The sea pulsed darkly around the rocks, but the starry sky looked
down upon the smothered roar with a sweet, dreamlike serenity, as if
it would banish such wildness so long as night was queen, and until,
day returning with its ardent advances, the combat of light and
waters would be resumed.
In this mood Diana reacted to the sounds and the shimmering
loveliness of the evening.
On the lowest of the terraces, open to the sky, high above the rocks,
Olivia and her guests sat after dinner, listening to Scherer as he
played. The grand piano had been brought out--the men lugging it
there themselves, following a sudden inspiration--and, as the strains
of Beethoven's last sonatas rose towards the dome above, accompanied
by the ceaseless roar of the tide below, its melodies captured and
re-echoed from cliff to cliff, while the stars scintillated overhead,
there arose out of the turmoil of sound visions of primitive man's
original defiance of the gods, the theft of fire from heaven, the
overthrow of the Son of Chronos--and the hearers silently surrendered
to the passionate impressions the music aroused. Scherer's
characteristic reserve was forgotten, his formal dinner suit was
swallowed up in the shadows of the night; he had become a magician
clad in the black raiment of his office, sitting in front of a black
sonorous dragon whose giant sides seemed open to the sea as the
creature, wounded and near its end, groaned and sent its savage
shrieks to the encounter with the elements, its white teeth gleaming
through the darkness and gnashing furiously at the hands that
tortured. For an hour Scherer shook off all his reserves. No longer
restrained by the artificial lighting and the cramped conventionality
of a drawing-room, he gave free rein to hands and arms as his fingers
grappled with the keys, and as the minutes passed his thoughts
wandered farther and farther away from the music he was discoursing.
Mechanically, by force of habit, he played the vast phrases of the
composer, his heart beating high, his dispassionate lips slightly
apart as if to allow the warm night air to pass freely within. Faces
drifted by, faces of women reclining, as he had seen Olivia that
morning on the shore, and yet not in her likeness.... He bungled a
passage in the left hand, and, thrusting both the faces and the
benumbed apathy of his feelings behind him, he concentrated all his
faculties on the music, rousing himself to the final onslaught on the
dragon before him.
As if each were on an island apart, separated by waters which the eye
and the ear could no longer span, the friends sat on the semicircular
terrace and were lost to each other's view in the darkness.
Wilhelm's thoughts wandered from the young girl in whose company he
had spent most of these two days, to the image of a certain Duchessa
d'Aosta whom he had met in one of the big hotels at Rome and who
seemed to him to personify worldly brilliance, in spite of the fact
that her hair was grey and that her daughter, a young girl still, was
at her side. Maria reminded him of this girl.... Kyril, while the
presto and the subsequent maestoso were being played, had seen
himself addressing a huge crowd from a roof on which he stood, and
then being escorted into the private rooms of the tsar on the
shoulders of his brethren, and with his own hands stripping the royal
purple and the crown from the monarch; the crowd suddenly
disappeared, and now he saw a naked woman standing before a curtain,
proud, silent, like Diana in limb, but with long hair like that of a
Frenchwoman he had known, whose tresses he had loved to shake loose
on the pillow every night. At the outset, Eduard found his mind
straying through the halls of his ancestral home, impelled thither by
the syncopated measure of the first phrases; he carried a
three-branched candlestick in hand, as if he were looking for his
relatives, but he was unsuccessful in his search; then, when the
adagio with its slow, twofold beat began, he found himself in a
garden where he had never been before, Diana in her short summer
frock walking by his side, her eyes on the distant prospect, lightly
touching the waving grasses with the tips of the fingers of her left
hand; and he meditated upon the recent cruise, and upon the unending
kisses and dreamlike nights he had in fancy spent with her in her
cabin and on deck; and he asked himself how it had all originated,
and marvelled that it should find a solution in melodious melancholy.
The men did not try to catch a glimpse of the two women, whose chairs
were separated by the whole width of the terrace. Olivia's white
neck in its setting of black velvet gleamed softly in the darkness,
as her ample form lay draped in the plentiful folds of her gown. She
lolled back in the capacious chair, her arms hanging limply, her long
silver chain rippling down over her bosom, like two sister streams
meandering in listless curves, from the fountainhead beneath the
golden chignon at the nape of Olivia's neck, downward, until they
were lost in the lap of love. With eyes closed, she felt the trickle
of the metal over her milky skin, and she hardly knew whether the
sensation was caused by the links in the chain or by the vigorous
touch of a man--some man unknown.
