Chapter VI: Part 6

I felt suddenly sick and cold.

“You must not believe it!” I exclaimed. “It is impossible! Such things do not happen! You may think it happened, but it didn’t!”

She smiled gently, as she said:

“Ah! But I _know_!”

“But, dear Mrs. Sterling ... why, such a thing has never come to pass in the whole history of the world. Why, then, should it happen to you?”

She shook her head.

“Do not let us discuss it,” she said. “Besides, the book is finished.”

“And does he still communicate with you--_guide_ you?”

“No,” she answered sadly; “all that is finished--he has gone from me--gone, I am convinced, for ever.”

“I also have been working,” I said, “working hard.”

“You look tired. Have you been in Salonika long?”

Our talk drifted to commonplace things, and soon I rose to leave.

Next day I sought her again. She was in the garden, for, though it was now late October, the weather was very warm and sunny. She seemed disturbed, but not surprised, when she saw me. We wandered slowly under the trees; their leaves left the branches as we came and fell upon our way. I did not feel that she was unhappy. I asked if I might come to see her every afternoon.

“Why, yes,” she said, “if it pleases you.”

So every afternoon I spent an hour with her, and, when the cold weather came with the Varda winds, we sat indoors.

By Christmas she had promised to marry me....

Now, my dear friend, you must understand that even before our marriage I realized that she was not, nor ever could be, wholly mine. In some inexplicable way, she still belonged to _him_. Many women are like that: the best women are. Sterling’s name was never mentioned; after our engagement he was not referred to even remotely. Yet she was his. Then why, you ask, did she marry me? Out of pity; I am sure of it. Yet, in a way, she loved me and loves me still. No one could have been more tender, more generous, more self-sacrificing: it weakens and unmans me to think of these things....

I took her away with me to Athens. I was very happy. I had never believed such unalloyed bliss as mine was possible. It never faded. And Judith, in her fashion, was happy also.

Sometimes, it is true, Sterling passed ghost-like between us. There were occasions when ... but let me give you an instance.

One day, in the April after our marriage, we went to Eleusis by rail and wandered over the ruins of that once-wonderful place. Tired, we sat down to rest on a broken column. We were silent and alone. There came upon me one of those moods of gentle ecstasy in which the soul seems to nestle softly in one’s body, satisfied and glad to be there. Judith’s hand was in mine: I felt she was really _with_ me, in body, in mind, in soul. My ecstasy increased. Lifting my eyes to her face, I saw that she also was a-thrill with bliss. Her eyes were softened with unshed tears. Her throat trembled visibly. Her breath came quickly.... But, Christ! not for me! Not for this moment, nor this place! But for _him_! For some day of long ago--for some never-forgotten hour of love with him....

Gently, very gently, though I suffered as never before, I withdrew my hand from hers. She trembled violently, turned her face to mine and, with a little cry, flung her arms about me.

“Oh, little one!” she cried; “forgive me! Forgive me!”

And the tears that had gathered for him were shed for me....

And now I have to tell you of the slow horror that began to creep upon me--upon us both. For a long time, I thrust it away with my hands, I closed my eyes to it, my mind refused to admit it. Only to-day, indeed, for the first time, do I really accept and believe it, though for years it has hung about my neck most loathsomely.

A year after our marriage Judith bore me a male child--a healthy baby who came into the world without unnecessary fuss and who continued to thrive from the moment of his birth. Though, of course, I was very fond of the little chap, I did not see much of him. Indeed, as you know, I am not the kind of parent who gloats over his offspring.

We employed a nurse, and both baby and nurse lived in the rooms set apart for them. When I returned home from my work each evening, our baby was generally asleep, and I rarely saw him on these occasions. If I did go to his cot, Judith always accompanied me; indeed, I used to tease her on account of her appearing never to wish me to be alone with our child.

Two months after his birth I went alone to London on business, expecting to be away a month or so. But I was detained in England much longer than I had expected, and when at length I returned to Athens I had been away four months....

When, my dear fellow, I began this letter, I meant to tell you all my tragedy in detail, but now, when I reach the very heart of it, I feel I must hurry its telling.

I saw my son--a little black creature--and it seemed to me he looked at me with eyes of hate. He was not mine: I could not feel that he was mine. His nurse, looking from him to me, said kindly:

“He is very like you, sir--he has your forehead.”

“Yes,” breathed Judith, who stood by my side; “we have often said that, haven’t we, nurse?”

I turned to look at her, but she fluttered away to the other end of the room, and I could not see her face. So, with an effort, I bent low over the cot in which my son lay and scrutinized each feature of his face in turn. But I could see none of my blood in him. Nothing of mine was his.... The dead past had come to life. Sterling still survived....

I am sure that my manner of living at this time puzzled and distressed my friends--you, in particular. If you will carry your mind back to two years ago, you will recollect how I plunged myself into wild dissipation for a time, and how in a fit of most reticent yet hot anger I left wife and home for Persia, then India, then China. All the time I was away--until, indeed, yesterday when I returned home after my long absence--I was trying to forget. To forget my son, I mean. For a time I hated Judith. It was through her that Nature had dealt me this blow. If she had not so dearly loved Sterling, I thought, this thing could not have happened to me. But as the months went by I softened to my wife; my hatred of her broadened into a hatred of life itself.

