"When I look back on the days long fled,
The memory grows still dreamier.
Oh! what fantastic lives they led,
Far away in Bohemia.
"There were laws that were only made to break,
In a world that never seems half awake
Till the lamps were lit--there were souls at stake.
Far away in Bohemia."
DOLF WYLLARDE.
Barcelona in August was like the Hell to which Emile likened it.
The rich escaped from the heat to their villas up in the mountains,
those whom business, or lack of money, kept in the city, existed in a
parched and sweltering condition. Arithelli still kept her place among
the performers at the Hippodrome, though after the fashion of circus
artists her name had been changed.
She was now "Madame Mignonne" from Paris, and wore a golden wig, and
came on the stage riding a lion in the character of a heathen goddess
in the spectacular display which always ended the performance.
She pined for the _haute école_ and trick riding in which she so
excelled, and felt unholy pangs when she saw her beloved white horses
being driven in a chariot by a fat, vulgar English woman, arrayed in
scanty pink tunic and tights.
She was not afraid of the lion, who was old and toothless enough to be
absolutely safe, but her new role was not a great success.
The golden hair did not suit her any better than did the classical
draperies, and she grew daily thinner. As a matter of fact she was
practically going through the process of slow starvation.
She had never, even in her healthily hungry days, been able to eat the
abominable Spanish dishes--meat floating in oil, and other things which
she classed together under the heading of _cochonneries_.
She generally lived on fruit, a little black bread, coffee, and
_absinthe_.
Emile would try and bully her into eating more, and occasionally
essayed his talents as a _chef_, and cooked weird looking things in his
rooms over a vilely smelling English oil stove, but the Jewess in
Arithelli found him wanting in the "divers washings" she required of
the saucepans, and they generally ended these Bohemian repasts with a
quarrel.
She went about her work in a half-stupefied state, as one who is
perpetually in a trance. She was past fear now. Nothing mattered.
Midnight rides on a mule up in the mountains, meetings in the low
quarter of the town, the danger of being arrested while carrying a
despatch.
"_C'est ainsi que la vie_!" Emile's motto had become also her own.
She was once more a perfect machine. Even the only thing that
Sobrenski could find to say against her was that her appearance was too
conspicuous for a conspirator and that her hands and feet would betray
her through any disguise.
Emile, though still outwardly as unsympathetic as ever, was not blind
to the change in her looks and manner.
Putting the Cause out of the question, he did not wish "Fatalité" to
get ill. Her company amused and distracted him.
He liked to hear her views on life, and to colour them with his own
cynicism, and he enjoyed teaching her to sing and hearing her argue.
For all her quiet she was curiously magnetic and had a way of making
her absence felt. She was never noisy or exacting and had none of the
pride or vices of her sex, and though she was often depressed she was
never bored, and in consequence bored no one.
They had many traits in common, including fatalism and morbidity, for
the Slav temperament is in a hundred ways akin to that of the Celt.
In spite of his jeering remarks Emile thoroughly appreciated the girl's
pluck, and knew that if she failed it would be purely from physical
reasons.
"Iron in a velvet sheath," he had described her, and iron did not
bend--it broke.
After some consideration he approached the very unapproachable Manager.
"It's time you gave your leading _equestrienne_ a holiday," he
observed. "She's getting ill. If you don't let her have a rest soon
she'll be falling off in public, or having some fiasco. She was half
dead the other night after the performance."
The Manager made profane remarks in the dialect of Silesia, of which
place he was a native. He was fresh from quarrelling for the hundredth
time with Estelle, and was in the last frame of mind to desire rest or
peace for any inhabitant of the globe.
By himself and everyone else at the Hippodrome, Arithelli was
considered the property of the Anarchist, and Emile had taken very good
care to disabuse no one of the idea, but had rather been at some pains
to create such an impression.
For her it was the best protection, and kept her free from the insults
and attentions of other men.
Bouquets and jewellery he was willing that she should receive; they did
no harm and the latter could always be sold.
In cold and dispassionate argument he explained to the irate Manager
the folly of ruining good material by injudicious use.
"You pay her as little as you can considering she is a draw. She does
the work of three people, including keeping the books when you are not
in a condition to wrestle with arithmetic. If you had your way she
would be cleaning out the stables."
"Bah!" sneered the other. "It would do her good--take the devil out of
her--hard work doesn't hurt that type. She's all wire and whipcord,
your She-Wolf, Poleski. Has she been snarling at you?"
"You'd better give her a week off," proceeded Emile, unmoved. "The
audience will be getting tired of her if you're not careful; she has
been on too long without a break. Get a fresh _artiste_ and take it
out of her salary. I shall give her a week's cruise round the harbour
and see what that will do."
"Well, try and put a little flesh on her bones," said the Manager
rudely. "I never saw such lean flanks! She's got the expression of a
death's head. It's a good thing the Spanish don't care for cheerful
grins or she wouldn't be here two days."
And so it came to pass that on the following Sunday Arithelli found
herself sitting on the deck of a yacht anchored far out in the harbour,
with the shores of Barcelona only a faint outline in the distance.
They had come aboard the previous day.
Emile had made her no explanations beyond saying that he was going to
take her for a sea trip, and after her custom she had asked no
questions.
