"From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind.
Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind.
All the pictures, fairest lin'd,
Are but black to Rosalind.
Let no fair be kept in mind,
But the fair of Rosalind.
* * * * *
"Thus Rosalind of many parts
By heavenly synod was devis'd,
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
To have the touches dearest priz'd."
--_As You Like It._
For many months Barty and his aunt lived their usual life in the Rue
des Ursulines Blanches.
He always looked back on those dreary months as on a long nightmare.
Spring, summer, autumn, and another Christmas!
His eye got worse and worse, and so interfered with the sight of the
other that he had no peace till it was darkened wholly. He tried
another doctor--Monsieur Goyers, professor at the liberal university
of Ghent--who consulted with Dr. Noiret about him one day in
Brussels, and afterwards told him that Noiret of Louvain, whom he
described as a miserable Jesuit, was blinding him, and that he, this
Goyers of Ghent, would cure him in six weeks.
"Mettez-vous au regime des viandes saignantes!" had said Noiret; and
Barty had put himself on a diet of underdone beef and mutton.
"Mettez-vous au lait!" said Goyers--so he metted himself at the
milk, as he called it--and put himself in Goyers's hands; and in six
weeks got so much worse that he went back to Noiret and the regimen
of the bleeding meats, which he loathed.
Then, in his long and wretched _desoeuvrement_, his melancholia, he
drifted into an indiscreet flirtation with a beautiful lady--he (as
had happened before) being more the pursued than the pursuer. And so
ardent was the pursuit that one fine morning the beautiful lady
found herself gravely compromised--and there was a bother and a row.
"Amour, amour, quand tu nous tiens,
On peut bien dire 'Adieu Prudence!'"
All this gave Lady Caroline great distress, and ended most
unhappily--in a duel with the lady's husband, who was a Colonel of
Artillery, and meant business!
They fought with swords in a little wood near Laeken. Barty, who
could have run his fat antagonist through a dozen times during the
five minutes they fought, allowed himself to be badly wounded in the
side, just above the hip, and spent a month in bed. He had hoped to
manage for himself a slighter wound, and catch his adversary's point
on his elbow.
Afterwards, Lady Caroline, who had so disapproved of the flirtation,
did not, strange to say, so disapprove of this bloody encounter, and
thoroughly approved of the way Barty had let himself be pinked! And
nursed him devotedly; no mother could have nursed him better--no
sister--no wife! not even the wife of that Belgian Colonel of
Artillery!
[Illustration: BARTY GIVES HIMSELF AWAY]
"Il s'est conduit en homme de coeur!" said the good Abbe.
"Il s'est conduit en bon gentilhomme!" said the aristocratic Father
Louis, of the princely house of Aremberg.
On the other hand, young de Cleves the dragoon, and Monsieur Jean
the Viscount, who had served as Barty's seconds (I was in America),
were very angry with him for giving himself away in this
"idiotically quixotic manner."
Besides which, Colonel Lecornu was a notorious bully, it seems; and
a fool into the bargain; and belonged to a branch of the service
they detested.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that Barty and Father Louis
became great friends--almost inseparable during such hours as the
Dominican could spare from the duties of his professorate.
It speaks volumes for all that was good in each of them that this
should have been so, since they were wide apart as the poles in
questions of immense moment: questions on which I will not enlarge,
strongly as I feel about them myself--for this is not a novel, but a
biography, and therefore no fit place for the airing of one's own
opinion on matters so grave and important.
When they parted they constantly wrote to each other--an intimate
correspondence that was only ended by the Father's death.
Barty also made one or two other friends in Malines, and was often
in Antwerp and Brussels, but seldom, for more than a few hours, as
he did not like to leave his aunt alone.
One day came, in April, on which she had to leave him.
[Illustration: SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR]
A message arrived that her father, the old Marquis (Barty's
grandfather), was at the point of death. He was ninety-six. He had
expressed a wish to see her once more, although he had long been
childish.
So Barty saw her off, with her maid, by the _Baron Osy_. She
promised to be back as soon as all was over. Even this short parting
was a pain--they had grown so indispensable to each other.
Tescheles was away from Antwerp, and the disconsolate Barty went
back to Malines and dined by himself; and little Frau waited on him
with extra care.
It turned out that her mother had cooked for him a special dish of
consolation--sausage-meat stewed inside a red cabbage, with apples
and cloves, till it all gets mixed up. It is a dish not to be beaten
when you are young and Flemish and hungry and happy and well (even
then you mustn't take more than one helping). When you are not all
this it is good to wash it down with half a bottle of the best
Burgundy--and this Barty did (from Vougeot-Conti and Co.).
Then he went out and wandered about in the dark and lost himself in
a dreamy daedalus of little streets and bridges and canals and
ditches. A huge comet (Encke's, I believe) was flaring all over the
sky.
He suddenly came across the lighted window of a small estaminet, and
went in.
It was a little beer-shop of the humblest kind--and just started. At
a little deal table, brand-new, a middle-aged burgher of prosperous
appearance was sitting next to the barmaid, who had deserted her
post at the bar--and to whom he seemed somewhat attentive; for their
chairs were close together, and their arms round each other's
waists, and they drank out of the same glass.
There was no one else in the room, and Barty was about to make
himself scarce, but they pressed him to come in; so he sat at
another little new deal table on a little new straw-bottomed chair,
and she brought him a glass of beer. She was a very handsome girl,
with a tall, graceful figure and Spanish eyes. He lit a cigar, and
she went back to her beau quite simply--and they all three fell into
conversation about an operetta by Victor Masse, which had been
performed in Malines the previous night, called _Les Noces de
Jeannette_.
The barmaid and her monsieur were trying to remember the beautiful
air Jeannette sings as she mends her angry husband's breeches:
"Cours, mon aiguille, dans la laine!
Ne te casse pas dans ma main;
Avec de bons baisers demain
Jean nous paira de notre peine!"
So Barty sang it to them; and so beautifully that they were all but
melted to tears--especially the monsieur, who was evidently very
sentimental and very much in love. Besides, there was that ineffable
charm of the pure French intonation, so caressing to the Belgian
ear, so dear to the Belgian soul, so unattainable by Flemish lips.
It was one of Barty's most successful ditties--and if I were a
middle-aged burgher of Mechelen, I shouldn't much like to have a
young French Barty singing "Cours, mon aiguille" to the girl of my
heart.
Then, at their desire, he went on singing things till it was time to
leave, and he found he had spent quite a happy evening; nothing gave
him greater pleasure than singing to people who liked it--and he
went singing on his way home, dreamily staring at the rare gas-lamps
and the huge comet, and thinking of his old grandfather who lay
dying or dead: "Cours, mon aiguille, it is good to live--it is good
to die!"
