L J I A NS yy
A BOOK
OF
DEAR DEAD WOMEN
A BOOK OF DEAR
DEAD WOMEN
BY
EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD
" Dear dead women with such faces "-
BEOWNIKQ
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1911
Copyright, 1909, 1911,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
All riyhts reserved
Published March, 1911
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
I WISH to acknowledge my indebtedness
to The Smart Set for permission to reprint
"The Painter of Dead Women," which
appeared in the issue of January, 1910.
EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD.
2G38795
CONTENTS
PAGE
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES .... 1
THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN . . 64
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA ... 92
LISZT S CONCERTO PATHETIQUE . . . 133
SISTER SERAPHINE 144
THE SACRED RELICS OF SAINT Eu-
THYMIUS 158
THE OPAL ISLES 194
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE 257
THE KING 286
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
FROM THE DIARY OF THE COUNTESS TATJANA
TSCHASKA
"Polonus sum,
Poloni nihil a me alienum puto."
ESTATE MIODUSCHWESKI,
NEAR WARSAW ON THE VISTULA,
June 8, 1806.
TVTEVER did spring come so early. In
^ ^ April, when the country is as white as
the coverlet on my bed, fields were dotted
with black rings at the base of trees which
glistened with moisture.
Returning birds twittered under the eaves.
Rivers awoke and became merry. In the
distance rose the smoke of melting snow.
Even in the North in White Russia so
travelers tell, the ice broke. Now the
country is wonderful.
I have seen the foam-edged waves of the
Baltic come rolling in by the mouth of the
Niemen, just as spring rolls northward its
foam of flowers to rescue us from the
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grasp of winter. In the same way, I wonder,
will the army of France come northward
to rescue Poland from the grasp of Russia?
That is what every one talks about. That
is what every one hopes. I hope it, too, but
somehow I do not believe it. I have no
faith in France. Yet it would be no act of
generosity on her part. We Poles have bled
for her on every battlefield of Europe. It
is little that in return she should give the
nation life. France may intend to do this.
It is hard to tell now. No trustworthy news
reaches us. The Prussians suppress and
burn the mail lest we take heart and rebel.
They say, however, that the Great Napoleon
has conquered Italy and is now making
plans for the North.
June 12, 1806. The country is lovely!
The avenue of poplars that leads to the house
is enveloped in lustrous gauze. The birches
and the willows and the lindens are green
flames that shake in the light. /
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In the fields I can see the white head-ker
chiefs of women who are working, and be
yond, the white spire of the church. Those
two white objects symbolize Poland hard
work and hope the effort for something
beyond and, perhaps, unattainable.
I love this country with its fine distances
and long levels where the eye is not impeded.
Yet it has affected our natures, and not
always advantageously. It has made us
think that great things are too near and too
easy to get.
Small wonder that others have coveted
Poland ! the Swedes among their rocks,
where they have only fish to eat; the bar
barous Russians, buried in winter and snow;
Prussia for the trade facilities of the Vistula;
and Austria because she is greedy of every
thing.
The armies of the Continent have swept
across Poland. It is the highway that leads
to war.
Here on our estate and southward to the
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is sure to punish! Then we named Yek-
Katarina 1 "The Fury of the North."
What will eventually become of Poland?
Who next will be greedy of it? I have a
presentiment which I dare not whisper to
any one that in years to come it will be
only a name, a great and glorious name, that
signifies, in a world whose patriotism and
fineness commercialism has dulled, the im
possible dream of freedom.
June 30, 1806. My honored mother came
to me this morning and broached the subject
of my marriage. Since I had heard nothing
for several days, I hoped it had been laid
aside for the present.
You are past your twenty-first birthday,
an age when girls of your rank have been
married three years. Soon you will be an
1 Great Catherine. In the middle of the Eight
eenth Century the Russians called Catherine II.
Yek-Katarina, which is equivalent in English to
Arch-Catherine.
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old maid. Have you no interest in the
matter?"
"I hoped you would permit me to enjoy
myself in the country. It may be the last
summer that I shall be at home," I ventured.
Here my honored mother brushed away
a tear, but soon returned valiantly to the
subject.
:< You have read too much. You want a
story-book life."
"That is not it. I do not want to marry
until -
"Until what?"
"It is settled."
"What is settled?"
"The fate of Poland."
"What have you to do with that?"
"Nothing; but I feel that I might do
something. There is in me the power to
do something -
"And you are going to sit and waste your
youth for that? Marry, raise up sons for
Poland! That s the thing to do!"
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"I do not wish to offend you, my honored
mother, but I wish you would drop the
subject until late summer "
"Look at your friends how well they
are married! There is the Countess of
Tisenhaus, who has married a Frenchman
of birth, a peer of the realm, Count de
Choiseul-Gouffier. Anna Tyskiewicz has be
come Countess Potocka; Princess Czarto-
ryska has married the Prince of Wirthem-
berg; Anna Lapouschkine, by her marriage
with Prince Paul Gavrilowitsch Gargarin,
is one of the beauties of the Court of Russia.
I should think you would want to play a
part in the world! Do you not owe it
to your family?" exclaimed my honored
mother in such exasperation that she was
unable to continue the discussion. This is
the way these scenes end. They grieve me
and vex her. And what good comes of them?
July 5, 1806. My honored mother has
submitted to me a list of names which have
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received her approval and that of my
honored father and grandfather. This is
merely a conciliatory formality. They will
choose whom they please. Since I have met
none of them and know only their families,
it makes little difference. The thing nearest
my heart is that the marriage be deferred.
Therefore I considered those at a distance
from Warsaw. I picked up the list, read it
through with a show of interest, and checked
Count Krasinski 1 and Prince Adam Czar-
toryisky; the former is in Paris, and the
latter is attached to the Court of Russia.
The names pleased my honored mother.
There are none nobler in Poland. Peace is
restored for a time.
July 10, 1806. Yesterday we attended a
reception in Warsaw given by the Countess
Stanilas Potocka for her new daughter, the
1 Krasinski Count Sigismund, a Polish writer best
known as the author of Irydion, which, under the thin
covering of a fable, tells the tragic story of Poland.
He was a prominent figure in the Paris of that day.
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Countess Anna. My honored mother was
in high spirits because of my apparent ac
quiescence to her plans, and happily pic
tured me settled more splendidly than is
the Countess Anna.
The Countess Anna, while not pretty, is
charming and girlish. She told us about
the country place which is being built for
her outside of Warsaw. She has named it
Natoline. The old Count Stanilas Potocki
- who is now in ill-health because of years of
exposure endured in the Ukraine is helping
with the decorative scheme. He is a great
connoisseur of art. They say his taste is
respected abroad. His art gallery is the
finest in Poland, except that owned by the
Czartoryisky the Prince General in the
"Blue Palace."
While he was escorting the ladies, my
honored mother and myself among the
number, through the hall where the pictures
are hung, I made an unfortunate remark for
which my honored mother reprimanded me
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severely. We came to a picture, purchased
recently (I cannot remember the Italian
painter s name), which has caused comment.
It represents a band of horsemen going at
full speed through the streets of an ancient
city. They come to a river bridged only by
one board. Across this foaming chasm
beckons an impossibly beautiful sprite, half-
hidden in whose enveloping gauzes is a
skeleton, the symbol of death. The skeleton
holds out a crown.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, "above that fleeting
phantom, whose possession is death, should
be written Poland."
There was a dreadful hush. Eyes looked
into eyes. Every one knows that with his
Cossack warriors of the Ukraine Count
Stanilas wanted to wrest the crown from
the Commonwealth.
It is the talk in Warsaw, too, that negotia
tions are going forward for my marriage
with a Czartoryisky, who likewise coveted
the crown of Poland.
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I wonder if I have an unfortunate tongue!
I must remember not to say everything I
think.
Countess Waleweska was present. She
wore a red velvet dress. She did not look
so well as usual. We are called the two
prettiest women in Warsaw. She is tall
and blond; that is why the red did not be
come her. I am plump and petite, with
dark eyes, dark skin, and blond hair.
Later I forgot my chagrin. I met Pan
Kasimir Brodzinski. 1 He is entertaining.
He has written some interesting things of
late, too, about Polish literature. At once
I asked him, "Why are there never any new
Polish novels ? We stopped on our way at
a book-seller s to get something to take
back to Mioduschweski. Is no one doing
anything?"
"Unfortunately that is the case, Countess
Tat j ana."
1 Pan Kasimir Brodzinski, Polish critic.
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The only Polish novel I found was
Valeria, by Baroness Kriidener."
:< Your honored mother will object to that,
Countess Tatjana."
"Why, PanBrodzinski?"
"It is a chronique scandaleuse of the writ
er s life in Venice and Copenhagen."
"I found the last volume of Walter Scott.
They say Her Imperial Majesty, the Em
press, reads nothing else. You will laugh
when I tell you that I bought two books
just for the interest they have aroused in
the Great Napoleon Corinne and Werther
which he has carried with him for months
at a time."
Here Pan Brodzinski leaned forward and
his face became eloquent:
"Let me tell you something: the writer
of that book, Goethe, and Napoleon, and an
Englishman whom you have not read
Byron rule the minds of the age. The
entire civilized world is in raptures over
them. Do you know, a friend of mine
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lately returned from Russia told me that
Russian soldiers stationed in the lonely
regions of the Caucasus are learning the
English language just to read Byron."
Just as I was getting ready to ask Pan
Brodzinski the latest news of the Grande
Armee, our hostess summoned us to the
drawing-room to hear some recitations by
Adam Mickiewicz. 1 He is a remarkable
child not more than seven and he declaims
like an orator. The strange part about it
is he will give only Polish pieces. Nor
indeed will he answer if you address him in
French. The Mickiewicz belong to the old
schlachta (nobility) of Lithuania. I have
seen their ancestral home. It is like the
palace of a king.
1 One of the greatest poets of Poland. His poems,
ballads and his sonnets in which he pictures the
Crimea and the mountain world of Southern Russia
have been translated into the languages of the
Continent. He is numbered among the Polish
patriots of 1830.
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July 11, 1806. The post horn awoke us,
blowing furiously. We jumped up and
dressed without crossing ourselves or say
ing a "Hail Mary."
In the yard was a messenger from Warsaw
to tell us that Napoleon had defeated the
English in Italy and was striding north\vard
like a giant in seven-league boots. I wonder
what he is like, this world-hero who is writing
his name in blood across the face of Europe.
They say that he is handsome. Heroes, of
course, are always handsome.
July 18, 1806. My honored grandfather,
who is eighty and an adherent of our ancient
customs, came in this morning while I was
reading a French book to my sister Mischa.
He flew into a rage because I was not read
ing Polish.
He is worth seeing. He attracts attention
on the streets of Warsaw. He still wears the
zupan and the kontusch, and when he goes
abroad, the burka fastened across his breast
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with silver clasps whereon are the arms of
the Tschaski.
" You are just like the rest ! " he exclaimed,
but in so grieved a tone that my heart went
out to him. " And I hoped better things of
you! There are no more Poles in Poland!
We are a French race now. We speak
French, read French, follow French modes
in thought and dress. When you enter the
home of a person of rank, it is as if you
entered a drawing-room in the Faubourg St.
Germain. There is nothing to be seen that
is characteristic of us. It is right that we
should cease to be a nation when we have
ceased to be ourselves.
"Why do not the Germans dress like the
Italians, or the Spaniards like the Russians?
Would it not be just as reasonable? In the
houses of fashion we see the same gilt furni
ture upholstered in silk, the same mirrors
in frames of decorated Saxon porcelain, a
profusion of frail ornaments made of china,
tables inlaid with marble or bordered with
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delicate plaques of Sevres, picture galleries,
tapestries, silk-hung walls all the things
that create effeminacy and a luxurious
forgetfulness."
I could not answer, because I know that
it is true. Yet why should we not love
beautiful things! Is it our duty to live in
huts in the wild forests of Lithuania just
because we are Poles and belong to the
North?
July 26, 1806. Things are in a sad state.
Everywhere uncertainty, indecision. Here
no one dares do anything. Some are
under the protection of Austria; some
under the protection of Russia; others
found their hope on France, and others
vacillate in indecision. Was there ever
such a state of things! Truly Polonia con-
fusione regitur.
August 6, 1806. At dinner last night, my
honored grandfather regaled us with stories
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of his youth. He was in Paris at the time of
the second "partition."
One night at a soiree some one said:
"How it will grieve the Poles to see their
country cut up again! What will they do?"
Quickly the answer came: "Give balls
and masquerades in Warsaw. When I think
of Poland, I know that they are dancing
always dancing in Warsaw."
I do not know why I write this, or why it
impressed me so. If the French were the
best dancers in Europe, would they not be
proud of it too? They are jealous. We are
more French than they.
August 17, 1806. My new frocks have
come from Paris. I am glad that my hon
ored grandfather was not present when they
were unpacked. There are a number of
gauze ball dresses made with shirred over-
skirts caught up with little flowers, and
several robes rondes. They are the dernier
cri of fashion.
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August 37, 1806. I have had a splendid
day. Pan Anton Malzweski * called. It
has rained for a week, and we have had no
guests. I was so glad to see him I greeted
him in the Polish manner: "Praised be
Jesus, the Christ."
He answered quickly in that impulsive
way I like: "In all eternity."
We are of an age and great friends. He
has been everywhere and seen everything.
He has seen Prince Adam Czartoryisky in
Imperial Russia. He told me all sorts of
things about him. He is one of the most
notable figures in the court set and the
desire of all the ladies.
In the course of the afternoon, when we
were quite alone, he confided to me his
ambition. What do you suppose it is? To
be a poet! I gravely answered: "All Poles
are poets."
"But I am going to be a great one in the
1 Polish poet who wrote Maria, An Heroic Tale
of the Ukraine.
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English manner. As soon as the wars are
over and I have time, I am going to set to
work. It was Lord Byron who discovered
to me my talent. The name of the first
book is chosen: Maria, An Heroic Tale of the
Ukraine. In it there is to be a song partly
written down now called The Carnival of
Venice, which is what Byron and I thought
of the Venetian nights."
He talked with such fury, such discon
nected haste, that I could only gasp: "You
have seen Lord Byron!"
:< Yes, and I gave him the subject for a
poem Mazeppa which will be trans
lated for us."
September 5, 1806. We have just heard
that the Grande Armee has crossed the
borders of Prussia. Prussia tried to put
herself on a war footing secretly. In return,
Napoleon has seized Wesel, a fortress by
the Rhine. Is he so near, and we did not
know?
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September 11, 1806. The harvest is under
way. The fields are dotted with grain stacks
that are for all the world like round towers.y^
I look at them and dream of Napoleon and
the fortress by the Rhine. Could anything
be sillier!
September 21, 1806. My honored grand
father had company to-day. Count Severin
Rzewuski, Count Stanilas Potocki, and the
Prince General. The Prince General is
feeble and ill, although he conceals it bravely.
He still keeps up the elegant courtly life he
knew in his youth, although it is evident he
cannot last long. Every one says that he
will die some night at the card-table, dressed
in the stiff, formal evening dress of a century
ago, his courtiers gathered about him.
Little was talked of save the political
situation. We are upon the eve of world-
changing events. There is evident the
ominousness that precedes the storm. The
old gentlemen talked freely. They are of
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one political faith and have deeply at heart
the welfare of Poland.
It must have been a great life that was
lived in their youth. The Prince General
says that there will never be anything to
equal the old aristocracy of Poland. Their
life was the most sumptuous and luxurious
in Europe. Mischa and I listened. It was
like a romance. Count Rzewuski says that
it is our own fault that we are where we are
to-day. In the old days each was too great
to acknowledge a greater.
: You are right," replied Count Potocki.
"He who will not obey his own king will be
forced to obey the king of others. * After
feasting follows fasting.
Our grandparents tell only of wars and
bloodshed. In other countries, I wonder,
are there other memories?
October 6, 1806. Napoleon is in Prussia.
Terrible things are happening. We do not
know just what, because little news reaches us.
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October 12, 1806. The excitement in War
saw cannot be imagined. Every few hours
a messenger arrives with a blowing of trum
pets. Why should not we tremble when the
Czar of Imperial Russia trembles on his
throne?
Yet Warsaw rejoices and dances.
October 18, 1806. My engagement to
Prince Adam Czartoryisky has been an
nounced. I had no word in the matter; I
was not consulted.
I have received a letter from Prince Adam
and as betrothal gift a kanak an antique
Polish necklace of wrought silver set with
round disks of ivory upon each of which
is carved an eagle the white eagle of
Poland. I ought to be proud and happy.
Prince Adam is Minister of Foreign Af
fairs at the Court of Russia. My honored
mother says that my position will be
better than that of the Countess Anna
Potocka.
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October 25, 1806. Last night there was a
celebration at the Prince General s in the
" Blue Palace," in honor of my betrothal to
his son Prince Adam. Prince Adam could
not be present. He was represented by his
dearest friend, M. Novosiltzow, likewise at
tache of the Russian Court.
He brought with him a gift from His
Imperial Master, a miniature of the Empress
Elizabeth surrounded with diamonds and
strung upon blue riband. M. Novosiltzow
attached it to my shoulder in the presence
of the guests. I am now a dame de la portrait.
We made merry in the good old Polish
way. First we danced the Polonaise, going
through nearly every room in the house and
up and down all the stairs. Then the Prince
General made a speech, as was the custom
in his youth, at the end of the Polonaise.
Next, toasts were called for. Mine was
drunk from one of my jeweled slippers,
which every one present declared to be
smaller and shapelier than those worn by
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the Archduchess of Austria, Marie Louise,
who has the prettiest foot in Europe. It was
splendid and solemn, but some way my
heart was not in it. My honored mother,
however, was gay and happy enough for two.
I kept thinking I wonder if outside through
the night he is marching toward Warsaw,
* the man who has the face of an antique god.
October 12, 1806. The expected has hap
pened. There has been a terrible battle at
Jena. Prince Louis fell. A new sun has
risen over Europe. Napoleon is master of
Berlin, and Queen Louise is kneeling at the
feet of a soldier of fortune. I wonder if he
is greater than all other men, or if it is only
that he knows one game better the game
of war. He moves armies as if they were
pawns upon a chess-board. v
November 12, 1806. Autumn is upon us.
The harvest has left the fields bare and
brown. In the poplars there is a shiver
J that tells of winter. The leaves are a faded
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yellow, which is the color of the things of
yesterday. To-morrow we go to Warsaw
for the winter.
November 25, 1806. St. Catherine s day.
This was to have been my wedding-day.
St. Catherine is the patroness of happy mar
riages. It is altogether impossible for Prince
Adam to leave Russia. The only hope of
Polish freedom is his friendship with the
Emperor. Now is a momentous time. He
must be at his ear to estimate his moods,
that he may whisper at the propitious
moment, memento Polonies! He writes:
"We Poles who have lost the right to fight
upon the field of battle, must, as a last
necessity, resort to the coward s weapons
cajolery and diplomacy."
November 27, 1806. Napoleon is in Posen !
December 18, 1806. I received a letter
from Prince Adam to-day which brings us
nearer together than any he has written
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before. He has taken me into his confidence.
He has a plan for saving Poland. It is this;
to use his influence with the Emperor to
bring about a defensive union of Russia and
England, each of which alone is strong enough
to check the advance of France. Then it
will be to the advantage of each that Poland
be independent, the future s formidable bar
rier against continental aggression.
"I shall make Alexander see," he writes,
"that the partition of Poland was foolish."
This is the object of his life. For this he
is sacrificing his youth and his happiness at
the Court of Russia.
My honored mother says, in case he suc
ceeds, a king will be chosen for Poland, and
it is sure to be either Prince Adam or Prince
Poniatowski.
Nothing can make me believe that n r-
sonal motives enter into his ambition. V He
is the most disinterested of men. All this
time that he has been Minister of Foreign
Affairs for Russia, he has received no salary.
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He refused to accept money, orders, or
insignia of rank from the nation that op
pressed his race. He said that he consid
ered it his duty to free Poland, since it was
his own family, the Czartoryisky, who in
ancient days first invited the Russians into
the country.
( He has no faith in Napoleon. ; He hates
him. It is his desire to be the instrument
of his downfall. He writes: "Napoleon is
the scourge of Europe. It is the duty of
nations to unite and make an end of him."
As for Poland, no time is to be lost, be
cause the nature of Alexander is undergoing
a change. He no longer has Utopian dreams
of presenting nations with their freedom.
As far as his weak nature will permit, he is
being Russianized. Now, when the subject
of Poland is mentioned, there must be some
other object and that for Russia s good.
Then he wrote of life and people in St.
Petersburg. He went to the first night of the
new opera, II Barbiere di Seviglia. It was
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written by Signer Paisiello, a protege of the
Great Catherine.
There has been a new play brought out
by a Russian at Knipper s Theater Roslaw
by Kniazin. Prince Adam did not care for
it. However, as soon as it is put on sale at
Glosunow s, he will send me a copy that I
may judge for myself.
December 21, 1806. Napoleon is in War
saw! The joy of the people is beyond
description. It must have been like this
when our own king, Jan Sobieski, returned
with conquering arms. We have greeted
him as if our freedom were assured. But
he has said nothing. He has made no
promises.
The streets are gay with colors. Side by
side are the gold eagle of France and the
white eagle of Poland. The soldiers are
banqueted everywhere. The people have
gone mad and dance and sing without
knowing why.
[29]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
January 5, 1807. We have not given
Napoleon a chance to ask for soldiers. They
are rushing to him in such numbers it is as
if the nation threw itself at his feet and
cried: "With the forehead! With the fore
head!"
Prince Poniatowski has raised a legion.
Yesterday the consecration of their arms
took place in Zielony Plac. When I looked
at the youths kneeling at the altar, it seemed
to me not a Christian consecration, but a
pagan sacrifice of blood in honor of the mod
ern Moloch Napoleon.
January 9, 1807. My honored grand
father has returned from inspecting the
French troops. He says that, in compari
son with them, our old armies looked like a
merrymaking at a country fair.
January 11, 1807. I have met Napoleon!
It was last night. I am still so excited that
I do not know how to tell about it. The
[30]
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ladies of Warsaw have been vexed that he
did not arrange for a presentation. Yester
day the invitation came. At nine-thirty
we were assembled. We waited a full hour,
standing in nervous expectation. At last
the door by which we knew he would en
ter opened, and Talleyrand appeared. It
seemed minutes before he spoke. Then he
bowed and announced "The Emperor!"
The word had the voice of the thunders and
filled all space. I can hear it now. " The
Emperor!!"
He looked like a god who in haste had
been made a man and made too small. By
some accident his eyes met mine. For an
instant it was as if we two were alone, un
conscious of the crowd that swayed between.
As the ladies filed past and were presented,
I felt that he was waiting for me. Then a
terrible nervousness seized me, which ex
pressed itself in a sort of exaltation, a wild
and reckless daring.
When my turn came, he stepped forward
[31]
ssseese&sseeeseeeeesess&ssesseeeesseees
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
January 5, 1807. We have not given
Napoleon a chance to ask for soldiers. They
are rushing to him in such numbers it is as
if the nation threw itself at his feet and
cried: "With the forehead! With the fore
head!"
Prince Poniatowski has raised a legion.
Yesterday the consecration of their arms
took place in Zielony Plac. When I looked
at the youths kneeling at the altar, it seemed
to me not a Christian consecration, but a
pagan sacrifice of blood in honor of the mod
ern Moloch Napoleon.
January P, 1807. My honored grand
father has returned from inspecting the
French troops. He says that, in compari
son with them, our old armies looked like a
merrymaking at a country fair.
January 11, 1807. I have met Napoleon!
It was last night. I am still so excited that
I do not know how to tell about it. The
[30]
883388SSgS3338SS388S8S8Sg33SS333S338S3
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
seseseessseeseessssseeseseseseessseesss
ladies of Warsaw have been vexed that he
did not arrange for a presentation. Yester
day the invitation came. At nine-thirty
we were assembled. We waited a full hour,
standing in nervous expectation. At last
the door by which we knew he would en
ter opened, and Talleyrand appeared. It
seemed minutes before he spoke. Then he
bowed and announced "The Emperor!"
The word had the voice of the thunders and
filled all space. I can hear it now. " The
Emperor!!"
He looked like a god who in haste had
been made a man and made too small. By
some accident his eyes met mine. For an
instant it was as if we two were alone, un
conscious of the crowd that swayed between.
As the ladies filed past and were presented,
I felt that he was waiting for me. Then a
terrible nervousness seized me, which ex
pressed itself in a sort of exaltation, a w r ild
and reckless daring.
When my turn came, he stepped forward
[31]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
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eagerly and asked my name. "The Count
ess Tat j ana Tschaska."
He beckoned me to him. "I am sure now
that I shall meet in Poland the only ruler
whom I fear."
"And whom may that be, Sire?"
"The Queen of Beauty, "Rowing gallantly.
I retorted: "One of our Slav poets said
long ago: One need not fear a Russian Czar
so greatly as a Polish woman. Then I
courtesied and moved on.
As soon as the presentations were over,
I saw him making his way toward me. On
the instant I was the observed of all. The
crowd fell back, seeing that it was his will,
and left us alone. I was conscious of a sen
sation then which I hope will never be
repeated in the course of my life. It was as
if upon the instant all my ideals, all my
standards of living, had been shattered. It
was as if I had never lived before. It is in
such moods that we do things that we regret
and wonder at ever after. There was some-
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thing within me that rushed to meet him,
that swept barriers before it. Outwardly,
however, I was calm.
When he came near enough to speak, he
asked jestingly: "Are there really none but
nobles in Poland?"
In an instant I was on my mettle, defiant
and scornful. "Sire, it is easier to be a
sovereign prince in France than a petty
noble in Poland." Then I read such ad
miration in his eyes I regretted the answer
and hastened to make amends by inquiring,
somewhat awkwardly: "Are you not home
sick for Paris, here in the North?"
"How could I be, when in Warsaw I have
found another and a gayer Paris? "j/ /
"Why is it that it fascinates the foreigner
so?"
"Because here the East and the West
meet. The streets how interesting a
scene from an opera; turbaned Mussulmans,
Janizaries, Hungarians, Russians in pointed
caps, Poles, Tartars "
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
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"And what of the people people such as
are here?"
"I do not care so much for the men, but
I never saw such pretty women. In them,
too, the East and the West meet. They
unite the intelligence, the fine presence of
the West with the fire and the languor of
the East."
I do not know what else we said. We
talked with merriment and unrestraint.
Then he bowed, spoke a few words with
some of the others, and retired. He has
gray -blue eyes that deepen and darken when
he talks. He is very small for a man, but
so exquisitely proportioned that he gives
the impression of stateliness and height.
His voice is beautiful. It makes the heart
vibrate. Y
January 12, 1807. To-day the Emperor
sent one of his aides to inquire for my
health and to bring me a book Comte de
Comminges. An enclosed note says that
[34]
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this is his favorite book and that every time
he reads it he weeps. Strange man who can
see his fellows slaughtered by thousands,
and weep over the mimic passions of a
book! </
January 14, 1807. At the Assembly last
night, I was commanded to the Emperor s
whist table. No sooner had I sat down
than he turned to me with the greatest un
restraint of manner. "What stakes shall
we play for, my little Countess?"
"When one plays with the King of the
World, Sire, it should be for nothing less
than a kingdom."
"Well, then, what shall it be? Name
it!"
"The freedom of Poland, Sire."
You cannot imagine the consternation.
Every one was so frightened that I began to
be frightened, too. He was not in the least
vexed. No one knows better how to value
bravery.
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
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"Granted, my little Countess! And I will
play for the heart of the bravest of Polish
women."
Then the game began. I cannot tell how
furiously we played. It was as if the fate
of the world hung in the balance. I never
lived such an exciting hour. People crowded
around to learn the result. Bets were made.
Excitement rose to fever heat. I lost. He
leaned across the table and grasped my
hands. "Now you are mine. I have won
you fairly, you little rebel!"
Then some one cried out, Prince Murat
I think it was: "Sire, I never thought to
see you grasp the hand of Russia."
"What do you mean?" was the somewhat
startled answer.
"The Countess Tatjana, Sire, is the affi
anced bride of Prince Adam Czartoryisky,
the real ruler of Imperial Russia."
"It is my custom always to defeat my
enemies," he answered, but I saw that his
face clouded.
[36]
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"Wait!" I exclaimed. "Prince Adam and
I may yet defeat you!"
January SO, 1807. In a letter received
from Prince Adam to-day was this sentence:
"Do not trust the French Emperor. He
will deceive the Poles. He will make them
promises he has no idea of keeping, and in
return they will shed their blood for him
by thousands. The people of the South,
remember, are light of tongue."
January 26, 1807. Warsaw is still wild
over the Emperor. He possesses a strange
magnetisnr/ It is as if, like Prometheus, he
had stolen the fire of the gods. He is mortal.
It cannot last. I wonder if, like Prome
theus, he will atone for his temerity by being
chained to a rock in the sea that the vultures
of envy may eat his heart!
January 30, 1807. Again last night I was
commanded to the Emperor s whist table.
He had forgotten about our little unpleasant-
[37]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
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ness and was unfeignedly glad to see me. As
I entered, he was talking with the Prince
General about Goethe, whom he met in
Weimar. The Prince General moved away
to make place for the players, and the Duke
of Bassano came up.
"I must quote for our little Countess,
Duke, that saying of Goethe s which proves
him to be a warrior like myself: Women
and fortresses were made to storm and
take. " V
"When Goethe wrote that, Sire," I an
swered, "two exceptions were understood
Russian fortresses and Polish women."
Then you should have heard the laughter,
which he took good-naturedly, replying:
"I like spirit in a woman. Jjxindicates
race/
After the game was over, we found our
selves alone. He insisted upon driving me
home. We managed it without the others
knowing; otherwise I should not have dared.
W T hen we were in the sleigh he said, as if he
[38]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
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thought I would be greatly interested: "I
am going away to-morrow or the next
day, my little Countess."
"Where, Sire?"
"To White Russia."
I started as if some terrible thing had
been communicated to me, then replied:
"Do not seek the wind in the open field." 1
The answer did not please him. Some
minutes passed before he spoke. Then the
conversation took an intimate turn. We
drove for two hours at a furious pace, the
horses feet striking diamonds from the
snow. When we reached the white levels
of the country, silent and cold in the silver
night, I suddenly realized that in the nature
of the man beside me were the same great
spaces of cold and silence like the steppe
which nothing could reclaim. For a
moment fear rose in my heart.
He said a thousand fond and foolish things
and at last asked me if I loved him.
1 Slav proverb.
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
essseseeeseessesessesseeeeseesssseseses
I replied: "One worships the gods, Sire;
one does not love them. *\
When we reached home and got out
of the sleigh, he stood looking at me in
silence. His face looked paler than usual
and more stern. Suddenly a sort of rage
convulsed it. He drew me to him, held me
close, and kissed my hair again and again.
Then he leaped into the sleigh and was oft
without a word. For an instant the stars
in the winter sky and the sparkling snow-
stars upon the earth were one.*^A noise as
of whirling waters dulled my ears. In love
as in war he is fierce and furious.
February 10, 1807. There has been another
battle. We do not know much about it,
except that it must have been in the neigh
borhood of Eylau. I have not heard from
Prince Adam. I wonder if he was there.
I fancied him on one side and Napoleon on
the other, with the black thundering cannon
between.
[40]
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
sssssssssssss^sssssssssssssssssasssssss
February 14, 1807. Every day comes news
of an engagement in which the French are
successful. To-day a messenger came to me
from the seat of war, bringing a small box.
In it there was an ornament of diamonds,
with a slip of paper, upon which was written :
"Russian fortresses may be taken!"
February 19, 1807. The French have de
feated the Russians at Ostrolenko.
February 27, 1807. Despite the war and the
sad news that reaches us daily, the carnival
has been merry. We do always dance in
Warsaw. There is no denying it.
Last night being Tuesday before Ash
Wednesday, we celebrated at the Prince
General s in the good old-fashioned way.
