THE DISAGREEABLE MAN.
ROBERT ALLITSEN told Bernardine that she was not likely to be on
friendly terms with the English people in the Kurhaus.
"They will not care about you, and you will not care about the
foreigners. So you will thus be thrown on your own resources,
just as I was when I came."
"I cannot say that I have any resources," Bernardine answered. "I don't
feel well enough to try to do any writing, or else it would be
delightful to have the uninterrupted leisure."
So she had probably told him a little about her life and occupation;
although it was not likely that she would have given him any serious
confidences. Still, people are often surprisingly frank about
themselves, even those who pride themselves upon being the most
reticent mortals in the world.
"But now, having the leisure," she continued, "I have not the brains!"
"I never knew any writer who had," said the Disagreeable Man grimly.
"Perhaps your experience has been limited," she suggested.
"Why don't you read?" he said. "There is a good library here. It
contains all the books we don't want to read."
"I am tired of reading," Bernardine said. "I seem to have been reading
all my life. My uncle, with whom I live, keeps, a second-hand book-shop,
and ever since I can remember, I have been surrounded by books. They
have not done me much good, nor any one else either."
"No, probably not," he said. "But now that you have left off reading,
you will have a chance of learning something, if you live long enough.
It is wonderful how much one does learn when one does not read. It is
almost awful. If you don't care about reading now, why do you not
occupy yourself with cheese-mites?"
"I do not feel drawn towards cheese-mites."
"Perhaps not, at first; but all the same they form a subject which is
very engaging. Or any branch of bacteriology."
"Well, if you were to lend me your microscope, perhaps I might begin."
"I could not do that," he answered quickly. "I never lend my things."
"No, I did not suppose you would," she said. "I knew I was safe in
making the suggestion."
"You are rather quick of perception in spite of all your book reading,"
he said. "Yes, you are quite right. I am selfish. I dislike lending my
things, and I dislike spending my money except on myself. If you have
the misfortune to linger on as I do you will know that it is perfectly
legitimate to be selfish in small things, _if one has made the one
great sacrifice_."
"And what may that be?"
She asked so eagerly that he looked at her, and then saw how worn and
tired her face was; and the words which he was intending to speak,
died on his lips.
"Look at those asses of people on toboggans," he said brusquely. "Could
you manage to enjoy yourself in that way? That might do you good."
"Yes," she said; "but it would not be any pleasure to me."
She stopped to watch the toboggans flying down the road. And the
Disagreeable Man went his own solitary way, a forlorn figure, with a
face almost expressionless, and a manner wholly impenetrable.
He had lived nearly seven years at Petershof, and, like many others was
obliged to continue staying there if he wished to continue staying in
this planet. It was not probable that he had any wish to prolong his
frail existence, but he did his duty to his mother by conserving his
life; and this feeble flame of duty and affection was the only lingering
bit of warmth in a heart frozen almost by ill health and disappointed
ambitions. The moralists tell us that suffering ennobles, and that a
right acceptation of hindrances goes towards forming a beautiful
character. But this result must largely depend on the original
character: certainly, in the case of Robert Allitsen, suffering had not
ennobled his mind, nor disappointment sweetened his disposition. His
title of "Disagreeable Man" had been fairly earned, and he hugged it to
himself with a triumphant secret satisfaction.
There were some people in Petershof who were inclined to believe certain
absurd rumours about his alleged kindness. It was said that on more than
one occasion he had nursed the suffering and the dying in sad Petershof,
and, with all the sorrowful tenderness worthy of a loving mother, had
helped them to take their leave of life. But these were only rumours,
and there was nothing in Robert Allitsen's ordinary bearing to justify
such talk. So the foolish people who, for the sake of making themselves
peculiar, revived these unlikely fictions, were speedily ridiculed and
reduced to silence. And the Disagreeable Man remained the Disagreeable
Man, with a clean record for unamiability.
He lived a life apart from others. Most of his time was occupied in
photography, or in the use and study of the microscope, or in chemistry.
His photographs were considered to be most beautiful. Not that he showed
them specially to any one; but he generally sent a specimen of his work
to the Monthly Photograph Portfolio, and hence it was that people
learned to know of his skill. He might be seen any fine day trudging
along in company with his photographic apparatus, and a desolate dog,
who looked almost as cheerless as his chosen comrade. Neither the one
took any notice of the other; Allitsen was no more genial to the dog
than he was to the Kurhaus guests; the dog was no more demonstrative
to Robert Allitsen than he was to any one in Petershof.
Still, they were "something" to each other, that unexplainable
"something" which has to explain almost every kind of attachment.
He had no friends in Petershof, and apparently had no friends anywhere.
No one wrote to him, except his old mother; the papers which were sent
to him came from a stationer's.
He read all during meal-time. But now and again he spoke a few words
with Bernardine Holme, whose place was next to him. It never occurred
to him to say good morning, nor to give a greeting of any kind, nor to
show a courtesy. One day during lunch, however, he did take the trouble
to stoop and pick up Bernardine Holme's shawl, which had fallen for the
third time to the ground.
"I never saw a female wear a shawl more carelessly than you," he said.
"You don't seem to know anything about it."
His manner was always gruff. Every one complained of him. Every one
always had complained of him. He had never been heard to laugh. Once
or twice he had been seen to smile on occasions when people talked
confidently of recovering their health. It was a beautiful smile worthy
of a better cause. It was a smile which made one pause to wonder what
could have been the original disposition of the Disagreeable Man before
ill-health had cut him off from the affairs of active life. Was he happy
or unhappy? It was not known. He gave no sign of either the one state or
the other. He always looked very ill, but he did not seem to get worse.
He had never been known to make the faintest allusion to his own health.
He never "smoked" his thermometer in public; and this was the more
remarkable in an hotel where people would even leave off a conversation
and say: "Excuse me, Sir or Madam, I must now take my temperature. We
will resume the topic in a few minutes."
He never lent any papers or books, and he never borrowed any.
He had a room at the top of the hotel, and he lived his life, amongst
his chemistry bottles, his scientific books, his microscope, and his
camera. He never sat in any of the hotel drawing-rooms. There was
nothing striking nor eccentric about his appearance. He was neither
ugly nor good-looking, neither tall nor short, neither fair nor dark.
He was thin and frail, and rather bent. But that might be the
description of any one in Petershof. There was nothing pathetic about
him, no suggestion even of poetry, which gives a reverence to suffering,
whether mental or physical. As there was no expression on his face,
so also there was no expression in his eyes: no distant longing, no
far-off fixedness; nothing, indeed, to awaken sad sympathy.
The only positive thing about him was his rudeness. Was it natural or
cultivated? No one in Petershof could say. He had always been as he was;
and there was no reason to suppose that he would ever be different.
He was, in fact, like the glacier of which he had such a fine view from
his room; like the glacier, an unchanging feature of the neighbourhood.
No one loved it better than the Disagreeable Man did; he watched the
sunlight on it, now pale golden, now fiery red. He loved the sky, the
dull grey, or the bright blue. He loved the snow forests, and the
snow-girt streams, and the ice cathedrals, and the great firs patient
beneath their snow-burden. He loved the frozen waterfalls, and the
costly diamonds in the snow. He knew, too, where the flowers nestled
in their white nursery. He was, indeed, an authority on Alpine botany.
The same tender hands which plucked the flowers in the spring-time,
dissected them and laid them bare beneath the microscope. But he did
not love them the less for that.
Were these pursuits a comfort to him? Did they help him to forget that
there was a time when he, too, was burning with ambition to distinguish
himself, and be one of the marked men of the age?
Who could say?