In the letters she wrote me she never made even passing mention of our son.

Then, yesterday, I returned. Judith was expecting me. Her manner, generally so calm, was disturbed, agitated. She has grown very thin, very old.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Upstairs--in the nursery. But do not go to see him now,” she urged. “Stay with me a little while.”

And she put her arms about my neck and kissed me fondly. My flesh responded to hers. But whilst we stood locked in each other’s arms, my memory, hating me, threw up before my eyes a vivid picture of the dark little creature I left behind two years ago. I shuddered. My braced arms slackened. I turned away.

“I must see him now,” I said; “is he well?”

“Yes,” she answered--regretfully, I thought.

We went to the nursery. He was sitting on the floor, playing with his toys. She stood between him and me, as though shielding him. It was Sterling--Sterling as he must have looked at the age of two and a half--an eager, intelligent face, long, deformed arms, a great breadth of chest, a vulpine look in his eyes....

As his eyes caught mine, his whole body stiffened. He put up a little hand against his face and made a sound of rage.

I do not know what movement I made, but Judith, suddenly stooping, caught her child up from the floor and folded him in her arms.

“You must not touch him!” she said, pale and distraught.

And she placed a hungry kiss upon his lips....

And so, my dear friend, farewell.

A LITTLE CORRESPONDENCE

To Bertram Pace

Marriage seemed to Katya a much jollier game than she had anticipated. She liked her house, her garden, her servants; as for Guy, he was too utterly adorable for words. Most of all, she liked patronizing those of her friends and acquaintances who were less fortunate than herself: she enjoyed giving them little dinners during which she would speak a few barbed, malicious words that made her listeners wince.

One afternoon, sitting among her roses in the silent garden, she began to think of Captain Pierre Lacroix, her Brussels lover, in whose arms she had nestled so often the previous year. He had really been quite perfect, and since she had returned home to Greece she had frequently, when lying awake at night, reproached herself for not having yielded to his wild solicitations. Never in the years that remained to her was she likely to meet so fine an animal, so fierce a lover, so fascinating a personality.

Her husband, Guy Fallon, was adorable, but he was not Pierre Lacroix. God had made only one Pierre. And he was thousands of miles away in Brussels. Still, she could write to him; if she could not throw herself into love’s furnace, she could at least play with love’s fire....

So she left her roses and went into her cool house with its tiled floors, it great entrance-hall where a white fountain so cleverly made a mist of water, its great walls on to which hung, like butterflies, so many Segantinis, and its wide passages that somehow made her feel like a princess of Ancient Rome.

Her boudoir, however, was rather small. Its furniture was of inlaid rosewood. There were many full-length mirrors sunk deeply into frames of unusual shape, and the stove was made of porcelain, painted green. Sitting down near the open window, she began to write.

“MY DEAR PIERRE,--Do not be grieved. I always promised you I would
never marry any one but you, but I have been unable to keep my
word. What fool was it who years ago said the flesh is weak? My
flesh is not like that. It is too strong. It has overwhelmed me. I
am married. Yes: it is the end. One is finished when marriage
comes. There is nothing left but to sit down and wait until the
children arrive.

“When we meet, we must not kiss each other as we used to. You may
kiss me like a brother; I, in return will, like a sister, kiss you.
That will be all, but even that will be nice. Do you think you will
ever be able to come to Salonika to be my brother? No?

“It is strange that, though I have been married so short a time, I
should still be thinking of the boulevards, the Avenue Louise and
the Bois de la Cambre--that I should still be thinking of you, and
you, and still you. This is naughty of me, I know, but sometimes I
wish that in those days I had not been quite so ... what is the
word?... timid?--proud?--cruel?

“Never mind: do not be angry that I was married six weeks ago. You
will soon recover from your disappointment, your love-hunger.

“As for me, I am happy. My husband is rich: he adores me. I have
many friends. I play the piano better than any one in the whole
city of Salonika. And, dear Pierre, I have you to dream of in my
idle hours.... Take my advice and marry a nice simple girl and
settle down; but she must not be so clever as I am, nor so
beautiful, nor so mysterious. And you must not love her as much as
you once loved (and perhaps now love?) me.

“Do not forget: when we meet we must kiss as sister and brother.

“From your KATYA.”

She read her letter over and liked it.

“If he can leave, he will surely come!” she told herself.

And, rising from her chair, she walked to a large oval mirror and gazed at herself smilingly. Then a thought struck her: she was tired: she would go to bed and rest.

Her bedroom was very long and rather narrow; at each end was a large window. In this room also were many full-length mirrors. Several of them were on movable stands furnished with castors. Three of these she so arranged that they formed a kind of triangle, the mirrors facing inwards. Stripping herself nude, she stepped within the triangle, and placed herself in such a position that she could see the reflection of every part of her body. For a little while she gazed at herself critically, anxiously, a small frown crinkling her forehead; but the frown gradually disappeared, and in a minute or two criticism had changed to whole-hearted admiration.

“Why, I do believe I am more beautiful than ever,” she said as she slipped her warm body between the cool sheets.

Placing under the pillow the letter she had written to Pierre Lacroix, she was soon slumbering.

