BERNARDINE.
THE crisp mountain air and the warm sunshine began slowly to have their
effect on Bernardine, in spite of the Disagreeable Man's verdict. She
still looked singularly lifeless, and appeared to drag herself about
with painful effort; but the place suited her, and she enjoyed sitting
in the sun listening to the music which was played by a scratchy string
band. Some of the Kurhaus guests, seeing that she was alone and ailing,
made some attempts to be kindly to her. She always seemed astonished
that people should concern themselves about her; whatever her faults
were, it never struck her that she might be of any importance to others,
however important she might be to herself. She was grateful for any
little kindness which was shewn her; but at first she kept very much to
herself, talking chiefly with the Disagreeable Man, who, by the way,
had surprised every one--but no one more than himself--by his unwonted
behaviour in bestowing even a fraction of his companionship on a
Petershof human being.
There was a great deal of curiosity about her, but no one ventured to
question her since Mrs. Reffold's defeat. Mrs. Reffold herself rather
avoided her, having always a vague suspicion that Bernardine tried to
make fun of her. But whether out of perversity or not, Bernardine never
would be avoided by her, never let her pass by without a few words of
conversation, and always went to her for information, much to the
amusement of Mrs. Reffold's faithful attendants. There was always a
twinkle in Bernardine's eye when she spoke with Mrs. Reffold. She never
fastened herself on to any one; no one could say she intruded. As time
went, on there was a vague sort of feeling that she did not intrude
enough. She was ready to speak if any one cared to speak with her, but
she never began a conversation except with Mrs. Reffold. When people
did talk to her, they found her genial. Then the sad face would smile
kindly, and the sad eyes speak kind sympathy. Or some bit of fun would
flash forth, and a peal of young laughter ring out. It seemed strange
that such fun could come from her.
Those who noticed her, said she appeared always to be thinking.
She was thinking and learning.
Some few remarks roughly made by the Disagreeable Man had impressed her
deeply.
"You have come to a new world," he said, "the world of suffering. You
are in a fury because your career has been checked, and because you have
been put on the shelf; you, of all people. Now you will learn how many
quite as able as yourself, and abler, have been put on the shelf too,
and have to stay there. You are only a pupil in suffering. What about
the professors? If your wonderful wisdom has left you with any sense at
all, look about you and learn."
So she was looking, and thinking, and learning. And as the days went by,
perhaps a softer light came into her eyes.
All her life long, her standard of judging people had been an
intellectual standard, or an artistic standard: what people had done
with outward and visible signs; how far they had contributed to thought;
how far they had influenced any great movement, or originated it; how
much of a benefit they had been to their century or their country; how
much social or political activity, how much educational energy they had
devoted to the pressing need of the times.
She was undoubtedly a clever, cultured young woman; the great work of
her life had been self-culture. To know and understand, she had spared
neither herself nor any one else. To know, and to use her acquired
knowledge intellectually as teacher and, perhaps, too, as writer, had
been the great aim of her life. Everything that furthered this aim won
her instant attention. It never struck her that she was selfish. One
does not think of that until the great check comes. One goes on, and
would go on. But a barrier rises up. Then, finding one can advance no
further, one turns round; and what does one see?
Bernardine saw that she had come a long journey. She saw what the
Traveller saw. That was all she saw at first. Then she remembered that
she had done the journey entirely for her own sake. Perhaps it might
not have looked so dreary if it had been undertaken for some one else.
She had claimed nothing of any one; she had given nothing to any one.
She had simply taken her life in her own hands and made what she could
of it. What had she made of it?
Many women asked for riches, for position, for influence and authority
and admiration. She had only asked to be able to work. It seemed little
enough to ask. That she asked so little placed her, so she thought,
apart from the common herd of eager askers. To be cut off from active
life and earnest work was a possibility which never occurred to her.
It never crossed her mind that in asking for the one thing for which
she longed, she was really asking for the greatest thing. Now, in the
hour of her enfeeblement, and in the hour of the bitterness of her
heart, she still prided herself upon wanting so little.
"It seems so little to ask," she cried to herself time after time.
"I only want to be able to do a few strokes of work. I would be content
now to do so little, if only I might do some. The laziest day-labourer
on the road would laugh at the small amount of work which would content
me now."
