I compile these notes, these memoirs of a past episode, from what
motive? I do not know. From vain unhappiness, perhaps: perhaps from an
ineradicable instinct to deliver myself, in some concrete form, of a
haunting vision. I do not seek the world’s opinion on them; I should
care nothing for it, whichever way pronounced. If anything, they are
in the nature of an appeal to the one spirit that could appreciate
them, a grave self-analysis, a considered defence, offered to the
clear judgment of the disembodied. If there is any moral weakness in
them, let me abide by that judgment. I plead nothing in extenuation
but sentiment, which in heaven, I think, is still allowed more place
than in this modern world of ours, where it has come to be regarded as
a contemptible thing, to be rigorously eschewed in art, in education,
and, save in its most hypocritically clap-trap form, in the gamble
called politics. Yet by sentiment, I think, we humanise, and without
it retrograde. When there is no more, we shall have returned to the
primal anarchy.
Looks are a powerful influence in the shaping of one’s destiny. The
really good-looking man, having the confidence of his parts, finds
himself easily equipped for the conquests for which souls less
naturally endowed must suffer a severe handicap. He is a laggard if he
allows himself to be overtaken; and so I have often found it. My
excuse lies--my salvation, perhaps--in my inborn faculty for creating
things of beauty far beyond the material reach of the senses. To carve
divinity out of stone is ever a higher joy to me than to beget its
fleshly image. Wherefore I can assert truly that personal coxcombry is
as remote from my nature as the pride of the craftsman is near and
holy. That may be believed or not: it may concern others to dispute
what it does not concern me to defend.
I put this to myself, and to one other, if not as a justification, as
a plea. I have sinned, if I have sinned, not from vanity at all. A
thousand times I would rather have suffered that longest handicap than
have basely used a favour due to no merit, but merely to inheritance.
I did not so use it. It was the traffic of souls, not of bodies, that
made the real joy and misery. It would have been the same in the end,
though I had possessed the features of a Caliban. And with that I will
leave it.
_It seems appropriate here to interpolate a note, descriptive of the
writer in his late thirties, from the pen of Monsieur C., professor of
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and himself a distinguished
sculptor--who knew intimately, and was an ardent admirer of, the
erratic genius self-portrayed in these pages. Monsieur C. writes:--_
“_Le Danois is very amusing, very clever, very suffisant. He will be
here one moment and nowhere the next; and so with his work, his
opinions, his enthusiasms. No one must doubt him, even when to-morrow
he advocates the cause or the theory which to-day he denounces. And no
one, I am sure, will think of doing so--for the moment: his personal
magnetism, his unvexed effrontery see to it. His clothes--a hardy
Englishman’s compromise with the French habit--are generally patched
and mended: his manners show no bad places at all. He commonly wears
what they call a Norfolk suit, but without lapels; knickerbockers, a
white handkerchief round his neck in lieu of collar, and white canvas
boots with string soles. And in these he will appear unembarrassed in
drawing-rooms--to make ladies in love with vagabondism. I think I have
never known in another the true gentleman and the true Bohemian so
naturally blended. There is not a shadow of pose about him: his belief
in himself is too simply unaffected for it. In person he is tall,
somewhat lean, and muscular, with the thews of a mountaineer and the
eyes of a jay. His hair, thick and brushed forward like a thatch, is
coloured a warm brown, and his strong brows, moustache, and short
beard au poinçon, are of the same satisfying tone. His face is very
agreeably formed, with a look of power and self-confidence in it; and
yet he is a disappointed man, one whose expectations have run well
ahead of his achievements. He is interested in too many things, that
is the fact. In his youth he was bred for the Bar, but soon abandoned
its attractions for those of the free life and the pursuit of beauty.
An artist, with an irresistible penchant for metaphysics, music, and
mechanical science, and an insatiable curiosity about everything, he
has never quite succeeded in realising himself or convincing others.
