Cara for the first time looked straight into Miss Mary's face; she bent her head with a lively movement; her eyes shot forth triumph; a smile encircled her parched lips. In the glitter of her eyes, in the smile, in the curve of her neck, for the twinkle of an eye, shone forth once again the wilful, capricious Cara. Next moment her teeth began to chatter and her whole body trembled in a feverish chill, so that the silk of the bed rustled loudly. With that rustling was joined a dry, unbroken cough, which shook the fragile and ice-cold breast, the skin of which was rough, and had a tanned and withered look. Miss Mary sprang from her knees. On her lips were the words:

"Her parents! A doctor!"

The rumbling of a carriage was heard far away on the street, it drew nearer and nearer, rolled in through the gate of the house, and was silent. Miss Mary, all in white, her hair hanging over her shoulders, hastened to Darvid's study, through drawing-rooms in which, from behind black veils which the pale dawn was removing, emerged glass, metal, pictures, mirrors, plush, silk, polished surfaces, gildings, mosaics, marbles, porcelain, in the dull gleam of their colors.

The dawn was in Darvid's study also; but the servant was lighting the hanging-lamp over the round table. Darvid, very pale, with a nervous movement, tore rather than drew the gloves from his hands.

"Then did she return from me? Where did she come from? You say that she was with me, and returned—in that condition? But she was not here yesterday; I did not see her; she was not here—"

"She was," answered Miss Mary; "she said that she was going to you; she did not return for more than an hour."

"She might have been with her mother?"

"No; I asked her sister about that. She was not with her mother; she was here."

Darvid was astonished; he thought a while, and called suddenly:

"Ah!"

There was something tragic in the gesture with which he indicated the thick case full of books, forming with the two walls a little triangular space; then in the manner in which he intertwined his fingers:

"She was there! And—she heard! Ah!"

He stood for a moment as if rooted to the floor; he bit his lip; there were quivers on his cheeks and wrinkles on his forehead; then he approached Miss Mary, and asked in such a low voice that she barely heard him:

"Did she do this purposely—purposely? Purposely?"

"With clasped hands she said in a very low voice:

"I cannot hide—maybe something will depend on this—she did it purposely."

Then that man, usually calm and regular in all his movements, rushed to the door of the antechamber with the spring of a tiger.

"Carriage!" cried he.

"When the most famous doctor in the city came out of the sick girl's chamber that day for the second time, Darvid met him in the blue drawing-room, alone. He was as usual self-possessed, and with a pleasing smile in the presence of that man with a great name.

"Is the disease defined?" asked he.

It was defined, and very serious. Inflammation had seized the greater part of the lungs, and was working fiercely on an organism weakened by a previous attack. Besides, some kind of complication had supervened, something coming from the brain, from the nerves, something psychic.

Darvid mentioned a consultation.

"We may summon from abroad—from Paris, from Vienna; we have telegraphs and railroads at our service—as to expense—" concluded he with indifference "—as to expense, I shall not spare it. My whole fortune is at the disposal of—"

He fixed in the eyes of the doctor a look in which was the desire for a silent understanding.

"This is no hyperbole, or figure of rhetoric. I am ready to summon half medical Europe, and spend half my fortune."

There was a quiver on his temples, around his mouth, and near his eyes, but he smiled. The doctor smiled also.

"My dear sir," said he, "the case is not so peculiar as to need presentation before the judgment of Europe. But being in Europe—yes. I will serve you at once with the names of my foreign colleagues. But as to colossal money sacrifices, I must say that they will not help. Death, my dear sir, is such a giantess, that if she is to come, mountains of gold will not stop her. I will not say that she must come surely in this case. But if she is to come, half your fortune—that is, golden mountains—yes, golden mountains will be no hindrance to her. She will spring over them and—come."

After the doctor had gone, Darvid remained alone for a while, and, with his eyes fixed on the floor, he thought:

"A giantess! Golden mountains will not stop her! True, but science is also a giantess. And, besides, is human, and every human thing travels in golden chariots. But to set one giantess against the other, gold and energy are needed."

For some time the great study was seething with activity, in sending letters and telegrams. Darvid was heard commanding and giving directions in a voice always low, but emphatic. He was decisive, cool, and active, as he always was when going to a contest. In the course of a few minutes arriving carriages halted, one after another, before the gate of the mansion. Out of them issued men full of importance, with famous names, very learned, specialists, old and young, strong in theory and practice. Some of these men it was almost impossible to see, for they were reposing in wealth and on laurels, but they had been snatched from their rest by the rumble of the golden chariot which came for them. There were many of these men. The blue room grew black from their garments as from a cloud. Darvid pressed their hands a little more firmly than he was wont to do; perhaps his side-whiskers dropped a little less symmetrically than usual, along cheeks somewhat paler than usual, but there was no other change in the man. And when the cloud of dark garments flowed from the blue room to the chamber of his daughter, a spark of triumph glittered in his eye. Let one giantess fight with the other; we shall see which one wins. The power of science was one of the very few articles of Darvid's faith. That power had to be great, since it was indispensable in the conquest of wealth. He had tried that power more than once in his mighty struggles for wealth; he would try it now, also. This was only the beginning of the battle. Diseases last a series of days, sometimes weeks, but to-morrow, after to-morrow, Europe will begin to ride hither on the golden chariot. Giantess against giantess! We shall see their force.

Inflammation extending with great rapidity in the weak breast of the girl, besides a complication of the brain, not considerable, but giving much cause for concern—the normal condition of the mind shaken—that was the case. A long consultation was carried on in an undertone; some medicines were prescribed, and some advice given, in the domain of hygiene. Among the carriages which left the gate of the mansion, two were empty. The two dignitaries of science, who had remained in his house, Darvid conducted to his study for black coffee, excellent liquors, and cigars of uncommon quality. They had to remain some hours, then they would be relieved by others. They opposed this wish at first, for it was in opposition to their customs, to obligations assumed elsewhere; but Darvid, with his eyes looking very kindly into theirs, uttered a magic word. It was a figure unheard of—almost fabulous. They hesitated still; resisted; then they came to an understanding as to the how-and-when—and remained. Darvid's forehead smoothed for the moment, all wrinkles vanished from it. His child (in his mind he added), "my little one," during one hour of the day or night would not be without the good giantess, who would do battle against the wicked one.

In the city, people said that Darvid, in anxiety for his daughter would commit some mad folly; but those who had seen him shrugged their shoulders. Not at all! There was not a man on earth who could preserve better, in such straits, cool blood, self-confidence, fluent speech, affability perfect, though cold. Only at times, from the quiver which ran over his face, from the temporary stare of his eyes, and the slight carelessness in dressing his hair, was it possible to divine in him a man playing for great stakes. Really, in the battle which he had begun and was fighting, the question was not of Cara alone—it was of her above all, but not of her alone. At the bottom of his being he felt himself a player, then, as he had been countless times before in cases wholly different; a player aided by energy, money, and universal reason, which was his own and that bought by money. The stakes in this play were not only the life of his child, but the one faith which he had—his faith in the all-mightiness, and all-effectiveness of energy, sound sense, and money.

At one time and another, either with the doctors, or without them, Darvid entered Cara's chamber; where, in obedience to medical advice, they had not darkened the great windows through which light was pouring in its golden torrents. This light penetrated the yellowish folds of cretonne at the walls, lent apparent life to forget-me-nots and rose-buds scattered over them, played among the palm leaves, lay on the flowery carpet, struck out golden sparks on the gilding of toys and books, played with rainbow gleams on surfaces inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In this gleaming light, near the mirror, which was surrounded by porcelain flowers, amid flasks gilded and enamelled, a rosy Cupid was drawing a bow with a golden arrow, a marble cat lay at the feet of a statuette, which held a dove rat its bosom; on a small desk of lapis-lazuli as blue as the sky, a bronze statuette personifying the Dew was inclining gracefully an amphora above an open book, skeins of various colored silks were hanging at little looms. Amid all these tones of spring, joyous themes, light and graceful forms, the sunlight went to Cara's bed, and, from the white cambric on which she was lying, increased the paleness of her yellow hair. On the pillow with lace it was difficult at first to distinguish where the sunrays ended and the maiden's hair began. But, amid the yellow of the rays and the hair, her oval, delicate face in its bright flush seemed a scarlet flower. Her lips, blooming with a bloody purple, her eyes, flashing with a dry fire, were silent. But her breast labored with hoarse, hurried breathing, and a cough shook her body, the slender, fragile form of which was indicated beneath the blue silk coverlet, like a fine piece of sculpture.

