CIRCE'S CUP.
In her cup the red wine glows,
Fragrant as the blushing rose;
Cure of sorrows, cure of woes,
From it thou wilt win.
Ah! but Circe's cup deceives,he wrote in a cynical vein
Evil spell its magic weaves,
To the fool who drinks--it leaves
The bitterness of sin.
One night Reginald and Beaumont were comfortably seated over their
cigarettes and coffee in the smoking-room of the hotel, talking in a
desultory kind of way about the news of the day, when Blake suddenly
made a remark quite foreign to the conversation.
"I often wonder why you have never married, Beaumont," he said idly.
The artist shrugged his shoulders.
"It's not difficult to answer," he replied lightly. "I have never met
any woman I particularly cared about."
"Wouldn't you like to be married?" asked Reginald.
"Humph! that depends. I'm afraid I'm past the age of cultivating the
domestic virtues. I am a cosmopolitan--a wanderer--no home would be
pleasant to me for any length of time."
"But why don't you settle down?"
"Because the age of miracles is past. I'm one of those men who never
know in what land they will lay their bones. No, no! I'm sadly afraid
the domestic tea-urn and family circle are not for me."
It was curious to hear this man talk in such a cynical strain to his
own son, but then Beaumont had been so long apart from his offspring
that he almost regarded him as a stranger, and therefore spoke to him
as such.
"I think you would be much happier married," observed Reginald.
"No doubt. You judge me by yourself. When you get married to Miss
Challoner and settle down, your life will be a paradise, because long
training has rendered you admirably suited to a domestic life. But
I--ouf!--I would weary of the best woman in the world."
"What a curious man you are, Beaumont," said Blake, looking at him in
a puzzled manner. "This life of yours in Town appears to me so
unsatisfying. Everyone is on the move. Never a moment for rest or
reflection, a constant striving after pleasure, and when that pleasure
is gained, what is it but Dead Sea fruit? Now, on the other hand, I
cannot imagine a more delightful life than one in the country. When I
marry Una I will live at Garsworth Grange, bring up my children, if I
am happy enough to become a father, take an interest in the dear old
village, and enjoy my whole existence in a leisurely, pleasant manner,
which will give me far more enduring enjoyment than this rapid
frivolous Town life."
"Your instincts are quite those of a patriarchal age," said Beaumont,
with a scarcely concealed sneer, "but of course I can hardly wonder at
that. Many years of a highly artificial civilization have given me a
distaste for your beau ideal of life, while the simplicity of your
training has unfitted you for the gas and glitter of London. A man
brought up on roast beef does not care for truffles, though, to be
sure, roast beef is the more healthy of the two."
Reginald laughed at this extraordinary manner of arguing, but did not
pursue the subject, and shortly afterwards the pair were whirling
along in a hansom to the Totahoop Music Hall.
This establishment, which took its extraordinary name from an eminent
comedian who first opened it as a place of entertainment, was one of
the largest, handsomest, and most patronised music halls in town. It
stood at one side of a large square and had a palatial appearance with
its flight of marble steps, its enormous folding-doors and the view
they afforded when open of tropical trees, nude white statues and
gorgeous hangings of blue plush, all of which looked brilliant under
the powerful radiance of the electric lights.
When the two gentlemen arrived the promenade was quite full of men and
women, some talking loudly, others attending to the performance, and
many crowding around the marble-topped counters of the various bars
from which smiling barmaids dispensed cooling beverages. The house was
quite full and comparatively quiet, for the ballet of _The Lorelei_
was now being danced, and the stage was filled with multitudes of
pretty girls in costumes of pale green glittering with silver scales,
who were swaying to and fro to a swinging waltz melody played by the
orchestra.
"This is a very good ballet," observed Beaumont, as they took their
seats in a private box, "both the scenery and the dances being
excellent. Have a drink?"
"No, thank you," replied Blake listlessly, taking off his cloak, "I
prefer watching the ballet."
He leaned out of the box and was soon deeply interested in the
pantomimic action on the stage, while Beaumont swept the glittering
horseshoe with his opera-glass to see if he could espy a friend. Very
shortly he saw a man with whom he was well acquainted, and left the
box with a muttered apology, while Reginald, absorbed in the ballet,
took no notice of his departure.
Veils of pale green gauze were falling like a curtain in front of the
stage, which was flooded with an emerald light, and away at the back
could be seen the Sea Palace of the Lorelei, above which undulated the
blue waves of the ocean. The daring young knight in silver armour was
standing like a statue in the centre of the stage and round him the
nymphs, linked hand in hand, were wreathing in mysterious evolutions,
growing slower and slower till they all paused, grouped in graceful
attitudes like living statues. A strange low chord from the orchestra
and then there stole forth a weird subtle melody that seemed to
possess a snake-like fascination as it arose and fell with shrill
sounds of clarinet and violin. A sudden ripple as of silver bells and
the fatal Rhine nymph glided on to the stage from a huge shell placed
far back in the restless green water. Then there was a dance of
fascination in which the knight resisted the allurements of the
Lorelei, but the sleeping nymphs also awoke and re-commenced their
dreamy dance, while through the swing and beat of the band there stole
the strange wild piping of the _Lorelei motif_. At last the knight
yielded, there was a storm of somewhat discordant music and all the
evil things of ocean came trooping on to the stage, dashing at length
into a mad galop as they surged and rolled round the knight, now
captive in the arms of the siren. A thick darkness spread over the
scene and when the light broke again, the ocean halls had vanished and
a merry crowd of peasants were dancing on a fair lawn to the piping of
a shepherd.
