PART III

THE VICTORY

I

When I came out of the house, hurried and angrily flushing, I perceived

clearly that my reluctance to break a habit and my desire for physical

comfort, if not my attachment to the girl, had led me too far. I was

conscious of humiliation. I despised myself. The fact was that I had

quarrelled with Yvonne--Yvonne, who had been with me for eight years,

Yvonne who had remained sturdily faithful during my long exile. Now the

woman who quarrels with a maid is clumsy, and the woman who quarrels with

a good maid is either a fool or in a nervous, hysterical condition, or

both. Possibly I was both. I had permitted Yvonne too much liberty. I had

spoilt her. She was fidelity itself, goodness itself; but her character

had not borne the strain of realizing that she had acquired power over

me, and that she had become necessary to me. So that morning we had

differed violently; we had quarrelled as equals. The worst side of her

had appeared suddenly, shockingly. And she had left me, demonstrating

even as she banged the door that she was at least my mistress in

altercation. All day I fought against the temptation to eat my pride, and

ask her to return. It was a horrible, a deplorable, temptation. And

towards evening, after seven hours of solitude in the hotel in the Avenue

de Kleber, I yielded to it. I knew the address to which she had gone, and

I took a cab and drove there, hating myself. I was received with

excessive rudeness by a dirty and hag-like concierge, who, after refusing

all information for some minutes, informed me at length that the young

lady in question had quitted Paris in company with a gentleman.

The insolence of the concierge, my weakness and my failure, the bitter

sense of lost dignity, the fact that Yvonne had not hesitated even a few

hours before finally abandoning me--all these things wounded me. But the

sharpest stab of all was that during our stay in Paris Yvonne must have

had secret relations with a man. I had hidden nothing from her; she,

however, had not reciprocated my candour. I had imagined that she lived

only for me....

Well, the truth cannot be concealed that the years of wandering which had

succeeded the fatal night at Monte Carlo had done little to improve me.

What would you have? For months and months my ears rang with Frank's

despairing shout: '_You've_ brought me to this, Carlotta!' And the

profound injustice of that cry tainted even the sad sweetness of my

immense sorrow. To this day, whenever I hear it, as I do still, my inmost

soul protests, and all the excuses which my love found for him seem

inadequate and unconvincing. I was a broken creature. (How few know what

it means to be broken--to sink under a tremendous and overwhelming

calamity! And yet who but they can understandingly sympathize with the

afflicted?) As for my friends, I did not give them the occasion to desert

me; I deserted them. For the second time in my career I tore myself up by

the roots. I lived the nomad's life, in the usual European haunts of the

nomad. And in five years I did not make a single new friend, scarcely an

acquaintance. I lived in myself and on myself, nursing grief, nursing a

rancour against fate, nursing an involuntary shame.... You know, the

scandal of which I had been the centre was appalling; it touched the

extreme. It must have nearly killed the excellent Mrs. Sardis. I did not

dare to produce another novel. But after a year or so I turned to poetry,

and I must admit that my poetry was accepted. But it was not enough to

prevent me from withering--from shrivelling. I lost ground, and I was

still losing it. I was becoming sinister, warped, peculiar, capricious,

unaccountable. I guessed it then; I see it clearly now.

The house of the odious concierge was in a small, shabby street off the

Boulevard du Montparnasse. I looked in vain for a cab. Even on the wide,

straight, gas-lit boulevard there was not a cab, and I wondered why I had

been so foolish as to dismiss the one in which I had arrived. The great,

glittering electric cars floated horizontally along in swift succession,

but they meant nothing to me; I knew not whence they came nor whither

they went. I doubt if I had ever been in a tram-car. Without a cab I was

as helpless and as timid as a young girl, I who was thirty-one, and had

travelled and lived and suffered! Never had I been alone in the streets

of a large city at night. And the September night was sultry and

forbidding. I was afraid--I was afraid of the men who passed me, staring

at me. One man spoke to me, and I literally shook with fear as I hastened

on. What would I have given to have had the once faithful Yvonne by my

side! Presently I came to the crossing of the Boulevard Raspail, and this

boulevard, equally long, uncharitable, and mournful with the other,

endless, stretching to infinity, filled me with horror. Yes, with the

horror of solitude in a vast city. Oh, you solitary, you who have felt

that horror descending upon you, desolating, clutching, and chilling the

heart, you will comprehend me!

At the corner, of the two boulevards was a glowing cafe, the Café du

Dome, with a row of chairs and little tables in front of its windows. And

at one of these little tables sat a man, gazing absently at a green glass

in a white saucer. I had almost gone past him when some instinct prompted

me to the bravery of looking at him again. He was a stoutish man,

apparently aged about forty-five, very fair, with a puffed face and

melancholy eyes. And then it was as though someone had shot me in the

breast. It was as if I must fall down and die--as if the sensations which

I experienced were too acute--too elemental for me to support. I have

never borne a child, but I imagine that the woman who becomes a mother

may feel as I felt then, staggered at hitherto unsuspected possibilities

of sensation. I stopped. I clung to the nearest table. There was ice on

my shuddering spine, and a dew on my forehead.

'Magda!' breathed the man.

He had raised his eyes to mine.

It was Diaz, after ten years.

At first I had not recognised him. Instead of ten, he seemed twenty years

older. I searched in his features for the man I had known, as the

returned traveller searches the scene of his childhood for remembered

landmarks. Yes, it was Diaz, though time had laid a heavy hand on him.

The magic of his eyes was not effaced, and when he smiled youth

reappeared.

'It is I,' I murmured.

He got up, and in doing so shook the table, and his glass was overturned,

and scattered itself in fragments on the asphalte. At the noise a waiter

ran out of the cafe, and Diaz, blushing and obviously making a great

effort at self-control, gave him an order.

'I should have known you anywhere,' said Diaz to me, taking my hand, as

the waiter went.

The ineptitude of the speech was such that I felt keenly sorry for him. I

was not in the least hurt. My sympathy enveloped him. The position was so

difficult, and he had seemed so pathetic, sitting there alone on the

pavement of the vast nocturnal boulevard, so weighed down by sadness,

that I wanted to comfort him and soothe him, and to restore him to all

the brilliancy of his first period. It appeared to me unjust and cruel

that the wheels of life should have crushed him too. And so I said,

smiling as well as I could:

'And I you.'

'Won't you sit down here?' he suggested, avoiding my eyes.

And thus I found myself seated outside a cafe, at night, conspicuous for

all Montparnasse to see. We never know what may lie in store for us at

the next turning of existence.

'Then I am not much changed, you think?' he ventured, in an anxious tone.

'No,' I lied. 'You are perhaps a little stouter. That's all.'

How hard it was to talk! How lamentably self-conscious we were! How

unequal to the situation! We did not know what to say.

'You are far more beautiful than ever you were,' he said, looking at me

for an instant. 'You are a woman; you were a girl--then.'

The waiter brought another glass and saucer, and a second waiter

followed him with a bottle, from which he poured a greenish-yellow

liquid into the glass.

'What will you have?' Diaz asked me.

'Nothing, thank you,' I said quickly.

To sit outside the cafe was already much. It would have been impossible

for me to drink there.

'Ah! as you please, as you please,' Diaz snapped. 'I beg your pardon.'

'Poor fellow!' I reflected. 'He must be suffering from nervous

irritability.' And aloud, 'I'm not thirsty, thank you,' as nicely

as possible.

He smiled beautifully; the irritability had passed.

'It's awfully kind of you to sit down here with me,' he said, in a lower

voice. 'I suppose you've heard about me?'

He drank half the contents of the glass.

'I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering from

neurasthenia and nervous breakdown,' I replied. 'I was very sorry.'

'Yes,' he said; 'nervous breakdown--nervous breakdown.'

'You haven't been playing lately, have you?'

'It is more than two years since I played. And if you had heard me that

time! My God!'

'But surely you have tried some cure?'

'Cure!' he repeated after me. 'There's no cure. Here I am! Me!'

His glass was empty. He tapped on the window behind us, and the

procession of waiters occurred again, and Diaz received a third glass,

which now stood on three saucers.

'You'll excuse me,' he said, sipping slowly. 'I'm not very well to-night.

And you've--Why did you run away from me? I wanted to find you, but I

couldn't.'

'Please do not let us talk about that,' I stopped him. 'I--I must go.'

'Oh, of course, if I've offended you--'

'No,' I said; 'I'm not at all offended. But I think--'

'Then, if you aren't offended, stop a little, and let me see you home.

You're sure you won't have anything?'

I shook my head, wishing that he would not drink so much. I thought it

could not be good for his nerves.

'Been in Paris long?' he asked me, with a slightly confused utterance.

'Staying in this quarter? Many English and Americans here.'

Then, in setting down the glass, he upset it, and it smashed on the

pavement like the first one.

'Damn!' he exclaimed, staring forlornly at the broken glass, as if in the

presence of some irreparable misfortune. And before I could put in a

word, he turned to me with a silly smile, and approaching his face to

mine till his hat touched the brim of my hat, he said thickly: 'After

all, you know, I'm the greatish pianist in the world.'

The truth struck me like a blow. In my amazing ignorance of certain

aspects of life I had not suspected it. Diaz was drunk. The ignominy of

it! The tragedy of it! He was drunk. He had fallen to the beast. I drew

back from that hot, reeking face.

'You don't think I am?' he muttered. 'You think young What's-his-name can

play Ch--Chopin better than me? Is that it?'

I wanted to run away, to cease to exist, to hide with my shame in some

deep abyss. And there I was on the boulevard, next to this animal,

sharing his table and the degradation! And I could not move. There are

people so gifted that in a dilemma they always know exactly the wisest

course to adopt. But I did not know. This part of my story gives me

infinite pain to write, and yet I must write it, though I cannot persuade

myself to write it in full; the details would be too repulsive.

Nevertheless, forget not that I lived it.

He put his face to mine again, and began to stammer something, and I

drew away.

'You are ashamed of me, madam,' he said sharply.

'I think you are not quite yourself--not quite well,' I replied.

'You mean I am drunk.'

'I mean what I say. You are not quite well. Please do not twist my

words.'

'You mean I am drunk,' he insisted, raising his voice. 'I am not drunk;

I have never been drunk. That I can swear with my hand on my heart. But

you are ashamed of being seen with me.'

'I think you ought to go home,' I suggested.

'That is only to get rid of me!' he cried.

'No, no,' I appealed to him persuasively. 'Do not wound me. I will go

with you as far as your house, if you like. You are too ill to be alone.'

At that moment an empty open cab strolled by, and, without pausing for

his answer, I signalled the driver. My heart beat wildly. My spirit was

in an uproar. But I was determined not to desert him, not to abandon him

to a public disgrace. I rose from my seat.

'You're very good,' he said, in a new voice.

The cab had stopped.

'Come!' I entreated him.

He rapped uncertainly on the window, and then, as the waiter did not

immediately appear, he threw some silver on the table, and aimed himself

in the direction of the cab. I got in. Diaz slipped on the step.

'I've forgotten somethin',' he complained. 'What is it? My umbrella--yes,

my umbrella--_pépin_ as they say here. 'Scuse me moment.'

His umbrella was, in fact, lying under a chair. He stooped with

difficulty and regained it, and then the waiter, who had at length

arrived, helped him into the cab, and he sank like a mass of inert clay

on my skirts.

'Tell the driver the address,' I whispered.

The driver, with head turned and a grin on his face, was waiting.

'Rue de Douai,' said Diaz sullenly.

'What number?' the driver asked.

'Does that regard you?' Diaz retorted crossly in French. 'I will tell

you later.'

'Tell him now,' I pleaded.

'Well, to oblige you, I will. Twenty-seven. But what I can't stand is the

impudence of these fellows.'

The driver winked at me.

'Just so,' I soothed Diaz, and we drove off.

