Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

ABRACADABRA & OTHER SATIRES

_The Works of John Galsworthy_

Cloth, 5_s._ net; Leather, 7_s._ 6_d._

_NOVELS_

VILLA RUBEIN
THE ISLAND PHARISEES
THE MAN OF PROPERTY
THE COUNTRY HOUSE
FRATERNITY
THE PATRICIAN
THE DARK FLOWER
THE FREELANDS
BEYOND
FIVE TALES
SAINT’S PROGRESS
IN CHANCERY
TO LET

_STORIES AND STUDIES_

A COMMENTARY
A MOTLEY
THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY
TATTERDEMALION
ABRACADABRA & OTHER SATIRES

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.

_THE WORKS OF JOHN GALSWORTHY_

ABRACADABRA
&
OTHER SATIRES

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.

_Printed in Great Britain._

CONTENTS

PAGE

ABRACADABRA 1

THE VOICE OF ----! 11

A SIMPLE TALE 18

ULTIMA THULE 29

STUDIES OF EXTRAVAGANCE 47

FOR LOVE OF BEASTS 121

REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN 144

GROTESQUES 156

ABRACADABRA

Our families occupied neighbouring houses in the country, and Minna used to hide in the bathroom whenever our governess took us round. She was to us but a symbol of shyness for months before she became a body--a very thin body, with dark, straggly hair, and dark eyes, and very long legs and arms for an eight-year-old. Looking back on her hardihoods from eight to fifteen, I find difficulty in assigning to the bathroom period its full significance, to realise that she actually used to make herself invisible because she could not face strange people even of her own age. She faced us so beautifully afterward, would steal up behind and pull our hairs, and bag our caps and throw them up on to the tops of wardrobes, and then, as likely as not, climb up, throw them down, and follow with a jump. Few were the tops of our trees that did not know her in her blue jersey and red cap, and stockings green at the knees and showing little white portions of her. She had a neck long as a turkey’s and feet narrow as canoes. She was certainly going to be tall. Though quite normal about sticking pins into a body, making the lives of calves and dogs burdensome, giving fizzy magnesia to cats, fetching stray souls down with a booby-trap, and other salutary pastimes, she would dissolve into tears and rush away if anybody played Chopin, or caught and killed a butterfly; and, if one merely shot a little bird with a catapult, would dash up and thump him. When she fought she was like a tiger-cat, but afterward would sit and shake uncontrollably with most dreadful dry sobs. So there was no relying on her.

She could not have been called pretty in those days.

She became fifteen and went to school. We saw little of her for three years. At eighteen she came home, and out. Then we would meet her at dances, and picnics, skating and playing tennis--always languid, pale, dark-eyed; still not quite regular in her features, and with angles not perfectly covered; but, on the whole, like a tall lily with a dark centre. She was very earnest, too, and beginning to be æsthetic, given to standing against walls, with her dark-brown eyes immovably fixed on persons playing violins; given to Russian linen and embroidering book covers; to poetry and the sermons of preachers just unorthodox enough; dreamy, too, but puffing and starting at things that came too near. She was very attractive.

Going to college, one saw little more of Minna till she was twenty-two. She was working then at a “Settlement,” and looked unhappy and anæmic. Two months later we were told she had broken down. The work was too painful; her nerves had gone all wrong. She was taken abroad.

We did not see her again till she was twenty-six. She was then marrying a Quaker, a handsome, big fellow with reddish hair, ten years older than herself. More like a swaying lily than ever she looked in her long white veil. A tall, striking couple! The Quaker had warm eyes, and by the way he looked at her, one wondered.

Another four years had passed before I, at all events, saw much of Minna again. She was now thirty, and had three children, two girls and a boy, and was evidently soon to have another. There was a pathetic look in her eyes. They said that the Quaker should have been a Turk, for his physique was powerful and his principles extremely strict. His wife had grown to have a shrinking, fagged-out air, and worried terribly over her infants. She was visibly unhappy; had gone off, too, in looks; grown sallow and thin-cheeked, and seemed not to care to hold herself up.

I recollect the Quaker coming in one day, full of health and happiness, and putting his affectionate hand on her shoulder. To me--not to the Quaker, from whom many things were hidden--it was apparent that she flinched, and when his back was turned I saw in a mirror that she was actually trembling all over, and on her face an expression as if she saw before her suffering from which she could not possibly escape. It was clear that the quivering, lilylike creature had been brought almost to her last gasp by the physique and principles of that healthy, happy Quaker. It was quite painful to see one for whom life seemed so terribly too much.

She was, I think, about thirty-two when one noticed how much better she was looking. She had begun to fill out and hold herself up; her eyes had light in them again. Though she was more attractive than ever, and the Quaker had abated no jot of either principle or physique, she had given up quivering and starting, and had a way of looking tranquilly through or over him, as if he were not there, though her amiability was obviously perfect, and from all accounts she fulfilled every duty better than ever. She no longer worried over her children, of whom there were now five. It was mysterious. I can only describe the impression she made by saying that she seemed in a sort of trance, seeing and listening to something far away. There was a curious intentness in her eyes, and her voice had acquired a slight but not unpleasing drawl, as though what she was talking of had little reality. Every afternoon from three to four she was invisible.

