century!
"Nietzsche--the anarch of aristocrats!
"Karl Marx--or the selfish Jew socialist!
"Lassalle--the Jew comedian of liberty!
"Bernard Shaw--the clever Celt who would sacrifice socialism for an
epigram.
"Curse all socialists!" she suddenly screamed.
Arthur, entranced by the playful manner with which she disposed of
friend and foe, was aghast at this outbreak. He saw another Yetta. Her
face was ugly and revengeful. She sawed the air with her thin arms.
"Repeat after me," she adjured her hearers, "the Catechism of Sergei
Netschajew, but begin with Herzen's noble motto: 'Long live chaos and
destruction!'"
"Long live chaos and destruction!" was heartily roared.
The terrific catechism of the apostle Netschajew made Arthur shake with
alternate woe and wrath. It was bloody-minded beyond description. Like
a diabolic litany boomed the questions and answers:--
"Day and night we must have but one thought--inexorable destruction."
And Arthur recalled how this pupil of Bakounine had with the assistance
of Pryow and Nicolajew beguiled a certain suspected friend, Ivanow, into
a lonely garden and killed him, throwing the body into a lake. After
that Netschajew disappeared, though occasionally showing himself in
Switzerland and England. Finally, in 1872, he was nabbed by the Russian
government, sent to Siberia, and--!
_Ugh!_ thought Arthur, what a people, what an ending! And Yetta--why did
she now so openly proclaim destruction as the only palliative for social
crime when she had so eloquently disclaimed earlier in the day the
propaganda by force, by dagger, and dynamite?--He had hardly asked
himself the question when there came a fierce rapping of wooden clubs at
door and window. Instantly a brooding hush like that which precedes a
hurricane fell upon the gathering. But Yetta did not long remain silent.
"Quick, Arthur, play the Star-Spangled Banner! It's the police. I want
to save these poor souls--" she added, with a gulp in her throat;
"quick, you idiot, the Star-Spangled Banner." But Arthur was almost
fainting. His ringers fell listlessly on the keys, and they were too
weak to make a sound. The police! he moaned, as the knocking deepened
into banging and shouting. What a scandal! What a disgrace! He could
never face his own world after this! To be caught with a lot of crazy
anarchists in a den like this!--Smash, went the outside door! And the
newspapers! They would laugh him out of town. He, Arthur Schopenhauer
Wyartz, the Amateur Anarch! He saw the hideous headlines. Why, the very
daily in which some of his fortune was invested would be the first to
mock him most!
The assault outside increased. He leaped to the floor, where Yetta was
surrounded by an excited crowd. He plucked her sleeve. She gazed at him
disdainfully.
"For God's sake, Yetta, get me out of this--this awful scrape. My
mother, my sisters--the disgrace!" She laughed bitterly.
"You poor chicken among hawks! But I'll help you--follow me." He reached
the cellar stairs, and she showed him a way by which he could walk
safely into the alley, thence to the street back of their building. He
shook her hand with the intensity of a man in the clutches of the ague.
"But you--why don't you go with me?" he asked, his teeth chattering.
The brittle sound of glass breaking was heard. She answered, as she took
his feverish hand:--
"Because, you brave revolutionist, I must stick to my colours.
Farewell!" And remounting the stairs, she saw the bluecoats awaiting
her.
"I hope the police will catch him anyhow," she said. It was her one
relapse into femininity, and as she quietly surrendered she did not
regret it.
III
Old Koschinsky's store on the avenue was the joy of the neighbourhood.
For hours, their smeary faces flattened against the glass, the children
watched the tireless antics of the revolving squirrels; the pouter
pigeons expand their breasts into feathered balloons; the goldfish, as
they stolidly swam, their little mouths open, their eyes following the
queer human animals imprisoned on the other side of the plate-glass
window. Canary birds by the hundreds made the shop a trying one for
sensitive ears. There were no monkeys. Koschinsky, whose heart was as
soft as butter, though he was a formidable revolutionist--so he swore
over at Schwab's--declared that monkeys were made in the image of
tyrannical humans. He would have none of them. Parrots? There were
enough of the breed around him, he told the gossiping women, who, with
their _scheitels_, curved noses, and shining eyes, lent to the quarter
its Oriental quality.
