Part 12

Crammon seemed to expand, and told his tale with breadth and unction: “Certainly I have. I have even had dealings with the police and saved you annoyance. The woman was to have been arrested and the money confiscated. Luckily I was able to prevent that. I believe that the State should keep order, but I don’t think it desirable that the government should interfere in our private affairs. Its duty is to safeguard us; there its function ends. So much for that! Concerning your protégée I have nothing pleasant to report. The rain of gold simply distracted the crowd in that house. They stuck to her and begged, and several of them stole. Naturally there was a fight, and some one plunged a knife into some one else’s bowels, and the maddened woman beat them both with a coal shovel. The police had to interfere. Then the woman moved into other quarters, and bought all sorts of trash--furniture, beds, clothing, kitchen utensils, and even a cuckoo clock. You have seen those little horrors. A cuckoo comes out of the clock and screams. I was once staying with people who had three of them. Whenever I went to sleep another cuckoo screeched; it was enough to drive one mad. In other respects my friends were charming.

“As for the Kroll woman--your gift robbed her of every vestige of common sense. She keeps the money in a little box, which she carries about and won’t let out of her sight by night or day. She buys lottery tickets, penny dreadfuls; the children are as dirty as ever and the household as demoralized. Only that dreadful cuckoo clock roars. So what have you accomplished? Where is the blessing? Common people cannot endure sudden accessions of fortune. You do not know their nature in the slightest degree, and the best thing you can do is to leave them in peace.”

Christian’s eyes wandered out to the cloudy sky. Then he turned to Crammon. He saw, as though he had never seen it before, that Crammon’s cheeks were rather fat, and that his chin was bedded in soft flesh and had a dimple. He could not make up his mind to answer. He smiled, and crossed his legs!

What shapely legs, Crammon thought and sighed, what superb legs!

III

A few days later Crammon appeared again with the intention of testing Christian.

“I don’t like your condition, my dear boy,” he began, “and I won’t pretend to you that I do. It’s just a week to-day that we’ve been perishing of boredom here. I grant you it’s a delightful place in spring and summer with agreeable companions, when one can have picnics in the open and think of the dull and seething cities. But now in the midst of winter, without orgies or movement or women--what is the use of it? Why do you hide yourself? Why do you act depressed? What are you waiting for? What have you in mind?”

“You ask so many questions, Bernard,” Christian replied. “You should not do that. It is as well here as elsewhere. Can you tell me any place where it is better?”

The last question aroused Crammon’s hopes. In the expectation of common pleasures his face grew cheerful. “A better place? My dearest boy, any compartment in a train is better. The greasy reception room of Madame Simchowitz in Mannheim is better. However, we shall be able to agree. Here is an admirable plan. Palermo, Conca d’Oro, Monte Pellegrino, and Sicilian girls with avid glances behind their virtuous veils. From there we shall take a flying trip to Naples to see my sweet little friend Yvonne. She has the blackest hair, the whitest teeth, and the most exquisite little feet in Europe. The regions between are--sublime. Then we can send a telegram to Prosper Madruzzi, who is nursing his spleen in his Venetian villa, and let him introduce us into the most inaccessible circles of Roman society. There one has dealings exclusively with contessas, marchesas, and principessas. The striking characters of all five continents swarm there as in a fascinating mad-house; cold-blooded American women commit indiscretions with passionate lazzaroni, who have magical names and impossible silk socks; every kennel there can claim to be a curiosity, every heap of stones adds to your culture, at every step you stumble over some masterpiece of art.”

Christian shook his head. “It doesn’t tempt me,” he said.

“Then I’ll propose something else,” Crammon said. “Go with me to Vienna. It is a city worthy of your interest. Have you ever heard of the Messiah? The Messiah is a person at whose coming the Jews believe time will come to an end, and whom they expect to welcome with the sound of shawms and cymbals. It is thus that every distinguished stranger is greeted in Vienna. If you cultivate an air of mystery, and are not too stingy in the matter of tipping, and occasionally snub some one who is unduly familiar--all Viennese society will be at your feet. A pleasant moral slackness rules the city. Everything that is forbidden is permitted. The women are simply _hors concours_; the broiled meat at Sacher is incomparable; the waltzes which you hear whenever a musician takes up a fiddle are thrilling; a trip to the Little House of Delight--name to be taken literally, please--is a dream. I yearn for it all myself--the ingratiating air, the roast chicken, the apple-pudding with whipped cream, and my own little hut full of furniture of the age of Maria Theresa, and my two dear, old ladies. Pull yourself together, and come with me.”