The yacht, which was an uncanny looking craft, painted black and called
"_The Witch_," she knew by reputation, and had often seen it slipping
into the harbour after dusk. It was the property of two Russian
aristocrats, friends of Emile's, who helped the Cause by conveying
bombs and infernal machines, and taking off such members of the band as
had suddenly found Spain an undesirable residence.
Arithelli was not in the least interested in either of the men, the
dark, handsome, saturnine Vladimir, or the fair-haired, pretty,
effeminate youth to whom he was comrade and hero.
But she liked their smartness and well-groomed air, and their spotless
clothes, after Emile and his dirty nails and slovenly habits, and she
appreciated to the full the surrounding refinement and comfort, and
enjoyed the daintily served meals, the shining glass and silver and the
deft, silent waiting of the sailors.
She had been given a luxurious cabin which seemed a paradise after her
dirty, carpetless bedroom, and in it she could laze and lounge in peace
without the eternal practising and rehearsals and running errands that
her soul loathed.
The hot sun glared down upon her, as she sat watching the racing waves.
She was a fantastic, slim, _bizarre_ figure with her coppery hair, over
which a lace scarf was tied, and high-heeled slippers on her beautiful
slender feet.
In her ears dangled huge turquoises, showing vividly against the white
skin that was coated thickly with scented powder.
The manager had told her that she must not get tanned or red or it
would spoil her type, and she now "made-up" habitually in the daytime.
Her whole array was tawdry and theatrical, and utterly out of keeping
with her surroundings.
The two owners of the yacht, who wore immaculate white linen clothes
and canvas shoes, expressed to each other their disapproval of her
whole get-up, and particularly of her clicking heels. In common with
most men, they abominated an _outré_ style of dressing and too much
jewellery, and above all such finery at sea.
The girl must be mad! Didn't she know that a schooner was not a circus
ring? If she were such a fool Poleski should have taught her better
before bringing her on board.
They agreed that he had sense enough in other things, and had certainly
trained her not to be a nuisance.
After _déjeuner_ Emile had hunted up the least doubtful of the French
novels they possessed and sent her up on deck to get the benefit of the
sea air of which she was supposed to stand in need.
"_Va t'en_, Arithelli," he said. "You don't want to be suffocating
yourself down in a stuffy cabin. You're here to get lots of ozone and
make yourself look a little less like a corpse. Besides, we want to
talk."
She felt very much depressed and neglected as she sat dangling "_Les
confessions d'une femme mariée_," which were virtuous to dulness and
interested her not at all, in a listless hand, long and delicate like
her feet, and decorated with too many turquoise rings. Below, in the
cabin, she could hear the noise of the men as they argued and shouted
at each other in a polyglot of three different languages.
Arithelli felt more than a little resentful. Why had they shut her out
and prevented her from hearing their discussions?
The men at the other meetings had always wanted her in the room.
She had been entrusted with all their secrets and there was no question
of betrayal. She knew too much about the consequences now to try that.
When Emile came up from below she asked him why he had insulted her by
turning her out.
Did he not trust her, or did he think she had not enough intelligence.
For answer he laughed cynically, "I'll make use of you and your
intelligence fast enough--when I want them. You were cavilling at
being overworked the other day."
Of Vladimir and Paul she saw nothing in the daytime, for they both
ignored her, but in the evenings they all sat together up on deck, and
Paul sang and played the guitar while Arithelli would listen entranced
and faint with pleasure.
A love of melody was the birthright of her race, and the boy had a
genius for music. He seemed to have but two ideas in life--that, and a
devotion which almost amounted to idolatry for the older man.
They would walk up and down for hours, Vladimir with his hand on Paul's
shoulder talking, gesticulating and commanding, while the other, his
eyes on the ground, listened and assented.
Sometimes Vladimir would speak to him in Russian with an accent that
was in itself a caress, and Arithelli, who watched them curiously,
noticed and wondered to see the boy flush and colour like a woman.
She always looked forward with the keenest pleasure to those evenings.
The days bored her, inasmuch as she was capable of being bored, and she
hated the glare and glitter of the sun and sky.
It was too much like the blue-white lights of the Hippodrome. With
night came the glamour of Fairyland, that magic country in which
Ireland still believes, and which is ever there for those who seek it,
"East o' the Sun, and West o' the Moon."
The yacht drifting idly at anchor in smooth water, the stars in their
bed of velvet black, the magic of air and space.
The incense-like scent of Turkish cigarettes and black coffee, the
little group of men lounging in their deck chairs, the resonant, full
notes of the guitar, and Paul's voice rising out of the shadows.
If he had sung standing on the platform of a brightly lit concert hall
half the charm would have vanished in that distraction which the
personality of a singer creates.
In the illusion of his surroundings the man himself did not exist.
There was only the voice--the singer. Hungarian folk-songs that fired
her blood and made her restless with strange longings; "_La vie est
vaine_," eternally sweet and haunting; then some wickedly witty song of
the _cafés_, and melodies of Gounod full of infinite charm. Last of
all came always "_Le Rêve_," in which Emile and Vladimir joined as if
it were some National Anthem, and which left her quivering with
excitement.