Yet some magnificent fragments exist to his credit--a noble head or
so, a torso worthy of Praxiteles. I suspect he is too impatient of
practice to make perfect. It is a danger, after all, to be too deft
with one’s fingers. Things picked up quickly quickly lose their
interest; and there are so many fine things in the world to be picked
up. Will our friend ever learn to concentrate? I fear. And, by the by,
where is he just now? Nobody knows, of course. B. C._”
With a smile for Madame Crussol [continues the narrator], I went up
the stairs leisurely. I found my “cousin” standing outside my door,
and she turned to look at me as I arrived. I saw question but no
embarrassment in her eyes. She held wrapped about her, more for
concealment than warmth, I supposed, one of those heavy military
capotes of stone blue which have become fashionable with ladies of
late; and a black velvet hat, of Tudor shape and with a small white
feather, surmounted her head coquettishly.
“You have been a long time coming, Monsieur,” she said; and her voice
was soft to sleepiness.
“Ah, true!” I answered. “I have cause for deliberation.”
The door was ajar; I motioned her in and closed it behind us. It shut
with a snap, delivering us to complete privacy. Preceding her, I went
through the little passage into the salle-à-manger, whence on one
side opened the tiny kitchen, on the other my large sitting-room,
leading into the single bed-chamber beyond, which together comprised
my whole domain. She had followed me, and stopped, as I did, in the
main apartment.
“So far so good,” I said. “And now, if you please, what next?”
Her eyes, I could see, were busy with her surroundings, and I took the
word from them:--
“Yes, it is all very plain and ungarnished, the quarters of an
unstable vagabond quite unused to entertaining countesses. But for
what they are worth, they are entirely at your disposition.”
Her eyes came round to me, impassive but wondering.
“You are not to call me that,” she said.
“To call you what? O, yes! I understand. But there is still the
question of the moral inference. Am I to defer to what I may not
specify--your rank--or to disregard it altogether?”
The eyes seemed to expand momentarily.
“Would there not be danger in the first?” she asked.
“No,” I answered gravely; “I believe not, if we are careful.”
“Then I think I should like it,” she said, with the tiniest sigh as of
relief.
I bowed. “The only difficulty lies in my ignorance of the forms, the
ceremonial. But I am adaptable, and learn quickly. It occurs to me
that, having placed all that I own at your disposal, it is meet for me
to retire to the kitchen, while you take stock of the premises. An
inventory will not fatigue you. I ask your permission to withdraw.”
I left her standing mute--appraising me, it seemed, with those solemn
enigmatic eyes.
“This is petrifying,” I said, apostrophising the saucepan on my little
electric stove. There were the cold remains of a curry in it, an
excellent curry concocted by myself; but it was not to that I alluded.
“I am to be kept in my place, it seems; to esteem at its worth the
honour of this condescension, and not to think of presuming upon it.
I look for some sign of the stress and tragedy which brought a
fugitive to my door. I might as well look for blood in a statue. But
it is all very amusing, and I am going thoroughly to enjoy myself.”
It occurred to me that, what with the hour and the exercise, my cousin
might be hungry. Anyhow, to prepare and produce a meal would serve to
give her time for her exploration, and perhaps to thaw the ice.
Wherefore I set to work and cut some sandwiches, knocked up an
omelette aux confitures, brewed some chocolate, and, when all was
ready, carried in the whole on a tray.
She was standing where, but not as, I had left her. The cloak was
doffed and the hat. I saw her clearly for the first time, a placid
self-possessed young figure, and with nothing but her rank to signal
her out from the majority. Comely if you like: if you like, a thought
more Southern in suggestion than Parisian. There was the complexion of
warm ivory, deepening to a glow under the eyes, which were of a hot
velvet brown; there was the short straight nose, the smooth rather
round cheek and ripe babyish mouth. But all was impassive,
unperturbed, and seemingly imperturbable. She was dressed in black,
very plain and showing the full of the neck, which was certainly a
shapely feature. I had seen many girls of her pattern south of
Valence, “_où le midi commence_,” and she was neither better nor
worse than the pick of them--just a proud-fleshed young animal.
“Will you?” I said. “After this stress and fatigue you must need
refreshment.”
I fancied her eyes glistened a little at the sight. I pulled a small
table towards a chair, set out my feast, and asked her to be seated.
She glanced at me a little doubtfully before complying.
“I understood that Monsieur’s ménage----”
“Was summed up in Monsieur himself? That is quite right. I am my own
portier, my own garçon-de-chambre, my own cook--all of the best
character. I do not believe in doing things by halves. What I take up
I master. ‘Well meant’ is not enough for me: it must be ‘well done.’”