Suddenly he discovered that when he looked at one lamp, another lamp
close to it on the right was completely eclipsed--and he soon found
that a portion of his right eye, not far from the centre, was
totally sightless.
The shock was so great that he had to lean against a buttress of St.
Rombault for support.
When he got home he tested the sight of his eye with a two-franc
piece on the green table-cloth, and found there was no mistake--a
portion of his remaining eye was stone-blind.
He spent a miserable night, and went next day to Louvain, to see the
oculist.
M. Noiret heard his story, arranged the dark room and the lamp,
dilated the right pupil with atropine, and made a minute examination
with the ophthalmoscope.
Then he became very thoughtful, and led the way to his library and
begged Barty to sit down; and began to talk to him very seriously
indeed, like a father--patting the while a small Italian greyhound
that lay and shivered and whined in a little round cot by the fire.
M. Noiret began by inquiring into his circumstances, which were not
nourishing, as we know--and Barty made no secret of them; then he
asked him if he were fond of music, and was pleased to hear that he
was, since it is such an immense resource; then he asked him if he
belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, and again was pleased.
"For"--said he--"you will need all your courage and all your
religion to hear and bear what it is my misfortune to have to tell
you. I hope you will have more fortitude than another young patient
of mine (also an artist) to whom I was obliged to make a similar
communication. He blew out his brains on my door-step!"
"I promise you I will not do that. I suppose I am going blind?"
"Helas! mon jeune ami! I grieve to say that the fatal disease,
congestion and detachment of the retina, which has so obstinately
and irrevocably destroyed your left eye, has begun its terrible work
on the right. We will fight for every inch of the way. But I fear I
must not give you any hope, after the careful examination I have
just made. It is my duty to be frank with you."
Then he said much about the will of God, and where true comfort was
to be found, at the foot of the Cross; in fact, he said all he ought
to have said according to his lights, as he fondled his little
greyhound--and finally took Barty to the door, which he opened for
him, most politely bowing with his black velvet skull-cap; and
pocketed his full fee (ten francs) with his usual grace of careless
indifference, and gently shut the door on him. There was nothing
else to do.
Barty stood there for some time, quite dazed; partly because his
pupil was so dilated he could hardly see--partly (he thinks) because
he in some way became unconscious; although when he woke from this
little seeming trance, which may have lasted for more than a minute,
he found himself still standing upright on his legs. What woke him
was the _sudden consciousness of the north_, which he hadn't felt
for many years; and this gave him extraordinary confidence in
himself, and such a wholesome sense of power and courage that he
quickly recovered his wits; and when the glad surprise of this had
worn itself away he was able to think and realize the terrible thing
that had happened. He was almost pleased that his aunt Caroline was
away. He felt he could not have faced her with such news--it was a
thing easier to write and prepare her for than to tell by word of
mouth.
He walked about Louvain for several hours, to tire himself. Then he
went to Brussels and dined, and again walked about the lamp-lit
streets and up and down the station, and finally went back to
Malines by a late train--very nervous--expecting that the retina of
His right eye would suddenly go pop--yet hugging himself all the
while in his renewed old comfortable feeling of companionship with
the north pole, that made him feel like a boy again; that
inexplicable sensation so intimately associated with all the best
reminiscences of his innocent and happy childhood.
He had been talking to himself like a father all day, though not in
the same strain as M. Noiret; and had almost arrived at framing the
programme of a possible existence--singing at cafes with his
guitar--singing anywhere: he felt sure of a living for himself, and
for the little boy who would have to lead him about--if the worst
came to the worst.
If but the feeling of self-orientation which was so necessary to him
could only be depended upon, he felt that in time he would have
pluck enough to bear anything. Indeed, total eclipse was less
appalling, in its finality, than that miserable sword of Damocles
which had been hanging over him for months--robbing him of his
manhood--poisoning all the springs of life.
Why not make life-long endurance of evil a study, a hobby, and a
pride; and be patient as bronze or marble, and ever wear an
invincible smile at grief, even when in darkness and alone? Why not,
indeed!
And he set himself then and there to smile invincibly, meaning to
keep on smiling for fifty years at least--the blind live long.
[Illustration: "'HELAS! MON JEUNE AMI ... '"]
So he chatted to himself, saying _Sursum cor! Sursum corda!_ all the
way home; and walking down the Grand Brul, he had a little adventure
which absolutely gave him a hearty guffaw and sent him almost
laughing to bed.
There was a noisy squabble between some soldiers and civilians on
the opposite side of the way, and a group of men in blouses were
looking on. Barty stood leaning against a lamp-post, and looked on
too.
Suddenly a small soldier rushed at the blouses, brandishing his
short straight sword (or _coupe-choux_, as it is called in civilian
slang), and saying:
"Ca ne vous regarde pas, savez-vous! allez-vous en bien vite, ou je
vous ..."
The blouses fled like sheep.
Then as he caught sight of Barty he reached at him.
"Ca ne vous regarde pas, savez-vous!..."
(It doesn't concern you.)
"Non--c'est moi qui regarde, savez-vous!" said Barty.
"Qu'est-ce que vous regardez?"
"Je regarde la lune et les etoiles. Je regarde la comete!"
"Voulez-vous bien vous en aller bien vite?"
"Une autre fois!" says Barty.
"Allez-vous en, je vous dis!"
"Apres-demain!"
"Vous ... ne ... voulez ... pas ... vous ... en ... aller?" says the
soldier, on tiptoe, his chest against Barty's stomach, his nose
almost up to Barty's chin, glaring up like a fiend and poising his
_coupe-choux_ for a death-stroke.
"_Non_, sacre petit pousse-cailloux du diable!" roars Barty.
"Eh bien, restez ou vous etes!" and the little man plunged back into
the fray on the opposite side--and no blood was shed after all.
Barty dreamt of this adventure, and woke up laughing at it in the
small hours of that night. Then, suddenly, in the dark, he
remembered the horror of what had happened. It overwhelmed him. He
realized, as in a sudden illuminating flash, what life meant for him
hence-forward--life that might last for so many years.
Vitality is at its lowest ebb at that time of night; though the
brain is quick to perceive, and so clear that its logic seems
inexorable.
It was hell. It was not to be borne a moment longer. It must be put
an end to at once. He tried to feel the north, but could not. He
would kill himself then and there, while his aunt was away; so that
the horror of the sight of him, after, should at least be spared
her.
He jumped out of bed and struck a light. Thank Heaven, he wasn't
blind yet, though he saw all the bogies, as he called them, that had
made his life a burden to him for the last two years--the retina
floating loose about his left eye, tumbling and deforming every
lighted thing it reflected--and also the new dark spot in his right.
