II

The morning sun of late September was gilding sea and land, when

Crammon entered Christian’s room. Christian was sitting at his curved

writing table. The bright blue tapestries on the walls gleamed; chairs

and tables were covered by a hundred confused objects. Everything

pointed to the occupant’s departure.

“Don’t let me disturb you, dear boy; I have time enough,” said Crammon.

He swept some things from a chair, sat down, and lit his pipe.

But Christian put down his pen. “I don’t know what’s the matter with

me,” he said angrily, without looking at Crammon, “I can’t get two

coherent sentences down on paper. However carefully I think it out,

by the time it’s written it sounds stiff and silly. Have you the same

experience?”

Crammon answered: “There are those who have the trick. It takes,

primarily, a certain impudence. You must never stop to ask: Is that

correct? Is it true? Is it well-founded? Scribble ahead, that’s all.

Be effective, no matter at what cost. The cleverest writers are often

the most stupid fellows. But to whom are you writing? Is the haste so

great? Letters can usually be put off.”

“Not this time. It is a question of haste,” Christian answered. “I have

a letter from Stettner and I can’t make out his drift. He tells me that

he’s quitting the service and leaving for America. Before he goes he

wants to see me once more. He takes ship at Hamburg on October 15. Now

it fortunately happens that I’ll be in Hamburg on that date, and I want

to let him know.”

“I don’t see any difficulty there,” Crammon said seriously. “All you

need say is: I’ll be at such a place on such a day, and expect or hope,

et cetera. Yours faithfully or sincerely or cordially, et cetera. So

he’s going to quit? Why? And run off to America? Something rotten in

the state of Denmark?”

“He was challenged to a duel, it appears, and refused the challenge.

That’s the only reason he gives. He adds that matters shaped themselves

so that he is forced to seek a new life in the New World. It touches me

closely; I was always fond of him. I must see him.”

“I’d be curious too to know what really happened,” said Crammon.

“Stettner didn’t strike me as a chap who’d lightly run away and risk

his honour. He was an exemplary officer. I’m afraid it’s a dreary

business. But I observe that it gives you a pretext for going to

Hamburg.”

Christian started. “Why a pretext?” He was a little embarrassed. “I

need no pretext.”

Crammon bent his head far forward, and laid his chin on the ivory

handle of his stick. His pipe remained artfully poised in one corner

of his mouth, and did not move as he spoke. “You don’t mean to assert,

my dearest boy, that your conscience doesn’t require some additional

motive for the trip,” he began, like a father confessor who is about to

use subtle arguments to force a confession from a stubborn malefactor,

“and you’re not going to try to make a fool of an old boon-companion

and brother of your soul. One owes something to a friend. You should

not forget under whose auspices and promises you entered the great

world, nor what securities _he_ offered--securities of the heart

and mind--who was the author and master of your radiant entry. Even

Socrates, that rogue and revolutionary, recalled such obligations on

his death bed. There was a story about a cock--some sort of a cock,

I believe. Maybe the story doesn’t fit the case at all. No matter. I

always thought the ancients rather odious. What does matter is that I

don’t like your condition, and that others who love you don’t like it.

It rends my very heart to see you pilloried, while people who can’t

tell a stud-horse from a donkey shrug their shoulders at you. It’s not

to be endured. I’d rather we’d quarrel and exchange shots at a distance

of five paces. What has happened to you? What has come over you? Have

you stopped gathering scalps to offer your own head? The hares and

the hounds, I tell you, are diverse creatures. I understand all things

human, but the divine order must be kept intact. It’s flying in the

face of providence that you should stand at the gate like a beggar. You

used to be the one who showed others the door; they whined and moaned

after you--and that was proper. I had an uncle who was something of a

philosopher, and he used to say: when a woman, a lawyer, and a stove

are at their hottest--turn your back to them. I’ve always done that,

and kept my peace of mind and my reputation. There are extenuating

circumstances in your case, I admit. There is but one such woman in a

century, and whoever possesses her may well lose his reason. But even

that should not apply to you, Christian. Splendour is your natural

portion: it is for you to grant favours; at your board the honey should

be fresh each day. And now tell me what you intend to do.”

Christian had listened to this lengthy though wise and pregnant

discourse with great patience. At times there was a glint of mockery or

anger in his eyes. Then again he would lower them and seem embarrassed.

