Othmar went from her chamber to that of his uncle, lying dumb,
unconscious, almost inanimate in his little hotel in the Rue de
Traktir, all the innumerable wires which connected that little house
with the Bourses of many nations only serving now to bear north, south,
east, west, the words so momentous to the ear of financial Europe:
'_Le Baron Friedrich se meurt._'
Many there were who trembled at these few words; more who rejoiced
to know that the keen eyes were closed, the subtle brain paralysed,
the powerful mind swamped in a flood of darkness. He had millions of
enemies, thousands of sycophants, few friends; crowds came about his
door to know how near he was to death, but it was of the share list
and the money market that they thought: how would his loss affect this
scheme, those actions, these banks, that syndicate?
'Heaven and earth!' thought his nephew, 'all this excitement, this
outcry, this anxiety, and amongst it all not one single honest thought
of regret for the _man_ who lies dying!'
If in love we only give what we possess and can do no more, so in
life we receive that which we desire. Friedrich Othmar had wished for
success, for power, for the means to paralyse nations, inspire wars,
control governments, purchase and influence humanity. He had had his
wish; but now that he lay dying these thing left him poor.
Men who had eaten his admirable dinners through a score of seasons,
said in their clubs: '_Le vieux farceur! est-ce vrai qu'il crève?_' and
women who had fitted up their costly villas and adorned their worthless
persons at his cost hurried to his rooms and took away these jewels,
those enamels, that aquarelle, this medallion, whatever they could lay
their hands on, screaming '_C'est à moi! c'est à moi! c'est à moi!_'
Othmar when he had arrived there, on the first intelligence of his
uncle's attack of hemiplegia, had found the house already sacked as
though an invading army had passed through the apartments; '_ces dames
ont pincé par ci et par là_,' said the servants, not confessing their
own collusion, with apology. Hardly anything of value that was portable
had been left in it; they had all robbed this poor, senseless, fallen
monarch as they would.
Othmar was filled with an invincible melancholy as he stood beside the
bedside of this man, whose vast intellect had been suddenly beaten down
into nothingness as a bull is brained by the slaughterer. There had
been no great affection between them; their views had been too opposed,
their characters too utterly different for sympathy, or even for much
mutual comprehension, but he had always done full justice to the
unerring intelligence, the stubborn courage, and the devoted loyalty
to the interests of his house, which were so conspicuous in Friedrich
Othmar, and he knew that his loss would leave a place in his own life,
public and private, which would never be filled up again. No one not
bound to him by ties of blood and of family honour would ever care for
his interests, work for his welfare, guard his repute, and consolidate
his fortunes as Friedrich Othmar had done from the days of his boyhood.
They had often been sharply opposed in opinion and in action, and
more than once the elder man had learned that the younger man deemed
him well-nigh a knave, whilst the elder held the younger in complete
derision as a dreaming fool. But despite all this there had been that
bond between them of community of interest and kinship of descent which
no hireling service and no friendship of aliens could ever replace.
Othmar knew that, this man dead, he himself would stand utterly alone
in many ways and in many difficulties with which no other would ever
have power or title to advise or to assist him. There were engagements,
obligations, secret treaties, and concealed alliances in his house
of which he would bear the burden alone, Friedrich Othmar being once
gathered to his fathers. And, selfishness apart, there was a keen pang
to him in the sight of his old friend lying prone like any fallen tree,
in the knowledge that the quick wit would never more play about those
silent lips, and the clear flame of reason and of scorn would never
more flash from those closed eyes.
He was dying: soon he would be dead: and Friedrich Othmar was one
of those who make the dream of immortality seem as grotesque as the
child's hope to meet her doll in heaven. Who could think of him without
his slow, satiric smile, his fine intricate speculations, his genius at
whist, his perfect burgundies, his firm white hand which, touching a
button in the wall, could speed an assent or a refusal which served to
convulse Europe?
'Immortal?--what _ennui_!' he would have said, with his most
good-humoured contempt for the dull and grotesque shapes in which human
illusions, ideas, hopes, and creeds have so oddly shaped themselves.
'You will find everything in order,' he had said more than once to
Othmar. 'I shall die suddenly one day, in all probability. I leave
everything in perfect order every day. You will only have to wind up
the watch after I am gone. But will you take the trouble to wind it?'
