The Argonauts Part 23

The baron halted; he thought awhile; his faded face took on that expression of roguery which the French call polissonnerie; joyousness seized him.

"We will shoot off!" cried he; and he made a movement with his foot like that which a street-sweeper makes to catch a bark shoe thrown up in the air.

Maryan rose, shook himself out of his lethargy, and said, almost with delight:

"It is an idea. To America!"

Then from the abyss of the immensely deep and broad cathedra Kranitski's voice was heard, orphan-like, timid:

"But will you take me with you, my dears? When you shoot off you will take me with you, will you not?"

There was no answer. The baron was sitting already before the organ and had begun to play some grand church composition; in the dignified sound of that music Tristan made a knightly bow to Isolde, and the "Triumph of Death," with its dark outline, was reflected on the background of Alberich's white habit, while the saints painted with golden haloes on the windows clasped their pale hands above their bright robes.

CHAPTER VII

Baron Emil said at times to Irene:

"You have the aristocracy of intellect. Your mind is original.

There is in you much delicate irony. You are not deceived with painted pots."

These words caused her pleasure of the same sort as that which the praise of a mountaineer causes an inexperienced traveller when he tells him that he knows how to climb neck-breaking summits. Much irony had flowed into her mind from certain mysterious sides of her life. But she had become conscious of this now for the first time, under the guidance and influence of the baron. He awed her by the originality of his language and ideas, by the absolute sincerity of his disbelief, and his egotism. During childhood she had seen a mask which astounded her, and struck her in the very heart. Thenceforth everything seemed better to her and more agreeable than masks. Moreover, the baron was to her thinking a finished aesthete, an excellent judge in the whole realm of art, and in this regard she did not deceive herself greatly. The opinions on art and philosophy, which he proclaimed, interested her through their novelty, and the expressions which he used purposely, though sometimes brutal and verging on the gutter, roused her curiosity by their singularity and insolence. She imitated him in speech; in his presence she guarded her lips lest they might let something escape through which she would earn the t.i.tle of "shepherdess."

"You are very far from the Arcadian condition, in which I meet people here at every step. You are intricate; you are like an orchid, one stem of which has a flower in the form of a b.u.t.terfly, while the next seems like a death's head."

She interrupted him with a brief laugh:

"A b.u.t.terfly is flat."

Her laugh had a sharp sound, for the cold gleam of the baron's eyes fell on her boldly and persistently.

"No," contradicted he, "no; the combination of a death's head with a b.u.t.terfly makes a dissonance. That bites and sticks a new pin in the soul."

"But the Greek harmony?" she inquired.

With a flattering smile, which conquered her, the baron answered:

"Never mention harmony. That is the milk with which babes were nourished. We subsist on something else. You like game, do you not? but only when it begins to decay. There is no good game, except that which is rank. Very well, we subsist on a world in decay. This is true, but you speak of that darned sock; namely, harmony--ha! ha! ha! You think sometimes one way and sometimes another. Your soul is full of bites! You are idyllic and also satirical. You jeer at idyls, and still, at odd times, you yearn for one somewhat. Have I touched the point accurately? Are my words true?"

"True," answered Irene, dropping her eyelids.

She dropped her lids because she was ashamed of the discovery which the baron had made in her, and for this cause as well, that she felt his breath on her face, and caught the odor of certain strange perfumes which came from him. His eyes sought hers and strove to pour into them their cold gleam, which was also a burning one. He strove to take her hand, but she withdrew it, and he, with lowered, drawling, and somewhat nasal tones, said:

"You wish, and again you do not wish; you feel the cry of life in you and try to turn it into a lyric song."

