PART I (continued 2)

Dinner was laid, and the appetisers[1] had been put on the table, but the mistress of the house was still invisible.

"If we took a snack standing," said the Baron, "we should be able to wait."

Afraid of offending the Baroness, I did my utmost to dissuade him, but he remained obstinate, and being, as it were, between two fires, I was compelled to acquiesce in his proposal.

At last the Baroness entered: radiant, young, pretty; she was dressed in a diaphanous silk frock, yellow, like ripe corn, with a mauve stripe, reminiscent of pansies; this was her favourite combination of colours. The well-cut dress suited her girlish figure to perfection, and emphasised the beautiful contour of the shoulders and the curve of the exquisitely modelled arms.

I handed her my bunch of roses, wishing her many happy returns of the day; I also took good care to put all the blame for our rude impatience on the Baron.

When her eyes fell on the disordered table, she pursed up her lips and addressed a remark to her husband which was more stinging than humorous; he was not slow to reply to the undeserved rebuke. I threw myself into the breach by recalling the incidents of the previous day which I had already discussed with the Baron.

"And what d'you think of my charming cousin?" asked the Baroness.

"She's very amiable," I replied.

"Don't you agree with me, my dear fellow, that the child is a perfect treasure?" exclaimed the Baron, in a voice which expressed parental solicitude, sincere devotion and pity for this imp of Satan, supposed to be martyred by imaginary tyrants.

But in spite of the stress laid by her husband on the word "child," the Baroness continued mercilessly—

"Just look how that dear Baby has changed the style in which my husband does his hair!"

The parting which the Baron had been accustomed to wear had indeed disappeared. Instead of it, his hair was dressed in the manner of the young students, his moustache waxed—a style which did not suit him. Through an association of ideas, my attention was drawn to the fact —which, however, I kept to myself—that the Baroness, too, had adopted from the charming cousin certain details of dressing her hair, of wearing her clothes, of manner even. It made me think of the elective affinities of the chemists, in this case acting on living beings.

The dinner dragged on, slowly and heavily, like a cart which has lost its fourth wheel, and wearily lumbers along on the three remaining ones. But the cousin, henceforth the indispensable complement of our quartet, which, without her, was beginning to be out of harmony, was expected to come later on and take coffee with us.

At dessert I proposed a toast to the married couple, in conventional terms, without spirit or wit, like champagne which has grown flat.

Husband and wife, animated by the memories of the past, kissed tenderly, and, in mimicking their former fond ways, became affectionate, amorous even, just as an actor will feel genuinely depressed when he has been feigning tears.

Or was it that the fire was still smouldering underneath the ashes, ready to burst into fresh flames if fanned by a skilful hand? It was impossible to guess how matters stood.

After dinner we went into the garden and sat in the summer-house, the window of which looked on to the street. Digestive processes did not favour conversation. The Baron stood at the window, absent-mindedly watching the street, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the cousin. Suddenly he darted off like an arrow, evidently with the intention of going to meet the expected guest.

Left alone with the Baroness, I at once became embarrassed; I was not naturally self-conscious, but she had a queer way of looking at me and paying me compliments on certain details of my appearance. After a long, almost painful silence, she burst out laughing, and pointing in the direction in which the Baron had disappeared, she exclaimed—

"Dear old Gustav, he is head-over-ears in love!"

"It looks like it," I replied. "And you are really not jealous?"

"Not at all," she assured me. "I'm in love myself with the pretty little cat. And you?"

"Oh, I'm all right. I don't want to be rude, but I shall never feel in the least in sympathy with your cousin."

And this was true. From the first moment I had taken a dislike to this young woman, who, like myself, was of middle-class origin. She saw in me the odious witness, or rather the dangerous rival, hunting in the preserves which she had reserved for herself, and from which she hoped to force her way into society. Her keen grey eyes had at once recognised in me an acquaintance of whom she could make no use; her plebeian instinct scented an adventurer in me. And up to a certain point she was right, for I had entered the Baron's house in the hope of finding a patron for my unfortunate drama; unluckily, the relations between my friends and the stage were non-existent, a mere fabrication of my friend from Finland, and, with the exception of a few compliments, my play had never been mentioned.

It was also undeniable that there was a marked difference in the Baron's manner whenever his charmer was present. He was fickle and easily impressed, and evidently beginning to regard me with the eyes of the sorceress.

