"Les peris, les ondines, les fees, les sylphides du vieux temps, les muses de la Grece, les vierges de marbre de la Certosa di Pavia, le Jour et la Nuit de Michel Ange, les petits anges que Bellini le premier mit au bas des tableaux d'eglise, et que Raphael a faits si divinement au bas de la vierge au donataire, et de la madone qui gele a Dresde, les delicieuses filles d'Orcagna, dans l'eglise de San-Michele a Florence, les choeurs celestes du tombeau de Saint Sebald a Nuremberg, quelques vierges du Duomo de Milan, les peuplades de cent cathedrales gothiques, tout le peuple des figures qui brisent leur forme pour venir a vous, artistes comprehensifs, toutes ces angeliques filles incorporelles accoururent autour du lit de Massimilla, et y pleurerent."



CHAPTER IX

IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS

There was a time when my dream was not literature, but painting; and I remember an American giving me a commission to make a small copy of Ingres's "Perseus and Andromeda," and myself sitting on a high stool in the Luxembourg, trying to catch the terror of the head thrown back, of the arms widespread, chained to the rock, and the beauty of the foot advanced to the edge of the sea. Since my copying days the picture has been transferred to the Louvre. What has become of my copy, whether I ever finished it and received the money I had been promised, matters very little. Memories of an art that one has abandoned are not pleasant memories. Maybe the poor thing is in some Western state where the people are ignorant enough to accept it as a sketch for the original picture. My hope is that it has drifted away, and become part of the world's rubbish and dust. But why am I thinking of it at all? Only because a more interesting memory hangs upon it.

After working at it all one morning, I left the museum feeling half satisfied with my drawing, but dreading the winged monster that awaited me after lunch. In those days I was poor, though rich for the Quarter. I moved in a society of art students, and we used to meet for breakfast in a queer little cafe; the meal cost us about a shilling. On my return from this cafe soon after twelve—I had breakfasted early that morning—I remember how, overcome by a sudden idleness, I could not go back to my work, and feeling that I must watch the birds and the sunlight (they seemed to understand each other so well), I threw myself on a bench and began to wonder if there was anything better in the world worth doing than to sit in an alley of clipped limes, smoking, thinking of Paris and of myself.

Every one, or nearly every one, except perhaps the upper classes, whose ideas of Paris are the principal boulevards—the Rue de Rivoli, the Rue de la Paix—knows the Luxembourg Gardens; and watching April playing and listening to water trickling from a vase that a great stone Neptune held in his arms at the end of the alley, my thoughts embraced not only the garden, but all I know of Paris, of the old city that lies far away behind the Hotel de Ville and behind the Boulevard St. Antoine. I thought of a certain palace now a museum, rarely visited, of its finely proportioned courtyard decorated with bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon. I had gone there a week ago with Mildred; but finding she had never heard of Madame de Sevigne, and did not care whether she had lived in this palace or another, I spoke to her of the Place des Vosges, saying we might go there, hoping that she would feel interested in it because it had once been the habitation of the old French nobility. As I spoke, its colour rose up before my eyes, pretty tones of yellow and brown brick, the wrought-iron railings and the high-pitched roofs and the slim chimneys. As I walked beside her I tried to remember if there were any colonnades. It is strange how one forgets; yes, and how one remembers. The Place des Vosges has always seemed to me something more than an exhibition of the most beautiful domestic architecture in France. The mind of a nation shapes itself, like rocks, by a process of slow accumulation, and it takes centuries to gather together an idea so characteristic as the Place des Vosges. One cannot view it—I cannot, at least—without thinking of the great monarchical centuries, and of the picturesque names which I have learned from Balzac's novels and from the history of France. In his "Etude de Catherine de Medicis," Balzac speaks of Madame de Sauve, and I am sure she must have lived in the Place des Vosges. Monsieur de Montresser might have occupied a flat on the first floor. Le Comte Bouverand de la Loyere, La Marquise d'Osmond, Le Comte de Coetlogon, La Marquise de Villefranche, and Le Duc de Cadore, and many other names rise up in my mind, but I will not burden this story with them. I suppose the right thing to do would be to find out who had lived in the Place des Vosges; but the search, I am afraid, would prove tedious and perhaps not worth the trouble. For if none of the bearers of the names I have mentioned lived in the Place des Vosges, it is certain that others bearing equally noble names lived there.

Its appearance is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth century, but it is now inhabited by the small tradespeople of the Quarter; the last great person who lived there was Victor Hugo; his house has been converted into a museum, and it is there that the most interesting relics of the great poet are stored. I unburdened my mind to Mildred, and my enthusiasm enkindled in her an interest sufficient to induce her to go there with me, for I could not forgo a companion that day, though she was far from being the ideal companion for such sentimental prowling as mine. Afterwards we visited Notre Dame together, and the quays, and the old streets; but Mildred lacked the historical sense, I am afraid, for as we returned in the glow of the sunset, when the monumented Seine is most beautiful, she said that Paris wasn't bad for an old city, and it was the memory of this somewhat crude remark that caused a smile to light up my lips as I looked down the dark green alley through which the April sunlight flickered.

But I did not think long of her; my attention was distracted by the beauty of a line of masonry striking across the pale spring sky, tender as a faded eighteenth-century silk, only the blue was a young blue like that of a newly opened flower; and it seemed to me that I could detect in the clouds going by, great designs for groups and single figures, and I compared this aerial sculpture with the sculpture on the roofs. In every angle of the palace there are statues, and in every corner of the gardens one finds groups or single figures. Ancient Rome had sixty thousand statues—a statue for every thirty-three or thirty-four inhabitants; in Paris the proportion of statues to the people is not so great, still there are a great many; no city has had so many since antiquity; and that is why Paris always reminds me of those great days of Greece and Rome when this world was the only world.

When one tires of watching the sunlight there is no greater delight than to become absorbed in the beauty of the balustrades, the stately flights of steps, the long avenues of clipped limes, the shapely stone basins, every one monumented in some special way. "How shapely these gardens are," I said, and I fell to dreaming of many rocky hills where, at the entrance of cool caves, a Neptune lies, a vase in his arms with water flowing from it. Yesterevening I walked in these gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, after admiring Fremiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken.

"I thought I should find you in the museum painting, but here you are, idling in this pretty alley, and in the evening you'll tell us you've been working all day."

"Will you come for a walk?" I said, thinking that the gardens might interest her, and, if they did not, the people we should meet could not fail to amuse her. It was just the time to see the man who came every morning to feed the sparrows; he had taught them to take bread from his lips, and I thought that Mildred would like to see the funny little birds hopping about his feet, so quaint, so full of themselves, seeming to know all about it. Then if we had luck we might meet Robin Hood, for in those days a man used to wander in the gardens wearing the costume of the outlaw, and armed with a bow and quiver. The strange folk one meets in the Luxembourg Gardens are part of their charm. Had I not once met a man in armour, not plate, but the beautiful chain armour of the thirteenth century, sitting on a bench eating his lunch, his helmet beside him?—a model no doubt come from a studio for the lunch hour, or maybe he was an exalte or a fumist; a very innocent fumist if he were one, not one of the Quarter certainly, for even the youngest among us would know that it would take more than a suit of armour to astonish the frequenters of the gardens. As we came down a flight of steps we met an old man and his wife, an aged couple nearly seventy years of age, playing football, and the gambols of this ancient pair in the pretty April sunlight were pathetic to watch. I called her attention to them, telling her that in another part of the garden three old women came to dance; but seeing that Mildred was not interested, I took the first opportunity to talk of something else. She was more interested in the life of the Quarter, in le bal Bullier, in my stories of grisettes and students; and I noticed that she considered every student as he passed, his slim body buttoned tightly in a long frock-coat, with hair flowing over his shoulders from under his slouched hat, just as she had considered each man on board the boat a week ago as we crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne. We had met on the boat; I noticed her the moment I got on board; her quiet, neat clothes were unmistakably French, though not the florid French clothes Englishwomen so often buy and wear so badly. The stays she had on I thought must be one of those little ribbon stays with very few bones, and as she walked up and down she kept pressing her leather waistband still more neatly into its place, looking first over one shoulder and then over the other. She reminded me of a bird, so quick were her movements, and so alert. She was nice-looking, not exactly pretty, for her lips were thin, her mouth too tightly closed, the under lip almost disappearing, her eyes sloped up very much at the corners, and her eyebrows were black, and they nearly met.

The next time I saw her she was beside me at dinner—we had come by chance to the same hotel, a small hotel in the Rue du Bac. Her mother was with her, an elderly, sedate Englishwoman, to whom the girl talked very affectionately, "Yes, dearest mamma"; "No, dearest mamma." She had a gay voice, though she never seemed to laugh or joke; but her face had a sad expression, and she sighed continually. After dinner her mother went to the piano and played with a great deal of accent and noise the "Brooklyn Cake Walk."

"We used to dance that at Nice. Oh, dear mamma, do you remember that lovely two-step?"