We wore the Polish costume in compliance
with the Prince General s request. The
ladies were resplendent in antique flowered
court gowns of old English gilt-brocade;
the gentlemen in gorgeous uniforms with all
[41]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
esseseesseseeeseseessesseseseeees&ssses
their decorations, long blue and white plumes
tossing from their hats.
We began by dancing the Kracoviak, each
with a glass of wine in his hand. At the
turns of the dance, where the ladies whirl,
half kneeling, and their full skirts spread
out around them like the petals of a flower,
each gentleman made the sign of the cross
above his partner s head with a glass of
glowing wine. Then came a gavotte, then
a Polonaise, and last the old-fashioned dance
where we sing, "Oh, we love one another,
yes, we love one another! " Thus we kept
it up without once pausing. At midnight
the Prince General s chaplain entered and
made a little talk upon the necessity of keep
ing the fast days. We followed him to the
chapel, where mass was said. WTien he
came to the place in the service where he
reads, "Cum jejunatis nolite fieri sicut Pha-
riscei," the men leaped to their feet, flashed
their swords from jeweled scabbards, and
set their plumed hats high upon their heads
[42]
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to signify that they would fight and die for
the faith. It was a splendid and imposing
sight those solemn courtly figures glitter
ing with gems and gold, under the fretful
light of tapers in the pale winter dawn. I
shall not soon forget it.
April 20, 1807. This has b^en a sad Lent,
a veritable season of gloom. yl do not know
why. I have heard nothing from the
Emperor.
MlODUSCHWESKI,
NEAR WARSAW ON THE VISTULA.
June 1,1807. Spring is here. Even spring
is sad. Not even the birds are merry v Our
peasants have sung their saddest songs at
the planting. I have heard nothing from
the Emperor.
July 10, 1807. The Peace of Tilsit has
been signed. Prince Adam was there. France
won her point, made alliance with Russia
and left England out. Prince Adam is
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ONE or NAPOLEON S LOVES
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broken-hearted. Had Alexander been less
weak, Poland would be free. An attempt
to influence the mind of Alexander is like
writing one s name on water. There is a
Russian proverb that says, however :^ You
must not expect a cuckoo to be a falcon.vr
How discouraging has this long diplomatic
battle been to Prince Adam! To it he has
sacrificed his youth. Alexander has made
use of his talent for ten years by luring him
on with the hope of a free Poland. He says
that at the Peace of Tilsit Napoleon jested
and made all manner of fun of the Poles.
Since he is no longer the champion of the
people, he has degenerated into an ambitious
/knave, to whom the god of luck gave a touch
of genius. *
"Napoleon," he writes, "is not a man of
knightly honor with the blood of kings in
his veins. He is merely an adventurous
usurper eager for power. He is the first
exponent of a modern commercial world
whose dawn is just at hand a world
[44]
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wherein everything will be negotiable, every
thing will have its price. The chivalric
spirit of the past will exist no longer; noth
ing comparable will exist again after the_
sword of Napoleon has passed over it."
(Here the loss of a number of leaves from
the diary causes an interruption in the
story. It is taken up again with the year
1812).
ZAOZAIMA, NEAR WILNA IN LITHUANIA.
June 15, 1812. I have just reached Zao-
zaima to oversee for the summer one of our
Lithuanian estates. My honored mother was
unable to come.
I received a letter from Prince Adam to
day. He is no longer Minister of Foreign
Affairs, but he still stays on at the Court of
Russia because of his influence and friend
ship with Alexander. He still hopes to effect
the freedom of Poland. And I am waiting.
How many women are there in Poland to-day
whose fate, like mine, is bound up with the
fate of the nation!
[45]
ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
eseseesessseesesesseeeeeseseeeeeesssess
June 27, 1812. A messenger just came
post-haste from Prince Adam with this
letter: "By the time this reaches you,
Napoleon will have crossed the Niemen
with the great army of France. Diplomatic
relations, as you know, have been severed
between France and Russia. Again I have
hope of the old alliance of Russia and
England.
"Word has been sent to Napoleon that
you are in Zaozaima in Lithuania, on the
direct route to Russia. His love for you is
well known. He will send you word. You
can help us. While I have the ear of Alex
ander and you the heart of Napoleon, some
thing may yet be done for Poland. This is
the plan not to let Napoleon see the army
of Russia until after he has left Wilna.
When he does see it, it will feign fear and
retreat. In case an engagement cannot be
avoided, it is our plan to give him the victory
and then retreat again. In this way we can
bring him into the heart of the country.
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With you to help, we will lure Napoleon,
who is now drunk with success, to a ban
quet of death in the heart of White
Russia."
July 18, 1812. A messenger came from
the Emperor to-day and an escort of Lithu
anian soldiers. I am commanded to go to
Witepsk to the Convent of Our Lady of
Good Council and there await him. I did
not think it would come so soon.
July 20, 1812. All night we rode through
the great pine woods of Lithuania. The
soldiers sang, alternately, with answering
voices, one of the strangely modulated
dainos of the country:
"But when shall we go from the Russian land
Back again to the Memel strand?
When posts and stones to blossom are seen
And trees in depth of the sea grow green." l
Poor fellows! There is little probability
that they will come back to the Memel.
1 Author s translation.
[47]
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
July 25, 1812. Witepsk is a gloomy city
filled with cloisters. There are twenty-four
here. They look as black and as forbidding
as the black pines of Lithuania.
July 27, 1812. I found the strangest
manuscript in the convent to-day! It is
unsigned and ancient. No one knows of
its origin. I copy a part which mysteriously
refers to the present:
"For I say unto you that the balance
must always be kept. Great things will
be weighed and estimated by great things.
But in the end that shall prevail that is
fullest of joy. Joy, alone, is life. Joy,
alone, can create. That which is effort
is of a baser fiber.
" Out of the gloom and the fog of the North
the barbarians came and destroyed the land
of joy, the cities of white marble, the gladness
of the pagan world. They destroyed the
altars whereon the incense smoked and the
sacrificial doves slumbered.
F481
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"In the ages of ages, when the time shall
be ripe and the world shall have forgotten
its ancient joy, retribution will fall upon the
North.
"Out of the South will come a Caesar and
a god, who, like them of old, shall know not
fear, but joy. He will be wise with the
wisdom of the sleeping centuries. He will
be a Bacchic god, in whose honor for incense
cities will burn and the smoking blood of
slaughtered nations rise. He will be a
Titan, who believes that the only crime is
littleness and impotence. A new age will
begin with him."
As I read I saw the white cameo-like face
of the Great Emperor framed in the gold
of a burning city.
July 29, 1812. The Emperor came yester
day. He brought two suits such as are worn
by the Polish cavalry, one for me and one
for my dame de compagnon. I had to cut my
hair. Now it is in little yellow curls. He
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
said I must look like the women who lead
the armies of the Great Catherine.
We are on the road to Moscow.
July 30> 1812. What is so inspiring as the
call of trumpets! They are the instrument
of courage and high deeds.
July 31, 1812. Pan Brodzinski, Pan
Anton Malzweski, and Prince Michael Rad-
ziwill are with the army. I have not seen
them.
August 1, 1812. This army is a wonderful
sight. In it are people of all nations. The
faith of the soldiers in Napoleon is fanatical.
In just this way do the Moslems worship
Allah. They think he is superior to death.
As the days go by and I learn to estimate
his power, I, too, can say "Allah il Allah."
August 10, 1812. No mortal was ever
adored like this. Surely there must be good
in his heart.
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August 11, 181 2. It is just as Prince Adam
wrote. The Russians feign fear and retreat.
I cannot be a party to this murder, this
luring him on to death. I must find some
means of escape. I must find some means
of saving him that will save Poland too.
August 12, 1812. Napoleon disguised
himself as a chasseur and we rode to
gether all day. I made the most of the
opportunity.
"Sire, before we reach the boundaries of
Old Poland, I pray you, take this precaution
for your safety make Poland free. Then
you will have a safe ally behind you. Then
you can conquer Russia."
"Why take the trouble! Do you not see
how they fear me, how they retreat?"
"That is only a ruse, Sire; they are the
subtlest of races."
"They fear me; that is why."
"No, Sire, I know them better. It is a
ruse. I beg you to listen and be not angry.
[51]
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Only a man whom the too great fcwors of
destiny had made drunk would /lead an
army into the heart of Russia. ,/It means
y
death to them to you."
"That is for cowards. Audaces Fortuna
juvat, timidosque repellit."
"Sire, make Poland free!"
"If I did, what good would it do the
Poles? They could not remain free."
"Why, Sire! Do you not admire my
race?"
"I admire them, but I do not respect them.
Your Polish aristocracy has received a
foreign education. In art, in letters, they
have become demi-savants, which has un
fitted them for pracTTcaTaff airs . No people
were ever more fitted to please. No people
ever so loved the joy of life music and
the tossing of plumes. But no people
ever had so little talent for the conquest of
life. They were not made for care, work,
for a commonplace thing like discipline.
That is why they are famous for their cav-
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airy. They are good only for itys: impetuous
rush of an inspired moment."
"Sire, make an end to this crucifixion of
my country! It will mean safety to you on
your return. Make Poland free!"
"It would be useless. You Poles have no
genius for affairs. You have always acted
like children."
"Sire, we are grown now. Sorrow has
made us wise."
"It is useless, I tell you. You do not
belong to the present. You belong to other
centuries. You are the last defenders of the
bulwark of the Middle Ages, where chivalry
ruled. Now a modern world is here that
does not care for things that are merely
fine; an age without ideals but with great
practical sense; an age which money and
success alone can rule, money and success,
won at any price, for not even honor will
stand in the way. Soon the old chivalric
days when men loved one another will be
merely a dream.
[53]
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The wars of the time to come will not
be like these of mine. They will be bloodless
wars fought at expense of men s souls and
nerves, and they will be crueler and more
deeply destructive than any that have deso
lated Poland.
"If I should make Poland free, it could not
remain free. It is the age that is at fault.
You have not grasped modern life. Another
age has come over Europe. And because the
Pole cannot accommodate himself to it, the
nation will be destroyed. It will pass under
the rule of others who have in abundance
what he has not. Polonia delenda est"
I can do no more. He must go on to ruin.
I dare not show him the letter of Prince Adam.
August 16, 1818. We are under the walls
of Smolensk, the city which the Cossack
Hetmans wrested from the Commonwealth.
This is on the borders of Old Poland.
I said to the Emperor in one last attempt :
"There is Russia, Sire. Do you remember
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how it looks upon the map? A wilderness
bounded by a river of blood and by blue
and frozen seas. Those, Sire, are God s
awful prohibition."
He looked toward it thoughtfully for a
time, then turned and walked silently away.
August 18, 1812. Yesterday the French
took Smolensk. Again I saw the policy of
Russia. It was garrisoned by thirty thou
sand men. They gave us the victory that
Napoleon may push on into the heart of
the country. There, when winter comes,
the snow and the frost will do what arms
can not. There he will contend with a new
army the army of the elements. I saw
the battle. It was terrible beyond descrip
tion. The Emperor commanded in person.
He was here, there, everywhere, all at once.
He was the incarnate demon of joy. Bullets
dared not touch him. Screaming, they fled
past. It was frightful in that he really seemed
to be protected by a superhuman power.
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After it was over, he rode to where I sat.
"Was a woman ever entertained as I have
entertained you? I do not amuse you with
stupid balls, operas, soirees, but with the
play of the best armies of Europe."
His joy filled me with terror.
August 20, 1812. The soldiers are wild
with hope. They see themselves master of
the East. I alone know what awaits them.
They are uplifted by such a burning desire
of the future that the present is annihilated.
Along the way are the dead and dying.
No one seems to care.
August 22, 1812. I am becoming infected
with the general joy. Yet I know that the
Russians have prepared their revenge.
August 28, 1812. The Russians are still
retreating. Yesterday and the day before
there were slight engagements in which the
French were successful.
The Russians retired to Borodino. Now
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the invincible Kutusow is in command. The
Emperor is delighted. He is eager to meet
him.
September 8, 1812. Yesterday they fougnt
by Borodino. Kutusow retired to Moscow.
September 1%, 1812. We can see Moscow !
Imagine a yellow, barren plain, over it
gold-dust haze, brightening and darkening
as the wind sways it, through which rise a
multitude of green and red and blue and
silver domes, surmounted by gold, lace-
work crosses. It floats in the air. It is the
creation of a magician. At the same time
it is very real, and touched with mystery
and age the immemorial age of the East.
September 15, 1812. We are in Moscow.
The city is deserted. Kutusow took his
troops and went away. It was not fear
that made him. Something terrible is
going to happen. Why do not the French
suspect?
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It is unimaginable the effect of this
silent, wonderful city. Who would dream
of a city here on the barren plain that
stretches eastward to Asia! And such a
city! Italian palaces by the side of Tartar
huts! Bazaars where the wonders of the
Orient are displayed!
The soldiers are pillaging right and left.
Entire squadrons go about decked in gold
and embroidered gauzes fit for the harems
of Stamboul.
It is like a festival in honor of a pagan god.
This illusion is heightened by the fires which
are burning everywhere, like incense.
Never before did the bitter North see any
thing like this. Like this life must have
been in the old days in Alexandria and
in Mitylene.
September 17, 1812. It has come! It
could not be put off longer. Last night the
Emperor summoned me to him. He was in
the Uspenski Sobore, the cathedral where
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ONE OF NAPOLEON S LOVES
the Russian emperors are crowned. Here he
has set up his abode. The splendor of the
room I entered was overpowering. It was
magnificent, imposing, glittering with mar
bles, with paintings, and with decorations,
made out of barbaric gold. It was lighted
by a thousand candles, each as tall as the
body of a man. Yet the corners and the
roof were black and impenetrable.
No sooner had I entered than he drew me
to him with that silent fury I remembered.
Then he hastened to make fast the door.
"Now I can unfold my plan I, who am
master of the world. For five years I have
loved you and asked nothing in return. Now
is my time. You are to be my Empress
Empress of the East. This shall be your
capital, Russia and the Orient your crown
lands. You shall be what Yek-Katarina
dreamed always of being Empress of the
East."
" But Sire the church ! Could it bless
a union like ours?"
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"The church? Why, I shall be the
church!"
I saw that he was drunk with the deadliest
wine that can be given to mortals suc
cess, and the too great favors of destiny.
"Sire, I have considered. I will follow
your will on one condition."
Here some one knocked at the door.
"The city is on fire! Lose no time. Save
yourself!"
"And what is that?" paying not the
slightest heed to the interruption.
"Sire, Russia s supply of powder is under
the Kremlin. In an instant we may all be
destroyed. Sire! Sire!"
"And what is that?"
The pounding on the door became deafen
ing. The great windows were so lighted by
the flames outside that they dimmed the
candles. The floor, made of bricks of steel,
was as red with the reflection as a sea of
blood.
"The freedom of Poland, Sire,"
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"I grant it."
"Why should you not? Poland was cut
up to make presents for the lovers of Cath
erine. Why should it not be united for the
one love of Napoleon? *
"Sire! Sire! Open the door. Do not risk
your life the fate of France. Open !
Open!"
"Write then its freedom here," snatching
a piece of paper and spreading it before him.
I felt no fear. I was conscious only of
a great exaltation, the sensation he had
first taught me to know. Death was noth
ing in comparison with the goal I sought.
"Write, Sire, write!"
We were then in such an intensity of many-
colored light that the farthest top of the
great dome shone red like a baker s oven.
The knocking and the voices increased,
grew deafening.
"An instant, just another instant!" I
prayed, " until that paper is in my hands ! "
"Dictate; it shall be as you wish."
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"Write, then: que la Republique de Po-
logne soil maintenue dans son etat de libre
election et qu il ne soil permis a personne de
rendre le dit royaume hereditaire dans sa
famille ou de s y rendre absolu."
Just as he reached the place of signature,
the door fell and the Prince of Naples, fol
lowed by frightened soldiers, rushed in.
"What are you writing?" He snatched
the paper from the table. By this time the
room was half filled with soldiers.
The freedom of Poland !
"Sire, this woman is the tool of Russia.
See, here is the letter written to her by
Prince Adam Czartoryisky. Listen, Sire,
listen !
With you to help, we will lure Napo
leon, who is now drunk with success, to a
banquet of death in the heart of White
Russia."
J The look on the face of the Great Emperor
is one of the things which the merciful God
will never permit me to forget. Upon it
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dawned in quick succession the intelligence
of all those baffling defeats, followed by a
mingled look of anger, surprise, and that
which cut me deepest grief. V^
"Sire," continued the Prince of Naples,
"outside waits her escort sent by His Im
perial Majesty, Alexander, to rescue her from
burning Moscow."
"Take her to her escort," was the stern
reply.
Not one word, not one glance, did he give
to me.
As I drove away toward Warsaw, I saw
him for one last instant standing on the
pictured Kremlin wall, fearless and calm, a
pagan god for whom a city fell in ruin.
Behind and beside, the conflagration rolled
its waves of flame.
I had been faithful to my country, to my
duty, yet I felt the greatest contempt for
y/myself.
You see, I was beneath his anger.
[63
THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
"1 7K 7E were lingering over one of our honey -
^ moon breakfasts in Naples, my hus
band dividing his attention between // Cor-
riere di Napoli and his coffee, and I planning
for my favorite pastime, swimming, in that
sea which looks like a liquid sapphire.
! No clue to the mysterious disappearance
of the Contessa Fabriani, " he read. * After
a month s search, the police are baffled.
"That does not sound particularly re
markable to you, I suppose. Women and
men, too, for that matter have disap
peared from other cities. But this adds
another chapter to a mysterious story of
crime.
" For twenty -five years not only native
Italian women, but visiting women of other
nations have disappeared from Naples, and
nothing has afterward been heard of them.
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The peculiar part about it is that they have
all been young and beautiful, and women of
the upper class."
I paid little heed to his words. I was
thinking of other things. Besides, Luigi was
a Neapolitan and interested in all the hap
penings of his native city. On my first visit
to Naples I did not have time to interest
myself in a sensational story such as I could
read any morning in the London papers.
You have not forgotten that to-night is
the ball?" said my husband, consulting his
watch and jumping up. "I want you to
look particularly lovely. All my friends
and your old rivals will be there. Busi
ness takes me from the city for the day, and
in case I should not return in time to accom
pany you, I have arranged for Cousin Lucia
to meet you at ten at the door of the Cin-
ascalchi Palace. I shall come later in time
for part of the dancing. Tell Pietro to get you
there at exactly ten," he called, after he had
kissed me good-by.
[65]
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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When I took a last look at myself in the
glass that night, I felt that I had obeyed my
husband s instructions. I was looking par
ticularly lovely. I had dressed with the pur
pose of appearing as unlike Italian women
as possible.
My slim six feet of stature was arrayed in
a plain white satin princess, from which the
shoulders rose scarcely less white and satiny.
My hair was the color of the upland furze,
and my cheeks glowed like the roses of an
English garden.
"Pietro!" I called, after we had driven
what seemed to me a very long time. "Are
you sure that you are going in the right direc
tion? I did not suppose that it was outside
the city."
He reassured me and drove on.
We entered the courtyard of a country
estate. As I stepped from the carriage, I
saw in the distance the grouped lights of
Naples. Pietro whipped the horses and
drove off before I had time to speak.
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There were no other carriages in the yard.
Could I have mistaken the time? Lucia
was not there to meet me, either. " She
is probably within," I reflected, " since the
palace is bright with light."
Doors swung back softly and as if by magic-
I entered. The blaze of light that rushed out
all but blinded me. Words cannot express
the horror of it nor the silence that accom
panied it. There were no servants moving
about. No one was in sight. I was alone.
Imagine a sweep of majestic rooms whose
floors were polished to the surface consistency
of stone; straight white walls of mirrored
marble, and, blazing from walls and ceiling,
prisms of cut crystal. Wherever you looked
the glitter of light flashed back at you, con
fusing your eyes and dazing your brain. I
did not suppose that light could hold such
terror.
"There is surely some mistake," I whis
pered. "This is no place for dancing or
merriment. It is more like a white and
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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shining sepulchre. I would rather trust
myself to the night outside," and I turned
toward the door with the purpose of leaving.
But the space behind, where I knew that I
had entered, presented a smooth and evenly
paneled surface. There was no door. Nor
was there place for lock or knob. As I stood
confused and hesitating, I learned to the full
the demoniac power of light. The slightest
motion of my body, my head, my breathing,
even, sent from polished corners and cornice
quivering arrows into my eyes. The mirrors
and the shining marble reflected floor and
ceiling until it was impossible to tell where
one left off and the other began. It seemed,
after a time, that I was floating head down
ward in a sea of light.
Then something righted me sharply. It
was not sound nor was it thought. It ap
pealed to subtler senses. It was as if the
material body was endowed with a thinking
machine and each pore contained a brain.
It aroused some consciousness which the
[68]
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hypnotism of light had dulled. I knew then
that I was standing, slim and white and
frozen with terror, in the focus of the light.
I felt the cold diamonds shift their posi
tion upon my throat and breast and tremble
as I breathed irregularly. I heard the sibi
lant slipping of the stiff satin as it fell into
a changed position.
A powerful and dominant brain had
touched my own. For one unconscious
moment it had ruled it and set upon it the
seal of its thought.
Such a passion of fear assailed me that it
seemed as if I must choke. My fascinated
eyes turned toward the end of the farthest
room. From there the message came.
There, I knew, was something compelling,
something electric. Exactly in the center
of that far room, and very erect, stood a
man. He was coming toward me, too,
slowly very slowly. Yet I heard not the
slightest sound. Evidently he was shod
with rubber. He moved as I have seen a
[69]
THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
malevolent spider move toward a prisoned
fly, enjoying the pleasure of motion because
he knows that there is no escape for his
victim. Just as gracefully and easily did he
move toward me. And as he came, I knew
that he read my soul, measured my strength
and my power of resistance, and at the same
time admired the white erectness of my body.
Fear, as with a bitter acid, etched his
picture on my brain. He was very tall
taller than I by a good inch and fault
lessly attired; a patrician, but a degenerate
patrician, the body alone having preserved
its ancient dignity.
Ribboned decorations brightened his coat,
and I saw a garter on his leg.
He was thinner than any one I ever saw
and correspondingly supple. His move
ments had the fascination of a serpent.
Thus might a serpent move, if its coiled
length were poised erect.
His head would have been beautiful, had
not the features been so delicately chiseled
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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that strength and nobility had been refined
away, and in their place had come effemi
nacy and a certain cold and delicate cruelty.
He was an old man, too, and his heavy
hair was white. His brows, however, were
black and youthful, and from beneath looked
out blue eyes. The eyes were the color of
light when it shines through thick ice. They
were the color of the sharp edge of fine
steel when it is bared too quickly to the sun.
In the same hard way the light ran across
them.
But the strangest part was that there
seemed to be no limit to their depth. How
ever far you looked within, you could not
find a person. You could not surprise a con
sciousness. There was no soul there. In
its stead there was merely a keen and de
structive intelligence.
I realized that the man coming toward me
did not live by means of the physical acts
of life. He had learnedr to live by his brain.
f
He was a cerebral! ^^
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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I sensed his dominant personality and
struggled against it. I sensed, too, the pres
ence of a numbing mental fluid that crippled
my will and dulled me as does that sweet-
smelling death which surgeons call the
ansesthetic.
He had stripped himself of human attri
butes. He knew nothing of fear, pity, love.
"I have the honor of meeting, I believe,
the bride of the Leopardi." He bowed and
spoke in an even, unemotional voice.
I bowed in return. "How is it possible
for you to know that? I do not remember
having met you."
"It is not necessary to have met me. No
beautiful woman comes to Naples whom
I do not know. I," bowing again, "am
Count Ponteleone, painter of dead women.
You have probably heard of me."
"Who has not!" I exclaimed, somewhat
reassured and wondering that this could be
the man whose name was resounding through
two continents.
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"This intrusion which I beg you to
pardon is due to the coachman s mistake.
I am expected at the Cinascalchi ball. My
husband and cousin await me there. If you
will send me on in your carriage, I shall be
grateful."
" Oh, no, your coachman made no mistake,"
calmly ignoring my request. " I brought him
here and you, too, as I have brought other
women by this," tapping his forehead.
"You are graciously jesting to excuse my
rudeness," I managed to stammer, sum
moning the ghost of a smile.
" Well, we may as well call it a jest if you
wish. It is a jest which ought to flatter. I
entertain only beautiful women here."
The glance that accompanied this envel
oped me from head to foot. It was a glance
of admiration, and yet in it there was none of
the desire of would-be love. It was devoid
of warmth and emotion. Nothing could be
more impersonal. No mark of material
beauty had escaped it. It was the trained
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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glance of a connoisseur which measures
accurately. I might have been a picture
or a piece of furniture.
I felt that he knew my racial standing, my
rank as a human animal, by the delicate
roundness of my bones and the fine fiber of
my flesh. I had been as glass to his intelli
gent gaze. Somehow, then, I felt that the
body of me belonged to him because of this
masterly penetration which substance could
not resist.
"Since you are to be my guest, we might
seek a more comfortable place to converse."
He led the way to the center of the great
rooms where, touching an invisible spring,
doors flew back, disclosing a drawing-room
draped in red. As he bowed me to a seat, he
remarked: "Here you look like a pearl
dropped in a cup of blood."
I, too, thought that I had never seen so
wicked a red nor one so suggestive of luxu
rious crime. The comparison jarred upon
me and prickled me with fear.
[74]
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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As he sank back in an easy-chair op
posite, I saw how the red walls touched
with color the whiteness of his hair and
sent occasional ruddy gleams into the depth
of his eyes.
"You are an Englishwoman, too," he ob
served, with evident relish. "I knew it.
Only the mists and rains of England can
make color like yours. Did you notice how
well we looked together as we walked along
between the mirrors? Are we not as if made
. for each other tall and regal both of
us? What a picture we would make!"
It occurred to me then, with unpleasant
appropriateness, that he was the painter of
dead women.
"It is an English woman, too, that I lack
for my collection," he mused meditatively.
"Collection! Have you a collection of
women? That is certainly unique. I have
heard of collections of bugs, birds, but
women, never. Perhaps you would like me
to join it!"
[75]
THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
"Indeed I should! I never saw a woman
I admired so tremendously."
I drew back in fear, silenced by the ardor
of his words.
" Oh, you need not be afraid. I am not like
other men. I do not love as they love. I
love only with my brain. While you have
been sitting here, I have caressed you a
thousand times, and you have not even sus
pected it. I do not want the bestial common
pleasures which my coachman can have, or
my scullion can buy with a lira. Why
should not I be as much superior to them
in my loves as in my life? If I am not, then
I am not their superior in any way. My
pleasures are those of another plane of life,
of a brain touched to a keener fire, of nerves
that have reached the highest point of
pleasurable vibration. Besides, when I love,
I love only dead women. Life reaches its
perfection only when death comes. Life is
never real until iken" he added.
"Perhaps you would like to kill me for
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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your amusement to-night," I replied, still
trying to keep up the jest. "I have always
flattered myself, however, that I was better
alive."
No sooner were the words out than I re
gretted them. His face grew thin and
strained like a bird-dog s on the scent. His
lips became expressive of a terrible desire,
and his frail hands trembled with antici
pation.
As I looked, his pupils disappeared, and
his eyes became two pools of blue and blaz
ing light. Unwittingly I had hit upon his
object. I had surprised his purpose in a
jest.
Who could have dreamed of this! At the
worst, I thought, I might be detained for
two or three days, forced to serve him for a
model, and cause worry to my husband and
gossiping comment.
But whose imagination could have reached
this! Strangely enough, the decree of death
that I read in his face dissipated my fear.
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I became calm and collected. In an instant
I was mistress of myself and ready to fight
for life. The blood stopped pounding in
my brain. I could think with normal
clearness.
"The worst of it is," I reflected, "this
man is not mad. If he were, I might be
able to play upon some delusion for free
dom. He has passed the point where mad
ness begins. He has gone just so much too
far the other way."
"Then you really think that you could
love me if I were dead," I laughed, leaning
toward him gayly. "Is it not rather a
strange requisite for winning a woman s
love? What would my reward be? Are
you sure you could not endure me any other
way?"
" Do not jest about sacred things ! Death," /
he answered slowly and reprovingly, "is the /
/thing most to be desired by beautiful women. J
V It saves them from something worse old
age. An ugly woman can afford to live; a
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beautiful woman can not. The real object
of life is to ripen the body to its limit of
physical perfection, and then, just as you
/would a perfect fruit, pluck and preserve it.
y Death sets the definite seal upon its perfec- /
tion, that is, if death can be controlled tov
prevent decay. And that is what I can do, *
he added proudly, getting up in his abstrac
tion and pacing up and down the room.
"And what difference does it make, what
day it comes? All days march toward
death."
I admired unreservedly the elegant, in-
tellectualized figure, now that I had thrown
fear to the winds.
"Come," he pleaded, "let me kill you!
It is because I love you that I ask you. It
is because I think that your physical self is
worth being preserved. Your future will be
assured. You will never be less happy than
now, less lovely, less triumphant. You
will always be an object of admiration."
"What a magician you are to picture
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death attractively! But tell me more about
it first."
Joy leaped up and sang in my heart at the
prospect of the struggle. I felt as the race
horse feels when, knowing the strength and
the suppleness of his limbs, he sees the long
white track unfold before him.
"In ancient days my ancestors," he be
gan, "were Roman Governors in Spain.
At the court of one of them, Vitellius Pon-
teleone, lived a famous Jewish physician (in
old Spanish days the Jews were the first
of scientists), by name Ibn Ezra. He made
a poison (poison is not the right word, I
regret greatly its vulgar suggestiveness) from
a mineral which has now vanished from the
face of the earth. This poison causes a de
licious, pleasureful death, and at the same
time arrests physical decay. Now, if you
will just let me inject one drop of it into
that white arm of yours, you will be immor
tal superior to time and change, inde
structibly young. You do not seem to realize
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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the greatness of the offer. For this honor I
have selected you from all the women in
Naples."
"It is an honor, of course; but, like a
proposal of marriage, it seems to me impor
tant and to require consideration."
"Oh, no, it is not important. We have to
prepare for life, but for death we are always
ready. Besides, I am offering you a chance
to choose your own death. How many can
do that!"
" Do not think that I am ungrateful, good
Count, but "
"One little drop of the liquid will run
through your veins like flame, cutting off
thought and all centers of painful sensation.
Only a dim sweet memory of pleasant things
will remain. Gradually, then, cells and arte
ries and flesh will harden. In time your body
will attain the hardness of a diamond and
the whiteness of fine marble. But it is
months, years, before the brain dies. I am
not really sure that it ever dies. In it, like
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the iridescent reflections upon a soap bub
ble, live the shadows of past pleasures.
There is no other immortality that can
equal this which I offer. Every day that
you live now lessens your beauty. In a way
every day is a vulgar death. It coarsens and
over-colors your skin, dulls the gold of your
hair, makes this bodily line, or this, a bit
too full. That is why I brought you here
to-night, at the height of your beauty, just
as love and life have crowned you."
"It must be a remarkable liquid. Let me
see it. Is it with you?"
"No, indeed! It is kept in a vault which
it takes an hour to open. It is guarded as
are the crown jewels of Italy," he responded
proudly.
"There is no immediate danger," I
thought. "There is time. Now the road
lies long before me."
"I suppose there is an antidote for this
liquid. I will not call it poison, since you
dislike the word so greatly."
[82]
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
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"None that is known now. You see it
destroys instantly what only patient nature
can rebuild."
"I am greatly interested in it. Show me
the other women upon whom you have
tried it. I am eager to see its effect."
"I knew you would be. Come this way."
We ascended a staircase, where again I
felt the sting of light. Upon a landing, half
way up, he paused and pointed to our re
flected figures.
"Are we not as if made for each other
you and I? When I sleep the white liquid
sleep, I shall arrange that it be beside you."
My death evidently was firmly deter
mined upon.
At the top he unlocked a door, and we
entered a room where some fifty women
were dancing a minuet. Above them great
crystal chandeliers swung, giving to their
jewels and their shimmering silks and satins
reflected life. Each one was in an attitude of
arrested motion. It was as if they had been
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frozen in the maddest moment of a dance.