I have never been happier than in unhappiness. Happiness is not joy, and

it is not tranquillity. It is something deeper and something more

disturbing. Perhaps it is an acute sense of life, a realization of one's

secret being, a continual renewal of the mysterious savour of existence.

As I crossed Paris with the drunken Diaz leaning clumsily against my

shoulder, I was profoundly unhappy. I was desolated by the sight of this

ruin, and yet I was happier than I had been since Frank died. I had

glimpses and intimations of the baffling essence of our human lives here,

strange, fleeting comprehensions of the eternal wonder and the eternal

beauty.... In vain, professional writer as I am, do I try to express

myself. What I want to say cannot be said; but those who have truly lived

will understand.

We passed over the Seine, lighted and asleep in the exquisite Parisian

night, and the rattling of the cab on the cobble-stones roused Diaz from

his stupor.

'Where are we?' he asked.

'Just going through the Louvre,' I replied.

'I don't know how I got to the other s-side of the river,' he said.

'Don't remember. So you're coming home with me, eh? You aren't

'shamed of me?'

'You are hurting me,' I said coldly, 'with your elbow.'

'Oh, a thousand pardons! a thous' parnds, Magda! That isn't your real

name, is it?'

He sat upright and turned his face to glance at mine with a fatuous

smile; but I would not look at him. I kept my eyes straight in

front. Then a swerve of the carriage swung his body away from me,

and he subsided into the corner. The intoxication was gaining on him

every minute.

'What shall I do with him?' I thought.

I blushed as we drove up the Avenue de l'Opera and across the Grand

Boulevard, for it seemed to me that all the gay loungers must observe

Diaz' condition. We followed darker thoroughfares, and at last the cab,

after climbing a hill, stopped before a house in a street that appeared

rather untidy and irregular. I got out first, and Diaz stumbled after me,

while two women on the opposite side of the road stayed curiously to

watch us. Hastily I opened my purse and gave the driver a

five-franc-piece, and he departed before Diaz could decide what to say. I

had told him to go.

I did not wish to tell the driver to go. I told him in spite of myself.

Diaz, grumbling inarticulately, pulled the bell of the great door of the

house. But he had to ring several times before finally the door opened;

and each second was a year for me, waiting there with him in the street.

And when the door opened he was leaning against it, and so pitched

forward into the gloom of the archway. A laugh--the loud, unrestrained

laugh of the courtesan--came from across the street.

The archway was as black as night.

'Shut the door, will you?' I heard Diaz' voice. 'I can't see it.

Where are you?'

But I was not going to shut the door.

'Have you got a servant here?' I asked him.

'She comes in the mornings,' he replied.

'Then there is no one in your flat?'

'Not a shoul,' said Diaz. 'Needn't be 'fraid.'

I'm not afraid,' I said. 'But I wanted to know. Which floor is it?'

'Third. I'll light a match.'

Then I pushed to the door, whose automatic latch clicked. We were fast in

the courtyard.

Diaz dropped his matches in attempting to strike one. The metal box

bounced on the tiles. I bent down and groped with both hands till I found

it. And presently we began painfully to ascend the staircase, Diaz

holding his umbrella and the rail, and I striking matches from time to

time. We were on the second landing when I heard the bell ring again, and

the banging of the front-door, and then voices at the foot of the

staircase. I trembled lest we should be over-taken, and I would have

hurried Diaz on, but he would not be hurried. Happily, as we were halfway

between the second and third story, the man and the girl whose voices I

heard stopped at the second. I caught sight of them momentarily through

the banisters. The man was striking matches as I had been. '_C'est ici_,'

the girl whispered. She was dressed in blue with a very large hat. She

put a key in the door when they had stopped, and then our matches went

out simultaneously. The door shut, and Diaz and I were alone on the

staircase again. I struck another match; we struggled on.

When I had taken his key from Diaz' helpless hand, and opened his door

and guided him within, and closed the door definitely upon the outer

world, I breathed a great sigh. Every turn of the stair had been a

station of the cross for me. We were now in utter darkness. The classical

effluvium of inebriety mingled with the classical odour of the furnished

lodging. But I cared not. I had at last successfully hidden his shame. No

one could witness it now but me. So I was glad.

Neither of us said anything as, still with the aid of matches, I

penetrated into the flat. Silently I peered about until I perceived a

pair of candles, which I lighted. Diaz, with his hat on his head and his

umbrella clasped tightly in his hand, fell into a chair. We glanced at

each other.

'You had better go to bed,' I suggested. 'Take your hat off. You will

feel better without it.'

He did not move, and I approached him and gently took his hat. I then

touched the umbrella.

'No, no, no!' he cried suddenly; 'I'm always losing this umbrella, and I

won't let it out of my sight.'

'As you wish,' I replied coldly.

I was standing by him when he got up with a surprising lurch and put a

hand on my shoulder. He evidently meant to kiss me. I kept him at arm's

length, feeling a sort of icy anger.

'Go to bed,' I repeated fiercely. 'It is the only place for you.'

He made inarticulate noises in his throat, and ultimately achieved

the remark:

'You're very hard, Magda.'

Then he bent himself towards the next room.

'You will want a candle,' I said, with bitterness. 'No; I will carry it.

Let me go first.'

I preceded him through a tiny salon into the bedroom, and, leaving him

there with one candle, came back into the first room. The whole place was

deplorable, though not more deplorable than I had expected from the look

of the street and the house and the stairs and the girl with the large

hat. It was small, badly arranged, disordered, ugly, bare, comfortless,

and, if not very dirty, certainly not clean; not a home, but a kennel--a

kennel furnished with chairs and spotted mirrors and spotted engravings

and a small upright piano; a kennel whose sides were covered with

enormous red poppies, and on whose floor was something which had once

been a carpet; a kennel fitted with windows and curtains; a kennel with

actually a bed! It was the ready-made human kennel of commerce, which

every large city supplies wholesale in tens of thousands to its victims.

In that street there were hundreds such; in the house alone there were

probably a score at least. Their sole virtue was their privacy. Ah the

blessedness of the sacred outer door, which not even the tyrant concierge

might violate! I thought of all the other interiors of the house, floor

above floor, and serried one against another--vile, mean, squalid,

cramped, unlovely, frowsy, fetid; but each lighted and intensely alive

with the interplay of hearts; each cloistered, a secure ground where the

instincts that move the world might show themselves naturally and in

secret. There was something tragically beautiful in that.

I had heard uncomfortable sounds from the bedroom. Then Diaz called out:

'It's no use. Can't do it. Can't get into bed.' I went directly to him.

He sat on the bed, still clasping the umbrella, one arm out of his coat.

His gloomy and discouraged face was the face of a man who retires baffled

from some tremendously complicated problem.

'Put down your umbrella,' I said. 'Don't be foolish.'

'I'm not foolish,' he retorted irritably. 'Don't want to loosh thish

umbrella again.'

'Well then,' I said, 'hold it in the other hand, and I will help you.'

This struck him as a marvellous idea, one of those discoveries that

revolutionize science, and he instantly obeyed. He was now very drunk. He

was nauseating. The conventions which society has built up in fifty

centuries ceased suddenly to exist. It was impossible that they should

exist--there in that cabin, where we were alone together, screened, shut

in. I lost even the sense of convention. I was no longer disgusted.

Everything that was seemed natural, ordinary, normal. I became his

mother. I became his hospital nurse. And at length he lay in bed,

clutching the umbrella to his breast. Nothing had induced him to loose it

from both hands at once. The priceless value of the umbrella was the one

clearly-defined notion that illuminated his poor devastated brain. I left

him to his inanimate companion.

II

I should have left then, though I had a wish not to leave. But I was

prevented from going by the fear of descending those sinister stairs

alone, and the necessity of calling aloud to the concierge in order to

get out through the main door, and the possible difficulties in finding a

cab in that region at that hour. I knew that I could not have borne to

walk even to the end of the street unprotected. So I stayed where I was,

seated in a chair near the window of the larger room, saturating myself

in the vague and heavy flood of sadness that enwraps the fretful,

passionate city in the night--the night when the commonest noises seem to

carry some mystic message to the listening soul, the night when truth

walks abroad naked and whispers her secrets.

A gas-lamp threw its radiance on the ceiling in bars through the slits of

the window-shutters, and then, far in the middle wilderness of the night,

the lamp was extinguished by a careful municipality, and I was left in

utter darkness. Long since the candles had burnt away. I grew silly and

sentimental, and pictured the city in feverish sleep, gaining with

difficulty inadequate strength for the morrow--as if the city had not

been living this life for centuries and did not know exactly what it was

about! And then, sure as I had been that I could not sleep, I woke up,

and I could see the outline of the piano. Dawn had begun. And not a sound

disturbed the street, and not a sound came from Diaz' bedroom. As of old,

he slept with the tranquillity of a child.

And after a time I could see the dust on the piano and on the polished

floor under the table. The night had passed, and it appeared to be almost

a miracle that the night had passed, and that I had lived through it and

was much the same Carlotta still. I gently opened the window and pushed

back the shutters. A young woman, tall, with a superb bust, clothed in

blue, was sweeping the footpath in long, dignified strokes of a broom.

She went slowly from my ken. Nothing could have been more prosaic, more

sane, more astringent. And yet only a few hours--and it had been night,

strange, voluptuous night! And even now a thousand thousand pillows were

warm and crushed under their burden of unconscious dreaming souls. But

that tall woman must go to bed in day, and rise to meet the first wind of

the morning, and perhaps never have known the sweet poison of the night.

I sank back into my chair....

There was a sharp, decisive sound of a key in the lock of the

entrance-door. I jumped up, fully awake, with beating heart and blushing

face. Someone was invading the flat. Someone would catch me there.

Of course it was his servant. I had entirely forgotten her.

We met in the little passage. She was a stout creature and appeared to

fill the flat. She did not seem very surprised at the sight of me, and

she eyed me with the frigid disdain of one who conforms to a certain code

for one who does not conform to it. She sat in judgment on my well-hung

skirt and the rings on my fingers and the wickedness in my breast, and

condemned me to everlasting obloquy.

'Madame is going?' she asked coldly, holding open the door.

'No, madame,' I said. 'Are you the _femme de ménage_ of monsieur?'

'Yes, madame.'

'Monsieur is ill,' I said, deciding swiftly what to do. 'He does not wish

to be disturbed. He would like you to return at two o'clock.'

Long before two I should have departed.

'Monsieur knows well that I have another _ménage_ from twelve to two,'

protested the woman.

'Three o'clock, then,' I said.

_Bien_, madame,' said she, and, producing the contents of a reticule:

'Here are the bread, the butter, the milk, and the newspaper, madame.'

'Thank you, madame.'

I took the things, and she left, and I shut the door and bolted it.

In anticipation, the circumstances of such an encounter would have caused

me infinite trouble of spirit. 'But after all it was not so very

dreadful,' I thought, as I fastened the door. 'Do I care for his _femme

de ménage_?'

The great door of the house would be open now, and the stairs no longer

affrighting, and I might slip unobserved away. But I could not bring

myself to leave until I had spoken with Diaz, and I would not wake him.

It was nearly noon when he stirred. I heard his movements, and a slight

moaning sigh, and he called me.

'Are you there, Magda?'

How feeble and appealing his voice!

For answer I stepped into his bedroom.

The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a quiver

of the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is is the

ordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be abhorrent,

nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature. Can we exceed nature? In

the presence of the primeval and ever-continuing forces of nature, can we

maintain our fantastic conceptions of sin and of justice? We are, and

that is all we should dare to say. And yet, when I saw Diaz stretched on

that wretched bed my first movement was one of physical disgust. He had

not shaved for several days. His hair was like a doormat. His face was

unclean and puffed; his lips full and cracked; his eyes all discoloured.

If aught can be vile, he was vile. If aught can be obscene, he was

obscene. His limbs twitched; his features were full of woe and desolation

and abasement.