When Darvid entered the chamber a dark-robed woman drew back from the bed of the suffering Cara, without the least rustle, and stood at some distance with a pained, pallid face under smoothly dressed hair of the same hue exactly as that which, in dishevelled abundance, lay mingled with pale sunrays on the pillow of the sick girl.

"How is it with you, little one?" asked Darvid. "Perhaps you feel somewhat better? Perhaps you would like something?"

For its only answer the face, which was like a scarlet flower, turned toward the wall, covered with forget-me-nots and rose-buds.

"Why not answer, Cara? Perhaps you would like something? Only say, only whisper. Say into my ear. I would bring you anything, get it, buy it. Perhaps you would like something? Have something, something to look at. You can have anything—anything, only say what it is—whisper in my ear."

But in vain he bent low, brought his ear to her lips almost, no sound came from them, no whisper, only her face turned away still more and her breath became hoarser and heavier.

How many times did he go there and put to her the question: "Would you like something? Will you tell what?" He thought that the young girl, though sick, must remember some wish, some desire which, if granted, might give her relief and some comfort. He had power to gratify every wish, even the wildest, but had not the power of drawing from her lips even one word, and that the briefest.

Some days passed. In front of the mansion the carriages of doctors were arriving and departing continually, meeting on the way a multitude of equipages from which men came out and entered the study of the master of the mansion, or only came to the entrance to inscribe their names in a book furnished by the Swiss in livery. Once, when coming home, Darvid met on the stairway two men who spoke a foreign language. He was eloquent, triumphant. These were allies from abroad, coming to strengthen the local forces, which joined them in full array for a consultation. Again a cloud of black garments moved from the blue room to the chamber which was full of spring colors, of childhood's playthings, of mother-of-pearl rainbow gleams. One more mountain of gold and of intellect set up as a bulwark of defence near the bed of the sick girl. When the cloud of black garments and serious faces had vanished, the mother drew near:

"These gentlemen have wearied you. That is nothing. Because they have come you will be well. Those are very wise men. The two who have just come are Germans; throughout the whole world they are famous. They will cure you to a certainty. But now you may swallow a little of those excellent sweets which those gentlemen let us give you. Or a drop of wine. Perhaps a spoonful, one little spoonful of bouillon?"

Cara's only answer was to turn on her yellowish bed to the wall sprinkled with spring flowers, her face in scarlet flushes. Malvina, bending low, kissed the little hand, the heat of which burnt her lips, and which trembled under those lips, like a leaf in a blast of wind.

"Why not answer me, Cara? One word! only one short, little word! Shall I give a drop of wine? Those gentlemen ordered it—will you have it now? Whisper!"

But in vain did she put her ear almost down to Cara's lips, not a sound, not a whisper, she only turned her face away farther, while her breath grew in hoarseness.

Maryan came in with a great bouquet of flowers in his hand.

"What, are we sick, little one!" began he. "Well, that is nothing wonderful! King Solomon said that for everyone there must be a time for sickness and a time for dancing. You will be sick a little while, and then you will dance. But now I have brought flowers to cheer you. Flowers without odor, for sick girls might get headache from fragrant ones. These have no fragrance, but they are very beautiful. You will look most poetic when I scatter them on the bed before you. They will gladden your sight after looking at those dreary pedants who are like a flock of wise ravens. Father has brought in the wisest ravens from all the world for you; I have gathered throughout this whole city the most beautiful flowers. Mein Lieichen, was willst du mehr?"

While laughing he scattered on the blue coverlet, and on the slender form of the maiden indicated under it, the most beautiful flowers which the best conservatories could yield to him; she only looked at her brother with great burning eyes, and when he went away she began, with a slow and monotonous movement to throw them from the bed. She did not look at these flowers, but the slender, dry, rosy hand of the girl worked and worked on, pushing from the bed the rich twigs and beautiful flowers, which fell, one after another, with a dull rustle on the carpet. She wanted nothing. But in the night, when Malvina and Miss Mary thought that she was sleeping, a whisper was heard in the deep stillness calling:

"Puffie! Puffie!"

Miss Mary raised the little dog from a neighboring chair and gave him to her. Cara took him in her burning hands, but soon she pushed him away with the same kind of slow gesture with which she had thrown down the flowers, turned her face toward the wall, and then whispered:

"No."

Next morning the faces of the "wise ravens" were very gloomy. Those who flew in from the neighborhood, and those who came from a distance took on more and more that mysterious solemnity which reminds one of death-bells.

But Darvid waited yet; he did not lay down his arms; he did not lose faith in the power of the good giantess. He waited for a new reinforcement. This was the greatest medical name in all Europe, that of a man who had the fame almost of one who worked miracles. Here again was a mountain of gold, and of intellect piled up, the highest mountain among all of them. In the blue drawing-room a suppressed, many-tongued murmur was heard. Servants bore about food and drink. Darvid gave cigars to his worthy guests, the most worthy of all, he who had just arrived; listened with close attention to the explanation of his colleagues touching the case before which he was to find himself. At last, calm, and perfectly correct, with a pleasant smile on his lips, a smile almost of triumph, Darvid indicated with a gesture full of welcome the door of his daughter's chamber. The most famous of the famous entered first, and stopped some steps from the threshold; behind him stopped the others. On the parched lips of the sick girl appeared ruby-like drops of blood; her eyes were opened very widely; to her forehead, which was damp from perspiration, some slender locks of pale, yellow hair adhered. Throughout the room sounded in an audible, hoarse whisper:

"Ira! Ira!"

Irene approached quickly, and, bending over, removed, delicately, with a thin handkerchief, the liquid rubies from the lips of her sister.

"What do you want, little one; what do you wish?"

Cara fixed on her sister eyes in which something uncommon had begun to take place, for the dark pupils became larger every moment, and larger, more prominent, they seemed to grow and to swell, as if concentrating into one point all power of vision, until a glassy film began to come down over them, and at the same time her lips, sprinkled with blood, moved a number of times wishing to pronounce something and not being able. At last, fixing on her sister from behind the glassy film the sight of her swollen pupils, Cara, as if in sign that she understood, shook her head, and with a whisper which was heard through the room with a note of alarm and complaint, she said:

"Pain-ted pots!"

Then in her breast a great orchestra began to play: hoarse, discordant, wheezing, and her head, grown suddenly heavy, fell into the pillow deeply. Prom the assembly of men standing there at the door, the most famous, the small sprightly, iron-gray Frenchman, with a face greatly thoughtful, advanced a few steps, stood at the bedside, and after some minutes, with his hands resting on the laboring bosom, cast into the deep silence which possessed the room these words:

"The agony!"

As if in answer to that word, at the very door, behind the cloud of black garments, was heard a loud hand-clap. That was Darvid, who, with a movement most unexpected for him, had in this manner wrung his hands, intertwining them with a strength which almost broke his fingers, and then raised them above his head.

So the giantess had sprung over all the mountains—and had come!



CHAPTER IX

From street to street, and from one alley of the public garden to another, passed Arthur Kranitski, with the step and the mien of a person who is strolling through a city without great desire or object. In his shining hat and well-fitting fur coat, on the costly collar of which traces of wear were observable, the man seemed notably older and poorer in some sort than he had been during a past which was still recent. In his erect form and springy step one might discover that disagreeable effort with which people guard themselves when they fear lest observers may penetrate their sad secret in some way. But despite every effort Kranitski's secret was manifest sometimes in his stooping shoulders, drooping head, pendant cheeks, and dimmed glances. All this was the more evident since Pan Arthur was advancing in the full gleam of the sun which flooded with light the sidewalks of the streets and the alleys of the great public garden. The end of the winter had been exceptionally mild and serene, the snow had almost melted away, and only, here and there, mingled its dull white with the azure of the sky and the golden hue of the atmospheres. While passing multitudes of people, Kranitski raised his hand to his hat frequently, and at times, with a smile which was winning, nay, almost seductive, he made movements as if to approach, or even spring forward to those whom he greeted; but they, with a courteous though prompt inclination, moved past the man swiftly. These persons were stylish young gentlemen conversing with one another vivaciously, or young ladies hastening to some point. They returned bow after bow, but none took note of Kranitski's desire to draw near, or, at least, none had the wish to observe it. Each man or woman had some person at his side or hers with whom to converse, and was going, or even hastening, to some place. How recent and intimate had been his acquaintance with those persons!—lie had known them from early childhood. He knew everything touching them: the names and life-histories of their parents, the nicknames given them in jest or in tenderness, names given at an age when they were barely lisping. He knew every chamber, almost every corner of the houses in which they had been reared. He had raised many of them in his strong arms from the floor—he who at that time was the praised, the beloved, the sought for. He who had amused and entertained them, was he, indeed, to imagine a day when they would pass him at a distance and indifferently? How could he? He with rosy glasses on his eyes, those eyes famed at that period for beauty, had been given to tenderness and attachments; he had considered the feelings and relations of men as eternal. But from various causes a multitude of his relations with people had ended already—and now they were ending to the last one. He had the vivid sensation of hanging in a vacuum, and felt a growing need to grasp after something or someone lest he might tumble into a place which he knew not, but which he felt must be abyss-like. At the beginning of his walk he thought that in that bright hour of the day when throngs of gayly-dressed people were covering the sidewalks, and the middle of the street was filled with passing carriages, some person would stop him, would invite him, would attend him somewhere, or take him to some place. What was he to do now? Whither was he to go? Baron Emil, whose mediaeval mansion had been in recent days almost his one refuge from weariness and lonely tedium, had gone to his estate to make trips in various directions and search in village cottages and under their roofs for remnants of art which were genuine or suitable. He was to return soon; but, meanwhile, Kranitski could not sit in the broad chair before Tristan, who was giving obeisance on the wall of the chamber to Isolde, nor sit at the table where, besides gastronomic tidbits, he found conversation to which he was accustomed, nor in presence of the Triumph of Death sweeping through the air on bat wings, or experience the tone of beyond-the-worldness. With the departure of the baron he lost the only ground on which he met Maryan—that dear child. The very thought now of Maryan, from whom after so many years of life in common he was separated, brought tears to Kranitski's eyelids.

