IN THE HORSELBERG
The good landlady of the Hotel de France was not a little surprised
next morning when Wilhelm came down to the kitchen and informed her
that he must leave that forenoon. And when very soon afterward Anne
appeared, and announced in her stiffest, most impenetrable manner that
Madame la Comtesse desired two places, for herself and her maid, in the
hotel omnibus which went to the station at Eu, the landlady remarked,
"Indeed!" and there was a liberal interchange of meaning glances in the
kitchen.
At no price would Wilhelm remain at Ault. The countess, who liked the
place well enough, begged, entreated, and pouted in vain. He was not to
be persuaded. He protested that he knew himself too well to think that
he would be capable of keeping up the appearance of reserve toward her
which decency demanded. And he need not, she declared; she considered
herself free to do as she pleased, and so was he; their love did not
interfere with their duty toward anybody, and so it was immaterial if
people found it out and talked about it.
Her utter disregard for the trammels of convention, her cool contempt
for the opinion of others, filled him with horror.
"No, no, I could not look one of them in the face again."
"But do you suppose that these people are any better? You surely don't
imagine that the man with the calves and his ravening wolf are married?"
"How can you say such things!"
"Why, you big baby, one can see that at a glance. He is far too nice to
her for her to be his legitime."
"That may be. At all events he has had so much consideration for
outward appearance as to pass the person off as his wife. But we made
our acquaintance here, under their very eye."
"Wilhelm!"--from her lips the name sounded more like Gwillem--"I should
not know you for the same person. Why, where is your boasted philosophy
and stoicism to which you were going to convert me? Is that your
indifference to the world and its hypocritical ways, its prejudices and
its sneers?"
She was quite right. He was untrue to his principles, but he could not
do otherwise. He had had the courage to decline the duel with Herr von
Pechlar, but he had not the boldness to let the foolish gossips of the
table d'hote be witnesses of his new love-making. Why? For the very
simple reason that, in his heart of hearts, he disapproved of his
liaison with Pilar.
As he would not give in, the countess resigned herself to what she
called his "schoolgirl crotchet," and they traveled together to St.
Valery-en-Caux, another little seaside place several hours' journey
from Ault.
Here they took rooms together at a hotel, and wrote themselves down as
man and wife. The countess' letters were forwarded by the postmistress
at Ault under cover to Anne. The only thing that disturbed Wilhelm's
peace of mind was the presence of Anne. Her manner was just as
impassive, her face as solemn as before, and she never showed that she
noticed any change in her mistress way of life. But it was just this
cold-blooded acceptance of facts which must at the very least excite
her remark that upset him so much, and every time Anne came into the
room and found him with Pilar, he was as much ashamed as if she had
surprised him in some cowardly and wicked deed. Did he happen to be
sitting beside her on the sofa, he started as if to jump up; if he had
hold of her hand, he dropped it on the spot. Pilar noticed it, of
course, and thought it an excellent joke. She was herself perfectly
unconcerned before Anne, and put no constraint on herself whatever in
her presence. On the contrary, she thought it great fun to throw her
arms round Wilhelm when the maid came and he attempted to move away, or
she would tutoyer him and kiss him to her face, and was intensely
amused at his embarrassed and miserable air as he suffered her
caresses, though not without a stolen gesture of objection. His shyness
was not unobserved by Anne's quick though furtive eyes, and she owed
him a grudge for wishing to exclude her from his secret.
But with the exception of the discomfort caused him by this silent
witness, his happiness was unalloyed. He lived in a constant rapture of
the senses, and Pilar took good care that he should not awake from it.
She never left him to himself, except during the two hours in the
morning which she devoted to her toilette. It was her peculiar habit to
steal away in the early morning while Wilhelm was still asleep, and
repair noiselessly to the dressing-room, where Anne was already
waiting, and where she gave herself up into the skilled hands of the
maid, who kneaded her, washed and rubbed her, and treated her hands,
feet, and hair with consummate art, and the aid of an army of curious
instruments and an exhaustive collection of cosmetics. She would then
appear to wake Wilhelm with a kiss. On opening his eyes it was to see
her in the full glory of her beauty, with the flush of health upon her
cheeks, with rosy fingers, her skin cool, soft and perfumed, her eyes
bright, her lips smiling, and her magnificent hair in order. But from
that moment onward she was always about him, nestling close to him when
they were alone, her eyes on his when they walked arm in arm through
the streets.
In the morning she bathed in the sea while Wilhelm sat on the shore and
watched her. She swam like a fish; he could not swim at all. She
pledged her word to make him equally proficient in a few days, but her
superiority made him feel small, and he would not accept her offer. For
twenty minutes she practiced her art in the water, lay on her back and
on her side, turned somersaults, dived, trod the water and finally came
out, like Venus newly risen from the waves, and joined Wilhelm, who was
waiting for her with her bath-mantle. He enveloped her in its soft
folds, she roguishly shook the drops of water off her rosy finger-tips
into his face and hurried to her bathing house without a glance for the
spectators who had been watching her graceful play in the water, and
devoured her with their eyes when she came on dry land.
The rest of the day was filled up by long walks broken by delightful
rests under the shade of cornricks on grassy hillslopes beside some
purling brook. Then Pilar would sit on the rug or the camp stool, while
Wilhelm lay at her feet with his head in her lap caressed by the little
hands that played with his hair or wandered softly over his face,
resting fondly on his lips for him to kiss. If there were flowers
within reach, she would pluck a quantity and strew his head and face
with the fresh petals, while he gazed alternately into the blue summer
sky and the bright brown eyes above him, or even closed his own for
quarters of an hour of delicious dreaming. Then everything outside his
immediate surroundings would fade from his mind, and he would be
conscious only of what was nearest to him, the faint scent of
ylang-ylang that hovered round the beautiful woman, her smooth,
caressing fingers, and the low sound of her deep, regular breathing.
"You are so handsome," she whispered in his ear on one such occasion,
and bending over him to kiss him; "do you know, I shall draw your
portrait."
"Can you draw?" he asked, raising himself on his elbow.
"I hardly know whether I ought to say yes," she returned, with an arch,
self-conscious smile that belied the humility of her tone. "But you
shall see."
"Very well," said he, "and while you are drawing my portrait I shall
draw yours."
"Bravo!" she cried, and wanted to go home at once, so that they might
begin.
As was his custom, Wilhelm had all that was needful in his big trunk,
and could supply Pilar with materials. The next afternoon they set to
work. They established themselves in the middle of a great meadow,
committing thereby an extreme act of trespass, and making their way to
it over a ditch, a low wall, and through a blackberry hedge. Here no
prying eye would annoy them, their sole and most discreet spectator
being Fido, and he was generally asleep.
Pilar had a drawing-block and used a pencil, Wilhelm sketched his
picture on a page of a large album in colored chalks like a pastel. She
kept trying to peep at his work, but he would not allow it, and
insisted on their making a compact not to look at one another's work of
art till it was finished. Two sittings sufficed, however, and the
portraits could be exchanged. Pilar gave a cry of surprise when Wilhelm
handed her his picture.
"How strange that we should have had almost the same idea."
She was represented as a Sphinx, after the Greek rather than the
Egyptian conception. A voluptuous, soft, round, feline body, graceful,
cruel paws, a wonderful bosom as if hewn out of marble, and above it
all Pilar's regally poised head with its crown of shimmering gold hair,
shrewd eyes, and blood-red vampire lips. Between her forepaws she held
a little trembling mouse in which Wilhelm's features were cleverly
indicated, and she looked down upon her victim with a smile in which
there was something of a foretaste of the joy of tearing a quivering
creature to pieces and sucking its warm blood.
