END OF LANGLER--_continued_
"Well, now, you see," said the man.
We made no answer, and Baron Kolár began to pace the room.
"You have been most insolent and foolish, you two men," said he: "I have
lavished warnings upon you in vain, and I shall have you shot within
five minutes like two dogs, without compunction, I assure you, unless
you do now as I direct you."
"But don't be angry," said I, "since we have meant well, and are quite
likely to do as you direct us."
"You have been most insolent and foolish," he repeated with invective;
"you have hampered me, badgered me, invaded my estate, forced my hand,
placed me in the greatest personal danger, threatened the success of my
life-work. You are a nuisance and a danger, and should be removed....
Tell me now how you came to know that there was a prisoner in
Schweinstein Castle."
"The prisoner sent out a messenger-bird," said I, "which came to Mr
Langler's estate."
"Oh, that was it, yes, that was it.... Well, that was no fault of
yours. You have no doubt acted like honourable men. But I hate you for
having molested me. You made a great mistake to listen to the woman who
gave you the story of the Styrian priest's life--for I take it that you
did hear it of her?"
"Some of it," said I.
"Or rather--all of it," suggested Langler.
"Well, you made a mistake," said Baron Kolár. "However, I have a
confirmed confidence in your honour: sign me, therefore, this paper,
promising not to divulge to a soul during ten years, or till my death,
anything that you have learned on the alp, and you shall be free men.
To-night several of the bodies that were crucified are to be
disinterred, including that of your groom, Charles Robinson; to-morrow
morning the world will learn that the miracles were the work of priests;
and, as I do not wish you to be out in the crisis of the excitement, I
shall have you here till to-morrow afternoon; after that you may go,
yes, you may go. I understand that I risk something in trusting you; it
is a disloyalty to my comrades; but I am a reader of men--though I have
sometimes been wrong, too, I have not always been right: you, however,
are not men who would wound the hand that has given you life. Sign me
that paper, as a formality between us."
"Willingly," said I, for what I wished to look on was the face of Miss
Langler, and gave little heed to aught else, so, without even reading
the thing, I knelt flurriedly by the chair, and had it signed and
finished with.
It was now for Langler to sign.
"Now, Mr Langler," said Baron Kolár, when Langler made no movement to
sign.
"No, Baron Kolár," answered Langler, "no," with his eyes cast down.
"What! You do not sign?"
"No, Baron Kolár, no," he repeated.
"Then woe to you, sir," said the Baron, measuring him from head to foot.
"Well, then, woe to me," said Langler.
Ah, he was pallid now, with a mulishness of mien which I knew with
panic; whereat I at his secret ear breathed in my anguish: "but Emily,
Aubrey, fair's fair, loyalty to Emily first, this is too much, you know,
Aubrey, Emily first----"
"No, second," he said, with a stiff neck.
"As if duty and God had anything to do with it!" I groaned
panic-stricken: "martyrs are martyrs, and die for what they cherish, but
to die for a Church which you always call obsolete, for which you care
nothing really, except by some trick of culture, it would be too
monstrously pitiful, for God's sake, only this once----"
"But what is the matter with Mr Langler?" said Baron Kolár: "my time is
short."
"But by what right do you even dream of daring to shed anyone's blood?"
asked Langler, turning upon the baron.
"Know that I _have_ this right, Mr Langler," answered the baron sternly:
"men like me, whose heads are clear, and whose motives are righteous,
have such divine rights."
"One readily admits the righteousness of your motives," said Langler,
"but the clearness of your head is less certain, if I may say so. We all
intend to do good, Baron Kolár, but to do it is an intricate trick, only
given to critics. You seem in your scheming to have quite forgotten the
moral reaction which must follow upon the sudden death of faith, and
upon the disclosure that the men who try to remind the world of God are
a gang of misdoers. Is it nothing to you that to-morrow every wanton
impulse of men's hearts will lift its head, the restraints of ages once
swept away? Your motives are good: why should you not give up this
scheme even now, and I, on my side, should be able to vow myself to
silence?"
