In der Welt weit
Aus der Einsamkeit
Wollen sie Dich locken.
--“Faust.”
(In the wide world, out of the solitude, will these allure thee.)
The next morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Mervale looked as if all the wrongs
of injured woman sat upon her brow. Mr. Mervale seemed the picture of
remorseful guilt and avenging bile. He said little, except to complain
of headache, and to request the eggs to be removed from the table.
Clarence Glyndon--impervious, unconscious, unailing, impenitent--was in
noisy spirits, and talked for three.
“Poor Mervale! he has lost the habit of good-fellowship, madam. Another
night or two, and he will be himself again!”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Mervale, launching a premeditated sentence with more
than Johnsonian dignity, “permit me to remind you that Mr. Mervale is
now a married man, the destined father of a family, and the present
master of a household.”
“Precisely the reasons why I envy him so much. I myself have a great
mind to marry. Happiness is contagious.”
“Do you still take to painting?” asked Mervale, languidly, endeavouring
to turn the tables on his guest.
“Oh, no; I have adopted your advice. No art, no ideal,--nothing loftier
than Commonplace for me now. If I were to paint again, I positively
think YOU would purchase my pictures. Make haste and finish your
breakfast, man; I wish to consult you. I have come to England to see
after my affairs. My ambition is to make money; your counsels and
experience cannot fail to assist me here.”
“Ah, you were soon disenchanted of your Philosopher’s Stone! You must
know, Sarah, that when I last left Glyndon, he was bent upon turning
alchemist and magician.”
“You are witty to-day, Mr. Mervale.”
“Upon my honour it is true, I told you so before.”
Glyndon rose abruptly.
“Why revive those recollections of folly and presumption? Have I not
said that I have returned to my native land to pursue the healthful
avocations of my kind! Oh, yes! what so healthful, so noble, so
fitted to our nature, as what you call the Practical Life? If we
have faculties, what is their use, but to sell them to advantage! Buy
knowledge as we do our goods; buy it at the cheapest market, sell it at
the dearest. Have you not breakfasted yet?”
The friends walked into the streets, and Mervale shrank from the irony
with which Glyndon complimented him on his respectability, his station,
his pursuits, his happy marriage, and his eight pictures in their
handsome frames. Formerly the sober Mervale had commanded an influence
over his friend: HIS had been the sarcasm; Glyndon’s the irresolute
shame at his own peculiarities. Now this position was reversed. There
was a fierce earnestness in Glyndon’s altered temper which awed and
silenced the quiet commonplace of his friend’s character. He seemed to
take a malignant delight in persuading himself that the sober life of
the world was contemptible and base.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “how right you were to tell me to marry respectably;
to have a solid position; to live in decorous fear of the world and
one’s wife; and to command the envy of the poor, the good opinion of
the rich. You have practised what you preach. Delicious existence! The
merchant’s desk and the curtain lecture! Ha! ha! Shall we have another
night of it?”
Mervale, embarrassed and irritated, turned the conversation upon
Glyndon’s affairs. He was surprised at the knowledge of the world which
the artist seemed to have suddenly acquired, surprised still more at
the acuteness and energy with which he spoke of the speculations most in
vogue at the market. Yes; Glyndon was certainly in earnest: he desired
to be rich and respectable,--and to make at least ten per cent for his
money!
After spending some days with the merchant, during which time he
contrived to disorganise all the mechanism of the house, to turn
night into day, harmony into discord, to drive poor Mrs. Mervale
half-distracted, and to convince her husband that he was horribly
hen-pecked, the ill-omened visitor left them as suddenly as he had
arrived. He took a house of his own; he sought the society of persons
of substance; he devoted himself to the money-market; he seemed to
have become a man of business; his schemes were bold and colossal; his
calculations rapid and profound. He startled Mervale by his energy,
and dazzled him by his success. Mervale began to envy him,--to be
discontented with his own regular and slow gains. When Glyndon bought or
sold in the funds, wealth rolled upon him like the tide of a sea; what
years of toil could not have done for him in art, a few months, by
a succession of lucky chances, did for him in speculation. Suddenly,
however, he relaxed his exertions; new objects of ambition seemed to
attract him. If he heard a drum in the streets, what glory like the
soldier’s? If a new poem were published, what renown like the poet’s?
He began works in literature, which promised great excellence, to throw
them aside in disgust. All at once he abandoned the decorous and formal
society he had courted; he joined himself, with young and riotous
associates; he plunged into the wildest excesses of the great city,
where Gold reigns alike over Toil and Pleasure. Through all he carried
with him a certain power and heat of soul. In all society he aspired
to command,--in all pursuits to excel. Yet whatever the passion of the
moment, the reaction was terrible in its gloom. He sank, at times, into
the most profound and the darkest reveries. His fever was that of a mind
that would escape memory,--his repose, that of a mind which the memory
seizes again, and devours as a prey. Mervale now saw little of him; they
shunned each other. Glyndon had no confidant, and no friend.