Having in those days a certain interest in psychology, one used to concern oneself to account for the extraordinary change in her that was becoming more marked every year. By the time she was thirty-five it really seemed impossible that she could ever have been a sensitive, high-strung creature, hiding in the bathroom, thumping us for killing butterflies, sobbing afterward so uncontrollably; suffering such tortures from the “Settlement,” and the Quaker, and her children, whose ailments and troubles she now supported with an equanimity which any one, seeing her for the first time, would surely have mistaken for callousness. And all the time she was putting on flesh without, however, losing her figure. Indeed, in those days she approached corporeal perfection.

And at last one afternoon I learned the reason.

She no longer believed she had a body!

She told me so, almost with tears of earnestness. And when I pointed out to her humbly that she had never had more, she insisted that I saw nothing really sitting there except the serene and healthy condition of her spirit. Long she talked to me that afternoon, explaining again and again, in her slightly drawling voice, that she could never have gone on but for this faith; and how comforting and uplifting it was, so that no one who lacked it could be really happy! Every afternoon--she told me--from three to four she “held” that idea of “no body.”

This was all so startling to me that I went away and thought it over. Next day I came back and said that I did not see how it could be much good to her to have no body, so long as other people still had theirs; since it was their bodies, not hers, which had caused her pain and grief.

“But, of course,” she said, “they haven’t.”

I had just met the Quaker coming in from golf, and could only murmur:

“Is that really so?”

“I couldn’t bear, now,” she said, “to think they had.”

“Then, do you really mean, Minna, that when they are there they are not there?”

“Yes!” And her eyes shone.

I thought of her eldest boy, who happened to be ill with mumps.

“What, then, is Willy’s mumps,” I said, “if not an affection of the fleshy tissue of his cheeks and neck? Why should he cry with pain, and why should he look so horrid?”

She frowned, as if reflecting hard.

“When you came in,” she said, “I’d just been holding the thought that he has no body, and I don’t--I really don’t feel any longer that he has mumps. So I don’t worry. And that’s splendid both for him and me.”

I saw that it was splendid for her; but how was it splendid for him? I did not ask, however, because she looked so earnest and uplifted, and I was afraid of seeming unkind.

The next day I came back again, and said:

“I’ve been thinking over your faith, Minna. Candidly, I’ve never seen any one improve so amazingly in health and looks since you’ve had it. But what I’ve been wondering is, whether it’s in the nature of fresh air, hard work, and plain living, or in the nature of a drug or anodyne. Whether it’s prevention, or cure. In fact, whether you could hold it, or ever have held it, unless you had been sick _before_ you held it?”

She evidently did not grasp my meaning. I could, of course, have made it plain enough by saying: “Suppose you had not been a self-conscious, self-absorbed, high-strung, anæmic girl, like so many nowadays, quivering at life and Quakers with strong physique and principles; suppose you had been an Italian peasant woman or an English cottage lass, obliged to work and think of others all her time; suppose, in a word, you had not had the chance to be so desperately sensitive and conscious of your body--do you think you would ever have felt the necessity for becoming unconscious of it?” But she looked so serene and puzzled, so corporeally charming on her sofa, that I hadn’t the heart to put it thus brutally; and I merely said:

“Do tell me how the idea first came to you?”

“It was put there. It could never have come of its own accord.”

“No doubt; but what exactly?”

She grew rather pink.

“It was one evening when Willy--he was only four then--had been very naughty, and Tom” (this was the Quaker) “insisted on my whipping him. I was obliged to, you see, for fear he would do it himself. Poor Willy cried so that I was simply in despair. It hurt me awfully; I remember thinking: ‘Ah! but it’s not really me; not me--not my arm.’ It seemed to me that there was a dreadful unreality about myself; that I was not really doing it, and so I surely could not be hurting him. It was such a comfort--and I wanted comfort.”

I felt the sacredness and the pathos of that; I felt, too, that her despair, before that comfort came, had been her farewell to truth; but I would not for the world have said that, nor asked what Willy’s tears had really been, if not real tears.

“Yes,” I murmured; “and after that?”

“After that--I tried every day, and gradually the whole beauty of it came to me--because, you know, there are so many things to fret one, and it’s so splendid to feel uplifted above it all.”

They tell me the morphia habit is wonderful! But I only said:

“And so you really never suffer now?”

“Oh!” she answered, “I often have the beginnings; but I just hold that thought and--it goes. I do wish--I _do_ wish you would try!”

“Yes, yes,” I murmured; “yes, yes!” She looked so pathetically earnest and as if she would be so disappointed. “But just one thing: Don’t you ever feel that the knowledge that people have no bodies and don’t really suffer----” and there I stopped. I had meant to add--“blunts sympathy and dries up the springs of fellow-feeling from which all kindly action comes?” But I hadn’t the heart.

“Oh! do put any questions to me!” she said. “You can’t shake my faith! It’s religion with me, you know.”

“You certainly seem fitter and stronger every day. I quite understand that you’re being saved by it. And that’s the essence of religion, isn’t it?”

She drew herself up and smiled. “Tom says I’m getting fat!”

I looked at her. I must say that, for one who had no body, she was superb.

After that I again left London and did not see her for two years.

A few days after my return I asked after her at my sister’s.

