A SMACK OF REPETITION.
The contrast of outer and inner, of the world's myself and my own
myself, of others as they seem to me and to themselves (of the reality
they may be, through inattention or dulness, as ignorant as I), which is
the most permanent and the dominant impression that life has stamped on
my mind, was never more powerfully brought home to me than in the days
which preceded my marriage to my cousin Elsa. As I have said, they had
begun to decorate the streets; let me summarize all the rest by
repeating that they decorated the streets, and went on decorating them.
The decorative atmosphere enveloped all external objects, and wrapped
even the members of my own family in its spangled cloud. Victoria
blossomed in diamonds, William Adolphus sprouted in plumes; my mother
embodied the stately, Cousin Elizabeth a gorgeous heartiness; the Duke's
eyes wore a bored look, but the remainder of his person was fittingly
resplendent. Bederhof was Bumble in Olympus; beyond these came a sea of
smiles, bows, silks, and uniforms. Really I believe that the whole thing
was done as handsomely as possible, and the proceedings are duly
recorded in a book of red leather, clasped in gold and embellished with
many pictures, which the Municipality of Forstadt presented to Elsa in
remembrance of the auspicious event. It lies now under a glass case,
and, I understand, excites much interest among ladies who come to see my
house.
Elsa was a puzzle no longer; I should have welcomed more complexity of
feeling. The month which had passed since we parted had brought to her
many reflections, no doubt, and as a presumable result of them a fixed
attitude of mind. William Adolphus would have said (and very likely did
say to Victoria) that she had got used to me; but this mode of putting
the matter suffers from my brother-in-law's bluntness. She had not
defied Clotho, but neither had she altogether given herself up to
Clotho. She had compromised with the Formidable Lady, and, although by
no means enraptured, seemed to be conscious that she might have come off
worse. What was distasteful in Clotho's terms Elsa attempted to reduce
to insignificance by a disciplined arrangement of her thoughts and
emotions. Much can be done if one will be firm with would-be vagrants of
the mind. The pleasant may be given prominence; the disagreeable
relegated to obscurity; the attractive installed in the living
apartments; the repellant locked in a distant cellar, whence their
ill-conditioned cries are audible occasionally only and in the distance.
What might have been is sternly transformed from a beautiful vision into
a revolting peril, and in this new shape is invoked to applaud the
actual and vilify what is impossible. This attitude of mind is thought
so commendable as to have won for itself in popular speech the name of
philosophy--so even with words Clotho works her will. Elsa, then, in
this peculiar sense of the term was philosophical about the business.
She was balanced in her attitude, and, left to herself, would maintain
equilibrium.
"She's growing fonder and fonder of you every day," Cousin Elizabeth
whispered in my ear.
"I hope," said I, with a reminiscence, "that I am not absolutely
repulsive to her." And in order not to puzzle Cousin Elizabeth with any
glimmer of truth I smiled.
"My dearest Augustin" (that she seemed to say "Struboff" was a childish
trick of my imagination), "what an idea!" ("What a question, my dear M.
Struboff!")
I played too much, perhaps, with my parallel, but I was not its slave. I
knew myself to be unlike Struboff (in my case Coralie scouted the idea
of a fresh slice of bread). I knew Elsa to be of very different
temperament from Coralie's. These variances did not invalidate the
family likeness; a son may be very like his father, though the nose of
one turns up and the other's nose turns down. We were, after making all
allowances for superficial differences--we were both careers, Struboff
and I. I need none to point out to me my blunder; none to say that I was
really fortunate and cried for the moon. It is admitted. I was offered a
charming friendship; it was not enough. I could give a tender
friendship; I knew that it was not enough.
And there was that other thing which went to my heart, that possibility
which must ever be denied realization, that beginning doomed to be
thwarted. As we were talking once of all who were to come on the great
day, I saw suddenly a little flush on Elsa's cheek. She did not look
away or stammer, or make any other obvious concession to her
embarrassment, but the blush could not be denied access to her face and
came eloquent with its hint.
"And M. de Varvilliers--he will be there, I suppose?" she asked.
"I hope so; I have given directions that he shall be invited. You like
him, Elsa?"
