CHRISTINE AT HOME.
When the girl Christine walked through the loitering crowd outside the
Hall, some of the people looked after her with wondering eyes.
"Strange!" said a woman. "She laughed! She laughed!"
"Ay," said another, "we have forgotten how to laugh. But we used to
laugh before"--she broke off with a sigh.
"And she sings," said a third. "I have heard her sing like a lark in
the Museum."
"Once," said the first woman, "we used to sing as well as laugh. I
remember, we used to sing. She makes us remember the old days."
"The bad old days"--it was one of the Assistant Physicians who
admonished her--"the times when nothing was certain, not even life,
from day to day. It should bring you increased happiness to think
sometimes of those old times."
The first woman who had spoken was one whom men would have called
beautiful in those old times, when their heads were turned by such a
thing as a woman's face. She was pale of cheek and had black eyes,
which, in those days of passion and jealousy, might have flashed like
lightning. Now they were dull. She was shapely of limb and figure too,
with an ample cheek and a full mouth. Formerly, in the days of love and
rage, those limbs would have been lithe and active; now they were heavy
and slow. Heaviness of movement and of eyes sensibly grows upon our
people. I welcome every indication of advance towards the Perfect Type
of Humanity which will do nothing but lie down, breathe, eat, and sleep.
"Yes," she replied with a deep sigh. "Nothing was certain. The bad old
times, when people died. But there was love, and we danced and sung and
laughed." She sighed again, and walked away alone, slowly, hanging her
head.
The girl passed through them, leading the old man by the hand.
I know very well, now, that we ought to have been suspicious. What
meant the gleam and sparkle of her eyes, when all other eyes were
dull? What meant the parting of her lips and the smile which always
lay upon them, when no one else smiled at all? Why did she carry her
head erect, when the rest walked with hanging heads? Why, again, did
she sing, when no one else sang? Why did she move as if her limbs were
on springs, when all the rest went slowly and heavily? These signs
meant mischief. I took them for the natural accompaniments of youth.
They meant more than youth: they meant dangerous curiosity; they
meant--presently--Purpose. How should one of the People dare to have a
Purpose unknown to the Sacred College? You shall hear.
All that followed was, in fact, due to our own blindness. We should
long before have shut up every avenue which might lead the curious to
the study of the Past; we should have closed the Museum and the Library
altogether. We did not, because we lived in the supposition that the
more the old times were investigated, the more the people would be
satisfied with the Present. When, indeed, one looks at the pictures
of battle, murder, cruelty, and all kinds of passion; when one reads
the old books, full of foolishness which can only be excused on the
plea of a life too short to have a right comprehension of anything, it
is amazing that the scene does not strike the observer with a kind of
horror. When, which is seldom, I carry my own memory back to the old
times and see myself before I went to the Laboratory, boy-of-all-work
to a Brewery, ordered here and there, working all day long with no
other prospect than to be a servant for a short span of life and then
to die; when I remember the people among whom I lived, poor, starving,
dependent from day to day on the chance of work, or, at best, from
week to week; when I think of the misery from which these poor people
have been rescued, I cannot find within me a spark of sympathy for the
misguided wretches who voluntarily exchanged their calm and happy
Present for the tumult and anxiety of the Past. However, we are not all
reasonable, as you shall hear.
It was already twilight outside, and in the Museum there was only
light enough to see that a few persons were assembled in the Great
Hall. Christine placed her grandfather in a high-backed wooden
chair, in which he spent most of his time, clutching at the arms and
fighting with his asthma. Then she turned up the electric light. It
showed a large, rather lofty room, oblong in shape. Old arms were
arranged round the walls; great glass-cases stood about, filled with a
collection of all kinds of things preserved from the old times. There
were illustrations of their arts, now entirely useless: such as the
jewels they wore, set in bracelets and necklaces; their gloves, fans,
rings, umbrellas, pictures, and statuary. Then there were cases filled
with the old implements of writing--paper, inkstands, pens, and so
forth--the people have long since left off writing; there were boxes
full of coins with which they bought things, and for which they sold
their freedom; there were things with which they played games--many
of them dangerous ones--and whiled away the tedium of their short
lives; there were models of the ships in which they went to sea, also
models of all kinds of engines and machines which slaves--they were
nearly all slaves--made for the purpose of getting more money for their
masters; there were also crowns, coronets, and mitres, which formerly
belonged to people who possessed what they called rank; there were the
praying-books which were formerly used every day in great buildings
like the House of Life; there were specimens of legal documents on
parchment, by the drawing up of which, when law existed, a great many
people procured a contemptible existence; there were also models, with
figures of the people in them, of Parliament Houses, Churches, and
Courts of Justice; there were life-size models of soldiers in uniform,
when men were of understanding so contemptible as to be tempted to
risk life--even life--in exchange for a gold-laced coat! But then our
ancestors were indescribably foolish. There were musical instruments of
all kinds--I have always been glad that music fell so soon into disuse.