Sometimes he grasped the sense of Crammon’s words, sometimes he thought

of other things. It cost him an effort to recall clearly by what right

this apparently complete stranger interfered in his life and sought

to influence his decisions. And then again he felt within himself a

certain tenderness for Crammon in the memory of common experiences and

intimate talks; but all that seemed so far away and so estranged from

the present.

He looked out of the window, from which the view was free to the

horizon where sea and sky touched. Far in the distance a little white

cloud floated like a white, round pillow. The same tenderness that he

felt for Crammon, he now felt for that little cloud.

And as Crammon sat before him and waited for an answer, there suddenly

came into his mind the story of the ring which Amadeus had told him.

He began: “A young candidate for Holy Orders, who was tutor to the

children of a banker, fell under the suspicion of having stolen a

costly ring. He told me the story himself, and from his words I knew

that the ring, when he saw it on the hand of his employer’s wife,

aroused his desire. In addition he loved this woman, and would have

been happy to have had something by which to remember her. But he

was utterly innocent of the disappearance of the ring, and some

time after he had left that house, his innocence received the most

striking confirmation. For the lady sent him the ring as a gift. He

was wretchedly poor, and the ring would have meant much to him; but he

went and threw it into a well, a deep old-fashioned well. The costliest

thing he had ever possessed in life, he threw without hesitation or

reflection into a well--that’s what this man did.”

“Oh, well, very well. Although ... no, I don’t quite see your meaning,”

said Crammon, discontentedly, and shifted his pipe from the right to

the left corner of his mouth. “What good did the ring do the poor fool?

How absurd to take something that reaches you in a manner so delicate

and discreet, and throw it into a well? Would not a box have served,

or a drawer? There at least it could have been found. It was a loutish

trick.”

Crammon’s way of sitting there with his legs crossed, showing his grey

silk socks, had something about it so secure and satiated, that it

reminded one of an animal that basks in the sun and digests its food.

Christian’s disgust at his words quieted, and was replaced by a gentle,

almost compassionate tenderness. He said: “It is so hard to renounce.

You can talk about it and imagine it; you can will it and even believe

yourself capable of it. But when the moment of renunciation comes,

it is hard, it is almost impossible to give up even the humblest of

things.”

“Yes, but why do you want to renounce?” Crammon murmured in his

vexation. “What do you mean exactly by renunciation? What is it to lead

to?”

Christian said almost to himself: “I believe that one must cast one’s

ring into a well.”

“If you mean by that that you intend to forget our wonderful Queen

Mab, all I have to say is--the Lord help you in your purpose,” Crammon

answered.

“One holds fast and clings because one fears the step into the

unknown,” Christian said.

Crammon was silent for a few minutes and wrinkled his forehead. Then he

cleared his throat and asked: “Did you ever hear about homœopathy? I’ll

explain to you what is meant by it. It means curing like with like. If

for instance some food has disagreed with you violently, and I give you

a drug that would, in a state of health, have sickened you even more

violently than your food--that would be a homœopathic treatment.”

“So you want to cure me?” Christian asked, and smiled. “From what and

with what?”

Crammon moved his chair nearer to Christian’s, laid a hand on his

knees, and whispered astutely: “I’ve got something for you, dear boy.

I’ve made an exquisite find. There’s a woman in your horoscope, as the

sooth-sayers put it. Some one is yearning for you, is immensely taken

with you, and dying of impatience to know you. And it’s something quite

different, a new type, something prickling and comical, indeterminate,

sensitive, a little graceless and small and not beautiful, but

enormously charming. She comes from the bourgeoisie at its most obese,

but she struggles with both hands and feet against the fate of being a

pearl in a trough. There’s your chance for employment, distraction, and

refreshment. It won’t be a long affair,--an interlude of her holidays,

but instructive, and, in the homœopathic sense, sure to work a cure.

For look you: Ariel, she is a miracle, a star, the food of the gods.

You can’t live on such nourishment; you need bread. Descend, my son,

from the high tower where you still grasp after the _miraculum cœli_

that once flamed on your bosom. Put it out of your mind; descend, and

be contented with mortality. To-night at seven in the dining-room of

the Hotel de la Plage. Is it a bargain?”

Christian laughed, and got up. On the table stood a vase filled with

white pinks. He took out one of the flowers, and fastened it into

Crammon’s button-hole.