We had not long to wait; the pair appeared at the garden gate, merrily talking and laughing.

The girl was brimming over with fun and merriment; she used bad language, a little too freely perhaps, but with excellent taste; she uttered double-entendres with such an appearance of perfect innocence that it was impossible to credit her with the knowledge of the meaning of her ambiguous words. She smoked and drank without forgetting for one single moment that she was a woman, and, what is more, a young woman. There was nothing masculine about her, nothing emancipated, nor was she in the least prudish. She was certainly amusing, and time passed quickly.

But what surprised me most and ought to have been a warning to me, was the excessive mirth with which the Baroness greeted any doubtful remark which fell from the girl's lips. Then a wild laugh, a cynical expression would flit over her countenance, giving evidence that she was deeply versed in the secrets of excess.

While we were thus amusing ourselves, the Baron's uncle joined our little party. A retired captain, a widower of many years' standing, very chivalrous, of pleasing manners, a little daring in his old-fashioned courteousness, he was, thanks to his connection with the family, the declared favourite of these ladies, whose affections he had succeeded in winning.

He looked upon it as his right to fondle them, kiss their hands, pat their cheeks. As he came in, both of them fell on his neck with little exclamations of pleasure.

"Take care, my little ones! Two at a time is too much for an old fellow like me. Take care! You are burning yourselves. Quick, down with your hands, or I won't be responsible for anything."

The Baroness held her cigarette, poised between her lips, towards him.

"A little fire, please, uncle!"

"Fire! Fire! I'm sorry I can't oblige you, my child, my fire has gone out," he answered slyly.

"Has it?"

She boxed his ears with her finger-tips. The old man seized her arm, held it between his hands and felt it up to her shoulder.

"You're not as thin as you look, my darling," he said, stroking her soft flesh through her sleeve.

The Baroness did not object. The compliment seemed to please her. Playfully, smilingly, she pushed up her sleeve, exposing a beautifully-modelled arm, daintily rounded and white as milk. Almost immediately, however, remembering my presence, she hastily pulled it down again; but I had seen a spark of the consuming fire which burned in her eyes, an expression which comes into the face of a woman in the transports of love.

The burning match which I held between my fingers, with the intention of lighting a cigarette, accidentally dropped between my coat and waistcoat.

With a terrified scream, the Baroness rushed at me and tried to extinguish the flame between her fingers.

"Fire! Fire!" she shrieked, her cheeks scarlet with excitement.

Losing my self-control, I started back and pressed her hand against my breast, as if to smother the smouldering fire; then, shamefacedly releasing myself and pretending that I had escaped a very real danger, I thanked the Baroness, who was still unable to control her agitation.

We talked till supper-time. The sun had set, and the moon rose behind the cupola of the Observatory, illuminating the apple trees in the orchard. We amused ourselves by trying to differentiate between the apples suspended from the branches and half-hidden by the leaves, which looked sedge-green in the pale moonlight. The ordinary blood-red Calville seemed but a yellow spot; the greyish Astrachan apple had turned green, the Rennet a dark, brownish red, and the others had changed colour in proportion. The same thing had happened with the flowers.

The dahlias presented to our eyes unknown tints, the stocks shone in the colours of another planet, the hues of the Chinese asters were indefinable.

"There, you see, Baroness," I said, commenting on the phenomenon, "how everything in the world is imaginary. Colour does not exist in the abstract; everything depends on the nature of the light. Everything is illusion."

"Everything?" she said softly, remaining standing before me and gazing at me with eyes magnified by the darkness.

"Everything, Baroness!" I lied, confused by this living apparition of flesh and blood, which at the moment terrified me by its unearthly loveliness.

The dishevelled golden hair formed a luminous aureole round her pale, moonlit face; her exquisitely proportionate figure rose by my side, tall and straight and more slender than ever in the striped dress, the colours of which had changed to black and white.

The stocks breathed their voluptuous perfumes, the crickets chirped in the grass, wet with the falling dew, a gentle breeze rustled in the trees, twilight wrapped us round with its soft mantle; everything invited to love; nothing but the cowardice of respectability kept back the avowal which trembled on my lips.

Suddenly an apple dropped from a wind-shaken bough and fell at our feet. The Baroness stooped, picked it up and gave it to me, with a significant gesture.

