Part 10

Now the marble slab was cleared and the crystals of the limestone sparkled like loaf sugar in the sunbeams. With his paint buckets he marked out a rustic base and outlined two small quadrangular windows. On the rocky ledge above he drove two poles and laid a third one across, tying them so that the whole formed a pergola. Afterwards he needed only to lift up the bearberry vines, which were a couple of yards long, and twine them round the poles; thus the grapevine was in place, and hanging down in festoons.

At last he retouched the soil with a gallon of muriatic acid diluted with as much water, whereby a brilliant variegation of colors was produced on the grassy carpet, to represent patches of Bellis or Galanthus which flowers he had found characteristic of the Roman Campagna at the coming of the "second spring" in October after the wine harvest has ended.

And therewith his work was completed!

But it had taken him until evening. In order that the miracle should have a proper effect there remained, however, to announce its appearance in advance and best if he could predetermine the day. He knew that there had been great heat in the south of Europe, and therefore it would not be long before a north wind would come. It had been from the east for some time now, while the barometric pressure in the North Sea had been low. According to reports, drifting ice lay off Arholma, and as soon as the wind would veer a few points to northward the ice drift must follow the current which passes to the west of Aland, where the Gulf of Bothnia empties into the Baltic Sea. If he could only get a north wind in the evening of some day then he was sure it would last a couple of days, and as it is always accompanied by clear air he would be able to foretell the appearance of the phenomenon at least one day in advance, and if he got that far it would be an easy matter to tell the hour, for the mirage only appeared a few hours after sunrise, usually between ten and twelve o'clock.

As he entered his chamber, he locked the door to devote himself to his work, his great work, which he had been planning for the last ten years and expected to complete when he was fifty; this was the goal, which had inspired his life and which he carried as his secret. He enjoyed the thought of owning himself for a few hours, for during the weeks which had passed since the arrival of the two ladies, he had been occupied every evening with keeping them company, and that, which should have been a rest and a pleasure, had become a constraint, a labor. He loved the young girl and would live with her in wedlock, in complete unification, when leisure moments would afford unpremeditated confidences and rest; but this state of semi-familiarity where he at fixed hours must appear whether he was disposed to converse or not, pained him as a duty. She had caught hold of him and never tired of receiving as he possessed the ability to be always new and entertaining; but he who never received anything, could in time find the need of renewing himself. But when he then stayed away, she became uneasy, nervous and tortured him with questions whether she was too importunate, to which he as a well-bred man could not answer in the affirmative.

Now he opened his manuscript case, where the cartons lay arranged with notes, small slips of paper with improvised thoughts on observations, stuck on half sheets as in a herbarium, and which it amused him to arrange and rearrange after new classifications in order to find out whether the phenomena could be arranged in as many ways as the brain willed, or they really could be arranged according to only one classification, viz., as nature had placed them, if indeed nature in its operations had followed any particular law and order. This occupation awakened in him the idea that he was the real arranger of chaos, who separated light from darkness; and that the chaos first ceased with the evolution of the discriminating organ of self-consciousness, at a time when light and darkness in reality were not yet separated. He intoxicated himself with this thought, felt how his ego was growing, how the brain cells germinated, burst their capsules, multiplied and formed new species of concepts, which should in time crop out in thoughts, and fall into the brain substance of others as yeast plants and cause millions after his death, if not before, to serve as hot beds for his seeds of thought....

There was a knock at the door, and with an excited voice, as though he had been disturbed in a secret meeting, he asked who it was.

It was a greeting from the ladies and an inquiry if the commissioner would come down.

This he answered by returning his regards, but he had no time this evening because he must work, unless some urgent circumstances required his presence.

There was silence for a moment. As he thought he surely knew what would follow he left his interrupted work and placed his manuscript in order; he had just completed this when he heard the mother's step on the staircase. Instead of waiting for her to knock he opened the door and greeted her with the question, "Miss Mary is sick?"

The mother started, but recovered herself at once and asked the doctor to come down and see her as it was impossible to get a physician.

The commissioner was not a physician but he had acquired the elements of pathology and therapeutics; had observed himself and all the sick that had come within his circle; had philosophized over the nature of diseases and their remedies, and finally, made up a therapy, that he applied to himself. Therefore he promised to come in about half an hour and bring the medicine with him as he heard the girl lay in convulsions.