“Oh! haven’t you heard? The most dreadful tragedy happened there six weeks ago. Kitty and Willy” (they were the two eldest children) “were run over by a motor; poor little Kitty was killed on the spot, and Willy will be lame for life, they say.”

Thinking of Kitty blotted out like that--a little thing all shyness, sensibility, and pranks, just as Minna had been at her age--I could scarcely ask: “How does poor Minna take it?”

My sister wrinkled her brows.

“I was there,” she said, “when they brought the children in. It was awful to see Tom--he broke down utterly. He’s been quite changed ever since.”

“But Minna?”

“Minna--yes. I shall never forget the expression of her face that first minute. It reminded me of--I don’t know what--like nerves moving under the skin. Dreadful! And then, ten minutes later, it was quite calm; you’d have thought nothing had happened. She’s very wonderful. I’ve watched her since, and I don’t--I really don’t believe she feels it!”

“How is she looking?”

“Oh! just the same--very well and handsome. Rather too fat.”

It was with very curious feelings that I went next day to see Minna. Truly she looked magnificent in her black clothes. Her curves had become ampler, her complexion deeper, perhaps a little coarse, and her drawl was more pronounced. Her husband came in while I was there. The poor man was indeed a changed Quaker. He seemed to have shrivelled. When she put her hand on his shoulder, I noticed with surprise that he jibbed away and seemed to avoid the gaze of her rather short-sighted, beautiful brown eyes that had grown appreciably warmer. It was strange indeed--his body had become so meagre and hers had so splendidly increased! We made no mention of the tragedy while he was there, but when he had left us I hazarded the question:

“How is poor little Willy?”

Her eyes shone, and she said, with a sort of beautiful earnestness:

“You mustn’t call him that. He’s not a bit unhappy. We hold the thought together. It’s coming wonderfully!”

In a sudden outburst of sympathy I said:

“I’m so sorry. It must be terrible for you all.”

Her brow contracted just a little.

“Yes! I can’t get Tom--if only he would see that it’s nothing, really--that there’s no such thing as the body. He’s simply wearing himself away; he’s grown quite thin; he’s----” She stopped. And there rose up in me a kind of venom, as if I felt that she was about to say ‘--no longer fit to be my mate.’ And, trying to keep that feeling out of my eyes, I looked at the magnificent creature. How marvellously she had flourished under the spell of her creed! How beautifully preserved and encased against the feelings of this life she had become! How grandly she had cured her sensitive and neurasthenic girlhood! How nobly, against the disease of self-consciousness and self-absorption, she had put on the armour of a subtler and deeper self-absorption!

And suddenly I pitied or I envied her--Ah! which? For, to achieve immunity from her own suffering, I perceived that for the suffering of others she had become incapable of caring two brass buttons.

THE VOICE OF----!

The proprietor of “The Paradise” had said freely that she would “knock them.” Broad, full-coloured, and with the clear, swimming eye of an imaginative man, he was trusted when he spoke thus of his new “turns.” There was the feeling that he had once more discovered a good thing.

And on the afternoon of the new star’s dress rehearsal it was noticed that he came down to watch her, smoking his cigar calmly in the front row of the stalls. When she had finished and withdrawn, the _chef d’orchestre_, while folding up his score, felt something tickling his ear.

“Bensoni, this is hot goods!”

Turning that dim, lined face of his, whose moustache was always coming out of wax, Signor Bensoni answered: “A bit of all right, boss!”

“If they hug her real big to-night, send round to my room.”

“I will.”

Evening came, and under the gilt-starred dome the house was packed. Rows and rows of serious seekers for amusement; and all the customary crowd of those who “drop in”--old clients with hair and without hair, in evening clothes, or straight from their offices or race-course; bare-necked ladies sitting; ladies who never sat, but under large hats stood looking into the distance, or moved with alacrity in no particular direction, and halted swiftly with a gentle humming; lounging and high-collared youths, furtively or boldly staring, and unconsciously tightening their lips; distinguished goatee-bearded foreigners wandering without rest. And always round the doorways the huge attendants, in their long, closely buttoned coats.

The little Peruvian bears had danced. The Volpo troupe in claret-coloured tights had gone once more without mishap through their hairbreadth tumbles. The Mulligatawny quartet had contributed their “unparalleled plate spray.” “Donks, the human ass,” had brayed. Signor Bensoni had conducted to its close his “Pot-pourriture” which afforded so many men an opportunity to stretch their legs. Arsenico had swallowed many things with conspicuous impunity. “Great and Small Scratch” had scratched. “Fraulein Tizi, the charming female vocalist,” had suddenly removed his stays. There had been no minute dull; yet over the whole performance had hung that advent of the new star, that sense of waiting for a greater moment.

She came at last--in black and her own whiteness, “La Bellissima,” straight from Brazil; tall, with raven-dark hair, and her beautiful face as pale as ivory. Tranquilly smiling with eyes only, she seemed to draw the gaze of all into those dark wells of dancing life; and, holding out her arms, that seemed fairer and rounder than the arms of women, she said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I will dance for you de latest Gollywog Brazilian caterpillar crawl.”

