THE SLAVE OF THE BLACK DIAMONDS
There is nothing startling or new in the declaration that when we
speak of "black diamonds" we mean _coal_. That beautiful, brilliant
stone, the diamond, is made of carbon. So is your house-coal--the only
difference being, the one is transparent, the other black; and the
first is the demon, the last the angel.
Coal moves the world. The spirit of progress comes from it; railroads,
steamboats borrow from it their wonderful strength. Every machine that
is, and works, has its existence from coal. It makes the earth
habitable; it gives to the great cities their mighty blaze and
splendor. It is a treasure, the last gift presented by earth to
extravagant man.
Therefore it is that we call coal "black diamonds."
Ivan Behrend, the owner of the Bondavara coal-mine, was not exactly in
the condition of some of his pitmen. He had seen God's heaven, and
knew how in happier lands life was bright, careless, sunny as the
cloudless sky itself. But for an existence which was all play and no
work, Ivan would not have cared. He had inherited the coal-mine from
his father, who had left him also an inheritance of a strong will and
inflexible perseverance. No trifle, nor even a great obstacle, could
stand in the way of Ivan's wishes, and his wish and his pride was to
work the Bondavara mine without any help but what his pitmen gave
him. It was his ambition--perhaps a foolish one--to have no company at
his back, no shareholders to find fault, no widows and orphans to be
involved in possible ruin; the mine was his, and his it should be
absolutely. Therefore it was a quiet business. The foundry and the
inhabitants of the nearest town consumed the yearly output at an
uncommonly low price. It never could be, unless with enormous outlay,
a great money-making business, seeing that the mine was too far away
from any of the great centres. Nevertheless, it brought in a steady
income, especially as Ivan paid no useless expenses, and was, as we
have said, his own overseer and accountant. He knew everything that
went on, he understood his own business perfectly, and he took a
pleasure in looking after his own affairs; and these three
qualifications, as any business man knows, insure ultimate success.
It was well, however, that he enjoyed such good health, and that this
superabundance of vital energy kept him always occupied, and, by a
natural consequence, never dull. There was no denying that it was a
solitary life for so young a man.
Ivan was very little over thirty, and when he opened the door of his
small house with his key, and closed the door behind him, he was
alone. He hadn't even a dog to come and greet him. He waited upon
himself; and in this he was a great man. Eating he looked upon as an
unnecessary waste of time; nevertheless, he ate a great deal, for his
muscular and mental system needed food. He was not delicate in his
appetite. He dined every day at the tavern. His food was very little
better than that of his pitmen, the only difference being that he
avoided the strong drinks they indulged in--for this reason, that they
worked only with their bodies; he had to bring to his work a clear
intellect, not a soddened one. His bed needed no making. It was a
wooden plank, upon which a mattress was placed, covered with a
sheep-skin. There was no use in brushing his clothes; they were always
permeated with coal-dust.
Any one who would offer, by way of doing him a service, to clear out
his room, would, in fact, have done him a deadly injury. It was full
of every sort of thing--new books half cut, minerals, scientific
instruments, plans, pictures, retorts. Not one of these should be
moved from its place. There was order in the disorder, and in the
heterogeneous mass Ivan could find what he wanted. In one corner was
Lavoisier's pyrometer; in another Berard's gas food-warmer. Over there
a wonderful sun-telescope; against the wall Bunsen's galvanic battery,
together with every conceivable invention, every sort of chemical
apparatus for analyzing and searching into the mysteries of Nature.
Amongst these things Ivan was wont to spend the long nights. Another
man, tired as he must have been with his day's work, would have flung
himself upon his bed, and have sought in sleep some compensation for
the labors of the day, or if not weary enough for this, would have sat
before his door and breathed the fresh air, which at night was free
from smoke and coal-dust. But this student of the unseen withdrew into
his inner chamber, lit his fire, made his lamp blaze, and busied
himself breaking lumps of coal, cooking seeds, developing deadly
gases, a breath of which was enough to send a man into eternity.
What was it he searched for? Was he seeking the secret of the
philosopher's stone? Did he abandon sleep to find out how diamonds can
be made out of coal? Did he strive to extract deadly poisons, or was
he simply pursuing the _ignis fatuus_ of knowledge--trying
experiments, grubbing in the dark until, in the hopeless endeavor, the
over-strained brain would give way, and there would be only the wreck
of what was once a noble intellect?