Diana had stepped up to the railing that she might escape from the
shadow the huge walls of the castle threw across the terrace, and
that, by putting a wider space between herself and her human
companions, she might be nearer the stars. A slender figure in her
white silk dress, she stood gazing at the tranquil sky, away from the
turbulent sea; and, thus silhouetted against the night, she might
well have been likened to the sweep of a bow drawn across the strings
of a violin. Yet her fingers and her countenance, hidden from all
men's sight, were as stormily agitated as was her heart. The pale
frock she wore, one for which Eduard had a special fondness, had been
selected by her in defiance of her own mood. Do what she might to
efface the remembrance of that mighty embrace, she still felt the
great hand of the Russian peasants' son clasping her left breast.
She had been seized upon, but not subdued: this was the thought that
gyrated in her head since that noontide swim, and which, for the
first time since she had known him, made her feel she must concede
him at least a particle of supremacy; since she acknowledged to
herself that she had offered but little resistance, nay even that she
would have been prepared to tolerate whatever he had demanded of her.
Was it in this very sea? And was that why she could no longer
venture to contemplate the inrolling surges? Was it the sea, that
solitary refuge of the restless ones, which had grappled with her?
Had the sea yet other sons who might cross her path, might dive
beneath her, and clasp her? She furiously thrust aside the thought
of any more intimate relationship with a man who was so alien to her
whole nature, towards whom by words and looks she had displayed a
challenging hostility she had not felt towards any other man this
many a year. So passionately cold was her mood, so greatly was her
inner harmony disturbed, that when the tender melody of the slow
movement was wafted towards her and threatened to melt her, she
rebelled, and sought to arm herself in hardness. Urgently, she gazed
up at the stars; in vain! It seemed to her that tonight she did not
belong to their community any more, so dumb did they remain to her
need.
Then the world of sounds rose on the airy rhythm of a scherzo,
breaking the spell that held her; and all at once the vital fires
were rekindled within her, they flamed and flickered and ducked and
danced, gripping and nipping the stagnant blood; her fingers loosened
their hold upon the railing, she stepped away from the breastwork,
her eyes regained their serenity, and, as at this moment the tenuous
film of clouds parted, revealing the trusty guardians of Diana's
skies, she felt they were sending her a message of friendly greeting:
for now she found in the firmament that for which she had been
seeking, and the breath came easily from her lungs; she smiled, the
horror that had flooded her was ebbing with the tide below, and she
forgot, in the joy of release, that as with the tide, such an ebb
could not be lasting.
Scherer rose after playing the final chords of a short presto, and
this was the signal for them all to rise as if they wished to release
themselves from the embrace that had held them. Diana, now, was the
lightest-hearted of the party; and she, who usually was the last to
arouse herself from the spell of music, tonight took the initiative
in breaking the silence.
"You have conjured away the last clouds with your playing, and the
protective deities are once more to be seen, while Saturn himself
shines above your head. It was not until the scherzo, that part
where longing broke through the theme, that the gods vouchsafed to
show themselves, for longing is alien to their nature, and only the
sea must for ever will and desire."
She did not glance aside as she spoke, but kept her eyes on the man
she was thanking, and it was not until she had actually uttered the
words that she realized to whom they had really been addressed.
Olivia alone of the company had remained seated and motionless; now
her tragic alto, reached them from afar:
"Why should the gods be antagonistic to human yearning, Diana? Their
very existence depends on it!"
"No, no, Olivia," protested Diana, coming nearer to the group of men.
"We only invented such an idea. They can have nothing to do with
such things."
"She is right," said Scherer stepping up to the countess. "Beethoven
seems for ever to be in combat with the powers above; either he
threatens them, or else he laments."
"And that is why he is the most genuine of suffering mankind," came
in Kyril's deep voice from the breastwork.
"Suffering?" Diana sought in vain to quell the pride her tone
masked. "Present day," she added coldly.
"We hope that the men of tomorrow will not need him any more," said
the Russian.
"Ah, whither are Mozart's blue shades vanished? For a moment in the
scherzo he seemed near...." began Diana softly.
"Mozart? Fulfilment, happiness," broke in Scherer's voice. "You
can't play that sort of thing in the neighbourhood of the sea."
"Such are for proud natures alone," murmured Diana. "The others need
desires and lamentation--otherwise they freeze!"
"I don't care for Mozart," said Olivia rising. "He's too frivolous,
too candid, too nimble for me. It invariably makes me think of a
ballet--and that is detestable!"
"Not always," said Eduard, who had silently rejoined Kyril, and now
addressed himself mainly to the Russian. "Your imperial ballet, for
instance, is the best thing your country has to offer--in addition to
furs and Catherine and Dostoeffsky."
"You desecrate a great name, Your Highness," answered the Russian.
"Do you indeed set so much store on the empress? Well, she certainly
was a fine figure of a ruler," mocked the prince.
"At least she was better than many a tsar and many a German emperor!"
