CATRINA
The man who carries a deceit, however innocent, with him through life is
apt to be somewhat handicapped in that unfair competition. He is like a
ship at sea with a "sprung" mainmast. A side breeze may arise at any
moment which throws him all aback and upon his beam-ends. He runs
illegitimate risks, which are things much given to dragging at a man's
mind, handicapping his thoughts.
Paul suffered in this way. It was a distinct burthen to him to play a
double part, although each was innocent enough in itself. At school, and
later on at the 'Varsity, he had consistently and steadily suppressed a
truth from friend and foe alike--namely, that he was in his own country
a prince. No great crime on the face of it; but a constant suppression
of a very small truth is as burdensome as any suggestion of falsehood.
It makes one afraid of contemptible foes, and doubtful of the value of
one's own friendship.
Paul was a simple-minded man. He was not afraid of the Russian
Government. Indeed, he cultivated a fine contempt for that august body.
But he was distinctly afraid of being found out, for that discovery
could only mean an incontinent cessation of the good work which rendered
his life happy.
The fear of being deprived of this interest in existence should
certainly have been lessened, if not quite allayed, by the fact that a
greater interest had been brought into his life in the pleasant form of
a prospective wife. When he was in London with Etta Sydney Bamborough he
did not, however, forget Osterno. He only longed for the time when he
could take Etta freely into his confidence and engage her interest in
the object of his ambition--namely, to make the huge Osterno estate into
that lump of leaven which might in time leaven the whole of the empire.
That a man is capable of sustaining two absorbing interests at once is a
matter of every-day illustration. Are we not surrounded by men who do
their work well in life, and love their wives well at home, without
allowing the one to interfere with the other? That women are capable of
the same seems exceedingly probable. But we are a race of sheep who run
after each other, guided for the moment by a catchword which will not
bear investigation, or an erroneous deduction set in alliterative verse
which clings to the mind and sways it. Thus we all think that woman's
whole existence is, and is only capable of, love, because a poet, in the
trickiness of his trade, once said so.
Now, Paul held a different opinion. He thought that Etta could manage to
love him well, as she said she did, and yet take an interest in that
which was in reality the object of his life. He intended to take the
earliest opportunity of telling her all about the work he was
endeavoring to carry out at Osterno, and the knowledge that he was
withholding something from her was a constant burden to an upright and
honest nature.
"I think," he said one morning to Steinmetz, "that I will write and tell
Mrs. Sydney Bamborough all about this place."
"I should not do that," replied Steinmetz with a leisurely promptitude.
They were alone in a great smoking-room of which the walls were hung all
round with hunting trophies. Paul was smoking a post-prandial cigar.
Steinmetz reflected gravely over a pipe. They were both reading Russian
newspapers--periodicals chiefly remarkable for that which they leave
unsaid.
"Why not?" asked Paul.
"On principle. Never tell a woman that which is not interesting enough
to magnify into a secret."
Paul turned over his newspaper. He began reading again. Then, suddenly,
he looked up.
"We are engaged to be married," he observed pointedly.
Steinmetz took his pipe from his lips slowly and imperturbably. He was a
man to whom it was no satisfaction to impart news. He either knew it
before or did not take much interest in the matter.
"That makes it worse," he said. "A woman only conceals what is bad about
her husband. If she knows anything that is likely to make other women
think that their husbands are inferior, she will tell it."
Paul laughed.
"But this is not good," he argued. "We have kept it so confoundedly
quiet that I am beginning to feel as if it is a crime."
Steinmetz uncrossed his legs, crossed them again, and then spoke after
mature reflection:
"As I understand the law of libel, a man is punished, not for telling a
lie, but for telling either the truth or a lie with malicious intent. I
imagine the Almighty will take the intent into consideration, if human
justice finds it expedient to do so!"