"Forbidden fruit!" I murmured. "No, thank you." And to efface the impression of this blunder, which I had committed against my will, I hastened to improvise a satisfactory explanation of my words, hinting at the parsimony of the owner. "What would the owner say if he saw me?"

"That you are at least a knight without reproach," she replied disapprovingly, glancing at the shrubbery which effectively screened the Baron and her cousin from indiscreet observers.

When we rose from the supper-table the Baron proposed that we should accompany "the dear child" home. At the front door he offered her his arm, and then turned to me.

"Look after my wife, old man," he said, "and prove to her that you really are the perfect cavalier I know you to be." His voice was full of tender solicitude.

I felt ill at ease. As the evening was warm the Baroness, leaning lightly on me, was carrying her scarf in her hand, and from her arm, the graceful outline of which was plainly perceptible through the thin silk, emanated a magnetic current which excited in me an extraordinary sensitiveness. I imagined that I could detect, at the height of my deltoid muscle, the exact spot where the sleeve of her under-garment ended. My sensitiveness was intensified to such a degree that I could have traced the whole anatomy of that adorable arm. Her biceps, the great elevator which plays the principal part when two people embrace each other, pressed mine, flesh against flesh, in supple rhythms. In walking along, side by side, I could distinguish the curve of her hips through the skirts which brushed against my legs.

"You walk splendidly, you must be a perfect dancer," she said, as if to encourage me to break an embarrassing silence.

And after a few moments, during which she must have felt the quivering of my overstrung nerves, she asked, a little sarcastically, with the superiority of a woman of the world—

"Are you shivering?"

"Yes, I'm cold."

"Then why not put on your overcoat?"

Her voice was soft and velvety, like a caress.

I put on my coat, a veritable straight jacket, and so was better protected against the warmth which flowed from her body into mine.

The sound of her little feet, keeping time with my footsteps, drew our nervous systems so closely together that I felt almost as if I were walking on four feet, like a quadruped.

In the course of that fateful walk a pruning occurred of the kind which gardeners call "ablactation," and which is brought about by bringing two boughs into the closest proximity.

From that day I no longer belonged to myself. She had inoculated me with her blood; our nerves were in a state of high tension; the unborn lives within her yearned for the quickening fiat which would call them into existence; her soul craved for union with my spirit, and my spirit longed to pour itself into this delicate vessel. Had all this happened to us without our knowledge? Impossible to say.

Once more back in my room, I determinately faced the question of the future. Should I flee from danger and forget, should I try to make my fortune abroad? The idea flashed through my mind to go to Paris, the centre of civilisation. Once there, I would bury myself in the libraries, be lost in the museums. In Paris I should produce a great work.

No sooner had I conceived this plan, than I took the necessary steps to carry it out. After a month had elapsed I was in a position to pay my farewell visits.

An unexpected incident which happened very opportunely served as a convenient pretext with which to cloak my flight. Selma, my whilom Finnish friend, was having her banns published. I was, therefore, so to speak, compelled to seek forgetfulness and healing for my wounded heart in distant countries. Anyhow, it was as good an excuse as any I could think of.

My departure was delayed for a few weeks in deference to the entreaties of my friends, who were dreading the equinoctial gales; I had decided to go by steamer to Havre.

Furthermore, my sister's wedding was to take place early in October, and this necessitated a further postponement of my project.

During this time I received frequent invitations from the Baroness. The cousin had returned to her parents, and the three of us generally spent the evenings together. The Baron, unconsciously influenced by the strong will of his wife, seemed more favourably disposed towards me; moreover, my impending departure had reassured him completely, and he treated me with his former friendliness.

One evening the Baroness's mother was entertaining a small circle of intimate friends, when the Baroness, stretched out listlessly on the sofa, suddenly put her head on her mother's lap and loudly confessed her intense admiration for a well-known actor. Did she want to torture me, to see the effect which such a confession would have on me? I don't know. But the old lady, tenderly stroking her daughter's hair, looked at me.

"If ever you write a novel," she said, "let me draw your attention to this particular type of passionate womanhood. It's an extraordinary type! She's never happy unless she is in love with some one else beside her husband."

"It's quite true what mamma says," agreed the Baroness, "and just at present I'm in love with that man! He's irresistible!"

"She's mad," laughed the Baron, wincing, yet anxiously trying to appear unconcerned.

Passionate womanhood! The words sank into my heart, for, jesting apart, those words spoken by an old woman, and that old woman her own mother, must have contained more than a grain of truth.

