When the boat entered the harbor it was already night. Tristrem was
tired, but his fatigue was pleasant to him. His Odyssey was done. New
York, it is true, was many days away, but he was no longer to wander
feverishly from town to town. If he was weary, at least his mind was at
rest. Riva is on the Austrian frontier, and while the luggage was being
examined Tristrem hummed contentedly to himself. He would get some
dinner at the hotel, for he was hungry as he had not been in months. At
last he would have a good night's rest; there would be no insomnia now.
In the magic of a cablegram that succube had been exorcised forever. On
the morrow he would start afresh, and neither stop nor stay till the
goal was reached. It was no longer vague and intangible--it was full in
sight. And so, while the officers were busy with his traps, he hummed
the unforgotten air, _O Magali, ma bien aimée_.
The hotel to which he presently had himself conveyed stands in a large
garden that leans to the lake. It is a roomy structure, built
quadrangularwise. On one side is a little châlet. Above, to the right
and left, precipitous cliffs and trellised mountains loom like
battlements of Titan homes. The air is very sweet, and at that season of
the year almost overweighted with the scent of flowers. In spite of the
night, the sky was visibly blue, and high up in the heavens the moon
glittered with the glint of sulphur.
As the carriage drew up at the door there was a clang of bells; an
individual in a costume that was brilliant as the uniform of a
field-officer hastened to greet the guest; at the threshold was the
Oberkellner; a few steps behind him the manager stood bowing
persuasively; and as Tristrem entered, the waiters, hastily marshalled,
ranged themselves on either side of the hall.
"Vorrei," Tristrem began, and then remembering that he was no longer in
Italy, continued in German.
The answer came in the promptest English.
"Yes, my lord; will your lordship dine at _table d'hôte_? Du, Konrad,
schnell, die Speise-karte."
Tristrem examined the bill of fare which was then brought him, and while
he studied the contents he heard himself called by name. He looked up,
and recognized Ledyard Yorke, his companion of months before on the
outward-bound Cunarder, who welcomed him with much warmth and
cordiality.
"And whatever became of Miss Tippity-fitchet? You don't mean to say you
did not see her again? Fancy that! It was through no fault of hers,
then. But there, in spite of your promise, you didn't so much as look
_me_ up. I am just in from a tramp to Mori; suppose we brush up a bit
and have dinner together?" He turned to the waiter. "Konrad, wir speisen
draussen; verschaffen Sie 'was Monkenkloster."
"Zu Befehl, Herr Baron."
Half an hour later, when the brushing up was done and the Monkenkloster
was uncorked, Tristrem and Yorke seated themselves in an arbor that
overhung the lake.
"It's ever so much better here than at _table d'hôte_," Yorke began. "I
hate that sort of business--don't you? I have been here over two months,
but after a week or so of it I gave up promiscuous feeding. Since then,
whenever I have been able, I have dined out here. I don't care to have
every dish I eat seasoned with the twaddle of cheap-trippers. To be
sure, few of them get here. Riva is well out of the beaten track. But
one _table d'hôte_ is just like another, and they are all of them
wearying to the spirit and fatiguing to digestion. Look at that water,
will you. It's almost Venice, isn't it? I can tell you, I have done some
good work in this place. But what have you been doing yourself?"
"Nothing to speak of," Tristrem answered. "I have been roaming from
pillar to post. It's the second time I have been over the Continent, and
now I am on my way home. I am tired of it; I shall be glad to be back."
"Yes you were the last person I expected to meet. If I remember rightly,
you said on the steamer that you were to be on this side but a short
time. It's always the unexpected that occurs, isn't it? By the way, I
have got my sphinx."
"What sphinx?"
"I thought I told you. I have been looking for years for a certain face.
I wanted one that I could give to a sphinx. The accessories were
nothing. I put them on canvas long ago, but the face I never could
grasp. Not one of all that I tried suited me. I had almost given it up;
but I got it--I got it at last. I'll show it to you to-morrow."
"I am afraid----You see, I leave very early."
"I'll show it to you to-night, then; you must see it. If I had had it
made to order it could not suit me better. It came about in such an odd
way. All winter I have been at work in Munich. I intended to remain
until June, but the spring there is bleaker than your own New England.