He took a seat on a bench of the garden, and wishing to light a cigarette drew the golden case from his pocket. He did not light the cigarette, however; for there, beyond the low paling near which he was sitting, passed a splendid carriage drawn by two horses and bearing servants in livery. In that carriage sat a man of thirty years, at sight of whom Kranitski pushed forward as if to rush after him, as if to fly like the wind to him. This young man was the son of Count Alfred, of him whom Kranitski had nursed with endless devotion during illness under the sky of Italy. In those days the young man was a child, and remembered little of the hours in which Kranitski had occupied in his family the place of the best of friends, and somewhat that of the most faithful of servants. Afterward he forgot those hours completely, and put away by degrees "that excellent Kranitski," who was growing old; and though this Kranitski, on a time, had rendered some sort of service to the young man's father, he had been rewarded richly by resorting to the house for years, and, very likely, by loans of money given frequently and with no thought of payment. Very wealthy and a frequent traveller, Count Arthur's son had too many affairs on his head, and too many in it to cherish any desire of stuffing it further with old-fashioned trumpery. Kranitski soon observed this frame of mind in the young son of his former friend and protector, and he had long considered that house as lost and its master as a stranger. This did not sadden him at first over much, for he had a port, which he entered with, full sail at all times. But now the passing sight of that young man struck his heart with something which cut and burned at the same instant. Services are forgotten, ties are broken, the past is rejected; oh, the ingratitude of mankind! And still with what delight would he have ridden through the streets of the city on such a spring day in that carriage with rubber ties, bearing the persons within it on yielding cushions, with the soft movement of a cradle. With a still greater feeling of delight would he have conversed while going with someone who possessed the same habits, tastes, and relations which he had; with what vivid satisfaction would he halt before one of the best restaurants of that city to have an exquisite lunch, between walls decorated with taste, and amid sounds of joyfulness. But all those things which on a time were as cheap as good-morning, are now as remote and unattainable as the blue sky above him.

In his closely drawn coat, and bent over so much that his shoulders took the form of a half-circle; in his hat, from beneath which black hair was visible and a row of furrows above his dark brows, he gazed at the street which stretched along outside the paling, and in his fingers, covered with Danish gloves, he twirled the golden toy from habit. The hat shone like satin above his head, and on tire cigarette-ease, which he twirled in his fingers, the sun-gleams were crossing one another.

The street beyond that paling lay before a square which was rather extensive; this square seemed dominated by two lofty buildings, before the ornamented fronts of which there was a great movement of people. Through the broad doors of these buildings a throng of men went in and came out, equipages stopped before them; on the steps which led up to them halted, advanced, decreased, and again increased a crowd of figures clad in black, noisy, gesticulating, occupied passionately in some work. No wonder! These were the bank and the exchange, which stood with opposing fronts, and, with their multitude of windows, seemed to gaze eye to eye at each other. Kranitski looked neither at these piles nor the throng of men circulating about them. He had never had anything in common with activity in those buildings. But all at once he bent forward a second time and fixed his eyes on a carriage which passed the paling, or rather he fixed them on the man sitting in it.

It was Aloysius Darvid who, on that sunny day, was in an open carriage drawn by a pair of large, costly horses, which, in light harness without mounting, stepped slowly, with grace and importance. On the box sat a coachman and footman, in high hats and immense fur collars; in the carriage, finished in sapphire damask, a man of not large stature, slender, with pale face, ruddy side-whiskers, and with the glitter of a golden spark in the glasses which covered his eyes. Slowly, with dignity, the carriage with muffled sound of rubber-bound wheels halted before the bank entrance. The footman sprang from the box, stood at the door, and taking a card from his master's hand hurried into the building. Five minutes had not passed when out came two serious persons who approached the carriage hastily, and began to converse with the man sitting in it. Surely officials, even dignitaries of the bank, whom he had summoned by two words outlined on the card. To go to them, to ascend the high steps, he had not time perhaps, so they ran down those steps to him. They did not walk down, they ran, and now, with the most courteous smiles in the world and with raising of hats above their important heads, these men seemed to counsel with him about something, to indicate some point, to promise. While he, ever unchanged, perfectly polite though cold, with a shade of sarcasm on his lean face, rather listened than spoke, and with a golden spark in his glasses, against a background of bright sapphire damask, had the seeming of a demi-god.

In five minutes' time the conversation was over. Darvid inclined with befitting profoundness; the officers bowed much lower their hats above their heads. With the muffled sound of rubber tires, with the slow and important gait of the splendid horses, that carriage moved on, described a large circle and stopped at the long and broad steps leading up to the edifice opposite. Here the footman opened the carriage door; Darvid alighted and began to ascend the steps where a dense throng of men, dressed in black, opened before him as a wave opens to an oncoming vessel. That must be no common craft; for, along the wave of men, quivers passed as they pass through one living organism at the touch of an electric current. The opening throng formed eddies, whispered, was silent; a number of hands were raised toward heads, and hats or caps hung in the air; a multitude of faces were turned toward that one face, and fixed their eyes on it. These movements had in them an expression of timid curiosity, an expression which seemed almost humble. The most confident stepped forth from the throng with bared heads, and with steps which were either too slow or too hurried, but never such steps as they made habitually. These men approached the newly arrived and spoke to him of something; they were doubtless inquiring, taking counsel, perhaps petitioning; for all those acts were expressed in their movements, and on their faces. Thus was formed something like that retinue of the elite who surround a demi-god, and between the two walls of people, along the splendid steps of the stairway they went up with him higher and higher to the entrance of the temple, and vanished there with him. The heads of the common crowd were covered with hats and caps now, but many eyes, unable to gaze on Phaeton himself, turned to his chariot, and were fixed for a long time yet on its sapphire-colored damask, which was warmed by the sunrays, and on those two splendid animals which, standing there in trained fixedness, seemed like bronze steeds of the sun before the gates of that money mart.

Kranitski, sitting on the garden bench, had grown rigid in the posture described above—his mouth awry, his eyes gleaming. So this is what has happened! In a few weeks after the death of the hapless Cara he is active and triumphant; he hurls his lariat on the golden calf and captures new millions. A demi-god! A Titan! The king of markets! He sweeps forward in seven-league boots over roads, at the crossing-points of which are Americans with milliards, they are millionnaires no longer, but masters of milliards. He is the man who, as Baron Emil said, knows how to will.

Still, how small he seemed and devoid of desire at the hour when he stood near the corpse of his daughter, joined with the silent smoke of the censer, which rose like light mist in the air. How petty he appeared at that juncture, crushed, as it were, by some giant hand—not a demi-god in any sense, or a Titan, but rather an insect, pushing into some narrow cranny to hide from a bird of prey. Kranitski had seen Darvid then, for, on hearing of the misfortune, no power on earth or in hell could have stopped him from running, from flying to the house where it had happened.

