Pompeius,” and +more for it is almost incredible under the supposition that you do not +know and have never listened to Alvan--you said that Pompeius appeared +to have been decorated with all the gifts of the Gods to make the +greater sacrifice of him to Caesar, who was not personally worth a +pretty woman’s “bite.” Come, now--you must believe me: at a supper +at Alvan’s table the other night, the talk happened to be of a +modern Caesar, which led to the real one, and from him to “Plutarch’s +Pompeius,” as Alvan called him; and then he said of him what you have +just said, absolutely the same down to the allusion to the bite. I +assure you. And you have numbers of little phrases in common: you are +partners in aphorisms: Barriers are for those who cannot fly: that is +Alvan’s. I could multiply them if I could remember; they struck me as +you spoke.’ + +‘I must be a shameless plagiarist,’ said Clotilde. + +‘Or he,’ said Count Kollin. + +It is here the place of the Chorus to state that these: ideas were in +the air at the time; sparks of the Vulcanic smithy at work in politics +and pervading literature: which both Alvan and Clotilde might catch +and give out as their own, in the honest belief that the epigram was, +original to them. They were not members of a country where literature is +confined to its little paddock, without, influence on the larger field +(part lawn, part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in +sympathetic action with thinkers and literary artists. Their saying in +common, ‘Plutarch’s Pompeius,’ may be traceable to a reading of some +professorial article on the common portrait-painting of the sage of +Chaeroneia. The dainty savageness in the ‘bite’ Plutarch mentions, +evidently struck on a similarity of tastes in both, as it has done with +others. And in regard to Caesar, Clotilde thought much of Caesar; she +had often wished that Caesar (for the additional pleasure in thinking +of him) had been endowed with the beauty of his rival: one or two of +Plutarch’s touches upon the earlier history of Pompeius had netted her +fancy, faintly (your generosity must be equal to hearing it) stung her +blood; she liked the man; and if he had not been beaten in the end, she +would have preferred him femininely. His name was not written Pompey to +her, as in English, to sound absurd: it was a note of grandeur befitting +great and lamentable fortunes, which the young lady declined to share +solely because of her attraction to the victor, her compulsion to render +unto the victor the sunflower’s homage. She rendered it as a slave: the +splendid man beloved to ecstasy by the flower of Roman women was her +natural choice. + +Alvan could not be even a Caesar in person, he was a Jew. Still a Jew +of whom Count Kollin spoke so warmly must be exceptional, and of +the exceptional she dreamed. He might have the head of a Caesar. She +imagined a huge head, the cauldron of a boiling brain, anything but +bright to the eye, like a pot always on the fire, black, greasy, +encrusted, unkempt: the head of a malicious tremendous dwarf. Her +hungry inquiries in a city where Alvan was well known, brought her full +information of one who enjoyed a highly convivial reputation besides the +influence of his political leadership; but no description of his aspect +accompanied it, for where he was nightly to be met somewhere about the +city, none thought of describing him, and she did not push that question +because she had sketched him for herself, and rather wished, the more +she heard of his genius, to keep him repulsive. It appeared that his +bravery was as well proved as his genius, and a brilliant instance of it +had been given in the city not long since. He had her ideas, and he won +multitudes with them: he was a talker, a writer, and an orator; and he +was learned, while she could not pretend either to learning or to a flow +of rhetoric. She could prattle deliciously, at times pointedly, relying +on her intuition to tell her more than we get from books, and on her +sweet impudence for a richer original strain. She began to appreciate +now a reputation for profound acquirements. Learned professors of +jurisprudence and history were as enthusiastic for Alvan in their way as +Count Kollin. She heard things related of Alvan by the underbreath. That +circle below her own, the literary and artistic, idolized him; his +talk, his classic breakfasts and suppers, his undisguised ambition, +his indomitable energy, his dauntlessness and sway over her sex, +were subjects of eulogy all round her; and she heard of an enamoured +baroness. No one blamed Alvan. He had shown his chivalrous valour +in defending her. The baroness was not a young woman, and she was a +hardbound Blue. She had been the first to discover the prodigy, and had +pruned, corrected, and published him; he was one of her political works, +promising to be the most successful. An old affair apparently; but +the association of a woman’s name with Alvan’s, albeit the name of a +veteran, roused the girl’s curiosity, leading her to think his mental +and magnetic powers must be of the very highest, considering his +physical repulsiveness, for a woman of rank to yield him such extreme +devotion. She commissioned her princely serving-man, who had followed +and was never far away from her, to obtain precise intelligence of this +notorious Alvan. + +Prince Marko did what he could to please her; he knew something of the +rumours about Alvan and the baroness. But why should his lady trouble +herself for particulars of such people, whom it could scarcely be +supposed she would meet by accident? He asked her this. Clotilde said +it was common curiosity. She read him a short lecture on the dismal +narrowness of their upper world; and on the advantage of taking an +interest in the world below them and more enlightened; a world where +ideas were current and speech was wine. The prince nodded; if she had +these opinions, it must be good for him to have them too, and he shared +them, as it were, by the touch of her hand, and for the length of time +that he touched her hand, as an electrical shock may be taken by one far +removed from the battery, susceptible to it only through the link; +he was capable of thinking all that came to him from her a +blessing--shocks, wounds and disruptions. He did not add largely to her +stock of items, nor did he fetch new colours. The telegraph wire was +his model of style. He was more or less a serviceless Indian Bacchus, +standing for sign of the beauty and vacuity of their world: and how +dismally narrow that world was, she felt with renewed astonishment at +every dive out of her gold-fish pool into the world of tides below; so +that she was ready to scorn the cultivation of the graces, and had, +when not submitting to the smell, fanciful fits of a liking for tobacco +smoke--the familiar incense of those homes where speech was wine. + +At last she fell to the asking of herself whether, in the same city +with him, often among his friends, hearing his latest intimate +remarks--things homely redolent of him as hot bread of the oven--she was +ever to meet this man upon whom her thoughts were bent to the eclipse +of all others. She desired to meet him for comparison’s sake, and to +criticize a popular hero. It was inconceivable that any one popular +could approach her standard, but she was curious; flame played about +him; she had some expectation of easing a spiteful sentiment created by +the recent subjection of her thoughts to the prodigious little Jew; and +some feeling of closer pity for Prince Marko she had, which urged her +to be rid of her delusion as to the existence of a wonder-working man on +our earth, that she might be sympathetically kind to the prince, perhaps +compliant, and so please her parents, be good and dull, and please +everybody, and adieu to dreams, good night, and so to sleep with the +beasts!... + +Calling one afternoon on a new acquaintance of the flat table-land she +liked tripping down to from her heights, Clotilde found the lady in +supreme toilette, glowing, bubbling: ‘Such a breakfast, my dear!’ The +costly profusion, the anecdotes, the wit, the fun, the copious draughts +of the choicest of life--was there ever anything to match it? Never in +that lady’s recollection, or her husband’s either, she exclaimed. And +where was the breakfast? Why, at Alvan’s, to be sure; where else could +such a breakfast be? + +‘And you know Alvan!’ cried Clotilde, catching excitement from the +lady’s flush. + +‘Alvan is one of my husband’s closest friends’ + +Clotilde put on the playful frenzy; she made show of wringing her hands: +‘Oh! happy you! you know Alvan? And everybody is to know him except me? +why? I proclaim it unjust. Because I am unmarried? I’ll take a husband +to-morrow morning to be entitled to meet Alvan in the evening.’ + +The playful frenzy is accepted in its exact innocent signification of +‘this is my pretty wilful will and way,’ and the lady responded to it +cordially; for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant +to assist some one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a +sight of Alvan; she was used to the request. + +‘You’re not obliged to wait for to-morrow,’ she said. ‘Come to one of +our gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.’ + +‘You invite me?’ + +‘Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, and +Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour of +our introduction? She will bring you.’ + +The Frau v. Crestow was a cousin of Clotilde’s by marriage, sentimental, +but strict in her reading of the proprieties. She saw nothing wrong in +undertaking to conduct Clotilde to one of those famous gatherings of +the finer souls of the city and the race; and her husband agreed to join +them after the sitting of the Chamber upon a military-budget vote. +The whole plan was nicely arranged and went well. Clotilde dressed +carefully, letting her gold-locks cloud her fine forehead carelessly, +with finishing touches to the negligence, for she might be challenged to +take part in disputations on serious themes, and a handsome young +woman who has to sustain an argument against a man does wisely when she +forearms her beauties for a reserve, to carry out flanking movements if +required. The object is to beat him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan +was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted +damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her +companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where +three gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours +of tobacco. They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was +of good stature. One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly +Jewish. The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter +signs of the Ahasuerus race. Three hats on his head could not have done +it more effectively. The vindictive caricatures of the God Pan, executed +by priests of the later religion burning to hunt him out of worship +in the semblance of the hairy, hoofy, snouty Evil One, were not more +loathsome. She sank on a sofa. That the man? Oh! Jew, and fifty times +over Jew! nothing but Jew! + +The three stepped into the long saloon, and she saw how veritably +magnificent was the first whom she had noticed. + +She sat at her lamb’s-wool work in the little ivory frame, feeding +on the contrast. This man’s face was the born orator’s, with the +light-giving eyes, the forward nose, the animated mouth, all stamped for +speechfulness and enterprise, of Cicero’s rival in the forum before he +took the headship of armies and marched to empire. + +The gifts of speech, enterprise, decision, were marked on his features +and his bearing, but with a fine air of lordly mildness. Alas, he could +not be other than Christian, so glorious was he in build! One could +vision an eagle swooping to his helm by divine election. So vigorously +rich was his blood that the swift emotion running with the theme as +he talked pictured itself in passing and was like the play of sheet +lightning on the variations of the uninterrupted and many-glancing +outpour. Looking on him was listening. Yes, the looking on him sufficed. +Here was an image of the beauty of a new order of godlike men, that +drained an Indian Bacchus of his thin seductions at a breath-reduced +him to the state of nursery plaything, spangles and wax, in the +contemplation of a girl suddenly plunged on the deeps of her womanhood. +She shrank to smaller and smaller as she looked. + +Be sure that she knew who he was. No, says she. But she knew. It +terrified her soul to think he was Alvan. She feared scarcely less that +it might not be he. Between these dreads of doubt and belief she played +at cat and mouse with herself, escaped from cat, persecuted mouse, +teased herself, and gloated. It is he! not he! he! not he! most +certainly! impossible!--And then it ran: If he, oh me! If another, woe +me! For she had come to see Alvan. Alvan and she shared ideas. They +talked marvellously alike, so as to startle Count Kollin: and supposing +he was not Alvan, it would be a bitter disappointment. The supposition +that he was, threatened her with instant and life-long bondage. + +Then again, could that face be the face of a Jew? She feasted. It was a +noble profile, an ivory skin, most lustrous eyes. Perchance a Jew of the +Spanish branch of the exodus, not the Polish. There is the noble Jew as +well as the bestial Gentile. There is not in the sublimest of Gentiles a +majesty comparable to that of the Jew elect. He may well think his race +favoured of heaven, though heaven chastise them still. The noble Jew is +grave in age, but in his youth he is the arrow to the bow of his fiery +eastern blood, and in his manhood he is--ay, what you see there! a +figure of easy and superb preponderance, whose fire has mounted to +inspirit and be tempered by the intellect. + +She was therefore prepared all the while for the surprise of learning +that the gentleman so unlike a Jew was Alvan; and she was prepared to +express her recordation of the circumstance in her diary with phrases +of very eminent surprise. Necessarily it would be the greatest of +surprises. + +The three, this man and his two of the tribe, upon whom Clotilde’s +attention centred, with a comparison in her mind too sacred to be other +than profane (comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered), +dropped to the cushions of the double-seated sofa, by one side of which +she cowered over her wool-work, willing to dwindle to a pin’s head if +her insignificance might enable her to hear the words of the speaker. He +pursued his talk: there was little danger of not hearing him. There was +only the danger of feeling too deeply the spell of his voice. His voice +had the mellow fulness of the clarionet. But for the subject, she could +have fancied a noontide piping of great Pan by the sedges. She had +never heard a continuous monologue so musical, so varied in music, amply +flowing, vivacious, interwovenly the brook, the stream, the torrent: +a perfect natural orchestra in a single instrument. He had notes less +pastorally imageable, notes that fired the blood, with the ranging of +his theme. The subject became clearer to her subjugated wits, until +the mental vivacity he roused on certain impetuous phrases of assertion +caused her pride to waken up and rebel as she took a glance at herself, +remembering that she likewise was a thinker, deemed in her society +an original thinker, an intrepid thinker and talker, not so very much +beneath this man in audacity of brain, it might be. He kindled her thus, +and the close-shut but expanded and knew the fretting desire to breathe +out the secret within it, and be appreciated in turn. + +The young flower of her sex burned to speak, to deliver an opinion. She +was unaccustomed to yield a fascinated ear. She was accustomed rather +to dictate and be the victorious performer, and though now she was not +anxious to occupy the pulpit--being too strictly bred to wish for a post +publicly in any of the rostra--and meant still less to dispossess the +present speaker of the place he filled so well, she yearned to join him: +and as that could not be done by a stranger approving, she panted to +dissent. A young lady cannot so well say to an unknown gentleman: ‘You +have spoken truly, sir,’ as, ‘That is false!’ for to speak in the former +case would be gratuitous, and in the latter she is excused by the moral +warmth provoking her. Further, dissent rings out finely, and approval +is a feeble murmur--a poor introduction of oneself. Her moral warmth +was ready and waiting for the instigating subject, but of course she was +unconscious of the goad within. Excitement wafted her out of herself, as +we say, or out of the conventional vessel into the waves of her troubled +nature. He had not yet given her an opportunity for dissenting; she was +compelled to agree, dragged at his chariot-wheels in headlong agreement. + +His theme was Action; the political advantages of Action; and he +illustrated his view with historical examples, to the credit of the +French, the temporary discredit of the German and English races, who +tend to compromise instead. Of the English he spoke as of a power +extinct, a people ‘gone to fat,’ who have gained their end in a hoard of +gold and shut the door upon bandit ideas. Action means life to the soul +as to the body. Compromise is virtual death: it is the pact between +cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency. So do we gather +dead matter about us. So are we gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The +war with evil in every form must be incessant; we cannot have peace. Let +then our joy be in war: in uncompromising Action, which need not be the +less a sagacious conduct of the war.... Action energizes men’s brains, +generates grander capacities, provokes greatness of soul between +enemies, and is the guarantee of positive conquest for the benefit of +our species. To doubt that, is to doubt of good being to be had for the +seeking. He drew pictures of the healthy Rome when turbulent, the doomed +quiescent. Rome struggling grasped the world. Rome stagnant invited +Goth and Vandal. So forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed +pamphleteer. At last her chance arrived. + +His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the +character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet’s promising youth. How +brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning! + +‘Mad from the first!’ cried Clotilde. + +She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The +three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor. + +Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes +engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each +pair of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung +herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis. + +His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa, +leaning across it, with clasped hands. + +‘You are she!--So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the +commencement?’ + +‘After the apparition of Hamlet’s father the prince was mad,’ said +Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm +succeeding that of her boldness. + +‘Why should we two wait to be introduced?’ said he. ‘We know one +another. I am Alvan. You are she of whom I heard from Kollin: who else? +Lucretia the gold-haired; the gold-crested serpent, wise as her sire; +Aurora breaking the clouds; in short, Clotilde!’ + +Her heart exulted to hear him speak her name. She laughed with a radiant +face. His being Alvan, and his knowing her and speaking her name, all +was like the happy reading of a riddle. He came round to her, bowing, +and his hand out. She gave hers: she could have said, if asked, ‘For +good!’ And it looked as though she had given it for good. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +‘Hamlet in due season,’ said he, as they sat together. ‘I shall convince +you.’ + +She shook her head. + +‘Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: +the fact is not half so stubborn. But at present there are two more +important actors: we are not at Elsinore. You are aware that I hoped to +meet you?’ + +‘Is there a periodical advertisement of your hopes?--or do they come to +us by intuition?’ + +‘Kollin was right!--the ways of the serpent will be serpentine. I knew +we must meet. It is no true day so long as the goddess of the morning +and the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of myself, by what I have felt +since I heard of you.’ + +‘You are sure of your divinity?’ + +‘Through my belief in yours!’ + +They bowed smiling at the courtly exchanges. + +‘And tell me,’ said he, ‘as to meeting me...?’ + +She replied: ‘When we are so like the rest of the world we may confess +our weakness.’ + +‘Unlike! for the world and I meet and part: not we two.’ + +Clotilde attempted an answer: it would not come. She tried to be +revolted by his lording tone, and found it strangely inoffensive. His +lording presence and the smile that was like a waving feather on it +compelled her so strongly to submit to hear, as to put her in danger of +appearing to embrace this man’s rapid advances. + +She said: ‘I first heed of you at Capri.’ + +‘And I was at Capri seven days after you had left.’ + +‘You knew my name then?’ + +‘Be not too curious with necromancers. Here is the date--March 15th. You +departed on the 8th.’ + +‘I think I did. That is a year from now.’ + +‘Then we missed: now we meet. It is a year lost. A year is a great age! +Reflect on it and what you owe me. How I wished for a comrade at Capri! +Not a “young lady,” and certainly no man. The understanding Feminine, +was my desire--a different thing from the feminine understanding, +usually. I wanted my comrade young and fair, necessarily of your sex, +but with heart and brain: an insane request, I fancied, until I heard +that you were the person I wanted. In default of you I paraded the +island with Tiberius, who is my favourite tyrant. We took the initiative +against the patricians, at my suggestion, and the Annals were written by +a plebeian demagogue, instead of by one of that party, whose account of +my extinction by command of the emperor was pathetic. He apologized +in turn for my imperial master and me, saying truly, that the +misunderstanding between us was past cement: for each of us loved the +man but hated his office; and as the man is always more in his office +than he is in himself, clearly it was the lesser portion of our friend +that each of us loved. So, I, as the weaker, had to perish, as he would +have done had I been the stronger; I admitted it, and sent my emperor +my respectful adieux, with directions for the avoiding of assassins. +Mademoiselle, by delaying your departure seven days you would have saved +me from death. You see, the official is the artificial man, and I ought +to have known there is no natural man left in us to weigh against the +artificial. I counted on the emperor’s personal affection, forgetting +that princes cannot be our friends.’ + +‘You died bravely?’ + +Clotilde entered into the extravagance with a happy simulation of zest. + +‘Simply, we will say. My time had come, and I took no sturdy pose, +but let the life-stream run its course for a less confined embankment. +Sapphire sea, sapphire sky: one believes in life there, thrills with it, +when life is ebbing: ay, as warmly as when life is at the flow in our +sick and shrivelled North--the climate for dried fish! Verily the second +death of hearing that a gold-haired Lucretia had been on the island +seven days earlier, was harder to bear. Tell me frankly--the music in +Italy?’ + +‘Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous.’ + +‘Excellent!’ his eyes flashed delightedly. ‘O comrade of comrades! that +year lost to me will count heavily as I learn to value those I have +gained. Yes, brainless! There, in music, we beat them, as politically +France beats us. No life without brain! The brainless in Art and in +Statecraft are nothing but a little more obstructive than the dead. +It is less easy to cut a way through them. But it must be done, or the +Philistine will be as the locust in his increase, and devour the green +blades of the earth. You have been trained to shudder at the demagogue?’ + +‘I do not shudder,’ said Clotilde. + +‘A diamond from the lapidary!--Your sentences have many facets. Well, +you are conversing with a demagogue, an avowed one: a demagogue and +a Jew. You take it as a matter of course: you should exhibit some +sparkling incredulity. The Christian is like the politician in supposing +the original obverse of him everlastingly the same, after the pattern +of the monster he was originally taught to hate. But the Jew has been +a little christianized, and we have a little bejewed the Christian. +So with demagogues: as we see the conservative crumbling, we grow +conservatived. Try to think individually upon what you have to learn +collectively--that is your task. You are of the few who will be equal to +it. We are not men of blood, believe me. I am not. For example, I detest +and I decline the duel. I have done it, and proved myself a man of metal +notwithstanding. To say nothing of the inhumanity, the senselessness of +duelling revolts me. ‘Tis a folly, so your nobles practise it, and +your royal wiseacre sanctions. No blood for me: and yet I tell you +that whatever opposes me, I will sweep away. How? With the brain. If we +descend to poor brute strength or brutal craft, it is from failing in +the brain: we quit the leadership of our forces, and the descent is the +beast’s confession. Do I say how? Perhaps by your aid.--You do not +start and cry: “Mine!” That is well. I have not much esteem for +non-professional actresses. They are numerous and not entertaining.--You +leave it to me to talk.’ + +‘Could I do better?’ + +‘You listen sweetly.’ + +‘It is because I like to hear.’ + +‘You have the pearly little ear of a shell on the sand.’ + +‘With the great sea sounding near it!’ + +Alvan drew closer to her. + +‘I look into your eyes and perceive that one may listen to you and +speak to you. Heart to heart, then! Yes, a sea to lull you, a sea to win +you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be. My prize is found! +The good friend who did the part of Iris for us came bounding to me: “I +have discovered the wife for you, Alvan.” I had previously heard of her +from another as having touched the islet of Capri. “But,” said Kollin, +“she is a gold-crested serpent--slippery!” Is she? That only tells me of +a little more to be mastered. I feel my future now. Hitherto it has been +a land without sunlight. Do you know how the look of sunlight on a +land calms one? It signifies to the eye possession and repose, the end +gained--not the end to labour, just heaven! but peace to the heart’s +craving, which is the renewal of strength for work, the fresh dip in the +waters of life. Conjure up your vision of Italy. Remember the meaning +of Italian light and colour: the clearness, the luminous fulness, the +thoughtful shadows. Mountain and wooded headland are solid, deep to the +eye, spirit-speaking to the mind. They throb. You carve shapes of Gods +out of that sky, the sea, those peaks. They live with you. How they +satiate the vacant soul by influx, and draw forth the troubled from its +prickly nest!--Well, and you are my sunlighted land. And you will have +to be fought for. And I see not the less repose in the prospect! Part +of you may be shifty-sand. The sands are famous for their golden +shining--as you shine. Well, then, we must make the quicksands concrete. +I have a perfect faith in you, and in the winning of you. Clearly you +will have to be fought for. I should imagine it a tough battle to come. +But as I doubt neither you nor myself, I see beyond it.--We use phrases +in common, and aphorisms, it appears. Why? but that our minds act in +unison. What if I were to make a comparison of you with Paris?--the city +of Paris, Lutetia.’ + +‘Could you make it good?’ said Clotilde. + +He laughed and postponed it for a series of skimming discussions, like +swallow-flights from the nest beneath the eaves to the surface of the +stream, perpetually reverting to her, and provoking spirited replies, +leading her to fly with him in expectation of a crowning compliment that +must be singular and was evidently gathering confirmation in his mind +from the touchings and probings of her character on these flights. + +She was like a lady danced off her sense of fixity, to whom the +appearance of her whirling figure in the mirror is both wonderful and +reassuring; and she liked to be discussed, to be compared to anything, +for the sake of being the subject, so as to be sure it was she that +listened to a man who was a stranger, claiming her for his own; sure +it was she that by not breaking from him implied consent, she that went +speeding in this magical rapid round which slung her more and more out +of her actual into her imagined self, compelled her to proceed, denied +her the right to faint and call upon the world for aid, and catch at it, +though it was close by and at a signal would stop the terrible circling. +The world was close by and had begun to stare. She half apprehended that +fact, but she was in the presence of the irresistible. In the presence +of the irresistible the conventional is a crazy structure swept away +with very little creaking of its timbers on the flood. When we feel its +power we are immediately primitive creatures, flying anywhere in space, +indifferent to nakedness. And after trimming ourselves for it, the sage +asks your permission to add, it will be the thing we are most certain +some day to feel. Had not she trimmed herself?--so much that she had won +fame for an originality mistaken by her for the independent mind, and +perilously, for courage. She had trimmed herself and Alvan too--herself +to meet it, and Alvan to be it. Her famous originality was a trumpet +blown abroad proclaiming her the prize of the man who sounded as loudly +his esteem for the quality--in a fair young woman of good breeding. Each +had evoked the other. Their common anticipations differed in this, that +he had expected comeliness, she the reverse--an Esau of the cities; and +seeing superb manly beauty in the place of the thick-featured sodden +satyr of her miscreating fancy, the irresistible was revealed to her on +its divinest whirlwind. + +They both desired beauty; they had each stipulated for beauty before +captivity could be acknowledged; and he beholding her very attractive +comeliness, walked into the net, deeming the same a light thing to wear, +and rather a finishing grace to his armoury; but she, a trained disciple +of the conventional in social behaviour (as to the serious points and +the extremer trifles), fluttered exceedingly; she knew not what she was +doing, where her hand was, how she looked at him, how she drank in +his looks on her. Her woman’s eyes had no guard they had scarcely +speculation. She saw nothing in its passing, but everything backward, +under haphazard flashes. The sight of her hand disengaged told her it +had been detained; a glance at the company reminded her that those were +men and women who had been other than phantoms; recollections of the +words she listened to, assented to, replied to, displayed the gulfs she +had crossed. And nevertheless her brain was as quick as his to press +forward to pluck the themes which would demonstrate her mental vividness +and at least indicate her force of character. The splendour of the man +quite extinguished, or over-brightened, her sense of personal charm; she +set fire to her brain to shine intellectually, treating the tale of her +fair face as a childish tale that might have a grain of truth in it, +some truth, a very little, and that little nearly worthless, merely +womanly, a poor charm of her sex. The intellectual endowment was +rarer: still rarer the moral audacity. O, to match this man’s embracing +discursiveness! his ardour, his complacent energy, the full strong sound +he brought out of all subjects! He struck, and they rang. There was a +bell in everything for him; Nature gave out her cry, and significance +was on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any +afflicting lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane +he was! how supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of +flippantly tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an +echo, his firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had +felt deeper than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to +consider: with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of +life thrice dear to him, he was fearless. Less by what he said than by +divination she discerned that he knew not fear. If for only that, she +would have hung to him like his shadow. She could have detected a brazen +pretender. A meaner mortal vaunting his great stores she would have +written down coxcomb. Her social training and natural perception raised +her to a height to measure the bombastical and distinguish it from the +eloquently lofty. He spoke of himself, as the towering Alp speaks out at +a first view, bidding that which he was be known. Fearless, confident, +able, he could not but be, as he believed himself, indomitable. She who +was this man’s mate would consequently wed his possessions, including +courage. Clotilde at once reached the conclusion of her having it in +an equal degree. Was she not displaying it? The worthy people of the +company stared, as she now perceived, and she was indifferent; her +relatives were present without disturbing her exaltation. She wheeled +above their heads in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could +not but be courage, active courage, superior to her previous tentative +steps--the verbal temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now +she was in action, now she was being tried to match the preacher and +incarnation of the virtues of action! + +Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities--the +symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive, +eager to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him +to proof, graceful beyond all rhyme, colloquial as never the Muse; light +in light hands, yet valiant unto death for a principle; and therefore +not light, anything but light in strong hands, very stedfast rather: and +oh! constantly entertaining. + +The comparison had to be strained to fit the living lady’s shape. Did he +think it, or a dash of something like it? + +His mood was luxurious. He had found the fair and youthful original +woman of refinement and station desired by him. He had good reason +to wish to find her. Having won a name, standing on firm ground, with +promise of a great career, chief of what was then taken for a growing +party and is not yet a collapsed, nor will be, though the foot on it is +iron, his youth had flown under the tutelage of an extraordinary Mentor, +whom to call Athene robs the goddess of her personal repute for wisdom +in conduct, but whose head was wise, wise as it was now grey. Verily +she was original; and a grey original should seem remarkable above a +blooming blonde. If originality in woman were our prime request, the +grey should bear the palm. She has gone through the battle, retaining +the standard she carried into it, which is a victory. Alas, that grey, +so spirit-touching in Art, should be so wintry in reality! + +The discovery of a feminine original breathing Spring, softer, warmer +than the ancient one, gold instead of snowcrested, and fully as intrepid +as devoted, was an immense joy to Alvan. He took it luxuriously because +he believed in his fortune, a kind of natal star, the common heritage of +the adventurous, that brought him his good things in time, in return +for energetic strivings in a higher direction apart from his natural +longings. + +Fortune had delayed, he had wintered long. All the sweeter was the +breath of the young Spring. That exquisite new sweetness robed Clotilde +in the attributes of the person dreamed of for his mate; and deductively +assuming her to possess them, he could not doubt his power of winning +her. Barriers are for those who cannot fly. The barriers were palpable +about a girl of noble Christian birth: so was the courage in her which +would give her wings, he thought, coming to that judgement through the +mixture of his knowledge of himself and his perusal of her exterior. +He saw that she could take an impression deeply enough to express it +sincerely, and he counted on it, sympathetically endowing her with his +courage to support the originality she was famed for. + +They were interrupted between-whiles by weariful men running to Alvan +for counsel on various matters--how to play their game, or the exact +phrasing of some pregnant sentence current in politics or literature. +He satisfied them severally and shouldered them away, begging for peace +that night. Clotilde corroborated his accurate recital of the lines of +a contested verse of the incomparable Heinrich, and they fell to capping +verses of the poet-lucid metheglin, with here and there no dubious +flavour of acid, and a lively sting in the tail of the honey. Sentiment, +cynicism, and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, +where pure poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements +constitute the popularity in a cultivated society inclining to +wantonness out of bravado as well as by taste. Alvan, looking +indolently royal and royally roguish, quoted a verse that speaks of the +superfluousness of a faithless lady’s vowing bite: + + ‘The kisses were in the course of things, + The bite was a needless addition.’ + +Clotilde could not repress her reddening--Count Kollin had repeated too +much! She dropped her eyes, with a face of sculpture, then resumed their +chatter. He spared her the allusion to Pompeius. She convinced him of +her capacity for reserve besides intrepidity, and flattered him too with +her blush. She could dare to say to Kollin what her scarlet sensibility +forbade her touching on with him: not that she would not have had an +airy latitude with him to touch on what she pleased: he liked her for +her boldness and the cold peeping of the senses displayed in it: he +liked also the distinction she made. + +The cry to supper conduced to a further insight of her adaptation to +his requirements in a wife. They marched to the table together, and sat +together, and drank a noble Rhine wine together--true Rauenthal. His +robustness of body and soul inspired the wish that his well-born wife +might be, in her dainty fashion, yet honestly and without mincing, his +possible boonfellow: he and she, glass in hand, thanking the bountiful +heavens, blessing mankind in chorus. It belonged to his hearty dream +of the wife he would choose, were she to be had. The position of +interpreter of heaven’s benevolence to mankind through his own enjoyment +of the gifts, was one that he sagaciously demanded for himself, sharing +it with the Philistine unknowingly; and to have a wife no less wise than +he on this throne of existence was a rosy exaltation. Clotilde kindled +to the hint of his festival mood of Solomon at the banquet. She was not +devoid of a discernment of flavours; she had heard grave judges at her +father’s board profoundly deliver their verdicts upon this and that +vineyard and vintage; and it is a note of patriotism in her country to +be enthusiastic for wine of the Rhine: she was, moreover, thirsty from +much talking and excitement. She drank her glass relishingly, declaring +the wine princely. Alvan smacked his hands in a rapture: ‘You are not +for the extract of raisin our people have taken to copy from French +Sauternes, to suit a female predilection for sugar?’ + +‘No, no, the grape for me!’ said she: ‘the Rhine grape with the elf in +it, and the silver harp and the stained legend!’ + +‘Glorious!’ + +He toasted the grape. ‘Wine of the grape is the young bride--the young +sun-bride! divine, and never too sweet, never cloying like the withered +sun-dried, with its one drop of concentrated sugar, that becomes ten +of gout. No raisin-juice for us! None of their too-long-on-the-stem +clusters! We are for the blood of the grape in her youth, her +heaven-kissing ardour. I have a cellar charged with the bravest of the +Rhine. We--will we not assail it, bleed it in the gallant days to come? +we two!’ The picture of his bride and him drinking the sun down after +a day of savage toil was in the shout--a burst unnoticed in the +incessantly verbalizing buzz of a continental supper-table. Clotilde +acquiesced: she chimed to it like a fair boonfellow of the rollicking +faun. She was realizing fairyland. + +They retired to the divan-corner where it was you-and-I between them +as with rivulets meeting and branching, running parallel, uniting and +branching again, divided by the theme, but unending in the flow of the +harmony. So ran their chirping arguments and diversions. The carrying +on of a prolonged and determined you-and-I in company intimates to those +undetermined floating atoms about us that a certain sacred something is +in process of formation, or has formed; and people looked; and looked +hard at the pair, and at one another afterward: none approached them. +The Signor conjuror who has a thousand arts for conjuring with nature +was generally considered to have done that night his most ancient and +reputedly fabulous trick--the dream of poets, rarely witnessed +anywhere, and almost too wonderful for credence in a haunt of our later +civilization. Yet there it was: the sudden revelation of the intense +divinity to a couple fused in oneness by his apparition, could be +perceived of all having man and woman in them; love at first sight, was +visible. ‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’ And if nature, +character, circumstance, and a maid clever at dressing her mistress’s +golden hair, did prepare them for Love’s lightning-match, not the +less were they proclaimingly alight and in full blaze. Likewise, +Time, imperious old gentleman though we know him to be, with his fussy +reiterations concerning the hour for bed and sleep, bowed to the magical +fact of their condition, and forbore to warn them of his passing from +night to day. He had to go, he must, he has to be always going, but as +long as he could he left them on their bank by the margin of the stream, +where a shadow-cycle of the eternal wound a circle for them and allowed +them to imagine they had thrust that old driver of the dusty high-road +quietly out of the way. They were ungrateful, of course, when the +performance of his duties necessitated his pulling them up beside him +pretty smartly, but he uttered no prophecy of ever intending to rob them +of the celestial moments they had cut from him and meant to keep between +them ‘for ever,’ and fresh. + +The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning. Alvan assisted at the +cloaking and hooding of Clotilde. Her relatives were at hand; they hung +by while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight +that laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and +stone. + +‘A night to head the Spring!’ said Alvan. ‘Come.’ + +He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an +established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did +her people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which +had struck the pair. These things, and many things that islands know not +of, are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness +of Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island +atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the +breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no +tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen +of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there. But even where +he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land +bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan’s behaviour +was passing heteroclite. He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, +crowned by another kingly fellow--the lord of hearts--to impose it +uninterruptedly. ‘She is mine; I have won her this night!’ his bearing +said; and Clotilde’s acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them +had to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering. Partly by habit, and +of his natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once +taken could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good +tideway strong in his own passion and his lady’s up against the last +defences--her parents. A difficulty with them was foreseen. What is a +difficulty!--a gate in the hunting-field: an opponent on a platform: a +knot beneath a sword: the dam to waters that draw from the heavens. +Not desiring it in this case--it would have been to love the difficulty +better than the woman--he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a +resistance, if only because it was a portion of the dowry she brought +him. Good soldiers (who have won their grades) are often of a peaceful +temper and would not raise an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy +sets their pugnacious forces in motion, the bugle fills their veins with +electrical fire, till they are as racers on the race-course.--His inmost +hearty devil was glad of a combat that pertained to his possession of +her, for battle gives the savour of the passion to win, and victory +dignifies a prize: he was, however, resolved to have it, if possible, +according to the regular arrangement of such encounters, formal, without +snatchings, without rash violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, +reasoning eloquence. + +He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present +feelings: ‘I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!’ The comparison +had been used or implied to him before. + +‘No!’ said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, ‘no +more of the quadruped man! You tempt him--may I tell you that? Why, now, +this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the +short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and we +should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and +friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No +more scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright +serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more +prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end +of the draught. But no!’ his voice deepened--‘the handsome face of the +orb that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between +us two. Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken +all round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon. + +I have seen the other face of it--a visage scored with regrets, +dead dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the +like!--sunless, waterless, without a flower! It is the old volcano land: +it grows one bitter herb: if ever you see my mouth distorted you will +know I am revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, +I will not be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he +stables himself; yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he +finishes by pasturing on. You have no dislike of metaphors and parables? +We Jews are a parable people.’ + +‘I am sure I do understand...’ said Clotilde, catching her breath to be +conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation. + +‘Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician’s +treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise!--You were going to add?’ + +‘I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me +still.’ + +‘May the sensation never quit you!’ + +‘It will not.’ + +‘What a night!’ Alvan raised his head: ‘A night cast for our first +meeting and betrothing! You are near home?’ + +‘The third house yonder in the moonlight.’ + +‘The moonlight lays a white hand on it!’ + +‘That is my window sparkling.’ + +‘That is the vestal’s cresset. Shall I blow it out?’ + +‘You are too far. And it is a celestial flame, sir!’ + +‘Celestial in truth! My hope of heaven! Dian’s crescent will be ever +on that house for me, Clotilde. I would it were leagues distant, or the +door not forbidden!’ + +‘I could minister to a good knight humbly.’ + +Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting: + +‘When do father and mother arrive?’ + +‘To-morrow.’ + +He took her hand. ‘To-morrow, then! The worst of omens is delay.’ + +Clotilde faintly gasped. Could he mean it?--he of so evil a name in her +family and circle! + +Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her. + +‘Tell me the hour when it will be most convenient to them to receive +me,’ said Alvan. + +She stopped walking in sheer fright. + +‘My father--my mother?’ she said, imaging within her the varied horror +of each and the commotion. + +‘To-morrow or the day after--not later. No delays! You are mine, we are +one; and the sooner my cause is pleaded the better for us both. If +I could step in and see them this instant, it would be forestalling +mischances. Do you not see, that time is due to us, and the minutes are +our gold slipping away?’ + +She shrank her hand back: she did not wish to withdraw the hand, only +to shun the pledge it signified. He opened an abyss at her feet, and in +deadly alarm of him she exclaimed: ‘Oh! not yet; not immediately.’ She +trembled, she made her petition dismal by her anguish of speechlessness. +‘There will be such... not yet! Perhaps later. They must not be troubled +yet--at present. I am... I cannot--pray, delay!’ + +‘But you are mine!’ said Alvan. ‘You feel it as I do. There can be no +real impediment?’ + +She gave an empty sigh that sought to be a run of entreaties. In fear +of his tongue she caught at words to baffle it, senseless of their +imbecility: ‘Do not insist: yes, in time: they will--they--they may. +My father is not very well... my mother: she is not very well. They are +neither of them very well: not at present!--Spare them at present.’ + +To avoid being carried away, she flung herself from the centaur’s back +to the disenchanting earth; she separated herself from him in spirit, +and beheld him as her father and mother and her circle would look on +this pretender to her hand, with his lordly air, his Jew blood, and his +hissing reputation--for it was a reputation that stirred the snakes and +the geese of the world. She saw him in their eyes, quite coldly: which +imaginative capacity was one of the remarkable feats of cowardice, +active and cold of brain even while the heart is active and would be +warm. + +He read something of her weakness. ‘And supposing I decide that it must +be?’ + +‘How can I supplicate you!’ she replied with a shiver, feeling that she +had lost her chance of slipping from his grasp, as trained women of +the world, or very sprightly young wits know how to do at the critical +moment: and she had lost it by being too sincere. Her cowardice appeared +to her under that aspect. + +‘Now I perceive that the task is harder,’ said Alvan, seeing her huddled +in a real dismay. ‘Why will you not rise to my level and fear nothing! +The way is clear: we have only to take the step. Have you not seen +tonight that we are fated for one another? It is your destiny, and +trifling with destiny is a dark business. Look at me. Do you doubt my +having absolute control of myself to bear whatever they put on me to +bear, and hold firmly to my will to overcome them! Oh! no delays.’ + +‘Yes!’ she cried; ‘yes, there must be.’ + +‘You say it?’ + +The courage to repeat her cry was wanting. + +She trembled visibly: she could more readily have bidden him bear her +hence than have named a day for the interview with her parents; but +desperately she feared that he would be the one to bid; and he had this +of the character of destiny about him, that she felt in him a maker of +facts. He was her dream in human shape, her eagle of men, and she felt +like a lamb in the air; she had no resistance, only terror of his power, +and a crushing new view of the nature of reality. + +‘I see!’ said he, and his breast fell. Her timid inability to join with +him for instant action reminded him that he carried many weights: a +bad name among her people and class, and chains in private. He was old +enough to strangle his impulses, if necessary, or any of the brood less +fiery than the junction of his passions. ‘Well, well!--but we might so +soon have broken through the hedge into the broad highroad! It is but to +determine to do it--to take the bold short path instead of the wearisome +circuit. Just a little lightning in the brain and tightening of the +heart. Battles are won in that way: not by tender girls! and she is a +girl, and the task is too much for her. So, then, we are in your hands, +child! Adieu, and let the gold-crested serpent glide to her bed, and +sleep, dream, and wake, and ask herself in the morning whether she is +not a wedded soul. Is she not a serpent? gold-crested, all the world +may see; and with a mortal bite, I know. I have had the bite before +the kisses. That is rather an unjust reversal of the order of things. +Apropos, Hamlet was poisoned--ghost-poisoned.’ + +‘Mad, he was mad!’ said Clotilde, recovering and smiling. + +‘He was born bilious; he partook of the father’s constitution, not +the mother’s. High-thoughted, quick-nerved to follow the thought, +reflective, if an interval yawned between his hand and the act, he was +by nature two-minded: as full of conscience as a nursing mother that +sleeps beside her infant:--she hears the silent beginning of a cry. +Before the ghost walked he was an elementary hero; one puff of action +would have whiffed away his melancholy. After it, he was a dizzy +moralizer, waiting for the winds to blow him to his deed-ox out. The +apparition of his father to him poisoned a sluggish run of blood, +and that venom in the blood distracted a head steeped in Wittenberg +philosophy. With metaphysics in one and poison in the other, with the +outer world opened on him and this world stirred to confusion, he wore +the semblance of madness; he was throughout sane; sick, but never with +his reason dethroned.’ + +‘Nothing but madness excuses his conduct to Ophelia!’ + +‘Poison in the blood is a pretty good apology for infidelity to a lady.’ + +‘No!’ + +‘Well, to an Ophelia of fifty?’ said Alvan. + +Clotilde laughed, not perfectly assured of the wherefore, but pleased to +be able to laugh. Her friends were standing at the house door, farewells +were spoken, Alvan had gone. And then she thought of the person that +Ophelia of fifty might be, who would have to find a good apology for +him in his dose of snake-bite, or love of a younger woman whom he termed +gold-crested serpent. + +He was a lover, surely a lover: he slid off to some chance bit of +likeness to himself in every subject he discussed with her. + +And she? She speeded recklessly on the back of the centaur when he had +returned to the state of phantom and the realities he threatened her +with were no longer imminent. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Clotilde was of the order of the erring who should by rights have a +short sermon to preface an exposure of them, administering the whip to +her own sex and to ours, lest we scorn too much to take an interest in +her. The exposure she had done for herself, and she has not had the art +to frame her apology. The day after her meeting, with her eagle, Alvan, +she saw Prince Marko. She was gentle to him, in anticipation of his +grief; she could hardly be ungentle on account of his obsequious +beauty, and when her soft eyes and voice had thrilled him to an acute +sensibility to the blow, honourably she inflicted it. + +‘Marko, my friend, you know that I cannot be false; then let me tell you +I yesterday met the man who has but to lift his hand and I go to him, +and he may lead me whither he will.’ + +The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their +brightness moistened and flashed. + +Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said. He knew +the man. + +Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself. For the first +few days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan. +She feared the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly. Her +parents had postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm; +it was his violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she +feared, as nervous people shrink from cannon: and neither meeting, +seeing, nor hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose +curiosity is refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing +which frightened it. Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage +flooded back; she hoped he would present himself to claim her, marvelled +that he did not, reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for +listening to the hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling +what she really was--a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of +her family to spare them a sudden shock. Remembering her generous +considerations in their interests, she thought he should have known that +the creature he called a child would have yielded upon supplication to +fly with him. Her considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was +the cause of her seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived +it and put it aside. He should have seen that she could be brave, and +was a mate for him. And if his shallow experience of her wrote her down +nerveless, his love should be doing. + +Was it love? Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided +will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had +she the freedom of a man. She would not have listened (it was quite +true) to a silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an +interval to yawn after the first wild wooing of her. Prince Marko loved. +Yes, that was love! It failed in no sign of the passion. She set herself +to study it in Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering among +them pity, thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between admiration +and pathetic esteem, like that the musician has for a precious +instrument giving sweet sound when shattered. He served her faithfully, +in spite of his distaste for some of his lady’s commissions. She had to +get her news of Alvan through Marko. He brought her particulars of the +old trial of Alvan, and Alvan’s oration in defence of himself for +a lawless act of devotion to the baroness; nothing less than the +successfully scheming to wrest by force from that lady’s enemy a +document precious to her lawful interests. It was one of those cases +which have a really high gallant side as well as a bad; an excellent +case for rhetoric. Marko supplied the world’s opinion of the affair, +bravely owning it to be not unfavourable. Her worthy relatives, the +Frau v. Crestow and husband, had very properly furnished a report to +the family of the memorable evening; and the hubbub over it, with the +epithets applied to Alvan, intimated how he would have been received +on a visit to demand her in marriage. There was no chance of her being +allowed to enter houses where this ‘rageing demagogue and popular +buffoon’ was a guest; his name was banished from her hearing, so she +was compelled to have recourse to Marko. Unable to take such services +without rewarding him, she fondled: it pained her to see him suffer. +Those who toss crumbs to their domestic favourites will now and then +be moved to toss meat, which is not so good for them, but the dumb +mendicant’s delight in it is winning, and a little cannot hurt. Besides, +if any one had a claim on her it was the prince; and as he was always +adoring, never importunate, he restored her to the pedestal she had been +really rudely shaken from by that other who had caught her up suddenly +into the air, and dropped her! A hand abandoned to her slave rewarded +him immeasurably. A heightening of the reward almost took his life. +In the peacefulness of dealing with a submissive love that made her +queenly, the royal, which plucked her from throne to footstool, seemed +predatory and insolent. Thus, after that scene of ‘first love,’ in which +she had been actress, she became almost (with an inward thrill or two +for the recovering of him) reconciled to the not seeing of the noble +actor; for nothing could erase the scene--it was historic; and Alvan +would always be thought of as a delicious electricity. She and Marko +were together on the summer excursion of her people, and quite sisterly, +she could say, in her delicate scorn of his advantages and her emotions. +True gentlemen are imperfectly valued when they are under the shadow +of giants; but still Clotilde’s experience of a giant’s manners was +favourable to the liberty she could enjoy in a sisterly intimacy of this +kind, rather warmer than her word for it would imply. She owned that she +could better live the poetic life--that is, trifle with fire and reflect +on its charms in the society of Marko. He was very young, he was little +more than an adolescent, and safely timid; a turn of her fingers would +string or slacken him. One could play on him securely, thinking of a +distant day--and some shipwreck of herself for an interlude--when he +might be made happy. + +Her strangest mood of the tender cruelty was when the passion to +anatomize him beset her. The ground of it was, that she found him in +her likeness, adoring as she adored, and a similar loftiness; now +grovelling, now soaring; the most radiant of beings, the most abject; +and the pleasure she had of the sensational comparison was in an +alteregoistic home she found in him, that allowed of her gathering a +picked self-knowledge, and of her saying: ‘That is like me: that is very +like me: that is terribly like’: up to the point where the comparison +wooed her no longer with an agreeable lure of affinity, but nipped +her so shrewdly as to force her to say: ‘That is he, not I’: and the +vivisected youth received the caress which quickened him to wholeness at +a touch. It was given with impulsive tenderness, in pity of him. Anatomy +is the title for the operation, because the probing of herself in +another, with the liberty to cease probing as soon as it hurt her, +allowed her while unhurt to feel that she prosecuted her researches in +a dead body. The moment her strong susceptibility to the likeness shrank +under a stroke of pain, she abstained from carving, and simultaneously +conscious that he lived, she was kind to him. + +‘This love of yours, Marko--is it so deep?’ + +‘I love you.’ + +‘You think me the highest and best?’ + +‘You are.’ + +‘So deep that you could bear anything from me?’ + +‘Try me!’ + +‘Unfaithfulness?’ + +‘You would be you!’ + +‘Do you not say that because you cannot suspect evil of me?’ + +‘Let me only see you!’ + +‘You are sure that happiness would not smother it?’ + +‘Has it done so yet?’ + +‘Though you know I am a serpent to that man’s music?’ + +‘Ah, heaven! Oh!--do not say music. Yes! though anything!’ + +‘And if ever you were to witness the power of his just breathing to me?’ + +‘I would.... Ah!’ + +‘What? If you saw his music working the spell?--even the first notes of +his prelude!’ + +‘I would wait’ + +‘It might be for long.’ + +‘I would eat my heart.’ + +‘Bitter! bitter!’ + +‘I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you.’ + +She had a seizure of the nerves. + +The likeness between them was, she felt, too flamingly keen to be looked +at further. She reached to the dim idea of some such nauseous devotion, +and took a shot in her breast as she did so, and abjured it, and +softened to her victim. Clotilde opened her arms, charming away +her wound, as she soothed him, both by the act of soothing and the +reflection that she could not be so very like one whom she pitied and +consoled. + +She was charitably tender. If it be thought that she was cruel to +excess, plead for her the temptation to simple human nature at sight of +a youth who could be precipitated into the writhings of dissolution, and +raised out of it by a smile. This young man’s responsive spirit acted on +her as the discovery of specifics for restoring soundness to the frame +excites the brilliant empiric: he would slay us with benevolent soul to +show the miracle of our revival. Worship provokes the mortal goddess to +a manifestation of her powers; and really the devotee is full half to +blame. + +She had latterly been thinking of Alvan’s rejection of the part of +centaur; and his phrase, the quadruped man, breathed meaning. He was to +gain her lawfully after dominating her utterly. That was right, but it +levelled imagination. There is in the sentimental kingdom of Love a +form of reasoning, by which a lady of romantic notions who is dominated +utterly, will ask herself why she should be gained lawfully: and she is +moved to do so by the consideration that if the latter, no necessity +can exist for the former: and the reverse. In the union of the two +conditions she sees herself slavishly domesticated. With her Indian +Bacchus imagination rose, for he was pliant: she had only to fancy, and +he was beside her.--Quick to the saddle, away! The forest of terrors +is ahead; they are at the verge of it; a last hamlet perches on its +borders; the dwellers have haunted faces; the timbers of their huts lean +to an upright in wry splinters; warnings are moaned by men and women +with the voice of a night-wind; but on and on! the forest cannot be +worse than a world defied. They drain a cup of milk apiece and they +spur, for this is the way to the golden Indian land of the planted vine +and the lover’s godship.--Ludicrous! There is no getting farther +than the cup of milk with Marko. They curvet and caper to be forward +unavailingly. It should be Alvan to bring her through the forest to +the planted vine in sunland. Her splendid prose Alvan could do what +the sprig of poetry can but suggest. Never would malicious fairy in old +woman’s form have offered Alvan a cup of milk to paralyze his bride’s +imagination of him confronting perils. Yet, O shameful contrariety of +the fates! he who could, will not; he who would, is incapable. Let it +not be supposed that the desire of her bosom was to be run away with +in person. Her simple human nature wished for the hero to lift her +insensibly over the difficult opening chapter of the romance--through +‘the forest,’ or half imagined: that done, she felt bold enough to meet +the unimagined, which, as there was no picture of it to terrify her, +seemed an easy gallop into sunland.--Yes, but in the grasp of a great +prose giant, with the poetic departed! Naturally she turned to caress +the poetic while she had it beside her. And it was a wonder to observe +the young prince’s heavenly sensitiveness to every variation of her +moods. He knew without hearing when she had next seen Alvan, though +it had not been to speak to him. He looked, and he knew. The liquid +darkness of his large eastern eyes cast a light that brought her heart +out: she confessed it, and she comforted him. The sweetest in the woman +caused her double-dealing. + +Now she was aware that Alvan moved behind the screen concealing him. A +common friend of Alvan and her family talked to her of him. He was an +eminent professor, a middleaged, grave and honourable man, not ignorant +that her family entertained views opposed to the pretensions of such a +man as the demagogue and Jew. Nevertheless Alvan could persuade him to +abet the scheme for his meeting Clotilde; nay, to lead to it; ultimately +to allow his own house to be their place of meeting. Alvan achieved the +first of the steps unassisted. Whether or not his character stood +well with a man of the world, his force of character, backed by solid +attainments in addition to brilliant gifts, could win a reputable +citizen and erudite to support him. Rhetoric in a worthy cause has good +chances of carrying the gravest, and the cause might reasonably seem +excellent to the professor when one promising fair to be the political +genius of his time, but hitherto not the quietest of livers, could make +him believe that marriage with this girl would be his clear salvation. +The second step was undesignedly Clotilde’s. + +She was on the professor’s arm at one of the great winter balls of +her conductor’s brethren in the law, and he said: ‘Alvan is here.’ She +answered: ‘No, he has not yet come.’--How could she tell that he was not +present in the crowd? + +‘Has he come now?’ said the professor. + +‘No.’ + +And no Alvan was discernible. + +‘Now?’ + +‘Not yet.’ + +The professor stared about. She waited. + +‘Now he has come; he is in the room now,’ said Clotilde. + +Alvan was perceived. He stood in the centre of the throng surrounding +him to buzz about some recent pamphlet. + +She could well play at faith in his magnetization of her, for as by +degrees she made herself more nervously apprehensive by thinking of him, +it came to an overclouding and then a panic; and that she took for the +physical sign of his presence, and by that time, the hour being late, +Alvan happened to have arrived. The touch of his hand, the instant +naturalness in their speaking together after a long separation, as if +there had not been an interval, confirmed her notion of his influence +on her, almost to the making it planetary. And a glance at the professor +revealed how picturesque it was. Alvan and he murmured aside. They spoke +of it: What wonder that Alvan, though he saw Prince Marko whirl her in +the dance, and keep her to the measure--dancing like a song of the limbs +in his desperate poor lover’s little flitting eternity of the possession +of her--should say, after she had been led back to her friends: ‘That is +he, then! one of the dragons guarding my apple of the Hesperides, whom I +must brush away.’ + +‘He?’ replied Clotilde, sincerely feeling Marko to be of as fractional +a weight as her tone declared him. ‘Oh, he is my mute, harmless, he does +not count among the dragons.’ + +But there had been, notwithstanding the high presumption of his remark, +a manful thickness of voice in Alvan’s ‘That is he!’ The rivals had +fastened a look on one another, wary, strong, and summary as the +wrestlers’ first grapple. In fire of gaze, Marko was not outdone. + +‘He does not count? With those eyes of his?’ Alvan exclaimed. He knew +something of the sex, and spied from that point of knowledge into the +character of Clotilde; not too venturesomely, with the assistance of +rumour, hazarding the suspicion which he put forth as a certainty, and +made sharply bitter to himself in proportion to the belief in it +that his vehemence engendered: ‘I know all--without exception; +all, everything; all! I repeat. But what of it, if I win you? as I +shall--only aid me a little.’ + +She slightly surprised the man by not striving to attenuate the import +of the big and surcharged All: but her silence bore witness to his +penetrative knowledge. Dozens of amorous gentlemen, lovers, of +excellent substance, have before now prepared this peculiar dose for +themselves--the dose of the lady silent under a sort of pardoning grand +accusation; and they have had to drink it, and they have blinked +over the tonic draught with such power of taking a bracing as their +constitutions could summon. At no moment of their quaint mutual history +are the sexes to be seen standing more acutely divided. Well may +the lady be silent; her little sins are magnified to herself to the +proportion of the greatness of heart forgiving her; and that, with +his mysterious penetration and a throb of her conscience, holds her +tongue-tied. She does not imagine the effect of her silence upon the +magnanimous wretch. Some of these lovers, it has to be stated in sadness +for the good name of man, have not preserved an attitude that said so +nobly, ‘Child, thou art human--thou art woman!’ They have undone it and +gone to pieces with an injured lover’s babble of persecuting inquiries +for confessions. Some, on the contrary, retaining the attitude, have +been unable to digest the tonic; they did not prepare their systems as +they did their dose, possibly thinking the latter a supererogatory heavy +thump on a trifle, the which was performed by them artfully for a means +of swallowing and getting that obnoxious trifle well down. These are +ever after love’s dyspeptics. Very few indeed continue at heart in +harmony with their opening note to the silent fair, because in truth the +general anticipation is of her proclaiming, if not angelical innocence, +a softly reddened or blush-rose of it, where the little guiltiness lies +pathetic on its bed of white. + +Alvan’s robustness of temper, as a conqueror pleased with his capture, +could inspirit him to feel as he said it: + +‘I know all; what matters that to me?’ Even her silence, extending the +‘all’ beyond limits, as it did to the over-knowing man, who could number +these indicative characteristics of the young woman: impulsive, without +will, readily able to lie: her silence worked no discord in him. He +would have remarked, that he was not looking out for a saint, but rather +for a sprightly comrade, perfectly feminine, thoroughly mastered, young, +graceful, comely, and a lady of station. Once in his good keeping, her +lord would answer for her. And this was a manfully generous view of the +situation. It belongs to the robustness of the conqueror’s mood. But how +of his opinion of her character in the fret of a baffling, a repulse, a +defeat? Supposing the circumstances not to have helped her to shine as a +heroine, while he was reduced to appear no hero to himself! Wise are the +mothers who keep vigilant personal watch over their girls, were it only +to guard them at present, from the gentleman’s condescending generosity, +until he has become something more than robust in his ideas of the +sex--say, for lack of the ringing word, fraternal. + +Clotilde never knew, and Alvan would have been unable to date, the +origin of the black thing flung at her in time to come--when the man +was frenzied, doubtless, but it was in his mind, and more than froth of +madness. + +After the night of the ball they met beneath the sanctioning roof of +the amiable professor; and on one occasion the latter, perhaps waxing +anxious, and after bringing about the introduction of Clotilde to the +sister of Alvan, pursued his prudent measures bypassing the pair through +a demi-ceremony of betrothal. It sprang Clotilde astride nearer to +reality, both actually and in feeling; and she began to show the change +at home. A rebuff that came of the coupling of her name with Alvan’s +pushed her back as far below the surface as she had ever been. She +waited for him to take the step she had again implored him not yet to +take; she feared that he would, she marvelled at his abstaining; the +old wheel revolved, as it ever does with creatures that wait for +circumstances to bring the change they cannot work for themselves; and +once more the two fell asunder. She had thoughts of the cloister. Her +venerable relative died joining her hand to Prince Marko’s; she was +induced to think of marriage. An illness laid her prostrate; she +contemplated the peace of death. + +Shortly before she fell sick the prince was a guest of her father’s, +and had won the household by his perfect amiability as an associate. The +grace and glow, and some of the imaginable accomplishments of an Indian +Bacchus were native to him. In her convalescence, she asked herself what +more she could crave than the worship of a godlike youth, whom she in +return might cherish, strengthening his frail health with happiness. For +she had seen how suffering ate him up; he required no teaching in the +Spartan virtue of suffering, wolf-gnawed, silently. But he was a flower +in sunshine to happiness, and he looked to her for it. Why should she +withhold from him a thing so easily given? The convalescent is receptive +and undesiring, or but very faintly desiring: the new blood coming into +the frame like first dawn of light has not stirred the old passions; it +is infant nature, with a tinge of superadded knowledge that is not cloud +across it and lends it only a tender wistfulness. + +Her physician sentenced her to the Alps, whither a friend, a daughter of +our island, whose acquaintance she had made in Italy, was going, and +at an invitation Clotilde accompanied her, and she breathed Alpine air. +Marko sank into the category of dreams during sickness. There came a +letter from the professor mentioning that Alvan was on one of the kingly +Alpine heights in view, and the new blood running through her veins +became a torrent. He there! So near! Could he not be reached? + +He had a saying: Two wishes make a will. + +The wishes of two lovers, he meant. A prettier sentence for lovers, and +one more intoxicating to them, was never devised. It chirrups of the +dear silly couple. Well, this was her wish. Was it his? Young health on +the flow of her leaping blood cried out that it could not be other than +Alvan’s wish; she believed in his wishing it. Then as he wished and she +wished, she had the will immediately, and it was all the more her own +for being his as well. She hurried her friend and her friend’s +friends on horseback off to the heights where the wounded eagle lodged +overlooking mountain and lake. The professor reported him outwearied +with excess of work. Alvan lived the lives of three; the sins of thirty +were laid to his charge. Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? Her +reckless defence of him, half spoken, half in her mind, helped her to +comprehend his dealings with her, and how it was that he stormed her and +consented to be beaten. He had a thousand occupations, an ambition out +of the world of love, chains to break, temptations, leanings... tut, +tut! She had not lived in her circle of society, and listened to +the tales of his friends and enemies, and been the correspondent of +flattering and flattered men of learning, without understanding how +a man like Alvan found diversions when forbidden to act in a given +direction: and now that her healthful new blood inspired the courage to +turn two wishes to a will, she saw both herself and him very clearly, +enough at least to pardon the man more than she did herself. She +had perforce of her radiant new healthfulness arrived at an exact +understanding of him. Where she was deluded was in supposing that she +would no longer dread his impetuous disposition to turn rosy visions +into facts. But she had the revived convalescent’s ardour to embrace +things positive while they were not knocking at the door; dreams were +abhorrent to her, tasteless and innutritious; she cast herself on the +flood, relying on his towering strength and mastery of men and events to +bring her to some safe landing--the dream of hearts athirst for facts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Alvan was at his writing-table doing stout gladiator’s work on paper in +a chamber of one of the gaunt hotels of the heights, which are Death’s +Heads there in Winter and have the tongues in Summer, when a Swiss lad +entered with a round grin to tell him that a lady on horseback below had +asked for him--Dr. Alvan. Who could the lady be? He thought of too +many. The thought of Clotilde was dismissed in its dimness. Issuing and +beholding her, his face became illuminated as by a stroke of sunlight. + +‘Clotilde! by all the holiest!’ + +She smiled demurely, and they greeted. + +She admired the look of rich pleasure shining through surprise in him. +Her heart thanked him for appearing so handsome before her friends. + +‘I was writing,’ said he. ‘Guess to whom?--I had just finished my +political stuff, and fell on a letter to the professor and another for +an immediate introduction to your father.’ + +‘True?’ + +‘The truth, as you shall see. So, you have come, you have found me! This +time if I let you slip, may I be stamped slack-fingered!’ + +‘“Two wishes make a will,” you say.’ + +He answered her with one of his bursts of brightness. + +Her having sought him he read for the frank surrender which he was +ready to match with a loyal devotion to his captive. Her coming cleared +everything. + +Clotilde introduced him to her friends, and he was enrolled a member +of the party. His appearance was that of a man to whom the sphinx has +whispered. They ascended to the topmost of the mountain stages, to +another caravanserai of tourists, whence the singular people emerge in +morning darkness night-capped and blanketed, and behold the great orb of +day at his birth--he them. + +Walking slowly beside Clotilde on the mountain way, Alvan said: ‘Two +wishes! Mine was in your breast. You wedded yours to it. At last!--and +we are one. Not a word more of time lost. My wish is almost a will in +itself--was it not?--and has been wooing yours all this while!--till the +sleeper awakened, the well-spring leapt up from the earth; and our two +wishes united dare the world to divide them. What can? My wish was your +destiny, yours is mine. We are one.’ He poetized on his passion, and +dramatized it: ‘Stood you at the altar, I would pluck you from the man +holding your hand! There is no escape for you. Nay, into the vaults, +were you to grow pale and need my vital warmth--down to the vaults! +Speak--or no: look! That will do. You hold a Titan in your eyes, like +metal in the furnace, to turn him to any shape you please, liquid or +solid. You make him a god: he is the river Alvan or the rock Alvan: but +fixed or flowing, he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you +must, if you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: +if you raise him to heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes! +They can melt granite, they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And +now flutter, for there is that in me to make them.’ + +‘Consider!’ Clotilde flutteringly entreated him. + +‘The world? you dear heaven of me! Looking down on me does not +compromise you, and I am not ashamed of my devotions. I sat in gloom: +you came: I saw my goddess and worshipped. The world, Lutece, the world +is a variable monster; it rends the weak whether sincere or false; +but those who weld strength with sincerity may practise their rites of +religion publicly, and it fawns to them, and bellows to imitate. Nay, I +say that strength in love is the sole sincerity, and the world knows it, +muffs it in the air about us, and so we two are privileged. Politically +also we know that strength is the one reality: the rest is shadow. +Behind the veil of our human conventions power is constant as ever, and +to perceive the fact is to have the divining rod-to walk clear of shams. +He is the teacher who shows where power exists: he is the leader who +wakens and forms it. Why have I unfailingly succeeded?--I never doubted! +The world voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly. +You--to your honour?--I won’t decide--but you have the longest in my +experience resisted. I have a Durandal to hew the mountain walls; I +have a voice for ears, a net for butterflies, a hook for fish, and +desperation to plunge into marshes: but the feu follet will not be +caught. One must wait--wait till her desire to have a soul bids her come +to us. She has come! A soul is hers: and see how, instantly, the old +monster, the world, which has no soul--not yet: we are helping it to get +one--becomes a shadow, powerless to stop or overawe. For I do give you +a soul, think as you will of it. I give you strength to realize, courage +to act. It is the soul that does things in this life--the rest is +vapour. How do we distinguish love?--as we do music by the pure note won +from resolute strings. The tense chord is music, and it is love. This +higher and higher mountain air, with you beside me, sweeps me like a +harp.’ + +‘Oh! talk on, talk on! talk ever! do not cease talking to me!’ exclaimed +Clotilde. + +‘You feel the mountain spirit?’ + +‘I feel that you reveal it.’ + +‘Tell me the books you have been reading.’ + +‘Oh, light literature-poor stuff.’ + +‘When we two read together you will not say that. Light literature is +the garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; +the view within us as well as without. Our blood runs through it, our +history in the quick. The Philistine detests it, because he has no view, +out or in. The dry confess they are cut off from the living tree, peeled +and sapless, when they condemn it. The vulgar demand to have their +pleasures in their own likeness--and let them swamp their troughs! they +shall not degrade the fame of noble fiction. We are the choice public, +which will have good writing for light reading. Poet, novelist, +essayist, dramatist, shall be ranked honourable in my Republic. I am +neither, but a man of law, a student of the sciences, a politician, on +the road to government and statecraft: and yet I say I have learnt as +much from light literature as from heavy-as much, that is, from the +pictures of our human blood in motion as from the clever assortment of +our forefatherly heaps of bones. Shun those who cry out against fiction +and have no taste for elegant writing. For to have no sympathy with the +playful mind is not to have a mind: it is a test. But name the books.’ + +She named one or two. + +‘And when does Dr. Alvan date the first year of his Republic?’ + +‘Clotilde!’ he turned on her. + +‘My good sir?’ + +‘These worthy good people who are with you: tell me-to-morrow we leave +them!’ + +‘Leave them?’ + +‘You with me. No more partings. The first year, the first day shall be +dated from to-morrow. You and I proclaim our Republic on these heights. +All the ceremonies to follow. We will have a reaping of them, and make a +sheaf to present to the world with compliments. To-morrow!’ + +‘You do not speak seriously?’ + +‘I jest as little as the Talmud. Decide at once, in the happy flush of +this moment.’ + +‘I cannot listen to you, dear sir!’ + +‘But your heart beats!’ + +‘I am not mistress of it.’ + +‘Call me master of it. I make ready for to-morrow.’ + +‘No! no! no! A thousand times no! You have been reading too much fiction +and verse. Properly I should spurn you.’ + +‘Will you fail me, play feu follet, ward me off again?’ + +‘I must be won by rules, brave knight!’ + +‘Will you be won?’ + +‘And are you he--the Alvan who would not be centaur?’ + +‘I am he who chased a marsh-fire, and encountered a retiarius, and the +meshes are on my head and arms. I fancied I dealt with a woman; a woman +needing protection! She has me fast--I am netted, centaur or man. That +is between us two. But think of us facing the world, and trust me; take +my hand, take the leap; I am the best fighter in that fight. Trust it to +me, and all your difficulties are at an end. To fly solves the problem.’ + +‘Indeed, indeed, I have more courage than I had,’ said Clotilde. + +His eyes dilated, steadied, speculated, weighed her. + +‘Put it to proof while you can believe in it!’ + +‘How is it every one but you thinks me bold?’ she complained. + +‘Because I carry a touchstone that brings out the truth. I am your +reality: all others are phantoms. You can impose on them, not on me. +Courage for one inspired plunge you may have, and it will be your +salvation:--southward, over to Italy, that is the line of flight, and +the subsequent struggle will be mine: you will not have to face it. But +the courage for daily contention at home, standing alone, while I am +distant and maligned--can you fancy your having that? No! be wise of +what you really are; cast the die for love, and mount away tomorrow.’ + +‘Then,’ said Clotilde, with elvish cunning, ‘do you doubt your ability +to win me without a scandal?’ + +‘Back me, and I win you!’ he replied in a tone of unwonted humility: a +sudden droop. + +She let her hand fall. He grasped it. + +‘Gradations appear to be unknown to you,’ she said. + +He cried out: ‘Count the years of life, span them, think of the work to +be done, and ask yourself whether time and strength should run to waste +in retarding the inevitable? Pottering up steps that can be taken at one +bound is very well for peasant pilgrims whose shrine is their bourne, +and their kneecaps the footing stumps. But for us two life begins up +there. Onward, and everywhere around, when we two are together, is our +shrine. I have worked, and wasted life; I have not lived, and I thirst +to live.’ + +She murmured, in a fervour, ‘You shall!’ and slipped behind her +defences. ‘To-morrow morning we shall wander about; I must have a little +time; all to-morrow morning we can discuss plans.’ + +‘You know you command me,’ said he, and gazed at her. + +She was really a child compared with him in years, and if it was an +excuse for taking her destiny into his hands, she consenting,--it was +also a reason why he dared not press his whole weight to win her to the +step. + +She had the pride of the secret knowledge of her command of this giant +at the long table of the guests at dinner, where, after some play of +knife and fork among notable professors, Prussian officers, lively +Frenchmen and Italians, and the usual over-supply of touring English +of both sexes, not encouraging to conversation in their look of pallid +disgust of the art, Alvan started general topics and led them. The lead +came to him naturally, because he was a natural speaker, of a mind both +stored and effervescent; and he was genial, interested in every growth +of life. She did not wonder at his popularity among men of all classes +and sets, or that he should be famed for charming women. Her friend was +enraptured with him. Friendly questions pressed in an evening chatter +between the ladies, and Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession. + +‘But you are not engaged?’ said the blunt Englishwoman. + +According to the explanation, Clotilde was hardly engaged. It was not +an easy thing to say how she stood definitely. She had obeyed her dying +relative and dearest on earth by joining her hand to Prince Marko’s, and +had pleased her parents by following it up with the kindest attentions +to the prince. It had been done, however, for the sake of peace; and +chiefly for his well-being. She had reserved her full consent: the +plighting was incomplete. Prince Marko knew that there was another, a +magical person, a genius of the ring, irresistible. He had been warned, +that should the other come forth to claim her.... And she was about to +write to him this very night to tell him... tell him fully.... In truth, +she loved both, but each so differently! And both loved her! And she had +to make her choice of one, and tell the prince she did love him, but... +Dots are the best of symbols for rendering cardisophistical subtleties +intelligible, and as they are much used in dialogue, one should have +now and then permission to print them. Especially feminine dialogue +referring to matters of the uncertain heart takes assistance from troops +of dots; and not to understand them at least as well as words, when +words have as it were conducted us to the brink of expression, and shown +us the precipice, is to be dull, bucolic of the marketplace. + +Sunless rose the morning. The blanketed figures went out to salute a +blanketed sky. Drizzling they returned, images of woefulness in +various forms, including laughter’s. Alvan frankly declared himself the +disappointed showman; he had hoped for his beloved to see the sight long +loved by him of golden chariot and sun-steeds crossing the peaks and the +lakes; and his disappointment became consternation on hearing Clotilde’s +English friend (after objection to his pagan clothing of the solemn +reality of sunrise, which destroyed or minimized by too materially +defining a grandeur that derived its essence from mystery, she thought) +announce the hour for her departure. He promised her a positive sunrise +if she would delay. Her child lay recovering from an illness in the +town below, and she could not stay. But Clotilde had coughed in the damp +morning air, and it would, he urged, be dangerous for her to be exposed +to it. Had not the lady heard her cough? She had, but personally she +was obliged to go; with her child lying ill she could not remain. ‘But, +madam, do you hear that cough again? Will you drag her out with such a +cough as that?’ The lady repeated ‘My child!’ Clotilde said it had +been agreed they should descend this day; her friend must be beside +her child. Alvan thundered an ‘Impossible!’ The child was recovering; +Clotilde was running into danger: he argued with the senseless woman, +opposing reason to the feminine sentiment of the maternal, and of course +he was beaten. He was compelled to sit and gnaw his eloquence. Clotilde +likened his appearance to a strangled roar. ‘Mothers and their +children are too much for me!’ he said, penitent for his betrayal of +over-urgency, as he helped to wrap her warmly, and counselled her very +mode of breathing in the raw mountain atmosphere. + +‘I admire you for knowing when to yield,’ said she. + +He groaned, with frown and laugh: ‘You know what I would beg!’ + +She implored him to have some faith in her. + +The missiles of the impassioned were discharged at the poor English: a +customary volley in most places where they intrude after quitting their +shores, if they diverge from the avenue of hotel-keepers and waiters: +but Clotilde pointed out to him that her English friend was not showing +coldness in devoting herself to her child. + +‘No, they attend to their duties,’ he assented generally, desperately +just. + +‘And you owe it to her that you have seen me.’ + +‘I do,’ he said, and forthwith courted the lady to be forgiven. + +Clotilde was taken from him in a heavy downpour and trailing of mists. + +At the foot of the mountain a boy handed her a letter from Alvan--a +burning flood, rolled out of him like lava after they had separated +on the second plateau, and confided to one who knew how to outstrip +pathfarers. She entered her hotel across the lake, and met a telegram. +At night the wires flashed ‘Sleep well’ to her; on her awakening, +‘Good morning.’ A lengthened history of the day was telegraphed for her +amusement. Again at night there was a ‘God guard you!’ + +‘Who can resist him?’ sighed Clotilde, excited, nervous, flattered, +happy, but yearning to repose and be curtained from the buzz of the +excess of life that he put about her. This time there was no prospect of +his courtship relapsing. + +‘He is a wonderful, an ideal lover!’ replied her friend. + +‘If he were only that!’ said Clotilde, musing expressively. ‘If, dear +Englishwoman, he were only that, he might be withstood. But Alvan mounts +high over such lovers: he is a wonderful and ideal man: so great, so +generous, heroical, giant-like, that what he wills must be.’ + +The Englishwoman was quick enough to seize an indication difficult to +miss--more was expected to be said of him. + +‘You see the perfect gentleman in Dr. Alvan,’ she remarked, for she had +heard him ordering his morning bath at the hotel, and he had also been +polite to her under vexation. + +Clotilde nodded hurriedly; she saw something infinitely greater, and +disliked the bringing of that island microscope to bear upon a giant. +She found it repugnant to hear a word of Alvan as a perfect gentleman. +Justly, however, she took him for a splendid nature, and assuming upon +good authority that the greater contains the lesser, she supposed the +lesser to be a chiselled figure serviceably alive in the embrace. + + + + +BOOK 2. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +He was down on the plains to her the second day, and as usual when they +met, it was as if they had not parted; his animation made it seem so. +He was like summer’s morning sunlight, his warmth striking instantly +through her blood dispersed any hesitating strangeness that sometimes +gathers during absences, caused by girlish dread of a step to take, +or shame at the step taken, when coldish gentlemen rather create these +backflowings and gaps in the feelings. She had grown reconciled to +the perturbation of his messages, and would have preferred to have +him startling and thrilling her from a distance; but seeing him, she +welcomed him, and feeling in his bright presence not the faintest chill +of the fit of shyness, she took her bravery of heart for a sign that +she had reached his level, and might own it by speaking of the practical +measures to lead to their union. On one subject sure to be raised +against him by her parents, she had a right to be inquisitive: the +baroness. + +She asked to see a photograph of her. + +Alvan gave her one out of his pocketbook, and watched her eyelids in +profile as she perused those features of the budless grey woman. The +eyelids in such scrutinies reveal the critical mind; Clotilde’s drooped +till they almost closed upon their lashes--deadly criticism. + +‘Think of her age,’ said Alvan, colouring. He named a grandmaternal date +for the year of the baroness’s birth. + +Her eyebrows now stood up; her contemplation of those disenchanting +lineaments came to an abrupt finish. + +She returned the square card to him, slowly shaking her head, still +eyeing earth as her hand stretched forth the card laterally. He could +not contest the woeful verdict. + +‘Twenty years back!’ he murmured, writhing. The baroness was a woman +fair to see in the days twenty years back, though Clotilde might think +it incredible: she really was once. + +Clotilde resumed her doleful shaking of the head; she sighed. He +shrugged; she looked at him, and he blinked a little. For the first time +since they had come together she had a clear advantage, and as it was +likely to be a rare occasion, she did not let it slip. She sighed again. +He was wounded by her underestimate of his ancient conquest. + +‘Yes--now,’ he said, impatiently. + +‘I cannot feel jealousy, I cannot feel rivalry,’ said she, sad of voice. + +The humour of her tranced eyes in the shaking head provoked him to +defend the baroness for her goodness of heart, her energy of brain. + +Clotilde ‘tolled’ her naughty head. + +‘But it is a strong face,’ she said, ‘a strong face--a strong jaw, by +Lavater! You were young--and daringly adventurous; she was captivating +in her distress. Now she is old--and you are friends.’ + +‘Friends, yes,’ Alvan replied, and praised the girl, as of course she +deserved to be praised for her open mind. + +‘We are friends!’ he said, dropping a deep-chested breath. The title +this girl scornfully supplied was balm to the vanity she had stung, and +his burnt skin was too eager for a covering of any sort to examine +the mood of the giver. She had positively humbled him so far as with a +single word to relieve him; for he had seen bristling chapters in her +look at the photograph. Yet for all the natural sensitiveness of the +man’s vanity, he did not seek to bury the subject at the cost of a +misconception injurious in the slightest degree to the sentiments he +entertained toward the older lady as well as the younger. ‘Friends! +you are right; good friends; only you should know that it is just a +little--a trifle different. The fact is, I cannot kill the past, and I +would not. It would try me sharply to break the tie connecting us, were +it possible to break it. I am bound to her by gratitude. She is old now; +and were she twice that age, I should retain my feeling for her. You +raise your eyes, Clotilde! Well, when I was much younger I found this +lady in desperate ill-fortune, and she honoured me with her confidence. +Young man though I was, I defended her; I stopped at no measure to +defend her: against a powerful husband, remember--the most unscrupulous +of foes, who sought to rob her of every right she possessed. And what +I did then I again would do. I was vowed to her interests, to protect a +woman shamefully wronged; I did not stick at trifles, as you know; +you have read my speech in defence of myself before the court. By my +interpretation of the case, I was justified; but I estranged my family +and made the world my enemy. I gave my time and money, besides the +forfeit of reputation, to the case, and reasonably there was an +arrangement to repay me out of the estate reserved for her, so that +the baroness should not be under the degradation of feeling herself +indebted. You will not think that out of the way: men of the world do +not. As for matters of the heart between us, we’re as far apart as the +Poles.’ + +He spoke hurriedly. He had said all that could be expected of him. + +They were in a wood, walking through lines of spruce firs of deep golden +green in the yellow beams. One of these trees among its well-robed +fellows fronting them was all lichen-smitten. From the low sweeping +branches touching earth to the plumed top, the tree was dead-black as +its shadow; a vision of blackness. + +‘I will compose a beautiful, dutiful, modest, oddest, beseeching, +screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read it, and +if you approve it, we shall despatch it,’ said Clotilde. + +‘There speaks my gold-crested serpent at her wisest!’ replied Alvan. +‘And now for my visit to your family: I follow you in a day. En +avant! contre les canons! A run to Lake Leman brings us to them in the +afternoon. I shall see you in the evening. So our separation won’t be +for long this time. All the auspices are good. We shall not be rich--nor +poor.’ + +Clotilde reminded him that a portion of money would be brought to the +store by her. + +‘We don’t count it,’ said he. ‘Not rich, certainly. And you will not +expect me to make money by my pen. Above all things I detest the writing +for money. Fiction and verse appeal to a besotted public, that judges +of the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And +journalism for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to +the chains of hired journalism. My pen is my fountain--the key of me; +and I give my self, I do not sell. I write when I have matter in me and +in the direction it presses for, otherwise not one word!’ + +‘I would never ask you to sell yourself,’ said Clotilde. ‘I would rather +be in want of common comforts.’ + +He squeezed her wrist. They were again in front of the black-draped +blighted tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf +bearing a semblance of livid metal. They looked at it as having seen it +before, and passed on. + +‘But the wife of Sigismund Alvan will not be poor in renown!’ he +resumed, radiating his full bloom on her. + +‘My highest ambition is to be Sigismund Alvan’s wife!’ she exclaimed. + +To hear her was as good as wine, and his heart came out on a genial +chuckle. ‘Ay, the choice you have made is not, by heaven, so bad. +Sigismund Alvan’s wife shall take the foremost place of all. Look at +me.’ He lifted his head to the highest on his shoulders, widening his +eagle eyes. He was now thoroughly restored and in his own upper element, +expansive after the humiliating contraction of his man’s vanity under +the glances of a girl. ‘Do you take me for one who could be content with +the part of second? I will work and do battle unceasingly, but I will +have too the prize of battle to clasp it, savour it richly. I was not +fashioned to be the lean meek martyr of a cause, not I. I carry too +decisive a weight in the balance to victory. I have a taste for fruits, +my fairest! And Republics, my bright Lutetia, can give you splendid +honours.’ He helped her to realize this with the assuring splendour of +his eyes. + +‘“Bride of the Elect of the People!” is not that as glorious a title, +think you, as queen of an hereditary sovereign mumbling of God’s grace +on his worm-eaten throne? I win that seat by service, by the dedication +of this brain to the people’s interests. They have been ground to the +dust, and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am +the soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim +my reward. If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my +station. I win it not only because I serve, but because also I +have seen, have seen ahead, seen where all is dark, read the +unwritten--because I am soldier and prophet. The brain of man is Jove’s +eagle and his lightning on earth--the title to majesty henceforth. Ah! +my fairest; entering the city beside me, and the people shouting around, +she would not think her choice a bad one?’ + +Clotilde made sign and gave some earnest on his arm of ecstatic hugging. + +‘We may have hard battles, grim deceptions, to go through before that +day comes,’ he continued after a while. ‘The day is coming, but we must +wait for it, work on. I have the secret of how to head the people--to +put a head to their movement and make it irresistible, as I believe it +will be beneficent. I set them moving on the lines of the law of things. +I am no empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of +science in politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is +but a step to the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my +time, or acknowledged later. I stand for index to the people of the path +they should take to triumph--must take, as triumph they must sooner +or later: not by the route of what is called Progress--pooh! That is +a middle-class invention to effect a compromise. With the people the +matter rests with their intelligence! meanwhile my star is bright and +shines reflected.’ + +‘I notice,’ she said, favouring him with as much reflection as a +splendid lover could crave for, ‘that you never look down, you never +look on the ground, but always either up or straight before you.’ + +‘People have remarked it,’ said he, smiling. ‘Here we are at this +funereal tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears to conduct +us perpetually to this tree. It ‘s the only dead one here.’ + +He sighted the plumed black top and along the swelling branches +decorously clothed in decay: a salted ebon moss when seen closely; the +small grey particles giving a sick shimmer to the darkness of the mass. +It was very witch-like, of a witch in her incantation-smoke. + +‘Not a single bare spot! but dead, dead as any peeled and fallen!’ said +Alvan, fingering a tuft of the sooty snake-lichen. ‘This is a tree for +a melancholy poet--eh, Clotilde?--for him to come on it by moonlight, +after a scene with his mistress, or tales of her! By the way and by the +way, my fair darling, let me never think of your wearing this kind of +garb for me, should I be ordered off the first to join the dusky +army below. Women who put on their dead husbands in public are not +well-mannered women, though they may be excellent professional widows, +excellent!’ + +He snapped the lichen-dust from his fingers, observing that he was +not sure the contrast of the flourishing and blighted was not more +impressive in sunlight: and then he looked from the tree to his true +love’s hair. The tree at a little distance seemed run over with sunless +lizards: her locks were golden serpents. + +‘Shall I soon see your baroness?’ Clotilde asked him. + +‘Not in advance of the ceremony,’ he answered. ‘In good time. You +understand--an old friend making room for a new one, and that one young +and beautiful, with golden tresses; at first...! But her heart is +quite sound. Have no fear! I guarantee it; I know her to the roots. +She desires my welfare, she does my behests. If I am bound to her by +gratitude, so, and in a greater degree, is she to me. The utmost she +will demand is that my bride shall be worthy of me--a good mate for me +in the fight to come; and I have tested my bride and found her half my +heart; therefore she passes the examination with the baroness.’ + +They left the tree behind them. + +‘We will take good care not to return this way again,’ said Alvan, +without looking back. ‘That tree belongs to a plantation of the under +world; its fellows grow in the wood across Acheron, and that tree has +looked into the ghastliness of the flood and seen itself. Hecate and +Hermes know about it. Phoebus cannot light it. That tree stands for +Death blooming. We think it sinister, but down there it is a homely +tree. Down there! When do we go? The shudder in that tree is the air +exchanging between Life and Death--the ghosts going and coming: it’s +on the border line. I just felt the creep. I think you did. The reason +is--there is always a material reason--that you were warm, and a bit of +chill breeze took you as you gazed; while for my part I was imagining +at that very moment what of all possible causes might separate us, and +I acknowledged that death could do the trick. But death, my love, is far +from us two!’ + +‘Does she look as grimmish as she does in the photograph?’ said +Clotilde. + +‘Who? the baroness?’ Alvan laughed. The baroness was not so easily +defended from a girl as from her husband, it appeared. ‘She is the best +of comrades, best of friends. She has her faults; may not relish the +writ announcing her final deposition, but be you true to me, and as +true as she has unfailingly been to me, she will be to you. That I can +promise. My poor Lucie! She is winter, if you will. It is not the winter +of the steppes; you may compare her to winter in a noble country; a fine +landscape of winter. The outlines of her face.... She has a great brain. +How much I owe that woman for instruction! You meet now and then men +who have the woman in them without being womanized; they are the pick of +men. And the choicest women are those who yield not a feather of their +womanliness for some amount of manlike strength. And she is one; man’s +brain, woman’s heart. I thought her unique till I heard of you. And how +do I stand between you two? She has the only fault you can charge me +with; she is before me in time, as I am before you. Shall I spoil you +as she spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy is the recognition of the +heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as much as I love my love. +I do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, support. You will not +rule me, but you will invigorate, and if you are petted, you shall not +be spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that undertakerly tree till my +years are one hundred. Even then it will be dangerous to repose beneath +my branches in the belief that I am sapless because I have changed +colour. We Jews have a lusty blood. We are strong of the earth. We +serve you, but you must minister to us. Sensual? We have truly excellent +appetites. And why not? Heroical too! Soldiers, poets, musicians; the +Gentile’s masters in mental arithmetic--keenest of weapons: surpassing +him in common sense and capacity for brotherhood. Ay, and in charity; or +what stores of vengeance should we not have nourished! Already we have +the money-bags. Soon we shall hold the chief offices. And when the +popular election is as unimpeded as the coursing of the blood in +a healthy body, the Jew shall be foremost and topmost, for he is +pre-eminently by comparison the brain of these latter-day communities. +But that is only my answer to the brutish contempt of the Jew. I am no +champion of a race. I am for the world, for man!’ + +Clotilde remarked that he had many friends, all men of eminence, and a +large following among the people. + +He assented: ‘Yes: Tresten, Retka, Kehlen, the Nizzian. Yes, if I were +other than for legality:--if it came to a rising, I could tell off able +lieutenants.’ + +‘Tell me of your interview with Ironsides,’ she said proudly and fondly. + +‘Would this ambitious little head know everything?’ said Alvan, putting +his lips among the locks. ‘Well, we met: he requested it. We agreed that +we were on neutral ground for the moment: that he might ultimately have +to decapitate me, or I to banish him, but temporarily we could compare +our plans for governing. He showed me his hand. I showed him mine. We +played open-handed, like two at whist. He did not doubt my honesty, +and I astonished him by taking him quite in earnest. He has dealt with +diplomatists, who imagine nothing but shuffling: the old Ironer! I love +him for his love of common sense, his contempt of mean deceit. He will +outwit you, but his dexterity is a giant’s--a simple evolution rapidly +performed: and nothing so much perplexes pygmies! Then he has them, +bagsful of them! The world will see; and see giant meet giant, I +suspect. He and I proposed each of us in the mildest manner contrary +schemes--schemes to stiffen the hair of Europe! Enough that we parted +with mutual respect. He is a fine fellow: and so was my friend +the Emperor Tiberius, and so was Richelieu. Napoleon was a fine +engine:--there is a difference. Yes, Ironsides is a fine fellow! but he +and I may cross. His ideas are not many. The point to remember is that +he is iron on them: he can drive them hard into the density of +the globe. He has quick nerves and imagination: he can conjure up, +penetrate, and traverse complications--an enemy’s plans, all that the +enemy will be able to combine, and the likeliest that he will do. Good. +We opine that we are equal to the same. He is for kingcraft to mask his +viziercraft--and save him the labour of patiently attempting oratory +and persuasion, which accomplishment he does not possess:--it is not in +iron. We think the more precious metal will beat him when the broader +conflict comes. But such an adversary is not to be underrated. I do not +underrate him: and certainly not he me. Had he been born with the gifts +of patience and a fluent tongue, and not a petty noble, he might have +been for the people, as knowing them the greater power. He sees that +their knowledge of their power must eventually come to them. In the +meantime his party is forcible enough to assure him he is not fighting +a losing game at present: and he is, no doubt, by lineage and his +traditions monarchical. He is curiously simple, not really cynical. His +apparent cynicism is sheer irritability. His contemptuous phrases are +directed against obstacles: against things, persons, nations that oppose +him or cannot serve his turn against his king, if his king is restive; +but he respects his king: against your friends’ country, because there +is no fixing it to a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; but +he likes that country the best in Europe after his own. He is nearest to +contempt in his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out of +his mind when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken +up again when they are of use to him. Hence he will have no following. +But let me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives. In him +you see the dam, in me the stream. Judge, then, which of them gains +the future!