Pilar's drawing was a very good likeness of Wilhelm as Apollo in
Olympian nudity, handsome, slender and vapid, in its resemblance to
school copies of the antique. A charming little cat with Pilar's
features was rubbing herself against his leg. The pussy blinked up at
the young Greek god with an expression of adoration, half-comic,
half-touching, while he bent his head and gazed down at her
thoughtfully. Pilar took the sheet from Wilhelm's hand and compared it
with hers.
"They are exactly the same," she said at last, "only that they are
entirely the opposite of one another. Do you really feel that I am as
you have drawn me?"
"Yes," he answered in a low voice.
"How unjust you are to yourself and to me--I a Sphinx and you a
frightened mouse! To begin with, the Sphinx-cat did not condescend to
mice, but occupied herself with men, and humbled herself before the
right one when he came."
"You are decidedly too learned for me," laughed Wilhelm.
"No, no, seriously, it hurts me that you should regard our relations in
that light. Am I not at your feet? Am I not your slave, your chattel,
your plaything, what you will? Have I not chosen you to be lord and
master over me? Am I a riddle to you? My love for you is the solution
of any mystery you may find in me. Or do you accuse me of cruelty? That
could only be in fun, you bad man."
"You take a mere playful idea too tragically, dearest Pilar. The
character of your head suggested it to me, that was all. And then--"
"And then?"
"Well, if you must know it, the fearless, what shall I say, Amazon-like
manner in which you seized upon a man and took possession of him, body
and soul."
"Did I do that?"
He nodded.
"And you are mine?"
He nodded again.
"Tell me so, dearest, only love--say it."
He did not say it, but he kissed her.
"It is quite true," she remarked after a short pause, "I did take
possession of you. That was unwomanly, but I could not help it. You are
a cold-blooded German, and different from any man I ever knew before.
You did not know how to appreciate the good fortune that befell you
when chance set you down at my side in that dreary little hole. You
abominable creature, for a whole fortnight you took not the slightest
notice of me; you sat there beside me like a block, and never so much
as looked at me. For a long time I did not know what to make of you. At
first I tried to think you as ridiculous as the other idiots round the
table, but I could not, try as I would. Your ugly owlish face had made
too great an impression on me. And then I was annoyed by your reserve,
and when I used to see you stalk in, looking so haughty, and you bowed
so coldly to me and remained so distant, I thought to myself--just
wait, monsieur the iceberg, some day you will be at my feet begging for
love, and then it will be my turn to be proud, and I shall be
triumphant."
"There you see the Sphinx and the mouse."
"Oh, but it all happened quite differently. I spoke first, I made you
every sort of advance; and what did you do? You held forth to me on the
mortification of the flesh. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And
even when I saw that love was burning in your eyes, you remained
stiff-necked and tried to run away from me. If I was set upon
happiness, I found I must take it by force. I know you better now. You
were capable of never confessing your love to me, of never asking
anything of me. Am I right or not, tell me?"
"You are right," he murmured.
"But that would have been a sin--a deadly sin, a capital crime against
the High Majesty of Nature. What! Fate takes the trouble to think out
the most improbable combinations, sets the most complicated machinery
in motion to bring us together; it drags you out of the depths of
Germany, and me from Castile, and brings us to a little hotel in a
little village in Picardy, the very name of which was unknown to either
of us a short time before; we instantly feel that we are made for one
another and are certain to be happy together, and yet all these
exertions on the part of Fate are to have been in vain? Never! Our
paths crossed each other at a single point, for a moment they were
united, it depended on us whether they should always remain so. And I
was to let you go, never to meet again on this side of eternity? It was
not possible, and as you were so clumsy, or so timid, or so
self-torturing--"
She finished the sentence with a long kiss, at which he closed his eyes
once more, and shut out everything but its flame.
Was it calculation, was it her natural instinct?--suffice it to say
that Pilar never by any chance alluded in their conversations to her
past. She was fond of talking, and talked a great deal, and her
conversation was always startling, original and vivacious; her power of
imagination as lively as her sparkling eyes, springing from the nearest
object to the furthest, from the ordinary to the sublime, but never one
word escaped her which might remind Wilhelm that she had gone through
confessed and unconfessed experiences of every kind, and reached the
turning-point of her existence without him. Her life, it would appear,
had only begun with the moment at which he had risen upon her horizon.
What went before that was torn out of the book of memory--one scarcely
noticed the gaps where the pages were missing. She did all she could to
make him forget that she was a stranger to him, and to strengthen in
him the delusion that she belonged to him, that she was one with him,
that it had always been so. She took possession of his past, she crept
into his ideas and sentiments; she wanted to know everything about him,
down to the smallest details. He must tell her about every day, every
hour of his existence; she made the acquaintance of his entire circle
of friends; she loathed Loulou, she adored Schrotter, she went into
raptures over gentle, refined Bhani, she smiled at Paul Haber and his
well-dressed Malvine, and her inventive grandmamma; she determined to
send good Frau Muller (who had looked after Wilhelm for ten years like
a mother) a beautiful Christmas present. She could make personal
remarks on all his friends and acquaintances, and her only trouble was
that she knew no German. What would she not have given to be able to
read the letters he wrote or received, to converse with him in his
mother-tongue! She loved and admired the French language, which,
although she retained the ineradicable accent of her country, she spoke
as fluently as Spanish; but now, for the first time, she felt something
akin to hatred against it for being the one remaining
barrier--certainly a very slight and scarcely perceptible one--between
herself and Wilhelm, which forever drew his attention to the fact that
she was not naturally a part of his life, and prevented their absolute
union, the growing together of their souls. She therefore determined to
learn German as soon as she returned to Paris, and, if need be, to stay
for some length of time in Germany in order to master the language
quickly and thoroughly.
She thought and spoke much of the future, and in all her dreams, plans,
and resolves Wilhelm was always, and as a matter of course, the central
figure and sharer of her life. In him her life found its consummation
she had him fast, and would never let him go.
Her love was a curious mixture of ardent passion and melting,
sentimental tenderness. At one moment the Bacchante, drinking long
draughts of love and life from his lips, at another, the innocent girl
who sought and found a chaste felicity in the mere rapturous
contemplation of the man she adored. The longer she knew him, the
deeper she penetrated into his character, the more did the Bacchante
recede and yield her place to the Psyche. The allegory of Wilhelm's
pastel seemed wrong, her own drawing right. She was no bloodthirsty
Sphinx revelling in human victims, but a harmless little cat purring
against the side of the young god. She was diffident, eager to learn,
slow to contradict. She broke herself of her paradoxes, and concealed
her originality. She liked best to listen while he talked. He must
explain everything to her, enlarge her experience, correct and improve
her judgment. Her favorite words were, give me, show me, tell me! From
morning till night he must give, tell, show. The sea washed up a medusa
to the shore--give it me! They surprised a crab in the act of shedding
his armor--show me! A ride on donkeys to a neighboring village reminded
him of a students' picnic at Heidelberg--tell me about it! Such of his
peculiarities of temper as she did not understand, she guessed at and
felt with her fine womanly instinct. If at Ault she had been extremely
simple in her dress, here she was almost exaggeratedly so. She banished
the "kohl" with which she had underlined her brilliant eyes, and
strewed the violet powder to the four winds, as soon as she discovered
that he preferred to stroke her full, firm cheeks when they were
guiltless of powder. She dropped her former freedom of speech, gave up
the telling of highly-spiced anecdotes, and checked her roving glances
and the frolicsome imps--somewhat too deeply versed in Boccaccio--that
haunted her lively brain, when she saw that he took umbrage at anything
the least risky. Her cigarettes horrified him, so she threw them out of
the window, and never smoked again. She even quelled the sensuality of
her self-surrender, and veiled it with a show of shame-faced
backwardness and the adorable ingenuousness of a schoolgirl on her
honeymoon. She strove to obliterate the remembrances of the heathenish
abandonment of the first days, with their unrestrained impulses,
testifying all too plainly to the fact that she was a woman well versed
in all the arts of seduction. At first this was dissimulation, the
maneuvers of a shrewd, reader of character, but it soon came to be
instinct and second nature; she deceived herself honestly, and
returned, in her own mind, to the pristine virginity of her soul and
body, finally coming to look upon herself as a simple-minded girl,
ignorant of the world and of life, and conscious only of her boundless
love for this one glorious man, and to whom the memories of a less
harmless past seemed like wicked dreams sent by the Tempter to molest
her chastity. This self-deception, or rather retrogression of her
instincts, led her into touches of mysticism. The story of little Sonia
who had fallen in love with the ten-year-old Wilhelm at first sight, to
die shortly afterward with his name upon her lips, made a deep
impression on her, and set her dreaming. "When sweet little Sonia died
I was born." Now this was not quite accurate, as Pilar must have been
at least two or three years old at the time, but mystic raptures take
no count of time. "My life is a continuation of hers. Your Spanish love
inherited the soul of your little Russian. Thus I have been yours since
my birth--and before. I loved you before ever I knew you. I have had a
presentiment of you, have felt and expected you from the beginning.
