Chapter 23. A Paradox Of Sensibility

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_ CHAPTER XXIII. A PARADOX OF SENSIBILITY

To many the picture presented by my life might seem that of a man who detects the trap and yet walks into it, sinks under burdens that he might cast aside, groans at chains that he could break, and will not leave the prison although the door-key is in his pocket. Such an impression my record may well give, unless it be understood that what came upon me was not an impossibility of movement, but a paralysis of the will to move. In this there is nothing peculiar to one placed as I was. Most men could escape from what irks, confines, or burdens them at the cost of effacing their past lives, breaking the continuity of existence, cutting the cord that binds together, in a sequence of circumstances and incidents, youth, and maturity, and age. But who can do the thing? One man in a thousand, and he generally a scoundrel.

Our guests returned to Bartenstein, the Duchess still radiant and maternal, Elsa infinitely kind, infinitely apologetic, a little tearful, never for an instant wavering in her acceptance of the future. Varvilliers took leave of me with great friendliness; there was in his air now just a hint of amusement, most decorously suppressed; he was charmingly unconscious of any possible seriousness in the position. My mother went to visit Styrian relatives. Victoria and William Adolphus had taken a villa by the seaside. I was quite alone at Artenberg, save for my faithful Vohrenlorf, and Vohrenlorf was bored to death. That will not appear strange; to me it seemed enviable. A prisoner under sentence probably discerns much that is attractive even in the restricted life of his jailer.

In a day or two there came upon me a persistent restlessness, and with it constant thoughts of Wetter. I wondered where he was and what he did; I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He brought with him other remembrances, of the passions and the events that we two had, in friendship or hostility, witnessed together. They had seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when, as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.

Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest _incognito_; Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my _incognito_ was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me! Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in that.

On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the Boulevards alone. In great cities nobody is known; I enjoyed the luxury of being ignored. I might pass for a student, a chemist, at a pinch, perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this here and this now were reality; the kingship, Elsa, the wedding and the rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, passing by, stared hard at me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not staring at the king.

Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I saw Wetter coming toward the _café_. I had taken a table far back from the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him--so my heart went out to him--but the sight of his companion restrained me, and I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket that a hyperbole, so inevitable as to outstrip mere truth in fidelity, had called bigger. Besides there were the whiskers, the heavy jowl, the infinite fatness of the man, a fatness not of mere flesh only, but of manner, of air, of thought, of soul. There was no room for doubt or question. This was Coralie's impresario, Coralie's career, her duty, her destiny; in a word, everything to Coralie that poor little Cousin Elsa was to me. Nay, your pardon; that I was to Cousin Elsa. I put my cigar back in my mouth and smoked gravely; it seemed improper to laugh.

The two men sat down at an outer table. Wetter was silent now, and Struboff (I remembered suddenly that I had seen Coralie described as Madame Mansoni-Struboff) was talking. I could almost see the words treacling from his thick lips. What in Heaven's name made him Wetter's companion? What in Heaven's name made me such a fool as to ask the question? Men like Struboff can have but one merit, and, to be fair, but one serious crime. It is the same; they are the husbands of their wives.

I could contain myself no longer. I rose and walked forward. I laid my hand on Wetter's shoulder, saying:

"My dear friend, have you forgotten me--Baron de Neberhausen?"

[Illustration: "My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"]

He looked up with a start, but when he saw me his eyes softened. He clasped my hand.

"Neberhausen?" he said.

"Yes; we met in Forstadt."

"To be sure," he laughed. "May I present my friend to you? M. le Baron de Neberhausen, M. Struboff. You will know Struboff's name. He gives us the best operas in the world, and the best singing."

"M. Struboff's fame has reached me," said I, sitting down.