--admitting that, in the present he may beat me. He is a +Prussian, stoutly defined from a German, and yet again a German stoutly +defined from our borderers: and that completes him. He has as little +the idea of humanity as the sword of our Hermann, the cannon-ball of +our Frederick. Observe him. What an eye he has! I watched it as we were +talking: and he has, I repeat, imagination; he can project his mind in +front of him as far as his reasoning on the possible allows: and that +eye of his flashes; and not only flashes, you see it hurling a bolt; it +gives me the picture of a Balearic slinger about to whizz the stone for +that eye looks far, and is hard, and is dead certain of its mark-within +his practical compass, as I have said. I see farther, and I fancy I +proved to him that I am not a dreamer. In my opinion, when we cross our +swords I stand a fair chance of not being worsted. We shall: you shrink? +Figuratively, my darling have no fear! Combative as we may be, both of +us, we are now grave seniors, we have serious business: a party looks to +him, my party looks to me. Never need you fear that I shall be at sword +or pistol with any one. I will challenge my man, whoever he as that +needs a lesson, to touch buttons on a waistcoat with the button on the +foil, or drill fiver and eights in cards at twenty paces: but I will not +fight him though he offend me, for I am stronger than my temper, and as +I do not want to take his nip of life, and judge it to be of less value +than mine, the imperilling of either is an absurdity.’ + +‘Oh! because I know you are incapable of craven fear,’ cried Clotilde, +answering aloud the question within herself of why she so much admired, +why she so fondly loved him. To feel his courage backing his high +good sense was to repose in security, and her knowledge that an astute +self-control was behind his courage assured her he was invincible. It +seemed to her, therefore, as they walked side by side, and she saw +their triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should +instantly take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican +Princess. She walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of +her being the mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and +she thrilled gratefully to the man who sustained her and shielded her on +that eminence. Elect of the people he! and by a vaster power than kings +can summon through the trumpet! She could surely pass through the +trial with her parents that she might step to the place beside him! She +pressed his arm to be physically a sharer of his glory. Was it love? It +was as lofty a stretch as her nature could strain to. + +She named the city on the shores of the great Swiss lake where her +parents were residing; she bade him follow her thither, and name the +hotel where he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. ‘Am I +not precise as an office clerk?’ she said, with a pleasant taste of the +reality her preciseness pictured. + +‘Practical as the head of a State department,’ said he, in good faith. + +‘I shall not keep you waiting,’ she resumed. + +‘The sooner we are together after the action opens the better for our +success, my golden crest!’ + +‘Have no misgivings, Sigismund. You have transformed me. A spark of you +is in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to +appear. But you will come, you will be there, I know. I know you so +entirely.’ + +‘As a rule, Lutetia, women know no more than half of a man even when +they have married him. At least you ought to know me. You know that if +I were to exercise my will firmly now--it would not waver if I called it +forth--I could carry you off and spare you the flutter you will have to +go through during our interlude with papa and mama.’ + +‘I almost wish you would,’ said she. She looked half imploringly, biting +her lip to correct the peeping wish. + +Alvan pressed a finger on one of her dimples: ‘Be brave. Flight and +defiance are our last resource. Now that I see you resolved I shun the +scandal, and we will leave it to them to insist on it, if it must be. +How can you be less than resolved after I have poured my influence into +your veins? The other day on the heights--had you consented then? Well! +it would have been very well, but not so well. We two have a future, +and are bound to make the opening chapters good sober reading, for +an example, if we can. I take you from your father’s house, from your +mother’s arms, from the “God speed” of your friends. That is how Alvan’s +wife should be presented to the world.’ + +Clotilde’s epistle to the baroness was composed, approved, and +despatched. To a frigid eye it read as more hypocritical than it really +was; for supposing it had to be written, the language of the natural +impulse called up to write it was necessarily in request, and that +language is easily overdone, so as to be discordant with the situation, +while it is, as the writer feels, a fairly true and well-formed +expression of the pretty impulse. But wiser is it always that the star +in the ascendant should not address the one waning. Hardly can a word +be uttered without grossly wounding. She would not do it to a younger +rival: the letter strikes on the recipient’s age! She babbles of a +friendship: she plays at childish ninny! The display of her ingenuous +happiness causes feminine nature’s bosom to rise in surges. The +declarations of her devotedness to the man waken comparisons with a +deeper, a longer-tried suffering. Actually the letter of the rising star +assumes personal feeling to have died out of the abandoned luminary, and +personal feeling is chafed to its acutest edge by the perusal; contempt +also of one who can stupidly simulate such innocence, is roused. + +Among Alvan’s gifts the understanding of women did not rank high. He +was too robust, he had been too successful. Your very successful hero +regards them as nine-pins destined to fall, the whole tuneful nine, at +a peculiar poetical twist of the bowler’s wrist, one knocking down the +other--figuratively, for their scruples, or for their example with their +sisters. His tastes had led him into the avenues of success, and as he +had not encountered grand resistances, he entertained his opinion of +their sex. The particular maxim he cherished was, to stake everything on +his making a favourable first impression: after which single figure, he +said, all your empty naughts count with women for hundreds, thousands, +millions: noblest virtues are but sickly units. He would have stared +like any Philistine at the tale of their capacity to advance to a +likeness unto men in their fight with the world. Women for him were +objects to be chased, the politician’s relaxation, taken like the +sportsman’s business, with keen relish both for the pursuit and the +prey, and a view of the termination of his pastime. Their feelings he +could appreciate during the time when they flew and fell, perhaps a +little longer; but the change in his own feelings withdrew him from +the communion of sentiment. This is the state of men who frequent +the avenues of success. At present he was thinking of a wife, and he +approved the epistle to the baroness cordially. + +‘I do think it a nice kind of letter, and quite humble enough,’ said +Clotilde. + +He agreed, ‘Yes, yes: she knows already that this is really serious with +me.’ + +So much for the baroness. + +Now for their parting. A parting that is no worse than the turning of a +page to a final meeting is made light of, but felt. Reason is all in our +favour, and yet the gods are jealous of the bliss of mortals; the slip +between the cup and the lip is emotionally watched for, even though it +be not apprehended, when the cup trembles for very fulness. Clotilde +required reassuring and comforting: ‘I am certain you will prevail; +you must; you cannot be resisted; I stand to witness to the fact,’ she +sighed in a languor: ‘only, my people are hard to manage. I see more +clearly now, that I have imposed on them; and they have given away by a +sort of compact so long as I did nothing decisive. That I see. But, +then again, have I not your spirit in me now? What has ever resisted +you?--Then, as I am Alvan’s wife, I share his heart with his fortunes, +and I do not really dread the scenes from anticipating failure, +still-the truth is, I fear I am three parts an actress, and the fourth +feels itself a shivering morsel to face reality. No, I do not really +feel it, but press my hand, I shall be true--I am so utterly yours: and +because I have such faith in you. You never, yet have failed.’ + +‘Never: and it is impossible for me to conceive it,’ said Alvan +thoughtfully. + +His last word to her on her departure was ‘Courage!’ Hers to him was +conveyed by the fondest of looks. She had previously said ‘To-morrow!’ +to remind him of his appointment to be with her on the morrow, and +herself that she would not long stand alone. She did not doubt of her +courage while feasting on the beauty of one of the acknowledged strong +men of earth. She kissed her hand, she flung her heart to him from the +waving fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his +tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her. All the rest to +come was mere business matter of the conflict, scarcely calling for a +plan of action. Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move? +Husbands have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and +the parents are not dealing with the same kind of woman, you see the +same elemental power in her under both conditions of rebel wife and +rebel daughter to break conventional laws, and be splendidly irrational. +That is, if she can be decided: in other words, aimed at a mark and +inflamed to fly the barriers intercepting. He fancied he had achieved +it. Alvan thanked his fortune that he had to treat with parents. The +consolatory sensation of a pure intent soothed his inherent wildness, in +the contemplation of the possibility that the latter might be roused +by those people, her parents, to upset his honourable ambition to win a +wife after the fashion of orderly citizens. It would be on their heads! +But why vision mischance? An old half-jesting prophecy of his among +his friends, that he would not pass his fortieth year, rose upon his +recollection without casting a shadow. Lo, the reckless prophet about to +marry! + +No dark bride, no skeleton, no colourless thing, no lichened tree, +was she. Not Death, my friends, but Life, is the bride of this doomed +fortieth year! Was animation ever vivider in contrast with obstruction? +Her hair would kindle the frosty shades to a throb of vitality: it +would be sunshine in the subterranean sphere. The very thinking of +her dispersed that realm of the poison hue, and the eternally inviting +phosphorescent, still, curved forefinger, which says, ‘Come.’ + +To think of her as his vernal bride, while the snowy Alps were a +celestial garden of no sunset before his eyes, was to have the taste of +mortal life in the highest. He wondered how it was that he could have +waited so long for her since the first night of their meeting, and +he just distinguished the fact that he lived with the pulses of the +minutes, much as she did, only more fierily. The ceaseless warfare +called politics must have been the distraction: he forgot any other of +another kind. He was a bridegroom for whom the rosed Alps rolled out, a +panorama of illimitable felicity. And there were certain things he must +overcome before he could name his bride his own, so that his innate love +of contention, which had been constantly flattered by triumph, brought, +his whole nature into play with the prospect of the morrow: not much +liking it either. There is a nerve, in brave warriors that does not +like the battle before, the crackle of musketry is heard, and the big +artillery. + +Methodically, according to his habit, he jotted down the hours of the +trains, the hotel mentioned by Clotilde, the address of her father; he +looked to his card-case, his writing materials, his notes upon Swiss +law; considering that the scene would be in Switzerland, and he was a +lawyer bent on acting within and up to the measure of the law as well as +pleading eloquently. The desire to wing a telegram to her he thought it +wise to repress, and he found himself in consequence composing verses, +turgid enough, even to his own judgement. Poets would have failed at +such a time, and he was not one, but an orator enamoured. He was a wild +man, cased in the knowledge of jurisprudence, and wishing to enter +the ranks of the soberly blissful. These he could imagine that he +complimented by the wish. Then why should he doubt of his fortune? He +did not. + +The night passed, the morning came, and carried him on his journey. Late +in the afternoon he alighted at the hotel he called Clotilde’s. A letter +was handed to him. His eyes all over the page caught the note of it for +her beginning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. ‘And now +my turn!’ said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and +baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him. +But Clotilde’s parents were yet to learn that this Jew, demagogue, and +champion of an injured lady, was a gentleman respectful to their legal +and natural claims upon their child while maintaining his own: they were +to know him and change their tone. + +As he was reading the letter upstairs by sentences, his door opened at +the answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield’s welcome to the +birdlike applicant for admission. Clotilde stood hesitating. + +He sent the introducing waiter speeding on his most kellnerish legs, and +drew her in. + +‘Alvan, I have come.’ + +She was like a bird in his hands, palpitating to extinction. + +He bent over her: ‘What has happened?’ + +Trembling, and very pale, hard in her throat she said, ‘The worst.’ + +‘You have spoken to them both subsequent to this?’ he shook the letter. + +‘It is hopeless.’ + +‘Both to father and mother?’ + +‘Both. They will not hear your name; they will not hear me speak. I +repeat, it is past all hope, all chance of moving them. They hate--hate +you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once +and followed my letter; I ran through the streets; I pant for want of +breath, not want of courage. I prove I have it, Alvan; I have done all I +can do. + +She was enfolded; she sank on the nest, dropping her eyelids. + +But he said nothing. She looked up at him. Her strained pale eyes +provoked a closer embrace. + +‘This would be the home for you if we were flying,’ said he, glancing +round at the room, with a sensation like a shudder, ‘Tell me what there +is to be told.’ + +‘Alvan, I have; that is all. They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what +possesses them!’ + +‘They have not met me yet!’ + +‘They will not, will not ever--no!’ + +‘They must.’ + +‘They refuse. Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested. +Take me--take me away!’ + +‘Run?--facing the enemy?’ His countenance was the fiery laugh of a +thirster for strife. ‘They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made +of!’ + +Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion. ‘I found +them celebrating the betrothal of my sister Lotte with the Austrian +Count Walburg; I thought it favourable for us. I spoke of you to my +mother. Oh, that scene! What she said I cannot recollect: it was a +hiss. Then my father. Your name changed his features and his voice. They +treated me as impure for mentioning it. You must have deadly enemies. +I was unable to recognize either father or mother--they have become +transformed. But you see I am here. Courage! you said; and I determined +I would show it, and be worthy of you. But I am pursued, I am sure. My +father is powerful in this place; we shall barely have time to escape.’ + +Alvan’s resolution was taken. + +‘Some friend--a lady living in the city here--name her, quick!--one you +can trust,’ he said, and fondled her hastily, much as a gentle kind of +drillmaster straightens a fair pupil’s shoulders. ‘Yes, you have shown +courage. Now it must be submission to me. You shall be no runaway bride, +but honoured at the altar. Out of this hotel is the first point. You +know some such lady?’ + +Clotilde tried to remonstrate and to suggest. She could have prophesied +certain evil from any evasion of the straight line of flight; she was so +sure of it because of her intuition that her courage had done its utmost +in casting her on him, and that the remainder within her would be a +drawing back. She could not get the word or even the look to encounter +his close and warm imperiousness; and, hesitating, she noticed where +they were together alone. She could not refuse the protection he offered +in a person of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where +they were together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of +entreating a man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged +to it. She felt herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a +Madame Emerly, living near the hotel. Her heart sank like a stone. ‘It +is for you!’ cried Alvan, keenly sensible of his loss and his generosity +in temporarily resigning her--for a subsequent triumph. ‘But my wife +shall not be snatched by a thief in the night. Are you not my wife--my +golden bride? And you may give me this pledge of it, as if the vows had +just been uttered... and still I resign you till we speak the vows. It +shall not be said of Alvan’s wife, in the days of her glory, that she +ran to her nuptials through rat-passages.’ + +His pride in his prevailingness thrilled her. She was cooled by her +despondency sufficiently to perceive where the centre of it lay, +but that centre of self was magnificent; she recovered some of her +enthusiasm, thinking him perhaps to be acting rightly; in any case they +were united, her step was irrevocable. Her having entered the hotel, her +being in this room, certified to that. It seemed to her while she was +waiting for the carriage he had ordered that she was already half a +wife. She was not conscious of a blush. The sprite in the young woman’s +mind whispered of fire not burning when one is in the heart of it. And +undoubtedly, contemplated from the outside, this room was the heart +of fire. An impulse to fall on Alvan’s breast and bless him for his +chivalrousness had to be kept under lest she should wreck the thing she +praised. Otherwise she was not ill at ease. Alvan summoned his gaiety, +all his homeliness of tone, to give her composure, and on her quitting +the room she was more than ever bound to him, despite her gloomy +foreboding. A maid of her household, a middle-aged woman, gabbling of +devotion to her, ran up the steps of the hotel. Her tale was, that the +General had roused the city in pursuit of his daughter; and she heard +whither Clotilde was going. + +Within half an hour, Clotilde was in Madame Emerly’s drawing-room +relating her desperate history of love and parental tyranny, assisted +by the lover whom she had introduced. Her hostess promised shelter and +exhibited sympathy. The whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew +Alvan by reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and +menacingly in politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing +tongue, and the signal proof of his respect for the lady of his love and +deference toward her family, won her personally. She promised the best +help she could give them. They were certainly in a romantic situation, +such as few women could see and decline their aid to the lovers. + +Madame Emerly proved at least her sincerity before many minutes had +passed. + +Chancing to look out into the street, she saw Clotilde’s mother and her +betrothed sister stepping up to the house. What was to be done? And +was the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, but +Alvan cried louder: ‘Heaven-directed! and so, let me see her and speak +to her--nothing could be better.’ + +Madame Emerly took mute counsel of Clotilde, shaking her own head +premonitorily; and then she said: ‘I think indeed it will be safer, if I +am asked, to say you are not here, and I know not where you are.’ + +‘Yes! yes!’ Clotilde replied: ‘Oh! do that.’ + +She half turned to Alvan, rigid with an entreaty that hung on his coming +voice. + +‘No!’ said Alvan, shocked in both pride and vanity. ‘Plain-dealing; +no subterfuge! Begin with foul falsehood? No. I would not have you +burdened, madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our +account. And when it would be bad policy?... Oh, no, worse than the sin! +as the honest cynic says. We will go down to Madame von Rudiger, and she +shall make acquaintance with the man who claims her daughter’s hand.’ + +Clotilde rocked in an agony. Her friend was troubled. Both ladies knew +what there would be to encounter better than he. But the man, strong in +his belief in himself, imposed his will on them. + +Alvan and Clotilde clasped hands as they went downstairs to Madame +Emerly’s reception room. She could hardly speak: ‘Do not forsake me.’ + +‘Is this forsaking?’ He could ask it in the deeply questioning tone +which supplies the answer. + +‘Oh, Alvan!’ She would have said: ‘Be warned.’ + +He kissed her fingers. ‘Trust to me.’ + +She had to wrap her shivering spirit in a blind reliance and utter +leaning on him. + +She could almost have said: ‘Know me better’; and she would, sincere as +her passion in its shallow vessel was, have been moved to say it for a +warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning +into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation (rapidly +degenerating to desperation) inspired her with the thought of her being +a part of this handsome, undaunted, triumph-flashing man. + +Such a state of blind reliance and utter leaning, however, has a certain +tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doing it prepares the +spirit to be a melting prize of the winner. + +Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering +thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring +their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius +of Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in +whatsoever person. We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be +prey, we lose the soul of election. + +Mark her as she proceeds. For should her hero fail, and she be suffering +through his failure and her reliance on him, the blindness of it will +seem to her to have been an infinite virtue, anything but her deplorable +weakness crouching beneath his show of superhuman strength. And it will +seem to her, so long as her sufferings endure, that he deceived her just +expectations, and was a vain pretender to the superhuman:--for it +was only a superhuman Jew and democrat whom she could have thought of +espousing. The pusillanimous are under a necessity to be self-consoled +when they are not self-justified: it is their instinctive manner of +putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, +because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she +was ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some +reason (where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) +will it seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the +conflict, insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused +the tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason, +coldest reason, close as it ever is to the craven’s heart in its hour of +trial, whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler’s die by the +swollen conceit in his fortune rather than by his desire for the prize. +That frigid reason of the craven has red-hot perceptions. It spies the +spot of truth. Were the spot revealed in the man the whole man, then, +so unerring is the eyeshot at him, we should have only to transform +ourselves into cowards fronting a crisis to read him through and topple +over the Sphinx of life by presenting her the sum of her most mysterious +creature in an epigram. But there was as much more in Alvan than any +faint-hearted thing, seeing however keenly, could see, as there is more +in the world than the epigrams aimed at it contain. + +‘Courage!’ said he: and she tremblingly: ‘Be careful!’ And then they +were in the presence of her mother and sister. + +Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. Her +mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with a +woman’s combative frown of great eyes, in which the stare is a bolt. + +‘Away with that man! I will not suffer him near me,’ she cried. + +Alvan advanced to her: ‘Tell me, madame, in God’s name, what you have +against me.’ + +She swung her back on him. ‘Go, sir! my husband will know how to deal +with one like you. Out of my sight, I say!’ + +The brutality of this reception of Alvan nerved Clotilde. She went up to +him, and laying her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal, +said: ‘Let us go: come. I will not bear to hear you so spoken to. No one +shall treat you like that when I am near.’ + +She expected him to give up the hopeless task, after such an experience +of the commencement. He did but clasp her hand, assuring the Frau von +Rudiger that no word of hers could irritate him. ‘Nothing can make me +forget that you are Clotilde’s mother. You are the mother of the lady I +love, and may say what you will to me, madame. I bear it.’ + +‘A man spotted with every iniquity the world abhors, and I am to see +him holding my daughter by the hand!--it is too abominable! And because +there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk +of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that which you have to +do is to go. My ears are shut. You can annoy, you can insult, you cannot +move me. Go.’ She stamped: her aspect spat. + +Alvan bowed. Under perfect self-command, he said: ‘I will go at once +to Clotilde’s father. I may hope, that with a reasonable man I shall +speedily come to an understanding.’ + +She retorted: ‘Enter his house, and he will have you driven out by his +lacqueys.’ + +‘Hardly: I am not of those men who are driven from houses,’ Alvan said, +smiling. ‘But, madame, I will act on your warning, and spare her father, +for all sakes, the attempt; seeing he does not yet know whom he deals +with. I will write to him.’ + +‘Letters from you will be flung back unopened. + +‘It may, of course, be possible to destroy even my patience, madame.’ + +‘Mine, sir, is at an end.’ + +‘You reduce us to rely on ourselves; it is the sole alternative.’ + +‘You have not waited for that,’ rejoined Frau von Rudiger. ‘You have +already destroyed my daughter’s reputation by inducing her to leave her +father’s house and hesitate to return. Oh! you are known. You are known +for your dealings with women as well as men. We know you. We have, we +pray to God, little more to learn of you. You! ah--thief!’ + +‘Thief!’ Alvan’s voice rose on hers like the clapping echo of it. She +had up the whole angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that +she had struck the wound in his history; but he was terrible to look at, +so she made the charge supportable by saying: + +‘You have stolen my child from me!’ + +Clotilde raised her throat, shrewish in excitement. ‘False! He did +not. I went to him of my own will, to run from your heartlessness, +mother--that I call mother!--and be out of hearing of my father’s curses +and threats. Yes, to him I fled, feeling that I belonged more to him +than to you. And never will I return to you. You have killed my love; I +am this man’s own because I love him only; him ever! him you abuse, as +his partner in life for all it may give!--as his wife! Trample on him, +you trample on me. Make black brows at your child for choosing the man, +of all men alive, to worship and follow through the world. I do. I am +his. I glory in him.’ + +Her gaze on Alvan said: ‘Now!’ Was she not worthy of him now? And would +they not go forth together now? Oh! now! + +Her gaze was met by nothing like the brilliant counterpart she merited. +It was as if she had offered her beauty to a glass, and found a +reflection in dull metal. He smiled calmly from her to her mother. He +said: + +‘You accuse me of stealing your child, madame. You shall acknowledge +that you have wronged me. Clotilde, my Clotilde! may I count on you to +do all and everything for me? Is there any sacrifice I could ask that +would be too hard for you? Will you at one sign from me go or do as I +request you?’ + +She replied, in an anguish over the chilling riddle of his calmness: ‘I +will,’ but sprang out of that obedient consent, fearful of over-acting +her part of slave to him before her mother, in a ghastly apprehension of +the part he was for playing to the same audience. ‘Yes, I will do all, +all that you command. I am yours. I will go with you. Bid me do whatever +you can think of, all except bid me go back to the people I have +hitherto called mine:--not that!’ + +‘And that is what I have to request of you,’ said he, with his calm +smile brightening and growing more foreign, histrionic, unreadable to +her. ‘And this greatest sacrifice that you can perform for me, are you +prepared to do it? Will you?’ + +She tried to decipher the mask he wore: it was proof against her +imploring eyes. ‘If you can ask me--if you can positively wish it--yes,’ +she said. ‘But think of what you are doing. Oh! Alvan, not back to them! +Think!’ + +He smiled insufferably. He was bent on winning a parent-blest bride, an +unimpeachable wife, a lady handed to him instead of taken, one of the +world’s polished silver vessels. + +‘Think that you are doing this for me!’ said he. ‘It is for my sake. And +now, madame, I give you back your daughter. You see she is mine to give, +she obeys me, and I--though it can be only for a short time--give her +back to you. She goes with you purely because it is my wish: do not +forget that. And so, madame, I have the honour,’ he bowed profoundly. + +He turned to Clotilde and drew her within his arm. ‘What you have done +in obedience to my wish, my beloved, shall never be forgotten. Never can +I sufficiently thank you. I know how much it has cost you. But here is +the end of your trials. All the rest is now my task. Rely on me with +your whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding. +Be sure of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of +injustice I shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that, +and be not unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit +a short while to the will of your parents: mine you will find the +stronger. Resolve it in your soul that I, your lover, cannot fail, for +it is impossible to me to waver. Consider me as the one fixed light in +your world, and look to me. Soon, then! Have patience, be true, and we +are one!’ + +He kissed cold lips, he squeezed an inanimate hand. The horribly empty +sublimity of his behaviour appeared to her in her mother’s contemptuous +face. + +His eyes were on her as he released her and she stood alone. She seemed +a dead thing; but the sense of his having done gloriously in mastering +himself to give these worldly people of hers a lesson and proof that he +could within due measure bow to their laws and customs, dispelled the +brief vision of her unfitness to be left. The compressed energy of +the man under his conscious display of a great-minded deference to the +claims of family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of +the present achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad +reputation among these people, from whom he was about to lead forth +a daughter for Alvan’s wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his +exhibition of generosity--which was brought out in strong relief when he +delivered his retiring bow to the Frau von Rudiger’s shoulder--that +the worst was over; he had to deal no more with silly women: now for +Clotilde’s father! Women were privileged to oppose their senselessness +to the divine fire: men could not retreat behind such defences; they +must meet him on the common ground of men, where this constant battler +had never yet encountered a reverse. + +Clotilde’s cold staring gaze, a little livelier to wonderment than to +reflection, observed him to be scrupulous of the formalities in the +diverse character of his parting salutations to her mother, her sister; +and the lady of the house. He was going--he could actually go and leave +her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that she +did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She saw him smiling +incomprehensibly, like a winner of the field to be left to the enemy. +She could get nothing from him but that insensible round smile, and she +took the ebbing of her poor effort for his rebuff. + +‘You that offered yourself in flight to him who once proposed it, he had +the choice of you and he abjured you. He has cast you off!’ + +She phrased it in speech to herself. It was incredible, but it was +clear: he had gone. + +The room was vacant; the room was black and silent as a dungeon. + +‘He will not have you: he has handed you back to them the more readily +to renounce you.’ + +She framed the words half aloud in a moan as she glanced at her mother +heaving in stern triumph, her sister drooping, Madame Emerly standing at +the window. + +The craven’s first instinct for safety, quick as the cavern lynx for +light, set her on the idea that she was abandoned: it whispered of +quietness if she submitted. + +And thus she reasoned: Had Alvan taken her, she would not have been +guilty of more than a common piece of love-desperation in running to +him, the which may be love’s glory when marriage crowns it. By his +rejecting her and leaving her, he rendered her not only a runaway, but +a castaway. It was not natural that he should leave her; ‘not natural in +him to act his recent part; but he had done it; consequently she was at +the mercy of those who might pick her up. She was, in her humiliation +and dread, all of the moment, she could see to no distance; and +judging of him, feeling for herself, within that contracted circle of +sensation--sure, from her knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done +unwisely--she became swayed about like a castaway in soul, until her +distinguishing of his mad recklessness in the challenge of a power +greater than his own grew present with her as his personal cruelty to +the woman who had flung off everything, flung herself on the tempestuous +deeps, on his behalf. And here she was, left to float or founder! Alvan +had gone. The man rageing over the room, abusing her ‘infamous lover, +the dirty Jew, the notorious thief, scoundrel, gallowsbird,’ etc., etc., +frightful epithets, not to be transcribed--was her father. He had come, +she knew not how. Alvan had tossed her to him. + +Abuse of a lover is ordinarily retorted on in the lady’s heart by the +brighter perception of his merits; but when the heart is weak, the +creature suffering shame, her lover the cause of it, and seeming cruel, +she is likely to lose all perception and bend like a flower pelted. Her +cry to him: ‘If you had been wiser, this would not have been!’ will sink +to the inward meditation: ‘If he had been truer!’--and though she does +not necessarily think him untrue for charging him with it, there is +already a loosening of the bonds where the accusation has begun. They +are not broken because they are loosened: still the loosening of them +makes it possible to cut them with less of a snap and less pain. + +Alvan had relinquished her he loved to brave the tempest in a frail +small boat, and he certainly could not have apprehended the furious +outbreak she was exposed to. She might so far have exonerated him had +she been able to reflect; but she whom he had forced to depend on him +in blind reliance, now opened her eyes on an opposite power exercising +material rigours. After having enjoyed extraordinary independence for +a young woman, she was treated as a refractory child, literally marched +through the streets in the custody of her father, who clutched her by +the hair-Alvan’s beloved golden locks!--and held her under terror of a +huge forester’s weapon, that he had seized at the first tidings of his +daughter’s flight to the Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to +exposure; contempt, with a sense of the humour of it: and this was a +satisfaction to him, founded on his practical observance of two or +three maxims quite equal to the fullest knowledge of women for rightly +managing them: preferable, inasmuch as they are simpler, and, by merely +cracking a whip, bring her back to the post, instead of wasting time +by hunting her as she likes to run. Police were round his house. The +General chattered and shouted of the desperate lawlessness and larcenies +of that Jew--the things that Jew would attempt. He dragged her +indoors, muttering of his policy in treating her at last to a wholesome +despotism. + +This was the medicine for her--he knew her! Whether he did or not, he +knew the potency of his physic. He knew that osiers can be made to +bend. With a frightful noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the +window-shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he +left her there and roared across the household that any one holding +communication with the prisoner should be shot like a dog. This was a +manifestation of power in a form more convincing than the orator’s. + +She was friendless, abused, degraded, benighted in broad daylight; +abandoned by her lover. She sank on the floor of the room, conceiving +with much strangeness of sentiment under these hard stripes of +misfortune, that reality had come. The monster had hold of her. She was +isolated, fed like a dungeoned captive. She had nothing but our natural +obstinacy to hug, or seem to do so when wearifulness reduced her to +cling to the semblance of it only. ‘I marry Alvan!’ was her iterated +answer to her father, on his visits to see whether he had yet broken +her; and she spoke with the desperate firmness of weak creatures that +strive to nail themselves to the sound of it. He listened and named his +time for returning. The tug between rigour and endurance continued for +about forty hours. She then thought, in an exhaustion: ‘Strange that +my father should be so fiercely excited against this man! Can he have +reasons I have not heard of?’ Her father’s unwonted harshness suggested +the question in her quailing nature, which was beginning to have a +movement to kiss the whip. The question set her thinking of the reasons +she knew. She saw them involuntarily from the side of parents, and they +wore a sinister appearance; in reality her present scourging was due to +them as well as to Alvan’s fatal decision. Her misery was traceable to +his conduct and his judgement--both bad. And yet all this while he might +be working to release her, near upon rescuing! She swung round to the +side of her lover against these executioner parents, and scribbled to +him as well as she could under the cracks in her windowshutters, urging +him to appear. She spent her heart on it. A note to her friend, the +English lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less abandonment, +with a frozen resignation to the loss of him--all around her was so +dark! By-and-by there was a scratching at her door. The maid whom she +trusted brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the maid and +mistress knelt. Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the whispers +were exchanged through the partition. + +‘Where is he?’ + +‘Gone.’ + +‘But where?’ + +‘He has left the city.’ + +Clotilde pushed the letter for her friend under the door: that one +for Alvan she retained, stung by his desertion of her, and thinking +practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an +address. She did not ask herself whether the maid’s information was +honest, for she wanted to despair, as the exhausted want to lie down. + +She wept through the night. It was one of those nights of the torrents +of tears which wash away all save the adamantine within us, if there be +ought of that besides the breathing structure. The reason why she wept +with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity +for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the +love whereby she was tormented. They do not weep thus who have a heart +for the struggle. In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, +no longer self-pitiful; careless of herself, as she thought: in other +words, unable any further to contend. + +Reality was too strong! This morning her sisters came to her room +imploring her to yield:--if she married Alvan, what could be their +prospects as the sisters-in law of such a man?--her betrothed sister +Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan’s name was infamous +in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned +to seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her +tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he +hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew +democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his +brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly +Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all, +perhaps to her father’s military and diplomatic career principally: the +head of their house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by +having no other reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her +absent lover and her family; she was already disunited from him when she +shed them, feeling that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many +bosoms drained of self-pity will become. + +Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and +had a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a +little by her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after +her heavy scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing +them to be selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality +made them seem a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. +Her natural blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire +relinquishment; it knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had +committed an irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own +vain provoking, that was too severe for him: he was not the lover +he fancied himself, or not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her +excessive misery would not suffer a picture of him, not one clear +recollection of him, to stand before her. He who should have been at +hand, had gone, and she was fearfully beset, almost lifeless; and being +abandoned, her blank night of imagination felt that there was nothing +left for her save to fall upon those nearest. + +She gave her submission to her mother. In her mind, during the last +wrestling with a weakness that was alternately her love, and her +cowardice, the interpretation of the act ran: ‘He may come, and I am his +if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.’ He had taught her +to rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting +herself loose from him. In a similar mood, the spiritual waverer vows to +believe if the saint will appear. However, she submitted. Then there was +joy in the family, and she tasted their caresses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +After his deed of loftiness Alvan walked to his hotel, where the sight +of the room Clotilde had entered that morning caught his breath. He +proceeded to write his first letter to General von Rudiger, repressing +his heart’s intimations that he had stepped out of the friendly path, +and was on a strange and tangled one. The sense of power in him was +leonine enough to promise the forcing of a way whithersoever the +path: yet did that ghost of her figure across the room haunt him with +searching eyes. They set him spying over himself at an actor who had not +needed to be acting his part, brilliant though it was. He crammed his +energy into his idea of the part, to carry it forward victoriously. +Before the world, it would without question redound to his credit, and +he heard the world acclaiming him: + +‘Alvan’s wife was honourably won, as became the wife of a Doctor of +Law, from the bosom of her family, when he could have had her in the +old lawless fashion, for a call to a coachman! Alvan, the republican, +is eminently a citizen. Consider his past life by that test of his +character.’ + +He who had many times defied the world in hot rebellion, had become, +through his desire to cherish a respectable passion, if not exactly +slavish to it, subservient, as we see royal personages, that are happy +to be on bowing terms with the multitude bowing lower. Lower, of course, +the multitude must bow, to inspire an august serenity; but the nod +they have in exchange for it is not an independent one. Ceasing to be +a social rebel, he conceived himself as a recognized dignitary, and he +passed under the bondage of that position. + +Clotilde had been in this room; she had furnished proof that she could +be trusted now. She had committed herself, perished as a maiden of +society, and her parents, even the senseless mother, must see it and +decide by it. The General would bring her to reason: General von Rudiger +was a man of the world. An honourable son-in-law could not but be +acceptable to him--now, at least. And such a son-in-law would ultimately +be the pride of his house. ‘A flower from thy garden, friend, and my +wearing it shall in good time be cause for some parental gratification.’ + +The letter despatched, Alvan paced his chamber with the ghost of +Clotilde. He was presently summoned to meet Count Walburg and another +intimate of the family, in the hotel downstairs. These gentlemen brought +no message from General von Rudiger: their words were directed to +extract a promise from him that he would quit his pursuit of Clotilde, +and of course he refused; they hinted that the General might have +official influence to get him expelled the city, and he referred them +to the proof; but he looked beyond the words at a new something of +extraordinary and sinister aspect revealed to him in their manner of +treating his pretensions to the hand of the lady. + +He had not yet perfectly seen the view the world took of him, because +of his armed opposition to the world; nor could he rightly reflect on +it yet, being too anxious to sign the peace. He felt as it were a blow +startling him from sleep. His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly +polite; they did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect +between man and man. The strange matter was behind their bearing, which +indicated the positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one +such as he, and struck at the curtain covering his history. He could +not raise it to thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the +implied contempt of his character: with a boiling gorge he was +obliged to swallow both the history and the insult, returning them the +equivalent of their courtesies, though it was on his lips to thunder +heavily. + +A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him +admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing. The +bearer of it was dismissed without an answer. + +Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance. The fate of the noble Genoese +conspirator, slipping into still harbour water on the step from boat to +boat, and borne down by the weight of his armour in the moment of the +ripeness of his plot at midnight, when the signal for action sparkled +to lighten across the ships and forts, had touched him in his boy’s +readings, and he found a resemblance of himself to Fiesco, stopped as he +was by a base impediment, tripped ignominiously, choked by the weight of +the powers fitting him for battle. A man such as Alvan, arrested on his +career by an opposition to his enrolment of a bride!--think of it! What +was this girl in a life like his? But, oh! the question was no sooner +asked than the thought that this girl had been in this room illuminated +the room, telling him she might have been his own this instant, +confounding him with an accusation of madness for rejecting her. Why +had he done it? Surely women, weak women, must be at times divinely +inspired. She warned him against the step. But he, proud of his armoury, +went his way. He choked, he suffered the torture of the mailed Genoese +going under; worse, for the drowner’s delirium swirls but a minute in +the gaping brain, while he had to lie all, night at the mercy of the +night. + +He was only calmer when morning came. Night has little mercy for the +self-reproachful, and for a strong man denouncing the folly of his +error, it has none. The bequest of the night was a fever of passion; and +upon that fever the light of morning cleared his head to weigh the force +opposing him. He gnawed the paradox, that it was huge because it was +petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of +the position it explained. Great enemies, great undertakings, would have +revived him as they had always revived and fortified. But here was a +stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had +chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms. By +shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing +reduced him to hesitation. And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; +his history, his very blood, stood open to its shafts; and the sole +quality of a giant, which he could show to front it, was the breath of +one for a mark. + +These direct perceptions of the circumstances were played on by the +fever he drew from his Fiesco bed. Accuracy of vision in our crises is +not so uncommon as the proportionate equality of feeling: we do indeed. +frequently see with eyes of just measurement while we are conducting +ourselves like madmen. The facts are seen, and yet the spinning nerves +will change their complexion; and without enlarging or minimizing, +they will alternate their effect on us immensely through the colour +presenting them now sombre, now hopeful: doing its work of extravagance +upon perceptibly plain matter. The fitful colour is the fever. He must +win her, for he never yet had failed--he had lost her by his folly! She +was his--she was torn from him! She would come at his bidding--she +would cower to her tyrants! The thought of her was life and death in his +frame, bright heaven and the abyss. At one beat of the heart she swam +to his arms, at another he was straining over darkness. And whose the +fault? + +He rose out of his amazement crying it with a roar, and foreignly +beholding himself. He pelted himself with epithets; his worst enemies +could not have been handier in using them. From Alvan to Alvan, they +signified such an earthquake in a land of splendid structures as +shatters to dust the pride of the works of men. He was down among them, +lower than the herd, rolling in vulgar epithets that, attached to one +like him, became of monstrous distortion. O fool! dolt! blind ass! +tottering idiot! drunken masquerader! miserable Jack Knave, performing +suicide with that blessed coxcomb air of curling a lock!--Clotilde! +Clotilde! Where has one read the story of a man who had the jewel of +jewels in his hand, and flung in into the deeps, thinking that he flung +a pebble? Fish, fool, fish! and fish till Doomsday! There’s nothing but +your fool’s face in the water to be got to bite at the bait you throw, +fool! Fish for the flung-away beauty, and hook your shadow of a Bottom’s +head! What impious villain was it refused the gift of the gods, that he +might have it bestowed on him according to his own prescription of the +ceremonies! They laugh! By Orcus! how they laugh! The laughter of the +gods is the lightning of death’s irony over mortals. Can they have a +finer subject than a giant gone fool? + +Tears burst from him: tears of rage, regret, selflashing. O for +yesterday! He called aloud for the recovery of yesterday, bellowed, +groaned. A giant at war with pigmies, having nought but their weapons, +having to fight them on his knees, to fight them with the right hand +while smiting himself with the left, has too much upon him to keep his +private dignity in order. He was the same in his letters--a Cyclops +hurling rocks and raising the seas to shipwreck. Dignity was cast off; +he came out naked. Letters to Clotilde, and to the baroness, to the +friend nearest him just then, Colonel von Tresten, calling them to him, +were dashed to paper in this naked frenzy, and he could rave with all +the truth of life, that to have acted the idiot, more than the loss of +the woman, was the ground of his anguish. Each antecedent of his career +had been a step of strength and success departed. The woman was but a +fragment of the tremendous wreck; the woman was utterly diminutive, +yet she was the key of the reconstruction; the woman won, he would be +himself once more: and feeling that, his passion for her swelled to full +tide and she became a towering splendour whereat his eyeballs ached, she +became a melting armful that shook him to big bursts of tears. + +The feeling of the return of strength was his love in force. The giant +in him loved her warmly. Her sweetness, her archness, the opening of her +lips, their way of holding closed, and her brightness of wit, her tender +eyelashes, her appreciating looks, her sighing, the thousand varying +shades of her motions and her features interflowing like a lighted +water, swam to him one by one like so many handmaiden messengers +distinctly beheld of the radiant indistinct whom he adored with more of +spirit in his passion than before this tempest. A giant going through a +giant’s contortions, fleshly as the race of giants, and gross, coarse, +dreadful, likely to be horrible when whipped and stirred to the dregs, +Alvan was great-hearted: he could love in his giant’s fashion, love and +lay down life for the woman he loved, though the nature of the passion +was not heavenly; or for the friend who would have to excuse him often; +or for the public cause--which was to minister to his appetites. He +was true man, a native of earth, and if he could not quit his huge +personality to pipe spiritual music during a storm of trouble, being a +soul wedged in the gnarled wood of the standing giant oak, and giving +mighty sound of timber at strife rather than the angelical cry, he +suffered, as he loved, to his depths. + +We have not to plumb the depths; he was not heroic, but hugely man. +Love and man sometimes meet for noble concord; the strings of the +hungry instrument are not all so rough that Love’s touch on them is +indistinguishable from the rattling of the wheels within; certain herald +harmonies have been heard. But Love, which purifies and enlarges us, +and sets free the soul, Love visiting a fleshly frame must have time and +space, and some help of circumstance, to give the world assurance +that the man is a temple fit for the rites. Out of romances, he is not +melodiously composed. And in a giant are various giants to be slain, +or thoroughly subdued, ere this divinity is taken for leader. It is not +done by miracle. + +As it happened cruelly for Alvan, the woman who had become the radiant +indistinct in his desiring mind was one whom he knew to be of a shivery +stedfastness. His plucking her from another was neither wonderful +nor indefensible; they two were suited as no other two could be; the +handsome boy who had gone through a form of plighting with her was her +slave, and she required for her mate a master: she felt it and she +sided to him quite naturally, moved by the sacred direction of the +acknowledgement of a mutual fitness. Twice, however, she had relapsed +on the occasions of his absence, and owning his power over her when they +were together again, she sowed the fatal conviction that he held her +at present, and that she was a woman only to be held at present, by the +palpable grasp of his physical influence. Partly it was correct, not +entirely, seeing that she kept the impression of a belief in him even +when she drifted away through sheer weakness, but it was the single +positive view he had of her, and it was fatal, for it begat a devil of +impatience. + +‘They are undermining her now--now--now!’ + +He started himself into busy frenzies to reach to her, already +indifferent to the means, and waxing increasingly reckless as he fed on +his agitation. Some faith in her, even the little she deserved, would +have arrested him: unhappily he had less than she, who had enough to +nurse the dim sense of his fixity, and sank from him only in her heart’s +faintness, but he, when no longer flattered by the evidence of his +mastery, took her for sand. Why, then, had he let her out of his grasp? +The horrid echoed interrogation flashed a hideous view of the woman. But +how had he come to be guilty of it? he asked himself again; and, without +answering him, his counsellors to that poor wisdom set to work to +complete it: Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant +Duplicity. He wrote to Clotilde, with one voice quoting the law in their +favour, with another commanding her to break it. He gathered and drilled +a legion of spies, and showered his gold in bribes and plots to get the +letter to her, to get an interview--one human word between them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +His friend Colonel von Tresten was beside him when he received the +enemy’s counter-stroke. Count Walburg and his companion brought a letter +from Clotilde--no reply; a letter renouncing him. + +Briefly, in cold words befitting the act, she stated that the past must +be dead between them; for the future she belonged to her parents; she +had left the city. She knew not where he might be, her letter concluded, +but henceforward he should know that they were strangers. + +Alvan held out the deadly paper when he had read the contents; he +smote a forefinger on it and crumpled it in his hand. That was the dumb +oration of a man shocked by the outrage upon passionate feeling to the +state of brute. His fist, outstretched to the length of his arm, shook +the reptile letter under a terrible frown. + +Tresten saw that he supposed himself to be perfectly master of his acts +because he had not spoken, and had managed to preserve the ordinary +courtesies. + +‘You have done your commission,’ the colonel said to Count Walburg, +whose companion was not disposed to go without obtaining satisfactory +assurances, and pressed for them. + +Alvan fastened on him. ‘You adopt the responsibility of this?’ He +displayed the letter. + +‘I do.’ + +‘It lies.’ + +Tresten remarked to Count Walburg: ‘These visits are provocations.’ + +‘They are not so intended,’ said the count, bowing pacifically. His +friend was not a man of the sword, and was not under the obligation to +accept an insult. They left the letter to do its work. + +Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must be taken by flying +shots, as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. +Were we to hear all the roarings of the shirted Heracles, a world of +comfortable little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of +Dejaneira. Yes, really; they would think it was not a chivalrous love: +they would consider that he thought of himself too much. They would +doubt, too, of his being a gentleman! Partial glimpses of him, one may +fear, will be discomposing to simple natures. There was a short black +eruption. Alvan controlled it, to ask hastily what the baroness thought +and what she had heard of Clotilde. Tresten made sign that it was +nothing of the best. + +‘See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can +defend her--weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!’ cried +Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: ‘Yesterday--the day +before--when? just now, here, in this room; gave herself--and now!’ +He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel von +Tresten as her calumniator, ‘Say your worst of her, and I say I will +make of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it’s no +dream. She can be made.... O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she +could. There ‘s three of beast to one of goddess in her, and set +her alone, and let her be hunted and I not by, beast it is with her! +cowardly skulking beast--the noblest and very bravest under my wing! +Incomprehensible to you, Tresten? But who understands women! You hate +her. Do not. She ‘s a riddle, but no worse than the rest of the tangle. +She gives me up? Pooh! She writes it. She writes anything. And that +vilest, I say, I will make more enviable, more Clotilde! he thundered +her signature in an amazement, broken suddenly by the sight of her +putting her name to the letter. She had done that, written her name to +the renunciation of him! No individual could bear the sight of such +a crime, and no suffering man could be appeased by a single victim to +atone for it. Her sex must be slaughtered; he raged against the woman; +she became that ancient poisonous thing, the woman; his fury would not +distinguish her as Clotilde, though the name had started him, and it was +his knowledge of the particular sinner which drew down his curses on the +sex. He twisted his body, hugging at his breast as if he had her letter +sticking in his ribs. The letter was up against his ribs, and he thumped +it, crushed it, patted it; he kissed it, and flung it, stamped on it, +and was foul-mouthed. Seeing it at his feet, he bent to it like a man +snapped in two, lamenting, bewailing himself, recovering sight of her +fragmentarily. It stuck in his ribs, and in scorn of the writer, and +sceptical of her penning it, he tugged to pull it out, and broke the +shaft, but left the rankling arrow-head:--she had traced the lines, and +though tyranny racked her to do that thing, his agony followed her +hand over the paper to her name, which fixed and bit in him like the +deadly-toothed arrow-head called asp, and there was no uprooting it. +The thing lived; her deed was the woman; there was no separating them: +witness it in love murdered. + +O that woman! She has murdered love. She has blotted love completely +out. She is the arch-thief and assassin of mankind--the female Apollyon. +He lost sight of her in the prodigious iniquity covering her sex with +a cowl of night, and it was what women are, what women will do, the one +and all alike simpering simulacra that men find them to be, soulless, +clogs on us, bloodsuckers! until a feature of the particular sinner +peeped out on him, and brought the fresh agony of a reminder of his +great-heartedness. ‘For that woman--Tresten, you know me--I would +have sacrificed for that woman fortune and life, my hope, my duty, +my immortality. She knew it, and she--look!’ he unwrinkled the letter +carefully for it to be legible, and clenched it in a ball.’ Signs her +name, signs her name, her name!--God of heaven! it would be incredible +in a holy chronicle--signs her name to the infamous harlotry! See: +“Clotilde von Rudiger.” It’s her writing; that’s her signature: +“Clotilde” in full. You’d hardly fancy that, now? But look!’ the +colonel’s eyelids were blinking, and Alvan dinted his finger-nail under +her name: ‘there it is: Clotilde: signed shamelessly. Just as she might +have written to one of her friends about bonnets, and balls, and books! +Henceforward strangers, she and I?’ + +His laughter, even to Tresten, a man of camps, sounded profane as a +yell beneath a cathedral dome. ‘Why, the woman has been in my hands--I +released her, spared her, drilled brain and blood, ransacked all the +code, to do her homage and honour in every mortal way; and we two +strangers! Do you hear that, Tresten? Why, if you had seen her!--she +was lost, and I, this man she now pierces with ice, kept hell down under +bolt and bar-worse, I believe, broke a good woman’s heart! that never a +breath should rise that could accuse her on suspicion, or in malice, or +by accident, justly, or with a shadow of truth. “I think it best for us +both.” So she thinks for me! She not only decides, she thinks; she is +the active principle; ‘tis mine to submit.--A certain presumption was in +that girl always. Ha! do you hear me? Her letter may sting, it shall not +dupe. Strangers? Poor fool! You see plainly she was nailed down to write +the thing. This letter is a flat lie. She can lie--Oh! born to the art! +born to it!--lies like a Saint tricking Satan! But she says she has left +the city. Now to find her!’ + +He began marching about the room with great strides. ‘I ‘ll have the +whole Continent up; her keepers shall have no rest; I ‘ll have them by +the Law Courts; and by stratagem, and, if law and cunning fail, force. +I have sworn it. I have done all that honour can ask of a man; more than +any man, to my knowledge, would have done, and now it’s war. I +declare war on them. They will have it! I mean to take that girl from +them--snatch or catch! The girl is my girl, and if there are laws +against my having my own, to powder with the laws! Well, and do you +suppose me likely to be beaten? Then Cicero was a fiction, and Caesar +a people’s legend. Not if they are history, and eloquence and +commandership have power over the blood and souls of men. First, I write +to her!’ + +His friend suggested that he knew not where she was. But already the pen +was at work, the brain pouring as from a pitcher. + +Writing was blood-letting, and the interminable pages drained him of +his fever. As he wrote, she grew more radiant, more indistinct, more +fiercely desired. The concentration of his active mind directed his +whole being on the track of Clotilde, idealizing her beyond human. That +last day when he had seen her appeared to him as the day of days. That +day was Clotilde herself, she in person; he saw it as the woman, and +saw himself translucent in the great luminousness; and behind it all was +dark, as in front. That one day was the sun of his life. It had been a +day of rain, and he beheld it in memory just as it had been, with the +dark threaded air, the dripping streets; and he glorified it past all +daily radiance. His letter was a burning hymn to the day. His moral +grandeur on the day made him live as part of the splendour. Was it +possible for the woman who had seen him then to be faithless to him? The +swift deduction from his own feelings cleansed her of a suspicion to +the contrary, and he became lighthearted. He hummed an air when he had +finished his letter to her. + +Councils with his adherents and couriers were held, and some were +despatched to watch the house and slip the letter to her maid; others +were told off to bribe and hound their way on the track of Clotilde. His +gold rained into their hands with the directions. + +Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; a +friend of both, and a warm one. Men coming into contact with Alvan took +their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy of +no dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he +opposed. The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness’s grief over +this love-passion of Alvan’s, and her resignation. He shared her doubts +of Clotilde’s nobility of character: the reports were not favourable to +the young lady. But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan +in love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel. He dropped a +word of the whispers of Clotilde’s volatility. + +Alvan nodded his perfect assent. ‘She is that, she is anything you like; +you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil. She is matchless, colour her +as you please.’ Adopting the tone of argument, he said: ‘She writes +that letter. Well? It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as +hers, I would not have it unwritten. I love it!’ He looked maddish with +his love of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly: ‘The point is, that +she has the charm for me. She is plastic in my hands. Other men would +waste the treasure. I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and +knows that she hangs on me to flourish worthily. I breathe the very soul +of the woman into her. As for that letter of hers--’ it burnt him this +time to speak of the letter: ‘she may write and write! She’s weak, thin, +a reed; she--let her be! Say of her when she plays beast--she is +absent from Alvan! I can forgive. The letter’s nothing; it means +nothing--except “Thou fool, Alvan, to let me go.” Yes, that! Her people +are acting tyrant with her--as legally they have no right to do in this +country, and I shall prove it to them. When I have gained admission to +her--and I soon shall: it can’t be refused: I am off to the head of her +father’s office to-morrow, and I have only to represent the state of +affairs to the Minister in my language to obtain his authority to demand +admission to her:--then, friend, you will see! I lift my finger, and +you will see! At my request she went back to her mother. I have but to +beckon.’ + +He had cooled to the happy assurance of his authority over her, all the +giants of his system being well in action, and when that is the case +with a big nature it is at rest, or such is the condition of repose +granted it in life. + +On the morrow he was off to batter at doors which would have expected +rather the summons of an armed mob at his heels than the strange cry of +the Radical man maltreated by love. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The story of Clotilde’s departure from the city, like that of Alvan’s, +communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, +disseminated by her parents. She was removed when the swarm of spies and +secret letter-bearers were attaining a position of dignity through the +rumour of legal gentlemen about to direct the movements of the besieging +army. + +A stir seemed to her to prognosticate a rescue and she went not +unwillingly. To be in motion, to see roadside faces, pricked her senses +with some hope. She had gained the peace she needed, and in that state +her heart began to be agitated by a fresh awakening, luxurious at first +rather than troublesome. She had sunk so low that the light of Alvan +seemed too distant for a positive expectation of him; but few approached +her whom she did not fancy under strange disguises: the gentlemen were +servants, the blouses were gentlemen; she looked wistfully at old women +bearing baskets, for the forbidden fruit to peep out in the form of an +envelope. All passed her blankly, noticing her eyes. + +The journey was short; she was taken to a place a little beyond the head +of the lake, and there, though she had liberty to breathe the air, fast +fixed within the walls of a daily sameness that became gradually the hum +of voices accusing Alvan of one in excess of the many sins laid against +him by his enemies. Was he not possibly an empty pretender to power--a +mere great talker? + +Her bit of liberty increased her chafing at the deadly monotony of this +existence, and envenomed the accusation by seeming to push her forth +quite half way to meet him, if he would but come or show sign! She +impetuously vindicated him from the charge of crediting the sincerity of +any words she might have committed to paper at the despotic dictation of +her father. Oh, no; Alvan could not be guilty of such folly as that; he +could not; it would be to suppose him unacquainted with her, ignorant +of the nature of women. He would know that she wrote the words--why? She +could not perfectly recollect how she had come to write them, and found +it easier to extinguish the act of having written them at all, which was +done by the angry recurrence to his failure to intervene now when +the drama cried for his godlike appearance. Perhaps he was really +unacquainted with her thought her stronger than she was! The idea +reflected a shadow on his intelligence. She was not in a situation that +could bear of her blaming herself. + +While she was thus devoured by the legions of her enfeebled wits, +Clotilde was assiduously courted by her family, and her father from time +to time brought pen and paper for her to write anew from his dictation. +He was pleased to hail her as his fair secretary, and when the letters +were unimportant she wrote flowingly, happy to be praised. They were +occasionally addressed to friends; she discovered herself writing one +to the professor, in which he was about to be informed that she had +resolved to banish Alvan from her mind for ever. She stopped; her heart +stopped; the pen fell from her hand, in loathing. Her father warily bade +her proceed. She could not; she signified it choking. Only a few days +before she had written to the professor exultingly of her engagement. +She refused to belie herself in such a manner; retrospectively her rapid +contradictions appeared impossible; the picture of her was not human, +and she gave out a negative of her whole frame convulsed, whereat the +General was not slow to remind her of the scourgings she had undergone +by a sudden burst of his wrath. He knew the proper physic. ‘You girls +want the lesson we read to skittish recruits; you shall have it. Write: +“He is now as nothing to me.” You shall write that you hate him, if you +hesitate! Why, you unreasonable slut, you have given him up; you have +told him you have given him up, and what objection can you have to +telling others now you have done it?’ + +‘I was forced to it, body and soul!’ cried Clotilde, sobbing and +bursting into desperation out of a weak show of petulance that she had +put on to propitiate him. ‘If I have to tell, I will tell how it was. +For that my heart is unchanged, and Alvan is, and will be, my lord, all +the world may see. I would rather write that I hate him.’ + +‘You write, the man is now as nothing to me!’ said her father, dashing +his finger in a fiery zig-zag along the line for her pen to follow. ‘Or +else, my girl, you’ve been playing us a pretty farce!’ He strung himself +for a mad gallop of wrath, gave her a shudder, and relapsed. ‘No, no, +you’re wiser, you’re a better girl than that. Write it. I must have it +written-here, come! The worst is over; the rest is child’s play. Come, +take the pen, I’ll guide your hand.’ + +The pen was fixed in her hand, and the first words formed. They looked +such sprawling skeletons that Clotilde had the comfort of feeling sure +they would be discerned as the work of compulsion. So she wrote on +mechanically, solacing herself for what she did with vows of future +revolt. Alvan had a saying, that want of courage is want of sense; and +she remembered his illustration of how sense would nourish courage by +scattering the fear of death, if we would only grasp the thought that we +sink to oblivion gladly at night, and, most of us, quit it reluctantly +in the morning. She shut her eyes while writing; she fancied death would +be welcome; and as she certainly had sense, she took it for the promise +of courage. She flattered herself by believing, therefore, that she who +did not object to die was only awaiting the cruelly-delayed advent of +her lover to be almost as brave as he--the feminine of him. With these +ideas in her head much clearer than when she wrote the couple of +lines to Alvan--for then her head was reeling, she was then beaten and +prostrate--she signed her name to a second renunciation of him, and was +aware of a flush of self-reproach at the simple suspicion of his being +deceived by it; it was an insult to his understanding. Full surely the +professor would not be deceived, and a lover with a heart to reach to +her and read her could never be hoodwinked by so palpable a piece +of slavishness. She was indeed slavish; the apology necessitated the +confession. But that promise of courage, coming of her ownership of +sense, vindicated her prospectively; she had so little of it that she +embraced it as a present possession, and she made it Alvan’s task to +put it to the trial. Hence it became Alvan’s offence if, owing to +his absence, she could be charged with behaving badly. Her generosity +pardoned him his inexplicable delay to appear in his might: ‘But see +what your continued delay causes!’ she said, and her tone was merely +sorrowful. + +She had forgotten her signature to the letter to the professor when +his answer arrived. The sight of the handwriting of one of her lover’s +faithfullest friends was like a peal of bells to her, and she tore the +letter open, and began to blink and spell at a strange language, +taking the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in +her resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high +intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress +moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and +had within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this +man--if living man he could be thought--counselled her to endeavour to +deserve the love and respect of her parents, alluded to Alvan’s age +and her better birth, approved her resolve to consult the wishes of +her family, and in fine was as rank a traitor to friendship as any +chronicled. Out on him! She swept him from earth. + +And she had built some of her hopes on the professor. ‘False friend!’ +she cried. + +She wept over Alvan for having had so false a friend. + +There remained no one that could be expected to intervene with a strong +arm save the baroness. The professor’s emphasized approval of her +resolve to consult the wishes of her family was a shocking hypocrisy, +and Clotilde thought of the contrast to it in her letter to the +baroness. The tripping and stumbling, prettily awkward little tone of +gosling innocent new from its egg, throughout the letter, was a triumph +of candour. She repeated passages, paragraphs, of the letter, assuring +herself that such affectionately reverential prattle would have moved +her, and with the strongest desire to cast her arms about the writer: it +had been composed to be moving to a woman, to any woman. The old woman +was entreated to bestow her blessing on the young one, all in Arcadia, +and let the young one nestle to the bosom she had not an idea of +robbing. She could not have had the idea, else how could she have made +the petition? And in order to compliment a venerable dame on her pure +friendship for a gentleman, it was imperative to reject the idea. +Besides, after seeing the photograph of the baroness, common civility +insisted on the purity of her friendship. Nay, in mercy to the poor +gentleman, friendship it must be. + +A letter of reply from that noble lady was due. Possibly she had +determined not to write, but to act. She was a lady of exalted birth, +a lady of the upper aristocracy, who could, if she would, bring both a +social and official pressure upon the General: and it might be in motion +now behind the scenes, Clotilde laid hold of her phantom baroness, +almost happy under the phantom’s whisper that she need not despair. ‘You +have been a little weak,’ the phantom said to her, and she acquiesced +with a soft sniffle, adding: ‘But, dearest, honoured lady, you are a +woman, and know what our trials are when we are so persecuted. O that +I had your beautiful sedateness! I do admire it, madam. I wish I could +imitate.’ She carried her dramatic ingenuousness farthel still by +saying: ‘I have seen your photograph’; implying that the inimitable, the +much coveted air of composure breathed out of yonder presentment of her +features. ‘For I can’t call you good looking,’ she said within herself, +for the satisfaction of her sense of candour, of her sense of contrast +as well. And shutting her eyes, she thought of the horrid penitent a +harsh-faced woman in confession must be: + +The picture sent her swimmingly to the confessional, where sat a man +with his head in a hood, and he soon heard enough of mixed substance to +dash his hood, almost his head, off. Beauty may be immoderately frank in +soul to the ghostly. The black page comprised a very long list. ‘But +put this on the white page,’ says she to the surging father inside his +box--‘I loved Alvan!’ A sentence or two more fetches the Alvanic man +jumping out of the priest: and so closely does she realize it that she +has to hunt herself into a corner with the question, whether she shall +tell him she guessed him to be no other than her lover. ‘How could you +expect a girl, who is not a Papist, to come kneeling here?’ she says. +And he answers with no matter what of a gallant kind. + +In this manner her natural effervescence amused her sorrowful mind while +gazing from her chamber window at the mountain sides across the valley, +where tourists, in the autumnal season, sweep up and down like a tidal +river. She had ceased to weep; she had outwept the colour of her eyes +and the consolation of weeping. Dressed in black to the throat, she sat +and waited the arrival of her phantom friend, the baroness--that angel! +who proved her goodness in consenting to be the friend of Alvan’s +beloved, because she was the true friend of Alvan! How cheap such a way +of proving goodness, Clotilde did not consider. She wanted it so. + +The mountain heights were in dusty sunlight. She had seen them day +after day thinly lined on the dead sky, inviting thunder and doomed to +sultriness. She looked on the garden of the house, a desert under bee +and butterfly. Looking beyond the garden she perceived her father on +the glaring road, and one with him, the sight of whom did not flush her +cheek or spring her heart to a throb, though she pitied the poor boy: he +was useless to her, utterly. + +Soon her Indian Bacchus was in her room, and alone with her, and at her +feet. Her father had given him hope. He came bearing eyes that were like +hope’s own; and kneeling, kissing her hands, her knees, her hair, he +seemed unaware that she was inanimate. + +There was nothing imaginable in which he could be of use. + +He was only another dust-cloud of the sultry sameness. She had +been expecting a woman, a tempest choral with sky and mountain and +valley-hollows, as the overture to Alvan’s appearance. + +But he roused her. With Marko she had never felt her cowardice, and his +passionately beseeching, trembling, ‘Will you have me?’ called up the +tiger in the girl; in spite of pity for his voice she retorted on her +parents: + +‘Will I have you? I? You ask me what is my will? It sounds oddly from +you, seeing that I wrote to you in Lucerne what I would have, and +nothing has changed in me since then, nothing! My feeling for him is +unaltered, and everything you have heard of me was wrung out of me by +my unhappiness. The world is dead to me, and all in it that is not. +Sigismund Alvan. To you I am accustomed to speak every thought of my +soul, and I tell you the world and all it has is dead to me, even my +parents--I hate them.’ + +Marko pressed her hands. If he loved her slavishly, it was generously. +The wild thing he said was one of the frantic leaps of generosity in a +heart that was gone to impulse: ‘I see it, they have martyrized you. I +know you so well, Clotilde! So, then, come to me, come with me, let me +cherish you. I will take you and rescue you from your people, and should +it be your positive wish to meet Alvan again, I myself will take you to +him, and then you may choose between us.’ + +The generosity was evident. There was nevertheless, to a young woman +realizing the position foreshadowed by such a project, the suspicion of +a slavish hope nestling among the circumstances in the background, and +this she was taught by the dangerous emotion of gratitude gaining on +her, and melting her to him. + +She too had a slavish hope that was athirst and sinking, and it flew +at the throat of Marko’s, eager to satiate its vengeance for these long +delays in the destroying of a weaker. + +She left her chair and cried: ‘As you will. What is it to me? Take me, +if you please. Take that glove; it is the shape of my hand. You have as +much of me as is there. My life is gone. You or another! But take +this warning and my oath with it. I swear to you, that wherever I see +Sigismund Alvan I go straight to him, though the way be over you, all of +you, lying dead beneath me.’ + +The lift of incredulous horror in Marko’s large black eyes excited her +to a more savage imagination: ‘Rejoice! I should rejoice to see you, all +of you, dead, that I might walk across you safe from disturbance to get +to him I love. Be under no delusion. I love him better than the lives +of any dear to me, or my own. I am his. He is my faith, my worship. I +am true to him, I am, I am. You force my hand from me, you take this +miserable body, but my soul is free to love him and to go to him when +God gives me sight of him. I am Alvan’s eternally. All your laws are +mockeries. You, and my people, and your priests, and your law-makers, +are shadows, brain-vapours. Let him beckon!--So you have your warning. +Do what I may, I cannot be called untrue. And now let me be; I want +repose; my head breaks; I have been on the rack and I am in pieces!’ + +Marko clung to her hand, said she was terrible and pitiless, but clung. + +The hand was nerveless: it was her dear hand. Had her tongue been more +venomous in wildness than the encounter with a weaker than herself made +it be, the holding of her hand would have been his antidote. In him +there was love for two. + +Clotilde allowed him to keep the hand, assuring herself she was +unconscious he did so. He brought her peace, he brought her old throning +self back to her, and he was handsome and tame as a leopard-skin at her +feet. + +If she was doomed to reach to Alvan through him, at least she had warned +him. The vision of the truthfulness of her nature threw a celestial wan +beam on her guilty destiny. + +She patted his head and bade him leave her, narrowing her shoulders on +the breast to let it be seen that the dark household within was locked +and shuttered. + +He went. He was good, obedient, humane; he was generous, exquisitely +bred; he brought her peace, and he had been warned. It is difficult in +affliction to think of one who belongs to us as one to whom we owe +a duty. The unquestionably sincere and devoted lover is also in his +candour a featureless person; and though we would not punish him for his +goodness, we have the right to anticipate that it will be equal to +every trial. Perhaps, for the sake of peace... after warning him... her +meditations tottered in dots. + +But when the heart hungers behind such meditations, that thinking +without language is a dangerous habit; for there will suddenly come a +dash usurping the series of tentative dots, which is nothing other than +the dreadful thing resolved on, as of necessity, as naturally as the +adventurous bow-legged infant pitches back from an excursion of two +paces to mother’s lap; and not much less innocently within the mind, it +would appear. The dash is a haven reached that would not be greeted +if it stood out in words. Could we live without ourselves letting our +animal do our thinking for us legibly? We live with ourselves agreeably +so long as his projects are phrased in his primitive tongue, even though +we have clearly apprehended what he means, and though we sufficiently +well understand the whither of our destination under his guidance. No +counsel can be saner than that the heart should be bidden to speak +out in plain verbal speech within us. For want of it, Clotilde’s short +explorations in Dot-and-Dash land were of a kind to terrify her, and yet +they seemed not only unavoidable, but foreshadowing of the unavoidable +to come. Or possibly--the thought came to her--Alvan would keep his +word, and save her from worse by stepping to the altar between her +and Marko, there calling on her to decide and quit the prince; and his +presence would breathe courage into her to go to him. It set her looking +to the altar as a prospect of deliverance. + +Her mother could not fail to notice a change in Clotilde’s wintry face +now that Marko was among them; her inference tallied with his report of +their interview, so she supposed the girl to have accepted more or less +heartily Marko’s forgiveness. For him the girl’s eyes were soft and +kind; her gaze was through the eyelashes, as one seeing a dream on a far +horizon. Marko spoke of her cheerfully, and was happy to call her his +own, but would not have her troubled by any ceremonial talk of their +engagement, so she had much to thank him for, and her consciousness of +the signal instance of ingratitude lying ahead in the darkness, like a +house mined beneath the smiling slumberer, made her eager to show +the real gratefulness and tenderness of her feelings. This had the +appearance of renewed affection; consequently her parents lost much of +their fear of the besieger outside, and she was removed to the city. +Two parties were in the city, one favouring Alvan, and one abhorring the +audacious Jew. Together they managed to spread incredible reports of his +doings, which required little exaggeration to convince an enemy that he +was a man with whom hostility could not be left to sleep. The General +heard of the man’s pleading his cause in all directions to get pressure +put upon him, showing something like a devilish persuasiveness, Jew and +demagogue though he was; for there seemed to be a feeling abroad that +the interview this howling lover claimed with Clotilde ought to be +granted. The latest report spoke of him as off to the General’s Court +for an audience of his official chief. General von Rudiger looked to +his defences, and he had sufficient penetration to see that the weakest +point of them might be a submissive daughter. + +A letter to Clotilde from the baroness was brought to the house by a +messenger. The General thought over it. The letter was by no means a +seductive letter for a young lady to receive from such a person, yet he +did not anticipate the whole effect it would produce when ultimately he +decided to give it to her, being of course unaware of the noble style of +Clotilde’s address to the baroness. He stipulated that there must be no +reply to it except through him, and Clotilde had the coveted letter in +her hands at last. Here was the mediatrix--the veritable goddess with +the sword to cut the knot! Here was the manifestation of Alvan! + + + + +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 XIV + +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 + Above all things I detest the writing for money + At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly + Barriers are for those who cannot fly + Be good and dull, and please everybody + Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip + Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies + Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession + Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered + Compromise is virtual death + Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath + Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change + Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position + Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur + Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? + Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women + Fantastical + Finishing touches to the negligence + Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity + Gone to pieces with an injured lover’s babble + Gradations appear to be unknown to you + He had to go, he must, he has to be always going + He stormed her and consented to be beaten + Hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences + His violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence + His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability + Hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic + I give my self, I do not sell + I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy + I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you + If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature + Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days + Looking on him was listening + Love the difficulty better than the woman + Men in love are children with their mistresses + Metaphysician’s treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise + Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous + Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful + Not much esteem for non-professional actresses + Not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself + O for yesterday! + Pact between cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency + Philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded + Polished barbarism + Professional widows + Providence and her parents were not forgiven + Scorned him for listening to the hesitations (hers) + Self-consoled when they are not self-justified + She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each + She felt in him a maker of facts + Strength in love is the sole sincerity + The worst of omens is delay + The way is clear: we have only to take the step + The brainless in Art and in Statecraft + Time is due to us, and the minutes are our gold slipping away + Time and strength run to waste in retarding the inevitable + To have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind + Trick for killing time without hurting him + Two wishes make a will + Venerated by his followers, well hated by his enemies + Want of courage is want of sense + We shall not be rich--nor poor + Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side + Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? + Win you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be + Work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4464-0.txt or 4464-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/4464/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/4464-0.zip b/4464-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..51bb426 --- /dev/null +++ b/4464-0.zip diff --git a/4464-h.zip b/4464-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e677ad --- /dev/null +++ b/4464-h.zip diff --git a/4464-h/4464-h.htm b/4464-h/4464-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ab0a30 --- /dev/null +++ b/4464-h/4464-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7348 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Tragic Comedians, by George Meredith + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Project Gutenberg's The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tragic Comedians, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4464] +Last Updated: August 25, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <h1> + THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By George Meredith + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + 1892 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS</b> </a><br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#linkone"> <b>BOOK 1.</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> <b>BOOK 2.</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> <b>BOOK 3.</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + The word ‘fantastical’ is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an + utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem an + appointed instrument for reviewers of books of imaginative matter + distasteful to those expository pens. Upon examination, claimants to the + epithet will be found outside of books and of poets, in many quarters, + Nature being one of the prominent, if not the foremost. Wherever she can + get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As for + that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and the angry + captain, called Human Nature, ‘fantastical’ fits it no less completely + than a continental baby’s skull-cap the stormy infant. + </p> + <p> + Our sympathies, one may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen + shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and worthy of + study. + </p> + <p> + The pair of tragic comedians of whom there will be question pass under + this word as under their banner and motto. Their acts are incredible: they + drank sunlight and drove their bark in a manner to eclipse historical + couples upon our planet. Yet they do belong to history, they breathed the + stouter air than fiction’s, the last chapter of them is written in red + blood, and the man pouring out that last chapter, was of a mighty nature + not unheroical, a man of the active grappling modern brain which wrestles + with facts, to keep the world alive, and can create them, to set it + spinning. + </p> + <p> + A Faust-like legend might spring from him: he had a devil. He was the + leader of a host, the hope of a party, venerated by his followers, well + hated by his enemies, respected by the intellectual chiefs of his time, in + the pride of his manhood and his labours when he fell. And why this man + should have come to his end through love, and the woman who loved him have + laid her hand in the hand of the slayer, is the problem we have to study, + nothing inventing, in the spirit and flesh of both. To ask if it was love + is useless. Love may be celestial fire before it enters into the systems + of mortals. It will then take the character of its place of abode, and we + have to look not so much for the pure thing as for the passion. Did it + move them, hurry them, animating the giants and gnomes of one, the elves + and sprites of the other, and putting animal nature out of its fashionable + front rank? The bare railway-line of their story tells of a passion honest + enough to entitle it to be related. Nor is there anything invented, + because an addition of fictitious incidents could never tell us how she + came to do this, he to do that; or how the comic in their natures led by + interplay to the tragic issue. They are real creatures, exquisitely + fantastical, strangely exposed to the world by a lurid catastrophe, who + teach us, that fiction, if it can imagine events and persons more + agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read us no such furrowing + lesson in life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + </h1> + <p> + <a name="linkone" id="linkone"></a> <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + BOOK 1. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the + pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her + web is for the devouring lion. At an early age Clotilde von Rudiger was + dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in her + seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn a lively + fancy, a womanly person, and singular attractions of colour, eyes, and + style. She belonged by birth to the small aristocracy of her native land. + Nature had disposed her to coquettry, which is a pastime counting among + the arts of fence, and often innocent, often serviceable, though sometimes + dangerous, in the centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic + societies, where nature is not absent, but on the contrary very + extravagant, tropical, by reason of her idle hours for the imbibing of + copious draughts of sunlight. The young lady of charming countenance and + sprightly manners is too much besought to choose for her choice to be + decided; the numbers beseeching prevent her from choosing instantly, after + the fashion of holiday schoolboys crowding a buffet of pastry. These are + not coquettish, they clutch what is handy: and little so is the starved + damsel of the sequestered village, whose one object of the worldly + picturesque is the passing curate; her heart is his for a nod. But to be + desired ardently of trooping hosts is an incentive to taste to try for + yourself. Men (the jury of householders empanelled to deliver verdicts + upon the ways of women) can almost understand that. And as it happens, + tasting before you have sounded the sense of your taste will frequently + mislead by a step or two difficult to retrieve: the young coquette must + then be cruel, as necessarily we kick the waters to escape drowning: and + she is not in all cases dealing with simple blocks or limp festoons, she + comes upon veteran tricksters that have a knowledge of her sex, capable of + outfencing her nascent individuality. The more imagination she has, for a + source of strength in the future days, the more is she a prey to the enemy + in her time of ignorance. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde’s younger maiden hours and their love episodes are wrapped in the + mists Diana considerately drops over her adventurous favourites. She was + not under a French mother’s rigid supervision. In France the mother + resolves that her daughter shall be guarded from the risks of that unequal + rencounter between foolish innocence and the predatory. Vigilant foresight + is not so much practised where the world is less accurately comprehended. + Young people of Clotilde’s upper world everywhere, and the young women of + it especially, are troubled by an idea drawn from what they inhale and + guess at in the spirituous life surrounding them, that the servants of the + devil are the valiant host, this world’s elect, getting and deserving to + get the best it can give in return for a little dashing audacity, a + flavour of the Fronde in their conduct; they sin, but they have the world; + and then they repent perhaps, but they have had the world. The world is + the golden apple. Thirst for it is common during youth: and one would + think the French mother worthy of the crown of wisdom if she were not so + scrupulously provident in excluding love from the calculations on behalf + of her girl. + </p> + <p> + Say (for Diana’s mists are impenetrable and freeze curiosity) that + Clotilde was walking with Count Constantine, the brilliant Tartar trained + in Paris, when first she met Prince Marko Romaris, at the Hungarian Baths + on the borders of the Styrian highlands. The scene at all events is + pretty, and weaves a fable out of a variety of floating threads. A + stranger to the Baths, dressed in white and scarlet, sprang from his + carriage into a group of musical gypsies round an inn at the arch of the + chestnut avenue, after pulling up to listen to them for a while. The music + had seized him. He snatched bow and fiddle from one of the ring, and with + a few strokes kindled their faces. Then seating himself, on a bench he + laid the fiddle on his knee, and pinched the strings and flung up his + voice, not ceasing to roll out the spontaneous notes when Clotilde and her + cavalier, and other couples of the party, came nigh; for he was on the + tide of the song, warm in it, and loved it too well to suffer intruders to + break the flow, or to think of them. They were close by when the last of + it rattled (it was a popular song of a fiery tribe) to its finish: He rose + and saluted Clotilde, smiled and jumped back to his carriage, sending a + cry of adieu to the swarthy, lank-locked, leather-hued circle, of which + his dark oriental eyes and skin of burnished walnut made him look an + offshoot, but one of the celestial branch. + </p> + <p> + He was in her father’s reception-room when she reached home: he was paying + a visit of ceremony on behalf of his family to General von Rudiger; which + helped her to remember that he had been expected, and also that his + favourite colours were known to be white and scarlet. In those very + colours, strange to tell, Clotilde was dressed; Prince Marko had + recognized her by miraculous divination, he assured her he could have + staked his life on the guess as he bowed to her. Adieu to Count + Constantine. Fate had interposed the prince opportunely, we have to + suppose, for she received a strong impression of his coming straight from + her invisible guardian; and the stroke was consequently trenchant which + sent the conquering Tartar raving of her fickleness. She struck, like + fate, one blow. She discovered that the prince, in addition to his beauty + and sweet manners and gift of song, was good; she fell in love with + goodness, whereof Count Constantine was not an example: so she set her + face another way, soon discovering that there may be fragility in + goodness. And now first her imagination conceived the hero who was to + subdue her. Could Prince Marko be he, soft as he was, pliable, a docile + infant, burning to please her, enraptured in obeying?—the hero who + would wrestle with her, overcome and hold her bound? Siegfried could not + be dreamed in him, or a Siegfried’s baby son-in-arms. She caught a + glorious image of the woman rejecting him and his rival, and it informed + her that she, dissatisfied with an Adonis, and more than a match for a + famous conqueror, was a woman of decisive and independent, perhaps + unexampled, force of character. Her idea of a spiritual superiority that + could soar over those two men, the bad and the good—the bad because + of his vileness, the good because of his frailness—whispered to her + of deserving, possibly of attracting, the best of men: the best, that is, + in the woman’s view of us—the strongest, the great eagle of men, + lord of earth and air. + </p> + <p> + One who will dominate me, she thought. + </p> + <p> + Now when a young lady of lively intelligence and taking charm has brought + her mind to believe that she possesses force of character, she persuades + the rest of the world easily to agree with her, and so long as her + pretensions are not directly opposed to their habits of thought, her + parents will be the loudest in proclaiming it, fortifying so the maid’s + presumption, which is ready to take root in any shadow of subserviency. + Her father was a gouty general of infantry in the diplomatic service, + disinclined to unnecessary disputes, out of consideration for his vehement + irritability when roused. Her mother had been one of the beauties of her + set, and was preserving an attenuated reign, through the conversational + arts, to save herself from fading into the wall. Her brothers and sisters + were not of an age to contest her lead. The temper of the period was + revolutionary in society by reflection of the state of politics, and + juniors were sturdy democrats, letting their elders know that they had + come to their inheritance, while the elders, confused by the impudent + topsy-turvy, put on the gaping mask (not unfamiliar to history) of the + disestablished conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde maintained a decent measure in the liberty she claimed, and it + was exercised in wildness of dialogue rather than in capricious behaviour. + If her flowing tongue was imperfectly controlled, it was because she + discoursed by preference to men upon our various affairs and tangles, and + they encouraged her with the tickled wonder which bids the bold advance + yet farther into bogland. Becoming the renowned original of her society, + wherever it might be, in Germany, Italy, Southern France, she grew + chillily sensible of the solitude decreed for their heritage to our + loftiest souls. Her Indian Bacchus, as a learned professor supplied Prince + Marko’s title for her, was a pet, not a companion. She to him was what she + sought for in another. As much as she pitied herself for not lighting on + the predestined man, she pitied him for having met the woman, so that her + tenderness for both inspired many signs of warm affection, not very unlike + the thing it moaned secretly the not being. For she could not but + distinguish a more poignant sorrow in the seeing of the object we yearn to + vainly than in vainly yearning to one unseen. Dressed, to delight him, in + Prince Marko’s colours, the care she bestowed on her dressing was for the + one absent, the shrouded comer: so she pleased the prince to be pleasing + to her soul’s lord, and this, owing to an appearance of satisfactory + deception that it bore, led to her thinking guiltily. We may ask it: an + eagle is expected, and how is he to declare his eagleship save by breaking + through our mean conventional systems, tearing links asunder, taking his + own in the teeth of vulgar ordinances? Clotilde’s imagination drew on her + reading for the knots it tied and untied, and its ideas of grandeur. Her + reading was an interfusion of philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances + deep-sounded. She tried hard, but could get no other terrible tangle for + her hero’s exhibition of flaming azure divineness than the vile one of the + wedded woman. Further thinking of it, she revived and recovered; she + despised the complication, yet without perceiving how else he was to + manifest himself legitimately in a dull modern world. The rescuing her + from death would be a poor imitation of worn-out heroes. His publication + of a trumpeting book fell appallingly flat in her survey. Deeds of + gallantry done as an officer in war (defending his country too) + distinguished the soldier, but failed to add the eagle feather to the man. + She had a mind of considerable soaring scope, and eclectic: it analyzed a + Napoleon, and declined the position of his empress. The man must be a + gentleman. Poets, princes, warriors, potentates, marched before her + speculative fancy unselected. + </p> + <p> + So far, as far as she can be portrayed introductorily, she is not without + exemplars in the sex. Young women have been known to turn from us + altogether, never to turn back, so poor and shrunken, or so fleshly-bulgy + have we all appeared in the fairy jacket they wove for the right one of us + to wear becomingly. But the busy great world was round Clotilde while she + was malleable, though she might be losing her fresh ideas of the hammer + and the block, and that is a world of much solicitation to induce a vivid + girl to merge an ideal in a living image. Supposing, when she has + accomplished it, that men justify her choice, the living will retain the + colours of the ideal. We have it on record that he may seem an eagle. + </p> + <p> + ‘You talk curiously like Alvan, do you know,’ a gentleman of her country + said to her as they were descending the rock of Capri, one day. He said it + musingly. + </p> + <p> + He belonged to a circle beneath her own: the learned and artistic. She had + not heard of this Alvan, or had forgotten him; but professing universal + knowledge, especially of celebrities, besides having an envious eye for + that particular circle, which can pretend to be the choicest of all, she + was unwilling to betray her ignorance, and she dimpled her cheek, as one + who had often heard the thing said to her before. She smiled musingly. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + ‘Who is the man they call Alvan?’ She put the question at the first + opportunity to an aunt of hers. + </p> + <p> + Up went five-fingered hands. This violent natural sign of horror was + comforting: she saw that he was a celebrity indeed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Alvan! My dear Clotilde! What on earth can you want to know about a + creature who is the worst of demagogues, a disreputable person, and a + Jew!’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde remarked that she had asked only who he was. ‘Is he clever?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is one of the basest of those wretches who are for upsetting the + Throne and Society to gratify their own wicked passions: that is what he + is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But is he clever?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Able as Satan himself, they say. He is a really dangerous, bad man. You + could not have been curious about a worse one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Politically, you mean.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I do.’ + </p> + <p> + The lady had not thought of any other kind of danger from a man of that + station. + </p> + <p> + The likening of one to Satan does not always exclude meditation upon him. + Clotilde was anxious to learn in what way her talk resembled Alvan’s. He + being that furious creature, she thought of herself at her wildest, which + was in her estimation her best; and consequently, she being by no means a + furious creature, though very original, she could not meditate on him + without softening the outlines given him by report; all because of the + likeness between them; and, therefore, as she had knowingly been taken for + furious by very foolish people, she settled it that Alvan was also a + victim of the prejudices he scorned. It had pleased her at times to scorn + our prejudices and feel the tremendous weight she brought on herself by + the indulgence. She drew on her recollections of the Satanic in her bosom + when so situated, and never having admired herself more ardently than when + wearing that aspect, she would have admired the man who had won the + frightful title in public, except for one thing—he was a Jew. + </p> + <p> + The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew. Her parents had the + same abhorrence of Jewry. One of the favourite similes of the family for + whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew: and it + was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in the veins + of the latest generation and might have been traced on the maternal side. + </p> + <p> + Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards is + the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent + impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance + repulsive. She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan. Luckily for the + gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet him + again in Italy. + </p> + <p> + She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she + summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish, + still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice of + the art she could at any time blow up a company—scatter mature and + seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our + stout sex a shaking. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling + into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient + lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the + brain of her race is located. There it occurred that a dashing officer of + social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for a + comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making: ‘I see + you know Alvan.’ + </p> + <p> + Alvan once more. + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed I do not,’ she said, for she was addressing an officer high above + Alvan in social rank; and she shrugged, implying that she was almost past + contradiction of the charge. + </p> + <p> + ‘Surely you must,’ said he; ‘where is the lady who could talk and think as + you do without knowing Alvan and sharing his views!’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde was both startled and nettled. + </p> + <p> + ‘But I do not know him at all; I have never met him, never seen him. I am + unlikely to meet the kind of person,’ she protested; and she was amazed + yet secretly rejoiced on hearing him, a noble of her own circle, and a + dashing officer, rejoin: ‘Come, come, let us be honest. That is all very + well for the little midges floating round us to say of Alvan, but we two + can clasp hands and avow proudly that we both know and love the man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Were it true, I would own it at once, but I repeat, that he is a total + stranger to me,’ she said, seeing the Jew under quite a different + illumination. + </p> + <p> + ‘Actually?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In honour.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have never met, never seen him, never read any of his writings?