That misfortune had pierced his heart. And straightaway he felt, also, those inward and other pains which for some time had attacked him without pity and more frequently; but, in spite of his pains, he ran on without a thought that he had been forbidden that house, or a thought of what might meet him within it. He entered, and by well-known ways went directly to the chambers of the lady. Happen what might, he must see, in such a terrible moment, that woman, that saint, that mild and noble being. She was surrounded by many; there was a throng of people about her, but he did not see who they were, nor did he think what they might say of him. Before his eyes was a mist which veiled all things in front of him, save the face of that woman so dreadfully changed and grown old recently; that woman who no longer had the bright aureole of pale, golden hair above her forehead, but on that forehead and across the whole width of it was the dark furrow of a deep wrinkle. Without seeing, or greeting a person, he walked up to her directly, and, dropping on his knees, pressed to his lips the hem of her mourning garment. He did this without the trace of a plan, without forethought; he did it through an impulse which threw him at the feet of the woman. That action came from his heart, and from his heart only. For never was anyone like her, he thought. Many a time he had had fortune with women. In life he had been loved, and had loved in various fashions, but as he had loved her, never had he loved woman.

He did not remember; he was unconscious of what happened after that; but it seemed that Irene seized in her arms the loudly weeping lady; that Maryan was there also, and many other persons, who, going in and passing out with silent tread and low words, produced a sound something like the rustle of leaves when they are falling. In some corner of the chamber he sat down, or stood up, he cannot tell which, he only remembers that he was surrounded by the odor of alder-blossoms which filled the chamber, till, finally, he felt that it was late, that he had to go out just as had others. He could not be with that beloved being in her suffering; of all pains that was the most unendurable. But life contains sometimes such cruelties. Life at times is atrocious! He went once again to look at the "little one," he saw her, and with her the demi-god, in such a position that he thought: Here, too, is a man who is ended! At this point of meditation Kranitski rested his elbow on the arm of the bench, shaded his eyes with his palm, and placed before his imagination that wonderful sight which seemed a fable, a dream to him.

What luxury, what originality of thought and taste! What a mountain of gold was poured out there! The plan and the taste were seemingly Maryan's. The grand drawing-room had been turned into a grotto, which, from floor to ceiling, was covered with soft folds of white crape and muslin, meeting above in a gigantic rosette resembling the mystic four-leafed roses painted on Gothic church-windows, save that this one at which the wavy drapery met and hid walls and ceiling was as white and soft as if formed by the fantastic play of cloud substance. But everything in that chamber, the walls, the arch, the rosette, seemed made up of clouds and of snow, on which had fallen an immense rain of white flowers, white only. In garlands, woven together, or cast about without order by the movement of hands, they clung to the walls and the vault, covered the floor, were scattered over everything, were visible everywhere, and seemed to have fallen out of every place. Aside from them and among them, there was nothing but abundance of light; stars, bunches, columns were formed of lights, burning in branch-holders and candlesticks. It is unknown where they were invented, so uncommon were these holders and candlesticks, so fantastic. They were so peculiar in style that it would seem as if they had been brought from the dream-world of an excited fancy to the world of existence. There was no color, no tinsel, no emblem of death, nothing in that sea of snowy whiteness save an avalanche of snow-covered flowers and the dazzling gleam of burning tapers, with the odor of lilies-of-the-valley, roses, alder-blossoms, hyacinths, to which was added incense of some kind, as peculiar as was everything in that chamber. This incense, burning it was unknown in what place, sent hither and thither through the air, from time to time, small grayish cloudlets of smoke amid the gleam of the lights and tinged by the gold of them. In that chamber were virginity, with an atmosphere of mysticism, inventiveness unwilling to recognize the impossible—a chapter of magic, a strophe of a poem, and in it, as a central point for all else, was the slender form of Cara on a lofty place, fallen asleep calmly, arrayed as in a bridal robe, with her delicate face, which, in the pale, golden hair, with a shade of whiteness barely discernible, emerged from the flood of snowy crape and flowers. In that flood of snowy white, in that gleaming brilliance of the tapers, in that richness of intoxicating odors, in that atmosphere of haze moving from the burning censer, Cara was sleeping calmly, with the smooth arches of her dark brows below the Grecian outline of her forehead; on her closed lips was a smile which was almost gladsome.

It must have been late at night when Kranitski rose from his knees and found himself alone in that chamber. Outside the words and prayers of watchers were heard murmuring beyond the doors and the walls, but there the sleep of death seemed to reign alone. After a while, however, something rustled near one of the walls. Kranitski looked around and saw a man who seemed at first to be an undefined patch on the snowy background. After a few seconds he recognized Darvid's features in ruddy side-whiskers, but he strained his eyes rather long inquiring whether he was not mistaken. Neither sorrow nor despair, commonly roused by death in the living, but something still greater and beyond that was depicted in the look and the posture of Darvid. His eyes, usually so clear, so positive, so like glittering steel, had in them now an abyss of thought at the bottom of which terror was secreted, while the form of the man seemed shrunk and crushed down. Neither irony, nor energy, nor bold certainty of self was in it now. He looked smaller than usual, and in the manner of bending his head forward there was something of the vanquished. The soft folds at which he stood surrounded him in such a way that he seemed flattened and recalled definitely, like an insect in flight which was trying to push through a narrow crack to escape before something immense which was swooping down suddenly. He turned his eyes toward Kranitski, recognized the man, and casting an indifferent glance at him, gazed again in another direction at the enormous something. He had no feeling of hatred, or contempt, or offence. Kranitski on his part had none of those feelings either. He thought that various tales and dramas represent mortal enemies who, in moments like that, reach their hands to one another and are reconciled. Pathos is not truthful! It has no sufficient reason. What are men's quarrels or agreements in presence of—this? He looked a little longer at the maiden sleeping under the shower of white blossoms, and whispered: "Death! yes, yes! death! eternal sleep!" then, with drooping head, he went forth from that grotto, which was snow-white and gleaming with lights. He was so broken that he dragged himself out of it rather than walked.

Now, on the bench of the garden, Kranitski raised his face from his palms and looked at the exchange. The porch with its broad steps was empty, but Darvid's carriage was there yet, showing a spot of gleaming sapphire in the sunny air, the horses stood in trained fixedness, like statues cast from bronze. Kranitski's lips were awry with distaste.

With a bitterness to which his mild nature came rarely, he whispered:

"Labor! iron labor!"

With lips full of gall, not thinking now of straightening his shoulders or giving his steps an appearance of elasticity, he dragged along from street to street, halting sometimes for a moment before the gates of the grandest houses. Each one of these reminded him of something, of some brilliant or happy moment, of some fragment of the past. This one he had entered while going to one of the smaller or greater "stars of his existence;" out of that one he had gone when taking the ailing Count Alfred to Italy; through this one he had hurried daily to do some kindness for Prince Zeno; that one brought to him the memory of a certain ball, so brilliant that it bordered upon fairy-land. Now all these gates and those mansions are for him like that hall which guests have deserted, in which the lights are extinguished, and through which a man finds his way with a night-lamp—remembering, as he passes, a spot where had gleamed the naked shoulders of a beauty; or another, where the faces of joyous comrades had smiled at him; a third, where had risen the odor of flowers, or the odor of roast pheasants.

At last, late in the afternoon, Mother Clemens heard a ring in the antechamber, and ran along the floor in her clattering old overshoes, hastening to answer the door-bell. On her broad shoulders was a barred kerchief, in her hand was a needle with a thick thread, and above her eyes, now growing dim, a second pair of eyes, which were glass, in spectacles raised to the woman's wrinkled forehead.

"Hm!" commenced she immediately, "I thought that thou hadst fastened for the day in some pleasant company; but, Arabian adventure! thou hast returned before evening. This is well, for guests have been here, and they will come again shortly."

"Guests?" inquired Kranitski, and his face cleared somewhat, but briefly, because Clemens snorted.

"Yes, one of them was very important. Be pleased with the honor! Berek Shyldman! He said that next week, as God is God, he would sell thy furniture."

Seeing, however, that Kranitski, after he had removed his coat, dragged his feet through the little drawing-room, and that red wrinkles came out above his brows, she grew mild and spoke in better humor:

"But thou mayst take delight in two other guests who came. Great dandies, and of thy company, though young enough to be thy sons."

"Who were they? who? who? Speak, mother!"

"How can I remember those Arabian names? But they left cards—wait, I'll bring them this minute—I put them in the kitchen."

She turned toward the kitchen, but right behind her, stepping almost on her heels went Kranitski, delighted and impatient, he almost snatched from her hand two visiting cards, on which he read the names: Maryan Darvid and Baron Emil Blauendorf.

"Ah!" cried he, "those dear children! The baron has returned then! And his first thought after returning was of me! What a heart! I go; I run!"

And, indeed, he ran to the door of the antechamber, radiant, rejuvenated, but Mother Clemens stood in his way, squaring out her shoulders in the checkered kerchief.

