ZISKA
THE
PROBLEM OF A WICKED SOUL
BY
MARIE CORELLI
NEW YORK
STONE & KIMBALL
M DCCC XCVII
[DEDICATION.]
TO THE
PRESENT LIVING RE-INCARNATION
OF
ARAXES
ZISKA.
_THE PROBLEM OF A WICKED SOUL._
PROLOGUE.
/Dark/ against the sky towered the Great Pyramid, and over its apex
hung the moon. Like a wreck cast ashore by some titanic storm, the
Sphinx, reposing amid the undulating waves of grayish sand surrounding
it, seemed for once to drowse. Its solemn visage that had impassively
watched ages come and go, empires rise and fall, and generations of
men live and die, appeared for the moment to have lost its usual
expression of speculative wisdom and intense disdain--its cold eyes
seemed to droop, its stern mouth almost smiled. The air was calm and
sultry; and not a human foot disturbed the silence. But towards
midnight a Voice suddenly arose as it were like a wind in the desert,
crying aloud: “Araxes! Araxes!” and wailing past, sank with a profound
echo into the deep recesses of the vast Egyptian tomb. Moonlight and
the Hour wove their own mystery; the mystery of a Shadow and a Shape
that flitted out like a thin vapor from the very portals of Death’s
ancient temple, and drifting forward a few paces resolved itself into
the visionary fairness of a Woman’s form--a Woman whose dark hair fell
about her heavily, like the black remnants of a long-buried corpse’s
wrappings; a Woman whose eyes flashed with an unholy fire as she
lifted her face to the white moon and waved her ghostly arms upon the
air. And again the wild Voice pulsated through the stillness.
“Araxes! … Araxes! Thou art here,--and I pursue thee! Through life
into death; through death out into life again! I find thee and I
follow! I follow! Araxes! …”
Moonlight and the Hour wove their own mystery; and ere the pale opal
dawn flushed the sky with hues of rose and amber the Shadow had
vanished; the Voice was heard no more. Slowly the sun lifted the edge
of its golden shield above the horizon, and the great Sphinx awaking
from its apparent brief slumber, stared in expressive and eternal
scorn across the tracts of sand and tufted palm-trees towards the
glittering dome of El-Hazar--that abode of profound sanctity and
learning, where men still knelt and worshipped, praying the Unknown to
deliver them from the Unseen. And one would almost have deemed that
the sculptured Monster with the enigmatical Woman-face and Lion-form
had strange thoughts in its huge granite brain; for when the full day
sprang in glory over the desert and illumined its large features with
a burning saffron radiance, its cruel lips still smiled as though
yearning to speak and propound the terrible riddle of old time; the
Problem which killed!
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
/It/ was the full “season” in Cairo. The ubiquitous Britisher and the
no less ubiquitous American had planted their differing “society”
standards on the sandy soil watered by the Nile, and were busily
engaged in the work of reducing the city, formerly called Al Kahira or
The Victorious, to a more deplorable condition of subjection and
slavery than any old-world conqueror could ever have done. For the
heavy yoke of modern fashion has been flung on the neck of Al Kahira,
and the irresistible, tyrannic dominion of “swagger” vulgarity has
laid The Victorious low. The swarthy children of the desert might, and
possibly would, be ready and willing to go forth and fight men with
men’s weapons for the freedom to live and die unmolested in their own
native land; but against the blandly-smiling, white-helmeted,
sun-spectacled, perspiring horde of Cook’s “cheap trippers,” what can
they do save remain inert and well-nigh speechless? For nothing like
the cheap tripper was ever seen in the world till our present
enlightened and glorious day of progress; he is a new-grafted type of
nomad, like and yet unlike a man. The Darwin theory asserts itself
proudly and prominently in bristles of truth all over him--in his
restlessness, his ape-like agility and curiosity, his shameless
inquisitiveness, his careful cleansing of himself from foreign fleas,
his general attention to minutiæ, and his always voracious appetite;
and where the ape ends and the man begins is somewhat difficult to
discover. The “image of God” wherewith he, together with his fellows,
was originally supposed to be impressed in the first fresh days of
Creation, seems fairly blotted out, for there is no touch of the
Divine in his mortal composition. Nor does the second created
phase--the copy of the Divine--namely, the Heroic,--dignify his form
or ennoble his countenance. There is nothing of the heroic in the
wandering biped who swings through the streets of Cairo in white
flannels, laughing at the staid composure of the Arabs, flicking thumb
and finger at the patient noses of the small hireable donkeys and
other beasts of burden, thrusting a warm red face of inquiry into the
shadowy recesses of odoriferous bazaars, and sauntering at evening in
the Esbekiyeh Gardens, cigar in mouth and hands in pockets, looking on
the scene and behaving in it as if the whole place were but a reflex
of Earl’s Court Exhibition. History affects the cheap tripper not at
all; he regards the Pyramids as “good building” merely, and the
inscrutable Sphinx itself as a fine target for empty soda-water
bottles, while perhaps his chiefest regret is that the granite whereof
the ancient monster is hewn is too hard for him to inscribe his
distinguished name thereon. It is true that there is a punishment
inflicted on any person or persons attempting such wanton work--a fine
or the bastinado; yet neither fine nor bastinado would affect the
“tripper” if he could only succeed in carving “’Arry” on the Sphinx’s
jaw. But he cannot, and herein is his own misery. Otherwise he
comports himself in Egypt as he does at Margate, with no more thought,
reflection, or reverence than dignify the composition of his far-off
Simian ancestor.