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never. I have heard his name, that is all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then,’ the officer’s voice was earnest, ‘I pity him, and you no less, + while you remain strangers, for you were made for one another. Those ideas + you have expressed, nay, the very words, are Alvan’s: I have heard him use + them. He has just the same original views of society and history as yours; + they’re identical; your features are not unlike... you talk alike: I could + fancy your voice the sister of his. You look incredulous? You were + speaking of Pompeius, and you said “Plutarch’s Pompeius,” and more for it + is almost incredible under the supposition that you do not know and have + never listened to Alvan—you said that Pompeius appeared to have been + decorated with all the gifts of the Gods to make the greater sacrifice of + him to Caesar, who was not personally worth a pretty woman’s “bite.” Come, + now—you must believe me: at a supper at Alvan’s table the other + night, the talk happened to be of a modern Caesar, which led to the real + one, and from him to “Plutarch’s Pompeius,” as Alvan called him; and then + he said of him what you have just said, absolutely the same down to the + allusion to the bite. I assure you. And you have numbers of little phrases + in common: you are partners in aphorisms: Barriers are for those who + cannot fly: that is Alvan’s. I could multiply them if I could remember; + they struck me as you spoke.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I must be a shameless plagiarist,’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or he,’ said Count Kollin. + </p> + <p> + It is here the place of the Chorus to state that these: ideas were in the + air at the time; sparks of the Vulcanic smithy at work in politics and + pervading literature: which both Alvan and Clotilde might catch and give + out as their own, in the honest belief that the epigram was, original to + them. They were not members of a country where literature is confined to + its little paddock, without, influence on the larger field (part lawn, + part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in sympathetic action + with thinkers and literary artists. Their saying in common, ‘Plutarch’s + Pompeius,’ may be traceable to a reading of some professorial article on + the common portrait-painting of the sage of Chaeroneia. The dainty + savageness in the ‘bite’ Plutarch mentions, evidently struck on a + similarity of tastes in both, as it has done with others. And in regard to + Caesar, Clotilde thought much of Caesar; she had often wished that Caesar + (for the additional pleasure in thinking of him) had been endowed with the + beauty of his rival: one or two of Plutarch’s touches upon the earlier + history of Pompeius had netted her fancy, faintly (your generosity must be + equal to hearing it) stung her blood; she liked the man; and if he had not + been beaten in the end, she would have preferred him femininely. His name + was not written Pompey to her, as in English, to sound absurd: it was a + note of grandeur befitting great and lamentable fortunes, which the young + lady declined to share solely because of her attraction to the victor, her + compulsion to render unto the victor the sunflower’s homage. She rendered + it as a slave: the splendid man beloved to ecstasy by the flower of Roman + women was her natural choice. + </p> + <p> + Alvan could not be even a Caesar in person, he was a Jew. Still a Jew of + whom Count Kollin spoke so warmly must be exceptional, and of the + exceptional she dreamed. He might have the head of a Caesar. She imagined + a huge head, the cauldron of a boiling brain, anything but bright to the + eye, like a pot always on the fire, black, greasy, encrusted, unkempt: the + head of a malicious tremendous dwarf. Her hungry inquiries in a city where + Alvan was well known, brought her full information of one who enjoyed a + highly convivial reputation besides the influence of his political + leadership; but no description of his aspect accompanied it, for where he + was nightly to be met somewhere about the city, none thought of describing + him, and she did not push that question because she had sketched him for + herself, and rather wished, the more she heard of his genius, to keep him + repulsive. It appeared that his bravery was as well proved as his genius, + and a brilliant instance of it had been given in the city not long since. + He had her ideas, and he won multitudes with them: he was a talker, a + writer, and an orator; and he was learned, while she could not pretend + either to learning or to a flow of rhetoric. She could prattle + deliciously, at times pointedly, relying on her intuition to tell her more + than we get from books, and on her sweet impudence for a richer original + strain. She began to appreciate now a reputation for profound + acquirements. Learned professors of jurisprudence and history were as + enthusiastic for Alvan in their way as Count Kollin. She heard things + related of Alvan by the underbreath. That circle below her own, the + literary and artistic, idolized him; his talk, his classic breakfasts and + suppers, his undisguised ambition, his indomitable energy, his + dauntlessness and sway over her sex, were subjects of eulogy all round + her; and she heard of an enamoured baroness. No one blamed Alvan. He had + shown his chivalrous valour in defending her. The baroness was not a young + woman, and she was a hardbound Blue. She had been the first to discover + the prodigy, and had pruned, corrected, and published him; he was one of + her political works, promising to be the most successful. An old affair + apparently; but the association of a woman’s name with Alvan’s, albeit the + name of a veteran, roused the girl’s curiosity, leading her to think his + mental and magnetic powers must be of the very highest, considering his + physical repulsiveness, for a woman of rank to yield him such extreme + devotion. She commissioned her princely serving-man, who had followed and + was never far away from her, to obtain precise intelligence of this + notorious Alvan. + </p> + <p> + Prince Marko did what he could to please her; he knew something of the + rumours about Alvan and the baroness. But why should his lady trouble + herself for particulars of such people, whom it could scarcely be supposed + she would meet by accident? He asked her this. Clotilde said it was common + curiosity. She read him a short lecture on the dismal narrowness of their + upper world; and on the advantage of taking an interest in the world below + them and more enlightened; a world where ideas were current and speech was + wine. The prince nodded; if she had these opinions, it must be good for + him to have them too, and he shared them, as it were, by the touch of her + hand, and for the length of time that he touched her hand, as an + electrical shock may be taken by one far removed from the battery, + susceptible to it only through the link; he was capable of thinking all + that came to him from her a blessing—shocks, wounds and disruptions. + He did not add largely to her stock of items, nor did he fetch new + colours. The telegraph wire was his model of style. He was more or less a + serviceless Indian Bacchus, standing for sign of the beauty and vacuity of + their world: and how dismally narrow that world was, she felt with renewed + astonishment at every dive out of her gold-fish pool into the world of + tides below; so that she was ready to scorn the cultivation of the graces, + and had, when not submitting to the smell, fanciful fits of a liking for + tobacco smoke—the familiar incense of those homes where speech was + wine. + </p> + <p> + At last she fell to the asking of herself whether, in the same city with + him, often among his friends, hearing his latest intimate remarks—things + homely redolent of him as hot bread of the oven—she was ever to meet + this man upon whom her thoughts were bent to the eclipse of all others. + She desired to meet him for comparison’s sake, and to criticize a popular + hero. It was inconceivable that any one popular could approach her + standard, but she was curious; flame played about him; she had some + expectation of easing a spiteful sentiment created by the recent + subjection of her thoughts to the prodigious little Jew; and some feeling + of closer pity for Prince Marko she had, which urged her to be rid of her + delusion as to the existence of a wonder-working man on our earth, that + she might be sympathetically kind to the prince, perhaps compliant, and so + please her parents, be good and dull, and please everybody, and adieu to + dreams, good night, and so to sleep with the beasts!... + </p> + <p> + Calling one afternoon on a new acquaintance of the flat table-land she + liked tripping down to from her heights, Clotilde found the lady in + supreme toilette, glowing, bubbling: ‘Such a breakfast, my dear!’ The + costly profusion, the anecdotes, the wit, the fun, the copious draughts of + the choicest of life—was there ever anything to match it? Never in + that lady’s recollection, or her husband’s either, she exclaimed. And + where was the breakfast? Why, at Alvan’s, to be sure; where else could + such a breakfast be? + </p> + <p> + ‘And you know Alvan!’ cried Clotilde, catching excitement from the lady’s + flush. + </p> + <p> + ‘Alvan is one of my husband’s closest friends’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde put on the playful frenzy; she made show of wringing her hands: + ‘Oh! happy you! you know Alvan? And everybody is to know him except me? + why? I proclaim it unjust. Because I am unmarried? I’ll take a husband + to-morrow morning to be entitled to meet Alvan in the evening.’ + </p> + <p> + The playful frenzy is accepted in its exact innocent signification of + ‘this is my pretty wilful will and way,’ and the lady responded to it + cordially; for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant to + assist some one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a sight + of Alvan; she was used to the request. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re not obliged to wait for to-morrow,’ she said. ‘Come to one of our + gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You invite me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, and + Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour of our + introduction? She will bring you.’ + </p> + <p> + The Frau v. Crestow was a cousin of Clotilde’s by marriage, sentimental, + but strict in her reading of the proprieties. She saw nothing wrong in + undertaking to conduct Clotilde to one of those famous gatherings of the + finer souls of the city and the race; and her husband agreed to join them + after the sitting of the Chamber upon a military-budget vote. The whole + plan was nicely arranged and went well. Clotilde dressed carefully, + letting her gold-locks cloud her fine forehead carelessly, with finishing + touches to the negligence, for she might be challenged to take part in + disputations on serious themes, and a handsome young woman who has to + sustain an argument against a man does wisely when she forearms her + beauties for a reserve, to carry out flanking movements if required. The + object is to beat him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan was + present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted damsel + must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her companion + and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where three gentlemen + stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours of tobacco. They + were indistinct; she could see that one of them was of good stature. One + she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly Jewish. The third was + distressingly branded with the slum and gutter signs of the Ahasuerus + race. Three hats on his head could not have done it more effectively. The + vindictive caricatures of the God Pan, executed by priests of the later + religion burning to hunt him out of worship in the semblance of the hairy, + hoofy, snouty Evil One, were not more loathsome. She sank on a sofa. That + the man? Oh! Jew, and fifty times over Jew! nothing but Jew! + </p> + <p> + The three stepped into the long saloon, and she saw how veritably + magnificent was the first whom she had noticed. + </p> + <p> + She sat at her lamb’s-wool work in the little ivory frame, feeding on the + contrast. This man’s face was the born orator’s, with the light-giving + eyes, the forward nose, the animated mouth, all stamped for speechfulness + and enterprise, of Cicero’s rival in the forum before he took the headship + of armies and marched to empire. + </p> + <p> + The gifts of speech, enterprise, decision, were marked on his features and + his bearing, but with a fine air of lordly mildness. Alas, he could not be + other than Christian, so glorious was he in build! One could vision an + eagle swooping to his helm by divine election. So vigorously rich was his + blood that the swift emotion running with the theme as he talked pictured + itself in passing and was like the play of sheet lightning on the + variations of the uninterrupted and many-glancing outpour. Looking on him + was listening. Yes, the looking on him sufficed. Here was an image of the + beauty of a new order of godlike men, that drained an Indian Bacchus of + his thin seductions at a breath-reduced him to the state of nursery + plaything, spangles and wax, in the contemplation of a girl suddenly + plunged on the deeps of her womanhood. She shrank to smaller and smaller + as she looked. + </p> + <p> + Be sure that she knew who he was. No, says she. But she knew. It terrified + her soul to think he was Alvan. She feared scarcely less that it might not + be he. Between these dreads of doubt and belief she played at cat and + mouse with herself, escaped from cat, persecuted mouse, teased herself, + and gloated. It is he! not he! he! not he! most certainly! impossible!—And + then it ran: If he, oh me! If another, woe me! For she had come to see + Alvan. Alvan and she shared ideas. They talked marvellously alike, so as + to startle Count Kollin: and supposing he was not Alvan, it would be a + bitter disappointment. The supposition that he was, threatened her with + instant and life-long bondage. + </p> + <p> + Then again, could that face be the face of a Jew? She feasted. It was a + noble profile, an ivory skin, most lustrous eyes. Perchance a Jew of the + Spanish branch of the exodus, not the Polish. There is the noble Jew as + well as the bestial Gentile. There is not in the sublimest of Gentiles a + majesty comparable to that of the Jew elect. He may well think his race + favoured of heaven, though heaven chastise them still. The noble Jew is + grave in age, but in his youth he is the arrow to the bow of his fiery + eastern blood, and in his manhood he is—ay, what you see there! a + figure of easy and superb preponderance, whose fire has mounted to + inspirit and be tempered by the intellect. + </p> + <p> + She was therefore prepared all the while for the surprise of learning that + the gentleman so unlike a Jew was Alvan; and she was prepared to express + her recordation of the circumstance in her diary with phrases of very + eminent surprise. Necessarily it would be the greatest of surprises. + </p> + <p> + The three, this man and his two of the tribe, upon whom Clotilde’s + attention centred, with a comparison in her mind too sacred to be other + than profane (comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered), + dropped to the cushions of the double-seated sofa, by one side of which + she cowered over her wool-work, willing to dwindle to a pin’s head if her + insignificance might enable her to hear the words of the speaker. He + pursued his talk: there was little danger of not hearing him. There was + only the danger of feeling too deeply the spell of his voice. His voice + had the mellow fulness of the clarionet. But for the subject, she could + have fancied a noontide piping of great Pan by the sedges. She had never + heard a continuous monologue so musical, so varied in music, amply + flowing, vivacious, interwovenly the brook, the stream, the torrent: a + perfect natural orchestra in a single instrument. He had notes less + pastorally imageable, notes that fired the blood, with the ranging of his + theme. The subject became clearer to her subjugated wits, until the mental + vivacity he roused on certain impetuous phrases of assertion caused her + pride to waken up and rebel as she took a glance at herself, remembering + that she likewise was a thinker, deemed in her society an original + thinker, an intrepid thinker and talker, not so very much beneath this man + in audacity of brain, it might be. He kindled her thus, and the close-shut + but expanded and knew the fretting desire to breathe out the secret within + it, and be appreciated in turn. + </p> + <p> + The young flower of her sex burned to speak, to deliver an opinion. She + was unaccustomed to yield a fascinated ear. She was accustomed rather to + dictate and be the victorious performer, and though now she was not + anxious to occupy the pulpit—being too strictly bred to wish for a + post publicly in any of the rostra—and meant still less to + dispossess the present speaker of the place he filled so well, she yearned + to join him: and as that could not be done by a stranger approving, she + panted to dissent. A young lady cannot so well say to an unknown + gentleman: ‘You have spoken truly, sir,’ as, ‘That is false!’ for to speak + in the former case would be gratuitous, and in the latter she is excused + by the moral warmth provoking her. Further, dissent rings out finely, and + approval is a feeble murmur—a poor introduction of oneself. Her + moral warmth was ready and waiting for the instigating subject, but of + course she was unconscious of the goad within. Excitement wafted her out + of herself, as we say, or out of the conventional vessel into the waves of + her troubled nature. He had not yet given her an opportunity for + dissenting; she was compelled to agree, dragged at his chariot-wheels in + headlong agreement. + </p> + <p> + His theme was Action; the political advantages of Action; and he + illustrated his view with historical examples, to the credit of the + French, the temporary discredit of the German and English races, who tend + to compromise instead. Of the English he spoke as of a power extinct, a + people ‘gone to fat,’ who have gained their end in a hoard of gold and + shut the door upon bandit ideas. Action means life to the soul as to the + body. Compromise is virtual death: it is the pact between cowardice and + comfort under the title of expediency. So do we gather dead matter about + us. So are we gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The war with evil in every + form must be incessant; we cannot have peace. Let then our joy be in war: + in uncompromising Action, which need not be the less a sagacious conduct + of the war.... Action energizes men’s brains, generates grander + capacities, provokes greatness of soul between enemies, and is the + guarantee of positive conquest for the benefit of our species. To doubt + that, is to doubt of good being to be had for the seeking. He drew + pictures of the healthy Rome when turbulent, the doomed quiescent. Rome + struggling grasped the world. Rome stagnant invited Goth and Vandal. So + forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed pamphleteer. At last her + chance arrived. + </p> + <p> + His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the + character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet’s promising youth. How + brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning! + </p> + <p> + ‘Mad from the first!’ cried Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The + three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor. + </p> + <p> + Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes + engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each pair + of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung + herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis. + </p> + <p> + His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa, + leaning across it, with clasped hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are she!—So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the + commencement?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘After the apparition of Hamlet’s father the prince was mad,’ said + Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm + succeeding that of her boldness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should we two wait to be introduced?’ said he. ‘We know one another. + I am Alvan. You are she of whom I heard from Kollin: who else? Lucretia + the gold-haired; the gold-crested serpent, wise as her sire; Aurora + breaking the clouds; in short, Clotilde!’ + </p> + <p> + Her heart exulted to hear him speak her name. She laughed with a radiant + face. His being Alvan, and his knowing her and speaking her name, all was + like the happy reading of a riddle. He came round to her, bowing, and his + hand out. She gave hers: she could have said, if asked, ‘For good!’ And it + looked as though she had given it for good. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + ‘Hamlet in due season,’ said he, as they sat together. ‘I shall convince + you.’ + </p> + <p> + She shook her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: the + fact is not half so stubborn. But at present there are two more important + actors: we are not at Elsinore. You are aware that I hoped to meet you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is there a periodical advertisement of your hopes?—or do they come + to us by intuition?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Kollin was right!—the ways of the serpent will be serpentine. I + knew we must meet. It is no true day so long as the goddess of the morning + and the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of myself, by what I have felt + since I heard of you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are sure of your divinity?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Through my belief in yours!’ + </p> + <p> + They bowed smiling at the courtly exchanges. + </p> + <p> + ‘And tell me,’ said he, ‘as to meeting me...?’ + </p> + <p> + She replied: ‘When we are so like the rest of the world we may confess our + weakness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Unlike! for the world and I meet and part: not we two.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde attempted an answer: it would not come. She tried to be revolted + by his lording tone, and found it strangely inoffensive. His lording + presence and the smile that was like a waving feather on it compelled her + so strongly to submit to hear, as to put her in danger of appearing to + embrace this man’s rapid advances. + </p> + <p> + She said: ‘I first heed of you at Capri.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And I was at Capri seven days after you had left.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You knew my name then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Be not too curious with necromancers. Here is the date—March 15th. + You departed on the 8th.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think I did. That is a year from now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then we missed: now we meet. It is a year lost. A year is a great age! + Reflect on it and what you owe me. How I wished for a comrade at Capri! + Not a “young lady,” and certainly no man. The understanding Feminine, was + my desire—a different thing from the feminine understanding, + usually. I wanted my comrade young and fair, necessarily of your sex, but + with heart and brain: an insane request, I fancied, until I heard that you + were the person I wanted. In default of you I paraded the island with + Tiberius, who is my favourite tyrant. We took the initiative against the + patricians, at my suggestion, and the Annals were written by a plebeian + demagogue, instead of by one of that party, whose account of my extinction + by command of the emperor was pathetic. He apologized in turn for my + imperial master and me, saying truly, that the misunderstanding between us + was past cement: for each of us loved the man but hated his office; and as + the man is always more in his office than he is in himself, clearly it was + the lesser portion of our friend that each of us loved. So, I, as the + weaker, had to perish, as he would have done had I been the stronger; I + admitted it, and sent my emperor my respectful adieux, with directions for + the avoiding of assassins. Mademoiselle, by delaying your departure seven + days you would have saved me from death. You see, the official is the + artificial man, and I ought to have known there is no natural man left in + us to weigh against the artificial. I counted on the emperor’s personal + affection, forgetting that princes cannot be our friends.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You died bravely?’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde entered into the extravagance with a happy simulation of zest. + </p> + <p> + ‘Simply, we will say. My time had come, and I took no sturdy pose, but let + the life-stream run its course for a less confined embankment. Sapphire + sea, sapphire sky: one believes in life there, thrills with it, when life + is ebbing: ay, as warmly as when life is at the flow in our sick and + shrivelled North—the climate for dried fish! Verily the second death + of hearing that a gold-haired Lucretia had been on the island seven days + earlier, was harder to bear. Tell me frankly—the music in Italy?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Excellent!’ his eyes flashed delightedly. ‘O comrade of comrades! that + year lost to me will count heavily as I learn to value those I have + gained. Yes, brainless! There, in music, we beat them, as politically + France beats us. No life without brain! The brainless in Art and in + Statecraft are nothing but a little more obstructive than the dead. It is + less easy to cut a way through them. But it must be done, or the + Philistine will be as the locust in his increase, and devour the green + blades of the earth. You have been trained to shudder at the demagogue?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do not shudder,’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + ‘A diamond from the lapidary!—Your sentences have many facets. Well, + you are conversing with a demagogue, an avowed one: a demagogue and a Jew. + You take it as a matter of course: you should exhibit some sparkling + incredulity. The Christian is like the politician in supposing the + original obverse of him everlastingly the same, after the pattern of the + monster he was originally taught to hate. But the Jew has been a little + christianized, and we have a little bejewed the Christian. So with + demagogues: as we see the conservative crumbling, we grow conservatived. + Try to think individually upon what you have to learn collectively—that + is your task. You are of the few who will be equal to it. We are not men + of blood, believe me. I am not. For example, I detest and I decline the + duel. I have done it, and proved myself a man of metal notwithstanding. To + say nothing of the inhumanity, the senselessness of duelling revolts me. + ‘Tis a folly, so your nobles practise it, and your royal wiseacre + sanctions. No blood for me: and yet I tell you that whatever opposes me, I + will sweep away. How? With the brain. If we descend to poor brute strength + or brutal craft, it is from failing in the brain: we quit the leadership + of our forces, and the descent is the beast’s confession. Do I say how? + Perhaps by your aid.—You do not start and cry: “Mine!” That is well. + I have not much esteem for non-professional actresses. They are numerous + and not entertaining.—You leave it to me to talk.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Could I do better?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You listen sweetly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It is because I like to hear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have the pearly little ear of a shell on the sand.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With the great sea sounding near it!’ + </p> + <p> + Alvan drew closer to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘I look into your eyes and perceive that one may listen to you and speak + to you. Heart to heart, then! Yes, a sea to lull you, a sea to win you—temperately, + let us hope; by storm, if need be. My prize is found! The good friend who + did the part of Iris for us came bounding to me: “I have discovered the + wife for you, Alvan.” I had previously heard of her from another as having + touched the islet of Capri. “But,” said Kollin, “she is a gold-crested + serpent—slippery!” Is she? That only tells me of a little more to be + mastered. I feel my future now. Hitherto it has been a land without + sunlight. Do you know how the look of sunlight on a land calms one? It + signifies to the eye possession and repose, the end gained—not the + end to labour, just heaven! but peace to the heart’s craving, which is the + renewal of strength for work, the fresh dip in the waters of life. Conjure + up your vision of Italy. Remember the meaning of Italian light and colour: + the clearness, the luminous fulness, the thoughtful shadows. Mountain and + wooded headland are solid, deep to the eye, spirit-speaking to the mind. + They throb. You carve shapes of Gods out of that sky, the sea, those + peaks. They live with you. How they satiate the vacant soul by influx, and + draw forth the troubled from its prickly nest!—Well, and you are my + sunlighted land. And you will have to be fought for. And I see not the + less repose in the prospect! Part of you may be shifty-sand. The sands are + famous for their golden shining—as you shine. Well, then, we must + make the quicksands concrete. I have a perfect faith in you, and in the + winning of you. Clearly you will have to be fought for. I should imagine + it a tough battle to come. But as I doubt neither you nor myself, I see + beyond it.—We use phrases in common, and aphorisms, it appears. Why? + but that our minds act in unison. What if I were to make a comparison of + you with Paris?—the city of Paris, Lutetia.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Could you make it good?’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + He laughed and postponed it for a series of skimming discussions, like + swallow-flights from the nest beneath the eaves to the surface of the + stream, perpetually reverting to her, and provoking spirited replies, + leading her to fly with him in expectation of a crowning compliment that + must be singular and was evidently gathering confirmation in his mind from + the touchings and probings of her character on these flights. + </p> + <p> + She was like a lady danced off her sense of fixity, to whom the appearance + of her whirling figure in the mirror is both wonderful and reassuring; and + she liked to be discussed, to be compared to anything, for the sake of + being the subject, so as to be sure it was she that listened to a man who + was a stranger, claiming her for his own; sure it was she that by not + breaking from him implied consent, she that went speeding in this magical + rapid round which slung her more and more out of her actual into her + imagined self, compelled her to proceed, denied her the right to faint and + call upon the world for aid, and catch at it, though it was close by and + at a signal would stop the terrible circling. The world was close by and + had begun to stare. She half apprehended that fact, but she was in the + presence of the irresistible. In the presence of the irresistible the + conventional is a crazy structure swept away with very little creaking of + its timbers on the flood. When we feel its power we are immediately + primitive creatures, flying anywhere in space, indifferent to nakedness. + And after trimming ourselves for it, the sage asks your permission to add, + it will be the thing we are most certain some day to feel. Had not she + trimmed herself?—so much that she had won fame for an originality + mistaken by her for the independent mind, and perilously, for courage. She + had trimmed herself and Alvan too—herself to meet it, and Alvan to + be it. Her famous originality was a trumpet blown abroad proclaiming her + the prize of the man who sounded as loudly his esteem for the quality—in + a fair young woman of good breeding. Each had evoked the other. Their + common anticipations differed in this, that he had expected comeliness, + she the reverse—an Esau of the cities; and seeing superb manly + beauty in the place of the thick-featured sodden satyr of her miscreating + fancy, the irresistible was revealed to her on its divinest whirlwind. + </p> + <p> + They both desired beauty; they had each stipulated for beauty before + captivity could be acknowledged; and he beholding her very attractive + comeliness, walked into the net, deeming the same a light thing to wear, + and rather a finishing grace to his armoury; but she, a trained disciple + of the conventional in social behaviour (as to the serious points and the + extremer trifles), fluttered exceedingly; she knew not what she was doing, + where her hand was, how she looked at him, how she drank in his looks on + her. Her woman’s eyes had no guard they had scarcely speculation. She saw + nothing in its passing, but everything backward, under haphazard flashes. + The sight of her hand disengaged told her it had been detained; a glance + at the company reminded her that those were men and women who had been + other than phantoms; recollections of the words she listened to, assented + to, replied to, displayed the gulfs she had crossed. And nevertheless her + brain was as quick as his to press forward to pluck the themes which would + demonstrate her mental vividness and at least indicate her force of + character. The splendour of the man quite extinguished, or + over-brightened, her sense of personal charm; she set fire to her brain to + shine intellectually, treating the tale of her fair face as a childish + tale that might have a grain of truth in it, some truth, a very little, + and that little nearly worthless, merely womanly, a poor charm of her sex. + The intellectual endowment was rarer: still rarer the moral audacity. O, + to match this man’s embracing discursiveness! his ardour, his complacent + energy, the full strong sound he brought out of all subjects! He struck, + and they rang. There was a bell in everything for him; Nature gave out her + cry, and significance was on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no + longer any afflicting lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how + humane he was! how supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought + instead of flippantly tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly + for an echo, his firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she + had felt deeper than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange + to consider: with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of life + thrice dear to him, he was fearless. Less by what he said than by + divination she discerned that he knew not fear. If for only that, she + would have hung to him like his shadow. She could have detected a brazen + pretender. A meaner mortal vaunting his great stores she would have + written down coxcomb. Her social training and natural perception raised + her to a height to measure the bombastical and distinguish it from the + eloquently lofty. He spoke of himself, as the towering Alp speaks out at a + first view, bidding that which he was be known. Fearless, confident, able, + he could not but be, as he believed himself, indomitable. She who was this + man’s mate would consequently wed his possessions, including courage. + Clotilde at once reached the conclusion of her having it in an equal + degree. Was she not displaying it? The worthy people of the company + stared, as she now perceived, and she was indifferent; her relatives were + present without disturbing her exaltation. She wheeled above their heads + in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could not but be courage, + active courage, superior to her previous tentative steps—the verbal + temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now she was in action, now + she was being tried to match the preacher and incarnation of the virtues + of action! + </p> + <p> + Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities—the + symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive, eager + to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him to proof, + graceful beyond all rhyme, colloquial as never the Muse; light in light + hands, yet valiant unto death for a principle; and therefore not light, + anything but light in strong hands, very stedfast rather: and oh! + constantly entertaining. + </p> + <p> + The comparison had to be strained to fit the living lady’s shape. Did he + think it, or a dash of something like it? + </p> + <p> + His mood was luxurious. He had found the fair and youthful original woman + of refinement and station desired by him. He had good reason to wish to + find her. Having won a name, standing on firm ground, with promise of a + great career, chief of what was then taken for a growing party and is not + yet a collapsed, nor will be, though the foot on it is iron, his youth had + flown under the tutelage of an extraordinary Mentor, whom to call Athene + robs the goddess of her personal repute for wisdom in conduct, but whose + head was wise, wise as it was now grey. Verily she was original; and a + grey original should seem remarkable above a blooming blonde. If + originality in woman were our prime request, the grey should bear the + palm. She has gone through the battle, retaining the standard she carried + into it, which is a victory. Alas, that grey, so spirit-touching in Art, + should be so wintry in reality! + </p> + <p> + The discovery of a feminine original breathing Spring, softer, warmer than + the ancient one, gold instead of snowcrested, and fully as intrepid as + devoted, was an immense joy to Alvan. He took it luxuriously because he + believed in his fortune, a kind of natal star, the common heritage of the + adventurous, that brought him his good things in time, in return for + energetic strivings in a higher direction apart from his natural longings. + </p> + <p> + Fortune had delayed, he had wintered long. All the sweeter was the breath + of the young Spring. That exquisite new sweetness robed Clotilde in the + attributes of the person dreamed of for his mate; and deductively assuming + her to possess them, he could not doubt his power of winning her. Barriers + are for those who cannot fly. The barriers were palpable about a girl of + noble Christian birth: so was the courage in her which would give her + wings, he thought, coming to that judgement through the mixture of his + knowledge of himself and his perusal of her exterior. He saw that she + could take an impression deeply enough to express it sincerely, and he + counted on it, sympathetically endowing her with his courage to support + the originality she was famed for. + </p> + <p> + They were interrupted between-whiles by weariful men running to Alvan for + counsel on various matters—how to play their game, or the exact + phrasing of some pregnant sentence current in politics or literature. He + satisfied them severally and shouldered them away, begging for peace that + night. Clotilde corroborated his accurate recital of the lines of a + contested verse of the incomparable Heinrich, and they fell to capping + verses of the poet-lucid metheglin, with here and there no dubious flavour + of acid, and a lively sting in the tail of the honey. Sentiment, cynicism, + and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, where pure + poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements constitute the + popularity in a cultivated society inclining to wantonness out of bravado + as well as by taste. Alvan, looking indolently royal and royally roguish, + quoted a verse that speaks of the superfluousness of a faithless lady’s + vowing bite: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The kisses were in the course of things, + The bite was a needless addition.’ +</pre> + <p> + Clotilde could not repress her reddening—Count Kollin had repeated + too much! She dropped her eyes, with a face of sculpture, then resumed + their chatter. He spared her the allusion to Pompeius. She convinced him + of her capacity for reserve besides intrepidity, and flattered him too + with her blush. She could dare to say to Kollin what her scarlet + sensibility forbade her touching on with him: not that she would not have + had an airy latitude with him to touch on what she pleased: he liked her + for her boldness and the cold peeping of the senses displayed in it: he + liked also the distinction she made. + </p> + <p> + The cry to supper conduced to a further insight of her adaptation to his + requirements in a wife. They marched to the table together, and sat + together, and drank a noble Rhine wine together—true Rauenthal. His + robustness of body and soul inspired the wish that his well-born wife + might be, in her dainty fashion, yet honestly and without mincing, his + possible boonfellow: he and she, glass in hand, thanking the bountiful + heavens, blessing mankind in chorus. It belonged to his hearty dream of + the wife he would choose, were she to be had. The position of interpreter + of heaven’s benevolence to mankind through his own enjoyment of the gifts, + was one that he sagaciously demanded for himself, sharing it with the + Philistine unknowingly; and to have a wife no less wise than he on this + throne of existence was a rosy exaltation. Clotilde kindled to the hint of + his festival mood of Solomon at the banquet. She was not devoid of a + discernment of flavours; she had heard grave judges at her father’s board + profoundly deliver their verdicts upon this and that vineyard and vintage; + and it is a note of patriotism in her country to be enthusiastic for wine + of the Rhine: she was, moreover, thirsty from much talking and excitement. + She drank her glass relishingly, declaring the wine princely. Alvan + smacked his hands in a rapture: ‘You are not for the extract of raisin our + people have taken to copy from French Sauternes, to suit a female + predilection for sugar?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, the grape for me!’ said she: ‘the Rhine grape with the elf in it, + and the silver harp and the stained legend!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Glorious!’ + </p> + <p> + He toasted the grape. ‘Wine of the grape is the young bride—the + young sun-bride! divine, and never too sweet, never cloying like the + withered sun-dried, with its one drop of concentrated sugar, that becomes + ten of gout. No raisin-juice for us! None of their too-long-on-the-stem + clusters! We are for the blood of the grape in her youth, her + heaven-kissing ardour. I have a cellar charged with the bravest of the + Rhine. We—will we not assail it, bleed it in the gallant days to + come? we two!’ The picture of his bride and him drinking the sun down + after a day of savage toil was in the shout—a burst unnoticed in the + incessantly verbalizing buzz of a continental supper-table. Clotilde + acquiesced: she chimed to it like a fair boonfellow of the rollicking + faun. She was realizing fairyland. + </p> + <p> + They retired to the divan-corner where it was you-and-I between them as + with rivulets meeting and branching, running parallel, uniting and + branching again, divided by the theme, but unending in the flow of the + harmony. So ran their chirping arguments and diversions. The carrying on + of a prolonged and determined you-and-I in company intimates to those + undetermined floating atoms about us that a certain sacred something is in + process of formation, or has formed; and people looked; and looked hard at + the pair, and at one another afterward: none approached them. The Signor + conjuror who has a thousand arts for conjuring with nature was generally + considered to have done that night his most ancient and reputedly fabulous + trick—the dream of poets, rarely witnessed anywhere, and almost too + wonderful for credence in a haunt of our later civilization. Yet there it + was: the sudden revelation of the intense divinity to a couple fused in + oneness by his apparition, could be perceived of all having man and woman + in them; love at first sight, was visible. ‘Who ever loved that loved not + at first sight?’ And if nature, character, circumstance, and a maid clever + at dressing her mistress’s golden hair, did prepare them for Love’s + lightning-match, not the less were they proclaimingly alight and in full + blaze. Likewise, Time, imperious old gentleman though we know him to be, + with his fussy reiterations concerning the hour for bed and sleep, bowed + to the magical fact of their condition, and forbore to warn them of his + passing from night to day. He had to go, he must, he has to be always + going, but as long as he could he left them on their bank by the margin of + the stream, where a shadow-cycle of the eternal wound a circle for them + and allowed them to imagine they had thrust that old driver of the dusty + high-road quietly out of the way. They were ungrateful, of course, when + the performance of his duties necessitated his pulling them up beside him + pretty smartly, but he uttered no prophecy of ever intending to rob them + of the celestial moments they had cut from him and meant to keep between + them ‘for ever,’ and fresh. + </p> + <p> + The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning. Alvan assisted at the + cloaking and hooding of Clotilde. Her relatives were at hand; they hung by + while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight that + laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and stone. + </p> + <p> + ‘A night to head the Spring!’ said Alvan. ‘Come.’ + </p> + <p> + He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an + established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did her + people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which had + struck the pair. These things, and many things that islands know not of, + are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness of + Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island + atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the + breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no + tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen + of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there. But even where + he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land + bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan’s behaviour was + passing heteroclite. He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, crowned by + another kingly fellow—the lord of hearts—to impose it + uninterruptedly. ‘She is mine; I have won her this night!’ his bearing + said; and Clotilde’s acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them had + to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering. Partly by habit, and of his + natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once taken + could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good tideway + strong in his own passion and his lady’s up against the last defences—her + parents. A difficulty with them was foreseen. What is a difficulty!—a + gate in the hunting-field: an opponent on a platform: a knot beneath a + sword: the dam to waters that draw from the heavens. Not desiring it in + this case—it would have been to love the difficulty better than the + woman—he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a resistance, if only + because it was a portion of the dowry she brought him. Good soldiers (who + have won their grades) are often of a peaceful temper and would not raise + an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy sets their pugnacious forces + in motion, the bugle fills their veins with electrical fire, till they are + as racers on the race-course.—His inmost hearty devil was glad of a + combat that pertained to his possession of her, for battle gives the + savour of the passion to win, and victory dignifies a prize: he was, + however, resolved to have it, if possible, according to the regular + arrangement of such encounters, formal, without snatchings, without rash + violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, reasoning eloquence. + </p> + <p> + He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present + feelings: ‘I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!’ The comparison had + been used or implied to him before. + </p> + <p> + ‘No!’ said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, ‘no + more of the quadruped man! You tempt him—may I tell you that? Why, + now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking + the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and + we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and + friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No more + scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright + serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more + prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end of + the draught. But no!’ his voice deepened—‘the handsome face of the + orb that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between us + two. Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken all + round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon. + </p> + <p> + I have seen the other face of it—a visage scored with regrets, dead + dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the like!—sunless, + waterless, without a flower! It is the old volcano land: it grows one + bitter herb: if ever you see my mouth distorted you will know I am + revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, I will not + be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he stables himself; + yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he finishes by + pasturing on. You have no dislike of metaphors and parables? We Jews are a + parable people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am sure I do understand...’ said Clotilde, catching her breath to be + conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician’s + treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise!—You were going to + add?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me + still.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May the sensation never quit you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It will not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What a night!’ Alvan raised his head: ‘A night cast for our first meeting + and betrothing! You are near home?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The third house yonder in the moonlight.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The moonlight lays a white hand on it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is my window sparkling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is the vestal’s cresset. Shall I blow it out?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are too far. And it is a celestial flame, sir!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Celestial in truth! My hope of heaven! Dian’s crescent will be ever on + that house for me, Clotilde. I would it were leagues distant, or the door + not forbidden!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I could minister to a good knight humbly.’ + </p> + <p> + Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting: + </p> + <p> + ‘When do father and mother arrive?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + He took her hand. ‘To-morrow, then! The worst of omens is delay.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde faintly gasped. Could he mean it?—he of so evil a name in + her family and circle! + </p> + <p> + Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me the hour when it will be most convenient to them to receive me,’ + said Alvan. + </p> + <p> + She stopped walking in sheer fright. + </p> + <p> + ‘My father—my mother?’ she said, imaging within her the varied + horror of each and the commotion. + </p> + <p> + ‘To-morrow or the day after—not later. No delays! You are mine, we + are one; and the sooner my cause is pleaded the better for us both. If I + could step in and see them this instant, it would be forestalling + mischances. Do you not see, that time is due to us, and the minutes are + our gold slipping away?’ + </p> + <p> + She shrank her hand back: she did not wish to withdraw the hand, only to + shun the pledge it signified. He opened an abyss at her feet, and in + deadly alarm of him she exclaimed: ‘Oh! not yet; not immediately.’ She + trembled, she made her petition dismal by her anguish of speechlessness. + ‘There will be such... not yet! Perhaps later. They must not be troubled + yet—at present. I am... I cannot—pray, delay!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you are mine!’ said Alvan. ‘You feel it as I do. There can be no real + impediment?’ + </p> + <p> + She gave an empty sigh that sought to be a run of entreaties. In fear of + his tongue she caught at words to baffle it, senseless of their + imbecility: ‘Do not insist: yes, in time: they will—they—they + may. My father is not very well... my mother: she is not very well. They + are neither of them very well: not at present!—Spare them at + present.’ + </p> + <p> + To avoid being carried away, she flung herself from the centaur’s back to + the disenchanting earth; she separated herself from him in spirit, and + beheld him as her father and mother and her circle would look on this + pretender to her hand, with his lordly air, his Jew blood, and his hissing + reputation—for it was a reputation that stirred the snakes and the + geese of the world. She saw him in their eyes, quite coldly: which + imaginative capacity was one of the remarkable feats of cowardice, active + and cold of brain even while the heart is active and would be warm. + </p> + <p> + He read something of her weakness. ‘And supposing I decide that it must + be?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I supplicate you!’ she replied with a shiver, feeling that she + had lost her chance of slipping from his grasp, as trained women of the + world, or very sprightly young wits know how to do at the critical moment: + and she had lost it by being too sincere. Her cowardice appeared to her + under that aspect. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now I perceive that the task is harder,’ said Alvan, seeing her huddled + in a real dismay. ‘Why will you not rise to my level and fear nothing! The + way is clear: we have only to take the step. Have you not seen tonight + that we are fated for one another? It is your destiny, and trifling with + destiny is a dark business. Look at me. Do you doubt my having absolute + control of myself to bear whatever they put on me to bear, and hold firmly + to my will to overcome them! Oh! no delays.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes!’ she cried; ‘yes, there must be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You say it?’ + </p> + <p> + The courage to repeat her cry was wanting. + </p> + <p> + She trembled visibly: she could more readily have bidden him bear her + hence than have named a day for the interview with her parents; but + desperately she feared that he would be the one to bid; and he had this of + the character of destiny about him, that she felt in him a maker of facts. + He was her dream in human shape, her eagle of men, and she felt like a + lamb in the air; she had no resistance, only terror of his power, and a + crushing new view of the nature of reality. + </p> + <p> + ‘I see!’ said he, and his breast fell. Her timid inability to join with + him for instant action reminded him that he carried many weights: a bad + name among her people and class, and chains in private. He was old enough + to strangle his impulses, if necessary, or any of the brood less fiery + than the junction of his passions. ‘Well, well!—but we might so soon + have broken through the hedge into the broad highroad! It is but to + determine to do it—to take the bold short path instead of the + wearisome circuit. Just a little lightning in the brain and tightening of + the heart. Battles are won in that way: not by tender girls! and she is a + girl, and the task is too much for her. So, then, we are in your hands, + child! Adieu, and let the gold-crested serpent glide to her bed, and + sleep, dream, and wake, and ask herself in the morning whether she is not + a wedded soul. Is she not a serpent? gold-crested, all the world may see; + and with a mortal bite, I know. I have had the bite before the kisses. + That is rather an unjust reversal of the order of things. Apropos, Hamlet + was poisoned—ghost-poisoned.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mad, he was mad!’ said Clotilde, recovering and smiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘He was born bilious; he partook of the father’s constitution, not the + mother’s. High-thoughted, quick-nerved to follow the thought, reflective, + if an interval yawned between his hand and the act, he was by nature + two-minded: as full of conscience as a nursing mother that sleeps beside + her infant:—she hears the silent beginning of a cry. Before the + ghost walked he was an elementary hero; one puff of action would have + whiffed away his melancholy. After it, he was a dizzy moralizer, waiting + for the winds to blow him to his deed-ox out. The apparition of his father + to him poisoned a sluggish run of blood, and that venom in the blood + distracted a head steeped in Wittenberg philosophy. With metaphysics in + one and poison in the other, with the outer world opened on him and this + world stirred to confusion, he wore the semblance of madness; he was + throughout sane; sick, but never with his reason dethroned.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nothing but madness excuses his conduct to Ophelia!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poison in the blood is a pretty good apology for infidelity to a lady.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, to an Ophelia of fifty?’ said Alvan. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde laughed, not perfectly assured of the wherefore, but pleased to + be able to laugh. Her friends were standing at the house door, farewells + were spoken, Alvan had gone. And then she thought of the person that + Ophelia of fifty might be, who would have to find a good apology for him + in his dose of snake-bite, or love of a younger woman whom he termed + gold-crested serpent. + </p> + <p> + He was a lover, surely a lover: he slid off to some chance bit of likeness + to himself in every subject he discussed with her. + </p> + <p> + And she? She speeded recklessly on the back of the centaur when he had + returned to the state of phantom and the realities he threatened her with + were no longer imminent. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + Clotilde was of the order of the erring who should by rights have a short + sermon to preface an exposure of them, administering the whip to her own + sex and to ours, lest we scorn too much to take an interest in her. The + exposure she had done for herself, and she has not had the art to frame + her apology. The day after her meeting, with her eagle, Alvan, she saw + Prince Marko. She was gentle to him, in anticipation of his grief; she + could hardly be ungentle on account of his obsequious beauty, and when her + soft eyes and voice had thrilled him to an acute sensibility to the blow, + honourably she inflicted it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Marko, my friend, you know that I cannot be false; then let me tell you I + yesterday met the man who has but to lift his hand and I go to him, and he + may lead me whither he will.’ + </p> + <p> + The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their brightness + moistened and flashed. + </p> + <p> + Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said. He knew the + man. + </p> + <p> + Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself. For the first few + days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan. She feared + the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly. Her parents had + postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm; it was his + violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she feared, as + nervous people shrink from cannon: and neither meeting, seeing, nor + hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose curiosity is + refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing which frightened + it. Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage flooded back; she hoped + he would present himself to claim her, marvelled that he did not, + reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for listening to the + hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling what she really + was—a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of her family to + spare them a sudden shock. Remembering her generous considerations in + their interests, she thought he should have known that the creature he + called a child would have yielded upon supplication to fly with him. Her + considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was the cause of her + seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived it and put it aside. + He should have seen that she could be brave, and was a mate for him. And + if his shallow experience of her wrote her down nerveless, his love should + be doing. + </p> + <p> + Was it love? Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided + will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had she + the freedom of a man. She would not have listened (it was quite true) to a + silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an interval to yawn + after the first wild wooing of her. Prince Marko loved. Yes, that was + love! It failed in no sign of the passion. She set herself to study it in + Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering among them pity, + thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between admiration and pathetic + esteem, like that the musician has for a precious instrument giving sweet + sound when shattered. He served her faithfully, in spite of his distaste + for some of his lady’s commissions. She had to get her news of Alvan + through Marko. He brought her particulars of the old trial of Alvan, and + Alvan’s oration in defence of himself for a lawless act of devotion to the + baroness; nothing less than the successfully scheming to wrest by force + from that lady’s enemy a document precious to her lawful interests. It was + one of those cases which have a really high gallant side as well as a bad; + an excellent case for rhetoric. Marko supplied the world’s opinion of the + affair, bravely owning it to be not unfavourable. Her worthy relatives, + the Frau v. Crestow and husband, had very properly furnished a report to + the family of the memorable evening; and the hubbub over it, with the + epithets applied to Alvan, intimated how he would have been received on a + visit to demand her in marriage. There was no chance of her being allowed + to enter houses where this ‘rageing demagogue and popular buffoon’ was a + guest; his name was banished from her hearing, so she was compelled to + have recourse to Marko. Unable to take such services without rewarding + him, she fondled: it pained her to see him suffer. Those who toss crumbs + to their domestic favourites will now and then be moved to toss meat, + which is not so good for them, but the dumb mendicant’s delight in it is + winning, and a little cannot hurt. Besides, if any one had a claim on her + it was the prince; and as he was always adoring, never importunate, he + restored her to the pedestal she had been really rudely shaken from by + that other who had caught her up suddenly into the air, and dropped her! A + hand abandoned to her slave rewarded him immeasurably. A heightening of + the reward almost took his life. In the peacefulness of dealing with a + submissive love that made her queenly, the royal, which plucked her from + throne to footstool, seemed predatory and insolent. Thus, after that scene + of ‘first love,’ in which she had been actress, she became almost (with an + inward thrill or two for the recovering of him) reconciled to the not + seeing of the noble actor; for nothing could erase the scene—it was + historic; and Alvan would always be thought of as a delicious electricity. + She and Marko were together on the summer excursion of her people, and + quite sisterly, she could say, in her delicate scorn of his advantages and + her emotions. True gentlemen are imperfectly valued when they are under + the shadow of giants; but still Clotilde’s experience of a giant’s manners + was favourable to the liberty she could enjoy in a sisterly intimacy of + this kind, rather warmer than her word for it would imply. She owned that + she could better live the poetic life—that is, trifle with fire and + reflect on its charms in the society of Marko. He was very young, he was + little more than an adolescent, and safely timid; a turn of her fingers + would string or slacken him. One could play on him securely, thinking of a + distant day—and some shipwreck of herself for an interlude—when + he might be made happy. + </p> + <p> + Her strangest mood of the tender cruelty was when the passion to anatomize + him beset her. The ground of it was, that she found him in her likeness, + adoring as she adored, and a similar loftiness; now grovelling, now + soaring; the most radiant of beings, the most abject; and the pleasure she + had of the sensational comparison was in an alteregoistic home she found + in him, that allowed of her gathering a picked self-knowledge, and of her + saying: ‘That is like me: that is very like me: that is terribly like’: up + to the point where the comparison wooed her no longer with an agreeable + lure of affinity, but nipped her so shrewdly as to force her to say: ‘That + is he, not I’: and the vivisected youth received the caress which + quickened him to wholeness at a touch. It was given with impulsive + tenderness, in pity of him. Anatomy is the title for the operation, + because the probing of herself in another, with the liberty to cease + probing as soon as it hurt her, allowed her while unhurt to feel that she + prosecuted her researches in a dead body. The moment her strong + susceptibility to the likeness shrank under a stroke of pain, she + abstained from carving, and simultaneously conscious that he lived, she + was kind to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘This love of yours, Marko—is it so deep?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I love you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You think me the highest and best?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So deep that you could bear anything from me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Try me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Unfaithfulness?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You would be you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you not say that because you cannot suspect evil of me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me only see you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are sure that happiness would not smother it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has it done so yet?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Though you know I am a serpent to that man’s music?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, heaven! Oh!—do not say music. Yes! though anything!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And if ever you were to witness the power of his just breathing to me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would.... Ah!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? If you saw his music working the spell?—even the first notes + of his prelude!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would wait’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It might be for long.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would eat my heart.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bitter! bitter!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you.’ + </p> + <p> + She had a seizure of the nerves. + </p> + <p> + The likeness between them was, she felt, too flamingly keen to be looked + at further. She reached to the dim idea of some such nauseous devotion, + and took a shot in her breast as she did so, and abjured it, and softened + to her victim. Clotilde opened her arms, charming away her wound, as she + soothed him, both by the act of soothing and the reflection that she could + not be so very like one whom she pitied and consoled. + </p> + <p> + She was charitably tender. If it be thought that she was cruel to excess, + plead for her the temptation to simple human nature at sight of a youth + who could be precipitated into the writhings of dissolution, and raised + out of it by a smile. This young man’s responsive spirit acted on her as + the discovery of specifics for restoring soundness to the frame excites + the brilliant empiric: he would slay us with benevolent soul to show the + miracle of our revival. Worship provokes the mortal goddess to a + manifestation of her powers; and really the devotee is full half to blame. + </p> + <p> + She had latterly been thinking of Alvan’s rejection of the part of + centaur; and his phrase, the quadruped man, breathed meaning. He was to + gain her lawfully after dominating her utterly. That was right, but it + levelled imagination. There is in the sentimental kingdom of Love a form + of reasoning, by which a lady of romantic notions who is dominated + utterly, will ask herself why she should be gained lawfully: and she is + moved to do so by the consideration that if the latter, no necessity can + exist for the former: and the reverse. In the union of the two conditions + she sees herself slavishly domesticated. With her Indian Bacchus + imagination rose, for he was pliant: she had only to fancy, and he was + beside her.—Quick to the saddle, away! The forest of terrors is + ahead; they are at the verge of it; a last hamlet perches on its borders; + the dwellers have haunted faces; the timbers of their huts lean to an + upright in wry splinters; warnings are moaned by men and women with the + voice of a night-wind; but on and on! the forest cannot be worse than a + world defied. They drain a cup of milk apiece and they spur, for this is + the way to the golden Indian land of the planted vine and the lover’s + godship.—Ludicrous! There is no getting farther than the cup of milk + with Marko. They curvet and caper to be forward unavailingly. It should be + Alvan to bring her through the forest to the planted vine in sunland. Her + splendid prose Alvan could do what the sprig of poetry can but suggest. + Never would malicious fairy in old woman’s form have offered Alvan a cup + of milk to paralyze his bride’s imagination of him confronting perils. + Yet, O shameful contrariety of the fates! he who could, will not; he who + would, is incapable. Let it not be supposed that the desire of her bosom + was to be run away with in person. Her simple human nature wished for the + hero to lift her insensibly over the difficult opening chapter of the + romance—through ‘the forest,’ or half imagined: that done, she felt + bold enough to meet the unimagined, which, as there was no picture of it + to terrify her, seemed an easy gallop into sunland.—Yes, but in the + grasp of a great prose giant, with the poetic departed! Naturally she + turned to caress the poetic while she had it beside her. And it was a + wonder to observe the young prince’s heavenly sensitiveness to every + variation of her moods. He knew without hearing when she had next seen + Alvan, though it had not been to speak to him. He looked, and he knew. The + liquid darkness of his large eastern eyes cast a light that brought her + heart out: she confessed it, and she comforted him. The sweetest in the + woman caused her double-dealing. + </p> + <p> + Now she was aware that Alvan moved behind the screen concealing him. A + common friend of Alvan and her family talked to her of him. He was an + eminent professor, a middleaged, grave and honourable man, not ignorant + that her family entertained views opposed to the pretensions of such a man + as the demagogue and Jew. Nevertheless Alvan could persuade him to abet + the scheme for his meeting Clotilde; nay, to lead to it; ultimately to + allow his own house to be their place of meeting. Alvan achieved the first + of the steps unassisted. Whether or not his character stood well with a + man of the world, his force of character, backed by solid attainments in + addition to brilliant gifts, could win a reputable citizen and erudite to + support him. Rhetoric in a worthy cause has good chances of carrying the + gravest, and the cause might reasonably seem excellent to the professor + when one promising fair to be the political genius of his time, but + hitherto not the quietest of livers, could make him believe that marriage + with this girl would be his clear salvation. The second step was + undesignedly Clotilde’s. + </p> + <p> + She was on the professor’s arm at one of the great winter balls of her + conductor’s brethren in the law, and he said: ‘Alvan is here.’ She + answered: ‘No, he has not yet come.’—How could she tell that he was + not present in the crowd? + </p> + <p> + ‘Has he come now?’ said the professor. + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + And no Alvan was discernible. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not yet.’ + </p> + <p> + The professor stared about. She waited. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now he has come; he is in the room now,’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + Alvan was perceived. He stood in the centre of the throng surrounding him + to buzz about some recent pamphlet. + </p> + <p> + She could well play at faith in his magnetization of her, for as by + degrees she made herself more nervously apprehensive by thinking of him, + it came to an overclouding and then a panic; and that she took for the + physical sign of his presence, and by that time, the hour being late, + Alvan happened to have arrived. The touch of his hand, the instant + naturalness in their speaking together after a long separation, as if + there had not been an interval, confirmed her notion of his influence on + her, almost to the making it planetary. And a glance at the professor + revealed how picturesque it was. Alvan and he murmured aside. They spoke + of it: What wonder that Alvan, though he saw Prince Marko whirl her in the + dance, and keep her to the measure—dancing like a song of the limbs + in his desperate poor lover’s little flitting eternity of the possession + of her—should say, after she had been led back to her friends: ‘That + is he, then! one of the dragons guarding my apple of the Hesperides, whom + I must brush away.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He?’ replied Clotilde, sincerely feeling Marko to be of as fractional a + weight as her tone declared him. ‘Oh, he is my mute, harmless, he does not + count among the dragons.’ + </p> + <p> + But there had been, notwithstanding the high presumption of his remark, a + manful thickness of voice in Alvan’s ‘That is he!’ The rivals had fastened + a look on one another, wary, strong, and summary as the wrestlers’ first + grapple. In fire of gaze, Marko was not outdone. + </p> + <p> + ‘He does not count? With those eyes of his?’ Alvan exclaimed. He knew + something of the sex, and spied from that point of knowledge into the + character of Clotilde; not too venturesomely, with the assistance of + rumour, hazarding the suspicion which he put forth as a certainty, and + made sharply bitter to himself in proportion to the belief in it that his + vehemence engendered: ‘I know all—without exception; all, + everything; all! I repeat. But what of it, if I win you? as I shall—only + aid me a little.’ + </p> + <p> + She slightly surprised the man by not striving to attenuate the import of + the big and surcharged All: but her silence bore witness to his + penetrative knowledge. Dozens of amorous gentlemen, lovers, of excellent + substance, have before now prepared this peculiar dose for themselves—the + dose of the lady silent under a sort of pardoning grand accusation; and + they have had to drink it, and they have blinked over the tonic draught + with such power of taking a bracing as their constitutions could summon. + At no moment of their quaint mutual history are the sexes to be seen + standing more acutely divided. Well may the lady be silent; her little + sins are magnified to herself to the proportion of the greatness of heart + forgiving her; and that, with his mysterious penetration and a throb of + her conscience, holds her tongue-tied. She does not imagine the effect of + her silence upon the magnanimous wretch. Some of these lovers, it has to + be stated in sadness for the good name of man, have not preserved an + attitude that said so nobly, ‘Child, thou art human—thou art woman!’ + They have undone it and gone to pieces with an injured lover’s babble of + persecuting inquiries for confessions. Some, on the contrary, retaining + the attitude, have been unable to digest the tonic; they did not prepare + their systems as they did their dose, possibly thinking the latter a + supererogatory heavy thump on a trifle, the which was performed by them + artfully for a means of swallowing and getting that obnoxious trifle well + down. These are ever after love’s dyspeptics. Very few indeed continue at + heart in harmony with their opening note to the silent fair, because in + truth the general anticipation is of her proclaiming, if not angelical + innocence, a softly reddened or blush-rose of it, where the little + guiltiness lies pathetic on its bed of white. + </p> + <p> + Alvan’s robustness of temper, as a conqueror pleased with his capture, + could inspirit him to feel as he said it: + </p> + <p> + ‘I know all; what matters that to me?’ Even her silence, extending the + ‘all’ beyond limits, as it did to the over-knowing man, who could number + these indicative characteristics of the young woman: impulsive, without + will, readily able to lie: her silence worked no discord in him. He would + have remarked, that he was not looking out for a saint, but rather for a + sprightly comrade, perfectly feminine, thoroughly mastered, young, + graceful, comely, and a lady of station. Once in his good keeping, her + lord would answer for her. And this was a manfully generous view of the + situation. It belongs to the robustness of the conqueror’s mood. But how + of his opinion of her character in the fret of a baffling, a repulse, a + defeat? Supposing the circumstances not to have helped her to shine as a + heroine, while he was reduced to appear no hero to himself! Wise are the + mothers who keep vigilant personal watch over their girls, were it only to + guard them at present, from the gentleman’s condescending generosity, + until he has become something more than robust in his ideas of the sex—say, + for lack of the ringing word, fraternal. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde never knew, and Alvan would have been unable to date, the origin + of the black thing flung at her in time to come—when the man was + frenzied, doubtless, but it was in his mind, and more than froth of + madness. + </p> + <p> + After the night of the ball they met beneath the sanctioning roof of the + amiable professor; and on one occasion the latter, perhaps waxing anxious, + and after bringing about the introduction of Clotilde to the sister of + Alvan, pursued his prudent measures bypassing the pair through a + demi-ceremony of betrothal. It sprang Clotilde astride nearer to reality, + both actually and in feeling; and she began to show the change at home. A + rebuff that came of the coupling of her name with Alvan’s pushed her back + as far below the surface as she had ever been. She waited for him to take + the step she had again implored him not yet to take; she feared that he + would, she marvelled at his abstaining; the old wheel revolved, as it ever + does with creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change they + cannot work for themselves; and once more the two fell asunder. She had + thoughts of the cloister. Her venerable relative died joining her hand to + Prince Marko’s; she was induced to think of marriage. An illness laid her + prostrate; she contemplated the peace of death. + </p> + <p> + Shortly before she fell sick the prince was a guest of her father’s, and + had won the household by his perfect amiability as an associate. The grace + and glow, and some of the imaginable accomplishments of an Indian Bacchus + were native to him. In her convalescence, she asked herself what more she + could crave than the worship of a godlike youth, whom she in return might + cherish, strengthening his frail health with happiness. For she had seen + how suffering ate him up; he required no teaching in the Spartan virtue of + suffering, wolf-gnawed, silently. But he was a flower in sunshine to + happiness, and he looked to her for it. Why should she withhold from him a + thing so easily given? The convalescent is receptive and undesiring, or + but very faintly desiring: the new blood coming into the frame like first + dawn of light has not stirred the old passions; it is infant nature, with + a tinge of superadded knowledge that is not cloud across it and lends it + only a tender wistfulness. + </p> + <p> + Her physician sentenced her to the Alps, whither a friend, a daughter of + our island, whose acquaintance she had made in Italy, was going, and at an + invitation Clotilde accompanied her, and she breathed Alpine air. Marko + sank into the category of dreams during sickness. There came a letter from + the professor mentioning that Alvan was on one of the kingly Alpine + heights in view, and the new blood running through her veins became a + torrent. He there! So near! Could he not be reached? + </p> + <p> + He had a saying: Two wishes make a will. + </p> + <p> + The wishes of two lovers, he meant. A prettier sentence for lovers, and + one more intoxicating to them, was never devised. It chirrups of the dear + silly couple. Well, this was her wish. Was it his? Young health on the + flow of her leaping blood cried out that it could not be other than + Alvan’s wish; she believed in his wishing it. Then as he wished and she + wished, she had the will immediately, and it was all the more her own for + being his as well. She hurried her friend and her friend’s friends on + horseback off to the heights where the wounded eagle lodged overlooking + mountain and lake. The professor reported him outwearied with excess of + work. Alvan lived the lives of three; the sins of thirty were laid to his + charge. Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? Her reckless defence of + him, half spoken, half in her mind, helped her to comprehend his dealings + with her, and how it was that he stormed her and consented to be beaten. + He had a thousand occupations, an ambition out of the world of love, + chains to break, temptations, leanings... tut, tut! She had not lived in + her circle of society, and listened to the tales of his friends and + enemies, and been the correspondent of flattering and flattered men of + learning, without understanding how a man like Alvan found diversions when + forbidden to act in a given direction: and now that her healthful new + blood inspired the courage to turn two wishes to a will, she saw both + herself and him very clearly, enough at least to pardon the man more than + she did herself. She had perforce of her radiant new healthfulness arrived + at an exact understanding of him. Where she was deluded was in supposing + that she would no longer dread his impetuous disposition to turn rosy + visions into facts. But she had the revived convalescent’s ardour to + embrace things positive while they were not knocking at the door; dreams + were abhorrent to her, tasteless and innutritious; she cast herself on the + flood, relying on his towering strength and mastery of men and events to + bring her to some safe landing—the dream of hearts athirst for + facts. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + Alvan was at his writing-table doing stout gladiator’s work on paper in a + chamber of one of the gaunt hotels of the heights, which are Death’s Heads + there in Winter and have the tongues in Summer, when a Swiss lad entered + with a round grin to tell him that a lady on horseback below had asked for + him—Dr. Alvan. Who could the lady be? He thought of too many. The + thought of Clotilde was dismissed in its dimness. Issuing and beholding + her, his face became illuminated as by a stroke of sunlight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Clotilde! by all the holiest!’ + </p> + <p> + She smiled demurely, and they greeted. + </p> + <p> + She admired the look of rich pleasure shining through surprise in him. Her + heart thanked him for appearing so handsome before her friends. + </p> + <p> + ‘I was writing,’ said he. ‘Guess to whom?—I had just finished my + political stuff, and fell on a letter to the professor and another for an + immediate introduction to your father.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘True?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The truth, as you shall see. So, you have come, you have found me! This + time if I let you slip, may I be stamped slack-fingered!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘“Two wishes make a will,” you say.’ + </p> + <p> + He answered her with one of his bursts of brightness. + </p> + <p> + Her having sought him he read for the frank surrender which he was ready + to match with a loyal devotion to his captive. Her coming cleared + everything. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde introduced him to her friends, and he was enrolled a member of + the party. His appearance was that of a man to whom the sphinx has + whispered. They ascended to the topmost of the mountain stages, to another + caravanserai of tourists, whence the singular people emerge in morning + darkness night-capped and blanketed, and behold the great orb of day at + his birth—he them. + </p> + <p> + Walking slowly beside Clotilde on the mountain way, Alvan said: ‘Two + wishes! Mine was in your breast. You wedded yours to it. At last!—and + we are one. Not a word more of time lost. My wish is almost a will in + itself—was it not?—and has been wooing yours all this while!—till + the sleeper awakened, the well-spring leapt up from the earth; and our two + wishes united dare the world to divide them. What can? My wish was your + destiny, yours is mine. We are one.’ He poetized on his passion, and + dramatized it: ‘Stood you at the altar, I would pluck you from the man + holding your hand! There is no escape for you. Nay, into the vaults, were + you to grow pale and need my vital warmth—down to the vaults! Speak—or + no: look! That will do. You hold a Titan in your eyes, like metal in the + furnace, to turn him to any shape you please, liquid or solid. You make + him a god: he is the river Alvan or the rock Alvan: but fixed or flowing, + he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you must, if you have + this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: if you raise him to + heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes! They can melt granite, + they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And now flutter, for there is + that in me to make them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Consider!’ Clotilde flutteringly entreated him. + </p> + <p> + ‘The world? you dear heaven of me! Looking down on me does not compromise + you, and I am not ashamed of my devotions. I sat in gloom: you came: I saw + my goddess and worshipped. The world, Lutece, the world is a variable + monster; it rends the weak whether sincere or false; but those who weld + strength with sincerity may practise their rites of religion publicly, and + it fawns to them, and bellows to imitate. Nay, I say that strength in love + is the sole sincerity, and the world knows it, muffs it in the air about + us, and so we two are privileged. Politically also we know that strength + is the one reality: the rest is shadow. Behind the veil of our human + conventions power is constant as ever, and to perceive the fact is to have + the divining rod-to walk clear of shams. He is the teacher who shows where + power exists: he is the leader who wakens and forms it. Why have I + unfailingly succeeded?—I never doubted! The world voluntarily opens + a path to those who step determinedly. You—to your honour?—I + won’t decide—but you have the longest in my experience resisted. I + have a Durandal to hew the mountain walls; I have a voice for ears, a net + for butterflies, a hook for fish, and desperation to plunge into marshes: + but the feu follet will not be caught. One must wait—wait till her + desire to have a soul bids her come to us. She has come! A soul is hers: + and see how, instantly, the old monster, the world, which has no soul—not + yet: we are helping it to get one—becomes a shadow, powerless to + stop or overawe. For I do give you a soul, think as you will of it. I give + you strength to realize, courage to act. It is the soul that does things + in this life—the rest is vapour. How do we distinguish love?—as + we do music by the pure note won from resolute strings. The tense chord is + music, and it is love. This higher and higher mountain air, with you + beside me, sweeps me like a harp.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! talk on, talk on! talk ever! do not cease talking to me!’ exclaimed + Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + ‘You feel the mountain spirit?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I feel that you reveal it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me the books you have been reading.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, light literature-poor stuff.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When we two read together you will not say that. Light literature is the + garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; the view + within us as well as without. Our blood runs through it, our history in + the quick. The Philistine detests it, because he has no view, out or in. + The dry confess they are cut off from the living tree, peeled and sapless, + when they condemn it. The vulgar demand to have their pleasures in their + own likeness—and let them swamp their troughs! they shall not + degrade the fame of noble fiction. We are the choice public, which will + have good writing for light reading. Poet, novelist, essayist, dramatist, + shall be ranked honourable in my Republic. I am neither, but a man of law, + a student of the sciences, a politician, on the road to government and + statecraft: and yet I say I have learnt as much from light literature as + from heavy-as much, that is, from the pictures of our human blood in + motion as from the clever assortment of our forefatherly heaps of bones. + Shun those who cry out against fiction and have no taste for elegant + writing. For to have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a + mind: it is a test. But name the books.’ + </p> + <p> + She named one or two. + </p> + <p> + ‘And when does Dr. Alvan date the first year of his Republic?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Clotilde!’ he turned on her. + </p> + <p> + ‘My good sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘These worthy good people who are with you: tell me-to-morrow we leave + them!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Leave them?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You with me. No more partings. The first year, the first day shall be + dated from to-morrow. You and I proclaim our Republic on these heights. + All the ceremonies to follow. We will have a reaping of them, and make a + sheaf to present to the world with compliments. To-morrow!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You do not speak seriously?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I jest as little as the Talmud. Decide at once, in the happy flush of + this moment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot listen to you, dear sir!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But your heart beats!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am not mistress of it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Call me master of it. I make ready for to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No! no! no! A thousand times no! You have been reading too much fiction + and verse. Properly I should spurn you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you fail me, play feu follet, ward me off again?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I must be won by rules, brave knight!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you be won?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And are you he—the Alvan who would not be centaur?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am he who chased a marsh-fire, and encountered a retiarius, and the + meshes are on my head and arms. I fancied I dealt with a woman; a woman + needing protection! She has me fast—I am netted, centaur or man. + That is between us two. But think of us facing the world, and trust me; + take my hand, take the leap; I am the best fighter in that fight. Trust it + to me, and all your difficulties are at an end. To fly solves the + problem.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed, indeed, I have more courage than I had,’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + His eyes dilated, steadied, speculated, weighed her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Put it to proof while you can believe in it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it every one but you thinks me bold?’ she complained. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I carry a touchstone that brings out the truth. I am your + reality: all others are phantoms. You can impose on them, not on me. + Courage for one inspired plunge you may have, and it will be your + salvation:—southward, over to Italy, that is the line of flight, and + the subsequent struggle will be mine: you will not have to face it. But + the courage for daily contention at home, standing alone, while I am + distant and maligned—can you fancy your having that? No! be wise of + what you really are; cast the die for love, and mount away tomorrow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then,’ said Clotilde, with elvish cunning, ‘do you doubt your ability to + win me without a scandal?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Back me, and I win you!’ he replied in a tone of unwonted humility: a + sudden droop. + </p> + <p> + She let her hand fall. He grasped it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Gradations appear to be unknown to you,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + He cried out: ‘Count the years of life, span them, think of the work to be + done, and ask yourself whether time and strength should run to waste in + retarding the inevitable? Pottering up steps that can be taken at one + bound is very well for peasant pilgrims whose shrine is their bourne, and + their kneecaps the footing stumps. But for us two life begins up there. + Onward, and everywhere around, when we two are together, is our shrine. I + have worked, and wasted life; I have not lived, and I thirst to live.’ + </p> + <p> + She murmured, in a fervour, ‘You shall!’ and slipped behind her defences. + ‘To-morrow morning we shall wander about; I must have a little time; all + to-morrow morning we can discuss plans.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know you command me,’ said he, and gazed at her. + </p> + <p> + She was really a child compared with him in years, and if it was an excuse + for taking her destiny into his hands, she consenting,—it was also a + reason why he dared not press his whole weight to win her to the step. + </p> + <p> + She had the pride of the secret knowledge of her command of this giant at + the long table of the guests at dinner, where, after some play of knife + and fork among notable professors, Prussian officers, lively Frenchmen and + Italians, and the usual over-supply of touring English of both sexes, not + encouraging to conversation in their look of pallid disgust of the art, + Alvan started general topics and led them. The lead came to him naturally, + because he was a natural speaker, of a mind both stored and effervescent; + and he was genial, interested in every growth of life. She did not wonder + at his popularity among men of all classes and sets, or that he should be + famed for charming women. Her friend was enraptured with him. Friendly + questions pressed in an evening chatter between the ladies, and Clotilde + fenced, which is half a confession. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you are not engaged?’ said the blunt Englishwoman. + </p> + <p> + According to the explanation, Clotilde was hardly engaged. It was not an + easy thing to say how she stood definitely. She had obeyed her dying + relative and dearest on earth by joining her hand to Prince Marko’s, and + had pleased her parents by following it up with the kindest attentions to + the prince. It had been done, however, for the sake of peace; and chiefly + for his well-being. She had reserved her full consent: the plighting was + incomplete. Prince Marko knew that there was another, a magical person, a + genius of the ring, irresistible. He had been warned, that should the + other come forth to claim her.... And she was about to write to him this + very night to tell him... tell him fully.... In truth, she loved both, but + each so differently! And both loved her! And she had to make her choice of + one, and tell the prince she did love him, but... Dots are the best of + symbols for rendering cardisophistical subtleties intelligible, and as + they are much used in dialogue, one should have now and then permission to + print them. Especially feminine dialogue referring to matters of the + uncertain heart takes assistance from troops of dots; and not to + understand them at least as well as words, when words have as it were + conducted us to the brink of expression, and shown us the precipice, is to + be dull, bucolic of the marketplace. + </p> + <p> + Sunless rose the morning. The blanketed figures went out to salute a + blanketed sky. Drizzling they returned, images of woefulness in various + forms, including laughter’s. Alvan frankly declared himself the + disappointed showman; he had hoped for his beloved to see the sight long + loved by him of golden chariot and sun-steeds crossing the peaks and the + lakes; and his disappointment became consternation on hearing Clotilde’s + English friend (after objection to his pagan clothing of the solemn + reality of sunrise, which destroyed or minimized by too materially + defining a grandeur that derived its essence from mystery, she thought) + announce the hour for her departure. He promised her a positive sunrise if + she would delay. Her child lay recovering from an illness in the town + below, and she could not stay. But Clotilde had coughed in the damp + morning air, and it would, he urged, be dangerous for her to be exposed to + it. Had not the lady heard her cough? She had, but personally she was + obliged to go; with her child lying ill she could not remain. ‘But, madam, + do you hear that cough again? Will you drag her out with such a cough as + that?’ The lady repeated ‘My child!’ Clotilde said it had been agreed they + should descend this day; her friend must be beside her child. Alvan + thundered an ‘Impossible!’ The child was recovering; Clotilde was running + into danger: he argued with the senseless woman, opposing reason to the + feminine sentiment of the maternal, and of course he was beaten. He was + compelled to sit and gnaw his eloquence. Clotilde likened his appearance + to a strangled roar. ‘Mothers and their children are too much for me!’ he + said, penitent for his betrayal of over-urgency, as he helped to wrap her + warmly, and counselled her very mode of breathing in the raw mountain + atmosphere. + </p> + <p> + ‘I admire you for knowing when to yield,’ said she. + </p> + <p> + He groaned, with frown and laugh: ‘You know what I would beg!’ + </p> + <p> + She implored him to have some faith in her. + </p> + <p> + The missiles of the impassioned were discharged at the poor English: a + customary volley in most places where they intrude after quitting their + shores, if they diverge from the avenue of hotel-keepers and waiters: but + Clotilde pointed out to him that her English friend was not showing + coldness in devoting herself to her child. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, they attend to their duties,’ he assented generally, desperately + just. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you owe it to her that you have seen me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I do,’ he said, and forthwith courted the lady to be forgiven. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde was taken from him in a heavy downpour and trailing of mists. + </p> + <p> + At the foot of the mountain a boy handed her a letter from Alvan—a + burning flood, rolled out of him like lava after they had separated on the + second plateau, and confided to one who knew how to outstrip pathfarers. + She entered her hotel across the lake, and met a telegram. At night the + wires flashed ‘Sleep well’ to her; on her awakening, ‘Good morning.’ A + lengthened history of the day was telegraphed for her amusement. Again at + night there was a ‘God guard you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who can resist him?’ sighed Clotilde, excited, nervous, flattered, happy, + but yearning to repose and be curtained from the buzz of the excess of + life that he put about her. This time there was no prospect of his + courtship relapsing. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a wonderful, an ideal lover!’ replied her friend. + </p> + <p> + ‘If he were only that!’ said Clotilde, musing expressively. ‘If, dear + Englishwoman, he were only that, he might be withstood. But Alvan mounts + high over such lovers: he is a wonderful and ideal man: so great, so + generous, heroical, giant-like, that what he wills must be.’ + </p> + <p> + The Englishwoman was quick enough to seize an indication difficult to miss—more + was expected to be said of him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You see the perfect gentleman in Dr. Alvan,’ she remarked, for she had + heard him ordering his morning bath at the hotel, and he had also been + polite to her under vexation. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde nodded hurriedly; she saw something infinitely greater, and + disliked the bringing of that island microscope to bear upon a giant. She + found it repugnant to hear a word of Alvan as a perfect gentleman. Justly, + however, she took him for a splendid nature, and assuming upon good + authority that the greater contains the lesser, she supposed the lesser to + be a chiselled figure serviceably alive in the embrace. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK 2. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + He was down on the plains to her the second day, and as usual when they + met, it was as if they had not parted; his animation made it seem so. He + was like summer’s morning sunlight, his warmth striking instantly through + her blood dispersed any hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers + during absences, caused by girlish dread of a step to take, or shame at + the step taken, when coldish gentlemen rather create these backflowings + and gaps in the feelings. She had grown reconciled to the perturbation of + his messages, and would have preferred to have him startling and thrilling + her from a distance; but seeing him, she welcomed him, and feeling in his + bright presence not the faintest chill of the fit of shyness, she took her + bravery of heart for a sign that she had reached his level, and might own + it by speaking of the practical measures to lead to their union. On one + subject sure to be raised against him by her parents, she had a right to + be inquisitive: the baroness. + </p> + <p> + She asked to see a photograph of her. + </p> + <p> + Alvan gave her one out of his pocketbook, and watched her eyelids in + profile as she perused those features of the budless grey woman. The + eyelids in such scrutinies reveal the critical mind; Clotilde’s drooped + till they almost closed upon their lashes—deadly criticism. + </p> + <p> + ‘Think of her age,’ said Alvan, colouring. He named a grandmaternal date + for the year of the baroness’s birth. + </p> + <p> + Her eyebrows now stood up; her contemplation of those disenchanting + lineaments came to an abrupt finish. + </p> + <p> + She returned the square card to him, slowly shaking her head, still eyeing + earth as her hand stretched forth the card laterally. He could not contest + the woeful verdict. + </p> + <p> + ‘Twenty years back!’ he murmured, writhing. The baroness was a woman fair + to see in the days twenty years back, though Clotilde might think it + incredible: she really was once. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde resumed her doleful shaking of the head; she sighed. He shrugged; + she looked at him, and he blinked a little. For the first time since they + had come together she had a clear advantage, and as it was likely to be a + rare occasion, she did not let it slip. She sighed again. He was wounded + by her underestimate of his ancient conquest. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes—now,’ he said, impatiently. + </p> + <p> + ‘I cannot feel jealousy, I cannot feel rivalry,’ said she, sad of voice. + </p> + <p> + The humour of her tranced eyes in the shaking head provoked him to defend + the baroness for her goodness of heart, her energy of brain. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde ‘tolled’ her naughty head. + </p> + <p> + ‘But it is a strong face,’ she said, ‘a strong face—a strong jaw, by + Lavater! You were young—and daringly adventurous; she was + captivating in her distress. Now she is old—and you are friends.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Friends, yes,’ Alvan replied, and praised the girl, as of course she + deserved to be praised for her open mind. + </p> + <p> + ‘We are friends!’ he said, dropping a deep-chested breath. The title this + girl scornfully supplied was balm to the vanity she had stung, and his + burnt skin was too eager for a covering of any sort to examine the mood of + the giver. She had positively humbled him so far as with a single word to + relieve him; for he had seen bristling chapters in her look at the + photograph. Yet for all the natural sensitiveness of the man’s vanity, he + did not seek to bury the subject at the cost of a misconception injurious + in the slightest degree to the sentiments he entertained toward the older + lady as well as the younger. ‘Friends! you are right; good friends; only + you should know that it is just a little—a trifle different. The + fact is, I cannot kill the past, and I would not. It would try me sharply + to break the tie connecting us, were it possible to break it. I am bound + to her by gratitude. She is old now; and were she twice that age, I should + retain my feeling for her. You raise your eyes, Clotilde! Well, when I was + much younger I found this lady in desperate ill-fortune, and she honoured + me with her confidence. Young man though I was, I defended her; I stopped + at no measure to defend her: against a powerful husband, remember—the + most unscrupulous of foes, who sought to rob her of every right she + possessed. And what I did then I again would do. I was vowed to her + interests, to protect a woman shamefully wronged; I did not stick at + trifles, as you know; you have read my speech in defence of myself before + the court. By my interpretation of the case, I was justified; but I + estranged my family and made the world my enemy. I gave my time and money, + besides the forfeit of reputation, to the case, and reasonably there was + an arrangement to repay me out of the estate reserved for her, so that the + baroness should not be under the degradation of feeling herself indebted. + You will not think that out of the way: men of the world do not. As for + matters of the heart between us, we’re as far apart as the Poles.’ + </p> + <p> + He spoke hurriedly. He had said all that could be expected of him. + </p> + <p> + They were in a wood, walking through lines of spruce firs of deep golden + green in the yellow beams. One of these trees among its well-robed fellows + fronting them was all lichen-smitten. From the low sweeping branches + touching earth to the plumed top, the tree was dead-black as its shadow; a + vision of blackness. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will compose a beautiful, dutiful, modest, oddest, beseeching, + screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read it, and + if you approve it, we shall despatch it,’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + ‘There speaks my gold-crested serpent at her wisest!’ replied Alvan. ‘And + now for my visit to your family: I follow you in a day. En avant! contre + les canons! A run to Lake Leman brings us to them in the afternoon. I + shall see you in the evening. So our separation won’t be for long this + time. All the auspices are good. We shall not be rich—nor poor.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde reminded him that a portion of money would be brought to the + store by her. + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t count it,’ said he. ‘Not rich, certainly. And you will not + expect me to make money by my pen. Above all things I detest the writing + for money. Fiction and verse appeal to a besotted public, that judges of + the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And journalism + for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to the chains of + hired journalism. My pen is my fountain—the key of me; and I give my + self, I do not sell. I write when I have matter in me and in the direction + it presses for, otherwise not one word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I would never ask you to sell yourself,’ said Clotilde. ‘I would rather + be in want of common comforts.’ + </p> + <p> + He squeezed her wrist. They were again in front of the black-draped + blighted tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf bearing + a semblance of livid metal. They looked at it as having seen it before, + and passed on. + </p> + <p> + ‘But the wife of Sigismund Alvan will not be poor in renown!’ he resumed, + radiating his full bloom on her. + </p> + <p> + ‘My highest ambition is to be Sigismund Alvan’s wife!’ she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + To hear her was as good as wine, and his heart came out on a genial + chuckle. ‘Ay, the choice you have made is not, by heaven, so bad. + Sigismund Alvan’s wife shall take the foremost place of all. Look at me.’ + He lifted his head to the highest on his shoulders, widening his eagle + eyes. He was now thoroughly restored and in his own upper element, + expansive after the humiliating contraction of his man’s vanity under the + glances of a girl. ‘Do you take me for one who could be content with the + part of second? I will work and do battle unceasingly, but I will have too + the prize of battle to clasp it, savour it richly. I was not fashioned to + be the lean meek martyr of a cause, not I. I carry too decisive a weight + in the balance to victory. I have a taste for fruits, my fairest! And + Republics, my bright Lutetia, can give you splendid honours.’ He helped + her to realize this with the assuring splendour of his eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘“Bride of the Elect of the People!” is not that as glorious a title, + think you, as queen of an hereditary sovereign mumbling of God’s grace on + his worm-eaten throne? I win that seat by service, by the dedication of + this brain to the people’s interests. They have been ground to the dust, + and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am the + soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim my reward. + If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my station. I win it + not only because I serve, but because also I have seen, have seen ahead, + seen where all is dark, read the unwritten—because I am soldier and + prophet. The brain of man is Jove’s eagle and his lightning on earth—the + title to majesty henceforth. Ah! my fairest; entering the city beside me, + and the people shouting around, she would not think her choice a bad one?’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde made sign and gave some earnest on his arm of ecstatic hugging. + </p> + <p> + ‘We may have hard battles, grim deceptions, to go through before that day + comes,’ he continued after a while. ‘The day is coming, but we must wait + for it, work on. I have the secret of how to head the people—to put + a head to their movement and make it irresistible, as I believe it will be + beneficent. I set them moving on the lines of the law of things. I am no + empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of science in + politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is but a step to + the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my time, or + acknowledged later. I stand for index to the people of the path they + should take to triumph—must take, as triumph they must sooner or + later: not by the route of what is called Progress—pooh! That is a + middle-class invention to effect a compromise. With the people the matter + rests with their intelligence! meanwhile my star is bright and shines + reflected.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I notice,’ she said, favouring him with as much reflection as a splendid + lover could crave for, ‘that you never look down, you never look on the + ground, but always either up or straight before you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘People have remarked it,’ said he, smiling. ‘Here we are at this funereal + tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears to conduct us + perpetually to this tree. It ‘s the only dead one here.’ + </p> + <p> + He sighted the plumed black top and along the swelling branches decorously + clothed in decay: a salted ebon moss when seen closely; the small grey + particles giving a sick shimmer to the darkness of the mass. It was very + witch-like, of a witch in her incantation-smoke. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not a single bare spot! but dead, dead as any peeled and fallen!’ said + Alvan, fingering a tuft of the sooty snake-lichen. ‘This is a tree for a + melancholy poet—eh, Clotilde?