He looked at me heavily, mournfully.

'Diaz, Diaz!' said my soul. 'Have you come to this?'

A great and overmastering pity seized me, and I went to him, and laid my

hand gently on his. He was so nervous and tremulous that he drew away his

hand as if I had burnt it.

'Oh, Magda,' he murmured, 'my head! There was a piece of hot brick in my

mouth, and I tried to take it out. But it was my tongue. Can I have some

tea? Will you give me some cold water first?'

Strange that the frank and simple way in which he accepted my presence

there, and assumed my willingness to serve him, filled me with a new joy!

He said nothing of the night. I think that Diaz was one of the few men

who are strong enough never to regret the past. If he was melancholy, it

was merely because he suffered bodily in the present.

I gave him water, and he thanked me.

'Now I will make some tea,' I said.

And I went into the tiny kitchen and looked around, lifting my skirts.

'Can you find the things?' he called out.

'Yes,' I said.

'What's all that splashing?' he inquired.

'I'm washing a saucepan,' I said.

'I never have my meals here,' he called. 'Only tea. There are two taps to

the gas-stove--one a little way up the chimney.'

Yes, I was joyous, actively so. I brought the tea to the bedroom with a

glad smile. I had put two cups on the tray, which I placed on the

night-table; and there were some biscuits. I sat at the foot of the bed

while we drank. And the umbrella, unperceived by Diaz, lay with its

handle on a pillow, ludicrous and yet accusing.

'You are an angel,' said Diaz.

'Don't call me that,' I protested.

'Why not?'

'Because I wish it,' I said. 'Angel' was Ispenlove's word.

'Then, what shall I call you?'

'My name is Carlotta Peel,' I said. 'Not Magdalen at all.'

It was astounding, incredible, that he should be learning my name then

for the first time.

'I shall always call you Magda,' he responded.

'And now I must go,' I stated, when I had explained to him about

the servant.

'But you'll come back?' he cried.

No question of his coming to me! I must come to him!

'To a place like this?' I demanded.

Unthinkingly I put into my voice some of the distaste I felt for his

deplorable apartments, and he was genuinely hurt. I believe that in all

honesty he deemed his apartments to be quite adequate and befitting. His

sensibilities had been so dulled.

He threw up his head.

'Of course,' he said, 'if you--'

'No, no!' I stopped him quickly. 'I will come here. I was only teasing

you. Let me see. I'll come back at four, just to see how you are. Won't

you get up in the meantime?'

He smiled, placated.

'I may do,' he said. 'I'll try to. But in case I don't, will you take my

key? Where did you put it last night?'

'I have it,' I said.

He summoned me to him just as I was opening the door.

'Magda!'

'What is it?'

I returned.

'You are magnificent,' he replied, with charming, impulsive eagerness,

his eyes resting upon me long. He was the old Diaz again. 'I can't thank

you. But when you come back I shall play to you.'

I smiled.

'Till four o'clock,' I said.

'Magda,' he called again, just as I was leaving, 'bring one of your books

with you, will you?'

I hesitated, with my hand on the door. When I gave him my name he had

made no sign that it conveyed to him anything out of the ordinary. That

was exactly like Diaz.

'Have you read any of them?' I asked loudly, without moving from the

door.

'No,' he answered. 'But I have heard of them.'

'Really!' I said, keeping my tone free from irony. 'Well, I will not

bring you one of my books.'

'Why not?'

I looked hard at the door in front of me.

'For you I will be nothing but a woman,' I said.

And I fled down the stairs and past the concierge swiftly into the

street, as anxious as a thief to escape notice. I got a fiacre at once,

and drove away. I would not analyze my heart. I could not. I could but

savour the joy, sweet and fresh, that welled up in it as from some secret

source. I was so excited that I observed nothing outside myself, and when

the cab stopped in front of my hotel, it seemed to me that the journey

had occupied scarcely a few seconds. Do you imagine I was saddened by the

painful spectacle of Diaz' collapse in life? No! I only knew that he

needed sympathy, and that I could give it to him with both hands. I could

give, give! And the last thing that the egotist in me told me before it

expired was that I was worthy to give. My longing to assuage the lot of

Diaz became almost an anguish.

III

I returned at about half-past five, bright and eager, with vague

anticipations. I seemed to have become used to the house. It no longer

offended me, and I had no shame in entering it. I put the key into the

door of Diaz' flat with a clear, high sense of pleasure. He had entrusted

me with his key; I could go in as I pleased; I need have no fear of

inconveniencing him, of coming at the wrong moment. It seemed wonderful!

And as I turned the key and pushed open the door my sole wish was to be

of service to him, to comfort him, to render his life less forlorn.

'Here I am!' I cried, shutting the door.

There was no answer.

In the smaller of the two tiny sitting-rooms the piano, which had

been closed, was open, and I saw that it was a Pleyel. But both rooms

were empty.

'Are you still in bed, then?' I said.

There was still no answer.

I went cautiously into the bedroom. It, too, was empty. The bed was made,

and the flat generally had a superficial air of tidiness. Evidently the

charwoman had been and departed; and doubtless Diaz had gone out, to

return immediately. I sat down in the chair in which I had spent most of

the night. I took off my hat and put it by the side of a tiny satchel

which I had brought, and began to wait for him. How delicious it would be

to open the door to him! He would notice that I had taken off my hat, and

he would be glad. What did the future, the immediate future, hold for me?

A long time I waited, and then I yawned heavily, and remembered that for

several days I had had scarcely any sleep. I shut my eyes to relieve the

tedium of waiting. When I reopened them, dazed, and startled into sudden

activity by mysterious angry noises, it was quite dark. I tried to recall

where I was, and to decide what the noises could be. I regained my

faculties with an effort. The noises were a beating on the door.

'It is Diaz,' I said to myself; 'and he can't get in!'

And I felt very guilty because I had slept. I must have slept for hours.

Groping for a candle, I lighted it.

'Coming! coming!' I called in a loud voice.

And I went into the passage with the candle and opened the door.

It was Diaz. The gas was lighted on the stairs. Between that and my

candle he stood conspicuous in all his details. Swaying somewhat, he

supported himself by the balustrade, and was thus distant about two feet

from the door. He was drunk--viciously drunk; and in an instant I knew

the cruel truth concerning him, and wondered that I had not perceived it

before. He was a drunkard--simply that. He had not taken to drinking as a

consequence of nervous breakdown. Nervous breakdown was a euphemism for

the result of alcoholic excess. I saw his slow descent as in a vision,

and everything was explained. My heart leapt.

'I can save him,' I said to myself. 'I can restore him.'

I was aware of the extreme difficulty of curing a drunkard, of the

immense proportion of failures. But, I thought, if a woman such as I

cannot by the lavishing of her whole soul and body deliver from no matter

what fiend a man such as Diaz, then the world has changed, and the

eternal Aphrodite is dead.

'I can save him!' I repeated.

Oh, heavenly moment!

'Aren't you coming in?' I addressed him quietly. 'I've been

waiting for you.'

'Have you?' he angrily replied. 'I waited long enough for you.'

'Well,' I said, 'come in.'

'Who is it?' he demanded. 'I inzizt--who is it?'

'It's I,' I answered; 'Magda.'

'That's no' wha' I mean,' he went on. 'And wha's more--you know it. Who

is it addrezzes you, madame?'

'Why,' I humoured him, 'it's you, of course--Diaz.'

There was the sound of a door opening on one of the lower storeys, and I

hoped I had pacified him, and that he would enter; but I was mistaken. He

stamped his foot furiously on the landing.

'Diaz!' he protested, shouting. 'Who dares call me Diaz? Wha's my

full name?'

'Emilio Diaz,' I murmured meekly.

'That's better,' he grumbled. 'What am I?'

I hesitated.

'Wha' am I?' he roared; and his voice went up and down the echoing

staircase. 'I won't put foot ev'n on doormat till I'm told wha' I am

here.'

'You are the--the master,' I said. 'But do come in.'

'The mas'r! Mas'r of wha'?'

'Master of the pianoforte,' I answered at once.

He smiled, suddenly appeased, and put his foot unsteadily on the

doormat.

'Good!' he said. 'But, un'stan', I wouldn't ev'n have pu' foot on

doormat--no, not ev'n on doormat--'

And he came in, and I shut the door, and I was alone with my wild beast.

'Kiss me,' he commanded.

I kissed him on the mouth.

'You don't put your arms roun' me,' he growled.

So I deposited the candle on the floor, and put my arms round his neck,

standing on tip-toe, and kissed him again.

He went past me, staggering and growling, into the sitting-room at the

end of the passage, and furiously banged down the lid of the piano, so

that every cord in it jangled deafeningly.

'Light the lamp,' he called out.

'In one second,' I said.

I locked the outer door on the inside, slipped the key into my pocket,

and picked up the candle.

'What were you doing out there?' he demanded.

'Nothing,' I said. 'I had to pick the candle up.'

He seized my hat from the table and threw it to the floor. Then

he sat down.

'Nex' time,' he remarked, 'you'll know better'n to keep me waiting.'

I lighted a lamp.

'I'm very sorry,' I said. 'Won't you go to bed?'

'I shall go to bed when I want,' he answered. 'I'm thirsty. In the

cupboard you'll see a bottle. I'll trouble you to give it me, with a

glass and some water.'

'This cupboard?' I said questioningly, opening a cupboard papered to

match the rest of the wall.

'Yes.'

'But surely you can't be thirsty, Diaz?' I protested.

'Must I repea' wha' I said?' he glared at me. 'I'm thirsty. Give me

the bottle.'

I took out the bottle nearest to hand. It was of a dark green colour, and

labelled 'Extrait d'Absinthe. Pernod fils.'

'Not this one, Diaz?'

'Yes,' he insisted. 'Give it me. And get a glass and some water.'

'No,' I said firmly.

'Wha'? You won't give it me?'

'No.'

He jumped up recklessly and faced me. His hat fell off the back

of his head.

'Give me that bottle!'

His breath poisoned the room.

I retreated in the direction of the window, and put my hand on the knob.

'No,' I said.

He sprang at me, but not before I had opened the window and thrown out

the bottle. I heard it fall in the roadway with a crash and scattering of

glass. Happily it had harmed no one. Diaz was momentarily checked. He

hesitated. I eyed him as steadily as I could, closing the while the

window behind me with my right hand.

'He may try to kill me,' I thought.

My heart was thudding against my dress, not from fear, but from

excitement. My situation seemed impossible to me, utterly passing belief.

Yesterday I had been a staid spinster, attended by a maid, in a hotel of

impeccable propriety. Today I had locked myself up alone with a riotous

drunkard in a vile flat in a notorious Parisian street. Was I mad? What

force, secret and powerful, had urged me on?... And there was the foul

drunkard, with clenched hands and fiery eyes, undecided whether or not to

murder me. And I waited.

He moved away, inarticulately grumbling, and resumed with

difficulty his hat.

'Ver' well,' he hiccupped morosely, 'ver' well; I'm going. Tha's all.'

He lurched into the passage, and then I heard him fumbling a long time

with the outer door. He left the door and went into his bedroom, and

finally returned to me. He held one hand behind his back. I had sunk into

a chair by the small table on which the lamp stood, with my satchel

beside it.

'Now!' he said, halting in front of me. 'You've locked tha' door. I

can't go out.'

'Yes,' I admitted.

'Give me the key.'

I shook my head.

'Give me the key,' he cried. 'I mus' have the key.'

I shook my head.

Then he showed his right hand, and it held a revolver. He bent slightly

over the table, staring down at me as I stared up at him. But as his chin

felt the heat rising from the chimney of the lamp, he shifted a little to

one side. I might have rushed for shelter into some other room; I might

have grappled with him; I might have attempted to soothe him. But I could

neither stir nor speak. Least of all, could I give him the key--for him

to go and publish his own disgrace in the thoroughfares. So I just gazed

at him, inactive.

