greater in music! Form! When colour is infinitely greater than line! The
most profound music gives only the timbre--melodies are for infantile
people without imagination, who believe in patterns. Tone is the quality
_I_ wish on a canvas, not anxious drawing. So it is with perfumes. I can
blend them into groups of lovely harmony; I can give you single notes of
delicious timbre--in a word, I can evoke an odour symphony which will
transport you. Memory is a supreme factor in this art. Do not forget how
the vaguest scent will carry you back to your youthful dreamland. It is
also the secret of spiritual correspondences--it plays the great rôle of
bridging space between human beings."
"I sniff the air promise-crammed," he gayly misquoted. "But when will
you rewrite this Apocalypse? and how am I to know whether I shall really
enjoy this feast of perfume, if you can simulate the odour of iris as
you did an hour ago?"
"I propose to show you an artificial paradise," she firmly asserted. In
the middle of the room there was a round table, the top inlaid with
agate. On it a large blue bowl stood, and it was empty. Mrs. Whistler
went to a swinging cabinet and took from it a dozen small phials. "Now
for the incantation," he jokingly said. In her matter-of-fact manner she
placed the bottles on the table, and uncorking them, she poured them
slowly into the bowl. He broke the silence:--
"Isn't there any special form of hair-raising invocation that goes with
this dangerous operation?"
"Listen to this." Her eyes swimming with fire, she intoned:--
As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Lo you there,
That hillock burning with a brazen glare;
Those myriad dusky flames with points aglow
Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro;
A Sabbath of the serpents, heaped pell-mell
For Devil's roll-call and some fête in Hell:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.
He did not seem to hear. From out the bowl there was stealing a perfume
which overmastered his will and led him captive to the lugubrious glade
of the Druids....
III
THE CIRCUS OF CANDLES
Comme d'autres esprits voguent sur la musique,
Le míen, ô mon amour! nage sur ton parfum.
--BAUDELAIRE.
He was not dreaming, for he saw the woman at the bowl, saw her
apartment. But the interior of his brain was as melancholy as a lighted
cathedral. A mortal sadness encompassed him, and his nerves were like
taut violin strings. It was within the walls of his skull, that he
saw--his mundane surroundings did not disturb his visions. And the waves
of dolour swept over his consciousness. A mingling of tuberoses,
narcissus, attar of roses, and ambergris he detected in the air--as
_triste_ as a morbid nocturne of Chopin. This was followed by a blending
of heliotrope, moss-rose, and hyacinth, together with dainty touches of
geranium. He dreamed of Beethoven's manly music when whiffs of
apple-blossom, white rose, cedar, and balsam reached him. Mozart passed
roguishly by in strains of scarlet pimpernel, mignonette, syringa, and
violets. Then the sky was darkened with Schumann's perverse harmonies as
jasmine, lavender, and lime were sprayed over him. Music, surely, was
the art nearest akin to odour. A superb and subtle chord floated about
him; it was composed of vervain, opoponax, and frangipane. He could not
conceive of a more unearthly triad. It was music from Parsifal. Through
the mists that were gathering he savoured a fulminating bouquet of
patchouli, musk, bergamot, and he recalled the music of Mascagni. Brahms
strode stolidly on in company with new-mown hay, cologne, and sweet
peas. Liszt was interpreted as ylang-ylang, myrrh, and maréchale;
Richard Strauss, by wistaria, oil of cloves, chypre, poppy, and
crab-apple.
Suddenly there developed a terrific orchestration of chromatic odours:
ambrosia, cassia, orange, peach-blossoms, and musk of Tonkin, magnolia,
eglantine, hortensia, lilac, saffron, begonia, peau d'Espagne, acacia,
carnation, liban, fleur de Takeoka, cypress, oil of almonds, benzoin,
jacinth, rue, shrub, olea, clematis, the hediosma of Jamaica, olive,
vanilla, cinnamon, petunia, lotus, frankincense, sorrel, neroli from
Japan, jonquil, verbena, spikenard, thyme, hyssop, and decaying orchids.