—for him to come on it by + moonlight, after a scene with his mistress, or tales of her! By the way + and by the way, my fair darling, let me never think of your wearing this + kind of garb for me, should I be ordered off the first to join the dusky + army below. Women who put on their dead husbands in public are not + well-mannered women, though they may be excellent professional widows, + excellent!’ + </p> + <p> + He snapped the lichen-dust from his fingers, observing that he was not + sure the contrast of the flourishing and blighted was not more impressive + in sunlight: and then he looked from the tree to his true love’s hair. The + tree at a little distance seemed run over with sunless lizards: her locks + were golden serpents. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall I soon see your baroness?’ Clotilde asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not in advance of the ceremony,’ he answered. ‘In good time. You + understand—an old friend making room for a new one, and that one + young and beautiful, with golden tresses; at first...! But her heart is + quite sound. Have no fear! I guarantee it; I know her to the roots. She + desires my welfare, she does my behests. If I am bound to her by + gratitude, so, and in a greater degree, is she to me. The utmost she will + demand is that my bride shall be worthy of me—a good mate for me in + the fight to come; and I have tested my bride and found her half my heart; + therefore she passes the examination with the baroness.’ + </p> + <p> + They left the tree behind them. + </p> + <p> + ‘We will take good care not to return this way again,’ said Alvan, without + looking back. ‘That tree belongs to a plantation of the under world; its + fellows grow in the wood across Acheron, and that tree has looked into the + ghastliness of the flood and seen itself. Hecate and Hermes know about it. + Phoebus cannot light it. That tree stands for Death blooming. We think it + sinister, but down there it is a homely tree. Down there! When do we go? + The shudder in that tree is the air exchanging between Life and Death—the + ghosts going and coming: it’s on the border line. I just felt the creep. I + think you did. The reason is—there is always a material reason—that + you were warm, and a bit of chill breeze took you as you gazed; while for + my part I was imagining at that very moment what of all possible causes + might separate us, and I acknowledged that death could do the trick. But + death, my love, is far from us two!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Does she look as grimmish as she does in the photograph?’ said Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who? the baroness?’ Alvan laughed. The baroness was not so easily + defended from a girl as from her husband, it appeared. ‘She is the best of + comrades, best of friends. She has her faults; may not relish the writ + announcing her final deposition, but be you true to me, and as true as she + has unfailingly been to me, she will be to you. That I can promise. My + poor Lucie! She is winter, if you will. It is not the winter of the + steppes; you may compare her to winter in a noble country; a fine + landscape of winter. The outlines of her face.... She has a great brain. + How much I owe that woman for instruction! You meet now and then men who + have the woman in them without being womanized; they are the pick of men. + And the choicest women are those who yield not a feather of their + womanliness for some amount of manlike strength. And she is one; man’s + brain, woman’s heart. I thought her unique till I heard of you. And how do + I stand between you two? She has the only fault you can charge me with; + she is before me in time, as I am before you. Shall I spoil you as she + spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy is the recognition of the + heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as much as I love my love. I + do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, support. You will not rule + me, but you will invigorate, and if you are petted, you shall not be + spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that undertakerly tree till my years + are one hundred. Even then it will be dangerous to repose beneath my + branches in the belief that I am sapless because I have changed colour. We + Jews have a lusty blood. We are strong of the earth. We serve you, but you + must minister to us. Sensual? We have truly excellent appetites. And why + not? Heroical too! Soldiers, poets, musicians; the Gentile’s masters in + mental arithmetic—keenest of weapons: surpassing him in common sense + and capacity for brotherhood. Ay, and in charity; or what stores of + vengeance should we not have nourished! Already we have the money-bags. + Soon we shall hold the chief offices. And when the popular election is as + unimpeded as the coursing of the blood in a healthy body, the Jew shall be + foremost and topmost, for he is pre-eminently by comparison the brain of + these latter-day communities. But that is only my answer to the brutish + contempt of the Jew. I am no champion of a race. I am for the world, for + man!’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde remarked that he had many friends, all men of eminence, and a + large following among the people. + </p> + <p> + He assented: ‘Yes: Tresten, Retka, Kehlen, the Nizzian. Yes, if I were + other than for legality:—if it came to a rising, I could tell off + able lieutenants.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me of your interview with Ironsides,’ she said proudly and fondly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Would this ambitious little head know everything?’ said Alvan, putting + his lips among the locks. ‘Well, we met: he requested it. We agreed that + we were on neutral ground for the moment: that he might ultimately have to + decapitate me, or I to banish him, but temporarily we could compare our + plans for governing. He showed me his hand. I showed him mine. We played + open-handed, like two at whist. He did not doubt my honesty, and I + astonished him by taking him quite in earnest. He has dealt with + diplomatists, who imagine nothing but shuffling: the old Ironer! I love + him for his love of common sense, his contempt of mean deceit. He will + outwit you, but his dexterity is a giant’s—a simple evolution + rapidly performed: and nothing so much perplexes pygmies! Then he has + them, bagsful of them! The world will see; and see giant meet giant, I + suspect. He and I proposed each of us in the mildest manner contrary + schemes—schemes to stiffen the hair of Europe! Enough that we parted + with mutual respect. He is a fine fellow: and so was my friend the Emperor + Tiberius, and so was Richelieu. Napoleon was a fine engine:—there is + a difference. Yes, Ironsides is a fine fellow! but he and I may cross. His + ideas are not many. The point to remember is that he is iron on them: he + can drive them hard into the density of the globe. He has quick nerves and + imagination: he can conjure up, penetrate, and traverse complications—an + enemy’s plans, all that the enemy will be able to combine, and the + likeliest that he will do. Good. We opine that we are equal to the same. + He is for kingcraft to mask his viziercraft—and save him the labour + of patiently attempting oratory and persuasion, which accomplishment he + does not possess:—it is not in iron. We think the more precious + metal will beat him when the broader conflict comes. But such an adversary + is not to be underrated. I do not underrate him: and certainly not he me. + Had he been born with the gifts of patience and a fluent tongue, and not a + petty noble, he might have been for the people, as knowing them the + greater power. He sees that their knowledge of their power must eventually + come to them. In the meantime his party is forcible enough to assure him + he is not fighting a losing game at present: and he is, no doubt, by + lineage and his traditions monarchical. He is curiously simple, not really + cynical. His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability. His contemptuous + phrases are directed against obstacles: against things, persons, nations + that oppose him or cannot serve his turn against his king, if his king is + restive; but he respects his king: against your friends’ country, because + there is no fixing it to a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; + but he likes that country the best in Europe after his own. He is nearest + to contempt in his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out + of his mind when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken + up again when they are of use to him. Hence he will have no following. But + let me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives. In him you see + the dam, in me the stream. Judge, then, which of them gains the future!—admitting + that, in the present he may beat me. He is a Prussian, stoutly defined + from a German, and yet again a German stoutly defined from our borderers: + and that completes him. He has as little the idea of humanity as the sword + of our Hermann, the cannon-ball of our Frederick. Observe him. What an eye + he has! I watched it as we were talking: and he has, I repeat, + imagination; he can project his mind in front of him as far as his + reasoning on the possible allows: and that eye of his flashes; and not + only flashes, you see it hurling a bolt; it gives me the picture of a + Balearic slinger about to whizz the stone for that eye looks far, and is + hard, and is dead certain of its mark-within his practical compass, as I + have said. I see farther, and I fancy I proved to him that I am not a + dreamer. In my opinion, when we cross our swords I stand a fair chance of + not being worsted. We shall: you shrink? Figuratively, my darling have no + fear! Combative as we may be, both of us, we are now grave seniors, we + have serious business: a party looks to him, my party looks to me. Never + need you fear that I shall be at sword or pistol with any one. I will + challenge my man, whoever he as that needs a lesson, to touch buttons on a + waistcoat with the button on the foil, or drill fiver and eights in cards + at twenty paces: but I will not fight him though he offend me, for I am + stronger than my temper, and as I do not want to take his nip of life, and + judge it to be of less value than mine, the imperilling of either is an + absurdity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! because I know you are incapable of craven fear,’ cried Clotilde, + answering aloud the question within herself of why she so much admired, + why she so fondly loved him. To feel his courage backing his high good + sense was to repose in security, and her knowledge that an astute + self-control was behind his courage assured her he was invincible. It + seemed to her, therefore, as they walked side by side, and she saw their + triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should instantly + take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican Princess. She + walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of her being the + mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and she thrilled + gratefully to the man who sustained her and shielded her on that eminence. + Elect of the people he! and by a vaster power than kings can summon + through the trumpet! She could surely pass through the trial with her + parents that she might step to the place beside him! She pressed his arm + to be physically a sharer of his glory. Was it love? It was as lofty a + stretch as her nature could strain to. + </p> + <p> + She named the city on the shores of the great Swiss lake where her parents + were residing; she bade him follow her thither, and name the hotel where + he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. ‘Am I not precise as + an office clerk?’ she said, with a pleasant taste of the reality her + preciseness pictured. + </p> + <p> + ‘Practical as the head of a State department,’ said he, in good faith. + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall not keep you waiting,’ she resumed. + </p> + <p> + ‘The sooner we are together after the action opens the better for our + success, my golden crest!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have no misgivings, Sigismund. You have transformed me. A spark of you is + in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to appear. + But you will come, you will be there, I know. I know you so entirely.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As a rule, Lutetia, women know no more than half of a man even when they + have married him. At least you ought to know me. You know that if I were + to exercise my will firmly now—it would not waver if I called it + forth—I could carry you off and spare you the flutter you will have + to go through during our interlude with papa and mama.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I almost wish you would,’ said she. She looked half imploringly, biting + her lip to correct the peeping wish. + </p> + <p> + Alvan pressed a finger on one of her dimples: ‘Be brave. Flight and + defiance are our last resource. Now that I see you resolved I shun the + scandal, and we will leave it to them to insist on it, if it must be. How + can you be less than resolved after I have poured my influence into your + veins? The other day on the heights—had you consented then? Well! it + would have been very well, but not so well. We two have a future, and are + bound to make the opening chapters good sober reading, for an example, if + we can. I take you from your father’s house, from your mother’s arms, from + the “God speed” of your friends. That is how Alvan’s wife should be + presented to the world.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde’s epistle to the baroness was composed, approved, and despatched. + To a frigid eye it read as more hypocritical than it really was; for + supposing it had to be written, the language of the natural impulse called + up to write it was necessarily in request, and that language is easily + overdone, so as to be discordant with the situation, while it is, as the + writer feels, a fairly true and well-formed expression of the pretty + impulse. But wiser is it always that the star in the ascendant should not + address the one waning. Hardly can a word be uttered without grossly + wounding. She would not do it to a younger rival: the letter strikes on + the recipient’s age! She babbles of a friendship: she plays at childish + ninny! The display of her ingenuous happiness causes feminine nature’s + bosom to rise in surges. The declarations of her devotedness to the man + waken comparisons with a deeper, a longer-tried suffering. Actually the + letter of the rising star assumes personal feeling to have died out of the + abandoned luminary, and personal feeling is chafed to its acutest edge by + the perusal; contempt also of one who can stupidly simulate such + innocence, is roused. + </p> + <p> + Among Alvan’s gifts the understanding of women did not rank high. He was + too robust, he had been too successful. Your very successful hero regards + them as nine-pins destined to fall, the whole tuneful nine, at a peculiar + poetical twist of the bowler’s wrist, one knocking down the other—figuratively, + for their scruples, or for their example with their sisters. His tastes + had led him into the avenues of success, and as he had not encountered + grand resistances, he entertained his opinion of their sex. The particular + maxim he cherished was, to stake everything on his making a favourable + first impression: after which single figure, he said, all your empty + naughts count with women for hundreds, thousands, millions: noblest + virtues are but sickly units. He would have stared like any Philistine at + the tale of their capacity to advance to a likeness unto men in their + fight with the world. Women for him were objects to be chased, the + politician’s relaxation, taken like the sportsman’s business, with keen + relish both for the pursuit and the prey, and a view of the termination of + his pastime. Their feelings he could appreciate during the time when they + flew and fell, perhaps a little longer; but the change in his own feelings + withdrew him from the communion of sentiment. This is the state of men who + frequent the avenues of success. At present he was thinking of a wife, and + he approved the epistle to the baroness cordially. + </p> + <p> + ‘I do think it a nice kind of letter, and quite humble enough,’ said + Clotilde. + </p> + <p> + He agreed, ‘Yes, yes: she knows already that this is really serious with + me.’ + </p> + <p> + So much for the baroness. + </p> + <p> + Now for their parting. A parting that is no worse than the turning of a + page to a final meeting is made light of, but felt. Reason is all in our + favour, and yet the gods are jealous of the bliss of mortals; the slip + between the cup and the lip is emotionally watched for, even though it be + not apprehended, when the cup trembles for very fulness. Clotilde required + reassuring and comforting: ‘I am certain you will prevail; you must; you + cannot be resisted; I stand to witness to the fact,’ she sighed in a + languor: ‘only, my people are hard to manage. I see more clearly now, that + I have imposed on them; and they have given away by a sort of compact so + long as I did nothing decisive. That I see. But, then again, have I not + your spirit in me now? What has ever resisted you?—Then, as I am + Alvan’s wife, I share his heart with his fortunes, and I do not really + dread the scenes from anticipating failure, still-the truth is, I fear I + am three parts an actress, and the fourth feels itself a shivering morsel + to face reality. No, I do not really feel it, but press my hand, I shall + be true—I am so utterly yours: and because I have such faith in you. + You never, yet have failed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Never: and it is impossible for me to conceive it,’ said Alvan + thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + His last word to her on her departure was ‘Courage!’ Hers to him was + conveyed by the fondest of looks. She had previously said ‘To-morrow!’ to + remind him of his appointment to be with her on the morrow, and herself + that she would not long stand alone. She did not doubt of her courage + while feasting on the beauty of one of the acknowledged strong men of + earth. She kissed her hand, she flung her heart to him from the waving + fingers. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his + tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her. All the rest to + come was mere business matter of the conflict, scarcely calling for a plan + of action. Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move? Husbands + have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and the parents + are not dealing with the same kind of woman, you see the same elemental + power in her under both conditions of rebel wife and rebel daughter to + break conventional laws, and be splendidly irrational. That is, if she can + be decided: in other words, aimed at a mark and inflamed to fly the + barriers intercepting. He fancied he had achieved it. Alvan thanked his + fortune that he had to treat with parents. The consolatory sensation of a + pure intent soothed his inherent wildness, in the contemplation of the + possibility that the latter might be roused by those people, her parents, + to upset his honourable ambition to win a wife after the fashion of + orderly citizens. It would be on their heads! But why vision mischance? An + old half-jesting prophecy of his among his friends, that he would not pass + his fortieth year, rose upon his recollection without casting a shadow. + Lo, the reckless prophet about to marry! + </p> + <p> + No dark bride, no skeleton, no colourless thing, no lichened tree, was + she. Not Death, my friends, but Life, is the bride of this doomed fortieth + year! Was animation ever vivider in contrast with obstruction? Her hair + would kindle the frosty shades to a throb of vitality: it would be + sunshine in the subterranean sphere. The very thinking of her dispersed + that realm of the poison hue, and the eternally inviting phosphorescent, + still, curved forefinger, which says, ‘Come.’ + </p> + <p> + To think of her as his vernal bride, while the snowy Alps were a celestial + garden of no sunset before his eyes, was to have the taste of mortal life + in the highest. He wondered how it was that he could have waited so long + for her since the first night of their meeting, and he just distinguished + the fact that he lived with the pulses of the minutes, much as she did, + only more fierily. The ceaseless warfare called politics must have been + the distraction: he forgot any other of another kind. He was a bridegroom + for whom the rosed Alps rolled out, a panorama of illimitable felicity. + And there were certain things he must overcome before he could name his + bride his own, so that his innate love of contention, which had been + constantly flattered by triumph, brought, his whole nature into play with + the prospect of the morrow: not much liking it either. There is a nerve, + in brave warriors that does not like the battle before, the crackle of + musketry is heard, and the big artillery. + </p> + <p> + Methodically, according to his habit, he jotted down the hours of the + trains, the hotel mentioned by Clotilde, the address of her father; he + looked to his card-case, his writing materials, his notes upon Swiss law; + considering that the scene would be in Switzerland, and he was a lawyer + bent on acting within and up to the measure of the law as well as pleading + eloquently. The desire to wing a telegram to her he thought it wise to + repress, and he found himself in consequence composing verses, turgid + enough, even to his own judgement. Poets would have failed at such a time, + and he was not one, but an orator enamoured. He was a wild man, cased in + the knowledge of jurisprudence, and wishing to enter the ranks of the + soberly blissful. These he could imagine that he complimented by the wish. + Then why should he doubt of his fortune? He did not. + </p> + <p> + The night passed, the morning came, and carried him on his journey. Late + in the afternoon he alighted at the hotel he called Clotilde’s. A letter + was handed to him. His eyes all over the page caught the note of it for + her beginning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. ‘And now my + turn!’ said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and + baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him. + But Clotilde’s parents were yet to learn that this Jew, demagogue, and + champion of an injured lady, was a gentleman respectful to their legal and + natural claims upon their child while maintaining his own: they were to + know him and change their tone. + </p> + <p> + As he was reading the letter upstairs by sentences, his door opened at the + answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield’s welcome to the + birdlike applicant for admission. Clotilde stood hesitating. + </p> + <p> + He sent the introducing waiter speeding on his most kellnerish legs, and + drew her in. + </p> + <p> + ‘Alvan, I have come.’ + </p> + <p> + She was like a bird in his hands, palpitating to extinction. + </p> + <p> + He bent over her: ‘What has happened?’ + </p> + <p> + Trembling, and very pale, hard in her throat she said, ‘The worst.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have spoken to them both subsequent to this?’ he shook the letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘It is hopeless.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Both to father and mother?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Both. They will not hear your name; they will not hear me speak. I + repeat, it is past all hope, all chance of moving them. They hate—hate + you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once and + followed my letter; I ran through the streets; I pant for want of breath, + not want of courage. I prove I have it, Alvan; I have done all I can do. + </p> + <p> + She was enfolded; she sank on the nest, dropping her eyelids. + </p> + <p> + But he said nothing. She looked up at him. Her strained pale eyes provoked + a closer embrace. + </p> + <p> + ‘This would be the home for you if we were flying,’ said he, glancing + round at the room, with a sensation like a shudder, ‘Tell me what there is + to be told.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Alvan, I have; that is all. They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what + possesses them!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They have not met me yet!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They will not, will not ever—no!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They must.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They refuse. Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested. + Take me—take me away!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Run?—facing the enemy?’ His countenance was the fiery laugh of a + thirster for strife. ‘They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made of!’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion. ‘I found + them celebrating the betrothal of my sister Lotte with the Austrian Count + Walburg; I thought it favourable for us. I spoke of you to my mother. Oh, + that scene! What she said I cannot recollect: it was a hiss. Then my + father. Your name changed his features and his voice. They treated me as + impure for mentioning it. You must have deadly enemies. I was unable to + recognize either father or mother—they have become transformed. But + you see I am here. Courage! you said; and I determined I would show it, + and be worthy of you. But I am pursued, I am sure. My father is powerful + in this place; we shall barely have time to escape.’ + </p> + <p> + Alvan’s resolution was taken. + </p> + <p> + ‘Some friend—a lady living in the city here—name her, quick!—one + you can trust,’ he said, and fondled her hastily, much as a gentle kind of + drillmaster straightens a fair pupil’s shoulders. ‘Yes, you have shown + courage. Now it must be submission to me. You shall be no runaway bride, + but honoured at the altar. Out of this hotel is the first point. You know + some such lady?’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde tried to remonstrate and to suggest. She could have prophesied + certain evil from any evasion of the straight line of flight; she was so + sure of it because of her intuition that her courage had done its utmost + in casting her on him, and that the remainder within her would be a + drawing back. She could not get the word or even the look to encounter his + close and warm imperiousness; and, hesitating, she noticed where they were + together alone. She could not refuse the protection he offered in a person + of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where they were + together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of entreating a + man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged to it. She felt + herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a Madame Emerly, + living near the hotel. Her heart sank like a stone. ‘It is for you!’ cried + Alvan, keenly sensible of his loss and his generosity in temporarily + resigning her—for a subsequent triumph. ‘But my wife shall not be + snatched by a thief in the night. Are you not my wife—my golden + bride? And you may give me this pledge of it, as if the vows had just been + uttered... and still I resign you till we speak the vows. It shall not be + said of Alvan’s wife, in the days of her glory, that she ran to her + nuptials through rat-passages.’ + </p> + <p> + His pride in his prevailingness thrilled her. She was cooled by her + despondency sufficiently to perceive where the centre of it lay, but that + centre of self was magnificent; she recovered some of her enthusiasm, + thinking him perhaps to be acting rightly; in any case they were united, + her step was irrevocable. Her having entered the hotel, her being in this + room, certified to that. It seemed to her while she was waiting for the + carriage he had ordered that she was already half a wife. She was not + conscious of a blush. The sprite in the young woman’s mind whispered of + fire not burning when one is in the heart of it. And undoubtedly, + contemplated from the outside, this room was the heart of fire. An impulse + to fall on Alvan’s breast and bless him for his chivalrousness had to be + kept under lest she should wreck the thing she praised. Otherwise she was + not ill at ease. Alvan summoned his gaiety, all his homeliness of tone, to + give her composure, and on her quitting the room she was more than ever + bound to him, despite her gloomy foreboding. A maid of her household, a + middle-aged woman, gabbling of devotion to her, ran up the steps of the + hotel. Her tale was, that the General had roused the city in pursuit of + his daughter; and she heard whither Clotilde was going. + </p> + <p> + Within half an hour, Clotilde was in Madame Emerly’s drawing-room relating + her desperate history of love and parental tyranny, assisted by the lover + whom she had introduced. Her hostess promised shelter and exhibited + sympathy. The whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew Alvan by + reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and menacingly in + politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing tongue, and the signal + proof of his respect for the lady of his love and deference toward her + family, won her personally. She promised the best help she could give + them. They were certainly in a romantic situation, such as few women could + see and decline their aid to the lovers. + </p> + <p> + Madame Emerly proved at least her sincerity before many minutes had + passed. + </p> + <p> + Chancing to look out into the street, she saw Clotilde’s mother and her + betrothed sister stepping up to the house. What was to be done? And was + the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, but Alvan + cried louder: ‘Heaven-directed! and so, let me see her and speak to her—nothing + could be better.’ + </p> + <p> + Madame Emerly took mute counsel of Clotilde, shaking her own head + premonitorily; and then she said: ‘I think indeed it will be safer, if I + am asked, to say you are not here, and I know not where you are.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes! yes!’ Clotilde replied: ‘Oh! do that.’ + </p> + <p> + She half turned to Alvan, rigid with an entreaty that hung on his coming + voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘No!’ said Alvan, shocked in both pride and vanity. ‘Plain-dealing; no + subterfuge! Begin with foul falsehood? No. I would not have you burdened, + madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our account. And when + it would be bad policy?... Oh, no, worse than the sin! as the honest cynic + says. We will go down to Madame von Rudiger, and she shall make + acquaintance with the man who claims her daughter’s hand.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde rocked in an agony. Her friend was troubled. Both ladies knew + what there would be to encounter better than he. But the man, strong in + his belief in himself, imposed his will on them. + </p> + <p> + Alvan and Clotilde clasped hands as they went downstairs to Madame + Emerly’s reception room. She could hardly speak: ‘Do not forsake me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is this forsaking?’ He could ask it in the deeply questioning tone which + supplies the answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Alvan!’ She would have said: ‘Be warned.’ + </p> + <p> + He kissed her fingers. ‘Trust to me.’ + </p> + <p> + She had to wrap her shivering spirit in a blind reliance and utter leaning + on him. + </p> + <p> + She could almost have said: ‘Know me better’; and she would, sincere as + her passion in its shallow vessel was, have been moved to say it for a + warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning + into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation (rapidly + degenerating to desperation) inspired her with the thought of her being a + part of this handsome, undaunted, triumph-flashing man. + </p> + <p> + Such a state of blind reliance and utter leaning, however, has a certain + tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doing it prepares the spirit + to be a melting prize of the winner. + </p> + <p> + Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering thus + abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring their + idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius of Power in + whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in whatsoever person. + We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be prey, we lose the soul of + election. + </p> + <p> + Mark her as she proceeds. For should her hero fail, and she be suffering + through his failure and her reliance on him, the blindness of it will seem + to her to have been an infinite virtue, anything but her deplorable + weakness crouching beneath his show of superhuman strength. And it will + seem to her, so long as her sufferings endure, that he deceived her just + expectations, and was a vain pretender to the superhuman:—for it was + only a superhuman Jew and democrat whom she could have thought of + espousing. The pusillanimous are under a necessity to be self-consoled + when they are not self-justified: it is their instinctive manner of + putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, + because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she was + ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some reason + (where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) will it + seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the conflict, + insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused the + tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason, coldest + reason, close as it ever is to the craven’s heart in its hour of trial, + whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler’s die by the swollen + conceit in his fortune rather than by his desire for the prize. That + frigid reason of the craven has red-hot perceptions. It spies the spot of + truth. Were the spot revealed in the man the whole man, then, so unerring + is the eyeshot at him, we should have only to transform ourselves into + cowards fronting a crisis to read him through and topple over the Sphinx + of life by presenting her the sum of her most mysterious creature in an + epigram. But there was as much more in Alvan than any faint-hearted thing, + seeing however keenly, could see, as there is more in the world than the + epigrams aimed at it contain. + </p> + <p> + ‘Courage!’ said he: and she tremblingly: ‘Be careful!’ And then they were + in the presence of her mother and sister. + </p> + <p> + Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. Her + mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with a + woman’s combative frown of great eyes, in which the stare is a bolt. + </p> + <p> + ‘Away with that man! I will not suffer him near me,’ she cried. + </p> + <p> + Alvan advanced to her: ‘Tell me, madame, in God’s name, what you have + against me.’ + </p> + <p> + She swung her back on him. ‘Go, sir! my husband will know how to deal with + one like you. Out of my sight, I say!’ + </p> + <p> + The brutality of this reception of Alvan nerved Clotilde. She went up to + him, and laying her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal, + said: ‘Let us go: come. I will not bear to hear you so spoken to. No one + shall treat you like that when I am near.’ + </p> + <p> + She expected him to give up the hopeless task, after such an experience of + the commencement. He did but clasp her hand, assuring the Frau von Rudiger + that no word of hers could irritate him. ‘Nothing can make me forget that + you are Clotilde’s mother. You are the mother of the lady I love, and may + say what you will to me, madame. I bear it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A man spotted with every iniquity the world abhors, and I am to see him + holding my daughter by the hand!—it is too abominable! And because + there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk + of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that which you have to do + is to go. My ears are shut. You can annoy, you can insult, you cannot move + me. Go.’ She stamped: her aspect spat. + </p> + <p> + Alvan bowed. Under perfect self-command, he said: ‘I will go at once to + Clotilde’s father. I may hope, that with a reasonable man I shall speedily + come to an understanding.’ + </p> + <p> + She retorted: ‘Enter his house, and he will have you driven out by his + lacqueys.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hardly: I am not of those men who are driven from houses,’ Alvan said, + smiling. ‘But, madame, I will act on your warning, and spare her father, + for all sakes, the attempt; seeing he does not yet know whom he deals + with. I will write to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Letters from you will be flung back unopened. + </p> + <p> + ‘It may, of course, be possible to destroy even my patience, madame.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mine, sir, is at an end.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You reduce us to rely on ourselves; it is the sole alternative.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You have not waited for that,’ rejoined Frau von Rudiger. ‘You have + already destroyed my daughter’s reputation by inducing her to leave her + father’s house and hesitate to return. Oh! you are known. You are known + for your dealings with women as well as men. We know you. We have, we pray + to God, little more to learn of you. You! ah—thief!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Thief!’ Alvan’s voice rose on hers like the clapping echo of it. She had + up the whole angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that she + had struck the wound in his history; but he was terrible to look at, so + she made the charge supportable by saying: + </p> + <p> + ‘You have stolen my child from me!’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde raised her throat, shrewish in excitement. ‘False! He did not. I + went to him of my own will, to run from your heartlessness, mother—that + I call mother!—and be out of hearing of my father’s curses and + threats. Yes, to him I fled, feeling that I belonged more to him than to + you. And never will I return to you. You have killed my love; I am this + man’s own because I love him only; him ever! him you abuse, as his partner + in life for all it may give!—as his wife! Trample on him, you + trample on me. Make black brows at your child for choosing the man, of all + men alive, to worship and follow through the world. I do. I am his. I + glory in him.’ + </p> + <p> + Her gaze on Alvan said: ‘Now!’ Was she not worthy of him now? And would + they not go forth together now? Oh! now! + </p> + <p> + Her gaze was met by nothing like the brilliant counterpart she merited. It + was as if she had offered her beauty to a glass, and found a reflection in + dull metal. He smiled calmly from her to her mother. He said: + </p> + <p> + ‘You accuse me of stealing your child, madame. You shall acknowledge that + you have wronged me. Clotilde, my Clotilde! may I count on you to do all + and everything for me? Is there any sacrifice I could ask that would be + too hard for you? Will you at one sign from me go or do as I request you?’ + </p> + <p> + She replied, in an anguish over the chilling riddle of his calmness: ‘I + will,’ but sprang out of that obedient consent, fearful of over-acting her + part of slave to him before her mother, in a ghastly apprehension of the + part he was for playing to the same audience. ‘Yes, I will do all, all + that you command. I am yours. I will go with you. Bid me do whatever you + can think of, all except bid me go back to the people I have hitherto + called mine:—not that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And that is what I have to request of you,’ said he, with his calm smile + brightening and growing more foreign, histrionic, unreadable to her. ‘And + this greatest sacrifice that you can perform for me, are you prepared to + do it? Will you?’ + </p> + <p> + She tried to decipher the mask he wore: it was proof against her imploring + eyes. ‘If you can ask me—if you can positively wish it—yes,’ + she said. ‘But think of what you are doing. Oh! Alvan, not back to them! + Think!’ + </p> + <p> + He smiled insufferably. He was bent on winning a parent-blest bride, an + unimpeachable wife, a lady handed to him instead of taken, one of the + world’s polished silver vessels. + </p> + <p> + ‘Think that you are doing this for me!’ said he. ‘It is for my sake. And + now, madame, I give you back your daughter. You see she is mine to give, + she obeys me, and I—though it can be only for a short time—give + her back to you. She goes with you purely because it is my wish: do not + forget that. And so, madame, I have the honour,’ he bowed profoundly. + </p> + <p> + He turned to Clotilde and drew her within his arm. ‘What you have done in + obedience to my wish, my beloved, shall never be forgotten. Never can I + sufficiently thank you. I know how much it has cost you. But here is the + end of your trials. All the rest is now my task. Rely on me with your + whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding. Be sure + of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of injustice I + shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that, and be not + unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit a short while to + the will of your parents: mine you will find the stronger. Resolve it in + your soul that I, your lover, cannot fail, for it is impossible to me to + waver. Consider me as the one fixed light in your world, and look to me. + Soon, then! Have patience, be true, and we are one!’ + </p> + <p> + He kissed cold lips, he squeezed an inanimate hand. The horribly empty + sublimity of his behaviour appeared to her in her mother’s contemptuous + face. + </p> + <p> + His eyes were on her as he released her and she stood alone. She seemed a + dead thing; but the sense of his having done gloriously in mastering + himself to give these worldly people of hers a lesson and proof that he + could within due measure bow to their laws and customs, dispelled the + brief vision of her unfitness to be left. The compressed energy of the man + under his conscious display of a great-minded deference to the claims of + family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of the present + achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad reputation among + these people, from whom he was about to lead forth a daughter for Alvan’s + wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his exhibition of generosity—which + was brought out in strong relief when he delivered his retiring bow to the + Frau von Rudiger’s shoulder—that the worst was over; he had to deal + no more with silly women: now for Clotilde’s father! Women were privileged + to oppose their senselessness to the divine fire: men could not retreat + behind such defences; they must meet him on the common ground of men, + where this constant battler had never yet encountered a reverse. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde’s cold staring gaze, a little livelier to wonderment than to + reflection, observed him to be scrupulous of the formalities in the + diverse character of his parting salutations to her mother, her sister; + and the lady of the house. He was going—he could actually go and + leave her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that + she did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She saw him + smiling incomprehensibly, like a winner of the field to be left to the + enemy. She could get nothing from him but that insensible round smile, and + she took the ebbing of her poor effort for his rebuff. + </p> + <p> + ‘You that offered yourself in flight to him who once proposed it, he had + the choice of you and he abjured you. He has cast you off!’ + </p> + <p> + She phrased it in speech to herself. It was incredible, but it was clear: + he had gone. + </p> + <p> + The room was vacant; the room was black and silent as a dungeon. + </p> + <p> + ‘He will not have you: he has handed you back to them the more readily to + renounce you.’ + </p> + <p> + She framed the words half aloud in a moan as she glanced at her mother + heaving in stern triumph, her sister drooping, Madame Emerly standing at + the window. + </p> + <p> + The craven’s first instinct for safety, quick as the cavern lynx for + light, set her on the idea that she was abandoned: it whispered of + quietness if she submitted. + </p> + <p> + And thus she reasoned: Had Alvan taken her, she would not have been guilty + of more than a common piece of love-desperation in running to him, the + which may be love’s glory when marriage crowns it. By his rejecting her + and leaving her, he rendered her not only a runaway, but a castaway. It + was not natural that he should leave her; ‘not natural in him to act his + recent part; but he had done it; consequently she was at the mercy of + those who might pick her up. She was, in her humiliation and dread, all of + the moment, she could see to no distance; and judging of him, feeling for + herself, within that contracted circle of sensation—sure, from her + knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done unwisely—she became + swayed about like a castaway in soul, until her distinguishing of his mad + recklessness in the challenge of a power greater than his own grew present + with her as his personal cruelty to the woman who had flung off + everything, flung herself on the tempestuous deeps, on his behalf. And + here she was, left to float or founder! Alvan had gone. The man rageing + over the room, abusing her ‘infamous lover, the dirty Jew, the notorious + thief, scoundrel, gallowsbird,’ etc., etc., frightful epithets, not to be + transcribed—was her father. He had come, she knew not how. Alvan had + tossed her to him. + </p> + <p> + Abuse of a lover is ordinarily retorted on in the lady’s heart by the + brighter perception of his merits; but when the heart is weak, the + creature suffering shame, her lover the cause of it, and seeming cruel, + she is likely to lose all perception and bend like a flower pelted. Her + cry to him: ‘If you had been wiser, this would not have been!’ will sink + to the inward meditation: ‘If he had been truer!’—and though she + does not necessarily think him untrue for charging him with it, there is + already a loosening of the bonds where the accusation has begun. They are + not broken because they are loosened: still the loosening of them makes it + possible to cut them with less of a snap and less pain. + </p> + <p> + Alvan had relinquished her he loved to brave the tempest in a frail small + boat, and he certainly could not have apprehended the furious outbreak she + was exposed to. She might so far have exonerated him had she been able to + reflect; but she whom he had forced to depend on him in blind reliance, + now opened her eyes on an opposite power exercising material rigours. + After having enjoyed extraordinary independence for a young woman, she was + treated as a refractory child, literally marched through the streets in + the custody of her father, who clutched her by the hair-Alvan’s beloved + golden locks!—and held her under terror of a huge forester’s weapon, + that he had seized at the first tidings of his daughter’s flight to the + Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to exposure; contempt, with a + sense of the humour of it: and this was a satisfaction to him, founded on + his practical observance of two or three maxims quite equal to the fullest + knowledge of women for rightly managing them: preferable, inasmuch as they + are simpler, and, by merely cracking a whip, bring her back to the post, + instead of wasting time by hunting her as she likes to run. Police were + round his house. The General chattered and shouted of the desperate + lawlessness and larcenies of that Jew—the things that Jew would + attempt. He dragged her indoors, muttering of his policy in treating her + at last to a wholesome despotism. + </p> + <p> + This was the medicine for her—he knew her! Whether he did or not, he + knew the potency of his physic. He knew that osiers can be made to bend. + With a frightful noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the + window-shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he left + her there and roared across the household that any one holding + communication with the prisoner should be shot like a dog. This was a + manifestation of power in a form more convincing than the orator’s. + </p> + <p> + She was friendless, abused, degraded, benighted in broad daylight; + abandoned by her lover. She sank on the floor of the room, conceiving with + much strangeness of sentiment under these hard stripes of misfortune, that + reality had come. The monster had hold of her. She was isolated, fed like + a dungeoned captive. She had nothing but our natural obstinacy to hug, or + seem to do so when wearifulness reduced her to cling to the semblance of + it only. ‘I marry Alvan!’ was her iterated answer to her father, on his + visits to see whether he had yet broken her; and she spoke with the + desperate firmness of weak creatures that strive to nail themselves to the + sound of it. He listened and named his time for returning. The tug between + rigour and endurance continued for about forty hours. She then thought, in + an exhaustion: ‘Strange that my father should be so fiercely excited + against this man! Can he have reasons I have not heard of?’ Her father’s + unwonted harshness suggested the question in her quailing nature, which + was beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip. The question set her + thinking of the reasons she knew. She saw them involuntarily from the side + of parents, and they wore a sinister appearance; in reality her present + scourging was due to them as well as to Alvan’s fatal decision. Her misery + was traceable to his conduct and his judgement—both bad. And yet all + this while he might be working to release her, near upon rescuing! She + swung round to the side of her lover against these executioner parents, + and scribbled to him as well as she could under the cracks in her + windowshutters, urging him to appear. She spent her heart on it. A note to + her friend, the English lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less + abandonment, with a frozen resignation to the loss of him—all around + her was so dark! By-and-by there was a scratching at her door. The maid + whom she trusted brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the + maid and mistress knelt. Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the + whispers were exchanged through the partition. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where is he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Gone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But where?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He has left the city.’ + </p> + <p> + Clotilde pushed the letter for her friend under the door: that one for + Alvan she retained, stung by his desertion of her, and thinking + practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an + address. She did not ask herself whether the maid’s information was + honest, for she wanted to despair, as the exhausted want to lie down. + </p> + <p> + She wept through the night. It was one of those nights of the torrents of + tears which wash away all save the adamantine within us, if there be ought + of that besides the breathing structure. The reason why she wept with so + delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity for + draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the love + whereby she was tormented. They do not weep thus who have a heart for the + struggle. In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, no longer + self-pitiful; careless of herself, as she thought: in other words, unable + any further to contend. + </p> + <p> + Reality was too strong! This morning her sisters came to her room + imploring her to yield:—if she married Alvan, what could be their + prospects as the sisters-in law of such a man?—her betrothed sister + Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan’s name was infamous + in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned to + seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her tears + running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he hold up + his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew democrat? + He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his brother + officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly Alvan was + abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all, perhaps to her + father’s military and diplomatic career principally: the head of their + house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by having no other + reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her absent lover and her + family; she was already disunited from him when she shed them, feeling + that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many bosoms drained of + self-pity will become. + </p> + <p> + Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and had + a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a little by + her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after her heavy + scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing them to be + selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality made them seem + a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. Her natural + blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire relinquishment; it + knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had committed an + irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own vain provoking, + that was too severe for him: he was not the lover he fancied himself, or + not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her excessive misery would not + suffer a picture of him, not one clear recollection of him, to stand + before her. He who should have been at hand, had gone, and she was + fearfully beset, almost lifeless; and being abandoned, her blank night of + imagination felt that there was nothing left for her save to fall upon + those nearest. + </p> + <p> + She gave her submission to her mother. In her mind, during the last + wrestling with a weakness that was alternately her love, and her + cowardice, the interpretation of the act ran: ‘He may come, and I am his + if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.’ He had taught her to + rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting herself + loose from him. In a similar mood, the spiritual waverer vows to believe + if the saint will appear. However, she submitted. Then there was joy in + the family, and she tasted their caresses. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + After his deed of loftiness Alvan walked to his hotel, where the sight of + the room Clotilde had entered that morning caught his breath. He proceeded + to write his first letter to General von Rudiger, repressing his heart’s + intimations that he had stepped out of the friendly path, and was on a + strange and tangled one. The sense of power in him was leonine enough to + promise the forcing of a way whithersoever the path: yet did that ghost of + her figure across the room haunt him with searching eyes. They set him + spying over himself at an actor who had not needed to be acting his part, + brilliant though it was. He crammed his energy into his idea of the part, + to carry it forward victoriously. Before the world, it would without + question redound to his credit, and he heard the world acclaiming him: + </p> + <p> + ‘Alvan’s wife was honourably won, as became the wife of a Doctor of Law, + from the bosom of her family, when he could have had her in the old + lawless fashion, for a call to a coachman! Alvan, the republican, is + eminently a citizen. Consider his past life by that test of his + character.’ + </p> + <p> + He who had many times defied the world in hot rebellion, had become, + through his desire to cherish a respectable passion, if not exactly + slavish to it, subservient, as we see royal personages, that are happy to + be on bowing terms with the multitude bowing lower. Lower, of course, the + multitude must bow, to inspire an august serenity; but the nod they have + in exchange for it is not an independent one. Ceasing to be a social + rebel, he conceived himself as a recognized dignitary, and he passed under + the bondage of that position. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde had been in this room; she had furnished proof that she could be + trusted now. She had committed herself, perished as a maiden of society, + and her parents, even the senseless mother, must see it and decide by it. + The General would bring her to reason: General von Rudiger was a man of + the world. An honourable son-in-law could not but be acceptable to him—now, + at least. And such a son-in-law would ultimately be the pride of his + house. ‘A flower from thy garden, friend, and my wearing it shall in good + time be cause for some parental gratification.’ + </p> + <p> + The letter despatched, Alvan paced his chamber with the ghost of Clotilde. + He was presently summoned to meet Count Walburg and another intimate of + the family, in the hotel downstairs. These gentlemen brought no message + from General von Rudiger: their words were directed to extract a promise + from him that he would quit his pursuit of Clotilde, and of course he + refused; they hinted that the General might have official influence to get + him expelled the city, and he referred them to the proof; but he looked + beyond the words at a new something of extraordinary and sinister aspect + revealed to him in their manner of treating his pretensions to the hand of + the lady. + </p> + <p> + He had not yet perfectly seen the view the world took of him, because of + his armed opposition to the world; nor could he rightly reflect on it yet, + being too anxious to sign the peace. He felt as it were a blow startling + him from sleep. His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly polite; they + did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect between man and + man. The strange matter was behind their bearing, which indicated the + positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one such as he, and + struck at the curtain covering his history. He could not raise it to + thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the implied contempt of + his character: with a boiling gorge he was obliged to swallow both the + history and the insult, returning them the equivalent of their courtesies, + though it was on his lips to thunder heavily. + </p> + <p> + A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him + admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing. The + bearer of it was dismissed without an answer. + </p> + <p> + Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance. The fate of the noble Genoese + conspirator, slipping into still harbour water on the step from boat to + boat, and borne down by the weight of his armour in the moment of the + ripeness of his plot at midnight, when the signal for action sparkled to + lighten across the ships and forts, had touched him in his boy’s readings, + and he found a resemblance of himself to Fiesco, stopped as he was by a + base impediment, tripped ignominiously, choked by the weight of the powers + fitting him for battle. A man such as Alvan, arrested on his career by an + opposition to his enrolment of a bride!—think of it! What was this + girl in a life like his? But, oh! the question was no sooner asked than + the thought that this girl had been in this room illuminated the room, + telling him she might have been his own this instant, confounding him with + an accusation of madness for rejecting her. Why had he done it? Surely + women, weak women, must be at times divinely inspired. She warned him + against the step. But he, proud of his armoury, went his way. He choked, + he suffered the torture of the mailed Genoese going under; worse, for the + drowner’s delirium swirls but a minute in the gaping brain, while he had + to lie all, night at the mercy of the night. + </p> + <p> + He was only calmer when morning came. Night has little mercy for the + self-reproachful, and for a strong man denouncing the folly of his error, + it has none. The bequest of the night was a fever of passion; and upon + that fever the light of morning cleared his head to weigh the force + opposing him. He gnawed the paradox, that it was huge because it was + petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of the + position it explained. Great enemies, great undertakings, would have + revived him as they had always revived and fortified. But here was a + stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had + chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms. By + shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing reduced + him to hesitation. And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; his history, + his very blood, stood open to its shafts; and the sole quality of a giant, + which he could show to front it, was the breath of one for a mark. + </p> + <p> + These direct perceptions of the circumstances were played on by the fever + he drew from his Fiesco bed. Accuracy of vision in our crises is not so + uncommon as the proportionate equality of feeling: we do indeed. + frequently see with eyes of just measurement while we are conducting + ourselves like madmen. The facts are seen, and yet the spinning nerves + will change their complexion; and without enlarging or minimizing, they + will alternate their effect on us immensely through the colour presenting + them now sombre, now hopeful: doing its work of extravagance upon + perceptibly plain matter. The fitful colour is the fever. He must win her, + for he never yet had failed—he had lost her by his folly! She was + his—she was torn from him! She would come at his bidding—she + would cower to her tyrants! The thought of her was life and death in his + frame, bright heaven and the abyss. At one beat of the heart she swam to + his arms, at another he was straining over darkness. And whose the fault? + </p> + <p> + He rose out of his amazement crying it with a roar, and foreignly + beholding himself. He pelted himself with epithets; his worst enemies + could not have been handier in using them. From Alvan to Alvan, they + signified such an earthquake in a land of splendid structures as shatters + to dust the pride of the works of men. He was down among them, lower than + the herd, rolling in vulgar epithets that, attached to one like him, + became of monstrous distortion. O fool! dolt! blind ass! tottering idiot! + drunken masquerader! miserable Jack Knave, performing suicide with that + blessed coxcomb air of curling a lock!—Clotilde! Clotilde! Where has + one read the story of a man who had the jewel of jewels in his hand, and + flung in into the deeps, thinking that he flung a pebble? Fish, fool, + fish! and fish till Doomsday! There’s nothing but your fool’s face in the + water to be got to bite at the bait you throw, fool! Fish for the + flung-away beauty, and hook your shadow of a Bottom’s head! What impious + villain was it refused the gift of the gods, that he might have it + bestowed on him according to his own prescription of the ceremonies! They + laugh! By Orcus! how they laugh! The laughter of the gods is the lightning + of death’s irony over mortals. Can they have a finer subject than a giant + gone fool? + </p> + <p> + Tears burst from him: tears of rage, regret, selflashing. O for yesterday! + He called aloud for the recovery of yesterday, bellowed, groaned. A giant + at war with pigmies, having nought but their weapons, having to fight them + on his knees, to fight them with the right hand while smiting himself with + the left, has too much upon him to keep his private dignity in order. He + was the same in his letters—a Cyclops hurling rocks and raising the + seas to shipwreck. Dignity was cast off; he came out naked. Letters to + Clotilde, and to the baroness, to the friend nearest him just then, + Colonel von Tresten, calling them to him, were dashed to paper in this + naked frenzy, and he could rave with all the truth of life, that to have + acted the idiot, more than the loss of the woman, was the ground of his + anguish. Each antecedent of his career had been a step of strength and + success departed. The woman was but a fragment of the tremendous wreck; + the woman was utterly diminutive, yet she was the key of the + reconstruction; the woman won, he would be himself once more: and feeling + that, his passion for her swelled to full tide and she became a towering + splendour whereat his eyeballs ached, she became a melting armful that + shook him to big bursts of tears. + </p> + <p> + The feeling of the return of strength was his love in force. The giant in + him loved her warmly. Her sweetness, her archness, the opening of her + lips, their way of holding closed, and her brightness of wit, her tender + eyelashes, her appreciating looks, her sighing, the thousand varying + shades of her motions and her features interflowing like a lighted water, + swam to him one by one like so many handmaiden messengers distinctly + beheld of the radiant indistinct whom he adored with more of spirit in his + passion than before this tempest. A giant going through a giant’s + contortions, fleshly as the race of giants, and gross, coarse, dreadful, + likely to be horrible when whipped and stirred to the dregs, Alvan was + great-hearted: he could love in his giant’s fashion, love and lay down + life for the woman he loved, though the nature of the passion was not + heavenly; or for the friend who would have to excuse him often; or for the + public cause—which was to minister to his appetites. He was true + man, a native of earth, and if he could not quit his huge personality to + pipe spiritual music during a storm of trouble, being a soul wedged in the + gnarled wood of the standing giant oak, and giving mighty sound of timber + at strife rather than the angelical cry, he suffered, as he loved, to his + depths. + </p> + <p> + We have not to plumb the depths; he was not heroic, but hugely man. Love + and man sometimes meet for noble concord; the strings of the hungry + instrument are not all so rough that Love’s touch on them is + indistinguishable from the rattling of the wheels within; certain herald + harmonies have been heard. But Love, which purifies and enlarges us, and + sets free the soul, Love visiting a fleshly frame must have time and + space, and some help of circumstance, to give the world assurance that the + man is a temple fit for the rites. Out of romances, he is not melodiously + composed. And in a giant are various giants to be slain, or thoroughly + subdued, ere this divinity is taken for leader. It is not done by miracle. + </p> + <p> + As it happened cruelly for Alvan, the woman who had become the radiant + indistinct in his desiring mind was one whom he knew to be of a shivery + stedfastness. His plucking her from another was neither wonderful nor + indefensible; they two were suited as no other two could be; the handsome + boy who had gone through a form of plighting with her was her slave, and + she required for her mate a master: she felt it and she sided to him quite + naturally, moved by the sacred direction of the acknowledgement of a + mutual fitness. Twice, however, she had relapsed on the occasions of his + absence, and owning his power over her when they were together again, she + sowed the fatal conviction that he held her at present, and that she was a + woman only to be held at present, by the palpable grasp of his physical + influence. Partly it was correct, not entirely, seeing that she kept the + impression of a belief in him even when she drifted away through sheer + weakness, but it was the single positive view he had of her, and it was + fatal, for it begat a devil of impatience. + </p> + <p> + ‘They are undermining her now—now—now!’ + </p> + <p> + He started himself into busy frenzies to reach to her, already indifferent + to the means, and waxing increasingly reckless as he fed on his agitation. + Some faith in her, even the little she deserved, would have arrested him: + unhappily he had less than she, who had enough to nurse the dim sense of + his fixity, and sank from him only in her heart’s faintness, but he, when + no longer flattered by the evidence of his mastery, took her for sand. + Why, then, had he let her out of his grasp? The horrid echoed + interrogation flashed a hideous view of the woman. But how had he come to + be guilty of it? he asked himself again; and, without answering him, his + counsellors to that poor wisdom set to work to complete it: Giant Vanity + urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity. He wrote to Clotilde, + with one voice quoting the law in their favour, with another commanding + her to break it. He gathered and drilled a legion of spies, and showered + his gold in bribes and plots to get the letter to her, to get an interview—one + human word between them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + His friend Colonel von Tresten was beside him when he received the enemy’s + counter-stroke. Count Walburg and his companion brought a letter from + Clotilde—no reply; a letter renouncing him. + </p> + <p> + Briefly, in cold words befitting the act, she stated that the past must be + dead between them; for the future she belonged to her parents; she had + left the city. She knew not where he might be, her letter concluded, but + henceforward he should know that they were strangers. + </p> + <p> + Alvan held out the deadly paper when he had read the contents; he smote a + forefinger on it and crumpled it in his hand. That was the dumb oration of + a man shocked by the outrage upon passionate feeling to the state of + brute. His fist, outstretched to the length of his arm, shook the reptile + letter under a terrible frown. + </p> + <p> + Tresten saw that he supposed himself to be perfectly master of his acts + because he had not spoken, and had managed to preserve the ordinary + courtesies. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have done your commission,’ the colonel said to Count Walburg, whose + companion was not disposed to go without obtaining satisfactory + assurances, and pressed for them. + </p> + <p> + Alvan fastened on him. ‘You adopt the responsibility of this?’ He + displayed the letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘I do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It lies.’ + </p> + <p> + Tresten remarked to Count Walburg: ‘These visits are provocations.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They are not so intended,’ said the count, bowing pacifically. His friend + was not a man of the sword, and was not under the obligation to accept an + insult. They left the letter to do its work. + </p> + <p> + Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must be taken by flying shots, + as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. Were we + to hear all the roarings of the shirted Heracles, a world of comfortable + little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of Dejaneira. Yes, + really; they would think it was not a chivalrous love: they would consider + that he thought of himself too much. They would doubt, too, of his being a + gentleman! Partial glimpses of him, one may fear, will be discomposing to + simple natures. There was a short black eruption. Alvan controlled it, to + ask hastily what the baroness thought and what she had heard of Clotilde. + Tresten made sign that it was nothing of the best. + </p> + <p> + ‘See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can + defend her—weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!’ + cried Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: ‘Yesterday—the + day before—when? just now, here, in this room; gave herself—and + now!’ He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel + von Tresten as her calumniator, ‘Say your worst of her, and I say I will + make of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it’s no + dream. She can be made.... O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she + could. There ‘s three of beast to one of goddess in her, and set her + alone, and let her be hunted and I not by, beast it is with her! cowardly + skulking beast—the noblest and very bravest under my wing! + Incomprehensible to you, Tresten? But who understands women! You hate her. + Do not. She ‘s a riddle, but no worse than the rest of the tangle. She + gives me up? Pooh! She writes it. She writes anything. And that vilest, I + say, I will make more enviable, more Clotilde! he thundered her signature + in an amazement, broken suddenly by the sight of her putting her name to + the letter. She had done that, written her name to the renunciation of + him! No individual could bear the sight of such a crime, and no suffering + man could be appeased by a single victim to atone for it. Her sex must be + slaughtered; he raged against the woman; she became that ancient poisonous + thing, the woman; his fury would not distinguish her as Clotilde, though + the name had started him, and it was his knowledge of the particular + sinner which drew down his curses on the sex. He twisted his body, hugging + at his breast as if he had her letter sticking in his ribs. The letter was + up against his ribs, and he thumped it, crushed it, patted it; he kissed + it, and flung it, stamped on it, and was foul-mouthed. Seeing it at his + feet, he bent to it like a man snapped in two, lamenting, bewailing + himself, recovering sight of her fragmentarily. It stuck in his ribs, and + in scorn of the writer, and sceptical of her penning it, he tugged to pull + it out, and broke the shaft, but left the rankling arrow-head:—she + had traced the lines, and though tyranny racked her to do that thing, his + agony followed her hand over the paper to her name, which fixed and bit in + him like the deadly-toothed arrow-head called asp, and there was no + uprooting it. The thing lived; her deed was the woman; there was no + separating them: witness it in love murdered. + </p> + <p> + O that woman! She has murdered love. She has blotted love completely out. + She is the arch-thief and assassin of mankind—the female Apollyon. + He lost sight of her in the prodigious iniquity covering her sex with a + cowl of night, and it was what women are, what women will do, the one and + all alike simpering simulacra that men find them to be, soulless, clogs on + us, bloodsuckers! until a feature of the particular sinner peeped out on + him, and brought the fresh agony of a reminder of his great-heartedness. + ‘For that woman—Tresten, you know me—I would have sacrificed + for that woman fortune and life, my hope, my duty, my immortality. She + knew it, and she—look!’ he unwrinkled the letter carefully for it to + be legible, and clenched it in a ball.’ Signs her name, signs her name, + her name!—God of heaven! it would be incredible in a holy chronicle—signs + her name to the infamous harlotry! See: “Clotilde von Rudiger.” It’s her + writing; that’s her signature: “Clotilde” in full. You’d hardly fancy + that, now? But look!’ the colonel’s eyelids were blinking, and Alvan + dinted his finger-nail under her name: ‘there it is: Clotilde: signed + shamelessly. Just as she might have written to one of her friends about + bonnets, and balls, and books! Henceforward strangers, she and I?’ + </p> + <p> + His laughter, even to Tresten, a man of camps, sounded profane as a yell + beneath a cathedral dome. ‘Why, the woman has been in my hands—I + released her, spared her, drilled brain and blood, ransacked all the code, + to do her homage and honour in every mortal way; and we two strangers! Do + you hear that, Tresten? Why, if you had seen her!—she was lost, and + I, this man she now pierces with ice, kept hell down under bolt and + bar-worse, I believe, broke a good woman’s heart! that never a breath + should rise that could accuse her on suspicion, or in malice, or by + accident, justly, or with a shadow of truth. “I think it best for us + both.” So she thinks for me! She not only decides, she thinks; she is the + active principle; ‘tis mine to submit.—A certain presumption was in + that girl always. Ha! do you hear me? Her letter may sting, it shall not + dupe. Strangers? Poor fool! You see plainly she was nailed down to write + the thing. This letter is a flat lie. She can lie—Oh! born to the + art! born to it!—lies like a Saint tricking Satan! But she says she + has left the city. Now to find her!’ + </p> + <p> + He began marching about the room with great strides. ‘I ‘ll have the whole + Continent up; her keepers shall have no rest; I ‘ll have them by the Law + Courts; and by stratagem, and, if law and cunning fail, force. I have + sworn it. I have done all that honour can ask of a man; more than any man, + to my knowledge, would have done, and now it’s war. I declare war on them. + They will have it! I mean to take that girl from them—snatch or + catch! The girl is my girl, and if there are laws against my having my + own, to powder with the laws! Well, and do you suppose me likely to be + beaten? Then Cicero was a fiction, and Caesar a people’s legend. Not if + they are history, and eloquence and commandership have power over the + blood and souls of men. First, I write to her!’ + </p> + <p> + His friend suggested that he knew not where she was. But already the pen + was at work, the brain pouring as from a pitcher. + </p> + <p> + Writing was blood-letting, and the interminable pages drained him of his + fever. As he wrote, she grew more radiant, more indistinct, more fiercely + desired. The concentration of his active mind directed his whole being on + the track of Clotilde, idealizing her beyond human. That last day when he + had seen her appeared to him as the day of days. That day was Clotilde + herself, she in person; he saw it as the woman, and saw himself + translucent in the great luminousness; and behind it all was dark, as in + front. That one day was the sun of his life. It had been a day of rain, + and he beheld it in memory just as it had been, with the dark threaded + air, the dripping streets; and he glorified it past all daily radiance. + His letter was a burning hymn to the day. His moral grandeur on the day + made him live as part of the splendour. Was it possible for the woman who + had seen him then to be faithless to him? The swift deduction from his own + feelings cleansed her of a suspicion to the contrary, and he became + lighthearted. He hummed an air when he had finished his letter to her. + </p> + <p> + Councils with his adherents and couriers were held, and some were + despatched to watch the house and slip the letter to her maid; others were + told off to bribe and hound their way on the track of Clotilde. His gold + rained into their hands with the directions. + </p> + <p> + Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; a + friend of both, and a warm one. Men coming into contact with Alvan took + their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy of no + dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he + opposed. The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness’s grief over + this love-passion of Alvan’s, and her resignation. He shared her doubts of + Clotilde’s nobility of character: the reports were not favourable to the + young lady. But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan in + love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel. He dropped a word + of the whispers of Clotilde’s volatility. + </p> + <p> + Alvan nodded his perfect assent. ‘She is that, she is anything you like; + you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil. She is matchless, colour her + as you please.’ Adopting the tone of argument, he said: ‘She writes that + letter. Well? It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as hers, + I would not have it unwritten. I love it!’ He looked maddish with his love + of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly: ‘The point is, that she has + the charm for me. She is plastic in my hands. Other men would waste the + treasure. I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and knows that she + hangs on me to flourish worthily. I breathe the very soul of the woman + into her. As for that letter of hers—’ it burnt him this time to + speak of the letter: ‘she may write and write! She’s weak, thin, a reed; + she—let her be! Say of her when she plays beast—she is absent + from Alvan! I can forgive. The letter’s nothing; it means nothing—except + “Thou fool, Alvan, to let me go.” Yes, that! Her people are acting tyrant + with her—as legally they have no right to do in this country, and I + shall prove it to them. When I have gained admission to her—and I + soon shall: it can’t be refused: I am off to the head of her father’s + office to-morrow, and I have only to represent the state of affairs to the + Minister in my language to obtain his authority to demand admission to + her:—then, friend, you will see! I lift my finger, and you will see! + At my request she went back to her mother. I have but to beckon.’ + </p> + <p> + He had cooled to the happy assurance of his authority over her, all the + giants of his system being well in action, and when that is the case with + a big nature it is at rest, or such is the condition of repose granted it + in life. + </p> + <p> + On the morrow he was off to batter at doors which would have expected + rather the summons of an armed mob at his heels than the strange cry of + the Radical man maltreated by love. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <p> + The story of Clotilde’s departure from the city, like that of Alvan’s, + communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, + disseminated by her parents. She was removed when the swarm of spies and + secret letter-bearers were attaining a position of dignity through the + rumour of legal gentlemen about to direct the movements of the besieging + army. + </p> + <p> + A stir seemed to her to prognosticate a rescue and she went not + unwillingly. To be in motion, to see roadside faces, pricked her senses + with some hope. She had gained the peace she needed, and in that state her + heart began to be agitated by a fresh awakening, luxurious at first rather + than troublesome. She had sunk so low that the light of Alvan seemed too + distant for a positive expectation of him; but few approached her whom she + did not fancy under strange disguises: the gentlemen were servants, the + blouses were gentlemen; she looked wistfully at old women bearing baskets, + for the forbidden fruit to peep out in the form of an envelope. All passed + her blankly, noticing her eyes. + </p> + <p> + The journey was short; she was taken to a place a little beyond the head + of the lake, and there, though she had liberty to breathe the air, fast + fixed within the walls of a daily sameness that became gradually the hum + of voices accusing Alvan of one in excess of the many sins laid against + him by his enemies. Was he not possibly an empty pretender to power—a + mere great talker? + </p> + <p> + Her bit of liberty increased her chafing at the deadly monotony of this + existence, and envenomed the accusation by seeming to push her forth quite + half way to meet him, if he would but come or show sign! She impetuously + vindicated him from the charge of crediting the sincerity of any words she + might have committed to paper at the despotic dictation of her father. Oh, + no; Alvan could not be guilty of such folly as that; he could not; it + would be to suppose him unacquainted with her, ignorant of the nature of + women. He would know that she wrote the words—why? She could not + perfectly recollect how she had come to write them, and found it easier to + extinguish the act of having written them at all, which was done by the + angry recurrence to his failure to intervene now when the drama cried for + his godlike appearance. Perhaps he was really unacquainted with her + thought her stronger than she was! The idea reflected a shadow on his + intelligence. She was not in a situation that could bear of her blaming + herself. + </p> + <p> + While she was thus devoured by the legions of her enfeebled wits, Clotilde + was assiduously courted by her family, and her father from time to time + brought pen and paper for her to write anew from his dictation. He was + pleased to hail her as his fair secretary, and when the letters were + unimportant she wrote flowingly, happy to be praised. They were + occasionally addressed to friends; she discovered herself writing one to + the professor, in which he was about to be informed that she had resolved + to banish Alvan from her mind for ever. She stopped; her heart stopped; + the pen fell from her hand, in loathing. Her father warily bade her + proceed. She could not; she signified it choking. Only a few days before + she had written to the professor exultingly of her engagement. She refused + to belie herself in such a manner; retrospectively her rapid + contradictions appeared impossible; the picture of her was not human, and + she gave out a negative of her whole frame convulsed, whereat the General + was not slow to remind her of the scourgings she had undergone by a sudden + burst of his wrath. He knew the proper physic. ‘You girls want the lesson + we read to skittish recruits; you shall have it. Write: “He is now as + nothing to me.” You shall write that you hate him, if you hesitate! Why, + you unreasonable slut, you have given him up; you have told him you have + given him up, and what objection can you have to telling others now you + have done it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I was forced to it, body and soul!’ cried Clotilde, sobbing and bursting + into desperation out of a weak show of petulance that she had put on to + propitiate him. ‘If I have to tell, I will tell how it was. For that my + heart is unchanged, and Alvan is, and will be, my lord, all the world may + see. I would rather write that I hate him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You write, the man is now as nothing to me!’ said her father, dashing his + finger in a fiery zig-zag along the line for her pen to follow. ‘Or else, + my girl, you’ve been playing us a pretty farce!’ He strung himself for a + mad gallop of wrath, gave her a shudder, and relapsed. ‘No, no, you’re + wiser, you’re a better girl than that. Write it. I must have it + written-here, come! The worst is over; the rest is child’s play. Come, + take the pen, I’ll guide your hand.’ + </p> + <p> + The pen was fixed in her hand, and the first words formed. They looked + such sprawling skeletons that Clotilde had the comfort of feeling sure + they would be discerned as the work of compulsion. So she wrote on + mechanically, solacing herself for what she did with vows of future + revolt. Alvan had a saying, that want of courage is want of sense; and she + remembered his illustration of how sense would nourish courage by + scattering the fear of death, if we would only grasp the thought that we + sink to oblivion gladly at night, and, most of us, quit it reluctantly in + the morning. She shut her eyes while writing; she fancied death would be + welcome; and as she certainly had sense, she took it for the promise of + courage. She flattered herself by believing, therefore, that she who did + not object to die was only awaiting the cruelly-delayed advent of her + lover to be almost as brave as he—the feminine of him. With these + ideas in her head much clearer than when she wrote the couple of lines to + Alvan—for then her head was reeling, she was then beaten and + prostrate—she signed her name to a second renunciation of him, and + was aware of a flush of self-reproach at the simple suspicion of his being + deceived by it; it was an insult to his understanding. Full surely the + professor would not be deceived, and a lover with a heart to reach to her + and read her could never be hoodwinked by so palpable a piece of + slavishness. She was indeed slavish; the apology necessitated the + confession. But that promise of courage, coming of her ownership of sense, + vindicated her prospectively; she had so little of it that she embraced it + as a present possession, and she made it Alvan’s task to put it to the + trial. Hence it became Alvan’s offence if, owing to his absence, she could + be charged with behaving badly. Her generosity pardoned him his + inexplicable delay to appear in his might: ‘But see what your continued + delay causes!’ she said, and her tone was merely sorrowful. + </p> + <p> + She had forgotten her signature to the letter to the professor when his + answer arrived. The sight of the handwriting of one of her lover’s + faithfullest friends was like a peal of bells to her, and she tore the + letter open, and began to blink and spell at a strange language, taking + the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in her + resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high + intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress + moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and had + within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this man—if + living man he could be thought—counselled her to endeavour to + deserve the love and respect of her parents, alluded to Alvan’s age and + her better birth, approved her resolve to consult the wishes of her + family, and in fine was as rank a traitor to friendship as any chronicled. + Out on him! She swept him from earth. + </p> + <p> + And she had built some of her hopes on the professor. ‘False friend!’ she + cried. + </p> + <p> + She wept over Alvan for having had so false a friend. + </p> + <p> + There remained no one that could be expected to intervene with a strong + arm save the baroness. The professor’s emphasized approval of her resolve + to consult the wishes of her family was a shocking hypocrisy, and Clotilde + thought of the contrast to it in her letter to the baroness. The tripping + and stumbling, prettily awkward little tone of gosling innocent new from + its egg, throughout the letter, was a triumph of candour. She repeated + passages, paragraphs, of the letter, assuring herself that such + affectionately reverential prattle would have moved her, and with the + strongest desire to cast her arms about the writer: it had been composed + to be moving to a woman, to any woman. The old woman was entreated to + bestow her blessing on the young one, all in Arcadia, and let the young + one nestle to the bosom she had not an idea of robbing. She could not have + had the idea, else how could she have made the petition? And in order to + compliment a venerable dame on her pure friendship for a gentleman, it was + imperative to reject the idea. Besides, after seeing the photograph of the + baroness, common civility insisted on the purity of her friendship. Nay, + in mercy to the poor gentleman, friendship it must be. + </p> + <p> + A letter of reply from that noble lady was due. Possibly she had + determined not to write, but to act. She was a lady of exalted birth, a + lady of the upper aristocracy, who could, if she would, bring both a + social and official pressure upon the General: and it might be in motion + now behind the scenes, Clotilde laid hold of her phantom baroness, almost + happy under the phantom’s whisper that she need not despair. ‘You have + been a little weak,’ the phantom said to her, and she acquiesced with a + soft sniffle, adding: ‘But, dearest, honoured lady, you are a woman, and + know what our trials are when we are so persecuted. O that I had your + beautiful sedateness! I do admire it, madam. I wish I could imitate.’ She + carried her dramatic ingenuousness farthel still by saying: ‘I have seen + your photograph’; implying that the inimitable, the much coveted air of + composure breathed out of yonder presentment of her features. ‘For I can’t + call you good looking,’ she said within herself, for the satisfaction of + her sense of candour, of her sense of contrast as well. And shutting her + eyes, she thought of the horrid penitent a harsh-faced woman in confession + must be: + </p> + <p> + The picture sent her swimmingly to the confessional, where sat a man with + his head in a hood, and he soon heard enough of mixed substance to dash + his hood, almost his head, off. Beauty may be immoderately frank in soul + to the ghostly. The black page comprised a very long list. ‘But put this + on the white page,’ says she to the surging father inside his box—‘I + loved Alvan!’ A sentence or two more fetches the Alvanic man jumping out + of the priest: and so closely does she realize it that she has to hunt + herself into a corner with the question, whether she shall tell him she + guessed him to be no other than her lover. ‘How could you expect a girl, + who is not a Papist, to come kneeling here?’ she says. And he answers with + no matter what of a gallant kind. + </p> + <p> + In this manner her natural effervescence amused her sorrowful mind while + gazing from her chamber window at the mountain sides across the valley, + where tourists, in the autumnal season, sweep up and down like a tidal + river. She had ceased to weep; she had outwept the colour of her eyes and + the consolation of weeping. Dressed in black to the throat, she sat and + waited the arrival of her phantom friend, the baroness—that angel! + who proved her goodness in consenting to be the friend of Alvan’s beloved, + because she was the true friend of Alvan! How cheap such a way of proving + goodness, Clotilde did not consider. She wanted it so. + </p> + <p> + The mountain heights were in dusty sunlight. She had seen them day after + day thinly lined on the dead sky, inviting thunder and doomed to + sultriness. She looked on the garden of the house, a desert under bee and + butterfly. Looking beyond the garden she perceived her father on the + glaring road, and one with him, the sight of whom did not flush her cheek + or spring her heart to a throb, though she pitied the poor boy: he was + useless to her, utterly. + </p> + <p> + Soon her Indian Bacchus was in her room, and alone with her, and at her + feet. Her father had given him hope. He came bearing eyes that were like + hope’s own; and kneeling, kissing her hands, her knees, her hair, he + seemed unaware that she was inanimate. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing imaginable in which he could be of use. + </p> + <p> + He was only another dust-cloud of the sultry sameness. She had been + expecting a woman, a tempest choral with sky and mountain and + valley-hollows, as the overture to Alvan’s appearance. + </p> + <p> + But he roused her. With Marko she had never felt her cowardice, and his + passionately beseeching, trembling, ‘Will you have me?’ called up the + tiger in the girl; in spite of pity for his voice she retorted on her + parents: + </p> + <p> + ‘Will I have you? I? You ask me what is my will? It sounds oddly from you, + seeing that I wrote to you in Lucerne what I would have, and nothing has + changed in me since then, nothing! My feeling for him is unaltered, and + everything you have heard of me was wrung out of me by my unhappiness. The + world is dead to me, and all in it that is not. Sigismund Alvan. To you I + am accustomed to speak every thought of my soul, and I tell you the world + and all it has is dead to me, even my parents—I hate them.’ + </p> + <p> + Marko pressed her hands. If he loved her slavishly, it was generously. The + wild thing he said was one of the frantic leaps of generosity in a heart + that was gone to impulse: ‘I see it, they have martyrized you. I know you + so well, Clotilde! So, then, come to me, come with me, let me cherish you. + I will take you and rescue you from your people, and should it be your + positive wish to meet Alvan again, I myself will take you to him, and then + you may choose between us.’ + </p> + <p> + The generosity was evident. There was nevertheless, to a young woman + realizing the position foreshadowed by such a project, the suspicion of a + slavish hope nestling among the circumstances in the background, and this + she was taught by the dangerous emotion of gratitude gaining on her, and + melting her to him. + </p> + <p> + She too had a slavish hope that was athirst and sinking, and it flew at + the throat of Marko’s, eager to satiate its vengeance for these long + delays in the destroying of a weaker. + </p> + <p> + She left her chair and cried: ‘As you will. What is it to me? Take me, if + you please. Take that glove; it is the shape of my hand. You have as much + of me as is there. My life is gone. You or another! But take this warning + and my oath with it. I swear to you, that wherever I see Sigismund Alvan I + go straight to him, though the way be over you, all of you, lying dead + beneath me.’ + </p> + <p> + The lift of incredulous horror in Marko’s large black eyes excited her to + a more savage imagination: ‘Rejoice! I should rejoice to see you, all of + you, dead, that I might walk across you safe from disturbance to get to + him I love. Be under no delusion. I love him better than the lives of any + dear to me, or my own. I am his. He is my faith, my worship. I am true to + him, I am, I am. You force my hand from me, you take this miserable body, + but my soul is free to love him and to go to him when God gives me sight + of him. I am Alvan’s eternally. All your laws are mockeries. You, and my + people, and your priests, and your law-makers, are shadows, brain-vapours. + Let him beckon!—So you have your warning. Do what I may, I cannot be + called untrue. And now let me be; I want repose; my head breaks; I have + been on the rack and I am in pieces!’ + </p> + <p> + Marko clung to her hand, said she was terrible and pitiless, but clung. + </p> + <p> + The hand was nerveless: it was her dear hand. Had her tongue been more + venomous in wildness than the encounter with a weaker than herself made it + be, the holding of her hand would have been his antidote. In him there was + love for two. + </p> + <p> + Clotilde allowed him to keep the hand, assuring herself she was + unconscious he did so. He brought her peace, he brought her old throning + self back to her, and he was handsome and tame as a leopard-skin at her + feet. + </p> + <p> + If she was doomed to reach to Alvan through him, at least she had warned + him. The vision of the truthfulness of her nature threw a celestial wan + beam on her guilty destiny. + </p> + <p> + She patted his head and bade him leave her, narrowing her shoulders on the + breast to let it be seen that the dark household within was locked and + shuttered. + </p> + <p> + He went. He was good, obedient, humane; he was generous, exquisitely bred; + he brought her peace, and he had been warned. It is difficult in + affliction to think of one who belongs to us as one to whom we owe a duty. + The unquestionably sincere and devoted lover is also in his candour a + featureless person; and though we would not punish him for his goodness, + we have the right to anticipate that it will be equal to every trial. + Perhaps, for the sake of peace... after warning him... her meditations + tottered in dots. + </p> + <p> + But when the heart hungers behind such meditations, that thinking without + language is a dangerous habit; for there will suddenly come a dash + usurping the series of tentative dots, which is nothing other than the + dreadful thing resolved on, as of necessity, as naturally as the + adventurous bow-legged infant pitches back from an excursion of two paces + to mother’s lap; and not much less innocently within the mind, it would + appear. The dash is a haven reached that would not be greeted if it stood + out in words. Could we live without ourselves letting our animal do our + thinking for us legibly? We live with ourselves agreeably so long as his + projects are phrased in his primitive tongue, even though we have clearly + apprehended what he means, and though we sufficiently well understand the + whither of our destination under his guidance. No counsel can be saner + than that the heart should be bidden to speak out in plain verbal speech + within us. For want of it, Clotilde’s short explorations in Dot-and-Dash + land were of a kind to terrify her, and yet they seemed not only + unavoidable, but foreshadowing of the unavoidable to come. Or possibly—the + thought came to her—Alvan would keep his word, and save her from + worse by stepping to the altar between her and Marko, there calling on her + to decide and quit the prince; and his presence would breathe courage into + her to go to him. It set her looking to the altar as a prospect of + deliverance. + </p> + <p> + Her mother could not fail to notice a change in Clotilde’s wintry face now + that Marko was among them; her inference tallied with his report of their + interview, so she supposed the girl to have accepted more or less heartily + Marko’s forgiveness. For him the girl’s eyes were soft and kind; her gaze + was through the eyelashes, as one seeing a dream on a far horizon. Marko + spoke of her cheerfully, and was happy to call her his own, but would not + have her troubled by any ceremonial talk of their engagement, so she had + much to thank him for, and her consciousness of the signal instance of + ingratitude lying ahead in the darkness, like a house mined beneath the + smiling slumberer, made her eager to show the real gratefulness and + tenderness of her feelings. This had the appearance of renewed affection; + consequently her parents lost much of their fear of the besieger outside, + and she was removed to the city. Two parties were in the city, one + favouring Alvan, and one abhorring the audacious Jew. Together they + managed to spread incredible reports of his doings, which required little + exaggeration to convince an enemy that he was a man with whom hostility + could not be left to sleep. The General heard of the man’s pleading his + cause in all directions to get pressure put upon him, showing something + like a devilish persuasiveness, Jew and demagogue though he was; for there + seemed to be a feeling abroad that the interview this howling lover + claimed with Clotilde ought to be granted. The latest report spoke of him + as off to the General’s Court for an audience of his official chief. + General von Rudiger looked to his defences, and he had sufficient + penetration to see that the weakest point of them might be a submissive + daughter. + </p> + <p> + A letter to Clotilde from the baroness was brought to the house by a + messenger. The General thought over it. The letter was by no means a + seductive letter for a young lady to receive from such a person, yet he + did not anticipate the whole effect it would produce when ultimately he + decided to give it to her, being of course unaware of the noble style of + Clotilde’s address to the baroness. He stipulated that there must be no + reply to it except through him, and Clotilde had the coveted letter in her + hands at last. Here was the mediatrix—the veritable goddess with the + sword to cut the knot! Here was the manifestation of Alvan! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + BOOK 3. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII + </h2> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + That was all. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + She scribbled a single line in receipt of the letter and signed her + initials. + </p> + <p> + ‘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? + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + The colonel bowed stiffly. + </p> + <p> + It would have comforted her to have been allowed to say: ‘I cease to be + the rival of that execrable harridan!’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + Tresten nodded a protesting assent. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They are not joined yet,’ said the colonel. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She shows mighty little of the inclination,’ said the colonel. + </p> + <p> + ‘To you. But when they come together? I know his voice!’ + </p> + <p> + The colonel protested his doubts of their coming together. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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?’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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. + </p> + <p> + 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!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + Kill, he meant, the aerial wild spirit he could admire as her character, + when he had the prospect of extinguishing it in his grasp. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you meditate killing?’ said the baroness. + </p> + <p> + ‘The fool of the years behind me,’ he replied, ‘and entering on my + forty-first a sage.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be the mate and equal of your companion?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To prove I have had good training under the wisest to act as her guide + and master.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She may know it too well.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For what?’ He frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘For the chances of your meeting.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You think it possible she will refuse?’ + </p> + <p> + A blackness passing to lividness crossed his face. He fetched a big + breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + 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?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I nod to you from the palsied summit of ninety,’ said the baroness. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sort of evening is it?’ said the baroness. + </p> + <p> + ‘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. + </p> + <p> + ‘Be cool,’ she counselled him. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Keep so,’ said the baroness. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + This was his apology to the world for his distantly-recollected excesses + of temper. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The appointment was at the house,’ Tresten said. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + Tresten advised him to spend an hour with the baroness. + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI + </h2> + <h3> + Then he found himself saying: ‘At the age I touch!’... + </h3> + <p> + At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly. If the love is plucked + from them, the life goes with it. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.... + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My life on it!’ he swore by his unerring knowledge of her, the certainty + that she loved him. + </p> + <p> + 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!’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + Almost better would it be, she thought, that circumstance should thwart + him and kindle his own demon element. + </p> + <p> + The forenoon, the noon, the afternoon, went round. + </p> + <p> + Late in the evening her door was flung wide for Colonel von Tresten. + </p> + <p> + She looked her interrogative ‘Well?’ His features were not used to betray + the course of events. + </p> + <p> + ‘How has it gone?’ she said. + </p> + <p> + He replied: ‘As I told you. I fancied I gauged the hussy pretty closely.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She will not see him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not she.’ + </p> + <p> + The baroness crossed her arms. + </p> + <p> + ‘And Alvan?’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where is he now?’ said she. + </p> + <p> + ‘At his hotel.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Alone?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Leczel is with him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That looks like war.’ + </p> + <p> + 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: + </p> + <p> + ‘Scarcely. She would do in his absence what she would not do under his + eyes,’ remarked the baroness. ‘It’s decided, then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will he be here to-night?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was she really insolent?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For a girl in her position, she was.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you repeat her words to him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Some of them.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What description of insolence?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She spoke of his vanity....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Proceed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That seems monstrous!—if one could be astonished by her,’ said the + baroness. ‘When is she to write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There was no rudeness to the poor man?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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?’ + </p> + <p> + 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?’ + </p> + <p> + Tresten dropped a nod. + </p> + <p> + ‘Not to the girl, I suppose. To the father?’ said she. + </p> + <p> + ‘He has written to the General.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You should have stopped it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell a vedette to stop cavalry. You’re not thinking of the man. He’s in a + white frenzy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I will go to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That letter is despatched?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rudiger has it by this time.’ + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps not,’ Tresten said. + </p> + <p> + ‘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? + </p> + <p> + He pitched the very name at her character plainly?—called her what + she is?’ + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + The baroness thought it improbable. She was hoping that with Alvan’s + eruption the drop-scene would fall. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘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?’ + </p> + <p> + He answered that he had, and gazed into her eyes for love. + </p> + <p> + She blinked over them, crying out against parents and friends for their + heartlessness in permitting him to fight. + </p> + <p> + ‘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: + </p> + <p> + ‘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?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I have been practising for a couple of hours to-day,’ he said. + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I take my chance,’ Marko said. + </p> + <p> + ‘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. + </p> + <p> + 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.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you regret me?’ said he. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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...’ + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + ‘But how if I tell you that Alvan is wounded?’ he almost wept to say. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + Could one believe in a Providence capable of letting such a sapling and + weakling strike down the most magnificent stature upon earth? + </p> + <p> + ‘You—him!’ she said, in the tremendous compression of her contempt. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + But it can still be disbelieved. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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! + </p> + <p> + But it can be resolutely disbelieved. