A PARADOX OF SENSIBILITY.
To many the picture presented by my life might seem that of a man who
detects the trap and yet walks into it, sinks under burdens that he
might cast aside, groans at chains that he could break, and will not
leave the prison although the door-key is in his pocket. Such an
impression my record may well give, unless it be understood that what
came upon me was not an impossibility of movement, but a paralysis of
the will to move. In this there is nothing peculiar to one placed as I
was. Most men could escape from what irks, confines, or burdens them at
the cost of effacing their past lives, breaking the continuity of
existence, cutting the cord that binds together, in a sequence of
circumstances and incidents, youth, and maturity, and age. But who can
do the thing? One man in a thousand, and he generally a scoundrel.
Our guests returned to Bartenstein, the Duchess still radiant and
maternal, Elsa infinitely kind, infinitely apologetic, a little tearful,
never for an instant wavering in her acceptance of the future.
Varvilliers took leave of me with great friendliness; there was in his
air now just a hint of amusement, most decorously suppressed; he was
charmingly unconscious of any possible seriousness in the position. My
mother went to visit Styrian relatives. Victoria and William Adolphus
had taken a villa by the seaside. I was quite alone at Artenberg, save
for my faithful Vohrenlorf, and Vohrenlorf was bored to death. That will
not appear strange; to me it seemed enviable. A prisoner under sentence
probably discerns much that is attractive even in the restricted life of
his jailer.
In a day or two there came upon me a persistent restlessness, and with
it constant thoughts of Wetter. I wondered where he was and what he did;
I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He
brought with him other remembrances, of the passions and the events that
we two had, in friendship or hostility, witnessed together. They had
seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when,
as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a
month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was
asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.
Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at
Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest _incognito_;
Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my _incognito_
was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It
was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me!
Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the
newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could
answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not
care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips
what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the
ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon
with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in
that.
On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the
Boulevards alone. In great cities nobody is known; I enjoyed the luxury
of being ignored. I might pass for a student, a chemist, at a pinch,
perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem
no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had
some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought
a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both
seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this
here and this now were reality; the kingship, Elsa, the wedding and the
rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making
laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the
Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, passing by, stared hard at
me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not
staring at the king.
Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I
saw Wetter coming toward the _café_. I had taken a table far back from
the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a
deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was
talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager
gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him--so my
heart went out to him--but the sight of his companion restrained me, and
I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as
life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket
that a hyperbole, so inevitable as to outstrip mere truth in fidelity,
had called bigger. Besides there were the whiskers, the heavy jowl, the
infinite fatness of the man, a fatness not of mere flesh only, but of
manner, of air, of thought, of soul. There was no room for doubt or
question. This was Coralie's impresario, Coralie's career, her duty, her
destiny; in a word, everything to Coralie that poor little Cousin Elsa
was to me. Nay, your pardon; that I was to Cousin Elsa. I put my cigar
back in my mouth and smoked gravely; it seemed improper to laugh.
The two men sat down at an outer table. Wetter was silent now, and
Struboff (I remembered suddenly that I had seen Coralie described as
Madame Mansoni-Struboff) was talking. I could almost see the words
treacling from his thick lips. What in Heaven's name made him Wetter's
companion? What in Heaven's name made me such a fool as to ask the
question? Men like Struboff can have but one merit, and, to be fair, but
one serious crime. It is the same; they are the husbands of their wives.
I could contain myself no longer. I rose and walked forward. I laid my
hand on Wetter's shoulder, saying:
"My dear friend, have you forgotten me--Baron de Neberhausen?"
[Illustration: "My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"]
He looked up with a start, but when he saw me his eyes softened. He
clasped my hand.
"Neberhausen?" he said.
"Yes; we met in Forstadt."
"To be sure," he laughed. "May I present my friend to you? M. le Baron
de Neberhausen, M. Struboff. You will know Struboff's name. He gives us
the best operas in the world, and the best singing."
"M. Struboff's fame has reached me," said I, sitting down.
Evidently Struboff did not know me; he received the introduction without
any show of deference. I was delighted. I should have seen little of the
true man had he been aware from the first who I was. Things being as
they were, I could flatter him, and he had no motive for flattering me.
A mere baron had no effect on him. He resumed the interrupted
conversation; he was telling Wetter how he could make money out of
music, and then more music out of the money, then more money out of the
music, and so on, in an endless chain of music and money, money and
music, money, music, money. Wetter sat looking at him with a smile of
malicious mockery.
"Happy man!" he cried suddenly. "You love only two things in the world,
and you've married both."
Struboff pulled his whisker meditatively.
"Yes, I have done well," he said, and drained his glass. "But hasn't
Coralie done well too? Where would she have been but for me?"
"Indeed, my dear Struboff, there's no telling, but I suppose in the arms
of somebody else."