'I s'll kill you!' he muttered, and raised the revolver.

My throat became suddenly dry. I tried to make the motion of swallowing,

and could not. And looking at the revolver, I perceived in a swift

revelation the vast folly of my inexperience. Since he was already drunk,

why had I not allowed him to drink more, to drink himself into a stupor?

Drunkards can only be cured when they are sober. To commence a course of

moral treatment at such a moment as I had chosen was indeed the act of a

woman. However, it was too late to reclaim the bottle from the street.

I saw that he meant to kill me. And I knew that previously, during our

encounter at the window, I had only pretended to myself that I thought

there was a risk of his killing me. I had pretended, in order to increase

the glory of my martyrdom in my own sight. Moreover, my brain, which was

working with singular clearness, told me that for his sake I ought to

give up the key. His exposure as a helpless drunkard would be infinitely

preferable to his exposure as a murderer.

Yet I could not persuade myself to relinquish the key. If I did so, he

would imagine that he had frightened me. But I had no fear, and I could

not bear that he should think I had.

He fired.

My ears sang. The room was full of a new odour, and a cloud floated

reluctantly upwards from the mouth of the revolver. I sneezed, and then I

grew aware that, firing at a distant of two feet, he had missed me. What

had happened to the bullet I could not guess. He put the revolver down on

the table with a groan, and the handle rested on my satchel.

'My God, Magda!' he sighed, pushing back his hair with his

beautiful hand.

He was somewhat sobered. I said nothing, but I observed that the lamp was

smoking, and I turned down the wick. I was so self-conscious, so

irresolute, so nonplussed, that in sheer awkwardness, like a girl at a

party who does not know what to do with her hands, I pushed the revolver

off the satchel, and idly unfastened the catch of the satchel. Within it,

among other things, was my sedative. I, too, had fallen the victim of a

habit. For five years a bad sleeper, I had latterly developed into a very

bad sleeper, and my sedative was accordingly strong.

A notion struck me.

'Drink a little of this, my poor Diaz!' I murmured.

'What is it?' he asked.

'It will make you sleep,' I said.

With a convulsive movement he clutched the bottle and uncorked it, and

before I could interfere he had drunk nearly the whole of its contents.

'Stop!' I cried. 'You will kill yourself!'

'What matter!' he exclaimed; and staggered off to the darkness of

the bedroom.

I followed him with the lamp, but he had already fallen on the bed, and

seemed to be heavily asleep. I shook him; he made no response.

'At any cost he must he roused,' I said aloud. 'He must be forced to

walk.'

There was a knocking at the outer door, low, discreet, and continuous. It

sounded to me like a deliverance. Whoever might be there must aid me to

waken Diaz. I ran to the door, taking the key out of my pocket, and

opened it. A tall woman stood on the doormat. It was the girl that I had

glimpsed on the previous night in the large hat ascending the stairs with

a man. But now her bright golden head was uncovered, and she wore a blue

_peignoir_, such as is sold ready made, with its lace and its ribbons, at

all the big Paris shops.

We both hesitated.

'Oh, pardon, madame,' she said, in a thin, sweet voice in French. 'I was

at my door, and it seemed to me that I heard--a revolver. Nothing serious

has passed, then? Pardon, madame.'

'Nothing, thank you. You are very amiable, madame,' I replied stiffly.

'All my excuses, madame,' said she, turning away.

'No, no!' I exclaimed. 'I am wrong. Do not go. Someone is ill--very ill.

If you would--'

She entered.

'Where? What is it?' she inquired.

'He is in the bedroom--here.'

We both spoke breathlessly, hurrying to the bedroom, after I had

fetched the lamp.

'Wounded? He has done himself harm? Ah!'

'No,' I said, 'not that.'

And I explained to her that Diaz had taken at least six doses of my

strong solution of trional.

I seized the lamp and held it aloft over the form of the sleeper, which

lay on its side cross-wise, the feet projecting a little over the edge

of the bed, the head bent forward and missing the pillow, the arms

stretched out in front--the very figure of abandoned and perfect

unconsciousness. And the girl and I stared at Diaz, our shoulders

touching, in the kennel.

'He must be made to walk about,' I said. 'You would be extremely kind

to help me.'

'No, madame,' she replied. 'He will be very well like that. When one is

alcoholic, one cannot poison one's self; it is impossible. All the

doctors will tell you as much. Your friend will sleep for twenty

hours--twenty-four hours--and he will waken himself quite

re-established.'

'You are sure? You know?'

'I know, madame. Be tranquil. Leave him. He could not have done better.

It is perfect.'

'Perhaps I should fetch a doctor?' I suggested.

'It is not worth the pain,' she said, with conviction. 'You would have

vexations uselessly. Leave him.'

I gazed at her, studying her, and I was satisfied. With her fluffly

locks, and her simple eyes, and her fragile face, and her long hands,

she had, nevertheless, the air of knowing profoundly her subject. She

was a great expert on males and all that appertained to them, especially

their vices. I was the callow amateur. I was compelled to listen with

respect to this professor in the professor's garb. I was impressed, in

spite of myself.

'One might arrange him more comfortably,' she said.

And we lifted the senseless victim, and put him on his back, and

straightened his limbs, as though he had been a corpse.

'How handsome he is!' murmured my visitor, half closing her eyes.

'You think so?' I said politely, as if she had been praising one of my

private possessions.

'Oh yes. We are neighbours, madame. I have frequently remarked him, you

understand, on the stairs, in the street.'

'Has he been here long?' I asked.

'About a year, madame. You have, perhaps, not seen him since a long time.

An old friend?'

'It is ten years ago,' I replied.

'Ah! Ten years! In England, without doubt?'

'In England, yes.'

'Ten years!' she repeated, musing.

'I am certain she has a kind heart,' I said to myself, and I decided to

question her: 'Will you not sit down, madame?' I invited her.

'Ah, madame! it is you who should sit down,' she said quickly. 'You must

have suffered.'

We both sat down. There were only two chairs in the room.

'I would like to ask you,' I said, leaning forward towards her, 'have

you ever seen him--drunk--before?'

'No,' she replied instantly; 'never before yesterday evening.'

'Be frank,' I urged her, smiling sadly.

'Why should I not be frank, madame?' she said, with a grave,

gentle appeal.

It was as if she had said: 'We are talking woman to woman. I know one of

your secrets. You can guess mine. The male is present, but he is deaf.

What reason, therefore, for deceit?'

'I am much obliged to you,' I breathed.

'Not at all,' she said. 'Decidedly he is alcoholic--that sees itself,'

she proceeded. 'But drunk--no!... He was always alone.'

'Always alone?'

'Always.'

Her eyes filled. I thought I had never seen a creature more gentle,

delicate, yielding, acquiescent, and fair. She was not beautiful, but she

had grace and distinction of movement. She was a Parisienne. She had won

my sympathy. We met in a moment when my heart needed the companionship of

a woman's heart, and I was drawn to her by one of those sudden impulses

that sometimes draw women to each other. I cared not what she was.

Moreover, she had excited my curiosity. She was a novelty in my life.

She was something that I had heard of, and seen--yes, and perhaps envied

in secret, but never spoken with. And she shattered all my preconceptions

about her.

'You are an old tenant of this house?' I ventured.

'Yes,' she said; 'it suits me. But the great heats are terrible here.'

'You do not leave Paris, then?'

'Never. Except to see my little boy.'

I started, envious of her, and also surprised. It seemed strange that

this ribboned and elegant and plastic creature, whose long, thin arms

were used only to dalliance, should be a mother.

'So you have a little boy?'

'Yes; he lives with my parents at Meudon. He is four years old.

'Excuse me,' I said. 'Be frank with me once again. Do you love your

child, honestly? So many women don't, it appears.'

'Do I love him?' she cried, and her face glowed with her love. 'I adore

him!' Her sincerity was touching and overwhelming. 'And he loves me, too.

If he is naughty, one has only to tell him that he will make his _petite

mère_ ill, and he will be good at once. When he is told to obey his

grandfather, because his grandfather provides his food, he says bravely:

"No, not grandpapa; it is _petite mère_!" Is it not strange he should

know that I pay for him? He has a little engraving of the Queen of Italy,

and he says it is his _petite mère_. Among the scores of pictures he has

he keeps only that one. He takes it to bed with him. It is impossible to

deprive him of it.'

She smiled divinely.

'How beautiful!' I said. 'And you go to see him often?'

'As often as I have time. I take him out for walks. I run with him till

we reach the woods, where I can have him to myself alone. I never stop; I

avoid people. No one except my parents knows that he is my child. One

supposes he is a nurse-child, received by my parents. But all the world

will know now,' she added, after a pause. 'Last Monday I went to Meudon

with my friend Alice, and Alice wanted to buy him some sweets at the

grocer's. In the shop I asked him if he would like _dragées_, and he said

"Yes." The grocer said to him, "Yes who, young man?" "Yes, _petite

mère_," he said, very loudly and bravely. The grocer understood. We all

lowered our heads.'

There was something so affecting in the way she half whispered the last

phrase, that I could have wept; and yet it was comical, too, and she

appreciated that.

'You have no child, madame?' she asked me.

'No,' I said. 'How I envy you!'

'You need not,' she observed, with a touch of hardness. 'I have been so

unhappy, that I can never be as unhappy again. Nothing matters now. All I

wish is to save enough money to be able to live quietly in a little

cottage in the country.'

'With your child,' I put in.

'My child will grow up and leave me. He will become a man, and he will

forget his _petite mère.'_

'Do not talk like that,' I protested.

She glanced at me almost savagely. I was astonished at the sudden change

in her face.

'Why not?' she inquired coldly. 'Is it not true, then? Do you still

believe that there is any difference between one man and another?

They are all alike--all, all, all! I know. And it is we who suffer,

we others.'

'But surely you have some tender souvenir of your child's father?' I

said.

'Do I know who my child's father is?' she demanded. 'My child has

thirty-six fathers!'

'You seem very bitter,' I said, 'for your age. You are much younger

than I am.'

She smiled and shook her honey-coloured hair, and toyed with the ribbons

of her _peignoir_.

'What I say is true,' she said gently. 'But, there, what would you have?

We hate them, but we love them. They are beasts! beasts! but we cannot do

without them!'

Her eyes rested on Diaz for a moment. He slept without the least sound,

the stricken and futile witness of our confidences.

'You will take him away from Paris soon, perhaps?' she asked.

'If I can,' I said.

There was a sound of light footsteps on the stair. They stopped at the

door, which I remembered we had not shut. I jumped up and went into the

passage. Another girl stood in the doorway, in a _peignoir_ the exact

counterpart of my first visitor's, but rose-coloured. And this one, too,

was languorous and had honey-coloured locks. It was as though the

mysterious house was full of such creatures, each with her secret lair.

'Pardon, madame,' said my visitor, following and passing me; and then to

the newcomer: 'What is it, Alice?'

'It is Monsieur Duchatel who is arrived.'

'Oh!' with a disdainful gesture. '_Je m'en fiche._ Let him go.'

'But it is the nephew, my dear; not the uncle.'

'Ah, the nephew! I come. _Bon soir, madams, et bonne nuit_.'

The two _peignoirs_ fluttered down the stairs together. I returned to my

Diaz, and seeing his dressing-gown behind the door of the bedroom, I took

it and covered him with it.

IV

His first words were:

'Magda, you look like a ghost. Have you been sitting there like that all

the time?'

'No,' I said; 'I lay down.'

'Where?'

'By your side.'

'What time is it?'

'Tea-time. The water is boiling.

'Was I dreadful last night?'

'Dreadful? How?'

'I have a sort of recollection of getting angry and stamping about. I

didn't do anything foolish?'

'You took a great deal too much of my sedative,' I answered.

'I feel quite well,' he said; 'but I didn't know I had taken any

sedative at all. I'm glad I didn't do anything silly last night.'