Hence my troubled seeking all the time, hence my horror and shuddering
when I discovered that I was mistaken, that it was not the one I
yearned for whose image I bore secretly in my heart. Now I see why I
was so irresistibly drawn to you from the first moment I set eyes on
you. The man of my dreams stood in bodily shape before me. Here at last
was my heart's dear image in flesh and blood. I had no need to get to
know you; I knew you already. My own, my Wilhelm."
Real tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, and Wilhelm was not
sufficiently blase to scoff at the doting nonsense of a love-sick
woman. Love has enormous power, and at its heat all firmness, all
resistance, melts away. Pilar's affection filled Wilhelm with heartfelt
emotion and gratitude. He denied himself the right of judging her,
suspecting or doubting her, or of discovering dark spots upon her
shining orb. As she was forever at his side, and made it her sole care
to occupy him entirely, body and soul, his whole world was soon filled
by her and her alone. Wherever he looked his eyes fell upon her; she
intercepted his view on all sides. Her shadow fell even upon his past,
as far back as his childhood. He failed to notice that whole days
passed now without his giving a thought to Schrotter or Paul, and he
was quite surprised when he discovered that he had left a letter from
the former unanswered for a week. His former life began to fade and
grow dim, and, compared to the sun-flooded, glowing present, looked
like the dark background of a courtyard beside an open space in the
full blaze of a summer day.
The whole society of the place was deeply interested in the handsome
couple, who took so little trouble to conceal their love. The young
people thought it most affecting, the older ones, especially the
ladies, turned up their noses, with the remark that even people on
their honeymoon might put some restraint upon themselves on the beach,
or in the street. Wilhelm and Pilar were quite unconscious of the talk
for which they furnished the material. They had no eyes for anybody but
each other. They were unconscious of the flight of time. Their lives
passed as in a morning dream, or a wondrous fairy-tale, where two
lovers wander in a sunny garden among great flowers and singing birds,
or rest, surrounded by attendant sprites, who fulfill each wish before
it is uttered.
They were disagreeably brought back to the realities of life when one
day Anne asked, with her most impassive air, when Madame la Comtesse
thought of leaving, for if she were going to stay any longer, they must
provide themselves with winter clothing. They had reached the end of
September; it rained nearly every day, the streets of the village were
impassable, sitting on the shore out of the question, the equinoctial
gales howled across the country from the tempestuous sea; all the world
had gone home, and Wilhelm and Pilar were the last guests in the
desolate hotel, spending most of the day in their room, where an
inadequate fire spluttered on the hearth. For a fortnight past Anne had
boiled with silent rage, which she sometimes let out on poor, snorting,
asthmatic Fido. She had been absent from Paris since the middle of
July, and had counted on being back by the beginning of September at
the latest, and here was October coming upon them in this God-forsaken
little hole, and her mistress showed no signs of returning home.
Anne's question came like a rough hand to shake Pilar out of sleep.
Like a drowsy child who does not want to get up, she kept her eyes
closed for awhile. Another week! Four days more! Two days more! But
then she had to pack, for Anne exaggerated a slight cold, and at short
intervals let off a dry cough with the suddenness and force of a
pistol-shot, tied her head up in a white shawl, and begged to be
allowed to send to Paris for warm underclothing and her fur cloak. In
the hotel, too, from which all the servants had been dismissed, and
only the landlord, his wife, and a half-grown daughter remained, the
neglect became conspicuous. The rooms were not put in order till late
in the evening, and even then the landlady would come and grumble that
she could not manage so much work, and that was the reason everything
was late. A leg of mutton appeared upon the table three days running,
till nothing was left but the bone. In short, it was not to be
misunderstood that the hotel family wished to be alone.
At last, at the beginning of the second week of October, the return to
Paris took place. During the five hours' railway journey Pilar was
silent and moody. She felt that an enchanting chapter of her love-story
had come to an end, and a fresh one beginning, the unforeseen
possibilities of which filled her with alarm. She held fast to Wilhelm,
and would not let him go free; but what form was their life together
going to take in Paris? Not that she cared for the opinion of the
world--far from it; but other difficulties remained which menaced her
happiness. At the seaside all the circumstances had combined to aid and
befriend them. Surrounded by people to whom she and Wilhelm were alike
strangers, they were thrown entirely upon one another, and even his
scruples could find nothing to prevent him treating her openly as his
wife. In Paris, on the other hand, all the circumstances became
disturbing and inimical. Pilar had her circle of friends, and her
accustomed way of life, to which Wilhelm would have to adapt himself.
Would that occur without opposition on his part? Would not many a
tender sentiment be wounded beyond the power of healing in that
struggle? But of what avail were all these tormenting questions? She
had to look the future in the face, and prepare to engage in a struggle
in which he was determined to come off victorious.
From time to time she glanced at Wilhelm, and always found him deep in
thought. He was reviewing, with a touch of self-mockery, the latest
development of his affairs. Here he was on his way to Paris. He had not
chosen this destination. Once again another will than his own had
determined his path for him. He resigned himself without a struggle; he
allowed himself to be taken along like an obedient child. Was it
weakness? Perhaps. Possibly, however, it was not. Possibly he did not
think it worth the trouble to call his will into play. Why should he,
after all? As long as he might not live in Berlin, what did it matter
where he lived? and Paris was as good a place as any other. To have
resisted Pilar's persuasions would not have been an evidence of
strength, but simply the obstinacy of a conceited fool, who wants to
prove to himself that he is capable of setting somebody else at
defiance. So that after all he was going to Paris because he wished it,
or rather, because he saw no reason for not doing so. But as he spun
the web of these thoughts in his mind, he heard all the time a still
small voice, which contradicted him, and whispered: "It is not true.
You are not your own master; you are going you know not whither; you
are doing you know not what. Two beautiful eyes are your guiding star,
and in following their magic beckoning your feet may slip at any
moment, and you may be hurled into unknown depths."
Pilar must have divined that Wilhelm's thoughts were enemies to her
peace, and must be dispersed. They were alone in the carriage, and she
could give free rein to her feelings. She took his hand and kissed it,
and laying her arm round his neck, she said fondly:
"Don't be so depressed, Wilhelm. Of course it is only natural that one
should be afraid of any change after one has been so happy, but you
shall have no cause to regret St. Valery. You will see, it will be
still nicer in Paris. We remain the same as we were before, and surely
my little home is a more fitting frame for our love than the bare room
at the hotel!"
Wilhelm started back.
"You surely do not imagine that I am going to live in your house?" he
cried.
"But there can be no question about it!" she answered in surprise.
"Never!" Wilhelm declared, with a determination that frightened Pilar,
it was so new to her. "How could you think of such a thing?"