VI

My departure was imminent. On the eve of my leaving I invited the Baron and his wife to a bachelor's dinner in my attic. To hide the meanness of the furniture, my little home was wearing its Sunday clothes, and had the appearance of a sacred temple. My damaged wicker sofa was pushed against the wall between the two window recesses, one of which was filled by my writing-table and the improvised garden, the other by my book-shelves; an imitation tiger-skin was thrown over it, and held in its place by invisible tacks.

The left was taken up by my large bed-sofa, with its gaudy tick cover. Above it, on the side wall, hung a vividly-coloured map of the world. On the right-hand side stood my chest of drawers with its swing glass, both in the Empire style and decorated with brass ornaments; a wardrobe with a bust of plaster of Paris and a wash-stand, for the moment banished behind the window curtains, completed the furniture. The walls, with their decorations of framed sketches, made a gay and varied show.

A china chandelier, of the shape which is occasionally met with in churches and which I had discovered at an antiquary's, was suspended from the ceiling. The cracks were skilfully concealed by a wreath of artificial ivy which I had found some little time ago at my sister's. Beneath the three-armed chandelier stood the dining-table. A basket filled with Bengal roses, which glowed red among the dark foliage, was placed on the white damask tablecloth, and the roses, reaching up to and mingling with the drooping ivy shoots, gave the whole the effect of a flower show. Round the basket which held the roses stood an array of wine glasses, red, green and opal, which I had bought cheaply, at a sale, for each of them had a flaw. The same thing applied to the dinner service: plates, salt-cellars and sugar-bowl of Chinese, Japanese and Swedish porcelain.

I had but a dozen cold dishes to offer to my friends, most of them chosen more with an eye to their decorative value than because they were good to eat, for the meal was to consist principally of oysters. My landlady had good-naturedly lent me the indispensable articles for the banquet, an unprecedented event in my attic.... At last everything was satisfactorily arranged, and I could not help admiring the setting: these mingled touches betrayed on a small scale the inspiration of a poet, the research of a scientist, the good taste of an artist. The fondness for dainty food, the love of flowers, suggested the love of women. If the table had not been laid for three, one might have guessed at an intimate feast for two, the first delights of a love-adventure, instead of a feast of reconciliation which it actually was. My room had not seen a female visitor since that horrible woman whose boots had left ineradicable traces on the woodwork of my sofa. The looking-glass on the chest of drawers had reflected no female figure since then. And now a woman of blameless life, a mother, a lady of education and refinement, was coming to consecrate this place which had seen so much work, misery and pain. And, I thought in a transport of poetic inspiration, it is indeed a sacred festival, since I am prepared to sacrifice my heart, my peace, perhaps my life, to ensure the happiness of my friends.

Everything was ready when I heard footsteps on the fourth floor landing. I hastily lit the candles, for the last time straightened the basket containing the roses, and a moment later my guests, exhausted with having climbed four flights of stairs, stood panting before my door.

I opened. The Baroness, dazzled by the lights, clapped her hands as if she were admiring a successful stage setting.

"Bravo!" she exclaimed, "you are a first-class stage manager."

"Yes," I replied, "I occasionally amuse myself with play-acting, for the sake of discipline and patience."

I took off her cloak, bade her be welcome, and made her sit down on the sofa. But she could not keep still. With the curiosity of a woman who has never been in a bachelor's chambers, but has gone straight from her father's house to that of her husband, she began to examine the room. She seized my penholder, handled my blotter, searched about as if she were determined to discover a secret. Strolling to my book-shelves, she glanced curiously at the back of the volumes. In passing the looking-glass she stopped for a few seconds to arrange her hair and push the end of a piece of lace into the opening of her blouse. She examined the furniture, piece by piece, and smelt the flowers, all the time uttering little cries of delight.

When she had finished her voyage of discovery round my room, she asked me, naively, without any arrière-pensée, seeking with her eyes a piece of furniture which appeared to be missing—

"But where do you sleep?"

"On the sofa."

"Oh, how jolly a bachelor's life must be!"

And the forgotten dreams of her girlhood awoke in her brain.

"It's often very dull," I replied.

"Dull to be one's own master, have one's own home, be free from all supervision! Oh, what would I not give to be independent! Matrimony is abominable! Isn't it so, darling?" She turned towards the Baron, who had been listening to her good-naturedly.