* * * * *

A fortnight later there came for her a letter with the Brussels postmark. She pushed it under her plate, for she and her husband were at breakfast, but as soon as the meal was over she sought her rose-garden, tore open the envelope and read what follows.

“MADAME,--What is it you mean by writing to my husband of kisses?
It is shameful, incredible! For three days he was strange to me. I
knew not why. But now I do know, for this morning I found your
letter in a secret pocket of his coat. I do not know you; I do not
want to know you. If you write to him again, your letter will be
returned to your husband. I have been married to Pierre a year:
already I have a baby and another is on the way. Kisses, indeed!

“JEANNE LACROIX.”

Katya was both angry and amused.

It amused her to know that her letter had lain close to Pierre’s body for three days, but she was very angry that he had married. Why, he must have sought a bride within a few weeks of her leaving Brussels for Salonika. It was evident he had married a fool, a breeder of children, a jealous woman who could not write a clever letter. It was good that he should have married a fool. But it was an evil thing that he should so soon have forgotten her for whom he had vowed he would remain single for ever....

Her thoughts wandered from her to her husband, and she felt a sudden passionate desire. Having torn Mrs. Lacroix’s letter into tiny pieces, she made a hole in the flower-bed with a broken stick, thrust in the bits of paper, and covered up the hole with the heel of her shoe.

Then she called to her husband who, at her summons, came from the house to meet her.

“Hello!” he said.

She put an arm round his neck and drew his face down to hers.

He smiled and began to tease her.

“Is our honeymoon going to last for ever?” he asked, holding his head back so that his lips did not quite touch hers.

“Very well, then,” she said; “I _don’t_ want to kiss you.”

He looked up the garden to the field where the thick weeds grew profusely many feet high.

“Shall we hide ourselves in the grass?” he asked.

She pretended to draw away from him. So he put his arm about her waist and compelled her to walk by his side. They passed through the flowers and reached the edge of the field. When they stepped into the luxuriant weeds, the grasses almost touched their shoulders. At the field’s centre they stopped.

“I love you much better than Pierre,” she whispered.

“Who is Pierre?” he asked indifferently, taking his lips from her neck in order to speak.

“I don’t know,” she answered, “I have forgotten.”

THE DEAF-MUTE OF KILINDIR

To Christina Walshe

At Kilindir two men loved the same woman. Marania was tall and dark and gentle; he had the devotion of a dog; his instinct for self-sacrifice was as great as that of a good woman for the husband she loves. Sobraji, on the other hand, was small and fair and cunning; as a boy he tortured animals, and as a man he tortured his mother and sisters.

The name of the woman was Pabasca. She was very dainty and pretty, and her cheeks were like red poppies seen in the half-light. But she was also very evil.

It was Sobraji whom Pabasca loved, but Sobraji was poor; Marania, on the other hand, owned land and cattle.

“If I am careful,” said Pabasca to herself one evening, as she sat outside her mother’s cottage, “if I am careful, I can have both Sobraji’s love and Marania’s money. It has been done before--I have seen it.”

This thought had lain broodingly in her mind for weeks, but she had spoken of it to no one--not even to Sobraji. And yet if she were to carry her plan into effect, Sobraji was the one man in all the world who must be told.

It was time something was done, for the ardent love of the two men was wearing her down. Only this morning she had received another of Marania’s strange letters. She could remember some of its phrases.

“Last night I lay awake listening to a nightingale; your voice was in that bird’s throat.... The rushes bending in the wind this afternoon were like your supple body.... I sometimes think your soul is in my hands.”

It was impossible not to be pleased by these phrases that her mean little soul could only half understand, but her pleasure was tinged with contempt.

Sobraji did not make love in that way. He wrote no letters. When he met her at night he whispered amorous indecencies in her ear which made her laugh and laugh.

Nearly every sentence began with: “How I would like to ...!” and there was no end to the ingenious ways of love his cunning mind devised.

But she had kept her body untouched by both men. Though love was heady and intoxicating, she was too calculating, too distrustful, to give her body: when the time came, her body should be sold. But Sobraji had begun to demand, and Marania to pray for, an answer to the question each had put so many times. It was tiresome, she thought, to be driven to speech when she was not ready for speech. If Sobraji came to-night, she would have to tell him her plan.

He did come. It was dark. He crept among the bushes, and she heard him. Then, stealthily, he emerged from the plantation and touched her on the shoulder. His hand slid down her arm to her hip and lingered there. She bent over to him, and he seized her roughly, brutally, as a faun might seize a virgin, and pulled her body to his.

“Oh!” he half whispered, half groaned, “how I would like to....”

Almost she swooned with ecstasy.

“Come into the plantation!” he urged.

She obeyed, and when they were among the trees, he seized her so savagely that she turned upon him with fear and anger.

“What are you doing?” she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders and pushing him violently away.

“Well, you won’t marry me!” he protested. “What is a man to do if the girl he loves won’t marry him? It isn’t as though you don’t love me--you do: you know you do.”

“If I married you, I should starve,” she said; “or, at all events, I should have to work so hard that I should have no joy in you. Listen while I tell you something.”

And then in a very low voice she revealed her plan to him.

“I will be Marania’s wife, but you shall be my lover. We will meet in secret. And some of the money he gives me I will hand over to you.”