She told the Disagreeable Man that one day.
"So you think you are moderate in your demands," he said to her. "You
are a most amusing young woman. You are so perfectly unconscious how
exacting you really are. For, after all, what is it you want? You want
to have that wonderful brain of yours restored, so that you may begin
to teach, and, perhaps, write a book. Well, to repeat my former words:
you are still at phase one, and you are longing to be strong enough to
fulfil your ambitions and write a book. When you arrive at phase four,
you will be quite content to dust one of your uncle's books instead:
far more useful work and far more worthy of encouragement. If every one
who wrote books now would be satisfied to dust books already written,
what a regenerated world it would become!"
She laughed good-temperedly. His remarks did not vex her; or, at least,
she showed no vexation. He seemed to have constituted himself as her
critic, and she made no objections. She had given him little bits of
stray confidence about herself, and she received everything he had to
say with that kind of forbearance which chivalry bids us show to the
weak and ailing. She made allowances for him; but she did more than that
for him: she did not let him see that she made allowances. Moreover,
she recognized amidst all his roughness a certain kind of sympathy which
she could not resent, because it was not aggressive. For to some natures
the expression of sympathy is an irritation; to be sympathized with
means to be pitied, and to be pitied means to be looked down upon. She
was sorry for him, but she would not have told him so for worlds; he
would have shrunk from pity as much as she did. And yet the sympathy
which she thought she did not want for herself, she was silently giving
to those around her, like herself, thwarted, each in a different way
perhaps, still thwarted all the same.
She found more than once that she was learning to measure people by a
standard different from her former one; not by what they had _done_ or
_been_, but by what they had _suffered_. But such a change as this does
not come suddenly, though, in a place like Petershof, it comes quickly,
almost unconsciously.
She became immensely interested in some of the guests; and there were
curious types in the Kurhaus. The foreigners attracted her chiefly; a
little Parisian danseuse, none too quiet in her manner, won Bernardine's
fancy.
"I so want to get better, _chérie_," she said to Bernardine. "Life is so
bright. Death: ah, how the very thought makes one shiver! That horrid
doctor says I must not skate; it is not wise. When was I wise? Wise
people don't enjoy themselves. And I have enjoyed myself, and will
still."
"How can you go about with that little danseuse?" the Disagreeable Man
said to Bernardine one day. "Do you know who she is?"
"Yes," said Bernardine; "she is the lady who thinks you must be a very
ill-bred person because you stalk into meals, with your hands in your
pockets. She wondered how I could bring myself to speak to you."
"I dare say many people wonder at that," said Robert Allitsen rather
peevishly.
"Oh no," replied Bernardine; "they wonder that you talk to me. They
think I must either be very clever or else very disagreeable."
"I should not call you clever," said Robert Allitsen grimly.
"No," answered Bernardine pensively. "But I always did think myself
clever until I came here. Now I am beginning to know better. But it
is rather a shock, isn't it?"
"I have never experienced the shock," he said.
"Then you still think you are clever?" she asked.
"There is only one man my intellectual equal in Petershof, and he is
not here any more," he said gravely. "Now I come to remember, he died.
That is the worst of making friendships here; people die."
"Still, it is something to be left king of the intellectual world,"
said Bernardine. "I never thought of you in that light."
There was a sly smile about her lips as she spoke, and there was the
ghost of a smile on the Disagreeable Man's face.
"Why do you talk with that horrid Swede?" he said suddenly. "He is a
wretched low foreigner. Have you heard some of his views?"
"Some of them," answered Bernardine cheerfully. "One of his views is
really amusing: that it is very rude of you to read the newspaper during
meal-time; and he asks if it is an English custom. I tell him it depends
entirely on the Englishman, and the Englishman's neighbour!"
So she too had her raps at him, but always in the kindest way.
He had a curious effect on her. His very bitterness seemed to check in
its growth her own bitterness. The cup of poison of which he himself had
drunk deep, he passed on to her. She drank of it, and it did not poison
her. She was morbid, and she needed cheerful companionship. His dismal
companionship and his hard way of looking at life ought by rights to
have oppressed her. Instead of which she became less sorrowful.
Was the Disagreeable Man, perhaps, a reader of character? Did he know
how to help her in his own grim gruff way? He himself had suffered so
much; perhaps he did know.