The cry of life! Over this phrase Irene halted later on, but briefly, touched as she had been by premature knowledge, its meaning became clear to her straightway. The baron, small, fragile, with a faded face and irregular, was a master in calling forth the "cry of life" in women. His manner with them was exquisite, but also insolent. In his gray eyes, with the reddened edges of their lids, he had a look which was hypnotising in its persistence and cold fire. It resembled the glitter of steel--pale and penetrating. In the manner in which he held the hand of a woman and placed a kiss on it, in the glances with which he seemed to tear her away from her shelter, in the intonation given to certain words, was attained the primitiveness of desire and conquest under cover of polished refinement. Amid the tedium and dissatisfaction of ordinary and exercised lovemakers this method seemed cynical, but bold and honest. It might have been compared to the s.h.a.ggy head of a beast sticking out of a basket of heliotropes, which have ever the character of sameness as has their odor. The head is ugly, but smells of a cave and of troglodytes, which among common flowers of dull odor lend it the charm of power and originality.

Irene thought at once of "great grandfatherliness;" when in presence of the baron her nerves quivered like chords when touched in a manner unknown up to that time. She asked herself: "Am I in love?" But when he had gone this question called from her a brief, ironical smile. She a.n.a.lyzed and criticised the physical and moral personality of the baron with perfect coolness, and at moments with a shade of contempt even.

A vibrio! This expression contained the conception of physical and moral withering, almost the palpable picture of an existence which merely quivers in s.p.a.ce, and is barely capable of living.

In comparison with this picture she had a presentiment of some wholesome, n.o.ble, splendid strength. Disgust for the baron began to flow around her heart and rise to her lips with a taste that was repulsive, and to her brain with a thought that was bitter: Why is this world as it is? Why is it not different? But perhaps it was different somewhere else, but not for her? She had ceased to believe in an idyl. She had looked too long, and from too near a point, at the tragedy and irony of things to preserve faith in idyls. Maybe there were idyls somewhere, but not in the sphere where she lived--they were not for her! To yearn for that which perhaps did not exist at all, which most a.s.suredly did not exist for her! What a "rheumatism of thought" that would be! Her head, with a j.a.panese knot of fiery hair on the top of it, bent down low, for the stream of lead from her heart was rising. With a movement usual to her she clasped her long hands, and, squeezing them violently, thought:

"Well, what of it? I must in every case create some future, and why should any other be better than this one? Here at least is sincerity on both sides, and a just view of things."

As time pa.s.sed she said to herself that what she felt for the baron was love of a certain kind, and that at the foundation of things there is no other love, and if there is any other kind it does not signify much, for each kind pa.s.ses quickly. She began in general to attach less and less weight to that side of life, and also life itself had for her a charm which was continually decreasing. In the gloom of weariness, and the apathy into which she was falling, that which connected her with the baron was like a red electric lantern s.h.i.+ning on a throng in the street and in the darkness. It was not the bright sun, nor the silvery moon; it was just that red lantern which, s.h.i.+ning on a throng in the street, enabled one to see many curious or brilliant objects.

She knew of Lili Kerth, and the role which she played as to the world in general and the baron in particular. The baron in that case, as in others, wore no mask; sometimes he accompanied Lili Kerth to public promenades, and sometimes even showed himself with her in a box at the theatre. That was in contradiction with morals, especially in view of his relation with Irene; but subjection to morals, would not that be standing guard over graves, or the "darned sock?"

In this case Maryan, without knowing why, did not applaud his friend.

"C'est crane, mais trop cochon," judged he, and he pouted a little at the baron, but looked with curiosity at his sister, also present in the theatre. Irene sat in her box as usual, calm and full of distinction, a little formal, never charmed with anything, or laughing at anything. As usual she conversed with the baron between acts, till Maryan, looking at her, sneered, and asked:

"How did your vis-a-vis please you?"

"Qui cette fille?" asked Irene, carelessly. "The color of her hair is superb. Pure Venetian gold."

No feeling of offence, or modesty.

"Bravo!" said Maryan. And with comical solemnity in his voice he added: "Dear sister, you have a new mentality altogether. You have surpa.s.sed my expectations, and now I shall call you my true sister."

Why? Was she to be naive in a theatre? She knew well that such things were done everywhere, and they must exist in the life of the baron. And, if they must exist, then let them be open, for mysteries--Oh! she preferred anything to masks and mysteries.