This quintessential medley was as the sonorous blasts of Berlioz,
repugnant and exquisite; it swayed the soul of Baldur as the wind sways
the flame. There were odours like wingèd dreams; odours as the plucked
sounds of celestial harps; odours mystic and evil, corrupt and opulent;
odours recalling the sweet, dense smell of chloroform; odours evil,
angelic, and anonymous. They painted--painted by Satan!--upon his
cerebellum more than music--music that merged into picture; and he was
again in the glade of the Druids. The huge scent-symphony dissolved in a
shower of black roses which covered the ground ankle-deep. An antique
temple of exotic architecture had thrown open its bronze doors, and out
there surged and rustled a throng of Bacchanalian beings who sported and
shouted around a terminal god, which, with smiling, ironic lips,
accepted their delirious homage. White nymphs and brown displayed in
choric rhythms the dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, and their goat-hoofed
mates gave vertiginous pursuit. At first the pagan gayety of the scene
fired the fancy of the solitary spectator; but soon his nerves,
disordered by the rout and fatigued by the spoor of so many odours,
warned him that something disquieting was at hand. He felt a nameless
horror as the sinister bitter odour of honeysuckle, sandalwood, and
aloes echoed from the sacred grove. A score of seductive young witches
pranced in upon their broomsticks, and without dismounting surrounded
the garden god. A battalion of centaurs charged upon them. The
vespertine hour was nigh, and over this iron landscape there floated the
moon, an opal button in the sky. Then to his shame and fear he saw that
the Satyr had vanished and in its place there reared the Black Venus,
the vile shape of ancient Africa, and her face was the face of Lilith.
The screaming lovely witches capered in fantastic spirals, each sporting
a lighted candle. It was the diabolic Circus of the Candles, the
infernal circus of the Witches' Sabbath. Rooted to the ground, Baldur
realized with fresh amazement and vivid pain the fair beauty of Adam's
prehistoric wife, her luxurious blond hair, her shapely shoulders, her
stature of a goddess--he trembled, for she had turned her mordant gaze
in his direction. And he strove in vain to bring back the comforting
vision of the chamber. She smiled, and the odours of sandal, coreopsis,
and aloes encircled his soul like the plaited strands of her glorious
hair. She was that other Lilith, the only offspring of the old Serpent.
On what storied fresco, limned by what worshipper of Satan, had these
accursed lineaments, this lithe, seductive figure, been shown! Names of
Satanic painters, from Hell-fire Breughel to Arnold Böcklin, from
Felicien Rops to Franz Stuck, passed through the halls of Irving
Baldur's memory.
The clangour of the feast was become maddening. He heard the Venus
ballet music from Tannhäuser entwined with the acridities of aloes,
sandal, and honeysuckle. Then the aroma of pitch, sulphur, and
assafœtida cruelly strangled the other melodic emanations. Lilith,
disdaining the shelter of her nymphs and their clowneries, stood forth
in all the hideous majesty of Ænothea, the undulating priestess of the
Abominable Shape. His nerves macerated by this sinful apparition, Baldur
struggled to resist her mute command. What was it? He saw her wish
streaming from her eyes. Despair! Despair! Despair! There is no hope for
thee, wretched earthworm! No abode but the abysmal House of Satan!
Despair, and you will be welcomed! By a violent act of volition, set in
motion by his fingers fumbling a small gold cross he wore as a
watch-guard, the heady fumes of the orgy dissipated....
He was sitting facing the bowl, and over it with her calm, confidential
gaze was the figure of Lilith Whistler.
"Have I proved to you that perfume is the art of arts?" she demanded. He
rushed from the room and was shaking the grilled gate in the hallway
like a caged maniac, when with a pitying smile she released him. He
reached the street at a bound....
* * * * *
... "the evil of perfume, I repeat, was one against which the venerable
Fathers of the Church warned the faithful." The preacher's voice had
sagged to a monotone. Baldur lifted his eyes in dismay. Near him sat the
same woman, and she still stared at him as if to rebuke him for his
abstraction. About her hovered the odour of iris. Had it been only a
disturbing dream? Intoxicated by his escape from damnation, from the
last of the Deadly Arts, he bowed his head in grateful prayer. What
ecstasy to be once more in the arms of Mother Church! There, dipped in
her lustral waters, and there alone would he find solace for his barren
heart, pardon for his insane pride of intellect, and protection from the
demons that waylaid his sluggish soul. The sermon ended as it began:--
"And the Seven Deadly Sins, beloved brethren, are: Pride, Covetousness,
Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth. _Oremus!_"
"Amen," fervently responded Baldur the Immoralist.
III
THE PURSE OF AHOLIBAH
Lo, this is that Aholibah
Whose name was blown among strange seas....
--SWINBURNE.
