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Villa Rubein, a fiction by John Galsworthy |
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Chapter 7 |
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_ Chapter VII There was one other guest at dinner, a well-groomed person with pale, fattish face, dark eyes, and hair thin on the temples, whose clothes had a military cut. He looked like a man fond of ease, who had gone out of his groove, and collided with life. Herr Paul introduced him as Count Mario Sarelli. Two hanging lamps with crimson shades threw a rosy light over the table, where, in the centre stood a silver basket, full of irises. Through the open windows the garden was all clusters of black foliage in the dying light. Moths fluttered round the lamps; Greta, following them with her eyes, gave quite audible sighs of pleasure when they escaped. Both girls wore white, and Harz, who sat opposite Christian, kept looking at her, and wondering why he had not painted her in that dress. Mrs. Decie understood the art of dining--the dinner, ordered by Herr Paul, was admirable; the servants silent as their shadows; there was always a hum of conversation. Sarelli, who sat on her right hand, seemed to partake of little except olives, which he dipped into a glass of sherry. He turned his black, solemn eyes silently from face to face, now and then asking the meaning of an English word. After a discussion on modern Rome, it was debated whether or no a criminal could be told by the expression of his face. "Crime," said Mrs. Decie, passing her hand across her brow--"crime is but the hallmark of strong individuality." Miss Naylor, gushing rather pink, stammered: "A great crime must show itself--a murder. Why, of course!" "If that were so," said Dawney, "we should only have to look about us--no more detectives." Miss Naylor rejoined with slight severity: "I cannot conceive that such a thing can pass the human face by, leaving no impression!" Harz said abruptly: "There are worse things than murder." "Ah! par exemple!" said Sarelli. There was a slight stir all round the table. "Verry good," cried out Herr Paul, "a vot' sante, cher." Miss Naylor shivered, as if some one had put a penny down her back; and Mrs. Decie, leaning towards Harz, smiled like one who has made a pet dog do a trick. Christian alone was motionless, looking thoughtfully at Harz. "I saw a man tried for murder once," he said, "a murder for revenge; I watched the judge, and I thought all the time: 'I'd rather be that murderer than you; I've never seen a meaner face; you crawl through life; you're not a criminal, simply because you haven't the courage.'" In the dubious silence following the painter's speech, Mr. Treffry could distinctly be heard humming. Then Sarelli said: "What do you say to anarchists, who are not men, but savage beasts, whom I would tear to pieces!" "As to that," Harz answered defiantly, "it maybe wise to hang them, but then there are so many other men that it would be wise to hang." "How can we tell what they went through; what their lives were?" murmured Christian. Miss Naylor, who had been rolling a pellet of bread, concealed it hastily. "They are--always given a chance to--repent--I believe," she said. "For what they are about to receive," drawled Dawney. Mrs. Decie signalled with her fan: "We are trying to express the inexpressible--shall we go into the garden?" All rose; Harz stood by the window, and in passing, Christian looked at him. He sat down again with a sudden sense of loss. There was no white figure opposite now. Raising his eyes he met Sarelli's. The Italian was regarding him with a curious stare. Herr Paul began retailing apiece of scandal he had heard that afternoon. "Shocking affair!" he said; "I could never have believed it of her! B---is quite beside himself. Yesterday there was a row, it seems!" "There has been one every day for months," muttered Dawney. "But to leave without a word, and go no one knows where! B---is 'viveur' no doubt, mais, mon Dieu, que voulez vous? She was always a poor, pale thing. Why! when my---" he flourished his cigar; "I was not always---what I should have been---one lives in a world of flesh and blood---we are not all angels---que diable! But this is a very vulgar business. She goes off; leaves everything---without a word; and B---is very fond of her. These things are not done!" the starched bosom of his shirt seemed swollen by indignation. Mr. Treffry, with a heavy hand on the table, eyed him sideways. Dawney said slowly: "B---is a beast; I'm sorry for the poor woman; but what can she do alone?" "There is, no doubt, a man," put in Sarelli. Herr Paul muttered: "Who knows?" "What is B---going to do?" said Dawney. "Ah!" said Herr Paul. "He is fond of her. He is a chap of resolution, he will get her back. He told me: 'Well, you know, I shall follow her wherever she goes till she comes back.' He will do it, he is a determined chap; he will follow her wherever she goes." Mr. Treffry drank his wine off at a gulp, and sucked his moustache in sharply. "She was