It certainly was not difficult for him to guess the nature of her sickness. As the first messenger had said nothing about illness, it must have occurred between the two messages and had been caused by his refusal to go. It was a psychical indisposition, which he so well recognized and which passed under the yet undefined name of hysteria. A little pressure on the will, a thwarted wish, a cross plan, and at once followed a general depression under which the soul tried to place the pains within the body without being able to localize them. He had so often seen in the pharmacodynamics beside the names of remedies and their action small cautious remarks as "acts in a yet unexplained way," or "action not yet fully known," and he believed that he had found by observation and speculation, that just because of the unity of mind and matter the remedy acted both chemico-dynamically and psychically at the same time. Recent medical ideas had left out the medicine or the material basis and assumed in hypnotism a purely psychical, or in diet and physical exercise a vulgar and often detrimental mechanical method. These exaggerations he regarded as necessary and beneficial transition forms, although their trial had demanded its victims as, for instance, when one with cold water excites a nervous person instead of soothing them with warm baths, or tired out the weak with violent exercises in the raw air.

He believed he had found that the old remedies could still be of service as a kind of instruction material, to use the popular expression, in order to awaken and change impressions, and just as the group of astringents really cause a contracting of the stomach, just so do they cause a concentrating of the soul's scattered powers, which the dissipated drinker knows from experience when he in the morning winds up his run down movement with an "Angostura."

This woman felt herself bodily indisposed without directly being so. Therefore he now composed a series of remedies, of which the first would cause a real physical ailment whereby the patient should be urged to leave the sickly condition of the soul and localize it definitely in the body. To this purpose he took from his family medicine case the most nauseating of all drugs, asafœtida, which could best develop a condition of general illness, and in such great doses that actual convulsions would result; that means, the whole physique with the senses of smell and taste should rise in revolt against this strange substance in the body, and all the functions of the soul should direct their attention to its removal. Thereby the imaginary pains would be forgotten, and it would only remain then to cause in succession transitions from the one nauseating sensation down through less unpleasant ones, until finally the release from the last stage, by means of an upward grade of cooling, covering, softening, mitigating remedies, should awaken a complete sensation of vivacity as after having passed through troubles and dangers, which are delightful to recollect.

After having dressed himself in a white sack coat of cashmere and tied on a cream colored necktie with pale amethyst stripes, he for the first time since the arrival of the ladies put on his bracelet. Why all this he could not explain, but he did it under the influence of an impression, brought from the sick bed he was to visit, and which he produced in himself. And when he looked in the mirror without observing his face, he noticed that his exterior gave a mild sympathetic impression, but also with a touch of the unusual and that it would attract attention, without exciting a nervous person.

After this he collected his requisites like a magician who is going to perform, and went to the sick bed.

When he was shown into the chamber, he saw the girl lying on the sofa, with disheveled hair and dressed in a Persian morning-gown. Her eyes were unnaturally big and stared contemptuously at the intruder.

The commissioner felt for a moment embarrassed, but only for a moment, and then he stepped forwards and grasped her hand.

"How is it with you, Miss Mary?" asked he sympathetically.

She looked at him piercingly, as though she would penetrate him, but did not answer.

He took out his watch and, counting her pulse, said:

"You have fever."

Here he lied, but he must gain her confidence, that was part of the cure.

The expression on the girl's face changed immediately.

"If I have fever! Oh, I believe I shall burn up!"

She was allowed to complain, and the hostile mood against the visitor had passed so that contact closing the current could occur.

"Do you promise to obey my orders? If so, I will cure you," the commissioner began, meantime laying his hand on her forehead.

At the word obey he felt how the patient twitched as though she would not obey at all, but at the same moment his bracelet slipped below the cuff and the resistance of the imaginary sick ceased.

"Do with me as you please," answered she submissively; meanwhile her eyes were fastened on the golden serpent which fascinated her and aroused her fears of something unknown.

"I am no physician by profession, as you know, but I have studied the art, and know all that is necessary for this occasion. Here I have a drug which is very diagreeable to take, but is infallible in its action. It is no secret and I shall tell you what I am giving you. This is a resinous gum which is prepared from the root of a perennial herb which grows in stony Arabia."

At the word Arabia the girl listened, for it probably aroused some thoughts of incense, which could not hide Lady Macbeth's foul crimes.

Therefore she took the spoon and smelt of its contents; but at the same moment she threw her head backwards and cried: "I cannot take it!"

He placed his arm round her neck, firmly and gently, and reached the spoon to her once more and coaxingly said:

"Show now that you are a good child!" Thereupon he poured the drug into her mouth, before she could make resistance.

She fell backwards upon the sofa pillows and her body writhed under the pains and nauseating effects which the resin with its smell of white onion had produced, and her face expressed a horror as though all things bad and disgusting in this world had piled upon her. With a supplicating voice she beseeched him for a glass of water to free her from her agony.

This he would not give her; she must lie down and, whether she would or not, submit to the disagreeable feelings the remedy caused.