I
THE AVIARY
When the last breakfast guests had gone the waiters of the café began
their most disagreeable daily task. All the silver was assembled on one
of the long tables in an inner room, where, as at a solemn conclave, the
servants took their seats, and, presided over by the major-domo of the
establishment, they polished the knives and forks, spoons, and
sugar-tongs, filled the salt-cellars, replenished the pepper-boxes and
other paraphernalia of the dining art. The gabble in this close
apartment was terrific. Joseph, the maître d'hôtel, rapped in vain a
dozen times for silence. The chef poked his head of a truculent Gascon
through the door and indulged in a war of wit with a long fellow from
Marseilles,--called the "mast" because he was very tall and thin, and
had cooked in the galley of a Mediterranean trading brig. From time to
time one of the piccolos, a fat little boy from the South, carried in
pitchers of flat beer, brewed in the suburbs. As it was a hot day, he
was kept busy. The waiters had gone through a trying morning; there were
many strangers in Paris. Outside, the Boulevard des Italiens, despite
its shade trees, broiled under a torrid July sun that swam in a
mercilessly blue sky.
The majority of the men were listening to gossip about their colleagues
in the Café Cardinal across the way. Ambroise alone sat apart and patted
and smoothed the salt in its receptacles. He was a young man from some
little town in Alsace, a furious patriot, and the butt of his
companions--for he was the latest comer in the Café Riche. Though he
told his family name, Nettier, and declared that his father and mother
were of French blood, he was called "the German." He was good-looking,
very blond, with big, innocent blue eyes; and while he was never
molested personally,--a short, sharp tussle with a cook had proved him
to be a man of muscle,--behind his back his walk was mimicked, his
precise attitudes were openly bantered. But Ambroise stood this torture
gantlet equably. He had lived long enough among Germans to copy their
impassive manner and, coupled with a natural contempt for his
fellow-monkeys in the cage, he knew that perhaps in a day a new man
would receive all these unwelcome attentions. Moreover, his work,
clear-cut, unobtrusive, and capable, pleased M. Joseph. And when the
patron himself dined at the café, Ambroise was the garçon selected to
wait upon him. Hence the jealousy of his colleagues. Couple to this the
fact that he was reported miserly, and had saved a large sum--which were
all sufficient reasons for his unpopularity.
As the afternoon wore on little airs began to play in the tree-tops; the
street watering carts had been assiduous, and before the terrace water
had been sprinkled by the piccolos so effectively that at five o'clock,
when the jaded stock-brokers, journalists, and business men began to
flock in, each for his apéritif, the café was comparatively cool.
A few women's frocks relieved the picture with discreet or joyous shades
of white and pink. Ambroise was diligent and served his regular
customers, the men who grumbled if any one occupied their favourite
corners. Absinthe nicely iced, dominoes, the evening papers--these he
brought as he welcomed familiar faces. But his thoughts were not his
own, and his pose when not in service was listless, even bored. Would
_she_ return that evening with the same crowd--was the idea that had
taken possession of his brain. He was very timid in the presence of
women, and it diverted the waiters to see him blush when he waited upon
the gorgeous birds that thronged the aviary at night, making its walls
echo with their chattering, quarrels, laughter. This provincial, modest,
sensitive, the only child of old-fashioned parents, was stupefied and
shocked in the presence of the over-decorated and under-dressed
creatures, daubed like idols, who began to flock in the café, with or
without escorts, after eleven o'clock every night in the year. He knew
them all by name. He knew their histories. He could detect at a glance
whether they were unhappy or merely depressed by the rain, whether they
drank champagne from happiness or desperation. Notwithstanding his
dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled
soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and
feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were
gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty. He noted
that they were always thirsty. They smoked more than they ate, and
whispered more, if no men were present, than they smoked. But then, men
were seldom absent.
The night previous, Ambroise recalled the fact, she had not come in with
a different set. This was not her custom, and he worried over it.
Protected by princes and financiers, she nevertheless loved her liberty
so much that one seldom caught her in the same company twice in
succession. For this singular caprice Aholibah, oftener called the Woman
from Morocco,--because she had lived in Algiers,--was the despair of her
circle. Why, argued the other birds, why fly in the face of luck? To be
sure, she was still young, still beautiful, with that sort of metallic
beauty which reminded Ambroise of some priceless bronze blackened in the
sun. She was meagre, diabolically graceful, dark, with huge saucer-like
eyes that greedily drank in her surroundings. But her lashes were long,
and she could veil her glance so that her brilliant face looked as if
the shutters had been closed on her soul. Across her brows a bar of
blue-black marked the passage of her eyebrows--which sable line was
matched by her abundant hair, worn in overshadowing clusters. She
dressed winter and summer in scarlet, and her stage name was
Aholibah--bestowed upon her by some fantastic poet who had not read
Ezekiel, but Swinburne. It was rumoured by her intimates that her real
name was Clotilde Durval, that her mother had been a seamstress....