He partially dressed, and stole up-stairs to old Torfs's
photographic studio. He knew where he could find a bottle full of
cyanide of potassium, used for removing finger-stains left by silver
nitrate; there was enough of it to poison a whole regiment. That was
better than taking a header off the roof. He seized a handful of the
stuff, and came down and put it into a tumbler by his bedside and
poured some water over it.
Then he got his writing-case and a pen and ink, and jumped into bed;
and there he wrote four letters: one to Lady Caroline, one to Father
Louis, one to Lord Archibald, and one to me in Blaze.
The cyanide was slow in melting. He crushed it angrily in the glass
with his penholder--and the scent of bitter-almonds filled the room.
Just then the sense of the north came back to him in full; but it
only strengthened his resolve and made him all the calmer.
He lay staring at the tumbler, watching little bubbles, revelling in
what remained of his exquisite faculty of minute sight--with a
feeling of great peace; and thought prayerfully; lost himself in a
kind of formless prayer without words--lost himself completely. It
was as if the wished-for dissolution were coming of its own accord;
Nirvana--an ecstasy of conscious annihilation--the blessed end, the
end of all! as though he were passing
"... du sommeil au songe--
Du songe a la mort."
It was not so....
* * * * *
He was aroused by a knock at the door, which was locked. It was
broad daylight.
"Il est dix heures, savez-vous?" said little Frau
outside--"voulez-vous votre cafe dans votre chambre?"
"O Christ!" said Barty--and jumped out of bed. "It's all got to be
done now!"
But something very strange had happened.
The tumbler was still there, but the cyanide had disappeared; so had
the four letters he had written. His pen and ink were on the table,
and on his open writing-case lay a letter in Blaze--in his own
handwriting. The north was strong in him. He called out to Finche
Torfs to leave his coffee in the drawing-room, and read his blaze
letter--and this is what he read:
"My dear Barty,--Don't be in the least alarmed on reading this hasty
scrawl, after waking from the sleep you meant to sleep forever.
There is no sleep without a live body to sleep in--no such thing as
everlasting sleep. Self-destruction seems a very simple thing--more
often a duty than not; but it's not to be done! It is quite
impossible not to be, when once you have been.
"If I were to let you destroy your body, as you were so bent on
doing, the strongest interest I have on earth would cease to exist.
"I love you, Barty, with a love passing the love of woman; and have
done so from the day you were born. I loved your father and mother
before you--and theirs; ca date de loin, mon pauvre ami! And
especially I love your splendid body and all that belongs to
it--brain, stomach, heart, and the rest; even your poor remaining
eye, which is worth all the eyes of Argus!
"So I have used your own pen and ink and paper, your own right hand
and brain, your own cipher, and the words that are yours, to write
you this--in English. I like English better than French.
"Listen. Monsieur Noiret is a fool; and you are a poor self-deluded
hypochondriac.
"I am convinced your right eye is safe for many years to
come--probably for the rest of your life.
"You have quite deceived yourself in fancying that the symptom you
perceived in your right eye threatens the disease which has
destroyed your left--for the sight of that, alas! is irretrievably
gone; so don't trouble about it any more. It will always be charming
to _look at_, but it will never _see_ again. Some day I will tell
you how you came to lose the use of it. I think I know.
"M. Noiret is new to the ophthalmoscope. The old humbug never saw
your right retina at all--nor your left one either, for that matter.
He only pretended, and judged entirely by what you told him; and you
didn't tell him very clearly. He's a Belgian, you know, and a
priest, and doesn't think very quick.
"_I_ saw your retina, although but with _his_ eye. There is no sign
of congestion or coming detachment whatever. That blind portion you
discovered is in _every_ eye. It is called the '_punctum coecum_.' It
is where the optic nerve enters the retina and spreads out. It is
only with one eye shut that an ordinary person can find it, for each
eye supplements this defect of the other. To-morrow morning try the
experiment on little Finche Torfs; on any one you meet. You will
find it in everybody.
"So don't trouble about either eye any more. I'm not infallible, of
course; it's only _your_ brain I'm using now. But your brain is
infinitely better than that of poor M. Noiret, who doesn't know what
his eye really perceives, and takes it for something else! Your
brain is the best brain I know, although you are not aware of this,
and have never even used it, except for trash and nonsense. But you
_shall_--some day. _I'll_ take care of that, and the world shall
wonder.
"Trust me. Live on, and I will never desert you again, unless you
again force me to by your conduct. I have come back to you in the
hour of your need.
"I have managed to make you, in your sleep, throw away your poison
where it will injure nobody but the rats, and no one will be a bit
the wiser. I have made you burn your touching letters of farewell;
you will find the ashes inside the stove. Yours is a good heart!
"Now take a cold bath and have a good breakfast, and go to Antwerp
or Brussels and see people and amuse yourself.
"Never see M. Noiret again. But when your aunt comes back you must
both clear out of this depressing priestly hole; it doesn't suit
either of you, body or mind. Go to Duesseldorf, in Prussia. Close by,
at a village called Riffrath, lives an old doctor, Dr. Hasenclever,
who understands a deal about the human heart and something about the
human body; and even a little about the human eye, for he is a
famous oculist. He can't cure, but he'll give you things that at
least will do you no harm. He won't rid you of the eye that remains!
You will meet some pleasant English people, whom I particularly wish
you to meet, and make friends, and have a holiday from trouble, and
begin the world anew.
"As to who _I_ am, you shall know in time. My power to help you is
very limited, but my devotion to you (for very good reasons) has no
limits at all.
"Take it that my name is Martia. When you have finished reading this
letter look at yourself in your looking-glass and say (loud enough
for your own ears to hear you):
"'I trust you, Martia!'
"Then I will leave you for a while, and come back at night, as in
the old days. Whenever the north is in you, there am ~I~; seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling with your five splendid wits by
day--sleeping your lovely sleep at night; but only able to think
with _your_ brain, it seems, and then only when you are fast asleep.
I only found it out just now, and saved your earthly life, mon beau
somnambule! It was a great surprise to me!
"Don't mention this to any living soul till I give you leave. You
will only hear from me on great occasions.
"Martia."
"P. S.--Always leave something to write with by your bedside at
night, in case the great occasion should arise. On ne sait pas ce
qui peut arriver!"
Bewildered, beside himself, Barty ran to his looking-glass, and
stared himself out of countenance, and almost shouted:
"I trust you, Martia!"
And ceased suddenly to feel the north.
Then he dressed and went to breakfast. Little Frau thought he had
gone mad, for he put a five-franc piece upon the carpet, and made
her stand a few feet off from it and cover her left eye with her
hand.