Taking him all in all, he is, however, no worse, and in some respects
better, than the “swagger” folk who “do” Egypt, or rather, consent in
a languid way to be “done” by Egypt. These are the people who annually
leave England on the plea of being unable to stand the cheery, frosty,
and in every respect healthy winter of their native country--that
winter, which with its wild winds, its sparkling frost and snow, its
holly trees bright with scarlet berries, its merry hunters galloping
over field and moor during daylight hours, and its great log fires
roaring up the chimneys at evening, was sufficiently good for their
forefathers to thrive upon and live through contentedly up to a hale
and hearty old age in the times when the fever of travelling from
place to place was an unknown disease, and home was indeed “sweet
home.” Infected by strange maladies of the blood and nerves, to which
even scientific physicians find it hard to give suitable names, they
shudder at the first whiff of cold, and filling huge trunks with a
thousand foolish things which have, through luxurious habit, become
necessities to their pallid existences, they hastily depart to the
Land of the Sun, carrying with them their nameless languors,
discontents and incurable illnesses, for which Heaven itself, much
less Egypt, could provide no remedy. It is not at all to be wondered
at that these physically and morally sick tribes of human kind have
ceased to give any serious attention as to what may possibly become of
them after death, or whether there _is_ any “after,” for they are in
the mentally comatose condition which precedes entire wreckage of
brain-force; existence itself has become a “bore;” one place is like
another, and they repeat the same monotonous round of living in every
spot where they congregate, whether it be east, west, north, or south.
On the Riviera they find little to do except meet at Rumpelmayer’s at
Cannes, the London House at Nice, or the Casino at Monte-Carlo; and in
Cairo they inaugurate a miniature London “season” over again, worked
in the same groove of dinners, dances, drives, picnics, flirtations,
and matrimonial engagements. But the Cairene season has perhaps some
advantage over the London one so far as this particular set of
“swagger” folk are concerned--it is less hampered by the proprieties.
One can be more “free,” you know! You may take a little walk into
“Old” Cairo, and turning a corner you may catch glimpses of what Mark
Twain calls “Oriental simplicity,” namely, picturesquely-composed
groups of “dear delightful” Arabs whose clothing is no more than
primitive custom makes strictly necessary. These kind of “tableaux
vivants” or “art studies” give quite a thrill of novelty to
Cairene-English Society,--a touch of savagery,--a _soupçon_ of
peculiarity which is entirely lacking to fashionable London. Then, it
must be remembered that the “children of the desert” have been led by
gentle degrees to understand that for harboring the strange locusts
imported into their land by Cook, and the still stranger specimens of
unclassified insect called Upper Ten, which imports itself, they will
receive “backsheesh.”
“Backsheesh” is a certain source of comfort to all nations, and
translates itself with sweetest euphony into all languages, and the
desert-born tribes have justice on their side when they demand as much
of it as they can get, rightfully or wrongfully. They deserve to gain
some sort of advantage out of the odd-looking swarms of Western
invaders who amaze them by their dress and affront them by their
manners. “Backsheesh,” therefore, has become the perpetual cry of the
Desert-Born,--it is the only means of offence and defence left to
them, and very naturally they cling to it with fervor and resolution.
And who shall blame them? The tall, majestic, meditative Arab--superb
as mere man, and standing naked-footed on his sandy native soil, with
his one rough garment flung round his loins and his great black eyes
fronting, eagle-like, the sun--merits something considerable for
condescending to act as guide and servant to the Western moneyed
civilian who clothes his lower limbs in straight, funnel-like cloth
casings, shaped to the strict resemblance of an elephant’s legs, and
finishes the graceful design by enclosing the rest of his body in a
stiff shirt wherein he can scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which
divides him neatly in twain by a line immediately above the knee, with
the effect of lessening his height by several inches. The Desert-Born
surveys him gravely and in civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered
prayer against the hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience
and equanimity,--influenced by considerations of “backsheesh.” And the
English “season” whirls lightly and vaporously, like blown egg-froth,
over the mystic land of the old gods,--the terrible land filled with
dark secrets as yet unexplored,--the land “shadowing with wings,” as
the Bible hath it,--the land in which are buried tremendous histories
as yet unguessed,--profound enigmas of the supernatural,--labyrinths
of wonder, terror and mystery,--all of which remain unrevealed to the
giddy-pated, dancing, dining, gabbling throng of the fashionable
travelling lunatics of the day,--the people who “never think because
it is too much trouble,” people whose one idea is to journey from
hotel to hotel and compare notes with their acquaintances afterwards
as to which house provided them with the best-cooked food. For it is a
noticeable fact that with most visitors to the “show” places of Europe
and the East, food, bedding and selfish personal comfort are the first
considerations,--the scenery and the associations come last. Formerly
the position was reversed. In the days when there were no railways,
and the immortal Byron wrote his _Childe Harold_, it was customary to
rate personal inconvenience lightly; the beautiful or historic scene
was the attraction for the traveller, and not the arrangements made
for his special form of digestive apparatus. Byron could sleep on the
deck of a sailing vessel wrapped in his cloak and feel none the worse