It is impossible to cultivate contentment while music is practised.
Besides the ordinary weapons--sword, pike, and javelin--there were all
kinds of horrible inventions, such as vast cannons, torpedo boats,
dynamite shells, and so forth, for the destruction of towns, ships, and
armor. It is a great and splendid Collection, but it ought to have been
long, long before transferred to the custody of the Holy College.
The girl looked inquiringly at her visitors, counting them all. There
were ten--namely, five men and five women. Like all the people, they
were young--the men about thirty, the women about twenty-two or
twenty-three. The men were dressed in their blue flannels, with a
flat cap of the same material; the women in their gray beige, short
frock, the flat gray cap under which their hair was gathered, gray
stockings, and heavy shoes. The dress was, in fact, invented by myself
for both sexes. It has many advantages. First, there is always plenty
of the stuff to be had; next, both flannel and beige are soft, warm,
and healthy textures--with such a dress there is no possibility of
distinction or of superiority; and, lastly, with such a dress the women
have lost all power of setting forth their attractions so as to charm
the men with new fashions, crafty subtleties of dress, provocations
of the troublesome passion of love in the shape of jewels, ribbons,
gloves, and the like. No one wears gloves: all the women's hands are
hard; and although they are still young and their faces are unchanged,
their eyes are dull and hard. I am pleased to think that there is no
more foolishness of love among us.
The people were standing or sitting about, not together, but
separately--each by himself or herself. This tendency to solitary
habits is a most healthy indication of the advance of humanity.
Self-preservation is the first Law--separate and solitary existence is
the last condition--of mankind. They were silent and regardless of each
other. Their attitude showed the listlessness of their minds.
"I am glad you are here," said Christine. "You promised you would not
fail me. And yet, though you promised, I feared that at the last moment
you might change your mind. I was afraid that you would rather not be
disturbed in the even current of your thoughts."
"Why disturb our minds?" asked one, a woman. "We were at peace before
you began to talk of the Past. We had almost forgotten it. And it is so
long ago"--her voice sank to a murmur--"so long ago."
They all echoed,
"It is so long ago--so long ago!"
"Oh," cried the girl, "you call this to be at peace! Why, if you were
so many stones in the garden you could not be more truly at peace. To
work, to rest, to eat, to sleep--you call that Life! And yet you can
remember--if you please--the time when you were full of activity and
hope."
"If to remember is to regret, why should we invite the pain of regret?
We cannot have the old life except with the old conditions; the short
life and the--"
"If I could remember--if I had ever belonged to the Past," the girl
interrupted, quickly; "oh, I would remember every moment--I would
live every day of the old life over and over again. But I can do
nothing--nothing--but read of the splendid Past and look forward to
such a future as your own. Alas! why was I born at all, since I was
born into such a world as this? Why was I called into existence when
all the things of which I read every day have passed away? And what
remains in their place?"
"We have Life," said one of the men, but not confidently.
"Life! Yes--and what a life! Oh, what a life! Well, we waste time.
Listen now--and if you can, for once forget the present and recall the
past. Do not stay to think how great a gulf lies between; do not count
the years--indeed, you cannot. Whether they are one hundred or five
hundred they do not know, even at the Holy College itself. I am sure it
will make you happier--'twill console and comfort you--in this our life
of desperate monotony, only to remember--to recall--how you used to
live."
They answered with a look of blank bewilderment.
"It is so long ago--so long ago," said one of them again.
"Look around you. Here are all the things that used to be your own. Let
them help you to remember. Here are the arms that the men carried when
they went out to fight; here are the jewels that the women wore. Think
of your dress in the days when you were allowed to dress, and we did
not all wear frocks of gray beige, as if all women were exactly alike.
Will that not help?"
They looked about them helplessly. No, they did not yet remember; their
dull eyes were filled with a kind of anxious wonder, as might be seen
in one rudely awakened out of sleep. They looked at the things in the
great room, but that seemed to bring nothing back to their minds. The
Present was round them like a net which they could neither cut through
nor see through; it was a veil around them through which they could not
pass. It had been so long with them; it was so unchanging; for so long
they had had nothing to expect; for so long, therefore, they had not
cared to look back. The Holy College had produced, in fact, what it had
proposed and designed. The minds of the people had become quiescent.