That was his doubt, the doubt which had tormented him in many an hour.
Othmar now, leaving the warm golden light of the streets and the summer
air, sweet-scented even in Paris from passing over the hay-fields and
the flower gardens of the country round, and the blossoms of the limes
upon the boulevards, entered the hushed, close, darkened room with a
sense of coming loss and of impending calamity. There was no sound but
of the heavy, laboured breathing of the dying man.
'There is no change?' he asked of the attendants, but he knew their
answer beforehand; there could be no change but one--the last.
Life mechanical, painful, sustained and prolonged by artificial means,
was there still, but all else was over--over the manifold combinations,
the daring projects, the cool unerring ambitions, the pitiless study
and usage of men, the traffic in war and want, the wisdom which knew
when to stoop and when to command, the skill which could gather and
hold so safely all the cross threads of a million intrigues, the
intellect which found its fullest pleasure in the problems of finance
and the great needs of nations. All these were over, and the quick,
cautious, wise and well-stored brain was shattered and ruined like a
mere piece of clock-work that a child stamps in pieces with an angry
foot.
Of course he had long known that what had come now might come any day;
that at the age of his uncle the marvel was rather his perfect health,
his clear brain, his strong volition, than any mortal stroke which
might befall him.
The afternoon was growing to a close; without, there were the sounds
of traffic and of pleasure; through the closed venetian blinds the air
came into the room, which was hot, dark, filled with the soporific
odours of stimulants and medicines. Great physicians waited by the
death-bed, though they could do nothing to avert the sure coming of
death. Othmar sat there and watched with them. Now and then someone
spoke in a whisper, that was all. The end was near at hand. The sun
sank and the evening came. There was always the same slow, stertorous
breathing so painful on the ear of the listener, so expressive of
effort and of suffering still existent in that inert unconscious mass
which lay motionless upon the bed.
As the hours passed on, Othmar went downstairs and broke a little
bread, took a little wine, then returned to the chamber of death and
waited there. They told him that as the night wore away the last
struggle must come. Death loves the hour before dawn.
Many thoughts came to the watcher as he sat there; they were melancholy
and tired thoughts. Life seemed to him, as to Heine, like a child
lost in the dark. What was the use of all the energy and effort, all
the desire and regret, all the grief and hope, all the knowledge and
ambition? The issue of them all at their best was a few years of
success and of renown, then a brain which refused to do its work any
more, a body which was but as the carcass of a slaughtered beast.
The hours stole on, the strokes of the clocks echoed through the silent
house, the wheels of the passing carriages made low and muffled sounds
upon the tan laid down on the street beneath in needless precaution
for ears deaf for ever, for a brain for ever numb and senseless. The
evening became night and night brightened towards morning; a little
bird sang at the closed shutter. Othmar rose and opened one of the
windows and looked out; it was daybreak. There was a soft mist over the
masses of verdure of the Bois, and in the sky a pale, dim light.
'Shall I die like this?' he thought; 'and will my son sorrow no more
for me than I sorrow now?--who can tell?'
He stood gazing out at the shadowy houses and the dim outlines of
the avenues. When he turned back from the window he saw that the
hand of the dying man feebly beckoned him. In the supreme moment of
severance from earth, the stunned mind recovered one momentary gleam
of consciousness, the mute lips one momentary spasm of thickened,
struggling speech; once more and once more only the tongue obeyed the
order of its master--the brain.
Friedrich Othmar looked at him with eyes that for an instant saw.
'Do not make that loan--do not make that loan,' he said with his
paralysed lips. 'Wait--wait; there will be war.'
His master passion ruled him in his death.
Then he made a movement of his right hand as though he wrote his
signature to some deed.
'The house--the house--tell them the house will not----' he muttered
thickly, then a spasm choked his voice, the agony began; in less than
an hour he was dead.
'God save me from such a death as this!' thought Othmar as the full day
broke. 'Rather let me die a beggar in the high road, but with some love
about me, some hope within my heart!'
And the mouth of the dead man seemed to smile, as though the dead brain
knew his thoughts, as though the dead lips said to him:
'Oh, dreamer!--Oh, fool!'