"Whither art thou going? What for? Is it to meet them on the steps, or at the gate? They said that they would come again in an hour. To each other they said that they would go to see the Nazarene—"

"What Nazarene?" asked Kranitski, with astonishment. "What Nazarene?"

"But how should I know what Nazarene? It may be an image of the Lord Jesus of Nazareth. They only said that they would go to look at it, and come back here."

"Come back," repeated Kranitski, "that is well. We shall have a talk—it is so long since I have had a talk with anyone—and I shall see Maryan, the dear, dear boy!"

Kranitski rubbed his hands; he walked with springy step, and erect shoulders, through the little drawing-room, but not even delight could round his cheeks, which had dropped during recent days somewhat; neither could it freshen the yellow tint on them. Mother Clemens halted in the middle of the room and followed him with her two pair of eyes.

"See, my lords! He is as if born again, as if called back to life!"

He stopped confused before her.

"Knowest what? Let mother run for a pate de foie gras, and a bottle of liqueur."

Mother Clemens dropped back to the wall.

"Jesus of Nazareth! Hast thou gone mad, Tulek? Berek Shyldman—thy furniture—"

"What do I care for Berek Shyldman! What do I care for furniture!" cried Kranitski, "when those noble hearts remember me—"

"Hearts have no stomachs; there is no need of stuffing something into them the first minute."

"What does mother know? Mother is an honest woman, but her level is earth to earth—she only thinks of this cursed money!"

"But is pate de foie gras holy? Arabian adventure!"

Both voices were raised somewhat. Kranitski threw himself on the sofa, pressed his right side with his palm, groaned.

Then Clemens turned her face toward him; she had grown mild and seemed frightened.

"Well, has pain caught thee?"

It was clear that he was suffering. An old affliction of the liver, and something of the heart in addition. Mother Clemens approached the sofa in her clattering overshoes.

"Well, do not excite thyself. What is to be done? How much money will that Arabian pate cost?"

"And the liqueur!" put in Kranitski.

When he had grown calm he explained that the baron was fond of liqueur, and that Maryan was wild for pate and black coffee.

"Let mother prepare black coffee—thou knowest how to do it perfectly."

"What more!" snorted she. "Perhaps it would be well to take the panes from the windows, and throw the stove down?"

Kranitski spread out his arms.

"Why speak of the window-panes and the stove? What meaning can the stove and the glass have? There is no comparison between black coffee and window-panes, or the stove. Mother irritates me."

Again his face changed and he groaned; the old woman surrendered, but the question of money remained. Kranitski took a bill out of his pocketbook, held it between two fingers, and thought. This is too small. That kind of liqueur which the baron drinks is very expensive. Vexation was evident on his face. Clemens spoke up:

"Well, stop thinking, for if thou hast not a rouble thou wilt not think out one in a hundred years. Be calm. Only write all on a card for me; I will go and buy what is needed."

Kranitski struggled on the sofa.

"With what money wilt thou buy it, mother?"

But she was already in the doorway of the neighboring room, and gave no answer.

"Is it with thy own?" cried Kranitski, "surely with thy own! I know that mother is spending her capital this good while—"

She came back with the checkered kerchief over her head, without spectacles, and ready for the errand.

"Well, what if I do spend it? Hast thou not Lipovka? Thou hast, and what I lend thou wilt return. Oi, oi! I stand with one foot in the grave, and should I fight about a rouble when thou art in need of it?"

Kranitski raised his hands and his eyes:

"What a heart!" whispered he; "what attachment! No one can equal the old servants of our ancient families!"

After a few minutes steps were heard in the antechamber of people coming in, and the fresh voice of a man cried:

"May one see the master of this place?"

Kranitski ran to the antechamber.

"Of course, my dears! You make me happy, altogether happy!"

And indeed he had the face of a man made happy, and also tilled with emotion; for, taking his place in one of the armchairs opposite Maryan, who sat in another, he listened to the baron's narrative, which gave details of his recent expedition. Baron Emil was uncommonly vivacious, but at the same time he feigned to be more nervous and excited than usual.

He did not sit down for one instant.

"Merci, merci" said he to the master of the house who indicated a chair to him; "I am in such a condition, that really, I cannot sit in one place. Something within me is toiling, and crying, and biting. I am full of trembling of hopes, and of anger—" A brick-colored rosy blush appeared on his yellow cheeks; as usual, he spoke through his nose and through his teeth, but more quickly than common. While walking through the drawing-room he said, that in smaller and greater country residences which he had visited he had found a few remnants of former wealth, specimens of art, and of ornamental industry, which were of considerable, and sometimes even of high, value. A multitude of these rich things had been acquired by the English, who had circled about through the country more than once in pursuit of them; but much remained yet, and the only need was to inquire, seek, examine, and it was possible to find real treasures, even, often most unexpectedly. He halted before Maryan.

"I say this because who, for example, could hope or expect to find in possession of a schoolmaster, a teacher of geography, an absolute Arcadian, a picture by Steinle hung behind a door, smoked befouled by flies—an undoubted, a genuine Steinle—Edward Steinle—"

"But is it undoubted?" interrupted Maryan; "once more I turn thy attention to certain traits which seem to speak in favor of Kupelweiser."

"What, Kupelweiser!" cried the baron, walking still more quickly through the drawing-room. "No Kupelweiser, my dear; not a shadow of a Kupelweiser. Kupelweiser, though the teacher of Steinle was considerably inferior to him in drawing—that firmness and elegance of outline, that harmony of composition, that piety, that genuine compunction which is dominant in the faces of the saints—that is Steinle, the purest Steinle, undoubted Steinle, whose collection of cartoons in Frankfort—"

"Was Steinle, for I do not recollect, pre-Raphaelite?" put in Kranitski timidly, somewhat ashamed of his ignorance.

"Yes, if you like," answered the baron, "we may reckon among the pre-Raphaelites the German school of Nazarenes. But this school is distinct."

"Then surely you examined this Steinle to-day, my dears, before you came to me?"

"Yes, we heard of it by chance; we went to examine it, and imagine, we found this pearl in the possession of an Arcadian who has neither a conception, nor the shadow of a conception of the Nazarenes, or who Steinle—"

"But perhaps we should pardon him," laughed Maryan, "for the Germans themselves know almost nothing of Steinle, who fell into disfavor among his successors."

"On the contrary!" exclaimed the baron, "I beg pardon, my dear, real judges always value him highly, and he is greatly sought for by museums. His cartoons when placed at the side of Overbeck's Triumph of Religion in Art lose nothing; on the contrary, that compunction distinguishes his figures."

"But thou canst not compare him with Overbeck!" said Maryan, with indignation.

"I can, I can! I make him equal to Overbeck; and I consider him superior to Fuhrich and Veit—"

"I will give thee Veit, but as to Overbeck, that marvellous melancholy which fills the eyes of his women—"

"It is earthly, earthly, rather than that perfect expression from beyond which is dominant in Steinle's figures. In this regard Steinle is the only man whom we may compare with Fra Angelico—"

"I would rather compare him with Lippo-Mani."

"Perhaps," said the baron, half agreeing, "as Fuhrich, whenever I look at him, reminds me of Buffalmaco."

"And me, of Piero di Cosimo."

"No, no," objected the baron, "Piero di Cosimo in coloring is different from Fuhrich and Buffalmaco."

"I can compare Buffalmaco, to-day, with Rossetti alone."

In this manner they conversed some time longer of the Italian painters of the epoch preceding Raphael, and of their modern followers. At times disputing slightly; at times growing enthusiastic in company, till they agreed in one opinion; namely, that the greatest master of painting, whom it was impossible to compare with anyone among contemporaries, was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an Englishman, but that the school of German Nazarenes, to which Overbeck, Steinle, Fuhrich, and others belonged, was, in spite of certain inequalities and weaknesses, altogether pure Quatrocento.

"Yes, Quatrocento," finished the baron; "who knows even if they are not purer, more perfect Quatrocento than Rossetti and Morris."