Paul shrugged his shoulders. Argument was not his strong point, and,
like most men who cannot argue, he was almost impervious to the
arguments of others. He recognized the necessity for secrecy--the
absolute need of a thousand little secretive precautions and disguises
which were intensely disagreeable to him. But he also grumbled at them
freely, and whenever he made such objection Karl Steinmetz grew uneasy,
as if the question which he disposed of with facile philosophy or
humorous resignation had behind it a possibility and an importance of
which he was fully aware. It was on these rare occasions that he might
have conveyed to a keen observer the impression that he was playing a
very dangerous game with a smiling countenance.
"All that we do," pursued Steinmetz, "is to bow to a lamentable
necessity for deceit. I have bowed to it all my life. It has been my
trade, perhaps. It is not our fault that we are placed in charge of four
or five thousand human beings who are no more capable of helping
themselves than are sheep. It is not our fault that the forefathers of
these sheep cut down the forests and omitted to plant more, so that the
flocks with whom we have to deal have no fuel. It is not our fault that
a most terrific winter annually renders the land unproductive for four
months. It is not our fault that the government to which we are forced
to bow--the Czar whose name lifts our hats from our heads--it is not our
fault that progress and education are taboo, and that all who endeavor
to forward the cause of humanity are promptly put away in a safe place
where they are at liberty to forward their own salvation and nothing
else. Nothing is our fault, mein lieber, in this country. We have to
make the best of adverse circumstances. We are not breaking any human
law, and in doing nothing we should be breaking a divine command."
Paul flicked the ash off his cigar. He had heard all this before. Karl
Steinmetz's words were usually more remarkable for solid thoughtfulness
than for brilliancy of conception or any great novelty of expression.
"Oh!" said Paul quietly, "I am not going to leave off. You need not fear
that. Only I shall have to tell my wife. Surely a woman could help us in
a thousand ways. There is such a lot that only a woman understands."
"Yes!" grunted Steinmetz; "and only the right sort of woman."
Paul looked up sharply.
"You must leave that to me," he said.
"My very dear friend, I leave every thing to you."
Paul smiled.
There was no positive proof that this was not strictly true. There was
no saying that Karl Steinmetz did not leave every thing to every-body.
But wise people thought differently.
"You don't know Etta," he said, half shyly. "She is full of sympathy and
pity for these people."
Steinmetz bowed gravely.
"I have no doubt of it."
"And yet you say that she must not be told."
"Certainly not. A secret is considerably strained if it be divided
between two people. Stretching it to three will probably break it. You
can tell her when you are married. Does she consent to live in Osterno?"
"Oh, yes. I think so."
"Um--m!"
"What did you say?"
"Um--m," repeated Steinmetz, and the conversation somewhat naturally
showed signs of collapse.
At this moment the door was opened, and a servant in bright livery, with
powdered wig, silk stockings, and a countenance which might have been of
wood, brought in a letter on a silver tray.
Paul took the square envelope and turned it over, displaying as he did
so a coronet in black and gold on the corner, like a stamp.
Karl Steinmetz saw the coronet. He never took his quiet, unobtrusive
glance from Paul's face while he opened the letter and read it.
"A fresh difficulty," said Paul, throwing the note across to his
companion.
Steinmetz looked grave while he unfolded the thick stationery.
"Dear Paul [the letter ran]: I hear you are at Osterno and that the
Moscow doctor is in your country. We are in great distress at
Thors--cholera, I fear. The fame of your doctor has spread to my people,
and they are clamoring for him. Can you bring or send him over? You know
your room here is always in readiness. Come soon with the great doctor,
and also Herr Steinmetz. In doing so you will give more than pleasure to
your old friend,"
Catrina Lanovitch.
"P.S. Mother is afraid to go out of doors for fear of infection. She
thinks she has a little cold."
Steinmetz folded the letter very carefully, pressing the seam of it
reflectively with his stout forefinger and thumb.
"I always think of the lie first," he said. "It's my nature or my
misfortune. We can easily write and say that the Moscow doctor has
left."
