LIFE WITHOUT LOVE
As Dennis realized the truth, and remembered what he had said, his
face was scarcely less full of pain than Christine's. He saw that her
whole soul was bent on an imitation that none could detect, and that
he had foiled her purpose. But Christine's wound was deeper than that.
She had been told again, clearly and correctly, that the sphere of
high, true art was beyond her reach. She felt that the verdict was
true, and her own judgment confirmed every word Dennis uttered. But
she had done her best; therefore her suffering was truly agony--the
pain and despair at failure in the most cherished hope of life. There
seemed a barrier which, from the very limitations of her being, she
could not pass. She did not fail from the lack of taste, culture, or
skill, but in that which was like a sixth sense--something she did not
possess. Lacking the power to touch and move the heart, she knew she
could never be a great artist.
Abruptly and without a word she left the room and store, accompanied
by the Winthrops. Dennis felt as if he could bite his tongue out, and
Christine's face haunted him like a dreadful apparition. Wherever he
turned he saw it so distorted by pain, and almost hate, that it scarcely
seemed the same that had smiled on him as he entered at her invitation.
"Truly God is against all this," groaned he, to himself; "and what I
in my weakness could not do He has accomplished by this unlooked-for
scene. She will now ever regard me with aversion."
Dennis, like many another, thought he saw God's plan clearly from a
mere glimpse of a part of it. He at once reached this miserable
conclusion, and suffered as greatly as if it had been God's will,
instead of his own imagination. To wait and trust is often the latest
lesson we learn in life.
Mr. Ludolph's guests, absorbed in the pictures, at first scarcely
noticed the departure of the others.
Christine, with consummate skill and care, kept her relationship to
the picture unknown to all save the Winthrops, meaning not to
acknowledge it unless she succeeded. But in Dennis's startled and
pained face she saw that he had read her secret, and this fact also
annoyed her much.
"I should like to know the artist who copied this painting," said Mr.
Cornell.
"The artist is an amateur, and not willing to come before the public
at present," said Mr. Ludolph, so decidedly that no further questions
were asked.
"I am much interested in that young clerk of yours," said Mr. French.
"He seems to understand himself. It is so hard to find a good
discriminating judge of pictures. Do you expect to keep him?"
"Yes, I do," said Mr. Ludolph, with such emphasis that his rival in
trade pressed that point also no further.
"Well, really, Mr. Ludolph," said one of the gentlemen, "you deal in
wonders, mysteries, and all sorts of astonishing things yere. We have
an unknown artist in Chicago deserving an ovation; you have in your
employ a prince of critics, and if I mistake not he is the same who
sang at Brown's some little time ago. Miss Brown told me that he was
your porter."
"Yes, I took him as a stranger out of work and knew nothing of him.
But he proved to be an educated and accomplished man, who will doubtless
be of great use to me in time. Of course I promoted him when I found
him out." These last remarks were made for Mr. French's benefit rather
than for any one's else. He intended that his rival should knowingly
violate all courtesy if he sought to lure Dennis away. After admiring
the paintings and other things recently received, the gentlemen bowed
themselves out.
On leaving the store Mr. Winthrop--feeling awkward in the presence of
the disappointed girl--had pleaded business, and bidden her adieu with
a warm grasp of the hand and many assurances that she had succeeded
beyond his belief.
"I know you mean kindly in what you say," said Christine, while not
the slightest gleam lighted up her pale, sad face. "Good-by."
She, too, was relieved, and wished to be alone. Miss Winthrop sought
to comfort her friend as they walked homeward.
"Christine, you look really ill. I don't see why you take this matter
so to heart. You have achieved a success that would turn any head but
yours. I could not believe it possible had I not seen it. Your ambition
and ideal are so lofty that you will always make yourself miserable
by aiming at the impossible. As Mr. Fleet said, I do not believe there
is another in the city who could have done so well, and if you can do
that now, what may you not accomplish by a few years more of work?"
"That's the terrible part of it," said Christine, with a long sigh.
