Part 2

"You forget," I broke in, "that people wish to enjoy fiction with the heart alone, not with the intellect, and that the heart refuses everything which is not closely akin to it. Therefore I feel very lenient toward the average reader. In real life he is interested only in certain things which he understands, prizes, and considers desirable; such as money and land, social reputation, family happiness, and more of the same sort. Consequently, he likes in books only such stories as deal with rich and poor, rogues and honest men, and, for a sort of relish, with a little of the so-called love necessary to complete a happy marriage. Whatsoever there is beyond that, is evil. Yet in every human breast there lives a still presentiment that there is something glorious about the unusual, about a feeling, for instance, that fills the heart to overflowing, even to the breaking of all conventional bonds. But my poor wise Leopardi was right; the world laughs at things which it otherwise must admire, and, like the fox in the fable, blames what it really envies. A great love, for example, with its passionate joys and sorrows, is universally envied, and therefore unsparingly condemned. They consider it dangerous, and I have found this view sanctioned everywhere in men's judgments of life and fiction. 'Do not destroy my home!' cries the peaceful citizen to the passion which is breaking into his house like an armed man. And if he feels himself adequately protected by his armor of conventionality, more invulnerable than iron or steel, he fears for children and parents, and the tender heart of his wife. Although the danger may not have been great after all. Only what we recognize as true has power over our souls; and surely you yourself have seldom encountered in this cold world of ours any strong passion or heart-instinct out of the catechism, and yet truly felt."

"That is true," he said, "and therefore I have never yet discovered, either in psychology or romance, a trace of that peculiar situation which I mentioned. Once I imagined that, in the writings of one whom I consider a true artist, I had found something similar when, in looking over Alfred Musset's short stories, I came across the title '_Les Deux Maitresses_.' But no, the hero loved one and flirted with the other. That happens thousands of times. But what I mean--"

He broke off, seeming to regret that he had gone so far. I allowed only a slight word to betray my intense interest. I did not wish to elicit any confidence which he would not freely give me. I knew also that there is a midnight hour for long-buried histories, when they burst the bars of the closed breast and rise up to walk about once more in the pale light of a starry heaven. One must then guard his tongue well, for a careless word may frighten the timid ghosts back to their graves.

So I remained silent and waited. We were approaching a little enclosure, a grove of ash-trees, and on the seats under the wind-tossed branches several homeless men lay sleeping peacefully. In the darkest corner of the shaded place stood an empty bench.

"If it suits you," said L., "let us sit here a moment. I would like best of all to imitate yonder vagabonds and spend the night here _sub divo_. The south wind possesses me."

Then, after we had been sitting dumbly side by side for some time, "Of what were we speaking?" he began; "was it not of people's inability to imagine situations which they themselves have never been through? How can one expect it of them, since even the individual himself cannot always comprehend what he has too undeniably felt?

"And when I now look back on that time and observe everything calmly from a distance, does not my own heart oftentimes seem to me a riddle? To you, indeed, that which is unintelligible to most people will seem natural enough; namely, that the love I bore my wife was strengthened instead of weakened by the years of unclouded happiness. One might say that every deep and earnest affection is artistic. As the artist and the poet bear and cherish the burning thought within them, ever striving to approximate it to their highest ideal, so love, if not mistaken in its object, is a ceaseless advance. But I see this comparison halts a little. Let it be. Only you must know that I was one of those fortunate beings who consider the possession of a beloved wife as a daily gift from the gracious gods; and that I was still feeling a sort of lover's devotion when the young likeness of the dear woman had already outgrown childhood.

"I do not know that you would have understood this better, if you had known the woman. Many passed her by without suspecting what a rare spirit looked out upon the world from those quiet, all-understanding eyes. I myself, in our first hour of meeting, felt indissolubly bound to her. But I shall not attempt to describe her. At this moment, as is always the case with those whom I hold dearest, I see her picture only in uncertain outlines, although I could draw any indifferent face even to the wrinkles. It was so even when she was living; I carried with me the feeling of her personality as a whole, and when she appeared it was like a new revelation.

"Many did not consider her a beauty, and she had not the slightest desire to please in that way. But to others she seemed supremely charming, and far beyond comparison with any merely pretty woman. I often pondered over this mysterious charm of hers. I came to the conclusion that, while the good qualities of the average lovable person affect us at different times, with her the whole character revealed itself every moment. Goodness, cleverness, earnestness and cheerfulness, grace and firm strength,--her entire treasure was always at hand. But I see I am still praising and describing. I will only say that the first meeting decided my fate.

