WHEN Elias professed to recognize that, no matter how detestable his
marriage might now have become to him, he was bound in all honor and
decency to do nothing that could make his wife unhappy, he certainly, so
far as he was conscious of his own intentions, meant what he said. Of
his free will, he had married a perfectly innocent woman. He must not
allow the burden of his guilt to bear in the slightest degree upon her
shoulders. He must abide exactly by the letter, and, to the best of his
ability, by the spirit, of his marriage vows. He purposed to do so; and,
so far as he had fathomed it, his purpose was honest and earnest. Yet,
at the same time, inevitably, his life at home galled and irked him more
than a little. His daily association with Tillie, with Mrs. Morgenthau,
and with the rabbi, was both irritating and enervating. He had
constantly, as he put it, to wear a mask; to sham, to play a part, to
act a lie. He had to counterfeit emotions and interests which he was
very remote from feeling, and to conceal with utmost, unflagging
vigilance those that actually dominated his heart. He had to pretend to
be cheerful and sympathetic. He had to keep the one vital reality of his
existence closely locked down, a secret prisoner in his breast.
Shamming, through practiced in a laudable cause, is, as those who have
tried it can testify, a sufficiently sorry and thankless business. Elias
sickened of it. The never-relaxing guard that he was obliged to maintain
over himself, on the perpetual _qui-vive_ lest by some momentary
inadvertence he should betray himself, wearied and discouraged him. He
became impatient, restive. In certain moods, he would reflect: “It is a
part of my punishment. I have brought it upon myself. I deserve it. I
must submit to it unrebelliously, in silence.” But Elias was not by
temperament a Spartan; and more frequently, longing ardently for
respite, he would cry: “If only for a little while I could escape! If
only I could go away, and, in solitude, for a little while, give the
rein to my own true self--live my own true life, without this eternal
necessity of suppression and deceit!” The actor wanted to withdraw for a
moment out of view, behind the scenes, there, for a moment, to drop his
stage-smile and stage-manner. Not unnaturally, it may be conceded. But
the question was one of method. How? Consistently with his resolution
not to make his wife unhappy, how could it be done? Gradually a plan,
simple of conception, and easy of execution, got shaped in Elias's mind.
The plan itself, to be sure, involved a certain amount of falsehood; but
falsehood which, Elias concluded, was innocuous, and, under the
circumstances, justifiable.
On Monday, February 16, 1885, at the breakfast table, he made the
following announcement to the persons there assembled: “To-morrow I am
going out of town. I am going down into the country on Long Island, to
do a little winter landscape painting. I shall be gone perhaps a week,
perhaps a fortnight.”
No opposition was offered. Such questions as were asked, he had
anticipated, and so answered with consummate glibness. Next morning a
carriage drew up before the door. Elias, with his trunk and his traps,
got into it, and was driven off. As the carriage turned the corner,
he could see Tillie lingering on the stoop, looking after him. His
conscience smote him gently for an instant; and he renewed his vow never
to do any thing that could bring sorrow upon his wife. “Poor,
little, light-hearted thing,” he soliloquized. “It is easy to satisfy
her--'pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.'” And then he
dismissed her from his mind. It is probable that, so long as he lived,
he never once thought of her again.
“I don't know why it is,” the light-hearted and easily satisfied Tillie,
as she re-entered the house, confessed to her mother, “but I feel just
as blue as if he had gone away forever, instead of only for a fortnight.
I feel just perfectly wretched. I've been feeling bad enough for ever
and ever so long; but this is just the last straw. I don't believe he
cares for me the least bit in the world.” And she buried her face in her
mother's bosom, and had a good, long cry.
Elias's carriage drove neither to a railway-station, nor to a
steamboat-pier. It drove to a lofty, red-brick apartment-house (for
bachelors), in West Forty-second Street, “The Reginald,” where Elias had
hired a furnished suite of rooms by the month. The falsehood involved
by his plan had consisted in saying that he was going to the country.
He had no idea of quitting the city. Just so long as Christine Redwood
remained in New York, New York would be the only habitable spot on earth
to Elias Bacharach.