At this Baron Kolár, looking down upon him, answered: "you speak, sir,
very like a child; you are a man with a mind made up chiefly of theories
acquired in your study, or acquired from other prigs and theorists who
are foreigners to the agoras of men. Is not this scheme of mine modelled
on the incident of the alp? But in that case no 'wanton impulses' lifted
their head----"
"Ah, I think so," said Langler.
"But you annoy me, Mr Langler," said the baron. "Understand that on the
final death of 'faith' to-morrow the people will remain precisely where
they stood before the miracles, when 'faith' was already dead, and this
because they are moral by habit and heredity. Wasn't this just the work
in evolution which God designed 'faith' to do--to make men moral by
heredity? for they would hardly, I think, have become so without the
goad of 'hell,' and so on. Descartes, a theorist like you, was assured
that God cannot be a deceiver; but God does nothing but deceive for His
creatures' good, and, housed in His motley, the zebra-herd browses
hidden and grey in the grey of the morning. At first two hells were
needed; but by the date of the Reformation purgatory could be dispensed
with in the highest nations; by the date of the abolition of hanging for
sheep-stealing men could do without any hell at all. The Church was thus
an excellent crutch, which humanity is now able to hurl away and burn;
for men, thanks to her, are now as hardened in good conduct as they were
once naturally heinous, and crime would now be quite irksome to the host
of them, as swimming is to a frog that was lately a swimming tadpole.
But do not trouble your head about any such questions at all: just sign
me that paper now."
"I regret that I do not quite see with you, Baron Kolár," answered
Langler stiffly, with downcast eyes, while I, wooing at his ear,
whispered, "ah, but Emily, Aubrey, you forget!"
"But will he not sign?" asked the baron.
"No, sir," said Langler.
Baron Kolár groaned.
"It seems a pity, Mr Langler," he said, "that you are quite so gallant a
man. Nature, after all, is a cannibal tigress that devours her fairest
offspring...." saying which, he now reached aside, and pressed an
electric button.
It was now that I cast myself down at the man's feet, grasping him so
that he could not escape me, gasping to him: "but you cannot hurt him,
cannot touch him, she will go crazy, is not strong, it is your fault,
you should not have done to her what you twice did; she is expecting him
to-night, never hoped in her heart to see him again, but we made her
hope against hope, and now that he is almost at home--see, these are her
telegrams, read them, mad with haste, and it is useless to plead with
him, he is infected with some moral crotchet, but _you_ will find a way
for us, I cast myself upon your mighty heart like a child, not for
myself, nor for him, but for her, whom you have so horribly wronged ..."
and, as I so pleaded, the man's hand lifted, and was about to come upon
me: was it a half-blow? a half-caress? I am not even now sure; but when,
just then, someone rapped at the door in answer to his summons, he
called out in Italian, "never mind, I will ring again when I want you";
and to me he said: "give me the telegrams."
His demand for them surprised me. I handed them to him in a mass as I
had snapped them out of my pocket, whereupon he took out his spectacles,
wiped them, adjusted them upon his nose, and holding the telegrams away
from his eyes close to the grimy light, perused them patiently, while I
waited with legs that could hardly any more uphold my weight. One by one
he let the leaves of paper fall down, having read them, and read the
next; but the last two he tossed away without reading, and turned off to
pace the floor.
I waited shivering while four or five times he paced, poring upon him,
and once I saw his brow lift largely, his eyes wander round the roof,
and heard him breathe to himself the words: "death death." Of what he
was thinking I was not then aware, and I waited, shaking, my eyes nailed
to his face. When he next spoke it was with sudden vexation, saying:
"ridiculous beings! I foresaw that you would come to grief, I lavished
warnings upon you, I ought to see you shot like two dogs. How do you
dare to say now that Miss Langler's frailty is any fault of mine, when
it is wholly your own? I was devoting myself to the welfare of men,
seeing clearly, knowing clearly, what I did, for as the heavens are high
above the earth, just so, I suppose, are my thoughts larger than your
thoughts, and you dared to meddle with me. I ought to see you shot now
like two dogs, I assure you. Why should I take my useful life down into
the darkness of death in order to save pedants like you, or to spare a
woman's feelings?"