“I will tell you that,” she said, “when I have eaten.”
The calm insolence of it! I banged the chair down on my own foot, as I
set it in place for her. She hesitated a moment before seating
herself. There was a perplexed look in her eyes, between condescension
and reluctance.
“No, thank you,” I said: “I couldn’t dream of it. I shall have my
supper presently among the cinders.”
She ate with evident enjoyment, and in complete self-possession.
Indeed I have never known a Frenchwoman, though the cynosure of a
score of eyes surrounding her, show embarrassment over a solitary
meal. At the end she wiped her lips and her fingers, and, putting down
her napkin, leaned back.
“It was very nice,” she said. “I liked it all.”
I came from the background, to which I had considerately withdrawn,
pretending to read a book.
“I am reassured,” I answered, preparing to remove the tray. “I hope
the rest of my establishment is as much to your taste?”
She glanced up at me, with an indolent question:--
“Where will you sleep yourself?”
Of course: it was a reasonable query, yet it took my breath away.
“O! don’t trouble about me,” I said, “I am a seasoned vagrant. A rug,
and the kitchen table, will serve my needs. When we have disposed your
baggage----”
“I have no baggage.”
The shock of the retort! And yet I might have foreseen.
“It was all decided in such a hurry,” she said--“and at the last
moment. There was no time to prepare anything.”
“Then----” I stood fairly petrified. “It all turns upon the resources
of my wardrobe--_mine_.”
“If you please,” she said. “To-morrow we can arrange things better.”
“You must excuse me,” I answered. “You will understand that you find
me as ill-prepared as yourself. If you will take a book--or a
cigarette--I will go and see what can be done.”
She took a cigarette, impassively content, and I disappeared into the
bedroom. There were her hat and cloak placed on a chair, and it gave
me an odd turn to encounter those signs of feminine usurpation.
I could find sheets and linen; I could dispose my other effects,
appropriately and with resignation. And then I paused, before
producing from a drawer my smartest pair of clean pyjamas. I looked at
the length, and shook my head; I turned up the cuffs and the end of
each leg, folded and lay the things gently on the pillow, and returned
to my visitor.
“I have done my best,” I said. “When it pleases you to retire----”
She rose at once, yawning slightly.
“I am ready, Monsieur. I can hardly, as it is, keep my eyes open”--and
she went, and the door was shut between us.
I stood gazing a moment; then switched off the light, turned into the
salle-à-manger, closed the door, took a chair, filled and lit my
pipe, and sat drawing at it and grinning to myself, like a blissful
sucking infant half-hypnotised by the enormous novelty of things. Was
it constitutional or “serenical,” in the exalted Highness sense, this
impassibility in the face of shocks, this unquestioning acceptance of
services as a favour not so much received as bestowed? This girl, this
serene infant, had just, if I were to credit my step-sister, passed
through a crisis, the consummation of a long ordeal of hate and
tyranny, enough to try the stoutest nerves; yet she had shown no more
agitation, no more embarrassment over the turn of events than if she
had gone out for a drive and been belated in a country inn. The flight
by night, the pursuit, the sudden immurement and isolation in strange
quarters, appeared to have left her wholly unperturbed. What
traditions of command and self-will lay at the back of such assurance,
what arrogance of blood and class insolence! and she no more than a
grown child, whose contact hitherto with the world must have been of
the slightest. It was a new experience for me, this calm overriding of
a man’s intelligence and independence by sheer virtue of
aristocracy--a new, and I will own, a rather piquant one. I foresaw
plentiful amusement for myself in the situation--if I could only
accept it on its merits.
I could not, nevertheless, quite do that at once. The thing appeared
too wildly fantastical for sober belief. There must be some
mystification somewhere, whether unconscious or deliberate, in the
story--enough, at least, in my suspicions, to make a farce of my
tragic undertaking. Still I had given my word and must play out the
farce--conceal what nobody, perhaps, wanted to discover, watch and
ward what nobody, perhaps, wanted to injure. Only I hoped devoutly it
would not last for long. I was no sybarite, but--
I slept out the night in my chair.