for it; his well-braced mind and aspiring spirit soared above all
bodily discomforts; his thoughts were engrossed with the mighty
teachings of time; he was able to lose himself in glorious reveries on
the lessons of the past and the possibilities of the future; the
attitude of the inspired Thinker as well as Poet was his, and a crust
of bread and cheese served him as sufficiently on his journeyings
among the then unspoilt valleys and mountains of Switzerland as the
warm, greasy, indigestible fare of the elaborate _table-d’hôtes_ at
Lucerne and Interlaken serve us now. But we, in our “superior”
condition, pooh-pooh the Byronic spirit of indifference to events and
scorn of trifles,--we say it is “melodramatic,” completely forgetting
that our attitude towards ourselves and things in general is one of
most pitiable bathos. We cannot write _Childe Harold_, but we can
grumble at both bed and board in every hotel under the sun; we can
discover teasing midges in the air and questionable insects in the
rooms; and we can discuss each bill presented to us with an
industrious persistence which nearly drives landlords frantic and
ourselves as well. In these kind of important matters we are indeed
“superior” to Byron and other ranting dreamers of his type, but we
produce no _Childe Harolds_, and we have come to the strange pass of
pretending that _Don Juan_ is improper, while we pore over Zola with
avidity! To such a pitch has our culture brought us! And, like the
Pharisee in the Testament, we thank God we are not as others are. We
are glad we are not as the Arab, as the African, as the Hindoo; we are
proud of our elephant-legs and our dividing coat-line; these things
show we are civilized, and that God approves of us more than any other
type of creature ever created. We take possession of nations, not by
thunder of war, but by clatter of dinner-plates. We do not raise
armies, we build hotels; and we settle ourselves in Egypt as we do at
Homburg, to dress and dine and sleep and sniff contempt on all things
but ourselves, to such an extent that we have actually got into the
habit of calling the natives of the places we usurp “foreigners.” _We_
are the foreigners; but somehow we never can see it. Wherever we
condescend to build hotels, that spot we consider ours. We are
surprised at the impertinence of Frankfort people who presume to visit
Homburg while we are having our “season” there; we wonder how they
dare do it! And, of a truth, they seem amazed at their own boldness,
and creep shyly through the Kur-Garten as though fearing to be turned
out by the custodians. The same thing occurs in Egypt; we are
frequently astounded at what we call “the impertinence of these
foreigners,” _i.e._ the natives. They ought to be proud to have us and
our elephant-legs; glad to see such noble and beautiful types of
civilization as the stout _parvenu_ with his pendant paunch, and his
family of gawky youths and maidens of the large-toothed, long-limbed
genus; glad to see the English “mamma,” who never grows old, but wears
young hair in innocent curls, and has her wrinkles annually “massaged”
out by a Paris _artiste_ in complexion. The Desert-Born, we say,
should be happy and grateful to see such sights, and not demand so
much “backsheesh.” In fact, the Desert-Born should not get so much in
our way as he does; he is a very good servant, of course, but as a man
and a brother--pooh! Egypt may be his country, and he may love it as
much as we love England; but our feelings are more to be considered
than his, and there is no connecting link of human sympathy between
Elephant-Legs and sun-browned Nudity!
So at least thought Sir Chetwynd Lyle, a stout gentleman of coarse
build and coarser physiognomy, as he sat in a deep arm-chair in the
great hall or lounge of the Gezireh Palace Hotel, smoking after dinner
in the company of two or three acquaintances with whom he had
fraternized during his stay in Cairo. Sir Chetwynd was fond of airing
his opinions for the benefit of as many people who cared to listen to
him, and Sir Chetwynd had some right to his opinions, inasmuch as he
was the editor and proprietor of a large London newspaper. His
knighthood was quite a recent distinction, and nobody knew exactly how
he had managed to get it. He had originally been known in Fleet Street
by the irreverent _sobriquet_ of “greasy Chetwynd,” owing to his
largeness, oiliness and general air of blandly-meaningless
benevolence. He had a wife and two daughters, and one of his objects
in wintering at Cairo was to get his cherished children married. It
was time, for the bloom was slightly off the fair girl-roses,--the
dainty petals of the delicate buds were beginning to wither. And Sir
Chetwynd had heard much of Cairo; he understood that there was a great
deal of liberty allowed there between men and maids,--that they went
out together on driving excursions to the Pyramids, that they rode on
lilliputian donkeys over the sand at moonlight, that they floated
about in boats at evening on the Nile, and that, in short, there were
more opportunities of marriage among the “flesh-pots of Egypt” than in
all the rush and crush of London. So here he was, portly and
comfortable, and on the whole well satisfied with his expedition;
there were a good many eligible bachelors about, and Muriel and Dolly
were really doing their best. So was their mother, Lady Chetwynd Lyle;
she allowed no “eligible” to escape her hawk-like observation, and on
this particular evening she was in all her glory, for there was to be
a costume ball at the Gezireh Palace Hotel,--a superb affair,
organized by the proprietors for the amusement of their paying guests,
who certainly paid well,--even stiffly. Owing to the preparations that
were going on for this festivity, the lounge, with its sumptuous
Egyptian decorations and luxurious modern fittings, was well-nigh
deserted save for Sir Chetwynd and his particular group of friends, to
whom he was holding forth, between slow cigar-puffs, on the squalor of
the Arabs, the frightful thievery of the Sheiks, the incompetency of
his own special dragoman, and the mistake people made in thinking the
Egyptians themselves a fine race.