"But, Wilhelm," she returned, "what else could we do? I should not like
to think that it was your plan we should part at the station and each
go our different ways. If I believed that, I would throw myself under
the wheels of the train this very instant. We have not been indulging
in a little summer romance, entertaining enough at the seaside, but
which must die a natural death as soon as we return to Paris. My love
is a serious matter to me, and to you too, I hope. You are mine
forever, and as long as there is life in this hand, it will hold you
fast," and she cast herself passionately upon his breast, and clung to
him as if he were going to be torn from her.
"I never said I would leave you," he returned gently, and trying to
disengage himself; "but it is quite inconceivable that you should have
thought you would simply bring me back with you from the journey and
present me to your people."
"My people! You are my all, and nobody else exists for me."
"One says that in the heat of the moment, but you have relations--you
told me so yourself. What will they think of us if I calmly settle down
in your house?"
"Think?--always what people will think. That is the only fault you
have, Wilhelm. How can you do people the honor to take them into
consideration when it is a question of my life's happiness? Let them
think what they like. They will think you are the master and I am your
slave, who only lives in and for you."
Wilhelm only shook his head, for he was unwilling to wound her by
saying what he thought of such an unworthy connection. She hung
trembling on his looks, and asked, as he still did not answer:
"Well, darling, is it to be my way? We will drive quietly home and
pretend we are at St. Valery?"
"No," he answered firmly, "that is impossible. I shall go to an hotel.
No, do not try to dissuade me, for it would be useless."
"And you can let me go from you?"
"Only for a few hours. We shall be in the same town, and can see one
another as often as we like."
"And you would be satisfied with that?"
"It will have to be so, as the circumstances will not permit of
anything else."
She broke into a storm of tears, and sobbed, "You do not love me."
He soothed and comforted her; he kissed her eyes, he pressed her head
to his heart, and tried to calm her as he would a child, but it was
long before he brought her round. At last she raised her head and asked:
"You are determined to go to an hotel?"
"I must, dear heart."
"Very well; then I shall go too."
He had nothing to say against this and so it was settled.
It was close upon midnight when the train ran into the St. Lazare
station. Anne came hurrying from the next carriage.
"You can drive home," said Pilar to her. "Take the large boxes with
you. You can leave the small one and the portmanteau with me. I am
going with monsieur. I shall come round to-morrow and see if things are
in order."
Anne opened her eyes in astonishment, but her face did not betray any
further emotion, and she answered calmly:
"Very good, Madame la Comtesse. Auguste is here with a cab. Does madame
desire to use it?"
"No, Auguste can get us another. You take his."
Auguste, the man-servant, had come up meanwhile and greeted his
mistress. He shot a quick glance at the strange gentleman on whose aim
she leaned, but it was more expressive of curiosity than surprise; he
then hurried away to carry out the remarkable orders Anne had dryly
transmitted to him. Soon after he reappeared, and announced that the
other fiacre was there. Fido, released from the captivity of the
dog-box, sprang upon the countess with short-breathed barks that soon
degenerated into a cough, and wagged his tail and frolicked madly
about. When Pilar and Wilhelm entered their cab, Anne and Auguste
remaining outside, the dog seemed undecided as to which party he was to
follow. Chancing to catch Wilhelm's eye, he made up his mind, jumped
into the cab, regardless of Anne's angry call, and licked Wilhelm's
hand delightedly, accepting his friendly pat as an invitation to stay.
By Pilar's direction the cab took them to an hotel in the Rue de
Rivoli. As they drove along Pilar leaned silently in her corner, only
heaving a deep sigh from time to time; and Wilhelm, too, found nothing
to say, oppressed as he was by the consciousness of being in an
untenable situation, the eventual end of which he could not foresee.
Arrived at the hotel, they retired at once to their rooms and to rest,
scarcely touching the supper which Pilar had ordered rather for Wilhelm
than herself. She lay awake for hours, and it was daybreak before she
got any sleep.
It was nearly midday when she opened her eyes. Wilhelm was sitting
fully dressed at the window that faced the Tuileries, gazing down upon
the dreary autumnal park with its trees half-bare, the paths covered
with dead leaves--its marble statues and silent fountains. She
stretched out her arms to him, and he hastened over to kiss her fondly.
As her eye fell upon her tiny jeweled watch, she gave a cry of dismay.
"Twelve o'clock! Oh, go away--quick--and send the chambermaid to me. I
will do my best to be ready soon. Wait for me in the salon. You can
read the papers or write letters. But whatever you do, you must not
leave the hotel--do you hear?"
An hour later she appeared in the salon to fetch him to lunch, which
was served in their room. Pilar was nervous and put out. The
chambermaid's assistance had not been all that she could have wished.
The slow waiting at lunch vexed her. Whatever trifle she might require
she was obliged to go into the untidy bedroom herself and search in her
boxes. Her head was full of schemes and plans, to none of which,
however, she gave expression. Never had she had such an uncomfortable
meal with Wilhelm.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Wilhelm, when the waiter had
cleared the table.
"I think we had better go and have a look at our house," answered
Pilar, trying hard to assume a perfectly unconcerned tone.
"Of course," said Wilhelm; "and while you go home, I will take a look
at the streets of Paris."
"What--you are not coming with me?"
"I think it better you should go by yourself the first time. You have
no doubt got a good deal to set in order, and I should only be in the
way."
"Wilhelm," she said very gravely, "you are determined to hurt me. Have
I deserved that of you?"
"But, dearest Pilar--"
"I want proofs that I am your dearest Pilar. I have given myself to
you--body, soul and spirit. If you want my life as well, then say so. I
should be overjoyed to give it you. And you? Since yesterday your every
word and look tells me plainly that you regard me as a stranger, and
want to have nothing more to do with me. Oh, yes, you do it all in a
very delicate and considerate manner, that is your way, but there is no
need to speak more plainly to me."
"Do not excite yourself Pilar, I assure you that you are entirely
wrong."
She shook her head.
"I am not a child. Let us talk it over seriously. I told you yesterday
I would not let you go. Of course you understand what I mean by that. I
will not keep you if you want to be free. But then be honest, and tell
me frankly that you are tired of me, and want to be rid of me. I shall
at least know what I have to do. Do not be afraid, I shall not make a
scene, I shall not cause you any annoyance, not even reproach you. I
shall receive my sentence of death in silence, and kiss the hand that
inflicts it on me."
She buried her face in her hands, and tears trickled down between her
fingers.
"And all this," said Wilhelm, "because I thought it better not to
accompany you to-day. The whole affair is not worth one of your tears."
"Then you will come with me?" she cried excitedly, lifting her face to
his.
"I suppose I shall have to, since you talk about death sentences and
terrible things of the kind."
She embraced him frantically, rang the bell, threw the things that lay
about anyhow into the box, and when the waiter came, ordered a
carriage. As they went downstairs she gave a hurried order in the
office, and with a beaming and triumphant face, passed through the hall
on Wilhelm's arm to the carriage.
Their destination was a small house on the Boulevard Pereire, of two
stories, three windows wide, and a balcony in front of the first-floor
windows. At Wilhelm's ring the door was opened by Anne, who made him a
careless courtesy, but greeted her mistress respectfully. Wilhelm was
going to let Pilar precede him, but she said: "No, no; you go first. It
is a better omen."
Assembled in the hall they found Auguste, an old woman with a red nose,
and a man not in livery, who expressed their satisfaction at their
mistress' return, and complimented her on her improved appearance, but
were in reality chiefly engaged in taking stock of Wilhelm while they
did so. Pilar gave the man some direction in Spanish, and then drew
Wilhelm into the salon, which opened into the hall.
"Welcome, a thousand times, to this house," she said, clasping him in
her arms; "and may your coming bring happiness to us both. I will take
off my things now, and say a word, to my servants, and be with you
again directly."
With that she hurried away, and Wilhelm found himself alone. He looked
about him. The salon was luxuriously, if, according to Wilhelm's taste,
somewhat gaudily furnished. The walls were draped in yellow silk, the
portieres, window-curtains, and gilt-backed chairs being of the same
brilliant hue, though its monotony was fortunately broken by numerous
oil paintings, forming, as it were, dark islands in a sea of sulphur.