Kranitski listened, spoke rarely, while something within him began to weep. He, too, loved art, but how far was he now from its loftiest caprices. How much would he give if those dear boys there, those noble hearts, would speak of something else to him, of something nearer. After a time he remarked with a smile to which he brought himself with effort:

"Then you have the first parts of that golden fleece which you are to bear beyond the sea?"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the baron, "the golden fleece! splendidly said! In truth, we shear the sheep, or, if you like, the shepherds, for you cannot imagine what a rheumatism of thought in this matter prevails throughout the country. No man knows the value of what he has; no man knows what he possesses. There is no conception of art; no aesthetic knowledge. In my journey I felt as if wandering through ancient Scythia. All are related to me, or are old neighbors of my parents; they greeted me with open arms. Kisses with saliva, and chops cooked in buckwheat-grits! Their rooms are filled with progeny, who look as though they might grow up without trousers. The parents we may almost call, now, the shirtless. From this cause comes a genuine fury of turning all things to money. My proposition brought to their eyes tears of gratitude. They saw in me a saviour. Had I wished, I might have won the glory of a patriot bringing salvation to his countrymen. But glory is a painted pot. I am not a man to be covered with labels. I buy cheap to sell dear, that is my game. And, though I told them this, they kissed me. I filled their mouths, which were suffering from that hunger which goes before harvest. They opened old cupboards before me, also storehouses; one man even opened a chapel in which I found church-cloths of incomparable antiquity. I suspect that one of these is of Flemish make, and reaches back to Robert the Pious, just such a one did I see in the museum at Cluny. Finally, a number of images; some girdles and brocades; some old weapons, which would befit John of Dresden very well; this is my booty. Here we have discovered one Overbeck and one Steinle; but Maryan, during my absence, found, somewhere, Saxon porcelain, of incredible age, in perfect preservation. But this is only the beginning. There will be a whole harvest of these things, a whole harvest!"

"A golden fleece!" whispered Kranitski.

He grew more and more gloomy, and felt in his right side a pain which was well-nigh unendurable. The tone in which the baron gave account of his journey in regions about his birthplace, roused almost instinctive disgust in Kranitski. He looked at Maryan. Was he the same also? After a while he asked:

"Has the American project crystallized thoroughly? Is it settled? Are you going to America surely?"

"It has crystallized this far," answered Maryan, "that I start no later than to-morrow. Emil will remain here some weeks yet. I, to become acquainted with the people and the country, leave here to-morrow."

Kranitski straightened himself and sat there dumb for a time, with fixed look, then he repeated:

"To-morrow?"

"Absolutely," confirmed Maryan; and, when the baron sat down after long walking, he rose, and began in turn to walk through the drawing-room, declaring that he had come to-day purposely to take farewell of Kranitski.

"I could not go without taking farewell of my good, old man," said he.

It may be that he would not have gone so soon had not certain details made his life impossible. One of these details was, that the week before his father had withdrawn the allowance paid up to that time. A certain period had ended just a week earlier, and, through commands from above, the treasury had withheld payment.

In speaking of this Maryan grew red in the face; the vein in his forehead swelled like a blue cord; his eyes glittered brightly. He was wounded to his innermost heart by the last conversation which he had had with his father. It was brief, but decisive; he had told it to Kranitski. From the narrative it was possible to divine that Darvid had shown at first an inclination to milden the demands on his son, but afterward despotic habits and practical views had won the victory. He demanded that in one of the factories belonging to him, Maryan should begin a course of self-restraint, obedience, and labor.

"Our two individualities," said Maryan, "came into collision, and sprang back in a state of complete inviolability—not the least dint was made on Mm or on me. Our wills remained unbroken. He, of course, is a man with a mighty will. It seemed at first that the death of that poor little Cara crushed him, but he straightened quickly, and now again he is going through genuine orgies of his iron labor. I admire that integrity of will in him, and I confess that it is a power of the highest quality; but I have no thought of abdicating my own personality because my father, with all his undoubted endowments, has a head badly ventilated. It may be that one of my great-grandfathers said, that if one child gave itself as food to worms, another should give itself to be crushed by its father's chariot. But I am not my own great-grandfather, and I know that every yielding of one's self to be tormented by Pavel to amuse Gavel is a painted pot."

"It is a darned sock!" added the baron.

Another reason why Maryan had to leave the city without delay was the impression produced on him by the death of that poor little girl. But he did not admit that so many atavistic instincts were at work in him. He was a man of the new style, but he experienced now the spiritual condition of his great-grandfather, which affected him so that, like Maeterlinck's Hjalmar, he wished to throw handfuls of earth at night-owls. The death of that little one, and all that was happening and going on in the house, had made his soul pale from weakness. He understood now Maeterlinck's expression, to sink to the very eyelids in sorrow. When that Intruder, who is ever mowing grass beneath life's windows, came for that little girl, Maryan had the question in mind continually: "Why do the lamps go out?" Now, like Hjalmar in "Princess Malenia," he feels every moment like exclaiming: Someone is weeping here near us! He had moments in which such nervous impotence attacked him that he did not feel capable of stirring a finger, or moving an eyelid. Accompanying this condition was a perfect understanding that all sentimental family-tenderness is a painted pot. It is known, of course, that in the world a multitude of maidens are always dying; that each life is a gate before which grave-diggers are waiting; and that this does not furnish the slightest reason why those, under whose window the Intruder has not begun to mow grass yet, should have pale and sickly souls.

He must flee from expiring lamps, and night-owls; from nervous impotence and spleen of spirit; he must rush out for new contacts and horizons; for new spaces, where there are fresh worlds which are free from the fifty defilements of past centuries.

He concluded and took a seat. Kranitski had tears in his eyes, and after a rather long silence, he added:

"Thou art going away I see!"

And then, with hesitating voice, he inquired:

"Thou hast said: 'that which is happening and going on in the house.' What is going on there?"

To this the baron answered, with growing blushes:

"How? Do you not know that Pani Darvid and Panna Irene set out in a few days—for a retreat?"

"To Krynichna," said Maryan, completing the information. "Father has made Irene the owner of Krynichna, and they are going there."

Kranitski grew very pale, and only after great red spots had appeared above his eyes did he look at the baron, and begin:

"Then—"

"Then," added the baron, quickly, "everything is ended between Panna Irene and me. I am glad, for how could my bite and her idyl agree? That would have been like the odor of ether on a sunny day in Maeterlinck's hot-houses. Naturally, I represent the ether, and Panna Irene the sunny day."

The smile with which he said this grew ever more jeering and malicious.

"But I know not how they will succeed in the retreat. In spite of her idyl Panna Irene has much in her, very much of the cry of life, of that beautiful impulse toward—what Ruysbrook called love in action, toward ecstatic impressions, and with such a disposition, as far as my skill extends in this matter, it is difficult to halt at the mere spectacle of sparrows making love outside one's window—"

"A truce to malicious phrases, Emil," interrupted Maryan. "Thou art not threatened with the fate of Werther because my sister has broken with thee—"

"Of course not!" laughed the baron.

And Maryan added quickly:

"And thou shouldst even offer up to her that painted pot, called gratitude, because she has not closed to thee the road to some daughter of a multi-millionnaire Yankee. America possesses men of 'iron toil,' whose daughters are far richer than the daughters—alas! than the only daughter of my father."

"Perhaps! perhaps!" agreed the baron; "the daughters of the richest American fathers pay very high prices for European titles. In this way, or another, or both together, I may make a colossal fortune. Yes, wealth is a door before which the heralds of life have their station—I am not a man pasted over with labels. I confess that this perspective entices me; what I possess now is merely a little crumb for my hunger of life. I shall leave here greedy for new sensations and new profits—eager for love in action and for gain."

After a moment's silence Kranitski whispered:

"They are going!"

"They are going: Then glancing along the faces of the two young men, he added:

"You are going!"

"Yes," said the baron, "and therefore we make a certain proposition. Perhaps you would take upon yourself to be one of our agents."

He presented in detail a plan of the enterprise—to carry out this there would be agents disposed through the whole country to discover and purchase.

"We need aesthetic persons, a company of developed men, and it is difficult, very difficult to find them. In this country sterility reigns throughout the whole region of gray matter in the brain—it is sterility in the great gray substance—if you wish—"

Kranitski was silent. It was not long since he had desired this position, perhaps, and something which might attach him to people and to life. But now—during this discourse with his two friends—an increasing disgust had seized hold of him. The sarcasm of the baron about shirtless parents who kissed him with lips suffering from hunger before harvest pierced his heart cruelly. In his mind hovered the words "departure, death!" and before his imagination rose the vision of a flock of birds flying in every direction.

To buy cheap to sell dear! That was vile! At the same time he felt that the pains in his side and his heart had grown keener, and a feeling of faintness possessed him. After a moment's thought, he said:

"No, my dear friends; it seems that I shall not be able to serve you. I am sick—I am growing old—besides, my dears, I must tell you openly—"

He hesitated, and took from the table his gold case, which he had opened before the guests. He meditated a moment, and then said:

"Your undertaking has sides which wound my sense of propriety somewhat. This business will always be buying in a temple, even in temples, I might say, for art is sacred, and so is the fatherland. You are both too clever to require explanation on this point. The loneliness in which I shall be when you are gone frightens and pains me—pains me immensely, but I am forced to say that I shall not be with you in this matter; no, decidedly, I shall not be of your company."