Then, in lime-light streaming down on her from the centre of the gallery, she moved back to the corner of the stage. Those who were wandering stood still; every face craned forward. For, sidelong, with a mouth widened till it nearly reached her ears, her legs straddling, and her stomach writhing, she was moving incomparably across the stage. Her face, twisted on her neck, at an alarming angle, was distorted to a strange, inimitable hideousness. She reached the wings, and turned. A voice cried out: “_Épatant!_” Her arms, those round white arms, seemed yellow and skinny now, her obviously slender hips had achieved miraculous importance; each movement of her whole frame was attuned to a perfect harmony of ugliness. Twice she went thus marvellously up and down, in the ever-deepening hush. Then the music stopped, the lime-light ceased to flow, and she stood once more tranquil and upright, beautiful, with her smiling eyes. A roar of enthusiasm broke, salvo after salvo--clapping and “Bravos,” and comments flying from mouth to mouth.

“Rippin’!” “Bizarre--I say--how bizarre!” “Of the most chic!” “_Wunderschön!_” “Bully!”

Raising her arms again for silence, she said quite simply: “Good! I will now, ladies and gentlemen, sing you the latest Patagonian Squaw Squall. I sing you first, however, few bars of ‘Che farò’ old-fashion, to show you my natural tones--so you will see.” And in a deep, sweet voice began at once: “Che farò senz’ Euridice”; while through the whole house ran a shuffle of preparation for the future. Then all was suddenly still; for from her lips, remarkably enlarged, was issuing a superb cacophony. Like the screeching of parrots, and miauling of tiger-cats fighting in a forest, it forced attention from even the least musical.

Before the first verse was ended, the uncontrollable applause had drowned her; and she stood, not bowing, smiling with her lips now--her pretty lips. Then raising a slender forefinger, she began the second verse. Even more strangely harsh and dissonant, from lips more monstrously disfigured, the great sound came. And, as though in tune with that crescendo, the lime-light brightened till she seemed all wrapped in flame. Before the storm of acclamation could burst from the enraptured house, a voice coming from the gallery was heard suddenly to cry:

“Woman! Blasphemous creature! You have profaned Beauty!”

For a single second there was utter silence, then a huge, angry “Hush!” was hurled up at the speaker; and all eyes turned toward the stage.

There stood the beautiful creature, motionless, staring up into the lime-light. And the voice from the gallery was heard again.

“The blind applaud you; it is natural. But you--unnatural! Go!” The beautiful creature threw up her head, as though struck below the jaw, and with hands flung out, rushed from the stage. Then, amidst the babel of a thousand cries--“Chuck the brute out!” “Throw him over!” “Where’s the manager?” “Encore, encore!”--the manager himself came out from the wings. He stood gazing up into the stream of lime-light, and there was instant silence.

“Hullo! up there! Have you got him?”

A voice, far and small, travelled back in answer: “It’s no one up here, sir!”

“What? Limes! It was in front of you!” A second faint, small voice came quavering down: “There’s been no one hollerin’ near me, sir.”

“Cut off your light!”

Down came the quavering voice: “I ’ave cut off, sir.”

“What?”

“I ’ave cut off--I’m disconnected.”

“Look at it!” And, pointing toward the brilliant ray still showering down onto the stage, whence a faint smoke seemed rising, the manager stepped back into the wings.

Then, throughout the house, arose a hustling and a scuffling, as of a thousand furtively consulting; and through it, of it, continually louder, the whisper--“Fire!”

And from every row some one stole out; the women in the large hats clustered, and trooped toward the doors. In five minutes “The Paradise” was empty, save of its officials. But of fire there was none.

Down in the orchestra, standing well away from the centre, so that he could see the stream of lime-light, the manager said:

“Electrics!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cut off every light.”

“Right, sir.”

With a clicking sound the lights went out; and all was black--but for that golden pathway still flowing down the darkness. For a moment the manager blinked silently at the strange effulgence. Then his scared voice rose: “Send for the Boss--look alive! Where’s Limes?”

Close to his elbow a dark little quick-eyed man, with his air of professional stupidity, answered in doubt: “Here, sir.”

“It’s up to you, Limes!”

The little man, wiping his forehead, gazed at the stream of golden light, powdering out to silver at its edges.

“I’ve took out me limes, and I’m disconnected, and this blanky ray goes on. What am I to do? There’s nothing up there to cause it. Go an’ see for yourself, sir!” Then, passing his hand across his mouth, he blurted out: “It’s got to do with that there voice--I shouldn’t be surprised. Unnat’ral-like; the voice o’----”

The manager interrupted sharply: “Don’t be a d--d ass, Limes!”

And, suddenly, all saw the proprietor passing from the prompt side behind that faint mist where the ray fell.

“What’s the theatre dark like this for? Why is it empty? What’s happened?”

The manager answered.

“We’re trying to find out, sir; a madman in the gallery, whom we couldn’t locate, made a disturbance, called the new turn ‘A natural’; and now there’s some hanky with this lime. It’s been taken out, and yet it goes on like that!”

“What cleared the house?”

The manager pointed at the stage.

“It looked like smoke,” he said. “That light’s loose; we can’t get hold of its end anywhere.”

From behind him Signor Bensoni suddenly pushed up his dim, scared face.

“Boss!” he stammered: “it’s the most bizarre--the most bizarre--thing I ever struck--Limes thinks----”

“Yes?” The Boss turned and spoke very quickly: “What does he think--yes?”

