Chapter 8
"You know, dear young lady," he continued, and his eyes, with their contracting and expanding disks, held her attention like a clear flame, "do you know that my plays, my books, are but the drama of my conscience exteriorized? Out of the reservoirs of my soul I draw my inspiration. I have an æsthetic horror of evidence; like Renan, I loathe the deadly heresy of affirmation; I have the certitude of doubt, for are we poets not the lovers of the truth decorated? When I built my lordly palace of art, it was not with the ugly durability of marble. No; like the Mohammedan who constructed his mosque and mingled with the cement sweet-smelling musk, so I dreamed my mosque into existence with music wedded to philosophy. Music and philosophy are the twin edges of my sword. Ah! you smile and ask, Where is Woman in this sanctuary? She is not barred, I assure you. My music--is Woman. Beauty is a promise of happiness, Stendhal says. I go further: Life--the woman one has; Art--the woman one loves!"
She was startled. Her aunt and Madame Kéroulan had retired to the end of the garden, and only a big bee, brumming overhead, was near. He had arisen with the pontifical air of a man who has a weighty gospel to expound. He encircled with his potent personality the imagination of his listener; the hypnotic quality of his written word was carried leagues farther in effect by his trained, soothing voice. Flattered, no longer frightened, her nerves deliciously assaulted by this coloured rhetoric, Ermentrude yielded her intellectual assent. She did not comprehend. She felt only the rhythms of his speech, as sound swallowed sense. He held her captive with a pause, and his eloquent eyes--they were of an extraordinary lustre--completed the subjugation of her will.
"Only kissed hands are white," he murmured, and suddenly she felt a velvety kiss on her left hand. Ermentrude did not pretend to follow the words of her aunt and Madame Kéroulan as they stopped before a bed of June roses. Nor did she remember how she reached the pair. The one vivid reality of her life was the cruel act of her idol. She was not conscious of blushing, nor did she feel that she had grown pale. His wife treated her with impartial indifference, at times a smile crossing her face, with its implication--to Ermentrude--of selfish reserves. But this hateful smile cut her to the soul--one more prisoner at his chariot wheels, it proclaimed! Kéroulan was as unconcerned as if he had written a poetic line. He had expected more of an outburst, more of a rebuff; the absolute snapping of the web he had spun surprised him. His choicest music had been spread for the eternal banquet, but the invited one tarried. Very well! If not to-day, to-morrow! He repeated a verse of Verlaine, and with his wife dutifully at his side bowed to the two Americans and told them of the pleasure experienced. Ermentrude, her candid eyes now reproachful and suspicious, did not flinch as she took his hand--it seemed to melt in hers--but her farewell was conventional. In the street, before they seated themselves in their carriage, Mrs. Sheldam shook her head.
"Oh, my dear! What a woman! What a man! I have _such_ a story to tell you. No wonder you admire these people. The wife is a genius--isn't she handsome?--but the man--he is an angel!"
"I didn't see his wings, auntie," was the curt reply.
III
The Sheldams always stayed at the same hôtel during their annual visits to Paris. It was an old-fashioned house with an entrance in the Rue Saint-Honoré and another in the Rue de Rivoli. The girl sat on a small balcony from which she could view the Tuileries Gardens without turning her head; while looking farther westward she saw the Place de la Concorde, its windy spaces a chessboard for rapid vehicles, whose wheels, wet from the watered streets, ground out silvery fire in the sun-rays of this gay June afternoon. Where the Avenue des Champs Élysées began, a powdery haze enveloped the equipages, overblown with their summer toilets, all speeding to Longchamps. It was racing day, and Ermentrude, feigning a headache, had insisted that her uncle and aunt go to the meeting. It would amuse them, she knew, and she wished to be alone. Nearly a week had passed since the visit to Neuilly, and she had been afraid to ask her aunt what Madame Kéroulan had imparted to her--afraid and also too proud. Her sensibility had been grievously wounded by the plainly expressed feelings of Octave Kéroulan. She had reviewed without prejudice his behaviour, and she could not set down to mere Latin gallantry either his words or his action. No, there was too much intensity in both,--ah, how she rebelled at the brutal disillusionment!--and there were, she argued, method and sequence in his approach and attack. If she had been the average coquetting creature, the offence might not have been so mortal. But, so she told herself again and again,--as if to frighten away lurking darker thoughts, ready to spring out and devour her good resolutions,--she had worshipped her idol with reservations. His poetry, his philosophy, were so inextricably blended that they smote her nerves like the impact of some bright perfume, some sharp chord of modern music. Dangerously she had filed at her emotions in the service of culture and she was now paying the penalty for her ardent confidence. His ideas, vocal with golden meanings, were never meant to be translated into the vernacular of life, never to be transposed from higher to lower levels; this base betrayal of his ideals she felt Kéroulan had committed. Had he not said that love should be like "un baiser sur un miroir"? Was he, after all, what the princess had called him? And was he only a mock sun swimming in a firmament of glories which he could have outshone?