Opposite to the window hung two life-sized portraits of a lady and an
officer. The lady wore a Spanish costume with a mantilla, the gentleman
a gorgeously embroidered general's uniform, with a quantity of stars
and orders, and the ribbon of the Grand Cross. In another life-sized
picture this personage figured in the robes of some unknown military
order, and appeared a third time as a bronze bust in a corner, on a
black marble pedestal. The chimney-piece was adorned by a strange and
wonderful clock, a painfully accurate copy in gilt and colored enamel
of the Mihrab of the Mosque in Cordova. Between the windows, on a high
buhl cabinet, stood a marble bust of Queen Isabella, a gift, according
to an inscription on the base, to her valued Adjutant-General Marquis
de Henares. A charming pastel under glass showed Pilar as a very young
girl. As Wilhelm gazed at the dewy freshness of this sixteen-year-old
budding beauty, the dazzling complexion of milk and roses, the sparkle
of the merry, childish eyes, an immense tenderness came over him, and
he thought to himself that surely nature had not sufficiently protected
all these charms against the desire they must necessarily awaken in the
beholder. Such a ravishing creature might well be excused if her heart
led her astray. How could she choose aright when her beauty roused
men's passion before she had had time to gain experience or judgment
enough to defend herself?
There were a thousand other attractions in this room. A picture, or
rather a sketch, by Goya, with all the fantastic want of finish, the
gorgeous dabs of color that make so many of that master's works like
the visions of delirium; on an inlaid table, a little Moorish casket,
through the crystal lid of which one saw a collection of old Spanish
coins of astounding dimensions; a small cabinet on the wall, containing
stars and orders, with their chains, on a white satin ground; a trophy
formed of a sword, gold spurs, epaulettes, and a gold-fringed scarf;
here and there great Catalonian knives with open blades, daggers in
rich sheaths and with engraved handles, and even an open velvet-lined
case with a pair of chased ivory pistols. Some photographs on the
chimney-piece and on the gold brocade-covered piano arrested Wilhelm's
attention. First of all, Pilar in two different positions, then the
pictures of three children, a girl and two boys, and finally the
full-length portrait of a gentleman in the embroidered dress coat and
sword of the diplomatic service, and the handsome, vacuous, carefully
groomed head of a fashion plate.
Wilhelm was engaged in studying this face, with its fashionably twirled
mustache, when Pilar entered the room.
"You have changed your dress?" cried Wilhelm, surprised; for she had
donned an emerald-green velvet tea-gown, with a long train, and her
hair was hanging down.
"Yes," said she, as she kissed him fondly, "for we are not going away
again just yet. You will stay and dine with me--I have given the
necessary orders. You must be quite sick of the monotonous hotel meals.
For my part, I simply yearn to eat at my own table with you."
So saying, she took his hat out of his hand, coaxingly relieved him of
his greatcoat, then rang and ordered Auguste to take them away. Taking
advantage of this distraction of Wilhelm's attention, she rapidly
snatched up the photograph he had been examining when she came in, and
hid it under the piano-cover. She then opened the piano, seated
herself, and gazing passionately over her shoulder at Wilhelm standing
behind her, she began playing the Wedding March out of "Midsummer
Night's Dream." The melodious sounds rushed from under her fingers like
a flight of startled doves, and fluttered about her, joyous and
exultant. She went on with immense power and brilliancy till she came
to the first repetition of the triumphant opening motif, with its
jubilant blare of trumpets, then stopped abruptly, and jumping up and
throwing her arms round Wilhelm:
"Isn't it that, my one and only Wilhelm?" she said, with a beaming look.
"My sweetest Pilar," he answered, and clasped her to his breast. His
heart was really full to overflowing at that moment She took his arm
and proceeded to lead him about the room, showing and explaining the
various objects to him. "This is my mamma as she looked twenty-five
years ago, when she went to the Feria at Seville. That is a sort of
fair at Easter, and one of the most famous popular festivals of Spain.
We must go to it some day together. And that is my late father as
major-general. Here he is in the robes of a Knight of San Iago, one of
our highest military orders. It has existed since the twelfth century,
and, strangely enough, one of my ancestors was among its first members.
These are my father's decorations and badges of office. Come and look
at this clock, it is quite unique. The province of Cordova had it made,
and presented it to my father when he gave up his command there. I
suppose you recognized this pastel. It is a very good likeness. Do you
think it pretty?"
"Pretty! The word is a gross injustice. Say rather exquisitely,
ravishingly beautiful."
"Thanks, my Wilhelm. And if you had known me then, you would have loved
me and wanted to marry me, would you not?"
"But you would hardly have wanted to marry me, a poor devil of a
plebeian, who was badly dressed and did not even know how to dance."
"Do not make fun of me, you sweet, bad creature; if I had had as much
sense then as I have now, I should have loved you then as I love you
now, and I would have belonged to you, even if it had cost me my
father's love." She gazed thoughtfully at the picture in which her
innocent past confronted her in so angelic a form, and continued in
tones of indescribable tenderness: "Why did I not know you sooner? Is
it my fault that you who were made for me should live so far away and
wait so long before you came to me? How I should have rejoiced to be
able to offer you the pure young creature of this picture! But I can
but give you all I have--my first real love, the virginity of my
heart--surely that is something?"
Her hazel eyes pleaded for a great deal of compassion, and her full
scarlet lips for a great deal of love, and only a heart of cast iron
could have refused her either.
Beyond the salon was a roomy dining-room, hung with magnificent Cordova
leather, and from this a glass door led into a pretty little garden
with an arbor in the corner, and some old trees. High, ivy-clad walls
inclosed the square green spot of nature. Up the stairs, on the walls
of which hung many valuable pictures, for which there was no place in
the rooms, Pilar and Wilhelm mounted to the second floor. They entered
first a red salon with windows opening on to the balcony and in which
the all-pervading scent of ylang-ylang betrayed that it was the
favorite apartment of the lady of the house. She did not keep Wilhelm
long in this dainty bower, but drew him into the large bedroom
adjoining. The walls were draped with Japanese silk, patterned with
strange landscapes, fabulous flowers, gay-colored birds on the wing,
and a network of twining creatures, and drawn together at the ceiling
like the roof of a tent. Out of the soft folds of the center rosette
hung a lamp with golden dragons on its pink globe. There was a wardrobe
with looking-glass doors, a toilette table, an immense bed of carved
ebony inlaid with scenes from the antique in ivory, and chairs covered
with Persian stuffs. Beside all this there was an old oak Gothic
priedieu, a small altar draped in rose color and white lace, a mass of
flowers, and numerous crucifixes and Madonnas of various sizes in
silver, ivory and alabaster.
"Are you so devout? That is news to me," exclaimed Wilhelm, surprised.
He little knew that the first thing Pilar had done on entering the
house was to hasten to her bedroom, kiss the holy silver Madonna del
Pilar with deepest devotion, and kneel for a few moments on her
priedieu.
"Oh, no, I am not at all devout. I am just the pagan you have always
known. But--que voulez-vouz?--one has old habits. I regard the Blessed
Virgin chiefly in the light of Our Lady of Sorrows, whose heart is
pierced with seven swords, and Christ as the eternal type of sublimest
love. You are a heretic, but I know that pictures and symbols are not
as offensive to you as to certain vulgar free-thinkers."
Going up to the bed, she clung still more fondly to Wilhelm, and
murmured in coy and halting tones--"Perhaps you have not noticed that
everything in this room, except the altar and the priedieu, is new; I
had this fresh little nest arranged for us while we were in St. Valery.
I hope our rest may be sweet and our dreams happy ones."
