"I have gained her! Her Soul's mine!"
BROWNING.
"You slouched last night in the ring, Fatalité," Emile said.
Arithelli flung up her head. "I didn't!"
"You looked like a monkey on a stick," proceeded Emile stolidly. "You
were all hunched up. I wonder Don Juan didn't put you off his back on
to the tan."
"Don Juan knows better! You see animals are usually more kind than
people."
She was too proud to admit that the long hours, hard work, and want of
proper food and sleep had lately given her furious backaches, which
were a thing unknown to her before, and a cause of bitter resentment.
She had a healthy distaste for illness either in theory or practice.
That night she sat Don Juan erect as a lance, passing Emile in his
accustomed place in the lower tier of seats with a shrug and scornful
eyebrows.
She had felt more than usually inclined to play the coward during the
last few weeks. The heat, worry and over-fatigue had begun, as they
must have done eventually, to affect her nerves. When she had felt
more than usually depressed and listless Emile had taken her to one of
the _cafés_ and given her _absinthe_ which had made her feel recklessly
well for the moment, and ten times more miserable the next day. He had
also advised her to smoke, saying that it was good for people who had
whims and fancies, but smoking did not appeal to her, and she never
envied the Spanish woman her eternal cigarette.
She felt as if she would like to sleep, sleep for an indefinite period.
She was wearied to death of The Cause, and the Brotherhood, with their
intrigues and plots and interminable cipher messages.
She had been three months in Barcelona, and now fully justified Emile's
name for her. Tragic as a veritable mask of Fate, she looked ten years
older than the girl he had met on the station platform.
The longer she worked for the Cause the more she realised that Anarchy
was no plaything for spare moments, but a juggling with Life and Death.
At first they had given her but little to do--a few documents to copy,
some cipher messages to carry. Then the demands upon her leisure had
become more frequent. She found she was expected to make no demur at
being sent for miles, and once or twice there had been dreadful
midnight excursions to a hut up in the mountains.
The realisation of the folly of trying to escape from the burden that
had been laid upon her affected her nerve and seat during her
performances in the ring.
For the first time she felt her courage failing her when she entered
Sobrenski's house in answer to his summons. When he had given her the
despatch she made an objection on the grounds that the time taken in
conveying it would absorb her few hours of rest.
"It's too far," she protested. "I can't go there to-day."
"Then you can go to-morrow," answered Sobrenski in the accents of
finality. He had never cared about the girl's inclusion in their
plots, and took his revenge in exacting from her considerably more than
his pound of flesh.
Moreover he suspected her of treachery, and disliked her for the
quickness of her wit in argument.
Even his unseeing eyes told him she looked both ill and haggard, but if
she were there, well, she must work like the rest of them.
Arithelli hesitated for a moment, and when she spoke for all her pluck
her voice was a little rough and uneven. "I'm tired of being an errand
boy!"
Sobrenski looked at her, drawing his eyebrows together. Everyone of
the band had a nickname for her, and his own very unpleasant one was
"Deadly Nightshade." Some of the others were "Sapho" and "Becky
Sharp," which latter Emile had also adopted as being particularly
appropriate.
"Oh, very well," he answered. "Shall it be the messages or a bullet?
You can take your choice. Perhaps you would prefer the latter. It
makes no difference to me. This comes of employing women. When
Poleski brought you here first I was opposed to having you. Women
always give trouble."
"Would you have got a man to do half the work I do?" she flashed out
with desperate courage.
"Then _do_ your work and don't talk about it," retorted Sobrenski
sharply. "If you are absolutely ill and in bed, of course we can't
expect you to go to various places, but as long as you can ride every
night at the Hippodrome, you can certainly carry messages."
He turned his back on her and took up some papers from the table, and
Arithelli went out, beaten and raging.
Emile found her lying on the bed, her hands clenched by her side, her
proud mouth set in bitter lines. As he came in she turned away from
him, to face the wall.
"_Tiens_!" he observed, "you are a lazy little trollop." Emile was
proud of his English slang.
Finding there was no answer he changed his tone. "Hysterics, eh? They
won't do here. Turn over, I want to talk to you."
The girl moved mechanically, and Emile surveyed her. There were slow
tears forcing themselves under her heavy eyelids.
"I wish I were dead!"
"Probably you will be soon. So will the rest of us."
"What brutes you all are!"
"Because we don't care whether we die to-day or to-morrow? _Souvent
femme varie_! Just now you seemed so anxious,--besides, if one belongs
to the Cause one knows what to expect." Emile strolled towards the
uncomfortable piece of furniture by the window, that purported to be an
armchair, and sat down.