A servant knocked and, not receiving a response, entered with a letter. The superscription was strange. She opened and read:--
DEAR AND TENDER CHILD: I know you were angry with me when we parted. I am awaiting here below your answer to come to you and bare my heart. Say yes!
"Is the gentleman downstairs?" she asked. The servant bowed. The blood in her head buzzing, she nodded, and the man disappeared. Standing there in the bright summer light, Ermentrude Adams saw her face in the oval glass, above the fireplace, saw its pallor, the strained expression of the eyes, and like a drowning person she made a swift inventory of her life, and, with the insane hope of one about to be swallowed up by the waters, she grasped at a solitary straw. Let him come; she would have an explanation from him! The torture of doubt might then be brought to an end....
Some one glided into the apartment. Turning quickly, Ermentrude recognized Madame Kéroulan. Before she could orient herself that lady took her by both hands, and uttering apologetic words, forced the amazed girl into a chair.
"Don't be frightened, dear young lady. I am not here to judge, but to explain. Yes, I know my husband loves you. But do not believe in him. He is a _terrific_ man." This word she emphasized as if doubtful of its meaning. "Ah, if you but knew the inferno of my existence! There are so many like you--stop, do not leave! You are not to blame. I, Lillias Kéroulan, do not censure your action. My husband is an evil man and a charlatan. Hear me out! He has only the gift of words. He steals all his profundities of art from dead philosophers. He is not a genuine poet. He is not a dramatist. I swear to you that he is now the butt of artistic Paris. The Princesse de Lancovani made him--she is another of his sort. He _was_ the mode; now he is desperate because his day has passed. He knows you are rich. He desires your money, not _you_. I discovered that he was coming here this day. Oh, I am cleverer than he. I followed. Here I am to save you from him--and from yourself--he is not now below in the salon."
"Please go away!" indignantly answered Ermentrude. She was furious at this horrible, plain-spoken, jealous creature. Save her from herself--as if ever she had wavered! The disinterested adoration she had entertained for the great artist--what a hideous ending was this! The tall, blond woman with the narrow, light blue eyes watched the girl. How could any one call her handsome, Ermentrude wondered! Then her visitor noticed the crumpled letter on the table. With a gesture of triumph she secured it and smiling her superior smile she left, closing the door softly behind her.
Only kissed hands are white! Ermentrude threw herself on the couch, her cheeks burning, her heart tugging in her bosom like a ship impatient at its anchorage. And was this the sordid end of a beautiful dream?...
"Do you know, dearest, we have had such news!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldam as she entered, and so charged with her happiness that she did not notice the drawn features of her niece. "Charlie, Charlie will be here some time next week. He arrives at Havre. He has just cabled his father. Let us go down to meet the boy." Charlie was the only son of the Sheldams and fonder of his cousin than she dare tell herself. She burst into tears, which greatly pleased her aunt.
In the train, eight days later, Ermentrude sat speechless in company with her aunt and uncle. But as the train approached Havre she remembered something.
"Aunt Clara," she bravely asked, "do you recall the afternoon we spent at the Kéroulans'? What did Madame Kéroulan tell you then? Is it a secret?" She held tightly clenched in her hand the arm-rest at the side of the compartment.