But what a horrible sight this dance of
dead women, this mimic merriment of death !
"You know my picture of this scene, do
you not?" said he, turning on more light.
"They were perfect models, I can assure
you. I can paint them for hours in any light.
"When I die I shall bequeath to Naples
this art gallery. Will it not be a gift to be
proud of? Nothing can surpass it in unique
ness. Then the bodies of these women will
have attained the hardness and the white
ness of fine marble. They can in no way be
distinguished from it except by their hair.
" Of course now, if the outside world knew
of this, I should be punished as a murderer."
How firmly it is settled in his mind that
the outside world is mine no more!
"But then I shall be revered as a scientist
who preserved for posterity the most per
fect human specimens of the age in which I
lived. I shall be looked upon as a God. It
is as great to preserve life as it is to make it."
[841
THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
The next room we entered was a luxurious
boudoir. Before an exquisite French dress
ing-table sat a woman whose bronze hair
swept the floor. On either side peacocks
stood with outspread tails. Their backs
served as a rest for a variety of jeweled hair
pins, one of which she was in the act of pick
ing up.
"That is the Contessa Fabriani. She is q,^
not dead yet. She hears every word we say,
but she is unable to speak. I am painting her
now. You can see the unfinished picture
. against the wall."
/ In an adjoining room a dark-skinned
woman of the Orient, whose black and un-
bound hair showed purplish tints, was re
clining upon the back of a Bengal tiger.
Other Eastern women lay upon couches
and divans.
"See, even in death, what enticing lan
guor! See the arrested dreams in their dark
eyes, deep as an Oriental night! These
women I have loved very greatly. Some-
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times I have a fancy that death cannot touch
them. In them there is an electric energy,
the stored-up indestructible ardor of the
sun, which, I like to fancy, death cannot
dissipate."
"Now here," said the Count, opening an
other door, "I will show you an effect I
have tried for years to reproduce. This has
been the desire of my life."
He flung back a row of folding windows,
making the room on one side open to the
sea.
"It is the effect of the blended radiance
flung from the water here and the moon,
upon dull silver, upon crystal, and the flesh
of blond women."
He turned out the lights. The moon sent
an eerie, shivering luster across the crystal
and silver decorations, and touched three
women in robes of white, who were standing
in attitudes of dreaming indolence.
"This thin, ethereal, surface light, this
puissance de lumiere, is what I have tried
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in vain to prison. I have always been greedy
of the difficult and the unattainable. If I
could do this, I should be the prince of
painters! It is a fact, a real thing, and yet
it possesses the magic of dreams, the enchant
ment of the fleeting and the illusory.
"I wish to be the wizard of light. I wish
to be the only one to prison its bright, de
fiant insubstantiality.
"Can you not see how wonderful it is?
It is the dust of light. Reflected upon silver
and clear crystal it is what shadow is to
sound. Sometimes it seems to me like a
thin, clear acid; then like some blue, sweet-
smelling volatile liquid, eager again to join
the air.
" Have you noticed how it penetrates blond
flesh? It reveals, yet transfigures it. I
wish you could watch its effect often. Some
times the wind churns the sea-light into
tiansparent foam. Then I love its curd-
like, piled-up whiteness. Sometimes when
there is no moon, and only a wan, tremulous
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THE PAINTER OF DEAD WOMEN
luster from the water, the light of a far star
is focused on their satins, on their diamonds,
struggles eeriely among their laces, or flickers
mournfully from a pearl. The room then is
filled with a regretful, metallic radiance. The
stars caress them. They have become im
personal, you see, and the eternal things
love them.
"When the autumn moons are high, the
light that fills the room is resonant and yel
low. It tingles like a crystal. It gives their
cold white satins the yellow richness of the
peach s heart, and to the women the enticing
languor of life. On such nights the moonlight
is musical and makes the crystal vibrate
"Now, to-night, the light is more like the
vanishing ripple of the sea. Is it not won
derful? Look! It is the twin of silence, the
ghost of light!"
In his excitement and exhilaration, his eyes
shone like the moon-swept sea. I knew that
in them, too, slept terrors inconceivable.
"This is the room I have in mind for you.
[88]
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ight/
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You will queen it by a head over the other
women. The color of your dress is right.
Your gems, too, are white. Here, sometime,
I promise to join you, and together we will
be immortal.
"Excuse me just a moment. Wait here.
Let me get the liquid and show it to you.
You will be fascinated by it, just as other
women have been. I never saw one who
could resist it."
As he left, I heard the key turn in the
lock. When we entered the other rooms, I
remembered that he bolted the doors on the
inside. This door, then, was the only one
by which he could gain entrance. Swiftly
I slipped the bolt. Now I was safe for a
tjme, unless there was a secret entrance.
It was not far from the window to the
water. I laughed with delight. I had dived
that distance many a time for pleasure. I
was one of the best swimmers in England,
and I had always longed for a plunge in this
sapphire sea. Now was my chance and life
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as the goal to gain. I took off my satin gown
as gayly as I had put it on. Like the Count
of Ponteleone, I, too, admired the play of
light on its piled-up whiteness. How mer
rily the sea- wind came! How it counseled
/urage!
I took the plunge. Down, down, down I
went, cleaving the clear water. The distance
up seemed interminable. It was like being
born again when at last I saw the white
foam feather my arms and felt my lungs ex
pand with air. I swam in the direction of
Naples. I could not reach the city, but I
could easily reach some fisher s hut and there
gain shelter.
Oh, the delight of that warm, bright water
under the moon! I felt that the strength of
my arms and my legs was inexhaustible. I
exulted in the water as a bird exults in its
natural element, the air.
After I had covered what I thought to be
a safe distance, I turned on my back and
floated. . 2lien I caught sight of the window
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from which I had leaped. It was brilliantly
lighted. Count Ponteleone was leaning from
it, his white hair shining like a malevolent
flame, y
Despite the distance, I could feel the power
of his wild blue eyes, which sparkled like
the sea. Again I dived, lest they should re
assert their power over me and draw me back.
I came up under the shadow of the shore,
and made my way along until I reached a
boat where Neapolitan fisherwomen were
spreading their nets to dry.
They took me in, and for the doubled
price of a good month s fishing brought me
that night to Naples.
"Ah, Luigi," I sobbed, as he folded me in
his arms, "little did I think, when you spoke
of the dance this morning, that I should
spend the night with the dead dancing
women of Ponteleone."
"Nor I that you would solve Naples
mystery of crime."
[91]
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
sQue es el hombre ? Un misterio.
4Que es la vida ? lUn misterio tambien!
ESPRONCEDA.
"S61o en tiempo de Felipe II, cuando el espiritu
del Renacimiento se hacia sentir alii, fueron pintadas
muchas hermosas damas para su galeria de retratos
del Prado." CARLOS JusTi. 1
(In the time of Philip the Second, when the spirit
of the Renaissance was being felt, he had many
beautiful women painted for his gallery of the
Prado. CARLOS JUSTI.)
ARRIVED in Toulouse on my home-
* ward way to Spain in the midspring of
1898.
For three years I had toured the world
with my violin, giving concerts in its prin
cipal cities. I had been flatteringly received.
Men had showered their gold upon me;
women their flowers and favors. I was ac-
1 From "Diego Velazquez y su Siglo," by Carlos
Justi.
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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claimed the Spanish Paganini, the greatest
of violinists, the premier artist upon this
difficult instrument. I had been surfeited
with applause. I had been feted until I
was weary. Now I was looking forward
to a well-merited rest in which to gratify
my love of art, and, perhaps, try my hand
at composing. In addition, I longed for
the dignified ease, the cultivated leisure of
the life of a Spanish gentleman. During the
years of concert giving, I had earned enough
to give myself this pleasure. I felt, too, that
there is something ignoble in prostituting
art to gold and the indiscriminate applause
of the multitude. Art should be superior to
traffic, accessible only to intelligent under
standing and to love.
As I mused, a messenger entered and
handed me a telegram. It announced the
death of my maternal great-uncle, the Conde
de Quederos. The telegram said that before
the burial every effort had been made to
reach me, and that since there were no direct
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
888888888888888888888888888888888888823
heirs, I, as nearest in blood, inherited the
estate.
I could not grieve over my uncle s death.
I could not be expected to. I had never seen
him but once, and that was when I was a
child. In addition, I knew that he was old,
almost if not quite a centenarian, and that
long ago life must have lost its charm. My
heart warmed with gratitude toward that
kindly Fate which was bestowing favors
upon me. Only that morning I had medi
tated as to what place in Spain, now that my
parents were no more, I should choose for
a residence. Here was the problem solved
without effort on my part and in a most
pleasing manner.
I went directly to Cuenca, to the dead
Conde s castillo, to the heart of that old
Castile which the greedy Romans coveted.
As I entered, I read upon the fluted shield
above the door, "Adelante" (Go on). A
brave race truly, whose motto was never to
turn back.
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In the hall the lined-up servants met me,
and each addressed me gravely as Conde de
Quederos. That night I had a conference
with the steward as to the rooms which I
was to occupy.
"The finest suite in the castillo, Senor
mio, is the one the late Conde occupied. It
is called The Suite of the Mirrors. "
"Mirrors!" The word stirred responsive
memory. "Is not there a magic mirror, so
called, here in the castle? It seems to me
I remember having heard something of the
kind."
" Si, Senor mio. It is in the drawing-room
from which the suite takes its name. They
were all made by the late Conde s great
grandfather at La Granja. Mirror-making
was his hobby."
Yes, yes; now I recalled the stories my
mother had told. Aloud I said: "That is
the suite which shall be mine. Show me up."
"Shall I light the drawing-room?"
"No; open the blinds and leave me while
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you have my bags unpacked and my chamber
made ready."
The suite consisted of a bed-chamber with
dressing-room attached, and a sitting-room,
which from its size and adornment was
called "The Drawing-Room of the Mirrors."
Here I sat down to rest and smoke my
after-dinner cigar. The dim summer night
filled the ancient room with frail shadows,
making the mirrors, which reached from
floor to ceiling, look like pale plates of tar
nished steel.
I remembered it all now! It came back
in a vivifying flash of thought. The male
members of my mother s family, excepting
the late Conde, had been scientists enrages.
They had preferred, too, the delusive by
ways, the dangerous and insecure footings,
where fact borders upon fancy, where the
will-o -the-wisp of unrealized possibility lures
on. They had wasted life and impaired
their fortunes in following unattainable fan
cies and in trying to wrest from nature secrets
[96]
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
forbidden to man. They had been men of
strange vagaries and inexplainable passions,
who found the pleasure of existence in ways
not understood by others.
The great-grandfather of the late Conde
had been devoted to mirror-making. It was
his effort and his wealth that had brought
to La Gran j a the first Venetian specchiai,
and those who made verres de cristal and
wrested from them their secret. He sent to
England to Lord Buckingham and to France
to Colbert to purchase the knowledge of
their workmen in this fascinating art. And
it was he who made the sixteen mirrors in
the room in which I sat.
Indeed, the age in which he lived had been
mad over glass-making. The Council of
Ten of the Venetian Republic went so far as
to pass a law that its nobles might wed with
the glass-makers of Murano without loss of
caste. It was the only work which did not
detract from a great noble s dignity.
France imitated Venice and made a similar
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law. Spain, thanks to the effort of Conde
de Quederos, was not behind in the art.
Nor did the Conde lose standing among the
ancient nobility of Castile for the hours spent
at the furnace. With its introduction from
Italy had come likewise its patent of nobility.
After the old Conde had gratified his love
of mirror-making for years and had made
fifteen of the sixteen mirrors which hung in
the room in which I sat, his mind was teased
with the desire to make a magic mirror.
With this object in view, he devoted him
self to the chemistry of glass. He bought
all the books and ancient manuscripts pro
curable upon the subject. He thought of
nothing else. He talked of nothing else,
until it was commonly reported that he was
mad. He insisted that it was possible to
make a mirror of such exquisite purity, of
such lustrous depth, that, like that Borgian
glass which snapped in twain at the touch of
poison, it should refuse to reflect material
bodies and earthly substances and reproduce
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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only the impassioned dreams of the mind,
or the frail and insubstantial spirit forms
which, having once been on earth, hover
near in attempt to commune again with the
creatures of the flesh. What wonder they
called him mad!
A few days before his death, however, the
sixteenth mirror was brought from La Gran j a
and hung in the place reserved for it. Just
what this mirror was like I could not remem
ber having heard. The next night, when I
was less weary, I determined to have a look
at the old Conde s productions. In the
magic mirror I had no interest. The idea
was too absurd. It was a madman s dream.
The next evening I ordered the chande
liers to be lighted in the great drawing-room,
and with my violin tucked under my arm
hastened thither. It was a noble room that
lay revealed beneath the glitter of the swing
ing crystals. I was glad that I had not spoiled
the first effect by seeing it by day. It was
lofty, and long by some forty feet. The floor
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was worked out in a curiously dim-bright
design made of marble and ancient glass
bricks, in whose depth glowed mille fiori.
The ceiling was a richly resplendent canvas,
whereon were depicted giant figures repre
senting the loves of Hercules and Omphale.
The walls were made up of alternate panels
of mirrors, mural paintings continuing the
stories of classic lovers, and spaces of myste
riously colored and strangely wrought glass,
evidently rare and priceless specimens of the
ancient workmen of La Gran j a.
At a glance the mirrors seemed as much
alike as peas in a pod. They reached from
floor to ceiling. They were framed uniformly
in the heavily ornate frames with which
fifteenth-century Italy supplied the world.
Yet the effect was most lovely. Between
the feverish panels wherein the passion of
flame had prisoned restless colors and the
perfervid scenes of classic love, the mirrors
interposed spaces of pale neutrality and
mysterious calm. They afforded the relief
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that water affords in the out-of-door land
scape. Their unsoundable depths of silence
were like a telescopic glimpse into the night
of space. They were the mute and motion
less keepers of secrets of another world.
Their pale passivity was more pleasant than
silence. Yet at times they seemed to tell of
the possibilities of a spirit life which was
centered in colossal calm.
What artistry had been expended upon the
decoration of these walls! That dead uncle
could have been no ordinary man. My
heart thrilled with pride. It was worth
being called mad so to have understood the
values of light.
Drawing an easy-chair before the central
mirror, I took up my violin preparatory to
playing. Then I noticed that the frame of
the central mirror was unlike the others. I
looked about to make sure. Yes, it was the
only odd one. And odd enough it was, made
of closed flower buds, tiny eggs, and folded
leaves. It must mean something, that
[101]
THE MIRROR OF L\ GRAXJA
r> -- - r - ~ -r > - - r _->~ -
strange frame. It was not chosen with an
eye single to decorative ends. It was an
hieroglyph, a symbol. But what one? Each
detail represented the sleeping germ of a life
principle. In the egg, in the bud, life is
folded. They pointed to the mirror edge.
Did they mean that there too life was folded?
I leaned forward. The cold face of the
mirror confronted me. I started with fear.
I was not reflected in it! Nothing was re
flected in it! Not an article of furniture,
not a picture, not a bead of light from the
great chandelier above. I looked about,
This was the only odd mirror. I made sure
of that. All the others were a-quiver with
light and color. I held my hand in front of
it, I waved my violin to and fro. In vain!
They left not a trace upon its surface.
Prickly fear crept over me, I shivered as if
from touch of the dead or sweep of their
icy breath. The mirror s pallid passivity
added to the horror. It was the silent mock
ery of the dead. And this horror was born,
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
not of midnight noises and visions, but of
silence and the splendor of light.
Only last night in this very room I had
called my uncle a madman, a dreamer.
How ashamed did I feel of my vain conceit
of the evening, confronted with this produc
tion of his skill! It was as if some towering
ghost smiled down scornful pity upon me,
who stood there dancing about like a maniac
in the effort to wrest a responsive reflection
from that mute surface. Never had any
thing so undone me, so set me a-tremor with
discomfort. I was in touch with something
of which I knew nothing, with an unknown
force whose extent and power I could not
measure.
Controlling my nervousness, I sat down to
contemplate the glass. It was like looking
into the depths of a pellucid lake, whose
surface had never been rumpled by wind or
blurred with light. It was like a glance down
infinitudes of space, clearly gray and sweetly
translucent, but beyond the farthest rim of
[1031
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
the worlds where not even star dust floated.
It was a place where, defiant of natural law,
light existed without object. It was a void
over which nature had no power. It was a
pale inanity, the antithesis of the life prin
ciple which is motion. It was a powerful
and repellent nothing. A sickening dizzi
ness assailed me. I felt as if I were perched
upon the edge of an abyss wherein material
substances were lost. I was conscious of a
peculiar revulsion, a sort of mental nausea
such as is experienced when watching a ser
pent move, throwing off electric vibrations
at variance with the human organism.
This, then, was the mirror of the dead!
It was a place for spectres to disport them
selves ! It was the gray shadow world where
phantoms dwelled! Who could guess what
slept within its depths! Who could guess
what was looking out upon me now which
my physical self could not discern!
I closed my eyes to shut out the sight and
lifted the violin. The bow, as if moved by
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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an impulse of its own, struck the slow, pro
longed, high notes which announce the
Saraband. An inspiration! Why should not
I popularize the dance music of Spain as
Chopin had that of Poland? /
For a time I played on, repeating old airs
and improvising new ones,Jbut ever recur
ring to the Saraband. Nervousness vanished.
Others had put up with this non-committal
mirror, why should not I? Courage returned.
Music exercised its old magic. Again I
cared for nothing save my art.
I do not know how long this musical rev
erie had lasted when, opening my eyes, I
saw in the depths of the mirror, but far, far
away, a dim white figure. I was playing
the Saraband. I noticed that when certain
notes were struck the figure could be seen
more plainly, that it grew in distinctness
and came nearer, while others made it recede
and fade away.
Was it the creation of my bow? Now
for the first time was the demon-compelling
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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power of Paganini mine? Through contem
plation of that crystal surface had I purged
my soul of impeding impurities, as if, denuded
of clothes, I had swept through space and
bathed in its crystal ozone? Had not the
tones of my violin changed too? I listened
critically. Yes; they had a certain heart
quality which had been lacking, a luscious,
singing richness, colorful and sweet. The
single tone, divorced from melody, filled me
with delight. Ambition leaped to giant
height. Fear vanished. I could subdue the
world I I, Lopez Manrico ! I bent to
my playing. Each time it was the Saraband
that evoked the image. No other melody
whatsoever had the power to do it. And
there were certain phrases and turns of this
that had especial effect upon it. Once I
thought that I could discern the features of
the figure, and I did glimpse it firmly enough
to know that it was the figure of a woman.
How I tried to prolong the notes that were
creating beneath my eyes that evanescent
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being! How, by trained trickery, did I try
to prolong the instrument s power of tone
extension! It was useless. Strength failed.
My arm grew weak and fell of its own accord,
and the vision paled and faded.
The old Counts of Quederos had been
scientists, I meditated. One had devoted
himself jtx> the relation of sound to the human
body, v,/ Perhaps he had left a record of his
discoveries. I would go to the library and
see. At least the books that he had studied
would be there. Excepting only the Imperial
Library, the Castillo de Quederos contained
the finest collection of rare books and
manuscripts in Spain.
I ran to the room and lighted all the lights.
Ardor of investigation filled me. If the
problem could be solved, I would do it. Was
it not a duty, too, since in a way the power
lay with me? " Le genie s oblige. "
Here were the books of the old glass-
maker, probably arranged just as he had
left them: John Pechon s treatise on optics,
[1071
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dating from the thirteenth century; Birin-
guccio s receipts for glass-making; Gar-
zoni s chemistry of glass; the three books of
Eraclius, who, in the early thirteenth cen
tury, got together all that was then known
of the art. I took down the third volume.
It opened at the seventh chapter, where
begin the receipts for compounding the sub
stance. This was not what I wanted. Nor
did I care more for the poets Lopez Men-
doza, Ha Levi, nor the private letters of
Cib-dareal, precious as they are.
As I replaced the latter, I felt something
behind it. Inserting my hand, I pulled out
a gilded cylinder. Within it lay a manu
script in an unknown tongue, and with it a
translation made by a Spanish Jew. The
manuscript proved to be The Resurrecting
Powers of Science by Abu Hamid Algazali of
Bagdad. Something told me that my search
was rewarded. I pulled a chair beneath the
nearest light and there, until day, perused
the parchment. It had suffered many a
[108]
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midnight perusal. Finger marks were upon
it, and it was frayed and soiled. I read:
"Each body is responsive to a tone or a
combination of tones.
"Each body is, in a sense, a musical in
strument whose vibrating strings are taut
nerves and muscles.
"The circulating blood sings a song.
"Heart-beats describe a melody.
"One of the energies wrapped up in the
life principle is a musical chord.
"It is possible for music, if the right tone
be discovered, to arrest ebbing life force, or
to call back those who have passed beyond."
"To call back those who have passed
beyond!" Here it was! Now I understood.
I had unwittingly hit upon the chord that
vibrated in unison with the mirror vision.
What a possibility lay before me! I could
read no more. Dizzy with the discovery, I
went to bed. I did not even pause to view
the wonder of the dawn that was bleaching
the night pale.
[109]
When again night came, I hastened to
the drawing-room. I lighted every light. I
locked and bolted the door. I would not
permit an interruption.
Then I took the melody of the Saraband
and transposed it from key to key. In this
way the tone I sought could not elude me.
The first notes of the dance evoked the
figure, but it was so far away, so dim, it was
scarcely more than a breath s shadow. It
was only with the key of F minor that a
change came. Then the figure grew more
distinct. Features were visible. It took on
color, firm form. It came floating on, on,
on, toward me, until within the glass just a
few feet away stood a lithe, brown, Moorish
girl. My heart choked me with its beating.
It was all that I could do to command
strength with which to continue the music.
Very gracefully she swayed to the melody
of the Saraband, but she danced it in a way
that was new to me. On her head rested
a tiny cap fringed with vari-colored gems.
[110]
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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She wore white muslin trousers, very full,
gathered at the ankle with bells of gold,
whose tongues were little stones that looked
like flame. The upper part of her body was
covered with a tight-fitting vest of pale blue,
picked out in silver, and a tight-fitting coat
of yellow satin, both of which were open to
the waist, disclosing the brown skin. From
under the cap her hair fell in long braids,
intertwined with coral. Her little bare feet
were encased in slippers with gem-studded
heels. She was evidently a Moorish dancing-
girl, but of an age long, long gone by.
She had the small head and the broad low
brow of ancient races; eyes long, dark, and
somber, accented by brows as " delicately
arched as those of the pictured Cenci; " a
mouth whose warm red undercurve contra
dicted the saddened eyes.
She was a frail and febrile copy of Da
Vinci s St. Marguerite, who, despite her
saintship, is a Spanish dancing-girl in a
moment of repose. There was something
[111]
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about her that stimulated the powers of
life, that created a passionate and imperious
music which flooded the soul with desire.
But it was the eyes that held my atten
tion longest. They clung to mine with an
unwavering glance. In them lay a mute
appeal. They looked at me piteously, long
ingly. They implored help of me. They
were like eyes that look from the other side
of the grave with the hope that by not los
ing sight of mine they could draw themselves
back and up again to the light. They
begged for life. At that moment I would
have lain down my own life to give momen
tary reality to hers.
Nor did she dance continuously like the
puppet of my bow. She possessed indepen
dent life. She paused and waved and beck
oned with her little hands. She tried to make
me understand her dumb sign language,
but always in her eyes there was that look
of piteous questioning.
She was so frail and bright! She was like
eese&eseseseeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeesesesegees
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
egsseseseseeeesesggsessesdsesgseegsssgs
a butterfly made of gauzeX A breath could
crush her. Yet she danced bravely to please
me, to win my applause. Poor little lonely
dancer ! Who could be more unsuited to the
shadow world? x Never had I so realized the
cruelty of death. Never had I so rebelled
against it. What had her crisp muslins, her
satins, and her frivolous graces to do with
death! I longed to clasp her in my arms, to
breathe my own life breath into her, to
shield her from that awful fear. **
Her eyes looked into mine. Her soul
spoke to mine and was understood, but her
body I could not reach. It was, perhaps,
ages away. It was not space that separated
us; it was something crueler far. It was
time ! +
Suddenly a tremor passed over her. What
was it! Ah! yes, my weary arm had fal
tered in its playing. The little face quiv
ered with fear. She held out her arms in
mute appeal. I was helpless. The exhausted
muscles refused to obey. My arm fell to
[1131
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my side. She floated away, away down the
dim, gray, mirror vista, her little hands flut
tering a sad farewell.
When I put out the lights and leaned from
the window for a moment for a whiff of fresh
air, I found that the night had gone and that
the dawn was streaking faintly the fields and
hills.
That day I slept only until noon. Nervous
tension prevented rest. The remainder of
the day I lounged in the library or idled
on the verandas, living over again in thought
the incidents of the night. For months this
was my life. Not once did I leave the castillo,
although invitations from the neighboring
gentry and my uncle s friends poured in
upon me. Nor indeed, during this time,
did I see any one but the servants. I denied
myself to visitors. I thought only of my
Moorish love. I dreamed only of her in the
few day hours devoted to sleep. Several
times I saw the servants touch their fore
heads significantly when they passed me,
[114]
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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and I heard them whisper, "The madness
of the De Quederos!"
My life now took on an excessive value.
Did not another depend upon it? Without
me my Moorish love was dead. With me
she enjoyed a semi-being. At times I suf
fered the most torturing fear lest accident
to me condemn her forever to oblivion. The
thought shook my soul.
Each night when my playing evoked her,
she begged more piteously for life, and I,
who so gladly would have granted it, was
powerless. Each night her sign language
was more comprehensible, more eloquent of
longing and of love. Each night my love
for her grew greater. WTien the hour for
parting came, I felt grjfef such as they who
bury those they love.| How could I know
where she went, what horrors encompassed
her ! How could I know what difficulties she
had conquered to come to me ! How could I
know that she would ever come again!
By day the burden of my mind was to
[115]
know where, only to know where, she was!
Not even the feverish imaginings of my
heart could frame an answer.
/ At night, when lights began to twinkle in
the little houses of the village and the stars
to show one by one, I looked out and cursed
them, because I knew that in not one of
them all was she. In all the broad firmament
she was not. She alone, my Moorish love,
had no share in the sweetness of the spring.
I grew to hate the world that had cast her
off. I became a solitary. How could I be
expected to mingle with people, to leave the
castillo ! Would it not be murder to do so
even for the space of a night? Not all crimes
are amenable to law. Her life depended
upon me. Absence meant death. Could I
condemn her I loved to one unnecessary hour
within the grave? Did I not always see,
sleeping or waking, the piteous eyes that t/
begged for life? Did I not always see the
mouth that tried to smile, to coquette, de
spite the death-fear that drooped it?
[116]
I
esesssseeesseeees&eeseeeeseeeeessessess
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But how could I explain this to the Conde s
friends? Had I done so, they would not have
understood. I really believe they would
have called me mad. I persisted in silent
refusals.
What a fate was mine! I loved a woman
who was separated from me by the centuries.
/I loved a phantom, a vision, a self-created
y mirage. I, alone, knew that this vision
possessed life. Night after night we con
versed by signs. Eyes looked into eyes,
soul into soul, yet might we never join hands
or lips. We saw each other plainly, yet
might our voices never bridge the chasm of
the ages. Within arm s reach of me she stood,
and smiled and beckoned, yet I had not
the power to touch her. Her red lips voiced
messages to me, but the wind of ages rushed
between and swept them away to bury within
soundless silence. What torture was this!
What inexplainable suffering! In subtle
pun shment the curse of Tantalus was not
its kin.
1117]
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
Only to the violin could I confide my sor
row. I threw away my music. My heart
alone dictated. Thus I poured forth my long
ing, my unsatisfied passion, and my grief.
Thus I voiced my anger, my hatred of men, of
life, my rage against that silent and invisible
God who mocked me with his might, and
reduced my endeavor to puny impotence.
Sometimes, when cruel notes shivered the
air, and sharp discords all but snapped the
strings, I caught sight of the frightened faces
of the servants coming one by one, a-tiptoe,
to peer at me. Or below I saw teamsters turn
sharply to avoid the castillo and the Roman
bridge beneath my window. Too, there
were fewer travelers on the road of late.
Less often sounded the friendly mule bell.
The simple peasants were terrified by the
sounds of hate and rage. The servants, too,
feared me. They believed me to be "pos
sessed." The old steward, alone, had a
different opinion. He attributed my pecu
liarities to drink or infatuation for a woman.
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The more so since of late no one had been
admitted to my rooms. One day the kind
old fellow touched my arm in a fatherly
manner and whispered, "Mi hijo, ninos y
vinos son mal a guardar!"
It was too late for the kindly offices of
friends. I was hopelessly given over to an
infatuation. I had lost regard for appear
ances. I did not care.
Swiftly the days slipped by. I paid as
little heed as do they who live under emo
tional strain. ^Spring deepened into summer;
autumn came. In time its color faded be-
/neath the mists of November. Before I
knew it, la noche de los difuntos (the night /
when the dead come back) was at hand.
It pleased me to think that then I could
celebrate my wedding with the dead. For
the occasion I had the great drawing-room
filled with flowers. At the last moment the
caprice seized me to don the state costume of
a courtier of Philip the Second. Then I drew
a gilt couch of old brocade in front of the
[119]
mirror and with closed eyes began to impro
vise upon the dance.
Suddenly a little hand touched my shoul
der and a voice whispered: "Will you not
look at me, now that I have come?"
There she was beside me, and more lovely
by half when freed from the mirror s
gray ness.
"But you will you not tell me who
you are?" I whispered back in an ecstasy
of love.
"Zarabanda."
" Zarabanda! "
"Yes, why not?"
"The Moorish love of Philip the Second?"
Passion and its artistic embodiment, music,
had made my love outlast the empire that
gave her birth. She had survived Spain and
its splendor.
I was perched upon a dizzy height indeed.
Below me the gray centuries unfolded.
At the word "Philip" grief contracted
her face.
[120]
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
"Oh, Philip! Philip! Will you not call
him? Will you not let me see him? I will
never ask it of you again. You need not be
afraid because he is a great king. Give him
this," taking a bracelet of peculiar work
manship from her arm and handing it toward
me. "He will understand. He will come
anywhere for me."
Grief filled my heart. It was not I she
loved I, who had recreated her, who had
brought her back from the grave. It was
not I she thought of, but that cruel and
long-dead king.
"Believe me, my little love, I would do
anything for you but this which is im
possible."
"Just once, please, just once! He was so
handsome, Philip, and he loved me so. Be
fore he married Mary of England he took me
to Granada, to the town of the wall of a thou
sand towers. There he would have married
me, had it not been for Perez, the Great
Minister!"
[121]
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
se&sssessesseseeseeeee&eesssssseessesss
At mention of that name a shiver passed
over her, the memory of an ancient fear, set
ting crisply a- jingle the gems upon her cap
and the gold bells on her trousers.
"There I invented the Saraband. It was
the dance he loved, and he named it for me.
All Spain danced it then.
"One day he was called away by a court
messenger from Madrid. When he left, he
swore to marry me. On a certain day I was
to meet him, having sent word three days
before. Then he was to marry me and make
me queen!
" But as soon as he went, I was seized and
imprisoned. I could not send him word. I
never saw him again. Oh, please let me tell
him why. He thinks I failed him. Let me
tell him why!"
"I would do it if I could. I would do any
thing for you, but how can I?"
"Why? Philip is not " Her dark face
blanched, fear leaped into her eyes. "Philip
is not dead? "
[122]
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v I nodded. Not a word did she say, but
tears came to her eyes and fell slowly, one
by one, upon her little hands. Never before
had I realized the word s leaden weight. It
was a plummet line that found the heart of
grief. /
"Then there is nothing more to live
for!"
The words pierced me like a dagger. I
knew how complete was her indifference
to me.
"How long ago did he die?" she asked,
with a sigh that shook her body as a ground
swell shakes the sea.
Could I tell her? That would mean an
other grief.
"Tell me when he died; how long ago."
"In 1598."
"And now what year is it?"