“They are tall, certainly,” said Sir Chetwynd, surveying his paunch,
which lolled comfortably, and as it were by itself, in front of him,
like a kind of waistcoated air-balloon. “I grant you they are tall.
That is, the majority of them are. But I have seen short men among
them. The Khedive is not taller than I am. And the Egyptian face is
very deceptive. The features are often fine,--occasionally
classic,--but intelligent expression is totally lacking.”
Here Sir Chetwynd waved his cigar descriptively, as though he would
fain suggest that a heavy jaw, a fat nose with a pimple at the end,
and a gross mouth with black teeth inside it, which were special
points in his own physiognomy, went further to make up “intelligent
expression” than any well-moulded, straight, Eastern type of
sun-browned countenance ever seen or imagined.
“Well, I don’t quite agree with you there,” said a man who was lying
full length on one of the divans close by and smoking. “These brown
chaps have deuced fine eyes. There doesn’t seem to be any lack of
expression in them. And that reminds me, there is a fellow arrived
here to-day who looks for all the world like an Egyptian, of the best
form. He is a Frenchman, though; a Provençal,--every one knows
him,--he is the famous painter, Armand Gervase.”
“Indeed!”--and Sir Chetwynd roused himself at the name--“Armand
Gervase! _The_ Armand Gervase?”
“The only one original,” laughed the other. “He’s come here to make
studies of Eastern women. A rare old time he’ll have among them, I
daresay! He’s not famous for character. He ought to paint the Princess
Ziska.”
“Ah, by-the-bye, I wanted to ask you about that lady. Does anyone know
who she is? My wife is very anxious to find out whether she
is--well--er--quite the proper person, you know! When one has young
girls, one cannot be too careful.”
Ross Courtney, the man on the divan, got up slowly and stretched his
long athletic limbs with a lazy enjoyment in the action. He was a
sporting person with unhampered means and large estates in Scotland
and Ireland; he lived a joyous, “don’t-care” life of wandering about
the world in search of adventures, and he had a scorn of civilized
conventionalities--newspapers and their editors among them. And
whenever Sir Chetwynd spoke of his “young girls” he was moved to
irreverent smiling, as he knew the youngest of the twain was at least
thirty. He also recognized and avoided the wily traps and pitfalls set
for him by Lady Chetwynd Lyle in the hope that he would yield himself
up a captive to the charms of Muriel or Dolly; and as he thought of
these two fair ones now and involuntarily compared them in his mind
with the other woman just spoken of, the smile that had begun to hover
on his lips deepened unconsciously till his handsome face was quite
illumined with its mirth.
“Upon my word, I don’t think it matters who anybody is in Cairo!” he
said with a fine carelessness. “The people whose families are all
guaranteed respectable are more lax in their behavior than the people
one knows nothing about. As for the Princess Ziska, her extraordinary
beauty and intelligence would give her the _entrée_ anywhere--even if
she hadn’t money to back those qualities up.”
“She’s enormously wealthy, I hear,” said young Lord Fulkeward, another
of the languid smokers, caressing his scarcely perceptible moustache.
“My mother thinks she is a _divorcée_.”
Sir Chetwynd looked very serious, and shook his fat head solemnly.
“Well, there is nothing remarkable in being divorced, you know,”
laughed Ross Courtney. “Nowadays it seems the natural and fitting end
of marriage.”
Sir Chetwynd looked graver still. He refused to be drawn into this
kind of flippant conversation. He, at any rate, was respectably
married; he had no sympathy whatever with the larger majority of
people whose marriages were a failure.
“There is no Prince Ziska then?” he inquired. “The name sounds to me
of Russian origin, and I imagined--my wife also imagined,--that the
husband of the lady might very easily be in Russia while his wife’s
health might necessitate her wintering in Egypt. The Russian winter
climate is inclement, I believe.”
“That would be a very neat arrangement,” yawned Lord Fulkeward. “But
my mother thinks not. My mother thinks there is not a husband at
all,--that there never was a husband. In fact my mother has very
strong convictions on the subject. But my mother intends to visit her
all the same.”
“She does? Lady Fulkeward has decided on that? Oh, well, in _that_
case!”--and Sir Chetwynd expanded his lower-chest air-balloon. “Of
course, Lady Chetwynd Lyle can no longer have any scruples on the
subject. If Lady Fulkeward visits the Princess there can be no doubt
as to her actual _status_.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” murmured Lord Fulkeward, stroking his downy lip.
“You see my mother’s rather an exceptional person. When the governor
was alive she hardly ever went out anywhere, you know, and all the
people who came to our house in Yorkshire had to bring their pedigrees
with them, so to speak. It was beastly dull! But now my mother has
taken to ‘studying character,’ don’cher know; she likes all sorts of
people about her, and the more mixed they are the more she is
delighted with them. Fact, I assure you! Quite a change has come over
my mother since the poor old governor died!”