Her mother nodded and smiled, and began playing a Beethoven sonata, but she had not played many bars before her daughter said:

"Now, mother, don't play any more; come and talk to us."

I asked her if she did not like Beethoven. She shrugged her shoulders; an expression of irritation came into her face. She either did not want to talk of Beethoven then, or she was incapable of forming any opinion about him, and, judging from her interest in the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," I said:

"The Cake Walk is gayer, isn't it?"

The sarcasm seemed lost upon her; she sat looking at me with a vague expression in her eyes, and I found it impossible to say whether it was indifference or stupidity.

"Mildred plays Beethoven beautifully. My daughter loves music. She plays the violin better than anybody you ever heard in your life."

"Well, she must play very well indeed, for I've heard Sarasate and——"

"If Mildred would only practise," and she pressed her daughter to play something for me.

"I haven't got my keys—they're upstairs. No, mother ... leave me alone; I'm thinking of other things."

Her mother went back to the piano and continued the sonata. Mildred looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, and then turned over the illustrated papers, saying they were stupid. We began to talk about foreign travel, and I learned that she and her mother spent only a small part of every year in England. She liked the Continent much better; English clothes were detestable; English pictures she did not know anything about, but suspected they must be pretty bad, or else why had I come to France to paint? She admitted, however, she had met some nice Englishmen, but Yankees—oh! Yankees! There was one at Biarritz. Do you know Biarritz? No, nor Italy. Italians are nice, are they not? There was one at Cannes.

"Don't think I'm not interested in hearing about pictures, because I am, but I must look at your ring, it's so like mine. This one was given to me by an Irishman, who said the curse of Moreen Dhu would be upon me if I gave it away."

"But who is Moreen Dhu? I never heard of her."

"You mustn't ask me; I'm not a bit an intelligent woman. People always get sick of me if they see me two days running."

"I doubt very much if that is true. If it were you wouldn't say it."

"Why not? I shouldn't have thought of saying it if it weren't true."

Next evening at dinner I noticed that she was dressed more carefully than usual; she wore a cream-coloured gown with a cerise waistband and a cerise bow at the side of her neck. I noticed, too, that she talked less; she seemed preoccupied. And after dinner she seemed anxious; I could not help thinking that she wished her mamma away, and was searching for an excuse to send her to bed.

"Mamma, dear, won't you play us the 'Impassionata'?"

"But, Milly dear, you know quite well that I can't play it."

Mamma was nevertheless persuaded to play not only the "Impassionata" but her entire repertoire. She was not allowed to leave the piano, and had begun to play Sydney Smith when the door opened, and a man's face appeared for a second. Remembering her interest in men, I said:

"Did you see that man? What a nice, fresh-looking young man!"

She put her finger on her lip, and wrote on a piece of paper:

"Not a word. He's my fiance, and mother doesn't know he's here. She does not approve; he hasn't a bean." ... "Thank you, mother, thank you; you played that sonata very nicely."

"Won't you play, my dear?"

"No, mother dear, I'm feeling rather tired; we've had a long day."

And the two bade me good-night, leaving me alone in the sitting-room to finish a letter. But I had not quite got down to the signature when she came in looking very agitated, even a little frightened.

"Isn't it awful?" she said. "I was in the dining-room with my fiance, and the waiter caught us kissing. I had to beg of him not to tell mamma. He said 'Foi de gentilhomme,' so I suppose it's all right."

"Why not have your fiance in here? I'm going to bed."

"Oh, no, I wouldn't think of turning you out. I'll see him in my bedroom; it's safer, and if one's conscience is clear it doesn't matter what people say."

A few days afterwards, as I was slinging my paintbox over my shoulders, I heard some one stop in the passage, and speaking to me through the open door she said:

"You were so awfully decent the other night when Donald looked in. I know you will think it cheek; I am the most impudent woman in the world; but do you mind my telling mamma that I am going to the Louvre with you to see the pictures? You won't give me away, will you?"

"I never split on any one."

"My poor darling ought to go back. He's away from the office without leave, and he may get the sack; but he's going to stay another night. Can you come now? Mamma is in the salon. Come just to say a word to her and we will go out together. Donald is waiting at the corner."

Next morning as I was shaving I heard a knock at my door.

"Entre!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon, but I didn't want to miss you. I'll wait for you in the salon."

When I came downstairs she showed me a wedding ring. She had married Donald, or said she had.

"Oh, I am tired. I hate going to the shops, and now mamma wants me to go shopping with her. Can't you stay and talk to me, and later on we might sneak out together and go somewhere?... Are you painting to-day?"

"Well, no, I'm going to a museum a long way from here. I have never seen Madame de Sevigne's house."

"Who is she?"

"The woman who wrote the famous letters."

"I am afraid I shall only bore you, because I can't talk about books."

"You had better come; you can't stay in this hotel by yourself all the morning."

There was some reason which I have forgotten why she could not go out with Donald, and I suppose it was my curiosity in all things human that persuaded me to yield to her desire to accompany me, though, as I told her, I was going to visit Madame de Sevigne's house. The reader doubtless remembers that we visited not only Madame de Sevigne's house, but also Victor Hugo's in the Place des Vosges, and perhaps her remark as we returned home in the evening along the quays, that "Paris wasn't bad for an old city," has not yet slipped out of the reader's memory. For it was a strange remark, and one could hardly hear it without feeling an interest in the speaker; at least, that was how I felt. It was that remark that drew my attention to her again, and when we stopped before the door of our hotel, I remembered that I had spent the day talking to her about things that could have no meaning for her. Madame de Sevigne and Jean Goujon, old Paris and its associated ideas could have been studied on another occasion, but an opportunity of studying Mildred might never occur again. I was dining out that evening; the next day I did not see her, and the day after, as I sat in the Luxembourg Gardens, beguiled from my work by the pretty April sunlight and the birds in the alley (I have spoken already of these things), as I sat admiring them, a thought of Mildred sprang into my mind, a sudden fear that I might never see her again; and it was just when I had begun to feel that I would like to walk about the gardens with her that I heard her voice. These coincidences often occur, yet we always think them strange, almost providential. The reader knows how I rose to meet her, and how I asked her to come for a walk in the gardens. Very soon we turned in the direction of the museum, for, thinking to propitiate me, Mildred suggested I should take her there, and I did not like to refuse, though I feared some of the pictures and statues might distract me from the end I now had in view, which was to find out if Donald had been her first lover, and if her dear little mamma suspected anything.

"So your mother knows nothing about your marriage?"

"Nothing. He ought to go back, but he's going to stay another night. I think I told you. Poor dear little mamma, she never suspected a bit."

As we walked to the museum I caught glimpses of what Donald's past life had been, learning incidentally that his father was rich, but since Donald was sixteen he had been considered a ne'er-do-well. He had gone away to sea when he was a boy, and had been third mate on a merchant ship; in a hotel in America he had been a boot-black, and just before he came to Paris he fought a drunken stoker and won a purse of five pounds.

She asked me which were the best pictures, but she could not keep her attention fixed, and her attempts to remember the names of the painters were pathetic. "Ingres, did you say? I must try to remember.... Puvis de Chavannes? What a curious name! but I do like his picture. He has given that man Donald's shoulders," she said, laying her hand on my arm and stopping me before a picture of a young naked man sitting amid some grey rocks, with grey trees and a grey sky. The young man in the picture had dark curly hair, and Mildred said she would like to sit by him and put her hands through his hair. "He has got big muscles, just like Donald. I like a man to be strong: I hate a little man."

We wandered on talking of love and lovers, our conversation occasionally interrupted, for however interested I was in Mildred, and I was very much interested, the sight of a picture sometimes called away my attention. When we came to the sculpture-room it seemed to me that Mildred was more interested in sculpture than in painting, for she stopped suddenly before Rodin's "L'age d'arain," and I began to wonder if her mind were really accessible to the beauty of the sculptor's art, or if her interest were entirely in the model that had posed before Rodin. Sculpture is a more primitive art than painting; sculpture and music are the two primitive arts, and they are therefore open to the appreciation of the vulgar; at least, that is how I tried to correlate Mildred with Rodin, and at the same moment the thought rose up in my mind that one so interested in sex as Mildred was could not be without interest in art. For though it be true that sex is antecedent to art, art was enlisted in the service of sex very early in the history of the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for her pleasure; and when he had won her with his music he began to take an interest in the tune for its own sake. Amusing thoughts like these floated through my mind in the Luxembourg galleries—how could it be otherwise since I was there with Mildred?—and I began to argue that it was not likely that one so highly strung as Mildred could be blind to the sculptor's dream of a slender boy, and that boy, too, swaying like a lily in some ecstasy of efflorescence.

"The only fault I find with him is that he is not long enough from the knee to the foot, and the thigh seems too long. I like the greater length to be from the knee to the foot rather than from the knee to the hip. Now, have I said anything foolish?"