"Now follow the point of my stick with your right eye," says he,
"and tell me if the five-franc piece disappears."
And he slowly drew with the point of his stick an imaginary line
from the five-franc piece to the left of her, at right angles to
where she stood. When the point of the stick was about two feet from
the coin, she said:
"Tiens, tiens, I no longer see the piece!"
When the point of the stick had got a foot farther on, she said,
"Now I can see the piece again quite plain."
Then he tried the same experiment on her left eye, rightwards, with
the same result. Then he experimented with equal success on her
father and mother, and found that every eye at No. 36 Rue des
Ursulines Blanches had exactly the same blind spot as his own.
Then off he went to Antwerp to see his friends with a light
heart--the first light heart he had known for many months; but when
he got there he was so preoccupied with what had happened that he
did not care to see anybody.
He walked about the ramparts and along the Scheldt, and read and
re-read that extraordinary letter.
Who and what could Martia be?
The reminiscence of some antenatal incarnation of his own soul? The
soul of some ancestor or ancestress--of his mother, perhaps? or,
perhaps, some occult portion of himself--of his own brain in
unconscious cerebration during sleep?
As a child and a small boy, and even as a very young man, he had
often dreamt at night of a strange, dim land by the sea, a land
unlike any land he had ever beheld with the waking eye, where
beautiful aquatic people, mermen and mermaids and charming little
mer-children (of which he was one) lived an amphibious life by day,
diving and sporting in the waves.
Splendid caverns, decorated with precious stones, and hung with soft
moss, and shining with a strange light; heavenly music, sweet,
affectionate caresses--and then total darkness; and yet one knew who
and what and where everything and everybody was by some keener sense
than that of sight.
It all seemed strange and delightful, but so vague and shadowy it
was impossible to remember anything clearly; but ever pervading all
things was that feeling of the north which had always been such a
comfort to him.
Was this extraordinary letter the result of some such forgotten
dream he may have had during the previous night, and which may have
prompted him to write it in his sleep? some internal knowledge of
the anatomy of his own eye which was denied to him when awake?
Anyhow, it was evidently true about that blind spot in the retina
(the _punctum coecum_), and that he had been frightening himself out
of his wits for nothing, and that his right eye was really sound;
and, all through this wondrous yet simple revelation, it was time
this old hysterical mock-disease should die.
Once more life was full of hopes and possibilities, and with such
inarticulate and mysterious promptings as he often felt within his
soul, and such a hidden gift to guide them, what might he not one
day develop into?
Then he went and found Tescheles, and they dined together with a
famous pianist, Louis Brassin, and afterwards there was music, and
Barty felt the north, and his bliss was transcendent as he went back
to Malines by the last train--talking to Martia (as he expressed it
to himself) in a confidential whisper which he made audible to his
own ear (that she, if it was a she, might hear too); almost praying,
in a fervor of hope and gratitude; and begging for further guidance;
and he went warmly to sleep, hugging close within himself, somewhere
about the region of the diaphragm, an ineffable imaginary something
which he felt to be more precious than any possession that had ever
yet been his--more precious even than the apple of his remaining
eye; and when he awoke next morning he felt he had been most
blissfully dreaming all night long, but could not remember anything
of his dreams, and on a piece of paper he had left by his bedside
was written in pencil, in his own blaze:
"You must depend upon yourself, Barty, not on me. Follow your own
instincts when you feel you can do so without self-reproach, and all
will be well with you.--M."
His instincts led him to spend the day in Brussels, and he followed
them; he still wanted to walk about and muse and ponder, and
Brussels is a very nice, gay, and civilized city for such a
purpose--a little Paris, with charming streets and shops and a
charming arcade, and very good places to eat and drink in, and hear
pretty music.
He did all this, and spent a happy day.
Ho came to the conclusion that the only way to keenly appreciate and
thoroughly enjoy the priceless gift of sight in one eye was to lose
that of the other; in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed is king,
and he fully revelled in the royalty that was now his, he hoped, for
evermore; but wished for himself as limited a kingdom and as few
subjects as possible.
Then back to Malines by the last train--and the sensation of the
north, and a good-night; but no message in the morning--no message
from Martia for many mornings to come.
He received, however, a long letter from Lady Caroline.
The old Marquis had died without pain, and with nearly all his
family round him; but perfectly childish, as he had been for two or
three years. He was to be buried on the following Monday.
Barty wrote a long letter in reply, telling his aunt how much better
he had suddenly become in health and spirits; how he had thought of
things, and quite reconciled himself at last to the loss of his left
eye, and meant to keep the other and make the best of it he could;
how he had heard of a certain Doctor Hasenclever, a famous oculist
near Duesseldorf, and would like to consult him; how Duesseldorf was
such a healthy town, charming and gay, full of painters and
soldiers, the best and nicest people in the world--and also very
cheap. Mightn't they try it?
He was very anxious indeed to go back to his painting, and
Duesseldorf was as good a school as any, etc., etc., etc. He wrote
pages--of the kind he knew she would like, for it was of the kind he
liked writing to her; they understood each other thoroughly, he and
Lady Caroline, and well he knew that she could only be quite happy
in doing whatever he had most at heart.
How he longed to tell her everything! but that must not be. I can
imagine all the deep discomfort to poor Barty of having to be
discreet for the first time in his life, of having to keep a
secret--and from his beloved Aunt Caroline of all people in the
world!
That was a happy week he spent--mostly in Antwerp among the
painters. He got no more letters from Martia, not for many days to
come; but he felt the north every night as he sank into healthy
sleep, and woke in the morning full of hope and confidence in
himself--at last _sans peur et sans reproche_.
One day in Brussels he met M. Noiret, who naturally put on a very
grave face; they shook hands, and Barty inquired affectionately
after the little Italian greyhound, and asked what was the French
for "_punctum coecum_."
Said Noiret: "Ca s'appelle _le point cache_--c'est une portion de la
retine avec laquelle on ne peut pas voir...."
Barty laughed and shook hands again, and left the Professor staring.
Then he was a great deal with Father Louis. They went to Ghent
together, and other places of interest; and to concerts in Brussels.
The good Dominican was very sorrowful at the prospect of soon losing
his friend. Poor Barty! The trial it was to him not to reveal his
secret to this singularly kind and sympathetic comrade; not even
under the seal of confession! So he did not confess at all; although
he would have confessed anything to Father Louis, even if Father
Louis had not been a priest. There are the high Catholics, who
understand the souls of others, and all the difficulties of the
conscience, and do not proselytize in a hurry; and the low
Catholics, the converts of the day before yesterday, who will not
let a body be!