The clerk of the apartment-house conducted Elias to his quarters, and
left him there.
Elias locked his door behind the clerk. Then, suddenly, he flung himself
full length upon the floor, and gave vent to a great sigh of relief. At
last he was alone, all alone, and free. At last he had got clear of the
disguise, which, like a strait-waistcoat, he had been compelled to wear
for upwards of a year. I don't know how long he continued to lie there
upon the floor! I don't know how many times he sobbed out her name:
“Christine! Christine! Christine!”
Finally, however, he rose to his feet, brushed off and smoothed down his
clothing, and descended to the office of the establishment, where he had
some business to transact with the proprietor. Afterward, he meant to go
for a walk, and feast his eyes for a while upon the house in which she
dwelt. He knew this house very well. It was in Forty-eighth Street,
between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Many and many a time, during the past
few months, he had gone there, after nightfall, and watched the lights
glow in the windows, and wondered which of the lights was hers. By day,
he never approached nearer than the nearest corner. He did not wish to
be seen by her. He conjectured that the sight of him might distress her.
Now, he meant, after finishing his business with the proprietor, to go
and stand on that corner for awhile, and enjoy the luxury of staring at
the chocolate-colored façade of her dwelling-house.
He found the proprietor engaged in conversation with a gentleman. He
took a position, therefore, at a respectful distance, and waited
till their colloquy should end. He paid no heed to the gentleman's
appearance; but afterward he recalled him vaguely as tall,
fair-complexioned, rather athletic-looking, and presumably in the
neighborhood of thirty years of age. Pretty soon the gentleman put on
his hat, and left the room.
“Did you notice that party I was talking with?” the proprietor inquired
of Elias.
“Not especially,” Elias replied. “Why?”
“Handsome chap, and one of the whitest in this town. Civil Engineer, of
the name of Hosmer--R. E. Hosmer. Got an office down in the Astor House.
He's lived here with me going on three years. But this is his last day.
To-morrow he gets married.”
“Ah?” returned Elias, with a perfunctory affectation of interest.
“Yes, sir, gets married, and sets up house-keeping. So I lose him; and
I'm mighty sorry to, I can tell you. He's a gentleman, from the word go.
But he's caught a stunning pretty girl for a wife, now, and don't
you forget it. He had her here one night, along with some friends, to
dinner; and he took me up, and introduced me to her. She's what I call
a daisy, straight out. Well, sir, tomorrow morning they're going to
be married; and he said he'd have invited me to the wedding, only it's
strictly private. No admittance except on business, you understand. No
guests; nothing. Well, that's all right, I suppose, if people like it
that way. No law against it, any how. But you see, I wanted to send
her some sort of a little present, being so friendly with him, you
understand; and so I thought awhile, and finally I got this.” (The
proprietor went to his safe, and, coming back in a minute, exhibited a
necklace of amber beads.) “I got this. Tidy, ain't it? But do you know,
I'll be hanged if I hadn't forgotten to ask him for her address, until
just this instant. There's time yet, however; and I'll send it up by one
of the boys right away. Let's see. Ah, yes; here it is. He wrote it out
on this envelope.”
Elias took the envelope which his communicative landlord offered him,
and glanced indifferently at it. In large, clear letters, was written:
“Miss Christine Redwood,
“No.-- West 48th Street,
“City.”
Elias did not start, nor exclaim, nor indeed make any sign by which an
observer could have guessed that what he had just read had been of any
special import to him. He turned perhaps a little pale. Perhaps his lips
twitched a little. Perhaps his attitude assumed a certain rigidity. But
it was with an air of perfect composure that he said to the proprietor,
“Oh, by the way, I forgot something. I must go back to my room The
matter I wanted to speak to you about--I'll be down again about it,
later.” With an air of perfect composure; for, at this moment, like a
man who has been shot, Elias was conscious of very little, save a sudden
daze and bewilderment. He knew in a dull way that something serious had
happened to him. There had been, all at once, a shock, a thrill that
pierced and transfixed him; and then had come a strange stunned feeling;
and now--now, he must get away, by himself, back in his own room, at
once.
He entered the elevator, and was carried upstairs.