With a sinking at the heart Ambroise saw her enter in the company of the
same gentleman she had brought the previous evening. The garçon did not
analyze this strange, jealous feeling, for he was too busily employed in
seating his guests and relieving the man of his hat and walking-stick.
An insolent chap it was, with his air of an assured conqueror and the
easy bearing of wealth. There was little discussion as to the order--a
certain brand of wine, iced beyond recognition for any normal palate,
was always served to Aholibah. She loved "needles on her tongue," she
asseverated if any one offered her weaker stuff. That July night she
looked like a piratical craft that had captured a sleek merchantman for
prize. She was all smoothness; Ambroise alone detected the retracted
claws of the leopardess. She blazed in the electric illumination, and
her large hat, with its swelling plumes, threw her dusky features into
shadow--her eyes seemed far away under its brim and glowed with unholy
phosphorescence.
While he arranged the details of the silver wine-pail in the other room,
the chef asked him if the Princess Comet had arrived. Ambroise almost
snarled--much to the astonishment of the Gascon. And when the sommelier
attempted to help him with the wine, he was elbowed vigorously. Ambroise
must have been drinking too much, said the boys. Joseph rather curiously
inspected his waiter as he made his accustomed round in the café. But,
pale as usual, Ambroise stood near his table, his whole bearing an
intent and thoroughly professional one. Joseph was satisfied and drove
the chef back to the kitchen.
The young Alsatian had never seen Aholibah look so radiant. She was in
high spirits, and her pungent talk aroused her companion from incipient
moroseness. After midnight the party grew--some actresses from a near-by
theatre came in with their male friends, and another waiter was detailed
to the aid of Ambroise. But he stuck to the first-comers and served so
much wine to them that he had the satisfaction of seeing Aholibah's
disagreeable protector collapse. She hardly noticed it, for she was
talking vivaciously to Madeleine about the première of Donnay's comedy.
Thrice Ambroise sought to fill her glass; but she repulsed him. He was
sad. Something told him that Aholibah was farther away from him than
ever; was she on the eve of forming one of those alliances that would
rob him finally of her presence? He eyed the sleeping man--surely a
monster, a millionnaire, with the tastes of a brute. It was all very
trying to a man with fine nerves. Several times he caught Aholibah's eye
upon him, and he vaguely wondered if he had omitted anything--or, had he
betrayed his feelings? In Paris the waiter who shows that he has ears,
or eyes, or a heart, except in the exercise of his functions, is lost.
He is bound to be caught and his telltale humanity scourged by instant
dismissal. So when those fathomless eyes glittered in his direction, his
knees trembled, and a ball of copper invaded his throat. He could barely
drag himself to her side and ask if he could help her. A burst of
impertinent laughter greeted him, and Madeleine cried:--
"Your blond garçon seems smitten, Aholibah!" When Ambroise heard this
awful phrase, his courage quite forsook him, and he withdrew into the
obscurity of the hall. So white was he that the kindly Joseph asked
solicitously if he were ill. Ambroise shook his head. The heat, he
feebly explained, had made his head giddy. Better drink some iced
mineral water, was suggested--the other man could look after the party!
But Ambroise would not hear of this, and feeling once more the beckoning
gaze of Aholibah he marched bravely to her and was rewarded by a tap on
the wrist.
"There, loiterer! Go call a carriage. The Prince is sleepy--dear sheep!"
This last was a tender apostrophe to her snoring friend. Ambroise helped
them into a fiacre. When it drove away it was past two o'clock; the
house had to be closed. He walked slowly home to his little chamber on
the Rue Puteaux, just off the Batignolles. But he could not sleep until
the street-cleaners began the work of another day.... The Woman from
Morocco was the scarlet colour of his troubled dreams....