"Not the least. I think you are right. I prefer your proportions. A short tibia is not pretty."

A look of reverie came into her eyes. "I don't know if I told you that we are going to Italy next week?"

"Yes, you told me."

Her thoughts jerked off at right angles, and turning her back on the statue, she began to tell me how she had made Donald's acquaintance. She and her mother were then living in a boarding-house in the same square in which Donald's father lived, and they used to walk in the square, and one day as she was running home trying to escape a shower, he had come forward with his umbrella. That was in July, a few days before she went away to Tenby for a month. It was at Tenby she had become intimate with Toby Wells; he had succeeded for a time in putting Donald out of her mind. She had met Toby at Nice.

"But you like Donald much better than Toby?"

"Of course I do; he came here to marry me. Oh, yes, I've forgotten all about Toby. You see, I met Donald when I went back to London. But do look at that woman's back; see where her head is. I wonder what made Rodin put a woman in that position."

She looked at me, and there was a look of curious inquiry on her face. Overcome with a sudden shyness, I hastened to assure her that the statue was "La Danaide."

"Rodin often introduces a trivial voluptuousness into art; and his sculpture may be sometimes called l'article de Paris. It is occasionally soiled by the sentiment, of which Gounod is the great exponent, a base soul who poured a sort of bath-water melody down the back of every woman he met, Margaret or Madeline, it was all the same."

"Clearly this is not a day to walk about a picture-gallery with you. Come, let us sit down, and we'll talk about lighter things, about lovers. You won't mind telling me; you know you can trust me. One of these days you will meet a man who will absorb you utterly, and all these passing passions will wax to one passion that will know no change."

"Do you think so? I wonder."

"Do you doubt it?"

"I don't think any one man could absorb me; no one man could fill my life."

"Not even Donald?"

"Donald is wonderful. Do you remember that morning, a few days after we arrived?"

"Your wedding night?"

"Yes, my wedding night."

We are interested in any one who is himself or herself, and this girl was certainly herself and nothing but herself. Travelling about as she did with her quiet, respectable mother, who never suspected anything, she seemed to indicate a type—type is hardly the word, for she was an exception. Never had I seen any one like her before, her frankness and her daring; here at least was one who had the courage of her instincts. She was man-crazy if you will, but now and then I caught sight of another Mildred when she sighed, when that little dissatisfied look appeared in her face, and the other Mildred only floated up for a moment like a water-flower or weed on the surface of a stream.

"... You know I do mean to be a good girl. I think one ought to be good. But really, if you read the Bible——Oh, must you go?—it has been such a relief talking things over with you. Shall I see you to-night? There is no one else in the hotel I can talk to, and mamma will play the piano, and when, she plays Beethoven it gets upon my nerves."

"You play the violin, don't you?"

"Yes, I play," and that peculiar sad look which I had begun to think was characteristic of her came into her face, and I asked myself if this sudden misting of expression should be ascribed to stupidity or to a sudden thought or emotion. "I am sorry you're not dining at the hotel."

"I am sorry, too; I'm dining with students in the Quarter; they would amuse you."

"I wish I were a grisette."

"If you were I would take you with me. Now I must say good-bye; I have to get on with my painting."

That night I returned to the hotel late and went away early in the morning. But the next day she came upon me again in the gardens, and as we walked on together she told me that Donald had gone away.

"He was obliged to return, you see; he left the office without leave, and he had only two pounds, the poor darling. I don't know if I told you that he had to borrow two pounds to come here."

"No, you omitted that little fact. You see, you are so absorbed in yourself that you think all these things are as interesting to everybody else as they are to you."

"Now you're unkind," and she looked at me reproachfully. "It is the first time you have been unsympathetic. If I talked to you it was because I thought my chatter interested you. Moreover, I believed that you were a little interested in me, and I have come all this way—"

My heart was touched, and I begged of her to believe that my remark was only uttered in sport, to tease her. But it was a long time before I could get her to finish the sentence. "You have come a long way, you said—"

"I came to tell you that we are going to Rome tomorrow. I didn't like to go away without seeing you, but it seems as if I were mistaken; it would not have mattered to you if I had."

She had her fiddle-case with her; and to offer to carry it for her seemed an easy way out of my difficulty; but she would not surrender it for a while. I asked her if she had been playing at a concert, or if she were coming from a lesson. No; well, then, why had she her fiddle-case with her?

"Don't ask me; leave me in peace. It doesn't matter. I cannot play now, and ten minutes ago my head was full of it."

These little ebullitions of temper were common in Mildred, and I knew that the present one would soon pass away. In order that its passing might be accomplished as rapidly as possible, I suggested we should sit down, and I spoke to her of Donald.

"I don't want to talk about him. You have offended me."

"I'm sorry you are leaving Paris. This is the beautiful month. How pleasant it is here, a soft diffused warmth in the air, the sunlight flickering like a live thing in the leaves, and the sound of water dripping at the end of the alley. We are all alone here, Mildred. Come, tell me why you brought your fiddle-case."

"Well," she said, "I brought it on the chance of meeting you. I thought you might like to hear me play. We are going away to-morrow morning. I can't play in that hotel, in that stuffy little room; mamma would want to accompany me."

"Play to me in the Luxembourg Gardens!"

"One can do anything one likes here; no one pays any attention to anybody else," and she pointed with her parasol to a long poet, with hair floating over his shoulders, who walked up and down the other end of the alley reciting his verses.

"Perhaps your playing will interrupt him."

"Oh, if he doesn't like it he'll move away. But I don't want to play; I can't play when I'm out of humour, and I was just in the very humour for playing until your remark about—"

"About what?"

"You know very well," she answered.

The desire to hear her play the fiddle in the gardens gained upon me. The moment was an enchanting one, the light falling through the translucid leaves and the poet walking up and down carried my thoughts into another age. I began to see a picture—myself, the poet, and this girl playing the violin for us; other figures were wanting to make up the composition. Cabanel's picture of the Florentine poet intruded itself, interrupting my vision, the picture of Dante reading his verses at one end of a stone bench to a frightened girl whose lover is drawing her away from him who had been to Hell and witnessed the tortures of the damned, who had met the miserable lovers of Rimini whirling through space and heard their story from them. Lizard-like, a man lies along a low wall, listening to the poet's story. But why describe a picture so well known? Why mention it at all? Only because its design intruded itself, spoiling my dream, an abortive idea that I dimly perceived in Nature without being able to grasp it; an illusive suggestion for a picture was passing by me, and so eager was my pursuit of the vision that there was no strength in me to ask Mildred to play. True that the sound of her violin might help me, but it must happen accidentally, just as everything else was happening, without sequence, without logic. At that moment my ear caught the sound of violin-playing; some dance measure of old time was being played, and in the sunlit interspace three women appeared dancing a gavotte, advancing and retiring through the light and shade. The one who played the violin leaned sometimes against a tree, and sometimes she joined the others, playing as she danced.

"I know that gavotte. Come, let us go to them. I'll play for them if they'll let me."

Very soon the woman who played the violin seemed to recognise Mildred as a better player than herself. She handed her fiddle to a bystander and the gavotte proceeded, the three old ladies bowing and holding up their skirts and pointing their toes with the grace of bygone times. Never, I think, did reality seem more like a dream. "But who are these three women?" I asked myself, and, sinking on a bench like one enchanted, I dreamed that these were three sisters, the remnant of a noble family who had lost its money during several generations till at last nothing remained, and the poor old women had to devise some mode of earning their living. I imagined the scene in some great house which they would have to leave on the morrow, and they talking together, thinking they must go forth to beg, till she who played the fiddle said that something would happen to save them from the shame of mendicancy. I imagined her saying that their last crust of bread would not be eaten before some one would come to tell them that a fortune awaited them. And it so happened that the day they divided this crust the one to whom faith had been given came upon an old letter. She stood reading till the others asked her what she was reading with so much interest. "I told you," she said, "that we should be saved, that God in His great mercy would not turn us out into the streets to beg. This letter contains explicit directions how the gavotte used to be danced when our ancestors lived in the Place des Vosges."

"But what help to us to know the true step of the gavotte?" cried the youngest sister.

"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine—the true gavotte as it was danced when Madame de Sevigne drove up in a painted coach drawn by six horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon."

This is the story that I dreamed as I sat on the bench listening to the pretty, sprightly music flowing like a live thing. Under the fingers of the old woman the music scratched along like dead leaves along a pathway, without accent, without rhythm; now the old gavotte tripped like the springtime, pretty as the budding trees, as the sunlight along the swards. Mildred brought out the contrast between the detached and the slurred notes. How gaily it went! Full of the fashion of the time—the wigs, the swords, the bows, the gallantry! How sedate! How charming! How well she understood it! How well the old women danced to it! How delighted every one was! She played on until the old women, unable to dance any more, sat down to listen to her. After trying some few things which I did not know, I heard her playing a piece of music which I could not but think I had heard before—in church! Beginning it on the low string, she poured out the long, long phrase that never seems to end, so stern and so evocative of Protestantism that I could not but think of a soul going forth on its way to the Judgment Seat, telling perforce as it goes how it has desired and sought salvation, pleading almost defiantly. But Mildred could not appreciate such religious exaltation, yet it was her playing that had inspired the thought in me. Had she been taught to play it? Was she echoing another's thought? Her playing did not sound like an echo; it seemed to come from the heart, or out of some unconscious self, an ante-natal self that in her present incarnation only emerged in music, borne up by some mysterious current to be sucked down by another.