He sought nervously for some appropriate answer, but she gave him no
time, and opening a door in the wall beside the fireplace, she went
on--"And this is your room. Tell me, have I guessed your taste?"
Without even glancing into the cozy, one-windowed room, he said, taking
Pilar's hand in his: "Why torture me, Pilar?--you know it cannot be."
"Wilhelm!" her voice was firm, and she looked him full in the eyes, "do
you love me?"
"You know it."
"Do we belong to each other?"
"Yes--and no."
"That is not a straightforward answer. We do belong to one another. You
know perfectly well that if I were free you would marry me, and then
you certainly would have no scruples in coming into this house as its
master. Where is the difference?"
"You know where the difference lies."
"It is enough to drive one crazy! Is a paltry prejudice to triumph over
our right to be happy? We are both of age. We are accountable to no one
on earth for our actions. An insurmountable obstacle, for the moment,
prevents us making our relations respectable in the eyes of the
butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker by paying a few francs to
a registry-office and a priest. Has the mumbling of a priest so much
meaning for you? Must you first enjoy the edifying spectacle of a mavre
in a fringed scarf before you can feel like my husband? Or do you want
any one else's consent? My father is dead, but my mother would adore
you and do anything in the world for you, if I told her you made her
only child unspeakably happy. What more do you want?"
"I could not reconcile myself to such a position, There is nothing to
be said against your arguments. But for me to live on you--"
"For shame!" she cried, and tapped him lightly on the cheek with her
forefinger. "Ah, you see I love you better than you love me. If you
were very rich and I had not a penny, I would not hesitate for an
instant to accept everything from you. I trust my heart is of more
value to you than this paltry little house and its sticks of furniture.
You have my heart--what is all the rest compared with that?"
He still shook his head unconvinced, but she knelt before him and said
imploringly: "Wilhelm, you will not hurt me so. Even if it costs you a
great deal, make this sacrifice for my sake. Give it a trial. You will
see how soon you will get accustomed to it. And if not, then I am ready
to go with you to the ends of the earth--to the Black Forest--wherever
you will. Only try it, Wilhelm--have pity on me."
He stooped to lift her up, but reading in his eyes that he was
yielding, she sprang to her feet and threw herself, gleeful as a child,
upon his breast. Her victory filled her with such joy she could have
shouted it out of the windows. She coaxed and fondled Wilhelm, called
him by every endearing name, drew him over to the long mirror that he
might see how handsome he was, dragged him into his room and then back
into the bedroom, and required a considerable time to recover her
self-control.
Meanwhile it had grown dark. She did not notice it till now, and rang
for Anne to bring lamps.
"Has Don Pablo come back?" she asked of the maid.
"Half an hour ago, madame."
"Then send up the boxes at once."
"You have sent for the luggage already?" was Wilhelm's astonished
inquiry when Anne had left the room.
"Naturally, my darling. I was certain, you know, that you would not
break your Pilar's heart."
Auguste and the man whom Pilar called Don Pablo now carried up the one
small box and two large ones Wilhelm always took about with him. Pilar
asked him for the keys, and proceeded to put away his belongings in the
various receptacles of the room. She would not suffer him to help her.
Only his books she allowed him to pile up in a corner for the present;
their orderly arrangement in the bookcase was put off till the daylight.
At dinner Pilar was in the seventh heaven, and more in love than ever
before. In her wild spirits she threw all her glasses into the garden,
and would only drink out of Wilhelm's. It was a real banquet: costly
Spanish wines, red and white, rough and sweet, from her well-stocked
cellar, accompanied by choice dishes, and finally champagne, of which
Pilar partook--valiantly. After dessert she skipped into the salon, put
the champagne glass down on the piano, and between sips and kisses
played and sang Spanish love-songs that drove the flames to her cheeks.
That evening she was all Bacchante. In the bedroom she tore off her
clothes with impatient fingers, and held out her small, high-bred feet
for Wilhelm to pull off her silk stockings. He knelt and kissed the
little feet, while she gazed down at him with burning misty eyes, and
between the blood-red lips slightly parted in a wanton smile gleamed
pearly teeth that looked as if they could bite with satisfaction into a
quivering heart. It was the Sphinx and the poor trembling mouse in the
dust before her to the life.
When Wilhelm awoke next morning, he saw Pilar standing all fresh and
ready at the bedside to greet him with a happy smile. With her iron
nerves and superabundant animal strength, she required but little
sleep, and had at once resumed her old habit of stealing away early to
perform the rites of her toilette while he still slept.
He dressed quickly, she being occupied meanwhile in completing the
coquettish adornment of his room with knots of ribbon, bouquets of
flowers, Japanese fans, pictures and bronzes which she arranged with
unerring taste on the walls beside the mirror, over the doors and
window, or strewed about the secretaire, the table, or the chest of
drawers, in studied negligence. They had breakfast in the red salon,
after which she led him to her boudoir, which he had not yet seen, and
that looked like a pink silk-lined jewel box. She drew up an armchair
beside the crackling wood fire, begged Wilhelm to sit down put a little
inlaid rosewood table before him, and out of a cabinet she fetched a
large Russia leather pocketbook with a gold lock and laid it on the
table.
"Let us settle these details once for all," she said to Wilhelm, who
had watched her proceeding with surprise, "so that we need never refer
to them again. You are my husband, and must relieve me now of all my
business cares. Here--" she opened the pocketbook and spread out some
formidable-looking papers, with stamps and seals attached, before him:
"This is my check book, here the deposit receipts for my government
stock and, bonds."
"What do you mean?" cried Wilhelm. "I understand nothing of such
things; I have never had anything to do with them, and I am certainly
not going to begin now, and with you." He gathered up the papers
impatiently, thrust them back into the pocketbook, which he closed with
a snap, and seeing Pilar standing there like a disappointed child
balked of a surprise, he added: "However, I am grateful for the
suggestion, as it helps me out of a dilemma. I was at a loss in what
form to put what I must say to you--you have helped me in the nick of
time. Pilar," he drew her on to his knee and kissed her, "at the
seaside the matter was very simple, we had only to divide the bill
between us. That will not do here. I am not well enough off to defray
half the expense of such an establishment as yours."
"Oh, Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken, and attempted to jump
down, but he held her fast and continued:
"I know this subject is painful to you, so it is to me; but, as you
said yourself, it must be settled once for all. You must allow me to
defray my own expenses as I would in a good family pension. I will put
the trifling sum in your pocketbook once a month, and you will have a
little more for your poor--one cannot have too much for them."
"I am simply petrified," murmured Pilar, "that you can take such a
thing into consideration?"
"It is the one condition on which I stay here," returned Wilhelm firmly.
"What a dreadful proud boy you are! You will not accept a thing from
me, and I told you yesterday that I would never be too proud to share
your possessions with you. And if you had married me, you would no
doubt have scorned to touch my dowry, and wanted to pay me for your
board too."
"Dear heart, I imagine the question is settled between us, and never to
be discussed again. I simply cannot live free of expense in the house
of my--"
"Your wife," she broke in hastily.
"Of my--wife."
"Very well," she said, resigning herself, "you must have your own way,
I suppose. But explain to me, my Teutonic philosopher, how comes it
that so high-bred a body and so noble a mind can contain a corner
holding such a tradesman's idea? How can one make these commonplace
calculations when one is in love? Are you Germans all like that, or is
it an inherited weakness in your family?"
"In my family," he answered simply, and without a trace of bitterness,
"as far back as I know of (though that is certainly not anything like
as far as your ancestor, the first knight of San Iago), we have always
worked for our living, and owed all to our own industry. I am the first
who found the table ready spread for him, and who knows if it has been
an advantage to me."
"Now you are making fun of my ancestors, you disagreeable man--when did
I ever say such a silly thing?"
"I never said you did, but you asked an explanation of the German
philosopher, and the German philosopher has done his best to give you
one."
She locked her pocketbook in the cabinet again, and there the matter
ended between them.