And to think that so beautiful a state of things should be destroyed by
a girl--the only child in the Community!
"Will it help," said the girl, "if we turn down the light a little?
So. Now we are almost in darkness, but for the moonlight through the
window. In the old times, when you were children, I have read that
you loved to sit together and to tell stories. Let us tell each other
stories."
Nobody replied; but the young man called Jack took Christine's hand and
held it.
"Let us try," said the girl again. "I will tell you a story. Long ago
there were people called gentlefolk. Grandad here was a gentleman. I
have read about them in the old books. I wonder if any of you remember
those people. They were exempt from work; the lower sort worked for
them; they led a life of ease; they made their own work for themselves.
Some of the men fought for their country--it was in the old time,
you know, when men still fought; some worked for their country; some
worked for the welfare of those who worked for bread; some only amused
themselves; some were profligates, and did wicked things--"
She paused--no one responded.
"The women had no work to do at all. They only occupied themselves in
making everybody happy; they were treated with the greatest respect;
they were not allowed to do anything at all that could be done for
them; they played and sang; they painted and embroidered; they knew
foreign languages; they constantly inspired the men to do great things,
even if they should be killed."
Here all shuddered and trembled. Christine made haste to change the
subject.
"They wore beautiful dresses--think--dresses of silk and satin,
embroidered with gold, trimmed with lace; they had necklaces,
bracelets, and rings; their hands were white, and they wore long gloves
to their elbows; they dressed their hair as they pleased. Some wore
it long, like this." She pulled off her flat cap, and threw back her
long tresses, and quickly turned up the light. She was transformed!
The women started and gasped. "Take off your caps!" she ordered.
They obeyed, and at sight of the flowing locks that fell upon their
shoulders, curling, rippling, flowing, their eyes brightened, but only
for a moment.
"Yes," said the girl, "they wore their beautiful hair as they pleased.
Oh!"--she gathered in her hands the flowing tresses of one--"you have
such long and beautiful hair! It is a shame--it is a shame to hide it.
Think of the lovely dresses to match this beauty of the hair!"
"Oh," cried the women, "we remember the dresses. We remember them now.
Why make us remember them? It is so long ago--so long ago--and we can
never wear them any more."
"Nay; but you have the same beauty," said Christine. "That at least
remains. You have preserved your youth and your beauty."
"Of what good are our faces to us," said another woman, "with such a
dress as this? Men no longer look upon our beauty."
"Let us be," said the woman who had spoken first. "There can be no
change for us. Why disturb our minds? The Present is horrible. But we
have ceased to care much for anything: we do our day's work every
day--all the same hours of work; we wear the same dress--to every woman
the same dress; we eat and drink the same food--to every one the same;
we are happy because we have got all we can get, and we expect no more;
we never talk--why should we talk? When you laughed to-day it was like
an earthquake." Her words were strong, but her manner of speech was
a monotone. This way of speaking grows upon us; it is the easiest. I
watch the indications with interest. From rapid talk to slow talk; from
animated talk to monotony; the next step will be to silence absolute.
"There is no change for us," she repeated, "neither in summer nor in
winter. We have preserved our youth, but we have lost all the things
which the youthful used to desire. We thought to preserve our beauty;
what is the good of beauty with such a dress and such a life? Why
should we make ourselves miserable in remembering any of the things we
used to desire?"
"Oh," cried the girl, clasping her hands, "to me there is no pleasure
possible but in learning all about the Past. I read the old books, I
look at the old pictures, I play the old music, I sing the old songs;
but it is not enough. I know how you were dressed--not all alike in
gray beige frocks, but in lovely silk and beautiful embroidered stuffs.
I will show you presently how you dressed. I know how you danced and
played games and acted most beautiful plays, and I have read stories
about you; I know that you were always dissatisfied, and wanting
something or other. The stories are full of discontent; nobody ever
sits down satisfied except one pair. There is always one pair, and they
fall in Love--in Love," she repeated. "What is that, I wonder?" Then
she went on again: "They only want one thing then, and the story-books
are all about how they got it after wonderful adventures. There are no
adventures now. The books tell us all this, but I want more. I want to
know more: I want to see the old stories with my own eyes; I want to
see you in your old dresses, talking in your own old way. The books
cannot tell me how you talked and how you looked. I am sure it was not
as you talk now--because you never talk."
"There is no reason why we should talk. All the old desires have ceased
to be. We no longer want anything or expect anything."
"Come. I shall do my best to bring the Past back to you. First, I have
learned who you were. That is why I have called you together. In the
old times you all belonged to gentlefolk."
