"Must a man have hope to fight?
Can a man not fight in despair?"
"A Polish Insurgent," JAMES THOMPSON.
How he lived through his last day in Barcelona Emile never quite knew.
A strong will, strong tobacco, and plenty of work were all aids in
helping him to preserve his sanity.
He soon arranged things with Sobrenski, and found no difficulty in
obtaining the post of messenger in the St. Petersburg affair.
He walked to the Hippodrome while the _matinée_ performance was in
progress, and left a message for Arithelli at the stage door.
Then he went back to his rooms in the Calle San Antonio, and began to
make the few necessary preparations for departure. He was not
encumbered with worldly goods, and his wardrobe was not extensive, so
there remained only to look through and destroy all documents, books,
or letters that could not be carried about or that might involve the
safety of others.
Certain songs and pieces of music he put together in a pile, the rest
he tore across and threw into a corner. He would have no need of these
amusements now. Cultivation of the fine arts is not encouraged in the
political prisons.
At five o'clock Arithelli entered the room, her clothes put on
carelessly, the grey pallor of intense weariness upon her face. She
had been working early and late during the past two days, and the
thought of the missing letter worried her from time to time. Sometimes
she felt almost certain that she had dropped it in changing from her
circus clothes, and that it had been appropriated out of curiosity by
one of the women who shared the dressing-room. As it was written in
English, they would probably throw it away at once in disgust, annoyed
at being deprived of the excitement of a romance or scandal.
She knew it would be useless to make enquiries. If it had been left
there it had been done late at night, and the dressing-rooms were
always cleaned early next morning, and it would have been swept away
with the other rubbish.
She had not said anything about her loss to Vardri. It would make him
even more anxious than herself, and she must bear the penalty of her
own carelessness.
She hoped that after all it would come to light in some box or drawer
among her clothes.
She came forward noiselessly across the polished, carpetless floor.
"_Bon jour_, Emile! You wanted me?"
He pointed to a chair.
"Sit down! Your hat is on crooked--as usual! Are you so little of a
woman that you never use a mirror?"
A gleam of fun lit up her eyes.
"You covered mine up the other night with that horrible wreath and
streamers. I can only see myself in little bits now."
"Well, sit down and I'll talk to you presently."
Emile returned to the sorting and destruction of his correspondence,
and Arithelli lay back in her chair with a sigh of content, and closed
her eyes. When she opened them again he was standing beside her with a
glass of red wine in his hand.
"Drink this," he said, giving it to her.
"It isn't _absinthe_, is it?" she asked. "I can't see in this light,
and I don't want--"
"It doesn't matter what it is or what you want. Don't argue, but
finish it. How fond you women are of talking!" He waited till she had
obeyed him.
"You see that music? Well, you can take it back with you. I shall not
have any more use for music when I leave here. And listen to me now,
and don't go to sleep for the next five minutes if you can help it."
He kept full control of himself and his feelings. If anything his
voice was a little more rasping than usual, and his dry words of
counsel and advice were spoken in his ordinary hard, practical manner.
An outsider would have found it difficult to say which was the more
indifferent in appearance of these two who had been so strangely
intimate for half a year, and who were now about to part.
The girl was apathetic from physical fatigue and past emotions.
She thought as she looked round the familiar room how impossible it was
to believe that she would never be there again after to-day, and that
Emile would never again come to her.
The wine cleared her brain and made her blood run more quickly. She
roused herself to listen to what Emile was saying, and to answer the
questions he was asking her about her own arrangements. She thought he
seemed relieved when she told him of Vardri's scheme, and she
restrained a strong desire to tell him also about the missing letter.
He gave her an address in the Russian capital to which she could write
during the next month, warning her at the same time to be careful in
what she said, to mention no names, and to avoid all references to
politics, as his correspondence would run the risk of being edited by
the police. Inside the envelope on which the address was written he
had enclosed forty francs.
"You'll probably find a little money useful one of these days," he
said. "Keep it till you really want it. You can't wear more than one
pair of boots at once, and there are other things more important. I
don't want you to thank me. You can go and sing something instead, and
do your best as it's for the last time."
