Crammon wrote to Christian. It was his humour to affect an archaic
manner of speech:
“Most Honoured and Worthy Friend: With deep satisfaction I learn
that your Worship has ruefully returned to the god Dionysos, and as
a sign thereof laid down upon his altar a jewel, whose price has
caused the teeth of the Philistines in the land to rattle, and their
lame digestions to work with unwelcome swiftness. Your servant, the
undersigned, did, on the contrary, when the news of happy augury came
to him, perform a dance in his lonely closet, which so shocked the
ladies of his palace that they at once called up psychiatrists on the
telephone. Thus the world, barren of understanding, is incapable of
great reflections.
“Unlovely are my days. I am ensnared in amorous adventures which do
not content me, and, in addition, disappoint those who are involved.
At times I sit by the charming glow of my chimney fire, and, closing
my eyes, peruse the book of memory. A bottle of golden-hued cognac is
my sole companion, and while I nourish my heart upon its artificial
warmth, the higher regions are wont to sink into the cold mystery of
mere idiocy. My mental powers are moving, like the crab, backward; my
virile powers decline. Years ago in Paris I knew a chess player, a
purblind old German, who lost every game he played, and exclaimed each
time: ‘Where are the days in which I vanquished the great Zuckertort?’
The latter, I must explain, was a great master of the royal game. The
necessary application to myself embarrasses me. There was once a Roman
emperor famous above all others for his power over women; Maxentius
was, I believe, the man’s name. But were I to exclaim: ‘Where are the
days in which I rivalled the great Maxentius?’ it were but damnable
boasting!
“It is a pity that you cannot be a beholder when I arise from my couch
in the morning. Were this spectacle to be tested by connoisseurs and
to be enjoyed by the laity, throngs would attend it, as whilom they
did the rising of the kings of France. The gentry of the land would
come to do me reverence, and lovely ladies would tickle me to elicit a
beam of cheer upon my face. O blessed youth, friend and playmate of my
dreams, I would have you know that the moments in which one leaves the
linen well warmed by one’s own body, and goes forth to twelve hours of
the world’s mischief, are to me moments of incomparable pitifulness.
I sit on the bed’s edge, and regard my underwear with a loud though
inward rage. Sadly I gather the remnants of my ego, and reknot the
thread of consciousness where Morpheus cut it yestereve. My soul is
strewn about, and rolls in little globules, like mercury spilt from
a broken thermometer. Only the sacrificial fumes of the tea kettle,
the fragrance of ham and of an omelet like cowslips, and, above all,
gentle words uttered by the soft lips of my considerate housekeepers,
reconcile me to my fate.
“Dear old Regamey is dead. The Count Sinsheim has had a paralytic
stroke. My friend, Lady Constance Cuningham, a member of the highest
aristocracy, has married a wealthy American bounder. The best are
going, and the tree of life is growing bare. On my trip here I stopped
over in Munich for three days as the guest of the young Imhofs. Your
sister Judith is cutting a great figure. The painters paint her, the
sculptors hew her in marble, the poets celebrate her. Yet her ambition
is still vaulting. She desires passionately a little nine-pointed
coronet upon her linen, her liveries, and her four motors, and flirts
with everything that comes from the court or goes to it. Felix, on
the contrary, being a democrat, surrounds himself with business men,
speculators, explorers, and clever people of both sexes. Hence their
house is a mixture of Guildhall, a grain exchange, a meeting of
pettifoggers, and a jockey club. After watching the goings on for an
evening, I retired to a corner with a pretty girl, and asked her to
feel my pulse. She obeyed, and my suffering soul was soothed.
“Our sweet Ariel, I am told, intoxicates the Poles in Warsaw and the
Muscovites in Moscow. In the latter city the students are said to have
expressed their homage by a torchlight procession, and the officers to
have covered the snowy streets from her dwelling to the theatre with
roses. I am also told that the Grand Duke Cyril, commonly known as
the human butcher, is half-mad with love of her, and is turning the
world topsy-turvy to get her. It fills me with a piercing, depthless
melancholy to think, O Ariel, that once I, too, felt thy breath. No
more than that; but it suffices. _Le moulin n’y est plus, mais le vent
y est encore._
“With this final remark, dear brother of my heart and sorely missed
friend, I commend you to God, and beseech you to give some sign to your
affectionately longing Bernard Gervasius C. v. W.”
When Christian had read the letter, he smiled, and laid it quietly
aside.