“He thinks--the voice wasn’t from the gallery--but higher; he thinks--he thinks--it was the voice of--voice of----”

A sudden sparkle lit up the Boss’s eyes. “Yes?” he hissed out; “yes?”

“He thinks it was the voice of---- Hullo!”

The stream of light had vanished. All was darkness.

Some one called: “Up with your lights!”

As the lights leaped forth, all about the house, the Boss was seen to rush to the centre of the stage, where the ray had been.

“Bizarre! By gum!... Hullo! Up there!”

No sound, no ray of light, answered that passionately eager shout.

The Boss spun round: “Electrics! You blazing ass! Ten to one but you’ve cut my connection, turning up the lights like that. The voice of----! Great snakes! What a turn! What a turn! I’d have given it a thou’ a week!... _Hullo! up there! Hullo!_”

But there came no answer from under the gilt-starred dome.

A SIMPLE TALE

Talking of anti-Semitism one of those mornings, Ferrand said: “Yes, _monsieur_, plenty of those gentlemen in these days esteem themselves Christian, but I have only once met a Christian who esteemed himself a Jew. _C’était très drôle--je vais vous conter cela._

“It was one autumn in London, and, the season being over, I was naturally in poverty, inhabiting a palace in Westminster at fourpence the night. In the next bed to me that time there was an old gentleman, so thin that one might truly say he was made of air. English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh--I shall never learn to distinguish those little differences in your race--but I well think he was English. Very feeble, very frail, white as paper, with a long grey beard, and caves in the cheeks, and speaking always softly, as if to a woman.... For me it was an experience to see an individual so gentle in a palace like that. His bed and bowl of broth he gained in sweeping out the kennels of all those sorts of types who come to sleep there every night. There he spent all his day long, going out only at ten hours and a half every night, and returning at midnight less one quarter. Since I had not much to do, it was always a pleasure for me to talk with him; for, though he was certainly a little _toqué_,” and Ferrand tapped his temple, “he had great charm, of an old man, never thinking of himself, no more than a fly that turns in dancing all day beneath a ceiling. If there was something he could do for one of those specimens--to sew on a button, clean a pipe, catch beasts in their clothes, or sit to see they were not stolen, even to give up his place by the fire--he would always do it with his smile so white and gentle; and in his leisure he would read the Holy Book! He inspired in me a sort of affection--there are not too many old men so kind and gentle as that, even when they are ‘crackey,’ as you call it. Several times I have caught him in washing the feet of one of those sots, or bathing some black eye or other, such as they often catch--a man of a spiritual refinement really remarkable; in clothes also so refined that one sometimes saw his skin. Though he had never great thing to say, he heard you like an angel, and spoke evil of no one; but, seeing that he had no more vigour than a swallow, it piqued me much how he would go out like that every night in all the weather at the same hour for so long a promenade of the streets. And when I interrogated him on this, he would only smile his smile of one not there, and did not seem to know very much of what I was talking. I said to myself: ‘There is something here to see, if I am not mistaken. One of these good days I shall be your guardian angel while you fly the night.’ For I am a connoisseur of strange things, _monsieur_, as you know; though, you may well imagine, being in the streets all day long between two boards of a sacred sandwich does not give you too strong a desire to _flâner_ in the evenings. _Eh, bien!_ It was a night in late October that I at last pursued him. He was not difficult to follow, seeing he had no more guile than an egg; passing first at his walk of an old shadow into your St. James’s Park along where your military types puff out their chests for the nursemaids to admire. Very slowly he went, leaning on a staff--_une canne de promenade_ such as I have never seen, nearly six feet high, with an end like a shepherd’s crook or the handle of a sword, a thing truly to make the _gamins_ laugh--even me it made to smile though I am too well accustomed to mock at age and poverty, to watch him march in leaning on that cane. I remember that night--very beautiful, the sky of a clear dark, the stars as bright as they can ever be in these towns of our high civilisation, and the leaf-shadows of the plane-trees, colour of grapes on the pavement, so that one had not the heart to put foot on them. One of those evenings when the spirit is light, and policemen a little dreamy and well-wishing. Well, as I tell you, my Old marched, never looking behind him, like a man who walks in sleep. By that big church--which, like all those places, had its air of coldness, far and ungrateful among us others, little human creatures who have built it--he passed, into the great Eaton Square, whose houses ought well to be inhabited by people very rich. There he crossed to lean him against the railings of the garden in the centre, very tranquil, his long white beard falling over hands joined on his staff, in awaiting what--I could not figure to myself at all. It was the hour when your high _bourgeoisie_ return from the theatre in their carriages, whose manikins sit, the arms crossed, above horses fat as snails. And one would see through the window some lady _bercée doucement_, with the face of one who has eaten too much and loved too little. And gentlemen passed me, marching for a mouthful of fresh air, _très comme il faut_, their concertina hats pushed up, and nothing at all in their eyes. I remarked my Old, who, making no movement watched them all as they went by, till presently a carriage stopped at a house nearly opposite. At once, then he began to cross the road quickly, carrying his great stick. I observed the lackey pulling the bell and opening the carriage door, and three people coming forth--a man, a woman, a young man. Very high _bourgeoisie_, some judge, knight, mayor--what do I know?