She spoke for a long time, her voice excited but very low, urging upon him the advantages of this scheme. She explained how he had everything to gain and nothing to lose, whilst she stood to lose everything.

“But if he found out!” interrupted Sobraji, “he would kill me! Surely he would kill me!”

Pabasca stirred angrily in his arms.

“You must risk that!” she said disgustedly, though she knew very well that Marania was too gentle, too long-suffering, and too profound a believer in Fate, to wish to kill any one.

“When will you marry him?” he asked.

“Soon. Now. In a fortnight.”

“Very well,” said he; “then let me love you now.”

But she drew away from him, pushing him back with her white arms.

“Your beautiful teeth--how white they are!” he said; “and I can almost see your white breasts through your....”

“Hush!” she warned, as she heard footsteps on the pathway leading to the cottage. “It is Marania. I will go to him and tell him I love him and will marry him.”

Sobraji lingered a minute after she had gone, his body a-tremble with desire. Then, in the dark, he parted the bushes with his hands and went his own way.

Marania met Pabasca with a smile that could be seen even in the darkness. He took her hand in his for a moment and patted it gently.

“Though I cannot see you,” he said, “I know you are as beautiful as the night itself.”

He led her down the pathway on to the ill-made road. Embarrassed, she remained silent.

“Listen!” he said; “that’s the nightingale I heard last night--I’m sure it is--the one I wrote to you about.... Did you like my letter?”

“Oh, yes: of course I did. But what did you mean when you said my voice was in its throat?”

“Well, as I lay in bed, it was so easy to imagine that it was you singing.”

“But I never sing.”

“No? But if you did, you would sing like that. Listen!”

They stopped walking, and he placed his hand upon her shoulder.

“When I think of you, that’s how my heart feels,” he said. “All people must be happy when they think of you.”

“Marania, you think too well of me,” she said craftily.

“My heart is empty because you do not love me, and my house is as empty as my heart. Think of it!--that big house with no one in it save myself and my deaf and dumb servant, Cesiphos. It is not a home: it is only a house. No house can be a home without children.”

“Yes, children,” she said softly, deceiving him. “And a woman is not really a woman until she has borne a child.”

She had read that in a book and had wondered at it; she was very glad that she had remembered it now.

“Won’t you marry me, Pabasca?” he asked hopelessly, for he had asked this question many times, and had always been blankly refused.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

His heart leapt and he drew nearer to her, placing his arm about her waist. They were still standing, and the nightingale was pouring out his heart. He held her firmly and, stretching out his arm to its utmost limit, his hand closed gently on her breast.

“You are changing?” he asked; “you are growing to like me better--to love me?”

Her body yielded to his embrace and she turned to face him.

“Kiss me, Marania,” she said, panting a little, and pouting her lips.

But he kissed her brow instead of her mouth. A wave of irritation passed over her.

“You do not love me!” she said.

“Not love you, little dear?”

He held her away from him for a few moments, looking inquiringly into her face; but she closed her eyes and set her mouth. “How stupid he is!” she thought. He could just see the dusky red of her cheeks. The nightingale’s song ceased suddenly.

“Not love you?” he repeated. “Why, you are everything to me--the moon and the stars, my food and drink, my dreams and my work. You are a part of everything that is good.”

He again drew her to his breast. Her thoughts fastened on Sobraji, her imagination transforming Marania’s body into that of the man she loved. She threw her arms about him wildly.

“Kiss me!” she murmured; “kiss me on the mouth!”

Incredulous, he hesitated a moment; then, with a smothered cry, he placed his lips on hers, and he stood in that deep silence lost in the sweet bitterness of unaccomplished love.

* * * * *

Cesiphos, the deaf and dumb servant of Marania, had no interest in life save to please his master. His happiness was greatest when Marania, with a smile and a sign, thanked him for some work he had done. On these occasions, Cesiphos would return to his quarters with a glad heart and singing eyes. His master was pleased with him: that was all that mattered.

But when Marania brought home his wife, Pabasca, Cesiphos felt cold and angry. No longer would he be first in his master’s eyes. The work in which he took so much delight would be done not for Marania alone, but for Marania’s wife also; moreover, Pabasca herself would superintend the working of the household, and he, Cesiphos, would be relegated to the position simply of a paid servant.

But matters did not turn out quite as Cesiphos had anticipated. It is true that he had to work for Pabasca as well as for his master, but he was mistaken in thinking she would superintend the household. Pabasca did nothing at all. She conducted herself like a Salonika lady. All day long she was idle and peevish, and whilst Marania was sweating in the fields she was either lying in bed or wandering aimlessly about the house.

One day when Cesiphos was working with the other men in the orchard, he looked down from the ladder on which he was standing and saw Pabasca staring at him in a most curious manner. He flushed hotly and went on with his work, and though he could feel that his master’s wife was still gazing upon him, he did not look down again. His figure stretched to its full extent was that of a giant, and his long arms, busy among the branches, were brown and muscular.

Like many people of bright intellect who are deprived of one or more senses, Cesiphos appeared to possess a sixth sense, and there was little that transpired in Marania’s household of which he was not conscious. He soon discovered that Pabasca had no love for her husband; so he watched her--always watched, suspicious, contemptuous, angry.