Nothing of the sort. This man had a purpose; he wanted to learn a
secret which would be of infinite benefit to mankind--at least, to
those who are buried in the pits and caverns of the earth. He wanted
to find out by what means it would be possible to extinguish fire in
burning pits. To discover this he consumed his nights and the years of
his youth and his manhood. It was no thought born of to-day or
yesterday; it had been his one desire for many years. He had seen so
much misery, such heartrending scenes enacted before these pit
mouths--these monsters which swallow up human life like the
Juggernauts of old. He wanted to prevent this amount of sacrifice--a
sacrifice never thought of by those who profit from the labor of these
victims, whose very blood is spilled to keep others warm. It is
possible this one idea might drive him mad, or he might lose his life;
but the knowledge, if he did gain it, would be, in his opinion, worth
the loss. After all, what is the loss of one life against the saving
of millions? This man had a fine nature; there was no tinge of self in
Ivan Behrend. Also, he had a certain enjoyment in his search.
Enjoyment is not the word. Whenever he got even a glimpse of what he
wanted, his joy was something unearthly. Surely these moments were
worth all the pleasures the world could offer him; and if we can bring
our minds to understand this, then we shall comprehend how a young man
preferred to be shut up in a cavern, in danger of losing his life, or
in a stifling room, trying risky experiments, rather than spend the
night with beautiful maidens or pleasant fellows, drinking, dancing,
and love-making. There is a charm in Science to those who know her
that far surpasses carnal joys.
To-night, however, it must be confessed, Ivan's experiments fell a
little flat. Either he was tired, or some other cause was at work.
Could it be possible that a girl's song-- Yes, such was the
humiliating condition of affairs. At the moment when he least expected
it, this thing had unexpectedly seized upon him.
With an effort Ivan lit his lamp and lighted his furnace. His
experiments, however, were a failure. That girl's song kept running in
his head, and the words--how did they go?
"Say when I smoothed thy hair,
Showed I not tender care?
Say when I dressed my child,
Was I not fond and mild?"[1]
[Footnote 1: These lines have been kindly translated
from the original by Miss Troutbeck.]
It was very pretty, and the voice wonderful--so sweet and clear and
melodious. To-morrow evening she might be at the pit's mouth again,
and then he would find out her name. Even if she were not there, the
other girls would know; there were not so many singers among them.
"Say when I smoothed thy hair"--
Oh, he could settle down to nothing with this tiresome song!--
"Showed I not tender care?"
He wished he had seen her face, merely to know if it matched the
voice. Very likely not. She would be hard-featured, like the other
girls--bold, unwomanly creatures; beauty and modesty were rare gifts
in Bondavara.
The next day Ivan was early at the pit. The opening of the air-oven
had done its work; there was only a fractional quantity of hydrogen
mixed with the pit air. The ventilators could be shut, and Ivan was
able to spend some time in the open.
At twelve o'clock the bell rang to leave off work. As the girls came
from the wheelbarrows, he again heard the clear young voice singing
the same song. He had not been wrong as to the voice; it was fresh and
lovely, like the blackbird in the woods, uneducated and unspoiled, but
full of natural charm, tender and joyous as the feathered songster. He
could now see the singer--a very young girl, not more than sixteen.
The common blue bodice she wore showed every undulation of her girlish
figure, untrammelled by any fashionable stays. Her short red skirt,
tucked up on one side, and fastened to her waist, disclosed her still
shorter chemise, which only reached to her knees, so that her legs
were uncovered. They might have been modelled for a statue of Hebe, so
perfect were they in shape--the ankles small, and little feet
beautifully rounded, like a child's. About her head the girl had wound
a colored cloth, and under this she had tucked away her hair; her
face, like those of her companions, was blackened by the coal-dust,
but even this enemy to beauty could not disfigure her. You could see
that her features were regular, her eyebrows thick and dark, her lips
red. There was a mixture of earthly dirt and supernatural beauty about
this child; besides, she had one thing that even coal-dust could not
conceal or dim, her eyes--her large black eyes--shining like two
diamonds, which lit up the darkness as two stars.
As these wonderful eyes met Ivan's glance, it seemed to that
philosopher as if these diamonds cut away a portion of the glass phial
in which he had preserved his heart, and so kept it untouched up to
this. But he did not know that this was only the beginning; his glass
protector will soon lie in fragments all round him.