Automatically, he heard the elevator-man say: “Fine day, sir.”
Automatically, he responded, “Yes.”
“But cold. Coldest of the season, I guess. Below zero, sir.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, here you are, sir. Sixth.”
“Thanks.”
Automatically, he stepped out of the elevator, and found his way through
the corridor to his door. Automatically, he unlocked the door, passed
it, locked it behind him. But then, of a sudden, his strength deserted
him, his sensations rushed upon him, and overpowered him. He dropped
upon the first chair he came to, and sat there, all huddled up, and
staring blindly, like a drunken man. Indeed, it was not unlike a drunken
man that he felt. He felt deathly sick. He felt an oppression upon his
lungs, and had to labor hard for his breath. His head sagged forward
heavily upon his chest; his brain went spinning furiously round and
round. His ears rang. A blackish, half-opaque mist hung before his eyes,
in which the objects about him swam dimly, bewilderingly, to and
fro. The house seemed to be rocking on its foundations. In his
breast--something--a lump, big and hot, like a coal of fire--was
struggling frantically, in spasmodic leaps, as if to break away, and get
outside. At one instant he thought it would choke him; it had sprung up
into his throat. Again, he thought it would rend his very bone and flesh
asunder, with such force it dashed itself against the walls that shut it
in. Then, for another instant, it fell back, and was quiet; but then he
thought it would burn him up, with its intense, angry heat. Liquid
fire went circling through his veins, scalding them, and causing the
uttermost parts of his body to throb and tingle.
So, for it may have been a half hour, he sat there upon that chair,
limp, motionless, like one stricken impotent and senseless by too much
wine. In the end, however, all at once, as if stung, he sprang up, and
began striding wildly, with unsteady gait, back and forth across his
floor. He moaned aloud. Sometimes he would wring his hands together.
Sometimes he would press them to his temples. By and by he began to talk
to himself. His voice was husky, his articulation indistinct. His words
came in spurts. A spectator would certainly have put him down for drunk.
“She is going to be married.... married.... do you understand? Going to
become the wife of another man. Another man is going to possess her....
do you understand? That man.... you saw him down stairs.... he is going
to possess her. She.... Christine.... oh, God help me!.... Perhaps he
has seen her, been in her presence, heard her voice, looked into her
eyes, touched her hand, kiss.... yes, very likely.... kissed her....
this very day. Perhaps he is with her at this instant.... now.... he,
with _her_.... do you understand? While you.... I.... I.... Oh, have
mercy on me. Strike me dead.... And to-morrow morning she is going to
marry him, to-morrow morning.... going to be married.... Well, well,
it's all right It's none of my business. Yes, it's all right. She can do
as she pleases. I can't help it. It's not my affair.... Only.... only,
I want to know.... I want to know, _why?_ Why is she going to marry him?
Only tell me that: why does she want to marry him? Not for love. No! She
can't love him. It would be impossible that she should love him. Don't
tell me she loves him. No, no! Why, I say, look--look at how she
loved me--how passionately, how entirely--with what complete, absolute
surrender of herself! Why, after a woman has loved one man that way, I
tell you, it is impossible, it is not in nature, for her ever to love
another--really love another.... No!.... I don't care what her feeling
toward me may be.... hatred.... indifference.... I don't care what....
I know she does not.... I know she never can.... love him.... love any
body else. I know it. It would be against nature--impossible.... Oh,
it's laughable. The idea! that she should ever feel toward any one as
she felt toward me! Such perfect confidence.... such perfect giving of
herself!.... Christine! Oh, do you remember, Christine? Do you remember
how you loved me? How your eyes burned with love, and your fingers
clung with love, and your bosom rose and fell with love, and your voice
thrilled with love? And all our unutterable intimate joy? And how
you said it was like anguish, it was so keen? And.... and.... Do you
remember! And now, do you mean to say that you can ever be like that
with another man--not me--with _him_--with any body? Like that? Loving
like that? Oh, no, no! Monstrous! Impossible. No, no, you don't love him
like that. Nobody could love twice like that. You never can love any
one like that--any one but me. Me! I am the only man who has ever tasted
that sweetness--who ever shall taste it. He--oh, the poor fool and
beggar! He may be married to you a thousand years. He will never
taste that--which I have tasted--never get even the perfume of it.
