Chapter 7

Pitying their sufferings, Domini insisted on entertaining them. The men must sup with the Arabs, the officer must dine with herself and Androvsky. The officer accepted with gratitude, and went off to make his toilet. When Androvsky returned, Domini told him of the officer's arrival, and when he saw the three places laid for dinner in the tent, he seemed profoundly disturbed. He asked the officer's name. Domini told him Trevignac.

"Trevignac!" he exclaimed.

Then, hearing the soldiers coming, he turned away; abruptly and disappeared into the bedroom tent.

Trevignac came up, and in a few minutes Androvsky reappeared. The two men gazed at each other for an instant. Then Domini introduced them, and they all sat down to dinner. Conversation was uneasy. Androvsky was evidently ill at ease; Trevignac was distrait at moments, strangely watchful of his host at other moments. Dinner over, Domini left the two men together to smoke, and went out on to the sand. She met an Arab carrying coffee and a liqueur to the tent.

"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching the bottle.

He told her it was an African liqueur.

"Take it in," she said.

And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs were making in honour of the soldiers.

When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it, standing up, with a quantity of fragments of glass lying at his feet. Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of glass were all that remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.

At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and rode away into the desert.

_V.--I Have Insulted God_

From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.

"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah."

He made her no answer.

At last in their journeying they came to the sacred city of Amara, and camped in the white sands beyond it.

This was the place described by the sand-diviner, and here Domini knew that her love was to be crowned, that she would become a mother. She hesitated to tell her husband, for in this place his misery and fear of men seemed mounting to a climax. Nevertheless, as if in a frantic attempt to get the better of his mental torture, he had gone off, saying he wanted to see the city.

While he was away, Domini was visited first by Count Anteoni, who told her that he had joined the Mohammedan religion, and was at last happy and at peace; secondly, when night had fallen, by the priest of Amara. This man was talkative and genial, fond of the good things of life. Domini offered him a cigar. He accepted it. An Arab brought coffee, and the same African liqueur which had been taken to the tent on the night when Trevignac had dined with Domini and Androvsky.

When the priest was about to drink some of it, he suddenly paused, and put the glass down. Domini leant forward.

"Louarine," she said, reading the name on the bottle. "Won't you have some?"

"The fact is, madame," began the priest, with hesitation, "this liqueur comes from the Trappist monastery of El Largani."

"Yes?"

"It was made by a monk and priest to whom the secret of its manufacture belonged. At his death he was to confide the secret to another whom he had chosen. But the monks of El Largani will never earn another franc by Louarine when what they have in stock is exhausted."

"The monk died suddenly?"

"Madame, he ran away from the monastery after being there in the eternal silence for twenty years, after taking the final vows."

"How horrible!" said Domini. "That man must be in hell now, in the hell a man can make for himself by his own act."

As she spoke, Androvsky appeared by the tent door. He was looking frightfully ill, and like a desperate man. When the priest had gone, Domini told Androvsky about the liqueur and the disappearance of the Trappist monk. As she spoke, his face grew more ghastly. He stood rigid, as if with horror.

"Poor, poor man!" she said, as she finished her story.

"You--you pity that man then?" murmured Androvsky.

"Yes," she replied. "I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive."

Androvsky seemed painfully moved, and almost as if he were on the verge of some passionate outburst of emotion; and something like a deep voice far down in the loving heart of Domini said to her, "If you really love, be fearless. Attack the sorrow which stands like a figure of death between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon--faith-- use it!"

At last she summoned all her courage, all her faith, and she forced from Androvsky the confession of what it was which held him in perpetual misery, even in freedom, even with her, whom he loved beyond and above all human beings.

"Domini," he said, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our love--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God, I have insulted God. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by the thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made! I gave myself to God as a monk."

"You are the Trappist!" she whispered. "You are the monk from the monastery of El Largani who disappeared after twenty years?"

"Yes," he said, "I am he."

Standing there in the sands, while the world was wrapped in sleep, Androvsky told Domini the whole story of his life in the monastery, of his innocent happiness there, and of the events which woke up within him the mad longing to see life and the world, and to know the love of woman. He told her of his secret departure by night from the monastery, of his journey to the desert in search of complete and savage liberty. He told her how he had fought against his growing love for her, how he had tried to leave her; how, at the last moment in the garden by night, his passion for her had conquered him and driven him to her feet. He told her how the officer, Trevignac, had known him long ago in the monastery, and had recognised him when the Arab brought in the liqueur which he had made. He kept nothing from her.

"That last day in the garden," he said finally, "I thought I had conquered myself, and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I knew you loved me, I could fight no more. You have seen me, you have lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't think, Domini, that it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie to God, that--that--I can't tell you--I can't tell you--you know."

He looked into her face, then turned to go away into the desert.

"I'll go! I'll go!" he muttered.

Then Domini spoke.

"Boris!" she said.