There came a day when Marania announced that he was going to Salonika for four days on business. When he signalled this news to Cesiphos and told him that he was leaving his wife in his servant’s charge, Cesiphos, proud and grave, inclined his head, and then turned his gaze swiftly upon Pabasca who, in return, gave him the curious look she had bestowed upon him in the orchard. It was a look of invitation, of lust. Cesiphos’ stern face did not betray that he had understood, or even noticed, the look she had given him.

At midday Marania departed, and immediately he had gone Pabasca’s spirits rose. She took from a cupboard her three dresses and, leaving her bedroom door open, tried on each in turn. Then she went into the room which Cesiphos used as a kitchen and prepared herself a meal. Towards dusk she left the house, but returned soon and went to bed.

Cesiphos sat up smoking his pipe. After a time, he rose, climbed rather noisily upstairs, went to his room and closed the door. For a little while he stood motionless as though listening; then, having taken off his boots, he opened his bedroom door with elaborate carefulness, stepped on to the little landing, closed the door silently, and crept soundlessly downstairs.

Some instinct told him that Pabasca would not sleep alone that night, and he knew very well that her visitor would be Sobraji, for many times before her marriage, Cesiphos had seen her and Sobraji together at night in lonely places. In all probability, Pabasca had given him the key of the front entrance; indeed, when Cesiphos examined the door and found it unbolted, he was sure of this. So he took up his place in the entrance and waited.

After Cesiphos had waited a long time, the door opened slowly and Sobraji entered. In the darkness he did not see Marania’s servant crouching there, and without hurry he closed the door behind him and locked it.

Then suddenly Cesiphos sprang upon him, his large hands encircling Sobraji’s throat; squeezing his victim hard, he banged his head against the wall, until the little man hung heavy and limp in Cesiphos’ hands. Then the servant unlocked the door and opened it; gathering Sobraji in his arms, he threw him out into the night and locked the door upon him.

During his struggle with Sobraji, Cesiphos had been too excited to pay any attention to Pabasca, who, almost as soon as the struggle had begun, had come downstairs with a lamp. She had stood quietly by watching eagerly. It was too late for her to interrupt; indeed, after her first shock of surprise and dismay, she had no wish to do so. She was thrilled by Cesiphos’ strength, by his skill, by his machine-like calmness.

Cesiphos, having locked the door, turned round and saw Pabasca. The light of the lamp fell full on her face, and she smiled at him. In return, he frowned, looked away from her, and quickly made his way upstairs. He entered his room and closed his door. Almost immediately Pabasca followed him, and placed the lamp upon the floor.

Approaching Cesiphos, she took his hand, gazed lingeringly into his eyes for a moment. He shook himself free from her, and his eyes blazed. Again she approached him, her arms outstretched; but his anger became so fierce and his face worked so terribly, that she shrank from him, and, leaving the lamp on the floor, hurriedly went to her own room.

During the days that passed before Marania’s return, Cesiphos went about his work with a grave face. Whenever he was in Pabasca’s presence, he averted his eyes. Each night when he went to rest, she could hear him dragging his bed across the floor and fixing it against the door.

His simple nature was badly bruised by what had happened. He had always known that life was not all good, but evil had never come so close to him as now. All through the day and during a portion of each night he tortured himself by asking how much, or how little, he must tell his master when he returned. Clearly it was his duty to disclose to Marania the conduct of Sobraji, but it seemed to him unwise to tell the story in such a way that Pabasca would be implicated. Besides, he had no proof that Pabasca had expected Sobraji to visit her, though in his heart he knew that an assignation had been made and nearly kept.

Upon one thing he was resolved: he would say nothing about Pabasca’s overtures to himself, for that might lead to unimaginable misery for all of them. Nevertheless, it tortured him to keep any of these things secret, but he knew not a soul to whom he could unburden his mind.

On the evening of the fourth day Cesiphos slipped unseen from the house and went to the station to meet his master. It was a cool evening with a feeling of largeness in the air, but Cesiphos was weighed down with anxiety and nervousness. How much should he tell? In what manner should he tell it? Should he break straight into the subject, or should he introduce it in a roundabout fashion?

These questions which he had been asking himself for four days were still unanswered when he saw Marania, carrying two very large parcels, step from the train. Cesiphos hurried up to him, and Marania placed both parcels on the ground whilst he shook hands with his servant. He was in good spirits and glad to be home again. Cesiphos, having picked up one of the parcels, led the way from the station, his chin upon his breast, his heart heavy within him.

They had covered but a short distance when Cesiphos plucked his master’s sleeve and indicated that he wished to speak with him. With a sigh of impatience, Marania put his package on the ground and sat upon it. Cesiphos followed his example, and began to talk on his fingers by the light of the moon.

“Master, I have something I would tell you.”

Marania bowed his head.

“Very late in the night following the day you left, Sobraji entered your house. He had a key, the door was unbolted.”

He stopped, hoping his master would say something; but Marania only stared at him wonderingly and again bowed his head.

“I was waiting for him....”

Marania interrupted his servant by placing a hand upon his arm.

“Why were you waiting for him?”

Cesiphos fumbled with his fingers, but spelled out not a single word. Marania struck him lightly on the arm and again asked:

“Why?”

