THE GREAT QUIETUS
“It’s terrible! It’s unspeakable!” I groaned, on arising next morning,
as I thought of the events of the night before. “That poor girl, so
good, so sweet! And to think that she should suffer so--through me,
through me.”
There was a knock at the door, and Lorrimer appeared. “It’s horrible!
It’s unthinkable!” he moaned. “Poor Rougette, who never harmed a living
soul. And to think that I should have brought this calamity upon her.”
“It’s my fault,” I objected; “I introduced Lucretia to you.”
“No, no; it’s my fault,” he insisted. “I trifled with the girl’s
feelings.”
“Well, any way,” I said, “what are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I’d marry her,” I suggested. “But I can’t, being married already.”
“I’ll marry her,” cried Lorrimer. “You know, last night on the way to
the hospital, when I saw that beautiful face covered with those hideous
bandages, I wept like a child. She told me not to mind. It was not my
fault. She would enter a convent, become a nun. Just fancy, Madden,
that lovely face eaten to the bone, a horrible sight....”
“Perhaps it won’t be so bad, old chap. Perhaps she’s only burned on
one side; then the other side of her face will still be beautiful.”
“Yes, that’s one blessing. I told her as they took her away.
‘Rougette,’ I said, ‘the day you come out of the hospital is the day
of our marriage. You must not think of anything else. I’ll devote my
life to you.’ Could I do less, old man? We may talk cynically about
women, but when it comes to the point, we’re all ready to die for ’em.
I’d have given anything last night if it had been me. It’s always the
innocent that suffer.”
“Every one is talking of it this morning,” I observed. “It’s in all
the papers, but no one suspects who did it. Are you going to tell the
police?”
“No, how can I? I’m indirectly to blame. But oh! if I can lay my hands
on that girl!” He broke off with a harsh laugh that was more eloquent
of vengeful rage than any words.
“Well, cheer up, old man. I applaud your action in marrying Rougette.
And perhaps she won’t be so terribly disfigured after all.”
So I accompanied Lorrimer on his way to the hospital, and we were going
down the Boul’ Mich’ when suddenly he turned.
“Let me leave you now. Here’s that blithering little Bébérose coming to
buttonhole me and tell me of his love affairs. I’m not in a fit state
to listen at present. You just talk to him, will you?”
So I was left to interview Monsieur Bébérose whom I had met once or
twice in his capacity as art patron, and the proud purchaser (for an
absurdly small price) of one of Lorrimer’s masterpieces. Monsieur
Bébérose is a retired manufacturer of Arles sausages, a man of fifty,
and reputed to be wealthy. He is a little, overfed man, not unremotely
resembling the animal from whose succulence his money has been made.
Besides the crimson button of the Legion, he wears as a watch-charm a
large gall-stone that had been extracted from him by a skilful surgeon.
On the fore-front of his head is a faint fringe of hair, trimmed and
parted like an incipient moustache; otherwise his skull would make an
excellent skating-rink for the flies. Add to this that he is a widower,
on the look-out for a second wife.
“Well,” I hailed him, “you’re not married yet?”
Monsieur Bébérose shook his head mournfully. “No, things do not march
at present. You remember I told you about Mademoiselle Juliette. Well,
I like that girl very much. I have known her since she was a baby. I
think I like to marry her. So I ask the mother. Well, she put me off.
She say she decide in a week. Then in a week I go back and she tell me
that she think Mademoiselle Juliette too young to marry me but she have
a girl friend, Mademoiselle Lucille, who want to get married. Perhaps I
would be pleased with the friend.”
Here Monsieur Bébérose sighed deeply.
“Well, she introduce me to Mademoiselle Lucille, and I give them all a
dinner at Champeaux! It cost me over one hundred francs, that dinner.
The way the mother of Mademoiselle Juliette drink champagne make me
afraid for her. I am pleased with Mademoiselle Lucille very well, and
I think I like to marry her. So I tell the mother if the girl, who is
orphan, is willing, it goes with me, and she says she will speak with
the girl and advise her.”
Here Monsieur Bébérose began to get indignant.
“So in a week I go back and say to the mother of Mademoiselle Juliette.
‘Well, how does it go with Mademoiselle Lucille?’ She shrug her
shoulders.