She played other things, not certain what she was going to play; and then, as if suddenly moved to tell us about other things, she began to play a very simple, singing melody, interrupted now and again, so it seemed to me, by little fluttering confessions. I seemed to see a lady in white, at the close of day, in a dusky boudoir, one of Alfred Stevens's women, only much more refined, one whose lover has been unfaithful to her, or maybe a woman who is weary of lovers and knows not what to turn her mind to, hesitating between the convent and the ball-room. Ah, the beautiful lament—how well Mildred played it!—followed by the slight crescendo, and then the return of the soul upon itself, bewailing its weakness, confessing its follies in elegant, lovely language, seemingly speaking in a casual way, yet saying such profound things, profound even as Bach. The form is different, more light, more graceful, apparently more superficial, but just as deep; for when we go to the bottom of things all things are deep, one as deep as another, just as all things are shallow, one as shallow as another; for have not mystics of every age held that things exist not in themselves, but in the eye that sees and the ear that hears?

A crowd had collected to hear her, for she was playing out of the great silence that is in every soul, in that of the light-o'-love as well as of the saint, and she went on playing, apparently unaware of the number of people she had collected about her. She stopped playing and returned to me.

"You play beautifully; why did you say you didn't like Beethoven?"

"I didn't say I didn't like Beethoven; you know very well mamma can't play the 'Impassionata.'"

"Why aren't you always like this?"

"I don't know. One can't always be the same. I feel differently when I play; the mood only comes over me sometimes. I used to play a great deal; I only play occasionally now, just when I feel like it."

We walked through the alleys by the statues, seeing them hardly at all, thinking of the music.

"I must be getting back," she said. "You see, I've got to pack up. Mother can't do any packing; I've to do hers for her. I hope we shall meet again some day."

"What good would it be? I only like you when you're playing, and you're not often in the mood."

"I'm sorry for that; perhaps if you knew me better——"

"Now you're married, and I suppose Donald will come to Rome to fetch you?"

"Oh, I don't think he'll be able. He has got no money."

"And you'll fall in love with some one else?"

"Well, perhaps so; I don't feel that I ever could again after this week." Stopping suddenly in front of a hosier's shop, she said: "I like those collars; they have just come out—those turned-down ones. Do you like them as well as the great high stand-up collars about three inches deep? When they were the fashion men could hardly move their heads." Then she made some remarks about neckties and the colour she liked best—violet. "Yes, there's a nice shade of violet. Poor Donald! He's so handsome."

After the hosier's shop she spoke no more about music. And long before we reached the hotel she who had played—I cannot say for certain what she played that day in the Luxembourg Gardens; my love of music was not then fully awakened; could it have been?—the names of Bach and Chopin come up in my mind—"I can't speak about music," she said, as we turned into the Rue du Bac, and she ran up the stairs of the hotel possessed completely by the other Mildred. She asked her mother to play the "Brooklyn Cake Walk," and she danced "the lovely two-step," as she had learned it at Nice, for my enjoyment. I noticed that she looked extraordinarily comic as she skipped up and down the room, the line of her chin deflected, and that always gives a slightly comic look to a face. She came downstairs with me, and, standing at the hotel door, she told me of something that had happened yesterday.

"Mother and I went to Cook's to get the tickets. When we went into the office I saw a Yank—oh, so nicely dressed! Lovely patent-leather boots. And I thought, 'Oh, dear, he'll never look at me.' But presently he did, and took out his card-case and folded up a card and put it on the ledge behind him, and gave me a look and moved away. So I walked over and took it up. Mamma never saw, but the clerks did."

* * * * *

I have reported Mildred's story truthfully at a particular moment of her life. Those who travel meet people now and again whose individuality is so strong that it survives. Mildred's has survived many years, and I have written this account of it because it seems to me to throw a gleam into the mystery of life without, however, doing anything to destroy the mystery.



CHAPTER X

A REMEMBRANCE

It was in the vastness of Westminster Hall that I saw her for the first time—saw her pointed face, her red hair, her brilliant teeth. The next time was in her own home—a farm-house that had been rebuilt and was half a villa. At the back were wheat-stacks, a noisy thrashing-machine, a pigeon-cote, and stables whence, with jangle of harness and cries of yokels, the great farm-horses always seemed to be coming from or going to their work on the downs. In a garden planted with variegated firs she tended her flowers all day; and in the parlour, where we assembled in the evening, her husband smoked his pipe in silence; the young ladies, their blonde hair hanging down their backs, played waltzes; she alone talked. Her conversation was effusive, her laughter abundant and bright. I had only just turned eighteen, and was deeply interested in religious problems, and one day I told her the book I carried in my pocket, and sometimes pretended to study, was Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." My explanation of the value of the work did not seem to strike her, and her manifest want of interest in the discussion of religious problems surprised me, for she passed for a religious woman, and I failed to understand how mere belief could satisfy any one. One day in the greenhouse, whither I had wandered, she interrupted some allusion to the chapter entitled "The Deduction of the Categories" with a burst of laughter, and declared that she would call me Kant. The nickname was not adopted by the rest of the family—another was invented which appealed more to their imagination—but she held to the name she had given me, and during the course of our long friendship never addressed me by any other.

There was no reason why I should have become the friend of these people. We were opposed in character and temperament, but somehow we seemed to suit. There was little reflection on either side; certainly there was none on mine; at that time I was incapable of any; my youth was a vague dream, and my friends were the shadows on the dream. I saw and understood them only as one sees and understands the summer clouds when, lying at length in the tall grass, one watches the clouds curl and uncurl. In such mood, visit succeeded visit, and before I was aware, the old Squire who walked about the downs in a tall hat died, and my friends moved into the family place, distant about a hundred yards—an Italian house, sheltered among the elms that grew along the seashore. And in their new house they became to me more real than shadows; they were then like figures on a stage, and the building of the new wing and the planting of the new garden interested me as might an incident in a play; and I left them as I might leave a play, taking up another thread in life, thinking very little of them, if I thought at all. Years passed, and after a long absence abroad I met them by chance in London.

Again visit succeeded visit. My friends were the same as when I had left them; their house was the same, the conduct of their lives was the same. I do not think I was conscious of any change until, one day, walking with one of the girls in the garden, a sensation of home came upon me. I seemed always to have known these people; they seemed part and parcel of my life. It was a sudden and enchanting awaking of love; life seemed to lengthen out like the fields at dawn, and to become distinct and real in many new and unimagined ways. Above all, I was surprised to find myself admiring her who, fifteen years ago, had appeared to me not a little dowdy. She was now fifty-five, but such an age seemed impossible for so girl-like a figure and such young and effusive laughter. I was, however, sure that she was fifteen years older than when I first saw her, but those fifteen years had brought each within range of the other's understanding and sympathy. We became companions. I noticed what dresses she wore, and told her which I liked her best in. She was only cross with me when I surprised her in the potting-shed wearing an old bonnet out of which hung a faded poppy. She used to cry: "Don't look at me, Kant. I know I'm like an old gipsy woman."

"You look charming," I said, "in that old bonnet."

She put down the watering-can and laughingly took it from her head. "It is a regular show."

"Not at all. You look charming when working in the greenhouse.... I like you better like that than when you are dressed to go to Brighton."

"Do you?... I thought you liked me best in my new black silk."

"I think I like you equally well at all times."

We looked at each other. There was an accent of love in our friendship. "And strange, is it not," I said, "I did not admire you half as much when I knew you first?"

"How was that? I was quite a young woman then."

"Yes," I said, regretting my own words; "but, don't you see, at that time I was a mere boy—I lived in a dream, hardly seeing what passed around me."

"Yes, of course," she said gaily, "you were so young then, all you saw in me was a woman with a grown-up son."

Her dress was pinned up, she held in her hand the bonnet which she said made her look like an old gipsy woman, and the sunlight fell on the red hair, now grown a little thinner, but each of the immaculate teeth was an elegant piece of statuary, and not a wrinkle was there on that pretty, vixen-like face. Her figure especially showed no signs of age, and if she and her daughters were in the room it was she I admired.

One day, while seeking through the store-room for a sheet of brown paper to pack up a book in, I came across a pile of old Athenaeums. Had I happened upon a set of drawings by Raphael I could not have been more astonished. Not one, but twenty copies of the Athenaeum in a house where never a book was read. I looked at the dates—three-and-thirty years ago. At that moment she was gathering some withering apples from the floor.