It was in Koschinsky's place that Arthur first encountered Yetta. He was
always prowling about the East Side in search of sociological prey, and
the modest little woman with her intelligent and determined face
attracted him strongly. They fell into easy conversation near a cage of
canaries, and the acquaintance soon bloomed into a friendship. A week
after the raid on Schwab's, Arthur, very haggard and nervous, wandered
into Koschinsky's. The old man greeted him:--
"Hu! So you've just come down from the Island! Well--how did you like it
up there? Plenty water--eh?" The sarcasm was too plain, and the young
man, mumbling some sort of an answer, turned to go.
"Hold on there!" said Koschinsky. "I expect a very fine bird soon. You'd
better wait. It was here only last night; and the bird asked whether you
had been in." Arthur started.
"For me? Miss Silverman?"
"I said a bird," was the dogged reply. And then Yetta walked up to
Arthur and asked:--
"Where have you been? Why haven't you called?" He blushed.
"I was ashamed."
"Because you were so, so--frightened, that night?"
"Yes."
"But nothing came of the affair. The police could get no evidence. We
had no flags--"
"That scarlet one I saw you with--what of it?" She smiled.
"Did you look in your pockets when you got home? I stuffed the flag in
one of them while we were downstairs." He burst into genteel laughter.
"No, I threw off my clothes in such disgust that night that I vowed I
would never get into them again. I gave the suit to my valet."
"Your valet," she gravely returned; "he may become _one of us_."
"Fancy, when I reached the house--I went up in a hansom, for I was
bareheaded--my mother was giving the biggest kind of a ball. I had no
end of trouble trying to sneak in unobserved."
She regarded him steadily. "Isn't it strange," she went on, "how the
bull-dog police of this town persecute us--and they _should_ be
sympathetic. They had to leave their own island because of tyranny. Yet
as soon as they step on this soil they feel themselves self-constituted
tyrants. Something of the sort happened with your own ancestors--" she
looked at him archly--"the Pilgrim Fathers were not very tolerant to the
Quakers, the Jews, Catholics, or any sect not their own. Now you do not
seem to have inherited that ear-slicing temperament--"
"Oh, stop, Yetta! Don't make any more fun of me. I confess I am
cowardly--I hate rows and scandals--"
"'What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his
liberty?'"
"Yes, I know. But this was such a nasty little affair. The newspapers
would have driven me crazy."
"But suppose, for the sake of argument," she said, "that the row would
not have appeared in the newspapers--what then?"
"What do you mean? By Jove, there was nothing in the papers, now that I
come to think of it. I went the next morning out to Tuxedo and
forgot--what do you mean by this mystery, Yetta?"
"I mean this--suppose, for the sake of further argument, I should tell
you that there was no row, no police, no arrests!" He gasped.
"O-h, what an ass I made of myself. So that was your trial! And I
failed. Oh, Yetta, Yetta--what shall I say?" The girl softened. She took
both his hands in her shapely ones and murmured:--
"Dear little boy, I treated you roughly. Forgive me! There was a real
descent by the police--it was no deception. That's why I asked you to
play the Star-Spangled Banner--"
"Excuse me, Yetta; but why did you do that? Why didn't you meet the
police defiantly chanting the Marseillaise? That would have been
braver--more like the true anarchist." She held down her head.
"Because--because--those poor folks--I wanted to spare them as much
trouble with the police as possible," she said in her lowest tones.
"And why," he pursued triumphantly, "why did you preach bombs after
assuring me that reform must come through the spiritual propaganda?" She
quickly replied:--
"Because our most dangerous foe was in the audience. You know. The man
with the beard who first spoke. He has often denounced me as lukewarm;
and then you know words are not as potent as deeds with the
proletarians. One assassination is of more value than all the philosophy
of Tolstoy. And that old wind-bag sat near us and watched us--watched
me. That's why I let myself go--" she was blushing now, and old
Koschinsky nearly dropped a bird-cage in his astonishment.
"Yetta, Yetta!" Arthur insisted, "wind-bag, you call your comrade? Were
you not, just for a few minutes, in the same category? Again she was
silent.
"I feel now," he ejaculated, as he came very close to her, "that we must
get outside of these verbal entanglements. I want you to become my
wife." His heart sank as he thought of his mother's impassive, high-bred
air--with such a figure for a Fifth Avenue bride! The girl looked into
his weak blue eyes with their area of saucer-like whiteness. She shook
her stubborn head.
"I shall never marry. I do not believe in such an institution. It
degrades women, makes tyrants of men. No, Arthur--I am fond of you,
perhaps--" she paused,--"so fond that I might enter into any relation
but marriage,--that never!"