“‘Lucille! Oh, yes; I have never asked her. I’ve been thinking it over,
and I think I’ll give you Juliette after all.’
“Well, I like Lucille best now, but I like Juliette, too, so I say:
‘Very well, Madame, it goes with me. When may I have the pleasure of
taking to the theatre my fiancée?’
“But Madame say it is not _convenable_ if I go out alone with her
daughter. She must accompany us. So when we go to the theatre she sit
between us; when we have dinner she watch me all the time. Indeed,
I have not been able to have one word in private with Mademoiselle
Juliette. Perhaps I am not reasonable; but I think I ought to find out
how she feels towards me before I become fiancé. I think marriage is
better if there is a little affection with it, don’t you?”
“Yes, it’s preferable. I think.”
“Of course, I know Juliette will obey her mother and marry me; but
me, I do not like the way they treat me about Lucille. Am I like a
sheep that they shall pull about? Besides, Juliette is so young--just
nineteen. It might be better if I find some nice young widow with a
little money, don’t you think?”
I agreed with him that the matter was worthy of serious consideration,
and that the _belle-mère_ was likely to be a disturbing factor in his
domestic equation. So, solemnly warning him to be careful, I left him
more in doubt than before.
When I reached home Anastasia was awaiting me.
“Well, darleen, what is it that you have of news about Rougette?”
“I don’t know. Lorrimer thinks she’ll have a mask down one side of her
face. He swears he’s going to marry her though. Fancy” (I shuddered)
“marrying a medallion. Now, there’s a dramatic situation for you.
Handsome, romantic, young artist--wife, supremely beautiful to port,
a hideous mask to starboard. His increasing love of the beautiful
side, his growing horror of the other. His guilty knowledge that he
is himself responsible for the disfigurement ... why! what a stunning
story it would make, and what a tragic _dénouement_! How mean of life
to steal so brazenly the material of fiction!”
“Poor, poor girl,” sighed Anastasia. “I must go to the hospital and see
her this afternoon. And I too I have some news for you.”
“Not bad, I hope?”
“No, I sink you are please. It is that Monsieur Helstern have call. He
was so funny, so shy, so glad about somesing. Well, what you sink? He
and Frosine get marry very soon and want you to be witness.”
“Good! It’ll be the best thing in the world for the old chap.”
“Yes, he seem very happy--quite different.”
“Funny,” I remarked, “how every one’s thoughts seem turning to
marriage. It must be epidemic. There’s Helstern and Frosine. Here’s
Lorrimer saying he’ll marry Rougette; and this morning, Monsieur
Bébérose. By Jove! and weren’t we talking about it too! Ah, there’s an
idea! Why shouldn’t we have our _second_ marriage at the same time as
Helstern and Lorrimer get tied up? You see four witnesses are needed
at the ceremony, two male and two female. We can act as one another’s
witnesses as well as get married ourselves. And just think of the money
we’ll save on the carriages and the supper! Talk of killing three birds
with one stone!”
“We must get my mother’s _consentement_ first.”
“Ah, yes, my belligerent _belle-mère_. Well, we’ll go and interview her
to-morrow.”
“I’m afraid,” said Anastasia, blanching at the prospect.
“You mustn’t be,” I said bravely; “you have _me_ to protect you.
Remember you’re my wife.”
“Not by French law. But I will go with you, darleen. I know you are
strong.”
She looked at me with undisguised admiration. I think that Anastasia
really thinks I am a hero.
In the afternoon she returned from the hospital with cheering news. It
was not going so badly with Rougette after all. She had had a wonderful
escape. A great deal of the acid had lodged in her veil, and what she
had got began a little below the left ear. Her neck and breast were
burned badly, and she was suffering agony, but her beauty had been
spared. By wearing collars of an extra height scarcely any one would
suspect.
“Monsieur Lorrimer was there too. He’s so change. I nevaire see a man
so serious. Truly, I sink he mean marry Rougette all right.”