The girl made a little curtsey to her employer, and accompanied this
small act of duty with a smile which showed two rows of beautiful,
pearly-white teeth.
Ivan felt like an enchanted knight in a fairy tale. He forgot what had
brought him here, and what he wanted to say; he remained rooted to the
spot, gazing blankly after the retreating figure of the girl and her
companions. He hoped, without exactly defining what his hope was, that
she would look back. That little action would have broken the charm
under which he lay. But she did not look back, although one of her
companions called her by her name, "Evila." Ivan could see them
talking to her, whispering, no doubt, about him. This did not seem to
rouse any curiosity in her. She and they had now come to an open shed.
Here they seated themselves upon the ground, took out of their pockets
pieces of black bread and wild apples, and ate their meal with as much
zest as if it had been chicken and grapes.
Ivan returned to his house. For the first time in his life it struck
him how lonely it was. It was his custom to keep a sort of log-book,
in which he entered his personal notes upon all his work-people. He
found this practice very necessary; he knew that a skilled workman of
good conduct is far more useful at high wages than a lazy,
good-for-nothing fellow of doubtful character who would come for half
the wage. At the footnote by the name "Evila" he read--
"A young orphan; supports a crippled brother younger than herself,
who goes upon crutches, and whose tongue is paralyzed. She is very
steady, and does not go to the town."
It was certain, therefore, that he must have seen this child before,
but had given no attention to her. Every Saturday he paid every
workman, every girl and lad in the pit; how, then, had he escaped
noticing those wonderful eyes? He did not know, learned as he was,
that there is an affinity between two souls destined for one another.
It is like an electric shock, this sudden birth of love; but Ivan
ridiculed such an idea. Love? Nonsense! He in love with a girl out of
the pit? Ridiculous! It was compassion, merely pity for a pretty
child, left without either father or mother to watch over her tender
age, and, still worse, with a deformed brother to care for and provide
with food and medicines. No doubt she gave him the best of everything,
while she had to be content with black bread and wild apples, and all
the time remained an honest, steady girl. She never even turned her
head to look after him. There was nothing but pity in his heart for
this coal-black Naiad; it was only pity made him wish to cover those
tender little feet with proper shoes; it was only a proper regard for
the weakest among his work-people which would cause him to make
inquiries as to this poor forlorn child. Oh, self-deception, what a
part you play in men's hearts!
The following Saturday the workers came to receive their weekly wages.
Ivan, who always paid them himself, remained at his desk until the
last one came. On this occasion Evila was the last. Ivan sat at a
table, on which was placed the sum to be paid, which was regulated by
the account of the work done, which was registered in the day-book.
When the girl, who was dressed as when we first saw her in her blue
bodice and red skirt, presented herself, Ivan said to her kindly--
"My child, I have determined to increase your wages; from this day you
shall have double pay."
The girl opened her large eyes, and stared in surprise. "Why so?" she
asked.
"Because I am told that you have a crippled brother, whom you have to
keep out of your small earnings. You cannot have enough to clothe and
feed both him and yourself. I have also heard that you are a
well-conducted, honest girl, and therefore it gives me pleasure to
reward you by giving you double pay."
"I cannot take it."
"Why not?"
"Because I know what the others would say. They would joke and tease
me about your being my lover, and I should get so tormented that I
could not stay in the place."
Ivan was so confounded by this naïve explanation, given without the
slightest confusion, that he could make no answer. He counted out the
usual week's wages, which she stowed away in the bosom of her bodice,
wished him good morning, and went her way.
He remained, his thoughts in a maze. In all his experience--and he had
a good deal, for his time had not been always spent in Bondavara, and
out in the world he had known many women--he had known no woman like
this.
She is afraid they will say I am her lover; she is afraid they will
tease her so much on that account that she may have to leave the
place! Has she, then, no idea that once I, the master, loved a girl
here, she would not push the wheelbarrow any more? Does she even know
what a lover is? She knows well that she must guard herself against
one. Poor child! How earnest she was, and yet she laughed, and she did
not know why she laughed, nor yet why she was grave. A savage in the
guise of an angel!
He got up, locked his desk, and turned to leave his office; then again
remained, thinking.