This announcement produced no effect at all. They listened with
lack-lustre looks. They had entirely forgotten that there were ever
such distinctions as gentle and simple.
"You will remember presently," said Christine, not discouraged. "I have
found out in the ancient Rolls your names and your families."
"Names and families," said one of the men, "are gone long ago.
Christine, what is the good of reviving the memory of things that can
never be restored?"
But the man named Jack Carera, the sailor of whom I have already
spoken, stepped forward. I have said that the sailors were a dangerous
class, on account of their independence and their good meaning.
"Tell us," he said, "about our families. Why, I, for one, have never
forgotten that I was once a gentleman. It is hard to tell now, because
they have made us all alike; but for many, many years--I know not how
many--we who had been gentlemen consorted together."
"You shall again," said Christine, "if you please. Listen, then. First,
my grandfather. He was called Sir Arthur Farrance, and he was called a
Baronet. To be a Baronet was, in those days, something greatly desired
by many people. A man, in the old books, was said to enjoy the title of
Baronet. But I know not why one man was so raised above another."
"Heugh! Heugh! Heugh!" coughed the old man. "I remember that. Why,
what is there to remember except the old times? I was a Baronet--the
fifth Baronet. My country place was in Sussex, and my town address was
White's and the Travellers'."
"Yes," Christine nodded. "My grandfather's memory is tenacious; he
forgets nothing of the things that happened when he was young. I
have learned a great deal from him. He seems to have known all your
grandmothers, for instance, and speaks of them as if he had loved them
all."
"I did--I did," said the old man. "I loved them every one."
The girl turned to the women before her--the dull-eyed, heavy-headed
women, all in the gray dresses exactly alike; but their gray flat caps
had been thrown off, and they looked disturbed, moved out of the common
languor.
"Now I will tell you who you were formerly. You"--she pointed to the
nearest--"were the Lady Mildred Carera, only daughter of the Earl of
Thordisá. Your father and mother survived the Discovery, but were
killed in the Great Massacre Year, when nearly all the old were put to
death. You were a great beauty in your time, and when the Discovery was
announced you were in your second season. People wondered who would
win you. But those who pretended to know talked of a young scientific
Professor."
The woman heard as if she was trying to understand a foreign language.
This was, in fact, a language without meaning to her. As yet she caught
nothing.
"You," said Christine, turning to the next, "were Dorothy Oliphant; you
were also young, beautiful, and an heiress; you, like Lady Mildred,
had all the men at your feet. I don't know what that means, but the
books say so. Then the Discovery came, and love-making, whatever that
was, seems to have gone out of fashion." The second woman heard this
information with lack-lustre eyes. What did it matter?
"You"--Christine turned to a third and to a fourth and fifth--"you were
Rosie Lorrayne; you, Adela Dupré; you, Susie Campbell. You were all in
Society; you were all young and beautiful and happy. Now for the men."
She turned to them. The sailor named Jack gazed upon her with eyes of
admiration. The other men, startled at first by the apparition of the
tresses, had relapsed into listlessness. They hardly looked up as she
addressed them.
First she pointed to the sailor.
"Your name--"
"I remember my name," he said. "I have not forgotten so much as
our friends. Sailors talk more with each other, and remember. I am
named John Carera, and I was formerly first-cousin to Lady Mildred.
Cousin"--he held out his hand--"have you forgotten your cousin? We used
to play together in the old times. You promised to marry me when you
should grow up."
Lady Mildred gave him her hand.
"It is so long ago--so long ago," she murmured; but her eyes were
troubled. She had begun to remember the things put away and forgotten
for so long.
"You"--Christine turned to another--"were Geoffrey Heron. You were
Captain in a Cavalry Regiment. You will remember that presently, and a
great deal more. You"--she turned to another--"were Laurence de Heyn,
and you were a young Lawyer, intending to be a Judge. You will remember
that, in time. You"--she turned to another--"were Jack Culliford; and
you were a Private Secretary, intending to go into Parliament, and
to rise perhaps to be Prime Minister. And you"--she turned to the
last--"were Arnold Buckland, already a Poet of Society. You will all
remember these things before long. Lastly, you all belonged to the
people who were born rich, and never used to have any care or anxiety
about their daily bread. Nor did you ever do any work, unless you
chose."
"It is so long ago," said Lady Mildred--her face was brighter
now--"that we have forgotten even that there ever were gentlefolk."
"It is not strange," said Christine, "that you should have forgotten
it. Why should you remember anything? We are only a herd, one with
another; one not greater, and one not less, than another. Now that
you know your names again and remember clearly, because I have
told you"--she repeated the information for fear they should again
forget--"who and what you were, each of you--you will go on to remember
more."