"Yes," she said, not looking at me now, but straight in front of her, as
though he stood there in his easy heart-stealing grace. And for an
instant longer the flush flew his flag on her cheek.
But Struboff had been so mad as to fall in love with Coralie, and to
desire her love out of no compassion for her but sheerly for itself. Was
I not spared this pang? I do not know whether my state were worse or
better. For with him, even in direst misery, there would be love's own
mad hope, that denial of impossibility, that dream of marvellous change
which shoots across the darkest gloom of passion. Or at least he could
imagine her loving as he loved, and thereby cheat the wretched thing
that was. I could not. In dreary truth, I was toward her as she toward
me, and before us both there stretched a lifetime. If an added sting
were needed, I found it in a perfectly clear consciousness that a great
many people would have been absolutely content, and, as onlookers of our
case, would have wondered what all the trouble was about. There are
those who from a fortunate want of perception are called sensible; just
as Elsa by her resolute evasion of truth would be accorded the title of
philosophical.
Victoria was the prophet of the actual, picking out with optimistic eye
its singular abundance of blessedness. I do not think that she reminded
me that Elsa might have had but one eye, one leg, or a crooked back,
but her felicitations ran on this strain. Their obvious artificiality
gave them the effect of sympathy, and Victoria would always sanction
this interpretation by a kiss on departure. But she had her theory; it
was that Elsa only needed to be wooed. The "only" amused me, but even
with that point waived I questioned her position. It left out
imagination, and it left out Varvilliers, who had become imagination's
pet. Nevertheless, Victoria spoke out of experience; she did not blush
at declaring herself "after all very comfortable" with William Adolphus.
Granted the argument's sincerity, its force could not be denied with
honesty.
"We're not romantic, and never have been, of course," she conceded.
"My dear Victoria, of course not," said I, laughing openly.
"We have had our quarrels."
"The quarrels wouldn't trouble me in the least."
"We don't expect too much of one another."
"I seem to be listening to the address on the wedding day."
"You're an exasperating creature!" and with that came the kiss.
Victoria's affection was always grateful to me, but in the absence of
Wetter and Varvilliers, neither of whom had made any sign as yet, I was
bereft of all intellectual sympathy. I had looked to find some in the
Duke, and some, as I believe, there was; but its flow was checked and
turned by what I must call a repressed resentment. His wife's blind
heartiness was impossible to him, and he read with a clear eye the mind
of a loved daughter. With him also I ranked as a necessity; so far as
the necessity was distasteful to Elsa, it was unpalatable to him.
Beneath his friendliness, and side by side with an unhesitating
acceptance of the position, there lay this grudge, not acknowledged,
bound to incur instant absurdity as the price of any open assertion of
itself, but set in his mind and affecting his disposition toward me. He
was not so foolish as to blame me; but I was to him the occasion of
certain fears and shrinkings, possibly of some qualms as to his own part
in the matter, and thus I became a less desired companion. There was
something between us, a subject always present, never to be mentioned.
As a result, there came constraint. My pride took alarm, and my polite
distance answered in suitable terms to his reticent courtesy. I believe,
however, that we found one common point in a ludicrous horror of Cousin
Elizabeth's behaviour. Had she assumed the air she wore, she must have
ranked as a diplomatist; having succeeded in the great task of
convincing herself, she stands above those who can boast only of
deceiving others. To Cousin Elizabeth the alliance was a love match; had
she possessed the other qualities, her self-persuasion would have been
enough to enable her to found a religious sect and believe that she was
sent from heaven for its prophet.
Amid this group of faces, all turned toward the same object but with
expressions subtly various, I spent my days, studying them all, and
finding (here has been nature's consolation to me) relief from my own
thoughts in an investigation of the mind of others. The portentous
pretence on which we were engaged needed perhaps a god to laugh at it,
but the smaller points were within the sphere of human ridicule; with
them there was no danger of amusement suffering a sudden death, and a
swift resurrection in the changed shape of indignation.
There was already much to laugh at, but now a new occasion came, taking
its rise in a thing which seemed very distinct, and appertaining to
moods and feelings long gone by, a plaything of memory destined (as it
had appeared) to play no more part in actual life. The matter was simply
this: Count Max von Sempach was on leave, and proposed with my
permission to be in Forstadt for the wedding festivities.