Christian shook his head. “It is nothing for me,” he said.

A flush of indignation spread over Crammon’s face. “Nothing for you? Very well. I cannot place the harem of the Sultan at your disposal, nor the gardens promised by the Prophet. I shall leave you to your fate, and wander out into the world.”

Christian laughed, for he did not believe him. On the next day, however, Crammon said farewell with every sign of deep grief, and departed.

IV

Christian remained at his country house. A heavy snow-fall came, and the year drew toward its end.

He received no visitors. He answered neither the letters nor the invitations of his friends. He was to have spent Christmas with his parents at the castle, but he begged them to excuse him.

Since he was of age, Christian’s Rest had now passed fully into his possession, and all his objects of art were gathered here--statuary, pictures, miniatures, and his collection of snuff-boxes. He loved these little boxes very much.

The dealers sent him their catalogues. He had a trusted agent at every notable auction sale. To this man he would telegraph his orders, and the things would arrive--a beaker of mountain crystal, a set of Dresden porcelains, a charcoal sketch by Van Gogh. But when he looked at his purchases, he was disappointed. They seemed neither as rare nor as precious as he had hoped.

He bought a sixteenth century Bible, printed on parchment, with mani-coloured initials and a cover with silver clasps. It had cost him fourteen thousand marks, and contained the book-plate of the Elector Augustus of Saxony. Curiously he turned the pages without regarding the words, which were alien and meaningless to him. Nothing delighted him but his consciousness of the rarity and preciousness of the volume. But he desired other things even rarer and more precious.

Every morning he fed the birds. With a little basket of bread crumbs he would issue from the door, and the birds would fly to him from all directions, for they had come to know both him and the hour. They were hungry, and he watched them busy at their little meal. And doing this he forgot his desires.

Once he donned his shooting suit, and went out and shot a hare. When the animal lay before him, and he saw its dying eyes, he could not bear to touch it. He who had hunted and killed many animals could no longer endure this sport, and left his booty a prey to the ravens.

Most of his walks led him through the village, which was but fifteen minutes from his park. At the end of the village, on the high-road, stood the forester’s house. Several times he had noticed at one of its windows the face of a young man, whose features he seemed to recall. He thought it must be Amadeus Voss, the forester’s son. When he was but six he had often visited that house. Christian’s Rest had not been built until later, and in those early years his father had rented the game preserve here and had often lodged for some days at the forester’s. And Amadeus had been Christian’s playmate.

The face, which recalled his childhood to him, was pallid and hollow-cheeked. The lips were thin and straight, and the head covered with simple very light blond hair. The reflection of the light’s rays in the powerful lenses of spectacles made the face seem eyeless.

It amazed Christian that this young man should sit there for hours, day after day, without moving, and gaze through the window-panes into the street. The secret he felt here stirred him, and a power from some depth seemed to reach out for him.

One day Christian met the mayor of the village at the gate of his park. Christian stopped him. “Tell me,” he said, “is the forester Voss still alive?”

“No, he died three years ago,” the man answered. “But his widow still lives in the house. The present forester is unmarried, and lets her have a few rooms. I suppose you are asking on account of Amadeus, who has suddenly turned up for some strange reason--”

“Tell me about him,” Christian asked.

