"And now--I'll drink it to the dregs!
"Why not? I've tasted the rarest wine in cups of purest crystal--why
not swallow the lees of a baser drink from a tavern stoup? 'Tis the
last that drowns regret. Others have done so--why not I?
"Once we have tasted, we must drink--we must dip down into the murky
depths of life if we are to know it to the full--ay, drink with a
laugh, and go on our way with lifted head!
"Drink to the dregs--and laugh at life! Life does not waste tears over
us!"
Olof strode briskly out toward a certain quarter of the town, a
complex of narrow streets and little houses with stuffy rooms,
where glasses are filled and emptied freely, and men sit with
half-intoxicated women on their knees, sacrificing to insatiable
idols.
It was a summer evening, bright and clear. The noise of day had
ceased, and few were abroad. It seemed like a Sunday, just before
evening service, when all were preparing for devotion, and he alone
walked with workaday thoughts in his mind.
A narrow door with a grating in the centre. Olof stood a moment,
evidently in doubt, and walked on--his heart was thumping in his
breast. The consciousness of it irritated him, and turning back
impatiently, he knocked loudly at the door.
No sound from within. He felt as if thousands of eyes were watching
him scornfully, and for a moment he thought of flight. He knocked
again, hurriedly, nervously.
A pause, that seemed unendurably long, then a sound of movement and
steps approaching the door--the panel was moved aside.
"What's all the noise about?" cried a woman's shrill voice. "In a
hurry, aren't you? Get along, and that quick--off with you!" The panel
closed with a slam.
The blood rushed to Olof's cheeks; for a moment he felt like breaking
down the door and flinging it into the street--he would gladly have
pulled the house down in his fury.
Wondering faces appeared here and there at the windows. They were
looking at him as if he were a criminal--a burglar trying to force an
entry in broad daylight. Half-running, he hastened back to the main
streets of the town. Then the fury seized him again--a passion of
wounded pride and defiance. "Am I to be taken for a boy?" he said to
himself angrily.
He passed a row of waiting cabs. One of the men touched his cap
inquiringly, but Olof shook his head--the fellow had an honest face.
The last in the row gave him what he sought--a sly red face with
shifty eyes.
"Eh? Take you?... That's easy enough! I know the very house.
First-rate girls, all of them, and no trouble. 'Tis the best sort
you'll be wanting, I take it?"
"Yes."
"That's the style. Just step in, now, and we'll be there...."
The cab rumbles away; Olof leans back, feeling himself again.
* * * * *
Through a gateway into a cobbled yard. The driver gets down, and Olof
follows suit. The man knocks with the handle of his whip at a door.
"'Tis no good coming at this time--the girls aren't here yet." And the
door is slammed in his face.
"Drive on, then! Drive to the devil, only let's get out of this,"
cries Olof.
"Nay, nay, no call to give up now we're on the way." The driver swings
out into the street again, and tries another entrance of the same sort
farther on.
Olof stood half-dazed, waiting.
This time the knock was answered by a girl's voice, bright and
pleasant. The driver and the girl exchanged whispers through the door.
"Sober? Ay, he's sober enough. Young chap, and plenty of money--wants
the best sort."
Olof's blood boiled. Was he to be bargained for like a beast in the
cattle market? He was on the point of calling the man away, when the
door opened a little. "Right you are, then," said the man, with a
knowing gleam in his eyes.
"Good evening--won't you come in?" A young girl, neatly dressed, held
the door open for Olof with a smile.
He went through the passage into a little parlour. The heavy-scented
air of the place was at once soothing and exciting to his senses.
"Sit down, won't you? But what are you looking so serious about? Has
your girl thrown you over--or what?"
"Now, how on earth did you guess that?" cried Olof in sudden relief,
thankful that the girl was so bright and talkative. He felt all at
once that he too must talk--of anything, nothing, or he could not stay
in the place a minute.
"Guess? Why, that's easy enough. They always come here when there's
anything wrong with--the others. And there's always something wrong
with some of them. Was she pretty?" The girl looked at him with a
mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"Pretty?--yes, that she was, pretty as you, nearly."
"Puh!" laughed the girl. "And she kissed you, I suppose?"
"No. Wouldn't even kiss me."
"Aha. So you made love to another girl, and then she threw you
over--that was it, I'm sure."
"Right again! Yes--made love to another girl--that was it. And quite
enough too."
"Oh, it's always the way with--well, that sort of girls. They don't
understand how to make love a bit. There's heaps of love to be had, if
you only know where to look for it."
They both laughed--the girl in easy, teasing gaiety, Olof still
thankful at finding it so easy to suit himself to his company.
"What'll you have to drink? Sherry, madeira, or stout, perhaps? I like
sherry best."