"Oh, dear, no! The madame was very chatty, very communicative. It's funny I've not told you before. She confessed that she was the happiest woman on earth; not only was she married to a grand genius,--for the life of me I can't see where _that_ comes in!--but he was a good man into the bargain. It appears that his life is made weary by women who pester him with their attentions. Even our princess--yes, _the_ princess; isn't it shocking?--was a perfect nuisance until Mr. Kéroulan assured her that, though he owed much of his success in the world to her, yet he would never betray the trust reposed in him by his wife. What's the matter, dear, does the motion of the car affect you? It _does_ rock! And _he_ shows her all the letters he gets from silly women admirers--oh, these foreign women and their queer ways! And he tells her the way they make up to him when he meets them in society."
Ermentrude shivered. The princess also! And with all her warning about the Superman! Now she understood. Then she took the hand of Mrs. Sheldam, and, stroking it, whispered:--
"Auntie, I'm so glad I am going to Havre, going to see Charlie soon." The lids of her eyes were wet. Mrs. Sheldam had never been so motherly.
"You _are_ a darling!" she answered, as she squeezed Ermentrude's arm. "But there is some one who doesn't seem to care much for Havre." She pointed out Mr. Sheldam, who, oblivious of picturesque Normandy through which the train was speeding, slept serenely. Ermentrude envied him his repose. He had never stared into the maddening mirror which turned poets into Supermen and--sometimes monsters. Had she herself not gazed into this distorting glass? The tune of her life had never sounded so discouragingly faint and inutile. Perhaps she did not posses the higher qualities that could extort from a nature so rich and various as Octave Kéroulan's its noblest music! Perhaps his wife had told the truth to Mrs. Sheldam and had lied to her! And then, through a merciful mist of tears, Ermentrude saw Havre, saw her future.
VII
ANTICHRIST
To wring from man's tongue the denial of his existence is proof of Satan's greatest power.--PÈRE RAVIGNAN.
The most learned man and the most lovable it has been my good fortune to know is Monsignor Anatole O'Bourke--alas! I should write, was, for his noble soul is gathered to God. I met him in Paris, when I was a music student. He sat next to me at a Pasdeloup concert in the Cirque d'Hiver, how many years ago I do not care to say. A casual exclamation betrayed my nationality, and during the intermission we drifted into easy conversation. Within five minutes he held me enthralled, did this big-souled, large-brained Irishman from the County Tipperary. We discussed the programme--a new symphonic poem by Rimski-Korsakoff, Sadko, had been alternately hissed and cheered--and I soon learned that my companion mourned a French mother and rejoiced in the loving presence of a very Celtic father. From the former he must have inherited his vigorous, logical intellect; the latter had evidently endowed him with a robust, jovial temperament, coupled with a wonderful perception of things mystical.
After the concert we walked slowly along the line of the boulevards. It was early May, and the wheel of green which we traversed, together with the brilliant picture made by the crowds, put us both in a happy temper. It was not long before Monsignor heard the confession of my ideals. He smiled quickly when I raved of music, but the moment I drifted into the theme of mysticism--the transposition is ever an easy one--I saw his interest leap to meet mine.
"So, you have read St. John of the Cross?" I nodded my head.
"And St. Teresa, that marvellous woman? The Americans puzzle me," he continued. "You are the most practical people on the globe and yet the most idealistic. When I hear of a new religion, I am morally certain that it is evolved in America."
"A new religion!" I started. This phrase had often assailed me, both in print and in the depths of my imagination. He divined my thought--ah! he was a wonder-worker in the way he noted a passing _nuance_.
"When we wear out the old one, it will be time for a new religion," he blandly announced; "you Americans, because of your new mechanical inventions, fancy you have free entry into the domain of the spiritual. But come, my dear young friend. Here is my hôtel. Can't I invite you to dinner?" We had reached the Boulevard Malsherbe and, as I was miles out of my course, I consented. The priest fascinated me with his erudition, which swam lightly on the crest of his talk. He was, so I discovered during the evening, particularly well versed in the mystical writers, in the writings of the Kabbalists and the books of the inspired Northman, Swedenborg. As we sat drinking our coffee at one of the little tables in the spacious courtyard, I revived the motive of a new religion.