"1898. Three hundred years."
" Three hundred years he has slept and
dreamed me false! And now I can never
tell him!"
[123]
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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My heart forgot its suffering in sympathy
for her.
"Now I can never tell him!"
Silence fell between us. She forgot my
presence, so complete was her absorption in
the past.
I The breath of the late autumn came
through the ancient windows, slanting for
an instant the flames of chandeliers and
sconces until they looked like an army s
bloody spears upraised in flight. Opposite
the mute mirror oppressed me with its sug
gestion of nothingness and of space. The
flowers, too, became restless and shivered,
as if some foreign element had disturbed
them.
As I thought thus gloomily, the little
brown hand fell on mine, and the voice
whose sound was like the veiled tone-sweet
ness of a harp was saying:
"Then, if it was so long ago, you did
not know Tiziano, who painted me, did
you?"
[124]
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How pitiful was this effort to be gay!
" Tiziano-was-a-noble-man-f rom- Venezia.
The words were hyphenated with sighs.
"Oh, he was a very great painter! He
said I was the loveliest woman in Europe.
The court ladies were wild with envy. But
he would have none of them. It was I he
wanted I I ! He painted me lying beside
an open window, a Cupid holding a crown
above my head. At my feet sat Philip
Philip, the king, at my feet! There is a
little cap upon his head, and he is playing
the Saraband upon his lute. In the back
ground I made him paint the highland coun
try of Madrid, which I should look out upon
when I was queen
"Yes!" I interrupted excitedly, unable
to stand more. "Philip might have given
you a crown; I have given you life. Which
is greater? Whom do you owe the most?
Have you no thought of me? My love has
brought you back from the grave, and now
you think only of him!"
[125]
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The little hand on mine fluttered sensi
tively. I grasped it. Its delicate touch
made me recall what I had read of the fine
skin texture of women of the dark races. I
pressed my lips to it with delight. From it
came a peculiar odor, as from some unknown
exotic, which took the senses captive.
VUntil now I had never loved a woman. I
had loved pictures, I had loved marbles, but
a living woman never. Acquaintance with
the most exquisite and exacting of arts had
perhaps made my senses superfine. The
slightest physical imperfection was sufficient
to spoil my pleasure. Old age that phys
ical memory of many wearinesses filled
me with disgust. Of love I did not ask a
return, but the near presence of something
faultless, something which might never pall
upon my senses, something which I might
love unrestrainedly.^
During the years of concert giving I had
been attracted by beautiful faces, but ac
quaintance seldom failed to dispel the glam-
[ 126]
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our. Their possessors were self-seeking, vain,
frivolous. Disgust took the place of admi
ration. It was a disagreeable sensation which
I did not like to endure for the second time,
to find a woman of delicate and sensitive
beauty possessed of the grasping nature of a
miser, or caring only for detail of practical
things. Nothing in womankind had made
me so dislike the race as this union of external
beauty and prosaic practicability.
Here, for the first time, was a woman
whom I could love. She had none of the
traits of the modern woman. She could not
prate of things that disgusted and bored me.
In her eyes there was no consciousness of the
life I detested. She was mine in a very real
sense because I had created her. I measured
the greatness of my love by the knowledge
that I could love on while knowing that her
heart was another s. If one loves, it is not
necessary to be loved in return. Love is its
own reward. Already I felt its ennobling
influence.
[127]
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Ah! how she enchanted my soul leaning
there against the high gilt sofa s end! Her
black braids swept the floor. Her brown
feet from which the slippers had fallen were
folded childishly, showing little pink nails
a-shine.
Every gem of color on her costume was like
the dropping of a note of liquid melody into
my soul. She was an exquisite toy of flesh
fashioned for love. She was a fine-wrought
gem of palest bronze, from which the swing
ing lights struck cream and amber gleams.
"Zarabanda, my Moorish love! You shall
learn to care for me and forget him. I
swear it! What a life we will lead together,
you and I! He could have brought Spain
to your feet. I will bring the world. You
shall see! You shall see! I will bring the
world. I will show this modern age which
loves ugliness I will show it the noble
type of antique beauty!" Thus I raved in
my infatuated dream.
My fervor moved her. She sat up erect.
[128]
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
eeese&eeeessseeesseeeeessseeseeseeeseee,
The jewels on her cap danced brightly.
She leaned toward me. I saw that my suit
was not to be in vain. The look of piteous
fear within her eyes which had so haunted
me for months was gone. In its place there
was a look which, had she possessed no other
charm, would have bound me to her forever.
How shall I describe it?
It was the essence of that which I missed
in modern pictures which represent antique
life. It was just that which I missed in the
women of Tadema. It was just that which
their eyes had not. It was a look made
up of the accumulated days of living a life
totally dissimilar to our own, a life made up
of dissimilar thoughts, pleasures, needs. In
short, I saw within the eyes of Zarabanda
the soul of a vanished age. My mind was
filled with a thousand fancies.
Looking at her, I sensed vividly the im
perial love-hours of Moorish beauties who
had wantoned by the wall of a thousand
towers. Their purple and palpitant past
[ 129]
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engulfed me. The penetrating color- joy of
pagan pageants swept my senses, leaving a
myriad burnished points of thought. The
voluptuous phantoms of past pleasures in
toxicated me. The life that pagan Spain
had lived in ancient days, before Chris
tianity had come to make bitter upon its
lips the wine of joy, was distilled within my
soul. Love, thought, creative fire, lifted
life to divinest height, intensifying all its
powers.
Before my feverish and exalted fancy there
rose a vision of the East, the personified
East, the seductive East, the glorious and
sensuous East, swathed in a robe of mist
which palpitated like the voluptuous veins
of women when the tide of love is high.
This vision inundated my senses in a shim
mering wave, which rolled its long, foaming
coils of pleasure over me.
Bending down, I folded her in my arms.
I felt her little brown arm slip round my
neck, its softness rivaling the down beneath
[130]
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a sea-gull s wing. The penetrating Eastern
perfumes struck my face, the blended sweet
ness of aloes and ambergris. Her brown
breasts became two moons of gold beneath
the shadowy twilight of her throat. The
thick hair with its trailing braids was an
Eden of dim and amorous ways, where a
promise dwelled. As I drew her nearer,
her eyes became black lakes. Exquisitely
pale her face was, like warm ivory. Nearer
and nearer to me the red mouth came; I
knew that upon it dwelled all the sweetness
and all the savors of the South. My lips
just brushed it, when, with a reverberant
crash, the great mirror fell and shivered in
a thousand pieces. My arms encircled the
empty air. She was gone gone, and
forever.
Thick dust of powdered chemicals, with
which the glass was coated, filled the air.
I hastened to gain the window. Something
fell at my feet. It was her bracelet.
I reached the window just as the sun, its
[1311
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THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
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red rays throbbing like a crown of blood,
dipped above the horizon line. By its angry
glare I read upon the golden band, which
was all that remained to me now of my
one night of joy, "Philip, To His Moorish
Love."
[132]
LISZT S CONCERTO PATHETIQUE
TT was in the winter of 1906 that the fol-
- lowing remarkable incidents were com
municated to me, and truly in a most re
markable manner. But who may say what
shall be the intermediary link, the invisible
tie to connect us with the facts of a van
ished past? Who may say what vague but
mentally potent beings dwell on the border
line separating the real from the unreal,
floating up perhaps from unthinkable depths
of time and space, there to await the pro
pitious moment for tapping some nerve of
consciousness in us and establishing tele
graphic communication with the soul? Over
these spirit wires of thought and feeling
they flash faint messages. They set the
nerves a-tingle with the consciousness of an
infinity of unknown lives surrounding our
own, of invisible electric bodies that shock
[133]
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us into the recovery of forgotten memories,
of the realization of a limitless land that
spreads beside us and upon the verge of
which we live precariously poised.
On an afternoon in the winter of 1906 I
attended a concert given by two well-known
pianists. The piece de resistance of the con
cert it was for this that I had come -
was a two-piano number, the Concerto Pa-
thetique of Liszt, that sonorous tone tragedy
with its wildly dramatic incidents, inter
rupted from time to time by a melody of
more than mortal sweetness. As I listened,
annoyed by the movements of seat compan
ions, the bobbing black heads in front, or the
dry winter light that filtered through a win
dow to the right, striking sharply a corsage
ornament or a jewel, and projecting into
my eyes daggered light as from a crystal
ball, suddenly my surroundings vanished,
and I found myself alone looking out across
a land that I had never seen.
Before me lay a twilight desert, somber and
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lonely. Gray sand, uninterrupted by tree
or dwelling, as undulating and as barren as
the sea, stretched on and on. After a time
I discovered that it was not twilight that
caused the dimness. Upon the horizon there
was nothing to indicate the vanishing of a
sun or the future rising of a moon. Within
the sky there were no stars. A Cimmerian
twilight lay over all. I realized then that it
was some place of purgatorial punishment,
where sweet light did not come nor green
earth growths, nor rain, nor the sound of
leaves. It was a place of puzzling incom
pleteness and fragmentary physical form.
There were arms twisted and bony and
unattached to bodies, whose bent-fingered
hands thirsted for cruelty or itched for gold.
There were legs wrinkled and withered with
pain and curved fantastically. There were
backs bowed by the bearing of burdens, and
a multitude of winged and awful faces form
ing a discordant chromatic scale of miseries,
now flashing out leering and wanton smiles,
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and anon fading away into monotonous
gray ness.
It was a land of disembodied pain, where
the shadow forms of sorrow dwelled. Re
gret, remorse, shame, misery, and anguish
here got themselves clothed in unearthly
substances, and strained futilely earthward
where repentance lay. Here evil thoughts
and desires were at once translated into
form, swiftly to fade back again by un
countable disgusting gradations to the in-
substantiality of dreams.
Across this desert a woman fled, breathless
with haste and terror. She was young,
scarcely more than a child, as years count,
and she would have been beautiful had not
her features been disfigured by grief. Out
behind, a long black robe floated like an em
blem of evil, giving to her appearance a cer
tain cloistral touch. Closer inspection proved
it to be a nun s cloak. It was unfastened
and thrown hastily about her where it was
held together by one small nervous hand.
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Her hair, which was pale gold, was short-
cropped and curly, and bore the imprint of
a close covering. There was something
pitiful in these little clustering curls of faded
gold, which were down-soft like the hair on
a baby s neck. They told of helplessness and
youth. Now in places they were darkened
by the perspiration of fear. Cloistral life
and the nun s hood had bleached her face
and given to it a marble pallor, until it
seemed to radiate light in the general dimness.
/Her eyes were a dark ethereal blue. In their
depths lay a light made of blended pain,
passion, and regret. As the hideous sand
monsters drifted toward her, threatening to
block her way, then vanished to reshape
themselves into still more hideous forms,
childishly she opened her mouth to call for
help. But no sound issued from her lips,
although the little chin quivered piteously.
I knew that she was dumb and could not
speak.
As she sped on, upborne by an unnatural
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energy, there rang out upon the desert air a
melody of more than mortal sweetness, the
brief and broken fragment of a phrase. As
the music died away upon the moonless
space, there fell across the sand the pallid
cold radiance of a cross, but so far away, so
etherealized by space and distance, that it
was scarcely more than a shadow s shadow.
At first, I thought that the music was in
some inexplicable way related to the beauty
of her face that perhaps they were one.
There was a similarity between them. Both
set to vibrating the same responsive fibers of
the heart. Both were penetratingly sweet,
yet touched with sorrow.
Further consideration proved this conjec
ture to be vain, and that the music came
from some alien yet nearby place. I could
see by the woman s face that it caused her
joy and sorrow, and I felt that it always
sang on in her heart, and that her trembling
lips tried to frame its sounds. Yet in
some way I could not understand it kept
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her forever outside the radiance of the
cross.
Again and again it rang out a melody
of more than mortal sweetness. And each
time the woman hastened her pace. The
face of the desert began to change, and in
the distance there was something that lay
like the shimmer of light. I watched it as it
grew brighter. Colors were distinguishable.
It was a garden! Oh, the yearning in her
face! Oh, the effort with which she sum
moned strength to reach it! Her eyes grew
black with determination. Her little curls
were spotted with moisture. Sweeter and
more penetrating became the breath of
melody. It winged her feet with courage.
It put strength into her heart. Yes, yes,
there it lay! A fresh, bright, green garden,
where a happy multitude of tiny blue and
white flowers grew. Over it iris-winged
insects fluttered. The sun shone resplen-
dently. Here was the home of the melody.
Its sweetness was that of love and the fullness
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of life. Now the radiance of the cross no
longer touched the sandy waste. It re
mained high in the air, aloof and far, a wan
gold shadow of exquisite remoteness, like
the ghost of a vanished joy.
As she drew nearer, more intense became
the light that fell upon the garden. It be
came a blue and dazzling glory, beneath
which the tiny flowers expanded and ex
panded until they were lilies of mammoth
size and proportion. Oh, so lustrous, so
satin soft, so voluptuously lovely was their
texture! A rare fragrance filtered from
them through the sand-thick air, a lan
guorous, seductive, benumbing fragrance,
like the intangible soul of pleasure. When
again the music came, the giant lily buds
burst open, disclosing in place of pistil and
stamen the white glorious bodies of women,
whose hair outfloated in bright crinkles like
blown flame, and whose feet trod an amorous
measure.
Now I knew whence the music came. It
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was made by the twining beauty of seduc
tive arms, the swaying of bright torsos, the
interlacing of lithe limbs, the argent light
struck from bared breasts and brows. It
was their white passion, their wanton love
liness, their amorous longing, their electric,
vital, and indomitable youth translated into
tone.
Far above the desert now, the wan cross
hung in dim remoteness, a faint frown of light,
withdrawing coldly into the depths of space.
The garden glory touched the woman s
face. The sand monsters fell back, no longer
encumbering her. Happiness and courage
shone from her eyes. The journey was
nearly over. A step a dozen steps and
she would have gained the garden. She was
all but there. She flung away the convent
cloak. The sweet wind lifted the little curls
upon her brow. A blue lily leaned amo
rously to meet her, its petals ready to enfold
her. The strange light swathed her about
like a robe. The melody touched her heart
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to joy. She was ready to grasp a waiting
flower; one white hand reached for it, when
a thunder of many wings was heard.
From across the desert, from the sky above,
a multitude of blackish green-winged mon
sters, darkening the air to a dun midnight,
dashed down. Their black and sullen bodies,
outspread wing on wing, shut out the garden
and formed a hideous wall of crawling heads.
The great wings surrounded and engulfed
her, beating her back back back with
lightning-like rapidity. Away, away, away
they swept her, so swiftly that the desert was
left behind. And still they swept her on and
on, across another land a land of granite,
bleak and sterile and black, whose darkness
was shivered from time to time by the angry
glare of whirling swords that formed the
mighty gate of a realm of night. Here the
whirring wings uplifted her. She had no
more hold upon the earth. Below, above,
beside, were depth on depth of overlapping
wings. Once, for an instant, the swaying,
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fluttering band fell back. Sharp sword light
streaked her face. I saw its white horror
and the little curls a-dance with fear. Then
more monsters came rushing. The earth
and the air were a-quiver with wings. There
was a rush and a roar. There was a noise as
of many waters. Then the monsters swept
away into the land of darkness beyond, where
nothing was distinguishable, where there was
no measurement of time or space. Again
the granite land was lone and silent, its gray
immovableness disturbed only by the swing
ing gate of swords, which streaked the rocks
with floating ribbons of light.
[1431
,/
SISTER SERAPHINE
T^l 7"E were sitting upon the terrace of
* Chateau Chateauroux in the early
evening the old Comtesse M ,
Mischna Stepanoff, and myself. It was
the time of the first soft warmth of spring.
Two blossoming fruit trees beside us were
sweet ghosts in the early night. About
them white butterflies fluttered.
In the west there were great piled clouds
edged with a pink as rare and as wonderful
as that which Watteau created for his frail
creatures of joy. And this pink was reflected
in soft broken ribbons in the gently moving
surface of the Loire.
"What a night for love!" sighed Mischna
Stepanoff, in whose life the passion had
played no unimportant part.
"Yes," I replied, "love and youth and
spring; they are earth s immortal trinity."
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" That reminds me of a story a true
story of spring and youth and love,"
sighed reminiscently the old Comtesse, who
had been a famous beauty in her day.
"Tell it to us," urged Mischna Stepanoff.
"Next to being in love oneself is the pleas
ure of listening to the stories of other people
who have been in love."
"But I feel that I cannot do justice to it,"
objected the old Comtesse. "It is a story for
the pen of Maupassant, who wrote of the tress
of hair. It might have been included among
the pagan and Oriental dreams of Gautier,
or such fragile and dainty reminiscences of
youth as De Nerval occasionally indulged in.
What could I do with a fancy like that?"
"Tell it, anyway," we insisted.
"Well, what I lack, your own greater
imaginative skill must supply," smiling
and waving deprecatingly toward us a tiny
jeweled hand.
"It is the strangest, the most interesting
story in the world. And it is true.
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"Over there where the hills step aside to
make room for the passing of the Loire, is
the ruin of a convent which you have prob
ably noticed. In my youth it was inhab
ited by Les Soeurs Blanches, a well-conducted
and aristocratic order of nuns, who edu
cated the daughters of the old noblesse.
"One day I paid a visit there and for the
first time saw Sister Seraphine. She was
about eighteen then, I should judge, al
though she had already taken the final
vows. I was at once attracted by her face
and her strange beauty. The upper part of
the face the brow, the eyes, the nose
were those of an ascetic, a dreamer, an in
tellectual. The brow was nobly formed
and broad; the nose chastely chiseled and
modeled to an artist s taste; and the eyes
were the spiritual gray-blue of the mystic.
The eyes were very beautiful, too mistily
humid, like the valley of our Loire here on a
morning of spring.
" But the mouth ! How can I tell you what
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esssesseeeeeeseeseegeeesseeeeeeeesseeas
it was like! There will never be another in
the world like it. In its color alone there
were hidden all the sins of earth. Such a
color might have been born from the con
flagration of a world, or in the feverish
brain of some sightless dreamer. In its
curves there was all the resistless languor
of a mediaeval mondaine, or a voluptuous
Roman woman who had idled in the villas
of Baise. Imagine, if you will, such a mouth
beneath that ascetic brow ! It was the cause
of her undoing, too and her ruin.
"It contradicted the rest of her face so
sharply that it was as if she werertwo per
sons in one.j It threw the beholder into a
sort of stupefaction. It made him feel as if
he had stumbled awkwardly upon some un
guarded secret. It was that rarest of all
features a perfect mouth! And yet, per
chance, I think its perfection was a trifle
over-accented. It was, I think, a shade too
red, too alluring, too sensuous. It was a
veritable Cupid s bow set about with mock-
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ing dimples that changed like light on the
mobile surface of the Loire.
"No one could have known less of the
world than Sister Seraphine. She had been
placed with Les Sceurs Blanches when she
was four years old. And she had never once
left their sheltering care. She was of noble
blood, too, although the bar sinister black
ened her birth record. On her father s side,
it was whispered, she came of that royal
blood of old France that had never known
the meaning of fear. And her mother was
the gay Comtesse of Marny.
"Now in all her young life Sister Sera
phine had never seen a man except the village
priests and those who sat on Sundays be
yond the grating in the church. Think of
it! Can you even imagine such a condition!
Every holiday and fete day before her final
vows were taken, plans had been made to
give her an outing in the great world, to in
troduce her to that society to which by
birth she belonged. But, some way or other,
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each time the plans miscarried. Some other
person s welfare and happiness intervened,
had to be considered first. The result was
that she had never left the convent walls.
"Shortly after this first visit of mine, the
Duchesse de St. Loisy presented to the con
vent two long mirrors for the reception room.
About this same time Sister Seraphine was
put in charge of the room to receive guests
and the relatives of the jeunes demoiselles
on visiting days. Callers at the convent were
not very frequent in those days. Traveling
facilities were not what they have come to
be since, so Sister Seraphine was left alone
for hours in the great room.
" Here she acquired the habit of looking at
herself in one of the mirrors. At first eyes
stared blankly back at eyes. She could not
see herself. It is difficult, always, to get ac
quainted with oneself. That to me, Mischna
Stepanoff, has been one of the pleasures of
living to find within me things that I did
not dream were there. Sister Seraphine after
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a while discovered her mouth. She was sur
prised, as you may imagine. It was as if it
were the mouth of some strange unknown
person who dwelled within her. It was
the other made visible !
"Soon she sensed, rather than reasoned,
that it was in harmony with the fragrant
creative spring outside; that she was part
of an universal nature that lived and laughed.
It seemed to her that even in repose her
mouth laughed. It was like the pagan sun
shine, which always laughed. She became
interested in her mouth. She became fasci
nated with the many things that it expressed,
with its color, its flexibility, and its capac
ity for joyous sensation, if by chance she
touched it to a flower.
"One night, just before she closed and
left the great room for the night, she leaned
long by the mirror s edge looking up at the
stars through a near-by window. They were
merry that night, the stars. It was spring,
which is youth in the world, and they
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SISTER SERAPHINE
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laughed. They laughed so gayly, so allur
ingly, that she turned impulsively and kissed
her own mouth in the mirror.
"For days after this Sister Seraphine was
meditative and beyond her habit thoughtful.
She could not look at the mirrors. Her cheeks
flushed with shame. She felt disgraced and
dishonored. Every time she was obliged
to pass by the great mirrors, she carefully
turned her eyes away.
" During these days it seemed as if Spring,
like a bandit, broke through the ponderous
convent walls. Its murmur and its mystery
and its fragrance and its buoyant life were
everywhere. They poured invisibly through
the somber, painted windows. They swept
enticingly down the long bare halls. All
night they sang beneath the casements of
the penitential chambers. They awoke
with the first penetrating sweetness of the
dawn.
"Each morning, in the opening flower
cups, Sister Seraphine found other mouths
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that looked like hers. She saw there the
same desirous, satiny lips. The same bril
liant color burned upon them, the same
dewy ripeness. One night, unable to sleep,
so many and so mighty were the voices that
called her, she got up softly and tiptoed down
the long bare corridors to the reception room.
It was not ever really night anywhere that
spring, it seems to me as I recall it. The
frail gray shadows of summer made instead
a sort of semi-day.
"She knelt down on the floor in front of
one of the mirrors. There she saw a white
face under an aureole of short gold hair, two
eyes that shone like stars, and a mouth that
was red as a wound. Again she kissed it.
When she crept back to her room, she found
it lonelier than before. Something, she
knew not what, was missing. The world
was empty. Some joy had gone out of life.
"The next day she asked for permission to
see Father Richards, the aged priest of the
parish.
[152]
SISTER SERAPHINE
"Father, she began, you know that I
have never left the convent walls, do you
not?
Yes, my daughter.
You know that I have known no other
home.
Yes, my daughter.
: That I have read only my breviary and
the books of the saints. And yet, Father, I
have sinned, sinned grievously
How, my daughter?
I have kissed
" Kissed?
Yes, Father. I have kissed a mouth,
because I wanted to; because it was red and
sweet, like the flowers outside in the spring.
What ! You say - Explain, my daugh
ter! said the aged priest, greatly puzzled.
"I kissed my own mouth, Father. I
kissed it in the mirror, not once, Father,
but twice. And I am not sorry. It gave me
pleasure, Father. Were not mouths made
to kiss? And the pleasure was not that
[153]
^
SISTER SERAPHINE
which I have felt when I kissed the white
feet of the Virgin. And I am not sorry,
Father.
"It is your youth, my daughter; spring,
too, in the blood. You must pray and fast
especially fast. That will subdue evil.
" No, Father. I think differently. I will
not. I am going away. The great mirrors
in the drawing-room there have shown me
my mouth, Father. And it has told me of
another life a life to which I belong ! Do
you know what made it so red, so wonderful,
so faultless, Father, this mouth of mine? It
was the splendid, free, pleasure-loving, tem
pestuous lives that they lived who made me.
There is not in this mouth of mine one ser
vile curve, one penitential or humiliating
line, one touch of pleading or regret. /Al
though I have not seen them, I know that
it must have been a great race that bore me.
They did not even leave me a name to which
I have a just claim. But right here, on my
mouth, Father, they set the red seal of their
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pleasures, their aristocratic arrogance, their
fearlessness, and their power.
"I can see the life they lived! I can see
it all through the days and the nights and
the years. A regal life it was, in great moat-
encircled castles, amid clash of steel, cries of
joy and triumph and music and the madness
of power.
"I can see the white glorious faces of
the women they loved, framed in fluttering
and triumphant banners.
Think of the kisses given by brave men
to the lips of beautiful women! Think of
the banquets and the feasting in great halls,
where a thousand candles flickered over
satins and silks and gems and laces and
smooth shoulders and lustrous hair! Think
of the wine they drank in those long, long
nights of revelry wine that had treasured
up and kept the sweetness of a thousand
springs; think of the songs, the laughter,
the dance, the jests! Think of the resound
ing hunt across fields vivid with spring; the
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inspiriting call of the horns, the tossing of
plumes, the eyes afire with joy!
Think of their daring and their high
hearted days when they cheerfully placed
life in the balance, to weigh against a kiss!
Think of the strength that took whatsoever
it wanted, regardless of results; that flung
defiance in the face of Fate!
; This mouth, Father, told all this to me.
This mouth is their message to me.
"Do you know what has happened,
Father? The strangest, the most unbeliev
able, the most preposterous thing in the
world! I have been seduced by my own
mouth! A miracle! A miracle of earth, not
of heaven, Father by my own mouth !
" I am going away, too, Father, now.
"And right there, before the feeble and
astonished old man, she tore off her hood
and the bindings of her brow, and went out
into the spring that was waiting for her
across the fields, and away. Think of the
audacity, the power of decision, the strong,
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SISTER SERAPHINE
seeeessseesesseseeseeeeeeseeeeeeseeesss
quick-working will that nothing could
enfeeble !
: You have both heard of Madame X ,
have you not, who had such a genius for life
and luxury, whose sables the Tzaritza envied,
who had at her feet half the desirable men
of France? She was Sister Seraphine."
"Every one has a right to happiness,
do you not think so?" exclaimed Mischna
Stepanoff, the joy of her own lost youth
leaping to her eyes.
157
THE SACRED RELICS OF SAINT
EUTHYMIUS
ABOUT the middle of the sixteenth cen
tury there was built, on the westward-
fronting coast of Istria, a pleasure palace.
The builder, Paul, Count of Radknothy,
was a Hungarian nobleman of wealth and
power, who had traveled widely and formed
his taste upon the best models of the day.
On his frequent journeys he tarried often-
est in Venice. The rich and luxurious city
held for him the charm it has never failed
to hold for the people of the North.
Here he met La Fiorita, a dancer re
nowned for her beauty. She was his senior
by a number of years and a woman of un
savory reputation. The story of her amours,
which had been many, sounded like a page
from Masuccio, and had been the talk of
Italy. She had been persona grata with
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SACRED RELICS OF ST. EUTHYMIUS
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the nobles of that licentious age. She had
ruled as temporary mistress of many a
summer palace hidden away among the
Italian hills. For Count Radknothy she
had the fascination which women of mature
years have had for younger men. He
married her and took her away to his Is-
trian home.
She was glad of this lucky stroke of for
tune. She realized that, considering the
life she had led, her beauty could not last
in its perfection.
In the second year after her marriage,
shortly before the time of her first confine
ment, she was miraculously saved from
death at the hands of an assassin by a
Carthusian nun, whom the blow struck.
The assassin, who paid for the attempt
with his life, was a follower of her old
days, hi whose heart her beauty had been
more than a fancy.
This escape from death back into the
luxurious life she had never ceased to look
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upon as the kindness of Providence, aroused
the religious fanaticism that slumbers in
the Italian soul. In return, she made a
vow that the unborn child should be sacred
to the church. Later, a daughter was born
to Count and Countess Radknothy, who
was christened Elsbeth.
Overjoyed at her safe delivery, chastened
in mind by the favors of Heaven, the Count
ess decided that the child should take the
veil in a convent of the Silent Sisters. Then
she felt that she had atoned for the sins of
her youth. Accordingly, when little Els
beth was twelve years old, she was sent to
the Hungarian Convent of St. Euthymius.
This convent, which had once been the
war-castle of a feudal lord, and which bore
witness to its past in its stern and forbid
ding exterior, was situated in northwestern
Hungary, just south of the Little Car
pathians, and surrounded by their gloomy
forests. It stood on an elevation. On the
north a lake lay, whose outlet was the
[1601
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shallow Ipoly, which to southward joins the
Danube. It was a hilly, thinly populated
country of ancient mansions separated from
each other by miles of woodland.
From the convent but one building was
visible, the family chapel of the Rakoczi, a
family of royal lineage whose male members
had led the wars for Hungarian independ
ence. The castle was on the other side of
the chapel and its rear was toward the lake.
On the north side of the convent there was
but one window. From this the warlike
baron used to watch his enemies approach.
Beneath the window, clinging to the wall,
was a staircase. This was the room which
was assigned to Elsbeth.
Notwithstanding her childish immaturity,
it was evident that she had inherited her
mother s blond beauty, which, in her case,
was made more brilliant by the father s
Hungarian blood. During the two years
that had preceded her daughter s birth, La
Fiorita had luxuriated in her Istrian palace.
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Here, freed from the efforts of a dancer s life,
and cherished by a love in the flower of its
youth, her beauty had reached its perfec
tion. In addition, little Elsbeth had in
herited her mother s abundant vitality and
her taste for music and dancing.
Because of the child s love of music and
the noble family to which she belonged,
the rules of St. Euthymius were lifted, and
she was permitted to take her lute with her.
La Fiorita consoled herself with the thought
that the lute would take the place of con
versation, which was forbidden. With this
solicitude she dismissed the subject. She
felt that she had purchased the forgiveness
of Heaven and gave herself over unrestrain
edly to the life of pleasure she loved.
It was autumn when Elsbeth reached St.
Euthymius. The repellent exterior of the
convent-fortress was softened by the rich
ness of the season. Autumn once seen
among the mountains of Hungary is some
thing always to remember. A languid
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radiance enfolds the landscape. The stern
Carpathians float in a mist of blue, through
which white, fragile birches and fiery maples
gleam. The forests and the mountains are
reflected in the water. Along the roads
ferns expand into fans of gold. The wood
lands exhale an aromatic perfume.
The witchery of the season dulled the
first pain of separation. But when the
rains of November scattered the leaves, and
the wind sang about the lonely towers and
echoed down the bare corridors, she cried
like a little child to go home. The sisters
efforts to comfort her were vain. Equally
vain were their attempts to divert her mind
with lessons and prayer. She still cried to
go home.
There was no devotional chord in her
nature to respond to the good sisters teach
ings. They were like a voice calling in a
land where no one lives. When winter came,
the entire world was black and white.
Without, the snow and the bare trees or
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the blacker pines and firs; within, white,
echoing rooms, where silent, black-clad figures
moved. The sight filled her with grief, and
by contrast called to mind her bright-
gowned, beautiful mother.
When spring came, she was so pale and
thin that the kind sisters would have sent
word of her condition to her parents, had
it not been expressly stated that no word
was to be sent to disturb the peace of the
Istrian home.
When she was seventeen, the sisters de
cided that she was sufficiently instructed in
the duties of the order to be made a member.
Obediently she took the veil and the vow
of silence. This occasioned no fresh grief,
since it could not interfere with her source
of happiness her dreams.
In the spring of the following year,
shortly after vespers, when she was in her
room alone, she heard some one playing
upon a lute a melody of enchanting rhythm.
Hastily she unfastened the window square.
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In the melody floated, with the breath of
the soft spring night. It came from the
lake. She vibrated pleasurably to it. In it
were poured out the longing heart of youth
and the soft allurements of love. Instinc
tively she threw off the cloak and hood.
She unclasped the black mantle ate her
throat. In her eyes, upon her face, glowed
that look of inspired joy with which La
Fiorita had held her admirers. Snatching
the lute from the wall, she repeated the
melody and improvised an answer. The
unknown musician understood and followed
her lead. Thus they conversed for an hour
through the medium of music.