Ross Courtney looked amused. A change indeed had come over Lady
Fulkeward--a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her
former distinguished friends with “pedigrees.” In her husband’s
lifetime her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale, refined
and serious; her form full and matronly; her step sober and discreet;
but two years after the death of the kindly and noble old lord who had
cherished her as the apple of his eye and up to the last moment of his
breath had thought her the most beautiful woman in England, she
appeared with golden tresses, a peach-bloom complexion, and a figure
which had been so massaged, rubbed, pressed and artistically corseted
as to appear positively sylph-like. She danced like a fairy, she who
had once been called “old” Lady Fulkeward; she smoked cigarettes; she
laughed like a child at every trivial thing--any joke, however stale,
flat and unprofitable, was sufficient to stir her light pulses to
merriment; and she flirted--oh, heavens!--_how_ she flirted!--with a
skill and a grace and a knowledge and an _aplomb_ that nearly drove
Muriel and Dolly Chetwynd Lyle frantic. They, poor things, were beaten
out of the field altogether by her superior tact and art of “fence,”
and they hated her accordingly and called her in private a “horrid old
woman,” which perhaps, when her maid undressed her, she was. But she
was having a distinctly “good time” in Cairo; she called her son, who
was in delicate health, “my poor dear little boy!” and he, though
twenty-eight on his last birthday, was reduced to such an abject
condition of servitude by her assertiveness, impudent gayety and
general freedom of manner, that he could not open his mouth without
alluding to “my mother,” and using “my mother” as a peg whereon to
hang all his own opinions and emotions as well as the opinions and
emotions of other people.
“Lady Fulkeward admires the Princess very much, I believe?” said
another lounger who had not yet spoken.
“Oh, as to that!”--and Lord Fulkeward roused himself to some faint
show of energy. “Who wouldn’t admire her? By Jove! Only, I tell you
what--there’s something weird about her eyes. Fact! I don’t like her
eyes.”
“Shut up, Fulke! She has beautiful eyes!” burst out Courtney, hotly;
then flushing suddenly he bit his lips and was silent.
“Who is this that has beautiful eyes?” suddenly demanded a slow, gruff
voice, and a little thin gentleman, dressed in a kind of academic gown
and cap, appeared on the scene.
“Hullo! here’s our F.R.S.A.!” exclaimed Lord Fulkeward. “By Jove! Is
that the style you have got yourself up in for to-night? It looks
awfully smart, don’cher know!”
The personage thus complimented adjusted his spectacles and surveyed
his acquaintances with a very well-satisfied air. In truth, Dr.
Maxwell Dean had some reason for self-satisfaction, if the knowledge
that he possessed one of the cleverest heads in Europe could give a
man cause for pride. He was apparently the only individual in the
Gezireh Palace Hotel who had come to Egypt for any serious purpose. A
purpose he had, though what it was he declined to explain. Reticent,
often brusque, and sometimes mysterious in his manner of speech, there
was not the slightest doubt that he was at work on something, and that
he also had a very trying habit of closely studying every object,
small or great, that came under his observation. He studied the
natives to such an extent that he knew every differing shade of color
in their skins; he studied Sir Chetwynd Lyle and knew that he
occasionally took bribes to “put things” into his paper; he studied
Dolly and Muriel Chetwynd Lyle, and knew that they would never succeed
in getting husbands; he studied Lady Fulkeward, and thought her very
well got up for sixty; he studied Ross Courtney, and knew he would
never do anything but kill animals all his life; and he studied the
working of the Gezireh Palace Hotel, and saw a fortune rising out of
it for the proprietors. But apart from these ordinary surface things,
he studied other matters--“occult” peculiarities of temperament,
“coincidences,” strange occurrences generally. He could read the
Egyptian hieroglyphs perfectly, and he understood the difference
between “royal cartouche” scarabei and Birmingham-manufactured ones.
He was never dull; he had plenty to do; and he took everything as it
came in its turn. Even the costume ball for which he had now attired
himself did not present itself to him as a “bore,” but as a new vein
of information, opening to him fresh glimpses of the genus _homo_ as
seen in a state of eccentricity.
“I think,” he now said, complacently, “that the cap and gown look well
for a man of my years. It is a simple garb, but cool, convenient and
not unbecoming. I had thought at first of adopting the dress of an
ancient Egyptian priest, but I find it difficult to secure the
complete outfit. I would never wear a costume of the kind that was not
in every point historically correct.”
No one smiled. No one would have dared to smile at Dr. Maxwell Dean
when he spoke of “historically correct” things. He had studied them as
he had studied everything, and he knew all about them.
Sir Chetwynd murmured:
“Quite right--er--the ancient designs were very elaborate----”
“And symbolic,” finished Dr. Dean. “Symbolic of very curious meanings,
I assure you. But I fear I have interrupted your talk. Mr. Courtney
was speaking about somebody’s beautiful eyes; who is the fair one in
question?”
“The Princess Ziska,” said Lord Fulkeward. “I was saying that I don’t
quite like the look of her eyes.”
“Why not? Why not?” demanded the doctor with sudden asperity. “What’s
the matter with them?”
“Everything’s the matter with them!” replied Ross Courtney with a
forced laugh. “They are too splendid and wild for Fulke; he likes the
English pale-blue better than the Egyptian gazelle-black.”
“No, I don’t,” said Lord Fulkeward, speaking more animatedly than was
customary with him. “I hate pale-blue eyes. I prefer soft violet-gray
ones, like Miss Murray’s.”
“Miss Helen Murray is a very charming young lady,” said Dr. Dean. “But
her beauty is quite of an ordinary type, while that of the Princess
Ziska----”
“Is _extra_-ordinary--exactly! That’s just what I say!” declared
Courtney. “I think she is the loveliest woman I have ever seen.”