The rest of the household, which seemed to accept the establishing of
the new guest without the faintest surprise, consisted, beside Anne, of
the man-servant Auguste, a young, knowing-looking southern Frenchman,
with a clean-shaven, lackey's face, the old Spanish cook Isabel, a
colossal, unwieldly, hippopotamus-like person with a red nose, watery,
bloodshot eyes, and a strident voice, and Don Pablo, who seemed to be a
mixture of servant, major-domo, and the confidential attendant of the
old plays. Pilar esteemed him highly, and always spoke of him in terms
of respect. According to her, he came of a good Catalonian family, had
served with the Carlists and received titles and orders of distinction
from Don Carlos. After the downfall of the cause for which he had
fought he had come to Paris like so many of his compatriots and Pilar
had rescued him from terrible want. He did not live in the house, but
had an attic somewhere in the town. Every morning he appeared at the
Boulevard Pereire to receive Pilar's orders, was occupied during the
whole day in going on errands and doing shopping of every description,
and his work over returned late in the evening to his lodging. He was a
tall, thin, middle-aged man with a long leathery face, a long painted
nose, long oily hair, and long gray mustache. The entire loose, bony
figure looked like a reflection in a concave glass--all distorted into
length. Don Pablo had a deeply melancholy air, never smiled and spoke
but little. During the few spare hours which the countess' service--in
which his legs were chiefly in demand--permitted, he might be seen in a
back room on the ground floor, engaged in manufacturing pictures out of
gummed hair--an art in which he was a proficient. He had even achieved
a portrait of Pilar in blonde, brown, and red hair. It looked like the
queen in a pack of cards, but Don Pablo was very proud of the
masterpiece, and never forgave Pilar for not hanging it in one of the
salons, but in quite another place. It was this accomplishment of his
which led Auguste to declare firmly and with conviction that he was
nothing more nor less than a common hairdresser. The relations between
the two were altogether very strained. Auguste was annoyed by the
Spaniard's high-and-mighty airs, and his French instincts of equality
revolted against Don Pablo's pretensions to be better than the rest of
the servants. They had their meals in common, but Don Pablo occupied
the seat of honor and demanded to be waited upon, while Auguste, Anne
and Isabel had to be content to wait upon themselves. As ill-luck would
have it, Auguste had once got a sight of Don Pablo's uniform and great
order; whereupon he instantly cut out a monstrous tin star out of the
lid of a sardine box and wore it at meals. Don Pablo was so furious
that he spoke seriously of challenging Auguste to a duel to the death,
and it required a stern order from the countess to make him give up his
bloodthirsty design and Auguste his practical joke.
The sharp-tongued Anne and noisy old Isabel were on a similar warlike
footing. The maid was jealous of the cook because she had long, secret
confabulations with the countess, who let her do exactly as she
pleased, and even forgave her her pronounced liking for her excellent
Val de Penas, of which she--Isabel--drank at least a barrel a year to
her own account. One day Wilhelm, coming unexpectedly into the boudoir,
surprised Pilar and the red-nosed cook together, the latter engaged in
telling her mistress' fortune by the cards. This was the secret of
Isabel's influence. She hurriedly took herself off with her cards, but
Wilhelm shook his head: "I should not have believed it of my clever
Pilar."
"What would you have?" she returned, half-laughing, half-ashamed; "we
all of us have some little remnant of superstition in some dark corner
of our minds. And after all, it is very odd that ever since our return
she is continually turning up the knave of hearts." And as Wilhelm was
obviously still unenlightened, she explained, "Barbarian, don't you
know that that always means a sweetheart?"
Pilar arranged their life as if they were on their honeymoon. Every
midday and evening meal was a banquet with flowers, choice dishes, and
champagne, till Wilhelm forbade it; every day a drive in an elegant
coupe; every evening to some theater in a half-concealed stage box, in
which Pilar hid herself in the dim background. Wilhelm did not care for
the theater, but Pilar insisted that he should become acquainted with
the French stage. She showed him about Paris as if he were a schoolboy
allowed to come to town in the holidays as a reward for having passed
his examination well. And she was such an interesting, entertaining
guide! She was thoroughly acquainted with the history or the anecdotes
connected with the various streets and buildings, and on their way from
the Column of July to the Opera House, from the Madeleine to the Arc de
Triomphe, from the Odeon to the Pantheon, she unrolled a sparkling
picture of Paris, past and present, now showing him the seething crowds
of the lower classes and their customs and doings in good and bad
hours, now describing well-known contemporaries with all that was
absurd or commendable in them. Stories, scandals, traits of character,
encounters she had had, adventures that had befallen her, all flowed
from her lips in a gay, babbling, inexhaustible stream, and initiated
her hearer into all the intricacies of Parisian life. She was as
familiar with the galleries as with the famous buildings, and in front
of the works of art in the one and the facades of the other she fired
off a rocket-like shower of original remarks, paradoxes, and brilliant
criticism. She knew exactly where to scoff and where to be
enthusiastic, jeered with all the ruthless slang of the Paris gamins at
the pompously mediocre sights recommended to the tourists' admiration
by Baedeker, and gave evidence of deep and true comprehension of all
that was really beautiful.
At the very beginning she dragged Wilhelm to a photographer's studio
and disclosed to him, when it was too late to beat a retreat, that he
was to be photographed. What for? A fancy of hers--she wanted to have
his likeness. Half-length, full-length, full-face, profile. Only when
the pictures were sent home did he discover, that she did not want them
for herself, but to send to her mother. It was high time she should see
what the man was like who alone made life worth living for her only
child. That she should draw her mother into an affair of the kind of
which women do not, as a rule, boast to their families, seemed to him
peculiarly bad taste. "What," he cried, "you have told your mother the
whole story?"
"My mother is a Spaniard, she will guess what one leaves unsaid."
"And you are not ashamed that she should know?"
"That is why I am sending her your likeness; she will then understand
that, on the contrary, I have every reason to be proud."
What she did not consider it necessary to explain to him was, that she
had palmed off a complete romance upon the Marquise de Henares, to the
effect that Wilhelm had saved her life at Ault while bathing, that he
was a celebrated German revolutionist, and the future President of the
German Republic, to whom she was affording a refuge in her house
because, for the time being, he was obliged to be in hiding from the
German secret police, and so forth, and so forth.
The marquise believed every word. In her answer, she certainly
reproached her daughter gently for having anything to do with foreign
conspirators, but otherwise praised her evidence of gratitude toward
her preserver, and frankly expressed her admiration for the handsome
person of this interesting German. She even inclosed a note to him, in
which she thanked him from her overflowing mother's heart for all he
had done for her only child, and adjured him to be very prudent. He
could make nothing out of it, and Pilar declared that she was equally
in the dark. "I only see this much," she said in an off-hand manner,
"that mamma loves you already, and will do still more so when she gets
to know you personally. And that is all that matters."
It was on the second Sunday after their arrival in Paris that the
children came to visit their mother. Pilar looked forward with some
uneasiness to Wilhelm's first meeting with them, and he too felt far
from comfortable when Pilar brought a half-grown girl and a ten-year
old boy to him, and addressing herself to them said, "Embrace Monsieur
le Docteur, and look at him well. He is the best friend your mother has
on earth. You must love him very much, for he deserves it."
The girl was fair like her mother. She was already dressed with
conspicuous elegance, and her manner betrayed extreme
self-consciousness. She glanced at Wilhelm with sly and wanton eyes, in
which it was easily to be read that she had a very good idea of the
real state of the case. She offered her forehead for his kiss, bestowed
a few cold and perfunctory caresses on her mother, and slipped away to
Anne, with whom she spent the whole afternoon in eager whispered
conversation, till the governess came to take her back to the
fashionable boarding school where she was being trained to be a perfect
great lady, and to make some enviable man happy in the future by the
bestowal of her hand.
