It proved exciting not only to Joan. Some years earlier the arrival of
so distinguished a visitor unadvertised and unpressagented would have
caused little more than a ripple, except perhaps among what Joan called
the Intelligentzia. But now that _belles lettres_ were coming quite into
fashion, the chance of knowing personally a friend of Tolstoi and
Maeterlinck, whose articles appeared in all the more intellectual
magazines, whose recent book of plays had been published simultaneously
in five languages and censored off the American stage into every
up-to-date home in the land, was one that could not be ignored.
The Russian servant, too, was a picturesque addition; a great, bearded
fellow with eyes like a child, a tall sheepskin _papacha_ on his head,
and his trousers tucked into wrinkled boots. This exotic apparition
frequently opened the Blair door to visitors, and even waited on them at
table, Sacha having without the aid of language won his way somehow to
the rather uncertain heart of Ellen Neal; possibly because of his
infantile appetite for sweets. He followed his master about like a dog,
and whenever Nikolai was in the front of the house, Sacha's broken
English and sudden high laugh were frequently to be heard from the rear.
There were a good many callers at the Blair house in those days.
The Blairs, and incidentally their friend, also found themselves deluged
with invitations, many of which Joan accepted. She rather enjoyed
showing off her lion, whose simple dignity was quite impervious to
lionizing. His social successes amused her by their unexpectedness; for
Nikolai had no small talk and pretended to none. He paid his chance
companions the compliment of believing them to be interested in whatever
interested him; and very often they were.
Once, Joan, overhearing him enlarging to an audience composed of Archie,
Emily Carmichael, and a particularly frivolous young divorcee of their
acquaintance, on the Ostwald formula for happiness, felt called upon to
come to the rescue; and received for once in her life a decided snubbing
from her husband.
"Don't interrupt, Joan, please!--Mr. Nikolai's telling us something
mighty interesting. Go on, sir--G=E^2+W^2--I didn't quite get you about
the Huettengluck and the Heldengluck?"
"G," explained Nikolai, "is as you know Gluck (happiness). E stands for
Energetics; meaning activity, health, ambition, etc. W stands for
Widerwillig, one of those comprehensive words one finds only in the
German, meaning everything that runs counter to happiness, all the
by-products of activity--opposition, fatigue, trouble, etc. There are
philosophers who hold that by reducing E (the activities of life) one
also reduces W (the unpleasantnesses), thereby attaining happiness.
Renunciation, you understand;--the simple life, such as that of
Diogenes, who threw away his one utensil, the cup, when he saw a man
drinking satisfactorily out of his hand.
"But the danger is that in generally reducing the formula, G also is
reduced, and may even become minus. At its best the happiness attained
in this way is what Ostwald calls Huettengluck (hut-happiness). He
advocates instead the Heldengluck (hero-happiness). Square, he says,
both your Energetics and your Widerwillig, and the result will be a
doubled happiness, robust, vital. In other words, live to the top of
your powers, suffer to the top of your powers; and you will be able to
enjoy to the top of your powers."
"Sure!" said Archie. "I see that. Me for Ostwald!"
The little divorcee remarked in an aside to Joan, "He certainly does
make you think, this high-brow beau of yours! But I _like_ to think,
sometimes."
It taught Joan a lesson. She recalled a sentence of Trevelyan's: "A man
who has too much sense to overrate his own qualities will often make
amends to his self-esteem by underrating his neighbor's."
She realized that she might have been making such a mistake herself. If,
as she had complained, there was no real talk to be had in society, were
not she and people like her responsible?
If a scholar such as Stefan Nikolai found it worth while to give of his
best to simpler comprehensions, was it not pretentious and even
ridiculous of a Joan Blair to "talk down" to them, tactfully adapting
herself to their limitations while concealing yawns behind her hand? She
had the grace to blush for herself....
The companionship of Joan and Nikolai was, as Louisville interestedly
suspected, not an entirely intellectual one, however. Like all people
who work hard with their heads (and Nikolai spent many hours at his desk
daily, even in holiday seasons), he knew the full value of play, and had
always been to Joan the most delightful of play-fellows. In her
childhood he had often borrowed her for what they called
"expeditions"--visits to circuses, zooelogical gardens, museums;
boat-journeys, picnics--always to the surprise of Major Darcy, who
regarded a child as a desirable addition to any family, something to be
petted, and instructed, and even romped with in moderation, but by no
means to be made a companion of.
These expeditions renewed themselves now in modified form. The two were
constantly to be met with in the most unexpected places--tramping about
the parks in the rain, making tea over a gipsy fire by the roadside,
climbing, their pockets bulging with books and apples, to the top of a
certain hill whence miles of wild rolling country were to be seen, and
the city behind them was as if it had never been. Joan had no longer to
enjoy the Beauty of the World alone. The hill became their favorite
haunt; and all through the open winter they climbed to its top almost
daily, where in the shelter of the cliff they built themselves a little
fire and sat, their backs to the world, reading and munching apples, and
talking, talking endlessly.
Joan never felt that any subject bad been exhausted between them. It
seemed to her that the thoughts of a lifetime had been accumulating in
her mind, waiting for him to pass judgment upon them; and to him it was
no less than a miracle to watch her brain expanding, enlarging, visibly
blossoming under the nourishment he supplied.
Perhaps her brain was not the only thing Nikolai loved to watch about
Joan. He usually managed to seat himself a little behind her, out of her
range of vision, so that his own might rest where it chose, unobserved.
