WHICH CONTAINS NOTHING.
"YOU may have talent for other things," Robert Allitsen said one day to
Bernardine, "but you certainly have no talent for photography. You have
not made the slightest progress."
"I don't at all agree with you," Bernardine answered rather peevishly.
"I think I am getting on very well."
"You are no judge," he said. "To begin with, you cannot focus properly.
You have a crooked eye. I have told you that several times!"
"You certainly have," she put in. "You don't let me forget that."
"Your photograph of that horrid little danseuse whom you like so much,"
he said, "is simply abominable. She looks like a fury. Well, she may be
one for all I know, but in real life she has not the appearance of one."
"I think that is the best photograph I have done," Bernardine said,
highly indignant. She could tolerate his uppishness about subjects of
which she knew far more than he did; but his masterfulness about a
subject of which she really knew nothing was more than she could bear
with patience. He had not the tact to see that she was irritated.
"I don't know about it being the best," he said; "unless it is the best
specimen of your inexperience. Looked at from that point of view, it
does stand first!"
She flushed crimson with temper.
"Nothing is easier than to make fun of others," she said fiercely. "It
is the resource of the ignorant."
Then, after the fashion of angry women, having said her say, she stalked
away. If there had been a door to bang, she would certainly have banged
it. However, she did what she could under the circumstances: she pushed
a curtain roughly aside, and passed into the concert-room, where every
night of the season's six months, a scratchy string orchestra entertained
the Kurhaus guests. She left the Disagreeable Man standing in the passage.
"Dear me," he said thoughtfully. And he stroked his chin. Then he trudged
slowly up to his room.
"Dear me," he said once more.
Arrived in his bedroom, he began to read. But after a few minutes he
shut his book, took the lamp to the looking-glass and brushed his hair.
Then he put on a black coat and a white silk tie. There was a speck of
dust on the coat. He carefully removed that, and then extinguished the
lamp.
On his way downstairs he met Marie, who gazed at him in astonishment.
It was quite unusual for him to be seen again when he had once come up
from _table-d'hôte_. She noticed the black coat and the white silk tie
too, and reported on these eccentricities to her colleague Anna.
The Disagreeable Man meanwhile had reached the Concert Hall. He glanced
around, and saw where Bernardine was sitting, and then chose a place in
the opposite direction, quite by himself. He looked somewhat like a dog
who has been well beaten. Now and again he looked up to see whether she
still kept her seat. The bad music was a great irritation to him. But he
stayed on heroically. There was no reason why he should stay. Gradually,
too, the audience began to thin. Still he lingered, always looking like
a dog in punishment.
At last Bernardine rose, and the Disagreeable Man rose too. He followed
her humbly to the door. She turned and saw him.
"I am sorry I put you in a bad temper," he said. "It was stupid of me."
"I am sorry I got into a bad temper," she answered, laughing. "It was
stupid of me."
"I think I have said enough to apologize," he said. "It is a process I
dislike very much."
And with that he wished her good-night and went to his room.
But that was not the end of the matter, for the next day when he was
taking his breakfast with her, he of his own accord returned to the
subject.
"It was partly your own fault that I vexed you last night," he said.
"You have never before been touchy, and so I have become accustomed to
saying what I choose. And it is not in my nature to be flattering."
"That is a very truthful statement of yours," she said, as she poured
out her coffee. "But I own I was touchy. And so I shall be again if you
make such cutting remarks about my photographs!"
"You have a crooked eye," he said grimly. "Look there, for instance!
You have poured your coffee outside the cup. Of course you can do as
you like, but the usual custom is to pour it inside the cup."
They both laughed, and the good understanding between them was cemented
again.
"You are certainly getting better," he said suddenly. "I should not be
surprised if you were able to write a book after all. Not that a new
book is wanted. There are too many books as it is; and not enough people
to dust them. Still, it is not probable that you would be considerate
enough to remember that. You will write your book."
Bernardine shook her head.
"I don't seem to care now," she said. "I think I could now be content
with a quieter and more useful part."
"You will write your book," he continued. "Now listen to me. Whatever
else you may do, don't make your characters hold long discussions with
each other. In real life, people do not talk four pages at a time
without stopping. Also, if you bring together two clever men, don't make
them talk cleverly. Clever people do not. It is only the stupid who
think they must talk cleverly all the time. And don't detain your reader
too long: if you must have a sunset, let it be a short one. I could give
you many more hints which would be useful to you."
"But why not use your own hints for yourself?" she suggested.
"That would be selfish of me," he said solemnly. "I wish you to profit
by them."
"You are learning to be unselfish at a very rapid rate," Bernardine said.
At that moment Mrs. Reffold came into the breakfast-room, and, seeing
Bernardine, gave her a stiff bow.
"I thought you and Mrs. Reffold were such friends," Robert Allitsen said.
Bernardine then told him of her last interview with Mrs. Reffold.
"Well, if you feel uncomfortable, it is as it should be," he said. "I
don't see what business you had to point out to Mrs. Reffold her duty.
I dare say she knows it quite well though she may not choose to do it.
I am sure I should resent it, if any one pointed out my duty to me.
Every one knows his own duty. And it is his own affair whether or not
he does it."
"I wonder if you are right," Bernardine said. "I never meant to presume;
but her indifference had exasperated me."
"Why should you be exasperated about other people's affairs?" he said.
"And why interfere at all?"
"Being interested is not the same as being interfering," she replied
quickly.