Never--never!.... And yet.... and yet, she is going to marry him. Oh,
Christine, tell me--for mercy's sake, tell me--why do you marry him? Why
does she want to marry him? Oh, there may be a hundred reasons. But not
for love. I am sure, not for love. Is marriage a proof of love? Did I
marry for love? She pities him. That's it. He loves her. He has
worked upon her sympathies. In despair--hopeless of any happiness for
herself--out of pity--she has consented to marry him. He has importuned
her--tired her with his entreaties--until she has consented.....But
not for love.... Don't tell me she loves him--that my own beautiful
Christine--dark-eyed Christine--loves another man--that man. Oh, the
fool, the complacent fool, if he dares to imagine that! That she--my
glorious Christine--mine, I say--once mine, always mine--my own--wholly
mine--weren't our very souls burned together, into one?--that _she_
loves _him!_ Why, it makes me laugh! The poor, fatuous fool!.... And
yet.... she.... she is going to marry him.... to be his wife.... He is
going to possess her.... have the right to see her, hear her, touch her,
every day.... while I--I--Oh, no! He thinks so, does he? I will show
him. I will defeat him yet. It is not yet too late. I will go to
her--I--now--at once--I will go to _her_--to Christine--yes--and see
her, and speak to her, and touch her--take her in my arms--oh, God!--and
tell her how I love her--and how I have suffered--and how I have never
ceased to love her--. and pour it all out at her feet--all my love and
sorrow and remorse--at her feet--now--to-day--before it is too late--and
she--she will forgive me, and forget all the pain I have caused her--all
the pain and shame--poor Christine, sweet little Christine, whom I hurt
so!--she will forgive me, and--and love me again--she will love me--she
_does_ love me--she _must_ love me, I tell you--yes--she will come
to me, and love me--and we--she and I--we will go away together--to
Europe--to South America--somewhere--anywhere--she and I--Christine
and I--together--we will go away together, and--and.... Oh, what am I
saying? God forgive me! What a low, miserable wretch I am! As if I had
any power, any right! No, no! she will marry him. He will be happy.
Perhaps he will make her happy. Why not? He is good and honest and
well-to-do. He loves her, and will be kind to her. Why shouldn't he make
her happy? Oh, Christine. I hope he will. If you will only be happy,
then I shan't mind. God bless her, and make her happy. She will marry
him, and she will love him in a certain way, in a quiet, peaceful way,
and she will have children, and be contented, and live in comfort
and peace--quietly--gently--forgetting me, and the pain I caused her,
and--Oh, God! Oh, God! My punishment is greater than I can bear.”
He fell in an inert mass upon the floor, and covered his face with
his hands, and moaned again incoherently; until again, all at once, he
sprang to his feet, and, striding back and forth, as before, again began
to talk to himself.
“I must see her. I must see her, and let her know. I must see her
to-day--before to-morrow morning--before she is married. After, that,
after she is married, as she will be to-morrow morning--after that, I
can never see her. She will have no right to let me see her--no right
to think of me, to hear from me--a married woman--another man's wife....
The letter--the letter I have been writing to her--she will never read
it. Waste time--waste paper--waste effort. No use sending it. No use
finishing it. After to-morrow morning, after she is married, she will
have no right to receive it--to receive any thing from me.......Oh, I
say, I must see her. If I am ever to see her, ever to let her know, it
must be to-day. To-day, or never. After to-day--to-morrow--a married
woman--she can never let me approach her--never--never.... Yes,
to-day--right away--at once. I must see her right away, at once.... Oh,
Love! To think of seeing you--really seeing you--and speaking to you!
Oh, Christine--to-day, this very day, at last!.... There, there! Let me
be calm. Let me think. How shall I--how can I manage it? To see her? Let
me think.”