The next morning Elsbeth was summoned
to the Superior. Some of the sisters said
that they had heard music in the night
coming from her room, and of a kind not
suitable for convent walls. Had not years
of silence lamed their tongues and made
them incapable of utterance, they would
have been eloquent in their description of
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the melodies they had heard. As it was, they
insisted vehemently upon their wickedness.
"My daughter," said the Superior, "since
this is the first complaint against you, you
shall go unpunished. We have shown for
bearance because of your youth. Now
that you are older, and have become one
of us permanently, it is right that you
should obey the rules and uphold them.
In the future play sacred music, or such as
befits the vows you have taken." With
this the Superior dismissed her.
It was later that night when the lute
called beneath her window. Her answer
was a sharp note of warning. The unseen
musician understood. When again he touched
the strings, it was midnight, and the shy
summer stars had been hours a-twinkle.
He played the same alluring cantilena, but
softly, tenderly, as if meant for a loved
one s ears alone. He swept the strings so
delicately it was but a breath of musical
fragrance upon the night.
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Elsbeth trembled. The blood coursed
pleasurably through her veins. Her soul
expanded with joy. Fear was forgotten.
She thought only of the unseen one upon
the lake who called to her.
He had understood what she said the
night before. He had come again. She
took her lute and replied clearly and dar
ingly. Then again the soft melodic whisper
floated up from the water. Her answer was
firm and triumphant, shrilling on one sus
tained crystal note of longing. This pas
sionate appeal for life, for freedom, touched
the hearer s heart, as the murmurous caress
which followed proved.
Six years had passed since any one had
spoken to her like that, six silent years of
convent life. She was like one buried alive,
calling out to the warm, sweet world on
the other side of the grave. Her lute told
this in a song of unrest.
The next day there was a solemn meeting
of the sisters in the great audience hall of
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St. Euthymius. Sister Seraphita had heard
the music. She had awakened the others,
who, in their turn, awakened the Mother
Superior. Never had their unworldly ears
heard sounds like these. They plunged
them into an alien world, where they trem
bled. They troubled their minds with the
tone-pictures they flashed upon the senses.
The music concealed a persistent sugges
tion that there are nobler things than a life
of prayer and penance. It brought back
memories of forgotten days. It touched
their arid hearts to strange tremors. It
sent a-flutter insistent voices as the sea
sends abroad upon the wind the story of its
secret longing. It gave transient energy to
dead instincts. It set vibrating thoughts
inimical to convent life. The stupidest
among them felt this, and they agreed that
it must be stopped.
In addition, it had been whispered that
it sounded as if two lutes were being played,
instead of one. Of course, they knew that
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that was impossible. No one could gain
entrance to the convent. If they did hear
two lutes, who was it who played the other
one?
A look of awful comprehension brightened
their dull old eyes. It was marvelous play
ing, too. They remembered that. Even the
Superior said that she had not heard its
equal. No mortal fingers swept that other
lute. No mortal fingers could so fill the
castle with resonance. There were two
lutes! Who played the other? It was
Satan who did it Satan and none other !
Then the Superior recalled what she had
heard of the music and dancing madness
that had taken possession of the nuns of
the south of France in the early years of
the church. How it had been proved to be
the work of Satan and how the evil spirit
had been exorcised. Abbe X had writ
ten a book about it. After discussing the
subject, Elsbeth was sent for.
"My dear daughter," began the Superior,
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"it grieved me to learn of your disobedience.
I, together with the sisters, have decided
that forfeiture of the lute is a just punish
ment. Sister Seraphita may now bring it
to my room and hang it upon the wall.
As for you, my daughter, I recommend
the prayers for the penitent." Then she
rose, signifying that the session was at an
end.
Elsbeth said nothing. Her mind was so
filled by the occurrences of the past days
that the meaning barely reached her.
That night the melody floated up to
where she stood waiting, just as the sickle
of the moon swung to a level with the black
tree-tops.
How could she answer now? Hastily she
unfastened the window. Then she remem
bered a lace handkerchief belonging to her
mother, which she picked up the day they
took her away. It was filmy and light. It
would float upon the water. He would see
it fluttering down. In one corner was em-
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broidered, in the colored needlework of the
day, the crest of the house of Radknothy.
The changed music that came told her
that he had caught the handkerchief. He
understood the message. In the answering
tones there was something deferential.
Then he played the melody of the first
night, modulating it masterfully, and using
the theme as the basic idea for many a
sweetly extemporized caprice. As she stood
alone in the dim cell listening, while the
warm spring night caressed the short, bright
curls upon her head, it thrilled her with a
joy that was akin to pain. It was like the
memory of something that had vanished -
a tragic past that had swept her away
upon billows of flame. It was the sense-
memory of a past whose incidents she
could not recall, but whose fervor flashed
upon her.
The sisters heard the music. One by one,
softly, they crept to the Mother Superior s
door to see if she were awake. There she
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sat, a terrified, trembling old figure, her
eyes staring at the lute upon the wall, while
her pale lips murmured a prayer. One by
one they peered in to make sure that the
lute was really there, hanging motionless
upon the wall. Yet its music echoed down
the long corridors and floated in at the
windows. A ghastly procession they made!
Shrunken and hollow of cheek, toothless,
yellow and wrinkled of face! The candles
silhouetted sharply and distorted their bald
and trembling heads.
Yes, there was the lute, motionless, just
where Sister Seraphita had hung it. Yet
they could hear its music. What a horrible
thing! To listen to music made by a lute
hung out of reach upon a wall! Their
shrunken chins and toothless lips trem
bled. Their knees knocked together. It
was all their old, weak hands could do to
hold the candles.
Here was proof of the work of the evil
spirit. Every sister in the convent was a
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witness. Perhaps it was Satan himself who
swept the strings. In addition, they had
heard that the coming of an evil spirit is
accompanied by a breath of cool air or a
freshening breeze. Whenever the wind came
stronger, the music was noticeably louder.
That was another proof.
The next day and the next were given
over to prayer. But each night the same
dreadful thing occurred, the same luxurious
and sinful melody came floating on the
midnight. The aged sisters were distracted.
They were grieved, too. No scandal had
ever touched St. Euthymius.
On the fourth day they met in solemn
council, to which Elsbeth was summoned,
in order to be questioned. She said that
each night, in accordance with the Superior s
orders, she had gone early to bed after
repeating thrice the prayers for the penitent.
Quickly she fell asleep. Then she dreamed
- but so vividly that the following day she
was unable to tell the dream from reality
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that the Mother Superior came to her
door, knocked softly, opened it and held
out the lute. She took it and improvised
upon it the rest of the night. Softly then
again the knocking came, the Superior
opened the door, took the lute and went
away. Each night she dreamed the same
dream. And each morning she found her
door as she had left it.
On hearing this the good sisters were
more puzzled than ever. One thing, how
ever, was certain. Elsbeth was the medium
through which the evil spirit gained entrance.
Through her he was trying to draw the
Mother Superior into his toils, and thus
work the ruin of the convent.
After sifting conflicting opinions, they de
cided that she should be confined within her
room for a month. During that time she
was not to see nor hold converse with any
one. Food and drink would be placed at
her door at regular intervals.
The first days of confinement were lonely.
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The lute was gone. There was nothing for
company. Nor did the first week of con
finement have any effect upon exorcising
the demon. Each night the trembling old
women gathered in the Superior s room to
watch with terrified eyes while the motion
less lute made music.
Elsbeth s only amusement was to stand
on tiptoe and look out through the swing
ing square of the window. It was so high
that she could not see anything immediately
below. One day while she was standing on
tiptoe peering out, her knees, trembling
with the strain, struck a projection of the
grooved wood, and she felt the wall yield
as if a door were there.
Getting down on her knees, she scrutin
ized every curve of the decorative wood to
see if a spring could be found. She knew
the room had belonged to the old Baron
who built the castle, and that it was unlike
the others. Since the hidden spring if
such an one there were did not disclose
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itself to the eye, she determined to follow
with her fingers every scroll of the panel,
pressing evenly upon each in turn.
About half-way up to the lower edge of
the window, at about the height where
her knees had been, a whorl of polished
wood slipped from sight. The panel swung
out and the level lake lay before her. Lean
ing out, she found that the stairway which
she had seen from the edge of the water was
within reach. This was the old Baron s
place of secret exit.
That night, when the unknown serenader
touched his lute, she opened the door,
swung lightly to the stair top and motioned
silence. The listening sisters, who heard the
music begin, then cease abruptly, were filled
with thankfulness. After waiting an hour
and hearing no recurrent sound, they crept
back to their beds, secure in the thought
that the exorcising of the demon had begun.
In a little boat at the foot of the stairs
sat a man holding a jeweled lute. It seemed
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SACRED RELICS OF ST. EUTHYMIUS
to Elsbeth that she had always known him.
He looked just like the men with whom she
had been acquainted for years in her dreams.
Like them, he was dark and young. Like
them, too, he was handsome and had come
to fetch her in a boat. He wore the costume
of an Hungarian nobleman of the middle of
the sixteenth century: a light blue mantle
fancifully braided, of Polish cut, thrown
coquettishly over one shoulder, called in
those days kabodion; black velvet breeches,
a round-topped hat and a tight-fitting dress
coat, such as were worn by men of birth,
called mente. Years of silence had thrown
her so completely upon herself for com
panionship that it had become difficult to
tell the real from the unreal. The one who
waited in the boat was merely a proof of
the reality of dreams.
He, on his part, saw a girl-woman of mag
nificent proportions coming swiftly down
the steps. Upon her head a halo of little
curls shone in the light. Her face was very
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white, but in her eyes there was the look
with which La Fiorita had gone to meet
her lovers. So familiarly did she hasten to
him that he felt himself drawn within the
magic circle of her day dreams, where nothing
was impossible, and held out his hands impul
sively to help her to a seat.
Yet, how can any one tell in what other
life we have met, how close the tie that
bound us, whose fibers vibrate on in this!
"Where shall we go?" he asked, admira
tion shining in his eyes.
"Down there, around the bend of the lake,
where the sisters cannot hear our voices."
He bent to the oars, and a silver furrow
stretched behind them. Meanwhile Elsbeth
looked attentively at her companion. His
youth pleased her. He was the only one
she had met who was young like herself.
Prince Rakoczi was about twenty-eight.
He had been married some years to an
Italian woman many years his senior. The
Princess known as the Princess of the
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Bloody Heart, because of a heart of rubies
which she invariably wore was descended
from the Italian house of Montanelli. The
head of this house was known throughout
Europe for the making of skillful and
artistic instruments of torture. It was due
to her father, Alonzo Montanelli, that in
that age murder had reached the dignity of
a fine art, and was accompanied by the
exquisite decorative setting that befits a
fete. The name, Montanelli, was password
to every torture chamber of Europe.
Once around the bend, she said: "Where
are we going?"
"To my chapel yonder."
"Shall we be alone?"
"Quite alone."
"Then I will play upon your lute."
:< You shall have another like it for your
self," he said, handing it toward her, while
the moon found the heart of a crimson
stone and flashed red light upon his hand.
At sight of the richly lighted chapel, her
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eyes shone like a little child s at sight of a
Christmas tree. So great was her capacity
for happiness that she forgot the past in
the pleasure of a moment.
He led her into the chapel. :< You can
not imagine what I thought when I first
saw you. I thought that you were the
original of a picture that hangs here. That
Magdalene is not a painter s dream. It is
the portrait of the woman whom my father
loved. During my mother s life the picture
was not hung. It was only after I came
into possession of the estate that it was
taken from its place of concealment. It is
La Fiorita, a dancing girl whom my father
knew in Venice in his youth." Looking up,
Elsbeth saw a voluptuous Venetian beauty,
whose face stirred vague memories.
When they rowed back to the convent,
the moon was low in the sky. The lake was
dull and tarnished. In the tops of the trees
a crisp wind shivered that told of dawn.
During the days that followed, Elsbeth
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was glad of her imprisonment. She escaped
the sisters prying eyes. They who live in
solitude are skilled in reading the heart.
Each night the Prince came for her, and
they drifted down the lake, explored its
recesses, improvised upon their lutes within
the chapel, or reclined upon the steps to talk
of love. In this way a month passed away.
To the good sisters of St. Euthymius the
month had brought comfort. The evil spirit
was controlled and put to flight. They
could sleep in peace, their timid old hearts
untroubled by fear. Now the lute hung
silent upon the wall. There had been no
recurrence of the melody. The prayerful
penance of Elsbeth had exorcised the demon.
The Superior called a council. It was
agreed that Elsbeth should spend another
month in prayer and silence. When the
word was brought to her, she received it
humbly. The Superior s heart was filled
with gratitude. Her patience was. bearing
fruit.
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One night, after the beginning of the
second month, when Elsbeth and Prince
Rakoczi entered the chapel, he rushed to
fasten the door that communicated with
the castle.
"Why do you do that?" inquired Elsbeth.
"The Princess has arrived. Of course
there is little danger of her coming here.
Yet it is best to be safe."
Then they forgot about her in their love
and joy in each other, and set about per
fecting plans for Elsbeth s escape from the
convent.
"Listen, little one," the Prince continued,
drawing her to him, while the candles
struck rich colors from his braided kabodion
and accented the pallor of his face. "It is
arranged for to-morrow night. A larger
boat and two oarsmen will come for us
here. They will row us to the end of the
lake. There an old servant will await us
with a carriage. He will take you to a
hunting lodge of mine, to the east of here,
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egeeseeeeeeseeeeseseessseesesseseeseeee
near the Bohemian Forest. There, as soon
as I can make arrangements, I will join
you, and together we will go to Italy. I
have a present for you for to-morrow night,
too a dress and a jewel, brought all the
way from Stamboul. You shall put it on,
and we will celebrate our marriage here at
the altar -
"What was that a knock?"
"Yes."
"The Princess?"
"It must be. No one else would come.
We must be quick. I will get into that
chest there, beneath the picture. Turn the
jeweled fruit to the right. That locks it.
Then go to the altar and say your prayers.
If she questions you, your quick wits must
frame an answer."
When Elsbeth unbolted the door, a tall,
gaunt woman approaching middle age swept
in. She wore a long, dark, cloaklike gar
ment of morit, and a violet-colored kaza-
bajka, while her hair was partially hidden
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beneath a white csepesz. Suspended from
her neck was a ruby heart. She had nar
row, side-glancing eyes, a long oval face, and
thin lips. Her expression indicated cruelty.
"My fair nun, how came you here
and at this hour?"
"Most gracious Princess," replied Els-
beth, bending in salutation, "last night I
had a dream in which I saw The Virgin of
the Red Girdle poise in the air above the
Rakoczi chapel. That, as the gracious
Princess knows, bodes ill. I made a vow
to avert the ill by prayerful intercession at
the altar."
"And you chose night, good sister, for
your beneficent purpose?"
"By day, most gracious Princess, I am
occupied with convent duties. Therefore I
sacrifice to it the hours of sleep."
"But the Prince does he help you?
Where is he?"
"The Prince? Your Highness will see
that I am at my prayers alone, and with
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your gracious permission I will return to
them."
The Princess made a signal of dismissal,
and Elsbeth knelt with her rosary at the
altar.
Princess Rakoczi was too astute and too
well versed in the intrigues of that subtle
age to take the nun s smoothly spoken
words at their face value. She saw, too,
that the nun was a woman of great beauty.
The disfiguring garb could not hide that.
She made a tour of the chapel. Around the
outer edge, at the base of the walls, were
placed coffers in which the church silver,
the relics, and the priestly vestments were
stored. From time to time, as she made
this tour of inspection, she glanced sharply
at Elsbeth, to see if she were intent upon
her beads. When she had completed the
circuit, she paused at Elsbeth s right and
bent to look at the gem-decorated carving
of the chest that stood beneath the picture
of La Fiorita. As she bent down, she heard
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a sharp sound. Looking up, she saw
that the rosary had dropped upon the
marble altar and that the nun s hands
were trembling.
" I have found him ! " she thought. " What
a lesson I will teach them!" Jealous rage
pinched her pale features to a cruel thin
ness. Aloud she said: "Good sister, I
thank you for your unselfish watchfulness."
Elsbeth rose and remained bowing while
the Princess passed out. When she had
been gone a sufficient time for safety, the
nun bolted the door and released the Prince.
You shall not have another experience
like this!" he said, clasping her in his arms.
"But to-morrow night?"
"She would not spy upon us two nights
in succession."
On the way across the lake, the sparkles
of light upon the water were not more
numerous than the words of love which he
lavished upon Elsbeth. They erased from
her mind the disagreeable occurrence. She
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thought only of the morrow, of escape
and of the gorgeous gown and the jewel
that had come from Stamboul.
As soon as they left the chapel, the Prin
cess had the door unbolted, and entered,
followed by two men bearing a chest iden
tical in size and design with the one that
stood beneath the picture. In obedience to
her command they exchanged them, and
took the former chest back to the castle.
The next night found Elsbeth on the
stairs waiting eagerly. When Prince Ra-
koczi came, she took the package he gave
her and ran back to her room. When again
she came out, she wore a short white satin
princess dress, heavily embroidered in seed
pearls. It was cut low and square at the
neck, and flared at the bottom. It resembled
in style and cut the votive robes made for
statues of the Virgin. About her neck was
a cross of diamonds. The convent cloak
was thrown over her arm, to be used in
case of need.
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No sooner had they entered the chapel
and seen to the safe bolting of the door,
than with kisses and caresses he led her to
the picture of La Fiorita. Moving a few
steps away, he paused and looked at her.
: You cannot imagine how greatly you
resemble that picture. In certain ways the
faces are identical. The difference is that
you have not lived so much. That is the
woman my father loved. This is the woman
whom I love. As she was the grief of his
life, you will be the happiness of mine "
An imperative knock interrupted him.
Elsbeth donned the cloak and hood, draw
ing it carefully over the whiteness of her
gown. Then she unbolted the door. Gra
ciously the Princess entered.
"My good sister, I am going to take
you from your prayerful duties for a few
moments to-night to gratify a curiosity of
mine."
"I shall be most happy to serve you,
Gracious Princess," murmured Elsbeth.
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"I have heard," she continued, "that
beneath the fingers of a pure woman the
opal loses its angry fire and becomes white
like a pearl. It is my wish to find out if
that is true. Now on that chest there
the one beneath the repentant Magdalene
opals are set. You, of course, having had
no occasion to observe the chest, have not
seen them. I will make the test in the
light of this candle, if you will come. Now
observe the decoration on the chest front,
a procession of wise men bearing offerings
to the infant Christ. It was designed and
made by Maestro Benedetto da Majano and
is well-nigh priceless. Notice the rich soft
ness of the wood its depth of color. Do
you see how it poises between the shades of
brown and red? Look at that kneeling figure
there, holding up a plate filled with fruit.
The fruit in the center of the plate is made
of opals. Now place your finger upon the
central one, the apple. It represents, I fancy,
the forbidden fruit of the tree of life.
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"That s right. That s right. Remark
able! Remarkable! It has grown pale-
see! So have you, good nun. Why is that?
Why does your hand tremble? Hold it more
firmly, that I may see. There ! there !
Now press your fingers on that central
stone."
Elsbeth obeyed. As she did so, a shriek
rang out, so heartrending, so horrible, it
curdled the blood. Again a shriek of mortal
anguish then silence.
Above her, stern and erect, Princess
Rakoczi towered, her thin face illumined
by the pointed candle. Without a word
she gathered up her rustling robe and walked
away.
When she had gone, Elsbeth lifted the
chest lid. "Merciful God!" she cried.
"Help! Help! Help!" Again and again
she called, until her throat felt numb and
weary.
WTien she pressed her ringer to the opal,
she had touched a spring that released
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round, needle-like darts of steel, which had
been concealed beneath the satin lining.
The body within was shredded into ribbons.
In the space of a moment it had become an
unrecognizable mass of pulp. Across it lay
a silver heart, shining dimly, and beside it
two tiny marble Cupids held chains of
roses, which were dotted with blood.
Madly she grasped the steels, attempting
to tear them away. But she succeeded
only in making deep wounds in the palms
of her hands. She ran to the castle door,
determined to have revenge. The door was
fastened on the other side. When she beat
upon it and tried to call for help, she found
she could not speak. Her throat was para
lyzed. She was dumb.
The next morning, when the sisters of St.
Euthymius came to tell her that they had
decided to release her from her confinement,
they found her lying upon her bed, robed in
white satin and pearls, a cross of diamonds
upon her breast. When they spoke to her in
f 1911
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their astonishment at the sight that met
their eyes, and asked for an explanation, she
pointed to her mouth. They understood.
She had taken the vow of eternal silence.
Then she held up her hands. The palms
were dotted with spots of red. They fell
upon their knees in reverence and adora
tion, crying: "A miracle! The stigmata!
The stigmata! " They saw, too, that her face
was changed, and that her hair was streaked
with white.
For the remainder of her life, which
lasted twenty -five years, Saint Elsbeth was
never known to break her vow of silence.
The white robe and the diamond cross
which came down from heaven when she
was made the bride of Christ possessed
greater healing efficacy than any relics in
Hungary. Their power was oftenest called
into service by maidens and young lovers,
until Saint Elsbeth became the patron saint
of the heart. Through these relics Saint
Euthymius became the richest convent in
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all Hungary and the most widely known
for the piety of its inmates.
There are certain days of midsummer
when the convent is gratuitously open to
the public. Then the room with its tiny
window overlooking the lake is shown,
where the miracle was wrought, and the
white satin robe and diamond cross came
down from heaven to honor Saint Elsbeth,
who was the bride of Christ.
1931
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Vivere ardendo e non sentire il malo ! l
GASPARA STAMPA.
(To live intensely, to be impervious to wrong!)
were sitting over our after-dinner
cigars, my host, Gustav Berengy, and
myself, when the conversation touched on
love. Without pausing to consider the effect
of the question or its evident infringement
of guest-right, I boyishly asked him why he
had never married.
Gustav Berengy had been the friend of my
grandfather. They had known each other
in Paris in their youth. I remembered hear
ing my grandfather say that Berengy was
not only the handsomest, but the most dis
tinguished man he had met. Looking out
upon the luxurious park-setting of his seaside
1 From " Rime di tre gentil donne."
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home, I could not help wondering why he
had always lived alone.
As I asked the question, I saw that the eyes
looking into mine were dimmed for a moment,
as if by a veil of grief.
"I am married," he replied; "not by the
law of man, but by something more sacred -
the law of the heart, which is God s law."
"I beg your pardon," I hastened to make
reply, repenting of the ill-timed question. " I
had not heard of your marriage, nor indeed,"
I added, "of your wife s death."
"No, of course not," was the answer, "be
cause I do not know myself whether she is
alive or dead. In all these years I have not
been able to tell. She is here with me, in
the great room there above," indicating
with his hand a wing of the house.
"I do not believe I understand," I mur
mured awkwardly, trying to hit upon a fit
ting answer.
"Very likely you do not, because I do not."
Grief like a shadow flitted across his face.
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For the moment it looked aged and strangely
weary.
"Of course you do not understand, be
cause I do not. For fifty years she has been
there in that room. For fifty years my
heart has not wavered in its allegiance to her,
and yet I do not know, as I have told you,
whether she is alive or dead."
We sat in silence, while my host looked
reminiscently out across the sea, as if some
where in its spaces he sought the mystery s
solving. A sensation of fear swept over me,
which, however, I controlled upon the in
stant. I was ashamed of my folly. This
genial, courtly gentleman was not mad. In
the eyes that looked into mine there was
none of the maniac s frenzy. On the con
trary, they were gently meditative, and
pregnant with thought and grief.
"No," he said, reminiscently, lighting a
fresh cigar, whose white smoke in the gentle
evening floated up and blended aureole-like
with the thick whiteness of his hair, "no, I
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do not mind telling you why I have never
married, as the world puts it. It is a strange
story. I doubt if you will believe it. But
you are leaving on the morrow, and I shall
never see you again. Besides, I am old, you
know. I am eighty."
With a sad smile he waved aside my polite
demurrer. "Fifty years is long enough to
keep a secret, is it not?" he continued.
"And it might be well in after years for
some one to know the truth. It might help
her."
Involuntarily my thoughts flew to the great
silent room above, where for fifty years the
woman had lain who was neither alive nor
dead. Little did I guess what was housed
there, as my heart beat eagerly with antici
pation.
"I was born, as you know, in France,"
said my host. "My mother died at my
birth. My childhood was spent in a mo
nastic school on the gloomy coast of La Bas
Bretagne. There I did not see much child-
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ish merriment, as you may imagine. Shortly
after graduating, when the subject was being
discussed as to whether or not I, the younger
son, should take holy orders and at that
time of my impressionable youth I was not
greatly averse to the idea, so accustomed
had I become to monastic discipline my
father and my brother died, leaving me heir
to the name and fortune. Thus duty, rather
than inclination, kept me in a world of
which at that time I knew nothing.
"Finding the loneliness of the old home
unendurable, I went to Paris. There I saw
something of life. When at length dissipa
tion palled upon me, I gave myself over to
study and to art. It was then that I met
your grandfather. Finally, I determined to
make the grand tour, which in those days was
de rigueur for young men of wealth and posi
tion. I sauntered across Europe, pausing
wherever caprice seized me, idled carelessly
across Asia, dallying with my art the while,
reached its eastern coast, and found myself
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confronted by the great Pacific. Here, not
knowing what else to do, but without a defi
nite goal in view, I took passage for a cruise
among the islands of Polynesia. Some
months later, when I had satisfied my
curiosity in regard to the South Seas, just
after leaving the Austral Isles, a typhoon
struck us and we were wrecked upon an out
lying coral reef. The steamer was virtually
cut in two. The entire crew were drowned
with the exception of the first mate, one
sailor, and myself.
" We were swept by the fury of the waves
upon a high white beach, where a group of
natives who had seen the wreck were waiting
for the storm to subside, with the intention
of plundering the ship. I found that we had
merely exchanged one form of death for an
other and a crueler one. We were seized,
bound hand and foot, and thrown upon the
ground to await the tribe s decision of our
fate upon the morrow. That night, while
I lay awake wondering what the outcome
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would be, a young native woman, whose sin
ewy strength had caught my eye during the
day, slipped up to where I lay alone at a
distance from the others, and with incredible
swiftness cut the thongs that bound me.
Putting her finger to her lips significantly,
she motioned me to follow. One fate was as
bad as another, if they all meant death, and
I did not hesitate.
"She went across the island, walking so
swiftly that it was all that I could do to keep
up. Not once did she look back, or seem
to think of me. She went straight on, as if
impelled by fear. I have no idea how far we
walked. When at length she paused with a
gesture that made me know that the journey
was at an end, the day was not far off. We
had crossed the island, and again the sea lay
before us.
"The shore was different here. It was re
pellent and stern, like the coast of La Bas
Bretagne which I had known in my gloomy
childhood. Rocks sloped in sharp declivity
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to the water, which looked threatening and
black.
"Going up to one of the rocky walls, she
pointed to an opening beneath, and went in
a little way, motioning me to follow. There
I saw a stairway hewn from the living rock,
and descending into the bowels of the earth.
Although it seemed at first glance to be
perpendicular, it sloped slightly toward the
water, at whose edge we had entered, so I
knew that whatever pathway lay beyond
must lead beneath the sea.
" She crouched down upon the stair beside
me and, stretching out one long bare arm,
pointed down, down, down once, twice,
thrice meaning that there I must go. Then
she took from her back a bag-shaped basket
and handed it to me. In it were food and
drink.
"Like a whirr of yellow swords, the first
sun-rays pierced the sky. As if frightened
to see the day so soon, she bounded up the
stairs and was gone. To go back meant
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death; to go on meant I knew not what.
But the chance of a life hung in the balance,
so I went on.
"The stairs led downward between smooth
walls of rock. How far I do not know. I
counted the steps until I could count no
longer. My brain grew dizzy and refused to
work. I sat down and buried my face in my
hands to recover poise. I got up and went on,
and again my brain refused to count the in
finite steps. Again I had to give it up.
"The opening above, which for a time shed
light plentifully upon me, became a distant
pin-point, then vanished, and inky blackness
surrounded me. I should have felt like one
buried alive, had it not been for the fresh air
that swept between the perpendicular walls
of this canal-way.
"But what awaited me at the bottom?
Was it water, black and silent and of fathom
less depth impassable, mysterious water
that had never reflected the stars or the sun?
Was I to find myself upon the edge of an
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abyss whose depth I could sense but could
not estimate?
"What torturing fear and suspense did I
not suffer, as I descended that frightful stair
way! Suppose my foot slipped and I should
fall! What then! But she, my guide of the
night, had motioned that I was to follow the
stairway. She had not crossed the island
merely to bring about my death. It was her
intention to save me. I must have faith in
her. There was no other way. I summoned
fresh courage and crept down the blackness.
"I lost all account of time as hours go.
But judging by my weariness and hunger
when I reached the level, I think I must
have put in a good part of a day in descend
ing that frightful stairway. At the bottom
I found myself in a smooth and level road
enclosed between walls of granite.
"But the silence and the darkness how
can I tell you what they were? Such silence
drives men mad. The darkness was like
velvet in its black impenetrableness. It
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seemed to fall upon my face and stifle me.
Nothing disturbed the silence. Even the
wind slipped noiselessly through this grave
of granite. And it had come so far that it
had freed its wings of the scents of the
world of light, of the sea and of the earth.
No message from the world above came here.
Not a sound broke the silence. From the
walls of barren rock no dust clods fell to tell
of the ceaseless, weaving life of the earth.
Adown their sides no water tinkled. Along
the road there was not even the friendly
whirr of a dried leaf blown by the wind.
Nothing! Nothing!
"After I had traveled for a time and the
silence had heaped its leaden weight upon
me, I shrieked. I could restrain myself no
longer. I cried out with all the strength of
lung that I possessed, and the granite walls
sent back a million, broken- voiced echoes
to beat about my ears.
"For days I traveled on like this, pausing
only to eat and sleep. I had lost reckoning
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of time, of night, of day. I heard only the
measured sound of my own steps. I do not
know how many days and nights had passed
like this, when I found that the road was lead
ing upward. It became narrower and steeper.
I brushed the rock walls as I walked; I could
scarcely squeeze between them. I did not
fear. The sound of my steps had dulled my
brain. Darkness had paralyzed the power to
think.
"Above my head the roof lowered till I
could no longer stand erect. I fell upon
my knees and crept forward. The w T ind
changed; it freshened. I thought it brought
a scent of the sea. Suddenly thick leaves
barred the way. I brushed through them,
and the star-splendid circle of a tropic night
swept into view.
"I was in the garden of a spacious resi
dence that crowned an elevation. Below
me a white city lay, and around and beyond
the sea. How I drank in the air! How I
rejoiced in the sleepy rustle of leaves and
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grass, and in the regained face of the
earth !
"The city which presented itself to my eyes
was arranged in the form of a w r heel, whose
hub w r as the dwelling in the garden where I
stood. From the dwelling the streets radiated
like spokes, and at the end of each, terminat
ing at the island s edge, shone the sea. Around
the eminence spread a circular park of con
siderable breadth, adorned with flowers and
statues. Around this lay a smooth wide
road, bordered at regular intervals with
slender palms, whose leaves in the windless
night were motionless. Opposite, the city
streets began, and each was headed by a
building of great beauty, so that beyond the
park and the roadway rose a circular sweep
of noble buildings. At regular distances
from the central starting-point, each street
was interrupted by a small circular space of
greensward, and these, uniting, made a drive
way around the city.
"I chose at random one of the paths that
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intersected the garden and followed it. Since
I was the toy of chance, I determined to
resign myself bravely. After a detour the
path led toward the dwelling, blended with
one of its marble walks, and ended at the foot
of a staircase. I climbed the stairs and en
tered an uncovered corridor of white marble.
After walking to the end, I found it closed
by a smooth and rounded stone. I touched
it. It swung open, enfolding and sweeping
me w T ithin its circle, and then closed silently
behind me. Impenetrable draperies of silk
hung in front of me, brushing my face. I
parted them and entered the strangest room
I ever saw.