"And I tell you, Yetta, anarchy or no anarchy, I could never respect the
woman if she were not mine legally. In America we do these things
differently--" he was not allowed to finish.
She glared at him, then she strode to the shop door and opened it.
"Farewell to you, Mr. Arthur Schopenhauer Wyartz, amateur anarchist.
Better go back to your mother and sisters! _Mein Gott_, Schopenhauer,
too!" He put his Alpine hat on his bewildered head and without a word
went out. She did not look after him, but walked over to the old
bird-fancier and sat on his leather-topped stool. Presently she rested
her elbows on her knees and propped her chin with her gloveless hands.
Her eyes were red. Koschinsky peeped at her and shook his head.
"Yetta--you know what I think!--Yetta, the boy was right! You shouldn't
have asked him for the Star-Spangled Banner! The Marseillaise would have
been better."
"I don't care," she viciously retorted.
"I know, I know. But a nice boy--_so_ well fixed."
"I don't care," she insisted. "I'm married to the revolution."
"Yah, yah! the revolution, Yetta--" he pushed his lean, brown forefinger
into the cage of an enraged canary--"the revolution! Yes, Yetta
Silverman, the revolution!" She sighed.
XIV
HALL OF THE MISSING FOOTSTEPS
So I saw in my dream that the man began to run.
--_Pilgrim's Progress_.
I
As the first-class carriage rolled languidly out of Balak's only railway
station on a sultry February evening, Pobloff, the composer, was not
sorry.
"I wish it were Persia instead of Ramboul," he reflected. Luga, his
wife, he had left weeping at the station; but since the day she
disappeared with his orchestra for twenty-four hours, Pobloff's
affection had gradually cooled; he was leaving the capital without a
pang on a month's leave of absence--a delicate courtesy of the king's
extended to a brother ruler, though a semi-barbarous one, the khedive of
Ramboul.
Pobloff was not sad nor was he jubilantly glad. The journey was an easy
one; a night and day and the next night would see him, God willing,--he
crossed himself,--in the semi-tropical city of Nirgiz. From Balak to
Nirgiz, from southeastern Europe to Asia Minor!
The heir-apparent was said to be a music-loving lad, very much under
the cunning thumb of his grim old aunt, who, rumour averred, wore a
black beard, and was the scourge of her little kingdom. All that might
be changed when the prince would reach his majority; his failing health
and morbid melancholy had frightened the grand vizier, and the king of
Balakia had been petitioned to send Pobloff, the composer, designer of
inimitable musical masques, Pobloff, the irresistible interpreter of
Chopin, to the aid of the ailing youth.
So this middle-aged David left his nest to go harp for a Saul yet in his
adolescence. What his duties were to be Pobloff had not the slightest
idea. He had received no special instructions; a member of the royal
household bore him the official mandate and a purse fat enough to soothe
his wife's feelings. After appointing his first violin conductor of the
Balakian Orchestra during his absence, the fussy, stout, good-natured
Russian (he was born at Kiew, 1865, the biographical dictionaries say)
secured a sleeping compartment on the Ramboul express, from the windows
of which he contemplated with some satisfaction the flat land that
gradually faded in the mists of night as the train tore its way noisily
over a rude road-bed.
II
Pobloff slept. He usually snored; but this evening he was too fatigued.
He heard not the sudden stoppages at lonely way stations where hoarse
voices and a lantern represented the life of the place; he did not heed
the engine as it thirstily sucked water from a tank in the heart of the
Karpakians; and he was surprised, pleased, proud, when a hot February
sun, shining through his window, awoke him.
It was six o'clock of a fine morning, and the train was toiling up a
precipitous grade to the spine of the mountain, where the down-slope
would begin and air-brakes rule. Pobloff looked about him. He scratched
his long nose, a characteristic gesture, and began wondering when coffee
would be ready. He pressed the bell. The guard entered, a miserable
bandit who bravely wore his peaked hat with green plumes à la Tyrol. He
spoke four tongues and many dialects; Pobloff calculated his monthly
salary at forty roubles.
"No, Excellency, the coffee will be hot and refreshing at Kerb, where we
arrive about seven." He cleared his throat, put out his hand, bowed low,
and disappeared. The composer grumbled. Kerb!--not until that wretched
eyrie in the clouds! And such coffee! No matter. Pobloff never felt in
robuster health; his irritable nerves were calmed by a sound night's
sleep. The air was fresher than down in the malarial valley, where stood
the shining towers of Balak; he could see them pinked by the morning sun
and low on the horizon. All together he was glad....