I ran away to prepare the tea. The situation was too much for me.

'My poor Diaz!' I said, when we had begun to drink the tea, and he was

sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes full of sleep, his chin rough,

and his hair magnificently disarranged, 'you did one thing that was silly

last night.'

'Don't tell me I struck you?' he cried.

'Oh no!' and I laughed. 'Can't you guess what I mean?'

'You mean I got vilely drunk.'

I nodded.

'Magda,' he burst out passionately, seeming at this point fully to arouse

himself, to resume acutely his consciousness, 'why were you late? You

said four o'clock. I thought you had deceived me. I thought I had

disgusted you, and that you didn't mean to return. I waited more than an

hour and a quarter, and then I went out in despair.'

'But I came just afterwards,' I protested. 'You had only to wait a few

more minutes. Surely you could have waited a few more minutes?'

'You said four o'clock,' he repeated obstinately.

'It was barely half-past five when I came,' I said.

'I had meant never to drink again,' he went on.

'You were so kind to me. But then, when you didn't come--'

'You doubted me, Diaz. You ought to have been sure of me.'

'I was wrong.'

'No, no!' I said. 'It was I who was wrong. But I never thought that an

hour and a half would make any difference.'

There was a pause.

'Ah, Magda, Magda!'--he suddenly began to weep; it was

astounding--'remember that you had deserted me once before. Remember

that. If you had not done that, my life might have been different. It

_would_ have been different.'

'Don't say so,' I pleaded.

'Yes, I must say so. You cannot imagine how solitary my life has been.

Magda, I loved you.'

And I too wept.

His accent was sincerity itself. I saw the young girl hurrying secretly

out of the Five Towns Hotel. Could it be true that she had carried away

with her, unknowing, the heart of Diaz? Could it be true that her panic

flight had ruined a career? The faint possibility that it was true made

me sick with vain grief.

'And now I am old and forgotten and disgraced,' he said.

'How old are you, Diaz?'

'Thirty-six,' he answered.

'Why,' I said, 'you have thirty years to live.'

'Yes; and what years?'

'Famous years. Brilliant years.'

He shook his head.

'I am done for--' he murmured, and his head sank.

'Are you so weak, then?' I took his hand. 'Are you so weak? Look at me.'

He obeyed, and his wet eyes met mine. In that precious moment I lived.

'I don't know,' he said.

'You could not have looked at me if you had not been strong, very

strong,' I said firmly. 'You told me once that you had a house near

Fontainebleau. Have you still got it?'

'I suppose so.'

'Let us go there, and--and--see.'

'But--'

'I should like to go,' I insisted, with a break in my voice.

'My God!' he exclaimed in a whisper, 'my God!'

I was sobbing violently, and my forehead was against the rough stuff

of his coat.

V

And one morning, long afterwards, I awoke very early, and the murmuring

of the leaves of the forest came through the open window. I had known

that I should wake very early, in joyous anticipation of that day. And

as I lay he lay beside me, lost in the dreamless, boyish, natural sleep

that he never sought in vain. He lay, as always, slightly on his right

side, with his face a little towards me--his face that was young again,

and from which the bane had passed. It was one of the handsomest,

fairest faces in the world, one of the most innocent, and one of the

strongest; the face of a man who follows his instincts with the direct

simplicity of a savage or a child, and whose instincts are sane and

powerful. Seen close, perfectly at rest, as I saw it morning after

morning, it was full of a special and mysterious attraction. The fine

curves of the nostrils and of the lobe of the ear, the masterful lines

of the mouth, the contours of the cheek and chin and temples, the tints

of the flesh subtly varying from rose to ivory, the golden crown of

hair, the soft moustache. I had learned every detail by heart; my eyes

had dwelt on them till they had become my soul's inheritance, till they

were mystically mine, drawing me ever towards them, as a treasure draws.

Gently moving, I would put my ear close, close, and listen to the breath

of life as it entered regularly, almost imperceptibly, vivifying that

organism in repose. There is something terrible in the still beauty of

sleep. It is as though the spiritual fabric hangs inexplicably over the

precipice of death. It seems impossible, or at least miraculous, that

the intake and the expulsion upon which existence depends should

continue thus, minute by minute, hour by hour. It is as though one stood

on the very confines of life, and could one trace but one step more, one

single step, one would unveil the eternal secret. I would not listen

long; the torture was too sweet, too exquisite, and I would gently slide

back to my place.... His hand was on the counterpane, near to my

breast--the broad hand of the pianist, with a wrist of incredible force,

and the fingers tapering suddenly at the end to a point. I let my own

descend on it as softly as snow. Ah, ravishing contact! He did not move.

And while my small hand touched his I gazed into the spaces of the

bedroom, with its walls of faded blue tapestry and its white curtains,

and its marble and rosewood, and they seemed to hold peace, as the

hollows of a field hold dew; they seemed to hold happiness as a great

tree holds sunlight in its branches; and outside was the murmuring of

the leaves of the forest and the virginal freshness of the morning.

Surely he must wake earlier that day! I pursed my lips and blew tenderly,

mischievously, on his cheek, lying with my cheek full on the pillow, so

that I could watch him. The muscles of his mouth twitched, his inner

being appeared to protest. And then began the first instinctive blind

movement of the day with him. His arms came forward and found my neck,

and drew me forcibly to him, and then, just before our lips touched, he

opened his eyes and shut them again. So it occurred every morning. Ere

even his brain had resumed activity his heart had felt its need of me.

This it was that was so wonderful, so overpowering! And the kiss, languid

and yet warm, heavy with a human scent, with the scent of the night,

honest, sensuous, and long--long! As I lay thus, clasped in his arms, I

half closed my eyes, and looked into his eyes through my lashes, smiling,

and all was a delicious blur....

It was the summit of bliss! No! I have never mounted higher! I asked

myself, astounded, what I had done that I should receive such happiness,

what I had done that existence should have no flaw for me. And what _had_

I done? I know not, I know not. It passes me. I am lost in my joy. For I

had not even cured him. I had anticipated painful scenes, interminable

struggles, perhaps a relapse. But nothing of the kind. He had simply

ceased at once the habit--that was all. We never left each other. And his

magnificent constitution had perfectly recovered itself in a few months.

I had done nothing.

'Magda,' he murmured indistinctly, drawing his mouth an inch away from

mine, 'why can't your dark hair always be loose over your shoulders like

that? It is glorious!'

'What ideas you have!' I murmured, more softly than he. 'And do you know

what it is to-day?'

'No.'

'You've forgotten?' I pouted.

'Yes.'

'Guess.'

'No; you must tell me. Not your birthday? Not mine?'

'It's just a year since I met you,' I whispered timidly.

Our mouths met again, and, so enlocked, we rested, savouring the true

savour of life. And presently my hand stole up to his head and stroked

his curls.

Every morning he began to practise at eight o'clock, and continued till

eleven. The piano, a Steinway in a hundred Steinways, was in the further

of the two drawing-rooms. He would go into the room smoking a cigarette,

and when he had thrown away the cigarette I would leave him. And as soon

as I had closed the door the first notes would resound, slow and solemn,

of the five-finger exercises with which he invariably commenced his

studies. That morning, as often, I sat writing in the enclosed garden. I

always wrote in pencil on my knee. The windows of the drawing-room were

wide open, and Diaz' music filled the garden. The sheer beauty of his

tone was such that to hear him strike even an isolated note gave

pleasure. He created beauty all the time. His five-finger exercises were

lovely patterns of sound woven with exact and awful deliberation. It

seemed impossible that these should be the same bald and meaningless

inventions which I had been wont to repeat. They were transformed. They

were music. The material in which he built them was music itself,

enchanting the ear as much by the quality of the tone as by the

impeccable elegance of the form. To hear Diaz play a scale, to catch that

measured, tranquil succession of notes, each a different jewel of equal

splendour, each dying precisely when the next was born--this was to

perceive at last what music is made of, to have glimpses of the divine

magic that is the soul of the divinest art. I used to believe that

nothing could surpass the beauty of a scale, until Diaz, after writing

formal patterns in the still air innumerably, and hypnotizing me with

that sorcery, would pass suddenly to the repetition of fragments of Bach.

And then I knew that hitherto he had only been trying to be more purely

and severely mechanical than a machine, and that now the interpreter was

at work. I have heard him repeat a passage fifty times--and so

slowly!--and each rendering seemed more beautiful than the last; and it

was more beautiful than the last. He would extract the final drop of

beauty from the most beautiful things in the world. Washed, drenched in

this circumambient ether of beauty, I wrote my verse. Perhaps it may

appear almost a sacrilege that I should have used the practising of a

Diaz as a background for my own creative activity. I often thought so.

But when one has but gold, one must put it to lowly use. So I wrote, and

he passed from Bach to Chopin.

Usually he would come out into the garden for five minutes at half-past

nine to smoke a cigarette, but that morning it had struck ten before the

music ceased. I saw him. He walked absent-minded along the terrace in

the strange silence that had succeeded. He was wearing his

riding-breeches, for we habitually rode at eleven. And that morning I did

not hide my work when he came. It was, in fact, finished; the time had

arrived to disclose it. He stopped in front of me in the sunlight,

utterly preoccupied with himself and his labours. He had the rapt look on

his face which results from the terrible mental and spiritual strain of

practising as he practised.

'Satisfied?' I asked him.

He frowned.

'There are times when one gets rather inspired,' he said, looking at me,

as it were, without seeing me. 'It's as if the whole soul gets into one's

hands. That's what's wanted.'

'You had it this morning?'

'A bit.'

He smiled with candid joy.

'While I was listening--' I began.

'Oh!' he broke in impulsively, violently, 'it isn't you that have to

listen. It's I that have to listen. It's the player that has to listen.

He's got to do more than listen. He's got to be _in_ the piano with his

inmost heart. If he isn't on the full stretch of analysis the whole

blessed time, he might just as well be turning the handle of a

barrel-organ.'

He always talked about his work during the little 'recess' which he took

in the middle of the morning. He pretended to be talking to me, but it

was to himself that he talked. He was impatient if I spoke.

'I shall be greater than ever,' he proceeded, after a moment. And his

attitude towards himself was so disengaged, so apart and aloof, so

critically appreciative, that it was impossible to accuse him of egoism.

He was, perhaps, as amazed at his own transcendent gift as any other

person could be, and he was incapable of hiding his sensations. 'Yes,' he

repeated; 'I think I shall be greater than ever. You see, a Chopin player

is born; you can't make him. With Chopin it's not a question of

intellect. It's all tone with Chopin--_tone_, my child, even in the most

bravura passages. You've got to get it.'

'Yes,' I agreed.

He gazed over the tree-tops into the blue sky.

'I may be ready in six months,' he said.

'I think you will,' I concurred, with a judicial air. But I honestly

deemed him to be more than ready then.

Twelve months previously he had said: 'With six hours' practice a day

for two years I shall recover what I have lost.'

He had succeeded beyond his hopes.

'Are you writing in that book?' he inquired carelessly as he threw down

the cigarette and turned away.

'I have just finished something,' I replied.

'Oh!' he said, 'I'm glad you aren't idle. It's so boring.'

He returned to the piano, perfectly incurious about what I did,

self-absorbed as a god. And I was alone in the garden, with the

semicircle of trees behind me, and the façade of the old house and its

terrace in front. And lying on the lawn, just under the terrace, was

the white end of the cigarette which he had abandoned; it breathed

upwards a thin spiral of blue smoke through the morning sunshine, and

then it ceased to breathe. And the music recommenced, on a different

plane, more brilliantly than before. It was as though, till then, he

had been laboriously building the bases of a tremendous triumphal arch,

and that now the two wings met, dazzlingly, soaringly, in highest

heaven, and the completed arch became a rainbow glittering in the face

of the infinite. He played two of his great concert pieces, and their

intricate melodies--brocaded, embroidered, festooned--poured themselves

through the windows into the garden in a procession majestic and

impassioned, perturbing the intent soul of the solitary listener,

swathing her in intoxicating sound. It was the unique virtuoso born

again, proudly displaying the ultimate sublime end of all those

slow-moving exercises to which he had subdued his fingers. Not for ten

years had I heard him play so.