* * * * *
August had almost spent itself, and Aholibah remained in the arid and
flavourless town. Her intimate friends had weeks earlier gone to
Trouville, to Dinard, to Ostende, to Hombourg, even as far as Brighton;
but she lingered, seemingly from perversity. She came regularly to the
café about eleven, always in company with her Prince, and was untiringly
served by Ambroise. He was rewarded for his fidelity with many valuable
tips and latterly with gifts--for on being questioned he was forced to
admit that gratuities had to be shared with the other waiters. He was so
amiable, his smile so winning, his admiration so virginal, that
Aholibah kept him near her. Her Prince drank, sulked, or grumbled as
much as ever. He was bored by the general heat and the dulness, yet made
no effort to escape either. One night they entered after twelve o'clock.
Aholibah was in vicious humour and snapped at her garçon. Dog-like he
waited upon her, an humble, devoted helot. He overheard her say to her
companion that she must have lost the purse at the Folies-Bergères.
"Well, go to the Rue de la Paix to-morrow and buy another," was the
reply.
"I can't replace that purse. Besides, it was a prized gift--"
"From your sainted mother in heaven!" he sneered.
Ambroise saw the windows of her eyes close with a snap, and he moved
away, fearing to be present in the surely impending quarrel. He
remembered the purse. It was a long gold affair, its tiny links crusted
with precious pearls--emeralds, rubies, diamonds. And the top he saw
before him with ease, for its pattern was odd--a snake's head with jaws
distended by a large amethyst. Yes, it was unique, that purse. And its
value must have been bewildering for any but the idle rich. Ah! how he
hated all this money, coming from nowhere, pouring in golden streams
nowhere. He was not a revolutionist,--not even a socialist,--but there
were times when he could have taken the neck of the Prince between his
strong fingers and choked out his worthless life. These attacks of envy
were short-lived--he could not ascribe them to the reading of the little
hornet-like anarchist sheet, _Père Peinard_, which the other waiters
lent him; rather was it an excess of bile provoked by the coveted beauty
of Aholibah.
She usurped his day dreams, his night reveries. He never took a step
without keeping her memory in the foreground. When he closed his eyes,
he saw scarlet. When he opened them, he felt her magnetic glance upon
him, though she was far from the café. His one idea was to speak with
her. His maddest wish assumed the shape of a couple walking slowly arm
in arm through the Bois--_she_ was the woman! But this particular vision
bordered on delirium, and he rarely indulged in it.... He stooped to
look under the chairs, under the table, for the missing treasure. It was
not to be seen. Indolently the Prince watched him as he peered all over
the café, out on the terrace. Aholibah was deeply preoccupied. She
sipped her wine without pleasure. Her brows were thunderous. The
cart-wheel hat was tipped low over them. Several times Ambroise sought
her glance. He could have sworn that she was regarding him steadily. So
painful became the intensity of her eyes that he withdrew in confusion.
His mind was made up at last.
The next day was for him a free one. He wandered up and down the Rue de
la Paix staring moodily into the jewellers' windows. That night, though
he could have stayed away from the café, he returned at ten o'clock, and
luckily enough was needed. Joseph greeted him effusively. The "mast,"
the thin fellow from Marseilles, had gone home with a splitting
headache. Would Ambroise stay and serve his usual table? To his immense
astonishment and joy he saw her enter alone. He took her wraps and
seated her on her favourite divan near an electric fan. Then he stared
expectantly at the door. But her carriage had driven away. Was a part of
his dream coming true? He closed his eyes, and straightway saw scarlet.
Then he went for wine, without taking her order.
Aholibah was preoccupied. She played with the bracelet on her tawny left
wrist. Occasionally she lifted her glass, or else tossed her hair from
her eyes. If any stranger ventured near her, she began to hum
insolently, or spoke earnestly with Ambroise. He was in the eleventh
heaven of the Persians. Two Ambroises appeared to be in him: one served
his lady, spoke with her; the other from afar contemplated with the
ecstasy of a hasheesh eater his counterfeit brother. It was an exquisite
sensation.
"The purse--has Mademoiselle--" He stammered.
"No," she crisply answered.
"Can it never be duplicated? Perhaps--"
"Never. It is impossible. It was made in Africa."
"But--but--" he persisted. His bearing was so peculiar that she bent
upon him her dynamic gaze.
"What's the matter with you this evening, Ambroise? Have you come into a
successful lottery ticket? Or--" She was suspiciously looking at him.
"Or--you haven't found _it_?"
He nodded his head, his face beatific with joy. He resembled the
youthful Saint George after slaying the dragon. She was startled. Her
eyes positively lightened; he listened for the attendant peal of
thunder.