THE GREAT NAUDHEIM
Naudheim had finished his address, and stood talking with his host.
"Do you mind," Saton asked, "if I introduce some of these people to
you? You know many of them by name."
Naudheim shook his head. He was a tall man, with gray, unkempt hair,
and long, wizened face. He wore a black suit of clothes, of ancient
cut, and a stock which had literally belonged to his grandfather.
"No!" he said vigorously. "I will be introduced to no one. Why should
I? I have spoken to them of the things which make life for us. I have
told them my thoughts. What need is there of introduction? I shake
hands with no one. I leave that, and silly speeches, and banquets, to
my enemies, the professors. These are not my ways."
"It shall be as you wish, of course," Saton replied. "You are very
fortunate to be able to live and work alone. Here we have to adapt
ourself in some way to the customs of the people with whom we are
forced to come into daily contact."
Naudheim suddenly abandoned that far-away look of his, his habit of
seeing through the person with whom he was talking. He looked into
Saton's face steadily, almost fiercely.
"Young man," he said, "you talk like a fool. Now listen to me. These
are my parting words! There is stuff in you. You know a little. You
could be taught much more. And above all, you have the temperament.
Temperament is a wonderful thing," he added. "And yet, with all these
gifts, you make me feel as though I would like to take you by the
collar and lift you up in my arms--yes, I am strong though I am
thin--and throw you out of that window, and see you lie there, because
you are a fool!"
"Go on," Saton said, his face growing a little pale.
"Oh, you know it!" Naudheim declared. "You feel it in your blood. You
know it in your heart. You truckle to these people, you play at living
their life, and you forget, if ever you knew, that our great mistress
has never yet opened her arms save to those who have sought her
single-hearted and with a single purpose. You are a dallier,
philanderer. You will end your days wearing your fashionable clothes.
They may make you a professor here. You will talk learnedly. You will
write a book. And when you die, people will say a great man has gone.
Listen! You listen to me now with only half your ears, but listen once
more. The time may come. The light may burn in your heart, the truth
may fill your soul. Then come to me. Come to me, young man, and I will
make bone and sinew of your flabby limbs. I will take you in my hands
and I will teach you the way to the stars."
Silently, and without a glance on either side of him, Naudheim left
the room, amidst a silence which was almost an instinctive thing--the
realization, perhaps, of the strange nature of this man, who from a
stern sense of duty had left his hermit's life for a few days, to
speak with his fellow-workers.
It had been in some respects a very curious function, this. It was
neither meeting nor reception. There was neither host nor hostess,
except that Saton had shaken hands with a few, and from his place by
the side of Naudheim had indicated the turn of those who wished to
speak. Their visitor's peculiarities were well-known to all of them.
He had left them abruptly, not from any sense of discourtesy, but
because he had not the slightest idea of, or sympathy with, the
manners of civilized people. He had given them something to think
about. He had no desire to hear their criticisms. After he had gone,
the doors were held open. There was no one to bid them stay, and
so they went, in little groups of twos and threes, a curious,
heterogeneous crowd, with the stamp upon their features or clothes or
bearing, which somehow or other is always found upon those who are
seekers for new things. Sallow, dissatisfied-looking men; women whose
faces spoke, many of them, of a joyless life; people of overtrained
minds; and here and there a strong, zealous, brilliant student of the
last of the sciences left for solution.
Pauline would have gone with the others, but Saton touched her hand.
Half unwillingly she lingered behind until they were alone in the
darkened room. He went to the window and threw it wide open. The
scent of the flowers in the window-boxes and a little wave of the soft
west wind came stealing in. She threw her head back with an
exclamation of relief.
"Ah!" she said. "This is good."
"You found the room close?" he asked.
Pauline sank into the window-seat. She rested her delicate oval face
upon her fingers, and looked away toward the deep green foliage of the
trees outside.
"I did not notice it," she said, "and yet, somehow or other the whole
atmosphere seemed stifling. Naudheim is great," she went on. "Oh, he
is a great man, of course. He said wonderful things in a convincing
way. He made one gasp."
"This afternoon," Saton declared slowly, "marks an epoch. What
Naudheim said was remarkable because of what he left unsaid. Couldn't
you feel that? Didn't you understand? If that man had ambitions, he
could startle even this matter-of-fact world of ours. He could shake
it to its very base."
She shivered a little. Her fingers were idly tapping the window-sill.
Her thoughtful eyes were clouded with trouble. He stood over her,
absorbed in the charm of her presence, the sensuous charm of watching
her slim, exquisite figure, the poise of her head, the delicate
coloring of her cheeks, the tremulous human lips, which seemed somehow
to humanize the spirituality of her expression. They had talked so
much that day of a new science. Saton felt his heart sink as he
realized that he was the victim of a greater thing than science could
teach. It was madness!--sheer, irredeemable madness! But it was in
his blood. It was there to be reckoned with.