"It was long and of unusual height. The
top was uncovered and let in the tropic
night. Around the edge of the top of the
walls a rim of opal glass projected, upon
which a glass ceiling was folded back, to be
used in case of need. There were no pictures
in the room, nor were there decorations or
adornment of any kind. The four walls
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were hung uniformly in curtains of heavy
white silk, which fell in straight folds to the
floor.
There was no air moving. Indeed, I
remembered the night outside to have been
singularly windless. Yet these white cur
tains shivered and swayed with a sibilant
and silken murmur. Across their surface gold
lines and figures swept. An endless chain of
golden phantoms girdled the spacious cham
ber. From the walls bright forms leaped
with a burst of light, and then faded back to
whiteness. Round and round swept a glit
tering, changing pageant, impalpable and
soundless. Sometimes the gold within the
witch -wrought silk blazed forth until the air
gleamed with yellow light that dimmed the
stars. Anon it paled to such a vague misty
radiance as engirdles a winter moon. But al
ways there was change and light and motion
and the rustle of swayed silk. If I examined
the curtains closely, if I took them up in my
hands, I found that they were colorless and
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uniformly white. But if I let them fall
again, and stepped a foot away to look at
them, gold light and flashing form leaped out
to startle me.
"There were times when the gold wall-
light faded and a dim brilliancy took its
place. Occasionally, too, a silver light in
spirited the restless curtains, pallid frost-
shine filled the room, and horizontal lines of
silver swept round the walls. When the sil
ver lines grouped themselves into form and
being, it was as if lustrous spirits danced
airily a ghost dance of joy, now flashing for
an instant into vivid life, now paling and
fading into silver mist that still retained
their gracious contours.
"There was no furniture save a long, nar
row, bed-like pedestal or support of ivory,
which stood in the center of the room. Upon
this rested a mammoth sickle likewise of
ivory, formed like the new moon, and within
its hollow curve there lay - - how shall I tell
you ! was it a woman wrapped in lustrous
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gauze, or was it a mammoth opal that bore
a woman s form? Standing beside the figure
and looking down, I could not tell. Be
neath the pallid surface colors glowed like
tint of flesh with jewels upon it. Again, they
seemed to be only the fiery flash of an opal s
heart, and the surface became icily cold.
"I discovered plainly once or twice the
long, noble lines of a figure relaxed as if in
sleep. Within the white stone floated the
gracious semblance of a woman, yet far
away and insubstantial, like colors seen in
a dream. Sometimes I thought the figure
breathed, but by the light of those moving
curtains I could not tell. They kept up such
a tremor of shifting brightness that my own
body became unreal and no longer seemed
to belong to me. They dazzled my senses
and broke my chain of reasoned thinking.
I was adrift with nothing to guide me. When
at length I turned from contemplation of the
mysterious figure to find again, if possible,
the place of exit, in the wall-labyrinth of
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weaving light, some power which I could not
but obey compelled me to pause on a sudden
and look back.
"There, standing upright by the moon s
ivory horn, was the opal woman. The tan
gling gauze which covered her which I had
not dared to touch to find if it were gauze
or the smooth cold surface of a stone had
slipped to her feet, where it billowed white
like foam. She was taller than the average
woman and more slender, yet withal muscu-
larly built and round. Hers was the body of
Pallas.
"An apron-like corselet of flexible gold,
woven in open-work squares, fitted her
smoothly, falling evenly to her feet, but
opened to the waist on either side. Beneath
this from the waist downward fell something
silken and white, softening the sharp outline
of the gold. In each little open-work square
of the corselet hung a pink gem, and be
tween her breasts was set a ruby.
" Her hair, which was thick and of a bronze
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color, was arranged in great coils on either
side of her head, completely covering her
ears. In the center of each coil shone a ruby
that matched in size and color the one be
tween her breasts. From these rubies, and
attached to them, extended a net of tiny
pearls, covering her hair and holding it se
curely in place.
"So absorbed was I in contemplation of
her person, that I forgot that word was due
from me. When at length I lifted my eyes
to hers, it was as if along with the conquest
of my senses the conquest of my mind had
been completed. They seemed to enfold and
sweep me within a sea of light where all
things were foreign to my will.
"Notwithstanding her strange and fan
tastic costuming, which at once revealed
and enhanced the beauty of her body, I
knew that this was no vain coquette. This
was not a woman to find pleasure in vulgar
admiration. Her costume I felt to be the
result of some ideal of life, of beauty, which
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was the ruling passion of her mind. Calmly
and in silence we looked at each other. In
my face surprise and admiration struggled.
She, however, was undisturbed and looked
back at me serenely.
"Even then, before a word had been ex
changed between us, I felt that her life and
her ideal of life were altogether dissimilar to
my own, that mentally we were the opposite
each of the other. Within her I sensed un-
soundable depths of peace and calm, which
had their origin in some mental possession to
which I was an alien. I measured then the
abyss that lay between us.
" She was as richly colored and as gorgeous
as a canvas, yet in her bearing there was
nothing that hinted of pride or self-con
sciousness. I shall never forget that first
glimpse of her. The picture is printed in
delibly upon my brain, despite the years
that have intervened so vividly, indeed,
that nothing has been able to dim it. For
me it has dulled all other visions. Judge of
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it by the fact that I had known more or less
well the beauties of Paris, and that I was
accustomed to the luxurious gowning of the
French city. It was only a few seconds that
we stood there, and yet so vivifying is
the power of beauty - - it was time enough
for a world of fancies to sweep my brain.
"Her eyes were two flowers set within the
petaled pallor of her face. Wide, straight-
fronting eyes of chastest blue they were,
whose vivid vitality was softened by an
inner and a spiritual flame. Her face sym
bolized the dream-white city which I had
seen outside in the night. And the chang
ing light-splendor of that wondrous room
was caught up and concentrated there. As
I stood looking at her, a thousand vague and
vanishing glimpses of remembered loveliness
came back to haunt me. There was some
thing about her that shut off thought con
nection with the active world of fact, and set
one adrift among the pages of the painters.
Despite her slenderness and her purely wo-
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eseessseeses&eseee&essseeseeeseseeeeees
manly beauty she was strong and master
ful. She suggested the " virile note of great
art."
"In silence I stood and waited for her to
speak. In a voice whose calmness was like
the azure flame within her eyes, she said:
You were not going away, were you?
Stay and be my guest. Besides, you know,
you cannot go. There is no way.
"Nothing could give me greater pleasure
than to be your guest for a time/ I added.
" For a time?
" Yes ; then I must go back to Europe, to
my home to France.
" Home? Yes, yes; of course but how
can you! You are in the Opal Isles.
" And where are they?
"A strange look crossed her face, but so
swiftly that I could not tell whether it was
perplexity or grief.
"The Opal Isles they they are in
the center of the shoreless sea where the white
wave circles. And I am Asra.
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"But there are steamers, of course; I
can -
"Never mind to-night. That can wait,
can it not? She touched a hidden spring
that summoned a servant. The blue room.
Then, turning to me, she said : He will give
you clothing suitable to our life and climate.
Good night.
"Good night, I repeated in a daze.
"After nearing the curtain behind which
the servant had disappeared and stood wait
ing, I looked back. Asra lay silent and white,
as I had first seen her, between the pale cres
cent s ivory horns. Again she seemed to be
not a woman, but a gigantic opal, beneath
whose surface a rainbow slept. The curtains
had begun their sibilant whispering again, and
from them leaped gold phantoms in a dance
of joy. Nearer and nearer to the ivory moon
they circled. They formed a glittering cor
don about it, weaving of bright motion a
visible song of sleep. When the long cur
tains fell behind me, I thought: * Perhaps
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it has all been a dream/ I did not know. I
could not tell.
; This is the guest-room, the servant
said, breaking in upon my reverie. It tells
of the supremacy of the sea. Here are your
clothes. Good night.
"The room was similar to the one I had
left. Like it, it was roofless. Like it, too, it
was walled in white silk. Within the silk
slumbered not gold and silver, but the mys
teries of the sea. I saw depth on depth of
translucent water of every varying shade,
running the entire gamut of blues and greens,
within which gem-winged fish, slim silvery
serpents, and strange iridescent sea-life swam.
It was as if I looked through leagues of
water, as one looks across a level prairie.
Sometimes the water was blue and warm
and pierced by sunlight. Again it was black-
green and angry. Sometimes a cold light
shivered this soundless ocean, a great wave
came rolling in, crested with pale foam the
color of fear. At the moment when it seemed
[217J
ready to break and shed its tumbling waters
over me, it vanished and the white silk
trembled crisply. I remembered what Asra
had said of the white wave that circles the
shoreless sea. The servant, too, had spoken
of the supremacy of the sea. I felt that in
both expressions there was concealed a
threat, or at least a deeper meaning. Un
bidden came the thought that perhaps the
Opal Isles and the people who dwelled within
them were somehow at the mercy of the sea.
"When I stretched myself out upon the
narrow ivory bed in the center of the room,
I still continued to watch the curtains, in
the dim wonder of approaching sleep. I was
conscious of their beauty and their magic,
but I no longer felt any desire to solve a
mystery where all was mystery. As I fell
asleep I wondered if I, too, would be trans
formed into an opal. Why not? Are we
not all opals by day and night, white flesh
opals beneath whose surface flashes the flame
of imagination?
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"W T hen I went downstairs the next day
dressed in a white tunic worn after the man
ner of the Greek costume, I found that I
had slept the greater part of the day. On the
way a servant met me and led me to a room
where Asra awaited me. She wore the won
derful costume of the evening before. The
sight of her brought back the golden phan
toms of which she seemed to be an em
bodied one. I wondered if, when I ap
proached her, she would vanish and the
pallor of space confront me. I had ceased
to trust the testimony of my senses. But
she stood there calmly smiling, the swinging
pink corselet gems swaying with the move
ment of her breath.
"When I went up to her, she held out her
hand frankly and wished me good morning.
I was more surprised to find that she was
real, that she did not vanish at my approach,
than if, upon the instant, a dozen phantoms
had leaped to take her place. The little hand
within my own was warm and white. Here
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was the first reality. In gratitude I bent
over it. As I lifted my head, bright sunlight
swept in from the open side of the room and
swathed her about like a robe. Color became
sound. I saw then their relationship to fear
lessness and joy.
"With the new clothes I put on a new life
a lighter, freer, happier life. The black-
robed world which I had known seemed far
away. Suddenly it seemed to have been a
sort of slavery. I saw it fettered with re
straints and prejudices. I saw it bowed of
back and weary. I drew a deep breath as
of one pleasantly released, as if prison doors
had opened and shown me light.
"Laughing, Asra came to where I stood
and clasped upon my upper arm a bracelet
of opals.
"Now you are a subject of the Opal
Isles! Now there is no retreat.
"I looked down upon the glittering gems.
Each stone was emitting sparklets of cold
green light, as if in anger at me, an inter-
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loper. While I was watching almost in fear
its malevolent shine, a servant entered and
asked Asra if she wished to drive as usual
at that hour. She looked toward me
questioningly.
Nothing could give me greater pleasure,*
I replied, to the unuttered question in her
eyes. I should like to see the city by day.
" As we drove along, I saw that there were
other cities and other islands, a dozen or
more perhaps. They had been hidden from
me the evening before by the luminousness
of the night, which had made them a part
of the distance. Between the islands little
red-sailed boats fluttered, but nowhere was
the long, black smoke-ribbon of a steamer to
be seen.
Where are the Opal Isles? I ques
tioned, turning to Asra. I never heard the
name before. I m sure I never dreamed of
cities of white marble on the other side of the
earth.
"I told you last night, 5 she replied eva-
[221J
sively, that they are in the center of the
shoreless sea, where the white wave circles.
" I fancied then, as I looked out across the
shining water, that something white and
ominous like foam bounded the far horizon.
She followed my glance. When again she
looked toward me, I thought that within her
eyes I read fear, but the look vanished as
quickly as it came, and the old serenity took
its place.
That does not tell me where I am " in
the center of the shoreless sea" that only
helps to lose me the more.
" What difference does it make where one
is, if one is happy? How could happiness be
situated upon a map !
But are there no steamers, no seafaring
vessels? I insisted, looking out beyond the
islands where the smooth water stretched to
the horizon, unfurrowed of prow or oar.
"Of course not! W T hy should there be?
When one reaches the Land of the Ideal,
where everything is exactly as one would have
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it, is it reasonable to suppose that any one
would wish to go away?
" Very true. But how do they get here?
" How did you?
"But I mean others. How do they get
here?
There is only one road that can lead to
a land like this. They who are fit find it.
"But do not all roads lead two ways?
"All but this one.
"I yield. There is no use in questioning
the Sphinx.
"We were driving through streets lined
with marble buildings and bordered on either
side by smooth parkways. At frequent in
tervals along the greensward were statues,
decorative urns, shrubs, and flowers. Each
building, whatsoever its size, extent, or pur
pose, was a little work of art and formed a
helpful part of the general grouping. No
where was there anything ugly or unsightly.
Nowhere was there a false color or an imma
ture line. It was as if the people had worked
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together with the single aim of making their
city faultless. They seemed to know that
ugly things are immoral.
"On the larger buildings I noticed that the
decorations were frequently suggestive of the
sea, as if in some remote age the city had
risen from its depth. Carved upon the
marble were shells, fish, trailing vines and
weeds whose graceful sinuosities told of the
swinging of tides. When we crossed one of
the long spoke-like streets which swept from
the center to the edge of the island, I saw
that at its end, upon the turf that met it at
right angles, there was a group of statuary.
Asra told me that similar groups stood at
the end of each street where it touched the
sea. This group represented dancing nymphs
pausing suddenly in the last wild round of
some ecstatic dance, uplifted to toe-tips by
motion-mad draperies, with muscles tense,
up-strained to slimmest height, heads flung
back, holding to their lips, trumpet-wise,
fluted shells, through which they were fling-
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ing defiance at the deep. This picture stuck
in my memory. It was like a pin prick of
fear. In the smiling water it made me see a
menace and a danger.
;< There were buildings in the city which
had a look of great age. They were yellow
and mottled and streaked faintly with fine
lines of gray. Their architecture was strange.
It was simple and dignified, but as alien as
the flora of an unknown land. The light
fell upon these ancient buildings tenderly,
with none of the harsh obtrusiveness of un
shaded white. It was like a retrospective
thought where unpleasant things seen in the
flattering mirror of the past have lost their
harshness. High above the city rose the
grace of palms, and in all directions shone
blue water.
"Then began a life which lasted too brief
a time and which I have never ceased to re
gret; a life where all the standards of living
were reversed. How shall I tell you?
"Beauty, not gold, was king! the intelli-
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gent appreciation, the creation of beauty.
They called it the spirit of life made visible.
There was no religion, no church; in their
stead they had placed fearlessness and joy
and kindness. If you can imagine what the
result would be to take away wealth as the
objective goal of a nation s endeavor, you
will gain an idea of what I mean.
"Gradually in our walks and drives, or in
our sails upon the water, Asra instructed
me in the new life, until I was beginning to
forget the old. At least I had reached the
point where there was no desire of return. I
will not enter into tiresome details of the
island people and their ways, because the
most important part is what came later and
its effect upon my life.
"Perhaps two weeks had elapsed since my
arrival in the Opal Isles when Asra asked
me to visit with her a little rocky islet, the
farthest and most outlying of the Opal group,
whence a fine view was to be had of the island
cities, and the great sea to westward. At
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THE OPAL ISLES
her suggestion, we took along a hamper of
food, that we might spend the day if we
wished. I managed the red-sailed boat, and
we went alone.
"Rocky and grim the island rose from the
water, like the summit of a mountain whose
base had been submerged by the tides. Near
the shore on one side, opposite the landing,
stood a graceful little pavilion, a place of
rest and shelter from the too direct rays of
the sun. Within were seats and a table.
"At one end of the pavilion the rock walls
were near and rose high above its roof. In
the wind-sheltered crevices an airy blue
flower grew that resembled the anemone.
There were occasional ferns, too. Other
vegetation there was none. The shore was
strewn with dull, copper-colored seaweeds
of sharply indented edges. They resembled
hairy tentacles, long eager sea-arms reaching
from the deep to drag us down.
"Asra wore the dress in which I had first
seen her, the gold open-work corselet, with
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THE OPAL ISLES
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the swinging pink stones and giant rubies.
As I looked at her, the light struck a flame
from the ruby above her heart, and I noticed
that its color was that of the crimson sail. I
remembered how I had watched it upon the
misty water, and how I had thought that it
was the color of life, when life is lived bravely.
"I am glad of your mood to-day, she
said, divining my thoughts. Why can you
not always be like this? Why can you not
always be dominant and fearless? That is
the way to live. I do not understand you
when you are sad.
" Nor I myself.
" Why is it then?
The mystery of things, perhaps. I do
not know exactly. Perhaps it is because I
wonder where I am.
" What possible difference can place make
if we are happy?
: Perhaps it is because I fear the day will
come when I must go away.
"A deep light shone in her eyes. The
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THE OPAL ISLES
thought flashed through my brain that here
was such a face as dwells forever in the
depth of our ideals.
But why need you go? What is there in
the old world that you want? Stay here
with me/
" Do you mean it, Asra? I cried, all but
smothered with the joy that burst upon my
senses.
"Yes, why not?
Then this life is mine forever ! I ex
claimed, hastening toward her, while she
waved me gently away.
To the fearless all things belong.
" Asra! I cried, the wild joy still beating
in my brain.
" Again she waved me away. See! She
spread a paper before me which she had
taken from a slender chatelaine swinging
from her waist. This is the permission
for me to choose whom I wish you if I
wish.
; And you do wish, Asra?
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THE OPAL ISLES
888888888888888888888888888888888888888
"Otherwise would I have told you? It
depends upon you. There are conditions.
You must banish fear, doubt, sadness, for
ever. Do you understand? If you were un
able, it would mean ruin such ruin as you
do not know. You must be sure of yourself.
f Anything that lies within my power I
will do. But is this within my power? Can
I be sure? Can I know?
"I looked out over the sea. The broad
light fell full upon it, and a myriad merry
eyes looked back at me. Its voice reached
me. I listened. The meaning was unmis
takable. It was the undying laughter of the
pagan gods. At night, too, I remembered, its
voice had reached me; and I shivered to
think that it was a dirge then, that it
sang an eternal dirge. And between these
two voices of nature the two voices that
call forever, the laughter and the dirge
what was there? The ideal! Yes, the ideal,
desirable and unattainable, forever, between
the laughter and the dirge.
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: Now you have reached it ! she ex
claimed, breaking in upon my thinking. You
were sure to. Now you will conquer. Put the
other world behind you. Annihilate it with
your fearlessness. Be mine !
"Her face inspirited me. Courage, like
wine, strengthened my veins. I felt that I
had been lifted into a high and rarefied ele
ment. The moments became lyric and sped
onward with the lilt of song.
! I will not fail you. I will live with you
upon your height of joy. I will prove that I
am worthy.
"I clasped her in my arms, and the face
which w T as like the realization of a dream was
near to mine.
"I knew it! she exclaimed, disengaging
herself gently from my embrace.
"For the moment I moved in an element
of lightness and joy, freed from fear, super
stition, and corroding care. I began to re
alize that joy is the most important thing in
the world, the most pregnant of possibility
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and power. I saw a new world, a new sky,
and a new earth. Beneath her mighty touch,
I saw as if for the first time the face of the
morning upon the level water. I looked
across it. My fancy peopled with triumphant
phantoms the immeasurable distances that
lay beyond. Worlds on worlds sprung up in
space over which joy floated like a victorious
banner and whose roadways were threaded
by the gleaming feet of love. I saw victo
rious and triumphant things; white arms
up-flung, red lips that shrilled in song;
bright helmet plumes blown back like flame;
and between them the white, glorious face
of the woman I loved. Joy had strung my
mind to a finer pitch. It had given it tem
porarily the strength and the suppleness of
steel. Like a thin and glittering sword of
unbreakable metal, joy stood, unsheathed
of grief and formidable forever, between me
and the destructive forces of life. Nothing
now could diminish my power. I had found
that for which we are created.
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"Wherever the mysterious roads of life
might lead, it was joy that waited for me
at the end. All the beautiful, unalterable
things in whose creation joy had been dom
inant came thronging to enrich my senses.
You are right. Joy is the greatest thing
in the world. It is the alkahest, the universal
solvent, in which beauty becomes fluid, and,
like a returning tide of ocean, flows in and
makes fecund the barren coves and inlets of
the soul.
Put away all that you have known in the
past/ she answered quickly. Forget that
there was ever another way of living, another
land. Be mine wholly. If you are worthy,
the reward will not be slight.
The past is as if it had not been. It is
a tide that has slipped back again into the
deep.
"And it has washed away the writing on
the sand. Look! She pointed to the sea.
Like its deep the soul is. Nothing can
sully it.
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SSSSSSSSSSSSSSi^SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"As a lark rises in space, its only connec
tion with the dim earth being ribbons of
fluted sound, so did my ecstatic vision rise
and hold me high above, where petty griefs
could not pull me down and where in my
focusing point of light I could draw what I
wished up unto myself.
"I promise, Asra.
Then I choose you, she answered sol
emnly, a strange new note of warning ringing
in her voice.
"I felt as if the horses of the sun had
whirled me to the heights of light. Swift air
lashed my ears. Glory inundated my senses.
I felt the vertigo of happiness. I saw poise
beneficently above me then the vision of love
the glittering, gold-cloud vision of love as
it is painted by tone in the overture to Lo
hengrin. When it passed, the elastic swing
of my vision, which had attained height suffi
cient to embrace all things, brought before
me, by power of contrast, the black, autumn
coast of La Bas Bretagne, as I had seen it
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in my gloomy childhood. The shore was
strewn with rocks, like this one, and, perched
upon them, much as was this gay pavilion,
stood a church, somber and dark with age.
Upon the tower a huge dark crucifix stood,
whose black shadow fell far below. I saw
again that cold autumnal sea; the slow-
swinging ridges of dim water, where the
black cross wavered, and between which
poised black boats, over whose edges from
time to time passed sadly the cold, silent
creatures of the sea. The bright vision faded.
I fell from my height of joy. It was as if I
spun down infinitudes of space, light, like
sound, ringing as I went.
" Asra, you swept me with you to a dizzy
height, where, for a few moments, I saw the
splendor of the worlds unfurl. But I can
not keep it. My eyes grow dim; my senses
are blurred. A thousand fears assail me. I
am afraid of the heights. I cannot live there
calmly. I am not equal to it.
" What do you mean? Again there was
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that solemn note of warning that shook my
soul.
; Do not fail me now. You do not realize
what it would mean. You do not dream
what would come.
"Again I saw the cold gray sky of France.
The dim water ridges again swung toward
me, and upon them lay blackly the shadow
of sorrow. Doubts and fears like a demon
army fell upon me. They overcame me;
they crushed me.
"Asra, what of that dark ocean whose
name is death?
* What of that! she replied in scorn.
*I do not fear it. Put all such thoughts be
hind you. Be brave! Let us intoxicate our
selves with living, with fancies, dreams, ex
quisite sensations. The present cannot last.
Therefore make it perfect. Since Life is
a guest whom we may not ignore if we
would, does it not behoove us to be royal
entertainers?
"No more could that impassioned voice
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arouse me, nor the eyes, that filled my soul
with light. The earth had claimed me. Su
pinely I fell back upon its breast. Never
again could she lift me to the heights.
"I am not worthy of you, Asra. Can you
forgive me? I said, folding her in my arms
and pressing my lips to hers.
"When my lips touched hers, a change
passed over her. She was standing close
beside me, and yet she seemed to be distant,
to have moved away.
"Oh, the folly! Why did you not listen
to me! Why did you not bury yourself in
your dream and forget! Why did you not
content yourself with looking! There are
things made only to dream of - - that vanish
at the touch. Good is not good until it is
useless, she added enigmatically.
" The ideal must never be reached. Look !
Wildly her voice rang out.
"I followed the direction of her eyes and
her pointing hand.
"The white wave!
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"The sky-line was blurred beneath on-
rushing water, white and thunderous and
fearful.
What does it mean, the white wave?
: Did I not warn you? Come, save your
self while there is time!
"She unclasped the bracelet from my arm
and flung it down. She led me toward the
rock that towered at the end of the pavilion.
After walking some distance around its pro
jection upon the sand, we came to a dark
and narrow opening. There, handing me the
food hamper, she said: Go straight ahead!
Go! Go!
: But you will you not go too? What
of you?
1 No, no ! No matter. There is not time
to tell you. Do as I wish. Go quickly.
"I looked across the sea. I saw the tower
ing water. Its icy breath fanned my face.
Its pale crest reached the zenith. Sprayed
foam beads fell from it like marbles and
dotted the blue ahead. The red sail of our
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boat fluttered in fear. Without pausing to
think or to reason, I picked Asra up in my
arms and darted with her into the black
opening. It was the work of an instant.
There was not time for word or argument.
"No sooner had we crossed the dividing
line than, with a crash, a great rock suspended
above the entrance like a door fell and shut
us off from sight of the island and the
glittering wave that rolled thundering on.
There was no retreat. There was nothing
to do but to go on. I had come from the
darkness and I was plunged back into it
again. Neither light nor sound reached us.
Impenetrable night surrounded us. The air
however was fresh, as if it had connection
with the outside. Beneath my feet a smooth
roadway of stone led downward, the declivity
being sharp.
"A change had taken place in Asra, which
the excitement of the first few moments had
prevented me from noticing. Her body had
become light as air, and cold and stiff. I
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dreaded to confront the fact and acknowl
edge to myself what had happened. It was
no longer the body of a woman. It was no
longer my beloved, no longer Asra, whom I
held in my arms. It was the opal which I
had first seen between the moon s ivory horns.
What a grief was this! What sorrow filled
my soul ! It was useless to cry out or remon
strate. The change which I had seen upon
the night of my arrival had taken place again.
I consoled myself by thinking that, with day
light and the earth s surface regained, she
would be herself once more. If it had not
been for this thought, I could not have gone
on. I should not have tried for life. What
would there have been to live for! Why
could I not reasonably expect this? I had
seen it happen before. Almost beneath my
eyes the miracle had taken place.
"Lifting the mammoth opal to my shoul
der, the easier to carry it, I sped swiftly
down the smooth stone way, hoping every
moment for a ray of light to give promise of
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THE OPAL ISLES
an exit, however far away. When I reached
the bottom of the declivity and found level
stone beneath my feet, there was still no sign
of light, and I was so weary that I put my
burden down and slept. When I awoke, I ate
some of the food in the hamper and went on.
"I must have been deep within the heart
of the earth. No sound nor scent of living
thing came here. Yet the air was fresh and
free from the damp smell of prisoned places.
This was the thing that gave me hope. Some
where, not far away, it had met an outer
current and purified itself. The wind blew
in my face. It seemed to come from the di
rection in which I was going. It was not my
own motion that caused it. When I paused,
I could still feel it blowing gently in my face.
That gave me heart, and was the one foun
dation for hope. Somewhere in the darkness
there was an exit through which the fresh air
came.
" My other journey beneath the earth was
as nothing in point of time in comparison
[241]
THE OPAL ISLES
eseee&eeseeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeesseesees&ees
with this. Had it not been for the plentiful
supply of food within the hamper, I must
have perished before I reached the surface.
As it was, I suffered greatly. I was exhausted.
My feet were blistered with walking on un
yielding stone, and my arms were stiff with
the strain of holding securely that strange
burden. Hope was still high in my heart
that I should see the miracle wrought anew
and Asra rise from her opal sleep. Other
wise I should have cared for nothing. Life
would not have been worth the saving.
"It was night when I came to the surface
of the earth, or, at least, darkness had fallen.
I found myself upon a tiny island, no larger
than a dot upon the water, evidently a coal
ing station in the South Pacific. There was
but one building, a keeper s cottage, and over
it floated the flag of France.
"The evening was not old, for the tide,
which indications proved to have been low
that day, was creeping in. I did not pause
to think or to be thankful for my safety. I
[242]
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THE OPAL ISLES
thought only of Asra. I was in a fever of
excitement to find out if my hope was to be
realized. Would she awake from her sleep
and speak to me? Would our old life go on
as before? Carefully I deposited the precious
burden upon the ground. The moon was a
slender sickle of gold and lent but little light.
However, there was a luster that came from
the water, and the southern stars were bright.
By their aid I hoped to see.
"Asra was wrapped in a thick white tissue.
I remembered that it had the same billowy
whiteness as the covering that slipped and
fell down at her feet like foam on the night
of my arrival, when I first saw her standing
by the moon s ivory horns. I thrust it aside,
tearing it in my haste. Before me lay a
radiant opal. From it colors spouted like
jets of water in a wonder-park.
"The quick interchange of colors blinded
me. I could distinguish nothing, peer as I
might. I knelt down and put my face close
to the stone in the endeavor to see. Then it
[243]
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THE OPAL ISLES
eeeseeseseseeeeessesseeesessseessesesss
was as if a rain of light sprayed my face. It
was useless. I could make out nothing. Yet
the great stone preserved perfectly the con
tour of her body. Surely I should be able to
see her when that play of color called up
by the light combinations of the night sub
sided. As I stood bravely fortifying my soul
with hope, defiant in face of discouragement,
the glamour of the old island life we had led
together touched me vividly, and for an in
stant s space swung me to the heights of
joy. The stone grew pale and white. I
knelt beside it. Then, plainly in its depth,
I saw Asra asleep, in her gold corselet with its
little pink gems and giant rubies.
" Asra! I called. Awake! We are safe
now. Awake and speak to me.
"Peering closely, I saw her smile, else some
ray of restless light touched her.
"In memory I saw once more the silk-
hung chamber with its golden phantoms,
and I grieved to think that I might never
see it again.
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THE OPAL ISLES
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"Asra! The white wave is gone. There
is no sign of it anywhere. We are safe.
Awake !
"For answer I heard the sea s undying
pagan laughter. Asra faded away. The
stone s brilliancy revived. The mad dance
of spouting colors began. I knew I could not
call her back. I flung myself down beside
her and buried my face in the sand. In a
frenzy of grief I determined to watch until
morning. Then, surely, the change I longed
for would come. I could not give up hope.
Hope meant life. The day would settle it,
and as I wished. I lay down beside her and
waited for the sun.
" What a night was that ! It was the long
est I ever knew. At times weariness over
powered me, and I slept to wake with strung
nerves. It seemed as if the day would never
come. I thought the stars of a dozen nights
rose and set. I thought the magic in which
I was entangled had hindered the old rota
tion of day and night. Every change in
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THE OPAL ISLES
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the night sky was reflected in the stone, as
if it were the pulse of night. A wisp of clouds
across the zenith, and it was malevolently
somber; a freshening breeze swept them
away, and fire darted from it.
"The day came, gray and chill, with a
pallid mist. I was drenched to the skin, and
shivering with cold. Fear, born of weariness,
assailed me. The earth-grief fell upon me
like a cloak. I ached in every limb. In what
a fever of hope and fear did I hang over the
stone, waiting for the light to clear sufficiently
to see. When it did, I could no longer see
the face of Asra, only her gemmed costum
ing and the dim outlines of her body.
"Then the fear that she would fade away
forever all but drove me mad. I forgot hun
ger, weariness, everything, in the endeavor
to see again the face I loved. As I watched
in such anxiety as they know who have loved
deeply, trembling the while, as if from fever,
the sun sent its first level rays across the
sea. The light penetrated the stone. There
[246]
THE OPAL ISLES
was nothing to hinder me now. I could
delude myself no longer. I could see plainly.
Asra was not there.
"Beneath the snowy surface I could dis
tinguish a mingled brightness and the long
gold lines where her body had been. While I
was looking, these, too, melted away in a
dance of color. Doubt and fear had killed
her. She had warned me, too. She had
told me that the result would be something
undreamed of.
"If for an instant hope sprang glowing in
my heart, I could see her dimly, but when it
passed she melted away in a jeweled mist
and left me alone. In one telescopic flash of
mind I realized the gloom, the barrenness, of
the years that were to come. I realized then,
in the flower of my youth, that the best of
life lay behind me. From what I had known,
the paths of life must lead downward.