"Whoever," I cried, "could have left these copies of the Athenaeum here?"

"Oh, they are my Athenaeums," she said. "I always used to read the Athenaeum when I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartlett. You must have heard of him—he wrote that famous book about the Euphrates. I was very fond of reading in those days, and he and I used to talk about books in the old garden at Wandsworth. It is all built over now."

This sudden discovery of dead tastes and sympathies seemed to draw us closer together, and in the quietness of the store-room, amid the odour of the apples, her face flushed with all the spirit of her girlhood, and I understood her as if I had lived it with her.

"You must have been a delightful girl. I believe if I had known you then I should have asked you to marry me."

"I believe you would, Kant.... So you thought because I never read books now that I had never read any? You have no idea how fond of books I was once, and if I had married Mr. Bartlett I believe I should have been quite a blue-stocking. But then Dick came, and my father thought it a more suitable match, and I had young children to look after. We were very poor in those days; the old Squire never attempted to help us."

At this time I seemed to be always with my friends; I came to see them when I pleased, and sometimes I stayed a week, sometimes I stayed six months: but however long my visit they said it was not long enough. The five-o'clock from London brought me down in time for dinner, and I used to run up to my room just as if I were a member of the family. If I missed this train and came down by the six-o'clock, I found them at dinner, and then the lamplight seemed to accentuate our affectionate intimacy, and to pass round the table shaking hands with them all was in itself a peculiar delight. On one of these occasions, missing her from her place, I said: "Surely you have not allowed her to remain till this hour in the garden?"

I was told that she was ill, and had been for the last fortnight confined to her room. Several days passed; allusion to her illness became more frequent; and then I heard that the local doctor would accept the responsibility no longer, and had demanded a consultation with a London physician. But she would not hear of so much expense for her sake, and declared herself to be quite sufficiently well to go to London.

The little pony-carriage took her to the station, and I saw her in the waiting-room wrapped up in shawls. She was ashamed to see me, but in truth the disease had not changed her as she thought it had. There are some who are so beautiful that disease cannot deform them, and she was endowed with such exquisite life that she would turn to smile back on you over the brink of the grave.

We thought the train was taking her from us for ever, but she came back hopeful. Operation had been pronounced unnecessary, but she remained in her room many days before the medicine had reduced her sufficiently to allow her to come downstairs. Nearly a month passed, and then she appeared looking strangely well, and every day she grew better until she regained her girlish figure and the quick dance of movement which was a grace and a joy in the silent peacefulness of the old house. Her grace and lightness were astonishing, and one day, coming down dressed to go in the carriage, she raced across the library, opened her escritoire, hunting through its innumerable drawers for one of the sums of money which she kept there wrapped up in pieces of paper.

"How nice you look! You are quite well now, and your figure is like a girl of fifteen."

She turned and looked at me with that love in her face which an old woman feels for a young man who is something less and something more to her than her son. As a flush of summer lingers in autumn's face, so does a sensation of sex float in such an affection. There is something strangely tender in the yearning of the young man for the decadent charms of her whom he regards as the mother of his election, and who, at the same time, suggests to him the girl he would have loved if time had not robbed him of her youth. There is a waywardness in such an affection that formal man knows not of.

I remember that day, for it was the last time I saw her beautiful. Soon after we noticed that she did not quite recover, and we thought it was because she did not take her medicine regularly. She spent long hours alone in her greenhouse, the hot sun playing fiercely on her back, and we supplicated—I was the foremost among her supplicators—that she would not carry the heavy flower-pots to and fro, nor cans of water from the tank at the bottom of the garden, and to save her I undertook to water her flowers for her. But she was one of those who would do everything herself—who thought that if she did not shut the door it was not properly shut. She was always speaking of her work. "If I leave my work," she would say, "even for one week, everything gets so behind-hand that I despair of ever being able to make up the arrear. The worst of it is that no one can take up my work where I leave off." And as she grew worse this idea developed until it became a kind of craze. At last, speculating on the strength of our friendship, I told her her life belonged to her husband and children, and that she had no right to squander it in this fashion. I urged that with ordinary forbearance she might live for twenty years, but at the present rate of force-expenditure she could not hope to live long. I spoke brutally, but she smiled, knowing how much I loved her; and, looking back, it seems to me she must have known she could not be saved, and preferred to give the last summer of her life entirely to her flowers. It was pathetic to see her, poor moribund one, sitting through the long noons alone, the sun beating in upon her through the fiery glass, tending her flowers. I remember how she used to come in in the evenings exhausted, and lie down on the little sofa. Her husband, with an anxious, quiet, kindly look in his eyes, used to draw the skirt over her feet and sit down at her feet, tender, loving, soliciting the right to clasp her hand, as if they had not been married thirty years, but were only sweethearts. At that time we used all to implore her to allow us to send for the London doctor, and I remember how proud I was when she looked up and said, "Very well, Kant, it shall be as you wish it." I remember, too, waiting by the little wood at the corner of the lane, where I should be sure to meet the doctor as he came up from the station. The old elms were beautiful with green, the sky was beautiful with blue, and we lingered, looking out on the fair pasturage where the sheep moved so peacefully, and, with the exquisite warmth of summer in our flesh, we talked of her who was to die.

"Is it then incurable?"

"There is no such thing as cure.... We cannot create, we can only stimulate an existent force, and every time we stimulate we weaken, and so on until exhaustion. Our drugs merely precipitate the end."

"Then there is no hope?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Can she live for five years?"

"I should think it extremely improbable."

"What length of life do you give her?"

"You are asking too much.... I should say about a year."

The doctor passed up the leafy avenue. I remained looking at the silly sheep, seeing in all the green landscape only a dark, narrow space. That day I saw her for the last time. She was sitting on a low chair, very ill indeed, and the voice, weak, but still young and pure, said: "Is that you, Kant? Come round here and let me look at you." Amid my work in London, I used to receive letters from my friends, letters telling me of the march of the disease, and with each letter death grew more and more realisable until her death seemed to stand in person before me. It could not be much longer delayed, and the letter came which told me that "Mother was not expected to live through the winter." Soon after came another letter: "Mother will not live another month"; and this was followed by a telegram: "Mother is dying; come at once."

It was a bleak and gusty afternoon in the depth of winter, and the Sunday train stopped at every station, and the journey dragged its jogging length of four hours out to the weary end. The little station shivered by an icy sea, and going up the lane the wind rattled and beat my face like an iron. I hurried, looking through the trees for the lights that would shine across the park if she were not dead, and welcome indeed to my eyes were the gleaming yellow squares. Slipping in the back way, and meeting the butler in the passage, I said: "How is she?"

"Very bad indeed, sir."

She did not die that night, nor the next, nor yet the next; and as we waited for death, slow but sure of foot, to come and take what remained of her from us, I thought often of the degradation that these lingering deaths impose upon the watchers, and how they force into disgraceful prominence all that is animal in us. For, however great our grief may be, we must eat and drink, and must even talk of other things than the beloved one whom we are about to lose; for we may not escape from our shameful nature. And, eating and drinking, we commented on the news that came hourly from the sickroom: "Mother will not live the week." A few days after, "Mother will hardly get over Sunday"; and the following week, "Mother will not pass the night." Lunch was the meal that shocked me most, and I often thought, "She is dying upstairs while we are eating jam tarts."

One day I had to ride over the downs for some letters, and when, on my return, I walked in from the stables, I met her son. He was in tears, and sobbing he said: "My dear old chap, it is all over; she is gone." I took his hand and burst into tears. Then one of her daughters came downstairs and I was told how she had passed away. A few hours before she died she had asked for a silk thread; for thirty years, before sleeping, she always passed one between her beautiful teeth. Her poor arms were shrunken to the very bone and were not larger than a little child's. Haggard and over-worn, she was lifted up, and the silk was given to her and the glass was held before her; but her eyes were glazed with death, and she fell back exhausted. Then her breathing grew thicker, and at last and quite suddenly, she realised that she was about to die; and looking round wildly, not seeing those who were collected about her bed, she said, "Oh, to die when so much remains undone! How will they get on without me!"

I helped to write the letters, so melancholy, so conventional, and expressing so little of our grief, and the while the girls sat weaving wreaths for the dead, and at every hour wreaths and letters of sympathy arrived. The girls went upstairs where the dead lay, and when they returned they told me how beautiful their mother looked. And during those dreadful days, how many times did I refuse to look on her dead! My memory of her was an intensely living thing, and I could not be persuaded to sacrifice it. We thought the day would never come, but it came. There was a copious lunch, cigars were smoked, the crops, the price of lambs, and the hunting, which the frost had much interfered with, were alluded to furtively, and the conversation was interspersed with references to the excellent qualities of the deceased. I remember the weather was beautiful, full of pure sunlight, with the colour of the coming spring in the face of the heavens. And the funeral procession wound along the barren sea road, the lily-covered coffin on a trolley drawn by the estate labourers. That day every slightest line and every colour of that bitter, barren coast impressed themselves on my mind, and I saw more distinctly than I had ever done before the old church with red-brown roofs and square dogmatic tower, the forlorn village, the grey undulations of the dreary hills, whose ring of trees showed aloft like a plume. In the church the faces of the girls were discomposed with grief, and they wept hysterically in each other's arms. The querulous voice of the organ, the hideous hymn, and the grating voice of the aged parson standing in white surplice on the altar-steps! Dear heart! I saw thee in thy garden while others looked unto that sunless hole, while old men, white-haired and tottering, impelled by senile curiosity, pressed forward and looked down into that comfortless hole.