"Oh, what good? What good?" asked Lady Mildred.
"Because it will rouse you from your lethargy," said the girl,
impetuously. "Oh, you sit in silence day after day; you walk alone; you
ought to be together as you used to be, talking, playing. See! I have
read the books; your lives were full of excitement. It makes my heart
beat only to read how the men went out to fight, daring everything, for
the sake of the women they loved."
"The men love us no longer," said Lady Mildred.
"If the brave men fell--" But here all faces, except the sailor's,
turned pale, and they shuddered. Christine did not finish the sentence.
She, too, shuddered.
In the old times I remember how, being then errand-boy in the Brewery,
I used to listen, in the Whitechapel Road, to the men who, every Sunday
morning and evening, used to tell us that religion was a mockery and a
snare, invented by the so-called priests for their own selfish ends, so
that they might be kept in sloth and at their ease. There was no need
now for these orators. The old religion was clean dead and forgotten.
When men ceased to expect Death, what need was there to keep up any
interest in the future world, if there should be any? But the bare
mention of the dreadful thing is still enough to make all cheeks turn
pale. Every year, the farther off Death recedes, the more terrible he
looks. Therefore they all shuddered.
Among the musical instruments in the Museum there stands one, a square
wooden box on legs, with wires inside it. There are many other musical
instruments, the use of all (as I thought) forgotten. Very soon after
the Great Discovery people ceased to care for music. For my own part,
I have never been able to understand how the touching of chords and
the striking of hammers on wires can produce any effect at all upon
the mind except that of irritation. We preserve trumpets for the
processions of the College because mere noise awes people, and because
trumpets make more noise with less trouble than the human voice. But
with music, such as it used to be, we have now nothing to do at all.
I have been told that people were formerly greatly moved by music,
so that every kind of emotion was produced in their minds merely by
listening to a man or woman playing some instrument. It must have been
so, because Christine, merely by playing the old music to the company,
was able to bring back their minds to the long-forgotten Past. But it
must be remembered that she had disturbed their minds first.
She sat down, then, before this box, and she began to play upon it,
watching the people meanwhile. She played the music of their own
time--indeed, there has been none written since. It was a kind of
witchery. First the sailor named Jack sprang to his feet and began to
walk up and down the room with wild gestures and strange looks. Then
the rest, one by one, grew restless; they looked about them; they left
their chairs and began to look at each other, and at the things in the
cases. The Past was coming slowly into sight. I have heard how men at
sea perceive an island far away, but like a cloud on the horizon; how
the cloud grows larger and assumes outline; how this grows clearer and
larger still, until, before the ship reaches the harbor and drops her
anchor, the cliffs and the woods, and even the single trees on the
hill-sides, are clearly visible.
Thus the listeners gradually began to see the Past again. Now, to
feel these old times again, one must go back to them and become once
more part of them. It is possible, because we are still of the age
when we left them. Therefore, this little company, who had left the
old time when they were still young, began to look again as they had
then looked. Their eyes brightened, their cheeks flushed; their limbs
became elastic; their heads were thrown back; the faces of the women
grew soft, and those of the men strong; on all alike there fell once
more the look of restless expectancy and of unsatisfied yearning which
belonged to all ages in the old time.
Presently they began to murmur, I know not what, and then to whisper to
each other with gentle sighs. Then the girls--they were really girls
again--caught each other by the hand, and panted and sighed again; and
at last they fell upon each other's necks and kissed. As for the men,
they now stood erect and firm, but for the most part they gazed upon
the girls with wonder and admiration unspeakable, so great was the
power of witchery possessed by this insignificant girl.
Christine looked on and laughed gently. Then she suddenly changed her
music, and began to play a March loud and triumphant. And as she played
she spoke:
"When the brave soldiers came home from battle and from victory, it
was right that the people should all go forth to meet them. The music
played for them; the children strewed roses under their feet; the bells
were set ringing; the crowds cheered them; the women wept and laughed
at the same time, and waved them welcome. Nothing could be too good for
the men who fought for their country. Listen! I found the song of the
Victors' Return in an old book. I wonder if you remember it. I think it
is a very simple little thing."
Then she sang. She had a strong, clear voice--they had heard her
singing before--no one sang in the whole City except this child, and
already it had been observed that her singing made men restless. I
do not deny the fulness and richness of her voice; but the words she
sang--Dr. Linister's words, they were--are mere foolishness:
"With flying flag, with beat of drum,
Oh, brave and gallant show!
In rags and tatters home they come--
We love them better so.