Arithelli rose at once and went to the piano, eager to do something
that might give him pleasure.
She could play for herself now. Emile had succeeded in teaching her a
few easy accompaniments, so that he could listen without distraction.
She hesitated for a minute, turning over his big music book, and then
chose the popular song of the _café-chantants_ and streets, the famous
"_La Colombe_" with its lilting time, and mingled gaiety and sorrow.
One heard it everywhere, sung in Spanish, in the local patois, and in
French, by _artistes_ in the theatres, by factory girls, and sailors,
and market people. The _gamins_ and beggars whistled and hummed it in
the streets and squares.
Emile walked up and down the room as he listened. He had made her sing
in the hope of lessening in a small degree the strain he was enduring,
but what had possessed her to choose this song of all others? The
words told of one who was about to set sail, and lingered bidding adieu
to his Nina, the woman he loved.
"_Le jour où quittant la terre pour l'océan,
Je dis, priez Dieu, priez Dieu pour votre enfant.
Avant que nous mettre en route je crus revoir,
Nina! qui pleurait sans doute de désespoir._"
One could hear the rocking of the boat at anchor, the rippling of the
out-going tide.
In the second verse the time was changed, the words were hurried and
insistent.
"_Nina! si je succombe, el qu'un beau soir,
Une blanche colombe vient te voir,
Ouvre-lui ta fenêtre car ce sera,
Mon âme qui peut-être te reviendra._"
Her voice had grown weaker since her illness, and she sang with visible
exertion and faulty breathing, but it was still the golden voice of the
Israelitish woman, and there was the same _tîmbre_ that had attracted
him, and made him speak to her that afternoon in May at the station.
And all that had only happened six months ago! When she had finished
he said nothing in approval, but he asked her to sing again, and she
understood, and was pleased.
"You may thank the Fates for having given you a voice," he told her.
"It's better than a face. It lasts longer. No man having once heard
you would listen to another woman."
It was the first compliment he had ever made her, but Arithelli did not
answer. Her back was turned towards him as she gathered together the
music.
He could see that her whole body was trembling with repressed sobs. If
he could only have been sure they were for him, he would have taken her
in his arms. She was sorry he was going, perhaps, in a way, but not in
the way he wanted. She had become dependent upon him, and he had
filled a certain place in her life. If she made a scene it was
entirely his own fault. Farewells were always a mistake, and he had
been foolish enough to allow her to sing sentimental verses about doves
and people's wandering souls. She was over-tired and over-wrought, and
a woman's tears were more often due to physical than to mental reasons.
So he argued, trying to convince himself, yet knowing all the time that
Arithelli was not one of the women whose emotions are on the surface.
Once before he had seen her cry, and now as then he stood apart. It
was for Vardri to dry her tears.
He glanced at the clock. Of course it was wrong, but he knew by the
shadows that filled the room that it must be time for her to leave if
she was to appear in public again to-night.
He must hurry the interview to a close, for he could not play his part
much longer.
"You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Arithelli. _Vous avez la
chance_! What have I given you but work and grumbles, eh?"
The soft, broken voice answered him:
"I shall feel afraid without you."
"You will have Vardri,--your lover." His tone was brutal as the blow
of a knife. The natural animal jealousy of a man had risen in him
again. When he was between stone walls, she would have the warmth of a
lover's arms; every nerve in his own body would know it, and long for
that which he had himself resigned.
He would have long hours to sit and think the thoughts that drive men
to insanity or self-destruction.
"Yes, but one can care in different ways, and you have done so many
things for me."
The man drew in his breath sharply. The knife was in her hand now, but
she had stabbed unconsciously. He knew that she spoke quite simply,
thinking only of his care for her physical well-being.
Truly he had done things, things that he would have given several years
of life to undo.