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX + </h2> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS + + A tragic comedian: that is, a grand pretender, a self-deceiver + Above all things I detest the writing for money + At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly + Barriers are for those who cannot fly + Be good and dull, and please everybody + Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip + Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies + Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession + Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered + Compromise is virtual death + Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath + Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change + Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position + Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur + Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? + Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women + Fantastical + Finishing touches to the negligence + Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity + Gone to pieces with an injured lover’s babble + Gradations appear to be unknown to you + He had to go, he must, he has to be always going + He stormed her and consented to be beaten + Hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences + His violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence + His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability + Hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic + I give my self, I do not sell + I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy + I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you + If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature + Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days + Looking on him was listening + Love the difficulty better than the woman + Men in love are children with their mistresses + Metaphysician’s treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise + Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous + Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful + Not much esteem for non-professional actresses + Not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself + O for yesterday! + Pact between cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency + Philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded + Polished barbarism + Professional widows + Providence and her parents were not forgiven + Scorned him for listening to the hesitations (hers) + Self-consoled when they are not self-justified + She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each + She felt in him a maker of facts + Strength in love is the sole sincerity + The worst of omens is delay + The way is clear: we have only to take the step + The brainless in Art and in Statecraft + Time is due to us, and the minutes are our gold slipping away + Time and strength run to waste in retarding the inevitable + To have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind + Trick for killing time without hurting him + Two wishes make a will + Venerated by his followers, well hated by his enemies + Want of courage is want of sense + We shall not be rich—nor poor + Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side + Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? + Win you—temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be + Work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4464-h.htm or 4464-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/4464/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Tragic Comedians, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Last Updated: March 7, 2009 +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4464] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + +A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY + +By George Meredith + +1892 + + + +BOOK 1. + +The word 'fantastical' is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an +utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem +an appointed instrument for reviewers of books of imaginative matter +distasteful to those expository pens. Upon examination, claimants to the +epithet will be found outside of books and of poets, in many quarters, +Nature being one of the prominent, if not the foremost. Wherever she can +get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As +for that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and +the angry captain, called Human Nature, 'fantastical' fits it no less +completely than a continental baby's skull-cap the stormy infant. + +Our sympathies, one may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen +shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and worthy of +study. + +The pair of tragic comedians of whom there will be question pass under +this word as under their banner and motto. Their acts are incredible: +they drank sunlight and drove their bark in a manner to eclipse +historical couples upon our planet. Yet they do belong to history, they +breathed the stouter air than fiction's, the last chapter of them is +written in red blood, and the man pouring out that last chapter, was +of a mighty nature not unheroical, a man of the active grappling modern +brain which wrestles with facts, to keep the world alive, and can create +them, to set it spinning. + +A Faust-like legend might spring from him: he had a devil. He was the +leader of a host, the hope of a party, venerated by his followers, well +hated by his enemies, respected by the intellectual chiefs of his time, +in the pride of his manhood and his labours when he fell. And why this +man should have come to his end through love, and the woman who loved +him have laid her hand in the hand of the slayer, is the problem we have +to study, nothing inventing, in the spirit and flesh of both. To ask if +it was love is useless. Love may be celestial fire before it enters into +the systems of mortals. It will then take the character of its place +of abode, and we have to look not so much for the pure thing as for the +passion. Did it move them, hurry them, animating the giants and gnomes +of one, the elves and sprites of the other, and putting animal nature +out of its fashionable front rank? The bare railway-line of their story +tells of a passion honest enough to entitle it to be related. Nor is +there anything invented, because an addition of fictitious incidents +could never tell us how she came to do this, he to do that; or how the +comic in their natures led by interplay to the tragic issue. They are +real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to the world +by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us, that fiction, if it can imagine +events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read +us no such furrowing lesson in life. + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + + + +CHAPTER I + +An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the +pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her +web is for the devouring lion. At an early age Clotilde von Rudiger was +dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in +her seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn +a lively fancy, a womanly person, and singular attractions of colour, +eyes, and style. She belonged by birth to the small aristocracy of her +native land. Nature had disposed her to coquettry, which is a pastime +counting among the arts of fence, and often innocent, often serviceable, +though sometimes dangerous, in the centres of polished barbarism known +as aristocratic societies, where nature is not absent, but on the +contrary very extravagant, tropical, by reason of her idle hours for +the imbibing of copious draughts of sunlight. The young lady of charming +countenance and sprightly manners is too much besought to choose for her +choice to be decided; the numbers beseeching prevent her from choosing +instantly, after the fashion of holiday schoolboys crowding a buffet of +pastry. These are not coquettish, they clutch what is handy: and little +so is the starved damsel of the sequestered village, whose one object +of the worldly picturesque is the passing curate; her heart is his for +a nod. But to be desired ardently of trooping hosts is an incentive to +taste to try for yourself. Men (the jury of householders empanelled to +deliver verdicts upon the ways of women) can almost understand that. And +as it happens, tasting before you have sounded the sense of your taste +will frequently mislead by a step or two difficult to retrieve: the +young coquette must then be cruel, as necessarily we kick the waters to +escape drowning: and she is not in all cases dealing with simple +blocks or limp festoons, she comes upon veteran tricksters that have a +knowledge of her sex, capable of outfencing her nascent individuality. +The more imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future +days, the more is she a prey to the enemy in her time of ignorance. + +Clotilde's younger maiden hours and their love episodes are wrapped in +the mists Diana considerately drops over her adventurous favourites. She +was not under a French mother's rigid supervision. In France the mother +resolves that her daughter shall be guarded from the risks of that +unequal rencounter between foolish innocence and the predatory. Vigilant +foresight is not so much practised where the world is less accurately +comprehended. Young people of Clotilde's upper world everywhere, and the +young women of it especially, are troubled by an idea drawn from what +they inhale and guess at in the spirituous life surrounding them, that +the servants of the devil are the valiant host, this world's elect, +getting and deserving to get the best it can give in return for a little +dashing audacity, a flavour of the Fronde in their conduct; they sin, +but they have the world; and then they repent perhaps, but they have had +the world. The world is the golden apple. Thirst for it is common during +youth: and one would think the French mother worthy of the crown of +wisdom if she were not so scrupulously provident in excluding love from +the calculations on behalf of her girl. + +Say (for Diana's mists are impenetrable and freeze curiosity) that +Clotilde was walking with Count Constantine, the brilliant Tartar +trained in Paris, when first she met Prince Marko Romaris, at the +Hungarian Baths on the borders of the Styrian highlands. The scene at +all events is pretty, and weaves a fable out of a variety of floating +threads. A stranger to the Baths, dressed in white and scarlet, sprang +from his carriage into a group of musical gypsies round an inn at the +arch of the chestnut avenue, after pulling up to listen to them for a +while. The music had seized him. He snatched bow and fiddle from one +of the ring, and with a few strokes kindled their faces. Then seating +himself, on a bench he laid the fiddle on his knee, and pinched the +strings and flung up his voice, not ceasing to roll out the spontaneous +notes when Clotilde and her cavalier, and other couples of the party, +came nigh; for he was on the tide of the song, warm in it, and loved +it too well to suffer intruders to break the flow, or to think of them. +They were close by when the last of it rattled (it was a popular song of +a fiery tribe) to its finish: He rose and saluted Clotilde, smiled and +jumped back to his carriage, sending a cry of adieu to the swarthy, +lank-locked, leather-hued circle, of which his dark oriental eyes and +skin of burnished walnut made him look an offshoot, but one of the +celestial branch. + +He was in her father's reception-room when she reached home: he was +paying a visit of ceremony on behalf of his family to General von +Rudiger; which helped her to remember that he had been expected, and +also that his favourite colours were known to be white and scarlet. In +those very colours, strange to tell, Clotilde was dressed; Prince Marko +had recognized her by miraculous divination, he assured her he could +have staked his life on the guess as he bowed to her. Adieu to Count +Constantine. Fate had interposed the prince opportunely, we have to +suppose, for she received a strong impression of his coming straight +from her invisible guardian; and the stroke was consequently trenchant +which sent the conquering Tartar raving of her fickleness. She struck, +like fate, one blow. She discovered that the prince, in addition to his +beauty and sweet manners and gift of song, was good; she fell in love +with goodness, whereof Count Constantine was not an example: so she set +her face another way, soon discovering that there may be fragility in +goodness. And now first her imagination conceived the hero who was to +subdue her. Could Prince Marko be he, soft as he was, pliable, a docile +infant, burning to please her, enraptured in obeying?--the hero who +would wrestle with her, overcome and hold her bound? Siegfried could +not be dreamed in him, or a Siegfried's baby son-in-arms. She caught a +glorious image of the woman rejecting him and his rival, and it informed +her that she, dissatisfied with an Adonis, and more than a match for +a famous conqueror, was a woman of decisive and independent, perhaps +unexampled, force of character. Her idea of a spiritual superiority that +could soar over those two men, the bad and the good--the bad because +of his vileness, the good because of his frailness--whispered to her of +deserving, possibly of attracting, the best of men: the best, that is, +in the woman's view of us--the strongest, the great eagle of men, lord +of earth and air. + +One who will dominate me, she thought. + +Now when a young lady of lively intelligence and taking charm has +brought her mind to believe that she possesses force of character, she +persuades the rest of the world easily to agree with her, and so long as +her pretensions are not directly opposed to their habits of thought, her +parents will be the loudest in proclaiming it, fortifying so the maid's +presumption, which is ready to take root in any shadow of subserviency. +Her father was a gouty general of infantry in the diplomatic service, +disinclined to unnecessary disputes, out of consideration for his +vehement irritability when roused. Her mother had been one of the +beauties of her set, and was preserving an attenuated reign, through +the conversational arts, to save herself from fading into the wall. Her +brothers and sisters were not of an age to contest her lead. The temper +of the period was revolutionary in society by reflection of the state of +politics, and juniors were sturdy democrats, letting their elders know +that they had come to their inheritance, while the elders, confused +by the impudent topsy-turvy, put on the gaping mask (not unfamiliar +to history) of the disestablished conservative, whose astounded state +paralyzes his wrath. + +Clotilde maintained a decent measure in the liberty she claimed, and +it was exercised in wildness of dialogue rather than in capricious +behaviour. If her flowing tongue was imperfectly controlled, it was +because she discoursed by preference to men upon our various affairs and +tangles, and they encouraged her with the tickled wonder which bids the +bold advance yet farther into bogland. Becoming the renowned original of +her society, wherever it might be, in Germany, Italy, Southern France, +she grew chillily sensible of the solitude decreed for their heritage to +our loftiest souls. Her Indian Bacchus, as a learned professor supplied +Prince Marko's title for her, was a pet, not a companion. She to him was +what she sought for in another. As much as she pitied herself for not +lighting on the predestined man, she pitied him for having met the +woman, so that her tenderness for both inspired many signs of warm +affection, not very unlike the thing it moaned secretly the not being. +For she could not but distinguish a more poignant sorrow in the seeing +of the object we yearn to vainly than in vainly yearning to one unseen. +Dressed, to delight him, in Prince Marko's colours, the care she +bestowed on her dressing was for the one absent, the shrouded comer: +so she pleased the prince to be pleasing to her soul's lord, and this, +owing to an appearance of satisfactory deception that it bore, led to +her thinking guiltily. We may ask it: an eagle is expected, and how +is he to declare his eagleship save by breaking through our mean +conventional systems, tearing links asunder, taking his own in the teeth +of vulgar ordinances? Clotilde's imagination drew on her reading for the +knots it tied and untied, and its ideas of grandeur. Her reading was an +interfusion of philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded. +She tried hard, but could get no other terrible tangle for her hero's +exhibition of flaming azure divineness than the vile one of the wedded +woman. Further thinking of it, she revived and recovered; she despised +the complication, yet without perceiving how else he was to manifest +himself legitimately in a dull modern world. The rescuing her from +death would be a poor imitation of worn-out heroes. His publication of a +trumpeting book fell appallingly flat in her survey. Deeds of gallantry +done as an officer in war (defending his country too) distinguished the +soldier, but failed to add the eagle feather to the man. She had a mind +of considerable soaring scope, and eclectic: it analyzed a Napoleon, +and declined the position of his empress. The man must be a gentleman. +Poets, princes, warriors, potentates, marched before her speculative +fancy unselected. + +So far, as far as she can be portrayed introductorily, she is not +without exemplars in the sex. Young women have been known to turn +from us altogether, never to turn back, so poor and shrunken, or so +fleshly-bulgy have we all appeared in the fairy jacket they wove for the +right one of us to wear becomingly. But the busy great world was round +Clotilde while she was malleable, though she might be losing her +fresh ideas of the hammer and the block, and that is a world of much +solicitation to induce a vivid girl to merge an ideal in a living image. +Supposing, when she has accomplished it, that men justify her choice, +the living will retain the colours of the ideal. We have it on record +that he may seem an eagle. + +'You talk curiously like Alvan, do you know,' a gentleman of her country +said to her as they were descending the rock of Capri, one day. He said +it musingly. + +He belonged to a circle beneath her own: the learned and artistic. +She had not heard of this Alvan, or had forgotten him; but professing +universal knowledge, especially of celebrities, besides having an +envious eye for that particular circle, which can pretend to be the +choicest of all, she was unwilling to betray her ignorance, and she +dimpled her cheek, as one who had often heard the thing said to her +before. She smiled musingly. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +'Who is the man they call Alvan?' She put the question at the first +opportunity to an aunt of hers. + +Up went five-fingered hands. This violent natural sign of horror was +comforting: she saw that he was a celebrity indeed. + +'Alvan! My dear Clotilde! What on earth can you want to know about a +creature who is the worst of demagogues, a disreputable person, and a +Jew!' + +Clotilde remarked that she had asked only who he was. 'Is he clever?' + +'He is one of the basest of those wretches who are for upsetting the +Throne and Society to gratify their own wicked passions: that is what he +is.' + +'But is he clever?' + +'Able as Satan himself, they say. He is a really dangerous, bad man. You +could not have been curious about a worse one.' + +'Politically, you mean.' + +'Of course I do.' + +The lady had not thought of any other kind of danger from a man of that +station. + +The likening of one to Satan does not always exclude meditation upon +him. Clotilde was anxious to learn in what way her talk resembled +Alvan's. He being that furious creature, she thought of herself at her +wildest, which was in her estimation her best; and consequently, she +being by no means a furious creature, though very original, she could +not meditate on him without softening the outlines given him by report; +all because of the likeness between them; and, therefore, as she had +knowingly been taken for furious by very foolish people, she settled +it that Alvan was also a victim of the prejudices he scorned. It had +pleased her at times to scorn our prejudices and feel the tremendous +weight she brought on herself by the indulgence. She drew on her +recollections of the Satanic in her bosom when so situated, and never +having admired herself more ardently than when wearing that aspect, she +would have admired the man who had won the frightful title in public, +except for one thing--he was a Jew. + +The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew. Her parents had +the same abhorrence of Jewry. One of the favourite similes of the family +for whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew: +and it was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in +the veins of the latest generation and might have been traced on the +maternal side. + +Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards +is the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent +impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance +repulsive. She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan. Luckily for the +gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet +him again in Italy. + +She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she +summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish, +still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice +of the art she could at any time blow up a company--scatter mature and +seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our +stout sex a shaking. + +Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling +into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient +lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the +brain of her race is located. There it occurred that a dashing officer +of social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for +a comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making: 'I +see you know Alvan.' + +Alvan once more. + +'Indeed I do not,' she said, for she was addressing an officer high +above Alvan in social rank; and she shrugged, implying that she was +almost past contradiction of the charge. + +'Surely you must,' said he; 'where is the lady who could talk and think +as you do without knowing Alvan and sharing his views!' + +Clotilde was both startled and nettled. + +'But I do not know him at all; I have never met him, never seen him. +I am unlikely to meet the kind of person,' she protested; and she was +amazed yet secretly rejoiced on hearing him, a noble of her own circle, +and a dashing officer, rejoin: 'Come, come, let us be honest. That is +all very well for the little midges floating round us to say of Alvan, +but we two can clasp hands and avow proudly that we both know and love +the man.' + +'Were it true, I would own it at once, but I repeat, that he is a +total stranger to me,' she said, seeing the Jew under quite a different +illumination. + +'Actually?' + +'In honour.' + +'You have never met, never seen him, never read any of his writings?' + +'Never. I have heard his name, that is all.' + +'Then,' the officer's voice was earnest, 'I pity him, and you no less, +while you remain strangers, for you were made for one another. Those +ideas you have expressed, nay, the very words, are Alvan's: I have heard +him use them. He has just the same original views of society and history +as yours; they're identical; your features are not unlike... you talk +alike: I could fancy your voice the sister of his. You look incredulous? +You were speaking of Pompeius, and you said "Plutarch's Pompeius," and +more for it is almost incredible under the supposition that you do not +know and have never listened to Alvan--you said that Pompeius appeared +to have been decorated with all the gifts of the Gods to make the +greater sacrifice of him to Caesar, who was not personally worth a +pretty woman's "bite." Come, now--you must believe me: at a supper +at Alvan's table the other night, the talk happened to be of a +modern Caesar, which led to the real one, and from him to "Plutarch's +Pompeius," as Alvan called him; and then he said of him what you have +just said, absolutely the same down to the allusion to the bite. I +assure you. And you have numbers of little phrases in common: you are +partners in aphorisms: Barriers are for those who cannot fly: that is +Alvan's. I could multiply them if I could remember; they struck me as +you spoke.' + +'I must be a shameless plagiarist,' said Clotilde. + +'Or he,' said Count Kollin. + +It is here the place of the Chorus to state that these: ideas were in +the air at the time; sparks of the Vulcanic smithy at work in politics +and pervading literature: which both Alvan and Clotilde might catch +and give out as their own, in the honest belief that the epigram was, +original to them. They were not members of a country where literature is +confined to its little paddock, without, influence on the larger field +(part lawn, part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in +sympathetic action with thinkers and literary artists. Their saying in +common, 'Plutarch's Pompeius,' may be traceable to a reading of some +professorial article on the common portrait-painting of the sage of +Chaeroneia. The dainty savageness in the 'bite' Plutarch mentions, +evidently struck on a similarity of tastes in both, as it has done with +others. And in regard to Caesar, Clotilde thought much of Caesar; she +had often wished that Caesar (for the additional pleasure in thinking +of him) had been endowed with the beauty of his rival: one or two of +Plutarch's touches upon the earlier history of Pompeius had netted her +fancy, faintly (your generosity must be equal to hearing it) stung her +blood; she liked the man; and if he had not been beaten in the end, she +would have preferred him femininely. His name was not written Pompey to +her, as in English, to sound absurd: it was a note of grandeur befitting +great and lamentable fortunes, which the young lady declined to share +solely because of her attraction to the victor, her compulsion to render +unto the victor the sunflower's homage. She rendered it as a slave: the +splendid man beloved to ecstasy by the flower of Roman women was her +natural choice. + +Alvan could not be even a Caesar in person, he was a Jew. Still a Jew +of whom Count Kollin spoke so warmly must be exceptional, and of +the exceptional she dreamed. He might have the head of a Caesar. She +imagined a huge head, the cauldron of a boiling brain, anything but +bright to the eye, like a pot always on the fire, black, greasy, +encrusted, unkempt: the head of a malicious tremendous dwarf. Her +hungry inquiries in a city where Alvan was well known, brought her full +information of one who enjoyed a highly convivial reputation besides the +influence of his political leadership; but no description of his aspect +accompanied it, for where he was nightly to be met somewhere about the +city, none thought of describing him, and she did not push that question +because she had sketched him for herself, and rather wished, the more +she heard of his genius, to keep him repulsive. It appeared that his +bravery was as well proved as his genius, and a brilliant instance of it +had been given in the city not long since. He had her ideas, and he won +multitudes with them: he was a talker, a writer, and an orator; and he +was learned, while she could not pretend either to learning or to a flow +of rhetoric. She could prattle deliciously, at times pointedly, relying +on her intuition to tell her more than we get from books, and on her +sweet impudence for a richer original strain. She began to appreciate +now a reputation for profound acquirements. Learned professors of +jurisprudence and history were as enthusiastic for Alvan in their way as +Count Kollin. She heard things related of Alvan by the underbreath. That +circle below her own, the literary and artistic, idolized him; his +talk, his classic breakfasts and suppers, his undisguised ambition, +his indomitable energy, his dauntlessness and sway over her sex, +were subjects of eulogy all round her; and she heard of an enamoured +baroness. No one blamed Alvan. He had shown his chivalrous valour +in defending her. The baroness was not a young woman, and she was a +hardbound Blue. She had been the first to discover the prodigy, and had +pruned, corrected, and published him; he was one of her political works, +promising to be the most successful. An old affair apparently; but +the association of a woman's name with Alvan's, albeit the name of a +veteran, roused the girl's curiosity, leading her to think his mental +and magnetic powers must be of the very highest, considering his +physical repulsiveness, for a woman of rank to yield him such extreme +devotion. She commissioned her princely serving-man, who had followed +and was never far away from her, to obtain precise intelligence of this +notorious Alvan. + +Prince Marko did what he could to please her; he knew something of the +rumours about Alvan and the baroness. But why should his lady trouble +herself for particulars of such people, whom it could scarcely be +supposed she would meet by accident? He asked her this. Clotilde said +it was common curiosity. She read him a short lecture on the dismal +narrowness of their upper world; and on the advantage of taking an +interest in the world below them and more enlightened; a world where +ideas were current and speech was wine. The prince nodded; if she had +these opinions, it must be good for him to have them too, and he shared +them, as it were, by the touch of her hand, and for the length of time +that he touched her hand, as an electrical shock may be taken by one far +removed from the battery, susceptible to it only through the link; +he was capable of thinking all that came to him from her a +blessing--shocks, wounds and disruptions. He did not add largely to her +stock of items, nor did he fetch new colours. The telegraph wire was +his model of style. He was more or less a serviceless Indian Bacchus, +standing for sign of the beauty and vacuity of their world: and how +dismally narrow that world was, she felt with renewed astonishment at +every dive out of her gold-fish pool into the world of tides below; so +that she was ready to scorn the cultivation of the graces, and had, +when not submitting to the smell, fanciful fits of a liking for tobacco +smoke--the familiar incense of those homes where speech was wine. + +At last she fell to the asking of herself whether, in the same city +with him, often among his friends, hearing his latest intimate +remarks--things homely redolent of him as hot bread of the oven--she was +ever to meet this man upon whom her thoughts were bent to the eclipse +of all others. She desired to meet him for comparison's sake, and to +criticize a popular hero. It was inconceivable that any one popular +could approach her standard, but she was curious; flame played about +him; she had some expectation of easing a spiteful sentiment created by +the recent subjection of her thoughts to the prodigious little Jew; and +some feeling of closer pity for Prince Marko she had, which urged her +to be rid of her delusion as to the existence of a wonder-working man on +our earth, that she might be sympathetically kind to the prince, perhaps +compliant, and so please her parents, be good and dull, and please +everybody, and adieu to dreams, good night, and so to sleep with the +beasts!... + +Calling one afternoon on a new acquaintance of the flat table-land she +liked tripping down to from her heights, Clotilde found the lady in +supreme toilette, glowing, bubbling: 'Such a breakfast, my dear!' The +costly profusion, the anecdotes, the wit, the fun, the copious draughts +of the choicest of life--was there ever anything to match it? Never in +that lady's recollection, or her husband's either, she exclaimed. And +where was the breakfast? Why, at Alvan's, to be sure; where else could +such a breakfast be? + +'And you know Alvan!' cried Clotilde, catching excitement from the +lady's flush. + +'Alvan is one of my husband's closest friends' + +Clotilde put on the playful frenzy; she made show of wringing her hands: +'Oh! happy you! you know Alvan? And everybody is to know him except me? +why? I proclaim it unjust. Because I am unmarried? I'll take a husband +to-morrow morning to be entitled to meet Alvan in the evening.' + +The playful frenzy is accepted in its exact innocent signification of +'this is my pretty wilful will and way,' and the lady responded to it +cordially; for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant +to assist some one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a +sight of Alvan; she was used to the request. + +'You're not obliged to wait for to-morrow,' she said. 'Come to one of +our gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.' + +'You invite me?' + +'Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, and +Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour of +our introduction? She will bring you.' + +The Frau v. Crestow was a cousin of Clotilde's by marriage, sentimental, +but strict in her reading of the proprieties. She saw nothing wrong in +undertaking to conduct Clotilde to one of those famous gatherings of +the finer souls of the city and the race; and her husband agreed to join +them after the sitting of the Chamber upon a military-budget vote. +The whole plan was nicely arranged and went well. Clotilde dressed +carefully, letting her gold-locks cloud her fine forehead carelessly, +with finishing touches to the negligence, for she might be challenged to +take part in disputations on serious themes, and a handsome young +woman who has to sustain an argument against a man does wisely when she +forearms her beauties for a reserve, to carry out flanking movements if +required. The object is to beat him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan +was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted +damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her +companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where +three gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours +of tobacco. They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was +of good stature. One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly +Jewish. The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter +signs of the Ahasuerus race. Three hats on his head could not have done +it more effectively. The vindictive caricatures of the God Pan, executed +by priests of the later religion burning to hunt him out of worship +in the semblance of the hairy, hoofy, snouty Evil One, were not more +loathsome. She sank on a sofa. That the man? Oh! Jew, and fifty times +over Jew! nothing but Jew! + +The three stepped into the long saloon, and she saw how veritably +magnificent was the first whom she had noticed. + +She sat at her lamb's-wool work in the little ivory frame, feeding +on the contrast. This man's face was the born orator's, with the +light-giving eyes, the forward nose, the animated mouth, all stamped for +speechfulness and enterprise, of Cicero's rival in the forum before he +took the headship of armies and marched to empire. + +The gifts of speech, enterprise, decision, were marked on his features +and his bearing, but with a fine air of lordly mildness. Alas, he could +not be other than Christian, so glorious was he in build! One could +vision an eagle swooping to his helm by divine election. So vigorously +rich was his blood that the swift emotion running with the theme as +he talked pictured itself in passing and was like the play of sheet +lightning on the variations of the uninterrupted and many-glancing +outpour. Looking on him was listening. Yes, the looking on him sufficed. +Here was an image of the beauty of a new order of godlike men, that +drained an Indian Bacchus of his thin seductions at a breath-reduced +him to the state of nursery plaything, spangles and wax, in the +contemplation of a girl suddenly plunged on the deeps of her womanhood. +She shrank to smaller and smaller as she looked. + +Be sure that she knew who he was. No, says she. But she knew. It +terrified her soul to think he was Alvan. She feared scarcely less that +it might not be he. Between these dreads of doubt and belief she played +at cat and mouse with herself, escaped from cat, persecuted mouse, +teased herself, and gloated. It is he! not he! he! not he! most +certainly! impossible!--And then it ran: If he, oh me! If another, woe +me! For she had come to see Alvan. Alvan and she shared ideas. They +talked marvellously alike, so as to startle Count Kollin: and supposing +he was not Alvan, it would be a bitter disappointment. The supposition +that he was, threatened her with instant and life-long bondage. + +Then again, could that face be the face of a Jew? She feasted. It was a +noble profile, an ivory skin, most lustrous eyes. Perchance a Jew of the +Spanish branch of the exodus, not the Polish. There is the noble Jew as +well as the bestial Gentile. There is not in the sublimest of Gentiles a +majesty comparable to that of the Jew elect. He may well think his race +favoured of heaven, though heaven chastise them still. The noble Jew is +grave in age, but in his youth he is the arrow to the bow of his fiery +eastern blood, and in his manhood he is--ay, what you see there! a +figure of easy and superb preponderance, whose fire has mounted to +inspirit and be tempered by the intellect. + +She was therefore prepared all the while for the surprise of learning +that the gentleman so unlike a Jew was Alvan; and she was prepared to +express her recordation of the circumstance in her diary with phrases +of very eminent surprise. Necessarily it would be the greatest of +surprises. + +The three, this man and his two of the tribe, upon whom Clotilde's +attention centred, with a comparison in her mind too sacred to be other +than profane (comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered), +dropped to the cushions of the double-seated sofa, by one side of which +she cowered over her wool-work, willing to dwindle to a pin's head if +her insignificance might enable her to hear the words of the speaker. He +pursued his talk: there was little danger of not hearing him. There was +only the danger of feeling too deeply the spell of his voice. His voice +had the mellow fulness of the clarionet. But for the subject, she could +have fancied a noontide piping of great Pan by the sedges. She had +never heard a continuous monologue so musical, so varied in music, amply +flowing, vivacious, interwovenly the brook, the stream, the torrent: +a perfect natural orchestra in a single instrument. He had notes less +pastorally imageable, notes that fired the blood, with the ranging of +his theme. The subject became clearer to her subjugated wits, until +the mental vivacity he roused on certain impetuous phrases of assertion +caused her pride to waken up and rebel as she took a glance at herself, +remembering that she likewise was a thinker, deemed in her society +an original thinker, an intrepid thinker and talker, not so very much +beneath this man in audacity of brain, it might be. He kindled her thus, +and the close-shut but expanded and knew the fretting desire to breathe +out the secret within it, and be appreciated in turn. + +The young flower of her sex burned to speak, to deliver an opinion. She +was unaccustomed to yield a fascinated ear. She was accustomed rather +to dictate and be the victorious performer, and though now she was not +anxious to occupy the pulpit--being too strictly bred to wish for a post +publicly in any of the rostra--and meant still less to dispossess the +present speaker of the place he filled so well, she yearned to join him: +and as that could not be done by a stranger approving, she panted to +dissent. A young lady cannot so well say to an unknown gentleman: 'You +have spoken truly, sir,' as, 'That is false!' for to speak in the former +case would be gratuitous, and in the latter she is excused by the moral +warmth provoking her. Further, dissent rings out finely, and approval +is a feeble murmur--a poor introduction of oneself. Her moral warmth +was ready and waiting for the instigating subject, but of course she was +unconscious of the goad within. Excitement wafted her out of herself, as +we say, or out of the conventional vessel into the waves of her troubled +nature. He had not yet given her an opportunity for dissenting; she was +compelled to agree, dragged at his chariot-wheels in headlong agreement. + +His theme was Action; the political advantages of Action; and he +illustrated his view with historical examples, to the credit of the +French, the temporary discredit of the German and English races, who +tend to compromise instead. Of the English he spoke as of a power +extinct, a people 'gone to fat,' who have gained their end in a hoard of +gold and shut the door upon bandit ideas. Action means life to the soul +as to the body. Compromise is virtual death: it is the pact between +cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency. So do we gather +dead matter about us. So are we gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The +war with evil in every form must be incessant; we cannot have peace. Let +then our joy be in war: in uncompromising Action, which need not be the +less a sagacious conduct of the war.... Action energizes men's brains, +generates grander capacities, provokes greatness of soul between +enemies, and is the guarantee of positive conquest for the benefit of +our species. To doubt that, is to doubt of good being to be had for the +seeking. He drew pictures of the healthy Rome when turbulent, the doomed +quiescent. Rome struggling grasped the world. Rome stagnant invited +Goth and Vandal. So forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed +pamphleteer. At last her chance arrived. + +His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the +character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet's promising youth. How +brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning! + +'Mad from the first!' cried Clotilde. + +She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The +three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor. + +Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes +engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each +pair of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung +herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis. + +His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa, +leaning across it, with clasped hands. + +'You are she!--So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the +commencement?' + +'After the apparition of Hamlet's father the prince was mad,' said +Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm +succeeding that of her boldness. + +'Why should we two wait to be introduced?' said he. 'We know one +another. I am Alvan. You are she of whom I heard from Kollin: who else? +Lucretia the gold-haired; the gold-crested serpent, wise as her sire; +Aurora breaking the clouds; in short, Clotilde!' + +Her heart exulted to hear him speak her name. She laughed with a radiant +face. His being Alvan, and his knowing her and speaking her name, all +was like the happy reading of a riddle. He came round to her, bowing, +and his hand out. She gave hers: she could have said, if asked, 'For +good!' And it looked as though she had given it for good. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +'Hamlet in due season,' said he, as they sat together. 'I shall convince +you.' + +She shook her head. + +'Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: +the fact is not half so stubborn. But at present there are two more +important actors: we are not at Elsinore. You are aware that I hoped to +meet you?' + +'Is there a periodical advertisement of your hopes?--or do they come to +us by intuition?' + +'Kollin was right!--the ways of the serpent will be serpentine. I knew +we must meet. It is no true day so long as the goddess of the morning +and the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of myself, by what I have felt +since I heard of you.' + +'You are sure of your divinity?' + +'Through my belief in yours!' + +They bowed smiling at the courtly exchanges. + +'And tell me,' said he, 'as to meeting me...?' + +She replied: 'When we are so like the rest of the world we may confess +our weakness.' + +'Unlike! for the world and I meet and part: not we two.' + +Clotilde attempted an answer: it would not come. She tried to be +revolted by his lording tone, and found it strangely inoffensive. His +lording presence and the smile that was like a waving feather on it +compelled her so strongly to submit to hear, as to put her in danger of +appearing to embrace this man's rapid advances. + +She said: 'I first heed of you at Capri.' + +'And I was at Capri seven days after you had left.' + +'You knew my name then?' + +'Be not too curious with necromancers. Here is the date--March 15th. You +departed on the 8th.' + +'I think I did. That is a year from now.' + +'Then we missed: now we meet. It is a year lost. A year is a great age! +Reflect on it and what you owe me. How I wished for a comrade at Capri! +Not a "young lady," and certainly no man. The understanding Feminine, +was my desire--a different thing from the feminine understanding, +usually. I wanted my comrade young and fair, necessarily of your sex, +but with heart and brain: an insane request, I fancied, until I heard +that you were the person I wanted. In default of you I paraded the +island with Tiberius, who is my favourite tyrant. We took the initiative +against the patricians, at my suggestion, and the Annals were written by +a plebeian demagogue, instead of by one of that party, whose account of +my extinction by command of the emperor was pathetic. He apologized +in turn for my imperial master and me, saying truly, that the +misunderstanding between us was past cement: for each of us loved the +man but hated his office; and as the man is always more in his office +than he is in himself, clearly it was the lesser portion of our friend +that each of us loved. So, I, as the weaker, had to perish, as he would +have done had I been the stronger; I admitted it, and sent my emperor +my respectful adieux, with directions for the avoiding of assassins. +Mademoiselle, by delaying your departure seven days you would have saved +me from death. You see, the official is the artificial man, and I ought +to have known there is no natural man left in us to weigh against the +artificial. I counted on the emperor's personal affection, forgetting +that princes cannot be our friends.' + +'You died bravely?' + +Clotilde entered into the extravagance with a happy simulation of zest. + +'Simply, we will say. My time had come, and I took no sturdy pose, +but let the life-stream run its course for a less confined embankment. +Sapphire sea, sapphire sky: one believes in life there, thrills with it, +when life is ebbing: ay, as warmly as when life is at the flow in our +sick and shrivelled North--the climate for dried fish! Verily the second +death of hearing that a gold-haired Lucretia had been on the island +seven days earlier, was harder to bear. Tell me frankly--the music in +Italy?' + +'Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous.' + +'Excellent!' his eyes flashed delightedly. 'O comrade of comrades! that +year lost to me will count heavily as I learn to value those I have +gained. Yes, brainless! There, in music, we beat them, as politically +France beats us. No life without brain! The brainless in Art and in +Statecraft are nothing but a little more obstructive than the dead. +It is less easy to cut a way through them. But it must be done, or the +Philistine will be as the locust in his increase, and devour the green +blades of the earth. You have been trained to shudder at the demagogue?' + +'I do not shudder,' said Clotilde. + +'A diamond from the lapidary!--Your sentences have many facets. Well, +you are conversing with a demagogue, an avowed one: a demagogue and +a Jew. You take it as a matter of course: you should exhibit some +sparkling incredulity. The Christian is like the politician in supposing +the original obverse of him everlastingly the same, after the pattern +of the monster he was originally taught to hate. But the Jew has been +a little christianized, and we have a little bejewed the Christian. +So with demagogues: as we see the conservative crumbling, we grow +conservatived. Try to think individually upon what you have to learn +collectively--that is your task. You are of the few who will be equal to +it. We are not men of blood, believe me. I am not. For example, I detest +and I decline the duel. I have done it, and proved myself a man of metal +notwithstanding. To say nothing of the inhumanity, the senselessness of +duelling revolts me. 'Tis a folly, so your nobles practise it, and +your royal wiseacre sanctions. No blood for me: and yet I tell you +that whatever opposes me, I will sweep away. How? With the brain. If we +descend to poor brute strength or brutal craft, it is from failing in +the brain: we quit the leadership of our forces, and the descent is the +beast's confession. Do I say how? Perhaps by your aid.--You do not +start and cry: "Mine!" That is well. I have not much esteem for +non-professional actresses. They are numerous and not entertaining.--You +leave it to me to talk.' + +'Could I do better?' + +'You listen sweetly.' + +'It is because I like to hear.' + +'You have the pearly little ear of a shell on the sand.' + +'With the great sea sounding near it!' + +Alvan drew closer to her. + +'I look into your eyes and perceive that one may listen to you and +speak to you. Heart to heart, then! Yes, a sea to lull you, a sea to win +you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be. My prize is found! +The good friend who did the part of Iris for us came bounding to me: "I +have discovered the wife for you, Alvan." I had previously heard of her +from another as having touched the islet of Capri. "But," said Kollin, +"she is a gold-crested serpent--slippery!" Is she? That only tells me of +a little more to be mastered. I feel my future now. Hitherto it has been +a land without sunlight. Do you know how the look of sunlight on a +land calms one? It signifies to the eye possession and repose, the end +gained--not the end to labour, just heaven! but peace to the heart's +craving, which is the renewal of strength for work, the fresh dip in the +waters of life. Conjure up your vision of Italy. Remember the meaning +of Italian light and colour: the clearness, the luminous fulness, the +thoughtful shadows. Mountain and wooded headland are solid, deep to the +eye, spirit-speaking to the mind. They throb. You carve shapes of Gods +out of that sky, the sea, those peaks. They live with you. How they +satiate the vacant soul by influx, and draw forth the troubled from its +prickly nest!--Well, and you are my sunlighted land. And you will have +to be fought for. And I see not the less repose in the prospect! Part +of you may be shifty-sand. The sands are famous for their golden +shining--as you shine. Well, then, we must make the quicksands concrete. +I have a perfect faith in you, and in the winning of you. Clearly you +will have to be fought for. I should imagine it a tough battle to come. +But as I doubt neither you nor myself, I see beyond it.--We use phrases +in common, and aphorisms, it appears. Why? but that our minds act in +unison. What if I were to make a comparison of you with Paris?--the city +of Paris, Lutetia.' + +'Could you make it good?' said Clotilde. + +He laughed and postponed it for a series of skimming discussions, like +swallow-flights from the nest beneath the eaves to the surface of the +stream, perpetually reverting to her, and provoking spirited replies, +leading her to fly with him in expectation of a crowning compliment that +must be singular and was evidently gathering confirmation in his mind +from the touchings and probings of her character on these flights. + +She was like a lady danced off her sense of fixity, to whom the +appearance of her whirling figure in the mirror is both wonderful and +reassuring; and she liked to be discussed, to be compared to anything, +for the sake of being the subject, so as to be sure it was she that +listened to a man who was a stranger, claiming her for his own; sure +it was she that by not breaking from him implied consent, she that went +speeding in this magical rapid round which slung her more and more out +of her actual into her imagined self, compelled her to proceed, denied +her the right to faint and call upon the world for aid, and catch at it, +though it was close by and at a signal would stop the terrible circling. +The world was close by and had begun to stare. She half apprehended that +fact, but she was in the presence of the irresistible. In the presence +of the irresistible the conventional is a crazy structure swept away +with very little creaking of its timbers on the flood. When we feel its +power we are immediately primitive creatures, flying anywhere in space, +indifferent to nakedness. And after trimming ourselves for it, the sage +asks your permission to add, it will be the thing we are most certain +some day to feel. Had not she trimmed herself?--so much that she had won +fame for an originality mistaken by her for the independent mind, and +perilously, for courage. She had trimmed herself and Alvan too--herself +to meet it, and Alvan to be it. Her famous originality was a trumpet +blown abroad proclaiming her the prize of the man who sounded as loudly +his esteem for the quality--in a fair young woman of good breeding. Each +had evoked the other. Their common anticipations differed in this, that +he had expected comeliness, she the reverse--an Esau of the cities; and +seeing superb manly beauty in the place of the thick-featured sodden +satyr of her miscreating fancy, the irresistible was revealed to her on +its divinest whirlwind. + +They both desired beauty; they had each stipulated for beauty before +captivity could be acknowledged; and he beholding her very attractive +comeliness, walked into the net, deeming the same a light thing to wear, +and rather a finishing grace to his armoury; but she, a trained disciple +of the conventional in social behaviour (as to the serious points and +the extremer trifles), fluttered exceedingly; she knew not what she was +doing, where her hand was, how she looked at him, how she drank in +his looks on her. Her woman's eyes had no guard they had scarcely +speculation. She saw nothing in its passing, but everything backward, +under haphazard flashes. The sight of her hand disengaged told her it +had been detained; a glance at the company reminded her that those were +men and women who had been other than phantoms; recollections of the +words she listened to, assented to, replied to, displayed the gulfs she +had crossed. And nevertheless her brain was as quick as his to press +forward to pluck the themes which would demonstrate her mental vividness +and at least indicate her force of character. The splendour of the man +quite extinguished, or over-brightened, her sense of personal charm; she +set fire to her brain to shine intellectually, treating the tale of her +fair face as a childish tale that might have a grain of truth in it, +some truth, a very little, and that little nearly worthless, merely +womanly, a poor charm of her sex. The intellectual endowment was +rarer: still rarer the moral audacity. O, to match this man's embracing +discursiveness! his ardour, his complacent energy, the full strong sound +he brought out of all subjects! He struck, and they rang. There was a +bell in everything for him; Nature gave out her cry, and significance +was on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any +afflicting lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane +he was! how supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of +flippantly tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an +echo, his firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had +felt deeper than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to +consider: with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of +life thrice dear to him, he was fearless. Less by what he said than by +divination she discerned that he knew not fear. If for only that, she +would have hung to him like his shadow. She could have detected a brazen +pretender. A meaner mortal vaunting his great stores she would have +written down coxcomb. Her social training and natural perception raised +her to a height to measure the bombastical and distinguish it from the +eloquently lofty. He spoke of himself, as the towering Alp speaks out at +a first view, bidding that which he was be known. Fearless, confident, +able, he could not but be, as he believed himself, indomitable. She who +was this man's mate would consequently wed his possessions, including +courage. Clotilde at once reached the conclusion of her having it in +an equal degree. Was she not displaying it? The worthy people of the +company stared, as she now perceived, and she was indifferent; her +relatives were present without disturbing her exaltation. She wheeled +above their heads in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could +not but be courage, active courage, superior to her previous tentative +steps--the verbal temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now +she was in action, now she was being tried to match the preacher and +incarnation of the virtues of action! + +Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities--the +symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive, +eager to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him +to proof, graceful beyond all rhyme, colloquial as never the Muse; light +in light hands, yet valiant unto death for a principle; and therefore +not light, anything but light in strong hands, very stedfast rather: and +oh! constantly entertaining. + +The comparison had to be strained to fit the living lady's shape. Did he +think it, or a dash of something like it? + +His mood was luxurious. He had found the fair and youthful original +woman of refinement and station desired by him. He had good reason +to wish to find her. Having won a name, standing on firm ground, with +promise of a great career, chief of what was then taken for a growing +party and is not yet a collapsed, nor will be, though the foot on it is +iron, his youth had flown under the tutelage of an extraordinary Mentor, +whom to call Athene robs the goddess of her personal repute for wisdom +in conduct, but whose head was wise, wise as it was now grey. Verily +she was original; and a grey original should seem remarkable above a +blooming blonde. If originality in woman were our prime request, the +grey should bear the palm. She has gone through the battle, retaining +the standard she carried into it, which is a victory. Alas, that grey, +so spirit-touching in Art, should be so wintry in reality! + +The discovery of a feminine original breathing Spring, softer, warmer +than the ancient one, gold instead of snowcrested, and fully as intrepid +as devoted, was an immense joy to Alvan. He took it luxuriously because +he believed in his fortune, a kind of natal star, the common heritage of +the adventurous, that brought him his good things in time, in return +for energetic strivings in a higher direction apart from his natural +longings. + +Fortune had delayed, he had wintered long. All the sweeter was the +breath of the young Spring. That exquisite new sweetness robed Clotilde +in the attributes of the person dreamed of for his mate; and deductively +assuming her to possess them, he could not doubt his power of winning +her. Barriers are for those who cannot fly. The barriers were palpable +about a girl of noble Christian birth: so was the courage in her which +would give her wings, he thought, coming to that judgement through the +mixture of his knowledge of himself and his perusal of her exterior. +He saw that she could take an impression deeply enough to express it +sincerely, and he counted on it, sympathetically endowing her with his +courage to support the originality she was famed for. + +They were interrupted between-whiles by weariful men running to Alvan +for counsel on various matters--how to play their game, or the exact +phrasing of some pregnant sentence current in politics or literature. +He satisfied them severally and shouldered them away, begging for peace +that night. Clotilde corroborated his accurate recital of the lines of +a contested verse of the incomparable Heinrich, and they fell to capping +verses of the poet-lucid metheglin, with here and there no dubious +flavour of acid, and a lively sting in the tail of the honey. Sentiment, +cynicism, and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, +where pure poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements +constitute the popularity in a cultivated society inclining to +wantonness out of bravado as well as by taste. Alvan, looking +indolently royal and royally roguish, quoted a verse that speaks of the +superfluousness of a faithless lady's vowing bite: + + 'The kisses were in the course of things, + The bite was a needless addition.' + +Clotilde could not repress her reddening--Count Kollin had repeated too +much! She dropped her eyes, with a face of sculpture, then resumed their +chatter. He spared her the allusion to Pompeius. She convinced him of +her capacity for reserve besides intrepidity, and flattered him too with +her blush. She could dare to say to Kollin what her scarlet sensibility +forbade her touching on with him: not that she would not have had an +airy latitude with him to touch on what she pleased: he liked her for +her boldness and the cold peeping of the senses displayed in it: he +liked also the distinction she made. + +The cry to supper conduced to a further insight of her adaptation to +his requirements in a wife. They marched to the table together, and sat +together, and drank a noble Rhine wine together--true Rauenthal. His +robustness of body and soul inspired the wish that his well-born wife +might be, in her dainty fashion, yet honestly and without mincing, his +possible boonfellow: he and she, glass in hand, thanking the bountiful +heavens, blessing mankind in chorus. It belonged to his hearty dream +of the wife he would choose, were she to be had. The position of +interpreter of heaven's benevolence to mankind through his own enjoyment +of the gifts, was one that he sagaciously demanded for himself, sharing +it with the Philistine unknowingly; and to have a wife no less wise than +he on this throne of existence was a rosy exaltation. Clotilde kindled +to the hint of his festival mood of Solomon at the banquet. She was not +devoid of a discernment of flavours; she had heard grave judges at her +father's board profoundly deliver their verdicts upon this and that +vineyard and vintage; and it is a note of patriotism in her country to +be enthusiastic for wine of the Rhine: she was, moreover, thirsty from +much talking and excitement. She drank her glass relishingly, declaring +the wine princely. Alvan smacked his hands in a rapture: 'You are not +for the extract of raisin our people have taken to copy from French +Sauternes, to suit a female predilection for sugar?' + +'No, no, the grape for me!' said she: 'the Rhine grape with the elf in +it, and the silver harp and the stained legend!' + +'Glorious!' + +He toasted the grape. 'Wine of the grape is the young bride--the young +sun-bride! divine, and never too sweet, never cloying like the withered +sun-dried, with its one drop of concentrated sugar, that becomes ten +of gout. No raisin-juice for us! None of their too-long-on-the-stem +clusters! We are for the blood of the grape in her youth, her +heaven-kissing ardour. I have a cellar charged with the bravest of the +Rhine. We--will we not assail it, bleed it in the gallant days to come? +we two!' The picture of his bride and him drinking the sun down after +a day of savage toil was in the shout--a burst unnoticed in the +incessantly verbalizing buzz of a continental supper-table. Clotilde +acquiesced: she chimed to it like a fair boonfellow of the rollicking +faun. She was realizing fairyland. + +They retired to the divan-corner where it was you-and-I between them +as with rivulets meeting and branching, running parallel, uniting and +branching again, divided by the theme, but unending in the flow of the +harmony. So ran their chirping arguments and diversions. The carrying +on of a prolonged and determined you-and-I in company intimates to those +undetermined floating atoms about us that a certain sacred something is +in process of formation, or has formed; and people looked; and looked +hard at the pair, and at one another afterward: none approached them. +The Signor conjuror who has a thousand arts for conjuring with nature +was generally considered to have done that night his most ancient and +reputedly fabulous trick--the dream of poets, rarely witnessed +anywhere, and almost too wonderful for credence in a haunt of our later +civilization. Yet there it was: the sudden revelation of the intense +divinity to a couple fused in oneness by his apparition, could be +perceived of all having man and woman in them; love at first sight, was +visible. 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' And if nature, +character, circumstance, and a maid clever at dressing her mistress's +golden hair, did prepare them for Love's lightning-match, not the +less were they proclaimingly alight and in full blaze. Likewise, +Time, imperious old gentleman though we know him to be, with his fussy +reiterations concerning the hour for bed and sleep, bowed to the magical +fact of their condition, and forbore to warn them of his passing from +night to day. He had to go, he must, he has to be always going, but as +long as he could he left them on their bank by the margin of the stream, +where a shadow-cycle of the eternal wound a circle for them and allowed +them to imagine they had thrust that old driver of the dusty high-road +quietly out of the way. They were ungrateful, of course, when the +performance of his duties necessitated his pulling them up beside him +pretty smartly, but he uttered no prophecy of ever intending to rob them +of the celestial moments they had cut from him and meant to keep between +them 'for ever,' and fresh. + +The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning. Alvan assisted at the +cloaking and hooding of Clotilde. Her relatives were at hand; they hung +by while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight +that laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and +stone. + +'A night to head the Spring!' said Alvan. 'Come.' + +He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an +established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did +her people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which +had struck the pair. These things, and many things that islands know not +of, are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness +of Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island +atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the +breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no +tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen +of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there. But even where +he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land +bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan's behaviour +was passing heteroclite. He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, +crowned by another kingly fellow--the lord of hearts--to impose it +uninterruptedly. 'She is mine; I have won her this night!' his bearing +said; and Clotilde's acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them +had to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering. Partly by habit, and +of his natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once +taken could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good +tideway strong in his own passion and his lady's up against the last +defences--her parents. A difficulty with them was foreseen. What is a +difficulty!--a gate in the hunting-field: an opponent on a platform: a +knot beneath a sword: the dam to waters that draw from the heavens. +Not desiring it in this case--it would have been to love the difficulty +better than the woman--he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a +resistance, if only because it was a portion of the dowry she brought +him. Good soldiers (who have won their grades) are often of a peaceful +temper and would not raise an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy +sets their pugnacious forces in motion, the bugle fills their veins with +electrical fire, till they are as racers on the race-course.--His inmost +hearty devil was glad of a combat that pertained to his possession of +her, for battle gives the savour of the passion to win, and victory +dignifies a prize: he was, however, resolved to have it, if possible, +according to the regular arrangement of such encounters, formal, without +snatchings, without rash violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, +reasoning eloquence. + +He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present +feelings: 'I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!' The comparison +had been used or implied to him before. + +'No!' said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, 'no +more of the quadruped man! You tempt him--may I tell you that? Why, now, +this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the +short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and we +should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and +friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No +more scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright +serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more +prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end +of the draught. But no!' his voice deepened--'the handsome face of the +orb that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between +us two. Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken +all round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon. + +I have seen the other face of it--a visage scored with regrets, +dead dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the +like!--sunless, waterless, without a flower! It is the old volcano land: +it grows one bitter herb: if ever you see my mouth distorted you will +know I am revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, +I will not be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he +stables himself; yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he +finishes by pasturing on. You have no dislike of metaphors and parables? +We Jews are a parable people.' + +'I am sure I do understand...' said Clotilde, catching her breath to be +conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation. + +'Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician's +treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise!--You were going to add?' + +'I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me +still.' + +'May the sensation never quit you!' + +'It will not.' + +'What a night!' Alvan raised his head: 'A night cast for our first +meeting and betrothing! You are near home?' + +'The third house yonder in the moonlight.' + +'The moonlight lays a white hand on it!' + +'That is my window sparkling.' + +'That is the vestal's cresset. Shall I blow it out?' + +'You are too far. And it is a celestial flame, sir!' + +'Celestial in truth! My hope of heaven! Dian's crescent will be ever +on that house for me, Clotilde. I would it were leagues distant, or the +door not forbidden!' + +'I could minister to a good knight humbly.' + +Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting: + +'When do father and mother arrive?' + +'To-morrow.' + +He took her hand. 'To-morrow, then! The worst of omens is delay.' + +Clotilde faintly gasped. Could he mean it?--he of so evil a name in her +family and circle! + +Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her. + +'Tell me the hour when it will be most convenient to them to receive +me,' said Alvan. + +She stopped walking in sheer fright. + +'My father--my mother?' she said, imaging within her the varied horror +of each and the commotion. + +'To-morrow or the day after--not later. No delays! You are mine, we are +one; and the sooner my cause is pleaded the better for us both. If +I could step in and see them this instant, it would be forestalling +mischances. Do you not see, that time is due to us, and the minutes are +our gold slipping away?' + +She shrank her hand back: she did not wish to withdraw the hand, only +to shun the pledge it signified. He opened an abyss at her feet, and in +deadly alarm of him she exclaimed: 'Oh! not yet; not immediately.' She +trembled, she made her petition dismal by her anguish of speechlessness. +'There will be such... not yet! Perhaps later. They must not be troubled +yet--at present. I am... I cannot--pray, delay!' + +'But you are mine!' said Alvan. 'You feel it as I do. There can be no +real impediment?' + +She gave an empty sigh that sought to be a run of entreaties. In fear +of his tongue she caught at words to baffle it, senseless of their +imbecility: 'Do not insist: yes, in time: they will--they--they may. +My father is not very well... my mother: she is not very well. They are +neither of them very well: not at present!--Spare them at present.' + +To avoid being carried away, she flung herself from the centaur's back +to the disenchanting earth; she separated herself from him in spirit, +and beheld him as her father and mother and her circle would look on +this pretender to her hand, with his lordly air, his Jew blood, and his +hissing reputation--for it was a reputation that stirred the snakes and +the geese of the world. She saw him in their eyes, quite coldly: which +imaginative capacity was one of the remarkable feats of cowardice, +active and cold of brain even while the heart is active and would be +warm. + +He read something of her weakness. 'And supposing I decide that it must +be?' + +'How can I supplicate you!' she replied with a shiver, feeling that she +had lost her chance of slipping from his grasp, as trained women of +the world, or very sprightly young wits know how to do at the critical +moment: and she had lost it by being too sincere. Her cowardice appeared +to her under that aspect. + +'Now I perceive that the task is harder,' said Alvan, seeing her huddled +in a real dismay. 'Why will you not rise to my level and fear nothing! +The way is clear: we have only to take the step. Have you not seen +tonight that we are fated for one another? It is your destiny, and +trifling with destiny is a dark business. Look at me. Do you doubt my +having absolute control of myself to bear whatever they put on me to +bear, and hold firmly to my will to overcome them! Oh! no delays.' + +'Yes!' she cried; 'yes, there must be.' + +'You say it?' + +The courage to repeat her cry was wanting. + +She trembled visibly: she could more readily have bidden him bear her +hence than have named a day for the interview with her parents; but +desperately she feared that he would be the one to bid; and he had this +of the character of destiny about him, that she felt in him a maker of +facts. He was her dream in human shape, her eagle of men, and she felt +like a lamb in the air; she had no resistance, only terror of his power, +and a crushing new view of the nature of reality. + +'I see!' said he, and his breast fell. Her timid inability to join with +him for instant action reminded him that he carried many weights: a +bad name among her people and class, and chains in private. He was old +enough to strangle his impulses, if necessary, or any of the brood less +fiery than the junction of his passions. 'Well, well!--but we might so +soon have broken through the hedge into the broad highroad! It is but to +determine to do it--to take the bold short path instead of the wearisome +circuit. Just a little lightning in the brain and tightening of the +heart. Battles are won in that way: not by tender girls! and she is a +girl, and the task is too much for her. So, then, we are in your hands, +child! Adieu, and let the gold-crested serpent glide to her bed, and +sleep, dream, and wake, and ask herself in the morning whether she is +not a wedded soul. Is she not a serpent? gold-crested, all the world +may see; and with a mortal bite, I know. I have had the bite before +the kisses. That is rather an unjust reversal of the order of things. +Apropos, Hamlet was poisoned--ghost-poisoned.' + +'Mad, he was mad!' said Clotilde, recovering and smiling. + +'He was born bilious; he partook of the father's constitution, not +the mother's. High-thoughted, quick-nerved to follow the thought, +reflective, if an interval yawned between his hand and the act, he was +by nature two-minded: as full of conscience as a nursing mother that +sleeps beside her infant:--she hears the silent beginning of a cry. +Before the ghost walked he was an elementary hero; one puff of action +would have whiffed away his melancholy. After it, he was a dizzy +moralizer, waiting for the winds to blow him to his deed-ox out. The +apparition of his father to him poisoned a sluggish run of blood, +and that venom in the blood distracted a head steeped in Wittenberg +philosophy. With metaphysics in one and poison in the other, with the +outer world opened on him and this world stirred to confusion, he wore +the semblance of madness; he was throughout sane; sick, but never with +his reason dethroned.' + +'Nothing but madness excuses his conduct to Ophelia!' + +'Poison in the blood is a pretty good apology for infidelity to a lady.' + +'No!' + +'Well, to an Ophelia of fifty?' said Alvan. + +Clotilde laughed, not perfectly assured of the wherefore, but pleased to +be able to laugh. Her friends were standing at the house door, farewells +were spoken, Alvan had gone. And then she thought of the person that +Ophelia of fifty might be, who would have to find a good apology for +him in his dose of snake-bite, or love of a younger woman whom he termed +gold-crested serpent. + +He was a lover, surely a lover: he slid off to some chance bit of +likeness to himself in every subject he discussed with her. + +And she? She speeded recklessly on the back of the centaur when he had +returned to the state of phantom and the realities he threatened her +with were no longer imminent. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Clotilde was of the order of the erring who should by rights have a +short sermon to preface an exposure of them, administering the whip to +her own sex and to ours, lest we scorn too much to take an interest in +her. The exposure she had done for herself, and she has not had the art +to frame her apology. The day after her meeting, with her eagle, Alvan, +she saw Prince Marko. She was gentle to him, in anticipation of his +grief; she could hardly be ungentle on account of his obsequious +beauty, and when her soft eyes and voice had thrilled him to an acute +sensibility to the blow, honourably she inflicted it. + +'Marko, my friend, you know that I cannot be false; then let me tell you +I yesterday met the man who has but to lift his hand and I go to him, +and he may lead me whither he will.' + +The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their +brightness moistened and flashed. + +Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said. He knew +the man. + +Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself. For the first +few days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan. +She feared the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly. Her +parents had postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm; +it was his violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she +feared, as nervous people shrink from cannon: and neither meeting, +seeing, nor hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose +curiosity is refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing +which frightened it. Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage +flooded back; she hoped he would present himself to claim her, marvelled +that he did not, reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for +listening to the hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling +what she really was--a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of +her family to spare them a sudden shock. Remembering her generous +considerations in their interests, she thought he should have known that +the creature he called a child would have yielded upon supplication to +fly with him. Her considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was +the cause of her seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived +it and put it aside. He should have seen that she could be brave, and +was a mate for him. And if his shallow experience of her wrote her down +nerveless, his love should be doing. + +Was it love? Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided +will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had +she the freedom of a man. She would not have listened (it was quite +true) to a silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an +interval to yawn after the first wild wooing of her. Prince Marko loved. +Yes, that was love! It failed in no sign of the passion. She set herself +to study it in Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering among +them pity, thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between admiration +and pathetic esteem, like that the musician has for a precious +instrument giving sweet sound when shattered. He served her faithfully, +in spite of his distaste for some of his lady's commissions. She had to +get her news of Alvan through Marko. He brought her particulars of the +old trial of Alvan, and Alvan's oration in defence of himself for +a lawless act of devotion to the baroness; nothing less than the +successfully scheming to wrest by force from that lady's enemy a +document precious to her lawful interests. It was one of those cases +which have a really high gallant side as well as a bad; an excellent +case for rhetoric. Marko supplied the world's opinion of the affair, +bravely owning it to be not unfavourable. Her worthy relatives, the +Frau v. Crestow and husband, had very properly furnished a report to +the family of the memorable evening; and the hubbub over it, with the +epithets applied to Alvan, intimated how he would have been received +on a visit to demand her in marriage. There was no chance of her being +allowed to enter houses where this 'rageing demagogue and popular +buffoon' was a guest; his name was banished from her hearing, so she +was compelled to have recourse to Marko. Unable to take such services +without rewarding him, she fondled: it pained her to see him suffer. +Those who toss crumbs to their domestic favourites will now and then +be moved to toss meat, which is not so good for them, but the dumb +mendicant's delight in it is winning, and a little cannot hurt. Besides, +if any one had a claim on her it was the prince; and as he was always +adoring, never importunate, he restored her to the pedestal she had been +really rudely shaken from by that other who had caught her up suddenly +into the air, and dropped her! A hand abandoned to her slave rewarded +him immeasurably. A heightening of the reward almost took his life. +In the peacefulness of dealing with a submissive love that made her +queenly, the royal, which plucked her from throne to footstool, seemed +predatory and insolent. Thus, after that scene of 'first love,' in which +she had been actress, she became almost (with an inward thrill or two +for the recovering of him) reconciled to the not seeing of the noble +actor; for nothing could erase the scene--it was historic; and Alvan +would always be thought of as a delicious electricity. She and Marko +were together on the summer excursion of her people, and quite sisterly, +she could say, in her delicate scorn of his advantages and her emotions. +True gentlemen are imperfectly valued when they are under the shadow +of giants; but still Clotilde's experience of a giant's manners was +favourable to the liberty she could enjoy in a sisterly intimacy of this +kind, rather warmer than her word for it would imply. She owned that she +could better live the poetic life--that is, trifle with fire and reflect +on its charms in the society of Marko. He was very young, he was little +more than an adolescent, and safely timid; a turn of her fingers would +string or slacken him. One could play on him securely, thinking of a +distant day--and some shipwreck of herself for an interlude--when he +might be made happy. + +Her strangest mood of the tender cruelty was when the passion to +anatomize him beset her. The ground of it was, that she found him in +her likeness, adoring as she adored, and a similar loftiness; now +grovelling, now soaring; the most radiant of beings, the most abject; +and the pleasure she had of the sensational comparison was in an +alteregoistic home she found in him, that allowed of her gathering a +picked self-knowledge, and of her saying: 'That is like me: that is very +like me: that is terribly like': up to the point where the comparison +wooed her no longer with an agreeable lure of affinity, but nipped +her so shrewdly as to force her to say: 'That is he, not I': and the +vivisected youth received the caress which quickened him to wholeness at +a touch. It was given with impulsive tenderness, in pity of him. Anatomy +is the title for the operation, because the probing of herself in +another, with the liberty to cease probing as soon as it hurt her, +allowed her while unhurt to feel that she prosecuted her researches in +a dead body. The moment her strong susceptibility to the likeness shrank +under a stroke of pain, she abstained from carving, and simultaneously +conscious that he lived, she was kind to him. + +'This love of yours, Marko--is it so deep?' + +'I love you.' + +'You think me the highest and best?' + +'You are.' + +'So deep that you could bear anything from me?' + +'Try me!' + +'Unfaithfulness?' + +'You would be you!' + +'Do you not say that because you cannot suspect evil of me?' + +'Let me only see you!' + +'You are sure that happiness would not smother it?' + +'Has it done so yet?' + +'Though you know I am a serpent to that man's music?' + +'Ah, heaven! Oh!--do not say music. Yes! though anything!' + +'And if ever you were to witness the power of his just breathing to me?' + +'I would.... Ah!' + +'What? If you saw his music working the spell?--even the first notes of +his prelude!' + +'I would wait' + +'It might be for long.' + +'I would eat my heart.' + +'Bitter! bitter!' + +'I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you.' + +She had a seizure of the nerves. + +The likeness between them was, she felt, too flamingly keen to be looked +at further. She reached to the dim idea of some such nauseous devotion, +and took a shot in her breast as she did so, and abjured it, and +softened to her victim. Clotilde opened her arms, charming away +her wound, as she soothed him, both by the act of soothing and the +reflection that she could not be so very like one whom she pitied and +consoled. + +She was charitably tender. If it be thought that she was cruel to +excess, plead for her the temptation to simple human nature at sight of +a youth who could be precipitated into the writhings of dissolution, and +raised out of it by a smile. This young man's responsive spirit acted on +her as the discovery of specifics for restoring soundness to the frame +excites the brilliant empiric: he would slay us with benevolent soul to +show the miracle of our revival. Worship provokes the mortal goddess to +a manifestation of her powers; and really the devotee is full half to +blame. + +She had latterly been thinking of Alvan's rejection of the part of +centaur; and his phrase, the quadruped man, breathed meaning. He was to +gain her lawfully after dominating her utterly. That was right, but it +levelled imagination. There is in the sentimental kingdom of Love a +form of reasoning, by which a lady of romantic notions who is dominated +utterly, will ask herself why she should be gained lawfully: and she is +moved to do so by the consideration that if the latter, no necessity +can exist for the former: and the reverse. In the union of the two +conditions she sees herself slavishly domesticated. With her Indian +Bacchus imagination rose, for he was pliant: she had only to fancy, and +he was beside her.--Quick to the saddle, away! The forest of terrors +is ahead; they are at the verge of it; a last hamlet perches on its +borders; the dwellers have haunted faces; the timbers of their huts lean +to an upright in wry splinters; warnings are moaned by men and women +with the voice of a night-wind; but on and on! the forest cannot be +worse than a world defied. They drain a cup of milk apiece and they +spur, for this is the way to the golden Indian land of the planted vine +and the lover's godship.--Ludicrous! There is no getting farther +than the cup of milk with Marko. They curvet and caper to be forward +unavailingly. It should be Alvan to bring her through the forest to +the planted vine in sunland. Her splendid prose Alvan could do what +the sprig of poetry can but suggest. Never would malicious fairy in old +woman's form have offered Alvan a cup of milk to paralyze his bride's +imagination of him confronting perils. Yet, O shameful contrariety of +the fates! he who could, will not; he who would, is incapable. Let it +not be supposed that the desire of her bosom was to be run away with +in person. Her simple human nature wished for the hero to lift her +insensibly over the difficult opening chapter of the romance--through +'the forest,' or half imagined: that done, she felt bold enough to meet +the unimagined, which, as there was no picture of it to terrify her, +seemed an easy gallop into sunland.--Yes, but in the grasp of a great +prose giant, with the poetic departed! Naturally she turned to caress +the poetic while she had it beside her. And it was a wonder to observe +the young prince's heavenly sensitiveness to every variation of her +moods. He knew without hearing when she had next seen Alvan, though +it had not been to speak to him. He looked, and he knew. The liquid +darkness of his large eastern eyes cast a light that brought her heart +out: she confessed it, and she comforted him. The sweetest in the woman +caused her double-dealing. + +Now she was aware that Alvan moved behind the screen concealing him. A +common friend of Alvan and her family talked to her of him. He was an +eminent professor, a middleaged, grave and honourable man, not ignorant +that her family entertained views opposed to the pretensions of such a +man as the demagogue and Jew. Nevertheless Alvan could persuade him to +abet the scheme for his meeting Clotilde; nay, to lead to it; ultimately +to allow his own house to be their place of meeting. Alvan achieved the +first of the steps unassisted. Whether or not his character stood +well with a man of the world, his force of character, backed by solid +attainments in addition to brilliant gifts, could win a reputable +citizen and erudite to support him. Rhetoric in a worthy cause has good +chances of carrying the gravest, and the cause might reasonably seem +excellent to the professor when one promising fair to be the political +genius of his time, but hitherto not the quietest of livers, could make +him believe that marriage with this girl would be his clear salvation. +The second step was undesignedly Clotilde's. + +She was on the professor's arm at one of the great winter balls of +her conductor's brethren in the law, and he said: 'Alvan is here.' She +answered: 'No, he has not yet come.'--How could she tell that he was not +present in the crowd? + +'Has he come now?' said the professor. + +'No.' + +And no Alvan was discernible. + +'Now?' + +'Not yet.' + +The professor stared about. She waited. + +'Now he has come; he is in the room now,' said Clotilde. + +Alvan was perceived. He stood in the centre of the throng surrounding +him to buzz about some recent pamphlet. + +She could well play at faith in his magnetization of her, for as by +degrees she made herself more nervously apprehensive by thinking of him, +it came to an overclouding and then a panic; and that she took for the +physical sign of his presence, and by that time, the hour being late, +Alvan happened to have arrived. The touch of his hand, the instant +naturalness in their speaking together after a long separation, as if +there had not been an interval, confirmed her notion of his influence +on her, almost to the making it planetary. And a glance at the professor +revealed how picturesque it was. Alvan and he murmured aside. They spoke +of it: What wonder that Alvan, though he saw Prince Marko whirl her in +the dance, and keep her to the measure--dancing like a song of the limbs +in his desperate poor lover's little flitting eternity of the possession +of her--should say, after she had been led back to her friends: 'That is +he, then! one of the dragons guarding my apple of the Hesperides, whom I +must brush away.' + +'He?' replied Clotilde, sincerely feeling Marko to be of as fractional +a weight as her tone declared him. 'Oh, he is my mute, harmless, he does +not count among the dragons.' + +But there had been, notwithstanding the high presumption of his remark, +a manful thickness of voice in Alvan's 'That is he!' The rivals had +fastened a look on one another, wary, strong, and summary as the +wrestlers' first grapple. In fire of gaze, Marko was not outdone. + +'He does not count? With those eyes of his?' Alvan exclaimed. He knew +something of the sex, and spied from that point of knowledge into the +character of Clotilde; not too venturesomely, with the assistance of +rumour, hazarding the suspicion which he put forth as a certainty, and +made sharply bitter to himself in proportion to the belief in it +that his vehemence engendered: 'I know all--without exception; +all, everything; all! I repeat. But what of it, if I win you? as I +shall--only aid me a little.' + +She slightly surprised the man by not striving to attenuate the import +of the big and surcharged All: but her silence bore witness to his +penetrative knowledge. Dozens of amorous gentlemen, lovers, of +excellent substance, have before now prepared this peculiar dose for +themselves--the dose of the lady silent under a sort of pardoning grand +accusation; and they have had to drink it, and they have blinked +over the tonic draught with such power of taking a bracing as their +constitutions could summon. At no moment of their quaint mutual history +are the sexes to be seen standing more acutely divided. Well may +the lady be silent; her little sins are magnified to herself to the +proportion of the greatness of heart forgiving her; and that, with +his mysterious penetration and a throb of her conscience, holds her +tongue-tied. She does not imagine the effect of her silence upon the +magnanimous wretch. Some of these lovers, it has to be stated in sadness +for the good name of man, have not preserved an attitude that said so +nobly, 'Child, thou art human--thou art woman!' They have undone it and +gone to pieces with an injured lover's babble of persecuting inquiries +for confessions. Some, on the contrary, retaining the attitude, have +been unable to digest the tonic; they did not prepare their systems as +they did their dose, possibly thinking the latter a supererogatory heavy +thump on a trifle, the which was performed by them artfully for a means +of swallowing and getting that obnoxious trifle well down. These are +ever after love's dyspeptics. Very few indeed continue at heart in +harmony with their opening note to the silent fair, because in truth the +general anticipation is of her proclaiming, if not angelical innocence, +a softly reddened or blush-rose of it, where the little guiltiness lies +pathetic on its bed of white. + +Alvan's robustness of temper, as a conqueror pleased with his capture, +could inspirit him to feel as he said it: + +'I know all; what matters that to me?' Even her silence, extending the +'all' beyond limits, as it did to the over-knowing man, who could number +these indicative characteristics of the young woman: impulsive, without +will, readily able to lie: her silence worked no discord in him. He +would have remarked, that he was not looking out for a saint, but rather +for a sprightly comrade, perfectly feminine, thoroughly mastered, young, +graceful, comely, and a lady of station. Once in his good keeping, her +lord would answer for her. And this was a manfully generous view of the +situation. It belongs to the robustness of the conqueror's mood. But how +of his opinion of her character in the fret of a baffling, a repulse, a +defeat? Supposing the circumstances not to have helped her to shine as a +heroine, while he was reduced to appear no hero to himself! Wise are the +mothers who keep vigilant personal watch over their girls, were it only +to guard them at present, from the gentleman's condescending generosity, +until he has become something more than robust in his ideas of the +sex--say, for lack of the ringing word, fraternal. + +Clotilde never knew, and Alvan would have been unable to date, the +origin of the black thing flung at her in time to come--when the man +was frenzied, doubtless, but it was in his mind, and more than froth of +madness. + +After the night of the ball they met beneath the sanctioning roof of +the amiable professor; and on one occasion the latter, perhaps waxing +anxious, and after bringing about the introduction of Clotilde to the +sister of Alvan, pursued his prudent measures bypassing the pair through +a demi-ceremony of betrothal. It sprang Clotilde astride nearer to +reality, both actually and in feeling; and she began to show the change +at home. A rebuff that came of the coupling of her name with Alvan's +pushed her back as far below the surface as she had ever been. She +waited for him to take the step she had again implored him not yet to +take; she feared that he would, she marvelled at his abstaining; the +old wheel revolved, as it ever does with creatures that wait for +circumstances to bring the change they cannot work for themselves; and +once more the two fell asunder. She had thoughts of the cloister. Her +venerable relative died joining her hand to Prince Marko's; she was +induced to think of marriage. An illness laid her prostrate; she +contemplated the peace of death. + +Shortly before she fell sick the prince was a guest of her father's, +and had won the household by his perfect amiability as an associate. The +grace and glow, and some of the imaginable accomplishments of an Indian +Bacchus were native to him. In her convalescence, she asked herself what +more she could crave than the worship of a godlike youth, whom she in +return might cherish, strengthening his frail health with happiness. For +she had seen how suffering ate him up; he required no teaching in the +Spartan virtue of suffering, wolf-gnawed, silently. But he was a flower +in sunshine to happiness, and he looked to her for it. Why should she +withhold from him a thing so easily given? The convalescent is receptive +and undesiring, or but very faintly desiring: the new blood coming into +the frame like first dawn of light has not stirred the old passions; it +is infant nature, with a tinge of superadded knowledge that is not cloud +across it and lends it only a tender wistfulness. + +Her physician sentenced her to the Alps, whither a friend, a daughter of +our island, whose acquaintance she had made in Italy, was going, and +at an invitation Clotilde accompanied her, and she breathed Alpine air. +Marko sank into the category of dreams during sickness. There came a +letter from the professor mentioning that Alvan was on one of the kingly +Alpine heights in view, and the new blood running through her veins +became a torrent. He there! So near! Could he not be reached? + +He had a saying: Two wishes make a will. + +The wishes of two lovers, he meant. A prettier sentence for lovers, and +one more intoxicating to them, was never devised. It chirrups of the +dear silly couple. Well, this was her wish. Was it his? Young health on +the flow of her leaping blood cried out that it could not be other than +Alvan's wish; she believed in his wishing it. Then as he wished and she +wished, she had the will immediately, and it was all the more her own +for being his as well. She hurried her friend and her friend's +friends on horseback off to the heights where the wounded eagle lodged +overlooking mountain and lake. The professor reported him outwearied +with excess of work. Alvan lived the lives of three; the sins of thirty +were laid to his charge. Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? Her +reckless defence of him, half spoken, half in her mind, helped her to +comprehend his dealings with her, and how it was that he stormed her and +consented to be beaten. He had a thousand occupations, an ambition out +of the world of love, chains to break, temptations, leanings... tut, +tut! She had not lived in her circle of society, and listened to +the tales of his friends and enemies, and been the correspondent of +flattering and flattered men of learning, without understanding how +a man like Alvan found diversions when forbidden to act in a given +direction: and now that her healthful new blood inspired the courage to +turn two wishes to a will, she saw both herself and him very clearly, +enough at least to pardon the man more than she did herself. She +had perforce of her radiant new healthfulness arrived at an exact +understanding of him. Where she was deluded was in supposing that she +would no longer dread his impetuous disposition to turn rosy visions +into facts. But she had the revived convalescent's ardour to embrace +things positive while they were not knocking at the door; dreams were +abhorrent to her, tasteless and innutritious; she cast herself on the +flood, relying on his towering strength and mastery of men and events to +bring her to some safe landing--the dream of hearts athirst for facts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Alvan was at his writing-table doing stout gladiator's work on paper in +a chamber of one of the gaunt hotels of the heights, which are Death's +Heads there in Winter and have the tongues in Summer, when a Swiss lad +entered with a round grin to tell him that a lady on horseback below had +asked for him--Dr. Alvan. Who could the lady be? He thought of too +many. The thought of Clotilde was dismissed in its dimness. Issuing and +beholding her, his face became illuminated as by a stroke of sunlight. + +'Clotilde! by all the holiest!' + +She smiled demurely, and they greeted. + +She admired the look of rich pleasure shining through surprise in him. +Her heart thanked him for appearing so handsome before her friends. + +'I was writing,' said he. 'Guess to whom?--I had just finished my +political stuff, and fell on a letter to the professor and another for +an immediate introduction to your father.' + +'True?' + +'The truth, as you shall see. So, you have come, you have found me! This +time if I let you slip, may I be stamped slack-fingered!' + +'"Two wishes make a will," you say.' + +He answered her with one of his bursts of brightness. + +Her having sought him he read for the frank surrender which he was +ready to match with a loyal devotion to his captive. Her coming cleared +everything. + +Clotilde introduced him to her friends, and he was enrolled a member +of the party. His appearance was that of a man to whom the sphinx has +whispered. They ascended to the topmost of the mountain stages, to +another caravanserai of tourists, whence the singular people emerge in +morning darkness night-capped and blanketed, and behold the great orb of +day at his birth--he them. + +Walking slowly beside Clotilde on the mountain way, Alvan said: 'Two +wishes! Mine was in your breast. You wedded yours to it. At last!--and +we are one. Not a word more of time lost. My wish is almost a will in +itself--was it not?--and has been wooing yours all this while!--till the +sleeper awakened, the well-spring leapt up from the earth; and our two +wishes united dare the world to divide them. What can? My wish was your +destiny, yours is mine. We are one.' He poetized on his passion, and +dramatized it: 'Stood you at the altar, I would pluck you from the man +holding your hand! There is no escape for you. Nay, into the vaults, +were you to grow pale and need my vital warmth--down to the vaults! +Speak--or no: look! That will do. You hold a Titan in your eyes, like +metal in the furnace, to turn him to any shape you please, liquid or +solid. You make him a god: he is the river Alvan or the rock Alvan: but +fixed or flowing, he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you +must, if you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: +if you raise him to heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes! +They can melt granite, they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And +now flutter, for there is that in me to make them.' + +'Consider!' Clotilde flutteringly entreated him. + +'The world? you dear heaven of me! Looking down on me does not +compromise you, and I am not ashamed of my devotions. I sat in gloom: +you came: I saw my goddess and worshipped. The world, Lutece, the world +is a variable monster; it rends the weak whether sincere or false; +but those who weld strength with sincerity may practise their rites of +religion publicly, and it fawns to them, and bellows to imitate. Nay, I +say that strength in love is the sole sincerity, and the world knows it, +muffs it in the air about us, and so we two are privileged. Politically +also we know that strength is the one reality: the rest is shadow. +Behind the veil of our human conventions power is constant as ever, and +to perceive the fact is to have the divining rod-to walk clear of shams. +He is the teacher who shows where power exists: he is the leader who +wakens and forms it. Why have I unfailingly succeeded?--I never doubted! +The world voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly. +You--to your honour?--I won't decide--but you have the longest in my +experience resisted. I have a Durandal to hew the mountain walls; I +have a voice for ears, a net for butterflies, a hook for fish, and +desperation to plunge into marshes: but the feu follet will not be +caught. One must wait--wait till her desire to have a soul bids her come +to us. She has come! A soul is hers: and see how, instantly, the old +monster, the world, which has no soul--not yet: we are helping it to get +one--becomes a shadow, powerless to stop or overawe. For I do give you +a soul, think as you will of it. I give you strength to realize, courage +to act. It is the soul that does things in this life--the rest is +vapour. How do we distinguish love?--as we do music by the pure note won +from resolute strings. The tense chord is music, and it is love. This +higher and higher mountain air, with you beside me, sweeps me like a +harp.' + +'Oh! talk on, talk on! talk ever! do not cease talking to me!' exclaimed +Clotilde. + +'You feel the mountain spirit?' + +'I feel that you reveal it.' + +'Tell me the books you have been reading.' + +'Oh, light literature-poor stuff.' + +'When we two read together you will not say that. Light literature is +the garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; +the view within us as well as without. Our blood runs through it, our +history in the quick. The Philistine detests it, because he has no view, +out or in. The dry confess they are cut off from the living tree, peeled +and sapless, when they condemn it. The vulgar demand to have their +pleasures in their own likeness--and let them swamp their troughs! they +shall not degrade the fame of noble fiction. We are the choice public, +which will have good writing for light reading. Poet, novelist, +essayist, dramatist, shall be ranked honourable in my Republic. I am +neither, but a man of law, a student of the sciences, a politician, on +the road to government and statecraft: and yet I say I have learnt as +much from light literature as from heavy-as much, that is, from the +pictures of our human blood in motion as from the clever assortment of +our forefatherly heaps of bones. Shun those who cry out against fiction +and have no taste for elegant writing. For to have no sympathy with the +playful mind is not to have a mind: it is a test. But name the books.' + +She named one or two. + +'And when does Dr. Alvan date the first year of his Republic?' + +'Clotilde!' he turned on her. + +'My good sir?' + +'These worthy good people who are with you: tell me-to-morrow we leave +them!' + +'Leave them?' + +'You with me. No more partings. The first year, the first day shall be +dated from to-morrow. You and I proclaim our Republic on these heights. +All the ceremonies to follow. We will have a reaping of them, and make a +sheaf to present to the world with compliments. To-morrow!' + +'You do not speak seriously?' + +'I jest as little as the Talmud. Decide at once, in the happy flush of +this moment.' + +'I cannot listen to you, dear sir!' + +'But your heart beats!' + +'I am not mistress of it.' + +'Call me master of it. I make ready for to-morrow.' + +'No! no! no! A thousand times no! You have been reading too much fiction +and verse. Properly I should spurn you.' + +'Will you fail me, play feu follet, ward me off again?' + +'I must be won by rules, brave knight!' + +'Will you be won?' + +'And are you he--the Alvan who would not be centaur?' + +'I am he who chased a marsh-fire, and encountered a retiarius, and the +meshes are on my head and arms. I fancied I dealt with a woman; a woman +needing protection! She has me fast--I am netted, centaur or man. That +is between us two. But think of us facing the world, and trust me; take +my hand, take the leap; I am the best fighter in that fight. Trust it to +me, and all your difficulties are at an end. To fly solves the problem.' + +'Indeed, indeed, I have more courage than I had,' said Clotilde. + +His eyes dilated, steadied, speculated, weighed her. + +'Put it to proof while you can believe in it!' + +'How is it every one but you thinks me bold?' she complained. + +'Because I carry a touchstone that brings out the truth. I am your +reality: all others are phantoms. You can impose on them, not on me. +Courage for one inspired plunge you may have, and it will be your +salvation:--southward, over to Italy, that is the line of flight, and +the subsequent struggle will be mine: you will not have to face it. But +the courage for daily contention at home, standing alone, while I am +distant and maligned--can you fancy your having that? No! be wise of +what you really are; cast the die for love, and mount away tomorrow.' + +'Then,' said Clotilde, with elvish cunning, 'do you doubt your ability +to win me without a scandal?' + +'Back me, and I win you!' he replied in a tone of unwonted humility: a +sudden droop. + +She let her hand fall. He grasped it. + +'Gradations appear to be unknown to you,' she said. + +He cried out: 'Count the years of life, span them, think of the work to +be done, and ask yourself whether time and strength should run to waste +in retarding the inevitable? Pottering up steps that can be taken at one +bound is very well for peasant pilgrims whose shrine is their bourne, +and their kneecaps the footing stumps. But for us two life begins up +there. Onward, and everywhere around, when we two are together, is our +shrine. I have worked, and wasted life; I have not lived, and I thirst +to live.' + +She murmured, in a fervour, 'You shall!' and slipped behind her +defences. 'To-morrow morning we shall wander about; I must have a little +time; all to-morrow morning we can discuss plans.' + +'You know you command me,' said he, and gazed at her. + +She was really a child compared with him in years, and if it was an +excuse for taking her destiny into his hands, she consenting,--it was +also a reason why he dared not press his whole weight to win her to the +step. + +She had the pride of the secret knowledge of her command of this giant +at the long table of the guests at dinner, where, after some play of +knife and fork among notable professors, Prussian officers, lively +Frenchmen and Italians, and the usual over-supply of touring English +of both sexes, not encouraging to conversation in their look of pallid +disgust of the art, Alvan started general topics and led them. The lead +came to him naturally, because he was a natural speaker, of a mind both +stored and effervescent; and he was genial, interested in every growth +of life. She did not wonder at his popularity among men of all classes +and sets, or that he should be famed for charming women. Her friend was +enraptured with him. Friendly questions pressed in an evening chatter +between the ladies, and Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession. + +'But you are not engaged?' said the blunt Englishwoman. + +According to the explanation, Clotilde was hardly engaged. It was not +an easy thing to say how she stood definitely. She had obeyed her dying +relative and dearest on earth by joining her hand to Prince Marko's, and +had pleased her parents by following it up with the kindest attentions +to the prince. It had been done, however, for the sake of peace; and +chiefly for his well-being. She had reserved her full consent: the +plighting was incomplete. Prince Marko knew that there was another, a +magical person, a genius of the ring, irresistible. He had been warned, +that should the other come forth to claim her.... And she was about to +write to him this very night to tell him... tell him fully.... In truth, +she loved both, but each so differently! And both loved her! And she had +to make her choice of one, and tell the prince she did love him, but... +Dots are the best of symbols for rendering cardisophistical subtleties +intelligible, and as they are much used in dialogue, one should have +now and then permission to print them. Especially feminine dialogue +referring to matters of the uncertain heart takes assistance from troops +of dots; and not to understand them at least as well as words, when +words have as it were conducted us to the brink of expression, and shown +us the precipice, is to be dull, bucolic of the marketplace. + +Sunless rose the morning. The blanketed figures went out to salute a +blanketed sky. Drizzling they returned, images of woefulness in +various forms, including laughter's. Alvan frankly declared himself the +disappointed showman; he had hoped for his beloved to see the sight long +loved by him of golden chariot and sun-steeds crossing the peaks and the +lakes; and his disappointment became consternation on hearing Clotilde's +English friend (after objection to his pagan clothing of the solemn +reality of sunrise, which destroyed or minimized by too materially +defining a grandeur that derived its essence from mystery, she thought) +announce the hour for her departure. He promised her a positive sunrise +if she would delay. Her child lay recovering from an illness in the +town below, and she could not stay. But Clotilde had coughed in the damp +morning air, and it would, he urged, be dangerous for her to be exposed +to it. Had not the lady heard her cough? She had, but personally she +was obliged to go; with her child lying ill she could not remain. 'But, +madam, do you hear that cough again? Will you drag her out with such a +cough as that?' The lady repeated 'My child!' Clotilde said it had +been agreed they should descend this day; her friend must be beside +her child. Alvan thundered an 'Impossible!' The child was recovering; +Clotilde was running into danger: he argued with the senseless woman, +opposing reason to the feminine sentiment of the maternal, and of course +he was beaten. He was compelled to sit and gnaw his eloquence. Clotilde +likened his appearance to a strangled roar. 'Mothers and their +children are too much for me!' he said, penitent for his betrayal of +over-urgency, as he helped to wrap her warmly, and counselled her very +mode of breathing in the raw mountain atmosphere. + +'I admire you for knowing when to yield,' said she. + +He groaned, with frown and laugh: 'You know what I would beg!' + +She implored him to have some faith in her. + +The missiles of the impassioned were discharged at the poor English: a +customary volley in most places where they intrude after quitting their +shores, if they diverge from the avenue of hotel-keepers and waiters: +but Clotilde pointed out to him that her English friend was not showing +coldness in devoting herself to her child. + +'No, they attend to their duties,' he assented generally, desperately +just. + +'And you owe it to her that you have seen me.' + +'I do,' he said, and forthwith courted the lady to be forgiven. + +Clotilde was taken from him in a heavy downpour and trailing of mists. + +At the foot of the mountain a boy handed her a letter from Alvan--a +burning flood, rolled out of him like lava after they had separated +on the second plateau, and confided to one who knew how to outstrip +pathfarers. She entered her hotel across the lake, and met a telegram. +At night the wires flashed 'Sleep well' to her; on her awakening, +'Good morning.' A lengthened history of the day was telegraphed for her +amusement. Again at night there was a 'God guard you!' + +'Who can resist him?' sighed Clotilde, excited, nervous, flattered, +happy, but yearning to repose and be curtained from the buzz of the +excess of life that he put about her. This time there was no prospect of +his courtship relapsing. + +'He is a wonderful, an ideal lover!' replied her friend. + +'If he were only that!' said Clotilde, musing expressively. 