"Susie, I have attained my growth. I can never be a real artist and
no one living can ever know the bitterness of my disappointment. I do
not believe in the immortality that you do, and this was my only chance
to live beyond the brief hour of my life. If I could only have won for
myself a place among the great names that the world will ever honor,
I might with more content let the candle of my existence flicker out
when it must. But I have learned to-day what I have often feared--that
Christine Ludolph must soon end in a forgotten handful of dust."
"Oh, Christine, if you could only believe!"
"I cannot. I tried in my last sickness, but vainly. I am more convinced
than ever of the correctness of my father's views."
Miss Winthrop sighed deeply. "Why are you so despondent?" she at last
asked.
As if half speaking to herself, Christine repeated the words, "'Painted
by one having never felt, or unable to feel, the emotions presented,
and therefore one who cannot portray them.' That is just the trouble.
I tried to speak in a language I do not know. Susie, I believe I am
about half ice. Sometimes I think I am like Undine, and have no soul.
I know I have no heart, in the sense that you have." "I live a very cold
sort of life," she continued, with a slight shudder. "I seem
surrounded by invisible barriers that I cannot pass. I can see, beyond,
what I want, but cannot reach it. Oh, Susie, if you knew what I suffered
when so ill! Everything seemed slipping from me. And yet why I should
so wish to live I hardly know, when my life is so narrowed down."
"You see the disease, but not the remedy," sighed Susie.
"What is the remedy?"
"_Love_. Love to God, and I may add love for some good man."
Christine stopped a moment and almost stamped her foot impatiently.
"You discourage me more than any one else," she cried. "As to loving
God, how can I love merely a name? and, even if He existed, how could
I love a Being who left His world so full of vile evils? As to human
love, faugh! I have had enough of romantic attachments."
"Do you never intend to marry?"
"Susie, you are the friend of my soul, and I trust you and you only
with our secret. Yes, I expect to marry, but not in this land. You
know that in Germany my father will eventually be a noble, the
representative of one of the most ancient and honorable families. We
shall soon have sufficient wealth to resume our true position there.
A husband will then be found for me. I only stipulate that he shall
be able to give me position among the first, and gratify my bent for
art to the utmost."
"Well, Christine, you are a strange girl, and your dream of the future
is stranger still."
"Sometimes I think that all is a dream, and may end like one. Nothing
seems certain or real, or turns out as one expects. Think of it. A
nobody who swept my father's store the other day has this morning made
such havoc in my dream that I am sick at heart."
"But you cannot blame Mr. Fleet. He did it unconsciously; he was goaded
on to do it. No _man_ could have done otherwise. You surely do not feel
hardly toward him?"
"We do not naturally love the lips and bless the voice that tell us
of an incurable disease. Oh, no," she added, "why should I think of
him at all? He merely happened to point out what I half suspected
myself. And yet the peculiar way this stranger crosses my path from
time to time almost makes me superstitious."
"And you seem to have peculiar power over him. He would have assuredly
left us in the lurch at our tableau party had it not been for you, and
I should not have blamed him. And to-day he seemed troubled and pained
beyond expression when he read from your face, as I imagine, that you
were the author of the picture."
"Yes, I saw that he discovered the fact, and this provokes me also.
If he should speak his thoughts--"
"I do not think he will. I am sure he will not if you caution him."
"That I will not do; and I think on the whole he has too much sense
to speak carelessly of what he imagined he saw in a lady's face. And
now, Susie, good-by. I shall not inflict my miserable self longer upon
you to-day, and I am one who can best cure my wounds in solitude."
"Do you cure them, Christine? or do you only cover them up? If I had
your creed nothing could cure my wounds. Time might deaden the pain,
and I forget them in other things, but I do not see where any cure
could come from. Oh, Christine! you did me good service when in the
deepening twilight of Miss Brown's parlor you showed me my useless,
unbelieving life. But I do believe now. The cross is radiant to me
now--more radiant than the one that so startled us then. Mr. Fleet's
words were true, I know, as I know my own existence. I could die for
my faith."
Christine frowned and said, almost harshly: "I don't believe in a
religion so full of crosses and death. Why could not the all-powerful
Being you believe in take away the evil from the world?"