Father Louis was a very high Catholic indeed.
The Lady Caroline Grey, 12A Scamore Place, London, to M. Josselin,
36 Rue des Ursulines Blanches, Malines:
"My dear little Barty,--Your nice long letter made me very
happy--happy beyond description; it makes me almost jealous to think
that you should have suddenly got so much better in your health and
spirits while I was away: you won't want me any more! That doesn't
prevent my longing to get back to you. You must put up with your
poor old aunty for a little while yet.
"And now for _my_ news--I couldn't write before. Poor papa was
buried on Monday, and we all came back here next day. He has left
you L200: c'est toujours ca! Everything seems in a great mess. Your
Uncle Runswick[1] is going to be very poor indeed; he is going to
let Castle Rohan, and live here all the year round. Poor fellow, he
looks as old as his father did ten years ago, and he's only
sixty-three! If Algy could only make a good marriage! At forty
that's easier said than done.
[Footnote 1: The new Marquis of Whitby.]
"Archibald and his wife are at a place called Monte Carlo, where
there are gaming-tables: she gambles fearfully, it seems; and they
lead a cat-and-dog life. She is _plus que coquette_, and extravagant
to a degree; and he is quite shrunk and prematurely old, and almost
shabby, and drinks more brandy than he ought.
"Daphne is charming, and is to come out next spring; she will have
L3000 a year, lucky child; all out of chocolate. What nonsense we've
all talked about trade! We shall all have to take to it in time. The
Lonlay-Savignac people were wise in their generation.
"And what do you think? Young Digby-Dobbs wants to marry her, out
of the school-room! He'll be Lord Frognal, you know; and very soon,
for his father is drinking himself to death.
"He's in your old regiment, and a great favorite; not yet twenty--he
only left Eton last Christmas twelvemonth. She says she won't have
him at any price, because he stammers.
"She declares you haven't written to her for three months, and that
you owe her an illustrated letter in French, with priests and nuns,
and dogs harnessed to a cart.
"And now for news that will delight you: She is to come abroad with
me for a twelvemonth, and wishes to go with you and me to Duesseldorf
first! _Isn't_ that a happy coincidence? We would all spend the
summer there, and then Italy for the winter; you too, if you can (so
you must be economical with that L200).
"I have already heard wonders about Dr. Hasenclever, even before
your letter came; he cured General Baines, who was given up by
everybody here, Lady Palmerston told me; she was here yesterday,
by-the-bye, and the Duchess of Bermondsey, and both inquired most
kindly after you.
"The Duchess looked as handsome as ever, and as proud as a peacock;
for last year she presented her niece, Julia Royce, 'the divine
Julia,' the greatest beauty ever seen, I am told--with many
thousands a year, if you please--Lady Jane Royce's daughter, an only
child, and her father's dead. She's six feet high, so you would go
mad about her. She's already refused sixty offers, good ones; among
them little Lord Orrisroot, the hunchback, who'll have L1000 a day
(including Sundays) when he comes into the title--and that can't be
very far off, for the wicked old Duke of Deptford has got creeping
paralysis, like his father and grandfather before him, and is now
quite mad, and thinks himself a postman, and rat-tats all day long
on the furniture. Lady Jane is furious with her for not accepting;
and when Julia told her, she slapped her face before the maid!
"There's another gigantic beauty that people have gone mad about--a
Polish pianist, who's just married young Harcourt, who's a grandson
of that old scamp the Duke of Towers.
"Talking of beauties, whom do you think I met yesterday in the Park?
Whom but your stalwart friend Mr. Maurice (_he_ wasn't the beauty),
with his sister, your old Paris playfellow, and the lovely Miss
Gibson. He introduced them both, and I was delighted with them, and
we walked together by the Serpentine; and after five minutes I came
to the conclusion that Miss Gibson is as beautiful as it is possible
for a dark beauty to be, and as nice as she looks. She isn't dark
really, only her eyes and hair; her complexion is like cream: she's
a freak of nature. Lucky young Maurice if she is to be his fate--and
both well off, I suppose.
"Upon my word, if you were King Cophetua and she the beggar-maid, I
would give you both my blessing. But how is it you never fell in
love with the fair _Ida_? You never told me how handsome she is. She
too complained of you as a correspondent, and declares that she gets
one letter in return for three she writes you.
"I have bought you some pretty new songs, among others one by
Charles Kingsley, which is lovely; about three fishermen and their
wives: it reminds one of our dear Whitby! I can play the
accompaniment in perfection, and all by heart!
"Give my kindest remembrances to Father Louis and the dear Abbe
Lefebvre, and say kind things from me to the Torfses. Martha sends
her love to little Frau, and so do I.
"We hope to be in Antwerp in a fortnight, and shall put up at the
Grand Laboureur. I shall go to Malines, of course, to say good-bye
to people.
"Tell the Torfses to get my things ready for moving. There will be
five of us: I and Martha, and Daphne and two servants of her own;
for Daphne's got to take old Mrs. Richards, who won't be parted from
her.
"Good-bye for the present. My dear boy, I thank God on my knees,
night and morning for having given you back to me in my old age.
"Your ever affectionate aunt,
"Caroline.
"P. S.--You remember pretty little Kitty Hardwicke you used to flirt
with, who married young St. Clair, who's now Lord Kidderminster?
She's just had three at a birth; she had twins only last year; the
Queen's delighted. Pray be careful about never getting wet feet--"
One stormy evening in May, Mrs. Gibson drove Ida and Leah and me and
Mr. Babbage, a middle-aged but very dapper War Office clerk (who was
a friend of the Gibson family), to Chelsea, that we might explore
Cheyne Walk and its classic neighborhood. I rode on the box by the
coachman.
We alighted by the steamboat pier and explored, I walking with Leah.
We came to a very narrow street, quite straight, the narrowest
street that could call itself a street at all, and rather long; we
were the only people in it. It has since disappeared, with all that
particular part of Chelsea.
Suddenly we saw a runaway horse without a rider coming along it at
full gallop, straight at us, with a most demoralizing sharp clatter
of its iron hoofs on the stone pavement.
"Your backs to the wall!" cried Mr. Babbage, and we flattened
ourselves to let the maddened brute go by, bridle and stirrups
flying--poor Mrs. Gibson almost faint with terror.
Leah, instead of flattening herself against the wall, put her arms
round her mother, making of her own body a shield for her, and
looked round at the horse as it came tearing up the street, striking
sparks from the flag-stones.
Nobody was hurt, for a wonder; but Mrs. Gibson was quite overcome.
Mr. Babbage was very angry with Leah, whose back the horse actually
grazed, as he all but caught his hoofs in her crinoline and hit her
with a stirrup on the shoulder.
