Edgar Saltus

“ The clock on the mantel rang out four times. Again Lenox started from his revery. He smiled cynically at himself. “If I continue in that strain,” he muttered, “it must be that I am drunk.”
But soon his eyes closed again in mental retrospect. “And yet,” he mused, “life is pleasant; ill spent as mine has been, many times I have found it grateful. In books, I have often lost the consciousness of my own identity; now and then music has indeed had the power to take me to other worlds, to show me fresh horizons and larger life. Maida herself came to me like a revelation. ”

“ Why should he have expressed the hope that his wife’s guest was comfortable at a hotel? Was the expression of that hope merely a commonplace rejoinder, or was it an intentional slur? Surely, every one possessed of the brain of a medium-sized rabbit feels that it is as absurd to expect an intelligent being to be comfortable in a hotel as it is to suppose that he can find enjoyment in an evening party or amusement in a comic paper. Then again, and this, after all, was the great question: was the return of Mr. Incoul intentional or accidental? ”

“ Baden was unregretted. To the left, high above, on the summit of a projecting eminence, the white and illuminated Casino glittered like an ærian palace. To the right was the gardened quadrangle of the former Empress of [72] the French, in the air was the scent of seaweed and before them the Infinite.
“It’s quite good enough for me,” Blydenburg confided to his companions, and the confidence in its inelegant terseness conveyed the sentiments of them all.
A week passed without bringing with it any incident worthy of record. ”

“ Things cannot be so bad as that—Maida, I cannot lose you. If nothing else can be done, let us go away; at its best New York is tiresome; we could both leave it without a regret or a wish to return. And then, there is Italy; we have but to choose. Why, I could take a palace on the Grand Canal for less than I pay for my rooms at the Cumberland. And you [47] would love Venice; and in winter there is Capri and Sorrento and Palermo. I have known days in Palermo when I seemed to be living in a haze of turquoise and gold. And the nights! You should see the nights! The stars are large as lilies! ”

“ At times the sky is flecked with little clouds that dwindle and fade into spirals of pink; at others great masses rise sheer against the horizon, as might the bastions of Titan homes; and again are gigantic cathedrals, their spires lost in azure, their turrets swooning in excesses of vermilion grace. The only [116] sound is from the waves, but few come to listen. The Côte des Basques is not fashionable with the summer colony; it is merely beautiful and solitary.
It was on the downs that Maida and Lenox first chose to walk, but after a while a sloping descent invited them to the shore below. ”

“ But of all other places Maida preferred Saint Jean-de-Luz. It lies near the frontier on a bay of the tenderest blue, and for background it has the hazy amethyst of the neighborly [74] Pyrenees. The houses are rainbows of blended colors; from the open door-ways the passer, now and then, catches a whiff of rancid oil, the smell of victuals cooked in fat, from a mouldering square a cathedral casts an unexpected chill, but otherwise the town is charming, warm and very bright. On the shore stands an inn and next to it a toy casino. ”

“ It will be difficult. No one can be to me what you have been. You have been my youth, Lenox; my girlhood has been yours. I have nothing left. Nothing except regrets—regrets that youth should pass so quickly and that girlhood comes but once.”
Her lips were tremulous, but she was trying to be brave.
“But surely, Maida, it cannot be that we are to part forever. Afterwards—” the word was vague, but they both understood—“afterwards I may see you. Such things often are. Because you feel yourself compelled to this step, there is no reason why I, of all others, should be shut out of your life.” ”

“ Beyond, Mr. Incoul could see the tulle of the ballet rising and subsiding to the rhythm of the orchestra. Then came a sudden blare of trumpets, the measure swooned, and as it recovered again the ballet had faded to the back of the stage. Abruptly, as though sprung from a trap-door, a régisseur appeared, and at a signal from him Mirette, with one quick backward stroke to her skirt, bounded from the side scene and fluttered down to the footlights amid a crash and thunder of applause.
Mr. Incoul had heard and seen enough. His mind was busy. He felt the need of [162] fresh air and of solitude. ”