The crowd quickly dispersed; the relatives and the friends of the deceased, as they returned home, sought those who were most agreeable and sympathetic, and matters of private interest were discussed. Those who had come from a distance consulted their watches, and an apology to life was implicit in their looks, and the time they had surrendered to something outside of life evidently struck them as being strangely disproportionate. The sunlight laughed along the sea, and the young corn was thick in the fields; leaves were beginning in the branches, larks rose higher and higher, disappearing in the pale air, and, as we approached the plantations, the amorous cawing of the rooks sounded pleasantly in the ear. The appearance of death in the springtime, at the moment when the world renews its life, touched my soul with that anguish which the familiar spectacle has always and will never fail to cause as long as a human heart beats beneath the heavens. And, dropping behind the chattering crowd that in mourning-weed wended its way through the sad spring landscape, I thought of her whom I had loved so long and should never see again. I thought of memory as a shrine where we can worship without shame, of friendship, and of the pure escapement it offers us from our natural instincts; I remembered that there is love other than that which the young man offers to her he would take to wife, and I knew how much more intense and strangely personal was my love of her than the love which that day I saw the world offering to its creatures.



CHAPTER XI

BRING IN THE LAMP

For many days there has not been a wind in the trees, and the landscape reminds me of a somnambulist—the same silence, the same mystery, the same awe. The thick foliage of the ash never stirs; even the fingery leaves hanging out from the topmost twigs are still. The hawthorns growing out of a tumbled wall are turning yellow and brown, the hollyhocks are over, the chrysanthemums are beginning. Last night a faint pink sky melted into the solemn blue of midnight. There were few stars; Jupiter, wearisomely brilliant, sailed overhead; red Mars hung above the horizon under a round, decorative moon.... The last days of September! and every day the light dies a few minutes earlier. At half-past five one perceives a chilliness about one's feet; no doubt there is a touch of frost in the air; that is why the leaves hang so plaintively. There is certainly a touch of frost in the air, and one is tempted to put a match to the fire. It is difficult to say whether one feels cold or whether one desires the company of the blaze. Tea is over, the dusk gathers, and the brute Despondency lurks in the corners. At the close of day, when one's work is over, benumbing thoughts arise in the study and in the studio. Think of a painter of architecture finishing the thirty-sixth pillar (there are forty-three). The dusk has interrupted his labour, and an ache begins in his heart as he rises from the easel. Be his talent great or little, he must ask himself who will care should he leave the last seven pillars unfinished? Think of the writer of stories! Two, three, or four more stories are required to make up a requisite number of pages. The dusk has interrupted his labour, and he rises from his writing-table asking who will care whether the last stories are written or left unwritten? If he write them his ideas will flicker green for a brief springtime, they will enjoy a little summer; when his garden is fading in the autumn his leaves will be well-nigh forgotten; winter will overtake them sooner than it overtakes his garden, perhaps. The flowers he deemed immortal are more mortal than the rose. "Why," he asks, "should any one be interested in my stories any more than in the thousand and one stories published this year? Mine are among the number of trivial things that compose the tedium which we call life." His thoughts will flit back over the past, and his own life will seem hardly more real than the day's work on the easel if he be a painter, on the secretaire if he be a writer. He will seem to himself like a horse going round and round a well. But the horse is pumping water—water is necessary; but art, even if his work is good enough to be called art, is not, so far as he knows, necessary to any one. Whosoever he may be, proof is not wanting that the world can do well without his work. But however sure he may feel that that is so, and in the hours I describe it seems sure indeed, he will have to continue his labour. Man was born to labour, as the oldest texts say; he must continue to drive his furrow to the end of the field, otherwise he would lie down and die of sheer boredom, or go mad. He asks himself why he became a maker of idols. "An idol-maker, an idol-maker," he cries, "who can find no worshippers for his wares! Better the sailor before the mast or the soldier in the field." His thoughts break away, and he begins to dream of a life of action. It would be a fine thing, he thinks, to start away in a ship for South America, where there are forests and mountain ranges almost unknown. He has read of the wild shepherds of the Pampas. So inured are they to horseback that they cannot walk a mile without resting; and sitting by the fire at the end of the autumn day, he can see them galloping through the long grass of the Pampas, whirling three balls attached by leather thongs. The weapon is called the bolus, and flying through the air it encircles the legs of the guana, bringing it to the earth. But if he went to America, would he find content in a hunter's life? Can the artist put by his dreams and find content in the hunter's life? His dreams would follow him, and sitting by the camp-fire in the evening he would begin to think how he might paint the shadows or tell of the uncouth life of those who sat around him eating of jerked meat. No, there is nothing for him but to follow the furrow; he will have to write stories till his brain fades or death intervenes. And what story shall he write to complete his book, since it must be completed, it forming part of the procession of things? The best part of story-writing is the seeking for the subject. Now there is a sound of church bells in the still air, beautiful sounds of peace and long tradition, and he likes to listen, thinking of the hymns and the homely sermons of the good minister. Shall he get up and go? Perhaps the service would soothe his despondency; but there is not courage enough in his heart. He can do no more than strike a match; the fire lights up. It is one of those autumn afternoons with just that touch of frost in the air which makes a fire welcome, and as he crouches in his arm-chair the warmth soothes the spirit and flesh, and in the doze of the flesh the spirit awakes. What—is the story coming now? Yes; it is forming independently of his will, and he says, "Let it take shape." And the scene that rises up in his mind is a ball-room; he sees women all arow, delicate necks and arms of young girls, and young men in black collected about the doorways. Some couples are moving to the rhythm of a languorous waltz, a French imitation of Strauss, a waltz never played now, forgotten perhaps by everybody but him—a waltz he heard twenty long years ago. That waltz has lain ever since forgotten in his brain, but now he hears it all; never before was he able to remember that coda, and it comes with a scent of violets in it—the perfume of a little blond woman who dreams as she dances with the young man blond as herself. Let it be that the choice was made by her rather than by him, and let her wear crepe de chime, with perhaps a touch of white somewhere, and a white frill about her neck. Let her be a widow whose husband died six months after marriage, six months ago. Let her have come from some distant part of the world, from America—Baltimore will do as well as any other, perhaps better, for the dreamer by the fire has no faintest notion whether Baltimore lies in the middle of a plain or surrounded by mountains, whether it be built of marble or brick or stone. Let her come from Baltimore, from some prettily named street—Cathedral Street—there must be a Cathedral Street in Baltimore. The sound of the church bells in the air no doubt led the dreamer to choose Cathedral Street for her to live in.... The dance would have to be an informal one, some little dance that she might come to though her husband was dead only six months. Coming from America, she would be dancing the sliding Boston step, and the two together would pass between the different groups sliding forward and back, avoiding the dancer here, and reappearing from behind a group of French men and women bumping up and down, hammering the floor, the men holding the women as if they were guitars. An American widow dances, her hand upon her partner's shoulder, fitting herself into him, finding a nook between his arm and side, and her head is leaned upon his shoulder. She follows his every step; when he reverses there is never a hitch or jolt; they are always going to the same rhythm. How delicious are these moments of sex and rhythm, and how intense if the woman should take a little handkerchief edged with black and thrust it into her dancer's cuff with some little murmur implying that she wishes him to keep it. To whomsoever these things happen life becomes a song. A little event of this kind lifts one out of the humdrum of material existence. I suppose the cause of our extraordinary happiness is that one is again, as it were, marching in step; one has dropped into the Great Procession and is actively doing the great Work. There is no denying it, that in these moments of sex one does feel more conscious than at any other time of rhythm, and, after all, rhythm is joy. It is rhythm that makes music, that makes poetry, that makes pictures; what we are all after is rhythm, and the whole of the young man's life is going to a tune as he walks home, to the same tune as the stars are going over his head. All things are singing together. And he sings as he passes the concierge's lodge, pitying the poor couple asleep—what do they know of love? Humble beasts unable to experience the joy of rhythm. Exalted he goes upstairs; he is on rhythm bent, words follow ideas, rhymes follow words, and he sits down at his writing-table and drawing forth a sheet of paper he writes. A song moves within him, a fragrant song of blond hair and perfume—the handkerchief inspires him, and he must get the rondel perfect: a rondel, or something like a rondel, which he will read to her tomorrow, for she has appointed to meet him—where? No better place for lovers than the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite. His night passes in shallow sleep; but his wakings are delicious, for at every awaking he perceives a faint odour of violets. He dreams of blond hair and how carefully he will dress himself in the morning! Would she like him better in his yellow or his grey trousers? Or should he wear a violet or a grey necktie? These are the questions that are important; and what more important questions are there for a young man of twenty-five going to meet a delicious little Dresden figure with blond hair and forget-me-not eyes in the garden of L'Eglise de la Trinite? He knows she will come, only he hopes not to be kept too long waiting, and at ten o'clock he is there for sure, walking up and down watching the nursemaids and the perambulators drawn up in the shade. On another occasion he might have looked at the nursemaids, but this day the prettiest is plain-featured; they are but the ordinary bread of existence; to-day he is going to partake of more extraordinary fare. He hopes so, at least, and the twenty years that have gone by have done nothing to obliterate the moment when he saw her walk across the gravelled space, a dainty little woman with blond hair, dressed in black, coming to her appointment. The dreamer sees her and her lover going together out of the garden. He follows them down the street, hearing them talking, trying to decide where they shall go to breakfast. To take her to a Parisian restaurant would be a common pleasure. He is bent on taking her to the country. Both want to sit on the warm grass and kiss each other peradventure. All souls dream of the country when they are in love; and she would hear him tell her that he loves her under the shade of trees. She is Chloe, and he is whomsoever was Chloe's lover. Whither are they going? Are they going to Bougeval? Many things may be said in its favour, but he has been there; and he has been to Meudon; he would go with her to some place where he has never been before, and where perchance he will never be again. Vincennes? The name is a pretty one, and it lures him. And they go there, arriving about eleven o'clock, a little early for breakfast.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, white clouds are unfolding—like gay pennants they seem to him. He is glad the sun is shining—all is omen, all is oracle, the clouds are the love pennants of the sky. What a chatter of thoughts and images are going on in his brain, perchance in hers, too! Moreover, there is her poem in his pocket—he must read it to her, and that she may hear it they sit upon the grass. Twenty years ago there was some rough grass facing the villas, and some trees and bushes, with here and there a bench for lovers to sit upon—for all kinds of people to sit upon, but lovers think that this world is made only for lovers. Only love is of serious account, and the object of all music and poetry, of pictures and sculpture, is to incite love, to praise love, to make love seem the only serious occupation. Vincennes, its trees and its white clouds lifting themselves in the blue sky, were regarded that day by these lovers as a very suitable setting for their gallantries. The dear little woman sits—the dreamer can see her on the warm grass—hidden as well as she can hide herself behind some bushes, the black crepe dress hiding her feet or pretending to hide them. White stockings were the fashion; she wears white stockings, and how pretty and charming they look in the little black shoes! The younger generation now only knows black stockings; the charms of white are only known to the middle-aged. But the young man must read her his poem. He wants her to hear it because the poem pleases him, and because he feels that his poem will aid him to her affections. And when she asks him if he has thought of her during the night, he has to answer that her violet-scented handkerchief awoke him many times, that the wakings were delicious. What time did he go to bed? Very late; he had sat up writing a poem to her telling of the beauty of her blond hair.