Evidently Struboff did not know me; he received the introduction without any show of deference. I was delighted. I should have seen little of the true man had he been aware from the first who I was. Things being as they were, I could flatter him, and he had no motive for flattering me. A mere baron had no effect on him. He resumed the interrupted conversation; he was telling Wetter how he could make money out of music, and then more music out of the money, then more money out of the music, and so on, in an endless chain of music and money, money and music, money, music, money. Wetter sat looking at him with a smile of malicious mockery.

"Happy man!" he cried suddenly. "You love only two things in the world, and you've married both."

Struboff pulled his whisker meditatively.

"Yes, I have done well," he said, and drained his glass. "But hasn't Coralie done well too? Where would she have been but for me?"

"Indeed, my dear Struboff, there's no telling, but I suppose in the arms of somebody else."

"Your own, for example?" growled the husband.

"Observe the usual reticences," said Wetter, with a laugh. "My dear Baron, Struboff mocks my misery by a pretended jealousy. You can reassure him. Did Madame Mansoni ever favour me?"

"I can speak only of what I know," I answered, smiling. "She never favoured you before me."

He caught the ambiguity of my words, and laughed again. Struboff turned toward me with a stare.

"You also knew my wife?" he asked.

"I had the honour," said I. "In Forstadt."

"In Forstadt! Do you know the king?"

"Not so well as I could wish," I answered. "About as well as I know Wetter here."

"That's admirably well!" cried Wetter. "Well enough not to trust me."

The fat man looked from one to the other of us in an obtuse suspicion of our hilarity.

"The king admired my wife's talents," said he. "We intend to visit Forstadt next year."

"Do you?" said I, and Wetter's peal broke out again.

"The king will find my wife's talent much increased by training," pursued Struboff.

"Damn your wife's talent!" said Wetter, quite suddenly. "You talk as much about it as she does of your beauty."

"I hope madame is well?" I interposed quickly and suavely, for Struboff had grown very red and gave signs of temper. Wetter did not allow him to answer. He sprang to his feet and dragged Struboff up by the arm.

"Take his other arm!" he cried to me. "Bring him along. Come, come, we'll all go and see how madame is."

"It's nearly eleven," remonstrated Struboff sourly. "I want to go to bed."

"You? You go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men like us. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"

Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to pant.

"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.

"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff! _Post equitem_--you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us. Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"

"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.

"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"

But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still; not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded, planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?

"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends are impatient. Quick, quick! Only God is patient."

"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"

Wetter suddenly assumed an air of great dignity and blandness.

"In offering to present us to madame at an hour possibly somewhat late," he said, "our dear M. Struboff shows his wonted amiability. We should be failing in gratitude if we did not thank him most sincerely."

"I didn't ask you to come," growled Struboff.

Wetter looked at him with an air of grieved surprise, but said nothing at all. He turned to me with a ridiculous look of protest, as though asking for my support. I laughed; the mad nonsense was so welcome to me.

We stopped before a tall house in the Rue Washington; Wetter bundled us out with immense haste. There were lights in the second-floor windows. "Madame expects us!" he cried with a rapturous clasping of his hands. "Come, come, dear Struboff!--Baron, Baron, pray take Struboff's arm; the steps to heaven are so steep."

Struboff seemed resigned to his fate; he allowed himself to be pushed upstairs without expostulation. He opened the door for us, and ushered us into the passage. As he preceded us, I had time for one whisper to Wetter.

"You're still mad about her, are you?" I said, pinching his arm.

"Still? Good Heavens, no! Again!" he answered.

The door that faced us was thrown open, and Coralie stood before me in a loose gown of a dark-red colour. Before she could speak, Wetter darted forward, pulling me after him.

"I have the distinguished honour to present my friend, M. de Neberhausen," he said. "You may remember meeting him at Forstadt."

Coralie looked for a moment at each of us in turn. She smiled and nodded her head.

"Perfectly," she said; "but it is a surprise to see him here, a very pleasant surprise." She gave me her hand, which I kissed with a fine flourish of gallantry.

"This gentleman knows the King very well," said Struboff, nodding at her with a solemn significance. "There's money in that!" he seemed to say.