He pressed his hands hard against his brow, beneath which his brain
seemed to have become a whirlpool, sucking into black confusion every
faculty for thought he had. He repeated two or three times: “Let me
think;” and kept crushing his brow between his hands, to subdue, if he
could, that dizzy, stupid feeling. At last he went on, stammeringly, and
in a voice which, from husky, had grown thin and feeble:--
“I must not go to see her at her house. No, that would not do. That
would not be fair to her. What would people think, who saw me? They
might overhear what I said to her. I might not be able to see her alone.
I might--I might meet _him_ there. No, I must not go to her house.
But this is what I will do. I will write her a note--a little short
note--asking her--begging her--to let me have five minutes' speech
with her--to come and give me five minutes' speech with her--in Central
Park--among our pine-trees in Central Park. She will do it. It is such
a little thing, I am sure she will do it. She can't have the heart to
refuse to do it. No, no!.... There! I will write the note, and send it
at once. In half an hour she will receive it. She will come right away.
Within two hours--within two hours from now--I--I shall--I shall see
her!”
With about as clear a realization of what he was doing as he might have
had if he had indeed been the worse for drink, so dazed and bewildered
did he feel, he opened his trunk, and took from it the materials for
writing. Then, seating himself at the table, with a drunken man's
comprehension of what he wrote, upon paper that swayed boisterously up
and down under his eyes, he dashed off the following note:--
_“Christine: Just learned I have just learned that to-morrow morning
that you are going to be married to-morrow morning. Please read this
note through. There is nothing in it which will harm you to read. It is
essential to my peace of mind that, before you are married, I should say
something to you, see you and say something, five words, which it will
not take me take five minutes for me to say, and which it will harm no
one for you to hear, neither you, nor your future husband, but will be a
great mercy to me. In mercy, in common pity to a suffering human being,
I beg of you, let me see you, and say this to you. In mercy to one who
is suffering all the agony of hell in life, which I know I deserve, only
that does not make it any easier to bear, in mercy, give me a chance
to speak with you. I don't come to your house, because it would not do,
would not be fair to you, for if he should see me there, it would be
unpleasant for you. So, at once, as soon as you receive this, come to
the rock among the pines in Central Park, and give me five minutes'
speech with you. It will be as great a mercy as if you were to give a
cup of water to a man dying tortured by thirst. I promise to say nothing
which it will be wrong for you to hear, or for me to say. Don't be
afraid of me. I shall never hurt you any more, I shall not try to
dissuade you from marrying him. On the contrary, marry him, and be
happy, if you can. Any thing so long as you are happy. I dare say he
will make you happy. I pray God that he may. Only, for pity's sake, you
who have a kind and pitiful heart, for pity's sake, in mercy to me, for
the sake of the love that was between us, Christine, grant me this one
request, which will harm no living man or woman, neither him nor you,
nor my wife, and come to the rock among the pines in Central Park. I
shall be willing to die after I have seen you and spoken to you. God!
I would rather die now than have you refuse. Come at once. I shall go
there right away, immediately, and I shall wait there until you come.
My soul is burning up with something which I must say to you, which you
must let me say to you, Christine, and you can not be so hard, so cruel,
as not to come, you who have such a tender, kind heart, Christine. My
agony is so great, and you can relieve it so easily, by simply coming
for five minutes. Look, you are going to give him your whole life--years
and years. Can't you give me five minutes? He can afford to let me have
five minutes, he who is going to have years and years. Come. It is the
only favor I shall ever ask of you. My head is so confused, queer, as
though all my wits were scattered, I don't know how to put it so as to
move you to come. I seem to have it on the tip of my tongue, the thing
to say that will persuade you, and then when I try to grasp it, and
write it down, it is gone. If you understood why and how much I want you
to come, I know you would come. I do not believe that you can be so hard
as to refuse this to a man who is broken-hearted, and almost crazy with
remorse, and who promises by all that is sacred, before God, gives you
his solemn word of honor, not to say a thing which it would be wrong
for you to hear, who are going to be married, or for me to say, who am
married already. Gives you his solemn word of honor. Only, before you
are married, and so eternally separated from me, worse than death,
to-morrow, before that, come and let me speak five words. If there is
any mercy in your heart, you won't disappoint me. Come at once. I am
going there right away, now, to wait for you. The rock among the pines.