He stopped.

"Boris, now at last you can pray."

She went into the tent, and left him alone. He knew that in the tent she was praying for him. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer, then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out a wooden cross, given to him by his mother when he entered the monastery. He bent down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert.

From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her. Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious woman. She put God above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love, above Androvsky and his passionate love for her. She put the things of eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the child that was coming.

After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven.

And now, in the garden of Count Anteoni, which has passed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing.

Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls him to her, to the white wall from which she looks out over the desert.

"Listen, Boris," she whispers.

The little boy leans his face against her breast, and obeys.

An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing to himself, as he goes towards his home in the oasis, "No one but God and I knows what is in my heart."

The mother whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows over the vast spaces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the passion that came to her soul like fire in the desert.

But she does not rebel, for always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying, one who once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last has reached his home.

* * * * *

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Elsie Venner

Oliver Wendell Holmes, essayist, poet, scientist, and one of the most lovable men who have adorned the literature of the English tongue, was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, Aug. 29, 1809, of a New England family with a record in which he took great pride. After studying medicine at Harvard, he went to Europe on a prolonged tour, and, returning, took his M.D., and became a popular professor of anatomy. He had some repute as a graceful poet in his student days. "Elsie Venner," at first called "The Professor's Story," was published in 1861, and was the first sustained work of fiction that came from the pen of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illumined by admirable pictures of life and character in a typical New England town, the book itself is a remarkable study of heredity--a study only relieved by the author's kindly humour. The unfortunate child, doomed before her birth to suffer from the fatal bite of a rattlesnake--an incident unduly extravagant in some critics' opinions--and only throwing off the evil influence on her death-bed, is one of the most pathetic figures in all American literature. It was not until seven years later that "Elsie Venner" was followed by another novel, "The Guardian Angel," a story which is worked out on the same lines of thought as the former. Holmes died on October 7, 1894.

_I.--The Eyes of Elsie Venner_

Mr. Bernard Langdon, duly certificated, had accepted the invitation from the Board of Trustees of the Apollinean Female Institute, a school for the education of young ladies, situated in the nourishing town of Rockland.

Rockland is at the foot of a mountain, and a horrible feature of this mountain was the region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, which was still tenanted by those horrible reptiles in spite of many a foray by the townspeople.

That the brood was not extirpated there was a melancholy proof in the year 184--, when a young married woman, detained at home by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from the mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal, but she died within a few months of the time when she was bitten.

It was on a fine morning that Mr. Langdon made his appearance, as master for the English branches, in the great school-room of the Apollinean Institute. The principal, Mr. Silas Peckham, carried him to the desk of the young lady assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her. The young lady assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine of the classes, and Mr. Langdon had a great many questions to ask relating to his new duties. The truth is, the general effect of the school-room, with its scores of young girls, was enough to confuse a young man like Mr. Langdon, and he may be pardoned for asking Miss Darley questions about his scholars as well as about their lessons.

He asked who one or two girls were, and being answered, went on, "And who and what is that sitting a little apart there--that strange, wild-looking girl?"

The lady teacher's face changed; one would have said she was frightened or troubled. The girl did not look up; she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it as if in a kind of reverie. Miss Darley drew close to the master, and placed her hand so as to hide her lips.

"Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she whispered softly, "that is Elsie Venner."

A girl of about seventeen, tall, slender, was Elsie Venner. Black, piercing eyes, black hair, twisted in heavy braids, a face that one could not help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from, and could not, for those diamond eyes.

Those eyes were fixed on the lady teacher one morning not long after Langdon's arrival. Miss Darley turned her own away, and let them wander over the other scholars. But the diamond eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books, and finally, following some ill-defined impulse which she could not resist, left her place, and went to the young girl's desk.

"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?" It was a strange question to put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come to her.

"Nothing," she cried. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper.

Bernard Langdon experienced the power of those diamond eyes one particular day that summer.

He had made up his mind to explore the dreaded Rattlesnake Ledge of the mountain, to examine the rocks, and perhaps to pick up an adventure in the zoological line; for he had on a pair of high, stout boots, and he carried a stick in his hand.

High up on one of the precipitous walls of rock he saw some tufts of flowers, and knew them for flowers Elsie Venner had brought into the school-room. Presently on a natural platform where he sat down to rest, he found a hairpin.

He rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's visits, and walked to the mouth of a cavern and looked into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear that cannot move. The two sparks of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise.

Then, for the first time, thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes can hear unmoved--the long, singing whir, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle. He waited as in a trance; and while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that they were growing tame and dull. The charm was dissolving, the numbness passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which had shrunk and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own.

From that time Mr. Bernard was brought into new relations with Elsie. He was grateful; she had led him out of danger, and perhaps saved him from death, but he shuddered at the recollection of the whole scene. He made up his mind that, come what might, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner or later.