There was a pause, during which the little doctor looked with a
ferret-like curiosity from one man to the other. Sir Chetwynd Lyle
rose ponderously up from the depths of his arm-chair.
“I think,” said he, “I had better go and get into my uniform--the
Windsor, you know! I always have it with me wherever I go; it comes in
very useful for fancy balls such as the one we are going to have
to-night, when no particular period is observed in costume. Isn’t it
about time we all got ready?”
“Upon my life, I think it is!” agreed Lord Fulkeward. “I am coming out
as a Neapolitan fisherman! I don’t believe Neapolitan fishermen ever
really dress in the way I’m going to make up, but it’s the accepted
stage-type, don’cher know.”
“Ah! I daresay you will look very well in it,” murmured Ross Courtney,
vaguely. “Hullo! here comes Denzil Murray!”
They all turned instinctively to watch the entrance of a handsome
young man, attired in the picturesque garb worn by Florentine nobles
during the prosperous reign of the Medicis. It was a costume admirably
adapted to the wearer, who, being grave and almost stern of feature,
needed the brightness of jewels and the gloss of velvet and satin to
throw out the classic contour of his fine head and enhance the lustre
of his brooding, darkly-passionate eyes. Denzil Murray was a
pure-blooded Highlander,--the level brows, the firm lips, the
straight, fearless look, all bespoke him a son of the heather-crowned
mountains and a descendant of the proud races that scorned the
“Sassenach,” and retained sufficient of the material whereof their
early Phœnician ancestors were made to be capable of both the
extremes of hate and love in their most potent forms. He moved slowly
towards the group of men awaiting his approach with a reserved air of
something like _hauteur_; it was possible he was conscious of his good
looks, but it was equally evident that he did not desire to be made
the object of impertinent remark. His friends silently recognized
this, and only Lord Fulkeward, moved to a mild transport of
admiration, ventured to comment on his appearance.
“I say, Denzil, you’re awfully well got up! Awfully well!
Magnificent!”
Denzil Murray bowed with a somewhat wearied and sarcastic air.
“When one is in Rome, or Egypt, one must do as Rome, or Egypt, does,”
he said, carelessly. “If hotel proprietors will give fancy balls, it
is necessary to rise to the occasion. You look very well, Doctor. Why
don’t you other fellows go and get your toggeries on? It’s past ten
o’clock, and the Princess Ziska will be here by eleven.”
“There are other people coming besides the Princess Ziska, are there
not, Mr. Murray?” inquired Sir Chetwynd Lyle, with an obtrusively
bantering air.
Denzil Murray glanced him over disdainfully.
“I believe there are,” he answered coolly. “Otherwise the ball would
scarcely pay its expenses. But as the Princess is admittedly the most
beautiful woman in Cairo this season, she will naturally be the centre
of attraction. That’s why I mentioned she would be here at eleven.”
“She told you that?” inquired Ross Courtney.
“She did.”
Courtney looked up, then down, and seemed about to speak again, but
checked himself and finally strolled off, followed by Lord Fulkeward.
“I hear,” said Dr. Dean then, addressing Denzil Murray, “that a great
celebrity has arrived at this hotel--the painter, Armand Gervase.”
Denzil’s face brightened instantly with a pleasant smile.
“The dearest friend I have in the world!” he said. “Yes, he is here. I
met him outside the door this afternoon. We are very old chums. I have
stayed with him in Paris, and he has stayed with me in Scotland. A
charming fellow! He is very French in his ideas; but he knows England
well, and speaks English perfectly.”
“French in his ideas!” echoed Sir Chetwynd Lyle, who was just
preparing to leave the lounge. “Dear me! How is that?”
“He is a Frenchman,” said Dr. Dean, suavely. “Therefore that his ideas
should be French ought not to be a matter of surprise to us, my dear
Sir Chetwynd.”
Sir Chetwynd snorted. He had a suspicion that he--the editor and
proprietor of the _Daily Dial_--was being laughed at, and he at once
clambered on his high horse of British Morality.
“Frenchman or no Frenchman,” he observed, “the ideas promulgated in
France at the present day are distinctly profane and pernicious. There
is a lack of principle--a want of rectitude in--er--the French Press,
for example, that is highly deplorable.”
“And is the English Press immaculate?” asked Denzil languidly.
“We hope so,” replied Sir Chetwynd. “We do our best to make it so.”
And with that remark he took his paunch and himself away into
retirement, leaving Dr. Dean and young Murray facing each other, a
singular pair enough in the contrast of their appearance and
dress,--the one small, lean and wiry, in plain-cut, loose-flowing
academic gown; the other tall, broad and muscular, clad in the rich
attire of mediæval Florence, and looking for all the world like a
fine picture of that period stepped out from its frame. There was a
silence between them for a moment,--then the Doctor spoke in a low
tone:
“It won’t do, my dear boy,--I assure you it won’t do! You will break
your heart over a dream, and make yourself miserable for nothing. And
you will break your sister’s heart as well; perhaps you haven’t
thought of that?”
Denzil flung himself into the chair Sir Chetwynd had just vacated, and
gave vent to a sigh that was almost a groan.
“Helen doesn’t know anything--yet,” he said hoarsely. “I know nothing
myself; how can I? I haven’t said a word to--to _her_. If I spoke all
that was in my mind, I daresay she would laugh at me. You are the only
one who has guessed my secret. You saw me last night when I--when I
accompanied her home. But I never passed her palace gates,--she
wouldn’t let me. She bade me ‘good-night’ outside; a servant admitted
her, and she vanished through the portal like a witch or a ghost.