You know. Christine! Christine! For God's sake!--Elias Bacharach.”_
*****
This note, without stopping to read it over, he enveloped, and
addressed. Then, in great haste, donning his hat, he left his room, and,
too impatient to wait for the elevator, ran down stairs to the office,
where he bade the clerk summon a messenger.
“Yes, sir,” said the clerk; and, with a click-click-whir-r-r, off went
the summons from the instrument. After which, the clerk returned to the
dirty paper novel he had been reading. Elias wondered, in a dull, hazy
way, how any body could have the heart to read a novel.
Pending the messenger's arrival, he paced restlessly hither and thither
about the broad, marble-paved entrance-hall of the house, and tried to
get the better of that queer, confused feeling in his head. Tried in
vain, however; for, from moment to moment, it grew more pronounced: a
feeling of congestion, as though his brain was solidifying, turning into
stone; as though gradually and simultaneously his different senses were
being sealed up.
By and by, as if through a deadening medium of some sort, as if through
a thick blanket, he heard a lusty young voice shout: “Call?”
He looked. As if through a veil, he saw a boy in brass buttons standing
in front of him.
“Yes,” said Elias; and it required a great effort of will to concentrate
his mind sufficiently to find, and to regulate his organs of speech
sufficiently to shape, the words: “Yes, come with me.”
He led the boy to the corner of Seventh Avenue and Forty-eighth Street.
The sun shone brightly. There was no wind. But it was very cold. Elias
thought: “Perhaps it is the cold that makes me feel so strangely. I feel
exactly as though my brain were being frozen, as hard as ice.”
When they had reached the corner, he said: “Now, young man, I want you
to take this note to this address, No.--, right on this block--that
house, over there, just beyond the lamp post--and I want you to ask to
see the lady to whom it is directed--Miss Redwood--to see her in person;
do you understand? See her in person, and deliver this note into her own
hands, and to nobody else. And then you come back here to this corner,
where I shall wait for you. Now, hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the boy, with a sagacious wink; “I catch on, sir;”
and started off.
Elias watched him--down and across the street, and up her stoop--till he
vanished in her vestibule. For what seemed an eternity, the boy remained
out of sight. Then, presently, he reappeared; and in a minute or two was
again at his employer's side.
“Well,” questioned Elias, “well, did--did you see her?”
“Yes, sir; sawr 'er.”
It made Elias's heart beat to realize that this boy had just stood in
his lady's presence, had looked full upon her, breathed the atmosphere
that she glorified, listened to the celestial music of her voice. It
was with something akin to reverence for the young barbarian, that he
repeated: “You saw her, you actually saw her!”
“Well, so I remarked, sir,” replied the boy.
“And---- and you gave her the note?”
“That's what I done, sir.”
“What did she say?”
“Say? She didn't say nawthing.”
“Nothing at all? Not a word?”
“Well, sir, here's how it was. I says, 'Redwood?' and she says, 'Yes;'
and I says, 'Sign;' and she signed; and that's all there was _to_ it.”
“She signed? Have--have you got her signature?”
“Why, certainly. Here you are,”
The boy exhibited a bit of pink paper, upon which, in the hand that
he knew so well, Elias, with a breath-taking thrill, read her name:
“Christine Redwood.” He took the paper between his fingers. It was like
a talisman. Her touch, scarcely a moment since, had warmed it, her face
shadowed it. He had to struggle with himself, to keep from carrying it
to his lips, and kissing it, then and there.
“What--how much--will you take for this paper?” he demanded of the boy.
“Nawthing. Got to return it to the office.”
“I'll give you a dollar for it.”
“Jimminy! You must want it pretty bad.”
“Well, will you part with it for a dollar?”
The boy reflected; wrestled with temptation for an instant; in the end
said: “Well, sir, all is, you'll have to sign me another; that's all,
sir. Let's have the dollar.” He produced a duplicate bit of pink paper,
upon which Elias executed the only forgery of which he was ever guilty.
Then a bright silver dollar changed hands. Our hero pocketed his
invaluable purchase, and set his face toward Central Park.