October 7th.
At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the arrival
platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the end of July I had
concluded that he was wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me
effusively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion.
“My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What
wind blows you to Paddington?”
“I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express.”
“The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?”
In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch.
“By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing.
I was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train
come in--the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking
thing--and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths
belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn’t a bad
representation of it--the up-to-date Hades. They’ve got a railway bridge
now across the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this
might be the arrival platform of the damned souls.”
“You forget,” said I, “that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta.”
He threw back his head and laughed boyishly.
“Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the ‘Earth, Hades
and Olympus Railway’ if you like. I’m off on a branch line to meet a
beauteous duchessa at Ealing--oh, an authentic one, I assure you.”
“Why should I doubt it?” said I.
Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta’s luggage, came up
and touched his hat.
“Train just signalled, sir.”
Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch.
“I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I’ll drop in soon
and pay my respects. I am only just back in London, you know. _A
rivederci._”
He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, the
exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once
more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent
gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that
I should have met him at Paddington.
We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment afterwards there
was a beating at my door. I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of
wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the
hand-mirror in the other.
“Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?”
“No. It is for Antoinette,” said I.
“Oh-h!”
She laughed and pulled me by the arm into her room and shut the door.
“Oh, everything is beautiful, beautiful, and I shall die if I do not
kiss you.”
“You must be kept alive at all hazards,” I laughed; and this time I did
not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An
inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a
passionate desire to gentleness.
“There,” said I, after she had released herself and flown to open the
drawers of the new toilette table, where lay some odds and ends of
jewelry I had purchased for her. “You have been saved from extinction.
The next deadly peril is hunger. I give you a quarter of an hour.”
She came down to dinner in a low-necked frock, wearing the necklace
and bangle; and, child that she is, in her hand she carried the
silver-backed mirror. I believe she has taken it to bed with her, as
a seven-year-old does its toy. She certainly kept it by her all the
evening and admired herself therein unashamedly like the traditional
Lady from the Sea. Once, desiring to show me the ravishing beauty of a
turquoise pendant, she bent her neck forward, as I sat, so as to come
within reach of my nearsighted eyes (it is a superstition of hers that
I am nearly blind without my glasses), and quite naturally slid onto
my knee. She has the warm russet complexion that suits her heavy bronze
hair, and there is a glow beneath the satin of her neck and arms. And
she is fragrant--I recognise it now--of hyacinths. The world can hold
nothing more alluring to the senses of man. My fingers that held
the turquoise trembled as they chanced to touch her--but she was all
unconcerned. Nay, further--she gazed into the mirror--
“It makes me look so white--oh, there was a girl at Bude who had a gold
locket--and it lay upon her bones--you could count them. I am glad I
have no bones. I am quite soft--feel.”
She clasped my fingers and pressed their tips into the firm young flesh
below her throat.
“Yes,” said I, with some huskiness in my voice, “your turquoise can
sleep there very pleasantly. See, I will kiss it to bring you good
luck.”
She cooed with pleasure. “I don’t think any one kissed the locket of the
girl at Bude. She was too thin. And too old; she must have been thirty!
Now,” she added, lifting up the locket, “you will kiss the place, too,
where it is to lie.”
I looked for a moment into her eyes. Seeing me hesitate, they grew
pathetic.
“Oh-h,” she said, reproachfully.
I know I am a fool. I know that Pasquale would have hurled his sarcasms
at me. I know that the whole of her deliciousness was mine for the
taking--mine for ever and ever. If I had loved her less passionately
I would have kissed her young throat lightly with a jest. But to have
kissed her thus with such longing as mine behind my lips would have been
an outrage.
I lifted her to her feet, and rose and turned away, laughing unsteadily.
“No, my dear,” said I, “that would be--unsuitable.”
The bathos of the word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware that a joke
was in the air, joined in my mirth, and her laughter rang fresh.
“What is the suitable way of kissing?”
I took her hand and saluted it in an eighteenth century manner.
“This,” said I.
“Oh-h,” said Carlotta. “That is so dull.” She caught up Polyphemus and
buried her face in his fur. “That’s the way I should like to be kissed.”
“The man you love, my dear,” said I, “will doubtless do it.”