She is unlike every other woman. I doubt if she knows how beautiful
she is, or what is the worth of beauty. She is Eve, a perfect copy of
Eve--the Eve of Scripture, and the Eve of Milton. She is Eve, in not
knowing wherefore she should blush over her own nakedness--the type of
the beautiful in its primitive state, unwashed, savage, with hair
unconfined, who wanders through the garden, fearing nothing, and even
playing with a serpent. With men she is a woman, by herself she is a
child, and yet she displays a motherly care for her little brother.
Her figure is a model for a sculptor, her countenance is full of mind,
her eyes bewitching, her voice melodious; and yet her hands are hard
with the barrow-poles, her mind is troubled with sordid cares for her
daily bread, her face is covered with coal-smut, and she has learned
her songs in the street.
"The worse for her!" and, after a pause, Ivan added with a sigh, "and
the worse for another besides her."
In his mind a total revolution had taken place. The intellectual
spirits had for the nonce deserted him, and in their place others had
come of a very different order--those demons which the blessed Antony
had fought with such good effect in the desert.
When poor Ivan tried to banish these tempters by burying himself in
his books and his scientific instruments the form of Evila came
between him and the experiment he was busy on, just as Marguerite
appeared to Doctor Faust in his laboratory; her voice sounded in his
ear, her eyes glowed in the coals, and when he tried to write he found
himself drawing a maiden in a blue bodice and short red skirt. It was
the same with everything he undertook. Some mocking demon seemed bent
on tormenting him.
Abandoning his experiments, this unfortunate man took to reading a
volume of light literature. What did he open on? The loves of great
and nobly-born men for lowly-born and inferior women. Thus Lord
Douglas fell in love with a shepherdess, and became a shepherd for her
sake; Count Pelletier took for his wife a gypsy girl, and went about
the streets turning an organ; Bernadotte, the King of Sweden, sought
the hand of a young girl who watched a flock of geese for a farmer;
Archduke John married the daughter of a postmaster; and another
Austrian duke raised an actress to the position of grand duchess; the
consort of Peter the Great was the daughter of a villager; a Bonaparte
married a washerwoman who had been his mistress.
And why not? Are not beauty, sweetness, fidelity, and true worth to be
found under a woollen as well as under a silken frock? And, on the
other hand, do we not find sinners enough in the upper circles?
Did not Zoraida kill her own children, and was she not a born
princess? Faustina took money from her lovers, although she was the
daughter of an emperor; the Marquise Astorgas ran a hairpin through
her husband's heart; Semiramis strewed a whole churchyard with the
corpses of her spouses; King Otto was poisoned in a grove by his
queen; Joanna of Naples treasured the ribbon with which the king, her
husband, was strangled; Jeanne Lafolle tormented her husband to death;
the Empress Catharine betrayed her sovereign and consort, and connived
at his murder; and the Borgias, Tudors, Cillis, all had wives who
became notorious in that they wore entwined in their crowns the girdle
of Aphrodite.
And do we not find the most exalted virtue in what is called low life?
The actress Gaussin, to whom her wealthy lover gave a check with
_carte blanche_ to write a million thereupon, only wrote that she
would always love him, Quintilla, another actress, bit off her tongue,
lest she should betray her lover, who was implicated in a conspiracy;
Alice, who undertook to fight a duel for her husband, and was killed;
and many others who have suffered silently and died for very love.
Philosophy and history both conspired against Ivan. And then came
sleep.
A dream is a magic mirror in which we see ourselves as we would be if
our own wishes and inclinations were all-powerful. In his dream the
bald man has hair and the blind sees.
Towards the end of the following week Ivan made the discovery that he
had lost the use of his understanding. The more he endeavored to force
his mind back to its original groove of abstract theories, the more
the demons ranged themselves against him. One evening, in a fit of
absence of mind, he overheated one of the retorts, so that it burst in
his face, and the small glass particles cut his nose and cheek, and he
was forced to bind up his wounds with bits of sticking-plaster. It did
not occur to him that these strips of black diachylon placed obliquely
across his nose did not improve his appearance. He was, however, very
angry at his own folly--a folly which went still further, for he began
to argue with himself in this way:
"It would be better to marry this girl than to become mad for her
sake. Marry her? Who ever heard the like? A pit-girl! What a
_mésalliance_! And who cares? Am I not alone in the world? Do I not
form the whole family? And does not this constant thought of her come
between me and my business? If this goes on I shall be ruined; and as
for the _mésalliance_, is there a soul for six miles round who
understands the meaning of the word? Not one; and if there should be
one, he would have to seek me in the coal-pit, and he would find my
face blackened with coal-dust, so that no one could see me blush for
shame."