"Lady, unwreath thy hair, That is so long and fair. May flowers are not more sweet Than the shower of loosened hair That will fall around my feet. Lady, unwreath thy hair, That is so long and fair.

"The golden curls they paint, Round the forehead of a saint, Ne'er glittered half so bright As thy enchanted hair, Full of shadow, full of light. Lady, unwreath thy hair, That is so long and fair.

"Lady, unwreath thy hair, That is so long and fair, And weave a web of gold Of thy enchanted hair, Till all be in its hold. Lady, unwreath thy hair, That is so long and fair."

"Do let me see your poem.... It is charming. But what do you mean by 'enchanted hair'? Is it that my hair has enchanted you? 'And weave a web of gold.'... 'Unwreath'—do you mean unloose my hair?"

"Dames, tressez vos cheveux blonds Qui sont si lourds et si longs.

"How well it goes with French!"

"I don't understand French, but I like your poem in English. Do you know, I like it very much!"

It is easy to obtain appreciation for poetry in such circumstances. Horace's best ode would not please a young woman as much as the mediocre verses of the young man she is in love with. It is well that it should be so, and this is the dreamer's criticism of life as he sits lost in shadow, lit up here and there by the blaze. He remembers the warmth of the grass and the scanty bushes; there was hardly sufficient cover that spring day for lovers in Vincennes, and he tries to remember if he put his hand on her white ankle while she was reading the poem. So far as he can remember he did, and she checked him and was rather cross, declaring just like the puss-cat that he must not do such things, that she would not have come out with him had she thought he was going to misbehave himself in that way. But she is not really angry with him. How can she be? Was it not he who wrote that her hair was enchanted? And what concern is it of hers that the phrase was borrowed from another poet? Her concern is that he should think her hair enchanted, and her hands go up to it. The young man prays to unloose it, to let it fall about her shoulders. He must be paid for his poem, and the only payment he will accept is to see her hair unwreathed.

"But I cannot undo my hair on the common. Is there no other payment?" and she leans a little forward, her eyes fixed upon him. The dreamer can see her eyes, clear young eyes, but he cannot remember her mouth, how full the lips were or how thin; ah, but he remembers kissing her! On such a day a young man kisses his young woman, and it may be doubted if the young woman would ever go out with him again if he refrained, the circumstances being as I describe. But the lovers of Vincennes have to be careful. The lady with the enchanted hair has just spied a middle-aged gentleman with his two sons sitting on a bench at a little distance.

"Do be quiet, I beg of you. I assure you, he saw us."

"If he did it would matter little; he would remember his young days, before his children were born. Moreover, he looks kindly disposed."

Later on the lovers address themselves to him, for time wears away even with lovers, and the desire of breakfast has come upon them both. The kindly disposed gentleman tells them the way to the restaurant. He insists even on walking part of the way with them, and they learn from him that the restaurant has only just been opened for the season; the season is not yet fairly begun, but no doubt they will be able to get something to eat, an omelette and a cutlet.

Now the accomplished story-teller would look forward to this restaurant; already his thoughts would fix themselves on a cabinet particulier, and his fancy, if he were a naturalistic writer, would rejoice in recording the fact that the mirror was scrawled over with names of lovers, and he would select the ugliest names. But, dear reader, if you are expecting a cabinet particulier in this story, and an amorous encounter to take place therein, turn the page at once—you will be disappointed if you do not; this story contains nothing that will shock your—shall I say your "prudish susceptibilities"? When the auburn-haired poet and the corn-coloured American lunched at Vincennes they chose a table by the window in the great long salle lined with tables, and they were attended by an army of waiters weary of their leisure.

There was a lake at Vincennes then, I am sure, with an island upon it and tall saplings, through which the morning sun was shining. The eyes of the lovers admired the scene, and they admired too the pretty reflections, and the swans moving about the island. The accomplished story-teller cries, "But if there is to be no scene in the restaurant, how is the story to finish?" Why should stories finish? And would a sensual denouement be a better end than, let us say, that the lovers are caught in a shower as they leave the restaurant? Such an accident might have happened: nothing is more likely than a shower at the end of April or the beginning of May, and I can imagine the lovers of Vincennes rushing into one of the concierge's lodges at the gates of the villas.

"For a few minutes," they say; "the rain will be over soon."

But they are not long there when a servant appears carrying three umbrellas; she gives one to Marie, one to me; she keeps one for herself.

"But who is she? You told me you knew no one at Vincennes."

"No more I do."

"But you must know the people who live here; the servant says that Monsieur (meaning her master) knows Monsieur (meaning you)."

"I swear to you I don't know anybody here; but let's go—it will be rather fun."

"But what shall we say in explanation? Shall we say we're cousins?"

"Nobody believes in cousins; shall we say we're husband and wife?"

The dreamer sees two figures; memory reflects them like a convex mirror, reducing them to a tenth their original size, but he sees them clearly, and he follows them through the rain up the steps of the villa to the perron—an explicit word that the English language lacks. The young man continues to protest that he never was at Vincennes before, that he knows no one living there, and they are both a little excited by the adventure. Who can be the owner of the house? A man of ordinary tastes, it would seem, and while waiting for their host the lovers examine the Turkey carpet, the richly upholstered sofas and chairs.