_II.--Cousin Richard Venner_

Richard Venner had passed several of his early years with his uncle Dudley Venner at the Dudley mansion, the playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older than herself. His mother was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while he was in his cradle. A self-willed, capricious boy, he was a rough playmate for Elsie.

But Elsie was the wilder of these two motherless children. Old Sophy-- said to be the granddaughter of a cannibal chief--who watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be more afraid for the boy than the girl.

"Massa Dick, don' you be too rough wi' dat girl! She scratch you las' week, 'n' some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Massa Dick----" Old Sophy nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more.

Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found that it would never do to let these children grow up together. A sharper quarrel than usual decided this point. Master Dick forgot old Sophy's caution, and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of wrath, in which she sprang at him, and bit his arm. Old Dr. Kettredge was sent for, and came at once when he heard what had happened.

He had a good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals or of human beings when enraged, and he emphasised his remarks by the application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the sharp white teeth.

After this Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange places and stranger company; and so the boy grew up to youth and early manhood.

There came a time when the young gentleman thought he would like to see his cousin again, and wrote inviting himself to the Dudley mansion.

Doctor Kettredge could see no harm in the visit when Dudley Venner consulted him. Her father was never easy about Elsie. He could not tell the old doctor _all_ he knew. In God's good time he believed his only daughter would come to her true nature; her eyes would lose that frightful, cold glitter, and that faint birth-mark which encircled her neck--her mother swooned when she first saw it--would fade wholly out.

"Let her go to the girls' school, by all means," the doctor had said, when that was first talked about. "Anything to interest her. Friendship, love, religion--whatever will set her nature to work."

When Dudley Venner mentioned his nephew's arrival, the doctor only said, "Let him stay a while; it gives her something to think about." He thought there was no danger of any sudden passion springing up between two such young persons.

So Mr. Richard came, and the longer he stayed the more favourably the idea of a permanent residence in the mansion-house seemed to impress him. The estate was large and of great value, and there could not be a doubt that the property had largely increased. It was evident there was an abundant income, and Cousin Elsie was worth trying for. On the other hand, what was the matter with her eyes, that they sucked your life out of you in that strange way? And what did she always wear a necklace for? Besides, her father might last for ever or take it into his head to marry again.

He prolonged his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit. In the meantime he found that Elsie was getting more constant in her attendance at school, and learned, on inquiry, that there was a new master, a handsome young man. The handsome young man would not have liked the look that came over Dick Venner's face when he heard this fact mentioned.

For Mr. Richard had decided that he must have the property, that this was his one great chance in life. The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after he had got her. That Elsie now regarded him with indifference, if not aversion, he could not conceal from himself. The young man at the school was probably at the bottom of it. "Cousin Elsie in love with a Yankee schoolmaster!"

But for a long time Dick Venner could get no positive evidence of any sentiment between Elsie and the schoolmaster. At one time he would be devoured by suspicion, at another he would laugh himself out of them.

His jealousy at last broke out, when he and Elsie were alone, in a questioning reference to Mr. Langdon.

Elsie coloured, and then answered, abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not vex me as you do."

"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent. "A gentleman! Come, Elsie; you've got the Dudley blood in your veins, and it doesn't do for you to call this poor sneaking schoolmaster a gentleman!"

He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush of her cheek was becoming a vivid glow. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon. The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming, rushed upon him.

Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the room and slid away to her own apartment. She bolted the door, and drew her curtains close. Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell into a dull, slow ache of passion, without tears, almost without words.

Dick realised that he had reached a fearful point. He could not give up the great Dudley property. Therefore, the school-master must be got rid of, and by self-destruction.

Mr. Bernard Langdon must be found, suspended to the branch of a tree, somewhat within a mile of the Apollinean Institute.

_III.--The Perilous Hour_

Old Doctor Kettredge had advised Bernard Langdon to go in for pistol- shooting, and had even presented him with a small, beautifully finished revolver. "I want you to carry this," he said, "and more than that, I want you to practise with it often, so that it may be seen and understood that you are apt to have a pistol about you."

This was at the conclusion of a conversation between the doctor and Mr. Bernard concerning Elsie Venner.

"Elsie interests me," said the young man, "interests me strangely. I would risk my life for her, but I do not love her. If her hand touches mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running through me, but a very different emotion."

"Mr. Langdon," said the doctor, "you have come to this country town without suspicion, and you are moving in the midst of perils. Keep your eyes open, and your heart shut. If, through pitying that girl, you ever come to love her, you are lost. If you deal carelessly with her, beware! This is not all. There are other eyes on you beside Elsie Venner's. Go armed in future."

Mr. Bernard thought the advice very odd, but he followed it, and soon became known as an expert at revolver-shooting. On the day when Dick Venner had decided that the schoolmaster must be found hanged, Bernard Langdon went out as usual for the evening walk. He thrust his pistol, which he had put away loaded, into his pocket before starting.