Bederhof had heard legendary tales; his manner was dubious and solemn as
he submitted the Count's proposal to me; Princess Heinrich's
carelessness of reference would have stirred suspicion in the most
guileless heart; William Adolphus broke into winks and threatened
nudges; I invoked my dignity just in time. Victoria was rather excited,
rather pleased, looking forward to an amusing spectacle. Evidently
something had reached Cousin Elizabeth's ears, for she overflowed with
unspoken assurances that the news was of absolutely no importance, that
she took no notice of boyish follies, and did not for a moment doubt my
whole-hearted devotion to Elsa. Elsa herself betrayed consciousness only
by not catching my eye when the Sempachs' coming cropped up in
conversation. For my own part I said that I should be very glad to see
the Count and the Countess, and that they had a clear claim to their
invitation. My mother's manner had shown that she felt herself in no
position to raise objections; Bederhof took my commands with resigned
deference. I was aware that his wife had ceased to call on the Countess
some time before Count Max went Ambassador to Paris.
Max had done his work very well--his appointment has been quoted as an
instance of my precocious insight into character--and his work did not
appear to have done him any harm. When he called on me I found him the
same sincere simple fellow that he had been always. By consent we talked
of private affairs, rather than of business. He told me that Toté was
growing into a tall girl, that his other children also shot up, but (he
added proudly) his wife did not look a day older, and her appearance
had, if anything, improved. She had been happy at Paris, he said, "but,
to be sure, she'd be happy anywhere with the children and her home." The
modesty of the last words did not conceal his joyous confidence. I felt
very kindly toward him.
"Really you're an encouragement to me at this moment," I said. "You must
take me to see the Countess."
"She will be most honoured, sire."
"I'd much rather she'd be a little pleased."
He laughed in evident gratification, assuring me that she would be very
pleased. He answered for her emotions in the true style of the blessed
partner; that is an incident of matrimony which I am content to have
escaped. I doubted very much whether she were so eager for the renewal
of my acquaintance as he declared. I recollected the doubts and fears
that had beset her vision of that event long ago. But my part was
plain--to go, and to go speedily.
"To the Countess'?" exclaimed Victoria, to whom I mentioned casually my
plans for the afternoon. "You're in a great hurry, Augustin."
"It's no sign of hurry to go to a place at the right time," said I, with
a smile.
"I don't call it quite proper."
"I go because it is proper."
"If you flirt with her again----"
"My dear Victoria, what things you suggest!"
Victoria returned to her point.
"I see no reason why you should rush off there all in a minute," she
persisted.
Nevertheless I went, paying the tribute of a laugh to the picture of
Victoria flying with the news to Princess Heinrich. But the Princess'
eye could tell a real danger from an imaginary one; she would not mind
my seeing the Countess now.
I went quite privately, without notice, and was not expected. Thus it
happened that I was ushered into the drawing-room when the Countess was
not there to receive me. There I found Toté undeniably long-legged and
regrettably shy. The world had begun to set its mark on her, and she had
discovered that she did not know how to behave to me. I was sorry not to
be pleasant company for Toté; but, perceiving the fact too plainly to
resist it I sent her off to hasten her mother. She had not been gone a
moment before the Countess came in hurriedly with apologies on her lips.
Not a day older! O my dear Max! Shall we pray for this blindness, or
shall we not? She was older than she had been, older than by now she
should be. Yet her charm hung round her like a fine stuff that defies
time, and a gentle kindness graced her manner. We began to talk about
anything and nothing. She showed fretful dread of a pause; when she
spoke she did not look me in the face. I could not avoid the idea that
she did not want me, and would gladly see me take my leave. But such a
feeling was, as it seemed to me, inhuman--a falseness to our true
selves, born of some convention, or of a scruple overstrained, or of a
fear not warranted.
"Have you seen Elsa?" I asked presently, and perhaps rather abruptly.
"Yes," she said, "I was presented to her. She was very sweet and kind to
me."
"She's that to me too," I said, rising and standing by her chair.
She hesitated a moment, then looked up at me; I saw emotion in her eyes.
"You'll be happy with her?" she asked.