Hello, this must be Kerb! A moment later Pobloff bellowed for the
guard; he had shattered the electric annunciator by his violence. Then,
not waiting to be served, he ran into the vestibule, and soon was on the
station platform, inhaling huge drafts of air into his big chest. Ah! It
was glorious up there. What surprised him was the number of human beings
clambering over the steps, running and gabbling like a lot of animals
let loose from their cages. The engineer beside his quivering machine
enjoyed his morning coffee. And there were many turbaned pagans and some
veiled women mixed with the crowd.
The sparkling of bright colours and bizarre costumes did not disturb
Pobloff, who had lived too long on anonymous borders, where Jew,
Christian, Turk, Slav, African, and outlandish folk generally melted
into a civilization which still puzzled ethnologists.
A negro, gorgeously clad, guarding closely a slim female, draped from
head to foot in virginal white, attracted the musician. The man's face
was monstrous in its suggestion of evil, and furthermore shocking,
because his nose was a gaping hole. Evidently a scimiter had performed
this surgical operation, Pobloff mused.
The giant's eyes offended him, they so stared, and threateningly.
Pobloff was not a coward. After his adventure in Balak, he feared
neither man nor devil, and he insolently returned the black fellow's
gaze. They stood about a buffet and drank coffee. The young woman--her
outlines were girlish--did not touch anything; she turned her face in
Pobloff's direction, so he fancied, and spoke at intervals to her
attendant.
"I must be a queer-looking bird to this Turk and her keeper--probably
some Georgian going to a rich Mussulman's harem in company with his
eunuch," Pobloff repeated to himself.
A gong was banged. Before its strident vibrations had ceased troubling
the thin morning air, the train began to move slowly out of Kerb.
Pobloff again was glad.
He remained on the rear platform of his car as long as the white
station, beginning to blister under a tropical sun, was in sight. Then
he sought his compartment. His amazement and rage were great when he
found the two window seats occupied by the negro and the mysterious
creature. Pobloff's bag was tumbled in a corner, his overcoat, hat, and
umbrella tossed to the other end of the room. The big black man bared
his teeth smilingly, the shrouded girl shrank back as if in fear.
"Well, I'll be--!" began the composer. Then he leaned over and pushed
the button, the veins in his forehead like whipcords, his throat parched
with wrath. But to no avail--the bell was broken. Pobloff's first
impulse was to take the smiling Ethiopian by the neck and pitch him out.
There were several reasons why he did not: the giant looked dangerous;
he plainly carried a brace of pistols, and at least one dagger, the
jewelled handle of which flashed over his glaring sash of many tints.
And then the lady--Pobloff was very gallant, too gallant, his wife said.
The bell would not ring! What was he to do? He soon made up his mind,
supple Slav that he was. With a muttered apology he sank back and closed
his eyes in polite despair.
His consternation was overwhelming when a voice addressed him in
Russian, a contralto voice of some indefinable timbre, the voice of a
female, yet not without epicene intonations. His eyes immediately
opened. From her gauze veiling the young woman spoke:--
"We are sorry to derange you. The guard made a mistake. Pardon!" The
tone was slightly condescending, as if the goddess behind the cloud had
deigned to notice a mere mortal. Her attendant was smiling, and to
Pobloff his grin resembled a newly sliced watermelon. But her voice
filled him with ecstasy. His ear, as sensitive as the eye of a Claude
Monet, noted every infinitesimal variation in tone-colour, and each
shade was a symbol for the fantastic imagination of this poetic
composer. The girlish voice affected him strangely. It pierced his soul
like a poniard. It made his spine chilly. It evoked visions of white
women languorously moving in processional attitudes beneath the chaste
rays of an implacable moon. The voice modulated into crisp morning
inflections:--
"You are going far, Excellency?" She knew him! And the slave who
grinned and grinned and never spoke--what was _he_? She seemed to follow
Pobloff's thought.
"Hamet is dumb. His tongue was cut at the same time he lost his nose. It
all happened at the siege of Yerkutz."
Pobloff at last found words.