She made a little grimace.
“Oh, then, I shall have to wait such a long time.”
“You needn’t,” said I, taking her hands again and speaking very
seriously. “Can’t you learn to love a man, give him your whole heart and
all your best and sweetest thoughts?”
“I would marry any nice man if you gave me to him,” she answered.
“It would not matter who he was? Anyone would do?”
“Why, of course,” said Carlotta.
“And any one wanting to marry you could kiss you as you kissed
Polyphemus.”
“Oh-h, he would have to be nice--not like Mustapha.”
I turned away with a sigh and lit a cigarette, while Carlotta curled
herself up on the sofa and inspected her face and necklace in the silver
mirror. In a moment she was talking to the cat, who had jumped on her
lap and with arched back was rubbing himself against her.
Soon the touch of sadness was lost in the happy sight of her and the
happy thought that my house was no longer left to me desolate. We
laughed away the evening.
But now, sitting alone, I feel empty of soul; like a man stricken with
fierce hunger who, expecting food in a certain place, finds nothing but
a few delicate cakes that mock his craving.
October 14th.
A week has passed. I have spent it chiefly in trying to win her love.
Is she, after all, only a child, and is this love of mine but a
monstrous passion?
What is to be done? Life is beginning to be a torture. If I send her
away, I shall eat my heart out. If she stays, fuel is but added to
the fire. Her caressing ways will drive me mad. To repulse her were
brutal--she loves to be fondled; she can scarcely speak to me without
touching me, leaning over me, thus filling me with the sense of her. She
treats me with an affectionate child’s innocence, as if I were sexless.
My happiest time with her is spent in public places, restaurants, and
theatres where her unclouded pleasure is reflected in my heart.
I am letting her take music lessons with Herr Stuer, who lives close by
in the Avenue Road. Perhaps music may help in her development.
October 21st.
To please her I am accustoming myself to this out-of-door life, which
once I despised so cordially. Pasquale has joined us two or three times.
Last night he gave a dinner in Carlotta’s honour at the Continental. The
ladies of the party have asked her to go to see them. She must have
some society, I suppose, and I must go with her. They belong to the
half smart set, eager to conceal beneath a show of raffishness
their plentiful lack of intellect and their fundamental bourgeois
respectability. In spite of Pasquale’s brilliance and Carlotta’s
rapturous enjoyment I sat mumchance and depressed, out of my element.
My work is at a standstill, and Carlotta is my life. I fear I am
deteriorating.
On Judith, whom I have seen once or twice since Carlotta’s return, I
called this afternoon. She is unhappy. Although I have not confessed to
my thraldom, her woman’s wit, I feel sure, has penetrated to the heart
of my mystery. There has been no deep emotion in our intercourse.
Its foundation has been real friendship sweetened with pleasant
sentimentality. And yet jealousy of Carlotta consumes her. Her _amour
propre_ is deeply wounded. She makes me feel as if I had played the part
of a brute. But O Judith, my dear, I have only been a man. “The same
thing,” I fancy I hear her answer. But no. I have never loved a woman,
my dear, in all my life before, and as I made no secret of it, I am
guiltless of anything like betrayal. In due season I will tell you
frankly of the new love; but how can I tell you now? How could I tell
any human being?
I imagine myself as Panurge, taking counsel with a Pantagruelian friend.
“I am in love with Carlotta and desire to marry her.” “Then marry her,”
says Pantagruel. “But she does not love me.” “Then don’t marry,” says
Pantagruel. “But nay,” urges poor Panurge, “she would marry me according
to any rite, civil or ecclesiastical, to-morrow.” _“Mariez-vous doncques
de par dieu,”_ replies Pantagruel. “But I should be a villain to take
advantage of her innocence and submission.” “Then don’t marry.” “But
I can’t live without her,” says Panurge, desperately. “I am as a man
bewitched. If I don’t marry her I shall waste away with longing.” “Then
marry her in God’s name!” says Pantagruel. And I am no wiser by his
counsel, and I have paraded the complication of my folly before mocking
eyes.
October 23d.