Now when he saw her melted by disgust, he took up his drug number two.

"Now, Miss Mary, the wandering in stony Arabia's desert is ended and you shall go up on the Alps and inhale the mountain air, concentrated in the vigorous gentian's bitter root, yellow as sum light," said the commissioner in an encouraging, manly voice.

The girl received the bitter drug unresistingly and shrank as though stabbed with a knife; but directly after she aroused as though her scattered powers had rushed together and her energy had returned. The violent remedy had taken away the previous obnoxious taste but irritated the mucous membranes of the stomach by its sharpness, and increased the pulse.

"Now we shall put out the fire with quilts," continued the commissioner. "And let us go to Brittany's seashore to fetch balsam in the mild Carrageen alga. Do you feel how soft the mucilage lays itself protectingly over the irritated lining of the stomach and do you notice the odor of the sea salts?"

A quiet calm spread over the patient's heated face, and as the physician now considered her strong enough to listen to him, he began with reminiscences of the coast of Brittany, the yachting on the Atlantic, the life with the fishermen in Quimper, and the hunting for seabirds at Sarzeau.

She followed his narrative, but still seemed somewhat tired, so he broke off and gave her a symphony, as he called it, which was composed of the classical route, well known as the wine spice of bridal parties in the Middle Ages; the heavenly Angelica, the spearmint with its household odor and a little touch of _Carbenia benedicta_ to preserve vigor, and a grain of juniper oil to tell of the forest.

It was as though he rubbed her with impressions, snatched her away from sickly thoughts by letting her travel in fancy from place to place; make the tour of the whole old and new world, get visions of all kinds of landscapes, all races of people, all climates. When she seemed tired he gave her a spoonful of lemon juice with a little sugar, which cooled and eased her, so that after a dreadful half-hour passed she received this simple refreshment as a great enjoyment, that made her smile.

"Turn now towards the wall," said the commissioner, "and pretend to sleep for five minutes while I go out and speak to your mother."

The commissioner, who felt his powers failing, was obliged to go out into the fresh air to recover. And now he need only to throw a glance out over the half lighted evening sky, out over the steel blue sea, shut his eyes and try not to think, to feel, how the disordered, brain regained its place again and continued its accelerating motion forwards, after having been turned backwards awhile.

While he stood thus with his arms on his chest, half asleep, he heard a thought still buzzing in one ear: a child of thirty-four years!

Thus he awoke and went into the cottage again.

Miss Mary was sitting on the sofa with her hair loosened and thrown gracefully around her, but otherwise looked perfectly well and cheerful.

The commissioner took from his basket a bottle of Syracuse wine and a package of Russian cigarettes.

"Now you shall pretend you are well," said he, "and that we have met after a long journey, upon which you shall drink a glass of sweet Sicilian wine and smoke a cigarette, for it is part of the cure."

The girl seemed to make an effort to hide her secret suffering, and drank the wine while she kept her eyes on the bracelet.

The commissioner broke the silence with, "You look at my bracelet?"

"No, I did not," denied the girl.

"I got it from a woman who of course is dead, as I have not returned it."

"Have you been in love?" asked the girl with a strong doubt.

"Yes, but with open eyes! When one usually considers it commendable to use sense, why quench it when one is going to take one of the most important steps in life?"

"So, one should be calculating in love?"

"Strongly, incredibly calculating when it is to let loose one of the wildest propensities!"

"Propensities?"

"Propensities! Yes!"

"You don't believe In love?"

"You propose questions which have no answer! Believe in love in general? What do you mean by that? There exists a mass of species of love, as much contrasted as black and white! I cannot believe in two of them at the same time, or all of them at once."

"And the highest species?"

"The intellectual; in three stories but as the English house. Above is the study, beneath the sleeping room and in the basement the kitchen."

"So practical! But love, a great love, is not calculating, that I have imagined as the highest, as a storm, a lightning stroke, a cataract!"

"As a rude, uncurbed power of nature? So it appears to the animals and the lower varieties of human beings...."

"Lower? Are not all human beings alike?"

"Oh, yes! All beings are alike as two berries, youths and old men, men and women, Hottentots and Frenchmen, certainly they are alike! Look at us two only! Perfectly alike, the only difference is that I have a beard! Pardon, my lady, now I see that you have recovered I will leave you. A pleasant sleep!"

He had arisen and taken his hat, but the next moment the girl stood at his side with both his hands clasped in hers and with the same glances with which she for the first time had vanquished him, she begged him to stay!

Under these burning glances and hand pressures he felt something as he thought a young girl might feel when she stood under the influence of a seducer's passionate attack. He became perturbed and inwardly there arose a feeling of violated bashfulness, and injured manliness. He freed his hands, drew himself back and said in a calm voice, cutting in its affected coldness:

"Consider!"