"That is just what He came to do. In that very character he was pointed
out by His authorized forerunner: 'Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh
away the sin of the world.'"
"Why does he not do it then?" asked Christine, petulantly. "Centuries
have passed. Patience itself is wearied out. He has had time enough,
if He ever meant or had the power to fulfil the promise. But the world
is as full of evil and suffering as ever. Susie, I would not disturb
your credulous faith, for it seems to do you good; but to me Christ
was a noble but mistaken man, dead and buried centuries ago. He can
do for me no more than Socrates. They vigorously attacked evil in their
day, but evil was too much for them, as it is for us. We must just get
the most we can out of life, and endure what we cannot prevent or
escape. An angel could not convert me to-day--no, not even Susie
Winthrop, and that is saying more still;" and with a hasty kiss she
vanished.
Susie looked wistfully after her, and then bent her steps homeward
with a pitying face.
Christine at once went to her own private room. Putting on a loose
wrapper she threw herself on a lounge, and buried her face in the
cushions. Her life seemed growing narrow and meagre. Hour after hour
passed, and the late afternoon sun was shining into her room when she
arose from her bitter revery, and summed up all in a few words spoken
aloud, as was her custom when alone.
"Must I, after all, come down to the Epicurean philosophy, 'Let us
eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die'? I seem on a narrow
island, the ocean is all around me, and the tide is rising, _rising_. It
will cover _soon_ my standing-place, and then what becomes of Christine
Ludolph?"
A look of anguish came into the fair young face, and a slight shudder
passed over her. She glanced around a room furnished in costly elegance.
She saw her lovely person in the mirror opposite, and exclaimed: "What
a mystery it all is! I have so much, and yet so utterly fail of having
that which contents. I have all that wealth can purchase; and multitudes
act as if that were enough. I know I am beautiful. I can see that
yonder for myself, as well as read it in admiring eyes. And yet my
maid is better contented than I, and the boy who blacks the boots
better satisfied with his lot than either of us. I am raised so high
that I can see how much more there is or might be beyond. I feel like
one led into a splendid vestibule, only to find that the palace is
wanting, or that it is a mean hovel. All that I have only mocks me,
and becomes a means of torture. All that I am and have ought to be,
might be, a mere prelude, an earnest and a preparation for something
better beyond. But I am told, and must believe, that this is all, and
I may lose this in a moment and forever. It is as if a noble strain
of music commenced sweetly, and then suddenly broken down into a few
discordant notes and ceased. It is like my picture--all very well; but
that which would speak to and move the heart, year after year, when
the mere beauty ceased to please--that life or something is wanting.
What were his words?--'This picture is but the beautiful corpse of
the other'; and my life is but a cold marble effigy of a true life.
And yet is there any true and better life? If there is nothing better
beyond, I have been carried forward too far. Miss Brown thoroughly
enjoys champagne and flirtations. Susie Winthrop is happy in her
superstition, as any one might be who could believe what she does.
But I have gone past the power of taking up these things, as I have
gone past my childhood's sports. And now what is there for me? My most
dear and cherished hope--a hope that shone above my life like a sun--has
been blown away by the breath of my father's clerk (it required no
greater power to bring me down to my true level), and I hoped to be
a queen among men, high-born, but crowned with the richer coronet of
genius. I, who hoped to win so high a place that men would speak of
me with honest praise, now and in all future time, must be contented
as a mere accomplished woman, deemed worthy perhaps in time to grace
some nobleman's halls who in the nice social scale abroad may stand
a little higher than myself. I meant to shine and dazzle, to stoop to
give in every case; but now I must take what I can get, with a humble
'Thank you';" and she clenched her little powerless hands in impotent
revolt at what seemed very cruel destiny.
She appeared at the dinner-table outwardly calm and quiet. Her father
did not share in her bitter disappointment, and she saw that he did
not, and so felt more alone. He regarded her success as remarkable (as
it truly was), having never believed that she could copy a picture so
exactly as to deceive an ordinarily good observer. When, therefore,
old Schwartz and others were unable to distinguish between the pictures,
he was more than satisfied. He was sorry that Dennis had spoiled the
triumph, but could not blame him. At the same time he recognized in
Fleet another and most decided proof of intelligence on questions of
art, for he knew that his criticism was just. He believed that when
the true knight that his ambition would choose appeared, with golden
spurs and jewelled crest, then her deeper nature would awaken, and she
far surpass all previous effort. Moreover, he did not fully understand
or enter into her lofty ambition. To see her settled in life, titled,
rich, and a recognized leader in the aristocracy of his own land, was
his highest aspiration so far as she was concerned.