“He was to have been a priest, and was sent to the seminary at Bamberg. One heard nothing but good of him there, and his teachers praised him to the sky. He got stipends and scholarships, and every one expected him to do well for himself. Last winter his superiors got him a position as tutor to the boys of the bank president, Privy Councillor Ribbeck. You’re familiar with the name. Very big man. The two boys whose education Voss was to supervise lived at Halbertsroda, an estate in Upper Franconia, and the parents didn’t visit them very often. They say the marriage isn’t a happy one. Well, everything seemed turning out well. Considering his gifts and the patron he had now, Amadeus couldn’t have wanted for anything. Suddenly he drops down on us here, doesn’t budge from the house, pays no attention to any one, becomes a burden to his poor old mother, and growls like a dog at any one who talks to him. There must have been crazy doings at Halbertsroda. No one knows any details, you know. But every now and then the pot seethes over, and then you get the rumour that there was something between him and the Privy Councillor’s wife.”

The man was very talkative, and Christian interrupted him at last. “Didn’t the forester have another son?” A faint memory of some experience of his childhood arose in him.

“Quite right,” said the mayor. “There was another son. His name was Dietrich, and he was a deaf-mute.”

“Yes, I remember now,” Christian said.

“He died at fourteen,” the mayor went on. “His death was never properly explained. There was a celebration of the anniversary of the battle of Sedan, and he went out in the evening to look at the bonfires. Next morning they found his body in the fish-pond.”

“Did he drown?”

“He must have,” answered the mayor.

Christian nodded farewell, and went slowly through the gate toward his house.

V

Letitia and her husband were in the Opera house at Buenos Ayres. The operetta of the evening was as shallow as a puddle left by the rain in the pampas.

In the box next to theirs sat a young man, and Letitia yielded now and then to the temptation of observing his glances of admiration. Suddenly she felt her arm roughly grasped. It was Stephen who commanded her silently to follow him.

In the dim corridor he brought his bluish-white face close to her ear, and hissed: “If you look at that fool once more, I’ll plunge my dagger into your heart. I give you this warning. In this country one doesn’t shilly-shally.”

They returned to their box. Stephen smiled with a smile as glittering as a torero’s, and put a piece of chocolate into his mouth. Letitia looked at him sidewise, and wondered whether he really had a dagger in his possession.

That night, when they drove home, he almost smothered her with his caresses. She repulsed him gently, and begged: “Show me the dagger, Stephen. Give it to me! I want so much to see it.”

“What dagger, silly child?” he asked, in astonishment.

“The dagger you were going to plunge into my heart.”

“Let that be,” he answered, in hollow tones. “This is no time to speak of daggers and death.”

But Letitia was stubborn. She insisted that she wanted to see it. He took his hands from her, and fell into sombre silence.

The incident taught Letitia that she could play with him. She no longer feared that sombre stillness of his, nor his great skull on his powerful neck, nor the thin mouth, nor the paling face, nor the great strength of his extraordinary small hands. She knew that she could play with him.

Great fire-flies flew through the air, and settled in the grass about them. When the carriage stopped at the villa, Letitia looked around with a cry of delight. Sparks seemed to be falling in a golden rain. The gleaming insects whirred about the windows, the roof, the flowery creepers on the walls. They penetrated into the hall.

Letitia stopped at the dark foot of the stairs, looked at the phosphorescent glimmer, and asked fearfully and with an almost imperceptible self-mockery in her deep voice: “Tell me, Stephen, couldn’t they set the house on fire?”

The Negro Scipio, who appeared with a lamp at the door, heard her words and grinned.

VI

Around Twelfth Night Randolph von Stettner with several friends came to Christian’s Rest. The young men had called up Christian by telephone, and he had been alone so long that he was glad to receive them and be their host. He was always glad to see Randolph. The latter brought with him two comrades, a Baron Forbach and a Captain von Griesingen, and also another friend, a young university teacher, who was fulfilling his required military service at Bonn and was therefore also in uniform. Christian had met him before at a celebration of the Borussia fraternity.

A delicious meal was served, followed by excellent cigars and liqueurs.

“It is consoling to see that you still don’t despise the comforts of the flesh,” Randolph von Stettner said to Christian.

Captain von Griesingen sighed: “How should one despise them? They torment us and they flit temptingly about us! Think of all that is desirable in the world--women, horses, wine, power, fame, money, love! There is a dealer of jewels in Frankfort, named David Markuse, who has a diamond that is said to be worth half a million. I have no desire for that special object. But the world is full of things that are possessed and give delight.”