“ The collection was meaningless to Maida, and she turned aside and went out on the [83] verandah. Below, on the gravel walk, was a cat with a tail like a banner, and a neck furred like a ruff. Maida crumpled a bit of paper and threw it down. The cat jumped at it at once, toyed with it for a moment, and then, sliding backwards with a crab-like movement, its back arched, and its ears drawn down, it caught a glimpse of Maida’s unfamiliar figure, and fled to the bushes with a shriek of feigned terror. ”

“ Incoul went to explore the place, while Maida remained in the library. It was a satisfactory room, lined on three sides with low, well-filled book-cases, the windows were doors and extended nearly to the ceiling, but the light fell through pink awnings under which was a verandah, with steps that led to the garden below. From the walls hung selections of Goya’s Proverbios and Tauromaquia, a series of nightmares in black and white. Among them was a picture of a lake of blood haunted by evil spirits; a vertiginous flight of phantoms more horrible than any Doré ever saw ”

“ She crossed the entire width of sand, calmly, slowly, an invitation on her lips and with the walk and majesty of a queen. The amateurs as usual were tempted to applaud. It was indeed a triumph, an advertisement to boot, and one which she would have liked to prolong. But she was needed at the Opéra and so she returned to Paris accompanied by Lenox Leigh.
In Paris it is considered inconvenient for a pretty woman to go about on foot, and as for cabs, where is the self-respecting chorus-girl who would consent to be seen in one? ”

“ There is at Biarritz a division of the shore which, starting from the ruins of a corsair’s castle, extends on to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. It is known as the Côte des Basques. On one side are the cliffs, on the other the sea, and between the two is a broad avenue which almost disappears when the tide is high. The sand is fine as face powder, nuance Rachel, packed hard. From the cliffs the view is delicious: in the distance are the mountains curving and melting in the haze ”

“ The gift to man of appetites, which, in the guise of pleasure, veil immedicable pain. Poison in the richest flowers, the agony that lurks in the grape. He knew that whoso ate to his hunger, or drank to his thirst, summoned to him one or more of countless maladies—maladies which parents gave with their vices to their children, who, in turn, bring forth new generations that are smitten with all the ills to which flesh is heir. ”

“ A YELLOW ENVELOPE. There is a peculiarity about Baden-Baden which no other watering-place seems to share—it has the aroma of a pretty woman. In August it is warm, crowded, enervating, tiresome as are all warm and crowded places, but the air is delicately freighted and a pervasive fragrance is discerned even by the indifferent.
In the summer that succeeded Maida’s marriage Baden was the same tame, perfumed zwei und funfzig that it has ever been since the war. ”

“ I believe in purity in women, and I believe also in purity in men.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing to believe in, but it’s hard to find.”
Mr. Incoul had spoken more vehemently than was his wont, and to this remark he made no answer. His eyes were green, not the green of the cat but the green of a tiger, and as he sat with fingers clinched, and a cheerless smile on his thin lips, he looked a modern hunter of the Holy Grail.
The night train leaves Hendaye a trifle after ten, and soon a sereno was heard calling the hour, and declaring that all was well. ”

“ When the meal was done, they went into the toy Casino. There was a band playing at one end of the hall, the which was so narrow that the director had been obliged to select thin musicians, and beyond was a paperless reading-room, a vague café, a dwarf theatre, and a salle-de-jeu in white and gamboge. In the latter division, where the high life of Saint Jean had assembled, stood a table that resembled a roulette. In its centre were miniature revolving bulls, which immediately [77] attracted Mr. Blydenburg’s attention, and on the green baize were painted the names of cities. ”