A pretty little situation from which an accomplished story-teller could evolve some playful imaginings. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that le bon bourgeois et sa dame and the children are learning English, and here is an occasion of practice for the whole family. The accomplished story-teller would see at once that the family must take a fancy to the young couple, and in his story the rain must continue to fall in torrents; these would prevent the lovers from returning to Paris. Why should they not stay to dinner? After dinner the accomplished story-teller would bring in a number of neighbours, and set them dancing and singing. What easier to suppose than that it was la bourgeoise's evening at home? The young couple would sit in a distant corner oblivious to all but their own sweet selves. Le bourgeois et sa dame would watch them with kindly interest, deeming it a kindness not to tell them that there were no trains after twelve; and when the lovers at last determined that they must depart, le bourgeois and la bourgeoise would tell them that their room was quite ready, that there was no possibility of returning to Paris that night. A pretty little situation that might with advantage be placed on the stage—on the French stage. A pretty, although a painful, dilemma for a young woman to find herself in, particularly when she is passionately in love with the young man. "Bitterly," the accomplished story-teller would say, "did the young widow regret the sacrifice to propriety she had made in allowing her young man to pass her off as his wife!" The accomplished story-teller would then assure his reader that the pretty American had acted precisely as a lady should act under the circumstances. But not being myself an accomplished story-teller, I will not attempt to say how a lady should act in such a situation, and it would be a fatuous thing for me to suggest that the lady was passionately in love. The situation that my fancy creates is ingenious; and I regret it did not happen. Nature spins her romances differently; and I feel sure that the lovers returned from Vincennes merely a little fluttered by their adventure. The reader would like to know if any appointment was made to meet again; if one was made it must have been for the next day or the next, for have we not imagined the young widow's passage already taken? Did she not tell that she was going back to America at the end of the week? He had said: "In a few days the Atlantic will be between us," and this fact had made them feel very sad, for the Atlantic is a big thing and cannot be ignored, particularly in love affairs. It would have been better for the poet if he had accepted the bourgeois' invitation to dinner; friends, as I suggested, might have come in, an impromptu dance might have been arranged, or the rain might have begun again; something would certainly have happened to make them miss the train; and they would have been asked to stay the night. The widow did not speak French, the young man did; he might have arranged it all with the bourgeois et sa dame, and the dear little widow might never have known her fate—O happy fate!—until the time came for them to go to their room. But he, foolish fellow, missed the chance the rain gave him, and all that came of this outing was a promise to come back next year, and to dance the Boston with him again; meanwhile he must wear her garter upon his arm. Did the suggestion that she should give him her garter come from her or from him? Was the garter given in the cab when they returned from Vincennes, or was it given the next time they met in Paris? To answer these questions would not help the story; suffice it to say that she said that the elastic would last a year, and when she took his arm and found it upon it she would know that he had been faithful to her. There was the little handkerchief which she had given him, and this he must keep in a drawer. Perhaps some of the scent would survive this long year of separation. I am sure that she charged him to write a letter to the steamer she had taken her passage in, and, careless fellow! instead of doing so he wrote verses, and the end of all this love affair, which began so well, was an angry letter bidding him good-bye for ever, saying he was not worthy because he had missed the post. All this happened twenty years ago; perhaps the earth is over her charming little personality, and it will be over me before long. Nothing endures; life is but change. What we call death is only change. Death and life always overlapping, mixed inextricably, and no meaning in anything, merely a stream of change in which things happen. Sometimes the happenings are pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, and in neither the pleasant nor the unpleasant can we detect any purpose. Twenty long years ago, and there is no hope, not a particle.

* * * * *

I have come to the end of my mood; an ache in my heart brings me to my feet, and looking round I cry out: "How dark is the room! Why is there no light? Bring in the lamp!"



CHAPTER XII

SUNDAY EVENING IN LONDON

Married folk always know, only the bachelor asks, "Where shall I dine? Shall I spend two shillings in a chop-house, or five in my club, or ten at the Cafe Royal?" For two or three more shillings one may sit on the balcony of the Savoy, facing the spectacle of evening darkening on the river, with lights of bridge and wharf and warehouse afloat in the tide. Married folk know their bedfellows; bachelors, and perhaps spinsters, are not so sure of theirs: this is a side issue which we will not pursue; an allusion to it will suffice to bring before the reader the radical difference between the lives of the married and the unmarried. O married ones, from breakfast to six, only, do our lives resemble yours! At that hour we begin to experience a sense of freedom and, I confess it, of loneliness. Perhaps life is essentially a lonely thing, and the married and the unmarried differ only in this, that we are lonely when we are by ourselves, and they are lonely when they are together.

At half-past six the bachelor has to tidy up after the day's work, to put his picture away if he be a painter, to put his writings away if he be a writer, and then the very serious question arises, with whom shall he dine? His thoughts fly through Belgravia and Mayfair, and after whisking round Portman Square, and some other square in the northern neighbourhood, they soar and go away northward to Regent's Park, seeking out somebody living in one of those stately terraces who will ask him to stay to dinner. At So-and-So's there is always a round of beef and cold chicken-pie, whereas What-do-you-call-them's begin with soup. But really the food is not of much consequence; it is interesting company he seeks.

It was last week that I realised, and for the first time, how different was the life of the married from the unmarried. The day was Sunday, and I had been writing all day, and in the hush that begins about six o'clock I remembered I had no dinner engagement that evening. The cup of tea I generally take about half-past four had enabled me to do another hour's work, but a little after six sentences refused to form themselves, a little dizziness began in the brain, and the question not only "Where shall I dine?" but "Where shall I pass the hour before dinner?" presented itself. The first thing to do was to dress, and while dressing I remembered that I had not wandered in St. James's Park for some time, and that that park since boyhood had fascinated me. St. James's Park and the Green Park have never been divided in my admiration of their beauty. The trees that grow along the Piccadilly railings are more beautiful in St. James's Park, or seem so, for the dells are well designed. The art of landscape- gardening is more akin to the art of a musician than to that of a painter; it is a sort of architecture with colour added. The formal landscape-gardening of Versailles reminds one of a tragedy by Racine, but the romantic modulations of the green hills along the Piccadilly areas are as enchanting as Haydn. There was a time when a boy used to walk from Brompton to Piccadilly to see, not the dells, but the women going home from the Argyle Rooms and the Alhambra, but after a slight hesitation he often crossed from the frequented to the silent side, to stand in admiration of the white rays of moonlight stealing between the trunks of the trees, allowing him to perceive the shapes of the hollows through the darkness. The trees grow so beautifully about these mounds, and upon the mounds, that it is easy to fill the interspaces with figures from Gainsborough's pictures, ladies in hoops and powdered hair, elegant gentlemen wearing buckled shoes, tail-coats, and the swords which made them gentlemen. Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead—that was his fault; but Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great designer of St. James's Park build little Greek temples—those pillared and domed temples which give such grace to English parks? Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from Brompton to Piccadilly he thought—well, well, his thoughts were his own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say.

Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards shining far away like a village. Perhaps to-night, about midnight, I may find myself in Piccadilly again, for we change very little; what interested us in our youth interests us almost to the end. St. James's Park is perhaps more beautiful in the sunset—there is the lake, and, led by remembrance of some sunsets I had seen on it, I turned out of Victoria Street last Sunday, taking the eastern gate, my thoughts occupied with beautiful Nature, seeing in imagination the shapes of the trees designing themselves grandly against the sky, and the little life of the ponds—the ducks going hither and thither, every duck intent upon its own business and its own desire. I was extremely fortunate, for the effect of light in the Green Park was more beautiful last Sunday than anything I had ever seen; the branches of the tall plane trees hung over the greensward, the deciduous foliage hardly stirring in the pale sunshine, and my heart went out to the ceremonious and cynical garden, artificial as eighteenth-century couplets. Wild Nature repels me; and I thought how interesting it was to consider one's self, to ponder one's sympathies. Our antipathies are not quite so interesting to consider, but they are interesting, too, in a way, for they belong to one's self, and self is man's main business: all outside of self is uncertain; all comes from self, all returns to self. The reason I desired St. James's Park last Sunday was surely because it was part of me—not that part known to my friends; our friends understand only those margins of themselves which they discover in us. Never did I meet one who discovered for himself or herself that I loved trees better than flowers, or was deeply interested in the fact when attention was called to it....

I watch the trees and never weary of their swaying—solemnly silent and strangely green they are in the long, rainy days, excited when a breeze is blowing; in fine weather they gossip like frivolous girls! In their tremulous decline they are more beautiful than ever, far more beautiful than flowers. Now, I am telling myself, the very subconscious soul is speaking. And with what extraordinary loveliness did the long branches hang out of the tall, stately plane trees like plumes; in the hush of sound and decline of light the droop of the deciduous foliage spoke like a memory. I seemed to have known the park for centuries; yon glade I recognised as one that Watteau had painted. But in what picture? It is difficult to say, so easily do his pictures flow one into the other, always the same melancholy, the melancholy of festival, that pain in the heart, that yearning for the beyond which all suffer whose business in life is to wear painted or embroidered dresses, and to listen or to plead, with this for sole variation, that they who listen to-day will plead to-morrow. Watteau divined the sorrow of those who sit under colonnades always playing some part, great or small, in love's comedy, listening to the murmur of the fountain, watching a gentleman and lady advancing and bowing, bowing and retiring, dancing a pavane on a richly coloured carpet. Pierrot, the white, sensual animal, the eighteenth-century modification of the satyr, of the faun, plays a guitar; the pipe of Pan has been exchanged for a guitar.