He began, therefore, in a strain of compliment to cheer his daughter
and rally her courage; but she shook her head sadly, and said so
decidedly, "Father, let us change the subject," that with some surprise
at her feelings he yielded to her wish, thinking that a little time
and experience would moderate her ideas and banish the pain of
disappointment. It was a quiet meal, both being occupied by their own
thoughts. Soon after he was absorbed for the evening by his cigar and
some business papers.
It was a mild, summer-like night, and a warm, gentle rain was falling.
Even in the midst of a great city the sweet odors of spring found their
way to the private parlor where Christine sat by the window, still
lost in painful thoughts.
"Nature is full of hope, and the promise of coming life. So ought I
to be in this my spring-time. Why am I not? If I am sad and disappointed
in my spring, how dreary will be my autumn, when leaf after leaf of
beauty, health, and strength drops away!"
A muffled figure, seemingly regardless of the rain, passed slowly down
the opposite side of the street. Though the person cast but a single
quick glance toward her window, and though the twilight was deepening,
something in the passer-by suggested Dennis Fleet. For a moment she
wished she could speak to him. She felt very lonely. Solitude had done
her no good. Her troubles only grew darker and more real as she brooded
over them. She instinctively felt that her father could not understand
her, and she had never been able to go to him for sympathy. He was not
the kind of person that any one would seek for such a purpose. Christine
was not inclined to confidence, and there was really no one who knew
her deeper feelings, and who could enter into her real hopes for life.
She was so proud and cold that few ever thought of giving her
confidence, much less of asking hers.
Up to the time of her recent illness she had been strong,
self-confident, almost assured of success. At times she recognized
dimly that something was wrong; but she shut her eyes to the unwelcome
truth, and determined to succeed. But her sickness and fears at that
time, and now a failure that seemed to destroy the ambition of her
life, all united in greatly shaking her self-confidence.
This evening, as never before, she was conscious of weakness and
dependence. With the instinct of one sinking, her spirit longed for
help and support. Then the thought suddenly occurred to her, "Perhaps
this young stranger, who so clearly pointed out the disease, may also
show the way to some remedy."
But the figure had passed on. In a moment mere pride and conventionality
resumed sway, and she smiled bitterly, saying to herself, "What a weak
fool I am to-night! Of all things let me not become a romantic miss
again."
She went to her piano and struck into a brilliant strain. For a few
moments the music was of a forced and defiant character, loud, gay,
but with no real or rollicking mirth in it, and it soon ceased. Then
in a sharp contrast came a sad, weird German ballad, and this was real.
In its pathos her burdened heart found expression, and whoever listened
then would not merely have admired, but would have felt. One song
followed another. All the pent-up feeling of the day seemed to find
natural flow in the plaintive minstrelsy of her own land.
Suddenly she ceased and went to her window. The muffled figure stood
in the shadow of an angle in the attitude of a listener. A moment later
it vanished in the dusk toward the business part of the city. The quick
footsteps died away, and only the patter of the falling rain broke the
silence. Christine felt sure that it was Dennis. At first her feeling
was one of pleasure. His coming and evident interest took somewhat,
she scarcely knew why, from her sense of loneliness. Soon her pride
awoke, however, and she said: "He has no business here to watch and
listen. I will show him that, with all his taste and intelligence, we
have no ground in common on which he can presume."
Her father had also listened to the music, and said to himself:
"Christine is growing a little sentimental. She takes this
disappointment too much to heart. I must touch her pride with the spur
a little, and that will make her ice and steel in a moment. It is no
slight task to keep a girl's heart safe till you want to use it. I will
wait till the practical daylight of to-morrow, and then she shall
look at the world through my eyes again."