Sometimes I fancy she _is_ a ghost. She is so white, so light, so
noiseless and so lovely!”
He turned his eyes away, ashamed of the emotion that moved him. Dr.
Maxwell Dean took off his academic cap and examined its interior as
though he considered it remarkable.
“Yes,” he said slowly; “I have thought the same thing of her
myself--sometimes.”
Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the military
band of the evening, which now crossed the “lounge,” each man carrying
his instrument with him; and these were followed by several groups of
people in fancy dress, all ready and eager for the ball. Pierrots and
Pierrettes, monks in drooping cowls, flower-girls, water-carriers,
symbolic figures of “Night” and “Morning,” mingled with the
counterfeit presentments of dead-and-gone kings and queens, began to
flock together, laughing and talking on their way to the ball-room;
and presently among them came a man whose superior height and build,
combined with his eminently picturesque, half-savage type of beauty,
caused every one to turn and watch him as he passed, and murmur
whispering comments on the various qualities wherein he differed from
themselves. He was attired for the occasion as a Bedouin chief, and
his fierce black eyes, and close-curling, dark hair, combined with the
natural olive tint of his complexion, were well set off by the snowy
folds of his turban and the whiteness of his entire costume, which was
unrelieved by any color save at the waist, where a gleam of scarlet
was shown in the sash which helped to fasten a murderous-looking
dagger and other “correct” weapons of attack to his belt. He entered
the hall with a swift and singularly light step, and made straight for
Denzil Murray.
“Ah! here you are!” he said, speaking English with a slight foreign
accent, which was more agreeable to the ear than otherwise. “But, my
excellent boy, what magnificence! A Medici costume! Never say to me
that you are not vain; you are as conscious of your good looks as any
pretty woman. Behold me, how simple and unobtrusive I am!”
He laughed, and Murray sprang up from the chair where he had been
despondently reclining.
“Oh, come, I like that!” he exclaimed. “Simple and unobtrusive! Why
everybody is staring at you now as if you had dropped from the moon!
You cannot be Armand Gervase and simple and unobtrusive at the same
time!”
“Why not?” demanded Gervase, lightly. “Fame is capricious, and her
trumpet is not loud enough to be heard all over the world at once. The
venerable proprietor of the dirty bazaar where I managed to purchase
these charming articles of Bedouin costume had never heard of me in
his life. Miserable man! He does not know what he has missed!”
Here his flashing black eyes lit suddenly on Dr. Dean, who was
“studying” him in the same sort of pertinacious way in which that
learned little man studied everything.
“A friend of yours, Denzil?” he inquired.
“Yes,” responded Murray readily; “a very great friend--Dr. Maxwell
Dean. Dr. Dean, let me introduce to you Armand Gervase; I need not
explain him further!”
“You need not, indeed!” said the doctor, with a ceremonious bow. “The
name is one of universal celebrity.”
“It is not always an advantage--this universal celebrity,” replied
Gervase. “Nor is it true that any celebrity is actually universal.
Perhaps the only living person that is universally known, by name at
least, is Zola. Mankind are at one in their appreciation of vice.”
“I cannot altogether agree with you there,” said Dr. Dean slowly,
keeping his gaze fixed on the artist’s bold, proud features with
singular curiosity. “The French Academy, I presume, are individually
as appreciative of human weaknesses as most men; but taken
collectively, some spirit higher and stronger than their own keeps
them unanimous in their rejection of the notorious Realist who
sacrifices all the canons of art and beauty to the discussion of
topics unmentionable in decent society.”
Gervase laughed idly.
“Oh, he will get in some day, you may be sure,” he answered. “There is
no spirit higher and stronger than the spirit of naturalism in man;
and in time, when a few prejudices have died away and mawkish
sentiment has been worn threadbare, Zola will be enrolled as the first
of the French Academicians, with even more honors than if he had
succeeded in the beginning. That is the way of all those ‘select’
bodies. As Napoleon said, ‘_Le monde vient a celui qui sait
attendre._’”
The little Doctor’s countenance now showed the most lively and eager
interest.
“You quite believe that, Monsieur Gervase? You are entirely sure of
what you said just now?”
“What did I say? I forget!” smiled Gervase, lighting a cigarette and
beginning to smoke it leisurely.
“You said, ‘There is no spirit higher or stronger than the spirit of
naturalism in man.’ Are you positive on this point?”
“Why, of course! Most entirely positive!” And the great painter looked
amused as he gave the reply. “Naturalism is Nature, or the things
appertaining to Nature, and there is nothing higher or stronger than
Nature everywhere and anywhere.”
“How about God?” inquired Dr. Dean with a curious air, as if he were
propounding a remarkable conundrum.
“God!” Gervase laughed loudly. “_Pardon!_ Are you a clergyman?”
“By no means!” and the Doctor gave a little bow and deprecating smile.
“I am not in any way connected with the Church. I am a doctor of laws
and literature,--a humble student of philosophy and science generally
…”
“Philosophy! Science!” interrupted Gervase. “And you ask about God!
_Parbleu!_ Science and philosophy have progressed beyond Him!”