"Monsignor, have you ever speculated on the possible appearance of a second Mahomet, a second Buddha? What if, from some Asiatic jungle, there sallied out upon Europe a terrible ape-god, a Mongolian with exotic eyes and the magnetism of a religious madman--"
"You are speaking of Antichrist?" he calmly questioned.
"Antichrist! Do you really believe in the Devil's Messiah?"
"Believe, man! why, I have _seen_ him."
I leaned back in my chair, wondering whether I should laugh or look solemn. He noted my indecision, and his eyes twinkled--they were the blue-gray of the Irish, the eyes of a seer or an amiable ironist.
"Listen! but first let us get some strong cigars. Garçon!" As we smoked our panatelas he related this history:--
"You ask me if I believe in an Antichrist, thereby betraying your slender knowledge of the Scriptures--you will pardon the liberty! I may refer you not only to John's Epistles, to the revelations of the dreamer of Patmos, but to so many learned doctors of the faith that it would take a week merely to enumerate the titles of their works all bearing on the mysterious subject. Our Holy Mother the Church has held aloof from any doctrinal pronouncements. The Antichrist has been predicted for the past thousand years. I recall as a boy poring over the map of the world which a friend of my mother had left with her. This lady my father called 'the angel with the moulting wings,' because she was always in an ecstatic tremor over the second coming of the Messiah. She would go to the housetop at least once every six months, and there, with a band of pious deluded geese dressed in white flowing robes, would inspect the firmament for favourable signs. Nothing ever happened, as we know, yet the predictions sown about the borders of that strange-looking chart have in a measure come true.
"There were the grimmest and most resounding quotations from the Apocalypse. 'Babylon is fallen, is fallen!' hummed in my ears for many a day. And the pale horse also haunted me. What would I have given to hear the music of that 'voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder.' I mean the 'harpers harping with their harps' the 'new song before the throne, before the four beasts and the elders.' It is recorded that 'no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty _and_ four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.' That is a goodly multitude. Let us hope we shall be of it. Learned Sir Thomas Browne asked what songs the sirens sang. I prefer to hear that wonderful 'harpèd' song.
"But I wander. The fault lies in that wondrous map of the world, with its pictured hordes of Russians sweeping down upon Europe and America like a plague of locusts, the wicked unbaptized Antichrist at the head of them, waving a cross held in reversed fashion. Don't ask me the meaning of this crazy symbolism. The sect to which my mother's friend belonged--God bless her, for she was a dear weak-minded lady--must have set great store by these signs. I admit that as a boy they scared me. Sitting here now, after forty years, I can still see those cryptograms. However, to my tale. About ten years ago I was in Paris, and in my capacity as Monsignor I had to attend a significant gathering at the embassy of the Russian ambassador in this city of light." He waved his left hand, from which I caught the purple fire of amethyst.
"It was a notable affair, and I don't mind telling you now that it was largely political. I had just returned from a secret mission at Rome, and I was forced to mingle with diplomatic people. Prince Wronsky was the representative of the Czar at that time in France, a charming man with a flavour of _diablerie_ in his speech. He was a fervent Greek Catholic, like most of his countrymen, and it pleased him to fence mischievously with me on the various dogmas of our respective faiths. He called himself _the_ Catholic; I was only a Roman Catholic. I told him I was satisfied.
"On this particular night he was rather agitated when I made my salutations. He whispered to me that madame the princess had that very day presented him with a son and heir. Naturally I congratulated him. His restlessness increased as the evening wore on. At last he beckoned to me--we were very old friends--to follow him into his library. There he hesitated.
"'I want you to do me a favour, an odd one; but as you are known to me so long I venture to ask it. Do go upstairs and see my boy--' His tone was that of entreaty. I smiled.
"'Dear prince, I am, as a priest, hardly a judge of children. But if you wish it--is there anything wrong with the little chap's health?'