"Your own, for example?" growled the husband.
"Observe the usual reticences," said Wetter, with a laugh. "My dear
Baron, Struboff mocks my misery by a pretended jealousy. You can
reassure him. Did Madame Mansoni ever favour me?"
"I can speak only of what I know," I answered, smiling. "She never
favoured you before me."
He caught the ambiguity of my words, and laughed again. Struboff turned
toward me with a stare.
"You also knew my wife?" he asked.
"I had the honour," said I. "In Forstadt."
"In Forstadt! Do you know the king?"
"Not so well as I could wish," I answered. "About as well as I know
Wetter here."
"That's admirably well!" cried Wetter. "Well enough not to trust me."
The fat man looked from one to the other of us in an obtuse suspicion of
our hilarity.
"The king admired my wife's talents," said he. "We intend to visit
Forstadt next year."
"Do you?" said I, and Wetter's peal broke out again.
"The king will find my wife's talent much increased by training,"
pursued Struboff.
"Damn your wife's talent!" said Wetter, quite suddenly. "You talk as
much about it as she does of your beauty."
"I hope madame is well?" I interposed quickly and suavely, for Struboff
had grown very red and gave signs of temper. Wetter did not allow him to
answer. He sprang to his feet and dragged Struboff up by the arm.
"Take his other arm!" he cried to me. "Bring him along. Come, come,
we'll all go and see how madame is."
"It's nearly eleven," remonstrated Struboff sourly. "I want to go to
bed."
"You? You go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't
sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think
better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men
like us. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"
Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was
laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in
hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to
pant.
"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.
"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff! _Post
equitem_--you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us.
Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"
"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.
"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward
him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend
the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"
But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera
House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still;
not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was
breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded,
planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us
himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped
his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the
inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?
"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends
are impatient. Quick, quick! Only God is patient."
"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"
Wetter suddenly assumed an air of great dignity and blandness.
"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late,"
he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should
be failing in gratitude if we did not thank him most sincerely."
"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.
Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing
at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though
asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.
We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us
out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows.
"Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands.
"Come, come, dear Struboff!--Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the
steps to heaven are so steep."
Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed
upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered
us into the passage. As he preceded us, I had time for one whisper to
Wetter.
"You're still mad about her, are you?" I said, pinching his arm.
"Still? Good Heavens, no! Again!" he answered.
The door that faced us was thrown open, and Coralie stood before me in a
loose gown of a dark-red colour. Before she could speak, Wetter darted
forward, pulling me after him.
"I have the distinguished honour to present my friend, M. de
Neberhausen," he said. "You may remember meeting him at Forstadt."
Coralie looked for a moment at each of us in turn. She smiled and nodded
her head.
"Perfectly," she said; "but it is a surprise to see him here, a very
pleasant surprise." She gave me her hand, which I kissed with a fine
flourish of gallantry.
"This gentleman knows the King very well," said Struboff, nodding at her
with a solemn significance. "There's money in that!" he seemed to say.
"Does he?" she asked indifferently; and added to me, "Pray come in. I
was not expecting visitors; you must make excuses for me."
She did not seem changed in the least degree. There was the same
indolence, the same languid, slow enunciation. It struck me in a moment
that she ignored her husband's presence. He had gone to a sideboard and
was fingering a decanter. Wetter flung himself on a sofa.
"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids.
"Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?"
Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand.
"Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked.
"He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing.
"He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a
malicious smile. Struboff glared at him; Coralie smiled slightly. An
inkling of Wetter's chosen part came into my mind. He had elected to
make Struboff uncomfortable; he did not choose that the fat man should
enjoy his victory in peace. My emotions chimed in with his resolve, but
reason suggested that the ethical merits were more on Struboff's side.
He was Coralie's career; the analogy of my own relation toward Elsa
urged that he who is a career is entitled to civility. Was not I Elsa's
Struboff? I broke into a sudden laugh; it passed as a tribute to
Wetter's acid correction.
"You are studying here in Paris, madame?" I asked.
"Yes," said Coralie. "Why else should we be here now?"
"Why else should I be here now?" asked Wetter. "For the matter of that,
Baron, why else should you be here now? Why else should anybody be here
now? It is even an excuse for Struboff's presence."
"I need no excuse for being in my own home," said Struboff, and he
gulped down his liquor.
Wetter sprang up and seized him by the arm.
"You are becoming fatter and fatter and fatter. Presently you will be
round, quite round; they'll make a drum of you, and I'll beat you in the
orchestra while madame sings divinely on the boards. Come and see if we
can possibly avoid this thing," and he led him off to the sofa. There
they began to talk, Wetter suddenly dropping his burlesque and allowing
a quiet, earnest manner to succeed his last outburst. I caught some
mention of thousands of francs; surely there must be a bond of interest,
or Wetter would have been turned out before now.