"I immediately realized that it was not one of those sudden, short-lived passions which I had often experienced during my frivolous officer-life. Until now I had never, even in the warmest love-affair, been able to think of a union for life without feeling a quiet aversion to the loss of my freedom. In the first hour I knew that this love concerned my soul's welfare; that I could never again be my own master, even though I should be obliged to remain away from her forever. I could not long endure the uncertainty as to her feeling for me. I was somewhat spoiled by previous successes. Yet it scarcely distressed or surprised me, when, though she acknowledged that my presence was pleasant to her and that she would be glad to see me often, she said she did not return my passionate feeling, and thought too highly of a union for life and death to enter into it half-heartedly, as into something of little moment.

"She became still dearer to me through this refusal, although from any one else such treatment would have sorely wounded my vanity. Before her all mean and petty feelings disappeared, and a man's best nature was aroused, as alone worthy of her.

"It never occurred to me to withdraw myself, grumbling and pining, in order to make myself missed. After the first pain was over, I seemed to myself rashly presumptuous in having proposed at all. I believed that I could not better atone for this ridiculous hastiness than by remaining unassumingly near her. Her parents kept open house; and, being always welcome, I exerted myself to be cheerful, and to suppress every feeling of jealousy toward my companions in misery. But my nights were wretched, and I often brooded over the darkest resolves.

"Now imagine my feeling when one morning I received a note from her; I might call upon her during the day. She had something important to say to me.

"I found her alone. She met me in the greatest agitation, stretched both hands to me, and cried, 'You live! God be thanked!' Then she told me that toward morning she had had a frightful dream, in which she had seen me lying dead before her with a deep wound in my forehead. An unspeakable grief had suddenly seized her, almost as though a hot, buried spring had burst forth from her inmost soul and gushed from her eyes in an inexhaustible stream of tears. In that instant she knew that she loved me, and must die if I did not revive. When she awoke from the dream and reflected upon it, her happiness at finding it untrue was nearly fatal to her; her heart beat as violently as if it would leap from her, and she was scarcely able to write the note to me.

"From that morning until her death, that warm spring of love was never exhausted. Whenever I remember--no, I dare not. I would seem to you a strange visionary, or, at best, weary you with confessions that could give you nothing new. I am no poet; and even Dante, with all his display of color and sound, could not save Paradise from monotony.

"Every day we experienced some new happiness, especially after our child was born. She was a lovable child; and yet it was a long time before I could learn to love her for her own sake. During the first years, I loved her because of her mother, and she pleased me only so far as she resembled her. It was, so to speak, only an additional charm of this dear woman's that she had given life to such a child. I tell this to you, that you may know what a boundless love filled me, and how it never grew cool or more rational with years.

"Indeed, she even succeeded in displacing another passion, to which I had formerly given all my spare time, but which now scarcely ever manifested itself. Even in the cadet school, I had been an enthusiastic violinist, and believed that I could not live without music. And when I realized that my wife was a stranger to the true nature of music, it pained me for a moment. But I would have renounced as unnecessary or troublesome, anything in which she had no part. Indeed, I easily convinced myself that this lack was but one perfection the more. Her true, simple nature, always at one with itself, shrank from the mysterious depths, the spiritual twilight, into which music lures us. It troubled her that she could not find the key to this fascinating riddle; but she seemed to fear that she might be drawn into a moral perplexity which would admit of no redemption. It was not indifference toward the musical world, but rather a lack of sensitiveness, which barred her way to the heart of it. She thoroughly enjoyed a folk-song or dance melody. A Beethoven symphony pained her--indeed, could drive her to despair.

"All her artistic sense was in her eyes. She enjoyed every visible thing with the most exquisite feeling, and would study the lines of a face, a landscape, or a building, for hours together. Her hand was well-trained, but she placed little value on her sketches and aquarelles. Her technical skill did not equal her power of artistic perception. Besides, within the limits of our country estate, amid entirely commonplace surroundings and unattractive people, she had little opportunity to perfect herself.

"Thus, for different reasons, both our talents remained dormant. But, occasionally, the desire to take my violin from its case and play through my old favorites once again, would seize me like a physical necessity. This I would do in perfect secrecy in some distant part of the woods. When the longing was satisfied, and I returned to the house like some penitent sinner, we would both laugh if she chanced to meet me with the violin under my arm. She often implored me to ignore her weakness; perhaps I might cure her of it. But her untroubled cheerfulness was more to me than all the sonatas in the world.

"For nearly eight years we lived thus, entirely for ourselves, and reminded only by little excursions and visits to the city, that any world existed beyond our pine woods. Then our child sickened with the measles, and retained from them a bad throat-trouble, which our physician advised us to check at once by a sojourn in milder air. Although it was harvest-time, we soon decided to leave home and take our child to Lake Geneva, for which place my wife had always preserved a tender feeling since her school-days at a French _pension_ there.