"Yes, it is dull," he agreed, smilingly.

Dinner was ready and the banquet began. The first glass of wine made us feel merry, but all of a sudden, remembering the occasion for our unceremonious meeting, a feeling of sadness mingled with our enjoyment. We began to talk of the pleasant days we had spent together. In imagination we again passed through all the little adventures of our excursions. And our eyes shone, our hearts beat more quickly, we shook hands and clinked glasses with one another.

The hours passed rapidly, and we realised with growing distress that the moment of parting was approaching. At a sign from his wife the Baron produced an opal ring from his pocket and held it out to me.

"Here, my dear old fellow," he said, "take this little keepsake as a token of our gratitude for the friendship which you have shown us. May fate give you your heart's desire! This is my sincerest wish, for I love you as a brother and respect you as a man of honour! A pleasant journey! We will not say 'farewell,' but 'to the day of our next meeting.'"

As a man of honour? Had he guessed my motive? Read my conscience? Not at all!... For in well-chosen words, anxious to explain his little speech, he burst out into a string of abuse of poor Selma; he accused her of having broken her word, of having sold herself to a man who ... well, to a man whom she did not love, a man who owed his happiness merely to my extraordinary decency.

My extraordinary decency! I felt ashamed, but, carried away by the sincerity of this simple heart, which judged a little too hastily, perhaps, I suddenly felt very unhappy, inconsolably unhappy, and I kept up the lie dressed in the outer semblance of truth.

The Baroness, deceived by my clever acting, misled by my assumed indifference, believed me to be in earnest, and with motherly tenderness tried to comfort me.

"Have done with her!" she urged; "forget all about her. There are plenty of girls, far better than she is. Don't fret, she's not worth crying for, since she couldn't even wait for you. Besides, I may tell you now—I've heard things about her...."

And with a pleasure which she was quite unable to conceal, she proceeded to disgust me still further with my supposed idol.

"Just think," she exclaimed, "she practically proposed to an officer of good family, and she made herself out to be ever so much younger than she is ... she's nothing but a common flirt, take my word for it."

A disapproving gesture from the Baron made her realise her mistake; she pressed my hand and apologised, looking at me with eyes so wistful and tender that I felt as if I should die of grief. The Baron, slightly intoxicated, made sentimental speeches, took me into his confidence, overwhelmed me with brotherly love, attacked me with endless toasts, which seemed to lose themselves in infinity. His swollen face beamed benevolently. He looked at me with his caressing, melancholy eyes; their glance dissipated every shadow of doubt of the sincerity of his friendship which I might have entertained. Surely he was nothing but a big, good-natured child, of unquestionable integrity; and I made a vow to behave honourably towards him, even if it should kill me.

We rose from the table to say good-bye, perhaps for ever. The Baroness burst out sobbing, and hid her face on her husband's shoulder.

"I must be mad," she exclaimed, "to be so fond of this dear boy that his going away almost breaks my heart!"

And with an outburst of affection, at once pure and impure, interested and disinterested, passionate and full of angelic tenderness, she put her arms round my neck and kissed me in her husband's presence; then she made the sign of the cross over me and turned to go.

My old charwoman, who was waiting on the threshold, wiped her eyes, and we all shed tears. It was a solemn moment, never to be forgotten. The sacrifice had been made.

I went to bed at one o'clock in the morning, but I was unable to sleep; fear of missing the steamer kept me awake. Worn out by the farewell parties which had been following one on the top of the other for a week, my nerves unhinged from too much drinking, stupid from idleness, overwrought by the excitement of the evening, I tossed between the sheets until the day broke. Knowing that my will-power was temporarily enfeebled, and loathing railway journeys, because the shaking and jolting is injurious to the spine, I had elected to travel by steamer; moreover, this would prevent any attempt on my part to draw back. The boat was to start at six o'clock in the morning, and the cab called for me at five. I started on my way alone.

It was a windy October morning, foggy and cold. The branches of the trees were covered with hoar frost. When I arrived on the North Bridge, I imagined for a second that I was the victim of an hallucination: there was the Baron, walking in the same direction as my cab. Contrary to our agreement, he had risen early, and had come to see me off. Deeply touched by this unexpected proof of friendship, I felt altogether unworthy of his affection, and full of remorse for ever having thought evil of him.