"Does he?" she asked indifferently; and added to me, "Pray come in. I was not expecting visitors; you must make excuses for me."

She did not seem changed in the least degree. There was the same indolence, the same languid, slow enunciation. It struck me in a moment that she ignored her husband's presence. He had gone to a sideboard and was fingering a decanter. Wetter flung himself on a sofa.

"It is really you?" she asked in a whisper, with a lift of her eyelids.

"Oh, without the least doubt!" I answered. "And it is you also?"

Struboff came forward, tumbler in hand.

"Pray, is your King fond of music?" he asked.

"He will adore it from the lips of Madame Struboff," I answered, bowing.

"He adored it from the lips of Mlle. Mansoni," observed Wetter, with a malicious smile. Struboff glared at him; Coralie smiled slightly. An inkling of Wetter's chosen part came into my mind. He had elected to make Struboff uncomfortable; he did not choose that the fat man should enjoy his victory in peace. My emotions chimed in with his resolve, but reason suggested that the ethical merits were more on Struboff's side. He was Coralie's career; the analogy of my own relation toward Elsa urged that he who is a career is entitled to civility. Was not I Elsa's Struboff? I broke into a sudden laugh; it passed as a tribute to Wetter's acid correction.

"You are studying here in Paris, madame?" I asked.

"Yes," said Coralie. "Why else should we be here now?"

"Why else should I be here now?" asked Wetter. "For the matter of that, Baron, why else should you be here now? Why else should anybody be here now? It is even an excuse for Struboff's presence."

"I need no excuse for being in my own home," said Struboff, and he gulped down his liquor.

Wetter sprang up and seized him by the arm.

"You are becoming fatter and fatter and fatter. Presently you will be round, quite round; they'll make a drum of you, and I'll beat you in the orchestra while madame sings divinely on the boards. Come and see if we can possibly avoid this thing," and he led him off to the sofa. There they began to talk, Wetter suddenly dropping his burlesque and allowing a quiet, earnest manner to succeed his last outburst. I caught some mention of thousands of francs; surely there must be a bond of interest, or Wetter would have been turned out before now.

Coralie moved toward the other end of the room, which was long, although narrow. I followed her. As she sat down she remarked:

"He has lent Struboff twenty thousand francs; but for that I must have sung before I was ready."

The situation seemed a little clearer.

"But he is curious," she pursued, fixing a patiently speculative eye on Wetter. "You would say that he was fond of me?"

"It is a possible reason for his presence."

"He doesn't show it," said she, with a shrug.

I understood that little point in Wetter's code; besides, his humour seemed just now too bitter for love-making. If Coralie felt any resentment, it did not go very deep. She turned her eyes from Wetter to my face.

"You're going to be married very soon?" she said.

"In a month," said I. "I'm having my last fling. You perceived our high spirits?"

"I've seen her picture. She's pretty. And I've seen the Countess von Sempach."

"You know about her?"

"Have you forgotten that you used to speak of her? Ah, yes, you've forgotten all that you used to say! The Countess is still handsome."

"What of that? So are you."

"True, it doesn't matter much," Coralie admitted. "Does your Princess love you?"

"Don't you love your husband?"

A faint slow smile bent her lips as she glanced at Struboff--himself and his locket.

"Nobody acts without a motive," said I. "Not even in marrying."

The bitterness that found expression in this little sneer elicited no sympathetic response from Coralie. I was obliged to conclude that she considered her marriage a success; at least that it was doing what she had expected from it. At this moment she yawned in her old, pretty, lazy way. Certainly there were no signs of romantic misery or tragic disillusionment about her. Again I asked myself whether my sympathy were not more justly due to Struboff--Struboff, who sat now smoking a big cigar and wobbling his head solemnly in answer to the emphatic taps of Wetter's forefinger on his waistcoat. The question was whether human tenderness lay anywhere under those wrappings; if so, M. Struboff might be a proper object of compassion, his might be the misery, his (O monstrous thought!) the disillusionment. But the prejudice of beauty fought hard on Coralie's side. I always find it difficult to be just to a person of markedly unpleasant appearance. I was piqued to much curiosity by these wandering ideas; I determined to probe Struboff through the layers.