Next morning, bright and early, we sallied forth to tackle the
redoubtable Madame Séraphine. After reconnoitring cautiously we located
her in her stall in the fish pavilion throned high amid her crates of
_escargots_. As with beating hearts we approached we heard her voice in
angry _argot_ berating a meek wisp of a porter. Against the grey of her
surroundings her face loomed huge and ruddy, and her eyes had the hard
brightness of a hawk’s. Again I wondered how she could ever have been
the mother of my gentle Anastasia.
“Your father must have been the most angelic of little men,” I murmured.
“He was,” she answered breathlessly.
“You’d better go first,” I suggested nervously.
“No, you,” she protested, trying to get behind me.
“But you’ve got to introduce me,” I objected, trying to get behind her.
Then while we were rotating round each other suddenly the eyes of my
_belle-mère_ fell on us, and as they dwelt on Anastasia her mouth grew
grimmer, and her nose more aggressive. Her whole manner bristled with
pugnacity.
“_Tiens! Tiens!_ if it isn’t, of all the world, my little Tasie.”
Anastasia went forward meekly; I followed sheepishly.
“Yes, Mémé,” she said; “I’ve come to visit you.”
The majestic woman relaxed not, nor did she make any motion to embrace
her shrinking offspring.
“Well,” she said, after a long, severe silence, “I imagine that it is
not all for pleasure you come to see your poor old mother. What is it?”
“Mémé, I want to present to you my husband.”
Here I bowed impressively. The big woman with the folded arms shifted
her gaze to me. It was a searching, sneering, almost derisive gaze, and
I hated her on the spot.
“So!” she said, more grimly than ever, “and how is it you can get
married without your mother’s consent, if you please?”
“We were married in England, Madame,” I said politely; “but now we want
to get married in France as well, and we are come to ask your consent.”
“Ah!” she said sharply; “you are not really married then. And what if I
refuse my consent? I do not know you, young man. How do I know if you
are a fit husband for my precious little cabbage? Are you rich?”
“No.”
“Are you a Catholic?”
“No.”
“Not rich! Not a Catholic! And this man expects me to let him marry my
little chicken, I who am so good with the church and can afford to give
her a handsome _dot_. What is your business?”
“I am a writer.”
“_Quel toupet!_ Just the same as her worthless father, only he was
worse--a poet. No, young man. I think I would prefer a different kind
of husband for my sweet lamb.”
“I won’t marry any one else, Mémé.”
“Hold your tongue, girl! Do I not know my duty as a mother? You’ll
marry whom I choose.”
“Then you refuse to give your consent?” I said with some heat.
Her manner changed cunningly.
“I do not say that. All I desire is to know you better. Will you come
and have dinner with me some Sunday evening?”
After all, she was my _belle-mère_. I consented, and Anastasia seemed
relieved. She promised to write and give us a date. Then I shook hands
with her; Anastasia pecked at her in the French fashion, and there was,
to some appearance, a little family reconciliation.
“Perhaps the old lady’s not so bad, after all,” I suggested; but
Anastasia was sceptical.
“I do not trust her. She have some ruse. We must wait and see.”
That was a memorable day; for on reaching home I felt the sudden spur
of inspiration, and sitting down before the ramshackle typewriter, I
headed up a clean sheet:
THE GREAT QUIETUS
A NOVEL
“The scene is on the top of a peak that overlooks a vast plain. A
majestic old man, bearded even as the prophets, stands there looking
at the Western sky which the setting sun has turned into an ocean of
gold. Island beyond island of cloud swims in that amber sea, each
coral tinted and fringed with crimson foam. And as he gazes, the
splendid old man is magnificently happy; for is he not the last man
left alive on this bad, sad earth, and is he not about to close his
eyes on it forever?
“In the twenty-first century, luxury and wickedness had increased
to such an extent that the whole world became decadent. The art
of flying, brought to such perfection that all travelled by the
air, had annihilated space, and the world had become very small
indeed. Instead of Switzerland, people went for a week-end skiing
to the Pole; the unexplored places were Baedekerized, and the wild
creatures that formerly roamed their valleys relegated to the alleys
of zoological gardens.
“Behold then, a familiar world, shorn of all mystery; a tamed world,
harnessed to the will of man; a sybaritic world, starred with
splendid cities and caparisoned with limitless luxury. Its population
had increased a thousand fold; its old religions were outgrown; its
moral ideas engulfed in a general welter of cynicism and sensuality.