We arrived at the landing-stage. He accompanied me on board, examined my cabin, introduced himself to the captain, and recommended me to his special attention. He behaved like an elder brother, a devoted friend, and we said good-bye to each other, deeply moved.

"Take care of yourself, old man," he said. "You are not looking well."

I really felt quite ill, but I pulled myself together until the mooring ropes were cast adrift.

Then a sudden terror of this long and senseless journey seized me, a frantic desire to throw myself into the water and swim to the shore. But I had not the strength to yield to my impulse, and remained standing on deck, undecided what to do, waving my handkerchief in response to my friend's greeting until he disappeared, blotted out by the vessels which rode at anchor in the roads.

The boat was a heavily loaded cargo steamer, with but one cabin on the main deck. I went to my berth, stretched myself on the mattress and pulled the blankets over me, determined to sleep through the first twenty-four hours, so as to prevent any attempt at escape on my part. I must have been unconscious for half-an-hour, when I suddenly started from my sleep as if I had received an electric shock, a very ordinary result of dissipation and sleeplessness.

In a second the whole dreary reality had flashed into my mind. I went on deck to exercise my stiff limbs. I watched the barren brown shores receding before my eyes, the trees stripped of their leaves, the yellowish-grey meadows; in the hollows of the rocks snow was already lying. The water looked grey with sepia-coloured spots; the sky was leaden and full of gloom; the dirty deck, the uncouth sailors—everything contributed to deepen my depression. I felt an unspeakable longing for human companionship, but there did not appear to be a single passenger—not one! I climbed on the bridge to look for the captain. I found him a bear of the worst description, absolutely unapproachable. I was a prisoner for ten days, solitary, cast away among people without understanding, without feeling. It was torture.

I resumed my walk on deck, up and down, in all directions, as if my restless movements could increase the speed of the boat. My burning brain worked under high pressure; a thousand ideas flashed into my mind in a second; the suppressed memories rose, pushing and chasing each other. A pain like toothache began to torment me, but in my confusion I could neither describe nor locate it. The further the steamer advanced into the open sea, the greater became the strain. I felt as if the bond which bound me to my native country, to my family, to her, was tearing asunder. Deserted by everybody, tossing on the high seas between heaven and earth, I seemed to be losing all foothold, and in my loneliness I felt afraid of everything and everybody. It was, doubtless, a sign of constitutional weakness, for I remembered that as a boy I had cried bitter tears on a pleasure trip, at the sudden thought of my mother; I was twelve years old then, but, bodily, I was developed far in advance of my years. The reason, in my opinion, was that I had been born prematurely, or perhaps even attempts had been made to suppress life before it could properly be said to have come into existence. Such things happen only too frequently in large families. At any rate, I felt sure that this was the cause of the despondency which invariably overcame me when I was about to make a change in my surroundings. Now, in tearing myself away from my familiar environment, I was tormented with dread of the future, the unknown country, the ship's crew. Impressionable, like every prematurely born child, whose exposed nerves are waiting for the still bleeding skin; defenceless like a crab which, having cast its shell, seeks protection underneath the stones, and feels every change of the sinking barometer, I wandered about, trying to find a soul stronger than mine, take hold of a firm hand, feel the warmth of a human presence, look into a friendly eye. Like a squirrel in its cage, I ran round the upper deck, picturing to myself the ten days of suffering which awaited me. I remembered that I had only been on board for an hour! A long hour, more like a day of agony ... and not a glimmer of hope at the end of this accursed journey! I tried to reason with myself, and all the time rebelled against reason.

Who compelled me to go? Who had a right to blame me if I returned?... Nobody! And yet!... Shame, the fear of making myself a laughing-stock, honour! No! No! I must abandon all hope. Moreover, the boat would not call anywhere on her way to Havre. Forward then, and courage!

But courage depends on strength of body and mind, and at the moment I lacked both. Haunted by my dreary thoughts, I turned towards the lower deck, for by now I knew the upper deck down to its smallest details, and the sight of its rails, rigging and tackling bored me like a book read until one knows it by heart. On my way I almost tumbled over a person seeking shelter from the wind behind the cabin. It was an old lady, dressed in black, with grey hair and a careworn face.

She gazed at me attentively, with sympathetic eyes. I walked up to her and spoke to her. She answered me in French, and we soon became acquainted.