By nature Kranitski was averse to disputes, and for various reasons unused to them, hence he had begun to speak with hesitation and dislike; but afterward he rested his shoulder against the arm of the sofa, and with head somewhat raised, twirling the cigarette-case in his hand, he had the look of a great lord, especially if compared with the baron, who always seemed somewhat like a mosquito preparing to bite. And this time he began with a sneering smile:

"You are always painted in the color of romantic poetry of sacred memory. While you were speaking I seemed to be listening to 'a postillion, playing under the windows of incurable patients,' and—"

But Mary an rose from his armchair, and broke in:

"As for me, I respect individuality; and since that of our beloved Pan Arthur is developed in his way, we have no right to insist on attacking him with ridicule. To be ridiculous proves nothing. 'Thou art ridiculous,' is no argument. I may be ridiculous in the eyes of another man, though right in my own. But a truce to discussion; I remind thee, Emil, of our porcelain—"

"Yes, yes!" replied the baron, and he rose also. "We must take farewell of our beloved friend here—"

At that moment, through the open door of the sleeping-room, entered Mother Clemens with a great tray. Since she had gratified her favorite she wished to do it in the best manner possible. On her head was a cap as white as snow; the clattering overshoes were no longer on her feet; and a checkered kerchief was arranged neatly, even with elegance, across her bosom. On the tray were small glasses, a bottle of liqueur, a pate de foie gras, and three cups from which rose the excellent odor of coffee. All this she placed on a table before the sofa, and left the little drawing-room with gloomy eye, but firm foot.

Kranitski sprang up from the sofa.

"My dearest friends, I beg you—take a glass of liqueur, that which thou lovest, baron—Maryan, a little of the pate de foie gras—"

But they touched their watches simultaneously.

"No, no!" began the baron, refusing, "we have only three minutes left."

"We lunched at Borel's, who, as my father says, gives us Lucullus feasts."

Kranitski did not cease to urge them. Certain habits or instincts of a noble brightened his eyes, and shaped his arms in gestures of entreaty. But they resisted. In five minutes they must be in that apparently wretched antiquarian shop, where Maryan had discovered the amazing porcelain. The baron, giving his hand to Kranitski in parting, said:

"We shall see each other again. You will visit me. I do not leave for a number of weeks—I doubt if this porcelain comes from Meissen as Maryan insists. In what year was the factory in Meissen?"

"In 1709," answered Maryan, and to Kranitski he said:

"Adieu, my good friend, adieu; be well, and write to me sometimes. Thou wilt find the address with Emil."

He turned to the door; Kranitski held him by the hand, however, and looked into his face with eyes which were mist-covered.

"Then it has come to this; for long years! It may be forever!"

"Well, well! See, thou art growing tender," began Maryan, but he stopped, and over his rosy face passed something like a shade of feeling.

"Well, my old man, embrace me!"

And when Kranitski had held him long in his arms, he said:

"La! La! leave regrets! Some ancient poet has told us that man is a shadow that is dreaming of shadows. We have been dreaming, my good friend-.The only cure is to jest at every thing, come what may!"

With these words, Maryan went to the anteroom and put on his overcoat; meanwhile, the baron said:

"That cannot have come from Meissen, nor be of the year 1709. That is much more recent. It comes from the Ilmenau factory—"

"How so? Say rather that it comes from Prankenthal?"

The baron, looking around from behind his cane, remarked:

"It is too smooth and shining for such an old date."

Maryan answered, with his hand on the lock:

"It is polished with agate."

And he went out. But the baron, after crossing the threshold, began:

"And as to the ruddy-brownish biscuit—"

The door closed; the voices ceased. Kranitski stood some time in the antechamber, then he turned toward the little drawing-room, and whispered:

"'Polished with agate'—'Biscuit,' and those are their last words!"

Some minutes later, in a Turkish dressing-gown with patched lining and mended sleeves, Kranitski lay on his long chair, opposite his collection of pipes, and, in deep thought, twirled his golden cigarette-case. In vain did Mother Clemens urge him to eat a little of that Arabian pate and drink a glass of liqueur; he tried, but could swallow nothing. Sorrow had closed his throat; he was sunk in reminiscences. He felt with perfect tangibleness that breath of cold air which was blowing around him. In this manner did Time blow on the man—Time, that merciless jester, who had always circled about playing various pranks on him; but Kranitski had never looked into the face of that jester, with attention. Occasionally, sorrow and grief had come to him in company with the trickster, but they were transient, not of the kind which go into the depth of the heart, but such as slip along over the surface. He grew gloomy; was sorry for having lost someone, or having missed something, and passed on with springy, lightly swaying gait, with his long continued youth, humming some fashionable ditty; or, with tender smile on his lips, living easily and joyously in endless pursuit of agreeable trifles. But, now, he has the first look at Time, face to face and near by. The current has borne away; the abyss has swallowed; people, houses, relations, feelings, and nothing comes back from them but one word in a ceaseless murmur: "Gone! gone! gone!" That which is ended to-day calls to the man's mind all things that have been. That past is to him something in the form of a mighty grave, or rather a catacomb, composed of a host of graves, through the openings of which are visible the absent; not only those snatched away by death, but also those gone through separation, removal, oblivion. Dead were faces once dear; faded were moments once precious; portions of life had dropped into dust; and Time, standing before the catacomb, his cheeks swollen in jeering, puffs his cold breath of the grave on that man who is calling up the past.

Kranitski wrapped himself closely in his dressing-gown; hung his head so low that the bald spot, whitening on his crown, became visible; his lower lip dropped; red furrows came out above his black brow. Mother Clemens stood in the kitchen doorway.

"Wilt thou eat dinner now?" inquired she.

He made no answer. She withdrew, but returned in half an hour bringing a cup of black coffee.

"Drink," said she, "perhaps thou wilt grow cheerful, and I will tell the news from Lipovka."

She pushed a small table to the long chair, sat down with hands on her knees, and with immense attention in the expression of her quick and shining eyes, fell to repeating the substance of a letter just received from her godson, the tenant of Lipovka. He wrote that he had repaired the dwelling; that he was living himself in a building outside; that he had put the place in order most neatly, as if for the arrival of the owner. The furniture was the same as in the time of the former master; though old, it was sound yet, and beautiful, because repaired and cleaned. The garden was larger than of old, for many fruit-trees had been added. The bees, brought in recently, were thriving. It was quiet there; calm, green in summer; white in winter; not as in that cursed city of throngs and shouting—

She laughed.

"And there is no Berek Shyldman there."

Then she added:

"Be at rest about debts. Thou wilt sell thy pipes and cupids, and if they do not bring enough, I will give all my own things. All that I have I will give, and I will drag thee out of this hell. Oh, Arabian adventure! If this lasts longer, thou wilt lose the last of thy health; thou wilt go deeper in debt, and die in a hospital. Tulek, dost thou hear what I say? Why not answer?"

And since he made no answer even then, she continued:

"But rememberest thou that Lipovka grove beyond the yard? It is there yet. Stefan has not cut it down; God forbid! And dost thou remember how beautifully the sun sets behind that grove?"

When the sun had gone down in the world it began to grow dark in Kranitski's room. And Mother Clemens continued in the thickening twilight:

"And rememberest thou how quiet the evenings are there? In summer, the nightingales sing; in autumn, the bagpipes play; in winter, God's winds rush outside the wall and roar; but, inside, it is honest, and quiet, and safe."



CHAPTER X

What Maryan had told Kranitski about Darvid was true. The man was engaged in real orgies of labor. His assistants and associates were bending beneath it, and losing breath; he seemed more untiring than ever: Counsels, meetings, accounts, balances, correspondence, discussions with functionaries of the government, of finance, and of industries, banks, bureaus, exchanges, auctions, etc. And in all this appeared order, sequence, punctuality, logic, lending to the course of these gigantic interests the seeming of a machine with multitudes of wheels moved by a force elemental, invincible. For even those who had known him longest and most intimately, Darvid had become this time a surprise; he had surpassed himself. The number of men was continually increasing who began to look on him as on a rare phenomenon of nature. Whence did the man get such uncommon mental and physical vigor? From mid-day till hours which were far beyond midnight he was unceasingly active. When has he time to sleep and take rest? What is he seeking to reach? What will he reach? This last question brought out before the imagination of men certain summits of financial might, to be reared to such dizzy heights for the first time in the history of the country. A giant of mentality and energy. Some said: He is superhuman.