"In Vernex, where, as yet, the hotels had not rendered the beautiful shore unsafe, we found an excellent house, entirely after our own hearts. It was arranged for only a dozen guests, and was situated in the midst of a beautifully green garden, with a most glorious view of the lake and the mountains on the south shore. We settled ourselves in two spacious rooms on the second floor. My wife and child slept in the small room; the large one adjoining it served as the sitting-room, and at night my bed was made on the divan. The corresponding rooms on the ground floor beneath us were occupied during the first day by an English couple, who disturbed us by continual playing on the piano; but when they departed on the following day, they left such stillness behind them that we might have considered ourselves the only persons in the paradise, had not the usual meals, in an elegant dining-room, reminded us that we still had half-gods near us.

"On the first evening I was surprised by a tender stratagem of my wife's. As I unpacked the great trunk belonging to her and the child, which she herself had filled at home, I struck something hard, which proved to be my violin-case.

"I embraced her heartily as I saw her smile with pleasure because she had accomplished this so cleverly and secretly.

"'As I brought my color-box,' she said, 'there was no need for your instrument to remain at home. I know a hundred places by the lake and on the road to Montreux, where I can carry on my daubing by the hour, while you are conjuring your uncanny spirits up here.'

"Yet it happened otherwise than I had first thought in my excitement over her loving forethought. The case remained unopened, and for a full week not one musical thought occurred to me. I would sit by the hour on the balcony with an unopened book in my hand, wholly absorbed in the nobly beautiful picture before me. Or I would accompany my wife and child on their walks; and when my wife had settled down to sketch the magnificent chestnut-trees, or the white houses surrounded with fig-trees and vineyards, glimmering on the slopes in the ravines between Montreux and Veytaux, I would stretch myself in the shade near by; chat with the child, who was visibly improving; and feel so completely satisfied with God and man, that that sultan who vainly searched the world for the happiest man would finally have found him in me.

"One morning I allowed them to go out alone, for I had several necessary letters to write. It was a quiet, beautiful day; not a breath of air ruffled the mirror-like lake; I had moved my table before the open balcony door, and was congratulating myself on the deep stillness of the house, when, in the room beneath me, I suddenly heard that fateful piano, which I had so often cursed, sound again, and so loudly that I knew the lower balcony door must also be open. In my vexation I at first closed mine; but after listening a moment or two, I reopened the door and stepped outside, in order not to lose the slightest tone. The ten fingers playing Bach's Prelude on the little piano below me belonged to no Englishwoman. Late last evening new guests had moved in--so the chambermaid had announced--a French man and woman, brother and sister. Which of the two was then playing I naturally did not know. But from the touch, although it was firm and strong when necessary, I decided upon the sister. I have seldom heard such beautiful, distinct, and, as it were, mature playing; yet it had no trace of so-called classic objectivity, but rather a very personal charm, as if the player's deepest nature were speaking to me. I would have wagered my head that the musician was a brunette, with those gray eyes which Spaniards call 'green.' I know it is folly; but it is not the only one of which you will find me guilty, and it had not less power over me because a sound human intelligence might resist it.

"You know that Gounod composed a violin accompaniment for this Prelude. The purists and Bach-pedants reject it. But it has such an irresistible melody that every violinist learns it by heart. It was not long before I had taken my instrument from its case, tuned it sufficiently, and placed the bow in position. And then began a most wonderful duet on two floors, played with as much calmness and precision as if it had been well practised. There was not the slightest hesitation; my violin was never in better condition, and the little piano rang as full and soft as if it had been changed over night into a powerful concert grand.

"After we finished there came a pause, and I wondered with some trepidation if another approach than that of sounds would be proper. I stepped out on the balcony, hoping that the player would appear on the terrace. But a new piece which she began drew me forthwith back into the room. This time it was a Chopin Impromptu which I knew perfectly. Since I had been unable to play much, I had read an unlimited quantity of music, and my memory was very well trained.

"Again seizing my bow, I attempted a modest accompaniment to the somewhat quaint, but passionately musical, confession. Then came something from Schumann, and so on _ad infinitum_. I believe we played three full hours at one stretch. When my wife finally returned--it was the second breakfast--hour she found me much overheated, and bathed in perspiration.

"She even listened to the last bars of a Beethoven sonata, to which I was playing the treble. 'What duet have you arranged for yourself?' she asked, smiling, and when I told her that I knew the pianist as little as she did, she laughed outright. 'I did not bring the violin in vain, after all, and if I sketch chestnut-trees by the hour, I shall know that you are busy and happy.'