"Stay, or I shall seek you in your room!" rang the excited voice of the girl, which seemed to imply a threat from which there was no appeal.

"Then I shall lock my door!"

"Are you a man, you?" rang the challenge with a hard laugh.

"Yes, in such a high degree that I will be both the selector and attacker, and I do not like to be seduced!"

With this he went out and heard behind him a noise as from a human body falling and striking against furniture.

After he was out he felt like turning back, for through mental strain he was in a condition of weakness that made him susceptible to impressions of the sufferings of others. But after having been alone for a few seconds and collected himself, so that his powers returned, he firmly decided to break this engagement, which threatened to usurp his whole soul-life; and in time cut off all relation with a woman, who had showed so plainly that it was only his body she desired, while she ejected his soul, which he would pour into this lifeless image of flesh. She enjoyed the sound of his voice, but the thoughts she did not receive only in such cases as when they were of direct benefit. He had often caught her looking at the lines of his figure, and she used sometimes thoughtlessly to grasp his arm whose swelling muscles formed a ridge beneath the soft cloth. He remembered now these many overtures at the bath, on yachting; on going up to the lookout, which he never visited because it upset his nerve system to stand on a bluff without sufficient support. And now this evening, when he had seen this eruption of uncontrollable passion, he saw with fear that this woman was not of the developed race, which could individualize its love to a certain one, and that he to her only played the rôle of the indispensable opposite sex in general.

He had strolled down to the strand for a breeze, but the night was sultry. The sea had ceased to roll, and in the northwest the heaven was a faint melon color, while out in the east over the water rested the night. The strand cliffs were still warm, and he placed himself down on one of the many arm chairs, that the cold had blasted out and the waves had polished smooth.

The events he had just lived through passed before him, and now, when his senses were cooled off, he saw them in another light. His dream had always been that he should awaken a woman's love to such a degree that she should come begging, crawling to him, saying, "I love you, deign to love me!" Such was the order of nature, that the weaker approach the stronger with a submissive mind and not vice versa, although the latter still was the case with those who were living with a trace of superstitious ideas about something supernaturally exalted in woman, notwithstanding that investigation had made it manifest that the mysterious was only confusion and the exalted only a collection of poems by the suppressed desires of male propensity.

Now she had come as he had dreamed it, the woman of the new time free from prejudice, had shown all her inward incandescent nature, and he had recoiled! Why? Perhaps tradition and conventional habits still governed him! For there was nothing bold in her effusion, no trace of the harlot offering, no immodest behavior or impudent mien! She loved him in her way. What more could he desire, and with such a love he could safely bind himself to her, for perhaps not many men could boast of having lighted such a flame. But he felt no pride over having gained her, for he felt his own value, and rather a pressing responsibility which he would get rid of; and therefore he must depart from the island.

In thought now he sat and packed his belongings. He gathered the things from the writing table and saw the green empty spread, took away the lamp that shed light in the evening and sparkled colors in the daytime, and there was a vacuum. Stripped the walls of their pictures and draperies, and the white, sad, mathematical figure came forth. He took the books from their shelves, and the dreadful solitude faced him, monotony, nudeness, poverty!

And then came the fatigue from bodily efforts, fear of traveling and its tiring effects; anxiety of the unknown where he now might be cast, deprived of his accustomed surroundings and her company. And he saw the young girl in her childish but still majestic beauty; heard her complain, saw her whitened cheeks, which another would cause to blush again as time passed.

Thus he suffered all the pangs of separation through a whole quarter of an hour, which had seemed to him as long as hours, when in the dusk of the summer night, he saw a woman's figure up on the rock outlined against the light sky. The splendid contours, that he knew so well, assumed still nobler proportions against the now pale yellow sky, which could just as well be the end of a sunset as the beginning of sunrise. She seemed to have come from the custom house cottage, and to be searching for someone. Bareheaded and with her hair still hanging over her shoulders, turning her head to spy, she seemed suddenly to discover what she sought, and with brisk steps she hurried down to the beach where the object of her search was sitting, immovable, without the power to flee, without the will to proclaim himself. And when she reached him she fell down and laid her head in his lap and talked wildly, modestly, beseechingly, as though she was annihilated with shame without being able to hold her tongue in check.

"Don't go away," sobbed she. "Despise me, but have mercy! Love me, love me or I will go where I shall never return!"

There now awoke in him the mature man's intense longing for love. And when he saw the woman at his feet, it aroused the inherent chivalry of man, who would see in its mate the mistress not the slave; and he arose, lifted her up, placed his arm round her waist and pressed her to him.