I could only think of Leah's face as she looked round at the
approaching horse, with her protecting arms round her mother. It was
such a sudden revelation to me of what she really was, and its
expression was so hauntingly impressive that I could think of
nothing else. Its mild, calm courage, its utter carelessness of
self, its immense tenderness--all blazed out in such beautiful
lines, in such beautiful white and black, that I lost all
self-control; and when we walked back to the pier, following the
rest of the party, I asked her to be my wife.
She turned very pale again, and the flesh of her chin quivered as
she told me that was _quite impossible--and could never be_.
I asked her if there was anybody else, and she said there was
nobody, but that she did not wish ever to marry; that, beyond her
parents and Ida, she loved and respected me more than anybody else
in the whole world, but that she could never marry me. She was much
agitated, and said the sweetest, kindest things, but put all hope
out of the question at once.
It was the greatest blow I have ever had in my life.
Three days after, I went to America; and before I came back I had
started in New York the American branch of the house of
Vougeot-Conti, and laid the real foundation of the largest fortune
that has ever yet been made by selling wine, and of the long
political career about which I will say nothing in these pages.
On my voyage out I wrote a long blaze letter to Barty, and poured
out all my grief, and my resignation to the decree which I felt to
be irrevocable. I reminded him of that playful toss-up in
Southampton Row, and told him that, having surrendered all claims
myself, the best thing that could happen to me was that she should
some day marry _him_ (which I certainly did not think at all
likely).
So henceforward, reader, you will not be troubled by your obedient
servant with the loves of a prosperous merchant of wines. Had those
loves been more successful, and the wines less so, you would never
have heard of either.
Whether or not I should have been a happier man in the long-run I
really can't say--mine has been, on the whole, a very happy life, as
men's lives go; but I am bound to admit, in all due modesty, that
the universe would probably have been the poorer by some very
splendid people, and perhaps by some very splendid things it could
ill have spared; and one great and beautifully borne sorrow the less
would have been ushered into this world of many sorrows.
* * * * *
It was a bright May morning (a year after this) when Barty and his
aunt Caroline and his cousin Daphne and their servants left Antwerp
for Duesseldorf on the Rhine.
At Malines they had to change trains, and spent half an hour at the
station waiting for the express from Brussels and bidding farewell
to their Mechlin friends, who had come there to wish them God-speed:
the Abbe Lefebvre, Father Louis, and others; and the Torfses, pere
et mere; and little Frau, who wept freely as Lady Caroline kissed
her and gave her a pretty little diamond brooch. Barty gave her a
gold cross and a hearty shake of the hand, and she seemed quite
heart-broken.
Then up came the long, full train, and their luggage was swallowed,
and they got in, and the two guards blew their horns, and they left
Malines behind them--with a mixed feeling of elation and regret.
They had not been very happy there, but many people had been very
kind; and the place, with all its dreariness, had a strange, still
charm, and was full of historic beauty and romantic associations.
Passing Louvain, Barty shook his fist at the Catholic University and
its scientific priestly professors, who condemned one so lightly to
a living death. He hated the aspect of the place, the very smell of
it.
At Verviers they left the Belgian train; they had reached the limits
of King Leopold's dominions. There was half an hour for lunch in the
big refreshment-room, over which his Majesty and the Queen of the
Belgians presided from the wall--nearly seven feet high each of
them, and in their regal robes.
Just as the Rohans ordered their repast another English party came
to their table and ordered theirs--a distinguished old gentleman of
naval bearing and aspect; a still young middle-aged lady, very
handsome, with blue spectacles; and an immensely tall, fair girl,
very fully developed, and so astonishingly beautiful that it almost
took one's breath away merely to catch sight of her; and people were
distracted from ordering their mid-day meal merely to stare at this
magnificent goddess, who was evidently born to be a mother of
heroes.
These British travellers had a valet, a courier, and two maids, and
were evidently people of consequence.
Suddenly the lady with the blue spectacles (who had seated herself
close to the Rohan party) got up and came round the table to Barty's
aunt and said:
"You don't remember me, Lady Caroline; Lady Jane Royce!"
And an old acquaintance was renewed in this informal
manner--possibly some old feud patched up.
Then everybody was introduced to everybody else, and they all
lunched together, a scramble!
It turned out that Lady Jane Royce was in some alarm about her eyes,
and was going to consult the famous Dr. Hasenclever, and had brought
her daughter with her, just as the London season had begun.
Her daughter was the "divine Julia" who had refused so many splendid
offers--among them the little hunchback Lord who was to have a
thousand a day, "including Sundays"; a most unreasonable young
woman, and a thorn in her mother's flesh.
The elderly gentleman, Admiral Royce, was Lady Jane's uncle-in-law,
whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. He was a charming
old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and
declared he remembered hearing of Barty as the naughtiest boy in the
Guards; and took an immediate fancy to him in consequence.
They had come from Brussels in the same train that had brought the
Rohans from Malines, and they all journeyed together from Verviers
to Duesseldorf in the same first-class carriage, as became English
swells of the first water--for in those days no one ever thought of
going first-class in Germany except the British aristocracy and a
few native royalties.
The divine Julia turned out as fascinating as she was fair, being
possessed of those high spirits that result from youth and health
and fancy-freedom, and no cares to speak of. She was evidently also
a very clever and accomplished young lady, absolutely without
affectation of any kind, and amiable and frolicsome to the highest
degree--a kind of younger Barty Josselin in petticoats; oddly
enough, so like him in the face she might have been his sister.
Indeed, it was a lively party that journeyed to Duesseldorf that
afternoon in that gorgeously gilded compartment, though three out of
the six were in deep mourning; the only person not quite happy being
Lady Jane, who, in addition to her trouble about her eyes (which was
really nothing to speak of), began to fidget herself miserably about
Barty Josselin; for that wretched young detrimental was evidently
beginning to ingratiate himself with the divine Julia as no young
man had ever been known to do before, keeping her in fits of
laughter, and also laughing at everything she said herself.
Alas for Lady Jane! it was to escape the attentions of a far less
dangerous detrimental, and a far less ineligible one, that she had
brought her daughter with her all the way to Riffrath--"from
Charybdis to Scylla," as we used to say at Brossard's, putting the
cart before the horse, _more Latino_!
I ought also to mention that a young Captain Graham-Reece was a
patient of Dr. Hasenclever's just then--and Captain Graham-Reece was
heir to the octogenarian Earl of Ironsides, who was one of the four
wealthiest peers in the United Kingdom, and had no direct
descendants.