After the exchange of a few commonplaces, we confided to each other the purpose of our journey. She was not travelling for pleasure. The widow of a timber-merchant, she had been staying with a relative in Stockholm, and was now on her way to visit her insane son, confined in a lunatic asylum at Havre.

Her account was so simple and yet so heartrending that it affected me strongly, and probably her story, impressing itself on the cells of my already overwrought brain, led up to what followed.

All of a sudden the lady ceased talking, and, gazing at me with a look of dismay, exclaimed, sympathetically—

"Are you ill?"

"I?"

"Yes, you look ill. You should try and get some sleep."

"To tell you the truth, I never closed my eyes last night, and I am over-tired. I've been suffering from sleeplessness for some time, and nothing seems to be able to procure me the much-needed rest."

"Let me try. Go to bed at once. I will give you a draught that will send you to sleep standing."

She rose, pushed me gently before her, and forced me to go to bed. Then she disappeared for a moment and returned with a small flask, containing a sleeping draught. She gave me a dose in a spoon.

"Now you are sure to be able to sleep."

I thanked her, and she carefully covered me with the blankets. How well she understood what she was about! She radiated warmth, that warmth which a baby seeks in the arms of its mother. Under the gentle touch of her hands I grew calm, and two minutes later unconsciousness began to steal over me. I seemed to have become an infant again. I saw my mother busying herself round my bed and caring for me. Gradually her fading features mingled and became one with the finely-chiselled face of the Baroness and the sympathetic expression of the compassionate nurse who had just left me. In the care of these women, who hovered round my bed, I faded away like a paling colour, went out like a candle, lost consciousness.

When I awoke I did not remember any dream, but a fixed idea haunted me, as if it had been suggested to me during my sleep: I must see the Baroness again, or I shall go out of my mind!

Shivering with cold, I sprang from my bed; the salt-laden wind, penetrating through every chink and cranny, had made it damp. When I stepped out of my cabin the sky was pale grey, like iron. On deck the great waves washed the tackling, watered the planks and splashed my face with foam.

I looked at my watch and calculated the distance which the steamer must have travelled while I slept. In my opinion we were now in the archipelago of Norrköping; all hope of return was therefore dead. Everything was strange to me, the scattered islands in the bay, the rugged coast, the shape of the cottages dotted along the shore, and the cut of the sails on the fishing-smacks. Amid these unfamiliar surroundings I felt the first pangs of home-sickness. A sullen wrath choked me, I felt a wild despair in finding myself packed on this cargo-boat in spite of myself, in deference to a higher power, in the imperious name of Honour!

When my wrath had exhausted itself, my strength had come to an end. Leaning against the rail, I let the waves lash my burning face, while my eyes greedily devoured the coastline, eager to discover a ray of hope. And again and again my mind returned to the idea of swimming to the shore.

For a long time I stood gazing at the swiftly-receding outlines of the coast. The wind had dropped, and I grew calmer, rays of a tranquil happiness illuminated my soul; the pressure on my surcharged brain grew less; pictures of beautiful summer days, memories of my first youth came into my mind, although I was at a loss to understand why I should suddenly think of them. The boat was rounding a promontory: the roofs of red houses with white garlands rose above the Scotch firs; a flagstaff became visible, the gay patchwork of the gardens, a bridge, a chapel, a church steeple, a graveyard.... Was it a dream? A delusion?

No, it was the quiet seaside place where I had spent many summers in my student days. Up there was the tiny house where I had passed a night, last spring, with her and him, after we had spent the day sailing on the sea and wandering through the woods. It was there—there—on the top of that hill, under the ash-trees, on the balcony, where I had seen her delicate face, illuminated by the sunshine of her golden hair, and crowned by the little Japanese hat with the blue veil, while her small, gloved hand had beckoned me to come to dinner.... She was there now, I could see her plainly, she was waving her handkerchief to me.... I could hear her melodious voice ... but ... what was happening? The boat was slowing down, the engine stopped ... the pilot cutter came to meet us ... in an instant ... a flash of thought—a single, obsessing thought, moved me with electric force—with the spring of a tiger I bounded up the stairs which led to the bridge—I stood before the captain—I shouted—

"Have me put ashore at once—or I shall go mad!"

The captain looked at me sharply, scrutinisingly, and without vouchsafing a reply, dismayed as if he had looked into the face of an escaped lunatic, he called to the second officer and said, imperatively—

"Have this gentleman and his luggage put ashore. He is ill."