“And out of this dung-heap of degeneracy there arises a sect of
pessimists who declare that human nature is innately bad; that under
conditions of inordinate luxury, when the most exquisite refinements
are within the reach of the poorest, conditions of idleness, when all
the work of man is done by machinery, it is impossible for virtue to
flourish. War, struggle, rigorous conditions make for moral vigour.
Peace, security, enervating conditions result in weakness. The
blessings that increase of knowledge had heaped on man were in their
very plenitude proving a curse. But alas! it was too late. Never
could man go back to the old life of virility. There was only one
remedy. It was so easy. Even as far back as the benighted nineteenth
century philosophers had pointed it out: let every one cease to have
children. Let the race become extinct.
“For one hundred years had the promulgation of this doctrine gone on.
From their very cradles the children had been trained to the idea
that parenthood was shameful, was criminal, was a sin against the
race. The highest moral duty of a couple was to die without issue.
The doctrine was easy of dissemination; for even to the remotest
parts of the earth all men were highly educated; all nations were
gathered in world commonwealth with a world language.
“But accidents will happen; and it had taken a century to reduce
the population of the world down to a mere handful. For a score of
years all children born had been suppressed and now, as far as was
known, only a dozen people remained. On a given day these had sworn
to partake of a drug that would ensure them a painless and pleasant
death. That day was past; there only remained the chief priest to
close the account of humanity.
“He too held the drug that meant his release, and as he gazed his
last on a depopulated world his heart was full of exultation. He
cursed it, this iniquitous earth, where poor, weak man had been flung
to serve his martyrdom. Well, man had outwitted nature; mind had
triumphed over matter. Now the end....
“And raising the fatal drug to his lips the last man drained it to
the dregs.”
Here ended my prologue: now the story.
“A poor woman, feeling the life stir within her, and loving it in
spite of their teaching, had crawled away and hid in the depths of
a forest. There she had given birth to a man-child; but, knowing
that her boy would be killed, this woman-rebel lurked in the forest,
living on its fruits and the milk of its deer. Then at last she
ventured to leave her child and revisit the world. Lo! she found that
the day of the Great Quietus has passed; there was no more human life
on the earth. So she returned to the forest and soon she too perished.
“The boy thrived wonderously. His mother had told him that he was the
one human being on the planet. He had lived in a cave and fed of the
simple fruits of the earth, so that he grew to be a young god of the
wild-wood. But he was curious. He wanted to see the wonderful, wicked
world of which his mother had told him so much. So he set out on his
travels.
“Like a superb young savage he tramped through Europe. He tamed a
horse to bear him; he explored the ruins of great cities--Vienna,
Paris, Berlin. In the ivy-grown palaces and the weed-stifled courts
of kings he killed lions and tigers; for all the wild animals had
escaped from the menageries and had reverted to a savage state. He
ached to know something of the histories of these places; but he
could not read, and all was meaningless to him.
“He discovered how to use a boat, and in his experiments he was blown
across the channel to Britain. Then one day he lit a bonfire amid the
ruins of London. Nothing in the world but ruin, ruin.
“He was as one at the birth of things for he understood nothing. He
knew of fire and knives, but not of wheels. He was a primitive man in
a world that has perished of super-civilisation. Yet as he cowered
by his fire in the centre of Trafalgar Square the vast silence of it
all weighed him down, and he felt oh! so lonely. He caressed the dogs
he had trained to follow and love him. His mother had been the only
human being he had ever seen and she had died when he was so young.
His memory of her was vague, but he could imagine no one different.
He knew nothing of sex, only that vast consuming loneliness, those
haunting desires he could not understand.
“Then as he sat there brooding, into his life there came the woman--a
girl. Where she came from he never knew. Probably like himself she
was a deserted child, and like him she, too, was a child of nature,
superb, virile, unspoiled. She had tamed two leopards to defend her,
and she was clad in the skin of another. With her leopards she saved
his life, just as he was about to fall in battle against a pack of
wolves.
“Their meeting was a wondrous idyll; their love an idyll still more
wonderful. There in the lovely Kentish woodland they roamed, a new
Adam and a new Eve. Then to them in that fresh and glowing world,
glad as at the birth of things, a child was born.