But in the immense number of men connected with Darvid by a net of most varied relations there were some to whom he seemed a curious enigma, representing a certain inveterate struggle, the motives of which rested on the mysterious bases of his being. That hurling of himself with greater force than at any time hitherto into the whirl of occupations and business; that exertion to the remotest limits of the possible, directed toward one object of thought and energy, seemed to penetrating eyes, not merely a thirst for acquisition and profit, but a desperate conflict with something undiscovered and invisible. At that moment of his life it seemed to some that Darvid was like a man running straight forward and with all his might, because he felt that were he to halt, something awful would seize him. Others said, that he called to mind a man into whose ear some buzzing insect had crept, and who was hiding in a factory filled with uproar which was to drown the unendurable buzzing of the insect.

The truth was, that Darvid was building at that time, and with iron labor, a wall between himself and the giantess whom, for the first time in life, he had seen face to face, and very closely. It was clear enough that he had always known, not merely of her existence, but of this, that there was no power in the world more familiar than that giantess; still, this knowledge of his had been in a comatose condition, something separated altogether from the every-day substance of life, and touching which there had never been any need of thinking. Someone dies—a certain acquaintance; a comrade in amusement; a famous, or unknown power in the world—what do people say? A pity that he is gone! or, no help for it! Well, what influence can the disappearance of that man exercise on a given sphere of human action; on the course of men's relations and interests? Life, like a rushing river, tears all living men forward, and behind them, ever more distant, remains that misty region, which is filled with the vanished and forgotten. Who are they who, at any time, think of that misty region, and look at the face of the giantess who reigns in it? Priests, perhaps, devotees it may be; a few poets at times; or people who sail on a slow and sad stream in life. Darvid had never had time for such thoughts. The stream which bore him on was rushing and roaring, glittering and turbulent.

But the giantess, because of her power, sprang over all golden mountains—and came! He was thinking of this at the moment when Kranitski saw him standing at the wall and squeezing into its snowy drapery, just as a frightened insect might squeeze itself into a cranny. That was a cranny in one more of his golden mountains. In the great city, people had spoken with amazement of the cost, well-nigh fabulous, of that last chamber of the millionnaire's little daughter. He had means to do that and much more. What are those means to him? He had vanquished enormously great things in life, and he had immense power at that moment. But of what use is that power to him, since something has come which he cannot overthrow; something against which he can do nothing, and which has struck him doubly—struck his heart with pain, and his head with anxiety? What virtue is there in power which cannot shield a man from suffering? And even suffering is not important, since man can battle with it; but to shield against annihilation! That, at which he was looking then so nearly, was a sudden and merciless annihilation of life, blooming in all its charm and with great fullness. Something out of the air, something out of space, and from beyond boundaries attainable by human thought, had rushed in and trampled down that life fresh and beautiful. A power invincible—not to be bribed by wealth, persuaded by reason, or vanquished by energy. A mysterious power—the beginning and object of which were unknown, which had flown in on silent wings and swept from the earth everything that it wished to take; and, against this, there were no means of resistance, or rescue. It seemed to him that the gloomy rustle of giant wings was filling that snowy chamber of the dead from edge to edge; and, for the first time in life, he felt things beyond mankind and the senses. His breast, which had breathed with pride; his head, which held one faith, the might of reason, and that which reason can accomplish, were struck now by an incomprehensible secret, which roused in him for the first time a feeling of his own inconceivable insignificance. He felt as small as an earth-worm must feel when on the grass along which it is crawling—the shadow of a vulture falls as it sweeps through the azure sky—and as the worm hides in the crack of a stone, so he sank into the snowy folds of crape and muslin which veiled the walls of that chamber. He felt as weak as if he were not a man of strong will and splendid labor, but a little child which is unable to push aside with its tiny fingers the terror which is standing out in front of it. With his shoulders and one half of his head sunk in the snowy folds, with his glance fixed on the sleeping face of Cara, which was visible among the white flowers, he said to her, mentally: "I can do nothing, nothing for thee, little one! I can do much, almost anything; but for thee I can do nothing!" Slender, grayish bits of smoke passed above her sleeping face, and, impelled by invisible movements of air, stretched in waving threads from her to him. Just at that moment he saw Kranitski come from an inner apartment of the house and kneel at the steps strewn with flowers. He looked; he recognized the man, and felt none of those emotions which his name alone had roused in him previously. What were human anger, hatred, disagreement in presence of that immense something into whose face he was gazing at that moment? What could Kranitski, hitherto hateful to Darvid, be to him now, when he said to himself: "I know not; I understand not; it is impossible to comprehend this; and still it is real; since I—I can do nothing for thee, my little daughter."

But this was not the only discovery which he was to make on that occasion. He knew not how many hours he had passed in that chamber, but he saw the dawn, which drew a blue lining beyond the snowy folds which covered the windows, and then he saw the sun which flooded it with molten gold; he heard clocks striking a number of times in a chamber; one of these clocks was bass, and announced the hours slowly somewhere behind him, while another before him answered in a thinner and more hurried voice, till, all at once, beyond the closed doors, in one of the drawing-rooms, music was heard. Darvid knew what the meaning of that was: another golden mountain which he had reared for the "little one."

Much gold had been poured out in bringing those voices, the chorus of which raised a hymn of prayer and sorrow above his dead daughter. But previously the door was opened, and the white chamber was half filled with the highest of the most brilliant society in that city, showing signs of profound respect and sympathy. Prince Zeno escorted Malvina Darvid, who was all in tears and black crape. Maryan brought in the princess. Irene entered, leaning on the arm of a young prince, celebrated for beauty; next came stars of these three powers: birth, money, and reputation. They were not many, since summits are always few in number; slight sounds were heard of bringing, giving, and moving chairs; there were whispers and the rustle of silk garments.

Black silks, laces, and crape; the black dress of men mixed with glittering white; hands folded sadly on knees, or crossed on breasts, with seriousness; faces sunk in thought—solemn stillness. Meanwhile, out of silence in the adjoining chamber, to the accompaniment of instrumental music, rose a grand funeral hymn, given by a chorus of the most famous artists in the city. The solemnity of the mourning, with its character of high life and unusualness, roused admiration for the man who had given such magnificent homage to his departed daughter. From out the mountain of gold gushed a fountain of enchanting music, on which that child sailed away beyond the boundaries of earthly existence.

Darvid did not greet those who entered; and, for the first time in life, perhaps, failed to meet the demands of society; they also, respecting a frame of mind which they divined in him, troubled the man in no way. He remained resting against the wall, and, from a distance, resembled a silhouette outlined on it darkly, as on a background. He looked on the brilliant assembly, from which he was separated by half the chamber, and felt that he was divided from those people by a space as great as if they were at one end of the world and he at the other end. Those shadows there whose names he knew, but who were nothing to him, and he nothing to them. They might exist, or not; that was all one to Darvid. Why had they come? Why were they there? Never mind, he knew only this, that they did not exist for him, as he did not for them. He was struck by the feeling of an immense vacuum, which divided him from men. This vacuum was something like a space which the eye could not take in, a space with two edges, on one of which he was found, and they on the other. They were by themselves, he was by himself.

The singing of the chorus rose in power, in thunders, then became like nightingale voices heard in space, with notes clear and resonant. Invisible movements of air passed along the crapes, and the immense number of tapers, causing the flames on them to quiver.

Darvid had not paid attention to music; he had never had time to learn and to love it; but he felt that those tones were passing into his vitals, moving the secret strata of his being, and bringing them into movements unknown to him till that moment. He looked at Cara's face, rising up among the white blossoms, and he thought, or rather felt that, while those others seemed removed by boundless space, she alone was very near to him. "Mine!" he whispered. She alone. He did not know precisely how that could happen, but mentally he placed that little head with golden hair upon his shoulders, and said to it:

"Let us flee, little one! Thou didst ask me once what those people were to me. Now I will tell thee that they are nothing. I do not need them; they are strangers to me; with me they have no relations whatever; thou alone art needful to me; thou alone, such a sunray as I once saw on a journey and forgot, bright and warm. Thou alone art mine! Let us go; let us flee together from all and from everyone, for everything and all people are nothing to you and me; they are strange, and distant."

Here he remembered that never and nowhere would he be able to go with her, or to flee with her. He was joint possessor of a number of railroads; he had the power to employ for himself alone a number of trains passing over those roads; in the East, on a gigantic river, his own vessels were sailing, in clouds of steam; in one capital and another, and in this great city, swarms of people inhabited his houses—still he could not take that sleeping girl by land or by water, to any city, or to any house. To his eyes, which were raised toward her, a biting moisture began to come, and gathered into drops, a number of which flowed down his cheeks, and were shaken in every direction by quiverings of the skin.