"Poor fellow!" he said sympathetically, and then forgot all about the
mutilated one. "You are welcome to this compartment," he assured her in
his oiliest manner. "What surprises me is that I did not see your Serene
Highness when we left Balak." She started at the title that he bestowed
upon her, and he inwardly chuckled. Clever dog, Pobloff, clever dog! Her
eyes were brilliant despite obstructing veils.
"I was _en route_ to Balak yesterday, but my servant became ill and I
stopped over night at Kerb." Pobloff was entranced. She was undoubtedly
a young dame of noble birth and her freedom, the freedom of a European
woman, delighted him. It also puzzled.
"How is it--?" he asked.
But they had begun that fearful descent, at once the despair and delight
of engineers. The mountain fell away rapidly as the long, clumsy train
raced down its flank at a breakneck pace. Pobloff shivered and clutched
the arms of his seat. He saw nothing but deep blue sky and the tall top
of an occasional tree. The racket was terrific, the heat depressing. She
sat in her corner, apparently sleeping, while the giant smiled, always
smiled, never removing his ugly eyes from the perspiring countenance of
Pobloff.
As they neared earth's level, midday was over. Pobloff hungered. Before
he could go in search of the ever absent guard, the woman suddenly sat
up, clapped her hands, and said something; but whether it was Turkish,
Roumanian, or Greek, he couldn't distinguish. A hamper was hauled from
under the seat by the servant, and to his joy Pobloff saw white rolls,
grapes, wine, figs, and cheese. He bowed and began eating. The others
looked at him and for a moment he could have sworn he heard faint
laughter.
"I am so hungry," he said apologetically. "And you, Serenity, won't you
join me?" He offered her fruit. It was declined with a short nod. He was
dying to smoke, and, behold! priceless Turkish tobacco was thrust into
his willing hand. He rolled a stout cigarette, lighted it. Then a sigh
reached his ears. "The lady smokes," he thought, and slyly chuckled.
A sound of something tearing was heard, and a pair of beautiful hands
reached for the tobacco. In a few moments the slender fingers were
pressing a cigarette; the slave lighted a wax fusee; the lady took it,
put the cigarette in a rent of her veil, and a second volume of odorous
vapour arose. Pobloff leaned back, stupefied. A Mohammedan woman smoking
in a Trans-Caucasian railway carriage before a Frank! Stupendous! He
felt unaccountably gay.
"This is joyful," he said aloud. She smoked fervently. "Western manners
are certainly invading the East," he continued, hoping to hear again
that voice of marvellous resonance. She smoked. "Why, even Turkish women
have been known to study music in Paris."
"I am not a Turk," she said in her deepest chest tones.
"Pardon! A Russian, perhaps? Your accent is perfect. I am a Russian."
She did not reply.
The day declined, and there was no more conversation. As the train
devoured leagues of swampy territory, villages were passed. The
journey's end was nearing. Soon meadows were seen surrounding
magnificent villas. A wide, shallow river was crossed, the Oxal; Pobloff
knew by his pocket map that Nirgiz was nigh. And for the first time in
twenty-four hours he sorrowed. Despite his broad invitations and
unmistakable hints, he could not trap his travelling companion into an
avowal of her identity, of her destination. Nothing could be coaxed from
the giant, and it was with a sinking heart--Pobloff was very
sentimental--that he saw the lights of Nirgiz; a few minutes later the
train entered the Oriental station. In the heat, the clamour of half a
thousand voices, yelling unknown jargons, his resolution to keep his
companions in view went for naught. Beset by jabbering porters, he did
not have an opportunity to say farewell to the veiled lady; with her
escort she had disappeared when the car stopped--and without a word of
thanks! Pobloff was wretched.
III
It was past nine o'clock as he roamed the vast garden surrounding the
Palace of a Thousand Sounds--thus named because of the tiny bells
tinkling about its marble dome. He had eaten an unsatisfying meal in a
small antechamber, waited upon by a stupid servant. And worse still, the
food was ill cooked. On presenting his credentials, earlier in the
evening, the grand vizier, a sneaky-appearing man, had welcomed him
coldly, telling him that her Serene Highness was too exhausted to
receive so late in the day; she had granted too many audiences that
afternoon.
"And the prince?" he queried. The prince was away hunting by moonlight,
and could not be seen for at least a day. In the interim, Pobloff was
told to make himself at home, as became such a distinguished composer
and artistic plenipotentiary of Balakia's king. Then he was bowed out of
the chamber, down the low malachite staircase, into his supper room. It
was all very disturbing to a man of Pobloff's equable disposition.