I perceive that the young man of the idiot metaphor was gifted with
piercing acumen. Beneath the Jaquesian melancholy of my temperament he
diagnosed the potentiality of canine rabidness. No rational being is
afflicted with this grotesque concentration of idea, this fierce hot
fury waxing in intensity day by day.
I must consult a brain specialist.
October 25th.
I went to Judith this afternoon, more to prove the loyalty of my
friendship than to seek comfort from her society. Over tea we discussed
the weather and books and her statistical work. It was dull, but
unembarrassing. The grey twilight crept into the room and there was a
pause in our talk. She broke it by asking, without looking at me:
“When are we to have an evening together again?”
“Whenever you like, my dear Judith.”
“To-morrow?”
“I am afraid not to-morrow,” said I.
“Are you doing anything so very particular?”
“I have arranged to take Carlotta to the Empire.”
“Oh,” said Judith shortly, and I was left uncomfortable for another
spell of silence.
“It would be very kind, Marcus, to ask me to accompany you,” she said at
last.
“Carlotta and myself?”
“Why not?”
“My question arose from the stupidity of surprise,” said I. “I thought
you disliked Carlotta.”
“By no means. I should be glad to make her further acquaintance. Any one
that interests you must also be interesting to me.”
“In that case,” said I, “your coming will give us both the greatest
possible pleasure.”
“I haven’t had a merry evening for ever so long.”
“We will dine somewhere first and have supper afterwards. The whole
gamut of merriment. Toute la lyre. And you shall have,” I added, “some
of your favourite Veuve Cliquot.”
“It will be charming,” said Judith, politely.
In fact, politeness has been the dominant note of her attitude to-day,
a sober restraint of manner such as she would adopt when rather tired
towards an ordinary acquaintance. Has she reconciled herself to the
inevitable and taken this Empire frolic as a graceful method of showing
it? I should like to believe so, but the course is scarcely consistent
with that motor of illogic which she is pleased to call her temperament.
I am puzzled.
Her smile as we parted sent a chill through me, being the smile of a
mask instead of a woman’s face; and it was not the face of Judith. I
don’t anticipate much merriment tomorrow evening.
At Carlotta’s suggestion, I have sent a line to Pasquale to ask him to
join us. His gay wit will lend to the entertainment a specious air of
revelry which Carlotta will take as genuine.
I have often thought lately of the hopeless passion of Alfonso the
Magnanimous of Naples, as set forth by Pope Pius II in his Commentaries;
for I am beginning to take a morbid interest in the unhappy love affairs
of other men and to institute comparisons. If they have lived through
the torment, why should not I? But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d’Alagna,
a beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the
warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me
than she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take
her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I
love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for
the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity.
This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would
give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article,
taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to
whitewash the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have
filled me with gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed
Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will
slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable
family? They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease.
As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily
slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her
waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress.
“Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!”
She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my
chair.
“What is the matter?”
“There is a mouse in my bed.”
Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his
back against her feet.
“Take the cat and tell him to kill it,” said I, “and go back to bed at
once.”
I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full
of innocent reproach.
“There, take up the cat and go,” I repeated. “You mustn’t come down here
looking like that.”
“I thought I looked very pretty,” said Carlotta, moving a step nearer.
I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper.
“You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for
misbehaviour,” I said.
She laughed her curious cooing laugh.
“_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!” And she ran, away, rubbing
Polyphemus’s nose against her face.
I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries
and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for instance, who was
visited by such a seductress. What is the legend? To get rid of her he
burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she returns
to life and becomes a nun. No, Messer Diavolo, I am not Paphnutius. I
will not maim myself, nor do I want Carlotta to fall dead; and I cannot
pray and effect a pietistic resurrection. I am simply a fool of a modern
man tempted out of his wits, who scarce knows what it is that he speaks
or writes.
I am not superstitious, but I feel myself to-night on the brink of some
disaster. I walk restlessly about the room. On the mantel-piece are
three photographs in silver frames: Judith, Carlotta, Pasquale. That
which is of mockery in the spirit of each seems to-night to be hovering
round the portraits and to be making sport of me. An autumn gale is
howling among the trees outside, like a legion of lost souls. Listen.
Messer Diavolo himself might be riding by with a whoop of derision.