"Everything for the people!" said Eduard gravely. "And if blood
should drip from her alcove, what concern is that of history?"
"Everything through the people," corrected the Russian. "That is the
future!"
"You demand too much. If Satan had saddled me with the rank of
first-born, I should merely have been able to ask myself: 'How would
it be if you made this attempt?' I really could not do more."
"A good start," said Kyril, looking keenly at the prince. "But
nothing more. Anyway it is too late for such attempts!"
"We've just been hearing music, and here you are already talking
business," complained Wilhelm who had been standing silently beside
the two men.
"Good for Wilhelm," cried Diana laughing. "And here champagne has
been handed round, and you two have been holding your glasses these
many minutes without realizing what they contained, so absorbed were
you in your democratic antitheses!" She emptied her glass at one
draught and held it out to be refilled, her pulses quickening under
the stimulus. Eduard went up to her, saying:
"On the contrary! I've been enjoying the bouquet beforehand, and,
while talking, have taken in the brand. Riddle: to distinguish
Clicquot from Mumm without tasting. Solution: subtle difference in
the aroma and in the tempo of the effervescence."
"The tempo of the effervescence," cried Diana. "I like that!"
"Labour lost," thought Kyril, turning away.
"I have one wish at the moment," continued Diana. "May I say what it
is?"
"To dance?" It was Scherer who spoke.
"To dance!"
"I'll fetch my lute," said Wilhelm, relieved at the turn matters were
taking, as he ran to fetch the instrument.
Olivia smiled. She suddenly felt older, felt as if Diana were her
daughter. "Such a rapid change of mood," she thought. "Even at
eighteen I could not have reacted thus speedily.--Or, could I, after
all?"
Piano and chairs were pushed back against the walls to make room for
the dance; Wilhelm had taken a seat on the steps leading into the
room, legs crossed as was his custom. The ribbons he was so proud of
floated from the scroll of the lute as gracefully and lightly as the
waltz he now began to play. While he played, he sang, as the fancy
took him, sometimes in German, at others in Italian, or merely "la la
la," tapping the time softly with his toe, as if to provide a bass.
Scherer invited Olivia to dance; but she would not let herself be
persuaded. The prince, too, she refused.
"And what about you, Doctor?" asked Eduard as he passed by the
Russian.
"I don't dance," answered Kyril.
Eduard was pleased. He fancied himself as a dancer. Nevertheless,
groping in his mind for every kind of possibility which could bind
this man to Diana or separate him from her, the prince asked further:
"Too frivolous an undertaking for the millennium you hope to start?"
"No one has taught me, Your Highness."
The words came sullenly, and Eduard became aware that for the first
time the revolutionist was showing his teeth to the prince--that
though Kyril professed to regard hereditary rulers with contempt and
mockery, his essential feeling towards them was one of hatred.
Diana danced with Eduard. After a very few steps she recognized in
the prince the accomplished dancer, and he the same in her. Then as
if by prearrangement, he passed her to Scherer. The latter, too,
danced well, though with overmuch care and precision, and it seemed
to Diana that, just as in ordinary life he was exaggeratedly
reserved, so in the dance he was too aloof, holding his partner so
far from him that the rhythm and equilibrium of their movements were
disturbed.
She hardly paused as she changed partners again, merely swallowing a
glass of champagne in passing from Scherer's arm to the prince's.
And when Wilhelm made as if to pause in his playing, she imperiously
commanded him not to stop.
The sedate round with Scherer, the wine, and, in especial Eduard's
perfect leading, which was elastic and yet sure, all contributed to
make Diana feel lighter than ever, and it was as one in a dream that
she passed from the vestibule of society into the temple. She gave
herself up wholly to the dance, and he, who at long last held her in
his arms, did so with her free consent. For Kyril, the pair of them
were simultaneously contemptible and attractive. Set as he was on
influencing the prince, he was loath to see the adventuress (who had
made so poor a use of her great gifts) in such intimate communion
with Eduard; and he was equally perturbed to see the prince, with the
sanction of the hypocritical canons of upper-class morality, clasping
Diana in his arms openly before all the world. Wrath kindled within
him, as it always did when he was confronted with the buoyant gaiety
of cultured people, and their reciprocal ease of manner; and soon
this couple, dancing so light-heartedly upon the terrace of an
ancient castle, clad in the conventional black of the male and the
fashionable white of the female, gracefully swaying beneath the
starry skies, useless and frivolous, appeared to him the epitomized
symbol of the world that must be destroyed, the emblem of the ghosts
of yester-year, the enemy.