When we first came into the house I had said bravely to myself: 'His

presence shall not deter me from practising as I have always done.' And

one afternoon I had sat down to the piano full of determination to

practise without fear of him, without self-consciousness. But before my

hands had touched the keys shame took me, unreasoning, terror-struck

shame, and I knew in an instant that while he lived I should never more

play the piano. He laughed lightly when I told him, and I called myself

silly. Yet now, as I sat in the garden, I saw how right I had been. And I

wondered that I should ever have had the audacity even to dream of

playing in his house; the idea was grotesque. And he did not ask me to

play, save when there arrived new orchestral music arranged for four

hands. Then I steeled myself to the ordeal of playing with him, because

he wished to try over the music. And he would thank me, and say that

pianoforte duets were always very enjoyable. But he did not pretend that

I was not an amateur, and he never--thank God!--suggested that we should

attempt _Tristan_ again....

At last he finished. And I heard distantly the bell which he had rung for

his glass of milk. And, remembering that I was not ready for the ride, I

ran with guilty haste into the house and upstairs.

The two bay horses were waiting, our English groom at their heads, when I

came out to the porch. Diaz was impatiently tapping his boot with his

whip. He was not in the least a sporting man, but he loved the sensation

of riding, and the groom would admit that he rode passably; but he loved

more to strut in breeches, and to imitate in little ways the sporting

man. I had learnt to ride in order to please him.

'Come along,' he exclaimed.

His eyes said: 'You are always late.' And I was. Some people always know

exactly what point they have reached in the maze and jungle of the day,

just as mariners are always aware, at the back of their minds, of the

state of the tide. But I was not born so.

Diaz helped me to mount, and we departed, jingling through the gate and

across the road into a glade of the forest, one of those long sandy

defiles, banked on either side, and over-shadowed with tall oaks, which

pierce the immense forest like rapiers. The sunshine slanted through the

crimsoning leafwork and made irregular golden patches on the dark sand to

the furthest limit of the perspective. And though we could not feel the

autumn wind, we could hear it in the tree-tops, and it had the sound of

the sea. The sense of well-being and of joy was exquisite. The beauty of

horses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and irrational as young

girls, is a thing apart; and what is strange is that their vast strength

does not seem incongruous with it. To be above that proud and lovely

organism, listening, apprehensive, palpitating, nervous far beyond the

human, to feel one's self almost part of it by intimate contact, to yield

to it, and make it yield, to draw from it into one's self some of its

exultant vitality--in a word, to ride--yes, I could comprehend Diaz' fine

enthusiasm for that! I could share it when he was content to let the

horses amble with noiseless hoofs over the soft ways. But when he would

gallop, and a strong wind sprang up to meet our faces, and the earth

shook and thundered, and the trunks of the trees raced past us, then I

was afraid. My fancy always saw him senseless at the foot of a tree while

his horse calmly cropped the short grass at the sides of the path, or

with his precious hand twisted and maimed! And I was in agony till he

reined in. I never dared to speak to him of this fear, nor even hint to

him that the joy was worth less than the peril. He would have been angry

in his heart, and something in him stronger than himself would have

forced him to increase the risks. I knew him! ... Ah! but when we went

gently, life seemed to be ideal for me, impossibly perfect! It seemed to

contain all that I could ever have demanded of it.

I looked at him sideways, so noble and sane and self-controlled. And the

days in Paris had receded, far and dim and phantom-like. Was it

conceivable that they had once been real, and that we had lived through

them? And was this Diaz, the world-renowned darling of capitals, riding

by me, a woman whom he had met by fantastic chance? Had he really hidden

himself in my arms from the cruel stare of the world and the insufferable

curiosity of admirers who, instead of admiring, had begun to pity? Had I

in truth saved him? Was it I who would restore him to his glory? Oh, the

astounding romance that my life had been! And he was with me! He shared

my life, and I his! I wondered what would happen when he returned to his

bright kingdom. I was selfish enough to wish that he might never return

to his kingdom, and that we might ride and ride for ever in the forest.

And then we came to a circular clearing, with an iron cross in the

middle, where roads met, a place such as occurs magically in some ballade

of Chopin's. And here we drew rein on the leaf-strewn grass, breathing

quickly, with reddened cheeks, and the horses nosed each other, with long

stretchings of the neck and rattling of bits.

'So you've been writing again?' said Diaz, smiling quizzically.

'Yes,' I answered. 'I've been writing a long time, but I haven't let

_you_ know anything about it; and just to-day I've finished it.'

'What is it--another novel?'

'No; a little drama in verse.'

'Going to publish it?'

'Why, naturally.'

Diaz was aware that I enjoyed fame in England and America. He was

probably aware that my books had brought me a considerable amount of

money. He had read some of my works, and found them excellent--indeed, he

was quite proud of my talent. But he did not, he could not, take

altogether seriously either my talent or my fame. I knew that he always

regarded me as a child gracefully playing at a career. For him there was

only one sort of fame; all the other sorts were shadows. A supreme

violinist might, perhaps, approach the real thing, in his generous mind;

but he was incapable of honestly believing that any fame compared with

that of a pianist. The other fames were very well, but they were paste to

the precious stone, gewgaws to amuse simple persons. The sums paid to

sopranos struck him as merely ridiculous in their enormity. He could not

be called conceited; nevertheless, he was magnificently sure that he had

been, and still was, the most celebrated person in the civilized world.

Certainly he had no superiors in fame, but he would not admit the

possibility of equals. Of course, he never argued such a point; it was a

tacit assumption, secure from argument. And with that he profoundly

reverenced the great composers. The death of Brahms affected him for

years. He regarded it as an occasion for universal sorrow. Had Brahms

condescended to play the piano, Diaz would have turned the pages for him,

and deemed himself honoured--him whom queens had flattered!

'Did you imagine,' I began to tease him, after a pause, 'that while you

are working I spend my time in merely existing?'

'You exist--that is enough, my darling,' he said. 'Strange that a

beautiful woman can't understand that in existing she is doing her

life's work!'

And he leaned over and touched my right wrist below the glove.

'You dear thing!' I murmured, smiling. 'How foolish you can be!'

'What's the drama about?' he asked.

'About La Vallière,' I said.

'La Vallière! But that's the kind of subject I want for my opera!'

'Yes,' I said; 'I have thought so.'

'Could you turn it into a libretto, my child?'

'No, dearest.'

'Why not?'

'Because it already is a libretto. I have written it as such.'

'For me?'

'For whom else?'

And I looked at him fondly, and I think tears came to my eyes.

'You are a genius, Magda!' he exclaimed. 'You leave nothing undone for

me. The subject is the very thing to suit Villedo.'

'Who is Villedo?'

'My jewel, you don't know who Villedo is! Villedo is the director of the

Opéra Comique in Paris, the most artistic opera-house in Europe. He used

to beg me every time we met to write him an opera.'

'And why didn't you?'

'Because I had neither the subject nor the time. One doesn't write

operas after lunch in hotel parlours; and as for a good libretto--well,

outside Wagner, there's only one opera in the world with a good libretto,

and that's _Carmen_.'

Diaz, who had had a youthful operatic work performed at the Royal School

of Music in London, and whose numerous light compositions for the

pianoforte had, of course, enjoyed a tremendous vogue, was much more

serious about his projected opera than I had imagined. He had frequently

mentioned it to me, but I had not thought the idea was so close to his

heart as I now perceived it to be. I had written the libretto to amuse

myself, and perhaps him, and lo! he was going to excite himself; I well

knew the symptoms.

'You wrote it in that little book,' he said. 'You haven't got it in

your pocket?'

'No,' I answered. 'I haven't even a pocket.'

He would not laugh.

'Come,' he said--'come, let's see it.'

He gathered up his loose rein and galloped off. He could not wait

an instant.

'Come along!' he cried imperiously, turning his head.

'I am coming,' I replied; 'but wait for me. Don't leave me like

that, Diaz.'

The old fear seized me, but nothing could stop him, and I followed as

fast as I dared.

'Where is it?' he asked, when we reached home.

'Upstairs,' I said.

And he came upstairs behind me, pulling my habit playfully, in an effort

to persuade us both that his impatience was a simulated one. I had to

find my keys and unlock a drawer. I took the small, silk-bound volume

from the back part of the drawer and gave it to him.

'There!' I exclaimed. 'But remember lunch is ready.'

He regarded the book.

'What a pretty binding!' he said. 'Who worked it?'

'I did.'

'And, of course, your handwriting is so pretty, too!' he added, glancing

at the leaves. '"La Vallière, an opera in three acts."'

We exchanged a look, each of us deliciously perturbed, and then he ran

off with the book.

He had to be called three times from the garden to lunch, and he brought

the book with him, and read it in snatches during the meal, and while

sipping his coffee. I watched him furtively as he turned over the pages.

'Oh, you've done it!' he said at length--'you've done it! You evidently

have a gift for libretto. It is neither more nor less than perfect! And

the subject is wonderful!'

He rose, walked round the table, and, taking my head between his hands,

kissed me.

'Magda,' he said, 'you're the cleverest girl that was ever born.'

'Then, do you think you will compose it?' I asked, joyous.

'Do I think I will compose it! Why, what do you imagine? I've already

begun. It composes itself. I'm now going to read it all again in the

garden. Just see that I'm not worried, will you?'

'You mean you don't want me there. You don't care for me any more.'

It amused me to pretend to pout.

'Yes,' he laughed; 'that's it. I don't care for you any more.'

He departed.

'Have no fear!' I cried after him. 'I shan't come into your horrid

garden!'

His habit was to resume his practice at three o'clock. The hour was then

half-past one. I wondered whether he would allow himself to be seduced

from the piano that afternoon by the desire to compose. I hoped not, for

there could be no question as to the relative importance to him of the

two activities. To my surprise, I heard the piano at two o'clock,

instead of at three, and it continued without intermission till five.

Then he came, like a sudden wind, on to the terrace where I was having

tea. Diaz would never take afternoon tea. He seized my hand impulsively.

'Come down,' he said--'down under the trees there.'

'What for?'

'I want you.'

'But, Diaz, let me put my cup down. I shall spill the tea on my dress.'

'I'll take your cup.'

'And I haven't nearly finished my tea, either. And you're hurting me.'

'I'll bring you a fresh cup,' he said. 'Come, come!'

And he dragged me off, laughing, to the lower part of the garden, where

were two chairs in the shade. And I allowed myself to be dragged.

'There! Sit down. Don't move. I'll fetch your tea.'

And presently he returned with the cup.

'Now that you've nearly killed me,' I said, 'and spoilt my dress, perhaps

you'll explain.'

He produced the silk-bound book of manuscript from his pocket and put it

in my unoccupied hand.

'I want you to read it to me aloud, all of it,' he said.

'Really?'

'Really.'

'What a strange boy you are!' I chided.

Then I drank the tea, straightened my features into seriousness, and

began to read.

The reading occupied less than an hour. He made no remark when it was

done, but held out his hand for the book, and went out for a walk. At

dinner he was silent till the servants had gone. Then he said musingly:

'That scene in the cloisters between Louise and De Montespan is a great

idea. It will be magnificent; it will be the finest thing in the opera.

What a subject you have found! what a subject!' His tone altered. 'Magda,

will you do something to oblige me?'

'If it isn't foolish.'

'I want you to go to bed.'

'Out of the way?' I smiled.

'Go to bed and to sleep,' he repeated.

'But why?'

'I want to walk about this floor. I must be alone.'

'Well,' I said, 'just to prove how humble and obedient I am, I will go.'