"'God forbid!' he ejaculated and piously crossed himself. We went to the first _étage_ of his palace--he was gorgeously housed--and there he said:--
"'Madame is in another wing of our apartments--go in here--the child is attended by the nurse.' With that he pushed me through a swinging door and left me standing in a semi-lighted chamber. I was very near ill temper, I assure you, for my position was embarrassing. The room was large and heavily hung with tapestries. A nurse, a hag, a witch, a dark old gypsy creature, came over to me and asked me, in Russian:--
"'Do you wish to see his Royal Highness the King of Earth and Heaven?' Thinking she was some stupid _moujik's_ wife, I nodded my head seriously, though amused by the exalted titles. She put up a thin hand and I tiptoed to a cradle of gold and ivory--it certainly seemed so to my inexperienced eyes--the nurse parted the curtains, and there I saw--I saw--but my son, you will think I exaggerate--I saw the most exquisite baby in the universe. You laugh at an old bachelor's rhapsody! In reality I don't care much for children. But that child, that supreme morsel of humanity, was too much for me. I stood and stared and stood and stared, and all the while the tiny angel was smiling in my eyes, oh! such a celestial smile. From his large blue eyes, like flowers, he smiled into my very soul. I was chained to the floor as if by lead. Every fibre of my soul, heart, and brain went out to that little wanderer from the infinite. It was a pathetic face, full of suppressed sorrow--_Dieu_! but he was older than his father. I found my mind beginning to wander as if hypnotized. I tried to divert my gaze, but in vain. Some subtle emanation from this extraordinary child entered my being, and then, as if a curtain were being slowly lowered, a mist encompassed my soul; I was ceding, I felt, the immortal part of me to another, and all the time I was smiling at the baby and the baby smiling back. I remember his long blond hair, parted in the middle and falling over his shoulders; but even that remarkable trait for an infant a few hours old did not puzzle me, for my sanity was surely being undermined by the persistent gaze of the boy. I vaguely recall passing my hand across my breast as if to stop the crevice through which my personality was filtering; I was certain that my soul was about to be stolen by that damnable child. Then the nurse dropped something, and my thoughts came back,--they were surely on the road to hell, for they were red and flaming when I got hold of them,--and the spell, or whatever it was, snapped.
"I looked up and noticed the woman maliciously smiling--if it had been in the days of the inquisition, I would have sent her to the faggots, for she was a hell-hag. The child had fallen back in his cradle as if the effort of holding my attention had exhausted him. Then it struck me that there was something unholy about this affair, and I resolutely strode to the crib and seized the baby.
"'What changeling is this?' I demanded in a loud voice, for the being that twisted in my grip was two or two hundred years old.
"'Lay him down, you monster!' clamoured the nurse, as I held the squirming bundle by both hands. It was a task--and I'm very strong. A superhuman strength waged against my muscles; but I was an old football half-back at the university, so I conquered the poor little devil. It moaned like a querulous old man; the nurse, throwing her weight upon me, forced me to let go my hold. As I did so the baby turned on its face, its dainty robe split wide open, and to my horror I saw on its back, between its angelically white shoulders, burnt in as if by branding irons, the crucifix--and _upside down_!"
I shuddered. I knew. He lowered his voice and spoke in detached phrases.
"It was--oh! that I live to say it--it was the dreaded Antichrist--yes, this Russian baby--it was predicted that he would be born in Russia--I trembled so that my robes waved in an invisible wind. The reversed cross--the mark of the beast--the sign by which we are to know the Human Satan--the last opponent of Christianity. I confess that I was discomposed at the sight of this little fiend, for it meant that the red star, the baleful star of the north, would rise in the black heavens and bloody war spread among the nations of the earth. It also meant that doomsday was not far off, and, good Christian as I believe myself to be, a shiver ran down my spine at the idea of Gabriel's trump and the resurrection of the dead. Yes, I shan't deny it--so material are the sons of men, I among them! And the very thought of Judgment Day and its blasting horrors withered my heart. Still something had to be done, prophecy or no prophecy. To fulfil the letter of the law this infernal visitor was let loose from hell. There was one way, so I grasped--"
"Great God, Monsignor, you didn't strangle the demon?" I cried.