“It is the diamond known as Ignifer,” Dr. Leonrod remarked, “a sort of adventurer among precious stones.”

“Ignifer is an appropriate name for a diamond,” said Randolph. “But why do you speak of it so gravely? What, except its price, makes it differ from other stones? Has it had so strange a fate?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Dr. Leonrod, “most strange. I happen to know the details because, as a professional mineralogist, I take a certain interest in precious stones, too.”

“Do tell us about it!” the young officers cried.

“Whoever buys Ignifer,” Dr. Leonrod began, “will show no little courage. The jewel is a tragic thing. It has been proved that its first owner was Madame de Montespan. No sooner did it come into her possession than the king dismissed her. Marie Antoinette owned it next. It weighed ninety-five carats at that time. But during the Revolution it was stolen and divided, and did not reappear until fifty years later. The recovered stone weighed sixty carats. An Englishman, named Thomas Horst, bought it, and was soon murdered. The heirs sold it to an American. The lady who wore it, a Mrs. Malmcote, was throttled by a madman at a ball. Then Prince Alexander Tshernitsheff brought it to Russia, and gave it to an actress who was his mistress. Another lover shot and killed her on the stage. The prince was blown to pieces by a nihilist. Then the stone was brought to Paris, and purchased by the Sultan Abdul Hamid for his favourite wife. The woman was poisoned, and you all know what happened to the Sultan. After the Turkish Revolution Ignifer drifted West again, and then back to the Orient. For its new owner, Tavernier, took a voyage to India, and was shipwrecked and drowned. For a time it was thought that the diamond was lost. But that was an error; it had been deposited in a safety vault in a Calcutta bank. Now it is back in Europe, and for sale.”

“The stone must harbour an evil spirit,” said Randolph. “I confess that I have no desire for it. I am very little inclined to superstition; but when the facts are as compelling as in this case, the most enlightened scepticism seems rebuked.”

“What does all that matter if the stone is beautiful, if it really is incomparably lovely?” Christian cried, with a defiant look, that yet seemed turned inward upon his soul. After this he said little, even when the conversation drifted to other subjects.

Next day at noon he ordered his car and drove in to Frankfort to the shop of the jeweller David Markuse.

VII

Herr Markuse knew Christian.

Ignifer was kept in the safe of a fire-proof and burglar-proof vault. Herr Markuse lifted the stone out of its case, laid it upon the green cloth of a table, stepped aside, and looked at Christian.

Christian looked silently at the concentrated radiance of the stone. His thought was: This is the rarest and costliest thing in the world; nothing can surpass it. And it was immediately clear to him that he must own the jewel.

The diamond had the faintest tinge of yellow. It had been cut so that it had many rich facets. A little groove had been cut into it near one end, so that a woman could wear it around her neck by a thin chain or a silken cord.

Herr Markuse lifted it upon a sheet of white paper and breathed upon it. “It is not of the first water,” he said, “but it has neither rust nor knots. There is no trace of veins or cracks, no cloudiness or nodules. Not a flaw. The stone is one of nature’s miracles.”

The price was five hundred and fifty thousand marks. Christian offered the half million. Herr Markuse consulted his watch. “I promised a lady that I would hold it,” he declared. “But the promised hour is past.” They agreed upon five hundred and twenty thousand marks. Half was to be paid in cash, the other in two notes running for different periods. “The name of Wahnschaffe is sufficient guarantee,” the merchant said.

Christian weighed the diamond in his hand, and laid it down again.

David Markuse smiled. “In my business one learns how to judge people,” he said without any familiarity. “You are making this purchase with a deeper intention than you yourself are probably conscious of. The soul of the diamond has lured you on. For the diamond has a soul.”

“Do you really mean that?” Christian was surprised.

“I know it. There are people who lose all shame when they see a beautiful jewel. Their nostrils quiver, their cheeks grow pale, their hands tremble uncertainly, their pupils expand, and they betray themselves by every motion. Others are intimidated, or bereft of their senses, or saddened. You gain curious insights into human nature. The masks drop. Diamonds make people transparent.”