"It is difficult to be the one without being the other," he said. "It
requires a genius. There is a genius for being sympathetic as well as
a genius for being good. And geniuses are few."
"But I knew one," Bernardine said. "There was a friend to whom in the
first days of my trouble I turned for sympathy. When others only
irritated, she could soothe. She had only to come into my room, and
all was well with me."
There were tears in Bernardine's eyes as she spoke.
"Well," said the Disagreeable Man kindly, "and where is your genius now?"
"She went away, she and hers," Bernardine said "And that was the end of
that chapter!"
"Poor little child," he said, half to himself. "Don't I too know
something about the ending of such a chapter?"
But Bernardine did not hear him; she was thinking of her friend. She was
thinking, as we all think, that those to whom in our suffering we turn
for sympathy, become hallowed beings. Saints they may not be; but for
want of a better name, saints they are to us, gracious and lovely
presences. The great time Eternity, the great space Death, could not rob
them of their saintship; for they were canonized by our bitterest tears.
She was roused from her reverie by the Disagreeable Man, who got up, and
pushed his chair noisily under the table.
"Will you come and help me to develop some photographs?" he asked
cheerily. "You do not need to have a straight eye for that!"
Then as they went along together, he said:
"When we come to think about it seriously, it is rather absurd for us to
expect to have uninterrupted stretches of happiness. Happiness falls to
our share in separate detached bits; and those of us who are wise,
content ourselves with these broken fragments."
"But who is wise?" Bernardine asked. "Why, we all expect to be happy.
No one told us that we were to be happy. Still, though no one told us,
it is the true instinct of human nature."
"It would be interesting to know at what particular period of evolution
into our present glorious types we felt that instinct for the first
time," he said. "The sunshine must have had something to do with it.
You see how a dog throws itself down in the sunshine; the most wretched
cur heaves a sigh of content then; the sulkiest cat begins to purr."
They were standing outside the room set apart for the photograph-maniacs
of the Kurhaus.
"I cannot go into that horrid little hole," Bernardine said. "And
besides, I have promised to play chess with the Swedish professor.
And after that I am going to photograph Marie. I promised Wärli I would."
The Disagreeable Man smiled grimly.
"I hope he will be able to recognize her!" he said. Then, feeling that
he was on dangerous ground, he added quickly:
"If you want any more plates, I can oblige you."
On her way to her room she stopped to talk to pretty Fräulein Müller,
who was in high spirits, having had an excellent report from the Doctor.
Fräulein Müller always insisted on talking English with Bernardine; and
as her knowledge of it was limited, a certain amount of imagination was
necessary to enable her to be understood.
"Ah, Miss Holme," she said, "I have deceived an exquisite report from
the Doctor."
"You are looking ever so well," Bernardine said. "And the love-making
with the Spanish gentleman goes on well, too?"
"Ach!" was the merry answer. "That is your inventory! I am quite
indolent to him!"
At that moment the Spanish gentleman came out of the Kurhaus flower-
shop, with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
"Mademoiselle," he said, handing them to Fräulein Müller, and at the
same time putting his hand to his heart. He had not noticed Bernardine
at first, and when he saw her, he became somewhat confused. She smiled
at them both, and escaped into the flower-shop, which was situated in
one of the covered passages connecting the mother-building with the
dependencies. Herr Schmidt, the gardener, was making a wreath. His
favourite companion, a saffron cat, was playing with the wire. Schmidt
was rather an ill-tempered man, but he liked Bernardine.
"I have put these violets aside for you, Fräulein," he said, in his
sulky way. "I meant to have sent them to your room, but have been
interrupted in my work."
"You spoil me with your gifts," she said.
"You spoil my cat with the milk," he replied, looking up from his work.
"That is a beautiful wreath you are making, Herr Schmidt," she said.
"Who has died? Any one in the Kurhaus?"
"No, Fräulein. But I ought to keep my door locked when I make these
wreaths. People get frightened, and think they, too, are going to die.
Shall you be frightened, I wonder?"
"No, I believe not," she answered as she took possession of her violets,
and stroked the saffron cat. "But I am glad no one has died here."
"It is for a young, beautiful lady," he said. "She was in the Kurhaus
two years ago. I liked her. So I am taking extra pains. She did not care
for the flowers to be wired. So I am trying my best without the wire.
But it is difficult."
She left him to his work, and went away, thinking. All the time she had
now been in Petershof had not sufficed to make her indifferent to the
sadness of her surroundings. In vain the Disagreeable Man's preachings,
in vain her own reasonings with herself.
These people here who suffered, and faded, and passed away, who were
they to her?
Why should the faintest shadow steal across her soul on account of them?
There was no reason. And still she felt for them all, she who in the old
days would have thought it waste of time to spare a moment's reflection
on anything so unimportant as the sufferings of an _individual_ human
being.
And the bridge between her former and her present self was her own
illness.
What dull-minded sheep we must all be, how lacking in the very elements
of imagination, since we are only able to learn by personal experience
of grief and suffering, something about the suffering and grief of
others!
Yea, how the dogs must wonder at us: those dogs who know when we are in
pain or trouble, and nestle nearer to us.
So Bernardine reached her own door. She heard her name called, and,
turning round, saw Mrs. Reffold. There was a scared look on the
beautiful face.
"Miss Holme," she said, "I have been sent for--I daren't go to him
alone--I want you--he is worse. I am" . . . .
Bernardine took her hand, and the two women hurried away in silence.