"I loathe the Cause! I didn't belong to it from choice. Why did you
make me join?"
"Because I thought you would be useful. You _are_ useful and probably
will be more so."
"Suppose I refuse to do anything more?"
"They will not give you the choice of refusing twice."
"Emile, I believe you are trying to frighten me. Tell me what they
would do."
"As I introduced you to the Brotherhood, I should naturally be the one
chosen to execute judgment on you. _Enfin_, my dear Arithelli, I
should be called upon to shoot you. We don't forgive traitors. If we
let everyone draw back from their work simply because they happened to
be afraid, what would become of the Cause? Also let me remind you how
you came to me boasting of your love of freedom. 'I'm a red-hot
Socialist.' That's what you said, didn't you? Perhaps you have
forgotten it. Well, I haven't. Socialism doesn't consist of standing
up in a room to sing."
Arithelli made no answer. She lay like a dead thing, and after a pause
the slow cynical voice went on.
"There was another woman in our affair about two years ago. Her name
was Félise Rivaz. She got engaged to one of the men, and then it
suddenly occurred to her that comfortable matrimony and Anarchy didn't
seem likely to be enjoyed at one and the same time. So she persuaded
the man to turn traitor and run away to England with her, where they
proposed to get married.
"Their plans came out,--naturally,--those things generally do. We all
spy upon each other. They both felt so secure that they came together
to a last meeting--I can show you the house if you like. It's down in
the Parelelo, the revolutionary quarter.
"They strangled the woman, and cut off her arm above the elbow--I
remember she had a thick gold bracelet round it with a date (a _gage
d'amour_ from her lover I suppose)--and they made him drink the blood.
He went mad afterwards. The best thing he could do under the
circumstances." Emile shrugged.
"There are plenty more similar _histoires_. But perhaps I have told
you enough to convince you of the futility of attempting to draw back
from what you have undertaken."
Still there was neither movement nor answer. Emile got up, and came to
the bed.
"_Allons_! It's time you were dressing. You'll be late again, and one
of these days you'll find yourself dismissed. You must just go on and
put up with it all. Life mostly consists of putting up with things."
But even this consoling philosophy failed to have a rousing effect.
For the first time in her life Arithelli had fainted.
* * * * * *
When she came to her senses that evening Emile sent the landlady with a
message to the Hippodrome, telling the Manager to substitute another
turn, and then made Arithelli get into bed. Her dress and boots came
off and reposed upon the floor. The rest of her clothes were left on.
These details did not worry Emile. Then he found a book and sat
reading till she had drifted into a heavy sleep, the sleep of
exhaustion.
In his own way he was sorry for her, and his feelings were by no means
as brutal as his words. At the same time he did not believe in a
display of sympathy. According to his ideas it was demoralising, and
cured no one of complaints, imaginary or otherwise.
Also it was likely to make people hysterical. Therefore when Arithelli
woke at six o'clock in the morning, and sat up panting, with a hand at
her left side, he elevated both shoulders and eyebrows.
"_Qu'est ce-qu vous avez donc_? You're all right now."
He knew perfectly well that there was no pretence of illness. The
strained eyes, the blue shadows round the mouth told their own tale.
"Oh, Emile, my heart feels so queer! I'm sure it must be all wrong."
"_Ma foi_! _Ces femmes la_! _Il y a tou jours quelque chose_! First
a faint, then a heart! How often am I to tell you, Arithelli, that
that part of your--your--how do you say it?--anatomy--is quite without
use here? Have you any brandy in the room?"
"There's Eau de Cologne on the washstand."
He mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soon
helped her to look less ghastly.
She lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing Emile would see fit to
depart, but Count Poleski returned again to the subject of her
misbehaviour.
Like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and the
night's vigil had not improved his temper.
He sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over grey
eyes, hard as flint. "If you are going in for this kind of
performance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically.
Perhaps after all Sobrenski had been right in employing no women.
"Even the best machine will get out of order sometimes," the girl
replied wearily.
"And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take
its place."
"I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn't
fair."
There was neither passion nor resentment in the low voice. "What shall
I do?" she went on, after waiting for Emile to speak.
"Put up with it, or better still go in for the Cause seriously."
"Don't you call this serious? Blood and brutalities and slave-driving?
You talked about _l'entresol de l'enfer_, but I'm beginning to think
I've stepped over the threshold."