"Leaving her concealed in the reeds, I went
to the house. I had been correct in my sup
position that it was a French coaling-station.
[2471
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The keeper was greatly surprised at the
presence of a stranger. When I explained
how I came, he was more surprised and
shook his head doubtfully. He declared
that he had never heard of the Opal Isles.
He could not explain my presence in any
satisfactory way, however, since the only
steamer which had been expected for weeks
was due that day. When I told him more of
the islands, with their twelve white cities, he
no longer contradicted me. He said nothing,
but he looked at me strangely. He thought
that I was mad and feared lest opposition
arouse my fury. I knew then that it would
be useless to tell of my experience to any one.
No one would believe it.
"I saw that the keeper would be relieved
to be rid of me. When I asked him for a loan
to defray my expenses to Melbourne on the
expected steamer, giving only my word in
pledge of refunding, he assented readily.
He showed a like willingness to oblige me
when I asked for a certain wooden chest,
[248]
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THE OPAL ISLES
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some six feet in length, which I had seen out
doors beneath one of the windows, and for
which I had no ostensible use. He was will
ing to do anything to have me off his hands.
"The first thing I did when I reached Mel
bourne was to cable for money to my attor
neys in Paris. When the answer came, I
proceeded to hire a steamer and to equip it
for a cruise of indefinite length. After procur
ing the most trustworthy seamen that port
afforded, I set out on my quest of the Opal
Isles. The captain, an old man whose life had
been spent upon southern seas, said that in his
youth he had heard of wonderful cities of
white marble beyond the last known land.
Likewise he said that he had heard that no
one could land there, because they floated
always out of reach. Others affirmed that
they were merely icebergs drifting northward
from the polar circle.
"I was glad to leave the low, yellow, sun
baked shores of Australia. I longed for the
open sea. After we had steamed out of port
[249]
THE OPAL ISLES
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and gone some distance, sand blown by a
furious wind from that blistering upland
desert which makes its interior, fell upon us
and dotted the sea like rain.
"Straight to southward we steamed, past
Tasmania. As we neared it, I remembered
that it was spring in the southern seas -
November. Tasmania was pink with orchard
bloom. After we passed it and looked back
- so different is its southern coast there
was nothing to be seen but towering columns
of black basalt.
"Now the roll of the long waves struck
us, sweeping always from west to east. Tre
mendous waves they are, whose length no
one may measure. On and on they sweep,
unhindered and unchecked, until somewhere
to southward they girdle the earth.
"Five days later we sighted New Zealand
a row of white mountains whose bases are
buried in yellow gorse. When we came
nearer, we saw the cherry blossoms and the
dog-roses of an English garden. Then again
[250]
THE OPAL ISLES
to southward and out into the long wash of
the Australasian waves. Here our steamer
disturbed and put to flight a myriad sea-fowl
resting idly upon the surface of the water;
down-white albatross with wings of jet, and
Cape pigeons with checker-board backs.
Land was definitely left behind with all that
we had known. Before us, like a magic path
way enticing us to follow, stretched the long,
shining roadstead of the wind. Swiftly we
slipped down it and away toward the Polar
seas. At night the Southern Cross flamed
bright. At night we saw the vari-tinted
stars of a southern zone. We were in a
strange world, with a strange sky above us.
The sea, too, was strange. Sometimes it was
so clear by some little island s side that we
could see the mysteries of the deep. Some
times we saw algae as delicate and finely
lined as carven cameos, and sometimes kelp
so long it mocked the sea-serpent in its
length.
"We coasted past unknown islands, where
[251]
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THE OPAL ISLES
eeeseeeeeeeeee3seeesseeseeeeeeee3esees&
bright sea-growths blazed on coral reefs.
We saw palms that looked as if they sprang
from the water, so slender was their foothold
in the soil. At times all that we knew of an
island was a whiff of fragrance that blew
across our faces while we slept, or we rose
to find a feathery greenness in the day. Or
at dawn we coasted near enough to land to
catch a phrase drawled in dull semi-tones, or
to see the sun gild sharply the bare body of a
woman with black and floating hair. Then
we came to barren water where no islands
were, turquoise blue and chill, upon whose
outer edge the ice-fields lay. Then back to
northward. Round and round we swung.
Thus we scoured the seas. We became
known to every merchantman, to every sailor.
At first they thought that ours was a like
occupation. When they found out the differ
ence, they looked upon us with disfavor. Sto
ries were circulated. They said we brought
misfortune and foul weather. Wrecks and
sea tragedies were laid at our door. They
[252]
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THE OPAL ISLES
888888888888888888888888888888888888888
confused us with the Flying Dutchman.
Gloom settled down upon us. No one escaped
it. Even I was losing heart. I found that
we may not live other than our fellows. The
punishment for being different is not slight.
"Days and days I sat on deck and scanned
the horizon with my glass. When weariness
overpowered me, a sailor took my place. Nor
at night was the watch relaxed. Then, too,
a sailor sat ready to lift his glass at call of a
ray of light and sweep the sea. Each night
when I went to bed, it was with the hope of
finding myself beside the blessed islands when
I awoke. That failing, I consoled myself
with the possibilities of day. My life trem
bled between hope and disappointment.
These were the poles of my narrowed world.
"There was one room in the steamer espe
cially arranged for Asra. No one entered
there except myself. It was lighted with
brilliancy, that no material aid might be
lacking in reading the great stone s heart.
There, after the nerve-racking day on deck,
[253]
sesesseessess&ses&ee&eeaseseesseessesse.
THE OPAL ISLES
ssseseeeesssee&sseese&eeeseeseesess&ees
I spent a part of the night, peering into the
long gem which lay upon a couch of white.
"It was rarely now, and only under mental
stress, that I was able to glimpse the dear
face. To do so it was necessary to shut my
self off for days from contact with my fellow
men and by imaginative effort and strong
stimulants key myself to a fictitious joy.
Then, for one moment, the fair body in its
golden corselet would be visible in all its
beauty, and the face smile as if ready to
awake from sleep. Nor was this consolation
of great duration. It was not long before the
strongest and headiest wines failed to have
any effect upon me, and I took to drugs. The
moments of vision were of slighter duration,
the body less distinctly seen, less real, and,
it seemed sometimes, less lovely. It was
all going from me, all that I had loved. I
watched it, but I was powerless to hinder.
"The effect of the drugs failed altogether.
There was nothing now that could lift me
for an instant to the old height of joy where
[254]
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THE OPAL ISLES
Asra and I had lived and loved. The strain
was telling upon my health. Physical weak
ness helped to make the moments of vision
rarer. Never again, Titan-like, could I live
with Asra upon the heights. Weariness and
weakness and impotence fell upon me. The
earth called me, and held me bound. I could
only look at the opal with its heart of flame
and dream sadly of what had been. I could
see Asra now only in the dream recesses of
my brain. And I knew, too, that this power
would not last. Old age w^ould blot it out.
There was nothing that I could hold arid call
my own.
"The years of cruising had been futile.
They had brought disappointment to my
hopes and to my heart the certainty that I
should never find the delectable isles. My
strength was exhausted. I was worn out with
the fruitless quest. I gave it up and came
here.
"That room there," indicating with a
wave of his hand an upper wing of the house,
[255]
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THE OPAL ISLES
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS ^SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
"I built for Asra. It is arranged and fur
nished like the room in which I found her.
There she has lain for fifty years and, as I
told you, I do not know whether she is alive
or dead. That part of the house, as you may
have noticed, fronts the sea, that she may
hear always what she loved the undying
laughter of the pagan gods.
"It is years and years now since I have
seen her. I am old and I have not the
strength. I shall never see her again. But
I know that she is there asleep."
A year later, in a distant city, I picked up
a paper and this head-line caught my eye:
"The Strangest Will Ever Filed." It was
an account of how one Gustav Berengy, a
nobleman of the south of France, had left
his wealth to a gigantic opal, which was
shaped like a woman s form.
256]
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
A MOZART FANTASY
C est quelque part en des pays du nord le sais-je?
C est quelque part sous des poles aciereux,
Ou les blancs angles de la neige
Griffent des pans de roc nitreux.
EMILE VERHAEREN.
OOD evening, my Lord of Mozart."
The voice was sweet and so was the
title. He looked up in surprise. Midnight
had sounded. He had thought that he was
the only one awake in the old house in the
Rauhensteingasse with its myriad rooms, of
which he rented three. His wife and children
were abed. Their clothing littered the room
in which he sat and added to its disorder.
He remembered the beautiful face that
was bending beside him. At sight of it the
years rolled back to the days of his child
hood. Now, as she stood in his miserable
[257]
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
es&eeeseseseseeeseseeseseeeee&seeeesees
room and called him "My Lord of Mozart,"
he jumped up in readiness for her behest.
"I have come for you. The carriage waits
below."
Something snapped in his head, and it
seemed to him that he rushed through gray
leagues of space. Then he mastered himself
and followed in the direction in which his
visitor had gone. He did not find her. She
was not within the hall nor upon the street.
There, however, a carriage waited, its
driver by the door. He jumped in and fell
back among soft cushions. A whip curled
in the air, and two horses dashed through
the darkness. They left the city, and
reached the country. The speed did not
lessen. He saw in fleeting perspective black
hills and bare trees against a dull silver sky,
where pale green stars shone. After they
had driven at this pace for a time, they came
to a city. He did not care what city it was.
He only knew that she lived here. At last
he should know who she was. At last!
[258]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
888888888888888888888888888888888888828
The driver dismounted and opened the
door. With his whip he pointed to a gate
ahead. Then he bowed, leaped to the box
and was gone. There was an inscription
upon the gate. When he came near, he read
in strange and antique characters : * The
Land of Music." After he had passed
through the gate, he turned to have another
look at it. There was nothing to be seen
of the gate through which he had entered,
nor of the country beyond. In all directions
rose the roofs and towers of an alien city.
He found himself in a square where a
number of streets converged. He read their
names, and one caught his fancy: "The
Street of the Masters." He turned into it.
"W T hat wonderful dwellings there are in
The Land of Music!" he exclaimed joy
ously, forgetting for the instant the one he
sought. "I knew it! I knew it! Why
could I not have come here sooner!" he
added, his lips and chin trembling piteously.
"What dwellings the masters dwell in!"
[259]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS^SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
He looked rapturously down the vista be
fore him. "Here are tone-palaces of an
Assyrian magnificence, silverly translucent,
of the most gracious symmetry and rising
to unthinkable heights. How I love this
land, through whose gateways I have just
passed! How I love it! It is as if it were
made for me. It is a world of crystal and
silver and white onyx and pale ivory. I can
see streets of dwellings whose harmonious
lines make Grecian temples heavy; dwell
ings of such fabulously fragile beauty as the
frost of northern nights paints on the win
dows. There are arches springing airily
from arches, reproduced again and again
in delicate, diminishing curves; fagades of
silver fretwork of the palpitating tenuity
of a spider s web; forests of fair columns,
their capitals hung with leaves of light."
Then it was that a strange inversion
took place. This became the reality, and
that sad other world the dream. He cov
ered his face with his hands and gave way
[260]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss^sss,
to a storm of tears, so greatly was he relieved
to be rid of the dream where he had known
only sorrow. The relief, the unspeakable
relief, to know that it was a dream! His
frail figure became erect and proud, as he
walked along, recognizing the dwellings of
his friends. "Here are the houses of Gliick
and Sebastian Bach and my dear, dear
Haydn. But what is that that structure
just ahead? Beethoven? Yes, Beethoven."
He looked about. Nowhere could he see any
thing that out-topped it. "My little friend
Beethoven! How kind is life in comparison
with the hideousness of dreams!" Again
tears dimmed his eyes. "And there dwells
Handel! That is just such a temple as the
saints would build. It is not altogether
original, but it is the work of a mighty soul.
If it does not stand for versatility, it stands
for strength."
After passing the stern home of Handel,
it was some little distance to the next dwell
ing. When he came where he could see it
[261]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
plainly, he laughed long and wildly, just as
madmen laugh. "Who ever heard of any
one forgetting his own home! How could
that black dream have lasted long enough
for me to do that? Will it never cease to
haunt me? The idea of forgetting my own
home!" And he laughed as madly as before.
Ahead, upon a little eminence, not quite
in a straight line with the other houses of the
street, he saw a sumptuous Italian palace
of the best days, built evidently for love
and leisure.
It was just such a palace as Lorenzo the
Magnificent dreamed of setting among the
laureled hills of Tuscany. It was built of
resonant crystal, turreted and pinacled, and
provided with a myriad Venetian balco
nies and pillared porticos. It was not of
such tremendous height as the dwelling of
Beethoven, nor of such vast dimensions as
that of Handel, and yet it might easily be
called lovelier than either, because of its
charm of design.
[262]
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
esesseeeeseeeeeseese&eeeeeseeseseeeesss
As he stormed up the steps impatiently,
he noticed how well his blue satin court
suit with its jeweled stars and orders and his
curling golden hair suited the dwelling in
which he lived. The doors swung open to
receive him. Powdered footmen bent before
him.
The guests were waiting. They were in
their places ready for the dance. He bowed
before his partner. Her mouth was a little
red dot, and her eyes were two deep pools
of love. They swung into the dance. The
music uplifted them. As changing figures
brought them together, he sensed pleasantly
the delicacy of her flesh and the floating
fragrance of her hair. As he bent in the
dance s slow salutes, his eyes embraced soft
shoulders, white breasts upheld, flower-like,
by stir! corsages, slim, jewel-clasped necks,
and twinkling feet beneath lifted lace.
Cavaliers, with heads flung back and
hands to sw T ord hilt, like true old French
gallants, danced haughtily out to meet gay
[263J
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
Watteau ladies. Then what smiles, what
courtly bows, what languishment, what bird-
like gayety! In the swinging whirl he saw
court trains outfloat in satin splendor, and
the backward tilt of high-coiffured heads.
The floors and the mirrored walls reflected
the dancers, redoubling their graces in fluent
light. He caught the interchange of stolen
glances. He saw delicate fingers press re
sponsive hands. He saw the amorous lean
ing of fond bodies and the pledge of lifted
eyes. The air was electric with love. He
drank it in eagerly, greedily. It was for
this that he had thirsted. Again, for an
instant, the black dream swept down upon
him and blotted the pageant out. When
it passed and he found anew the bright
reality, he grasped his companion in his
arms convulsively and buried his face in her
breast to forget.
"To the banquet hall, good friends! To
the banquet hall!" he commanded, when
he lifted his face. He leaped to the center of
[264]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
the room, silenced the orchestra, and flung
up his arms to signal attention, uncontrol
lable laughter bubbling on his lips
" Wine or woman, which is sweetest,
Tell me which for pleasure s meetest,
Which from care can take us fleetest? "
he sang, as he danced along.
Silks swished past him. Fans fluttered
like butterflies. Little slippers clicked in
merry flight. Women drifted past with
heightened color and dream- veiled eyes.
He heard their low laughter and knew that
they were being led with a caress.
As he entered the banquet room, a forest
of upstretched arms whose hands held each
a wineglass greeted him: "Long life to the
Lord of Mozart! The Lord of Mozart!"
Amber and crimson wine-light flecked faces
and breasts and lifted arms, and fell in long
broken ribbons upon the walls.
"Now find out which one is sweetest! *
they chorused.
"I pledge a health to each lady," he gal-
[265]
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
lantly responded, bowing before each in
turn. " In this way I shall find her, for
surelv she is here." When he had made the
rounds and satisfied himself that she was
not, he beckoned a young cavalier to him.
"Why is she not here?"
"She? She never takes part in our
revels."
"But she promised to meet me here."
"Impossible, my lord; she is queen."
"And I am I not king?" he responded
haughtily. Then, repenting of the words,
he flung his arms tenderly about the boyish
figure.
"Ah, my boy, you do not know what love
is its torture, its longing, its insatiable
longing. He noticed then how the young
cavalier resembled his youthful self before
grief and disappointment had lined his face
and lighted their wild light in his eyes.
"Goto my generals ! Summon the army ! "
Doors slid back, transforming the pleasure
palace into a hall. The dancers arranged
[266]
THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
esesesssessesseeseeeseseeesseeessssesss
themselves on either side. Between them
the soldiers passed. And what soldiers!
They were small and supple and swift. They
flew rather than walked. Each one was a
black music note, spurred and bent and
vicious. From their legs black needle-like
stilettos pointed. They were a destructive,
unstemmable torrent. When the last one
had crossed the threshold, and they stood
drawn up in readiness before it "After
them, my friends!" he ordered. The rev
elers obeyed. Black horses waited at the
door. They leaped upon them and swung
through the night.
In the Land of Music it is always night
night lighted by feverishly bright stars and
the rising and setting of strange moons.
Upon black and shining backs poised
delicate figures; outflying manes revealed
the clasp of jeweled arms, and beside the
wild heads of the horses shone the faces of
musical nymphs. The streets through which
they passed were no longer lined with mag-
[267]
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THE HOUSE OF GAUZE
ssssssssssssssssssssssi^ssssssssssssssss
nificent buildings. They had entered the
oldest part of the Land of Music, which is
sparsely settled and where the dwellings are
quaint and ancient. Here a primitive people
had lived.
"What a ridiculous army!" roared the
Lord of Mozart, who led the cavalcade,
standing upon his horse and pirouetting.
"Look! my good friends! Look!" He
pointed ahead.
There they were, gathering about a struc
ture of considerable extent, an army of
dwarfs, with big, oblong, melon-like heads.
They carried stilettos fringed with darts,
but they were slow of motion and aged.
They did not seem to have strength enough
to carry about their cumbersome heads.
And in numbers they did not reach the half
of the army of Mozart.
"So that s our enemy!" he exclaimed,
convulsed with laughter, pirouetting again
upon his horse s back. "We ll make short
work of them. Quick, upon them!"
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Like a cloud of black locusts, the vicious
army of Mozart fell upon them. They cov
ered them from sight. They smothered
them. They dazed them by their numbers
and agility. They killed them.
"Now to the house!" he called. "The
way is clear." His eyes shone like steel,
and spots of fever dotted his cheeks. He
knew that within that ancient dwelling was
the lady of his heart.
"Come, my friends!" They rode across
the dead bodies of the ancient soldiers,
laughing at their ugliness. The ladies pulled
high their silken trains lest they be spotted
with dust and blood.
"My generals, there within sits the lady
of my heart. Bring her out and place her
upon the horse beside me."
The lady they lifted to the saddle in no
way resembled the gay court beauties. In
her bearing there was something noble.
"Back to the palace!"
Like magic, they covered the distance.
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In front of the entrance, the Lord of Mozart
halted and stood erect in his stirrups, bowing
majestically to right and left.
"I thank you, good friends, for your aid.
And now, good night. I go to celebrate the
conquest of love."
"May joy be with you!" they called in
return, waving their hands as their galloping
horses disappeared in the brightness of the
street.
"Why did you try to conquer me by
force?" she asked, facing him in the great
chamber into which he had taken her, and
speaking for the first time. "Do you not
know that it is really by my will that I
have come to save you from humiliation?
Do you not know that you can have no
power over me?"
"Am I not King! I have power over
everything."
"You do not know who I am."
"How can that matter, since I love
you?"
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"I am the Lady Melodia. I cannot be
long to any one. I belong to all. I am queen
absolute."
"Did I not know that we are one!" he
answered, bowing in mock humility to the
stately figure. "Have you not come to me
of your own will? Is it not you who guided
me here?"
"That is why your deed to-night is
shameful."
"But I need you so!" he continued pite-
ously. "Surely you will not leave me when
I need you so. Let me tell you; then you
will pity me. I am haunted by a hideous
dream. (I never told any one before. I con
ceal it carefully.) Sometimes I cannot tell
which is real this life here, or the dream.
I have the strange consciousness" -he
looked about timidly, like a little child, lest
some one hear his secret, then drew her
close to him, his eyes dark with fear
"that I lead two lives. One is in another
world, a world of hard material facts, where
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by the proper grasping of the facts one can
have every joy, every comfort. But there
I cannot grasp anything. I cannot accustom
myself to living. I cannot feel at home. I
cannot understand how men buy prosperity.
I cannot learn anything. I cannot cope with
people. They beat me at every turn. I
lack something that fiber of the common
place that contends and wins. There, in
that black dream-world, I cannot do the
simplest things. And because I cannot, I
suffer suffer poverty and hunger. When
I buy things honestly with my brain, when
I win success, I cannot grasp it. Everything
slips away and leaves me alone to know
the want of beggars. Your presence alone
dispels that horror and makes me know that
this is real, that I am real, and that here I
belong."
Like the face of a mother in tenderness
was the face of the Lady Melodia, as she
murmured: "Dear one! Dear one!"
"Your face lights that black dream-world
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like a star and rests upon my soul. But
there it paralyzes the power of action."
"But are you not willing to suffer the
dream for the sake of this?" She indicated
the glittering chamber.
"If I could always remember that it is
a dream," he answered piteously. "But
they other people have had real things,
while I have had only the glitter of foam.
I ll tell you what it s like," he added boy
ishly. "You ve seen a bottle dropped into
water where, instead of standing upright,
it wavers about, unable to keep balance?
That is what I am without you. Does not
that justify what I did to-night? Does not
that make it right?"
Pity had taken the place of resentment
when she answered: "Yes, perhaps. But you
see you cannot keep me. A Titan could not
do that."
"But I am more than a Titan."
"Once I was wholly yours "
"When?"
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"In your youth. Then I was yours un
asked. Before you had grown old, before
life had marred you."
He looked at himself in a mirror. It was
true that there was no sign of youth in the
face, nor, strange as it may seem, was there
any sign of age. It was the face of one whom
some terrible passion had consumed and
burnt out without materially ageing.
"Why did you leave me?"
"Because you were false to me."
"How could I be false to you when I
have had no pleasures apart from you?"
"Did I not tell you that you could not
live two lives the life of a man and the
life of a god?"
"You mean love? That is the only thing
that makes the black dream tolerable. It is
like the honey the stinging bee carries. It
is the gem in the head of the toad."
"That is why I said you were false to
me," she replied, anger brightening her
eyes.
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"But now I love only you. Surely you
know that."
"How can that right the matter? I can
not belong to any one in whose heart I have
been supplanted for an instant."
"You will reconsider when you know that
I am worthy. Besides, there is no one else
who is worthy. Perhaps you have not read
my heart. I tired of that other of love
long ago, as I have tired of every real
thing. It became like a too sweet honey.
It sickened me, it smothered me; it made
me struggle to be free. It made me long to
feel flying in my face the bright insubstantial-
ity of dreams. And you are my brightest
dream," he said, lifting the long hair and
burying his face in it.
"I know, I know, but "
"Wait! Do not decide now. You do
not know me. There are powers you have
not suspected. I will make you forget. I
will take you where oblivion is deepest. I
will prove that I am worthy. You shall
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never leave me. What care I for law for
right ! I will take you where there is no law,
no right, except my will. I will isolate you
with myself so far beyond the boundaries
of the real that thought cannot return. We
will go beyond the farthest edge of dreams.
Come to the window where you can see the
exterior of the palace. Now watch."
She saw the crystal walls glow as if a
flame dwelled within them, while from tower
to basement fell a silver veil bordered with
diamond sound-crystals, which floated grace
fully. Then the veil rose and vanished; the
flame dimmed and faded until the palace
became as frail as if made of ashes. From
this ashen palace rose a diaphanous, white
gauze, pearl-encrusted palace, mirroring
itself in a lake of ice. The man beside her,
too, had changed. He became well-nigh
transparent. He looked like a spirit made
visible. His hand was frailer and whiter than
the gauze upon which it rested. His eyes
were terrible in their concentrated power.
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"Now, see where I have taken you! Now
do you think that there is any return? See
that avenue of white ferns there, from
which the frost particles fall like rain. Can
you leave me now? Do you want to? Look
at that frozen sea to the north, encrusted
with opaque crystals. Note its greenish
pallor. You are wondering what is flying
across it, are you not? I can see it in your
eyes. You are saying to yourself: What
are those creatures which have no form and
yet have every form? Watch them awhile
- watch them ! My love, those changeful
and indeterminate contours are the unem-
bodied stuff melodic dreams are made of.
They are the world of my soul made visible
- the soul of a creator. Now do you guess
where you are? If you do, you know that
there is no return. They who come here
cannot go back.
"Watch the far horizon for a moment!
There that light. There, every once in a
while, bright caravans swing to sight, re-
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main visible for a time, like ships upon the
desert, flooding the sea with a regretful
splendor, then disappear. But you can
never reach them, my love, never signal
them and go away from me. Do you hear
that sound? But you do not know what it is,
Sweet, else you would not listen so calmly.
"High above that frozen sea (in whose
heart sleep a million terrors that frozen
sea, which is genius), so high that your eye
cannot see it, a brilliant-winged bird hovers
and flings down the fragment of a song. The
bird is love. When its song reaches the sur
face of that frozen sea, it is shivered and
broken like a crystal, and the fragments roll
on and on until they reach my gauze-built
palace and make it tremble pitifully. Am I
not the first of kings, the wonder king! Who
can resist me! Not you!" he answered,
kissing her impetuously.
"Do you never tire of mad improba
bilities?"
"Tire of them! Does God tire of his
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Heaven? The madder they are, the more
they please me. I, too, am a god. I have
made a heaven of my own. I can love only
a self -created world where nothing bears the
mark of materiality, of other people s com-
monplaceness. In my world matter takes
the form of my slightest wish. I am the
center about which change revolves. I am
the force which projects form." He clapped
his hands. "Let the palace be lighted!"
Across the floor crept the wan shimmer of
the will-o -the-wisp, and down the walls the
green phosphoric glow of fireflies. Then, at
a motion of his hand, the gauze palace faded
to a cold ethereal splendor until it seemed
to the Lady Melodia, in her fear and won
der, that it was little more than a vague radi
ance against the snow-lit water. Above, three
moons poised, swinging melodiously into
place, streaking it with opalescent light.
"Will you deign to accept my arm?" he
asked mockingly. As he bent before her, she
saw that he had become as ethereal as his
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house of gauze. His face had an unearthly
beauty, and his eyes were awful in their
concentrated splendor.
They left the chamber and entered a hall,
in whose center a staircase descended for
two stories. Upon this staircase came and
went an endless procession of pale and regal
women, dull gems upon their breasts and
brows.
With a gesture of offended dignity, the
Lady Melodia turned as if to leave the hall.
"There is no cause for anger," he ex
claimed. "I love them, of course. Are
they not made for love? But in loving
them, I have dreamed only of you."
" Your love, evidently, has not made them
happy," she retorted scornfully. "Why are
their eyes so full of grief and regret?
And why are they silent? Do they never
speak?"
"They are not real, any more than I am.
They are prisoned in the crystal prison
of a melody. They are the women who rise
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from the whirlpools of music. Like the Rus-
salka, they flutter over the abyss. I created
them to live on the boundary line of sound
and silence."
"That is cruel. Give them life. I com
mand you!"
"In every artist, my love, there is the soul
of a Nero who longs for the burning of
Rome. They who love beauty are always
cruel."
"But this is monstrous. I will not per
mit it."
" I am no crueler to them than life has been
to me. Like them, I have always lived on
the boundary line of two worlds. In neither
have I been at home. I, too, am not real.
Why do you not pity me? Am I not dearer
to you than they?"
"What are they begging for so piteously?
See their outstretched hands!"
"For life, to break the melody in which
they are encased and give them life."
"And you can refuse?"
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"Is not that just what life has refused me?
Besides, I love them best as they are. Can
you not see what they are to me? They
are my soul s life. They are the myriad
lives that my brain lives. Look! As they
strain earthward with bitter yearning, thirst
ing for life, for the substantiality of joy, of
love, can you not understand how they
inspire me, how they make me what I am?
Their futile frenzy touches my brain to fire.
It pours a fury into my soul and strings my
nerves to mastery and to creative power.
"Ah, you do not know no one will ever
know what they have been to me, what
stories, what caprices they have breathed
into me. Their mute eloquence has told me
tales of wild longing, of unspeakable desires,
of unknown loves I cannot tell you how
I love them. They set a-tingle in my brain
the centers of creative fancy. They swing
me into the harmonies of the silences. They
project upon the canvas of my soul melodic
visions. I live with the unexpanded vigor
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of their prisoned lives. Their desires are
realized in me.
"Ah!" he continued, becoming remi
niscent and talking as if to himself, "I have
had strange, strange loves indeed, which
not even tone-magic can picture, beyond the
limits of time and space. I have always
been the king of bons viveurs. I have been a
pagan exquisite, a Lucullian epicure! How
I have despised those who had only money
to enjoy with! What miserable beggars are
they! What has gold to do with the brain?
It is the brain that enjoys.
"But to-night is the crowning night. To
night I have you. To-night I have for a love
her whom no mortal has dared to love be
fore. In your eyes I shall not read the mem
ory of other lovers. Their ghosts cannot
come between us. Upon your lips I shall
not taste the savor of their kisses. Your
sweetness has been reserved for me. What
matters it that I have made a bonfire of my
soul to buy you ! If I had ten lives, I would
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do the same. This way! This way! There
is another room. This room was made for
you. No other woman has entered it. It
is a strange room. It is lighted only by the
stars, those discreet stars which have shone
upon the amorous sleep of lovers."
No sooner had they crossed the threshold,
however, than the Lord of Mozart began to
tremble violently. Beads of sweat dotted
his brow. He put out his hands gropingly,
as do they who cannot see.
"The dream! Again the dream! Oh,
keep it from me! Banish it with your kisses!
Banish it with your mouth and the clasp of
your arms. How is it possible that I suffer
from a horror like this in the splendid palace
of my genius? I cannot see you, but I know
that you are here. I see only the dream. In
the dream I am dying, dying miserably, in
a shabby rooming-house in old Vienna.
Through a little window I can see that it is
misty and gray outside, and that a cold rain
drizzles down. In the room where I lie
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are poverty and the weeping of little
children.
"Oh, fling it from me with your love!
Let me bury my face in your breast and for
get. Keep it away from me! Keep it away
from me! Why can I not reason! Why
can I not know that the world would not
permit one gifted as I am to die in want
one who bears within his blood the genius
of his race!
: Yet I do die there. I know it. I see it.
Unaccompanied by a single one who mourns,
my shabby coffin is borne along in the rain
to the potter s field where the beggars lie,
and the red earth covers my mouth."
The Lady Melodia bent her head and
wept. She knew that the dream was true,
and that the king of the world had died.
[285]
THE KING
|"N a low doorway, beneath a sign which
* advertised his saloon in three languages,
Hebrew, German, and wretched phonetic
Mauschel, stood the Polish keeper, bawling
out for the benefit of his countrymen the
arrival of fresh vodka from the Vistula.
Since the "hep hep" riots and the Juden-
krawall, the Hamburg Ghetto gates had
been closed and the quarter shut off from
supplies. This morning they were open
again, and noise and excitement followed.
The news kindled the inhabitants volu
bility. Men and women rushed into the
street to discuss it. Their minds were
divided between love of money and need of
supplies and the world-old fear of bodily in
jury. They recalled the horrors of the weeks
preceding the ban, and shivered to think
that there was no way of escape. They
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must expose themselves to fresh injuries or
starve.
In one of the most wretched rooms of the
quarter this subject had been under discus
sion since sunrise. Here lived Gaon Zunz,
his aged wife, Deborah, and his fifteen-year
old granddaughter, Rahel.
Since the exile, Gaon had increased his
hours of prayer and fasting, and he felt
convinced that restoration to liberty had
been brought about by his prayerful inter
cession. Therefore he decided that in the
future Rahel must go to the city and beg,
that he might devote himself to prayer and
study.
Gaon Zunz was born in southern Russia,
where he became a follower of the Chassi-
dim. In his early manhood he journeyed
westward to preach to the less devout
Jews of central Europe that fond fanati
cism of the East. In Hamburg he married
and settled, with the hope of raising sons
to the glory of Israel. Disappointed in
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this and feeling it to be God s justice for
weakness lurking in the flesh, he gave him
self over to prayer and fasting, to month-
long meditation upon the mystic Cabbala,
and to interpreting the Torah and the
Talmud after the manner of the chosen.