“ If a client has money in his pocket a banker can transfer it to his own in an absolutely painless manner, but if the client’s pocket is empty what banker, out of an opéra-bouffe, was ever willing to fill it? Lenox reflected over this and was at a loss how to act. The firm on whom his drafts were drawn held nothing on their ledgers to his credit. He visited them immediately on arriving and was given a letter which for the moment he fancied might contain a remittance. But it bore the Paris postmark and the address was in Maida’s familiar hand. ”

“ Maida answered. She was tormented with the thought that at any moment Lenox might appear. “We can’t; we are going away.”
The Prince smiled in his brown beard. Americans were popular with him. He liked their freedom. There was, he knew, barely one woman in Baden, not utterly bedridden, who would have taken his invitation so lightly. “I am sorry,” he said, and he spoke sincerely. Like any other sensible man, he liked beauty and he liked it near him. He knew that Mrs. Incoul had been recently married, and in his own sagacious way, il posait des jalons. ”

“ Incoul had displayed a wisdom which was peculiar to himself; he exacted none of those little tributes which are conceded to be a husband’s due, and he allowed himself none of the familiarities which are reported to be an appanage of the married state. From the beginning he had determined to win his wife by the exercise of that force which, given time and opportunity, a strong nature invariably exerts over a weaker one. ”

“ These arrangements, which it takes a paragraph to describe, are absorbed at a glance, but with that glance there comes an aftershock—a riot of color that would take a library to convey. For the moment the eye is dazzled; a myriad of multicolored fans are fluttering like fabulous butterflies; there are unimagined combinations of insolent hues; a multitude of rainbows oscillating in a deluge of light. And while the eye is dazzled the ear is bewildered, the pulse is stirred. The excitement of ten thousand people is contagious; the uproar is as deafening as the thunder of cannon. ”

“ The butcher and baker are invisible providers of the best of fare. The servants understand their duties and attend to them, and, given a little forethought and a good bank account, the palace of the White Cat is there the most realizable of constructions.
In a week’s time the house in the Parc Monceau ran in grooves. To keep it running the tenants had absolutely nothing to do but to pay the bills. For this function Mr. Incoul was amply prepared, and, that the establishment should be on a proper footing, he furnished an adjacent stable with carriages, grooms and horse. ”

“ Incoul and Blydenburg were both men to whom the visible world exists, but they were [120] also men to whom the material world has much significance. In the hall of the inn a chicken and two turkeys clucked with fearless composure. The public room was small, close and full of insects. At a rickety table an old man, puffy and scornful, was quarreling with himself on the subject of a peseta which he held in his hand. The inn-keeper, a frowsy female, emerged from some remoter den, eyed them with unmollifiable suspicion and disappeared. ”

“ The Blydenburgs, less luxuriously inclined, remained at the hotel. Mr. Blydenburg had not as yet enjoyed an opportunity of conversing in Basque; he had indeed attempted to address a mildewed little girl whom he encountered one day when loitering on the cliffs, but the child had taken flight, and a mule that was pasturing on a bramble, threw back its ears, elongated its tail and curving its lips, brayed with such anguish that Mr. Blydenburg was fain to delay his studies until fortune offered a more favorable opportunity. ”

“ But he had not refused, he told himself, he had indeed not refused, he had merely suggested an amendment which turned an impossibility into an allurement. What pleasanter thing could there be than the winning of one’s own wife? The idea was so novel it delighted him. For the moment he preferred it to any other; beside it his former experience seemed humdrum indeed. But why had she wept? Her reasons, however, he had then no chance to elucidate. Miss Barhyte returned as abruptly as she had departed. ”

“ Maida, meanwhile, had put money on everything—cities, colors, banderilla, espada, and Frascuelo as well. To the surprise of every one, but most to that of the croupier, Frascuelo won. Maida saw twenty francs swept from her and forty returned. Blydenburg, who had played a closer game, received forty also, but he lost nothing, and he beamed as joyously as had the University of Copenhagen crowned an essay of his own manufacture. ”