The indiscreet turn of the conversation irritated Christian. But he had often before become aware of the fact that something in him seemed to invite the communicativeness and confidence of others. He arose, and promised to return that evening.

“The lady of whom I was speaking,” Markuse continued, as he accompanied him to the door, “and who was here yesterday, is a very wonderful lady. When she came in, I thought: is it possible for mere walking to be so beautiful? Well, I soon found out that she is a famous dancer. She is stopping at the Palace Hotel for a day, on her way from Paris to Russia, merely in order to see Ignifer. I showed her the stone. She stood looking at it for at least five minutes. She did not move, and the expression of her face! Well, if the jewel didn’t represent a large part of all I have in the world, I would have begged her simply to keep it. Such moments are not exactly frequent in my business. She was to have returned to-day, but, as I have told you, she didn’t keep her engagement.”

“And you don’t know her name?” Christian asked, shyly.

“Oh, yes. Her name is Eva Sorel. Did you ever hear of her?”

The blood came into Christian’s face. He let go the knob of the door. “Eva Sorel is here?” he murmured. He pulled himself together, and opened the door to an empty room that was carpeted in red, and the walls of which were hidden by ebony cases. Almost at the same moment the opposite door was thrown open; and, followed by four gentlemen, Eva Sorel crossed the threshold.

Christian stood perfectly still.

“Eidolon!” Eva cried, and she folded her hands in that inimitably enthusiastic and happy gesture of hers.

VIII

Christian did not know the gentlemen who were with her. Their features and garments showed them to be foreigners. Accustomed to surprising events in Eva’s daily life, they regarded Christian with cool curiosity.

Eva’s whole form was wrapped in a grey mole-skin coat. Her fur cap was trimmed with an aigrette of herons’ feathers, held by a marvellous ruby clasp. From under the cap her honey-coloured hair struggled forth. The wintry air had given her skin an exquisite delicate tinge of pink.

With a few steps she came stormily to Christian, and her white gloved hands sought both of his. Her great and flaming looks drove his conscious joy and his perceptions of her presence back upon his soul, and fear appeared upon his features. He found himself as defenceless as a ball flung by another’s hand. He awaited his goal.

“Did you buy Ignifer?” That was her first question. Since he was silent, she turned with raised brows to David Markuse.

The merchant bowed and said: “I thought that I could no longer count on you, Madame. I am sorry with all my heart.”

“You are right. I hesitated too long.” Eva spoke her melodious German, with its slightly foreign intonation. Turning to Christian she went on: “Perhaps it makes no difference, Eidolon, whether you have it or I. It is like a heart that ambition has turned to crystal. But you are not ambitious. If you were, we should have met here like two birds swept by a storm into the same cave. The preciousness of the stone almost makes it ghostly to me, and I would permit no one to give it to me who was not conscious of its significance. And who is there? What do they give one? Wares from a shop, that is all.”

David Markuse looked at her in admiration, and nodded.

“It is said to bring misfortune to its possessors,” Christian almost whispered.

“Do you intend to test yourself, Eidolon, and put it to the proof? Will you challenge the demon to prevail against you? Ah, that is what allured me, too. Its name made me envious. As I held it, it seemed like the navel of Buddha, from which one cannot divert one’s thought, if one has once seen it.”

She noticed that the people about them seemed to make Christian hesitate, so she took his arm, and drew him behind the curtains of a window-niche.

“That it brings misfortune to people is certain,” Christian repeated mechanically. “How can I keep it, Eva, since you desired it?”

“Keep it and break the evil spell,” Eva answered, and laughed. But his seriousness remained unchanged; and she apologized for her laughter by a gesture, as though she were throwing aside the undue lightness of her mood. She watched him silently. In the sharp light reflected from the snow, her eyes were green as malachite. “What are you doing with yourself?” she asked. “Your eyes look lonesome.”

“I have been living rather alone for some time,” answered Christian. His utterances were dry and precise. “Crammon too has left me.”