One morning I said to myself, Why not take a run down to Italy? Two days
later, I was on my way. But at Mori, instead of pushing straight on to
Verona, I drove over here, thinking it would be pleasanter to take the
boat. I arrived here at midnight. The next morning I looked out of the
window, and there, right in front of me, in that châlet, was my sphinx.
Well, the upshot of it was, I have been here ever since. I repainted the
entire picture--the old one wasn't good enough."
"I should like to see it very much," said Tristrem, less from interest
than civility.
"I wish you had come in time to see the original. She never suspected
that she had posed as a model, and though her window was just opposite
mine, I believe she did not so much as pay me the compliment of being
aware of my existence. There were days when she sat hour after hour
looking out at the lake, almost motionless, in the very attitude that I
wanted. It was just as though she were repeating the phrase that
Flaubert puts in the Sphinx's mouth, 'I am guarding my secret--I
calculate and I dream.' Wasn't it odd, after all, that I should have
found her in that hap-hazard way?"
"It was odd," Tristrem answered; "who was she?"
"I don't know. French, I fancy. Her name was Dupont, or
Duflot--something utterly _bourgeois_. There was an old lady with her,
her mother, I suppose. I remember, at _table d'hôte_ one evening, a
Russian woman, with an 'itch' in her name, said she did not think she
was comme il faut. 'She is comme il _m'en_ faut,' I answered, and
mentally I added, 'which is a deuced sight more than I can say of you,
who are comme il n'en faut pas.' The Russian woman was indignant at her,
I presume, because she did not come to the public table. You know that
feeling, 'If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you.' But my
sphinx not only did not appear at _table d'hôte_, she did not put her
foot outside of the châlet. One bright morning she disappeared from the
window, and a few days later I heard that she had been confined. Shortly
after she went away. It did not matter, though, I had her face. Let me
give you another glass of Monkenkloster."
"She was married, then?"
"Yes, her husband was probably some brute that did not know how to
appreciate her. I don't mean, though, that she looked unhappy. She
looked impassible, she looked exactly the way I wanted to have her look.
If you have finished your coffee, come up to my little atelier. I wish
you could see the picture by daylight, but you may be able to get an
idea of it from the candles." And as Mr. Yorke led the way, he added,
confidentially, "I should really like to have your opinion."
The atelier to which Yorke had alluded as "little" was, so well as
Tristrem could discern in the darkness, rather spacious than otherwise.
He loitered in the door-way until his companion had lighted and arranged
the candles, and then, under his guidance, went forward to admire. The
picture, which stood on an easel, was really excellent; so good, in
fact, that Tristrem no sooner saw the face of the sphinx than to his
ears came the hum of insects, the murmur of distant waters. It was Viola
Raritan to the life.
"She guarded her secret, indeed," he muttered, huskily. And when Yorke,
surprised at such a criticism, turned to him for an explanation, he had
just time to break his fall. Tristrem had fallen like a log.
As he groped back through a roar and turmoil to consciousness again, he
thought that he was dead and that this was the tomb. "That Monkenkloster
must have been too much for him," he heard Yorke say, in German, and
then some answer came to him in sympathetic gutturals. He opened his
eyes ever so little, and then let the lids close down. Had he been in a
nightmare, he wondered, or was it Viola? "He's coming too," he heard
Yorke say. "Yes, I am quite right now," he answered, and he raised
himself on his elbow. "I think," he continued, "that I had better get to
my room."
"Nonsense. You must lie still awhile."
For the moment Tristrem was too weak to rebel, and he fell back again on
the lounge on which he had been placed, and from which he had half
arisen. Was it a dream, or was it the real? "There, I am better now," he
said at last; "I wonder, I----Would you mind ordering me a glass of
brandy?"
"Why, there's a carafon of it here. I thought you had had too much of
that wine."
Some drink was then brought him, which he swallowed at a gulp. Under its
influence his strength returned.
"I am sorry to have put you to so much trouble," he said collectedly to
Yorke and to a waiter who had been summoned to his assistance; "I am
quite myself now." He stood up again and the waiter, seeing that he was
fully restored, withdrew. When the door closed behind him, Tristrem went
boldly back to the picture.
It was as Yorke had described it. In the background was a sunset made of
cymbal strokes of vermilion, splattered with gold, and seamed with
fantasies of red. In the foreground fluttered a chimera, so artfully
done that one almost heard the whir of its wings. And beneath it
crouched the Sphinx. From the eyrie of the years the ages had passed
unmarked, unnoticed. The sphinx brooded, motionless and dumb.