Reginald did not like this latter scene so much, as it lacked the
mysterious enticement of the former, and felt rather disappointed, but
he was quite repaid by the last scene of the ballet, which represented
the fatal Lorelei rock amid turbid waters under the pale light of the
moon.
On the shore wandered the spell-enchained knight, and Blake thought of
Heine's ballad with its foreboding beginning,
"_Ich weiss nicht was soil is bedeuten_,"
as the mysterious melody of the Lorelei began to once more steal from
amid the sombre music of the orchestra. Lonely is the knight, for he
loves naught on earth while the water witch has power over him.
Shriller and shriller arose the melody and suddenly a white blaze of
electric light envelopes the rock, upon which stands the siren,
combing her marvellous locks of gold.
With mystic gestures she beckons the knight, he launches a boat and
the waves rise white and threatening amid a storm of music from the
orchestra, while overhead the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes.
The boat reaches the rock, strikes, and in a moment the knight is
struggling in the water with hands stretched out imploringly to the
Water Witch. Darkness once more, then again the emerald light shines,
showing the Halls of the Lorelei, who stands over the dead body of the
knight, while around swing the river nymphs with floating hair and
waving hands, then the shrill piping of the Lorelei _motif_ sounds
once more and the curtain falls.
"Well, what do you think of the ballet?" asked Beaumont, who had
returned to the box and was watching with keen interest the dreamy
look upon the young man's face.
"I think it is charming," replied Reginald, in whose head the
mysterious melody of the Lorelei was still ringing, "but what a fool
that knight was."
"Ah, do you think so?" rejoined the artist, lightly. "There I do not
agree with you. Many a man has had his life wrecked by listening to
the music of the Sea Witch. The legend of the Lorelei is simply an
allegory of life."
"So is the legend of the Sirens, I suppose," said Blake listlessly.
"Of course the man who is drawn away from Nature by the alluring voice
of the world always loses his happiness and genius."
"I don't think much of your world's singing," retorted Blake, a trifle
cynically. "It would never allure me."
"It's alluring you now," thought Beaumont, although he did not say so,
but merely remarked, "Too much of modern sentimentality about it,
perhaps, or you think the world's voice pipes too vulgar a ditty.
There I agree with you, but, unfortunately, in this age we vulgarise
everything; we drag forth the lovely mysterious dreams of mediævalism
from their enchanted twilights into the broad blaze of day and then
reject them in disgust because we are disillusionized. Ah, bah' the
world of to-day, which reduces everything to plain figures, always
puts me in mind of a child spoiling a drum to find out what's inside."
"Unpleasant, but true."
"The truth is always unpleasant my friend, that is why people so
seldom tell it," said Beaumont, "but listen to this recitation, it's
the best thing of the evening."
The reciter was a celebrated actress who had been induced to appear
upon the music-hall platform by way of an experiment, to see if the
ordinary audience of such a place would take to the higher form of art
as exemplified by the recitation.
Simply dressed, with no scenic effect, but only her wonderful voice
and strong dramatic instinct to rely on, the lady recited a touching
little piece about a dying woman, and it was truly wonderful the
effect it had upon the pleasure-loving audience. In spite of the
attractions of comic songs, of pretty girls, of grotesque tumblers,
and of daring gymnasts, the whole body of men and women yielded to the
spell of the recitation. The poem was full of human nature, and the
intensity of the reciter's voice carried the pathos of the pitiful
little story home to everyone. The intense humanity of the tale,
declaimed in a most dramatic way by an artist, came like a breath of
cool mountain air into the perfumed close atmosphere of a ball-room,
and the storm of applause which broke forth at the conclusion of the
recitation showed how powerful genius is to move even the most _blasé_
of humanity.
"That is a step in the right direction," said Beaumont as he left the
music-hall with Reginald, "everyone prophesied failure for such an
experiment, but you see the voice of the heart can always reach the
heart. There is more culture even among music-hall audiences than we
give them credit for."
"I don't think it's a question of culture at all," replied Blake
bluntly; "that simple story declaimed in such a way would appeal to
the lowest audience in Whitechapel.
"I daresay you are right," answered Beaumont idly, "a touch of nature
makes the whole world akin. I think it was Shakespeare who made that
remark--wonderfully wise man--I should like to have seen him write a
drama on the complex civilization of to-day."
"Our dramatists of to-day do their best."
"No doubt, but they write on such frivolous subjects. If they took up
a broad question of the time and placed it before us in the form of a
play they might evolve a new style of drama fitted to be handed down
to posterity but when they concern themselves only with the drama of
little things their ideas are as ephemeral as their plays. No, this is
only the age of scientific discovery, not the time of poetic
imaginings."
Thus talking, they strolled along the crowded streets, and turned into
a supper-room, where they had a comfortable meal. Beaumont tried to
induce Reginald to come with him to his club, and have a game of
cards, but the young man, haunted by the subtle melody of the Lorelei
did not feel inclined for the green table, so bidding the artist
good-night, stepped into a hansom, and was driven back to his hotel.
All through his sleep that night, the shrill music rang in his brain,
and he dreamed constantly of the woman with the fatal beauty, who,
sitting on her rock, lured men to destruction.
Did no warning voice whisper the meaning of his dreams, how London,
with siren music, was enticing him onward to her cruel pitfalls hidden
by roses? No! Apparently his good genius had forsaken him, and he was
now in the jaws of danger, without a single hand being stretched out
to save him from the cruel rocks concealed under the whirling foam,
above which the Lorelei sang her evil song.