“Is it a bargain or not?” Crammon asked severely.

“No, dear friend, there’s nothing in that for me,” Christian answered,

laughing more heartily. “Keep your find to yourself.”

The veins on Crammon’s forehead swelled. “But I’ve promised to bring

you, and you mustn’t leave me in the lurch.” He was in a rage. “I don’t

deserve such treatment, after all the slights which you have put on me

for months. You give rights to an obscure vagabond that astonish the

whole world, and you cast aside heartlessly an old and proved friend.

That does hurt and embitter and enrage one. I’m through.”

“Calm yourself, Bernard,” said Christian, and stooped to pick up

some blossoms that had fallen on the floor. And as he put back the

flowers into the vase, there came to him the vision of Amadeus Voss’

white face, showing his bleeding soul and paralyzed by desire and

renunciation, even as it was turned toward the fat, morose Walloon

woman. “I don’t comprehend your stubbornness,” he continued. “Why won’t

you let me be? Don’t you know that I bring misfortune to all who love

me?”

Crammon was startled. Despite Christian’s equivocal smile, he felt a

sudden twinge of superstitious fear. “Idiotic!” he growled. He arose

and took his hat, and still tried to wring from Christian a promise for

the evening. At that moment a knock sounded at the door, and Amadeus

Voss entered.

“I beg your pardon,” he stammered, and looked shyly at Crammon, who had

at once assumed an attitude of hostility. “I merely wanted to ask you,

Christian, whether we are going to leave. Shall the packing be done? We

must know what to do.”

Crammon was furious. “Fancy the scoundrel taking such a tone,” he

thought. He could hardly force himself to assume the grimace of

courtesy that became inevitable when Christian, quite hesitatingly,

introduced them to each other.

Amadeus bowed like an applicant for some humble office. His eyes behind

their lenses clung to Crammon, like the valves of an exhaust pump. He

found Crammon repulsive at once; but he thought it advisable not only

to hide this feeling but to play the part of obsequiousness. His hatred

was so immediate and so violent, that he was afraid of showing it too

soon, and stripping himself of some chance of translating it into

action.

Crammon sought points of attack. He treated Voss with contempt, looked

at him as though he were a wad of clothes against the wall, neither

answered him nor listened to what he said, deliberately prolonged his

stay, and paid no attention to Christian’s nervousness. Voss continued

to play the part he had selected. He agreed and bowed, rubbed the toe

of one of his boots against the sole of the other, picked up Crammon’s

stick when the latter dropped it; but as he seemed determined not to

be the first to yield, Crammon at last took pity on the silent wonder

and torment in Christian’s face. He waved his well-gloved left hand

and withdrew. He seemed to swell up in his rage like a frog. “Softly,

Bernard,” he said to himself; “guard your dignity, and do not step

into the ordure at your feet. Trust in the Lord who said: Vengeance is

mine.” He met a little dog on his path, and administered a kick to it,

so that the beast howled and scurried into an open cellar.

Across the table Christian and Voss faced each other in silence. Voss

pulled a flower from the vase, and shredded its calyx with his thin

fingers. “So that was Herr von Crammon,” he murmured. “I don’t know why

I feel like laughing. But I can’t help it. I do.” And he giggled softly

to himself.

“We leave to-morrow,” said Christian, held a handkerchief to his

mouth, and breathed the delicate perfume that aroused in him so many

tender and slowly fading images.

Voss took a blossom, tore it in two, gazed tensely at the parts, and

said: “Fibre by fibre, cell by cell. I am done with this life of sloth

and parasitism. I want to cut up the bodies of men and anatomize

corpses. Perhaps one can get at the seat of weakness and vulgarity. One

must seek life at its source and death at its root. The talent of an

anatomist stirs within me. Once I wanted to be a great preacher like

Savonarola; but it’s a reckless thing to try in these days. One had

better stick to men’s bodies; their souls would bring one to despair.”

“I believe one must work,” Christian answered softly. “It does not

matter at what. But one must work.” He turned toward the window. The

round, white cloud had vanished; the silver sea had sucked it up.

“Have you come to that conclusion?” Voss jeered. “I’ve known it long.

The way to hell is paved with work; and only hell can burn us clean. It

is well that you have learned that much.”