“Because ... because, somehow, I thought he was coming. The door was unbolted.”

His master shook him angrily.

“Why were you waiting for him?” he asked a third time. “How did you know he was coming?”

Cesiphos began to tremble. He did not know why he had believed Sobraji would come that night. Something in his mind had whispered it to him--instinct, suspicion, hatred. But he could not explain this to Marania. So he sat fumbling with his fingers. At length his master signed to him:

“Go on with your story.”

“I was waiting for him behind the door. He entered and closed it after him. I sprang upon him and nearly choked him. I banged his head against the wall. Then I opened the door and threw him outside.”

“Does your mistress know of this?”

“Yes. She came down with a lamp in her hand and watched us.”

His hands stopped working. Very deliberately Marania rose, lifted his parcel and proceeded on his way home, Cesiphos followed him in deep dejection. The servant knew that his master had not accepted his story: yet it was true--every word of it.

They soon reached Marania’s farm. Pabasca was waiting outside to receive her husband. She ran to him with a cry of delight and threw her arms about his neck. He embraced her, at first tenderly, then with passion.

In the meantime, Cesiphos had carried his package into the house and had begun to prepare food for his master. It was with a great effort that he moved his body about, so sick he felt, so dismayed, so full of apprehension. Through the open door he saw his master and mistress go to their living-room. He could feel them talking together. For a long time they talked until, suddenly, with blazing eyes, Marania entered, rushed up to his servant and dealt him a heavy blow between the eyes. Cesiphos staggered and fell. He rose, whimpering.

Marania then went to the entrance-door and opened it wide. Pointing with one hand to the door, he seized his servant with the other and violently dragged him into the passage. Still whimpering Cesiphos stumbled into the night. The master whom he had loved and served now hated him.

Marania locked and bolted the door, and returned to his wife.

But though she was weeping he would not comfort her, and that night and for ever afterwards he slept in the room that Cesiphos had occupied.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI To G. A. E. Marshall

It has always seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that Victor Lovelace should have been able to speak five languages. He was English, and Englishmen are notoriously stupid in this respect. But Lovelace spoke his languages perfectly, and as he was extremely obliging and full of information he was far and away the most popular waiter at the Jupiter Hotel in Athens.

I have never believed Lovelace was his real name; but that concerns neither you nor me. Lovelace has a romantic sound, and this young man of twenty-three looked romantic. Tall he was and slim: he carried himself well: unlike all the other waiters in the whole world, he looked you in the eyes when he spoke to you, and the eyes that looked into yours were large, brilliant, and unquestionably full of passion.

In April 1914, I stayed at the Jupiter Hotel, and at dinner on the day of my arrival I sat down at a table occupied solely by an Englishwoman who appeared to be travelling alone. Lovelace waited on us. Before we were half-way through our dinner I was convinced that the Englishwoman--her name was Dorothy Langdon--was in love with him. Whenever he brought her food, she looked quickly up into his eyes, and once I observed her touch his hand lingeringly as she assisted him in supporting the dish from which she was helping herself to vegetables.

I confess I was interested: people always do interest me. And I said to myself: “Is this love? Or is it passion--a very frenzy of the senses?”

Lovelace, for his part, showed neither desire nor distress. Perhaps he was a little more assiduous in his waiting on the lady than he was in attending to my wants; but this might mean simply that she was a woman and I was merely a man.

During dinner Miss Langdon and I talked.

“You arrived to-day?” she asked.

“Yes, I came from Marseilles by the _Ispahan_. Do you know the Messageries Maritimes boats?”

“Jolly little things, aren’t they?” she said, smiling. “I like the cosmopolitan passengers they carry, and I love curry for breakfast.”

She was very fair. Her neck, wrists and ankles were exquisite, as thoroughbred as the human animal can ever hope to be.

“What I liked most of all,” said I, “was the rummy little music room on the deck with the piano that made such tender, melting sounds. I used to feel tremendously sentimental in the evenings. There was an Italian girl who sang Neapolitan songs as though she really meant them.”

“I know,” she said eagerly; “wouldn’t it be fine if all life were like that? But I suppose it wouldn’t, really. Sweetness so soon cloys.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “we all require bitter days in between: they add zest to our appetite when the good days come along.”

We talked obvious things of this kind all through the meal.

“Will Madame have coffee here or in the lounge?” asked Lovelace when we had finished our fruit.

She looked up at him and smiled divinely, and in return he smiled a pleasant English smile that meant nothing of what she wished it to mean.

“It all depends on Monsieur,” she said, turning to me. “Shall we have coffee here?”

“As you please,” said I.

“Very well, then, here.”

She took the cigarette case that was lying on the table at her side and offered me a smoke.

“This hotel is very pleasant,” she remarked; “have you ever stayed here before?”

“No, this is my first visit to Athens. And you?”

“I also have never been here before.”

Our little table was in a corner of the room farthest away from the door. All the diners except ourselves had left. Lovelace stood some little way off, waiting I suppose, to minister to our possible wants. Suddenly, he put down the table-napkin he was holding, and began to move towards the door. Though my companion was not facing him, she saw--or felt--his withdrawal.

“Lovelace!” she called softly.