All the same, he never sought the girl. He waited for the Saturday,
when he knew she would come for her weekly wages, and on that day she
appeared, as usual, the last, because she was the youngest, and stood
before him as he sat at his desk. But this time, when Ivan had put the
money into Evila's hand, he kept the little fingers in his firm clasp.
The girl laughed--perhaps at the plasters, which still ornamented her
lover's face.
"Listen to me, Evila. I have something to say to you."
Evila looked uneasy; she ceased to laugh.
"Will you have me for your lover? Nay, my child, I mean you no harm;
only one must play the lover before one talks of marriage."
The girl nodded, and then shook her head. "It is not possible," she
said.
"Not possible! Why not?"
"Because I am already engaged."
Ivan let go his clasp of her hand. "To whom?"
"That I am not going to tell you," said Evila, "for if I did, I know
very well what you would do. You would discharge him, or you would
keep him back, and we cannot be married until he is taken on as a
regular pitman."
"You mean as a day laborer?"
"Yes."
"And you think more of this low fellow than you do of me, your
employer?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders, held her head a little to one side,
and threw a look at Ivan which sent the blood coursing to his head.
Then she went on, quietly--
"I gave him my promise before mother died, and I must keep my word."
"To the devil with your father and your mother!" cried Ivan, out of
himself with baffled hope and rage. "Do you imagine I care what you
have promised to a fellow like that? I ask you again, will you give
him up and come to me?"
Again Evila shook her head. "I dare not. My bridegroom is a wild,
desperate fellow; he would think nothing of doing for you, and setting
the pit on fire into the bargain when bad weather was on.
Good-evening!" And so saying, she ran away quickly, and mingled with
her companions.
Ivan threw the day-book from him so violently that the leaves flew
from one corner to another. A common creature, a wheelbarrow-girl, a
half-savage, had dared to cross his wishes and refuse his offer! And
for a dirty, miserable, underground miner--a common mole!
Ivan had a hard battle to fight with himself when he was once more
alone in the solitude of the night. The suppressed passion of the
ascetic had suddenly broken through the dams, which moderation had set
up to restrain its course.
Beware of the man who professes to be above human passion, who glories
in his iron will and his heart of ice; avoid him and the quiet, holy,
studious man of soft tongue, who turns away his eyes from women, and
shuns what others enjoy. It is upon such as these that outraged human
nature revenges itself; and once the demon within gets loose, he plays
a fine game to indemnify himself for all the restraint he has
undergone. The love of the worldling is a small dog; that of the
hermit is a lion.
With this wild beast, which he had suddenly unchained, did Ivan, the
man of science, spend the long night, now walking up and down the
narrow room, now throwing himself on his bed, a prey to the most
horrible temptations, his heart beating with a thousand passionate
desires, his thoughts running in as many evil directions. The
opposition that had been made to its wishes by Evila had stimulated
his passion, and also roused the pride of his nature. The master of
the Bondavara mine was a man of fiery temper, kept in check by his
strong command over himself; but this command seemed now at fault. He
had no longer any power to lay this demon, which had got possession of
him, tempting him from every side. With his powerful fist he struck
himself a blow upon his chest, near to his throbbing heart.
"Wilt thou be silent? Who is master, thou or I? Do thy duty, slave. I
am thy lord, thy king. Thy duty consists in nothing but keeping my
arteries in motion, in pumping the air into my lungs, in forcing the
blood in the right direction. When you cease your work, your illness
is atrophy; but you cannot be my master, for the sovereign ruler is my
will."
And as Ivan beat his breast, it seemed to him as if in a magic mirror
there were reflected two forms--himself and another Ivan, with whom he
waged a deadly combat. It appeared to him as if this other self had
robbed him of his form and features, to perpetrate in his name the
most odious sins, and as he hit out against this horrid image of
himself, it slowly vanished; and then Ivan, falling back upon his
pillow, cried out in a loud voice, "Never return, O fiend; never
defile my sight again!"
In another hour, pale and exhausted, Ivan was seated quietly before
his desk. It required an heroic effort on his part to go into prosaic
calculations, to add up long columns of figures; but he forced his
weary brain, his tired fingers to the task, and the slave obeyed its
master, the body submitted to the mind.