'If, dear +Englishwoman, he were only that, he might be withstood. But Alvan mounts +high over such lovers: he is a wonderful and ideal man: so great, so +generous, heroical, giant-like, that what he wills must be.' + +The Englishwoman was quick enough to seize an indication difficult to +miss--more was expected to be said of him. + +'You see the perfect gentleman in Dr. Alvan,' she remarked, for she had +heard him ordering his morning bath at the hotel, and he had also been +polite to her under vexation. + +Clotilde nodded hurriedly; she saw something infinitely greater, and +disliked the bringing of that island microscope to bear upon a giant. +She found it repugnant to hear a word of Alvan as a perfect gentleman. +Justly, however, she took him for a splendid nature, and assuming upon +good authority that the greater contains the lesser, she supposed the +lesser to be a chiselled figure serviceably alive in the embrace. + + + + +BOOK 2. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +He was down on the plains to her the second day, and as usual when they +met, it was as if they had not parted; his animation made it seem so. +He was like summer's morning sunlight, his warmth striking instantly +through her blood dispersed any hesitating strangeness that sometimes +gathers during absences, caused by girlish dread of a step to take, +or shame at the step taken, when coldish gentlemen rather create these +backflowings and gaps in the feelings. She had grown reconciled to +the perturbation of his messages, and would have preferred to have +him startling and thrilling her from a distance; but seeing him, she +welcomed him, and feeling in his bright presence not the faintest chill +of the fit of shyness, she took her bravery of heart for a sign that +she had reached his level, and might own it by speaking of the practical +measures to lead to their union. On one subject sure to be raised +against him by her parents, she had a right to be inquisitive: the +baroness. + +She asked to see a photograph of her. + +Alvan gave her one out of his pocketbook, and watched her eyelids in +profile as she perused those features of the budless grey woman. The +eyelids in such scrutinies reveal the critical mind; Clotilde's drooped +till they almost closed upon their lashes--deadly criticism. + +'Think of her age,' said Alvan, colouring. He named a grandmaternal date +for the year of the baroness's birth. + +Her eyebrows now stood up; her contemplation of those disenchanting +lineaments came to an abrupt finish. + +She returned the square card to him, slowly shaking her head, still +eyeing earth as her hand stretched forth the card laterally. He could +not contest the woeful verdict. + +'Twenty years back!' he murmured, writhing. The baroness was a woman +fair to see in the days twenty years back, though Clotilde might think +it incredible: she really was once. + +Clotilde resumed her doleful shaking of the head; she sighed. He +shrugged; she looked at him, and he blinked a little. For the first time +since they had come together she had a clear advantage, and as it was +likely to be a rare occasion, she did not let it slip. She sighed again. +He was wounded by her underestimate of his ancient conquest. + +'Yes--now,' he said, impatiently. + +'I cannot feel jealousy, I cannot feel rivalry,' said she, sad of voice. + +The humour of her tranced eyes in the shaking head provoked him to +defend the baroness for her goodness of heart, her energy of brain. + +Clotilde 'tolled' her naughty head. + +'But it is a strong face,' she said, 'a strong face--a strong jaw, by +Lavater! You were young--and daringly adventurous; she was captivating +in her distress. Now she is old--and you are friends.' + +'Friends, yes,' Alvan replied, and praised the girl, as of course she +deserved to be praised for her open mind. + +'We are friends!' he said, dropping a deep-chested breath. The title +this girl scornfully supplied was balm to the vanity she had stung, and +his burnt skin was too eager for a covering of any sort to examine +the mood of the giver. She had positively humbled him so far as with a +single word to relieve him; for he had seen bristling chapters in her +look at the photograph. Yet for all the natural sensitiveness of the +man's vanity, he did not seek to bury the subject at the cost of a +misconception injurious in the slightest degree to the sentiments he +entertained toward the older lady as well as the younger. 'Friends! +you are right; good friends; only you should know that it is just a +little--a trifle different. The fact is, I cannot kill the past, and I +would not. It would try me sharply to break the tie connecting us, were +it possible to break it. I am bound to her by gratitude. She is old now; +and were she twice that age, I should retain my feeling for her. You +raise your eyes, Clotilde! Well, when I was much younger I found this +lady in desperate ill-fortune, and she honoured me with her confidence. +Young man though I was, I defended her; I stopped at no measure to +defend her: against a powerful husband, remember--the most unscrupulous +of foes, who sought to rob her of every right she possessed. And what +I did then I again would do. I was vowed to her interests, to protect a +woman shamefully wronged; I did not stick at trifles, as you know; +you have read my speech in defence of myself before the court. By my +interpretation of the case, I was justified; but I estranged my family +and made the world my enemy. I gave my time and money, besides the +forfeit of reputation, to the case, and reasonably there was an +arrangement to repay me out of the estate reserved for her, so that +the baroness should not be under the degradation of feeling herself +indebted. You will not think that out of the way: men of the world do +not. As for matters of the heart between us, we're as far apart as the +Poles.' + +He spoke hurriedly. He had said all that could be expected of him. + +They were in a wood, walking through lines of spruce firs of deep golden +green in the yellow beams. One of these trees among its well-robed +fellows fronting them was all lichen-smitten. From the low sweeping +branches touching earth to the plumed top, the tree was dead-black as +its shadow; a vision of blackness. + +'I will compose a beautiful, dutiful, modest, oddest, beseeching, +screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read it, and +if you approve it, we shall despatch it,' said Clotilde. + +'There speaks my gold-crested serpent at her wisest!' replied Alvan. +'And now for my visit to your family: I follow you in a day. En +avant! contre les canons! A run to Lake Leman brings us to them in the +afternoon. I shall see you in the evening. So our separation won't be +for long this time. All the auspices are good. We shall not be rich--nor +poor.' + +Clotilde reminded him that a portion of money would be brought to the +store by her. + +'We don't count it,' said he. 'Not rich, certainly. And you will not +expect me to make money by my pen. Above all things I detest the writing +for money. Fiction and verse appeal to a besotted public, that judges +of the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And +journalism for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to +the chains of hired journalism. My pen is my fountain--the key of me; +and I give my self, I do not sell. I write when I have matter in me and +in the direction it presses for, otherwise not one word!' + +'I would never ask you to sell yourself,' said Clotilde. 'I would rather +be in want of common comforts.' + +He squeezed her wrist. They were again in front of the black-draped +blighted tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf +bearing a semblance of livid metal. They looked at it as having seen it +before, and passed on. + +'But the wife of Sigismund Alvan will not be poor in renown!' he +resumed, radiating his full bloom on her. + +'My highest ambition is to be Sigismund Alvan's wife!' she exclaimed. + +To hear her was as good as wine, and his heart came out on a genial +chuckle. 'Ay, the choice you have made is not, by heaven, so bad. +Sigismund Alvan's wife shall take the foremost place of all. Look at +me.' He lifted his head to the highest on his shoulders, widening his +eagle eyes. He was now thoroughly restored and in his own upper element, +expansive after the humiliating contraction of his man's vanity under +the glances of a girl. 'Do you take me for one who could be content with +the part of second? I will work and do battle unceasingly, but I will +have too the prize of battle to clasp it, savour it richly. I was not +fashioned to be the lean meek martyr of a cause, not I. I carry too +decisive a weight in the balance to victory. I have a taste for fruits, +my fairest! And Republics, my bright Lutetia, can give you splendid +honours.' He helped her to realize this with the assuring splendour of +his eyes. + +'"Bride of the Elect of the People!" is not that as glorious a title, +think you, as queen of an hereditary sovereign mumbling of God's grace +on his worm-eaten throne? I win that seat by service, by the dedication +of this brain to the people's interests. They have been ground to the +dust, and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am +the soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim +my reward. If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my +station. I win it not only because I serve, but because also I +have seen, have seen ahead, seen where all is dark, read the +unwritten--because I am soldier and prophet. The brain of man is Jove's +eagle and his lightning on earth--the title to majesty henceforth. Ah! +my fairest; entering the city beside me, and the people shouting around, +she would not think her choice a bad one?' + +Clotilde made sign and gave some earnest on his arm of ecstatic hugging. + +'We may have hard battles, grim deceptions, to go through before that +day comes,' he continued after a while. 'The day is coming, but we must +wait for it, work on. I have the secret of how to head the people--to +put a head to their movement and make it irresistible, as I believe it +will be beneficent. I set them moving on the lines of the law of things. +I am no empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of +science in politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is +but a step to the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my +time, or acknowledged later. I stand for index to the people of the path +they should take to triumph--must take, as triumph they must sooner +or later: not by the route of what is called Progress--pooh! That is +a middle-class invention to effect a compromise. With the people the +matter rests with their intelligence! meanwhile my star is bright and +shines reflected.' + +'I notice,' she said, favouring him with as much reflection as a +splendid lover could crave for, 'that you never look down, you never +look on the ground, but always either up or straight before you.' + +'People have remarked it,' said he, smiling. 'Here we are at this +funereal tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears to conduct +us perpetually to this tree. It 's the only dead one here.' + +He sighted the plumed black top and along the swelling branches +decorously clothed in decay: a salted ebon moss when seen closely; the +small grey particles giving a sick shimmer to the darkness of the mass. +It was very witch-like, of a witch in her incantation-smoke. + +'Not a single bare spot! but dead, dead as any peeled and fallen!' said +Alvan, fingering a tuft of the sooty snake-lichen. 'This is a tree for +a melancholy poet--eh, Clotilde?--for him to come on it by moonlight, +after a scene with his mistress, or tales of her! By the way and by the +way, my fair darling, let me never think of your wearing this kind of +garb for me, should I be ordered off the first to join the dusky +army below. Women who put on their dead husbands in public are not +well-mannered women, though they may be excellent professional widows, +excellent!' + +He snapped the lichen-dust from his fingers, observing that he was +not sure the contrast of the flourishing and blighted was not more +impressive in sunlight: and then he looked from the tree to his true +love's hair. The tree at a little distance seemed run over with sunless +lizards: her locks were golden serpents. + +'Shall I soon see your baroness?' Clotilde asked him. + +'Not in advance of the ceremony,' he answered. 'In good time. You +understand--an old friend making room for a new one, and that one young +and beautiful, with golden tresses; at first...! But her heart is +quite sound. Have no fear! I guarantee it; I know her to the roots. +She desires my welfare, she does my behests. If I am bound to her by +gratitude, so, and in a greater degree, is she to me. The utmost she +will demand is that my bride shall be worthy of me--a good mate for me +in the fight to come; and I have tested my bride and found her half my +heart; therefore she passes the examination with the baroness.' + +They left the tree behind them. + +'We will take good care not to return this way again,' said Alvan, +without looking back. 'That tree belongs to a plantation of the under +world; its fellows grow in the wood across Acheron, and that tree has +looked into the ghastliness of the flood and seen itself. Hecate and +Hermes know about it. Phoebus cannot light it. That tree stands for +Death blooming. We think it sinister, but down there it is a homely +tree. Down there! When do we go? The shudder in that tree is the air +exchanging between Life and Death--the ghosts going and coming: it's +on the border line. I just felt the creep. I think you did. The reason +is--there is always a material reason--that you were warm, and a bit of +chill breeze took you as you gazed; while for my part I was imagining +at that very moment what of all possible causes might separate us, and +I acknowledged that death could do the trick. But death, my love, is far +from us two!' + +'Does she look as grimmish as she does in the photograph?' said +Clotilde. + +'Who? the baroness?' Alvan laughed. The baroness was not so easily +defended from a girl as from her husband, it appeared. 'She is the best +of comrades, best of friends. She has her faults; may not relish the +writ announcing her final deposition, but be you true to me, and as +true as she has unfailingly been to me, she will be to you. That I can +promise. My poor Lucie! She is winter, if you will. It is not the winter +of the steppes; you may compare her to winter in a noble country; a fine +landscape of winter. The outlines of her face.... She has a great brain. +How much I owe that woman for instruction! You meet now and then men +who have the woman in them without being womanized; they are the pick of +men. And the choicest women are those who yield not a feather of their +womanliness for some amount of manlike strength. And she is one; man's +brain, woman's heart. I thought her unique till I heard of you. And how +do I stand between you two? She has the only fault you can charge me +with; she is before me in time, as I am before you. Shall I spoil you +as she spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy is the recognition of the +heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as much as I love my love. +I do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, support. You will not +rule me, but you will invigorate, and if you are petted, you shall not +be spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that undertakerly tree till my +years are one hundred. Even then it will be dangerous to repose beneath +my branches in the belief that I am sapless because I have changed +colour. We Jews have a lusty blood. We are strong of the earth. We +serve you, but you must minister to us. Sensual? We have truly excellent +appetites. And why not? Heroical too! Soldiers, poets, musicians; the +Gentile's masters in mental arithmetic--keenest of weapons: surpassing +him in common sense and capacity for brotherhood. Ay, and in charity; or +what stores of vengeance should we not have nourished! Already we have +the money-bags. Soon we shall hold the chief offices. And when the +popular election is as unimpeded as the coursing of the blood in +a healthy body, the Jew shall be foremost and topmost, for he is +pre-eminently by comparison the brain of these latter-day communities. +But that is only my answer to the brutish contempt of the Jew. I am no +champion of a race. I am for the world, for man!' + +Clotilde remarked that he had many friends, all men of eminence, and a +large following among the people. + +He assented: 'Yes: Tresten, Retka, Kehlen, the Nizzian. Yes, if I were +other than for legality:--if it came to a rising, I could tell off able +lieutenants.' + +'Tell me of your interview with Ironsides,' she said proudly and fondly. + +'Would this ambitious little head know everything?' said Alvan, putting +his lips among the locks. 'Well, we met: he requested it. We agreed that +we were on neutral ground for the moment: that he might ultimately have +to decapitate me, or I to banish him, but temporarily we could compare +our plans for governing. He showed me his hand. I showed him mine. We +played open-handed, like two at whist. He did not doubt my honesty, +and I astonished him by taking him quite in earnest. He has dealt with +diplomatists, who imagine nothing but shuffling: the old Ironer! I love +him for his love of common sense, his contempt of mean deceit. He will +outwit you, but his dexterity is a giant's--a simple evolution rapidly +performed: and nothing so much perplexes pygmies! Then he has them, +bagsful of them! The world will see; and see giant meet giant, I +suspect. He and I proposed each of us in the mildest manner contrary +schemes--schemes to stiffen the hair of Europe! Enough that we parted +with mutual respect. He is a fine fellow: and so was my friend +the Emperor Tiberius, and so was Richelieu. Napoleon was a fine +engine:--there is a difference. Yes, Ironsides is a fine fellow! but he +and I may cross. His ideas are not many. The point to remember is that +he is iron on them: he can drive them hard into the density of +the globe. He has quick nerves and imagination: he can conjure up, +penetrate, and traverse complications--an enemy's plans, all that the +enemy will be able to combine, and the likeliest that he will do. Good. +We opine that we are equal to the same. He is for kingcraft to mask his +viziercraft--and save him the labour of patiently attempting oratory +and persuasion, which accomplishment he does not possess:--it is not in +iron. We think the more precious metal will beat him when the broader +conflict comes. But such an adversary is not to be underrated. I do not +underrate him: and certainly not he me. Had he been born with the gifts +of patience and a fluent tongue, and not a petty noble, he might have +been for the people, as knowing them the greater power. He sees that +their knowledge of their power must eventually come to them. In the +meantime his party is forcible enough to assure him he is not fighting +a losing game at present: and he is, no doubt, by lineage and his +traditions monarchical. He is curiously simple, not really cynical. His +apparent cynicism is sheer irritability. His contemptuous phrases are +directed against obstacles: against things, persons, nations that oppose +him or cannot serve his turn against his king, if his king is restive; +but he respects his king: against your friends' country, because there +is no fixing it to a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; but +he likes that country the best in Europe after his own. He is nearest to +contempt in his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out of +his mind when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken +up again when they are of use to him. Hence he will have no following. +But let me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives. In him +you see the dam, in me the stream. Judge, then, which of them gains +the future!--admitting that, in the present he may beat me. He is a +Prussian, stoutly defined from a German, and yet again a German stoutly +defined from our borderers: and that completes him. He has as little +the idea of humanity as the sword of our Hermann, the cannon-ball of +our Frederick. Observe him. What an eye he has! I watched it as we were +talking: and he has, I repeat, imagination; he can project his mind in +front of him as far as his reasoning on the possible allows: and that +eye of his flashes; and not only flashes, you see it hurling a bolt; it +gives me the picture of a Balearic slinger about to whizz the stone for +that eye looks far, and is hard, and is dead certain of its mark-within +his practical compass, as I have said. I see farther, and I fancy I +proved to him that I am not a dreamer. In my opinion, when we cross our +swords I stand a fair chance of not being worsted. We shall: you shrink? +Figuratively, my darling have no fear! Combative as we may be, both of +us, we are now grave seniors, we have serious business: a party looks to +him, my party looks to me. Never need you fear that I shall be at sword +or pistol with any one. I will challenge my man, whoever he as that +needs a lesson, to touch buttons on a waistcoat with the button on the +foil, or drill fiver and eights in cards at twenty paces: but I will not +fight him though he offend me, for I am stronger than my temper, and as +I do not want to take his nip of life, and judge it to be of less value +than mine, the imperilling of either is an absurdity.' + +'Oh! because I know you are incapable of craven fear,' cried Clotilde, +answering aloud the question within herself of why she so much admired, +why she so fondly loved him. To feel his courage backing his high +good sense was to repose in security, and her knowledge that an astute +self-control was behind his courage assured her he was invincible. It +seemed to her, therefore, as they walked side by side, and she saw +their triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should +instantly take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican +Princess. She walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of +her being the mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and +she thrilled gratefully to the man who sustained her and shielded her on +that eminence. Elect of the people he! and by a vaster power than kings +can summon through the trumpet! She could surely pass through the +trial with her parents that she might step to the place beside him! She +pressed his arm to be physically a sharer of his glory. Was it love? It +was as lofty a stretch as her nature could strain to. + +She named the city on the shores of the great Swiss lake where her +parents were residing; she bade him follow her thither, and name the +hotel where he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. 'Am I +not precise as an office clerk?' she said, with a pleasant taste of the +reality her preciseness pictured. + +'Practical as the head of a State department,' said he, in good faith. + +'I shall not keep you waiting,' she resumed. + +'The sooner we are together after the action opens the better for our +success, my golden crest!' + +'Have no misgivings, Sigismund. You have transformed me. A spark of you +is in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to +appear. But you will come, you will be there, I know. I know you so +entirely.' + +'As a rule, Lutetia, women know no more than half of a man even when +they have married him. At least you ought to know me. You know that if +I were to exercise my will firmly now--it would not waver if I called it +forth--I could carry you off and spare you the flutter you will have to +go through during our interlude with papa and mama.' + +'I almost wish you would,' said she. She looked half imploringly, biting +her lip to correct the peeping wish. + +Alvan pressed a finger on one of her dimples: 'Be brave. Flight and +defiance are our last resource. Now that I see you resolved I shun the +scandal, and we will leave it to them to insist on it, if it must be. +How can you be less than resolved after I have poured my influence into +your veins? The other day on the heights--had you consented then? Well! +it would have been very well, but not so well. We two have a future, +and are bound to make the opening chapters good sober reading, for +an example, if we can. I take you from your father's house, from your +mother's arms, from the "God speed" of your friends. That is how Alvan's +wife should be presented to the world.' + +Clotilde's epistle to the baroness was composed, approved, and +despatched. To a frigid eye it read as more hypocritical than it really +was; for supposing it had to be written, the language of the natural +impulse called up to write it was necessarily in request, and that +language is easily overdone, so as to be discordant with the situation, +while it is, as the writer feels, a fairly true and well-formed +expression of the pretty impulse. But wiser is it always that the star +in the ascendant should not address the one waning. Hardly can a word +be uttered without grossly wounding. She would not do it to a younger +rival: the letter strikes on the recipient's age! She babbles of a +friendship: she plays at childish ninny! The display of her ingenuous +happiness causes feminine nature's bosom to rise in surges. The +declarations of her devotedness to the man waken comparisons with a +deeper, a longer-tried suffering. Actually the letter of the rising star +assumes personal feeling to have died out of the abandoned luminary, and +personal feeling is chafed to its acutest edge by the perusal; contempt +also of one who can stupidly simulate such innocence, is roused. + +Among Alvan's gifts the understanding of women did not rank high. He +was too robust, he had been too successful. Your very successful hero +regards them as nine-pins destined to fall, the whole tuneful nine, at +a peculiar poetical twist of the bowler's wrist, one knocking down the +other--figuratively, for their scruples, or for their example with their +sisters. His tastes had led him into the avenues of success, and as he +had not encountered grand resistances, he entertained his opinion of +their sex. The particular maxim he cherished was, to stake everything on +his making a favourable first impression: after which single figure, he +said, all your empty naughts count with women for hundreds, thousands, +millions: noblest virtues are but sickly units. He would have stared +like any Philistine at the tale of their capacity to advance to a +likeness unto men in their fight with the world. Women for him were +objects to be chased, the politician's relaxation, taken like the +sportsman's business, with keen relish both for the pursuit and the +prey, and a view of the termination of his pastime. Their feelings he +could appreciate during the time when they flew and fell, perhaps a +little longer; but the change in his own feelings withdrew him from +the communion of sentiment. This is the state of men who frequent +the avenues of success. At present he was thinking of a wife, and he +approved the epistle to the baroness cordially. + +'I do think it a nice kind of letter, and quite humble enough,' said +Clotilde. + +He agreed, 'Yes, yes: she knows already that this is really serious with +me.' + +So much for the baroness. + +Now for their parting. A parting that is no worse than the turning of a +page to a final meeting is made light of, but felt. Reason is all in our +favour, and yet the gods are jealous of the bliss of mortals; the slip +between the cup and the lip is emotionally watched for, even though it +be not apprehended, when the cup trembles for very fulness. Clotilde +required reassuring and comforting: 'I am certain you will prevail; +you must; you cannot be resisted; I stand to witness to the fact,' she +sighed in a languor: 'only, my people are hard to manage. I see more +clearly now, that I have imposed on them; and they have given away by a +sort of compact so long as I did nothing decisive. That I see. But, +then again, have I not your spirit in me now? What has ever resisted +you?--Then, as I am Alvan's wife, I share his heart with his fortunes, +and I do not really dread the scenes from anticipating failure, +still-the truth is, I fear I am three parts an actress, and the fourth +feels itself a shivering morsel to face reality. No, I do not really +feel it, but press my hand, I shall be true--I am so utterly yours: and +because I have such faith in you. You never, yet have failed.' + +'Never: and it is impossible for me to conceive it,' said Alvan +thoughtfully. + +His last word to her on her departure was 'Courage!' Hers to him was +conveyed by the fondest of looks. She had previously said 'To-morrow!' +to remind him of his appointment to be with her on the morrow, and +herself that she would not long stand alone. She did not doubt of her +courage while feasting on the beauty of one of the acknowledged strong +men of earth. She kissed her hand, she flung her heart to him from the +waving fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his +tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her. All the rest to +come was mere business matter of the conflict, scarcely calling for a +plan of action. Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move? +Husbands have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and +the parents are not dealing with the same kind of woman, you see the +same elemental power in her under both conditions of rebel wife and +rebel daughter to break conventional laws, and be splendidly irrational. +That is, if she can be decided: in other words, aimed at a mark and +inflamed to fly the barriers intercepting. He fancied he had achieved +it. Alvan thanked his fortune that he had to treat with parents. The +consolatory sensation of a pure intent soothed his inherent wildness, in +the contemplation of the possibility that the latter might be roused +by those people, her parents, to upset his honourable ambition to win a +wife after the fashion of orderly citizens. It would be on their heads! +But why vision mischance? An old half-jesting prophecy of his among +his friends, that he would not pass his fortieth year, rose upon his +recollection without casting a shadow. Lo, the reckless prophet about to +marry! + +No dark bride, no skeleton, no colourless thing, no lichened tree, +was she. Not Death, my friends, but Life, is the bride of this doomed +fortieth year! Was animation ever vivider in contrast with obstruction? +Her hair would kindle the frosty shades to a throb of vitality: it +would be sunshine in the subterranean sphere. The very thinking of +her dispersed that realm of the poison hue, and the eternally inviting +phosphorescent, still, curved forefinger, which says, 'Come.' + +To think of her as his vernal bride, while the snowy Alps were a +celestial garden of no sunset before his eyes, was to have the taste of +mortal life in the highest. He wondered how it was that he could have +waited so long for her since the first night of their meeting, and +he just distinguished the fact that he lived with the pulses of the +minutes, much as she did, only more fierily. The ceaseless warfare +called politics must have been the distraction: he forgot any other of +another kind. He was a bridegroom for whom the rosed Alps rolled out, a +panorama of illimitable felicity. And there were certain things he must +overcome before he could name his bride his own, so that his innate love +of contention, which had been constantly flattered by triumph, brought, +his whole nature into play with the prospect of the morrow: not much +liking it either. There is a nerve, in brave warriors that does not +like the battle before, the crackle of musketry is heard, and the big +artillery. + +Methodically, according to his habit, he jotted down the hours of the +trains, the hotel mentioned by Clotilde, the address of her father; he +looked to his card-case, his writing materials, his notes upon Swiss +law; considering that the scene would be in Switzerland, and he was a +lawyer bent on acting within and up to the measure of the law as well as +pleading eloquently. The desire to wing a telegram to her he thought it +wise to repress, and he found himself in consequence composing verses, +turgid enough, even to his own judgement. Poets would have failed at +such a time, and he was not one, but an orator enamoured. He was a wild +man, cased in the knowledge of jurisprudence, and wishing to enter +the ranks of the soberly blissful. These he could imagine that he +complimented by the wish. Then why should he doubt of his fortune? He +did not. + +The night passed, the morning came, and carried him on his journey. Late +in the afternoon he alighted at the hotel he called Clotilde's. A letter +was handed to him. His eyes all over the page caught the note of it for +her beginning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. 'And now +my turn!' said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and +baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him. +But Clotilde's parents were yet to learn that this Jew, demagogue, and +champion of an injured lady, was a gentleman respectful to their legal +and natural claims upon their child while maintaining his own: they were +to know him and change their tone. + +As he was reading the letter upstairs by sentences, his door opened at +the answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield's welcome to the +birdlike applicant for admission. Clotilde stood hesitating. + +He sent the introducing waiter speeding on his most kellnerish legs, and +drew her in. + +'Alvan, I have come.' + +She was like a bird in his hands, palpitating to extinction. + +He bent over her: 'What has happened?' + +Trembling, and very pale, hard in her throat she said, 'The worst.' + +'You have spoken to them both subsequent to this?' he shook the letter. + +'It is hopeless.' + +'Both to father and mother?' + +'Both. They will not hear your name; they will not hear me speak. I +repeat, it is past all hope, all chance of moving them. They hate--hate +you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once +and followed my letter; I ran through the streets; I pant for want of +breath, not want of courage. I prove I have it, Alvan; I have done all I +can do. + +She was enfolded; she sank on the nest, dropping her eyelids. + +But he said nothing. She looked up at him. Her strained pale eyes +provoked a closer embrace. + +'This would be the home for you if we were flying,' said he, glancing +round at the room, with a sensation like a shudder, 'Tell me what there +is to be told.' + +'Alvan, I have; that is all. They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what +possesses them!' + +'They have not met me yet!' + +'They will not, will not ever--no!' + +'They must.' + +'They refuse. Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested. +Take me--take me away!' + +'Run?--facing the enemy?' His countenance was the fiery laugh of a +thirster for strife. 'They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made +of!' + +Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion. 'I found +them celebrating the betrothal of my sister Lotte with the Austrian +Count Walburg; I thought it favourable for us. I spoke of you to my +mother. Oh, that scene! What she said I cannot recollect: it was a +hiss. Then my father. Your name changed his features and his voice. They +treated me as impure for mentioning it. You must have deadly enemies. +I was unable to recognize either father or mother--they have become +transformed. But you see I am here. Courage! you said; and I determined +I would show it, and be worthy of you. But I am pursued, I am sure. My +father is powerful in this place; we shall barely have time to escape.' + +Alvan's resolution was taken. + +'Some friend--a lady living in the city here--name her, quick!--one you +can trust,' he said, and fondled her hastily, much as a gentle kind of +drillmaster straightens a fair pupil's shoulders. 'Yes, you have shown +courage. Now it must be submission to me. You shall be no runaway bride, +but honoured at the altar. Out of this hotel is the first point. You +know some such lady?' + +Clotilde tried to remonstrate and to suggest. She could have prophesied +certain evil from any evasion of the straight line of flight; she was so +sure of it because of her intuition that her courage had done its utmost +in casting her on him, and that the remainder within her would be a +drawing back. She could not get the word or even the look to encounter +his close and warm imperiousness; and, hesitating, she noticed where +they were together alone. She could not refuse the protection he offered +in a person of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where +they were together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of +entreating a man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged +to it. She felt herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a +Madame Emerly, living near the hotel. Her heart sank like a stone. 'It +is for you!' cried Alvan, keenly sensible of his loss and his generosity +in temporarily resigning her--for a subsequent triumph. 'But my wife +shall not be snatched by a thief in the night. Are you not my wife--my +golden bride? And you may give me this pledge of it, as if the vows had +just been uttered... and still I resign you till we speak the vows. It +shall not be said of Alvan's wife, in the days of her glory, that she +ran to her nuptials through rat-passages.' + +His pride in his prevailingness thrilled her. She was cooled by her +despondency sufficiently to perceive where the centre of it lay, +but that centre of self was magnificent; she recovered some of her +enthusiasm, thinking him perhaps to be acting rightly; in any case they +were united, her step was irrevocable. Her having entered the hotel, her +being in this room, certified to that. It seemed to her while she was +waiting for the carriage he had ordered that she was already half a +wife. She was not conscious of a blush. The sprite in the young woman's +mind whispered of fire not burning when one is in the heart of it. And +undoubtedly, contemplated from the outside, this room was the heart +of fire. An impulse to fall on Alvan's breast and bless him for his +chivalrousness had to be kept under lest she should wreck the thing she +praised. Otherwise she was not ill at ease. Alvan summoned his gaiety, +all his homeliness of tone, to give her composure, and on her quitting +the room she was more than ever bound to him, despite her gloomy +foreboding. A maid of her household, a middle-aged woman, gabbling of +devotion to her, ran up the steps of the hotel. Her tale was, that the +General had roused the city in pursuit of his daughter; and she heard +whither Clotilde was going. + +Within half an hour, Clotilde was in Madame Emerly's drawing-room +relating her desperate history of love and parental tyranny, assisted +by the lover whom she had introduced. Her hostess promised shelter and +exhibited sympathy. The whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew +Alvan by reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and +menacingly in politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing +tongue, and the signal proof of his respect for the lady of his love and +deference toward her family, won her personally. She promised the best +help she could give them. They were certainly in a romantic situation, +such as few women could see and decline their aid to the lovers. + +Madame Emerly proved at least her sincerity before many minutes had +passed. + +Chancing to look out into the street, she saw Clotilde's mother and her +betrothed sister stepping up to the house. What was to be done? And +was the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, but +Alvan cried louder: 'Heaven-directed! and so, let me see her and speak +to her--nothing could be better.' + +Madame Emerly took mute counsel of Clotilde, shaking her own head +premonitorily; and then she said: 'I think indeed it will be safer, if I +am asked, to say you are not here, and I know not where you are.' + +'Yes! yes!' Clotilde replied: 'Oh! do that.' + +She half turned to Alvan, rigid with an entreaty that hung on his coming +voice. + +'No!' said Alvan, shocked in both pride and vanity. 'Plain-dealing; +no subterfuge! Begin with foul falsehood? No. I would not have you +burdened, madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our +account. And when it would be bad policy?... Oh, no, worse than the sin! +as the honest cynic says. We will go down to Madame von Rudiger, and she +shall make acquaintance with the man who claims her daughter's hand.' + +Clotilde rocked in an agony. Her friend was troubled. Both ladies knew +what there would be to encounter better than he. But the man, strong in +his belief in himself, imposed his will on them. + +Alvan and Clotilde clasped hands as they went downstairs to Madame +Emerly's reception room. She could hardly speak: 'Do not forsake me.' + +'Is this forsaking?' He could ask it in the deeply questioning tone +which supplies the answer. + +'Oh, Alvan!' She would have said: 'Be warned.' + +He kissed her fingers. 'Trust to me.' + +She had to wrap her shivering spirit in a blind reliance and utter +leaning on him. + +She could almost have said: 'Know me better'; and she would, sincere as +her passion in its shallow vessel was, have been moved to say it for a +warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning +into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation (rapidly +degenerating to desperation) inspired her with the thought of her being +a part of this handsome, undaunted, triumph-flashing man. + +Such a state of blind reliance and utter leaning, however, has a certain +tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doing it prepares the +spirit to be a melting prize of the winner. + +Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering +thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring +their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius +of Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in +whatsoever person. We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be +prey, we lose the soul of election. + +Mark her as she proceeds. For should her hero fail, and she be suffering +through his failure and her reliance on him, the blindness of it will +seem to her to have been an infinite virtue, anything but her deplorable +weakness crouching beneath his show of superhuman strength. And it will +seem to her, so long as her sufferings endure, that he deceived her just +expectations, and was a vain pretender to the superhuman:--for it +was only a superhuman Jew and democrat whom she could have thought of +espousing. The pusillanimous are under a necessity to be self-consoled +when they are not self-justified: it is their instinctive manner of +putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, +because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she +was ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some +reason (where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) +will it seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the +conflict, insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused +the tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason, +coldest reason, close as it ever is to the craven's heart in its hour of +trial, whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler's die by the +swollen conceit in his fortune rather than by his desire for the prize. +That frigid reason of the craven has red-hot perceptions. It spies the +spot of truth. Were the spot revealed in the man the whole man, then, +so unerring is the eyeshot at him, we should have only to transform +ourselves into cowards fronting a crisis to read him through and topple +over the Sphinx of life by presenting her the sum of her most mysterious +creature in an epigram. But there was as much more in Alvan than any +faint-hearted thing, seeing however keenly, could see, as there is more +in the world than the epigrams aimed at it contain. + +'Courage!' said he: and she tremblingly: 'Be careful!' And then they +were in the presence of her mother and sister. + +Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. Her +mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with a +woman's combative frown of great eyes, in which the stare is a bolt. + +'Away with that man! I will not suffer him near me,' she cried. + +Alvan advanced to her: 'Tell me, madame, in God's name, what you have +against me.' + +She swung her back on him. 'Go, sir! my husband will know how to deal +with one like you. Out of my sight, I say!' + +The brutality of this reception of Alvan nerved Clotilde. She went up to +him, and laying her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal, +said: 'Let us go: come. I will not bear to hear you so spoken to. No one +shall treat you like that when I am near.' + +She expected him to give up the hopeless task, after such an experience +of the commencement. He did but clasp her hand, assuring the Frau von +Rudiger that no word of hers could irritate him. 'Nothing can make me +forget that you are Clotilde's mother. You are the mother of the lady I +love, and may say what you will to me, madame. I bear it.' + +'A man spotted with every iniquity the world abhors, and I am to see +him holding my daughter by the hand!--it is too abominable! And because +there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk +of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that which you have to +do is to go. My ears are shut. You can annoy, you can insult, you cannot +move me. Go.' She stamped: her aspect spat. + +Alvan bowed. Under perfect self-command, he said: 'I will go at once +to Clotilde's father. I may hope, that with a reasonable man I shall +speedily come to an understanding.' + +She retorted: 'Enter his house, and he will have you driven out by his +lacqueys.' + +'Hardly: I am not of those men who are driven from houses,' Alvan said, +smiling. 'But, madame, I will act on your warning, and spare her father, +for all sakes, the attempt; seeing he does not yet know whom he deals +with. I will write to him.' + +'Letters from you will be flung back unopened. + +'It may, of course, be possible to destroy even my patience, madame.' + +'Mine, sir, is at an end.' + +'You reduce us to rely on ourselves; it is the sole alternative.' + +'You have not waited for that,' rejoined Frau von Rudiger. 'You have +already destroyed my daughter's reputation by inducing her to leave her +father's house and hesitate to return. Oh! you are known. You are known +for your dealings with women as well as men. We know you. We have, we +pray to God, little more to learn of you. You! ah--thief!' + +'Thief!' Alvan's voice rose on hers like the clapping echo of it. She +had up the whole angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that +she had struck the wound in his history; but he was terrible to look at, +so she made the charge supportable by saying: + +'You have stolen my child from me!' + +Clotilde raised her throat, shrewish in excitement. 'False! He did +not. I went to him of my own will, to run from your heartlessness, +mother--that I call mother!--and be out of hearing of my father's curses +and threats. Yes, to him I fled, feeling that I belonged more to him +than to you. And never will I return to you. You have killed my love; I +am this man's own because I love him only; him ever! him you abuse, as +his partner in life for all it may give!--as his wife! Trample on him, +you trample on me. Make black brows at your child for choosing the man, +of all men alive, to worship and follow through the world. I do. I am +his. I glory in him.' + +Her gaze on Alvan said: 'Now!' Was she not worthy of him now? And would +they not go forth together now? Oh! now! + +Her gaze was met by nothing like the brilliant counterpart she merited. +It was as if she had offered her beauty to a glass, and found a +reflection in dull metal. He smiled calmly from her to her mother. He +said: + +'You accuse me of stealing your child, madame. You shall acknowledge +that you have wronged me. Clotilde, my Clotilde! may I count on you to +do all and everything for me? Is there any sacrifice I could ask that +would be too hard for you? Will you at one sign from me go or do as I +request you?' + +She replied, in an anguish over the chilling riddle of his calmness: 'I +will,' but sprang out of that obedient consent, fearful of over-acting +her part of slave to him before her mother, in a ghastly apprehension of +the part he was for playing to the same audience. 'Yes, I will do all, +all that you command. I am yours. I will go with you. Bid me do whatever +you can think of, all except bid me go back to the people I have +hitherto called mine:--not that!' + +'And that is what I have to request of you,' said he, with his calm +smile brightening and growing more foreign, histrionic, unreadable to +her. 'And this greatest sacrifice that you can perform for me, are you +prepared to do it? Will you?' + +She tried to decipher the mask he wore: it was proof against her +imploring eyes. 'If you can ask me--if you can positively wish it--yes,' +she said. 'But think of what you are doing. Oh! Alvan, not back to them! +Think!' + +He smiled insufferably. He was bent on winning a parent-blest bride, an +unimpeachable wife, a lady handed to him instead of taken, one of the +world's polished silver vessels. + +'Think that you are doing this for me!' said he. 'It is for my sake. And +now, madame, I give you back your daughter. You see she is mine to give, +she obeys me, and I--though it can be only for a short time--give her +back to you. She goes with you purely because it is my wish: do not +forget that. And so, madame, I have the honour,' he bowed profoundly. + +He turned to Clotilde and drew her within his arm. 'What you have done +in obedience to my wish, my beloved, shall never be forgotten. Never can +I sufficiently thank you. I know how much it has cost you. But here is +the end of your trials. All the rest is now my task. Rely on me with +your whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding. +Be sure of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of +injustice I shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that, +and be not unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit +a short while to the will of your parents: mine you will find the +stronger. Resolve it in your soul that I, your lover, cannot fail, for +it is impossible to me to waver. Consider me as the one fixed light in +your world, and look to me. Soon, then! Have patience, be true, and we +are one!' + +He kissed cold lips, he squeezed an inanimate hand. The horribly empty +sublimity of his behaviour appeared to her in her mother's contemptuous +face. + +His eyes were on her as he released her and she stood alone. She seemed +a dead thing; but the sense of his having done gloriously in mastering +himself to give these worldly people of hers a lesson and proof that he +could within due measure bow to their laws and customs, dispelled the +brief vision of her unfitness to be left. The compressed energy of +the man under his conscious display of a great-minded deference to the +claims of family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of +the present achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad +reputation among these people, from whom he was about to lead forth +a daughter for Alvan's wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his +exhibition of generosity--which was brought out in strong relief when he +delivered his retiring bow to the Frau von Rudiger's shoulder--that +the worst was over; he had to deal no more with silly women: now for +Clotilde's father! Women were privileged to oppose their senselessness +to the divine fire: men could not retreat behind such defences; they +must meet him on the common ground of men, where this constant battler +had never yet encountered a reverse. + +Clotilde's cold staring gaze, a little livelier to wonderment than to +reflection, observed him to be scrupulous of the formalities in the +diverse character of his parting salutations to her mother, her sister; +and the lady of the house. He was going--he could actually go and leave +her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that she +did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She saw him smiling +incomprehensibly, like a winner of the field to be left to the enemy. +She could get nothing from him but that insensible round smile, and she +took the ebbing of her poor effort for his rebuff. + +'You that offered yourself in flight to him who once proposed it, he had +the choice of you and he abjured you. He has cast you off!' + +She phrased it in speech to herself. It was incredible, but it was +clear: he had gone. + +The room was vacant; the room was black and silent as a dungeon. + +'He will not have you: he has handed you back to them the more readily +to renounce you.' + +She framed the words half aloud in a moan as she glanced at her mother +heaving in stern triumph, her sister drooping, Madame Emerly standing at +the window. + +The craven's first instinct for safety, quick as the cavern lynx for +light, set her on the idea that she was abandoned: it whispered of +quietness if she submitted. + +And thus she reasoned: Had Alvan taken her, she would not have been +guilty of more than a common piece of love-desperation in running to +him, the which may be love's glory when marriage crowns it. By his +rejecting her and leaving her, he rendered her not only a runaway, but +a castaway. It was not natural that he should leave her; 'not natural in +him to act his recent part; but he had done it; consequently she was at +the mercy of those who might pick her up. She was, in her humiliation +and dread, all of the moment, she could see to no distance; and +judging of him, feeling for herself, within that contracted circle of +sensation--sure, from her knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done +unwisely--she became swayed about like a castaway in soul, until her +distinguishing of his mad recklessness in the challenge of a power +greater than his own grew present with her as his personal cruelty to +the woman who had flung off everything, flung herself on the tempestuous +deeps, on his behalf. And here she was, left to float or founder! Alvan +had gone. The man rageing over the room, abusing her 'infamous lover, +the dirty Jew, the notorious thief, scoundrel, gallowsbird,' etc., etc., +frightful epithets, not to be transcribed--was her father. He had come, +she knew not how. Alvan had tossed her to him. + +Abuse of a lover is ordinarily retorted on in the lady's heart by the +brighter perception of his merits; but when the heart is weak, the +creature suffering shame, her lover the cause of it, and seeming cruel, +she is likely to lose all perception and bend like a flower pelted. Her +cry to him: 'If you had been wiser, this would not have been!' will sink +to the inward meditation: 'If he had been truer!'--and though she does +not necessarily think him untrue for charging him with it, there is +already a loosening of the bonds where the accusation has begun. They +are not broken because they are loosened: still the loosening of them +makes it possible to cut them with less of a snap and less pain. + +Alvan had relinquished her he loved to brave the tempest in a frail +small boat, and he certainly could not have apprehended the furious +outbreak she was exposed to. She might so far have exonerated him had +she been able to reflect; but she whom he had forced to depend on him +in blind reliance, now opened her eyes on an opposite power exercising +material rigours. After having enjoyed extraordinary independence for +a young woman, she was treated as a refractory child, literally marched +through the streets in the custody of her father, who clutched her by +the hair-Alvan's beloved golden locks!--and held her under terror of a +huge forester's weapon, that he had seized at the first tidings of his +daughter's flight to the Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to +exposure; contempt, with a sense of the humour of it: and this was a +satisfaction to him, founded on his practical observance of two or +three maxims quite equal to the fullest knowledge of women for rightly +managing them: preferable, inasmuch as they are simpler, and, by merely +cracking a whip, bring her back to the post, instead of wasting time +by hunting her as she likes to run. Police were round his house. The +General chattered and shouted of the desperate lawlessness and larcenies +of that Jew--the things that Jew would attempt. He dragged her +indoors, muttering of his policy in treating her at last to a wholesome +despotism. + +This was the medicine for her--he knew her! Whether he did or not, he +knew the potency of his physic. He knew that osiers can be made to +bend. With a frightful noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the +window-shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he +left her there and roared across the household that any one holding +communication with the prisoner should be shot like a dog. This was a +manifestation of power in a form more convincing than the orator's. + +She was friendless, abused, degraded, benighted in broad daylight; +abandoned by her lover. She sank on the floor of the room, conceiving +with much strangeness of sentiment under these hard stripes of +misfortune, that reality had come. The monster had hold of her. She was +isolated, fed like a dungeoned captive. She had nothing but our natural +obstinacy to hug, or seem to do so when wearifulness reduced her to +cling to the semblance of it only. 'I marry Alvan!' was her iterated +answer to her father, on his visits to see whether he had yet broken +her; and she spoke with the desperate firmness of weak creatures that +strive to nail themselves to the sound of it. He listened and named his +time for returning. The tug between rigour and endurance continued for +about forty hours. She then thought, in an exhaustion: 'Strange that +my father should be so fiercely excited against this man! Can he have +reasons I have not heard of?' Her father's unwonted harshness suggested +the question in her quailing nature, which was beginning to have a +movement to kiss the whip. The question set her thinking of the reasons +she knew. She saw them involuntarily from the side of parents, and they +wore a sinister appearance; in reality her present scourging was due to +them as well as to Alvan's fatal decision. Her misery was traceable to +his conduct and his judgement--both bad. And yet all this while he might +be working to release her, near upon rescuing! She swung round to the +side of her lover against these executioner parents, and scribbled to +him as well as she could under the cracks in her windowshutters, urging +him to appear. She spent her heart on it. A note to her friend, the +English lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less abandonment, +with a frozen resignation to the loss of him--all around her was so +dark! By-and-by there was a scratching at her door. The maid whom she +trusted brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the maid and +mistress knelt. Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the whispers +were exchanged through the partition. + +'Where is he?' + +'Gone.' + +'But where?' + +'He has left the city.' + +Clotilde pushed the letter for her friend under the door: that one +for Alvan she retained, stung by his desertion of her, and thinking +practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an +address. She did not ask herself whether the maid's information was +honest, for she wanted to despair, as the exhausted want to lie down. + +She wept through the night. It was one of those nights of the torrents +of tears which wash away all save the adamantine within us, if there be +ought of that besides the breathing structure. The reason why she wept +with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity +for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the +love whereby she was tormented. They do not weep thus who have a heart +for the struggle. In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, +no longer self-pitiful; careless of herself, as she thought: in other +words, unable any further to contend. + +Reality was too strong! This morning her sisters came to her room +imploring her to yield:--if she married Alvan, what could be their +prospects as the sisters-in law of such a man?--her betrothed sister +Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan's name was infamous +in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned +to seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her +tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he +hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew +democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his +brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly +Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all, +perhaps to her father's military and diplomatic career principally: the +head of their house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by +having no other reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her +absent lover and her family; she was already disunited from him when she +shed them, feeling that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many +bosoms drained of self-pity will become. + +Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and +had a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a +little by her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after +her heavy scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing +them to be selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality +made them seem a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. +Her natural blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire +relinquishment; it knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had +committed an irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own +vain provoking, that was too severe for him: he was not the lover +he fancied himself, or not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her +excessive misery would not suffer a picture of him, not one clear +recollection of him, to stand before her. He who should have been at +hand, had gone, and she was fearfully beset, almost lifeless; and being +abandoned, her blank night of imagination felt that there was nothing +left for her save to fall upon those nearest. + +She gave her submission to her mother. In her mind, during the last +wrestling with a weakness that was alternately her love, and her +cowardice, the interpretation of the act ran: 'He may come, and I am his +if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.' He had taught her +to rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting +herself loose from him. In a similar mood, the spiritual waverer vows to +believe if the saint will appear. However, she submitted. Then there was +joy in the family, and she tasted their caresses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +After his deed of loftiness Alvan walked to his hotel, where the sight +of the room Clotilde had entered that morning caught his breath. He +proceeded to write his first letter to General von Rudiger, repressing +his heart's intimations that he had stepped out of the friendly path, +and was on a strange and tangled one. The sense of power in him was +leonine enough to promise the forcing of a way whithersoever the +path: yet did that ghost of her figure across the room haunt him with +searching eyes. They set him spying over himself at an actor who had not +needed to be acting his part, brilliant though it was. He crammed his +energy into his idea of the part, to carry it forward victoriously. +Before the world, it would without question redound to his credit, and +he heard the world acclaiming him: + +'Alvan's wife was honourably won, as became the wife of a Doctor of +Law, from the bosom of her family, when he could have had her in the +old lawless fashion, for a call to a coachman! Alvan, the republican, +is eminently a citizen. Consider his past life by that test of his +character.' + +He who had many times defied the world in hot rebellion, had become, +through his desire to cherish a respectable passion, if not exactly +slavish to it, subservient, as we see royal personages, that are happy +to be on bowing terms with the multitude bowing lower. Lower, of course, +the multitude must bow, to inspire an august serenity; but the nod +they have in exchange for it is not an independent one. Ceasing to be +a social rebel, he conceived himself as a recognized dignitary, and he +passed under the bondage of that position. + +Clotilde had been in this room; she had furnished proof that she could +be trusted now. She had committed herself, perished as a maiden of +society, and her parents, even the senseless mother, must see it and +decide by it. The General would bring her to reason: General von Rudiger +was a man of the world. An honourable son-in-law could not but be +acceptable to him--now, at least. And such a son-in-law would ultimately +be the pride of his house. 'A flower from thy garden, friend, and my +wearing it shall in good time be cause for some parental gratification.' + +The letter despatched, Alvan paced his chamber with the ghost of +Clotilde. He was presently summoned to meet Count Walburg and another +intimate of the family, in the hotel downstairs. These gentlemen brought +no message from General von Rudiger: their words were directed to +extract a promise from him that he would quit his pursuit of Clotilde, +and of course he refused; they hinted that the General might have +official influence to get him expelled the city, and he referred them +to the proof; but he looked beyond the words at a new something of +extraordinary and sinister aspect revealed to him in their manner of +treating his pretensions to the hand of the lady. + +He had not yet perfectly seen the view the world took of him, because +of his armed opposition to the world; nor could he rightly reflect on +it yet, being too anxious to sign the peace. He felt as it were a blow +startling him from sleep. His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly +polite; they did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect +between man and man. The strange matter was behind their bearing, which +indicated the positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one +such as he, and struck at the curtain covering his history. He could +not raise it to thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the +implied contempt of his character: with a boiling gorge he was +obliged to swallow both the history and the insult, returning them the +equivalent of their courtesies, though it was on his lips to thunder +heavily. + +A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him +admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing. The +bearer of it was dismissed without an answer. + +Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance. The fate of the noble Genoese +conspirator, slipping into still harbour water on the step from boat to +boat, and borne down by the weight of his armour in the moment of the +ripeness of his plot at midnight, when the signal for action sparkled +to lighten across the ships and forts, had touched him in his boy's +readings, and he found a resemblance of himself to Fiesco, stopped as he +was by a base impediment, tripped ignominiously, choked by the weight of +the powers fitting him for battle. A man such as Alvan, arrested on his +career by an opposition to his enrolment of a bride!--think of it! What +was this girl in a life like his? But, oh! the question was no sooner +asked than the thought that this girl had been in this room illuminated +the room, telling him she might have been his own this instant, +confounding him with an accusation of madness for rejecting her. Why +had he done it? Surely women, weak women, must be at times divinely +inspired. She warned him against the step. But he, proud of his armoury, +went his way. He choked, he suffered the torture of the mailed Genoese +going under; worse, for the drowner's delirium swirls but a minute in +the gaping brain, while he had to lie all, night at the mercy of the +night. + +He was only calmer when morning came. Night has little mercy for the +self-reproachful, and for a strong man denouncing the folly of his +error, it has none. The bequest of the night was a fever of passion; and +upon that fever the light of morning cleared his head to weigh the force +opposing him. He gnawed the paradox, that it was huge because it was +petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of +the position it explained. Great enemies, great undertakings, would have +revived him as they had always revived and fortified. But here was a +stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had +chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms. By +shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing +reduced him to hesitation. And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; +his history, his very blood, stood open to its shafts; and the sole +quality of a giant, which he could show to front it, was the breath of +one for a mark. + +These direct perceptions of the circumstances were played on by the +fever he drew from his Fiesco bed. Accuracy of vision in our crises is +not so uncommon as the proportionate equality of feeling: we do indeed. +frequently see with eyes of just measurement while we are conducting +ourselves like madmen. The facts are seen, and yet the spinning nerves +will change their complexion; and without enlarging or minimizing, +they will alternate their effect on us immensely through the colour +presenting them now sombre, now hopeful: doing its work of extravagance +upon perceptibly plain matter. The fitful colour is the fever. He must +win her, for he never yet had failed--he had lost her by his folly! She +was his--she was torn from him! She would come at his bidding--she +would cower to her tyrants! The thought of her was life and death in his +frame, bright heaven and the abyss. At one beat of the heart she swam +to his arms, at another he was straining over darkness. And whose the +fault? + +He rose out of his amazement crying it with a roar, and foreignly +beholding himself. He pelted himself with epithets; his worst enemies +could not have been handier in using them. From Alvan to Alvan, they +signified such an earthquake in a land of splendid structures as +shatters to dust the pride of the works of men. He was down among them, +lower than the herd, rolling in vulgar epithets that, attached to one +like him, became of monstrous distortion. O fool! dolt! blind ass! +tottering idiot! drunken masquerader! miserable Jack Knave, performing +suicide with that blessed coxcomb air of curling a lock!--Clotilde! +Clotilde! Where has one read the story of a man who had the jewel of +jewels in his hand, and flung in into the deeps, thinking that he flung +a pebble? Fish, fool, fish! and fish till Doomsday! There's nothing but +your fool's face in the water to be got to bite at the bait you throw, +fool! Fish for the flung-away beauty, and hook your shadow of a Bottom's +head! What impious villain was it refused the gift of the gods, that he +might have it bestowed on him according to his own prescription of the +ceremonies! They laugh! By Orcus! how they laugh! The laughter of the +gods is the lightning of death's irony over mortals. Can they have a +finer subject than a giant gone fool? + +Tears burst from him: tears of rage, regret, selflashing. O for +yesterday! He called aloud for the recovery of yesterday, bellowed, +groaned. A giant at war with pigmies, having nought but their weapons, +having to fight them on his knees, to fight them with the right hand +while smiting himself with the left, has too much upon him to keep his +private dignity in order. He was the same in his letters--a Cyclops +hurling rocks and raising the seas to shipwreck. Dignity was cast off; +he came out naked. Letters to Clotilde, and to the baroness, to the +friend nearest him just then, Colonel von Tresten, calling them to him, +were dashed to paper in this naked frenzy, and he could rave with all +the truth of life, that to have acted the idiot, more than the loss of +the woman, was the ground of his anguish. Each antecedent of his career +had been a step of strength and success departed. The woman was but a +fragment of the tremendous wreck; the woman was utterly diminutive, +yet she was the key of the reconstruction; the woman won, he would be +himself once more: and feeling that, his passion for her swelled to full +tide and she became a towering splendour whereat his eyeballs ached, she +became a melting armful that shook him to big bursts of tears. + +The feeling of the return of strength was his love in force. The giant +in him loved her warmly. Her sweetness, her archness, the opening of her +lips, their way of holding closed, and her brightness of wit, her tender +eyelashes, her appreciating looks, her sighing, the thousand varying +shades of her motions and her features interflowing like a lighted +water, swam to him one by one like so many handmaiden messengers +distinctly beheld of the radiant indistinct whom he adored with more of +spirit in his passion than before this tempest. A giant going through a +giant's contortions, fleshly as the race of giants, and gross, coarse, +dreadful, likely to be horrible when whipped and stirred to the dregs, +Alvan was great-hearted: he could love in his giant's fashion, love and +lay down life for the woman he loved, though the nature of the passion +was not heavenly; or for the friend who would have to excuse him often; +or for the public cause--which was to minister to his appetites. He +was true man, a native of earth, and if he could not quit his huge +personality to pipe spiritual music during a storm of trouble, being a +soul wedged in the gnarled wood of the standing giant oak, and giving +mighty sound of timber at strife rather than the angelical cry, he +suffered, as he loved, to his depths. + +We have not to plumb the depths; he was not heroic, but hugely man. +Love and man sometimes meet for noble concord; the strings of the +hungry instrument are not all so rough that Love's touch on them is +indistinguishable from the rattling of the wheels within; certain herald +harmonies have been heard. But Love, which purifies and enlarges us, +and sets free the soul, Love visiting a fleshly frame must have time and +space, and some help of circumstance, to give the world assurance +that the man is a temple fit for the rites. Out of romances, he is not +melodiously composed. And in a giant are various giants to be slain, +or thoroughly subdued, ere this divinity is taken for leader. It is not +done by miracle. + +As it happened cruelly for Alvan, the woman who had become the radiant +indistinct in his desiring mind was one whom he knew to be of a shivery +stedfastness. His plucking her from another was neither wonderful +nor indefensible; they two were suited as no other two could be; the +handsome boy who had gone through a form of plighting with her was her +slave, and she required for her mate a master: she felt it and she +sided to him quite naturally, moved by the sacred direction of the +acknowledgement of a mutual fitness. Twice, however, she had relapsed +on the occasions of his absence, and owning his power over her when they +were together again, she sowed the fatal conviction that he held her +at present, and that she was a woman only to be held at present, by the +palpable grasp of his physical influence. Partly it was correct, not +entirely, seeing that she kept the impression of a belief in him even +when she drifted away through sheer weakness, but it was the single +positive view he had of her, and it was fatal, for it begat a devil of +impatience. + +'They are undermining her now--now--now!' + +He started himself into busy frenzies to reach to her, already +indifferent to the means, and waxing increasingly reckless as he fed on +his agitation. Some faith in her, even the little she deserved, would +have arrested him: unhappily he had less than she, who had enough to +nurse the dim sense of his fixity, and sank from him only in her heart's +faintness, but he, when no longer flattered by the evidence of his +mastery, took her for sand. Why, then, had he let her out of his grasp? +The horrid echoed interrogation flashed a hideous view of the woman. But +how had he come to be guilty of it? he asked himself again; and, without +answering him, his counsellors to that poor wisdom set to work to +complete it: Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant +Duplicity. He wrote to Clotilde, with one voice quoting the law in their +favour, with another commanding her to break it. He gathered and drilled +a legion of spies, and showered his gold in bribes and plots to get the +letter to her, to get an interview--one human word between them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +His friend Colonel von Tresten was beside him when he received the +enemy's counter-stroke. Count Walburg and his companion brought a letter +from Clotilde--no reply; a letter renouncing him. + +Briefly, in cold words befitting the act, she stated that the past must +be dead between them; for the future she belonged to her parents; she +had left the city. She knew not where he might be, her letter concluded, +but henceforward he should know that they were strangers. + +Alvan held out the deadly paper when he had read the contents; he +smote a forefinger on it and crumpled it in his hand. That was the dumb +oration of a man shocked by the outrage upon passionate feeling to the +state of brute. His fist, outstretched to the length of his arm, shook +the reptile letter under a terrible frown. + +Tresten saw that he supposed himself to be perfectly master of his acts +because he had not spoken, and had managed to preserve the ordinary +courtesies. + +'You have done your commission,' the colonel said to Count Walburg, +whose companion was not disposed to go without obtaining satisfactory +assurances, and pressed for them. + +Alvan fastened on him. 'You adopt the responsibility of this?' He +displayed the letter. + +'I do.' + +'It lies.' + +Tresten remarked to Count Walburg: 'These visits are provocations.' + +'They are not so intended,' said the count, bowing pacifically. His +friend was not a man of the sword, and was not under the obligation to +accept an insult. They left the letter to do its work. + +Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must be taken by flying +shots, as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. +Were we to hear all the roarings of the shirted Heracles, a world of +comfortable little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of +Dejaneira. Yes, really; they would think it was not a chivalrous love: +they would consider that he thought of himself too much. They would +doubt, too, of his being a gentleman! Partial glimpses of him, one may +fear, will be discomposing to simple natures. There was a short black +eruption. Alvan controlled it, to ask hastily what the baroness thought +and what she had heard of Clotilde. Tresten made sign that it was +nothing of the best. + +'See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can +defend her--weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!' cried +Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: 'Yesterday--the day +before--when? just now, here, in this room; gave herself--and now!' +He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel von +Tresten as her calumniator, 'Say your worst of her, and I say I will +make of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it's no +dream. She can be made.... O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she +could. There 's three of beast to one of goddess in her, and set +her alone, and let her be hunted and I not by, beast it is with her! +cowardly skulking beast--the noblest and very bravest under my wing! +Incomprehensible to you, Tresten? But who understands women! You hate +her. Do not. She 's a riddle, but no worse than the rest of the tangle. +She gives me up? Pooh! She writes it. She writes anything. And that +vilest, I say, I will make more enviable, more Clotilde! he thundered +her signature in an amazement, broken suddenly by the sight of her +putting her name to the letter. She had done that, written her name to +the renunciation of him! No individual could bear the sight of such +a crime, and no suffering man could be appeased by a single victim to +atone for it. Her sex must be slaughtered; he raged against the woman; +she became that ancient poisonous thing, the woman; his fury would not +distinguish her as Clotilde, though the name had started him, and it was +his knowledge of the particular sinner which drew down his curses on the +sex. He twisted his body, hugging at his breast as if he had her letter +sticking in his ribs. The letter was up against his ribs, and he thumped +it, crushed it, patted it; he kissed it, and flung it, stamped on it, +and was foul-mouthed. Seeing it at his feet, he bent to it like a man +snapped in two, lamenting, bewailing himself, recovering sight of her +fragmentarily. It stuck in his ribs, and in scorn of the writer, and +sceptical of her penning it, he tugged to pull it out, and broke the +shaft, but left the rankling arrow-head:--she had traced the lines, and +though tyranny racked her to do that thing, his agony followed her +hand over the paper to her name, which fixed and bit in him like the +deadly-toothed arrow-head called asp, and there was no uprooting it. +The thing lived; her deed was the woman; there was no separating them: +witness it in love murdered. + +O that woman! She has murdered love. She has blotted love completely +out. She is the arch-thief and assassin of mankind--the female Apollyon. +He lost sight of her in the prodigious iniquity covering her sex with +a cowl of night, and it was what women are, what women will do, the one +and all alike simpering simulacra that men find them to be, soulless, +clogs on us, bloodsuckers! until a feature of the particular sinner +peeped out on him, and brought the fresh agony of a reminder of his +great-heartedness. 'For that woman--Tresten, you know me--I would +have sacrificed for that woman fortune and life, my hope, my duty, +my immortality. She knew it, and she--look!' he unwrinkled the letter +carefully for it to be legible, and clenched it in a ball.' Signs her +name, signs her name, her name!--God of heaven! it would be incredible +in a holy chronicle--signs her name to the infamous harlotry! See: +"Clotilde von Rudiger." It's her writing; that's her signature: +"Clotilde" in full. You'd hardly fancy that, now? But look!' the +colonel's eyelids were blinking, and Alvan dinted his finger-nail under +her name: 'there it is: Clotilde: signed shamelessly. Just as she might +have written to one of her friends about bonnets, and balls, and books! +Henceforward strangers, she and I?' + +His laughter, even to Tresten, a man of camps, sounded profane as a +yell beneath a cathedral dome. 'Why, the woman has been in my hands--I +released her, spared her, drilled brain and blood, ransacked all the +code, to do her homage and honour in every mortal way; and we two +strangers! Do you hear that, Tresten? Why, if you had seen her!--she +was lost, and I, this man she now pierces with ice, kept hell down under +bolt and bar-worse, I believe, broke a good woman's heart! that never a +breath should rise that could accuse her on suspicion, or in malice, or +by accident, justly, or with a shadow of truth. "I think it best for us +both." So she thinks for me! She not only decides, she thinks; she is +the active principle; 'tis mine to submit.--A certain presumption was in +that girl always. Ha! do you hear me? Her letter may sting, it shall not +dupe. Strangers? Poor fool! You see plainly she was nailed down to write +the thing. This letter is a flat lie. She can lie--Oh! born to the art! +born to it!--lies like a Saint tricking Satan! But she says she has left +the city. Now to find her!' + +He began marching about the room with great strides. 'I 'll have the +whole Continent up; her keepers shall have no rest; I 'll have them by +the Law Courts; and by stratagem, and, if law and cunning fail, force. +I have sworn it. I have done all that honour can ask of a man; more than +any man, to my knowledge, would have done, and now it's war. I +declare war on them. They will have it! I mean to take that girl from +them--snatch or catch! The girl is my girl, and if there are laws +against my having my own, to powder with the laws! Well, and do you +suppose me likely to be beaten? Then Cicero was a fiction, and Caesar +a people's legend. Not if they are history, and eloquence and +commandership have power over the blood and souls of men. First, I write +to her!' + +His friend suggested that he knew not where she was. But already the pen +was at work, the brain pouring as from a pitcher. + +Writing was blood-letting, and the interminable pages drained him of +his fever. As he wrote, she grew more radiant, more indistinct, more +fiercely desired. The concentration of his active mind directed his +whole being on the track of Clotilde, idealizing her beyond human. That +last day when he had seen her appeared to him as the day of days. That +day was Clotilde herself, she in person; he saw it as the woman, and +saw himself translucent in the great luminousness; and behind it all was +dark, as in front. That one day was the sun of his life. It had been a +day of rain, and he beheld it in memory just as it had been, with the +dark threaded air, the dripping streets; and he glorified it past all +daily radiance. His letter was a burning hymn to the day. His moral +grandeur on the day made him live as part of the splendour. Was it +possible for the woman who had seen him then to be faithless to him? The +swift deduction from his own feelings cleansed her of a suspicion to +the contrary, and he became lighthearted. He hummed an air when he had +finished his letter to her. + +Councils with his adherents and couriers were held, and some were +despatched to watch the house and slip the letter to her maid; others +were told off to bribe and hound their way on the track of Clotilde. His +gold rained into their hands with the directions. + +Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; a +friend of both, and a warm one. Men coming into contact with Alvan took +their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy of +no dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he +opposed. The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness's grief over +this love-passion of Alvan's, and her resignation. He shared her doubts +of Clotilde's nobility of character: the reports were not favourable to +the young lady. But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan +in love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel. He dropped a +word of the whispers of Clotilde's volatility. + +Alvan nodded his perfect assent. 'She is that, she is anything you like; +you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil. She is matchless, colour her +as you please.' Adopting the tone of argument, he said: 'She writes +that letter. Well? It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as +hers, I would not have it unwritten. I love it!' He looked maddish with +his love of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly: 'The point is, that +she has the charm for me. She is plastic in my hands. Other men would +waste the treasure. I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and +knows that she hangs on me to flourish worthily. I breathe the very soul +of the woman into her. As for that letter of hers--' it burnt him this +time to speak of the letter: 'she may write and write! She's weak, thin, +a reed; she--let her be! Say of her when she plays beast--she is +absent from Alvan! I can forgive. The letter's nothing; it means +nothing--except "Thou fool, Alvan, to let me go." Yes, that! Her people +are acting tyrant with her--as legally they have no right to do in this +country, and I shall prove it to them. When I have gained admission to +her--and I soon shall: it can't be refused: I am off to the head of her +father's office to-morrow, and I have only to represent the state of +affairs to the Minister in my language to obtain his authority to demand +admission to her:--then, friend, you will see! I lift my finger, and +you will see! At my request she went back to her mother. I have but to +beckon.' + +He had cooled to the happy assurance of his authority over her, all the +giants of his system being well in action, and when that is the case +with a big nature it is at rest, or such is the condition of repose +granted it in life. + +On the morrow he was off to batter at doors which would have expected +rather the summons of an armed mob at his heels than the strange cry of +the Radical man maltreated by love. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The story of Clotilde's departure from the city, like that of Alvan's, +communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, +disseminated by her parents. She was removed when the swarm of spies and +secret letter-bearers were attaining a position of dignity through the +rumour of legal gentlemen about to direct the movements of the besieging +army. + +A stir seemed to her to prognosticate a rescue and she went not +unwillingly. To be in motion, to see roadside faces, pricked her senses +with some hope. She had gained the peace she needed, and in that state +her heart began to be agitated by a fresh awakening, luxurious at first +rather than troublesome. She had sunk so low that the light of Alvan +seemed too distant for a positive expectation of him; but few approached +her whom she did not fancy under strange disguises: the gentlemen were +servants, the blouses were gentlemen; she looked wistfully at old women +bearing baskets, for the forbidden fruit to peep out in the form of an +envelope. All passed her blankly, noticing her eyes. + +The journey was short; she was taken to a place a little beyond the head +of the lake, and there, though she had liberty to breathe the air, fast +fixed within the walls of a daily sameness that became gradually the hum +of voices accusing Alvan of one in excess of the many sins laid against +him by his enemies. Was he not possibly an empty pretender to power--a +mere great talker? + +Her bit of liberty increased her chafing at the deadly monotony of this +existence, and envenomed the accusation by seeming to push her forth +quite half way to meet him, if he would but come or show sign! She +impetuously vindicated him from the charge of crediting the sincerity of +any words she might have committed to paper at the despotic dictation of +her father. Oh, no; Alvan could not be guilty of such folly as that; he +could not; it would be to suppose him unacquainted with her, ignorant +of the nature of women. He would know that she wrote the words--why? She +could not perfectly recollect how she had come to write them, and found +it easier to extinguish the act of having written them at all, which was +done by the angry recurrence to his failure to intervene now when +the drama cried for his godlike appearance. Perhaps he was really +unacquainted with her thought her stronger than she was! The idea +reflected a shadow on his intelligence. She was not in a situation that +could bear of her blaming herself. + +While she was thus devoured by the legions of her enfeebled wits, +Clotilde was assiduously courted by her family, and her father from time +to time brought pen and paper for her to write anew from his dictation. +He was pleased to hail her as his fair secretary, and when the letters +were unimportant she wrote flowingly, happy to be praised. They were +occasionally addressed to friends; she discovered herself writing one +to the professor, in which he was about to be informed that she had +resolved to banish Alvan from her mind for ever. She stopped; her heart +stopped; the pen fell from her hand, in loathing. Her father warily bade +her proceed. She could not; she signified it choking. Only a few days +before she had written to the professor exultingly of her engagement. +She refused to belie herself in such a manner; retrospectively her rapid +contradictions appeared impossible; the picture of her was not human, +and she gave out a negative of her whole frame convulsed, whereat the +General was not slow to remind her of the scourgings she had undergone +by a sudden burst of his wrath. He knew the proper physic. 'You girls +want the lesson we read to skittish recruits; you shall have it. Write: +"He is now as nothing to me." You shall write that you hate him, if you +hesitate! Why, you unreasonable slut, you have given him up; you have +told him you have given him up, and what objection can you have to +telling others now you have done it?' + +'I was forced to it, body and soul!' cried Clotilde, sobbing and +bursting into desperation out of a weak show of petulance that she had +put on to propitiate him. 'If I have to tell, I will tell how it was. +For that my heart is unchanged, and Alvan is, and will be, my lord, all +the world may see. I would rather write that I hate him.' + +'You write, the man is now as nothing to me!' said her father, dashing +his finger in a fiery zig-zag along the line for her pen to follow. 'Or +else, my girl, you've been playing us a pretty farce!' He strung himself +for a mad gallop of wrath, gave her a shudder, and relapsed. 'No, no, +you're wiser, you're a better girl than that. Write it. I must have it +written-here, come! The worst is over; the rest is child's play. Come, +take the pen, I'll guide your hand.' + +The pen was fixed in her hand, and the first words formed. They looked +such sprawling skeletons that Clotilde had the comfort of feeling sure +they would be discerned as the work of compulsion. So she wrote on +mechanically, solacing herself for what she did with vows of future +revolt. Alvan had a saying, that want of courage is want of sense; and +she remembered his illustration of how sense would nourish courage by +scattering the fear of death, if we would only grasp the thought that we +sink to oblivion gladly at night, and, most of us, quit it reluctantly +in the morning. She shut her eyes while writing; she fancied death would +be welcome; and as she certainly had sense, she took it for the promise +of courage. She flattered herself by believing, therefore, that she who +did not object to die was only awaiting the cruelly-delayed advent of +her lover to be almost as brave as he--the feminine of him. With these +ideas in her head much clearer than when she wrote the couple of +lines to Alvan--for then her head was reeling, she was then beaten and +prostrate--she signed her name to a second renunciation of him, and was +aware of a flush of self-reproach at the simple suspicion of his being +deceived by it; it was an insult to his understanding. Full surely the +professor would not be deceived, and a lover with a heart to reach to +her and read her could never be hoodwinked by so palpable a piece +of slavishness. She was indeed slavish; the apology necessitated the +confession. But that promise of courage, coming of her ownership of +sense, vindicated her prospectively; she had so little of it that she +embraced it as a present possession, and she made it Alvan's task to +put it to the trial. Hence it became Alvan's offence if, owing to +his absence, she could be charged with behaving badly. Her generosity +pardoned him his inexplicable delay to appear in his might: 'But see +what your continued delay causes!' she said, and her tone was merely +sorrowful. + +She had forgotten her signature to the letter to the professor when +his answer arrived. The sight of the handwriting of one of her lover's +faithfullest friends was like a peal of bells to her, and she tore the +letter open, and began to blink and spell at a strange language, +taking the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in +her resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high +intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress +moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and +had within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this +man--if living man he could be thought--counselled her to endeavour to +deserve the love and respect of her parents, alluded to Alvan's age +and her better birth, approved her resolve to consult the wishes of +her family, and in fine was as rank a traitor to friendship as any +chronicled. Out on him! She swept him from earth. + +And she had built some of her hopes on the professor. 'False friend!' +she cried. + +She wept over Alvan for having had so false a friend. + +There remained no one that could be expected to intervene with a strong +arm save the baroness. The professor's emphasized approval of her +resolve to consult the wishes of her family was a shocking hypocrisy, +and Clotilde thought of the contrast to it in her letter to the +baroness. The tripping and stumbling, prettily awkward little tone of +gosling innocent new from its egg, throughout the letter, was a triumph +of candour. She repeated passages, paragraphs, of the letter, assuring +herself that such affectionately reverential prattle would have moved +her, and with the strongest desire to cast her arms about the writer: it +had been composed to be moving to a woman, to any woman. The old woman +was entreated to bestow her blessing on the young one, all in Arcadia, +and let the young one nestle to the bosom she had not an idea of +robbing. She could not have had the idea, else how could she have made +the petition? And in order to compliment a venerable dame on her pure +friendship for a gentleman, it was imperative to reject the idea. +Besides, after seeing the photograph of the baroness, common civility +insisted on the purity of her friendship. Nay, in mercy to the poor +gentleman, friendship it must be. + +A letter of reply from that noble lady was due. Possibly she had +determined not to write, but to act. She was a lady of exalted birth, +a lady of the upper aristocracy, who could, if she would, bring both a +social and official pressure upon the General: and it might be in motion +now behind the scenes, Clotilde laid hold of her phantom baroness, +almost happy under the phantom's whisper that she need not despair. 'You +have been a little weak,' the phantom said to her, and she acquiesced +with a soft sniffle, adding: 'But, dearest, honoured lady, you are a +woman, and know what our trials are when we are so persecuted. O that +I had your beautiful sedateness! I do admire it, madam. I wish I could +imitate.' She carried her dramatic ingenuousness farthel still by +saying: 'I have seen your photograph'; implying that the inimitable, the +much coveted air of composure breathed out of yonder presentment of her +features. 'For I can't call you good looking,' she said within herself, +for the satisfaction of her sense of candour, of her sense of contrast +as well. And shutting her eyes, she thought of the horrid penitent a +harsh-faced woman in confession must be: + +The picture sent her swimmingly to the confessional, where sat a man +with his head in a hood, and he soon heard enough of mixed substance to +dash his hood, almost his head, off. Beauty may be immoderately frank in +soul to the ghostly. The black page comprised a very long list. 'But +put this on the white page,' says she to the surging father inside his +box--'I loved Alvan!' A sentence or two more fetches the Alvanic man +jumping out of the priest: and so closely does she realize it that she +has to hunt herself into a corner with the question, whether she shall +tell him she guessed him to be no other than her lover. 'How could you +expect a girl, who is not a Papist, to come kneeling here?' she says. +And he answers with no matter what of a gallant kind. + +In this manner her natural effervescence amused her sorrowful mind while +gazing from her chamber window at the mountain sides across the valley, +where tourists, in the autumnal season, sweep up and down like a tidal +river. She had ceased to weep; she had outwept the colour of her eyes +and the consolation of weeping. Dressed in black to the throat, she sat +and waited the arrival of her phantom friend, the baroness--that angel! +who proved her goodness in consenting to be the friend of Alvan's +beloved, because she was the true friend of Alvan! How cheap such a way +of proving goodness, Clotilde did not consider. She wanted it so. + +The mountain heights were in dusty sunlight. She had seen them day +after day thinly lined on the dead sky, inviting thunder and doomed to +sultriness. She looked on the garden of the house, a desert under bee +and butterfly. Looking beyond the garden she perceived her father on +the glaring road, and one with him, the sight of whom did not flush her +cheek or spring her heart to a throb, though she pitied the poor boy: he +was useless to her, utterly. + +Soon her Indian Bacchus was in her room, and alone with her, and at her +feet. Her father had given him hope. He came bearing eyes that were like +hope's own; and kneeling, kissing her hands, her knees, her hair, he +seemed unaware that she was inanimate. + +There was nothing imaginable in which he could be of use. + +He was only another dust-cloud of the sultry sameness. She had +been expecting a woman, a tempest choral with sky and mountain and +valley-hollows, as the overture to Alvan's appearance. + +But he roused her. With Marko she had never felt her cowardice, and his +passionately beseeching, trembling, 'Will you have me?' called up the +tiger in the girl; in spite of pity for his voice she retorted on her +parents: + +'Will I have you? I? You ask me what is my will? It sounds oddly from +you, seeing that I wrote to you in Lucerne what I would have, and +nothing has changed in me since then, nothing! My feeling for him is +unaltered, and everything you have heard of me was wrung out of me by +my unhappiness. The world is dead to me, and all in it that is not. +Sigismund Alvan. To you I am accustomed to speak every thought of my +soul, and I tell you the world and all it has is dead to me, even my +parents--I hate them.' + +Marko pressed her hands. If he loved her slavishly, it was generously. +The wild thing he said was one of the frantic leaps of generosity in a +heart that was gone to impulse: 'I see it, they have martyrized you. I +know you so well, Clotilde! So, then, come to me, come with me, let me +cherish you. I will take you and rescue you from your people, and should +it be your positive wish to meet Alvan again, I myself will take you to +him, and then you may choose between us.' + +The generosity was evident. There was nevertheless, to a young woman +realizing the position foreshadowed by such a project, the suspicion of +a slavish hope nestling among the circumstances in the background, and +this she was taught by the dangerous emotion of gratitude gaining on +her, and melting her to him. + +She too had a slavish hope that was athirst and sinking, and it flew +at the throat of Marko's, eager to satiate its vengeance for these long +delays in the destroying of a weaker. + +She left her chair and cried: 'As you will. What is it to me? Take me, +if you please. Take that glove; it is the shape of my hand. You have as +much of me as is there. My life is gone. You or another! But take +this warning and my oath with it. I swear to you, that wherever I see +Sigismund Alvan I go straight to him, though the way be over you, all of +you, lying dead beneath me.' + +The lift of incredulous horror in Marko's large black eyes excited her +to a more savage imagination: 'Rejoice! I should rejoice to see you, all +of you, dead, that I might walk across you safe from disturbance to get +to him I love. Be under no delusion. I love him better than the lives +of any dear to me, or my own. I am his. He is my faith, my worship. I +am true to him, I am, I am. You force my hand from me, you take this +miserable body, but my soul is free to love him and to go to him when +God gives me sight of him. I am Alvan's eternally. All your laws are +mockeries. You, and my people, and your priests, and your law-makers, +are shadows, brain-vapours. Let him beckon!--So you have your warning. +Do what I may, I cannot be called untrue. And now let me be; I want +repose; my head breaks; I have been on the rack and I am in pieces!' + +Marko clung to her hand, said she was terrible and pitiless, but clung. + +The hand was nerveless: it was her dear hand. Had her tongue been more +venomous in wildness than the encounter with a weaker than herself made +it be, the holding of her hand would have been his antidote. In him +there was love for two. + +Clotilde allowed him to keep the hand, assuring herself she was +unconscious he did so. He brought her peace, he brought her old throning +self back to her, and he was handsome and tame as a leopard-skin at her +feet. + +If she was doomed to reach to Alvan through him, at least she had warned +him. The vision of the truthfulness of her nature threw a celestial wan +beam on her guilty destiny. + +She patted his head and bade him leave her, narrowing her shoulders on +the breast to let it be seen that the dark household within was locked +and shuttered. + +He went. He was good, obedient, humane; he was generous, exquisitely +bred; he brought her peace, and he had been warned. It is difficult in +affliction to think of one who belongs to us as one to whom we owe +a duty. The unquestionably sincere and devoted lover is also in his +candour a featureless person; and though we would not punish him for his +goodness, we have the right to anticipate that it will be equal to +every trial. Perhaps, for the sake of peace... after warning him... her +meditations tottered in dots. + +But when the heart hungers behind such meditations, that thinking +without language is a dangerous habit; for there will suddenly come a +dash usurping the series of tentative dots, which is nothing other than +the dreadful thing resolved on, as of necessity, as naturally as the +adventurous bow-legged infant pitches back from an excursion of two +paces to mother's lap; and not much less innocently within the mind, it +would appear. The dash is a haven reached that would not be greeted +if it stood out in words. Could we live without ourselves letting our +animal do our thinking for us legibly? We live with ourselves agreeably +so long as his projects are phrased in his primitive tongue, even though +we have clearly apprehended what he means, and though we sufficiently +well understand the whither of our destination under his guidance. No +counsel can be saner than that the heart should be bidden to speak +out in plain verbal speech within us. For want of it, Clotilde's short +explorations in Dot-and-Dash land were of a kind to terrify her, and yet +they seemed not only unavoidable, but foreshadowing of the unavoidable +to come. Or possibly--the thought came to her--Alvan would keep his +word, and save her from worse by stepping to the altar between her +and Marko, there calling on her to decide and quit the prince; and his +presence would breathe courage into her to go to him. It set her looking +to the altar as a prospect of deliverance. + +Her mother could not fail to notice a change in Clotilde's wintry face +now that Marko was among them; her inference tallied with his report of +their interview, so she supposed the girl to have accepted more or less +heartily Marko's forgiveness. For him the girl's eyes were soft and +kind; her gaze was through the eyelashes, as one seeing a dream on a far +horizon. Marko spoke of her cheerfully, and was happy to call her his +own, but would not have her troubled by any ceremonial talk of their +engagement, so she had much to thank him for, and her consciousness of +the signal instance of ingratitude lying ahead in the darkness, like a +house mined beneath the smiling slumberer, made her eager to show +the real gratefulness and tenderness of her feelings. This had the +appearance of renewed affection; consequently her parents lost much of +their fear of the besieger outside, and she was removed to the city. +Two parties were in the city, one favouring Alvan, and one abhorring the +audacious Jew. Together they managed to spread incredible reports of his +doings, which required little exaggeration to convince an enemy that he +was a man with whom hostility could not be left to sleep. The General +heard of the man's pleading his cause in all directions to get pressure +put upon him, showing something like a devilish persuasiveness, Jew and +demagogue though he was; for there seemed to be a feeling abroad that +the interview this howling lover claimed with Clotilde ought to be +granted. The latest report spoke of him as off to the General's Court +for an audience of his official chief. General von Rudiger looked to +his defences, and he had sufficient penetration to see that the weakest +point of them might be a submissive daughter. + +A letter to Clotilde from the baroness was brought to the house by a +messenger. The General thought over it. The letter was by no means a +seductive letter for a young lady to receive from such a person, yet he +did not anticipate the whole effect it would produce when ultimately he +decided to give it to her, being of course unaware of the noble style of +Clotilde's address to the baroness. He stipulated that there must be no +reply to it except through him, and Clotilde had the coveted letter in +her hands at last. Here was the mediatrix--the veritable goddess with +the sword to cut the knot! Here was the manifestation of Alvan! + + + + +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 XIV + +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 + Above all things I detest the writing for money + At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly + Barriers are for those who cannot fly + Be good and dull, and please everybody + Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip + Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies + Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession + Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered + Compromise is virtual death + Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath + Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change + Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position + Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur + Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? + Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women + Fantastical + Finishing touches to the negligence + Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity + Gone to pieces with an injured lover's babble + Gradations appear to be unknown to you + He had to go, he must, he has to be always going + He stormed her and consented to be beaten + Hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences + His violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence + His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability + Hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic + I give my self, I do not sell + I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy + I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you + If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature + Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days + Looking on him was listening + Love the difficulty better than the woman + Men in love are children with their mistresses + Metaphysician's treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise + Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous + Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful + Not much esteem for non-professional actresses + Not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself + O for yesterday! + Pact between cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency + Philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded + Polished barbarism + Professional widows + Providence and her parents were not forgiven + Scorned him for listening to the hesitations (hers) + Self-consoled when they are not self-justified + She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each + She felt in him a maker of facts + Strength in love is the sole sincerity + The worst of omens is delay + The way is clear: we have only to take the step + The brainless in Art and in Statecraft + Time is due to us, and the minutes are our gold slipping away + Time and strength run to waste in retarding the inevitable + To have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind + Trick for killing time without hurting him + Two wishes make a will + Venerated by his followers, well hated by his enemies + Want of courage is want of sense + We shall not be rich--nor poor + Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side + Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? + Win you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be + Work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4464.txt or 4464.