Coralie moved toward the other end of the room, which was long, although
narrow. I followed her. As she sat down she remarked:
"He has lent Struboff twenty thousand francs; but for that I must have
sung before I was ready."
The situation seemed a little clearer.
"But he is curious," she pursued, fixing a patiently speculative eye on
Wetter. "You would say that he was fond of me?"
"It is a possible reason for his presence."
"He doesn't show it," said she, with a shrug.
I understood that little point in Wetter's code; besides, his humour
seemed just now too bitter for love-making. If Coralie felt any
resentment, it did not go very deep. She turned her eyes from Wetter to
my face.
"You're going to be married very soon?" she said.
"In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high
spirits?"
"I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von
Sempach."
"You know about her?"
"Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've
forgotten all that you used to say! The Countess is still handsome."
"What of that? So are you."
"True, it doesn't matter much," Coralie admitted. "Does your Princess
love you?"
"Don't you love your husband?"
A faint slow smile bent her lips as she glanced at Struboff--himself and
his locket.
"Nobody acts without a motive," said I. "Not even in marrying."
The bitterness that found expression in this little sneer elicited no
sympathetic response from Coralie. I was obliged to conclude that she
considered her marriage a success; at least that it was doing what she
had expected from it. At this moment she yawned in her old, pretty, lazy
way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic
disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were
not more justly due to Struboff--Struboff, who sat now smoking a big
cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatic taps of
Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human
tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might
be a proper object of compassion, his might be the misery, his (O
monstrous thought!) the disillusionment. But the prejudice of beauty
fought hard on Coralie's side. I always find it difficult to be just to
a person of markedly unpleasant appearance. I was piqued to much
curiosity by these wandering ideas; I determined to probe Struboff
through the layers.
Soon after I took my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day,
and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There
was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have
heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched
his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself.
She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed.
It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest
desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely
mirthful expression of my own thoughts.
"A wretched thing to leave her with him? Not the least in the world!" he
cried. "She will sleep ten hours, eat one, sing three, sleep three, eat
two, sleep---- Have I run through the twenty-four?"
"Well, then, why are we to disturb ourselves?" I asked.
"Why are we to disturb ourselves? Good God, isn't it enough that she
should be like that?"
I laughed, as I blew out my cigarette smoke.
"This is an old story," said I. "She is not in love with you, I suppose?
That's it, isn't it?"
"It's not the absence of the fact," said he, with a smile; "it's the
want of the potentiality that is so deplorable."
"Why torment Struboff, though?"
"Struboff?" he repeated, knitting his brows. "Ah, now Struboff is worth
tormenting! You won't believe me; but he can feel."
"I was right, then; I thought he could."
"You saw it?"
"My prospects, perhaps, quicken my wits."
My arm was through his, and he pressed it between his elbow and his
side.
"You see," said he, "perversity runs through it all. She should feel; he
should not. It seems she doesn't, but he does. Heavens, would you accept
such a conclusion without the fullest experiment? For me, I am
determined to test it."
"Still you're in love with her."
"Agreed, agreed, agreed. A man must have a spur to knowledge."
We parted at the Place de la Concorde, and I strolled on alone to my
hotel. Vohrenlorf was waiting for me, a little anxious, infinitely
sleepy. I dismissed him at once, and sat down to read my letters. I had
the feeling that I would think about all these matters to-morrow, but I
was also pervaded by a satisfaction. My mind was being fed. The air here
nourished, the air of Artenberg starved. I complimented Paris on a
virtue not her own; the house in the Rue Washington was the source of my
satisfaction.
There was a letter from Varvilliers; he wrote from Hungary, where he was
on a visit. Here is something of what he said:
"There is a charming lady here, and we fall in love, all
according to mode and fashion. (The buttons are on the foils,
pray understand.) It is the simplest thing in the world; the
whole process might, as I believe, be digested into twelve
elementary motions or thereabouts. The information is given and
received by code; it is like playing whist. 'How much have you?'
her eyes ask. 'A passion,' I answer by the code. 'I have a
_penchant_,' comes from her side of the table. 'I am leading up
to it,' say I. 'I am returning the lead.' Good! But then comes
hers (or mine), 'I have no more.' Alas! Well then, I lead, or she
leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not
high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your
taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher?
I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think
that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on
the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."
I dropped the letter with a laugh, wondering whether the charming lady
played the game as he did and a stake as light. Or did she suffer? Well,
anybody can suffer. The talent is almost universal. There was, it
seemed, reason to suppose that Struboff suffered. I acquiesced, but with
a sense of discontent. Pain should not be vulgarized. Varvilliers'
immunity gave him a new distinction in my eyes.