"_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_!"
Arithelli bit her lips. "I don't feel in the mood for arguing now. I
wish you would leave me alone."
"On condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, I'll go and
settle with the Manager that you don't have to appear to-night. It's
lucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. The
audience won't miss you. Has Sobrenski given you anything to do
to-day?"
"I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I was to go to the Baroni's
at two o'clock."
"I'll see to that. A cipher message?"
"Yes. It's fastened under my hair." She dragged herself into a
sitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shaking
hands. Emile took it.
"Good! I shall be back at five o'clock. You can get up later and come
round to my rooms. Do you understand?"
"Yes!"
When he had gone she cowered down into the big bed shivering. Every
bone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She had the
sensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. Was it all
real or not?
Last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. She still heard
Emile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovely
siren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and the
walls closed in upon her.
His words worked in her brain: "_Go in for the Cause seriously.
Remember it's liberty we are fighting for. A life more or less--what's
that? Yours or mine? What does it matter? Do you wonder we don't
make love to women? It's a goddess and not a woman before whom we burn
incense. Blood and tears, money and life! Is there any sacrifice too
great for her altar?_"
And she had been both frightened and fascinated.
This was what Anarchism made of men like the cynical Emile. It had
never occurred to her before that even Sobrenski, whom she regarded
solely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice.
She drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at Emile's
room and finding it empty, she "prowled," as she herself would have
expressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a very
feminine curiosity. Under a pile of loose music she found the portrait
of a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robe
that could only have been made in Paris or Vienna.
The picture was signed _Marie Roumanoff_, and on the back was written
"_Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse!_" There were songs too scrawled
with love-messages in Emile's handwriting.
She pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with any
thought of jealousy. Emile always said that no revolutionist ever
wasted time or thought on women.
After all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? She had written
to her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with the
accounts of her triumph.
Success was a sure road to approbation. If she had failed she would
not have written.
The Hippodrome engagement could not last forever. A little
carelessness, a loss of nerve, and her career would be at an end.
Sometimes when she had been singing "_Le Rêve_," she had really meant
it all.
"_S'il faut, ah, prends ma vie_!"
Only a few days ago Emile had stormed at her in his rasping French,
because she had, with the vehemence of youth, denounced the Anarchist
leader as a relentless brute.
"You think yourself over-worked and ill-used--you!" he said as he
strode up and down the room twisting his fiercely pointed moustache.
"Look at Sobrenski. He works us all, but does he ever spare himself?
Look at Vardri? Rich, well-born, starving at the Hippodrome on a few
_pesetas_ a week. I thought you had better stuff in you. Are you
going to turn out English milk-and-water? You're _not_ English, you
say? No, I suppose you're not, or you wouldn't talk about 'dirty
Gentiles.' If you think Anarchy is all '_Le Rêve_' you'll soon find
yourself mistaken. If some of us dream dreams we have also to face
actions and realities."
Perhaps the episode of Marie Roumanoff belonged to the days before he
joined the Brotherhood and became an exile from his country.
She knew that once upon a time he had owned land and estates in Russia,
and Emile the Anarchist of Barcelona had been known as Count Poleski.
She kept her discoveries to herself, and when Emile returned he found
her crooning over the piano. She appeared to have quite recovered her
boyish good spirits, and demanded a singing lesson, for under his
tuition her passion for music had developed and increased.
"It's so nice to have a change from the heat and dust and those
horrible electric lights," she said. "Let's enjoy ourselves and try
over all your music. What a lot you have, and it all seems to have
been bought in different places. Rome, Paris, Vienna, Dieppe, London!
Fancy your having been in London!"
Emile's collection of songs covered a wide field and ranged from the
gypsy ballad of "The Lost Horse," to "The Bridge," in the performance
of which he revelled.
Arithelli sat in a corner and rocked with inward laughter over his
atrocious English, and evident enjoyment of the morbid sentiments. For
in spite of her face Arithelli had a fine sense of the ridiculous.
"You don't say the words properly," she said. "You make such mouthfuls
out of them!"
"And what of you?" Emile retorted in great wrath. "You with your
French all soft, soft like oil!"
"Yes, that's the Irish half of me."
"And your Italian so _raûque_ so hard--!"
"That's the Jewish half of me. Oh, don't let's quarrel! I do want to
learn to sing properly."
"Then don't fold your arms," her instructor said sharply. "I suppose
you think it looks dramatic, but how can you learn to sing what you
call 'properly,' with your chest all crushed up like that?"