The boy, who was accompanied by a priest, and was being educated at a
fashionable Jesuit institution, was of a better sort. He gave his hand
to Wilhelm shyly but heartily, while his innocent eyes looked frankly
and openly into his, and then hung over his mother with a tenderness
that had a touch of chivalry in it--half-funny, half-affecting. Wilhelm
felt decidedly drawn to the slender, healthy-looking boy.
But in the course of the afternoon another--a third child--appeared
upon the scene; a lovely, brown, four-year-old boy, with bold black
eyes and long raven curls, whom a maid-servant brought to Pilar that he
might kiss his mamma.
Wilhelm was much surprised. "Three? You never told me that," he
whispered.
"This is little Manuel, my sweet little Manuelito," she answered in a
low voice, and buried her face in the child's black curls that she
might not have to look at Wilhelm. She covered little Manuelito with
kisses, and then pushed him gently over to Wilhelm, in whom the most
conflicting emotions were struggling for the mastery. It was impossible
to feel any ill-will toward this captivating mite with the dark
Bronzino face, and yet to Wilhelm he seemed to represent a distinct act
of treachery. How could she have been so underhand as to hide the fact
from him that her connection with the fashion-plate diplomat had not
been without results! He made as if to draw away from the boy, who
stood staring nervously at him, but the next moment his natural love of
children prevailed, and he clasped the sweet little fellow to his
breast.
"Such a lovely child!" he said, "and so young, and in need of a
mother's care. Why does it not live with you?"
"He lives with a sister of his father," she answered, hardly above her
breath.
"And you let it go?"
"The father would not let me keep it. And I could not do anything
against it because--it is not registered as my child, and does not bear
my name."
The past, to which Wilhelm and Pilar had closed their eyes till now,
presented itself that afternoon in incontestably lively form before
them. Dispelled was the artificial fabric of their dream of a love that
was as old as life itself--dispelled the poetic figment that they were
in the honeymoon of a young pure union of the heart! These three
children told a tale of Pilar in which Wilhelm bore no part, and the
chapters of that story bore different names, as did the children
themselves.
Pilar divined easily enough what was passing in Wilhelm's mind at sight
of the children. She never let them come to the house again, but
henceforth went to see them at their respective homes. He was sure that
they liked coming to the Boulevard Pereire, and was sorry that they
should miss this pleasure on his account. Pilar begged him, however,
not to allude to the subject again--he was dearer to her than her
children, and there was nothing she would not do to spare him a
moment's unpleasantness.
The first visitor whom Wilhelm saw in Pilar's house was a little tubby
gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a rosette in his buttonhole,
composed of sixteen different colored ribbons at the very lowest
computation. He enjoyed the privilege of coming at any hour of the day,
and being instantly admitted to the boudoir. He was introduced to
Wilhelm as Don Antonio Gorra, and Pilar explained afterward that Don
Antonio was a lawyer, an old friend of her family, and that he
conducted her business affairs for her. For a time she had long daily
consultations, to which Wilhelm was not invited. As soon as he left,
she would come to Wilhelm with a significant and mysterious air,
evidently expecting that he would ask what all this putting together of
heads might mean. As he did not evince the slightest curiosity, she
grew impatient at last, and asked with assumed lightness:
"Are you not at all jealous, you fish-blooded German?"
"Jealous? No, I certainly am not. Besides which, you give me no cause."
"Indeed! and what about my tete-a-tetes with Don Antonio?"
"Oh, Don Antonio!" laughed Wilhelm.
"You are quite right, sweetheart, but it aggravates me that you should
not want to know what he and I are brewing. You do not take nearly so
much interest in my affairs as you ought."
"But you told me that Don Antonio was your man of business."
"Well, then--no--this time it is not a matter of business. I wanted to
prepare a surprise for you." She seated herself on his knee, and laying
her cheek to his, she whispered: "I have been trying to have myself
naturalized in Belgium, and then, as a Belgian subject, get a divorce
from Count Pozaldez. In that way I might have become your wife before
the law as well."
He looked at her with a face expressive rather of alarm and
astonishment than joy, and she went on with a sigh, "However, Don
Antonio has just told me I must give up that pleasant dream--it cannot
be realized."
He kissed her lips and brow, and stroked her silky hair. She laid her
head on his shoulder, and remained long in silent thought. Presently
she rose, walked up and down the room once or twice, and finally seated
herself on a footstool at Wilhelm's feet. "But something I must do to
bind you to me," she said. "I shall not rest till there is some written
bond, something legal between us. I shall alter my will, and give you
the place in it you occupy in my life."
"Pilar," exclaimed Wilhelm, "if you love me, and if you wish that we
should remain what we are to one another, never say such a word again.
If I ever find out that you have mentioned me in your will, all is at
end between us." She drooped her head disconsolately, and he continued
in a milder tone--"Dorfling's will has not brought me so much luck that
I should ever wish to inherit money again."
The idea to which she had given expression did not leave Pilar,
however. There should be something in writing--some document with
stamps and seals to testify that Wilhelm belonged to her. This wish
assumed the proportions of a superstition with her, and she never
rested till it was satisfied.
One morning the inmates of the house on the Boulevard Pereire saw the
arrival of three carriages, which discharged eight persons at the door.
A well-dressed gentleman rang the bell, marshaled his seven companions
in the hall, and desired to be shown up to the countess. She was
expecting him, and received him in the red salon. After a short
conversation, she went downstairs with him to the yellow salon, where
Wilhelm, at her request, followed them. The visitor was the Spanish
consul in Paris. He produced a casket ornamented with mother-o'-pearl,
broke a seal with which it was fastened, unlocked it with a small
silver key, and took out a document in a closed envelope, and handed it
to Pilar. He then opened the door, and permitted his followers to
enter. They came in in single file, and ranged themselves silently
along the wall. They were tall, lean men in great circular Spanish
cloaks of brown or bottle-green, defective in the matter of footgear,
and with shapeless greasy hats in their ungloved hands. Their
deportment was as dignified as if they had been the chapter of a
religious order, and every face was turned with an air of contemplative
solemnity toward the countess. With nervous haste she wrote a few lines
at the foot of the document, read it over three or four times and
altered a word here and there; she then folded the paper, returned it
to the envelope, and handed it back to the consul. She sealed it with
her seal and wrote something on it, the seven men then advanced one by
one to the table, and with extreme gravity and precision put their
signatures on the envelope. The casket was then relocked and resealed,
and the company withdrew with a ceremonious bow, not, however, without
leaving behind them such a piercing smell of garlic that the yellow
salon was still full of it next day.
When Pilar found herself alone with Wilhelm, she asked: "I suppose you
would like to know what all this means?"
"Well, yes."
"We have in Spain what we call mysterious wills, the contents of which
may be kept secret. A will of that kind is valid if an official person
and seven witnesses vouch for it by their signatures on the envelope
that it has been written or altered in their presence. To-day I have
added something to my secret will."
He made a movement, but she would not give him time to speak.
"Do not be afraid, I have not acted against your wishes nor wounded
your pride. On our Vega de Henares in Old Castile, we have a family
tomb where my ancestors have been laid to rest since the sixteenth
century. It is the Renaissance mausoleum of the picture hanging in your
room. The marble tomb stands in the middle of an oak wood, not far from
a little brook, and it is cool and still there. I shall lie there some
day, wherever I may die, and I have assigned you a place beside me.
Promise me, Wilhelm, that you will accept it. Promise me that you, in
your turn, will make the necessary arrangements for your remains to be
brought at last to our vega. I do not know if I may ever belong to you
as your wife in my lifetime, but in death I want to have you forever at
my side. Grant me this consolation. Give me your hand upon it."
Great tears welled slowly into the hazel eyes, and it was plainly of
such sacred and earnest import to her that Wilhelm had not the heart to
smile at her strained and sentimental idea. Moved and touched, he
clasped her to his heart in silence.