When they reached Duesseldorf they all went to the Breidenbacher
Hotel, where rooms had been retained for them, all but Barty, who,
as became his humbler means, chose the cheaper hotel Domhardt, which
overlooks the market-place adorned by the statue of the Elector that
Heine has made so famous.
He took a long evening walk through the vernal Hof Gardens and by
the Rhine, and thought of the beauty and splendor of the divine
Julia; and sighed, and remembered that he was Mr. Nobody of Nowhere,
_pictor ignotus_, with only one eye he could see with, and possessed
of a fortune which invested in the 3 per cents would bring him in
just L6 a year--and made up his mind he would stick to his painting
and keep as much away from her divinity as possible.
"O Martia, Martia!" he said, aloud, as he suddenly felt the north at
the right of him, "I hope that you are some loving female soul, and
that you know my weakness--namely, that one woman in every ten
thousand has a face that drives me mad; and that I can see just as
well with one eye as with two, in spite of my _punctum coecum_! and
that when that face is all but on a level with mine, good Lord! then
am I lost indeed! I am but a poor penniless devil, without a name;
oh, keep me from that ten-thousandth face, and cover my retreat!"
Next morning Lady Jane and Julia and the Admiral left for
Riffrath--and Barty and his aunt and cousin went in search of
lodgings; sweet it was, and bright and sunny, as they strolled down
the broad Allee Strasse; a regiment of Uhlans came along on
horseback, splendid fellows, the band playing the "Lorelei."
In the fulness of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each
other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the
pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more,
from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other very
dearly.
"Que me voila donc bien contente, mon petit Barty--et toi? la jolie
ville, hein?"
"C'est le ciel, tout bonnement--et tu vas m'apprendre l'allemand,
n'est-ce-pas, m'amour?"
"Oui, et nous lirons _Heine_ ensemble; tiens, a propos! regarde le
nom de la rue qui fait le coin! _Bolker Strasse!_ c'est la qu'il est
ne, le pauvre Heine! Ote ton chapeau!"
(Barty nearly always spoke French with Daphne, as he did with my
sister and me, and said "thee and thou.")
They found a furnished house that suited them in the Schadow
Strasse, opposite Geissler's, where for two hours every Thursday and
Sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and
drink coffee, beer, or Maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and
dance in the evening under cover to strains of Strauss, Lanner, and
Gungl, and other heavenly waltz-makers! With all their faults, they
know how to make the best of their lives, these good Vaterlanders,
and how to dance, and especially how to make music--and also how to
fight! So we won't quarrel with them, after all!
Barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house
tenanted by many painters--some of them English and some American.
He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and
opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the
fir-clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows
singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good-humored slavy
in the garden below:
"Johanna, mein Fruehstueck, bitte!"
A phrase he had carefully rehearsed with Daphne the evening before.
And, to his delight and surprise, Johanna understood the mysterious
jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most
good-humored grin he had ever seen on a female face.
Coffee and a roll and a pat of butter.
First of all, he went to see Dr. Hasenclever at Riffrath, which was
about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk--an
immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the
famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe,
even from America. The train that took Barty thither was full of
them; for some chose to live in Duesseldorf.
The great man saw his patients on the ground-floor of the Koenig's
Hotel, the principal hotel in Riffrath, the hall of which was always
crowded with these afflicted ones--patiently waiting each his turn,
or hers; and there Barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he
had sent in his name at 10 A.M., and been told that he would be seen
after four o'clock. Then he walked about the village, which was
charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages
in the Richter albums by black beams--and full of English, many of
them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one
eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a
stick, alas!
Barty met the three Royces, walking with an old gentleman of
aristocratic appearance, and a very nice-looking young one (who was
Captain Graham-Reece). The Admiral gave him a friendly nod--Lady
Jane a nod that almost amounted to a cut direct. But the divine
Julia gave him a look and a smile that were warm enough to make up
for much maternal frigidity.
Later on, in a tobacconist's shop, he again met the Admiral, who
introduced him to the aristocratic old gentleman, Mr. Beresford
Duff, secretary to the Admiralty--who evidently knew all about him,
and inquired quite affectionately after Lady Caroline, and invited
him to come and drink tea at five o'clock: a new form of hospitality
of his own invention--it has caught on!
Barty lunched at the Koenig's Hotel table d'hote, which was crowded,
principally with English people, none of whom he had ever met or
heard of. But from these he heard a good deal of the Royces and
Captain Graham-Reece and Mr. Beresford Duff, and other smart people
who lived in furnished houses or expensive apartments away from the
rest of the world, and were objects of general interest and
curiosity among the smaller British fry.
Riffrath was a microcosm of English society, from the lower middle class
upwards, with all its respectabilities and incompatibilities and
disabilities--its narrownesses and meannesses and snobbishnesses, its
gossipings and backbitings and toadyings and snubbings--delicate little
social things of England that foreigners don't understand!
The sensation of the hour was the advent of Julia, the divine Julia!
Gossip was already rife about her and Captain Reece. They had taken
a long walk in the woods together the day before--with Lady Jane and
the Admiral far behind, out of ear-shot, almost out of sight.
In the afternoon, between four and five, Barty had his interview
with the doctor--a splendid, white-haired old man, of benign and
intelligent aspect, almost mesmeric, with his assistant sitting by
him.
He used no new-fangled ophthalmoscope, but asked many questions in
fairly good French, and felt with his fingers, and had many German
asides with the assistant. He told Barty that he had lost the sight
of his left eye forever; but that with care he would keep that of
the right one for the rest of his life--barring accidents, of
course. That he must never eat cheese nor drink beer. That he (the
doctor) would like to see him once a week or fortnight or so for a
few months yet--and gave him a prescription for an eye-lotion and
dismissed him happy.
Half a loaf is so much better than no bread, if you can only count
upon it!
Barty went straight to Mr. Beresford Duff's, and there found a very
agreeable party, including the divine Julia, who was singing little
songs very prettily and accompanying herself on a guitar.
"'You ask me why I look so pale?'" sang Julia, just as Barty
entered: and red as a rose was she.
Lady Jane didn't seem at all overjoyed to see Barty, but Julia did,
and did not disguise the seeming.
There were eight or ten people there, and they all appeared to know
about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old
London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about
well-known people, and nothing else--as if nothing else existed; a
genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found
charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had
no proper place of his own, all through that fatal bar-sinister--la
barre de batardise; a world that was his and yet not his, and in
whose midst his position was a false one, but where every one took
him for granted at once as one of _them_, so long as he never
trespassed beyond that sufferance; that there must be no love-making
to lovely young heiresses by the bastard of Antoinette Josselin was
taken for granted also!
[Illustration: "'YOU ASK ME WHY I LOOK SO PALE?'"]