He turned and approached our table.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To wait on the ladies and gentlemen in the lounge,” he answered.

“Must you go?”

“Not if Madame desires me to stay.”

“You may please yourself, of course. But if you went I should miss you.”

Without embarrassment he bowed, walked a few paces away, and stationed himself out of reach of our talk.

I do not think my attempt to look unconcerned was entirely successful, and I betrayed myself, I am sure, by asking:

“Have you been here very long?”

(What I meant, of course, was: “Do you know Lovelace well?”).

“Just five days,” she said, as though I had asked the most ordinary question in the world. Then, after a pause, she asked: “I surprise you?”

“No, why?”

She smiled.

“You lie so well,” she said, “that I feel I can trust you.”

I feebly protested my sincerity.

“I knew him last year in Oxford,” she explained; “but he refuses to know me now. He is afraid of me.”

“Surely not!” I exclaimed. “Why should he be afraid?”

She did not answer me, but went on to speak of other things.

“Will you promise me something?” she asked.

“Of course I will. What is it?”

“I want you to promise always to sit at this table for your meals. They never lay more than two places here. If you speak to the head waiter, he will reserve that place for you.”

“You are very kind,” I said; “I shall be delighted. Thanks awfully for asking me.”

And, this time, I meant every word I said.

In a few minutes we rose from the table and prepared to leave the room. She preceded me, and, in passing Lovelace, gazed at him with a look so despairing and beseeching that I could but wonder he maintained so undisturbed a countenance.

Having reached the door, she turned.

“Good night, Lovelace,” she said.

And behind me I heard his voice, low and grave:

“Good night, Madame.”

* * * * *

If she was beautiful that night, she was still more beautiful next morning at breakfast. Poets have described the kind of woman she was: I cannot. I can but give you a few clumsy hints. She was as delicate as porcelain. Her hair had the colour and the sheen of polished brass, and her face, when composed, was all innocence and trust. Her innocence was a lure. One felt her sex. In the corner of her lips there lurked a mysterious suggestion of cruelty--or was it of hunger?

Though she chattered a good deal whilst we ate, I felt that she was preoccupied. Whenever Lovelace approached her, she seemed to expand and open like a flower in the sun; whenever he withdrew, she closed in upon herself again. She rarely spoke to him without addressing him by name.

Of the two it was he who interested me most, and after breakfast I sought an opportunity of talking to him.

I asked him about--the best means of getting there, its distance from Athens, and so on.

He answered my questions with politeness, but without deference; his manner was easy, even polished. It was quite evident he was a gentleman, and a gentleman of culture and experience.

I told him that I had recently attended a course of lectures at Oxford on the social life of ancient Athens, and at the word Oxford he started a little and flushed. A minute later I noticed he was trembling and that his cheeks were pale.

“She is getting on his nerves,” I said to myself.

I had little compunction in trying to solve this mystery, for I had, so to speak, been dragged in to sit and watch its development. And after my ten minutes’ conversation with Lovelace I formed the theory that he was as deeply in love with Miss Langdon as she was with him; but whereas her love was mingled with triumph and cruelty, his was strained with fear. His love urged him to remain, but his fear, I thought, was continually warning him to escape.

Though I had business elsewhere, I returned to the Hotel Jupiter for lunch, thinking I might witness the “curtain” of the first act of this almost silent drama; but she did not appear. Lovelace was pale and, I thought, anxious; but he kept himself so well under control, and he smiled so pleasantly when I made a joke about King Constantine, whom I had that morning seen outside the Palace, that I felt his seeming anxiety must be only the product of my imagination. His attitude towards me was both aloof and friendly: he was determined to keep his “place,” yet I was sure he liked me. I had copies of that month’s _Fortnightly Review_ and _Nineteenth Century_ in my bedroom, also three or four recent numbers of _Punch_; these I brought downstairs and gave to him, though I remember that, as I did so, the thought flashed into my mind that I might appear to him to be trying to purchase his confidence. But if he had such a suspicion, he did not show it.

I spent that afternoon in the Museum, visiting the Temple of Jupiter before returning to the hotel. The enervating climate of Athens in the early spring had tired me, and I felt a little depressed as I walked across the Palace Square. On entering the hotel I heard a woman’s voice singing in the drawing-room. Opening the door, I discovered Miss Langdon, the only occupant of the room, sitting at the piano, accompanying herself. Seeing me, she rose.

“May I come in and listen?” I asked.

“Do. I love having an audience. Do you play?”

“Yes. Rather well. At least, I accompany well. You were singing Reynaldo Hahn, weren’t you?”

“Yes--I’ve only just got to know him. Rather like overripe fruit, don’t you think? Only, of course, the very best fruit.”

She laughed.

“Come and play for me,” she said.

“Thanks awfully. I was hoping you would ask me to.”

Quite the most exciting occupation in the world is to read new pianoforte music for a good singer. Reynaldo Hahn is the most atmospheric of composers, the most delicate, the most decadent: not a great man, of course, but an interesting man. Like my companion’s voice, his music has no colour: it consists of whites, blacks, and innumerable shades of grey.

“You play almost as well as I sing,” she remarked, after we had gone through an entire volume of songs.