Now he had that for which he craved,--the assurance that she cared,
that she would miss him. Still he did not delude himself. He knew
that what she felt towards him was not the love between a woman and her
mate, but the affection of dependence, of habit. Yet for such as it
was his soul uttered thanksgiving. Any other woman gifted with a less
sweet nature would have felt for him nothing but hatred, but in
Fatalité's mind neither spite nor malice ever found a place. The petty
vices of womankind had never been hers. He knew now that he had been
something to her, and that knowledge would make sunshine for him even
in the shadow of a prison. It gave him courage also to play out the
tragi-comedy to the end, to make a brave jest, to lie convincingly.
"We needn't make each other eternal adieux, _mon enfant_. You must not
take all I said about Siberian dungeons _au serieux_. Russia isn't
quite as dangerous as it's made out to be. Of course the police keep a
watch more or less on the 'suspects,' but we know all their tricks, and
how to avoid them. Plenty of us go to St. Petersburg and even to Kara
and come back again. The Schlusselburg fortress is about the only
place we haven't succeeded in getting out of yet. It's fairly easy to
manage a false passport. You can write to me at the address I've given
you."
* * * * * *
It was all over now, and he was alone. He had taken both her hands for
an instant, and felt the convulsive clinging of the thin fingers. He
had longed to kiss them, but dared not trust himself. His words were
only such as might have been used by anyone of the Brotherhood.
"_Au revoir, camarade_!"
"_Au revoir_!"
Her tears were falling still, though she answered him steadily enough.
Then she turned away, pulling down her veil, and he saw her grope
blindly for the fastening of the door. It shut gently behind her, and
he was alone. He sat down by the table with its litter of books and
newspapers, and stared dully round the room which her passing had left
more hopeless and ugly than ever.
Life itself would be more _fâde_ and ugly now. As well for him that
after to-day he would have no time to sit and brood. It would be all
stern reality soon, enough to cure him of lovesickness.
First the work and risks of a secret printing press in some cellar or
sordid room behind a shop, and later on the inevitable police-raid, a
trial that would be no trial with the condemnation signed before-hand,
and afterwards the _travaux forcés_, the long marches, the agonies of
farewell at the Siberian boundary-post--not for him, for his were said,
but for his companions in misery--the miseries of the sick and dying,
the partial starvation, and the horrors of dirt and vermin. There were
sure to be some women too among the "politicals," and he would be
obliged to watch their sufferings.
There would be no imaginary grievances in that life at all events.
On the floor, as it had dropped from among the music there lay a
photograph, face downwards.
He picked it up and looked back at the childish, smiling face, the
tiny, rounded figure of Marie Roumanoff.
"_Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_."
His mouth twisted into a cynical smile. She had been a true prophetess
when she had written that.
He tore the picture across, and threw it upon the rest of the _débris_.
The Roumanoff would never haunt his dreams again.
Her portrait was easily destroyed. A flimsy thing of print and paper,
as slight and fragile as herself.
Of Arithelli he possessed no tangible likeness, but he would have her
always with him, for her image was seared deep upon both heart and
brain.
_The Witch_ sailed out of Barcelona harbour with the early morning
tide. Besides Emile and Vladimir, and a small picked crew, she carried
an assortment of strangely-shaped machines, things that looked like the
inside of a clock, and were full of wheels and cogs, firearms, and
ammunition, some copies of a revolutionist manual on street fighting
tactics, and other inflammatory literature.
Their plan was to enter Russia by way of Finland, leaving all the
things there to be smuggled through by degrees.
When they came to the frontier they would part company. Emile would
make his way towards the city that holds its trembling autocrat as
closely guarded in his palace as any convict in the mines, while
Vladimir was to go back to Spain overland to report success or failure
in the landing and disposal of their dangerous cargo.
All day the two men sat together, talking, plotting, preparing for all
contingencies.
There were no feminine voices to be heard on board the yacht now, no
singing on deck in the evenings, no hint of the presence of a woman,
either as wife, mistress, or companion.
They neither discussed nor recalled these vanished days, though one had
hours of memory and regret, and the other was consumed with a savage
hunger for that which he had lost.
Both had taken upon themselves vows that put them outside the pale of
human ties and affections.
The Goddess whom they both served had risen, claiming their allegiance,
their service, and with the lives and ways of mortal women they had no
concern. The Cause had triumphed.