Before Barty had been there half an hour two or three people had
evidently lost their hearts to him in friendship; among them, to Lady
Jane's great discomfiture, the handsome and amiable Graham-Reece, the
cynosure of all female eyes in Riffrath; and when Barty (after very
little pressing by Miss Royce) twanged her guitar and sang little
songs--French and English, funny and sentimental--he became, as he had
so often become in other scenes, the Rigoletto of the company; and
Riffrath was a kingdom in which he might be court jester in ordinary if
he chose, whenever he elected to honor it with his gracious and
facetious musical presence.
So much for his debut in that strange little overgrown busy
village! What must it be like now?
Dr. Hasenclever has been gathered to his fathers long ago, and
nobody that I know of has taken his place. All those new hotels and
lodging-houses and smart shops--what can they have been turned into?
Barracks? prisons? military hospitals and sanatoriums? How dull!
Lady Caroline and Daphne and Barty between them added considerably
to the gayety of Duesseldorf that summer--especially when Royces and
Reeces and Duffs and such like people came there from Riffrath to
lunch, or tea, or dinner, or for walks or drives or rides to
Grafenberg or Neanderthal, or steamboatings to Neuss.
There were one or two other English families in Duesseldorf, living
there for economy's sake, but yet of the world--of the kind that got
to be friends with the Rohans; half-pay old soldiers and sailors and
their families, who introduced agreeable and handsome Uhlans and
hussars--from their Serene Highnesses the Princes Fritz and Hans von
Eselbraten--Himmelsblutwuerst--Silberschinken, each passing rich on
L200 a year, down to poor Lieutenants von this or von that, with
nothing but their pay and their thirty-two quarterings.
Also a few counts and barons, and princes not serene, but with fine
German fortunes looming for them in the future, though none
amounting to L1000 a day, like little Lord Orrisroot's!
Soon there was hardly a military heart left whole in the town; Julia
had eaten them all up, except one or two that had been unconsciously
nibbled by little Daphne.
Barty did not join in these aristocratic revels; he had become a
pupil of Herr Duffenthaler, and worked hard in his master's studio
with two brothers of the brush--one English, the other American;
delightful men who remained his friends for life.
Indeed, he lived among the painters, who all got to love "der schoene
Barty Josselin" like a brother.
Now and then, of an evening, being much pressed by his aunt, he
would show himself at a small party in Schadow Strasse, and sing and
be funny, and attentive to the ladies, and render himself discreetly
useful and agreeable all round--and make that party go off. Lady
Caroline would have been far happier had he lived with them
altogether. But she felt herself responsible for her innocent and
wealthy little niece.
It was an article of faith with Lady Caroline that no normal and
properly constituted young woman could see much of Barty without
falling over head and ears in love with him--and this would never do
for Daphne. Besides, they were first-cousins. So she acquiesced in
the independence of his life apart from them. She was not
responsible for the divine Julia, who might fall in love with him
just as she pleased, and welcome! That was Lady Jane's lookout, and
Captain Graham-Reece's.
But Barty always dined with his aunt and cousin on Thursdays and
Sundays, after listening to the music in Geissler's Garden,
opposite, and drinking coffee with them there, and also with Prince
Fritz and Prince Hans, who always joined the party and smoked their
cheap cigars; and sometimes the divine Julia would make one of the
party too, with her mother and uncle and Captain Reece; and the good
painter fellows would envy from afar their beloved but too fortunate
comrade; and the hussars and Uhlans, von this and von that, would
find seats and tables as near the princely company as possible.
And every time a general officer entered the garden, up stood every
officer of inferior rank till the great man had comfortably seated
himself somewhere in the azure sunshine of Julia's forget-me-not
warm glance.
And before the summer had fulfilled itself, and the roses at
Geissler's were overblown, it became evident to Lady Caroline, if to
none other, that Julia had eyes for no one else in the world but
Barty Josselin. I had it from Lady Caroline herself.
But Barty Josselin had eyes only (such eyes as they were) for his
work at Herr Duffenthaler's, and lived laborious days, except on
Thursday and Sunday afternoons, and shunned delights, except to dine
at the Runsberg Speiserei with his two fellow-pupils, and Henley and
Armstrong and Bancroft and du Maurier and others, all painters,
mostly British and Yankee; and an uncommonly lively and agreeable
repast that was! And afterwards, long walks by moon or star light,
or music at each other's rooms, and that engrossing technical shop
talk that never palls on those who talk it. No Guardsman's talk of
turf or sport or the ballet had ever been so good as this, in
Barty's estimation; no agreeable society gossip at Mr. Beresford
Duff's Riffrath tea-parties!
[Illustration: "'YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY YOU'RE GOING TO PAINT FOR
HIRE!'"]
Once in every fortnight or so Barty would report himself to Dr.
Hasenclever, and spend the day in Riffrath and lunch with the good old
Beresford Duff, who was very fond of him, and who lamented over his loss
of caste in devoting himself professionally to art.
"God bless me--my dear Barty, you don't mean to say you're going to
paint for _hire_!"
"Indeed I am, if any one will hire me. How else am I to live?"
"Well, _you_ know best, my dear boy; but I should have thought the
Rohans might have got you something better than _that_. It's true,
Buckner does it, and Swinton, and Francis Grant! But _still_, you
know ... there _are_ other ways of getting on for a fellow like you.
Look at Prince Gelbioso, who ran away with the Duchess of Flitwick!
He didn't sing a bit better than you do, and as for looks, you beat
him hollow, my dear boy; yet all London went mad about Prince
Gelbioso, and so did she; and off she bolted with him, bag and
baggage, leaving husband and children and friends and all! and she'd
got ten thousand a year of her own; and when the Duke divorced her
they were married, and lived happily ever after--in Italy; and some
of the best people called upon 'em, by George!... just to spite the
Duke!"
Barty felt it would seem priggish or even insincere if he were to
disclaim any wish to emulate Prince Gelbioso; so he merely said he
thought painting easier on the whole, and not so risky; and the good
Beresford Duff talked of other things--of the divine Julia, and what
a good thing it would be if she and Graham-Reece could make a match
of it.
"Two of the finest fortunes in England, by George! they _ought_ to
come together, if only just for the fun of the thing! Not that she
is a bit in love with him--I'll eat my hat if she is! What a pity
_you_ ain't goin' to be Lord Ironsides, Barty!"
Barty frankly confessed _he_ shouldn't much object, for one.
"But, 'ni l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux,' as we used
to be taught at school."
"Ah, that's all gammon; wait till you're _my_ age, my young friend,
and as poor as _I_ am," said Beresford Duff. And so the two friends
talked on, Mentor and Telemachus--and we needn't listen any further.