"It is all very wonderful," she continued thoughtfully. "And yet, can
you understand what I mean when I say that it makes me feel a trifle
hysterical? It is as though something had been poured into one which
was too great, too much for our capacity. It is all true, I believe,
but I don't want it to come."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Oh! It seems somehow," she answered, "as though the whole balance of
life would be disturbed. Of course, I know that it is feasible enough.
For thousands of years men and women lived upon the earth, and never
dreamed that all around them existed a great force which only needed a
little humoring, a little understanding, to do the work of all the
world. Oh, it is easy to understand that we too carry with us some
psychical force corresponding to this! One feels it so often.
Premonitions come and go. We can't tell why, but they are there, and
they are true. One feels that sense at work at strange times.
Experiments have already shown us that it exists. But I wonder what
sort of a place the world will be when once it has yielded itself to
law."
"There has never been a time," Saton said thoughtfully, "when
knowledge has not been for the good of man."
She shook her head.
"I wonder," she said, "whether we realize what is for our good.
Knowledge, development, culture, may reach their zenith and pass
beyond. We may become debauched with the surfeit of these things. The
end and aim of life is happiness."
"The end and aim of life," he contradicted her, "is knowledge."
She laughed.
"I am a woman, you see," she said thoughtfully.
"And am I not a man?" he whispered.
She turned her head and looked at him. The trouble in her eyes
deepened. She felt the color coming and going in her cheeks. His eyes
seemed to stir things in her against which her whole physical self
rebelled. She rose abruptly to her feet.
"I must go," she said. "I have a thousand things to do this evening."
"To play at, you mean," he corrected her. "You don't really do very
much, do you? The women don't in your world."
"You are polite," she answered lightly. "Please to show me the way
out."
"In a moment," he said.
She was inclined to rebel. They had moved a little from the window,
and were standing in a darker part of the room. She felt his fingers
upon her wrist. She would have given the world to have been able to
wrench it away, but she could not. She stood there submissively, her
breath coming quickly, her eyes compelled to meet his.
"Stay for a moment longer," he begged. "I want to talk to you for a
little while about this."
"There is no time now," she said hurriedly. "It is an inexhaustible
subject."
"Inexhaustible indeed," he answered, with an enigmatic laugh.
She read his thoughts. She knew very well what was in his mind, what
was almost on his lips, and she struggled to be free of him.
"Mr. Saton," she said, "I am sorry--but you must really let me go."
He did not move.
"It is very hard to let you go," he murmured. "Can't you--don't you
realize a little that it is always hard for me to see you go--to see
you leave the world where we have at least interests in common, to go
back to a life of which I know so little, a life in which I have so
small a part, a life which is scarcely worthy of you, Pauline?"
Again she felt a sort of physical impotence. She struggled desperately
against the loss of nerve power which kept her there. She would have
given anything in the world to have left him, to have run out of the
room with a little shriek, out into the streets and squares she knew
so well, to breathe the air she had known all her life, to escape from
this unknown emotion. She told herself that she hated the man whose
will kept her there. She was sure of it. And yet--!
"I do not understand you," she said, "and I must, I really must go.
Can't you see that just now, at any rate, I don't want to understand?"
she added, fighting all the time for her words. "I want to go. Please
do not keep me here against my will. Do you understand? Let me go, and
I will be grateful to you."
Somehow the strain seemed suddenly lightened. He was only a very
ordinary, rather doubtful sort of person--a harmless but necessary
part of interesting things. He had moved toward the door, which he was
holding open for her to pass through.
"Thank you so much," she said, with genuine relief in her tone. "I
have stayed an unconscionable time, and I found your Master
delightful."
"You will come again?" he said softly. "I want to explain a little
further what Naudheim was saying. I can take you a little further,
even, than he did to-day."
"You must come and see me," she answered lightly. "Remember that after
all the world has conventions."
He stepped back on to the doorstep after he had handed her into her
carriage. She threw herself back amongst the cushions with something
that was like a sob of relief. She had sensations which she could not
analyze--a curious feeling of having escaped, and yet coupled with it
a sense of something new and strange in her life, something of which
she was a little afraid, and yet from which she would not willingly
have parted. She told herself that she detested the house which she
had left, detested the thought of that darkened room. Nevertheless,
she was forced to look back. He was standing in the open doorway, from
which the butler had discreetly retired, and meeting her eyes he bowed
once more. She tried to smile unconcernedly, but failed. She looked
away with scarcely a return of his greeting.
"Home!" she told the man. "Drive quickly."
Almost before her own door she met Rochester. The sight of him was
somehow or other an immense relief to her. She fell back again in the
world which she knew. She stopped the carriage and called to him.
"Come and drive with me a little way," she begged. "I am stifled. I
want some fresh air. I want to talk to you. Oh, come, please!"
Rochester took the vacant seat by her side at once.
"What is it?" he asked gravely. "Tell me. You have had bad news?"
She shook her head.
"No!" she said. "I am afraid--that is all!"