Besides the question was mainly in this, that that history of the baron and the famous singer of chansonettes did not concern her in any way.

One evening outside the windows of the house began the twilight, which was rather pale from snow. In the drawing-room sat Irene amid the cold whiteness of sculpture, which adorned the walls, and the reflection on polished furniture of blue watered-silk.

The young lady was seated at one of the windows on a high stool.

On the background of the window-pane, filled with the whitish twilight, her figure seemed tall, with narrow shoulders, and her profile somewhat too prolonged. Over this profile rose a knot of fiery hair, and the whole figure reminded one of a statue of a priestess, erect and smiling enigmatically. Her eyelids were drooping, her long hands were clasped on her robe; but the smiles wandering over her lips and ever changing, were not those of satisfaction. She remembered that in recent days she had met the baron offener than before. He strove more and more to see her--to meet her. He simply pursued her--found her frequently in shops which she visited with her mother, or alone. When he came he did not s.h.i.+eld himself with the excuse of chance, but said with his usual sincerity:

"I willed to-day to see you, and I see you. I know how to will!"

This day she had barely entered the shop of a celebrated tailor when he entered also, and immediately, with unusual animation, began to tell her of his great project of going to America and settling there for a long time, perhaps permanently. He was roused by that idea; he was almost enthusiastic; the hope of new scenes and impressions, perhaps great profits, had fired his imagination. Of these last he spoke also to Irene.

"One must move, rouse courage, bring the nerves into action, otherwise they may wither. One must conquer and win. He who does not gain victories deserves the grave. Money is an object worthy of conquest, for it opens the gates of life. William Morris is a famous poet and artist, but he became a manufacturer. He understood that contempt for industry is like many other things, a painted pot. Men made this pot and poets painted it in beautiful colors, then the poets died of hunger. America holds in reserve new horizons."

He spoke long, and was astonished himself at his own enthusiasm.

"I thought," said he, "that I should never know enthusiasm, and I supposed even that it was a rheumatism of thought. Meanwhile I feel enthusiasm, yes, enthusiasm! And it pervades me with a delightful s.h.i.+ver. Do you not share it? Are you not attracted, as well as I, by distant perspectives, new horizons, 'the divine vibrations of blue seas, the silences traversed by worlds, by angels '--And plagiarizing he repeated the addition made by Maryan: 'And by millions'?"

Yes, she was attracted. Not by the millions; she was too familiar with them, but the distant perspectives, the new horizons, the sh.o.r.eless expanses of oceans, and the endless quiet of s.p.a.ces which in the twinkle of an eye were unfolded before her imagination. The dull pain, and the gloomy disgust which tortured her not long before, cried out: "Yes! yes! go, fly far, as far as possible under new skies, among people of another nationality!

Go, fly, seek."

With a slight flush on her cheeks, which were delicate to the highest degree, she told all this to the baron, whose crumpled, faded face was gleaming with delight.

"You make me happy, really happy!" whispered he, and added: "Command me to bow down before you; I will obey and bow down."

Meanwhile a door-bell was heard every moment in the great shop, and a wave of people pa.s.sing by reminded Irene of the reason why she was there. She turned to an elegant apartment, in which a flood of materials disposed on the furniture was waiting for her.

The baron had a knowledge of the wearing apparel of ladies; he liked to speak of it; and more than once, with the accuracy of a tailor, and the pleasure of an artist, he told of the original and peculiar toilets seen in capitals. On this occasion, in the tailor's apartment between great mirrors, in the flood of unfolded materials, he said:

"I beg you not to dress according to pattern; I beg you not to spoil my delight by forcing me to see on you any of the ridiculous styles of this city. I meet no ladies here of subtle taste. There is wealth, frequently there is even taste, but common, according to pattern. For you it is necessary to think out something new--something symbolic, or rather something which symbolizes. A woman's dress should be a symbol of her individuality. For you it is necessary to think out a dress which would symbolize aristocracy of soul and body."