--with his wife and son, mounting under the porch. My Old had come to the bottom of the steps, and spoke, in bending himself forward, as if supplicating. At once those three turned their faces, very astonished. Although I was very intrigued, I could not hear what he was saying, for, if I came nearer, I feared he would see me spying on him. Only the sound of his voice I heard, gentle as always; and his hand I saw wiping his forehead, as though he had carried something heavy from very far. Then the lady spoke to her husband, and went into the house, and the young son followed in lighting a cigarette. There rested only that good father of the family, with his grey whiskers and nose a little bent, carrying an expression as if my Old were making him ridiculous. He made a quick gesture, as though he said, ‘Go!’ then he too fled softly. The door was shut. At once the lackey mounted, the carriage drove away, and all was as if it had never been, except that my Old was, standing there, quite still. But soon he came returning carrying his staff as if it burdened him. And recoiling in a porch to see him pass, I saw his visage full of dolour, of one overwhelmed with fatigue and grief; so that I felt my heart squeeze me. I must well confess, _monsieur_, I was a little shocked to see this old sainted father asking as it seemed for alms. That is a thing I myself have never done, not even in the greatest poverty--one is not like your ‘gentlemen’--one does always some little thing for the money he receives, if it is only to show a drunken man where he lives. And I returned in meditating deeply over this problem, which well seemed to me fit for the angels to examine; and knowing what time my Old was always re-entering, I took care to be in my bed before him. He came in as ever, treading softly so as not to wake us others, and his face had again its serenity, a little ‘crackey.’ As you may well have remarked, _monsieur_, I am not one of those individuals who let everything grow under the nose without pulling them up to see how they are made. For me the greatest pleasure is to lift the skirts of life, to unveil what there is under the surface of things which are not always what they seem, as says your good little poet. For that one must have philosophy, and a certain industry, lacking to all those gentlemen who think they alone are industrious because they sit in chairs and blow into the telephone all day, in filling their pockets with money. Myself, I coin knowledge of the heart--it is the only gold they cannot take from you. So that night I lay awake. I was not content with what I had seen; for I could not imagine why this old man, so unselfish, so like a saint in thinking ever of others, should go thus every night to beg, when he had always in this palace his bed, and that with which to keep his soul within his rags. Certainly we all have our vices, and gentlemen the most revered do, in secret, things they would cough to see others doing; but that business of begging seemed scarcely in his character of an old altruist--for in my experience, _monsieur_, beggars are not less egoist than millionaires. As I say, it piqued me much, and I resolved to follow him again. The second night was of the most different. There was a great wind, and white clouds flying in the moonlight. He commenced his pilgrimage in passing by your House of Commons, as if toward the river. I like much that great river of yours. There is in its career something of very grand; it ought to know many things, although it is so silent, and gives to no one the secrets which are confided to it. He had for objective, it seemed, that long row of houses very respectable, which gives on the embankment, before you arrive at Chelsea. It was painful to see the poor Old, bending almost double against that great wind coming from the west. Not too many carriages down here, and few people--a true wilderness, lighted by tall lamps which threw no shadows, so clear was the moon. He took his part soon, as of the other night, standing on the far side of the road, watching for the return of some lion to his den. And presently I saw one coming, accompanied by three lionesses, all taller than himself. This one was bearded, and carried spectacles--a real head of learning; walking, too, with the step of a man who knows his world. Some professor--I said to myself--with his harem. They gained their house at fifty paces from my Old; and, while this learned one was opening the door, the three ladies lifted their noses in looking at the moon. A little of æsthetic, a little of science--as always with that type there! At once I had perceived my Old coming across, blown by the wind like a grey stalk of thistle; and his face, with its expression of infinite pain as if carrying the sufferings of the world. At the moment they see him those three ladies drop their noses, and fly within the house as if he were the pestilence, in crying, ‘Henry!’ And out comes my _monsieur_ again, in his beard and spectacles. For me, I would freely have given my ears to hear, but I saw that this good Henry had his eye on me, and I did not budge, for fear to seem in conspiracy. I heard him only say: ‘Impossible! Impossible! Go to the proper place!’ and he shut the door. My Old remained, with his long staff resting on a shoulder bent as if that stick were of lead. And presently he commenced to march again whence he had come, curved and trembling, the very shadow of a man, passing me, too, as if I were the air. That time also I regained my bed before him, in meditating very deeply, still more uncertain of the psychology of this affair, and resolved once again to follow him, saying to myself: ‘This time I shall run all risks to hear.’ There are two kinds of men in this world, _monsieur_, one who will not rest content till he has become master of all the toys that make a fat existence--in never looking to see of what they are made; and the other, for whom life is tobacco and a crust of bread, and liberty to take all to pieces, so that his spirit may feel good within him. Frankly I am of that kind. I rest never till I have found out why this is that; for me mystery is the salt of life, and I must well eat of it. I put myself again, then, to following him the next night. This time he traversed those little dirty streets of your great Westminster, where all is mixed in a true pudding of lords and poor wretches at two sous the dozen; of cats and policemen; kerosene flames, abbeys, and the odour of fried fish. Ah! truly it is frightful to see your low streets in London; that gives me a conviction of hopelessness such as I have never caught elsewhere; piquant, too, to find them so near to that great House which sets example of good government to all the world. There is an irony so ferocious there, _monsieur_, that one can well hear the good God of your _bourgeois_ laugh in every wheel that rolls, and the cry of each cabbage that is sold; and see him smile in the smoky light of every flare, and in the candles of your cathedral, in saying to himself: ‘I have well made this world. Is there not variety here?--_en voilà une bonne soupe!_’ This time, however, I attended my Old like his very shadow, and could hear him sighing as he marched, as if he also found the atmosphere of those streets too strong. But all of a sudden he turned a corner, and we were in the most quiet, most beautiful little street I have seen in all your London. It was of small, old houses, very regular, which made as if they inclined themselves in their two rows before a great church at the end, grey in the moonlight, like a mother. There was no one in that street, and no more cover than hair on the head of a pope. But I had some confidence now that my Old would not remark me standing there so close, since in these pilgrimages he seemed to remark nothing. Leaning on his staff, I tell you he had the air of an old bird in a desert, reposing on one leg by a dry pool, his soul looking for water. It gave me that notion one has sometimes in watching the rare spectacles of life--that sentiment which, according to me, pricks artists to their work. We had not stayed there too long before I saw a couple marching from the end of the street, and thought: ‘Here they come to their nest.’ Vigorous and gay they were, young married ones, eager to get home; one could see the white neck of the young wife, the white shirt of the young man, gleaming under their cloaks. I know them well, those young couples in great cities, without a care, taking all things, the world before them, _très amoureux_, without, as yet, children; jolly and pathetic, having life still to learn--which, believe me, _monsieur_, is a sad enough affair for nine rabbits out of ten. They stopped at the house next to where I stood; and, since my Old was coming fast as always to the feast, I put myself at once to the appearance of ringing the bell of the house before me. This time I had well the chance of hearing. I could see, too, the faces of all three, because I have by now the habit of seeing out of the back hair. The pigeons were so anxious to get to their nest that my Old had only the time to speak, as they were in train to vanish. ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ _Monsieur_, I have never seen a face so hopeless, so crippled with fatigue, yet so full of a gentle dignity as that of my Old while he spoke those words. It was as if something looked from his visage surpassing what belongs to us others, so mortal and so cynic as human life must well render all who dwell in this earthly paradise. He held his long staff upon one shoulder, and I had the idea, sinister enough, that it was crushing his body of a spectre down into the pavement. I know not how the impression came, but it seemed to me that this devil of a stick had the nature of a heavy cross reposing on his shoulder; I had pain to prevent myself turning, to find if in truth ‘I had them’ as your drunkards say. Then the young man called out: ‘Here’s a shilling for you, my friend!’ But my old did not budge, answering always: ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ As you may well imagine, _monsieur_, we were all in the silence of astonishment, I pulling away at my bell next door, which was not ringing, seeing I took care it did not; and those two young people regarding my Old with eyes round as moons, out of their pigeon-house, which I could well see was prettily feathered. Their hearts were making seesaw, I could tell; for at that age one is still impressionable. Then the girl put herself to whispering, and her husband said those two words of your young ‘gentlemen,’ ‘Awfully sorry!’ and put out his hand, which held now a coin large as a saucer. But again my Old only said: ‘Sir, let me rest in your doorway!’ And the young man drew back his hand quickly as if he were ashamed, and saying again, ‘Sorry!’ he shut the door. I have heard many sighs in my time--they are the good little accompaniments to the song we sing, we others who are in poverty; but the sigh my Old pushed then--how can I tell you--had an accent as if it came from Her, the faithful companion, who marches holding the hands of men and women so that they may never make the grand mistake to imagine themselves for a moment the good God. Yes, _monsieur_, it was as if pursued by Suffering herself, that bird of the night, never tired of flying in this world where they talk always of cutting her wings. Then I took my resolution, and, coming gently from behind, said: ‘My Old--what is it? Can I do anything for you?’ Without looking at me, he spoke as to himself: ‘I shall never find one who will let me rest in his doorway. For my sin I shall wander forever!’ At this moment, _monsieur_, there came to me an inspiration so clear that I marvelled I had not already had it a long time before. He thought himself the Wandering Jew! I had well found it. This was certainly his fixed idea, of a cracked old man! And I said: ‘My Jew, do you know this? In doing what you do, you have become as Christ, in a world of wandering Jews!’ But he did not seem to hear me, and only just as we arrived at our palace became again that old gentle being, thinking never of himself.”