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/4464/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4464] +[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, Complete, by Meredith +***********This file should be named gm70v10.txt or gm70v10.zip*********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm70v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm70v10a.txt + +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 1. + + +The word 'fantastical' is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an +utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem an +appointed instrument for reviewers of books of imaginative matter +distasteful to those expository pens. Upon examination, claimants to the +epithet will be found outside of books and of poets, in many quarters, +Nature being one of the prominent, if not the foremost. Wherever she can +get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As for +that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and the angry +captain, called Human Nature, 'fantastical' fits it no less completely +than a continental baby's skull-cap the stormy infant. + +Our sympathies, one may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen +shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and worthy of +study. + +The pair of tragic comedians of whom there will be question pass under +this word as under their banner and motto. Their acts are incredible: +they drank sunlight and drove their bark in a manner to eclipse +historical couples upon our planet. Yet they do belong to history, +they breathed the stouter air than fiction's, the last chapter of them +is written in red blood, and the man pouring out that last chapter, was +of a mighty nature not unheroical, a man of the active grappling modern +brain which wrestles with facts, to keep the world alive, and can create +them, to set it spinning. + +A Faust-like legend might spring from him: he had a devil. He was the +leader of a host, the hope of a party, venerated by his followers, well +hated by his enemies, respected by the intellectual chiefs of his time, +in the pride of his manhood and his labours when he fell. And why this +man should have come to his end through love, and the woman who loved him +have laid her hand in the hand of the slayer, is the problem we have to +study, nothing inventing, in the spirit and flesh of both. To ask if it +was love is useless. Love may be celestial fire before it enters into +the systems of mortals. It will then take the character of its place of +abode, and we have to look not so much for the pure thing as for the +passion. Did it move them, hurry them, animating the giants and gnomes +of one, the elves and sprites of the other, and putting animal nature out +of its fashionable front rank? The bare railway-line of their story +tells of a passion honest enough to entitle it to be related. Nor is +there anything invented, because an addition of fictitious incidents +could never tell us how she came to do this, he to do that; or how the +comic in their natures led by interplay to the tragic issue. They are +real creatures, exquisitely fantastical, strangely exposed to the world +by a lurid catastrophe, who teach us, that fiction, if it can imagine +events and persons more agreeable to the taste it has educated, can read +us no such furrowing lesson in life. + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + +CHAPTER I + +An unresisted lady-killer is probably less aware that he roams the +pastures in pursuit of a coquette, than is the diligent Arachne that her +web is for the devouring lion. At an early age Clotilde von Rudiger was +dissatisfied with her conquests, though they were already numerous in her +seventeenth year, for she began precociously, having at her dawn a lively +fancy, a womanly person, and singular attractions of colour, eyes, and +style. She belonged by birth to the small aristocracy of her native +land. Nature had disposed her to coquettry, which is a pastime counting +among the arts of fence, and often innocent, often serviceable, though +sometimes dangerous, in the centres of polished barbarism known as +aristocratic societies, where nature is not absent, but on the contrary +very extravagant, tropical, by reason of her idle hours for the imbibing +of copious draughts of sunlight. The young lady of charming countenance +and sprightly manners is too much besought to choose for her choice to +be decided; the numbers beseeching prevent her from choosing instantly, +after the fashion of holiday schoolboys crowding a buffet of pastry. +These are not coquettish, they clutch what is handy: and little so is +the starved damsel of the sequestered village, whose one object of the +worldly picturesque is the passing curate; her heart is his for a nod. +But to be desired ardently of trooping hosts is an incentive to taste to +try for yourself. Men (the jury of householders empanelled to deliver +verdicts upon the ways of women) can almost understand that. And as it +happens, tasting before you have sounded the sense of your taste will +frequently mislead by a step or two difficult to retrieve: the young +coquette must then be cruel, as necessarily we kick the waters to escape +drowning: and she is not in all cases dealing with simple blocks or limp +festoons, she comes upon veteran tricksters that have a knowledge of her +sex, capable of outfencing her nascent individuality. The more +imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days, the +more is she a prey to the enemy in her time of ignorance. + +Clotilde's younger maiden hours and their love episodes are wrapped in +the mists Diana considerately drops over her adventurous favourites. She +was not under a French mother's rigid supervision. In France the mother +resolves that her daughter shall be guarded from the risks of that +unequal rencounter between foolish innocence and the predatory. Vigilant +foresight is not so much practised where the world is less accurately +comprehended. Young people of Clotilde's upper world everywhere, and the +young women of it especially, are troubled by an idea drawn from what +they inhale and guess at in the spirituous life surrounding them, that +the servants of the devil are the valiant host, this world's elect, +getting and deserving to get the best it can give in return for a little +dashing audacity, a flavour of the Fronde in their conduct; they sin, but +they have the world; and then they repent perhaps, but they have had the +world. The world is the golden apple. Thirst for it is common during +youth: and one would think the French mother worthy of the crown of +wisdom if she were not so scrupulously provident in excluding love from +the calculations on behalf of her girl. + +Say (for Diana's mists are impenetrable and freeze curiosity) that +Clotilde was walking with Count Constantine, the brilliant Tartar trained +in Paris, when first she met Prince Marko Romaris, at the Hungarian Baths +on the borders of the Styrian highlands. The scene at all events is +pretty, and weaves a fable out of a variety of floating threads. A +stranger to the Baths, dressed in white and scarlet, sprang from his +carriage into a group of musical gypsies round an inn at the arch of the +chestnut avenue, after pulling up to listen to them for a while. The +music had seized him. He snatched bow and fiddle from one of the ring, +and with a few strokes kindled their faces. Then seating himself, on a +bench he laid the fiddle on his knee, and pinched the strings and flung +up his voice, not ceasing to roll out the spontaneous notes when Clotilde +and her cavalier, and other couples of the party, came nigh; for he was +on the tide of the song, warm in it, and loved it too well to suffer +intruders to break the flow, or to think of them. They were close by +when the last of it rattled (it was a popular song of a fiery tribe) to +its finish: He rose and saluted Clotilde, smiled and jumped back to his +carriage, sending a cry of adieu to the swarthy, lank-locked, leather- +hued circle, of which his dark oriental eyes and skin of burnished walnut +made him look an offshoot, but one of the celestial branch. + +He was in her father's reception-room when she reached home: he was +paying a visit of ceremony on behalf of his family to General von +Rudiger; which helped her to remember that he had been expected, and also +that his favourite colours were known to be white and scarlet. In those +very colours, strange to tell, Clotilde was dressed; Prince Marko had +recognized her by miraculous divination, he assured her he could have +staked his life on the guess as he bowed to her. Adieu to Count +Constantine. Fate had interposed the prince opportunely, we have to +suppose, for she received a strong impression of his coming straight from +her invisible guardian; and the stroke was consequently trenchant which +sent the conquering Tartar raving of her fickleness. She struck, like +fate, one blow. She discovered that the prince, in addition to his +beauty and sweet manners and gift of song, was good; she fell in love +with goodness, whereof Count Constantine was not an example: so she set +her face another way, soon discovering that there may be fragility in +goodness. And now first her imagination conceived the hero who was to +subdue her. Could Prince Marko be he, soft as he was, pliable, a docile +infant, burning to please her, enraptured in obeying?--the hero who would +wrestle with her, overcome and hold her bound? Siegfried could not be +dreamed in him, or a Siegfried's baby son-in-arms. She caught a glorious +image of the woman rejecting him and his rival, and it informed her that +she, dissatisfied with an Adonis, and more than a match for a famous +conqueror, was a woman of decisive and independent, perhaps unexampled, +force of character. Her idea of a spiritual superiority that could soar +over those two men, the bad and the good--the bad because of his +vileness, the good because of his frailness--whispered to her of +deserving, possibly of attracting, the best of men: the best, that is, in +the woman's view of us--the strongest, the great eagle of men, lord of +earth and air. + +One who will dominate me, she thought. + +Now when a young lady of lively intelligence and taking charm has brought +her mind to believe that she possesses force of character, she persuades +the rest of the world easily to agree with her, and so long as her +pretensions are not directly opposed to their habits of thought, her +parents will be the loudest in proclaiming it, fortifying so the maid's +presumption, which is ready to take root in any shadow of subserviency. +Her father was a gouty general of infantry in the diplomatic service, +disinclined to unnecessary disputes, out of consideration for his +vehement irritability when roused. Her mother had been one of the +beauties of her set, and was preserving an attenuated reign, through the +conversational arts, to save herself from fading into the wall. Her +brothers and sisters were not of an age to contest her lead. The temper +of the period was revolutionary in society by reflection of the state of +politics, and juniors were sturdy democrats, letting their elders know +that they had come to their inheritance, while the elders, confused by +the impudent topsy-turvy, put on the gaping mask (not unfamiliar to +history) of the disestablished conservative, whose astounded state +paralyzes his wrath. + +Clotilde maintained a decent measure in the liberty she claimed, and it +was exercised in wildness of dialogue rather than in capricious +behaviour. If her flowing tongue was imperfectly controlled, it was +because she discoursed by preference to men upon our various affairs and +tangles, and they encouraged her with the tickled wonder which bids the +bold advance yet farther into bogland. Becoming the renowned original of +her society, wherever it might be, in Germany, Italy, Southern France, +she grew chillily sensible of the solitude decreed for their heritage to +our loftiest souls. Her Indian Bacchus, as a learned professor supplied +Prince Marko's title for her, was a pet, not a companion. She to him was +what she sought for in another. As much as she pitied herself for not +lighting on the predestined man, she pitied him for having met the woman, +so that her tenderness for both inspired many signs of warm affection, +not very unlike the thing it moaned secretly the not being. For she +could not but distinguish a more poignant sorrow in the seeing of the +object we yearn to vainly than in vainly yearning to one unseen. +Dressed, to delight him, in Prince Marko's colours, the care she bestowed +on her dressing was for the one absent, the shrouded comer: so she +pleased the prince to be pleasing to her soul's lord, and this, owing to +an appearance of satisfactory deception that it bore, led to her thinking +guiltily. We may ask it: an eagle is expected, and how is he to declare +his eagleship save by breaking through our mean conventional systems, +tearing links asunder, taking his own in the teeth of vulgar ordinances? +Clotilde's imagination drew on her reading for the knots it tied and +untied, and its ideas of grandeur. Her reading was an interfusion of +philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded. She tried hard, +but could get no other terrible tangle for her hero's exhibition of +flaming azure divineness than the vile one of the wedded woman. Further +thinking of it, she revived and recovered; she despised the complication, +yet without perceiving how else he was to manifest himself legitimately +in a dull modern world. The rescuing her from death would be a poor +imitation of worn-out heroes. His publication of a trumpeting book fell +appallingly flat in her survey. Deeds of gallantry done as an officer in +war (defending his country too) distinguished the soldier, but failed to +add the eagle feather to the man. She had a mind of considerable soaring +scope, and eclectic: it analyzed a Napoleon, and declined the position of +his empress. The man must be a gentleman. Poets, princes, warriors, +potentates, marched before her speculative fancy unselected. + +So far, as far as she can be portrayed introductorily, she is not without +exemplars in the sex. Young women have been known to turn from us +altogether, never to turn back, so poor and shrunken, or so fleshly-bulgy +have we all appeared in the fairy jacket they wove for the right one of +us to wear becomingly. But the busy great world was round Clotilde while +she was malleable, though she might be losing her fresh ideas of the +hammer and the block, and that is a world of much solicitation to induce +a vivid girl to merge an ideal in a living image. Supposing, when she +has accomplished it, that men justify her choice, the living will retain +the colours of the ideal. We have it on record that he may seem an +eagle. + +'You talk curiously like Alvan, do you know,' a gentleman of her country +said to her as they were descending the rock of Capri, one day. He said +it musingly. + +He belonged to a circle beneath her own: the learned and artistic. She +had not heard of this Alvan, or had forgotten him; but professing +universal knowledge, especially of celebrities, besides having an envious +eye for that particular circle, which can pretend to be the choicest of +all, she was unwilling to betray her ignorance, and she dimpled her +cheek, as one who had often heard the thing said to her before. She +smiled musingly. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +'Who is the man they call Alvan?' She put the question at the first +opportunity to an aunt of hers. + +Up went five-fingered hands. This violent natural sign of horror was +comforting: she saw that he was a celebrity indeed. + +'Alvan! My dear Clotilde! What on earth can you want to know about a +creature who is the worst of demagogues, a disreputable person, and a +Jew!' + +Clotilde remarked that she had asked only who he was. 'Is he clever?' + +'He is one of the basest of those wretches who are for upsetting the +Throne and Society to gratify their own wicked passions: that is what he +is.' + +'But is he clever?' + +'Able as Satan himself, they say. He is a really dangerous, bad man. +You could not have been curious about a worse one.' + +'Politically, you mean.' + +'Of course I do.' + +The lady had not thought of any other kind of danger from a man of that +station. + +The likening of one to Satan does not always exclude meditation upon him. +Clotilde was anxious to learn in what way her talk resembled Alvan's. He +being that furious creature, she thought of herself at her wildest, which +was in her estimation her best; and consequently, she being by no means a +furious creature, though very original, she could not meditate on him +without softening the outlines given him by report; all because of the +likeness between them; and, therefore, as she had knowingly been taken +for furious by very foolish people, she settled it that Alvan was also a +victim of the prejudices he scorned. It had pleased her at times to +scorn our prejudices and feel the tremendous weight she brought on +herself by the indulgence. She drew on her recollections of the Satanic +in her bosom when so situated, and never having admired herself more +ardently than when wearing that aspect, she would have admired the man +who had won the frightful title in public, except for one thing--he was a +Jew. + +The Jew was to Clotilde as flesh of swine to the Jew. Her parents had +the same abhorrence of Jewry. One of the favourite similes of the family +for whatsoever grunted in grossness, wriggled with meanness, was Jew: and +it was noteworthy from the fact that a streak of the blood was in the +veins of the latest generation and might have been traced on the maternal +side. + +Now a meanness that clothes itself in the Satanic to terrify cowards is +the vilest form of impudence venturing at insolence; and an insolent +impudence with Jew features, the Jew nose and lips, is past endurance +repulsive. She dismissed her contemplation of Alvan. Luckily for the +gentleman who had compared her to the Jew politician, she did not meet +him again in Italy. + +She had meanwhile formed an idea of the Alvanesque in dialogue; she +summoned her forces to take aim at it, without becoming anything Jewish, +still remaining clean and Christian; and by her astonishing practice of +the art she could at any time blow up a company--scatter mature and +seasoned dames, as had they been balloons on a wind, ay, and give our +stout sex a shaking. + +Clotilde rejected another aspirant proposed by her parents, and falling +into disgrace at home, she went to live for some months with an ancient +lady who was her close relative residing in the capital city where the +brain of her race is located. There it occurred that a dashing officer +of social besides military rank, dancing with her at a ball, said, for a +comment on certain boldly independent remarks she had been making: 'I see +you know Alvan.' + +Alvan once more. + +'Indeed I do not,' she said, for she was addressing an officer high above +Alvan in social rank; and she shrugged, implying that she was almost past +contradiction of the charge. + +'Surely you must,' said he; 'where is the lady who could talk and think +as you do without knowing Alvan and sharing his views!' + +Clotilde was both startled and nettled. + +'But I do not know him at all; I have never met him, never seen him. +I am unlikely to meet the kind of person,' she protested; and she was +amazed yet secretly rejoiced on hearing him, a noble of her own circle, +and a dashing officer, rejoin: 'Come, come, let us be honest. That is +all very well for the little midges floating round us to say of Alvan, +but we two can clasp hands and avow proudly that we both know and love +the man.' + +'Were it true, I would own it at once, but I repeat, that he is a total +stranger to me,' she said, seeing the Jew under quite a different +illumination. + +'Actually?' + +'In honour.' + +'You have never met, never seen him, never read any of his writings?' + +'Never. I have heard his name, that is all.' + +'Then,' the officer's voice was earnest, 'I pity him, and you no less, +while you remain strangers, for you were made for one another. Those +ideas you have expressed, nay, the very words, are Alvan's: I have heard +him use them. He has just the same original views of society and history +as yours; they're identical; your features are not unlike . . . you talk +alike: I could fancy your voice the sister of his. You look incredulous? +You were speaking of Pompeius, and you said "Plutarch's Pompeius," and +more for it is almost incredible under the supposition that you do not +know and have never listened to Alvan--you said that Pompeius appeared to +have been decorated with all the gifts of the Gods to make the greater +sacrifice of him to Caesar, who was not personally worth a pretty woman's +"bite." Come, now--you must believe me: at a supper at Alvan's table the +other night, the talk happened to be of a modern Caesar, which led to the +real one, and from him to "Plutarch's Pompeius," as Alvan called him; and +then he said of him what you have just said, absolutely the same down to +the allusion to the bite. I assure you. And you have numbers of little +phrases in common: you are partners in aphorisms: Barriers are for those +who cannot fly: that is Alvan's. I could multiply them if I could +remember; they struck me as you spoke.' + +'I must be a shameless plagiarist,' said Clotilde. + +'Or he,' said Count Kollin. + +It is here the place of the Chorus to state that these: ideas were in the +air at the time; sparks of the Vulcanic smithy at work in politics and +pervading literature: which both Alvan and Clotilde might catch and give +out as their own, in the honest belief that the epigram was, original to +them. They were not members of a country where literature is confined to +its little paddock, without, influence on the larger field (part lawn, +part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in sympathetic action +with thinkers and literary artists. Their saying in common, 'Plutarch's +Pompeius,' may be traceable to a reading of some professorial article on +the common portrait-painting of the sage of Chaeroneia. The dainty +savageness in the 'bite' Plutarch mentions, evidently struck on a +similarity of tastes in both, as it has done with others. And in regard +to Caesar, Clotilde thought much of Caesar; she had often wished that +Caesar (for the additional pleasure in thinking of him) had been endowed +with the beauty of his rival: one or two of Plutarch's touches upon the +earlier history of Pompeius had netted her fancy, faintly (your +generosity must be equal to hearing it) stung her blood; she liked the +man; and if he had not been beaten in the end, she would have preferred +him femininely. His name was not written Pompey to her, as in English, +to sound absurd: it was a note of grandeur befitting great and lamentable +fortunes, which the young lady declined to share solely because of her +attraction to the victor, her compulsion to render unto the victor the +sunflower's homage. She rendered it as a slave: the splendid man beloved +to ecstasy by the flower of Roman women was her natural choice. + +Alvan could not be even a Caesar in person, he was a Jew. Still a Jew +of whom Count Kollin spoke so warmly must be exceptional, and of the +exceptional she dreamed. He might have the head of a Caesar. She +imagined a huge head, the cauldron of a boiling brain, anything but +bright to the eye, like a pot always on the fire, black, greasy, +encrusted, unkempt: the head of a malicious tremendous dwarf. Her hungry +inquiries in a city where Alvan was well known, brought her full +information of one who enjoyed a highly convivial reputation besides the +influence of his political leadership; but no description of his aspect +accompanied it, for where he was nightly to be met somewhere about the +city, none thought of describing him, and she did not push that question +because she had sketched him for herself, and rather wished, the more she +heard of his genius, to keep him repulsive. It appeared that his bravery +was as well proved as his genius, and a brilliant instance of it had been +given in the city not long since. He had her ideas, and he won +multitudes with them: he was a talker, a writer, and an orator; and he +was learned, while she could not pretend either to learning or to a flow +of rhetoric. She could prattle deliciously, at times pointedly, relying +on her intuition to tell her more than we get from books, and on her +sweet impudence for a richer original strain. She began to appreciate +now a reputation for profound acquirements. Learned professors of +jurisprudence and history were as enthusiastic for Alvan in their way as +Count Kollin. She heard things related of Alvan by the underbreath. +That circle below her own, the literary and artistic, idolized him; his +talk, his classic breakfasts and suppers, his undisguised ambition, his +indomitable energy, his dauntlessness and sway over her sex, were +subjects of eulogy all round her; and she heard of an enamoured baroness. +No one blamed Alvan. He had shown his chivalrous valour in defending +her. The baroness was not a young woman, and she was a hardbound Blue. +She had been the first to discover the prodigy, and had pruned, +corrected, and published him; he was one of her political works, +promising to be the most successful. An old affair apparently; but the +association of a woman's name with Alvan's, albeit the name of a veteran, +roused the girl's curiosity, leading her to think his mental and magnetic +powers must be of the very highest, considering his physical +repulsiveness, for a woman of rank to yield him such extreme devotion. +She commissioned her princely serving-man, who had followed and was never +far away from her, to obtain precise intelligence of this notorious +Alvan. + +Prince Marko did what he could to please her; he knew something of the +rumours about Alvan and the baroness. But why should his lady trouble +herself for particulars of such people, whom it could scarcely be +supposed she would meet by accident? He asked her this. Clotilde said +it was common curiosity. She read him a short lecture on the dismal +narrowness of their upper world; and on the advantage of taking an +interest in the world below them and more enlightened; a world where +ideas were current and speech was wine. The prince nodded; if she had +these opinions, it must be good for him to have them too, and he shared +them, as it were, by the touch of her hand, and for the length of time +that he touched her hand, as an electrical shock may be taken by one far +removed from the battery, susceptible to it only through the link; he was +capable of thinking all that came to him from her a blessing--shocks, +wounds and disruptions. He did not add largely to her stock of items, +nor did he fetch new colours. The telegraph wire was his model of style. +He was more or less a serviceless Indian Bacchus, standing for sign of +the beauty and vacuity of their world: and how dismally narrow that world +was, she felt with renewed astonishment at every dive out of her gold- +fish pool into the world of tides below; so that she was ready to scorn +the cultivation of the graces, and had, when not submitting to the smell, +fanciful fits of a liking for tobacco smoke--the familiar incense of +those homes where speech was wine. + +At last she fell to the asking of herself whether, in the same city with +him, often among his friends, hearing his latest intimate remarks--things +homely redolent of him as hot bread of the oven--she was ever to meet +this man upon whom her thoughts were bent to the eclipse of all others. +She desired to meet him for comparison's sake, and to criticize a popular +hero. It was inconceivable that any one popular could approach her +standard, but she was curious; flame played about him; she had some +expectation of easing a spiteful sentiment created by the recent +subjection of her thoughts to the prodigious little Jew; and some feeling +of closer pity for Prince Marko she had, which urged her to be rid of her +delusion as to the existence of a wonder-working man on our earth, that +she might be sympathetically kind to the prince, perhaps compliant, and +so please her parents, be good and dull, and please everybody, and adieu +to dreams, good night, and so to sleep with the beasts! . . . + +Calling one afternoon on a new acquaintance of the flat table-land she +liked tripping down to from her heights, Clotilde found the lady in +supreme toilette, glowing, bubbling: 'Such a breakfast, my dear!' The +costly profusion, the anecdotes, the wit, the fun, the copious draughts +of the choicest of life--was there ever anything to match it? Never in +that lady's recollection, or her husband's either, she exclaimed. And +where was the breakfast? Why, at Alvan's, to be sure; where else could +such a breakfast be? + +'And you know Alvan!' cried Clotilde, catching excitement from the lady's +flush. + +'Alvan is one of my husband's closest friends' + +Clotilde put on the playful frenzy; she made show of wringing her hands: +'Oh! happy you! you know Alvan? And everybody is to know him except +me? why? I proclaim it unjust. Because I am unmarried? I'll take a +husband to-morrow morning to be entitled to meet Alvan in the evening.' + +The playful frenzy is accepted in its exact innocent signification of +'this is my pretty wilful will and way,' and the lady responded to it +cordially; for it is pleasant to have some one to show, and pleasant to +assist some one eager to see: besides, many had petitioned her for a +sight of Alvan; she was used to the request. + +'You're not obliged to wait for to-morrow,' she said. 'Come to one of +our gatherings to-night. Alvan will be here.' + +'You invite me?' + +'Distinctly. Pray, come. He is sure to be here. We have his promise, +and Alvan never fails. Was it not Frau v. Crestow who did us the favour +of our introduction? She will bring you.' + +The Frau v. Crestow was a cousin of Clotilde's by marriage, sentimental, +but strict in her reading of the proprieties. She saw nothing wrong in +undertaking to conduct Clotilde to one of those famous gatherings of the +finer souls of the city and the race; and her husband agreed to join them +after the sitting of the Chamber upon a military-budget vote. The whole +plan was nicely arranged and went well. Clotilde dressed carefully, +letting her gold-locks cloud her fine forehead carelessly, with finishing +touches to the negligence, for she might be challenged to take part in +disputations on serious themes, and a handsome young woman who has to +sustain an argument against a man does wisely when she forearms her +beauties for a reserve, to carry out flanking movements if required. The +object is to beat him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Her hostess met her at the entrance of the rooms, murmuring that Alvan +was present, and was there: a direction of a nod that any quick-witted +damsel must pretend to think sufficient, so Clotilde slipped from her +companion and gazed into the recess of a doorless inner room, where three +gentlemen stood, backed by book cases, conversing in blue vapours of +tobacco. They were indistinct; she could see that one of them was of +good stature. One she knew; he was the master of the house, mildly +Jewish. The third was distressingly branded with the slum and gutter +signs of the Ahasuerus race. Three hats on his head could not have done +it more effectively. The vindictive caricatures of the God Pan, executed +by priests of the later religion burning to hunt him out of worship in +the semblance of the hairy, hoofy, snouty Evil One, were not more +loathsome. She sank on a sofa. That the man? Oh! Jew, and fifty times +over Jew! nothing but Jew! + +The three stepped into the long saloon, and she saw how veritably +magnificent was the first whom she had noticed. + +She sat at her lamb's-wool work in the little ivory frame, feeding on the +contrast. This man's face was the born orator's, with the light-giving +eyes, the forward nose, the animated mouth, all stamped for speechfulness +and enterprise, of Cicero's rival in the forum before he took the +headship of armies and marched to empire. + +The gifts of speech, enterprise, decision, were marked on his features +and his bearing, but with a fine air of lordly mildness. Alas, he could +not be other than Christian, so glorious was he in build! One could +vision an eagle swooping to his helm by divine election. So vigorously +rich was his blood that the swift emotion running with the theme as he +talked pictured itself in passing and was like the play of sheet +lightning on the variations of the uninterrupted and many-glancing +outpour. Looking on him was listening. Yes, the looking on him +sufficed. Here was an image of the beauty of a new order of godlike men, +that drained an Indian Bacchus of his thin seductions at a breath-reduced +him to the state of nursery plaything, spangles and wax, in the +contemplation of a girl suddenly plunged on the deeps of her womanhood. +She shrank to smaller and smaller as she looked. + +Be sure that she knew who he was. No, says she. But she knew. It +terrified her soul to think he was Alvan. She feared scarcely less that +it might not be he. Between these dreads of doubt and belief she played +at cat and mouse with herself, escaped from cat, persecuted mouse, teased +herself, and gloated. It is he! not he! he! not he! most certainly! +impossible!--And then it ran: If he, oh me! If another, woe me! For +she had come to see Alvan. Alvan and she shared ideas. They talked +marvellously alike, so as to startle Count Kollin: and supposing he was +not Alvan, it would be a bitter disappointment. The supposition that he +was, threatened her with instant and life-long bondage. + +Then again, could that face be the face of a Jew? She feasted. It was a +noble profile, an ivory skin, most lustrous eyes. Perchance a Jew of the +Spanish branch of the exodus, not the Polish. There is the noble Jew as +well as the bestial Gentile. There is not in the sublimest of Gentiles a +majesty comparable to that of the Jew elect. He may well think his race +favoured of heaven, though heaven chastise them still. The noble Jew is +grave in age, but in his youth he is the arrow to the bow of his fiery +eastern blood, and in his manhood he is--ay, what you see there! a figure +of easy and superb preponderance, whose fire has mounted to inspirit and +be tempered by the intellect. + +She was therefore prepared all the while for the surprise of learning +that the gentleman so unlike a Jew was Alvan; and she was prepared to +express her recordation of the circumstance in her diary with phrases of +very eminent surprise. Necessarily it would be the greatest of +surprises. + +The three, this man and his two of the tribe, upon whom Clotilde's +attention centred, with a comparison in her mind too sacred to be other +than profane (comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered), +dropped to the cushions of the double-seated sofa, by one side of which +she cowered over her wool-work, willing to dwindle to a pin's head if her +insignificance might enable her to hear the words of the speaker. He +pursued his talk: there was little danger of not hearing him. There was +only the danger of feeling too deeply the spell of his voice. His voice +had the mellow fulness of the clarionet. But for the subject, she could +have fancied a noontide piping of great Pan by the sedges. She had never +heard a continuous monologue so musical, so varied in music, amply +flowing, vivacious, interwovenly the brook, the stream, the torrent: a +perfect natural orchestra in a single instrument. He had notes less +pastorally imageable, notes that fired the blood, with the ranging of his +theme. The subject became clearer to her subjugated wits, until the +mental vivacity he roused on certain impetuous phrases of assertion +caused her pride to waken up and rebel as she took a glance at herself, +remembering that she likewise was a thinker, deemed in her society an +original thinker, an intrepid thinker and talker, not so very much +beneath this man in audacity of brain, it might be. He kindled her thus, +and the close-shut but expanded and knew the fretting desire to breathe +out the secret within it, and be appreciated in turn. + +The young flower of her sex burned to speak, to deliver an opinion. She +was unaccustomed to yield a fascinated ear. She was accustomed rather to +dictate and be the victorious performer, and though now she was not +anxious to occupy the pulpit--being too strictly bred to wish for a post +publicly in any of the rostra--and meant still less to dispossess the +present speaker of the place he filled so well, she yearned to join him: +and as that could not be done by a stranger approving, she panted to +dissent. A young lady cannot so well say to an unknown gentleman: 'You +have spoken truly, sir,' as, 'That is false!' for to speak in the former +case would be gratuitous, and in the latter she is excused by the moral +warmth provoking her. Further, dissent rings out finely, and approval is +a feeble murmur--a poor introduction of oneself. Her moral warmth was +ready and waiting for the instigating subject, but of course she was +unconscious of the goad within. Excitement wafted her out of herself, as +we say, or out of the conventional vessel into the waves of her troubled +nature. He had not yet given her an opportunity for dissenting; she was +compelled to agree, dragged at his chariot-wheels in headlong agreement. + +His theme was Action; the political advantages of Action; and he +illustrated his view with historical examples, to the credit of the +French, the temporary discredit of the German and English races, who tend +to compromise instead. Of the English he spoke as of a power extinct, a +people 'gone to fat,' who have gained their end in a hoard of gold and +shut the door upon bandit ideas. Action means life to the soul as to the +body. Compromise is virtual death: it is the pact between cowardice and +comfort under the title of expediency. So do we gather dead matter about +us. So are we gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The war with evil in +every form must be incessant; we cannot have peace. Let then our joy be +in war: in uncompromising Action, which need not be the less a sagacious +conduct of the war . . . . Action energizes men's brains, generates +grander capacities, provokes greatness of soul between enemies, and is +the guarantee of positive conquest for the benefit of our species. To +doubt that, is to doubt of good being to be had for the seeking. He drew +pictures of the healthy Rome when turbulent, the doomed quiescent. Rome +struggling grasped the world. Rome stagnant invited Goth and Vandal. So +forth: alliterative antitheses of the accustomed pamphleteer. At last +her chance arrived. + +His opposition sketch of Inaction was refreshed by an analysis of the +character of Hamlet. Then he reverted to Hamlet's promising youth. +How brilliantly endowed was the Prince of Denmark in the beginning! + +'Mad from the first!' cried Clotilde. + +She produced an effect not unlike that of a sudden crack of thunder. The +three made chorus in a noise of boots on the floor. + +Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently. Their eyes +engaged without wavering on either side. Brave eyes they seemed, each +pair of them, for his were fastened on a comely girl, and she had strung +herself to her gallantest to meet the crisis. + +His friends quitted him at a motion of the elbows. He knelt on the sofa, +leaning across it, with clasped hands. + +'You are she!--So, then, is a contradiction of me to be the +commencement?' + +'After the apparition of Hamlet's father the prince was mad,' said +Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm +succeeding that of her boldness. + +'Why should we two wait to be introduced?' said he. 'We know one +another. I am Alvan. You are she of whom I heard from Kollin: who else? +Lucretia the gold-haired; the gold-crested serpent, wise as her sire; +Aurora breaking the clouds; in short, Clotilde!' + +Her heart exulted to hear him speak her name. She laughed with a radiant +face. His being Alvan, and his knowing her and speaking her name, all +was like the happy reading of a riddle. He came round to her, bowing, +and his hand out. She gave hers: she could have said, if asked, 'For +good!' And it looked as though she had given it for good. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +'Hamlet in due season,' said he, as they sat together. 'I shall convince +you.' + +She shook her head. + +'Yes, yes, an opinion formed by a woman is inflexible; I know that: the +fact is not half so stubborn. But at present there are two more +important actors: we are not at Elsinore. You are aware that I hoped to +meet you?' + +'Is there a periodical advertisement of your hopes?--or do they come to +us by intuition?' + +'Kollin was right!--the ways of the serpent will be serpentine. I knew +we must meet. It is no true day so long as the goddess of the morning +and the sun-god are kept asunder. I speak of myself, by what I have felt +since I heard of you.' + +'You are sure of your divinity?' + +'Through my belief in yours!' + +They bowed smiling at the courtly exchanges. + +'And tell me,' said he, 'as to meeting me . . . ?' + +She replied: 'When we are so like the rest of the world we may confess +our weakness.' + +'Unlike! for the world and I meet and part: not we two.' + +Clotilde attempted an answer: it would not come. She tried to be +revolted by his lording tone, and found it strangely inoffensive. His +lording presence and the smile that was like a waving feather on it +compelled her so strongly to submit to hear, as to put her in danger of +appearing to embrace this man's rapid advances. + +She said: 'I first heed of you at Capri.' + +'And I was at Capri seven days after you had left.' + +'You knew my name then?' + +'Be not too curious with necromancers. Here is the date--March 15th. +You departed on the 8th.' + +'I think I did. That is a year from now.' + +'Then we missed: now we meet. It is a year lost. A year is a great age! +Reflect on it and what you owe me. How I wished for a comrade at Capri! +Not a "young lady," and certainly no man. The understanding Feminine, +was my desire--a different thing from the feminine understanding, +usually. I wanted my comrade young and fair, necessarily of your sex, +but with heart and brain: an insane request, I fancied, until I heard +that you were the person I wanted. In default of you I paraded the +island with Tiberius, who is my favourite tyrant. We took the initiative +against the patricians, at my suggestion, and the Annals were written by +a plebeian demagogue, instead of by one of that party, whose account of +my extinction by command of the emperor was pathetic. He apologized in +turn for my imperial master and me, saying truly, that the +misunderstanding between us was past cement: for each of us loved the man +but hated his office; and as the man is always more in his office than he +is in himself, clearly it was the lesser portion of our friend that each +of us loved. So, I, as the weaker, had to perish, as he would have done +had I been the stronger; I admitted it, and sent my emperor my respectful +adieux, with directions for the avoiding of assassins. Mademoiselle, by +delaying your departure seven days you would have saved me from death. +You see, the official is the artificial man, and I ought to have known +there is no natural man left in us to weigh against the artificial. I +counted on the emperor's personal affection, forgetting that princes +cannot be our friends.' + +'You died bravely?' + +Clotilde entered into the extravagance with a happy simulation of zest. + +'Simply, we will say. My time had come, and I took no sturdy pose, but +let the life-stream run its course for a less confined embankment. +Sapphire sea, sapphire sky: one believes in life there, thrills with it, +when life is ebbing: ay, as warmly as when life is at the flow in our +sick and shrivelled North--the climate for dried fish! Verily the second +death of hearing that a gold-haired Lucretia had been on the island seven +days earlier, was harder to bear. Tell me frankly--the music in Italy?' + +'Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous.' + +'Excellent!' his eyes flashed delightedly. 'O comrade of comrades! +that year lost to me will count heavily as I learn to value those I have +gained. Yes, brainless! There, in music, we beat them, as politically +France beats us. No life without brain! The brainless in Art and in +Statecraft are nothing but a little more obstructive than the dead. It +is less easy to cut a way through them. But it must be done, or the +Philistine will be as the locust in his increase, and devour the green +blades of the earth. You have been trained to shudder at the demagogue?' + +'I do not shudder,' said Clotilde. + +'A diamond from the lapidary!--Your sentences have many facets. Well, +you are conversing with a demagogue, an avowed one: a demagogue and a +Jew. You take it as a matter of course: you should exhibit some +sparkling incredulity. The Christian is like the politician in supposing +the original obverse of him everlastingly the same, after the pattern of +the monster he was originally taught to hate. But the Jew has been a +little christianized, and we have a little bejewed the Christian. So +with demagogues: as we see the conservative crumbling, we grow +conservatived. Try to think individually upon what you have to learn +collectively--that is your task. You are of the few who will be equal to +it. We are not men of blood, believe me. I am not. For example, I +detest and I decline the duel. I have done it, and proved myself a man +of metal notwithstanding. To say nothing of the inhumanity, the +senselessness of duelling revolts me. 'Tis a folly, so your nobles +practise it, and your royal wiseacre sanctions. No blood for me: and yet +I tell you that whatever opposes me, I will sweep away. How? With the +brain. If we descend to poor brute strength or brutal craft, it is from +failing in the brain: we quit the leadership of our forces, and the +descent is the beast's confession. Do I say how? Perhaps by your aid.-- +You do not start and cry: "Mine!" That is well. I have not much esteem +for non-professional actresses. They are numerous and not entertaining. +--You leave it to me to talk.' + +'Could I do better?' + +'You listen sweetly.' + +'It is because I like to hear.' + +'You have the pearly little ear of a shell on the sand.' + +'With the great sea sounding near it!' + +Alvan drew closer to her. + +'I look into your eyes and perceive that one may listen to you and speak +to you. Heart to heart, then! Yes, a sea to lull you, a sea to win you +--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be. My prize is found! +The good friend who did the part of Iris for us came bounding to me: "I +have discovered the wife for you, Alvan." I had previously heard of her +from another as having touched the islet of Capri. "But," said Kollin, +"she is a gold-crested serpent--slippery!" Is she? That only tells me +of a little more to be mastered. I feel my future now. Hitherto it has +been a land without sunlight. Do you know how the look of sunlight on a +land calms one? It signifies to the eye possession and repose, the end +gained--not the end to labour, just heaven! but peace to the heart's +craving, which is the renewal of strength for work, the fresh dip in the +waters of life. Conjure up your vision of Italy. Remember the meaning +of Italian light and colour: the clearness, the luminous fulness, the +thoughtful shadows. Mountain and wooded headland are solid, deep to the +eye, spirit-speaking to the mind. They throb. You carve shapes of Gods +out of that sky, the sea, those peaks. They live with you. How they +satiate the vacant soul by influx, and draw forth the troubled from its +prickly nest!--Well, and you are my sunlighted land. And you will have +to be fought for. And I see not the less repose in the prospect! Part +of you may be shifty-sand. The sands are famous for their golden +shining--as you shine. Well, then, we must make the quicksands concrete. +I have a perfect faith in you, and in the winning of you. Clearly you +will have to be fought for. I should imagine it a tough battle to come. +But as I doubt neither you nor myself, I see beyond it.--We use phrases +in common, and aphorisms, it appears. Why? but that our minds act in +unison. What if I were to make a comparison of you with Paris?--the city +of Paris, Lutetia.' + +'Could you make it good?' said Clotilde. + +He laughed and postponed it for a series of skimming discussions, like +swallow-flights from the nest beneath the eaves to the surface of the +stream, perpetually reverting to her, and provoking spirited replies, +leading her to fly with him in expectation of a crowning compliment that +must be singular and was evidently gathering confirmation in his mind +from the touchings and probings of her character on these flights. + +She was like a lady danced off her sense of fixity, to whom the +appearance of her whirling figure in the mirror is both wonderful and +reassuring; and she liked to be discussed, to be compared to anything, +for the sake of being the subject, so as to be sure it was she that +listened to a man who was a stranger, claiming her for his own; sure it +was she that by not breaking from him implied consent, she that went +speeding in this magical rapid round which slung her more and more out of +her actual into her imagined self, compelled her to proceed, denied her +the right to faint and call upon the world for aid, and catch at it, +though it was close by and at a signal would stop the terrible circling. +The world was close by and had begun to stare. She half apprehended that +fact, but she was in the presence of the irresistible. In the presence +of the irresistible the conventional is a crazy structure swept away with +very little creaking of its timbers on the flood. When we feel its power +we are immediately primitive creatures, flying anywhere in space, +indifferent to nakedness. And after trimming ourselves for it, the sage +asks your permission to add, it will be the thing we are most certain +some day to feel. Had not she trimmed herself?--so much that she had won +fame for an originality mistaken by her for the independent mind, and +perilously, for courage. She had trimmed herself and Alvan too--herself +to meet it, and Alvan to be it. Her famous originality was a trumpet +blown abroad proclaiming her the prize of the man who sounded as loudly +his esteem for the quality--in a fair young woman of good breeding. Each +had evoked the other. Their common anticipations differed in this, that +he had expected comeliness, she the reverse--an Esau of the cities; and +seeing superb manly beauty in the place of the thick-featured sodden +satyr of her miscreating fancy, the irresistible was revealed to her on +its divinest whirlwind. + +They both desired beauty; they had each stipulated for beauty before +captivity could be acknowledged; and he beholding her very attractive +comeliness, walked into the net, deeming the same a light thing to wear, +and rather a finishing grace to his armoury; but she, a trained disciple +of the conventional in social behaviour (as to the serious points and the +extremer trifles), fluttered exceedingly; she knew not what she was +doing, where her hand was, how she looked at him, how she drank in his +looks on her. Her woman's eyes had no guard they had scarcely +speculation. She saw nothing in its passing, but everything backward, +under haphazard flashes. The sight of her hand disengaged told her it +had been detained; a glance at the company reminded her that those were +men and women who had been other than phantoms; recollections of the +words she listened to, assented to, replied to, displayed the gulfs she +had crossed. And nevertheless her brain was as quick as his to press +forward to pluck the themes which would demonstrate her mental vividness +and at least indicate her force of character. The splendour of the man +quite extinguished, or over-brightened, her sense of personal charm; she +set fire to her brain to shine intellectually, treating the tale of her +fair face as a childish tale that might have a grain of truth in it, some +truth, a very little, and that little nearly worthless, merely womanly, +a poor charm of her sex. The intellectual endowment was rarer: still +rarer the moral audacity. O, to match this man's embracing +discursiveness! his ardour, his complacent energy, the full strong sound +he brought out of all subjects! He struck, and they rang. There was a +bell in everything for him; Nature gave out her cry, and significance was +on all sides of the universe; no dead stuff, no longer any afflicting +lumpishness. His brain was vivifying light. And how humane he was! how +supremely tolerant! Where she had really thought instead of flippantly +tapping at the doors of thought, or crying vagrantly for an echo, his +firm footing in the region thrilled her; and where she had felt deeper +than fancifully, his wise tenderness overwhelmed. Strange to consider: +with all his precious gifts, which must make the gift of life thrice dear +to him, he was fearless. Less by what he said than by divination she +discerned that he knew not fear. If for only that, she would have hung +to him like his shadow. She could have detected a brazen pretender. +A meaner mortal vaunting his great stores she would have written down +coxcomb. Her social training and natural perception raised her to a +height to measure the bombastical and distinguish it from the eloquently +lofty. He spoke of himself, as the towering Alp speaks out at a first +view, bidding that which he was be known. Fearless, confident, able, he +could not but be, as he believed himself, indomitable. She who was this +man's mate would consequently wed his possessions, including courage. +Clotilde at once reached the conclusion of her having it in an equal +degree. Was she not displaying it? The worthy people of the company +stared, as she now perceived, and she was indifferent; her relatives were +present without disturbing her exaltation. She wheeled above their heads +in the fiery chariot beside her sun-god. It could not but be courage, +active courage, superior to her previous tentative steps--the verbal +temerities she had supposed so dauntless. For now she was in action, now +she was being tried to match the preacher and incarnation of the virtues +of action! + +Alvan shaped a comparison of her with Paris, his beloved of cities--the +symbolized goddess of the lightning brain that is quick to conceive, +eager to realize ideas, impassioned for her hero, but ever putting him to +proof, graceful beyond all rhyme, colloquial as never the Muse; light in +light hands, yet valiant unto death for a principle; and therefore not +light, anything but light in strong hands, very stedfast rather: and oh! +constantly entertaining. + +The comparison had to be strained to fit the living lady's shape. Did he +think it, or a dash of something like it? + +His mood was luxurious. He had found the fair and youthful original +woman of refinement and station desired by him. He had good reason to +wish to find her. Having won a name, standing on firm ground, with +promise of a great career, chief of what was then taken for a growing +party and is not yet a collapsed, nor will be, though the foot on it is +iron, his youth had flown under the tutelage of an extraordinary Mentor, +whom to call Athene robs the goddess of her personal repute for wisdom in +conduct, but whose head was wise, wise as it was now grey. Verily she +was original; and a grey original should seem remarkable above a blooming +blonde. If originality in woman were our prime request, the grey should +bear the palm. She has gone through the battle, retaining the standard +she carried into it, which is a victory. Alas, that grey, so spirit- +touching in Art, should be so wintry in reality! + +The discovery of a feminine original breathing Spring, softer, warmer +than the ancient one, gold instead of snowcrested, and fully as intrepid +as devoted, was an immense joy to Alvan. He took it luxuriously because +he believed in his fortune, a kind of natal star, the common heritage of +the adventurous, that brought him his good things in time, in return for +energetic strivings in a higher direction apart from his natural +longings. + +Fortune had delayed, he had wintered long. All the sweeter was the +breath of the young Spring. That exquisite new sweetness robed Clotilde +in the attributes of the person dreamed of for his mate; and deductively +assuming her to possess them, he could not doubt his power of winning +her. Barriers are for those who cannot fly. The barriers were palpable +about a girl of noble Christian birth: so was the courage in her which +would give her wings, he thought, coming to that judgement through the +mixture of his knowledge of himself and his perusal of her exterior. +He saw that she could take an impression deeply enough to express it +sincerely, and he counted on it, sympathetically endowing her with his +courage to support the originality she was famed for. + +They were interrupted between-whiles by weariful men running to Alvan for +counsel on various matters--how to play their game, or the exact phrasing +of some pregnant sentence current in politics or literature. He +satisfied them severally and shouldered them away, begging for peace +that night. Clotilde corroborated his accurate recital of the lines of +a contested verse of the incomparable Heinrich, and they fell to capping +verses of the poet-lucid metheglin, with here and there no dubious +flavour of acid, and a lively sting in the tail of the honey. Sentiment, +cynicism, and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, +where pure poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements +constitute the popularity in a cultivated society inclining to wantonness +out of bravado as well as by taste. Alvan, looking indolently royal and +royally roguish, quoted a verse that speaks of the superfluousness of a +faithless lady's vowing bite: + + 'The kisses were in the course of things, + The bite was a needless addition.' + +Clotilde could not repress her reddening--Count Kollin had repeated too +much! She dropped her eyes, with a face of sculpture, then resumed their +chatter. He spared her the allusion to Pompeius. She convinced him of +her capacity for reserve besides intrepidity, and flattered him too with +her blush. She could dare to say to Kollin what her scarlet sensibility +forbade her touching on with him: not that she would not have had an airy +latitude with him to touch on what she pleased: he liked her for her +boldness and the cold peeping of the senses displayed in it: he liked +also the distinction she made. + +The cry to supper conduced to a further insight of her adaptation to his +requirements in a wife. They marched to the table together, and sat +together, and drank a noble Rhine wine together--true Rauenthal. His +robustness of body and soul inspired the wish that his well-born wife +might be, in her dainty fashion, yet honestly and without mincing, his +possible boonfellow: he and she, glass in hand, thanking the bountiful +heavens, blessing mankind in chorus. It belonged to his hearty dream of +the wife he would choose, were she to be had. The position of +interpreter of heaven's benevolence to mankind through his own enjoyment +of the gifts, was one that he sagaciously demanded for himself, sharing +it with the Philistine unknowingly; and to have a wife no less wise than +he on this throne of existence was a rosy exaltation. Clotilde kindled +to the hint of his festival mood of Solomon at the banquet. She was not +devoid of a discernment of flavours; she had heard grave judges at her +father's board profoundly deliver their verdicts upon this and that +vineyard and vintage; and it is a note of patriotism in her country to be +enthusiastic for wine of the Rhine: she was, moreover, thirsty from much +talking and excitement. She drank her glass relishingly, declaring the +wine princely. Alvan smacked his hands in a rapture: 'You are not for +the extract of raisin our people have taken to copy from French +Sauternes, to suit a female predilection for sugar?' + +'No, no, the grape for me!' said she: 'the Rhine grape with the elf in +it, and the silver harp and the stained legend!' + +'Glorious!' + +He toasted the grape. 'Wine of the grape is the young bride--the young +sun-bride! divine, and never too sweet, never cloying like the withered +sun-dried, with its one drop of concentrated sugar, that becomes ten of +gout. No raisin-juice for us! None of their too-long-on-the-stem +clusters! We are for the blood of the grape in her youth, her heaven- +kissing ardour. I have a cellar charged with the bravest of the Rhine. +We--will we not assail it, bleed it in the gallant days to come? we two!' +The picture of his bride and him drinking the sun down after a day of +savage toil was in the shout--a burst unnoticed in the incessantly +verbalizing buzz of a continental supper-table. Clotilde acquiesced: +she chimed to it like a fair boonfellow of the rollicking faun. She was +realizing fairyland. + +They retired to the divan-corner where it was you-and-I between them as +with rivulets meeting and branching, running parallel, uniting and +branching again, divided by the theme, but unending in the flow of the +harmony. So ran their chirping arguments and diversions. The carrying +on of a prolonged and determined you-and-I in company intimates to those +undetermined floating atoms about us that a certain sacred something is +in process of formation, or has formed; and people looked; and looked +hard at the pair, and at one another afterward: none approached them. +The Signor conjuror who has a thousand arts for conjuring with nature was +generally considered to have done that night his most ancient and +reputedly fabulous trick--the dream of poets, rarely witnessed anywhere, +and almost too wonderful for credence in a haunt of our later +civilization. Yet there it was: the sudden revelation of the intense +divinity to a couple fused in oneness by his apparition, could be +perceived of all having man and woman in them; love at first sight, was +visible. 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?' And if nature, +character, circumstance, and a maid clever at dressing her mistress's +golden hair, did prepare them for Love's lightning-match, not the less +were they proclaimingly alight and in full blaze. Likewise, Time, +imperious old gentleman though we know him to be, with his fussy +reiterations concerning the hour for bed and sleep, bowed to the magical +fact of their condition, and forbore to warn them of his passing from +night to day. He had to go, he must, he has to be always going, but as +long as he could he left them on their bank by the margin of the stream, +where a shadow-cycle of the eternal wound a circle for them and allowed +them to imagine they had thrust that old driver of the dusty high-road +quietly out of the way. They were ungrateful, of course, when the +performance of his duties necessitated his pulling them up beside him +pretty smartly, but he uttered no prophecy of ever intending to rob them +of the celestial moments they had cut from him and meant to keep between +them 'for ever,' and fresh. + +The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning. Alvan assisted at the +cloaking and hooding of Clotilde. Her relatives were at hand; they hung +by while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight that +laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and stone. + +'A night to head the Spring!' said Alvan. 'Come.' + +He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an +established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did +her people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which +had struck the pair. These things, and many things that islands know not +of, are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness +of Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island +atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the +breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no +tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen +of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there. But even where +he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land +bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan's behaviour +was passing heteroclite. He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, +crowned by another kingly fellow--the lord of hearts--to impose it +uninterruptedly. 'She is mine; I have won her this night!' his bearing +said; and Clotilde's acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them had +to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering. Partly by habit, and of +his natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once taken +could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good tideway +strong in his own passion and his lady's up against the last defences-- +her parents. A difficulty with them was foreseen. What is a difficulty! +--a gate in the hunting-field: an opponent on a platform: a knot beneath +a sword: the dam to waters that draw from the heavens. Not desiring it +in this case--it would have been to love the difficulty better than the +woman--he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a resistance, if only +because it was a portion of the dowry she brought him. Good soldiers +(who have won their grades) are often of a peaceful temper and would not +raise an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy sets their pugnacious +forces in motion, the bugle fills their veins with electrical fire, till +they are as racers on the race-course.--His inmost hearty devil was glad +of a combat that pertained to his possession of her, for battle gives the +savour of the passion to win, and victory dignifies a prize: he was, +however, resolved to have it, if possible, according to the regular +arrangement of such encounters, formal, without snatchings, without rash +violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, reasoning eloquence. + +He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present +feelings: 'I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!' The comparison +had been used or implied to him before. + +'No!' said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, 'no +more of the quadruped man! You tempt him--may I tell you that? Why, +now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking +the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, +and we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents +and friends to run about for the wits they lose in running. But no! No +more scandals. That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright +serenity, to be mad: just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more +prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end of +the draught. But no!' his voice deepened--'the handsome face of the orb +that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between us two. +Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken all +round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon + +I have seen the other face of it--a visage scored with regrets, dead +dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the like!--sunless, +waterless, without a flower! It is the old volcano land: it grows one +bitter herb: if ever you see my mouth distorted you will know I am +revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, I will not +be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he stables himself; +yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he finishes by +pasturing on. You have no dislike of metaphors and parables? We Jews +are a parable people.' + +'I am sure I do understand . . .' said Clotilde, catching her breath to +be conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation. + +'Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician's +treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise!--You were going to add?' + +'I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me +still.' + +'May the sensation never quit you!' + +'It will not.' + +'What a night !' Alvan raised his head: 'A night cast for our first +meeting and betrothing! You are near home?' + +'The third house yonder in the moonlight.' + +'The moonlight lays a white hand on it!' + +'That is my window sparkling.' + +'That is the vestal's cresset. Shall I blow it out?' + +'You are too far. And it is a celestial flame, sir!' + +'Celestial in truth! My hope of heaven! Dian's crescent will be ever on +that house for me, Clotilde. I would it were leagues distant, or the +door not forbidden!' + +'I could minister to a good knight humbly.' + +Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting: + +'When do father and mother arrive?' + +'To-morrow.' + +He took her hand. 'To-morrow, then! The worst of omens is delay.' + +Clotilde faintly gasped. Could he mean it?--he of so evil a name in her +family and circle! + +Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her. + +'Tell me the hour when it will be most convenient to them to receive me,' +said Alvan. + +She stopped walking in sheer fright. + +'My father--my mother?' she said, imaging within her the varied horror of +each and the commotion. + +'To-morrow or the day after--not later. No delays! You are mine, we are +one; and the sooner my cause is pleaded the better for us both. If I +could step in and see them this instant, it would be forestalling +mischances. Do you not see, that time is due to us, and the minutes are +our gold slipping away?' + +She shrank her hand back: she did not wish to withdraw the hand, only to +shun the pledge it signified. He opened an abyss at her feet, and in +deadly alarm of him she exclaimed: 'Oh! not yet; not immediately.' She +trembled, she made her petition dismal by her anguish of speechlessness. +'There will be such . . . not yet! Perhaps later. They must not be +troubled yet--at present. I am . . . I cannot--pray, delay!' + +'But you are mine!' said Alvan. 'You feel it as I do. There can be no +real impediment?' + +She gave an empty sigh that sought to be a run of entreaties. In fear +of his tongue she caught at words to baffle it, senseless of their +imbecility: 'Do not insist: yes, in time: they will--they--they may. +My father is not very well . . . my mother: she is not very well. +They are neither of them very well: not at present!--Spare them at +present.' + +To avoid being carried away, she flung herself from the centaur's back +to the disenchanting earth; she separated herself from him in spirit, +and beheld him as her father and mother and her circle would look on this +pretender to her hand, with his lordly air, his Jew blood, and his +hissing reputation--for it was a reputation that stirred the snakes and +the geese of the world. She saw him in their eyes, quite coldly: which +imaginative capacity was one of the remarkable feats of cowardice, active +and cold of brain even while the heart is active and would be warm. + +He read something of her weakness. 'And supposing I decide that it must +be?' + +'How can I supplicate you!' she replied with a shiver, feeling that she +had lost her chance of slipping from his grasp, as trained women of the +world, or very sprightly young wits know how to do at the critical +moment: and she had lost it by being too sincere. Her cowardice appeared +to her under that aspect. + +'Now I perceive that the task is harder,' said Alvan, seeing her huddled +in a real dismay. 'Why will you not rise to my level and fear nothing! +The way is clear: we have only to take the step. Have you not seen +tonight that we are fated for one another? It is your destiny, and +trifling with destiny is a dark business. Look at me. Do you doubt my +having absolute control of myself to bear whatever they put on me to +bear, and hold firmly to my will to overcome them! Oh! no delays.' + +'Yes!' she cried; 'yes, there must be.' + +'You say it?' + +The courage to repeat her cry was wanting. + +She trembled visibly: she could more readily have bidden him bear her +hence than have named a day for the interview with her parents; but +desperately she feared that he would be the one to bid; and he had this +of the character of destiny about him, that she felt in him a maker of +facts. He was her dream in human shape, her eagle of men, and she felt +like a lamb in the air; she had no resistance, only terror of his power, +and a crushing new view of the nature of reality. + +'I see!' said he, and his breast fell. Her timid inability to join with +him for instant action reminded him that he carried many weights: a bad +name among her people and class, and chains in private. He was old +enough to strangle his impulses, if necessary, or any of the brood less +fiery than the junction of his passions. 'Well, well!--but we might so +soon have broken through the hedge into the broad highroad! It is but to +determine to do it--to take the bold short path instead of the wearisome +circuit. Just a little lightning in the brain and tightening of the +heart. Battles are won in that way: not by tender girls! and she is a +girl, and the task is too much for her. So, then, we are in your hands, +child! Adieu, and let the gold-crested serpent glide to her bed, and +sleep, dream, and wake, and ask herself in the morning whether she is not +a wedded soul. Is she not a serpent? gold-crested, all the world may +see; and with a mortal bite, I know. I have had the bite before the +kisses. That is rather an unjust reversal of the order of things. +Apropos, Hamlet was poisoned--ghost-poisoned.' + +'Mad, he was mad!' said Clotilde, recovering and smiling. + +'He was born bilious; he partook of the father's constitution, not the +mother's. High-thoughted, quick-nerved to follow the thought, +reflective, if an interval yawned between his hand and the act, he was by +nature two-minded: as full of conscience as a nursing mother that sleeps +beside her infant:--she hears the silent beginning of a cry. Before the +ghost walked he was an elementary hero; one puff of action would have +whiffed away his melancholy. After it, he was a dizzy moralizer, waiting +for the winds to blow him to his deed-ox out. The apparition of his +father to him poisoned a sluggish run of blood, and that venom in the +blood distracted a head steeped in Wittenberg philosophy. With +metaphysics in one and poison in the other, with the outer world opened +on him and this world stirred to confusion, he wore the semblance of +madness; he was throughout sane; sick, but never with his reason +dethroned.' + +'Nothing but madness excuses his conduct to Ophelia!' + +'Poison in the blood is a pretty good apology for infidelity to a lady.' + +' No!' + +'Well, to an Ophelia of fifty?' said Alvan. + +Clotilde laughed, not perfectly assured of the wherefore, but pleased to +be able to laugh. Her friends were standing at the house door, farewells +were spoken, Alvan had gone. And then she thought of the person that +Ophelia of fifty might be, who would have to find a good apology for him +in his dose of snake-bite, or love of a younger woman whom he termed +gold-crested serpent. + +He was a lover, surely a lover: he slid off to some chance bit of +likeness to himself in every subject he discussed with her. + +And she? She speeded recklessly on the back of the centaur when he had +returned to the state of phantom and the realities he threatened her with +were no longer imminent. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Clotilde was of the order of the erring who should by rights have a short +sermon to preface an exposure of them, administering the whip to her own +sex and to ours, lest we scorn too much to take an interest in her. The +exposure she had done for herself, and she has not had the art to frame +her apology. The day after her meeting, with her eagle, Alvan, she saw +Prince Marko. She was gentle to him, in anticipation of his grief; she +could hardly be ungentle on account of his obsequious beauty, and when +her soft eyes and voice had thrilled him to an acute sensibility to the +blow, honourably she inflicted it. + +'Marko, my friend, you know that I cannot be false; then let me tell you +I yesterday met the man who has but to lift his hand and I go to him, and +he may lead me whither he will.' + +The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their brightness +moistened and flashed. + +Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said. He knew +the man. + +Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself. For the first few +days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan. She +feared the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly. Her +parents had postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm; +it was his violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she +feared, as nervous people shrink from cannon: and neither meeting, +seeing, nor hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose +curiosity is refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing which +frightened it. Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage flooded +back; she hoped he would present himself to claim her, marvelled that he +did not, reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for listening +to the hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling what she +really was--a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of her family to +spare them a sudden shock. Remembering her generous considerations in +their interests, she thought he should have known that the creature he +called a child would have yielded upon supplication to fly with him. +Her considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was the cause of +her seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived it and put it +aside. He should have seen that she could be brave, and was a mate for +him. And if his shallow experience of her wrote her down nerveless, his +love should be doing. + +Was it love? Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided +will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had +she the freedom of a man. She would not have listened (it was quite +true) to a silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an +interval to yawn after the first wild wooing of her. Prince Marko loved. +Yes, that was love! It failed in no sign of the passion. She set +herself to study it in Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering +among them pity, thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between +admiration and pathetic esteem, like that the musician has for a precious +instrument giving sweet sound when shattered. He served her faithfully, +in spite of his distaste for some of his lady's commissions. She had to +get her news of Alvan through Marko. He brought her particulars of the +old trial of Alvan, and Alvan's oration in defence of himself for a +lawless act of devotion to the baroness; nothing less than the +successfully scheming to wrest by force from that lady's enemy a document +precious to her lawful interests. It was one of those cases which have a +really high gallant side as well as a bad; an excellent case for +rhetoric. Marko supplied the world's opinion of the affair, bravely +owning it to be not unfavourable. Her worthy relatives, the Frau v. +Crestow and husband, had very properly furnished a report to the family +of the memorable evening; and the hubbub over it, with the epithets +applied to Alvan, intimated how he would have been received on a visit +to demand her in marriage. There was no chance of her being allowed to +enter houses where this 'rageing demagogue and popular buffoon' was a +guest; his name was banished from her hearing, so she was compelled to +have recourse to Marko. Unable to take such services without rewarding +him, she fondled: it pained her to see him suffer. Those who toss crumbs +to their domestic favourites will now and then be moved to toss meat, +which is not so good for them, but the dumb mendicant's delight in it is +winning, and a little cannot hurt. Besides, if any one had a claim on +her it was the prince; and as he was always adoring, never importunate, +he restored her to the pedestal she had been really rudely shaken from by +that other who had caught her up suddenly into the air, and dropped her! +A hand abandoned to her slave rewarded him immeasurably. A heightening +of the reward almost took his life. In the peacefulness of dealing with +a submissive love that made her queenly, the royal, which plucked her +from throne to footstool, seemed predatory and insolent. Thus, after +that scene of 'first love,' in which she had been actress, she became +almost (with an inward thrill or two for the recovering of him) +reconciled to the not seeing of the noble actor; for nothing could erase +the scene--it was historic; and Alvan would always be thought of as a +delicious electricity. She and Marko were together on the summer +excursion of her people, and quite sisterly, she could say, in her +delicate scorn of his advantages and her emotions. True gentlemen are +imperfectly valued when they are under the shadow of giants; but still +Clotilde's experience of a giant's manners was favourable to the liberty +she could enjoy in a sisterly intimacy of this kind, rather warmer than +her word for it would imply. She owned that she could better live the +poetic life--that is, trifle with fire and reflect on its charms in the +society of Marko. He was very young, he was little more than an +adolescent, and safely timid; a turn of her fingers would string or +slacken him. One could play on him securely, thinking of a distant day +--and some shipwreck of herself for an interlude--when he might be made +happy. + +Her strangest mood of the tender cruelty was when the passion to +anatomize him beset her. The ground of it was, that she found him in her +likeness, adoring as she adored, and a similar loftiness; now grovelling, +now soaring; the most radiant of beings, the most abject; and the +pleasure she had of the sensational comparison was in an alteregoistic +home she found in him, that allowed of her gathering a picked self- +knowledge, and of her saying: 'That is like me: that is very like me: +that is terribly like': up to the point where the comparison wooed her no +longer with an agreeable lure of affinity, but nipped her so shrewdly as +to force her to say: 'That is he, not I': and the vivisected youth +received the caress which quickened him to wholeness at a touch. It was +given with impulsive tenderness, in pity of him. Anatomy is the title +for the operation, because the probing of herself in another, with the +liberty to cease probing as soon as it hurt her, allowed her while unhurt +to feel that she prosecuted her researches in a dead body. The moment +her strong susceptibility to the likeness shrank under a stroke of pain, +she abstained from carving, and simultaneously conscious that he lived, +she was kind to him. + +'This love of yours, Marko--is it so deep?' + +'I love you.' + +'You think me the highest and best?' + +'You are.' + +'So deep that you could bear anything from me?' + +'Try me!' + +'Unfaithfulness?' + +'You would be you!' + +'Do you not say that because you cannot suspect evil of me?' + +'Let me only see you!' + +'You are sure that happiness would not smother it?' + +'Has it done so yet?' + +'Though you know I am a serpent to that man's music?' + +'Ah, heaven! Oh!--do not say music. Yes! though anything!' + +'And if ever you were to witness the power of his just breathing to me?' + +'I would . . . . Ah!' + +' What? If you saw his music working the spell?--even the first notes of +his prelude!' + +'I would wait' + +'It might be for long.' + +'I would eat my heart.' + +'Bitter! bitter!' + +'I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you.' + +She had a seizure of the nerves. + +The likeness between them was, she felt, too flamingly keen to be looked +at further. She reached to the dim idea of some such nauseous devotion, +and took a shot in her breast as she did so, and abjured it, and softened +to her victim. Clotilde opened her arms, charming away her wound, as she +soothed him, both by the act of soothing and the reflection that she +could not be so very like one whom she pitied and consoled. + +She was charitably tender. If it be thought that she was cruel to +excess, plead for her the temptation to simple human nature at sight of a +youth who could be precipitated into the writhings of dissolution, and +raised out of it by a smile. This young man's responsive spirit acted on +her as the discovery of specifics for restoring soundness to the frame +excites the brilliant empiric: he would slay us with benevolent soul to +show the miracle of our revival. Worship provokes the mortal goddess to +a manifestation of her powers; and really the devotee is full half to +blame. + +She had latterly been thinking of Alvan's rejection of the part of +centaur; and his phrase, the quadruped man, breathed meaning. He was to +gain her lawfully after dominating her utterly. That was right, but it +levelled imagination. There is in the sentimental kingdom of Love a form +of reasoning, by which a lady of romantic notions who is dominated +utterly, will ask herself why she should be gained lawfully: and she is +moved to do so by the consideration that if the latter, no necessity can +exist for the former: and the reverse. In the union of the two +conditions she sees herself slavishly domesticated. With her Indian +Bacchus imagination rose, for he was pliant: she had only to fancy, and +he was beside her.--Quick to the saddle, away! The forest of terrors is +ahead; they are at the verge of it; a last hamlet perches on its borders; +the dwellers have haunted faces; the timbers of their huts lean to an +upright in wry splinters; warnings are moaned by men and women with the +voice of a night-wind; but on and on! the forest cannot be worse than a +world defied. They drain a cup of milk apiece and they spur, for this is +the way to the golden Indian land of the planted vine and the lover's +godship.--Ludicrous! There is no getting farther than the cup of milk +with Marko. They curvet and caper to be forward unavailingly. It should +be Alvan to bring her through the forest to the planted vine in sunland. +Her splendid prose Alvan could do what the sprig of poetry can but +suggest. Never would malicious fairy in old woman's form have offered +Alvan a cup of milk to paralyze his bride's imagination of him +confronting perils. Yet, O shameful contrariety of the fates! he who +could, will not; he who would, is incapable. Let it not be supposed that +the desire of her bosom was to be run away with in person. Her simple +human nature wished for the hero to lift her insensibly over the +difficult opening chapter of the romance--through 'the forest,' or half +imagined: that done, she felt bold enough to meet the unimagined, which, +as there was no picture of it to terrify her, seemed an easy gallop into +sunland.--Yes, but in the grasp of a great prose giant, with the poetic +departed! Naturally she turned to caress the poetic while she had it +beside her. And it was a wonder to observe the young prince's heavenly +sensitiveness to every variation of her moods. He knew without hearing +when she had next seen Alvan, though it had not been to speak to him. He +looked, and he knew. The liquid darkness of his large eastern eyes cast +a light that brought her heart out: she confessed it, and she comforted +him. The sweetest in the woman caused her double-dealing. + +Now she was aware that Alvan moved behind the screen concealing him. +A common friend of Alvan and her family talked to her of him. He was an +eminent professor, a middleaged, grave and honourable man, not ignorant +that her family entertained views opposed to the pretensions of such a +man as the demagogue and Jew. Nevertheless Alvan could persuade him to +abet the scheme for his meeting Clotilde; nay, to lead to it; ultimately +to allow his own house to be their place of meeting. Alvan achieved the +first of the steps unassisted. Whether or not his character stood well +with a man of the world, his force of character, backed by solid +attainments in addition to brilliant gifts, could win a reputable citizen +and erudite to support him. Rhetoric in a worthy cause has good chances +of carrying the gravest, and the cause might reasonably seem excellent to +the professor when one promising fair to be the political genius of his +time, but hitherto not the quietest of livers, could make him believe +that marriage with this girl would be his clear salvation. The second +step was undesignedly Clotilde's. + +She was on the professor's arm at one of the great winter balls of her +conductor's brethren in the law, and he said: 'Alvan is here.' She +answered: 'No, he has not yet come.'--How could she tell that he was not +present in the crowd? + +'Has he come now?' said the professor. + +'No.' + +And no Alvan was discernible. + +'Now?' + +'Not yet.' + +The professor stared about. She waited. + +'Now he has come; he is in the room now,' said Clotilde. + +Alvan was perceived. He stood in the centre of the throng surrounding +him to buzz about some recent pamphlet. + +She could well play at faith in his magnetization of her, for as by +degrees she made herself more nervously apprehensive by thinking of him, +it came to an overclouding and then a panic; and that she took for the +physical sign of his presence, and by that time, the hour being late, +Alvan happened to have arrived. The touch of his hand, the instant +naturalness in their speaking together after a long separation, as if +there had not been an interval, confirmed her notion of his influence on +her, almost to the making it planetary. And a glance at the professor +revealed how picturesque it was. Alvan and he murmured aside. They +spoke of it: What wonder that Alvan, though he saw Prince Marko whirl her +in the dance, and keep her to the measure--dancing like a song of the +limbs in his desperate poor lover's little flitting eternity of the +possession of her--should say, after she had been led back to her +friends: 'That is he, then! one of the dragons guarding my apple of the +Hesperides, whom I must brush away.' + +'He?' replied Clotilde, sincerely feeling Marko to be of as fractional a +weight as her tone declared him. 'Oh, he is my mute, harmless, he does +not count among the dragons.' + +But there had been, notwithstanding the high presumption of his remark, +a manful thickness of voice in Alvan's 'That is he!' The rivals had +fastened a look on one another, wary, strong, and summary as the +wrestlers' first grapple. In fire of gaze, Marko was not outdone. + +'He does not count? With those eyes of his?' Alvan exclaimed. He knew +something of the sex, and spied from that point of knowledge into the +character of Clotilde; not too venturesomely, with the assistance of +rumour, hazarding the suspicion which he put forth as a certainty, and +made sharply bitter to himself in proportion to the belief in it that his +vehemence engendered: 'I know all--without exception; all, everything; +all! I repeat. But what of it, if I win you? as I shall--only aid me a +little.' + +She slightly surprised the man by not striving to attenuate the import +of the big and surcharged All: but her silence bore witness to his +penetrative knowledge. Dozens of amorous gentlemen, lovers, of excellent +substance, have before now prepared this peculiar dose for themselves-- +the dose of the lady silent under a sort of pardoning grand accusation; +and they have had to drink it, and they have blinked over the tonic +draught with such power of taking a bracing as their constitutions could +summon. At no moment of their quaint mutual history are the sexes to be +seen standing more acutely divided. Well may the lady be silent; her +little sins are magnified to herself to the proportion of the greatness +of heart forgiving her; and that, with his mysterious penetration and a +throb of her conscience, holds her tongue-tied. She does not imagine the +effect of her silence upon the magnanimous wretch. Some of these lovers, +it has to be stated in sadness for the good name of man, have not +preserved an attitude that said so nobly, 'Child, thou art human--thou +art woman!' They have undone it and gone to pieces with an injured +lover's babble of persecuting inquiries for confessions. Some, on the +contrary, retaining the attitude, have been unable to digest the tonic; +they did not prepare their systems as they did their dose, possibly +thinking the latter a supererogatory heavy thump on a trifle, the which +was performed by them artfully for a means of swallowing and getting that +obnoxious trifle well down. These are ever after love's dyspeptics. +Very few indeed continue at heart in harmony with their opening note to +the silent fair, because in truth the general anticipation is of her +proclaiming, if not angelical innocence, a softly reddened or blush-rose +of it, where the little guiltiness lies pathetic on its bed of white. + +Alvan's robustness of temper, as a conqueror pleased with his capture, +could inspirit him to feel as he said it: + +'I know all; what matters that to me?' Even her silence, extending the +'all' beyond limits, as it did to the over-knowing man, who could number +these indicative characteristics of the young woman: impulsive, without +will, readily able to lie: her silence worked no discord in him. He +would have remarked, that he was not looking out for a saint, but rather +for a sprightly comrade, perfectly feminine, thoroughly mastered, young, +graceful, comely, and a lady of station. Once in his good keeping, her +lord would answer for her. And this was a manfully generous view of the +situation. It belongs to the robustness of the conqueror's mood. But +how of his opinion of her character in the fret of a baffling, a repulse, +a defeat? Supposing the circumstances not to have helped her to shine as +a heroine, while he was reduced to appear no hero to himself! Wise are +the mothers who keep vigilant personal watch over their girls, were it +only to guard them at present, from the gentleman's condescending +generosity, until he has become something more than robust in his ideas +of the sex--say, for lack of the ringing word, fraternal. + +Clotilde never knew, and Alvan would have been unable to date, the origin +of the black thing flung at her in time to come--when the man was +frenzied, doubtless, but it was in his mind, and more than froth of +madness. + +After the night of the ball they met beneath the sanctioning roof of the +amiable professor; and on one occasion the latter, perhaps waxing +anxious, and after bringing about the introduction of Clotilde to the +sister of Alvan, pursued his prudent measures bypassing the pair through +a demi-ceremony of betrothal. It sprang Clotilde astride nearer to +reality, both actually and in feeling; and she began to show the change +at home. A rebuff that came of the coupling of her name with Alvan's +pushed her back as far below the surface as she had ever been. She +waited for him to take the step she had again implored him not yet to +take; she feared that he would, she marvelled at his abstaining; the old +wheel revolved, as it ever does with creatures that wait for +circumstances to bring the change they cannot work for themselves; and +once more the two fell asunder. She had thoughts of the cloister. Her +venerable relative died joining her hand to Prince Marko's; she was +induced to think of marriage. An illness laid her prostrate; she +contemplated the peace of death. + +Shortly before she fell sick the prince was a guest of her father's, and +had won the household by his perfect amiability as an associate. The +grace and glow, and some of the imaginable accomplishments of an Indian +Bacchus were native to him. In her convalescence, she asked herself what +more she could crave than the worship of a godlike youth, whom she in +return might cherish, strengthening his frail health with happiness. +For she had seen how suffering ate him up; he required no teaching in the +Spartan virtue of suffering, wolf-gnawed, silently. But he was a flower +in sunshine to happiness, and he looked to her for it. Why should she +withhold from him a thing so easily given? The convalescent is receptive +and undesiring, or but very faintly desiring: the new blood coming into +the frame like first dawn of light has not stirred the old passions; it +is infant nature, with a tinge of superadded knowledge that is not cloud +across it and lends it only a tender wistfulness. + +Her physician sentenced her to the Alps, whither a friend, a daughter of +our island, whose acquaintance she had made in Italy, was going, and at +an invitation Clotilde accompanied her, and she breathed Alpine air. +Marko sank into the category of dreams during sickness. There came a +letter from the professor mentioning that Alvan was on one of the kingly +Alpine heights in view, and the new blood running through her veins +became a torrent. He there! So near! Could he not be reached? + +He had a saying: Two wishes make a will. + +The wishes of two lovers, he meant. A prettier sentence for lovers, and +one more intoxicating to them, was never devised. It chirrups of the +dear silly couple. Well, this was her wish. Was it his? Young health +on the flow of her leaping blood cried out that it could not be other +than Alvan's wish; she believed in his wishing it. Then as he wished and +she wished, she had the will immediately, and it was all the more her own +for being his as well. She hurried her friend and her friend's friends +on horseback off to the heights where the wounded eagle lodged +overlooking mountain and lake. The professor reported him outwearied +with excess of work. Alvan lived the lives of three; the sins of thirty +were laid to his charge. Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? Her +reckless defence of him, half spoken, half in her mind, helped her to +comprehend his dealings with her, and how it was that he stormed her and +consented to be beaten. He had a thousand occupations, an ambition out +of the world of love, chains to break, temptations, leanings . . . +tut, tut! She had not lived in her circle of society, and listened to +the tales of his friends and enemies, and been the correspondent of +flattering and flattered men of learning, without understanding how a man +like Alvan found diversions when forbidden to act in a given direction: +and now that her healthful new blood inspired the courage to turn two +wishes to a will, she saw both herself and him very clearly, enough at +least to pardon the man more than she did herself. She had perforce of +her radiant new healthfulness arrived at an exact understanding of him. +Where she was deluded was in supposing that she would no longer dread his +impetuous disposition to turn rosy visions into facts. But she had the +revived convalescent's ardour to embrace things positive while they were +not knocking at the door; dreams were abhorrent to her, tasteless and +innutritious; she cast herself on the flood, relying on his towering +strength and mastery of men and events to bring her to some safe landing +--the dream of hearts athirst for facts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Alvan was at his writing-table doing stout gladiator's work on paper in +a chamber of one of the gaunt hotels of the heights, which are Death's +Heads there in Winter and have the tongues in Summer, when a Swiss lad +entered with a round grin to tell him that a lady on horseback below had +asked for him--Dr. Alvan. Who could the lady be? He thought of too +many. The thought of Clotilde was dismissed in its dimness. Issuing and +beholding her, his face became illuminated as by a stroke of sunlight. + +'Clotilde! by all the holiest!' + +She smiled demurely, and they greeted. + +She admired the look of rich pleasure shining through surprise in him. +Her heart thanked him for appearing so handsome before her friends. + +'I was writing,' said he. 'Guess to whom?--I had just finished my +political stuff, and fell on a letter to the professor and another for +an immediate introduction to your father.' + +'True?' + +'The truth, as you shall see. So, you have come, you have found me! +This time if I let you slip, may I be stamped slack-fingered!' + +'"Two wishes make a will," you say.' + +He answered her with one of his bursts of brightness. + +Her having sought him he read for the frank surrender which he was ready +to match with a loyal devotion to his captive. Her coming cleared +everything. + +Clotilde introduced him to her friends, and he was enrolled a member of +the party. His appearance was that of a man to whom the sphinx has +whispered. They ascended to the topmost of the mountain stages, to +another caravanserai of tourists, whence the singular people emerge in +morning darkness night-capped and blanketed, and behold the great orb of +day at his birth--he them. + +Walking slowly beside Clotilde on the mountain way, Alvan said: 'Two +wishes! Mine was in your breast. You wedded yours to it. At last!--and +we are one. Not a word more of time lost. My wish is almost a will in +itself--was it not?--and has been wooing yours all this while!--till the +sleeper awakened, the well-spring leapt up from the earth; and our two +wishes united dare the world to divide them. What can? My wish was your +destiny, yours is mine. We are one.' He poetized on his passion, and +dramatized it: 'Stood you at the altar, I would pluck you from the man +holding your hand! There is no escape for you. Nay, into the vaults, +were you to grow pale and need my vital warmth--down to the vaults! +Speak--or no: look! That will do. You hold a Titan in your eyes, like +metal in the furnace, to turn him to any shape you please, liquid or +solid. You make him a god: he is the river Alvan or the rock Alvan: but +fixed or flowing, he is lord of you. That is the universal penalty: you +must, if you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature: if +you raise him to heaven, you must be his! Ay, look! I know the eyes! +They can melt granite, they can freeze fire. Pierce me, sweet eyes! And +now flutter, for there is that in me to make them.' + +'Consider!' Clotilde flutteringly entreated him. + +'The world? you dear heaven of me! Looking down on me does not +compromise you, and I am not ashamed of my devotions. I sat in gloom: +you came: I saw my goddess and worshipped. The world, Lutece, the world +is a variable monster; it rends the weak whether sincere or false; but +those who weld strength with sincerity may practise their rites of +religion publicly, and it fawns to them, and bellows to imitate. Nay, I +say that strength in love is the sole sincerity, and the world knows it, +muffs it in the air about us, and so we two are privileged. Politically +also we know that strength is the one reality: the rest is shadow. +Behind the veil of our human conventions power is constant as ever, and +to perceive the fact is to have the divining rod-to walk clear of shams. +He is the teacher who shows where power exists: he is the leader who +wakens and forms it. Why have I unfailingly succeeded?--I never doubted! +The world voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly. You-- +to your honour?--I won't decide--but you have the longest in my +experience resisted. I have a Durandal to hew the mountain walls; I have +a voice for ears, a net for butterflies, a hook for fish, and desperation +to plunge into marshes: but the feu follet will not be caught. One must +wait--wait till her desire to have a soul bids her come to us. She has +come! A soul is hers: and see how, instantly, the old monster, the +world, which has no soul--not yet: we are helping it to get one--becomes +a shadow, powerless to stop or overawe. For I do give you a soul, think +as you will of it. I give you strength to realize, courage to act. It +is the soul that does things in this life--the rest is vapour. How do we +distinguish love?--as we do music by the pure note won from resolute +strings. The tense chord is music, and it is love. This higher and +higher mountain air, with you beside me, sweeps me like a harp.' + +'Oh! talk on, talk on! talk ever! do not cease talking to me!' +exclaimed Clotilde. + +'You feel the mountain spirit?' + +'I feel that you reveal it.' + +'Tell me the books you have been reading.' + +' Oh, light literature-poor stuff.' + +'When we two read together you will not say that. Light literature is +the garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; the +view within us as well as without. Our blood runs through it, our +history in the quick. The Philistine detests it, because he has no view, +out or in. The dry confess they are cut off from the living tree, peeled +and sapless, when they condemn it. The vulgar demand to have their +pleasures in their own likeness--and let them swamp their troughs! they +shall not degrade the fame of noble fiction. We are the choice public, +which will have good writing for light reading. Poet, novelist, +essayist, dramatist, shall be ranked honourable in my Republic. I am +neither, but a man of law, a student of the sciences, a politician, on +the road to government and statecraft: and yet I say I have learnt as +much from light literature as from heavy-as much, that is, from the +pictures of our human blood in motion as from the clever assortment of +our forefatherly heaps of bones. Shun those who cry out against fiction +and have no taste for elegant writing. For to have no sympathy with the +playful mind is not to have a mind: it is a test. But name the books.' + +She named one or two. + +'And when does Dr. Alvan date the first year of his Republic?' + +'Clotilde!' he turned on her. + +'My good sir?' + +'These worthy good people who are with you: tell me-to-morrow we leave +them!' + +'Leave them?' + +'You with me. No more partings. The first year, the first day shall be +dated from to-morrow. You and I proclaim our Republic on these heights. +All the ceremonies to follow. We will have a reaping of them, and make a +sheaf to present to the world with compliments. To-morrow!' + +'You do not speak seriously?' + +'I jest as little as the Talmud. Decide at once, in the happy flush of +this moment.' + +'I cannot listen to you, dear sir!' + +'But your heart beats!' + +'I am not mistress of it.' + +'Call me master of it. I make ready for to-morrow.' + +' No! no! no! A thousand times no! You have been reading too much +fiction and verse. Properly I should spurn you.' + +'Will you fail me, play feu follet, ward me off again?' + +'I must be won by rules, brave knight!' + +'Will you be won?' + +'And are you he--the Alvan who would not be centaur?' + +'I am he who chased a marsh-fire, and encountered a retiarius, and the +meshes are on my head and arms. I fancied I dealt with a woman; a woman +needing protection! She has me fast--I am netted, centaur or man. That +is between us two. But think of us facing the world, and trust me; take +my hand, take the leap; I am the best fighter in that fight. Trust it to +me, and all your difficulties are at an end. To fly solves the problem.' + +'Indeed, indeed, I have more courage than I had,' said Clotilde. + +His eyes dilated, steadied, speculated, weighed her. + +'Put it to proof while you can believe in it!' + +'How is it every one but you thinks me bold?' she complained. + +'Because I carry a touchstone that brings out the truth. I am your +reality: all others are phantoms. You can impose on them, not on me. +Courage for one inspired plunge you may have, and it will be your +salvation:--southward, over to Italy, that is the line of flight, and the +subsequent struggle will be mine: you will not have to face it. But the +courage for daily contention at home, standing alone, while I am distant +and maligned--can you fancy your having that? No! be wise of what you +really are; cast the die for love, and mount away tomorrow.' + +'Then,' said Clotilde, with elvish cunning, 'do you doubt your ability to +win me without a scandal?' + +'Back me, and I win you!' he replied in a tone of unwonted humility: a +sudden droop. + +She let her hand fall. He grasped it. + +'Gradations appear to be unknown to you,' she said. + +He cried out: 'Count the years of life, span them, think of the work to +be done, and ask yourself whether time and strength should run to waste +in retarding the inevitable? Pottering up steps that can be taken at one +bound is very well for peasant pilgrims whose shrine is their bourne, and +their kneecaps the footing stumps. But for us two life begins up there. +Onward, and everywhere around, when we two are together, is our shrine. +I have worked, and wasted life; I have not lived, and I thirst to live.' + +She murmured, in a fervour, 'You shall!' and slipped behind her defences. +'To-morrow morning we shall wander about; I must have a little time; all +to-morrow morning we can discuss plans.' + +'You know you command me,' said he, and gazed at her. + +She was really a child compared with him in years, and if it was an +excuse for taking her destiny into his hands, she consenting,--it was +also a reason why he dared not press his whole weight to win her to the +step. + +She had the pride of the secret knowledge of her command of this giant at +the long table of the guests at dinner, where, after some play of knife +and fork among notable professors, Prussian officers, lively Frenchmen +and Italians, and the usual over-supply of touring English of both sexes, +not encouraging to conversation in their look of pallid disgust of the +art, Alvan started general topics and led them. The lead came to him +naturally, because he was a natural speaker, of a mind both stored and +effervescent; and he was genial, interested in every growth of life. She +did not wonder at his popularity among men of all classes and sets, or +that he should be famed for charming women. Her friend was enraptured +with him. Friendly questions pressed in an evening chatter between the +ladies, and Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession. + +'But you are not engaged?' said the blunt Englishwoman. + +According to the explanation, Clotilde was hardly engaged. It was not an +easy thing to say how she stood definitely. She had obeyed her dying +relative and dearest on earth by joining her hand to Prince Marko's, and +had pleased her parents by following it up with the kindest attentions to +the prince. It had been done, however, for the sake of peace; and +chiefly for his well-being. She had reserved her full consent: the +plighting was incomplete. Prince Marko knew that there was another, a +magical person, a genius of the ring, irresistible. He had been warned, +that should the other come forth to claim her . . . . And she was +about to write to him this very night to tell him . . . tell him fully +. . . . In truth, she loved both, but each so differently! And both +loved her! And she had to make her choice of one, and tell the prince +she did love him, but . . . Dots are the best of symbols for rendering +cardisophistical subtleties intelligible, and as they are much used in +dialogue, one should have now and then permission to print them. +Especially feminine dialogue referring to matters of the uncertain heart +takes assistance from troops of dots; and not to understand them at least +as well as words, when words have as it were conducted us to the brink of +expression, and shown us the precipice, is to be dull, bucolic of the +marketplace. + +Sunless rose the morning. The blanketed figures went out to salute a +blanketed sky. Drizzling they returned, images of woefulness in various +forms, including laughter's. Alvan frankly declared himself the +disappointed showman; he had hoped for his beloved to see the sight long +loved by him of golden chariot and sun-steeds crossing the peaks and the +lakes; and his disappointment became consternation on hearing Clotilde's +English friend (after objection to his pagan clothing of the solemn +reality of sunrise, which destroyed or minimized by too materially +defining a grandeur that derived its essence from mystery, she thought) +announce the hour for her departure. He promised her a positive sunrise +if she would delay. Her child lay recovering from an illness in the town +below, and she could not stay. But Clotilde had coughed in the damp +morning air, and it would, he urged, be dangerous for her to be exposed +to it. Had not the lady heard her cough? She had, but personally she +was obliged to go; with her child lying ill she could not remain. 'But, +madam, do you hear that cough again? Will you drag her out with such a +cough as that?' The lady repeated 'My child!' Clotilde said it had been +agreed they should descend this day; her friend must be beside her child. +Alvan thundered an 'Impossible!' The child was recovering; Clotilde was +running into danger: he argued with the senseless woman, opposing reason +to the feminine sentiment of the maternal, and of course he was beaten. +He was compelled to sit and gnaw his eloquence. Clotilde likened his +appearance to a strangled roar. 'Mothers and their children are too much +for me!' he said, penitent for his betrayal of over-urgency, as he helped +to wrap her warmly, and counselled her very mode of breathing in the raw +mountain atmosphere. + +'I admire you for knowing when to yield,' said she. + +He groaned, with frown and laugh: 'You know what I would beg!' + +She implored him to have some faith in her. + +The missiles of the impassioned were discharged at the poor English: a +customary volley in most places where they intrude after quitting their +shores, if they diverge from the avenue of hotel-keepers and waiters: +but Clotilde pointed out to him that her English friend was not showing +coldness in devoting herself to her child. + +'No, they attend to their duties,' he assented generally, desperately +just. + +'And you owe it to her that you have seen me.' + +'I do,' he said, and forthwith courted the lady to be forgiven. + +Clotilde was taken from him in a heavy downpour and trailing of mists. + +At the foot of the mountain a boy handed her a letter from Alvan--a +burning flood, rolled out of him like lava after they had separated on +the second plateau, and confided to one who knew how to outstrip +pathfarers. She entered her hotel across the lake, and met a telegram. +At night the wires flashed 'Sleep well' to her; on her awakening, 'Good +morning.' A lengthened history of the day was telegraphed for her +amusement. Again at night there was a 'God guard you!' + +'Who can resist him?' sighed Clotilde, excited, nervous, flattered, +happy, but yearning to repose and be curtained from the buzz of the +excess of life that he put about her. This time there was no prospect of +his courtship relapsing. + +'He is a wonderful, an ideal lover!' replied her friend. + +'If he were only that!' said Clotilde, musing expressively. 