Soon after I took my leave. Coralie pressed me to return the next day, and before I could speak Wetter accepted the invitation for me. There was no very strong repugnance in Struboff's face; I should not have heeded it had it appeared. Wetter prepared to come with me. I watched his farewell to Coralie; his smile seemed to mock both her and himself. She was weary and dreary, but probably only because she wanted her bed. It was a mistake, as a rule, to attribute to her other than the simplest desires. The moment we were outside, Wetter turned on me with a savagely mirthful expression of my own thoughts.

"A wretched thing to leave her with him? Not the least in the world!" he cried. "She will sleep ten hours, eat one, sing three, sleep three, eat two, sleep---- Have I run through the twenty-four?"

"Well, then, why are we to disturb ourselves?" I asked.

"Why are we to disturb ourselves? Good God, isn't it enough that she should be like that?"

I laughed, as I blew out my cigarette smoke.

"This is an old story," said I. "She is not in love with you, I suppose? That's it, isn't it?"

"It's not the absence of the fact," said he, with a smile; "it's the want of the potentiality that is so deplorable."

"Why torment Struboff, though?"

"Struboff?" he repeated, knitting his brows. "Ah, now Struboff is worth tormenting! You won't believe me; but he can feel."

"I was right, then; I thought he could."

"You saw it?"

"My prospects, perhaps, quicken my wits."

My arm was through his, and he pressed it between his elbow and his side.

"You see," said he, "perversity runs through it all. She should feel; he should not. It seems she doesn't, but he does. Heavens, would you accept such a conclusion without the fullest experiment? For me, I am determined to test it."

"Still you're in love with her."

"Agreed, agreed, agreed. A man must have a spur to knowledge."

We parted at the Place de la Concorde, and I strolled on alone to my hotel. Vohrenlorf was waiting for me, a little anxious, infinitely sleepy. I dismissed him at once, and sat down to read my letters. I had the feeling that I would think about all these matters to-morrow, but I was also pervaded by a satisfaction. My mind was being fed. The air here nourished, the air of Artenberg starved. I complimented Paris on a virtue not her own; the house in the Rue Washington was the source of my satisfaction.

There was a letter from Varvilliers; he wrote from Hungary, where he was on a visit. Here is something of what he said:

"There is a charming lady here, and we fall in love, all according to mode and fashion. (The buttons are on the foils, pray understand.) It is the simplest thing in the world; the whole process might, as I believe, be digested into twelve elementary motions or thereabouts. The information is given and received by code; it is like playing whist. 'How much have you?' her eyes ask. 'A passion,' I answer by the code. 'I have a _penchant_,' comes from her side of the table. 'I am leading up to it,' say I. 'I am returning the lead.' Good! But then comes hers (or mine), 'I have no more.' Alas! Well then, I lead, or she leads, another suit. It's a good game; and our stakes are not high. You, sire, would like signals harder to read, I know your taste. You're right there. And don't you make the stakes higher? I have plunged into indiscretion; if I did not, you would think that Bederhof had forged my handwriting. Unless I am stopped on the frontier I shall be in Forstadt in three weeks."

 

I dropped the letter with a laugh, wondering whether the charming lady played the game as he did and a stake as light. Or did she suffer? Well, anybody can suffer. The talent is almost universal. There was, it seemed, reason to suppose that Struboff suffered. I acquiesced, but with a sense of discontent. Pain should not be vulgarized. Varvilliers' immunity gave him a new distinction in my eyes. _

Read next: Chapter 24. What A Question!

Read previous: Chapter 22. Ut Puto, Vestis Fio

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