Behind the smoke of his cigarette, a smile curled Ferrand’s red lips under his long nose a little on one side.

“And, if you think of it, _monsieur_, it is well like that. Provided there exists always that good man of a Wandering Jew, he will certainly have become as Christ, in all these centuries of being refused from door to door. Yes, yes, he must well have acquired charity the most profound that this world has ever seen, in watching the crushing virtue of others. All those gentry, of whom he asks night by night to let him rest in their doorways, they tell him where to go, how to _ménager_ his life, even offer him money, as I had seen; but, to let him rest, to trust him in their houses--this strange old man--as a fellow, a brother voyager--that they will not; it is hardly in the character of good citizens in a Christian country. And, as I have indicated to you, this Old of mine, cracked as he was, thinking himself that Jew who refused rest to the good Christ, had become, in being refused for ever, the most Christ-like man I have ever encountered on this earth, which, according to me, is composed almost entirely of those who have themselves the character of the Wandering Jew.”

Puffing out a sigh of smoke, Ferrand added: “I do not know whether he continued to pursue his idea, for I myself took the road next morning, and I have never seen him since.”

ULTIMA THULE

Ultima Thule! The words come into my head this winter night. That is why I write down the story, as I know it, of a little old friend.

I used to see him first in Kensington Gardens, where he came in the afternoons, accompanied by a very small girl. One would see them silent before a shrub or flower, or with their heads inclined to heaven before a tree, or leaning above water and the ducks, or stretched on their stomachs watching a beetle, or on their backs watching the sky. Often they would stand holding crumbs out to the birds, who would perch about them, and even drop on their arms little white marks of affection and esteem. They were admittedly a noticeable couple. The child, who was fair-haired and elfinlike, with dark eyes and a pointed chin, wore clothes that seemed somewhat hard put to it. And, if the two were not standing still, she went along pulling at his hand, eager to get there; and, since he was a very little light old man, he seemed always in advance of his own feet. He was garbed, if I remember, in a daverdy brown overcoat and broad-brimmed soft grey hat, and his trousers, what was visible of them, were tucked into half-length black gaiters which tried to join with very old brown shoes. Indeed, his costume did not indicate any great share of prosperity. But it was his face that riveted attention. Thin, cherry-red, and wind-dried as old wood, it had a special sort of brightness, with its spikes and waves of silvery hair, and blue eyes that seemed to shine. Rather mad, I used to think. Standing by the rails of an enclosure, with his withered lips pursed and his cheeks drawn in till you would think the wind might blow through them, he would emit the most enticing trills and pipings, exactly imitating various birds.

Those who rouse our interest are generally the last people we speak to, for interest seems to set up a kind of special shyness; so it was long before I made his acquaintance. But one day by the Serpentine, I saw him coming along alone, looking sad, but still with that queer brightness about him. He sat down on my bench with his little dried hands on his thin little knees, and began talking to himself in a sort of whisper. Presently I caught the words: “God cannot be like us.” And for fear that he might go on uttering such precious remarks that were obviously not intended to be heard, I had either to go away or else address him. So, on an impulse, I said:

“Why?”

He turned without surprise.

“I’ve lost my landlady’s little girl,” he said. “Dead! And only seven years old.”

“That little thing! I used to watch you.”

“Did you? Did you? I’m glad you saw her.”

“I used to see you looking at flowers, and trees, and those ducks.”

His face brightened wistfully. “Yes; she was a great companion to an old man like me.” And he relapsed into his contemplation of the water. He had a curious, precise way of speaking, that matched his pipchinesque little old face. At last he again turned to me those blue youthful eyes that seemed to shine out of a perfect little nest of crow’s-feet.

“We were great friends! But I couldn’t expect it. Things don’t last, do they?” I was glad to notice that his voice was getting cheerful. “When I was in the orchestra at the Harmony Theatre, it never used to occur to me that some day I shouldn’t play there any more. One felt like a bird. That’s the beauty of music, sir. You lose yourself; like that blackbird there.” He imitated the note of a blackbird so perfectly that I could have sworn the bird started.

“Birds and flowers! Wonderful things; wonderful! Why, even a buttercup----!” He pointed at one of those little golden flowers with his toe. “Did you ever see such a marvellous thing?” And he turned his face up at me. “And yet, somebody told me once that they don’t agree with cows. Now can that be? I’m not a countryman--though I was born at Kingston.”

“The cows do well enough on them,” I said, “in my part of the world. In fact, the farmers say they like to see buttercups.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was always sorry to think they disagreed.”

When I got up to go, he rose, too.

“I take it as very kind of you,” he said, “to have spoken to me.”

“The pleasure was mine. I am generally to be found hereabouts in the afternoons any time you like a talk.”

“Delighted,” he said; “delighted. I make friends of the creatures and flowers as much as possible, but they can’t always make us understand.” And after we had taken off our respective hats, he reseated himself, with his hands on his knees.

Next time I came across him standing by the rails of an enclosure, and, in his arms, an old and really wretched-looking cat.

“I don’t like boys,” he said, without preliminary of any sort. “What do you think they were doing to this poor old cat? Dragging it along by a string to drown it; see where it’s cut into the fur! I think boys despise the old and weak!” He held it out to me. At the ends of those little sticks of arms the beast looked more dead than alive; I had never seen a more miserable creature.

“I think a cat,” he said, “is one of the most marvellous things in the world. Such a depth of life in it.”

And, as he spoke, the cat opened its mouth as if protesting at that assertion. It _was_ the sorriest-looking beast.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Take it home: it looks to me as if it might die.”

“You don’t think that might be more merciful?”

“It depends; it depends. I shall see. I fancy a little kindness might do a great deal for it. It’s got plenty of spirit. I can see from its eye.”

“May I come along with you a bit?”

“Oh!” he said; “delighted.”

We walked on side by side, exciting the derision of nearly every one we passed--his face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby!

“You’ll find this’ll be quite a different cat to-morrow,” he said. “I shall have to get in, though, without my landlady seeing; a funny woman! I have two or three strays already.”

“Can I help in any way?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall ring the area bell, and as she comes out below I shall go in above. She’ll think it’s boys. They _are_ like that.”

“But doesn’t she do your rooms, or anything?”