a fool to marry him," said Dawney; "they haven't a point in common; she hates him like poison, and she's the better of the two. But it doesn't pay a woman to run off like that. B---had better hurry up, though. What do you think, sir?" he said to Mr. Treffry. "Eh?" said Mr. Treffry; "how should I know? Ask Paul there, he's one of your moral men, or Count Sarelli." The latter said impassively: "If I cared for her I should very likely kill her--if not--" he shrugged his shoulders. Harz, who was watching, was reminded of his other words at dinner, "wild beasts whom I would tear to pieces." He looked with interest at this quiet man who said these extremely ferocious things, and thought: 'I should like to paint that fellow.' Herr Paul twirled his wine-glass in his fingers. "There are family ties," he said, "there is society, there is decency; a wife should be with her husband. B---will do quite right. He must go after her; she will not perhaps come back at first; he will follow her; she will begin to think, 'I am helpless--I am ridiculous!' A woman is soon beaten. They will return. She is once more with her husband--Society will forgive, it will be all right." "By Jove, Paul," growled Mr. Treffry, "wonderful power of argument!" "A wife is a wife," pursued Herr Paul; "a man has a right to her society." "What do you say to that, sir?" asked Dawney. Mr. Treffry tugged at his beard: "Make a woman live with you, if she don't want to? I call it low." "But, my dear," exclaimed Herr Paul, "how should you know? You have not been married." "No, thank the Lord!" Mr. Treffry replied. "But looking at the question broadly, sir," said Dawney; "if a husband always lets his wife do as she likes, how would the thing work out? What becomes of the marriage tie?" "The marriage tie," growled Mr. Treffry, "is the biggest thing there is! But, by Jove, Doctor, I'm a Dutchman if hunting women ever helped the marriage tie!" "I am not thinking of myself," Herr Paul cried out, "I think of the community. There are rights." "A decent community never yet asked a man to tread on his self-respect. If I get my fingers skinned over my marriage, which I undertake at my own risk, what's the community to do with it? D'you think I'm going to whine to it to put the plaster on? As to rights, it'd be a deuced sight better for us all if there wasn't such a fuss about 'em. Leave that to women! I don't give a tinker's damn for men who talk about their rights in such matters." Sarelli rose. "But your honour," he said, "there is your honour!" Mr. Treffry stared at him. "Honour! If huntin' women's your idea of honour, well--it isn't mine." "Then you'd forgive her, sir, whatever happened," Dawney said. "Forgiveness is another thing. I leave that to your sanctimonious beggars. But, hunt a woman! Hang it, sir, I'm not a cad!" and bringing his hand down with a rattle, he added: "This is a subject that don't bear talking of." Sarelli fell back in his seat, twirling his moustaches fiercely. Harz, who had risen, looked at Christian's empty place. 'If I were married!' he thought suddenly. Herr Paul, with a somewhat vinous glare, still muttered, "But your duty to the family!" Harz slipped through the window. The moon was like a wonderful white lantern in the purple sky; there was but a smoulder of stars. Beneath the softness of the air was the iciness of the snow; it made him want to run and leap. A sleepy beetle dropped on its back; he turned it over and watched it scurry across the grass. Someone was playing Schumann's Kinderscenen. Harz stood still to listen. The notes came twining, weaving round his thoughts; the whole night seemed full of girlish voices, of hopes and fancies, soaring away to mountain heights--invisible, yet present. Between the stems of the acacia-trees he could see the flicker of white dresses, where Christian and Greta were walking arm in arm. He went towards them; the blood flushed up in his face, he felt almost surfeited by some sweet emotion. Then, in sudden horror, he stood still. He was in love! With nothing done with everything before him! He was going to bow down to a face! The flicker of the dresses was no longer visible. He would not be fettered, he would stamp it out! He turned away; but with each step, something seemed to jab at his heart. Round the corner of the house, in the shadow of the wall, Dominique, the Luganese, in embroidered slippers, was smoking a long cherry-wood pipe, leaning against a tree--Mephistopheles in evening clothes. Harz went up to him. "Lend me a pencil, Dominique." "Bien, M'sieu." Resting a card against the tree Harz wrote to Mrs. Decie: "Forgive me, I am obliged to go away. In a few days I shall hope to return, and finish the picture of your nieces." He sent Dominique for his hat. During the man's absence he was on the point of tearing up the card and going back into the house. When the Luganese returned he thrust the card into his hand, and walked out between the tall poplars, waiting, like ragged ghosts, silver with moonlight. _ |
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