"Your life?" I breathed; "the darkness of death? There is no such
question!"
"But you speak very like a child," said he: "is it not clear to you that
either Mr Langler or I must throw up the cards now, since he will not
give his word to be silent? The crucifixion of the priest which you
witnessed by the riverside in the mountain would be called a murder by
the world, so undoubtedly will the miracle-crucifixions. It is true that
I am rather above being punished by the law for them, but my name would
be quite blighted, and my life nothing worth to me. I have neither wife
nor child.... I must only sacrifice it, since you insist that I have
already enough wounded Miss Langler--unless Mr Langler will sign me that
paper this instant."
"Oh, sign," I whispered, edging nearer to Langler, but he stood white,
inflexible. "There is no occasion for anyone to die," he said, with
lowered lids: "let Baron Kolár be silent as to the miracles being none,
and I, too, will be silent; but if they be bruited abroad as the work of
churchmen, then, I shall not fail, if I have life and liberty, to
declare that, on the contrary, they are the work of Baron Kolár."
"But how am I to be silent?" asked the baron: "does Mr Langler imagine
that I am alone in this scheme? This night three thousand gentlemen,
earnest fellows, large fellows, are in the act of carrying their task to
its end, nor should I dream of spoiling their work by sparing your life
if I thought that one man's voice could seriously spoil it; but your
voice will effect little, Mr Templeton will not support it, it will be
lost in the vast uproar, and will only be of avail to cast a blight upon
my own private name: to save my life, then, which I have a thought of
laying down for your wounded sister's sake, vouchsafe to sign me that
paper this instant."
"Such a thought is most admirable, Baron Kolár, and would be quite
surprising, if it were not you who had it," said Langler; "but, after
all, the claims upon us of gratitude and affection are not the greatest.
I pray you, then, not again to ask me to sign the paper."
To this Baron Kolár said nothing in reply, but picked up the paper
signed by me, put it into his pocket, and paced about, frowning; till on
a sudden his brow cleared, he said: "oh, well," and he sat himself down
on the bedstead laths. There he took out of his pocket a bag of grapes,
and, stooping forward, began to feed upon them, with quite a working of
the mouth and a sputtering of seeds. While thus busy, and given up to
this guttling, he kept looking up with wandering eyes, and he mumbled
mainly to himself, saying: "they are grapes of Egripos; very sweet they
are, too, very nice, not bad, and whenever I die, if I be opened, some
of them will be found in me. These few here may be my last feast, hence
I do not offer you any. But I do not fancy so, oh no, you will see. It
is astonishing what influences personality has upon events: from my
boyhood, if by chance I bet on a race-horse, it always won, strange
thing, it always won. Once, when a youth, I fought a duel with the
famous swordsman, Paulus, and, though no hand at the rapier myself, I
somehow came out grandly, I got in such a slash, yes, such a slash,
right in his cheek--very nice. I have always come nicely through
everything. Archbishop Burton, now: two hours ago he called me a
scoundrel, and lifted a chair to strike me; but the moment he lifted it
he dropped in a fit, and has since died. I seem to be immune from such
maniacs, I assure you. On the sixth of June five years ago a fellow
named Vesgolcza threw a bomb at me in Vienna; but it killed my political
enemy, Count Attem, and I procured the fellow's pardon. No, I was not
born for the martyr's crown, I own the badge and trick of escape. It is
a question of organisation and secret league with the soul of the world.
Look at me, I am sound throughout, a little trouble with the stomach
after food sometimes, a little flatulence, nothing much, a little
trouble. But Mr Langler, now: you are one of those men who are tricked
out with every jewel, except just the pearl of great price,
effectualness, favouritism with high God; such men are the scapegoats of
progress; history is based on their pains and groans; to the bane in
their fate there grows no bezoar. If you perish to-night, do not imagine
that I shall grieve for you; you are a man whom I might have loved, but
I lavished warnings upon you in vain, and I am such that even in death
my gall cannot quite forgive a personal insolence; but I shall realise
that your fate is over-sad, and I shall grieve for your graceful sister,
who has not offended me, but to whom I was forced to be ungallant.