And I held up my mouth to be kissed.

Wondrous, the joy I found in playing the decorative, acquiescent,

self-effacing woman to him, the pretty, pouting plaything! I liked him to

dismiss me, as the soldier dismisses his charmer at the sound of the

bugle. I liked to think upon his obvious conviction that the libretto was

less than nothing compared to the music. I liked him to regard the whole

artistic productivity of my life as the engaging foible of a pretty

woman. I liked him to forget that I had brought him alive out of Paris. I

liked him to forget to mention marriage to me. In a word, he was Diaz,

and I was his.

And as I lay in bed I even tried to go to sleep, in my obedience, because

I knew he would wish it. But I could not easily sleep for anticipating

his triumph of the early future. His habits of composition were extremely

rapid. It might well occur that he would write the entire opera in a few

months, without at all sacrificing the piano. And naturally any operatic

manager would be loath to refuse an opera signed by Diaz. Villedo,

apparently so famous, would be sure to accept it, and probably would

produce it at once. And Diaz would have a double triumph, a dazzling and

gorgeous re-entry into the world. He might give his first recital in the

same week as the _première_ of the opera. And thus his shame would never

be really known to the artistic multitude. The legend of a nervous

collapse could be insisted on, and the opera itself would form a

sufficient excuse for his retirement.... And I should be the secret cause

of all this glory--I alone! And no one would ever guess what Diaz owed to

me. Diaz himself would never appreciate it. I alone, withdrawn from the

common gaze, like a woman of the East, Diaz' secret fountain of strength

and balm--I alone should be aware of what I had done. And my knowledge

would be enough for me.

I imagine I must have been dreaming when I felt a hand on my cheek.

'Magda, you aren't asleep, are you?'

Diaz was standing over me.

'No, no!' I answered, in a voice made feeble by sleep. And I looked

up at him.

'Put something on and come downstairs, will you?'

'What time is it?'

'Oh, I don't know. One o'clock.'

'You've been working for over three hours, then!'

I sat up.

'Yes,' he said proudly. 'Come along. I want to play you my notion of the

overture. It's only in the rough, but it's there.'

'You've begun with the overture?'

'Why not, my child? Here's your dressing-gown. Which is the top

end of it?'

I followed him downstairs, and sat close by him at the piano, with one

limp hand on his shoulder. There was no light in the drawing-rooms, save

one candle on the piano. My slipper escaped off my bare foot. As Diaz

played he looked at me constantly, demanding my approval, my enthusiasm,

which I gave him from a full heart. I thought the music charming, and, of

course, as he played it...!

'I shall only have three motives,' he said. 'That's the La Vallière

motive. Do you see the idea?'

'You mean she limps?'

'Precisely. Isn't it delightful?'

'She won't have to limp much, you know. She didn't.'

'Just the faintest suggestion. It will be delicious. I can see Morenita

in the part. Well, what do you think of it?'

I could not speak. His appeal, suddenly wistful, moved me so. I leaned

forward and kissed him.

'Dear girl!' he murmured.

Then he blew out the candle. He was beside himself with excitement.

'Diaz,' I cried, 'what's the matter with you? Do have a little sense.

And you've made me lose my slipper.'

'I'll carry you upstairs,' he replied gaily.

A faint illumination came from the hall, so that we could just see each

other. He lifted me off the chair.

'No!' I protested, laughing. 'And my slipper.... The servants!'

'Stuff!'

I was a trifle in those arms.

VI

The triumphal re-entry into the world has just begun, and exactly as Diaz

foretold. And the life of the forest is over. We have come to Paris, and

he has taken Paris, and already he is leaving it for other shores, and I

am to follow. At this moment, while I write because I have not slept and

cannot sleep, his train rolls out of St. Lazare.

Last night! How glorious! But he is no longer wholly mine. The world has

turned his face a little from my face....

It was as if I had never before realized the dazzling significance of

the fame of Diaz. I had only once seen him in public. And though he

conquered in the Jubilee Hall of the Five Towns, his victory, personal

and artistic, at the Opera Comique, before an audience as exacting,

haughty, and experienced as any in Europe, was, of course, infinitely

more striking--a victory worthy of a Diaz.

I sat alone and hidden at the back of a _baignoire_ in the auditorium. I

had drawn up the golden grille, by which the occupants of a _baignoire_

may screen themselves from the curiosity of the _parterre_. I felt like

some caged Eastern odalisque, and I liked so to feel. I liked to exist

solely for him, to be mysterious, and to baffle the general gaze in order

to be more precious to him. Ah, how I had changed! How he had changed me!

It was Thursday, a subscription night, and, in addition, all Paris was in

the theatre, a crowded company of celebrities, of experts, and of

perfectly-dressed women. And no one knew who I was, nor why I was there.

The vogue of a musician may be universal, but the vogue of an English

writer is nothing beyond England and America. I had not been to a

rehearsal. I had not met Villedo, nor even the translator of my verse. I

had wished to remain in the background, and Diaz had not crossed me. Thus

I gazed through the bars of my little cell across the rows of bald heads,

and wonderful coiffures, and the waving arms of the conductor, and the

restless, gliding bows of the violinists, and saw a scene which was

absolutely strange and new to me. And it seemed amazing that these

figures which I saw moving and chanting with such grace in a palace

garden, authentic to the last detail of historical accuracy, were my La

Vallière and my Louis, and that this rich and coloured music which I

heard was the same that Diaz had sketched for me on the piano, from

illegible scraps of ruled paper, on the edge of the forest. The full

miracle of operatic art was revealed to me for the first time.

And when the curtain fell on the opening act, the intoxicating human

quality of an operatic success was equally revealed to me for the first

time. How cold and distant the success of a novelist compared to this!

The auditorium was suddenly bathed in bright light, and every listening

face awoke to life as from an enchantment, and flushed and smiled, and

the delicatest hands in France clapped to swell the mighty uproar that

filled the theatre with praise. Paris, upstanding on its feet, and

leaning over balconies and cheering, was charmed and delighted by the

fable and the music, in which it found nothing but the sober and pretty

elegance that it loves. And Paris applauded feverishly, and yet with a

full sense of the value of its applause--given there in the only French

theatre where the claque has been suppressed. And then the curtain rose,

and La Vallière and Louis tripped mincingly forward to prove that after

all they were Morenita and Montfériot, the darlings of their dear Paris,

and utterly content with their exclusively Parisian reputation. Three

times they came forward. And then the applause ceased, for Paris is not

Naples, and it is not Madrid, and the red curtain definitely hid the

stage, and the theatre hummed with animated chatter as elegant as Diaz'

music, and my ear, that loves the chaste vivacity of the French tongue,

was caressed on every side by its cadences.

'This is the very heart of civilization,' I said to myself. 'And even in

the forest I could not breathe more freely.'

I stared up absently at Benjamin Constant's blue ceiling, meretricious

and still adorable, expressive of the delicious decadence of Paris, and

my eyes moistened because the world is so beautiful in such various ways.

Then the door of the _baignoire_ opened. It was Diaz himself who

appeared. He had not forgotten me in the excitements of the stage and

the dressing-rooms. He put his hand lightly on my shoulder, and I

glanced at him.

'Well?' he murmured, and gave me a box of bonbons elaborately tied with

rich ribbons.

And I murmured, 'Well?'

The glory of his triumph was upon him. But he understood why my eyes were

wet, and his fingers moved soothingly on my shoulder.

'You won't come round?' he asked. 'Both Villedo and Morenita are dying to

meet you.'

I shook my head, smiling.

'You're satisfied?'

'More than satisfied,' I answered. 'The thing is wonderful.'

'I think it's rather charming,' he said. 'By the way, I've just had an

offer from New York for it, and another from Rome.'

I nodded my appreciation.

'You don't want anything?'

'Nothing, thanks,' I said, opening the box of bonbons, 'except these.

Thanks so much for thinking of them.'

'Well--'

And he left me again.

In the second act the legend--has not the tale of La Vallière acquired

almost the quality of a legend?--grew in persuasiveness and in

magnificence. It was the hour of La Vallière's unwilling ascendancy, and

it foreboded also her fall. The situations seemed to me to be poignantly

beautiful, especially that in which La Vallière and Montespan and the

Queen found themselves together. And Morenita had perceived my meaning

with such a sure intuition. I might say that she showed me what I had

meant. Diaz, too, had given to my verse a voice than which it appeared

impossible that anything could be more appropriate. The whole effect was

astonishing, ravishing. And within me--far, far within the recesses of my

glowing heart--a thin, clear whisper spoke and said that I, and I alone,

was the cause of that beauty of sight and sound. Not Morenita, and not

Montfériot, not Diaz himself, but Magda, the self-constituted odalisque,

was its author. I had thought of it; I had schemed it; I had fashioned

it; I had evoked the emotion in it. The others had but exquisitely

embroidered my theme. Without me they must have been dumb and futile. On

my shoulders lay the burden and the glory. And though I was amazed,

perhaps naively, to see what I had done, nevertheless I had done it--I!

The entire opera-house, that complicated and various machine, was simply

a means to express me. And it was to my touch on their heartstrings that

the audience vibrated. With all my humility, how proud I was--coldly and

arrogantly proud, as only the artist can be! I wore my humility as I wore

my black gown. Even Diaz could not penetrate to the inviolable place in

my heart, where the indestructible egoism defied the efforts of love to

silence it. And yet people say there is nothing stronger than love.

At the close of the act, while the ringing applause, much more

enthusiastic than before, gave certainty of a genuine and extraordinary

success, I could not help blushing. It was as if I was in danger of being

discovered as the primal author of all that fleeting loveliness, as if my

secret was bound to get about, and I to be forced from my seclusion in

order to receive the acclamations of Paris. I played nervously and

self-consciously with my fan, and I wrapped my humility closer round me,

until at length the tumult died away, and the hum of charming, eager

chatter reassured my ears again.

Diaz did not come. The entr'acte stretched out long, and the chatter lost

some of its eagerness, and he did not come. Perhaps he could not come.

Perhaps he was too much engaged, too much preoccupied, to think of the

gallantry which he owed to his mistress. A man cannot always be dreaming

of his mistress. A mistress must be reconciled to occasional neglect; she

must console herself with chocolates. And they were chocolates from

Marquis's, in the Passage des Panoramas....

Then he came, accompanied.

A whirl of high-seasoned, laughing personalities invaded my privacy.

Diaz, smiling humorously, was followed by a man and a cloaked woman.

'Dear lady,' he said, with an intimate formality, 'I present Mademoiselle

Morenita and Monsieur Villedo. They insisted on seeing you. Mademoiselle,

Monsieur--Mademoiselle Peel.'

I stood up.

'All our excuses,' said Villedo, in a low, discreet voice, as he

carefully shut the door. 'All our excuses, madame. But it was necessary

that I should pay my respects--it was stronger than I.'

And he came forward, took my hand, and raised it to his lips. He is a

little finicking man, with a little gray beard, and the red rosette in

his button-hole, and a most consummate ease of manner.

'Monsieur,' I replied, 'you are too amiable. And you, madame. I cannot

sufficiently thank you both.'

Morenita rushed at me with a swift, surprising movement, her cloak

dropping from her shoulders, and taking both my hands, she kissed me

impulsively.

'You have genius,' she said; 'and I am proud. I am ashamed that I cannot

read English; but I have the intention to learn in order to read your

books. Our Diaz says wonderful things of them.'

She is a tall, splendidly-made, opulent creature, of my own age, born for

the footlights, with an extremely sweet and thrilling voice, and that

slight coarseness or exaggeration of gesture and beauty which is the

penalty of the stage. She did not in the least resemble a La Vallière as

she stood there gazing at me, with her gleaming, pencilled eyes and

heavy, scarlet lips. It seemed impossible that she could refine herself

to a La Vallière. But that woman is the drama itself. She would act no

matter what. She has always the qualities necessary to a rôle. And the

gods have given her green eyes, so that she may be La Vallière to the

very life.