“You make me play well,” I said; “you are sympathetic. That’s a silly word--but you know what I mean.”

“But it’s really very heartless music,” said she; “it’s so sentimental, so insincere. It suits me. I can’t do the real things--not even the modern people--Hugo Wolfe, for example. The great men lacerate me so, and I don’t like being lacerated.”

“No,” said I mischievously, “you’d rather lacerate other people. Your friend from Oxford for example.”

“Ah! Lovelace, you mean. I thought you would be curious about him.”

“Well, I confess it: I _am_ curious.”

She laughed teasingly.

“If you wait long enough, you will find out everything. But there goes the first dinner-gong, and you’re not dressed.”

I hurried away to change. Though I dressed as speedily as possible, the dinner had begun when I entered the dining-room. As I noticed that Lovelace was bending low over the table at which Miss Langdon sat, and that she was speaking to him with some vehemence, I approached them very slowly and deliberately; even so, their conversation was not finished when I had sat down at my place.

“ ...And what happened to Walter had nothing to do with me,” she protested, though she knew I was present; “and if it had--what then? Am I to love all the men who love me? Are men children that they require nurses?”

“No, Madame,” he said. “Will Madame take thick or clear soup?”

“I will take no soup at all. Write down your answer on a piece of paper and bring it with the entrée.”

He departed, white and trembling, and for a minute my sympathy was entirely with him.

“What surprises me,” I said to her, “is that you asked me always to sit at your table.”

Though a minute previously she had been speaking passionately, almost angrily, to Lovelace, she now turned to me a face at once gentle and beseeching.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Well--no. To be perfectly frank, you _do_ make me feel a little uncomfortable. Lovelace is a gentleman. Even if he weren’t, I shouldn’t like to interrupt your private conversations with him.”

“But you don’t,” she protested.

“Well, then, I don’t like overhearing them.”

“That,” said she, “is unavoidable. Believe me, you are doing me a kindness by sharing my table. If you didn’t sit there somebody else would--and I trust you. Really, you are doing me a great kindness.”

“Very well, then. If that is the case, I don’t mind--or, at all events, I shall try to mind as little as possible.”

Presently, Lovelace brought our entrées.

“Where is my answer?” she asked.

Without a moment’s pause, he replied:

“The answer, Madame, is ‘No.’”

“But,” said she firmly, as though stating an incontrovertible fact, “but you _will_ change your mind.”

When he had left our table, she turned to me with a smile.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked.

“Well, I have often thought I was in love. But it soon passed. It always passes.”

She shook her head and smiled.

Immediately after dinner she disappeared.

The night was ghostly with a swollen moon. Looking from my bedroom window at about ten o’clock I saw white buildings with ink-black shadows. The streets were almost deserted. Somebody out there was singing a restless song, and the restlessness of the music awakened in me an almost insufferable pain--an ache--a dark turbulence of the spirit. I felt my heart beating wildly, and in my soul there was a deep desire to scatter myself on the night. What was the matter? Was I in love once more? And if so, with what?--with whom?... When one asks questions of this kind, one already knows the answers; nevertheless, one does not stop asking those questions. I was in love with _her_.

I left my room and sought her vainly in the lounge and in the drawing-room. Then I went to the deserted entrance-hall and thence to the open door. On the top step Lovelace was standing irresolutely, his hat on. I stepped up to him.

“Don’t go!” I said in a low voice.

It was a random shot, but it hit the mark.

“I don’t wish to,” he said, “but she draws and pulls.”

He was trembling violently.

“I thought of visiting the Acropolis,” I said, though indeed I had no such thought.

“After dusk one requires a ticket to pass through the gates,” he said. “_She_ is there. She will be standing like one of the Caryatides, the moon on her face, hatless. And perhaps her feet will be bare.”

“Oh, but this is madness!” I exclaimed. “What is she to you or you to her?”

“I wonder,” he answered helplessly. Then, obeying an impulse he seemed unable to control, he held out a ticket.

“Take this!” he said. “It will admit you through the gates. She will be waiting.”

“No,” said I. “It is you she wants.”

“But I can’t go. I may not. I daren’t. I told her I wouldn’t.”

And, with a deep sigh, he turned and walked into the hotel.

All that night I lay midway between reality and dreams. My senses mingled, and I knew not what was reality and what was phantasy. Was it possible I should see her at breakfast next morning? Was there really such a woman or had I imagined her? Had I been dreaming these last thirty-six hours?

The spirit of her was in my brain and in my veins like a drug. At length I must have slept, for I heard whisperings and a voice of menace, and again a loud voice threatening mankind and me, and then voluptuous sighings and secret whisperings; mænads rushed to and fro in ghostly meadows, and on them the moon poured golden blood; and then again the voice reached me and each word it uttered was like a heavy weight falling upon my bleeding heart.

I awoke and sat up in bed and:

“Lovelace! Lovelace!” I heard, or seemed to hear, breathed through the corridor.

“The huntress!” I exclaimed. “The authentic vampire! The incarnation of hungry sex!”

Shuddering I rose, raised the blind and leant through the open window. The world outside was unreal: it brought me no solace. The houses were insubstantial; the solidity of my own body was incommunicable to my senses; all the world was an illusion; nothing existed save the brain that had placed things there....

* * * * *