Scherer, familiar with the turns of fortune in political life,
wondered as he watched this young woman of many loves, whether some
day his turn might not come. Olivia smiled to herself and held
aloof; she could not throw off the feeling that here disporting
itself before her was carefree youth, to whose kingdom she had ceased
to belong; and yet she was all the more resolved to take limitless
revenge before it was too late. Her eyes sought out the Russian,
drew his gaze away from the dancing pair towards herself. Kyril came
over to where she sat, and stood behind her, pressing close to her
chair.
Eduard and Diana danced. Her knees, her breast, touched him as she
swayed; she felt his arm lightly about her this night, as that
morning the peasant's had rudely seized her.
"Onward, ever onward," whispered Eduard as they reached the outermost
part of the terrace where the others could not overhear him. Even
now he refrained from addressing her directly.
"Ever onward," repeated she a little louder, a smile on her lips.
"And one evening they danced together on the terrace of a Dalmatian
castle," said Eduard, as his breath softly caressed her shoulder.
"Under the constellation of the Scales," added Diana.
They continued to dance in silence. Eduard slackened his pace so
that two bars were played to one set of steps. He called to her
under his breath:
"Diana!"
A look of supplication in his eyes: a longing that she should at last
address him by name: she hesitated a moment, then whispered:
"Eduard!"
Hardly had the word escaped her lips than she whirled him off at
double speed, fitting one whole set of steps into every half bar of
the waltz. She wanted to make him breathless, and succeeded in
maddening herself the more; she loved him twice as much, because he
did not lose his head or his step.
"Diana! Are you listening?"
"I am listening."
"Are you mine?"
"I don't know."
"Will you become mine?"
"I am that already."
"Tell me, whom do you love?"
"Dame Liberty!"
"She's a woman."
"That am I too."
"Do you love the Russian?"
"I hate him."
"He loves you."
As he spoke, a lute-string broke as if plucked by an unknown power,
shadows flitted through the open door, Wilhelm sprang up, Scherer
strode up to where the lad stood, Olivia in his wake; Kyril remained
where he was; the pair of dancers paused, hand in hand, awaiting the
pleasure of the lute-player. Then Olivia turned to look at them,
they separated, Scherer advanced, an envelope in his hand. Both the
prince and Diana snuffed misfortune in the air; both sensed it would
strike at them.
"A wire for you, Prince," said Olivia.
To Eduard it seemed as if the woman in black, standing thus by the
white-clad woman, were the harbinger of death. Slowly he asked:
"Who is it knows that I am here?"
He stepped into the room, held the paper under the light, and
read--it was a message from his cousin in Venice:
"Court chamberlain wires me, not knowing where you are. Terrible
accident. Heinrich and Stefan in motor smash yesterday. Stefan
dead. Heinrich seriously injured recovery problematical. Old prince
crushed by blow, keeping his bed. Your instant return requested.
Much grieved having to send such evil tidings...."
The paper slipped from Eduard's fingers. His first thought was for
his father. "Will he live through this catastrophe?" Next his mind
turned to Heinrich: "Recovery problematical." His anxiety was not so
much centred upon this almost unknown brother as upon himself. If
Heinrich did not pull through, his own life's course would be
completely altered, his freedom would vanish, he would have to wear
the crown, everything would be finished so far as he was concerned.
Diana instinctively felt the doom that was hanging over him, and as
he came to the threshold of the door, having picked up the paper and
thrust it into his pocket, she thought she divined everything: His
father is dead! That would be the most terrible news.
"You are--you have..." began Scherer, coming towards him.
"An accident. My brothers, in a motor smash, one killed outright,
the other in a bad way. I must leave for home immediately."
One thought sped round the group: He will become the reigning prince.
To Scherer the thought brought satisfaction; Olivia felt cynical
about it; to Wilhelm it seemed fraught with poesy. Diana and Kyril
were deeply moved, both felt perplexed. Eduard sensed what they were
thinking, but all he said was:
"Does the steamer call here tomorrow, Countess?"
"The Trieste boat? Not till Friday."
"Three days. Too long to wait!"
Scherer went into the drawing-room, called the servant, and said
curtly:
"Send some one down to the 'Excelsior.' She's still under steam.
They're to make her ready for an immediate start. We can weigh
anchor in an hour."
"Oh but, can I really...? What about the others? ... Thank you, my
dear Scherer!"
The party broke up without more ado.
"And I shan't be able to say good-bye to Clemens after all," said
Wilhelm.
"Stay with us, then," urged Olivia.
"May I really stay?"
"We'll be simply delighted to have you."
Kyril bowed stiffly as he bade the countess farewell. They seemed to
have been betrayed by fate.
Eduard sought out Diana with his eyes. She drew near the group round
the doorway as he passed through it. Silently she followed his gaze
as he looked downward towards the harbour where the vessel lay.