Therefore I am about to give you one last great chance of life, though
you will not rise to the luck of it, you will be failing, I think....
But let me not brag too soon. As you see, it must be either you or I to
whom this bedstead within one hour will turn out to be the death-bed.
Death is dark and monstrous, yes, death is dark. The artful old brain
all at once ceases to discern, the old heart no longer brawls, all
becomes nothing. But some humour of the soul has brought me to risk it,
and, even if I should not manage to get through, what, after all, is the
death of a man? Nothing more to God than the jaundice and death of a
leaf. I notice that Fitzroy Square out there is covered just now with
dead leaves: no one heeds them, no, no one heeds them.... Well, now, we
shall see."
He sprang up, sputtering his last seeds, wiping his hands, saying: "I
shall be back in three minutes," and went out. Some seconds later I was
standing with my forehead on my arm against the wall when I heard behind
me some heavy pantings, and, glancing round, beheld Langler staggering,
with his hand held over his heart. I was only just in time to catch him.
"One moment," he sighed, "my heart...." He looked ghastly. But when I
had got him to the chair and fanned him with my handkerchief he
presently opened his eyes. "My heart, God knows," he began to say, when
the key was again heard in the lock, whereat he got up hastily,
buttoning his dress again, as Baron Kolár came in.
The baron first placed the key of the door and a piece of paper on the
chair, saying: "here is the key and a permit for you to go out of the
house, in case of my death, gentlemen"; then, pouring two pills from a
big blue pill-box into his palm, he held them out to Langler, saying:
"now, sir, if you take one of these I will take the other."
"But why so?" I heard Langler ask; and I heard Baron Kolár answer: "one
is a poison, the other is harmless; choose one, sir, and I will have the
other."
"But if I chance to choose the harmless one," Langler next said, "I
become the cause of the death of a most magnanimous man, Baron Kolár."
"Of a most rash and foolhardy man, sir," was Baron Kolár's answer; "but
choose quickly, I charge you, sir."
"But, baron----" I heard Langler say.
"Do not delay! or I dash the cursed pills to the ground!" I now heard
Baron Kolár cry out: "your chance to serve your sister and madman
Church vanishes in two ticks of my watch!"
"Well, then, since you put it in that way, baron ... well, then,
baron...." I heard Langler say, but what next went on I did not witness,
for my face all this while was pressed against the wall. Indeed, I was
sick, with a most mortal taste in my mouth, and there at the wall I
waited in what seemed to me a month of stillness, until there reached me
a sound of moaning which I understood to come from Baron Kolár. I dared
then, for the first time, to turn and look at them. Langler was standing
with his back against the wall, white, but smiling; Baron Kolár was
sitting on the bedstead, holding his head with both his hands, his eye
wandering wildly. When he caught my eye he said to me: "it is I who have
swallowed the poison-pill, yes, it is I." And when I now moved to stand
at his side he turned up at me a most haggard jowl, an all-gone gaze,
his eyes hanging languishingly upon mine. On a sudden he started, saying
with new alarm: "It is I who have taken the poison!" Then afresh he
rocked himself from side to side, moving his palm to and fro along the
length of his thigh, full of sighs and retchings and moans. I was
crouched on my knees before his anguish, I sobbed aloud to him: "great,
fatherly heart!" "Stay!" he said, with a new brusqueness, "I feel the
stiffness coming on in the neck, I had better get up: it is brucine,"
and he now raised himself by my help, and stepped about, upheld on my
shoulder, during which, "yes," he said to me in confidence, "I have gone
a step too far, I have tempted God, and He has abandoned me"; and again
he moaned, "it is brucine," pressing his reins ruefully, with groans.
"But can I do nothing?" I cried to him, "let me do something for you!"