He paused, scratching his brow pensively with his curved forefinger. It
is to be feared that he was seeking not so much the truth as the most
convenient perversion of the same.
"But then," he went on, "by doing that we leave these poor devils to die
in their--styes. Catrina cannot manage them. They are worse than our
people."
"Whatever is the best lie to tell," burst in Paul--"as we seem to live
in an atmosphere of them--I must go to Thors; that is quite certain."
"There is no must in the case," put in Steinmetz quietly, as a
parenthesis. "No man is compelled to throw himself in the way of
infection. But I know you will go, whatever I say."
"I suppose I shall," admitted Paul.
"And Catrina will find you out at once."
"Why?"
Steinmetz drew in his feet. He leant forward and knocked his pipe on one
of the logs that lay ready to light in the great open fire-place.
"Because she loves you," he said shortly. "There is no coming the Moscow
doctor over her, mien lieber."
Paul laughed rather awkwardly. He was one of the few men--daily growing
fewer--who hold that a woman's love is not a thing to be tossed lightly
about in conversation.
"Then--" he began, speaking rather quickly, as if afraid that Steinmetz
was going to say more. "If," he amended, "you think she will find out,
she must not see me, that is all."
Steinmetz reflected again. He was unusually grave over this matter. One
would scarcely have taken this stout German for a person of any
sentiment whatever. Nevertheless he would have liked Paul to marry
Catrina Lanovitch in preference to Etta Sydney Bamborough, merely
because he thought that the former loved him, while he felt sure that
the latter did not. So much for the sentimental point of view--a
starting-point, by the way, which usually makes all the difference in a
man's life. For a man needs to be loved as much as a woman needs it.
From the practical point of view, Karl Steinmetz knew too much about
Etta to place entire reliance on the goodness of her motives. He keenly
suspected that she was marrying Paul for his money--for the position he
could give her in the world.
"We must be careful," he said. "We must place clearly before ourselves
the risks that we are running before we come to any decision. For you
the risk is simply that of unofficial banishment. They can hardly send
you to Siberia because you are half an Englishman; and that impertinent
country has a habit of getting up and shouting when her sons are
interfered with. But they can easily make Russia impossible for you.
They can do you more harm than you think. They can do these poor devils
of peasants of yours more harm than we can comfortably contemplate. As
for me," he paused and shrugged his great shoulders, "it means Siberia.
Already I am a suspect--a persona non grata."
"I do not see how we can refuse to help Catrina," said Paul, in a voice
which Steinmetz seemed to know, for he suddenly gave in.
"As you will," he said.
He sat up, and, drawing a small table toward him, took up a pen
reflectively. Paul watched him in silence.
When the letter was finished, Steinmetz read it aloud:
"My Dear Catrina:
"The Moscow doctor and your obedient servant will be (D.V.) in Thors by
seven o'clock to-night. We propose spending about an hour in the
village, if you will kindly advise the starosta to be ready for us. As
our time is limited, and we are much needed in Osterno, we shall have to
deprive ourselves of the pleasure of calling at the castle. The prince
sends kind remembrances, and proposes riding over to Thors to avail
himself of your proffered hospitality in a day or two. With salutations
to the countess,
"Your old friend,
"Karl Steinmetz."
Steinmetz waited with the letter in his hand for Paul's approval. "You
see," he explained, "you are notoriously indifferent to the welfare of
the peasants. It would be unnatural if you suddenly displayed so much
interest as to induce you to go to Thors on a mission of charity."
Paul nodded. "All right," he said. "Yes, I see; though I confess I
sometimes forget what the deuce I _am_ supposed to be."
Steinmetz laughed pleasantly as he folded the letter. He rose and went
to the door.
"I will send it off," he said. He paused on the threshold and looked
back gravely. "Do not forget," he added, "that Catrina Lanovitch loves
you."