"If she isn't very unhappy, I daresay I shan't be."
"Ah!" she said with a sort of despairing sigh.
"But I don't suppose I should make anybody particularly happy."
"Yes, yes," she cried in low-voiced impetuosity.
"Yes, if----" She stopped. Fear was in her eyes now, and she scanned my
face with a close jealous intensity. I knew what her fear was, her own
expression of it echoed back across the years. She feared that she had
given me occasion to laugh at her. I bent down, took her hand, and
kissed it lightly.
"Perhaps, had all the world been different," said I, with a smile.
"I'm terribly changed?"
"No; not terribly, and not much. How has it been with you?"
Her nervousness seemed to be passing off; she answered me in a sincere
simplicity that would neither exaggerate nor hide.
"All that is good, short of the best," she said. "And with you?"
"Shall I say all that is bad, short of the worst?"
"We shouldn't mean very different things."
"No; not very. I've done many foolish things."
"Have you? They all say that you fill your place well."
"I have paid high to do it."
"What you thought high when you paid," she said, smiling sadly.
I would not do her the wrong of any pretence; she was entitled to my
honesty.
"I still think it high," I said, "but not too high."
"Nothing is too high?"
"But others must help to pay my score. You know that."
"Yes, I know it."
"And this girl will know it."
"She wouldn't have it otherwise."
"I know, I know, I know. She would not. It's strange to have you here
now."
"Max would come. I didn't wish it. Yet--" She smiled for a moment and
added: "Yet in a way I did wish it. I was drawn here. It seemed to
concern me. Don't laugh. It seemed to be part of my story, too; I felt
that I must be there to hear it. Are you laughing?"
"I've never laughed."
"You're good and kind and generous. No, I think you haven't. I'm glad of
it, because----"
"Yes? Why?"
"Because even now I can't," she whispered. "No, don't think I mean--I
mean a thing which would oblige you to laugh now. It's all over, all
over. But that it should have been, Augustin?" My name slipped from
unconscious lips. "That it should have been isn't bad to me; it's good.
That's wicked? I can't help it. It's the thing--the thing of my life.
I've no place like yours. I've nothing to make it come second. Ah, I'm
forgetting again how old I am. How you always make me forget it! I
mustn't talk like this."
"We shall never, I suppose, talk like this again. You go back to Paris?"
"Yes, soon. I'm glad."
"But it's not hard to you now?"
She seemed to reflect, as though she were anxious to give me an answer
accurately true.
"Not very hard now," she said at last, looking full at me. "Not very
hard, but very constant, always with me. I love them all, all my folk.
But it's always there."
"You mean--What do you mean? The thought of me?"
"Yes, or the thought that somehow I have just missed. I'm not miserable.
And I like to dream--to be gorgeous, splendid, wicked in dreams." She
gave a laugh and pressed my hand for a moment. "Toté grows pretty," she
said. "Don't you think so?"
"Toté was unhappy with me, and I let her go. Yes, she's pretty; she
won't be like you, though."
"I'll appeal to you again in five, in ten years," said she, smiling,
pleased with my covert praise. "Oh, it's pleasant to see you again," she
went on a moment later. "I'm a bad penitent. I wish I could be with you
always. No, I am not dreaming now. I mean, just in Forstadt and seeing
you."
"A moment ago you were glad to go back to Paris."
"Ah, you assume more ignorance of us than you have. Mayn't I be glad of
one thing and wish another?"
"True; and men can do that too."
I felt the old charm of the quick word coming from the beautiful lips,
the twofold appeal. Though passion was gone, pleasure in her remained;
my love was dead. As I sat there I wished it alive again; I longed to be
back in the storm of it, even though I must battle the storm again.
"After all," she said, with a glance at me, "I have my share in you. You
can't think of your life without thinking of me. I'm something to you.
I'm one among the many foolish things--You don't hate the foolish
things?"
"On my soul, I believe not one of them; and if you're one, I love one of
them."
"I like you to say that."
A long silence fell on us. The thing had not come in either of the
fashions in which I had pictured it, neither in weariness nor in
excitement. It came full with emotions, but emotions that were subdued
shadows of themselves, of a mournful sweetness, bewailing their lost
strength, yet shrinking from remembrance of it. Would we have gone back
if we could? Now I could not answer the question. Yet we could weep,
because to go back was impossible. But it was with a slight laugh that
at last I rose to my feet to say good-bye.