To this he made no answer, but said to me: "I never thought to fail; I
have always managed to come out prettily through everything, but now I
perish miserably for a mere whim of my bile, a moment's noble wind, it
is all your own doing, Gregor, you reap what you have sown. Recount to
Miss Langler how a man like me died for her, tell the Misses Chambers
and all your friends how I perished, let all their hearts pity me and
bleed...." It was while he was saying this that I first noticed Langler,
who now stepped out from the wall toward us, trying to smile, saying to
Kolár, "no, baron, do not dismay yourself with such fancies, you have
already over-much worked out ..." but his speech was broken short by a
jerk of the neck, his mouth was drawn, he had an aspect of terror: death
was in the face of my friend. Baron Kolár, staring at him, seemed to
start from a dream, and like a man dropped aghast but glad from the
gallows-rope the man's lips unwreathed in a kind of rictus, as he said
with an opening of the arms: "well, I told you how it would be,"
whereupon at once he now turned in flight from the sight of Langler's
face, but turned again to whisper to me, "you can go into another room
or be here, just as you wish," and after waiting an instant for my
answer, when I only gaped at him, he fled away.
I sat by the bedstead, upon which Langler had fallen, and must have
remained there on the floor, I imagine, till five or six P.M. the next
evening. Baron Kolár's prophecy that the bedstead would become a
death-bed within one hour did not come true, for it must have been two,
perhaps three, hours before Langler was freed from his anguish, though I
am not sure, for after half-an-hour or so the light for some cause died
out, and the darkness may have stifled out my consciousness of time. I
think, however, that he lived three hours. The poison given him may have
been over-little, or over-much, or poor in poignancy, so that at some
times it was difficult to believe that he could be really dying; there
were such intervals as that in which he repeated most of the Homeric
hymn to Apollo, then there were spasms on spasms, and presently again
his mind gave signs of wandering. All was in rayless darkness--it was
well so. Thrice he cried to me: "Oh, that we knew where once more we
might find Him, Arthur!" "We are like babes that are being weaned," he
said, "but nothing is offered us in place of the Breast that has been
withdrawn, we bawl in the dark...." After this he lay without saying
anything for some time, until he said again: "yes, now in the hour of my
voyage it is Jesus who to me is the most eminent, the best-beloved.
Blessed name, blessed name. How abounding in beguilement are all his
words, like lovers' sidelong glances, and honey of Hybla to the tongue!
'Consider the lilies of the field, even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these'--surely, Arthur, the most literary words ever
used--except in a quite literal sense--if you accept my definition of
literature as 'chastity a-burn.' I know of nothing quite to match them
for that demure rich indirectness which is the essence of literature,
except perhaps '[Greek: asteras eisathreis],' and the 'path which no
fowl knoweth.' How staid the statement, how rosy the aroma; how little
is said, how much is felt and meant and suggested: for the puny men
dissect and depict, the huge men sum up and suggest. And that
big-mouthed 'swear not by Heaven'--you can't match me that God for
downright bulk, the earth His footstool, His buttocks throned broad over
the stars, His head up in the room beyond, huge Egyptian shadow----Oh,
I _must_...." Upon this my friend was held up by one of the fits, in
which he stretched like an arch on his head and feet; but there was no
bed, his legs slipped between the laths, causing them to vibrate and
jangle; I could not see, it was very well so. But in the interims he was
easy enough, without much suffering, I think, and now he was unconscious
of me, and maundered with a wandering mind, showing still his ruling
passion, criticising still, arguing still of literature, till his
passing. "Surely the light is good," says he, "and a pleasant thing it
is for the eyes to behold the sun," being all gone by that time, I
believe, and all gone, too, when he breathed to himself: "oh, a rough
God! In what velocities does He mix and revel! The encounter of dark
suns--how He slackens bridle and urges them like chargers, faster,
faster, with laughter in His beard, and afterwards muses upon the
silence of their tragedy when a new star psalms in the sky at night, and
the star-masters watch it with awe." This was among his final
utterances, and afterwards I had for some time a sense of being alone in
the dark there without him; but then I heard my friend say in a thin and
dying whine: "why art thou cast down, oh, my soul, and why art thou
disquieted within me?" and at the last he panted out at me, "tell her,
Arthur, tell her, in His will is our peace." Long I sat then, incaved in
night, with nothing but the darkness and his death in my mind, but in
the end God gave me tears, and a deep sleep.