With sunburnt cheeks and wounds and scars;
Yet still their swords are bright.
Oh, welcome, welcome from the wars,
Brave lads who fought the fight!
"The girls they laugh, the girls they cry,
'What shall their guerdon be?--
Alas! that some must fall and die!--
Bring forth our gauds to see.
'Twere all too slight, give what we might,'
Up spoke a soldier tall:
'Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;
Oh, Love is worth the whole broad earth;
Give that, you give us all!'"
"Do you remember the song?" Christine asked.
They shook their heads. Yet it seemed familiar. They remembered some
such songs.
"Geoffrey Heron," said the girl, turning to one of the men, "you were
Captain Heron in the old days. You remember that you were in the army."
"Was I?" He started. "No; yes. I remember. I was Captain Heron. We rode
out of Portsmouth Dockyard Gates when we came home--all that were left
of us. The women were waiting on the Hard outside, and they laughed
and cried, and caught our hands, and ran beside the horses. Our ranks
were thin, for we had been pretty well knocked about. I remember now.
Yes--yes, I was--I was Captain Heron."
"Go into that room. You will find your old uniform. Take off the blue
flannels, and show us how you looked when you were in uniform."
As if it was nothing at all unusual, the man rose and obeyed. It was
observed that he now carried himself differently. He stood erect,
with shoulders squared, head up, and limbs straight. They all obeyed
whatever this girl ordered them to do.
Christine began to play again. She played another March, but always
loud and triumphant.
When the soldier came back he was dressed in the uniform which he had
worn in the time of the Great Discovery, when they left off taking
account of time.
"Oh!" cried Christine, springing to her feet. "See! See! Here is a
soldier! Here is a man who has fought!"
He stood before them dressed in a scarlet tunic and a white helmet; a
red sash hung across him, and on his breast were medals. At sight of
him the girl called Dorothy Oliphant changed countenance; all caught
their breath. The aspect of the man carried them, indeed, back to the
old, old time.
"Welcome home, Captain Heron," said Christine. "We have followed your
campaign day by day."
"We are home again," the soldier replied, gravely. "Unfortunately, we
have left a good many of our regiment behind."
"Behind? You mean--they--are--dead." Christine shuddered. The others
shuddered. Even Captain Heron himself for a moment turned pale. But he
was again in the Past, and the honor of his regiment was in his hands.
"You have fought with other men," said Christine. "Let me look in your
face. Yes--it is changed. You have the look of the fighting man in the
old pictures. You look as if you mean to have something, whatever it
is, whether other men want it or not. Oh, you have fought with men! It
is wonderful! Perhaps you have even killed men. Were you dreadfully
afraid?"
Captain Heron started and flushed.
"Afraid?" he asked. "Afraid?"
"Oh!" Christine clapped her hands. "I wanted to see that look. It is
the look of a man in sudden wrath. Forgive me! It is terrible to see a
man thus moved. No, Captain Heron, no! I understand. An officer in your
regiment could be afraid of nothing."
She sat down, still looking at him.
"I have seen a soldier," she said. Then she sprang to her feet.
"Now," she cried, "it is our turn. Come with me, you ladies; and you,
gentlemen, go into that room. For one night we will put on the dresses
you used to wear. Come!"
They obeyed. There was nothing that they would not have done, so
completely had she bewitched them. How long since they had been
addressed as ladies and gentlemen!
"Come," she said, in the room whither she led the women, "look about,
and choose what you please. But we must make haste."
There was a great pile of dainty dresses laid out for them to
choose--dresses in silk and all kinds of delicate stuffs, with
embroidery, lace, ribbons, jewels, chains, rings, bracelets, gloves,
fans, shoes--everything that the folly of the past time required to
make rich women seem as if they were not the same as their poorer
sisters.
They turned over the dresses, and cried out with admiration. Then they
hastened to tear off their ugly gray frocks, and began to dress.
But the girl called Dorothy Oliphant sank into a chair. "Oh, he has
forgotten me! he has forgotten me! Who am I that he should remember me
after all these years?"
"Why," said Christine, "how should he remember? What matters that you
have the same face? Think of your dull look and your heavy eyes; think
of the dowdy dress and the ugly cap. Wait till you have put on a pretty
frock and have dressed your hair; here is a chain of pearls which will
look pretty in your hair; here is a sweet colored silk. I am sure it
will fit you. Oh, it is a shame--it is a shame that we have to dress
so! Never mind. Now I have found out the old dresses, we will have many
evenings together. We will go back to the Past. He will remember you,
Dorothy dear. Oh, how could you give them up? How _could_ you give up
your lovely dresses?"