But he asked no more; having learned of life to practise the Huettengluck
which he did not preach.
Sometimes Archie made a third on these expeditions; for he had developed
a great enthusiasm for Joan's famous friend, and occasionally neglected
business to sit at the feet of wisdom. Not often, however. Business had
reached a point where it declined to be neglected (the depression of
1913 was at hand); and besides Archie, despite their affectionate
welcome, felt rather _de trop_ with the pair.
"I'm no high-brow, and there's no use pretending I am," he confessed
once to Emily Carmichael. "But that don't keep me from appreciating
high-brows when I see 'em. It's as good as a correspondence-course in
literature to hear those two go on. I'm as much out of it, though, as if
they were talkin' the French language--which they sometimes are, at
that!"
"Archie," asked Emily, hesitating, "are you never the least little
bit--jealous?" Her friendship for Joan was too unquestionable for the
remark to sound feline.
He laughed. "Me jealous? What for? I've got her, haven't I? And he
hasn't, poor chap! Glad to share what I can."
It happened that at the same time this conversation occurred--it was a
chance meeting down town, and Archie, always the soul of hospitality,
had invited Emily to join him in a cup of hot clam-broth at a
soda-fountain--that the pair on the hilltop were not indulging in either
literature or the French language. Joan, ensconced upon a bed of leaves
with her back against the sheltering cliff and her face warm with
fireglow, remarked dreamily:
"Stefan, how have I ever managed to live here so long without you?"
His smile did not reach his eyes; those beautiful, speaking, somber eyes
which reflected in them so much of the history of his race. He said,
"And how shall you manage when I am gone again?"
She turned quickly to look at him. Something in his voice troubled her.
"Gone--Why, Stefan, you're not thinking of going soon?"
"My book has made great progress here. It is a pleasant place for
writing--I have nearly finished."
She gave an exclamation of something like anger. "You said you were
going to stay 'as long as possible.' And after all it was only to finish
another book!"
"Not quite 'only,' Joan."
"Then," she demanded impatiently, "why do you talk about going? I am
still here, whether the book is done or not! Are you tired of me
already?"
"What do you think?"
"Have you become such a gipsy that you can't stop anywhere more than a
few months?"
"I wish," he said soberly, "that I might put my roots into this hillside
like a tree, and never, never stir again, except to the winds, and the
sap in my branches, and the seasons as they come and go--"
"And me beside thee singing in the wilderness?" she smiled, as he did
not continue. "Say you'd need me here somewhere, even if you were a
tree!"
"Every tree has one bird who lives in its branches. I should keep a nest
safe for you, my dear--you and your Archie." He broke off. "But I am not
a tree, merely a Wandering Jew to whom the time must come again to
wander."
"But why, why? It is not as if you belonged anywhere else!"
"Nowhere else in the world, nor yet in Picardy,"
he said. "I have always meant, when I grew old, to come to wherever you
may be, and settle down, and grow up again with your children. But it
seems the time is not yet. I am--not old."
"You? of course not! You're not even fifty, are you?"
"No," he sighed, "not even fifty. Oh, to be eighty or thereabouts, with
the dross burnt out and only the spirit left, free--!"
"I'd hate you to be all spirit, Stefan! Such an uncomfortable, unnatural
person to play with: like one of those cherubim, with only wings and no
_de quoi_ at all.--(You remember the miracle that happened once, when
the Sistine Madonna said to the little angels in the picture with her,
'_Assaiez-vous, mes enfants._' And they answered, '_Mais, Madame, nous
n'avons pas de quoi!_'--) I never could understand people wanting to be
old." She made a restless movement. "Perhaps you've had enough out of
life to satisfy you, but me--Why, I feel as if I had not yet begun to
live!"
"Nor have you," he said quietly.
"_Why_, Stefan!" she demanded, facing him. "Why don't I begin, then?
Surely enough has happened to me, more than to most people. I fling
myself into whatever comes along with all my heart. And yet--I don't
seem to be there at all! It is as if the real me were looking on at
somebody else who struggles and amuses herself and suffers. I'm tired of
looking on, tired!"
"Who isn't?" he said musingly. "We want to be in the thick of the fray,
people like you and me, even if it kills us. But--we can't choose. A
good deal is chosen for us before we're born--the color of our hair, the
shapes of our noses" (he smiled and sighed), "doubtless the kinks in our
brains--Come, the fire is out, and if I allow you to take cold, Ellen
Neal will surely banish me from Eden with her flaming sword."
As they walked briskly home in the early February twilight, she said
after a long silence, "See here, Stefan, if you really are going when
your book is finished, let's not waste any more time going about to
silly parties and all that. You only do it to please me, and I only do
it to show you off. Why should we pretend any longer?--Let's be together
as much as we possibly can without bothering about anybody else! Shall
we?"
He looked rather startled.
"I mean," she continued calmly, "to make no more engagements at all; and
you needn't either--unless you wish to?"
"I shall not wish to."
"I thought not! There's really nobody here you care about talking to
except me, is there? And there's nobody in the world I'd willingly waste
a word on if you were about. So there, that's settled!" she said with a
little breath of satisfaction. "It's a good thing you're old enough to
be my father, Stefan, or I suppose people would begin to talk about us.
Still," she added, "I'm glad you're not eighty!"
Meeting her candid, clear, affectionate gaze, Nikolai managed to summon
up a smile of his own that was quite grandfatherly.