“And here we leave them standing on a peak that overlooks a beautiful
plain, in the glory of the rising sun. The world rejoices; the sky
is full of song; the air is a-thrill with fate. There they stand
bathed in that yellow glow and hold aloft their child, the beginners
of a new race, a primal pair in a primal world.
“For nature is stronger than man, and the Master of Destiny is
invincible.”
* * * * *
I was pounding away at my typewriter one morning, and Anastasia was out
on a marketing expedition, when there came a violent knocking at my
door. As I opened it Lorrimer almost fell into my arms. He was ghastly
and seemed about to faint. Staggering to the nearest chair he buried
his head in his hands.
“What’s the matter?”
He only groaned.
“Heavens, man! tell me what’s wrong.”
Suddenly he looked up at me with wild staring eyes.
“Don’t touch me, Madden; I’m accursed. Don’t you see the brand of Cain
on me? I’m a murderer! Oh, God! a murderer.”
He rocked up and down, sobbing convulsively.
“What have you done?” I cried, horrified. “Tell me quick.”
“I’ve killed her,” he panted; “I’ve killed Lucretia. She’s dead now,
dead in my studio. I’m on my way to give myself up to the police.”
“Killed Lucretia?”
“Yes, yes. I didn’t mean to do it. I was mad for revenge. I had her at
my mercy. I thought of poor Rougette. Her moans have haunted me night
and day. They’ve almost driven me mad. I can’t blot out the memory of
that poor, bandaged face. Then when I saw that female devil before me
something seemed to snap in my brain. So I’ve killed her. Now I’m
sorry; but it’s too late, too late.”
“Don’t take it so badly, old chap. Nobody ever gets punished for murder
in France. They’ll bring in a verdict of _crime passionnel_, and you’ll
be acquitted. But tell me, quick. What’s happened?”
He went on in that broken, excited way.
“She did not know we had seen her that night. She came to me with the
most brazen effrontery. Pretended to sympathise with Rougette; wanted
me to take her back as a model. That was what maddened me, the smiling,
damned hypocrisy of her. Oh! devil! devil!”
“Go on, quick; what did you do?”
“I told her I was going to paint a picture of Mazeppa and wanted her to
pose for me.”
“But Mazeppa wasn’t a female.”
“She doesn’t know that. Well, on impulse I posed her on that dummy
horse I have, and I bound her to its back with straps, bound her so
strongly she could not move a muscle. She submitted till I had pulled
the last buckle, then she got alarmed, but I snapped a gag in her mouth
before she could scream.”
“Yes, yes, and then?”
Lorrimer drew a long, shuddering breath.
“And then, Madden, I--I _varnished_ her.”
“Varnished her?”
“Yes. You see I read it in _Pithy Paragraphs_, an advertisement for
Silkoline Soap. It began: ‘No person covered with a coating of varnish
could live for more than half an hour.’ That gave me the idea. It
closes all the pores, you see. Well, there she was at my mercy. There
was a pot of shellac varnish handy. In a few minutes it was done. From
toe to top I varnished her. Then threw a sheet over her. And now....”
“Good Heavens! How long ago?”
“I’ve come straight here.”
“Wait, man; perhaps it’s not too late yet. Perhaps--stay here till I
get back.”
I leapt down the stairs; caught a taxi that was passing, shouted
the number of the house and street, adding that it was a matter of
life and death; leaped out before the taxi came to a stand; called
to the _concierge_ to follow me, and burst into Lorrimer’s studio.
Not a moment too soon. The girl was in a dead faint, and it seemed
as if every breath would be her last. In feverish haste I directed
the _concierge_ to unstrap her and wrap her up; then, carrying her
downstairs, we lifted her into the taxi.
“The baths!” I cried to the chauffeur. “The baths behind the Closerie
de Lilas. And hurry, for Heaven’s sake! A life’s at stake.”
In a few minutes we were there, and a nurse had the girl, who had now
recovered consciousness, in a hot bath. Then for an hour of throbbing
suspense, with aching muscles and dripping brows they fought for her
life. As valiantly as ever hero fought with sword and shield they
fought with soap and soda. In the end the nurse triumphed. Her skin was
considerably damaged but Lucretia was saved.