'If, dear +Englishwoman, he were only that, he might be withstood. But Alvan mounts +high over such lovers: he is a wonderful and ideal man: so great, so +generous, heroical, giant-like, that what he wills must be.' + +The Englishwoman was quick enough to seize an indication difficult to +miss--more was expected to be said of him. + +'You see the perfect gentleman in Dr. Alvan,' she remarked, for she had +heard him ordering his morning bath at the hotel, and he had also been +polite to her under vexation. + +Clotilde nodded hurriedly; she saw something infinitely greater, and +disliked the bringing of that island microscope to bear upon a giant. +She found it repugnant to hear a word of Alvan as a perfect gentleman. +Justly, however, she took him for a splendid nature, and assuming upon +good authority that the greater contains the lesser, she supposed the +lesser to be a chiselled figure serviceably alive in the embrace. + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Barriers are for those who cannot fly +Be good and dull, and please everybody +Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies +Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession +Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered +Compromise is virtual death +Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath +Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change +Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur +Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? +Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women +Fantastical +Finishing touches to the negligence +Gone to pieces with an injured lover's babble +Gradations appear to be unknown to you +He had to go, he must, he has to be always going +He stormed her and consented to be beaten +His violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence +I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy +I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you +If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature +Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days +Looking on him was listening +Love the difficulty better than the woman +Metaphysician's treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise +Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous +Not much esteem for non-professional actresses +Pact between cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency +Philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded +Polished barbarism +Scorned him for listening to the hesitations (hers) +She felt in him a maker of facts +Strength in love is the sole sincerity +The brainless in Art and in Statecraft +The way is clear: we have only to take the step +The worst of omens is delay +Time and strength run to waste in retarding the inevitable +Time is due to us, and the minutes are our gold slipping away +To have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind +Two wishes make a will +Venerated by his followers, well hated by his enemies +Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? +Win you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be +World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v1 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS + +A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY + +By GEORGE MEREDITH + +1892 + + + +BOOK 2. + +CHAPTER VII + +He was down on the plains to her the second day, and as usual when they +met, it was as if they had not parted; his animation made it seem so. He +was like summer's morning sunlight, his warmth striking instantly through +her blood dispersed any hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers +during absences, caused by girlish dread of a step to take, or shame at +the step taken, when coldish gentlemen rather create these backflowings +and gaps in the feelings. She had grown reconciled to the perturbation +of his messages, and would have preferred to have him startling and +thrilling her from a distance; but seeing him, she welcomed him, and +feeling in his bright presence not the faintest chill of the fit of +shyness, she took her bravery of heart for a sign that she had reached +his level, and might own it by speaking of the practical measures to lead +to their union. On one subject sure to be raised against him by her +parents, she had a right to be inquisitive: the baroness. + +She asked to see a photograph of her. + +Alvan gave her one out of his pocketbook, and watched her eyelids in +profile as she perused those features of the budless grey woman. The +eyelids in such scrutinies reveal the critical mind; Clotilde's drooped +till they almost closed upon their lashes--deadly criticism. + +'Think of her age,' said Alvan, colouring. He named a grandmaternal date +for the year of the baroness's birth. + +Her eyebrows now stood up; her contemplation of those disenchanting +lineaments came to an abrupt finish. + +She returned the square card to him, slowly shaking her head, still +eyeing earth as her hand stretched forth the card laterally. He could +not contest the woeful verdict. + +'Twenty years back!' he murmured, writhing. The baroness was a woman +fair to see in the days twenty years back, though Clotilde might think it +incredible: she really was once. + +Clotilde resumed her doleful shaking of the head; she sighed. He +shrugged; she looked at him, and he blinked a little. For the first time +since they had come together she had a clear advantage, and as it was +likely to be a rare occasion, she did not let it slip. She sighed again. +He was wounded by her underestimate of his ancient conquest. + +'Yes--now,' he said, impatiently. + +'I cannot feel jealousy, I cannot feel rivalry,' said she, sad of voice. + +The humour of her tranced eyes in the shaking head provoked him to defend +the baroness for her goodness of heart, her energy of brain. + +Clotilde 'tolled' her naughty head. + +'But it is a strong face,' she said, 'a strong face--a strong jaw, by +Lavater! You were young--and daringly adventurous; she was captivating +in her distress. Now she is old--and you are friends.' + +'Friends, yes,' Alvan replied, and praised the girl, as of course she +deserved to be praised for her open mind. + +'We are friends!' he said, dropping a deep-chested breath. The title +this girl scornfully supplied was balm to the vanity she had stung, and +his burnt skin was too eager for a covering of any sort to examine the +mood of the giver. She had positively humbled him so far as with a +single word to relieve him; for he had seen bristling chapters in her +look at the photograph. Yet for all the natural sensitiveness of the +man's vanity, he did not seek to bury the subject at the cost of a +misconception injurious in the slightest degree to the sentiments he +entertained toward the older lady as well as the younger. 'Friends! +you are right; good friends; only you should know that it is just a +little--a trifle different. The fact is, I cannot kill the past, and I +would not. It would try me sharply to break the tie connecting us, were +it possible to break it. I am bound to her by gratitude. She is old +now; and were she twice that age, I should retain my feeling for her. +You raise your eyes, Clotilde! Well, when I was much younger I found +this lady in desperate ill-fortune, and she honoured me with her +confidence. Young man though I was, I defended her; I stopped at no +measure to defend her: against a powerful husband, remember--the most +unscrupulous of foes, who sought to rob her of every right she possessed. +And what I did then I again would do. I was vowed to her interests, to +protect a woman shamefully wronged; I did not stick at trifles, as you +know; you have read my speech in defence of myself before the court. By +my interpretation of the case, I was justified; but I estranged my family +and made the world my enemy. I gave my time and money, besides the +forfeit of reputation, to the case, and reasonably there was an +arrangement to repay me out of the estate reserved for her, so that the +baroness should not be under the degradation of feeling herself indebted. +You will not think that out of the way: men of the world do not. As for +matters of the heart between us, we're as far apart as the Poles.' + +He spoke hurriedly. He had said all that could be expected of him. + +They were in a wood, walking through lines of spruce firs of deep golden +green in the yellow beams. One of these trees among its well-robed +fellows fronting them was all lichen-smitten. From the low sweeping +branches touching earth to the plumed top, the tree was dead-black as its +shadow; a vision of blackness. + +'I will compose a beautiful, dutiful, modest, oddest, beseeching, +screeching, mildish, childish epistle to her, and you shall read it, and +if you approve it, we shall despatch it,' said Clotilde. + +'There speaks my gold-crested serpent at her wisest!' replied Alvan. +'And now for my visit to your family: I follow you in a day. En avant! +contre les canons! A run to Lake Leman brings us to them in the +afternoon. I shall see you in the evening. So our separation won't be +for long this time. All the auspices are good. We shall not be rich-- +nor poor.' + +Clotilde reminded him that a portion of money would be brought to the +store by her. + +'We don't count it,' said he. 'Not rich, certainly. And you will not +expect me to make money by my pen. Above all things I detest the writing +for money. Fiction and verse appeal to a besotted public, that judges of +the merit of the work by the standard of its taste: avaunt! And +journalism for money is Egyptian bondage. No slavery is comparable to +the chains of hired journalism. My pen is my fountain--the key of me; +and I give my self, I do not sell. I write when I have matter in me and +in the direction it presses for, otherwise not one word!' + +'I would never ask you to sell yourself,' said Clotilde. 'I would rather +be in want of common comforts.' + +He squeezed her wrist. They were again in front of the black-draped +blighted tree. It was the sole tree of the host clad thus in scurf +bearing a semblance of livid metal. They looked at it as having seen it +before, and passed on. + +'But the wife of Sigismund Alvan will not be poor in renown!' he resumed, +radiating his full bloom on her. + +'My highest ambition is to be Sigismund Alvan's wife!' she exclaimed. + +To hear her was as good as wine, and his heart came out on a genial +chuckle. 'Ay, the choice you have made is not, by heaven, so bad. +Sigismund Alvan's wife shall take the foremost place of all. Look at +me.' He lifted his head to the highest on his shoulders, widening his +eagle eyes. He was now thoroughly restored and in his own upper element, +expansive after the humiliating contraction of his man's vanity under the +glances of a girl. 'Do you take me for one who could be content with the +part of second? I will work and do battle unceasingly, but I will have +too the prize of battle to clasp it, savour it richly. I was not +fashioned to be the lean meek martyr of a cause, not I. I carry too +decisive a weight in the balance to victory. I have a taste for fruits, +my fairest! And Republics, my bright Lutetia, can give you splendid +honours.' He helped her to realize this with the assuring splendour of +his eyes. + +'"Bride of the Elect of the People!" is not that as glorious a title, +think you, as queen of an hereditary sovereign mumbling of God's grace on +his worm-eaten throne? I win that seat by service, by the dedication of +this brain to the people's interests. They have been ground to the dust, +and I lift them, as I did a persecuted lady in my boyhood. I am the +soldier of justice against the army of the unjust. But I claim my +reward. If I live to fight, I live also to enjoy. I will have my +station. I win it not only because I serve, but because also I have +seen, have seen ahead, seen where all is dark, read the unwritten-- +because I am soldier and prophet. The brain of man is Jove's eagle and +his lightning on earth--the title to majesty henceforth. Ah! my +fairest; entering the city beside me, and the people shouting around, she +would not think her choice a bad one?' + +Clotilde made sign and gave some earnest on his arm of ecstatic hugging. + +'We may have hard battles, grim deceptions, to go through before that day +comes,' he continued after a while. 'The day is coming, but we must wait +for it, work on. I have the secret of how to head the people--to put a +head to their movement and make it irresistible, as I believe it will be +beneficent. I set them moving on the lines of the law of things. I am +no empty theorizer, no phantasmal speculator; I am the man of science in +politics. When my system is grasped by the people, there is but a step +to the realization of it. One step. It will be taken in my time, or +acknowledged later. I stand for index to the people of the path they +should take to triumph--must take, as triumph they must sooner or later: +not by the route of what is called Progress--pooh! That is a middle- +class invention to effect a compromise. With the people the matter rests +with their intelligence! meanwhile my star is bright and shines +reflected.' + +'I notice,' she said, favouring him with as much reflection as a splendid +lover could crave for, 'that you never look down, you never look on the +ground, but always either up or straight before you.' + +'People have remarked it,' said he, smiling. 'Here we are at this +funereal tree again. All roads lead to Rome, and ours appears to conduct +us perpetually to this tree. It 's the only dead one here.' + +He sighted the plumed black top and along the swelling branches +decorously clothed in decay: a salted ebon moss when seen closely; the +small grey particles giving a sick shimmer to the darkness of the mass. +It was very witch-like, of a witch in her incantation-smoke. + +'Not a single bare spot! but dead, dead as any peeled and fallen!' said +Alvan, fingering a tuft of the sooty snake-lichen. 'This is a tree for a +melancholy poet--eh, Clotilde?--for him to come on it by moonlight, after +a scene with his mistress, or tales of her! By the way and by the way, +my fair darling, let me never think of your wearing this kind of garb for +me, should I be ordered off the first to join the dusky army below. +Women who put on their dead husbands in public are not well-mannered +women, though they may be excellent professional widows, excellent!' + +He snapped the lichen-dust from his fingers, observing that he was not +sure the contrast of the flourishing and blighted was not more impressive +in sunlight: and then he looked from the tree to his true love's hair. +The tree at a little distance seemed run over with sunless lizards: her +locks were golden serpents. + +'Shall I soon see your baroness?' Clotilde asked him. + +'Not in advance of the ceremony,' he answered. 'In good time. You +understand--an old friend making room for a new one, and that one young +and beautiful, with golden tresses; at first . . . ! But her heart is +quite sound. Have no fear! I guarantee it; I know her to the roots. +She desires my welfare, she does my behests. If I am bound to her by +gratitude, so, and in a greater degree, is she to me. The utmost she +will demand is that my bride shall be worthy of me--a good mate for me +in the fight to come; and I have tested my bride and found her half my +heart; therefore she passes the examination with the baroness.' + +They left the tree behind them. + +'We will take good care not to return this way again,' said Alvan, +without looking back. 'That tree belongs to a plantation of the under +world; its fellows grow in the wood across Acheron, and that tree has +looked into the ghastliness of the flood and seen itself. Hecate and +Hermes know about it. Phoebus cannot light it. That tree stands for +Death blooming. We think it sinister, but down there it is a homely +tree. Down there! When do we go? The shudder in that tree is the air +exchanging between Life and Death--the ghosts going and coming: it's on +the border line. I just felt the creep. I think you did. The reason +is--there is always a material reason--that you were warm, and a bit of +chill breeze took you as you gazed; while for my part I was imagining at +that very moment what of all possible causes might separate us, and I +acknowledged that death could do the trick. But death, my love, is far +from us two!' + +'Does she look as grimmish as she does in the photograph?' said Clotilde. + +'Who? the baroness?' Alvan laughed. The baroness was not so easily +defended from a girl as from her husband, it appeared. 'She is the best +of comrades, best of friends. She has her faults; may not relish the +writ announcing her final deposition, but be you true to me, and as true +as she has unfailingly been to me, she will be to you. That I can +promise. My poor Lucie! She is winter, if you will. It is not the +winter of the steppes; you may compare her to winter in a noble country; +a fine landscape of winter. The outlines of her face . . . . She has +a great brain. How much I owe that woman for instruction! You meet now +and then men who have the woman in them without being womanized; they are +the pick of men. And the choicest women are those who yield not a +feather of their womanliness for some amount of manlike strength. And +she is one; man's brain, woman's heart. I thought her unique till I +heard of you. And how do I stand between you two? She has the only +fault you can charge me with; she is before me in time, as I am before +you. Shall I spoil you as she spoilt me? No, no! Obedience to a boy +is the recognition of the heir-apparent, and I respect the salique law as +much as I love my love. I do not offer obedience to a girl, but succour, +support. You will not rule me, but you will invigorate, and if you are +petted, you shall not be spoilt. Do not expect me to show like that +undertakerly tree till my years are one hundred. Even then it will be +dangerous to repose beneath my branches in the belief that I am sapless +because I have changed colour. We Jews have a lusty blood. We are +strong of the earth. We serve you, but you must minister to us. +Sensual? We have truly excellent appetites. And why not? Heroical too! +Soldiers, poets, musicians; the Gentile's masters in mental arithmetic-- +keenest of weapons: surpassing him in common sense and capacity for +brotherhood. Ay, and in charity; or what stores of vengeance should we +not have nourished! Already we have the money-bags. Soon we shall hold +the chief offices. And when the popular election is as unimpeded as the +coursing of the blood in a healthy body, the Jew shall be foremost and +topmost, for he is pre-eminently by comparison the brain of these latter- +day communities. But that is only my answer to the brutish contempt of +the Jew. I am no champion of a race. I am for the world, for man!' + +Clotilde remarked that he had many friends, all men of eminence, and a +large following among the people. + +He assented: 'Yes: Tresten, Retka, Kehlen, the Nizzian. Yes, if I were +other than for legality:--if it came to a rising, I could tell off able +lieutenants.' + +'Tell me of your interview with Ironsides,' she said proudly and fondly. + +'Would this ambitious little head know everything?' said Alvan, putting +his lips among the locks. 'Well, we met: he requested it. We agreed +that we were on neutral ground for the moment: that he might ultimately +have to decapitate me, or I to banish him, but temporarily we could +compare our plans for governing. He showed me his hand. I showed him +mine. We played open-handed, like two at whist. He did not doubt my +honesty, and I astonished him by taking him quite in earnest. He has +dealt with diplomatists, who imagine nothing but shuffling: the old +Ironer! I love him for his love of common sense, his contempt of mean +deceit. He will outwit you, but his dexterity is a giant's--a simple +evolution rapidly performed: and nothing so much perplexes pygmies! +Then he has them, bagsful of them! The world will see; and see giant +meet giant, I suspect. He and I proposed each of us in the mildest +manner contrary schemes--schemes to stiffen the hair of Europe! Enough +that we parted with mutual respect. He is a fine fellow: and so was my +friend the Emperor Tiberius, and so was Richelieu. Napoleon was a fine +engine:--there is a difference. Yes, Ironsides is a fine fellow! but he +and I may cross. His ideas are not many. The point to remember is that +he is iron on them: he can drive them hard into the density of the globe. +He has quick nerves and imagination: he can conjure up, penetrate, and +traverse complications--an enemy's plans, all that the enemy will be able +to combine, and the likeliest that he will do. Good. We opine that we +are equal to the same. He is for kingcraft to mask his viziercraft--and +save him the labour of patiently attempting oratory and persuasion, which +accomplishment he does not possess:--it is not in iron. We think the +more precious metal will beat him when the broader conflict comes. But +such an adversary is not to be underrated. I do not underrate him: and +certainly not he me. Had he been born with the gifts of patience and a +fluent tongue, and not a petty noble, he might have been for the people, +as knowing them the greater power. He sees that their knowledge of their +power must eventually come to them. In the meantime his party is +forcible enough to assure him he is not fighting a losing game at +present: and he is, no doubt, by lineage and his traditions monarchical. +He is curiously simple, not really cynical. His apparent cynicism is +sheer irritability. His contemptuous phrases are directed against +obstacles: against things, persons, nations that oppose him or cannot +serve his turn against his king, if his king is restive; but he respects +his king: against your friends' country, because there is no fixing it to +a line of policy, and it seems to have collapsed; but he likes that +country the best in Europe after his own. He is nearest to contempt in +his treatment of his dupes and tools, who are dropped out of his mind +when he has quite squeezed them for his occasion; to be taken up again +when they are of use to him. Hence he will have no following. But let +me die to-morrow, the party I have created survives. In him you see the +dam, in me the stream. Judge, then, which of them gains the future!-- +admitting that, in the present he may beat me. He is a Prussian, stoutly +defined from a German, and yet again a German stoutly defined from our +borderers: and that completes him. He has as little the idea of humanity +as the sword of our Hermann, the cannon-ball of our Frederick. Observe +him. What an eye he has! I watched it as we were talking: and he has, I +repeat, imagination; he can project his mind in front of him as far as +his reasoning on the possible allows: and that eye of his flashes; and +not only flashes, you see it hurling a bolt; it gives me the picture of a +Balearic slinger about to whizz the stone for that eye looks far, and is +hard, and is dead certain of its mark-within his practical compass, as I +have said. I see farther, and I fancy I proved to him that I am not a +dreamer. In my opinion, when we cross our swords I stand a fair chance +of not being worsted. We shall: you shrink? Figuratively, my darling +have no fear! Combative as we may be, both of us, we are now grave +seniors, we have serious business: a party looks to him, my party looks +to me. Never need you fear that I shall be at sword or pistol with any +one. I will challenge my man, whoever he as that needs a lesson, to +touch buttons on a waistcoat with the button on the foil, or drill fiver +and eights in cards at twenty paces: but I will not fight him though he +offend me, for I am stronger than my temper, and as I do not want to take +his nip of life, and judge it to be of less value than mine, the +imperilling of either is an absurdity.' + +'Oh! because I know you are incapable of craven fear,' cried Clotilde, +answering aloud the question within herself of why she so much admired, +why she so fondly loved him. To feel his courage backing his high good +sense was to repose in security, and her knowledge that an astute self- +control was behind his courage assured her he was invincible. It seemed +to her, therefore, as they walked side by side, and she saw their +triumphant pair of figures in her fancy, natural that she should +instantly take the step to prepare her for becoming his Republican +Princess. She walked an equal with the great of the earth, by virtue of +her being the mate of the greatest of the great; she trod on some, and +she thrilled gratefully to the man who sustained her and shielded her on +that eminence. Elect of the people he! and by a vaster power than kings +can summon through the trumpet! She could surely pass through the trial +with her parents that she might step to the place beside him! She +pressed his arm to be physically a sharer of his glory. Was it love? +It was as lofty a stretch as her nature could strain to. + +She named the city on the shores of the great Swiss lake where her +parents were residing; she bade him follow her thither, and name the +hotel where he was to be found, the hour when he was to arrive. 'Am I +not precise as an office clerk?' she said, with a pleasant taste of the +reality her preciseness pictured. + +'Practical as the head of a State department,' said he, in good faith. + +'I shall not keep you waiting,' she resumed. + +'The sooner we are together after the action opens the better for our +success, my golden crest!' + +'Have no misgivings, Sigismund. You have transformed me. A spark of you +is in my blood. Come. I shall send word to your hotel when you are to +appear. But you will come, you will be there, I know. I know you so +entirely.' + +'As a rule, Lutetia, women know no more than half of a man even when they +have married him. At least you ought to know me. You know that if I +were to exercise my will firmly now--it would not waver if I called it +forth--I could carry you off and spare you the flutter you will have to +go through during our interlude with papa and mama.' + +'I almost wish you would,' said she. She looked half imploringly, biting +her lip to correct the peeping wish. + +Alvan pressed a finger on one of her dimples: 'Be brave. Flight and +defiance are our last resource. Now that I see you resolved I shun the +scandal, and we will leave it to them to insist on it, if it must be. +How can you be less than resolved after I have poured my influence into +your veins? The other day on the heights--had you consented then? Well! +it would have been very well, but not so well. We two have a future, and +are bound to make the opening chapters good sober reading, for an +example, if we can. I take you from your father's house, from your +mother's arms, from the "God speed" of your friends. That is how Alvan's +wife should be presented to the world.' + +Clotilde's epistle to the baroness was composed, approved, and +despatched. To a frigid eye it read as more hypocritical than it really +was; for supposing it had to be written, the language of the natural +impulse called up to write it was necessarily in request, and that +language is easily overdone, so as to be discordant with the situation, +while it is, as the writer feels, a fairly true and well-formed +expression of the pretty impulse. But wiser is it always that the star +in the ascendant should not address the one waning. Hardly can a word be +uttered without grossly wounding. She would not do it to a younger +rival: the letter strikes on the recipient's age! She babbles of a +friendship: she plays at childish ninny! The display of her ingenuous +happiness causes feminine nature's bosom to rise in surges. The +declarations of her devotedness to the man waken comparisons with a +deeper, a longer-tried suffering. Actually the letter of the rising star +assumes personal feeling to have died out of the abandoned luminary, and +personal feeling is chafed to its acutest edge by the perusal; contempt +also of one who can stupidly simulate such innocence, is roused. + +Among Alvan's gifts the understanding of women did not rank high. +He was too robust, he had been too successful. Your very successful hero +regards them as nine-pins destined to fall, the whole tuneful nine, at a +peculiar poetical twist of the bowler's wrist, one knocking down the +other--figuratively, for their scruples, or for their example with their +sisters. His tastes had led him into the avenues of success, and as he +had not encountered grand resistances, he entertained his opinion of +their sex. The particular maxim he cherished was, to stake everything on +his making a favourable first impression: after which single figure, he +said, all your empty naughts count with women for hundreds, thousands, +millions: noblest virtues are but sickly units. He would have stared +like any Philistine at the tale of their capacity to advance to a +likeness unto men in their fight with the world. Women for him were +objects to be chased, the politician's relaxation, taken like the +sportsman's business, with keen relish both for the pursuit and the prey, +and a view of the termination of his pastime. Their feelings he could +appreciate during the time when they flew and fell, perhaps a little +longer; but the change in his own feelings withdrew him from the +communion of sentiment. This is the state of men who frequent the +avenues of success. At present he was thinking of a wife, and he +approved the epistle to the baroness cordially. + +'I do think it a nice kind of letter, and quite humble enough,' said +Clotilde. + +He agreed, 'Yes, yes: she knows already that this is really serious with +me.' + +So much for the baroness. + +Now for their parting. A parting that is no worse than the turning of a +page to a final meeting is made light of, but felt. Reason is all in our +favour, and yet the gods are jealous of the bliss of mortals; the slip +between the cup and the lip is emotionally watched for, even though it be +not apprehended, when the cup trembles for very fulness. Clotilde +required reassuring and comforting: 'I am certain you will prevail; you +must; you cannot be resisted; I stand to witness to the fact,' she sighed +in a languor: 'only, my people are hard to manage. I see more clearly +now, that I have imposed on them; and they have given away by a sort of +compact so long as I did nothing decisive. That I see. But, then again, +have I not your spirit in me now? What has ever resisted you?--Then, +as I am Alvan's wife, I share his heart with his fortunes, and I do not +really dread the scenes from anticipating failure, still-the truth is, +I fear I am three parts an actress, and the fourth feels itself a +shivering morsel to face reality. No, I do not really feel it, but press +my hand, I shall be true--I am so utterly yours: and because I have such +faith in you. You never, yet have failed' + +'Never: and it is impossible for me to conceive it,' said Alvan +thoughtfully. + +His last word to her on her departure was 'Courage!' Hers to him was +conveyed by the fondest of looks. She had previously said 'To-morrow!' +to remind him of his appointment to be with her on the morrow, and +herself that she would not long stand alone. She did not doubt of her +courage while feasting on the beauty of one of the acknowledged strong +men of earth. She kissed her hand, she flung her heart to him from the +waving fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Alvan, left to himself, had a quiet belief in the subjugation of his +tricksy Clotilde, and the inspiriting he had given her. All the rest to +come was mere business matter of the conflict, scarcely calling for a +plan of action. Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move? +Husbands have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and +the parents are not dealing with the same kind of woman, you see the same +elemental power in her under both conditions of rebel wife and rebel +daughter to break conventional laws, and be splendidly irrational. That +is, if she can be decided: in other words, aimed at a mark and inflamed +to fly the barriers intercepting. He fancied he had achieved it. Alvan +thanked his fortune that he had to treat with parents. The consolatory +sensation of a pure intent soothed his inherent wildness, in the +contemplation of the possibility that the latter might be roused by those +people, her parents, to upset his honourable ambition to win a wife after +the fashion of orderly citizens. It would be on their heads! But why +vision mischance? An old half-jesting prophecy of his among his friends, +that he would not pass his fortieth year, rose upon his recollection +without casting a shadow. Lo, the reckless prophet about to marry! + +No dark bride, no skeleton, no colourless thing, no lichened tree, was +she. Not Death, my friends, but Life, is the bride of this doomed +fortieth year! Was animation ever vivider in contrast with obstruction? +Her hair would kindle the frosty shades to a throb of vitality: it would +be sunshine in the subterranean sphere. The very thinking of her +dispersed that realm of the poison hue, and the eternally inviting +phosphorescent, still, curved forefinger, which says, 'Come.' + +To think of her as his vernal bride, while the snowy Alps were a +celestial garden of no sunset before his eyes, was to have the taste of +mortal life in the highest. He wondered how it was that he could have +waited so long for her since the first night of their meeting, and he +just distinguished the fact that he lived with the pulses of the minutes, +much as she did, only more fierily. The ceaseless warfare called +politics must have been the distraction: he forgot any other of another +kind. He was a bridegroom for whom the rosed Alps rolled out, a panorama +of illimitable felicity. And there were certain things he must overcome +before he could name his bride his own, so that his innate love of +contention, which had been constantly flattered by triumph, brought, his +whole nature into play with the prospect of the morrow: not much liking +it either. There is a nerve, in brave warriors that does not like the +battle before, the crackle of musketry is heard, and the big artillery. + +Methodically, according to his habit, he jotted down the hours of the +trains, the hotel mentioned by Clotilde, the address of her father; he +looked to his card-case, his writing materials, his notes upon Swiss law; +considering that the scene would be in Switzerland, and he was a lawyer +bent on acting within and up to the measure of the law as well as +pleading eloquently. The desire to wing a telegram to her he thought it +wise to repress, and he found himself in consequence composing verses, +turgid enough, even to his own judgement. Poets would have failed at +such a time, and he was not one, but an orator enamoured. He was a wild +man, cased in the knowledge of jurisprudence, and wishing to enter the +ranks of the soberly blissful. These he could imagine that he +complimented by the wish. Then why should he doubt of his fortune? +He did not. + +The night passed, the morning came, and carried him on his journey. Late +in the afternoon he alighted at the hotel he called Clotilde's. A letter +was handed to him. His eyes all over the page caught the note of it for +her beginning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. 'And now +my turn!' said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and +baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him. +But Clotilde's parents were yet to learn that this Jew, demagogue, and +champion of an injured lady, was a gentleman respectful to their legal +and natural claims upon their child while maintaining his own: they were +to know him and change their tone. + +As he was reading the letter upstairs by sentences, his door opened at +the answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield's welcome to the +birdlike applicant for admission. Clotilde stood hesitating. + +He sent the introducing waiter speeding on his most kellnerish legs, and +drew her in. + +'Alvan, I have come.' + +She was like a bird in his hands, palpitating to extinction. + +He bent over her: 'What has happened?' + +Trembling, and very pale, hard in her throat she said, 'The worst.' + +'You have spoken to them both subsequent to this?' he shook the letter. + +'It is hopeless.' + +'Both to father and mother?' + +'Both. They will not hear your name; they will not hear me speak. I +repeat, it is past all hope, all chance of moving them. They hate--hate +you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once and +followed my letter; I ran through the streets; I pant for want of breath, +not want of courage. I prove I have it, Alvan; I have done all I can do. + +She was enfolded; she sank on the nest, dropping her eyelids. + +But he said nothing. She looked up at him. Her strained pale eyes +provoked a closer embrace. + +'This would be the home for you if we were flying,' said he, glancing +round at the room, with a sensation like a shudder, 'Tell me what there +is to be told.' + +'Alvan, I have; that is all. They will not listen; they loathe Oh! what +possesses them!' + +'They have not met me yet!' + +'They will not, will not ever--no!' + +'They must.' + +'They refuse. Their child, for daring to say she loves you, is detested. +Take me--take me away!' + +'Run?--facing the enemy?' His countenance was the fiery laugh of a +thirster for strife. 'They have to be taught the stuff Alvan is made +of!' + +Clotilde moaned to signify she was sure he nursed an illusion. 'I found +them celebrating the betrothal of my sister Lotte with the Austrian Count +Walburg; I thought it favourable for us. I spoke of you to my mother. +Oh, that scene! What she said I cannot recollect: it was a hiss. Then +my father. Your name changed his features and his voice. They treated +me as impure for mentioning it. You must have deadly enemies. +I was unable to recognize either father or mother--they have become +transformed. But you see I am here. Courage! you said; and I +determined I would show it, and be worthy of you. But I am pursued, +I am sure. My father is powerful in this place; we shall barely have +time to escape.' + +Alvan's resolution was taken. + +'Some friend--a lady living in the city here--name her, quick!--one you +can trust,' he said, and fondled her hastily, much as a gentle kind of +drillmaster straightens a fair pupil's shoulders. 'Yes, you have shown +courage. Now it must be submission to me. You shall be no runaway +bride, but honoured at the altar. Out of this hotel is the first point. +You know some such lady?' + +Clotilde tried to remonstrate and to suggest. She could have prophesied +certain evil from any evasion of the straight line of flight; she was so +sure of it because of her intuition that her courage had done its utmost +in casting her on him, and that the remainder within her would be a +drawing back. She could not get the word or even the look to encounter +his close and warm imperiousness; and, hesitating, she noticed where they +were together alone. She could not refuse the protection he offered in a +person of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where they +were together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of +entreating a man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged to +it. She felt herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a +Madame Emerly, living near the hotel. Her heart sank like a stone. +'It is for you!' cried Alvan, keenly sensible of his loss and his +generosity in temporarily resigning her--for a subsequent triumph. +'But my wife shall not be snatched by a thief in the night. Are you not +my wife--my golden bride? And you may give me this pledge of it, as if +the vows had just been uttered . . . and still I resign you till we +speak the vows. It shall not be said of Alvan's wife, in the days of her +glory, that she ran to her nuptials through rat-passages.' + +His pride in his prevailingness thrilled her. She was cooled by her +despondency sufficiently to perceive where the centre of it lay, but that +centre of self was magnificent; she recovered some of her enthusiasm, +thinking him perhaps to be acting rightly; in any case they were united, +her step was irrevocable. Her having entered the hotel, her being in +this room, certified to that. It seemed to her while she was waiting for +the carriage he had ordered that she was already half a wife. She was +not conscious of a blush. The sprite in the young woman's mind whispered +of fire not burning when one is in the heart of it. And undoubtedly, +contemplated from the outside, this room was the heart of fire. An +impulse to fall on Alvan's breast and bless him for his chivalrousness +had to be kept under lest she should wreck the thing she praised. +Otherwise she was not ill at ease. Alvan summoned his gaiety, all his +homeliness of tone, to give her composure, and on her quitting the room +she was more than ever bound to him, despite her gloomy foreboding. +A maid of her household, a middle-aged woman, gabbling of devotion to +her, ran up the steps of the hotel. Her tale was, that the General had +roused the city in pursuit of his daughter; and she heard whither +Clotilde was going. + +Within half an hour, Clotilde was in Madame Emerly's drawing-room +relating her desperate history of love and parental tyranny, assisted by +the lover whom she had introduced. Her hostess promised shelter and +exhibited sympathy. The whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew +Alvan by reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and +menacingly in politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing tongue, +and the signal proof of his respect for the lady of his love and +deference toward her family, won her personally. She promised the best +help she could give them. They were certainly in a romantic situation, +such as few women could see and decline their aid to the lovers. + +Madame Emerly proved at least her sincerity before many minutes had +passed. + +Chancing to look out into the street, she saw Clotilde's mother and her +betrothed sister stepping up to the house. What was to be done? And was +the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, but +Alvan cried louder: 'Heaven-directed! and so, let me see her and speak +to her--nothing could be better.' + +Madame Emerly took mute counsel of Clotilde, shaking her own head +premonitorily; and then she said: 'I think indeed it will be safer, +if I am asked, to say you are not here, and I know not where you are.' + +'Yes! yes!' Clotilde replied: 'Oh! do that.' + +She half turned to Alvan, rigid with an entreaty that hung on his coming +voice. + +'No!' said Alvan, shocked in both pride and vanity. 'Plain-dealing; no +subterfuge! Begin with foul falsehood? No. I would not have you +burdened, madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our +account. And when it would be bad policy? . . . Oh, no, worse than +the sin! as the honest cynic says. We will go down to Madame von +Rudiger, and she shall make acquaintance with the man who claims her +daughter's hand.' + +Clotilde rocked in an agony. Her friend was troubled. Both ladies knew +what there would be to encounter better than he. But the man, strong in +his belief in himself, imposed his will on them. + +Alvan and Clotilde clasped hands as they went downstairs to Madame +Emerly's reception room. She could hardly speak: 'Do not forsake me.' + +'Is this forsaking?' He could ask it in the deeply questioning tone +which supplies the answer. + +'Oh, Alvan!' She would have said: 'Be warned.' + +He kissed her fingers. 'Trust to me.' + +She had to wrap her shivering spirit in a blind reliance and utter +leaning on him. + +She could almost have said: 'Know me better'; and she would, sincere as +her passion in its shallow vessel was, have been moved to say it for a +warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning +into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation (rapidly +degenerating to desperation) inspired her with the thought of her being a +part of this handsome, undaunted, triumph-flashing man. + +Such a state of blind reliance and utter leaning, however, has a certain +tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doing it prepares the spirit +to be a melting prize of the winner. + +Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering +thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring +their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius of +Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in +whatsoever person. We no sooner shut our eyes than we consent to be +prey, we lose the soul of election. + +Mark her as she proceeds. For should her hero fail, and she be suffering +through his failure and her reliance on him, the blindness of it will +seem to her to have been an infinite virtue, anything but her deplorable +weakness crouching beneath his show of superhuman strength. And it will +seem to her, so long as her sufferings endure, that he deceived her just +expectations, and was a vain pretender to the superhuman:--for it was +only a superhuman Jew and democrat whom she could have thought of +espousing. The pusillanimous are under a necessity to be self-consoled +when they are not self-justified: it is their instinctive manner of +putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, +because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she was +ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some reason +(where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) will it +seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the conflict, +insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused the +tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason, coldest +reason, close as it ever is to the craven's heart in its hour of trial, +whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler's die by the swollen +conceit in his fortune rather than by his desire for the prize. That +frigid reason of the craven has red-hot perceptions. It spies the spot +of truth. Were the spot revealed in the man the whole man, then, so +unerring is the eyeshot at him, we should have only to transform +ourselves into cowards fronting a crisis to read him through and topple +over the Sphinx of life by presenting her the sum of her most mysterious +creature in an epigram. But there was as much more in Alvan than any +faint-hearted thing, seeing however keenly, could see, as there is more +in the world than the epigrams aimed at it contain. + +'Courage!' said he: and she tremblingly: 'Be careful!' And then they were +in the presence of her mother and sister. + +Her sister was at the window, hanging her head low, a poor figure. Her +mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with a +woman's combative frown of great eyes, in which the stare is a bolt. + +'Away with that man! I will not suffer him near me,' she cried. + +Alvan advanced to her: 'Tell me, madame, in God's name, what you have +against me.' + +She swung her back on him. 'Go, sir! my husband will know how to deal +with one like you. Out of my sight, I say!' + +The brutality of this reception of Alvan nerved Clotilde. She went up to +him, and laying her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal, +said: 'Let us go: come. I will not bear to hear you so spoken to. No +one shall treat you like that when I am near.' + +She expected him to give up the hopeless task, after such an experience +of the commencement. He did but clasp her hand, assuring the Frau von +Rudiger that no word of hers could irritate him. 'Nothing can make me +forget that you are Clotilde's mother. You are the mother of the lady I +love, and may say what you will to me, madame. I bear it.' + +'A man spotted with every iniquity the world abhors, and I am to see him +holding my daughter by the hand!--it is too abominable! And because +there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk +of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that which you have to do +is to go. My ears are shut. You can annoy, you can insult, you cannot +move me. Go.' She stamped: her aspect spat. + +Alvan bowed. Under perfect self-command, he said: 'I will go at once to +Clotilde's father. I may hope, that with a reasonable man I shall +speedily come to an understanding.' + +She retorted: 'Enter his house, and he will have you driven out by his +lacqueys.' + +'Hardly: I am not of those men who are driven from houses,' Alvan said, +smiling. 'But, madame, I will act on your warning, and spare her father, +for all sakes, the attempt; seeing he does not yet know whom he deals +with. I will write to him.' + +'Letters from you will be flung back unopened. + +'It may, of course, be possible to destroy even my patience, madame.' + +'Mine, sir, is at an end.' + +'You reduce us to rely on ourselves; it is the sole alternative.' + +'You have not waited for that,' rejoined Frau von Rudiger. 'You have +already destroyed my daughter's reputation by inducing her to leave her +father's house and hesitate to return. Oh! you are known. You are known +for your dealings with women as well as men. We know you. We have, we +pray to God, little more to learn of you. You! ah--thief!' + +'Thief!' Alvan's voice rose on hers like the clapping echo of it. She +had up the whole angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that +she had struck the wound in his history; but he was terrible to look at, +so she made the charge supportable by saying: + +'You have stolen my child from me!' + +Clotilde raised her throat, shrewish in excitement. 'False! He did not. +I went to him of my own will, to run from your heartlessness, mother-- +that I call mother!--and be out of hearing of my father's curses and +threats. Yes, to him I fled, feeling that I belonged more to him than to +you. And never will I return to you. You have killed my love; I am this +man's own because I love him only; him ever! him you abuse, as his +partner in life for all it may give!--as his wife! Trample on him, you +trample on me. Make black brows at your child for choosing the man, of +all men alive, to worship and follow through the world. I do. I am his. +I glory in him.' + +Her gaze on Alvan said: 'Now!' Was she not worthy of him now? And would +they not go forth together now? Oh! now! + +Her gaze was met by nothing like the brilliant counterpart she merited. +It was as if she had offered her beauty to a glass, and found a +reflection in dull metal. He smiled calmly from her to her mother. He +said: + +'You accuse me of stealing your child, madame. You shall acknowledge +that you have wronged me. Clotilde, my Clotilde! may I count on you to +do all and everything for me? Is there any sacrifice I could ask that +would be too hard for you? Will you at one sign from me go or do as I +request you?' + +She replied, in an anguish over the chilling riddle of his calmness: 'I +will,' but sprang out of that obedient consent, fearful of over-acting +her part of slave to him before her mother, in a ghastly apprehension of +the part he was for playing to the same audience. 'Yes, I will do all, +all that you command. I am yours. I will go with you. Bid me do +whatever you can think of, all except bid me go back to the people I have +hitherto called mine:--not that!' + +'And that is what I have to request of you,' said he, with his calm smile +brightening and growing more foreign, histrionic, unreadable to her. +'And this greatest sacrifice that you can perform for me, are you +prepared to do it? Will you?' + +She tried to decipher the mask he wore: it was proof against her +imploring eyes. 'If you can ask me--if you can positively wish it--yes,' +she said. 'But think of what you are doing. Oh! Alvan, not back to +them! Think!' + +He smiled insufferably. He was bent on winning a parent-blest bride, +an unimpeachable wife, a lady handed to him instead of taken, one of the +world's polished silver vessels. + +'Think that you are doing this for me!' said he. 'It is for my sake. +And now, madame, I give you back your daughter. You see she is mine to +give, she obeys me, and I--though it can be only for a short time--give +her back to you. She goes with you purely because it is my wish: do not +forget that. And so, madame, I have the honour,' he bowed profoundly. + +He turned to Clotilde and drew her within his arm. 'What you have done +in obedience to my wish, my beloved, shall never be forgotten. Never can +I sufficiently thank you. I know how much it has cost you. But here is +the end of your trials. All the rest is now my task. Rely on me with +your whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding. +Be sure of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of +injustice I shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that, +and be not unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit a +short while to the will of your parents: mine you will find the stronger. +Resolve it in your soul that I, your lover, cannot fail, for it is +impossible to me to waver. Consider me as the one fixed light in your +world, and look to me. Soon, then! Have patience, be true, and we are +one!' + +He kissed cold lips, he squeezed an inanimate hand. The horribly empty +sublimity of his behaviour appeared to her in her mother's contemptuous +face. + +His eyes were on her as he released her and she stood alone. She seemed +a dead thing; but the sense of his having done gloriously in mastering +himself to give these worldly people of hers a lesson and proof that he +could within due measure bow to their laws and customs, dispelled the +brief vision of her unfitness to be left. The compressed energy of the +man under his conscious display of a great-minded deference to the claims +of family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of the +present achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad +reputation among these people, from whom he was about to lead forth a +daughter for Alvan's wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his +exhibition of generosity--which was brought out in strong relief when he +delivered his retiring bow to the Frau von Rudiger's shoulder--that the +worst was over; he had to deal no more with silly women: now for +Clotilde's father! Women were privileged to oppose their senselessness +to the divine fire: men could not retreat behind such defences; they must +meet him on the common ground of men, where this constant battler had +never yet encountered a reverse. + +Clotilde's cold staring gaze, a little livelier to wonderment than to +reflection, observed him to be scrupulous of the formalities in the +diverse character of his parting salutations to her mother, her sister; +and the lady of the house. He was going--he could actually go and leave +her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that she +did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She saw him smiling +incomprehensibly, like a winner of the field to be left to the enemy. +She could get nothing from him but that insensible round smile, and she +took the ebbing of her poor effort for his rebuff. + +'You that offered yourself in flight to him who once proposed it, he had +the choice of you and he abjured you. He has cast you off!' + +She phrased it in speech to herself. It was incredible, but it was +clear: he had gone. + +The room was vacant; the room was black and silent as a dungeon. + +'He will not have you: he has handed you back to them the more readily to +renounce you.' + +She framed the words half aloud in a moan as she glanced at her mother +heaving in stern triumph, her sister drooping, Madame Emerly standing at +the window. + +The craven's first instinct for safety, quick as the cavern lynx for +light, set her on the idea that she was abandoned: it whispered of +quietness if she submitted. + +And thus she reasoned: Had Alvan taken her, she would not have been +guilty of more than a common piece of love-desperation in running to him, +the which may be love's glory when marriage crowns it. By his rejecting +her and leaving her, he rendered her not only a runaway, but a castaway. +It was not natural that he should leave her; 'not natural in him to act +his recent part; but he had done it; consequently she was at the mercy of +those who might pick her up. She was, in her humiliation and dread, all +of the moment, she could see to no distance; and judging of him, feeling +for herself, within that contracted circle of sensation--sure, from her +knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done unwisely--she became swayed +about like a castaway in soul, until her distinguishing of his mad +recklessness in the challenge of a power greater than his own grew +present with her as his personal cruelty to the woman who had flung off +everything, flung herself on the tempestuous deeps, on his behalf. And +here she was, left to float or founder! Alvan had gone. The man rageing +over the room, abusing her 'infamous lover, the dirty Jew, the notorious +thief, scoundrel, gallowsbird,' etc., etc., frightful epithets, not to be +transcribed--was her father. He had come, she knew not how. Alvan had +tossed her to him. + +Abuse of a lover is ordinarily retorted on in the lady's heart by the +brighter perception of his merits; but when the heart is weak, the +creature suffering shame, her lover the cause of it, and seeming cruel, +she is likely to lose all perception and bend like a flower pelted. Her +cry to him: 'If you had been wiser, this would not have been!' will sink +to the inward meditation: 'If he had been truer!'--and though she does +not necessarily think him untrue for charging him with it, there is +already a loosening of the bonds where the accusation has begun. They +are not broken because they are loosened: still the loosening of them +makes it possible to cut them with less of a snap and less pain. + +Alvan had relinquished her he loved to brave the tempest in a frail small +boat, and he certainly could not have apprehended the furious outbreak +she was exposed to. She might so far have exonerated him had she been +able to reflect; but she whom he had forced to depend on him in blind +reliance, now opened her eyes on an opposite power exercising material +rigours. After having enjoyed extraordinary independence for a young +woman, she was treated as a refractory child, literally marched through +the streets in the custody of her father, who clutched her by the hair- +Alvan's beloved golden locks!--and held her under terror of a huge +forester's weapon, that he had seized at the first tidings of his +daughter's flight to the Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to +exposure; contempt, with a sense of the humour of it: and this was a +satisfaction to him, founded on his practical observance of two or three +maxims quite equal to the fullest knowledge of women for rightly managing +them: preferable, inasmuch as they are simpler, and, by merely cracking a +whip, bring her back to the post, instead of wasting time by hunting her +as she likes to run. Police were round his house. The General chattered +and shouted of the desperate lawlessness and larcenies of that Jew--the +things that Jew would attempt. He dragged her indoors, muttering of his +policy in treating her at last to a wholesome despotism. + +This was the medicine for her--he knew her! Whether he did or not, he +knew the potency of his physic. He knew that osiers can be made to bend. +With a frightful noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the window- +shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he left her +there and roared across the household that any one holding communication +with the prisoner should be shot like a dog. This was a manifestation of +power in a form more convincing than the orator's. + +She was friendless, abused, degraded, benighted in broad daylight; +abandoned by her lover. She sank on the floor of the room, conceiving +with much strangeness of sentiment under these hard stripes of +misfortune, that reality had come. The monster had hold of her. She was +isolated, fed like a dungeoned captive. She had nothing but our natural +obstinacy to hug, or seem to do so when wearifulness reduced her to cling +to the semblance of it only. 'I marry Alvan!' was her iterated answer to +her father, on his visits to see whether he had yet broken her; and she +spoke with the desperate firmness of weak creatures that strive to nail +themselves to the sound of it. He listened and named his time for +returning. The tug between rigour and endurance continued for about +forty hours. She then thought, in an exhaustion: 'Strange that my father +should be so fiercely excited against this man! Can he have reasons I +have not heard of?' Her father's unwonted harshness suggested the +question in her quailing nature, which was beginning to have a movement +to kiss the whip. The question set her thinking of the reasons she knew. +She saw them involuntarily from the side of parents, and they wore a +sinister appearance; in reality her present scourging was due to them as +well as to Alvan's fatal decision. Her misery was traceable to his +conduct and his judgement--both bad. And yet all this while he might be +working to release her, near upon rescuing! She swung round to the side +of her lover against these executioner parents, and scribbled to him as +well as she could under the cracks in her windowshutters, urging him to +appear. She spent her heart on it. A note to her friend, the English +lady, protested her love for Alvan, but with less abandonment, with a +frozen resignation to the loss of him--all around her was so dark! By- +and-by there was a scratching at her door. The maid whom she trusted +brought her news of Alvan: outside the door and in, the maid and mistress +knelt. Hope flickered up in the bosom of Clotilde: the whispers were +exchanged through the partition. + +'Where is he?' + +'Gone.' + +'But where?' + +'He has left the city.' + +Clotilde pushed the letter for her friend under the door: that one for +Alvan she retained, stung by his desertion of her, and thinking +practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an +address. She did not ask herself whether the maid's information was +honest, for she wanted to despair, as the exhausted want to lie down. + +She wept through the night. It was one of those nights of the torrents +of tears which wash away all save the adamantine within us, if there be +ought of that besides the breathing structure. The reason why she wept +with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity +for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the +love whereby she was tormented. They do not weep thus who have a heart +for the struggle. In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, no +longer self-pitiful; careless of herself, as she thought: in other words, +unable any further to contend. + +Reality was too strong! This morning her sisters came to her room +imploring her to yield:--if she married Alvan, what could be their +prospects as the sisters-in law of such a man?--her betrothed sister +Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan's name was infamous +in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned +to seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her +tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he +hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew +democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his +brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly +Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all, +perhaps to her father's military and diplomatic career principally: the +head of their house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by +having no other reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her +absent lover and her family; she was already disunited from him when she +shed them, feeling that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many +bosoms drained of self-pity will become. + +Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and had +a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a little +by her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after her +heavy scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing them +to be selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality made +them seem a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. Her +natural blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire +relinquishment; it knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had +committed an irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own vain +provoking, that was too severe for him: he was not the lover he fancied +himself, or not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her excessive +misery would not suffer a picture of him, not one clear recollection of +him, to stand before her. He who should have been at hand, had gone, and +she was fearfully beset, almost lifeless; and being abandoned, her blank +night of imagination felt that there was nothing left for her save to +fall upon those nearest. + +She gave her submission to her mother. In her mind, during the last +wrestling with a weakness that was alternately her love, and her +cowardice, the interpretation of the act ran: 'He may come, and I am his +if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.' He had taught her to +rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting +herself loose from him. In a similar mood, the spiritual waverer vows to +believe if the saint will appear. However, she submitted. Then there +was joy in the family, and she tasted their caresses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +After his deed of loftiness Alvan walked to his hotel, where the sight of +the room Clotilde had entered that morning caught his breath. He +proceeded to write his first letter to General von Rudiger, repressing +his heart's intimations that he had stepped out of the friendly path, and +was on a strange and tangled one. The sense of power in him was leonine +enough to promise the forcing of a way whithersoever the path: yet did +that ghost of her figure across the room haunt him with searching eyes. +They set him spying over himself at an actor who had not needed to be +acting his part, brilliant though it was. He crammed his energy into his +idea of the part, to carry it forward victoriously. Before the world, +it would without question redound to his credit, and he heard the world +acclaiming him: + +'Alvan's wife was honourably won, as became the wife of a Doctor of Law, +from the bosom of her family, when he could have had her in the old +lawless fashion, for a call to a coachman! Alvan, the republican, is +eminently a citizen. Consider his past life by that test of his +character.' + +He who had many times defied the world in hot rebellion, had become, +through his desire to cherish a respectable passion, if not exactly +slavish to it, subservient, as we see royal personages, that are happy to +be on bowing terms with the multitude bowing lower. Lower, of course, +the multitude must bow, to inspire an august serenity; but the nod they +have in exchange for it is not an independent one. Ceasing to be a +social rebel, he conceived himself as a recognized dignitary, and he +passed under the bondage of that position. + +Clotilde had been in this room; she had furnished proof that she could be +trusted now. She had committed herself, perished as a maiden of society, +and her parents, even the senseless mother, must see it and decide by it. +The General would bring her to reason: General von Rudiger was a man of +the world. An honourable son-in-law could not but be acceptable to him-- +now, at least. And such a son-in-law would ultimately be the pride of +his house. 'A flower from thy garden, friend, and my wearing it shall in +good time be cause for some parental gratification.' + +The letter despatched, Alvan paced his chamber with the ghost of +Clotilde. He was presently summoned to meet Count Walburg and another +intimate of the family, in the hotel downstairs. These gentlemen brought +no message from General von Rudiger: their words were directed to extract +a promise from him that he would quit his pursuit of Clotilde, and of +course he refused; they hinted that the General might have official +influence to get him expelled the city, and he referred them to the +proof; but he looked beyond the words at a new something of extraordinary +and sinister aspect revealed to him in their manner of treating his +pretensions to the hand of the lady. + +He had not yet perfectly seen the view the world took of him, because of +his armed opposition to the world; nor could he rightly reflect on it +yet, being too anxious to sign the peace. He felt as it were a blow +startling him from sleep. His visitors tasked themselves to be strictly +polite; they did not undervalue his resources for commanding respect +between man and man. The strange matter was behind their bearing, which +indicated the positive impossibility of the union of Clotilde with one +such as he, and struck at the curtain covering his history. He could not +raise it to thunder his defence of himself, or even allude to the implied +contempt of his character: with a boiling gorge he was obliged to swallow +both the history and the insult, returning them the equivalent of their +courtesies, though it was on his lips to thunder heavily. + +A second endeavour, in an urgent letter before nightfall to gain him +admission to head-quarters, met the same repulse as the foregoing. The +bearer of it was dismissed without an answer. + +Alvan passed a night of dire disturbance. The fate of the noble Genoese +conspirator, slipping into still harbour water on the step from boat to +boat, and borne down by the weight of his armour in the moment of the +ripeness of his plot at midnight, when the signal for action sparkled to +lighten across the ships and forts, had touched him in his boy's +readings, and he found a resemblance of himself to Fiesco, stopped as he +was by a base impediment, tripped ignominiously, choked by the weight of +the powers fitting him for battle. A man such as Alvan, arrested on his +career by an opposition to his enrolment of a bride!--think of it! What +was this girl in a life like his? But, oh! the question was no sooner +asked than the thought that this girl had been in this room illuminated +the room, telling him she might have been his own this instant, +confounding him with an accusation of madness for rejecting her. +Why had he done it? Surely women, weak women, must be at times divinely +inspired. She warned him against the step. But he, proud of his +armoury, went his way. He choked, he suffered the torture of the mailed +Genoese going under; worse, for the drowner's delirium swirls but a +minute in the gaping brain, while he had to lie all, night at the mercy +of the night. + +He was only calmer when morning came. Night has little mercy for the +self-reproachful, and for a strong man denouncing the folly of his error, +it has none. The bequest of the night was a fever of passion; and upon +that fever the light of morning cleared his head to weigh the force +opposing him. He gnawed the paradox, that it was huge because it was +petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of +the position it explained. Great enemies, great undertakings, would have +revived him as they had always revived and fortified. But here was a +stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had +chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms. By +shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing +reduced him to hesitation. And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; +his history, his very blood, stood open to its shafts; and the sole +quality of a giant, which he could show to front it, was the breath of +one for a mark. + +These direct perceptions of the circumstances were played on by the fever +he drew from his Fiesco bed. Accuracy of vision in our crises is not so +uncommon as the proportionate equality of feeling: we do indeed. +frequently see with eyes of just measurement while we are conducting +ourselves like madmen. The facts are seen, and yet the spinning nerves +will change their complexion; and without enlarging or minimizing, they +will alternate their effect on us immensely through the colour presenting +them now sombre, now hopeful: doing its work of extravagance upon +perceptibly plain matter. The fitful colour is the fever. He must win +her, for he never yet had failed--he had lost her by his folly! She was +his--she was torn from him! She would come at his bidding--she would +cower to her tyrants! The thought of her was life and death in his +frame, bright heaven and the abyss. At one beat of the heart she swam to +his arms, at another he was straining over darkness. And whose the +fault? + +He rose out of his amazement crying it with a roar, and foreignly +beholding himself. He pelted himself with epithets; his worst enemies +could not have been handier in using them. From Alvan to Alvan, they +signified such an earthquake in a land of splendid structures as shatters +to dust the pride of the works of men. He was down among them, lower +than the herd, rolling in vulgar epithets that, attached to one like him, +became of monstrous distortion. O fool! dolt! blind ass! tottering +idiot! drunken masquerader! miserable Jack Knave, performing suicide +with that blessed coxcomb air of curling a lock!--Clotilde! Clotilde! +Where has one read the story of a man who had the jewel of jewels in his +hand, and flung in into the deeps, thinking that he flung a pebble? +Fish, fool, fish! and fish till Doomsday! There's nothing but your +fool's face in the water to be got to bite at the bait you throw, fool! +Fish for the flung-away beauty, and hook your shadow of a Bottom's head! +What impious villain was it refused the gift of the gods, that he might +have it bestowed on him according to his own prescription of the +ceremonies! They laugh! By Orcus! how they laugh! The laughter of the +gods is the lightning of death's irony over mortals. Can they have a +finer subject than a giant gone fool? + +Tears burst from him: tears of rage, regret, selflashing. O for +yesterday! He called aloud for the recovery of yesterday, bellowed, +groaned. A giant at war with pigmies, having nought but their weapons, +having to fight them on his knees, to fight them with the right hand +while smiting himself with the left, has too much upon him to keep his +private dignity in order. He was the same in his letters--a Cyclops +hurling rocks and raising the seas to shipwreck. Dignity was cast off; +he came out naked. Letters to Clotilde, and to the baroness, to the +friend nearest him just then, Colonel von Tresten, calling them to him, +were dashed to paper in this naked frenzy, and he could rave with all the +truth of life, that to have acted the idiot, more than the loss of the +woman, was the ground of his anguish. Each antecedent of his career had +been a step of strength and success departed. The woman was but a +fragment of the tremendous wreck; the woman was utterly diminutive, yet +she was the key of the reconstruction; the woman won, he would be himself +once more: and feeling that, his passion for her swelled to full tide and +she became a towering splendour whereat his eyeballs ached, she became a +melting armful that shook him to big bursts of tears. + +The feeling of the return of strength was his love in force. The giant +in him loved her warmly. Her sweetness, her archness, the opening of her +lips, their way of holding closed, and her brightness of wit, her tender +eyelashes, her appreciating looks, her sighing, the thousand varying +shades of her motions and her features interflowing like a lighted water, +swam to him one by one like so many handmaiden messengers distinctly +beheld of the radiant indistinct whom he adored with more of spirit in +his passion than before this tempest. A giant going through a giant's +contortions, fleshly as the race of giants, and gross, coarse, dreadful, +likely to be horrible when whipped and stirred to the dregs, Alvan was +great-hearted: he could love in his giant's fashion, love and lay down +life for the woman he loved, though the nature of the passion was not +heavenly; or for the friend who would have to excuse him often; or for +the public cause--which was to minister to his appetites. He was true +man, a native of earth, and if he could not quit his huge personality to +pipe spiritual music during a storm of trouble, being a soul wedged in +the gnarled wood of the standing giant oak, and giving mighty sound of +timber at strife rather than the angelical cry, he suffered, as he loved, +to his depths. + +We have not to plumb the depths; he was not heroic, but hugely man. +Love and man sometimes meet for noble concord; the strings of the hungry +instrument are not all so rough that Love's touch on them is +indistinguishable from the rattling of the wheels within; certain herald +harmonies have been heard. But Love, which purifies and enlarges us, +and sets free the soul, Love visiting a fleshly frame must have time and +space, and some help of circumstance, to give the world assurance that +the man is a temple fit for the rites. Out of romances, he is not +melodiously composed. And in a giant are various giants to be slain, +or thoroughly subdued, ere this divinity is taken for leader. It is not +done by miracle. + +As it happened cruelly for Alvan, the woman who had become the radiant +indistinct in his desiring mind was one whom he knew to be of a shivery +stedfastness. His plucking her from another was neither wonderful nor +indefensible; they two were suited as no other two could be; the handsome +boy who had gone through a form of plighting with her was her slave, and +she required for her mate a master: she felt it and she sided to him +quite naturally, moved by the sacred direction of the acknowledgement of +a mutual fitness. Twice, however, she had relapsed on the occasions of +his absence, and owning his power over her when they were together again, +she sowed the fatal conviction that he held her at present, and that she +was a woman only to be held at present, by the palpable grasp of his +physical influence. Partly it was correct, not entirely, seeing that she +kept the impression of a belief in him even when she drifted away through +sheer weakness, but it was the single positive view he had of her, and it +was fatal, for it begat a devil of impatience. + +'They are undermining her now--now--now!' + +He started himself into busy frenzies to reach to her, already +indifferent to the means, and waxing increasingly reckless as he fed on +his agitation. Some faith in her, even the little she deserved, would +have arrested him: unhappily he had less than she, who had enough to +nurse the dim sense of his fixity, and sank from him only in her heart's +faintness, but he, when no longer flattered by the evidence of his +mastery, took her for sand. Why, then, had he let her out of his grasp? +The horrid echoed interrogation flashed a hideous view of the woman. But +how had he come to be guilty of it? he asked himself again; and, without +answering him, his counsellors to that poor wisdom set to work to +complete it: Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant +Duplicity. He wrote to Clotilde, with one voice quoting the law in their +favour, with another commanding her to break it. He gathered and drilled +a legion of spies, and showered his gold in bribes and plots to get the +letter to her, to get an interview--one human word between them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +His friend Colonel von Tresten was beside him when he received the +enemy's counter-stroke. Count Walburg and his companion brought a letter +from Clotilde--no reply; a letter renouncing him. + +Briefly, in cold words befitting the act, she stated that the past must +be dead between them; for the future she belonged to her parents; she had +left the city. She knew not where he might be, her letter concluded, but +henceforward he should know that they were strangers. + +Alvan held out the deadly paper when he had read the contents; he smote a +forefinger on it and crumpled it in his hand. That was the dumb oration +of a man shocked by the outrage upon passionate feeling to the state of +brute. His fist, outstretched to the length of his arm, shook the +reptile letter under a terrible frown. + +Tresten saw that he supposed himself to be perfectly master of his acts +because he had not spoken, and had managed to preserve the ordinary +courtesies. + +'You have done your commission,' the colonel said to Count Walburg, whose +companion was not disposed to go without obtaining satisfactory +assurances, and pressed for them. + +Alvan fastened on him. 'You adopt the responsibility of this?' He +displayed the letter. + +'I do.' + +'It lies.' + +Tresten remarked to Count Walburg: 'These visits are provocations.' + +'They are not so intended,' said the count, bowing pacifically. His +friend was not a man of the sword, and was not under the obligation to +accept an insult. They left the letter to do its work. + +Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must be taken by flying shots, +as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. Were we +to hear all the roarings of the shirted Heracles, a world of comfortable +little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of Dejaneira. +Yes, really; they would think it was not a chivalrous love: they would +consider that he thought of himself too much. They would doubt, too, +of his being a gentleman! Partial glimpses of him, one may fear, will be +discomposing to simple natures. There was a short black eruption. Alvan +controlled it, to ask hastily what the baroness thought and what she had +heard of Clotilde. Tresten made sign that it was nothing of the best. + +'See! my girl has hundreds of enemies, and I, only I, know her and can +defend her--weak, base shallow trickster, traitress that she is!' cried +Alvan, and came down in a thundershower upon her: 'Yesterday--the day +before--when? just now, here, in this room; gave herself--and now!' +He bent, and immediately straightening his back, addressed Colonel von +Tresten as her calumniator, 'Say your worst of her, and I say I will make +of that girl the peerless woman of earth! I! in earnest! it's no dream. +She can be made . . . . O God! the beast has turned tail! I knew she +could. There 's three of beast to one of goddess in her, and set her +alone, and let her be hunted and I not by, beast it is with her! +cowardly skulking beast--the noblest and very bravest under my wing! +Incomprehensible to you, Tresten? But who understands women! You hate +her. Do not. She 's a riddle, but no worse than the rest of the tangle. +She gives me up? Pooh! She writes it. She writes anything. And that +vilest, I say, I will make more enviable, more Clotilde! he thundered her +signature in an amazement, broken suddenly by the sight of her putting +her name to the letter. She had done that, written her name to the +renunciation of him! No individual could bear the sight of such a crime, +and no suffering man could be appeased by a single victim to atone for +it. Her sex must be slaughtered; he raged against the woman; she became +that ancient poisonous thing, the woman; his fury would not distinguish +her as Clotilde, though the name had started him, and it was his +knowledge of the particular sinner which drew down his curses on the sex. +He twisted his body, hugging at his breast as if he had her letter +sticking in his ribs. The letter was up against his ribs, and he thumped +it, crushed it, patted it; he kissed it, and flung it, stamped on it, and +was foul-mouthed. Seeing it at his feet, he bent to it like a man +snapped in two, lamenting, bewailing himself, recovering sight of her +fragmentarily. It stuck in his ribs, and in scorn of the writer, and +sceptical of her penning it, he tugged to pull it out, and broke the +shaft, but left the rankling arrow-head:--she had traced the lines, and +though tyranny racked her to do that thing, his agony followed her hand +over the paper to her name, which fixed and bit in him like the deadly- +toothed arrow-head called asp, and there was no uprooting it. The thing +lived; her deed was the woman; there was no separating them: witness it +in love murdered. + +O that woman! She has murdered love. She has blotted love completely +out. She is the arch-thief and assassin of mankind--the female Apollyon. +He lost sight of her in the prodigious iniquity covering her sex with a +cowl of night, and it was what women are, what women will do, the one and +all alike simpering simulacra that men find them to be, soulless, clogs +on us, bloodsuckers! until a feature of the particular sinner peeped out +on him, and brought the fresh agony of a reminder of his great- +heartedness. 'For that woman--Tresten, you know me--I would have +sacrificed for that woman fortune and life, my hope, my duty, my +immortality. She knew it, and she--look!' he unwrinkled the letter +carefully for it to be legible, and clenched it in a ball.' Signs her +name, signs her name, her name!--God of heaven! it would be incredible in +a holy chronicle--signs her name to the infamous harlotry! See: +"Clotilde von Rudiger." It's her writing; that's her signature: +"Clotilde" in full. You'd hardly fancy that, now? But look!' the +colonel's eyelids were blinking, and Alvan dinted his finger-nail under +her name: 'there it is: Clotilde: signed shamelessly. Just as she might +have written to one of her friends about bonnets, and balls, and books! +Henceforward strangers, she and I?' + +His laughter, even to Tresten, a man of camps, sounded profane as a +yell beneath a cathedral dome. 'Why, the woman has been in my hands-- +I released her, spared her, drilled brain and blood, ransacked all the +code, to do her homage and honour in every mortal way; and we two +strangers! Do you hear that, Tresten? Why, if you had seen her!--she +was lost, and I, this man she now pierces with ice, kept hell down under +bolt and bar-worse, I believe, broke a good woman's heart! that never a +breath should rise that could accuse her on suspicion, or in malice, or +by accident, justly, or with a shadow of truth. "I think it best for us +both." So she thinks for me! She not only decides, she thinks; she is +the active principle; 'tis mine to submit.--A certain presumption was in +that girl always. Ha! do you hear me? Her letter may sting, it shall +not dupe. Strangers? Poor fool! You see plainly she was nailed down to +write the thing. This letter is a flat lie. She can lie--Oh! born to +the art! born to it!--lies like a Saint tricking Satan! But she says she +has left the city. Now to find her!' + +He began marching about the room with great strides. 'I 'll have the +whole Continent up; her keepers shall have no rest; I 'll have them by +the Law Courts; and by stratagem, and, if law and cunning fail, force. +I have sworn it. I have done all that honour can ask of a man; more than +any man, to my knowledge, would have done, and now it's war. I declare +war on them. They will have it! I mean to take that girl from them-- +snatch or catch! The girl is my girl, and if there are laws against my +having my own, to powder with the laws! Well, and do you suppose me +likely to be beaten? Then Cicero was a fiction, and Caesar a people's +legend. Not if they are history, and eloquence and commandership have +power over the blood and souls of men. First, I write to her!' + +His friend suggested that he knew not where she was. But already the pen +was at work, the brain pouring as from a pitcher. + +Writing was blood-letting, and the interminable pages drained him of his +fever. As he wrote, she grew more radiant, more indistinct, more +fiercely desired. The concentration of his active mind directed his +whole being on the track of Clotilde, idealizing her beyond human. +That last day when he had seen her appeared to him as the day of days. +That day was Clotilde herself, she in person; he saw it as the woman, +and saw himself translucent in the great luminousness; and behind it all +was dark, as in front. That one day was the sun of his life. It had +been a day of rain, and he beheld it in memory just as it had been, with +the dark threaded air, the dripping streets; and he glorified it past all +daily radiance. His letter was a burning hymn to the day. His moral +grandeur on the day made him live as part of the splendour. Was it +possible for the woman who had seen him then to be faithless to him? +The swift deduction from his own feelings cleansed her of a suspicion +to the contrary, and he became lighthearted. He hummed an air when he +had finished his letter to her. + +Councils with his adherents and couriers were held, and some were +despatched to watch the house and slip the letter to her maid; others +were told off to bribe and hound their way on the track of Clotilde. +His gold rained into their hands with the directions. + +Colonel von Tresten was the friend of his attachment to the baroness; +a friend of both, and a warm one. Men coming into contact with Alvan +took their shape of friend or enemy sharply, for he was friend or enemy. +of no dubious feature, devoted to them he loved, and a battery on them he +opposed. The colonel had been the confidant of the baroness's grief over +this love-passion of Alvan's, and her resignation. He shared her doubts +of Clotilde's nobility of character: the reports were not favourable to +the young lady. But the baroness and he were of one opinion, that Alvan +in love was not likely to be governable by prudent counsel. He dropped a +word of the whispers of Clotilde's volatility. + +Alvan nodded his perfect assent. 'She is that, she is anything you like; +you cannot exaggerate her for good or evil. She is matchless, colour her +as you please.' Adopting the tone of argument, he said: 'She writes that +letter. Well? It is her writing, and the moment, I am sure of it as +hers, I would not have it unwritten. I love it!' He looked maddish with +his love of the horrible thing, and resumed soberly: 'The point is, that +she has the charm for me. She is plastic in my hands. Other men would +waste the treasure. I make of her what I will, and she knows it, and +knows that she hangs on me to flourish worthily. I breathe the very soul +of the woman into her. As for that letter of hers--' it burnt him this +time to speak of the letter: 'she may write and write! She's weak, thin, +a reed; she--let her be! Say of her when she plays beast--she is absent +from Alvan! I can forgive. The letter's nothing; it means nothing-- +except "Thou fool, Alvan, to let me go." Yes, that! Her people are +acting tyrant with her--as legally they have no right to do in this +country, and I shall prove it to them. When I have gained admission to +her--and I soon shall: it can't be refused: I am off to the head of her +father's office to-morrow, and I have only to represent the state of +affairs to the Minister in my language to obtain his authority to demand +admission to her:--then, friend, you will see! I lift my finger, and you +will see! At my request she went back to her mother. I have but to +beckon.' + +He had cooled to the happy assurance of his authority over her, all the +giants of his system being well in action, and when that is the case with +a big nature it is at rest, or such is the condition of repose granted it +in life. + +On the morrow he was off to batter at doors which would have expected +rather the summons of an armed mob at his heels than the strange cry of +the Radical man maltreated by love. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The story of Clotilde's departure from the city, like that of Alvan's, +communicated to her by her maid, was an anticipation of the truth, +disseminated by her parents. She was removed when the swarm of spies and +secret letter-bearers were attaining a position of dignity through the +rumour of legal gentlemen about to direct the movements of the besieging +army. + +A stir seemed to her to prognosticate a rescue and she went not +unwillingly. To be in motion, to see roadside faces, pricked her senses +with some hope. She had gained the peace she needed, and in that state +her heart began to be agitated by a fresh awakening, luxurious at first +rather than troublesome. She had sunk so low that the light of Alvan +seemed too distant for a positive expectation of him; but few approached +her whom she did not fancy under strange disguises: the gentlemen were +servants, the blouses were gentlemen; she looked wistfully at old women +bearing baskets, for the forbidden fruit to peep out in the form of an +envelope. All passed her blankly, noticing her eyes. + +The journey was short; she was taken to a place a little beyond the head +of the lake, and there, though she had liberty to breathe the air, fast +fixed within the walls of a daily sameness that became gradually the hum +of voices accusing Alvan of one in excess of the many sins laid against +him by his enemies. Was he not possibly an empty pretender to power-- +a mere great talker? + +Her bit of liberty increased her chafing at the deadly monotony of this +existence, and envenomed the accusation by seeming to push her forth +quite half way to meet him, if he would but come or show sign! She +impetuously vindicated him from the charge of crediting the sincerity of +any words she might have committed to paper at the despotic dictation of +her father. Oh, no; Alvan could not be guilty of such folly as that; he +could not; it would be to suppose him unacquainted with her, ignorant of +the nature of women. He would know that she wrote the words--why? She +could not perfectly recollect how she had come to write them, and found +it easier to extinguish the act of having written them at all, which was +done by the angry recurrence to his failure to intervene now when the +drama cried for his godlike appearance. Perhaps he was really +unacquainted with her thought her stronger than she was! The idea +reflected a shadow on his intelligence. She was not in a situation that +could bear of her blaming herself. + +While she was thus devoured by the legions of her enfeebled wits, +Clotilde was assiduously courted by her family, and her father from time +to time brought pen and paper for her to write anew from his dictation. +He was pleased to hail her as his fair secretary, and when the letters +were unimportant she wrote flowingly, happy to be praised. They were +occasionally addressed to friends; she discovered herself writing one to +the professor, in which he was about to be informed that she had resolved +to banish Alvan from her mind for ever. She stopped; her heart stopped; +the pen fell from her hand, in loathing. Her father warily bade her +proceed. She could not; she signified it choking. Only a few days +before she had written to the professor exultingly of her engagement. +She refused to belie herself in such a manner; retrospectively her rapid +contradictions appeared impossible; the picture of her was not human, and +she gave out a negative of her whole frame convulsed, whereat the General +was not slow to remind her of the scourgings she had undergone by a +sudden burst of his wrath. He knew the proper physic. 'You girls want +the lesson we read to skittish recruits; you shall have it. Write: "He +is now as nothing to me." You shall write that you hate him, if you +hesitate! Why, you unreasonable slut, you have given him up; you have +told him you have given him up, and what objection can you have to +telling others now you have done it?' + +'I was forced to it, body and soul!' cried Clotilde, sobbing and bursting +into desperation out of a weak show of petulance that she had put on to +propitiate him. 'If I have to tell, I will tell how it was. For that my +heart is unchanged, and Alvan is, and will be, my lord, all the world may +see. I would rather write that I hate him.' + +'You write, the man is now as nothing to me!' said her father, dashing +his finger in a fiery zig-zag along the line for her pen to follow. 'Or +else, my girl, you've been playing us a pretty farce!' He strung himself +for a mad gallop of wrath, gave her a shudder, and relapsed. 'No, no, +you're wiser, you're a better girl than that. Write it. I must have it +written-here, come! The worst is over; the rest is child's play. Come, +take the pen, I'll guide your hand.' + +The pen was fixed in her hand, and the first words formed. They looked +such sprawling skeletons that Clotilde had the comfort of feeling sure +they would be discerned as the work of compulsion. So she wrote on +mechanically, solacing herself for what she did with vows of future +revolt. Alvan had a saying, that want of courage is want of sense; and +she remembered his illustration of how sense would nourish courage by +scattering the fear of death, if we would only grasp the thought that we +sink to oblivion gladly at night, and, most of us, quit it reluctantly in +the morning. She shut her eyes while writing; she fancied death would be +welcome; and as she certainly had sense, she took it for the promise of +courage. She flattered herself by believing, therefore, that she who did +not object to die was only awaiting the cruelly-delayed advent of her +lover to be almost as brave as he--the feminine of him. With these ideas +in her head much clearer than when she wrote the couple of lines to +Alvan--for then her head was reeling, she was then beaten and prostrate-- +she signed her name to a second renunciation of him, and was aware of a +flush of self-reproach at the simple suspicion of his being deceived by +it; it was an insult to his understanding. Full surely the professor +would not be deceived, and a lover with a heart to reach to her and read +her could never be hoodwinked by so palpable a piece of slavishness. She +was indeed slavish; the apology necessitated the confession. But that +promise of courage, coming of her ownership of sense, vindicated her +prospectively; she had so little of it that she embraced it as a present +possession, and she made it Alvan's task to put it to the trial. Hence +it became Alvan's offence if, owing to his absence, she could be charged +with behaving badly. Her generosity pardoned him his inexplicable delay +to appear in his might: 'But see what your continued delay causes!' she +said, and her tone was merely sorrowful. + +She had forgotten her signature to the letter to the professor when his +answer arrived. The sight of the handwriting of one of her lover's +faithfullest friends was like a peal of bells to her, and she tore the +letter open, and began to blink and spell at a strange language, taking +the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in her +resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high +intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress +moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and had +within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this man-- +if living man he could be thought--counselled her to endeavour to deserve +the love and respect of her parents, alluded to Alvan's age and her +better birth, approved her resolve to consult the wishes of her family, +and in fine was as rank a traitor to friendship as any chronicled. Out +on him! She swept him from earth. + +And she had built some of her hopes on the professor. 'False friend!' +she cried. + +She wept over Alvan for having had so false a friend. + +There remained no one that could be expected to intervene with a strong +arm save the baroness. The professor's emphasized approval of her +resolve to consult the wishes of her family was a shocking hypocrisy, and +Clotilde thought of the contrast to it in her letter to the baroness. +The tripping and stumbling, prettily awkward little tone of gosling +innocent new from its egg, throughout the letter, was a triumph of +candour. She repeated passages, paragraphs, of the letter, assuring +herself that such affectionately reverential prattle would have moved +her, and with the strongest desire to cast her arms about the writer: it +had been composed to be moving to a woman, to any woman. The old woman +was entreated to bestow her blessing on the young one, all in Arcadia, +and let the young one nestle to the bosom she had not an idea of robbing. +She could not have had the idea, else how could she have made the +petition? And in order to compliment a venerable dame on her pure +friendship for a gentleman, it was imperative to reject the idea. +Besides, after seeing the photograph of the baroness, common civility +insisted on the purity of her friendship. Nay, in mercy to the poor +gentleman, friendship it must be. + +A letter of reply from that noble lady was due. Possibly she had +determined not to write, but to act. She was a lady of exalted birth, +a lady of the upper aristocracy, who could, if she would, bring both a +social and official pressure upon the General: and it might be in motion +now behind the scenes, Clotilde laid hold of her phantom baroness, almost +happy under the phantom's whisper that she need not despair. 'You have +been a little weak,' the phantom said to her, and she acquiesced with a +soft sniffle, adding: 'But, dearest, honoured lady, you are a woman, and +know what our trials are when we are so persecuted. O that I had your +beautiful sedateness! I do admire it, madam. I wish I could imitate.' +She carried her dramatic ingenuousness farthel still by saying: 'I have +seen your photograph'; implying that the inimitable, the much coveted air +of composure breathed out of yonder presentment of her features. 'For I +can't call you good looking,' she said within herself, for the +satisfaction of her sense of candour, of her sense of contrast as well. +And shutting her eyes, she thought of the horrid penitent a harsh-faced +woman in confession must be: + +The picture sent her swimmingly to the confessional, where sat a man with +his head in a hood, and he soon heard enough of mixed substance to dash +his hood, almost his head, off. Beauty may be immoderately frank in soul +to the ghostly. The black page comprised a very long list. 'But put +this on the white page,' says she to the surging father inside his box-- +'I loved Alvan!' A sentence or two more fetches the Alvanic man jumping +out of the priest: and so closely does she realize it that she has to +hunt herself into a corner with the question, whether she shall tell him +she guessed him to be no other than her lover. 'How could you expect a +girl, who is not a Papist, to come kneeling here?' she says. And he +answers with no matter what of a gallant kind. + +In this manner her natural effervescence amused her sorrowful mind while +gazing from her chamber window at the mountain sides across the valley, +where tourists, in the autumnal season, sweep up and down like a tidal +river. She had ceased to weep; she had outwept the colour of her eyes +and the consolation of weeping. Dressed in black to the throat, she sat +and waited the arrival of her phantom friend, the baroness--that angel! +who proved her goodness in consenting to be the friend of Alvan's +beloved, because she was the true friend of Alvan! How cheap such a way +of proving goodness, Clotilde did not consider. She wanted it so. + +The mountain heights were in dusty sunlight. She had seen them day after +day thinly lined on the dead sky, inviting thunder and doomed to +sultriness. She looked on the garden of the house, a desert under bee +and butterfly. Looking beyond the garden she perceived her father on the +glaring road, and one with him, the sight of whom did not flush her cheek +or spring her heart to a throb, though she pitied the poor boy: he was +useless to her, utterly. + +Soon her Indian Bacchus was in her room, and alone with her, and at her +feet. Her father had given him hope. He came bearing eyes that were +like hope's own; and kneeling, kissing her hands, her knees, her hair, he +seemed unaware that she was inanimate. + +There was nothing imaginable in which he could be of use. + +He was only another dust-cloud of the sultry sameness. She had been +expecting a woman, a tempest choral with sky and mountain and valley- +hollows, as the overture to Alvan's appearance. + +But he roused her. With Marko she had never felt her cowardice, and his +passionately beseeching, trembling, 'Will you have me?' called up the +tiger in the girl; in spite of pity for his voice she retorted on her +parents: + +'Will I have you? I? You ask me what is my will? It sounds oddly from +you, seeing that I wrote to you in Lucerne what I would have, and nothing +has changed in me since then, nothing! My feeling for him is unaltered, +and everything you have heard of me was wrung out of me by my +unhappiness. The world is dead to me, and all in it that is not. +Sigismund Alvan. To you I am accustomed to speak every thought of my +soul, and I tell you the world and all it has is dead to me, even my +parents--I hate them.' + +Marko pressed her hands. If he loved her slavishly, it was generously. +The wild thing he said was one of the frantic leaps of generosity in a +heart that was gone to impulse: 'I see it, they have martyrized you. +I know you so well, Clotilde! So, then, come to me, come with me, let me +cherish you. I will take you and rescue you from your people, and should +it be your positive wish to meet Alvan again, I myself will take you to +him, and then you may choose between us.' + +The generosity was evident. There was nevertheless, to a young woman +realizing the position foreshadowed by such a project, the suspicion of a +slavish hope nestling among the circumstances in the background, and this +she was taught by the dangerous emotion of gratitude gaining on her, and +melting her to him. + +She too had a slavish hope that was athirst and sinking, and it flew at +the throat of Marko's, eager to satiate its vengeance for these long +delays in the destroying of a weaker. + +She left her chair and cried: 'As you will. What is it to me? Take me, +if you please. Take that glove; it is the shape of my hand. You have as +much of me as is there. My life is gone. You or another! But take this +warning and my oath with it. I swear to you, that wherever I see +Sigismund Alvan I go straight to him, though the way be over you, all of +you, lying dead beneath me.' + +The lift of incredulous horror in Marko's large black eyes excited her to +a more savage imagination: 'Rejoice! I should rejoice to see you, all of +you, dead, that I might walk across you safe from disturbance to get to +him I love. Be under no delusion. I love him better than the lives of +any dear to me, or my own. I am his. He is my faith, my worship. I am +true to him, I am, I am. You force my hand from me, you take this +miserable body, but my soul is free to love him and to go to him when God +gives me sight of him. I am Alvan's eternally. All your laws are +mockeries. You, and my people, and your priests, and your law-makers, +are shadows, brain-vapours. Let him beckon!--So you have your warning. +Do what I may, I cannot be called untrue. And now let me be; I want +repose; my head breaks; I have been on the rack and I am in pieces!' + +Marko clung to her hand, said she was terrible and pitiless, but clung. + +The hand was nerveless: it was her dear hand. Had her tongue been more +venomous in wildness than the encounter with a weaker than herself made +it be, the holding of her hand would have been his antidote. In him +there was love for two. + +Clotilde allowed him to keep the hand, assuring herself she was +unconscious he did so. He brought her peace, he brought her old throning +self back to her, and he was handsome and tame as a leopard-skin at her +feet. + +If she was doomed to reach to Alvan through him, at least she had warned +him. The vision of the truthfulness of her nature threw a celestial wan +beam on her guilty destiny. + +She patted his head and bade him leave her, narrowing her shoulders on +the breast to let it be seen that the dark household within was locked +and shuttered. + +He went. He was good, obedient, humane; he was generous, exquisitely +bred; he brought her peace, and he had been warned. It is difficult in +affliction to think of one who belongs to us as one to whom we owe a +duty. The unquestionably sincere and devoted lover is also in his +candour a featureless person; and though we would not punish him for his +goodness, we have the right to anticipate that it will be equal to every +trial. Perhaps, for the sake of peace . . . after warning him . . . +her meditations tottered in dots. + +But when the heart hungers behind such meditations, that thinking without +language is a dangerous habit; for there will suddenly come a dash +usurping the series of tentative dots, which is nothing other than the +dreadful thing resolved on, as of necessity, as naturally as the +adventurous bow-legged infant pitches back from an excursion of two paces +to mother's lap; and not much less innocently within the mind, it would +appear. The dash is a haven reached that would not be greeted if it +stood out in words. Could we live without ourselves letting our animal +do our thinking for us legibly? We live with ourselves agreeably so long +as his projects are phrased in his primitive tongue, even though we have +clearly apprehended what he means, and though we sufficiently well +understand the whither of our destination under his guidance. No counsel +can be saner than that the heart should be bidden to speak out in plain +verbal speech within us. For want of it, Clotilde's short explorations +in Dot-and-Dash land were of a kind to terrify her, and yet they seemed +not only unavoidable, but foreshadowing of the unavoidable to come. +Or possibly--the thought came to her--Alvan would keep his word, and save +her from worse by stepping to the altar between her and Marko, there +calling on her to decide and quit the prince; and his presence would +breathe courage into her to go. to him. It set her looking to the altar +as a prospect of deliverance. + +Her mother could not fail to notice a change in Clotilde's wintry face +now that Marko was among them; her inference tallied with his report of +their interview, so she supposed the girl to have accepted more or less +heartily Marko's forgiveness. For him the girl's eyes were soft and +kind; her gaze was through the eyelashes, as one seeing a dream on a far +horizon. Marko spoke of her cheerfully, and was happy to call her his +own, but would not have her troubled by any ceremonial talk of their +engagement, so she had much to thank him for, and her consciousness of +the signal instance of ingratitude lying ahead in the darkness, like a +house mined beneath the smiling slumberer, made her eager to show the +real gratefulness and tenderness of her feelings. This had the +appearance of renewed affection; consequently her parents lost much of +their fear of the besieger outside, and she was removed to the city. +Two parties were in the city, one favouring Alvan, and one abhorring the +audacious Jew. Together they managed to spread incredible reports of his +doings, which required little exaggeration to convince an enemy that he +was a man with whom hostility could not be left to sleep. The General +heard of the man's pleading his cause in all directions to get pressure +put upon him, showing something like a devilish persuasiveness, Jew and +demagogue though he was; for there seemed to be a feeling abroad that the +interview this howling lover claimed with Clotilde ought to be granted. +The latest report spoke of him as off to the General's Court for an +audience of his official chief. General von Rudiger looked to his +defences, and he had sufficient penetration to see that the weakest point +of them might be a submissive daughter. + +A letter to Clotilde from the baroness was brought to the house by a +messenger. The General thought over it. The letter was by no means a +seductive letter for a young lady to receive from such a person, yet he +did not anticipate the whole effect it would produce when ultimately he +decided to give it to her, being of course unaware of the noble style of +Clotilde's address to the baroness. He stipulated that there must be no +reply to it except through him, and Clotilde had the coveted letter in +her hands at last. Here was the mediatrix--the veritable goddess with +the sword to cut the knot! Here was the manifestation of Alvan! + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Above all things I detest the writing for money +Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip +Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position +Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity +Hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences +His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability +I give my self, I do not sell +Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful +Not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself +O for yesterday! +Professional widows +Self-consoled when they are not self-justified +Want of courage is want of sense +We shall not be rich--nor poor +Work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v2 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +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 + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, v3 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, TRAGIC COMEDIANS, COMPLETE: + +A tragic comedian: that is, a grand pretender, a self-deceiver +Above all things I detest the writing for money +At the age of forty, men that love love rootedly +Barriers are for those who cannot fly +Be good and dull, and please everybody +Beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip +Centres of polished barbarism known as aristocratic societies +Clotilde fenced, which is half a confession +Comparisons will thrust themselves on minds disordered +Compromise is virtual death +Conservative, whose astounded state paralyzes his wrath +Creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change +Dignitary, and he passed under the bondage of that position +Dissent rings out finely, and approval is a feeble murmur +Do you judge of heroes as of lesser men? +Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the ways of women +Fantastical +Finishing touches to the negligence +Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make use of Giant Duplicity +Gone to pieces with an injured lover's babble +Gradations appear to be unknown to you +He had to go, he must, he has to be always going +He stormed her and consented to be beaten +Hesitating strangeness that sometimes gathers during absences +His violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence +His apparent cynicism is sheer irritability +Hosts of men are of the simple order of the comic +I give my self, I do not sell +I have learnt as much from light literature as from heavy +I would wait till he flung you off, and kneel to you +If you have this creative soul, be the slave of your creature +Imagination she has, for a source of strength in the future days +Looking on him was listening +Love the difficulty better than the woman +Men in love are children with their mistresses +Metaphysician's treatise on Nature: a torch to see the sunrise +Music in Italy? Amorous and martial, brainless and monotonous +Night has little mercy for the self-reproachful +Not much esteem for non-professional actresses +Not in a situation that could bear of her blaming herself +O for yesterday! +Pact between cowardice and comfort under the title of expediency +Philosophy skimmed, and realistic romances deep-sounded +Polished barbarism +Professional widows +Providence and her parents were not forgiven +Scorned him for listening to the hesitations (hers) +Self-consoled when they are not self-justified +She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each +She felt in him a maker of facts +Strength in love is the sole sincerity +The worst of omens is delay +The way is clear: we have only to take the step +The brainless in Art and in Statecraft +Time is due to us, and the minutes are our gold slipping away +Time and strength run to waste in retarding the inevitable +To have no sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a mind +Trick for killing time without hurting him +Two wishes make a will +Venerated by his followers, well hated by his enemies +Want of courage is want of sense +We shall not be rich--nor poor +Weak souls are much moved by having the pathos on their side +Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? +Win you--temperately, let us hope; by storm, if need be +Work of extravagance upon perceptibly plain matter +World voluntarily opens a path to those who step determinedly + + + + +[The End] + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Tragic Comedians, Complete, by Meredith +***********This file should be named gm70v10.txt or gm70v10.zip*********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm70v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm70v10a.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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