"For here they all grow with her. They do not fight her and resist. She
pours freely through them; there is no opposition. The channels still lie
open; ... and they share her life and power."
"That beauty which the modern world has lost," repeated the other
to himself, lingering over the words, and wondering why they expressed
so little of what he really meant.
"But which will never--_can_ never come again," Stahl completed the
sentence. There was a wistful, genuine sadness in his voice and eyes, and
the sympathy touched the inflammable Celt with fire. It was ever thus
with him. The little man opposite, with the ragged beard, and the bald,
domed head gleaming in the electric light, had laid a card upon the
table, showing a bit of his burning heart. The generous Irishman
responded like a child, laying himself bare. So hungry was he for
comprehension.
"Men have everywhere else clothed her fair body with their smothering,
ugly clothing and their herded cities," he burst out, so loud that
the Armenian waiter sidled up, thinking he called for wine. "But here
she lies naked and unashamed, sweet in divinity made simple. By Jove!
I tell you, doctor, it burns and sweeps me with a kind of splendid
passion that drowns my little shame-faced personality of the twentieth
century. I could run out and worship--fall down and kiss the grass and
soil and sea--!"
He drew back suddenly like a wounded animal; his face turned scarlet,
as though he knew himself convicted of an hysterical outburst. Stahl's
eyes had changed even as he spoke the flaming words that struggled so
awkwardly to seize his mood of rapture--a thought the Earth poured
through him for a moment. The bitter, half-mocking smile lay in them,
and on the lips the cold and critical expression of the other Stahl,
skeptic and science-man. A revulsion of feeling caught them both. But to
O'Malley came the thought that once again he had been drawn--was
being coaxed for examination beneath the microscope.
"The material here," Stahl said presently, with the calm tones of a
dispassionate diagnosis, "is magnificent as you say, uncivilized without
being merely savage, untamed, yet far from crude barbarism. When the
progress of the age gets into this land the transformation will be grand.
When Russia lets in culture, when modern improvements have developed
her resources and trained the wild human forces into useful channels...."
He went on calmly by the yard, till it was all the Irishman could do
not to dash the wine-glass in his face.
"Remember my words when you are up in the lonely mountains," he
concluded at length, smiling his queer sardonic smile, "and keep yourself
in hand. Put on the brakes when possible. Your experience will thus
have far more value."
"And you," replied O'Malley bluntly, so bluntly it was almost rudeness,
"go back to Fechner, and try to save your compromising soul before
it is too late--"
"Still following those lights that do mislead the morn," Stahl added
gently, breaking into English for a phrase he apparently loved. They
laughed and raised their glasses.
A long pause came which neither cared to break. The streets were
growing empty, the personality of the mysterious little Black Sea port
folding away into the darkness. The wilder element had withdrawn
behind the shuttered windows. There came a murmur of the waves, but
the soldiers no longer sang. The droschkys ceased to rattle past. The
night flowed down more thickly from the mountains, and the air, moist
with that malarial miasma which makes the climate of this reclaimed
marsh whereon Batoum is built so unhealthy, closed unpleasantly about
them. The stars died in it.
"Another glass?" suggested Stahl. "A drink to the gods of the Future,
and till we meet again, on your return journey, eh?"
"I'll walk with you to the steamer," was the reply. "I never care for
much wine. And the gods of the Future will prefer my usual offering, I
think--imaginative faith."
The doctor did not ask him to explain. They walked down the middle
of the narrow streets. No one was about, nor were there lights in many
windows. Once or twice from an upper story came the faint twanging
of a balalaika against the drone of voices, and occasionally they passed
a little garden where figures outlined themselves among the trees, with
the clink of glasses, laughter of men and girls, and the glowing tips of
cigarettes.
They turned down toward the harbor where the spars and funnels of
the big steamers were just visible against the sky, and opposite the
unshuttered window of a shop--one of those modern shops that oddly
mar the town with assorted German tinware, Paris hats, and oleographs
indiscriminately mingled--Stahl stopped a moment and pointed. They
moved up idly and looked in. From the shadows of the other side, well
hidden, an armed patrol eyed them suspiciously, though they were not
aware of it.
"It was before a window like this," remarked Stahl, apparently casually,
"that I once in Tiflis overheard two mountain Georgians talking
together as they examined a reproduction of a modern picture--Böcklin's
'Centaur.' They spoke in half whispers, but I caught the trend of
what they said. You know the picture, perhaps?"
"I've seen it somewhere, yes," was the short reply. "But what were they
saying?" He strove to keep his voice commonplace and casual like his
companion's.
"Oh, just discussing it together, but with a curious stretched interest,"
Stahl went on. "One asked, 'What does it say?' and pointed to the
inscription underneath. They could not read. For a long time they stared
in silence, their faces grave and half afraid. 'What is it?' repeated the
first one, and the other, a much older man, heavily bearded and of giant
build, replied low, 'It's what I told you about'; there was awe in his
tone and manner; 'they still live in the big valley of the rhododendrons
beyond--' mentioning some lonely uninhabited region toward Daghestan;
'they come in the spring, and are very swift and roaring....You must
always hide. To see them is to die. But they cannot die; they are of the
mountains. They are older, older than the stones. And the dogs will warn
you, or the horses, or sometimes a great sudden wind, though you must
never shoot.' They stood gazing in solemn wonder for minutes...till at
last, realizing that their silence was final, I moved away. There were
manifestations of life in the mountains, you see, that they had seen and
knew about--old forms akin to that picture apparently."
The patrol came out of his shadows, and Stahl quickly drew his
companion along the pavement.
"You have your passport with you?" he asked, noticing the man behind
them.
"It went to the police this afternoon. I haven't got it back yet."
O'Malley spoke thickly, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own. How
much he welcomed that casual interruption of the practical world he
could never explain or tell. For the moment he had felt like wax in the
other's hands. He had dreaded searching questions, and felt unspeakably
relieved. A minute more and he would have burst into confession.
"You should never be without it," the doctor added. "The police here
are perfect fiends, and can cause you endless inconvenience."
O'Malley knew it all, but gladly seized the talk and spun it out, asking
innocent questions while scarcely listening to the answers. They
distanced the patrol and neared the quays and shipping. In the darkness
of the sky a great line showed where the spurs of the Lesser Caucasus
gloomed huge and solemn to the East and West. At the gangway of the
steamer they said good-bye. Stahl held the Irishman's hand a moment
in his own.
"Remember, when you know temptation strong," he said gravely, though a
smile was in the eyes, "the passwords that I now give you: Humanity and
Civilization."
"I'll try."
They shook hands warmly enough.
"Come home by this steamer if you can," he called down from the deck.
"And keep to the middle of the road on your way back to the hotel. It's
safer in a town like this." O'Malley divined the twinkle in his
eyes as he said it. "Forgive my many sins," he heard finally, "and when
we meet again, tell me your own...." The darkness took the sentence.
But the word the Irishman took home with him to the little hotel was
the single one--Civilization: and this, owing to the peculiar
significance of intonation and accent with which this bewildering and
self-contradictory being had uttered it.