"Let's have all three!" cried Olof.
"That'll be twenty, please." He gave her the money and she slipped
from the room.
Olof looked round. How was this going to end? He was thankful at any
rate that the room was neatly, almost tastefully furnished, and that
the girl was so easy to talk to.
The bottles and glasses were brought in. "Here's to us both!" cried
the girl, lifting her glass with an enticing glance.
They drank--it was the first time Olof had ever tasted wine. And all
the bitterness and unrest in his soul seemed drowned at once.
"I say--is this your first time?" The girl explained her question with
a meaning glance.
"Yes." The word stuck in his throat. "Have some more to drink," he
added hastily.
"That's right!" The glasses rang. "Got any cigarettes?"
Each lit a cigarette. The girl leaned back in a careless posture,
throwing one leg over the other, and watched the smoke curling up in
the air.
"First-rate institution, isn't it?" she said, with a laugh. "Sort
of public sanatorium--though the fools of police or Government or
whatever you call it won't make it free. All you men come here when
you're tired and worried and ill, and we cure you--isn't that it?"
"I dare say...."
"But it is, though, take my word for it. How'd you ever get on without
us, d'you think? Like fish out of water! And yet we're reckoned as
outcasts and all that. Devil take all your society women, I say.
There's one I see pass by every day, a judge's wife, haughty and stuck
up as a weathercock on a church spire. Think she'd look at one of us?
But her husband, bless you, he...."
"For Heaven's sake talk of something else," cried Olof. He swallowed a
glass of sherry to cover his disgust.
"Eh? Oh, all right, anything you please. Sing you a song if you like.
What d'you say to that."
"Yes, but nothing...."
"Not a word. Dainty little song. Here you are:
"'Here's a corner for you and me,
Room for two--but not for three!
A glass for each within easy reach...
Just the place for a spree!'"
"How's that? Quite nice, isn't it?"
"Go on." Olof settled down more comfortably there was something
pleasantly fascinating in the dance-like rhythm of the song.
"Cushions are soft, and curtains hide,--
What would somebody say if they spied?
Kisses and laughter--and what comes after...?
Ah.... You never know till you've tried!"
Olof could not help laughing.
They sat laughing and talking and telling stories--the girl was never
silent for a moment. The glasses were filled and emptied, the smoke
grew thicker.
"Oh ... it's too hot. I'm stifling with all these things on!" The girl
rose to her feet, her eyes glittered, her cheeks were flushed with
wine. "I'll be back in a second." And she slipped through into the
adjoining room.
"Do, if you like." Olof sank back idly on the sofa, watching the smoke
from his cigarette thoughtfully. Still he was not quite at home in the
place.
The girl came in like a vision, tripping daintily in light slippers,
her arms bare to the shoulder, her body scarcely veiled by the
thinnest, transparent wrap.
"Oh!" Olof could not repress an exclamation.
"Aha...!" The girl laughed mischievously. Watching his face with a
coquettish smile, she lifted one foot gracefully on to the sofa, and
leaned towards him, her eyes boldly questioning.
Olof felt his senses in a whirl. He saw in her a mingling of human
being, beast and angel, of slave and mistress--a creature fascinating
and enticing, bewitching, ensnaring. But only for a moment. His mood
changed to one of fury at his own susceptibility; the burning thirst
in the girl's eyes, the fumes of wine in her breath, repelled him.
"Sit down and drink--and let that be enough!" He snatched a bottle
hastily and filled the glasses to the brim.
"Ho!" said the girl, with a stare. "Drink--is that all you've come
for?"
"Yes!"
She stepped down from the sofa, her features quivering with scorn.
"Well, you're a nice one, you are. If they were all like that--drink
and pay the bill and off again--and not so much as a ... well, you're
the first I've met of that sort--hope you'll enjoy it!"
She drank, and set down the glass, a sneer still quivering about the
corners of her mouth.
Then, leaning her elbows on the table, she gazed at him thoughtfully
under her lowered lashes. Olof smoked furiously, till his cigarette
looked like a streak of fire.
The girl sat down on the sofa, at the farther end, and went on with a
maudlin tenderness in her voice:
"Why are you like that--a man like you? I wouldn't now for money,
whatever you offered me. Can't you see I'm in love with you? Or d'you
suppose perhaps a girl--a girl in a place like this--can't love? Ah,
but she can, and more than any of the other sort, maybe. I'd like to
love a real man just for once--I've had enough of beasts. Stay with me
to-night--won't you...?"
Olof shuddered in disgust.
"Drink!" he cried. "Drink, and don't sit there talking nonsense."
Then again a revulsion seized him, and with a feeling of despair and
weakness, he went on:
"I can't stay here, I must go--I must go in a minute. Never mind.