"We were made to give them up because there were not enough beautiful
dresses to go round. They said that no woman must be dressed better
than another. So they invented--it was Dr. Grout, the Suffragan, who
did it--the gray dress for the women and the blue flannel for the men.
And I had almost forgotten that there were such things. Christine, my
head is swimming. My heart is beating. I have not felt my heart beating
for I know not how long. Oh, will Geoffrey remember me when I am
dressed?"
"Quick! Of course he will. Let me dress you. Oh, I often come here in
the daytime and dress up, and pretend that it is the Past again. You
shall come with me. But I want to hear you talk as you used to talk,
and to see you dance as you used to dance. Then I shall understand it
all."
When they returned, the men were waiting for them. Their blue flannels
were exchanged for black cloth clothes, which it had been the custom
of those who called themselves gentlemen to wear in the evening.
In ancient times this was their absurd custom, kept up in order to
mark the difference between a gentleman and one of the lower class.
If you had no dress-coat, you were not a gentleman. How could men
ever tolerate, for a single day, the existence of such a social
difference? As for me, in the part of London where I lived, called
Whitechapel, there were no dress-coats. The change, however, seemed
to have transformed them. Their faces had an eager look, as if they
wanted something. Of course, in the old times everybody always wanted
something. You can see it in the pictures--the faces are never at rest;
in the portraits, the eyes are always seeking for something; nowhere
is there visible the least sign of contentment. These unfortunate men
had acquired, with their old clothes, something of the old restlessness.
Christine laughed aloud and clapped her hands.
The women did not laugh. They saluted the men, who bowed with a certain
coldness. The manners of the Past were coming back to them swiftly, but
the old ease was not recovered for the first quarter of an hour. Then
Captain Heron, who had changed his uniform for civilian dress, suddenly
flushed and stepped forward, whispering,
"Dorothy, you have forgotten me?"
Dorothy smiled softly, and gave him her hand with a quick sigh. No, she
had not forgotten him.
"Dance!" said Christine. "I want to see you dance. I will play for you."
She played a piece of music called a Waltz. When this kind of music
used to be played--I mean in the houses of (so-called) ladies, not
those of the People--the young men and women caught each other round
the waist and twirled round. They had many foolish customs, but none
more foolish, I should suppose, than this. I have never seen the
thing done, because all this foolishness was forgotten as soon as we
settled down to the enjoyment of the Great Discovery. When, therefore,
Christine began this music, they looked at each other for a few
moments, and then, inspired by memory, they fell into each other's arms
and began their dance.
She played for them for a quarter of an hour. While the rest danced,
the young man Jack stood beside the piano, as if he was chained to
the spot. She had bewitched them all, but none so much as this man.
He therefore gazed upon the girl with an admiration which certainly
belonged to the old time. Indeed, I have never been able to understand
how the Past could be so suddenly assumed. To admire--actually to
admire--a woman, knowing all the time--it is impossible to conceal the
fact--that she is your inferior, that she is inferior in strength and
intellect! Well, I have already called them unfortunate men; I can say
no more. How can people admire things below themselves? When she had
played for a quarter of an hour or so, this young man called upon her
to stop. The dancers stopped too, panting, their eyes full of light,
their cheeks flushed and their lips parted.
"Oh," Dorothy sighed, "I never thought to feel such happiness again. I
could dance on forever."
"With me?" murmured Geoffrey. "I was praying that the last round might
never stop. With me?"
"With you," she whispered.
"Come!" cried the young man Jack. "It is too bad. Christine must dance.
Play for us, Cousin Mildred, and I will give her a lesson."
Mildred laughed. Then she started at the unwonted sound. The others
laughed to hear it, and the walls of the Museum echoed with the
laughter of girls. The old man sat up in his chair and looked around.
"I thought I was at Philippe's, in Paris," he said. "I thought we were
having a supper after the theatre. There was Ninette, and there was
Madeleine--and--and--"
He looked about him bewildered. Then he dropped his head and went to
sleep again. When he was neither eating nor battling for his breath, he
was always sleeping.
"I am your cousin, Jack," said Mildred; "but I had long forgotten it.
And as for playing--but I will try. Perhaps the old touch will return."
It did. She played with far greater skill and power than the
self-taught Christine, but not (as they have said since) with greater
sweetness.
Then Jack took Christine and gave her a first lesson. It lasted nearly
half an hour.
"Oh," cried the girl, when Lady Mildred stopped, "I feel as if I had
been floating round in a dream. Was I a stupid pupil, Jack?"
"You were the aptest pupil that dancing-master ever had."