Thus he earned the prouder name of Father
of the Faith.
Late in life, a daughter was born to
Deborah and Gaon, but there was no re
joicing in the house of Zunz. Then, indeed,
Gaon felt that the hand of God was heavy
upon him. And when, at the age of seven
teen, Rahel, his daughter, after persistently
refusing to enter into his arrangements for
marriage, ran away with a French artist
who had become enamored of her rare
Oriental beauty, and had painted her as
"La Belle Juive" he felt that there was no
sinner so great as he, for was he not respon
sible for his household?
Misery and sorrow fell upon him. The
roots of his faith were shaken. Surely there
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must be sin in his heart, else he could not
so grievously err.
The intervening years had served some
what to lighten this burden of grief, along
with the self -justify ing thought that when
the ban had been pronounced against his
daughter he had been the first to join in
the curse. Likewise he remembered, and
with a thrill of pleasure, that the next day
he had celebrated, in tolerable serenity of
soul, the ceremony in honor of the dead.
Two years later the artist husband died,
and one winter morning, Rahel, with a ten-
days -old child, came back to the old East
Ghetto gate to beg admittance. Kind-
hearted Joel, the keeper, took her peti
tion to the chief rabbi and interceded for
her.
All day she waited in the cold by the gate,
while the rabbis, after having summoned
her father, deliberated. Gaon said nothing
in her favor. He had buried her, and she
no longer existed. He would abide by the
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THE KING
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will of the majority. Toward sunset it was
agreed that she should be taken back.
The chill of the day of waiting in the
snow by the windy gate was more than her
weakened condition could bear, and she
died shortly, leaving baby Rahel to the
stern up-bringing of her aged grandparents.
At the thought that his daughter had
died in the faith of her fathers, a great
peace settled down upon Gaon, and with it
the blessed realization that she could sin
no more. "The Lord killeth and maketh
alive: He bringeth down to the grave and
bringeth up," he repeated with fervor. He
had at last received substantial proof of
the answering of prayer. He had received
his reward as a faithful "Son of the Com
mandment," who places reverence for the
Law before love of family.
In return for this favor of the Most High,
he determined so to bring up the little
Rahel that there might be no repetition of
her mother s waywardness.
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A sad childhood was hers. The playtimes
with little neighbors were embittered by
scornful treatment and the nicknames " Gen
tile" and "Christian dog." They had been
told that she was not of the ancient blood.
She learned to feel that she was an outcast.
When she told these things to her grand
father, he explained, as best he could, that
her father had belonged to the wicked
world outside the gate, and that the sins of
the fathers are visited upon the children.
She meditated long and deeply upon
this, but she could not understand. As a,
result there remained with her an unspeak
able fear of that stern Hebrew God to
whom her grandfather prayed, and whose
dwelling was the round-topped prayer house.
After feast days she lay awake far into the
night, tormented by visions of ghostly,
white-clad figures with up-stretched arms
weaving to and fro for hours in the ecstasy
of prayer, or intoning the ancient desert
songs of Judea. She had watched them
[291J
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THE KING
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ever since she could remember from her seat
beside her grandmother in the long gallery
behind the grating.
Despite the regular attendance at the
synagogue, Gaon was unable to impress
upon the child the sacredness of the ancient
ceremonial. Fruitless were his exhortations.
She was neither willful nor perverse. They
made no impression upon her. They failed
to penetrate the depths of her being. She
could not be brought to realize the wicked
ness of eating butter after meat, nor of
eating it from the same plate; nor of touch
ing the implements for making fire between
Friday night and Saturday night. Indeed,
her very first whipping was for drinking the
cup of wine poured for Elijah.
Gaon looked upon these pranks as the
outcome of childish dullness. In addition,
he was preparing himself by prayer for the
favor of the ecstatic vision. So bent was
he upon self-examination that he did not
perceive that in the child-soul was being
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THE KING
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fought the ancient battle of the Latin and
the Hebrew, the worshippers of the flesh
and the worshippers of the spirit, the
realists and the dreamers, which, in ages
past, had made the self-denying followers
of the Hebrew Moses repellant and un
lovely to Judea s pleasure-loving, pagan
governors.
By the time little Rahel reached her
eighth year, she had learned not to play
with other children. Cruelty had made her
timid. She preferred to stay within rather
than subject herself to taunts. In the
dingy little front room, hung about with
old clothes, and tawdry, half-worn orna
ments, she would sit for hours and watch
the children through the top half of the
dirty window, which reached the street
level. At first this isolation was grief un
speakable, and rebellion filled her soul.
She watched them through blinding tears,
while longing for love and companionship
gripped her heart.
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Time eased this feeling and taught her to
amuse herself. She found she could make
any number of playmates with a pencil.
Soon the days were not long enough to fix
upon paper the swarming children of her
fancy. She reproduced everything she saw;
the passers in the street, the women who
bought old clothes of her grandmother, and
the furniture in the room.
When her eyes and back ached from long
bending, she would look up through the
broken pane of the dirty window at a scrap
of blue sky ever and ever so far away, and
the color gave her pleasure. It reminded
her of one of her grandfather s stories of the
Holy Land of the Jews, where there was a
sea called Galilee, which was as blue as
the turquoise in the Polish saloon-keeper s
wife s Shabbes brooch.
One day, after many weeks of practice,
when her childish fingers had acquired con
siderable skill, she found a fresh sheet of
brown paper which she pinned smoothly
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eseseeeeeeseeeeeeeeeesesees&ssesesesess
upon a board, with the intention of making
a picture of Grossmutter Jackobsky, the
pickle dealer across the way.
All day the little, fat old woman stood
and waved and beckoned with her dirty,
brass-ringed fingers and called: "Pick-leal!
Pick-les I ! " About her neck was a rope,
from which was suspended a flat board,
piled breast-high with green, shining pickles.
She wore a curly, faded wig which was
always askew, and many -branched coral ear
rings which reached her shoulders, the rings
being tied about her ears with coarse yarn,
which made two wriggling black bows on
either side.
She was touching the figure up for the
last time one night several days later, when
Gaon came in unexpectedly and caught her
at the work.
"What s this?" he thundered, snatching
the picture from her hands. " God of Israel !
that one of my own blood should keep me
from the vision ! Have I not told you that
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THE KING
ySGGG&XZX^^
we may not make pictures, that it is expressly
forbidden by the Torah? Have I not told
you that it is a violation of the Law? " Thou
shall not make unto thee a graven image, nor
any likeness of anythinqlthat is in heaven above,
I/ V *J t/I
or that is in the earttilbeneath, or that is in
the water under the earth : for I, the Lord
thy God, am a jealous God . . .
The last words ended in a shriek of rage.
His face was streaked with lines of ashen
white. Purple veins knotted up ominously
upon his forehead. Madness trembled in
his voice. She could see its unsteady light
in his eyes.
Scarce knowing what he did, in his fear
and horror of the crime that had been com
mitted beneath his roof, he fell upon the
frightened child. When his anger had ex
pended itself, Rahel s right hip was dis
located and her back injured. After many
weeks, when she was able to be up and
about again, she was a hopeless cripple,
and a distortion of the body had set in.
[296]
THE KING
At sight of the result of his anger, Gaon
quoted Samuel: "Wickedness proceedeth
from the wicked," and sought to prepare
himself anew for the vision.
During the years that followed, no answer
had been granted him until the opening of
the gate on the day for which he had peti
tioned. He ascribed the barrenness of the
intervening years to Rahel s transgression
of the Torah law. Now he felt that God
had forgiven him and restored him to favor.
If he could win thus much by personal
intercession, was it not reasonable to be
lieve that he could win more and perhaps
avert the future persecution of his people?
For this reason he had made up his mind
that Rahel must go into the city and look
after the living. She was old enough. She
was fifteen, although she was hardly larger
than a child of twelve. During the seven
years since the injury she had steadily
grown out of shape, until she was a one
sided hunchback with a huge, misshapen
[297]
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THE KING
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hip. Her face, too, had taken on the pinched,
pitiful look of cripples.
Gaon s decision that she must go to the
city was like sentence of death. She had
never been outside the gate. She was
afraid of the great world which stoned
grown people as the children used to stone
her. And to go all alone ! Her soul sickened. *"
:< Yes, you must go on the morrow, Rahel,
if the others are not molested to-day. I am
too old. Besides, I have a greater duty here.
There will be no danger for you, because
you do not look like our people. You are
a cripple, and they will give to you richly."
It was a pitiable figure, clad in the sober,
earth-colored livery of the poor, that limped
down the long street from the Ghetto gate
the next morning. She looked like a little,
shivering partridge with a broken wing.
Slung over her back and trailing along be
hind in the dirt, was a coarse bag for old
clothes. Hidden carefully in the bottom
of that bag, however, were brown paper
[298]
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THE KING
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and two pencils, in case she had a minute
in which to rest.
The spring air was warm and sweet.
Iridescent flecks of morning mist hovered
over distances and disengaged themselves
from grass and trees. What a wonderful
world outside the gate! The houses were
clean and white. The windows sparkled.
In front of each house was a little green
grass plot with flowers in it. She had never
seen flowers growing before. There was no
room in the Ghetto, which was a fixed space
for an increasing number. To be sure, there
were flowers in the Synagogue for the Feast
of Weeks, and the succah were frequently
roofed with green leaves and trailing vines
for Tabernacles. But here were flowers of
all colors growing right out of the ground.
She forgot her fears. Her cramped lungs
expanded in the purer air. Her cramped
soul expanded, too, with joy at realization
of the beauty of the world.
There is a Fatherland of the spirit which
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has nothing to do with country, race, or
language, where the heart is happy, and
over which beams warmly the smiling sun
of genius. She had found it in the heart
of an alien city; but the artist s gift was
hers, and that makes beggars kings.
In each yard grew some flower that she
had not seen in the one before, arid she
wandered on and on, forgetful of time,
weariness, the errand upon which she had
come. Color affected her sensitive nerves
pleasurably, exquisitely, as does melody
the sensitive ears of a musician.
There were trees, too. In the Ghetto only
thin, starved poplars grew. Here were all
kinds, and the tender young leaves upon
them shone like an aura of green, sweet
light.
She walked on and on, until she dropped
from weariness, and the chilling thought
came that Gaon would be very angry if
she went back empty-handed.
While she rested, she ate the bread she
[300]
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THE KING
had brought, and began to look at the
people. They were not like Ghetto people.
For the most part they were well dressed.
Some of the women had bright yellow hair,
and, best of all, they looked down upon her
kindly. As she sat staring up at them, with
great, dark eyes in whose depths lay grief
and an infinite longing, first one, then an
other, dropped a coin in her lap.
Down at the end of a distant street, ever
and ever so far away, something sparkled,
something blue as the sky, but of a chang
ing blue, vibrantly bright, like light. It was
the color of the turquoise in the rich Polish
woman s Shabbes brooch. It must be the
Sea of Galilee! Why had not her grand
father told her! It was probably a very
large sea, she reflected, and the other side
reached Palestine.
The desire came to reproduce the sea
with the dancing splendor upon it, and
indeed everything she saw; the flowers,
the trees with their halos of young light.
[3011
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THE KING
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
There followed speedily the discouraging
thought that a pencil could not do it. For
Ghetto scenes, where everything was gray
or black or brown, a pencil was well enough,
but for this something different was needed.
She jumped up, forgetful of weariness and
her aching back, determined to beg enough
clothes to fill the bag, so that she could
keep the coins for herself. When she reached
the Ghetto, she would talk it over with Joel.
He would know if there were pencils of a
different kind, which made color. If there
were, she would give him the money and
let him buy them.
The next morning she took advantage of
Gaon s good humor and left the Ghetto late,
that she might see Joel alone and find out
if he had made the purchases. Sure enough,
he was waiting for her, his wizened face
puckered into a smile. Carefully beckon
ing her to one side, he handed her a tin
box. Lifting the lid, he showed her rows
and rows of bright paint tubes, brushes,
[302]
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THE KING
x&ss&s&z^^
pieces of canvas, and some sheets of draw
ing paper.
"Didn t it cost an awful lot, Joel, more
than I gave you?"
"Just three times as much; but you ll
earn the money in a week to pay it back -
see if you don t! One of the artist fellows
in the shop showed me how to use them.
You stick your thumb through this thing
sol Then squeeze out the paint and mix it
the color of what you want to make. That
same artist fellow told me there was going
to be a picture show in his shop window
to-day. You be sure to see it. The pic
tures will be made out of just such stuff as
you have here. Now don t you miss seeing
that picture show on no account Ra-
hel!" he called out, as she hobbled away.
Her heart grew light as the distance
increased between herself and the Ghetto.
The bright world filled her with a pleasant
sense of possession. Could she not make all
the lovely things she saw her own? Could
[303]
THE KING
833388833333838883883333333383838383333
she not steal them and put them on the
white paper in the bottom of the old bag?
"I ll fill the bag first and get what money
I can, and then I ll go to the picture show."
Few could withstand the appealing, mis
shapen figure, with the ragged dress and
piteous face. As noon approached, there
was enough in the bag to satisfy Gaon, and
she turned her steps toward the shop, in
the direction Joel had given.
It was not hard to find. Some distance
away she caught the gold gleam of a frame,
and saw a crowd upon the walk. When she
reached the edge of the crowd, she was
obliged to put her burden down and pause
for breath. Noon was at hand and the
people were beginning to leave. Soon she
dared to creep forward and look up.
Oh, never-to-be-forgotten moment! Won
drous vision! The gold frame filled the
window from side to side. Within it, float
ing downward across a well-nigh endless
vista of clouds and radiant mists, tenderly
[304]
S3S33833S33833S3SSS3S3333333S8S8S3SSS38
THE KING
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
up -curling and fleecily white, yet which
seemed to be just on the point of bursting
into the brilliancy of sunlight, or into some
more delicate, multi-colored efflorescence of
light, was a figure a figure of a man of
divinest beauty. His blue robe edged with
gold floated gently on the roseate air.
About his head was a circle of light, as if
there an immortal sun was about to rise,
and his hands were outstretched in the
blessing of prayer.
It is strange," thought Rahel, "that his
hands are held right out toward me." She
looked about for verification. "Yes, they
are held right out toward me and not toward
any of the others. And his eyes, too, are
looking down into mine."
/ As she stood and looked up at the sweet, :
\ sad eyes, and they looked back tenderly
into hers, a feeling of grief cramped her
heart, grief for the mother-love she had
never known, for the careless merriment of
childhood lost and gone, for the stonings,
[305]
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THE KING
S33SSSS3SS3333S8SS3S3S38333SS3Sg3g3333
the taunts, the jeers, the insults; for the
cruel beatings, the enforced fasts, the insuf
ficient food; the cold, damp room where
she slept on a pile of rags and wept herself
to sleep, and where, in her timid childhood,
she had suffered agonies of fear of the dark
and the storms and the wind. She felt that
the pictured One above was sorry ; that He
pitied her and suffered too; that He knew it
all, understood it all; and tears came to
her eyes and fell down, one by one, like
crystals, on the walk. She felt as the child
feels who runs to its mother s skirts, sure
of protection and comfort.
The beam of love melted the hardened
anguish of her heart and gave it voice, as
sun melts silent snow-fields and makes way
for the " green murmur " of summer. She
stood and wept, and her heart \\ as lightened.
Her grief melted away and vanished in the
mist of tears. Passers-by jostled her, but
she did not feel them. The noon hour
passed nor did hunger remind her of it, nor
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THE KING
eesessesssssessseeeeessseeeessesssessss
weariness warn that she had stood for a
long time. The ineffable face which has
smiled its peace adown the bitterness of the
ages smiled into hers, and the miracle of
love was wrought anew.
She could not drag herself away from the
picture; she could not look enough. She
drank in its meaning, its caressing sympathy,
its all-pervading kindliness, greedily. It was
for this that she had thirsted, as a traveler
in a stony desert thirsts for water; for what
is love but the thirst of the soul?
"I can make me a picture just like that! "
she thought, with a thrill of pleasure.
Inspired by this resolve, she went around
to a side street, took out the drawing-paper
and pencils and, seating herself upon the
old bag, went to work.
"I will make it just like that, only be
neath I will paint the Sea of Galilee."
When the picture was sketched in, she
left the clothes-bag with a Jewish fruit-
seller, and went back to compare her work
[307J
"XEK&X&yX&X^^
THE KING
essssseeeesse&eeeeeeesesgsesseeeess&ees
with the original; changing and correcting
until the pencil sketch was a perfect likeness
in miniature.
On the way home, she meditated upon
ways and means of executing the plan.
How could she get a piece of canvas large
enough, and when she got it, where could
she put it? Gaon must not know, nor any
one in the quarter.
As she neared the Ghetto and saw in the
distance the complicated twisted gables of
the old house, like a flash the problem solved
itself. The two rooms occupied by Gaon
and Deborah were on the first floor. Out
of the rear of these rooms a rickety stairway,
clinging to one wall, led to an upper, back
room, which Rahel occupied. This room,
whose two outer walls were of stone, belonged
to an older house, which a wealthy rabbi
had built for his own use several decades
before. The front had fallen down and been
replaced by the present wretched wooden
structure.
[308]
z&z&z/z&z&c&z&z^^
THE KING
g33S38SS3S33888S3SS33S83S38S3S3S8S3S33
The old rabbi s room had been painted
pale yellow, with the exception of one long,
white panel reaching nearly to the ceiling,
which was left unpainted as was the
custom with the pious for a testimonial
of the good rabbi s grief at the destruction
of the Temple and Jerusalem.
"I will paint it in that panel. Grand
mother is too feeble and too nearly blind to
risk the stairs, and Gaon is too busy. He
has not entered the room for years. It
will be safe enough there. To-morrow is
Shabbes, and the next day the Christian
Sunday; I shall have two days in which
to begin it."
When Monday came and she went into
the city again, it was with the happy con
sciousness that the great picture was begun.
She went straight to the shop window in
order to contemplate the original and take
from it corrective ideas for her copy.
The picture was gone, but in its place
there was another of the same man, almost,
[309]
THE KING
888888888888888888888888888888888888888
if not quite, as lovely. This time he was
sitting in a field of lilies beside a sunny sea.
She felt dimly, rather than thought, that his
face was as pure and as beautiful as the
flowers and did not cause the slightest dis
cord in the scene s serenity. In front of
him children played. He was holding his
arms out toward them invitingly, as if to
embrace them all, and the world beside, as
if he would say, "So wide is my love."
The same gentle, tender smile curved the
lips, and the eyes were twin stars of love.
Beneath were some printed words she
could not read. As she stood lost in con
templation, a woman came and stood beside
her in whose face she recognized the old
indelible marks of the Jewish race.
The woman was a baptized Jewess, whose
early days had been passed in the Ghetto,
and who retained a memory of its Mauschel
dialect.
"Who is it?" ventured Rahel timidly,
pointing to the picture.
[310J
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THE KING
8Sg3Sg3S333S83Sg38883833383333338833333
Finding the name unintelligible to the
strange child, the woman was searching in
her mind for a circumlocution when
"Is it a great king?" whispered Rahel,
in an awed voice.
: Yes, the greatest King in the world."
"Where does he live?"
"Everywhere."
"Then he is here in Hamburg?"
"Yes, dear."
"Now?"
"Yes, right here."
"What is he doing there in the picture?"
"Blessing little children. He loves them.
If they are blind, He touches their eyes and
they see. If they are ill, He makes them
well."
"Does he love me?"
"Yes, dear."
Again tears came to her eyes and fell upon
the pavement.
"Do you think he would make me well
and straight?"
[311]
THE KING
3&&3&&3Q&^^
"If you love Him, I know He will."
When Rahel brushed the tears away from
her eyes, so that she could look up, the kind
woman was gone. She could not see her in
any direction and she had forgotten to ask
where he lived.
That day she thought of nothing but the
King. Gaon and his displeasure if she re
turned with an empty bag vanished like
mist before the sun. The King ! The King !
Her soul was caught up and whirled along in
an ecstasy of emotion that banished thought
and fear.
The divine face which in ages past smiled
down upon its martyrs insensibility to pain
and anguish, upon its exiles for faith s sake,
forgetfulness of home and kindred, and upon
the mortally injured, the blessed promise of
a paradise beyond, wrought its old magic
upon her. Nor weariness, nor hunger, nor
fear could reach her through Love s fever,
sent of God.
"Such a very great king," she reflected,
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THE KING
"must live in one of those large houses at
the edge of the city."
Patiently she limped along the dusty
roads, the old bag trailing behind, pausing
at each house that presented a goodly ap
pearance to inquire, in a language that no
one could understand, if the King lived there.
When they shook their heads, she was loth
to go away, and tried again and again to
explain. To make up for inability to answer
her questions, and for the grief and disap
pointment that lay in her eyes, they gave
her money. She took it mechanically, not
knowing what she did.
For a week she was not seen in the Ghetto.
The day s long journeys to the outskirts of
the city made it impossible to reach the
gate at four, which was closing time. She
slept in barns and by haystacks, and kind-
hearted servants fed her
No large house in the environs was left un-
visited. As daily the quest became more
futile, she stopped passers on the streets,
[3131
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THE KING
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and with trembling gestures and tearful
words tried to explain what she wanted to
know, pointing the while to her poor bent
back and misshapen hip. She peered into
the carriages of the rich and scanned each
passing face.
Her feet were bruised and bleeding; her
throat parched with the dust of the road;
her eyes dim and blurred with the strain of
looking. But of this she knew nothing, nor
that the absorbing passion was wasting her
body and burning up the frail tenement of
the spirit.
People became accustomed to seeing the
strange child with the wild, white face, and
touched their foreheads significantly when
they met her.
A week later, when she turned her steps
toward the Ghetto, the only thought that
came to console her for the bitterness of dis
appointment was that she must surely find
iiim sometime, because he lived in Ham
burg. And then, too, he might be away
[314]
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THE KING
888888gS88888g888888888888888888S8g888
on a visit and that kind woman not know
about it.
The silver coins served in some slight de
gree to mollify Gaon s wrath, until she per
sistently refused to explain the cause of her
absence. Then he would have beaten her as
of old, had it not been for the nearness of
the Passover, and the fact that he wished to
preserve his serenity of soul, with the hope
that at that season the vision might be
vouchsafed him. He made peace with his
conscience by commanding her to stay at
home and fast and pray, preceding the feast.
During these days of punishment, when
she was confined within her room, she utilized
every moment of the light, from the first
faint flush of dawn to the last pallid beam of
evening, in working upon the picture. Like
magic it grew beneath her fingers. Each
stroke of the brush brought nearer to her
the living figure. She thrilled with the artist s
incommunicable joy of creation. All her
life, all her love, all her energy, all her
[3151
THE KING
longing, she put into the blessed face. She
poured her soul into it. She robbed her
frail body of life that it might beam the
richer.
As the painted face took on life and beauty
and color, and the pulsating glow of reality,
the frail, gnome-like figure that worked upon
it, standing upon an old chair placed on top
of a table, became frailer and more spectral
looking, and painted with a fiercer and a
more demoniac energy. The brush flew
with the fury of inspiration. Each drop of
paint wrought a miracle and called matter
into life. The artist s body was wasted
away until it looked as if a spirit caught up
in a cobweb of rags was hovering against
the old rabbi s wall, and painting with the
marvelous precision of a supernatural power.
At the end of the two weeks the picture was
completed and shone like a gem illuminating
the dingy room.
When Gaon s good humor returned suf
ficiently to send Rahel out of the Ghetto
[316]
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THE KING
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again, Passion-week had come and its tragic
gloom hung over the German city. As she
walked along slowly and feebly, feeling the
effect of the fast, she caught sight, down the
old familiar street, of the Sea of Galilee,
and her heart leaped high with joy at the
thought that beneath the feet of the King
she had made it just so blue and sparkling.
She was too weak to beg. She was too
weary to walk. She sat down and watched
the blue water in that happy daze which
exhaustion brings to the mind. She felt as
if she were encased in a crystal sphere, against
which beat vainly the tingling noises of lii e,
but whose bright surface reflected, soap-
bubble-wise, color and form with an added
charm. The world floated off and away,
and she watched it vaguely, her mind taking
note of it as of something seen in a dream.
She did not know how long she sat there.
Hours were as minutes. The light began to
slope to westward, warning her of closing
time. She got up feebly, determined to go
[317]
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THE KING
sessesesessesseseeeeeseesesseeeeeeesess
as far as the window to see the picture. On
the morrow the Passover began, and she
would not be permitted to leave the Ghetto
for eight days. Feebly, dizzily, she dragged
herself along, her mind a chaos of fragment
ary thoughts.
She could see the window some distance
away, but nothing gleamed in it. On ap
proaching, what a vision of grief met her
eyes! The shock brought order to her mind
and summoned her strength by one mighty
effort to a consuming realization of grief.
There, in the deep window recess, which
was draped in black, just where the glowing
picture had hung, was a huge cross of snowy
marble, and upon it, dying, suffering, with
pitiful wounds upon the hands and feet and
breast, with a crown of cruel thorns upon
the gentle brow Oh ! agony beyond ex
pression The King U
Now she could never find him, never see
him! Now he could not lay his hands in
blessing upon her and make her well ! There
[318]
THE KING
838883883333838888883888838883883333883
was no one who pitied her, no one who
loved her! There was nothing left to live
for.
When the dimness which overmastering
emotion causes passed, she looked about at
the people to see if their grief was equal to
her own. They were going about busily
and happily as usual. Bright-haired girls
tripped by in groups, carrying bouquets of
gay flowers, and calm matrons led little
children. Yes, yes, it was all true what
Gaon had told her: the world outside the gate
was wicked !
Why did they not mourn for him? Why
did they not cover their heads with the white
grave cloths and strew upon them ashes?
Why did they not find the ones who killed
him and torture them torture them -
torture them!
Her grief was transformed into rage.
Physical exhaustion strung her nerves to the
pitch of frenzy and sent the wild blood beat
ing in her brain.
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THE KING
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She threw away the old bag. She pushed
back hastily the thick hair from her eyes.
She straightened as best she could the miser
able bent figure. She turned and faced the
passers-by and the busy street. She flung
her long, thin arms upward, as do Judean
shepherds when they pray, and in that stern
and ancient tongue which is rich in reproaches
and the eloquence of vengeance, she cursed
them. She cursed them in her rage and
fury at their heartlessness, their wanton
cruelty, their base ingratitude.
Shriller and shriller grew her voice, fiercer
and more unrestrained the unintelligible
words, which called down upon them the
vengeance of the stern Hebrew God, who
would destroy them with the fire of his
wrath. Her frail body, swaying to and fro
in the agony of emotion, was all but con
sumed by the whirlwind of passion that
swept it. The heat of anger burned and
withered it as does flame the stubble, and
she fell forward exhausted, upon the walk.
[320]
THE KING
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Some one picked her up and placed her in
a neighboring doorway. But what terrible
grief breathed from her facer! Her eyes, out
of which the passion had died, were like dim,
tarnished mirrors, and the pitiful mouth was
pinched and pale. There was nothing left
to live for! The sun had gone out and the
moon was dead and the stars had fallen out
of heaven.
When she reached home, she flung herself
upon the floor and wept. To her grand
mother s questions and exhortations she was
deaf. She did not hear them. Nothing
mattered now.
Gaon came, his eyes shining with fanati
cism, and told her that it was the eve of the
Fourteenth of Nisan, that on the morrow the
Passover began, and that she must help her
grandmother prepare the evening meal. To
his commands she turned unheeding ears.
Her lifted face expressed the apathy of the
dead. Her blurred eyes looked through him
and beyond at something he could not see.
[321 ]
8333S3S333883388333S3333333333S33333883
THE KING
When the meal was ready, the cups of
salted water set on, the bitter herbs, and the
leg of mutton, Gaon arose and said reverently:
"Blessed art Thou who hast sanctified us
by Thy commandments, and hast commanded
us concerning the removal of the leavened
bread."
He took one of the lighted candles and
proceeded to search carefully the house, ac
cording to the command, to make sure that
nothing forbidden be left during the season
of the feast. Into every nook and cranny of
the two rooms he peered, saying after each
examination that if anything forbidden be
left unnoticed, it was not his fault and his
heart was pure.
When Rahel heard him groping on the
rickety stairs in the back room, she leaped
to her feet and followed.
"Grandfather do not go there! You
know there can be nothing in my room. Do
not go there! "
"I must do as the Law commands."
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"No Grandfather! it is useless the
stairs are unsafe do not go ! "
Unheeding her words, he climbed the
creaking stairs, Rahel following. He flung
the door open. The draft blew the candle
flame to gigantic size, illuminating the pic
ture high upon the opposite wall. In the
momentary flash of light it was a living form.
The dingy wall had parted and let in the
mist-sweet, white, cloud-radiance of night,
adown which sped toward the trembling,
aged man the glorious figure of the young
Messiah. For a moment he was overcome
by fear and reverence, and awed into silence
by the majesty of beauty.
Then his nature reasserted itself. He
remembered that Rahel had begged him netf
to come. The truth dawned upon him. His
face grew cruel and thin. Unspeakable
anger shone from the narrow little eyes upon
her who had broken the Law and a second
time kept him from the vision. A hideous
Hebrew type became visible beneath the
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mask which habit made. From under the
snarling, lifted upper lip, long teeth pro
truded like tusks, and his voice was hoarse
with wrath.
"Rahel, did you do that?"
No answer.
"Rahel, I say, did you do that?"
The strain of the day and the past two
weeks had exhausted her. The face that
looked back at him was as white and as
emotionless as the dead. In the dulled eyes
shone no light of comprehension.
"God of Abraham! and painted in the
place sacred to Jerusalem and the Tem
ple! Never shall I gain the vision never!
never!" His shrunken body quivered like
a leaf in the wind. "Now I shall never
gain the vision!" Tears, pitifulness, a
world of disappointment, trembled in his
voice.
"I have sinned grievously. I have not kept
the Law. It says : If thy right hand offend
thee, cut it off. And I let her live when she
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THE KING
offended first I let her live Oh, God of
Abraham I let her live "
"Do you understand what you have done;
that you have defiled the house; that you
have broken the express command of the
Torah : Thou shalt have no other Gods be
fore me; that you have kept me from the
vision? Do you understand?" The old
anger flashed its wild light over his face and
rang tempestuously in his voice. "Do you
understand?"
" There ! take that ! and that ! " He
struck her upon the head with all the force
of his uplifted arm. "I will seal up the door;
I will disclaim to my God accountability of
this room and its contents! Now, O God, I
have done as Thou commandest: If thy
right hand offend thee, cut it off."
In falling, Rahel s temple struck a stone
uncovered of plastering at the foot of the old
rabbi s wall, and she lay motionless, a thin
stream of bright blood trickling down her
cheek.
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THE KING
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After fastening the door and sealing it
securely and disclaiming, as was the custom
on the eve of the Fourteenth of Nisan, ac
countability for anything forbidden found
beneath his roof, he went back to his blind
and aged wife, where he said grace with
fervent solemnity and partook of the sacred
meal.
That night the Hamburg fire broke out.
The inhabitants of the Ghetto barely escaped.
They were well-nigh forgotten. When the
gate-keepers remembered them and let them
out, they were on the verge of being roasted
like rats in a trap.
Among the first to reach the Great Gate and
wait were Gaon and his wife. Rahel was
not with them. Faithful to his vow, he had
left the door of the old rabbi s room sealed
and fastened.
The devastation of that terrible fire is a
matter of history. It is numbered among
the calamities that have befallen the human
race. When, days later, the fire had sub-
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THE KING
sided, nothing of the swarming Ghetto
buildings was left but charred and crumbling
wood.
When Easter dawned, bright and smiling,
there still rose from this burnt and blackened
district wreaths of smoke and white steam,
up-curling reverently round the base of the
indestructible stone of the old rabbi s wall
which, alone, of all the Ghetto, still stood
erect, ascending like a peace offering of incense
toward the glorious figure that looked down
from above, a figure glowing with youth and
beauty, and framed in the glittering light of
spring radiant, triumphant, indestructible,
immortal the King the Hebrew Christ !
THE END
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