With patient, scrutinizing attention Tristrem looked in her eyes and at
her face. There was no mistake, it was Viola. Was there ever another
girl in the world such as she? And this was her secret! Or was there a
secret, after all, and might he not have misunderstood?
"Tell me," he said--"I will not praise your picture; in many respects it
is above praise--but tell me, is what you said true?"
"Is what true?"
"What you said of the model."
"About her being in the châlet? Of course it is. Why do you ask?"
"No, not that, tell me--Mr. Yorke, I do not mean to be tragic; if I seem
so, forgive me and overlook it. But as you love honor, tell me, is it
true that she had a child in this place?"
"Yes, so I heard."
"And you say her name was----"
"Madame Dubois--Dupont--I have forgotten; they can tell you at the
bureau. But it seems to me----"
"Thank you," Tristrem answered. "Thank you," he repeated. He hesitated a
second and then, with an abrupt good-night, he hurried from the atelier
and down the corridor till he reached his room.
Through the open window, the sulphur moon poured in. He looked out in
the garden. Beyond, half concealed in the shadows, he could see the
outline of the châlet. And it was there she had hid! He pressed his
hands to his forehead; he could not understand. For the moment he felt
that if he could lose his reason it would be a grateful release. If only
some light would come! He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped
his face. And then suddenly, as he did so, he caught a spark of that for
which he groped. The room turned round, and he sank into a chair.
Yes, he remembered, it was at Bergamo, no, at Bologna. Yes, it was at
Bergamo, he remembered perfectly well. He had taken from one of his
trunks a coat that he had not worn since he went into mourning. It had
been warm that day, and he wanted some thinner clothing. He remembered
at the time congratulating himself that he had had the forethought to
bring it. And later in the day he had taken from the pocket a
handkerchief of a smaller size than that which he habitually used. He
had looked at it, and in the corner he had found the Weldon crest. As to
how it had come in his possession, he had at the time given no thought.
Weldon, in one of his visits, might have left it at Waverley Place, or
he himself might have borrowed it when dining at Weldon's house. He was
absent-minded, he knew, and apt to be forgetful, and so at the time he
had given the matter no further thought. After all, what incident could
be more trivial? But now the handkerchief, like a magician's rug,
carried him back to Narragansett. As well as he could remember, the last
occasion on which he wore that coat was the day on which the butler's
telegram had summoned him to town. Then, on learning of his father's
death, he had put on other things, of sombrer hue. Harris, without
rummaging in the pockets, had folded the coat and put it away. And it
had remained folded ever since till the other day at Bologna--no, at
Bergamo.
That morning at Narragansett, when he was hurrying into the cottage, the
man who had aided Viola home the preceding evening drove up with her
hat, with this very handkerchief, and the story of a dream. Aye, and his
own dream. So this was Truth. She had pursued him, indeed. He could feel
her knees on his arms, her fetid breath in his face. But this time it
was not a nightmare. It was the real.
Yes, it was that. One by one he recalled the incidents of the
past--incidents on which his mind loathed to dwell, rebelling against
its own testimony until he coerced the shuddering memories to his will.
There were the numberless times in which he had encountered Weldon
coming in or leaving her house, almost haunting it with his presence.
There was that wanton lie, and the unexplained and interrupted scene
between them. It was then, perhaps, that he had first shown the demon
that was in him. And then, afterward, was that meeting on the cars--he
with a bruise on his cheek and a gash on his neck. Why was Viola's whip
broken, if it were not that she had broken it on his face? Why did the
nails of her ungloved hand look as though they had been stained with the
juice of berries? Why, indeed, if it were not that she had sunk them in
his flesh. Why had he heard her calling "Coward" to the night? It was
for this, then, that the engagement had been broken; it was for this
that she had hidden herself abroad.
For the first time since his boyhood, he threw himself on the bed and
sobbed aloud. To stifle his grief he buried his face in the pillow, and
bit it with his teeth. It was more than grief, it was anguish, and it
refused to be choked. But presently it did leave him. It left him
quivering from head to foot, and in its place came another visitor. An
obsession, from which he shrank, surged suddenly, and claimed him for
its own. In a combat, of which his heart was the one dumb witness, he
battled with it. He struggled with it in a conflict that out-lasted
hours; but presumably he coped in vain. The next morning his face was
set as a captive's. In a fortnight he was in New York.