Drink."
"Oh, let's drink, then," said the girl bitterly, and, rising, emptied
her glass. "Drink--yes, and drink and drink--'tis the only thing when
once you're--here." She sank down into a seat. "Night and day, morning
and night--there's none of us could stand it if it wasn't for that
stuff there. Ho, the world's a mad place--what a fool I am!"
She burst into tears, and fell forward with her arms on the table.
Olof felt more miserable than before. The blood was pulsing in his
temples, and something choking in his throat, as he looked at the
sobbing figure.
"I'll tell you what this place is," she said, looking up between sobs.
"'Tis hell--and in hell you're always wanting something to wet the tip
of your tongue--I've read that somewhere, haven't I? Oh, oh...!" She
fell to sobbing again.
Olof felt he could bear it no longer. He would have liked to comfort
her, but his tongue was dry, he could not speak.
Then suddenly the girl jumped up and struck the table with her
fist, shaking the things on the tray. "What the hell am I snivelling
about--'twon't make it any better." She took the bottle of beer,
filled a tumbler and drank it off at a draught, then flung the glass
crashing against the wall behind the stove.
"Puh! Now I've got that wretched fit again." She stood in the middle
of the room, looking round. "I can't help it, I get like that every
now and then. Wait a bit, and I'll bring you better company. A real
good girl--she's younger than me, and only just beginning, but she's
lovely, lovely as an angel. Only don't go and fall in love with her,
or I'll be jealous."
"No! Stay where you are!" Olof would have stopped her, but she was out
of the door in a moment. He rose to his feet, his head was throbbing,
and he could hardly stand.
"Here you are--here's the beauty!"
A bright-eyed girl, young and slightly built, stood in the doorway
smiling.
Olof started as if he had seen a ghost, the blood seemed to stand
still in his veins; a cold weight seemed crushing him like an iceberg.
"You--Gazelle!" he cried in horror.
"Olof!"
"Oho, so you're old friends, it seems? Well, then, shake hands nicely.
Come along, man, give her a kiss...."
Olof felt the room growing dark before his eyes.
The girl turned deathly pale. She stood a moment, trembling from head
to foot, then turned and fled. There was the sound of a key drawn from
a lock, a door was slammed, and then silence.
Olof stood as if rooted to the spot, seeing nothing but a vague
glimmer of light through a rent in blackness. Then at last he pulled
himself together, snatched up his hat, and rushed out of the place as
if pursued by demons.
* * * * *
Morning found him seated on a chair by the window, looking out. The
night had been cold. Before him lay a group of housetops, the dark
roofs covered with a thin white coating of rime; beyond, a glimpse of
a grey, cold sky.
He had been sitting thus all night, deep in thought. His road seemed
ending here in a blank wall--or he was grown suddenly old, and could
go no farther--or was trying vainly to rise from a bed of sickness.
His eyes burned, his head was heavy as lead, and his heart seemed
dead and cold, as hands and feet may do in winter when on the point of
freezing.
He rose to his feet, and bathed his face again and again with cold
water. Then he straightened his hair, put on his clothes, and went
out.
He took his way direct to a certain street, reached the house he was
seeking, and knocked. There were people moving in the yard, and some
children about; but he felt no shame, and knocked as easily as if it
had been a church door.
The panel opened, and the harsh voice of an old woman asked:
"What d'you want here at this hour? The girls are not up yet."
"When will they be up?"
"In a couple of hours or so."
He looked at his watch, and went out into the street. For a while he
wandered up and down, then took the road out from the town, and went
straight on.
When he came back his face was pale; his feet were so weary he could
hardly drag himself along.
He knocked again; the panel was thrust aside, and a face peeped
through, then the door was opened.
"Hallo!" It was the girl of the night before. She was half-dressed,
her eyes dull, her face tired and haggard. Olof felt as if he were
breathing in the fumes of beer and wine and all unspeakable nastiness.
"Your friend--is she up yet? I want to see her," he stammered.
"Up--ay, she's up long ago; you can see for yourself."
She vanished down the passage, and returned in a moment with a
crumpled sheet of notepaper, which she handed him.
Olof glanced at it, and read, hastily scribbled in pencil, these
words:
"When you get this I shall be far away. I am going and not coming
back. I can't stay here.--ELLI."
"There--what's the meaning of that, if you please?" cried the girl.
Olof made no answer. He held the paper in a trembling hand, and read
it again and again; a weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.
"May I--may I keep this?" he asked, with flushing cheeks.
"Keep it--ay, eat it, if you like."
"Good-bye--and--and...." He pressed the girl's hand, as if unconscious
of what he was doing.
The girl watched him as he hurried away.
"Queer lot," she murmured. "Something wrong somewhere...."