“Exactly!” and Dr. Dean rubbed his hands together pleasantly. “That is
your opinion? Yes, I thought so! Science and philosophy, to put it
comprehensively, have beaten poor God on His own ground! Ha! ha! ha!
Very good--very good! And humorous as well! Ha! ha!”
And a very droll appearance just then had this “humble student of
philosophy and science generally,” for he bent himself to and fro with
laughter, and his small eyes almost disappeared behind his shelving
brows in the excess of his mirth. And two crosslines formed themselves
near his thin mouth--such lines as are carven on the ancient Greek
masks which indicate satire.
Denzil Murray flushed uncomfortably.
“Gervase doesn’t believe in anything but Art,” he said, as though half
apologizing for his friend: “Art is the sole object of his existence;
I don’t believe he ever has time to think about anything else.”
“Of what else should I think, _mon ami_?” exclaimed Gervase
mirthfully. “Of life? It is all Art to me; and by Art I mean the
idealization and transfiguration of Nature.”
“Oh, if you do that sort of thing you are a romancist,” interposed Dr.
Dean emphatically. “Nature neither idealizes nor transfigures itself;
it is simply Nature and no more. Matter uncontrolled by Spirit is
anything but ideal.”
“Precisely,” answered Gervase quickly and with some warmth; “but my
spirit idealizes it,--my imagination sees beyond it,--my soul grasps
it.”
“Oh, you have a soul?” exclaimed Dr. Dean, beginning to laugh again.
“Now, how did you find that out?”
Gervase looked at him in a sudden surprise.
“Every man has an inward self, naturally,” he said. “We call it ‘soul’
as a figure of speech; it is really temperament merely.”
“Oh, it is merely temperament? Then you don’t think it is likely to
outlive you, this soul--to take new phases upon itself and go on
existing, an immortal being, when your body is in a far worse
condition (because less carefully preserved) than an Egyptian mummy?”
“Certainly not!” and Gervase flung away the end of his finished
cigarette. “The immortality of the soul is quite an exploded theory.
It was always a ridiculous one. We have quite enough to vex us in our
present life, and why men ever set about inventing another is more
than I am able to understand. It was a most foolish and barbaric
superstition.”
The gay sound of music now floated towards them from the
ball-room,--the strains of a graceful, joyous, half-commanding,
half-pleading waltz came rhythmically beating on the air like the
measured movement of wings,--and Denzil Murray, beginning to grow
restless, walked to and fro, his eyes watching every figure that
crossed and re-crossed the hall. But Dr. Dean’s interest in Armand
Gervase remained intense and unabated; and approaching him, he laid
two lean fingers delicately on the white folds of the Bedouin dress
just where the heart of the man was hidden.
“‘A foolish and barbaric superstition!’” he echoed slowly and
meditatively. “You do not believe in any possibility of there being a
life--or several lives--after this present death through which we must
all pass inevitably, sooner or later?”
“Not in the least! I leave such ideas to the ignorant and uneducated.
I should be unworthy of the progressive teachings of my time if I
believed such arrant nonsense.”
“Death, you consider, finishes all? There is nothing further--no
mysteries beyond? …” and Dr. Dean’s eyes glittered as he stretched
forth one thin, slight hand and pointed into space with the word
“beyond,” an action which gave it a curious emphasis, and for a
fleeting second left a weird impression on even the careless mind of
Gervase. But he laughed it off lightly.
“Nothing beyond? Of course not! My dear sir, why ask such a question?
Nothing can be plainer or more positive than the fact that death, as
you say, finishes all.”
A woman’s laugh, low and exquisitely musical, rippled on the air as he
spoke--delicious laughter, rarer than song; for women as a rule laugh
too loudly, and the sound of their merriment partakes more of the
nature of a goose’s cackle than any other sort of natural melody. But
this laugh, soft and silvery, was like a delicately subdued cadence
played on a magic flute in the distance, and suggested nothing but
sweetness; and at the sound of it Gervase started violently and turned
sharply round upon his friend Murray with a look of wonderment and
perplexity.
“Who is that?” he demanded. “I have heard that pretty laugh before; it
must be some one I know.”
But Denzil scarcely heard him. Pale, and with eyes full of yearning
and passion, he was watching the slow approach of a group of people in
fancy dress, who were all eagerly pressing round one central
figure--the figure of a woman clad in gleaming golden tissues and
veiled in the old Egyptian fashion up to the eyes, with jewels
flashing about her waist, bosom and hair,--a woman who moved glidingly
as if she floated rather than walked, and whose beauty, half hidden as
it was by the exigencies of the costume she had chosen, was so unusual
and brilliant that it seemed to create an atmosphere of bewilderment
and rapture around her as she came. She was preceded by a small Nubian
boy in a costume of vivid scarlet, who, walking backwards humbly,
fanned her slowly with a tall fan of peacock’s plumes made after the
quaint designs of ancient Egypt. The lustre radiating from the
peacock’s feathers, the light of her golden garments, her jewels and
the marvellous black splendor of her eyes, all flashed for a moment
like sudden lightning on Gervase; something--he knew not what--turned
him giddy and blind; hardly knowing what he did, he sprang eagerly
forward, when all at once he felt the lean, small hand of Dr. Dean on
his arm and stopped short embarrassed.
“Pardon me!” said the little _savant_, with a delicate,
half-supercilious lifting of his eyebrows. “But--do you know the
Princess Ziska?”