"It's like you always to laugh at the end," she said, a little in
reproach, but more, I think, in the pleasure of recognising what was
part of her idea of me. "You used often to do it, even when you
were--even before. You remember the first time of all--when we smiled at
one another behind your mother's back? That oldest memory comforts me.
Do you know why? I was never so many centuries older than you again. I'm
not so many even now. You look old, I think, and seem old; if we're
nearer together, it's your fault, not my merit. Well, you must go. Ah,
how you fill time! How you could have filled a woman's life!"
"Could have? Your mood is right."
"Surely she'll be happy with you? If you could love her?"
"Not even then. I'm not to her measure."
"Are you unhappy?"
"It's better than the worst, a great deal better. Good-bye."
I pressed her hand and kissed it. With a sudden seeming formality she
curtseyed and kissed mine.
"I don't forget what you are," she said, "because I have fancied you as
something besides. Good-bye, sire. Good-bye, Augustin."
"There's a name wanting."
"Ah, to Cæsar I said good-bye five years ago." The tears were in her
eyes as I turned away and left her.
I had a fancy to walk back alone, as I had walked alone from her house
on the day when I cut the bond between us that same five years ago.
Having dismissed my carriage, I set out in the cool of the autumn
evening as dusk had just fallen, and took my way through the decorated
streets. Only three days more lay between the decorations and the
occasion they were meant to grace. There was a hum of gaiety through all
the town; they had begun their holiday-making, and the shops did
splendid trade. They in Forstadt would have liked to marry me every
year. Why not? I was to them a sign, a symbol, something they saw and
spoke of, but not a man. I reviewed the troops every year. Why should I
not be married every year? It would be but the smallest extension of my
functions, and all on the lines of logic. I could imagine Princess
Heinrich according amplest approval to the scheme.
Suddenly, as I passed in meditation through a quiet street, a hand was
laid on my shoulder. I knew only one man who would stop me in that way.
Was he here again, risen again, in Forstadt again, for work, or mirth,
or mischief? He came in fitting with the visit I had paid. I turned and
found his odd, wry smile on me, the knit brows and twinkling eyes. He
lifted his hat and tossed back the iron-gray hair.
"I am come to the wedding, sire," said he, bowing.
"It would be incomplete without you, Wetter."
"And for another thing--for a treat, for a spectacle. They've written an
epithalamium, haven't they?"
"Yes, some fool, according to his folly."
"It is to be sung at the opera the night before? At the gala
performance!"
"You're as well up in the arrangements as Bederhof himself."
"I have cause. Whence come you, sire?"
"From paying a visit to the Countess von Sempach."
He burst into a laugh, but the look in his eyes forbade me to be
offended.
"That's very whimsical too," he observed. "There's a smack of repetition
about this. Is fate hard-up for new effects?"
"There's variety enough here for me. There were no decorations in the
streets when I left her before."
"True, true; and--for I must return to my tidings--I bring you something
new." He paused and enjoyed his smile at me. "Who sings the marriage
song?" he asked.
"Heavens, man, I don't know! I'm not the manager. What is it to me who
sings the song?"
"You would like it sung in tune?"
"Oh, unquestionably."
"Ah, well, she sings in tune," he said, nodding his head with an air of
satisfaction. "She is not emotional, but she sings in tune."
"Does she, Wetter? Who is she?"
He stood looking at me for a moment, then broke into another laugh. I
caught him by the arm; now I laughed myself.
"No, no?" I cried. "Fate doesn't joke, Wetter?"
"Fate jokes," said he. "It is Coralie who will sing your song. To-morrow
they reach here, she and Struboff. Yes, sire, Coralie is to sing your
song."
We stood looking at one another; we both were laughing. "It's a great
chance in her career," he said.
"It's rather a curious chance in mine," said I.
"She sings it, she sings it," he cried, and with a last laugh turned and
fairly ran away down the street, like a mischievous boy who has thrown
his squib and flies from the scene in mirthful fear.
When Fortune jested she found in him quickwitted loving audience.