"I attempted to reply somewhat jokingly, but made a miserable failure. The music had moved me exceedingly; and, although I never believed in presentiments, I was unable to shake off a premonition of something unusual and uncanny. I longed to remain away from dinner, but felt ashamed of such a boyish feeling. But my shyness about making the player's acquaintance was unnecessary. She did not appear at table; so we met only her brother, a slender, serious young Frenchman, whose hair and complexion at once proclaimed his southern origin. In fact, we learned later that his home was at Arles. His father had been an Alsacian from an old German family, a merchant, who, conducting a branch business in that city of beautiful women, had finally lost his heart to the most charming one. He had afterward settled there and founded a great banking-house, that the son, who was inclined toward a diplomatic career, might find the way easily open to him. Both parents had died recently, and the son was still in mourning for them; but he seemed either very reserved for his age, or oppressed by some secret trouble, so that, beyond a few courteous words of greeting, we heard little from him. His sister, after whom my wife immediately inquired, was still tired from the journey, and also from the music, he added, with a side glance at me. Her physician had forbidden her to play, but she could not refrain from it. In the register, which was brought to him after dinner, he wrote a simple, commonplace name, but beneath it that of his sister--Countess So-and-so.

"So she was married, and perhaps we should meet her husband also. I do not know why this thought affected me unpleasantly, since I had never yet seen the lady herself. I awaited the evening in strange suspense. On entering the dining-room we saw the brother and sister seated directly opposite us. I was not in the least surprised. The young woman appeared precisely as I had imagined; beautiful dark hair, slightly curly, and bound in a simple knot at the back of her head; a face far from regular, but charming for its pale ivory-color and beautiful teeth; and, truly, gray eyes, the iris inclosed with a dark ring and shot through with golden lights, exactly as I had fancied from her playing.

"She talked little, addressing herself only to my wife when she did speak. It was nothing new to me to see that the latter could at once attract even this shy and reserved heart.

"After dinner, when we went out into the garden, over which the stars were twinkling, it was not long before I observed the two sitting together absorbed in earnest conversation. One could hardly have imagined anything lovelier than this pair, so unlike, yet so truly equal in charm and nobility of appearance and manner. They were nearly the same size, although my wife was stately and well-developed, while the stranger was girlishly slight; but her arms and neck, which I saw later in lighter clothing, were perfectly rounded, and resembled those of some Arabian women whose pictures I had seen in a friend's sketch-book. The brother had withdrawn; I walked to and fro on the lower part of the terrace, smoking my cigar, gazing absent-mindedly over the shimmering lake, and now and then hearing a detached word from the conversation of the women. The child was sleeping quietly upstairs, for she was put to bed every evening before we went to dinner.

"'She is extremely charming,' my wife afterwards said to me, 'but even more unhappy than she is beautiful and lovable. She has been separated for two years from her husband, who is a _mauvais sujet_, a gambler and spendthrift, who has already wasted her whole dowry. When she realized that she had married a worthless man, she insisted upon returning to her parents. So you may imagine that when her mother and father both died, it was much harder for her to bear than for many other loving daughters, who find comfort in their husbands. She is now living with her brother, but, although he adores her, she cannot have him with her forever. Sometime she will be entirely alone and dependent on herself, and, since she is a Catholic and cannot release herself from her hateful tie, she looks forward to a hopeless future. When I showed active sympathy because of her mourning, she told me all this without the least sentimentality, and with the calmness of a strong soul. But when she mentioned that the Count occasionally came to see her to extort money, although he no longer has the slightest claim on her property, her voice trembled, the mere thought of the villain is so repulsive to her. Her health has suffered under all these emotions. I promised to care for and pet her like a loving sister, and you should have heard how prettily she laughed. The poor young woman! I am much pleased that your violin travelled with us. She said your playing seemed so sympathetic.'

"She never wearied of talking about her new friend. I teased her because, contrary to her usual habit, she had allowed herself to be so quickly conquered.

"'Only beware of yourself!' she replied, laughing. 'I certainly do not understand the language of tones, but I know that with them one can confess far deeper secrets than we revealed to-day with words.'

"'As long as there is a solid floor between us, there is no danger,' I interrupted, jokingly. But I knew very well the first evening that it would not be safe to jest with those dangerous gray eyes.

"For a long while I could not sleep. The theme from the Prelude sounded constantly in my ears. At midnight I arose, and, going softly into the neighboring room, gazed at the beloved faces of my wife and child by the light of the little night-lamp. The charm worked, and I passed a perfectly quiet, dreamless night. But my first waking thought was again--danger!