I began to thank her for her superb performance.

'It is I who should thank you,' she answered. 'It will be my greatest

part. Never have I had so many glorious situations in a part. Do you

like my limp?'

She smiled, her head on one side. Success glittered in those orbs.

'You limp adorably,' I said.

'It is my profession to make compliments,' Villedo broke in; and then,

turning to Morenita, '_N'est-ce pas, ma belle créature_? But really'--he

turned to me again--'but very sincerely, all that there is of most

sincerely, dear madame, your libretto is made with a virtuosity

astonishing. It is _du théâtre_. And with that a charm, an emotion...!

One would say--'

And so it continued, the flattering stream, while Diaz listened, touched,

and full of pride.

'Ah!' I said. 'It is not I who deserve praise.'

An electric bell trembled in the theatre.

Morenita picked up her cloak.

'_Mon ami_,' she warned Villedo. 'I must go. Diaz, _mon petit_! you will

persuade Mademoiselle Peel to come to the room of the Directeur later.

Madame, a few of us will meet there--is it not so, Villedo? We shall

count on you, madame. You have hidden yourself too long.'

I glanced at Diaz, and he nodded. As a fact, I wished to refuse; but I

could not withstand the seduction of Morenita. She had a physical

influence which was unique in my experience.

'I accept,' I said.

'_A tout à l'heure_, then,' she twittered gaily; and they left as they

had come, Villedo affectionately toying with Morenita's hand.

Diaz remained behind a moment.

'I am so glad you didn't decline,' he said. 'You see, here in this

theatre Morenita is a queen. I wager she has never before in all her life

put herself out of the way as she has done for you to-night.'

'Really!' I faltered.

And, indeed, as I pondered over it, the politeness of these people

appeared to be marvellous, and so perfectly accomplished. Villedo, who

has made a European reputation and rejuvenated his theatre in a dozen

years, is doubtless, as he said, a professional maker of compliments. In

his position a man must be. But, nevertheless, last night's triumph is

officially and very genuinely Villedo's. While as for Morenita and Diaz,

the mere idea of these golden stars waiting on me, the librettist,

effacing themselves, rendering themselves subordinate at such a moment,

was fantastic. It passed the credible.... A Diaz standing silent and

deferential, while an idolized prima donna stepped down from her throne

to flatter me in her own temple! All that I had previously achieved of

renown seemed provincial, insular.

But Diaz took his own right place in the spacious salon of Villedo

afterwards, after all the applause had ceased, and the success had been

consecrated, and the enraptured audience had gone, and the lights were

extinguished in the silent auditorium. It is a room that seems to be

furnished with nothing but a grand piano and a large, flat writing-table

and a few chairs. On the walls are numberless signed portraits of singers

and composers, and antique playbills of the Opéra Comique, together with

strange sinister souvenirs of the great fires which have destroyed the

house and its patrons in the past. When Diaz led me in, only Villedo and

the principal artists and Pouvillon, the conductor, were present.

Pouvillon, astonishingly fat, was sitting on the table, idly swinging the

electric pendant over his head; while Morenita occupied Villedo's

armchair, and Villedo talked to Montfériot and another man in a corner.

But a crowd of officials of the theatre ventured on Diaz' heels. And then

came Monticelli, the _première danseuse_, in a coat and skirt, and then

some of her rivals. And as the terrible Director did not protest, the

room continued to fill until it was full to the doors, where stood a

semicircle of soiled, ragged scene-shifters and a few fat old women, who

were probably dressers. Who could protest on such a night? The democracy

of a concerted triumph reigned. Everybody was joyous, madly happy.

Everybody had done something; everybody shared the prestige, and the rank

and file might safely take generals by the hand.

Diaz was then the centre of attraction. It was recognised that he had

entered that sphere from a wider one, bringing with him a radiance

brighter than he found there. He was divine last night. All felt that he

was divine. He spoke to everyone with an admirable modesty, gaily, his

eyes laughing. Several women kissed him, including Morenita. Not that I

minded. In the theatre the code is different, coarser, more banal. He

alone raised this crowd above its usual level and gave it distinction.

Someone suggested that, as the piano was there, he should play, and

the demand ran from mouth to mouth. Villedo, appreciating its

audacity, made a gesture to indicate that such a thing could not be

asked. But Diaz instantly said that, if it would give pleasure, he

would play with pleasure.

And he sat down to the piano, and looked round, smiling, and the room was

hushed in a moment, and each face was turned towards him.

'What?' he ejaculated. And then, as no definite recommendation was

offered, he said: 'Do you wish that I improvise?'

The idea was accepted with passionate, noisy enthusiasm.

A cold perspiration broke out over my whole body. I must have turned

very pale.

'You are not ill, madame?' asked that ridiculous fop, Montfèriot, who

had been presented to me, and was whispering the most fatuous

compliments.

'No, I thank you.'

The fact was that Diaz, since his retirement, had not yet played to

anyone except myself. This was his first appearance. I was afraid for

him. I trembled for him. I need not have done. He was absolutely master

of his powers. His fingers announced, quite simply, one of the most

successful airs from _La Vallière_, and then he began to decorate it with

an amazing lacework of variations, and finished with a bravura display

such as no pianist could have surpassed. The performance, marvellous in

itself, was precisely suited to that audience, and it electrified the

audience; it electrified even me. Diaz fought his way through kisses and

embraces to Villedo, who stood on his toes and wept and put his arms

round Diaz' neck.

'_Cher maître_,' he cried, 'you overwhelm us!'

'You are too kind, all of you,' said Diaz. 'I must ask permission to

retire. I have to conduct Mademoiselle Peel to her hotel, and there is

much for me to do during the night. You know I start very early

to-morrow.'

'_Hélas!_ Morenita sighed.

I had blushed. Decidedly I behaved like a girl last night. But, indeed,

the new, swift realization, as Diaz singled me out of that multitude,

that after all he utterly belonged to me, that he was mine alone, was

more than I could bear with equanimity. I was the proudest woman in the

universe. I scorned the lot of all other women.

The adieux were exchanged, and there were more kisses. '_Au revoir! Bon

voyage_! Much success over there.'

The majority of these good, generous souls were in tears.

Villedo opened a side-door, and we escaped into a corridor, only Morenita

and one or two others accompanying us to the street.

And on the pavement a carpet had been laid. The electric brougham was

waiting. I gathered up my skirt and sprang in. Diaz followed, smiling at

me. He put his head out of the window and said a few words. Morenita blew

a kiss. Villedo bowed profoundly. The carriage moved in the direction of

the boulevard.... I had carried him off. Oh, the exquisite dark intimacy

of the interior of that smooth-rolling brougham! When, after the theatre,

a woman precedes a man into a carriage, does she not publish and glory

in the fact that she is his? Is it not the most delicious of avowals?

There is something in the enforced bend of one's head as one steps in.

And when the man shuts the door with a masculine snap--

I wondered idly what Morenita and Villedo thought of our relations. They

must surely guess.

We went down the boulevard and by the Rue Royale into the Place de la

Concorde, where vehicles flitted mysteriously in a maze of lights under

the vast dome of mysterious blue. And Paris, in her incomparable toilette

of a June night, seemed more than ever the passionate city of love that

she is, recognising candidly, with the fearless intellectuality of the

Latin temperament, that one thing only makes life worth living. How soft

was the air! How languorous the pose of the dim figures that passed us

half hidden in other carriages! And in my heart was the lofty joy of work

done, definitely accomplished, and a vista of years of future pleasure.

My happiness was ardent and yet calm--a happiness beyond my hopes, beyond

what a mortal has the right to dream of. Nothing could impair it, not

even Diaz' continued silence as to a marriage between us, not even the

imminent brief separation that I was to endure.

'My child,' said Diaz suddenly, 'I'm very hungry. I've never been

so hungry.'

'You surely didn't forget to have your dinner?' I exclaimed.

'Yes, I did,' he admitted like a child; 'I've just remembered.'

'Diaz!' I pouted, and for some strange reason my bliss was intensified,

'you are really terrible! What can I do with you? You will eat before

you leave me. I must see to that. We can get something for you at the

hotel, perhaps.'

'Suppose we go to a supper restaurant?' he said.

Without waiting for my reply, he seized the dangling end of the

speaking-tube and spoke to the driver, and we swerved round and regained

the boulevard.

And in the private room of a great, glittering restaurant, one of a long

row of private rooms off a corridor, I ate strawberries and cream and

sipped champagne while Diaz went through the entire menu of a supper.

'Your eyes look sad,' he murmured, with a cigar between his teeth. 'What

is it? We shall see each other again in a fortnight.'

He was to resume his career by a series of concerts in the United States.

A New York agent, with the characteristic enterprise of New York agents,

had tracked Diaz even into the forest and offered him two hundred and

fifty thousand dollars for forty concerts on the condition that he played

at no concert before he played in New York. And in order to reach New

York in time for the first concert, it was imperative that he should

catch the _Touraine_ at Havre. I was to follow in a few days by a

Hamburg-American liner. Diaz had judged it more politic that we should

not travel together. In this he was undoubtedly right.

I smiled proudly.

'I am both sad and happy,' I answered.

He moved his chair until it touched mine, and put his arm round my neck,

and brought my face close to his.

'Look at me,' he said.

And I looked into his large, splendid eyes.

'You mustn't think,' he whispered, 'that, because I don't talk about it,

I don't feel that I owe everything to you.'

I let my face fall on his breast. I knew I had flushed to the ears.

'My poor boy,' I sobbed, 'if you talk about that I shall never

forgive you.'

It was heaven itself. No woman has ever been more ecstatically happy than

I was then.

He rang for the bill.

We parted at the door of my hotel. In the carriage we had exchanged one

long, long kiss. At the last moment I wanted to alter the programme, go

with him to his hotel to assist in his final arrangements, and then see

him off at early morning at the station. But he refused. He said he could

not bear to part from me in public. Perhaps it was best so. Just as I

turned away he put a packet into my hand. It contained seven banknotes

for ten thousand francs each, money that it had been my delight to lend

him from time to time. Foolish, vain, scrupulous boy! I knew not where he

had obtained--

* * * * *

It is now evening. Diaz is on the sea. While writing those last lines I

was attacked by fearful pains in the right side, and cramp, so that I

could not finish. I can scarcely write now. I have just seen the old

English doctor. He says I have appendicitis, perhaps caused by pips of

strawberries. And that unless I am operated on at once--And that even

if--He is telephoning to the hospital. Diaz! No; I shall come safely

through the affair. Without me Diaz would fall again. I see that now. And

I have had no child. I must have a child. Even that girl in the blue

_peignoir_ had a--Chance is a strange--

_Extract translated from 'Le Temps,' the Paris Evening Paper_.

OBSEQUIES OF MISS PELL (_sic_).

The obsequies of Mademoiselle Pell, the celebrated English poetess, and

author of the libretto of _La Vallière_, were celebrated this morning at

eleven o'clock in the Church of St. Honoré d'Eylau.

The chief mourners were the doctor who assisted at the last moments of

Mademoiselle Pell, and M. Villedo, director of the Opéra-Comique.

Among the wreaths we may cite those of the Association of Dramatic

Artists, of Madame Morenita, of the management of the Opéra-Comique, and

of the artists of the Opéra-Comique.

Mass was said by a vicar of the parish, and general absolution given by

M. le Curé Marbeau.

During the service there was given, under the direction of M. Lêtang,

chapel-master, the _Funeral March_ of Beethoven, the _Kyrie_ of

Neidermeyer, the _Pie Jesu_ of Stradella, the _Ego Sum_ of Gounod, the

_Libera Me_ of S. Rousseau.

M. Deep officiated at the organ.

After the ceremony the remains were transported to the cemetery of

Père-Lachaise and cremated.