"I know now," she said, with panting breath and flushed cheeks, "what
dancing means. It is wonderful that the feet should answer to the
music. Surely you must have loved dancing?"
"We did," the girls replied; "we did. There was no greater pleasure in
the world."
"Why did you give it up?"
They looked at each other.
"After the Great Discovery," said Dorothy Oliphant, "we were so happy
to get rid of the terrors of old age, and the loss of our beauty, and
everything, that at first we thought of nothing else. When we tried to
dance again, something had gone out of it. The men were not the same.
Perhaps we were not the same. Everything languished after that. There
was no longer any enjoyment. We ceased to dance because we found no
pleasure in dancing."
"But now you do?" said Christine.
"To-night we do, because you have filled our hearts with the old
thoughts. To get out of the dull, dull round--why is it that we never
felt it dull till to-night? Oh, so long as we can remember the old
thoughts, let us continue to dance and to play and to sing. If the old
thoughts cease to come back to us"--she looked at Geoffrey--"let us
fall back into our dulness, like the men and women round us."
"It was to please me first," said Christine. "You were so very kind as
to come here to please me, because I can have no recollection at all of
the Past, and I was curious to understand what I read. Come again--to
please yourselves. Oh, I have learned so much--so very much more than I
ever expected! There are so many, many things that I did not dream of.
But let us always dance," she said--"let us always dance--let me always
feel every time you come as if there was nothing in the world but sweet
music calling me, and I was spinning round and round, but always in
some place far better and sweeter than this."
"Yes," Lady Mildred said, gravely. "Thus it was we used to feel."
"And I have seen you as you were--gentlemen and gentlewomen together.
Oh, it is beautiful! Come every night. Let us never cease to change the
dismal Present for the sunny Past. But there is one thing--one thing
that I cannot understand."
"What is that?" asked Lady Mildred.
"In the old books there is always, as I said before, a young man in
love with a girl. What is it--Love?" The girls sighed and cast down
their eyes. "Was it possible for a man so to love a girl as to desire
nothing in the world but to have her love, and even to throw away his
life--actually his very life--his very life--for her sake?"
"Dorothy," said Geoffrey, taking both her hands, "was it possible? Oh,
was it possible?"
Dorothy burst into tears.
"It _was_ possible!" she cried; "but oh, it is not possible any longer."
"Let us pretend," said Geoffrey, "let us dream that it is possible."
"Even to throw away your life--to die--actually your life?" asked
Christine. "To die? To exist no longer? To abandon life--for the sake
of another person?"
A sudden change passed over all their faces. The light died out of
their eyes; the smile died on their lips; the softness vanished from
the ladies' faces; the men hung their heads. All their gallantry left
them. And Geoffrey let Mildred's hands slip from his holding. The
thought of Death brought them all back to the Present.
"No," said Lady Mildred, sadly, and with changed voice, "such things
are no longer possible. Formerly, men despised death because it was
certain to come, in a few years at best; and why not, therefore,
to-morrow? But we cannot brave death any more. We live, each
for himself. That is the only safety; there is only the law of
self-preservation. All are alike; we cannot love each other any more,
because we are all alike. No woman is better than another in any man's
eyes, because we are all dressed the same, and we are all the same.
What more do we want?" she said, harshly. "There is no change for us;
we go from bed to work, from work to rest and food, and so to bed
again. What more can we want? We are all equals; we are all the same;
there are no more gentlewomen. Let us put on our gray frocks and our
flat caps again, and hide our hair and go home to bed."
"Yes, yes," cried Christine, "but you will come again. You will
come again, and we will make every night a Play and Pretence of the
beautiful--the lovely Past. When we lay aside the gray frocks, and let
down our hair, we shall go back to the old time--the dear old time."
The young man named Jack remained behind when the others were gone. "If
it were possible," he said, "for a man to give up everything--even his
life--for a woman, in the old times, when life was a rich and glorious
possession--how much more ought he not to be willing to lay it down,
now that it has been made a worthless weed?"
"I have never felt so happy"--the girl was thinking of something else.
"I have never dreamed that I could feel so happy. Now I know what I
have always longed for--to dance round and round forever, forgetting
all but the joy of the music and the dance. But oh, Jack"--her face
turned pale again--"how could they ever have been happy, even while
they waltzed, knowing that every minute brought them nearer and nearer
to the dreadful end?"
"I don't know. Christine, if I were you, I would never mention that
ugly topic again, except when we are not dressed up and acting. How
lovely they looked--all of them--but none of them to compare with the
sweetest rose-bud of the garden?"
He took her hand and kissed it, and then left her alone with the old
man in the great Museum.