Before five minutes had elapsed, I was on board the pilot cutter; they rowed with such vigour that we landed in a very short time.

I possess the remarkable gift of becoming blind and deaf when it suits me. I was walking along the road leading to the hotel without having heard or seen anything hurtful to my vanity; neither a glance from the pilots, betraying that they guessed my secret, nor a disparaging remark from the man who was carrying my luggage.

Arrived at the hotel, I asked for a room, ordered an absinthe, lighted a cigar and began to reflect.

"Had I gone mad? Was I in such imminent peril of insanity that an immediate landing had been necessary?"

In my present state of mind I was incapable of forming an opinion, for a madman, according to the verdict of the doctors, is not conscious of his mental disorder, and the association of his ideas proves nothing against their irregularity. Like a scientist, I examined similar occurrences which had happened to me before.

When I was still a boy at college, my nervous excitability, exaggerated by exasperating events, passion, the suicide of a friend, distrust of the future, had been increased to such an extent that everything filled me with apprehension, even in broad daylight. I was afraid to stay in a room by myself; I was haunted by my own spectre, and my friends took it in turns to spend the night with me, while the candles burned and the fire crackled in the stove.

Another time, in an attack of wild despair, following on all sorts of misfortunes, I ran across country, wandered through the woods, and at last climbed to the top of a pine tree. There I sat astride on a branch and made a speech to the Scotch firs which spread out their branches below me, endeavouring to drown their voices, imagining that I was a speaker addressing an assembled crowd. It was not so very far from here, on an island where I had spent many summers, and the headland of which was plainly visible from where I stood.

Remembering that incident, with all its ridiculous details, I could not help admitting to myself that, at any rate at times, I was subject to mental delusions.

What was I to do now? Should I communicate with my friends before the rumour of my attack had reached the town? But the disgrace and shame of having to acknowledge that henceforth I was on a level with the irresponsible! The thought was unbearable.

Lie, then! Double without being able to throw the pursuers off the scent. It went against the grain. Tormented by doubts, hesitating between different plans of escape from this maze, I longed to run away in order to be spared the terrible questions which awaited me. Like a wild beast which feels the approach of death, I thought of hiding myself in the wood to die.

With that idea in my mind, I went slowly through the narrow streets. I climbed over huge rocks, saturated and rendered slippery by the autumnal rains, crossed a stubble field, reached the little house where I once had lived. The shutters were tightly closed; the wild vine which covered the walls up to the roof was stripped of its leaves, and the green lattice-work was plainly visible. As I stood again upon that sacred spot, sacred to my heart because it had seen the first blossoming of our friendship, the sense of my loss, which for a time had been forced into the background, reasserted itself. Leaning against one of the supports of the wooden balcony, I wept like a forsaken child.

I remembered having read in the Thousand and One Nights that lovers fall ill with unsatisfied longing, and that their cure depends entirely on the possession of the beloved one. Snatches of Swedish folk-songs came into my mind, about young maidens who, in despair of ever being united to the object of their affections, waste away, and bid their mothers prepare their deathbeds for them. I thought of Heine, the old sceptic, who sings of the tribe of the Asra, "who die when they love." There could have been no doubt of the genuineness of my passion, for I had gone back to childhood, obsessed by one thought, one picture, one single, overpowering sensation, prostrating me and rendering me unable to do anything but sigh.

To distract my thoughts, I let my eyes travel over the glorious landscape spread out at my feet. The thousands of islands bristling with Scotch firs, with here and there a pine tree, which seemed to swim in the enormous bay, gradually decreased in size and transformed themselves into reefs, cliffs and sandbanks, until the huge archipelago terminated at the grey-green line of the Baltic, where the breakers dashed against the steep bulwarks of the remotest cliffs.

The shadows of the drifting clouds fell in coloured strips on the surface of the water, passing from dark brown through all the shades of bottle-green and Prussian blue to the snowy white of the crested waves. Behind a fortress, situated on a steep cliff, rose a column of black smoke, ascending without a break from an invisible chimney, to be blown down again by the wind on to the foaming waves. All of a sudden the dark hull of the cargo-boat which I had just left came into view. The sight wrung my heart, for the steamer seemed like a witness of my disgrace. Like a shying horse, I bolted and fled into the wood.

Underneath the pointed arches of the Scotch firs, through the needles of which the wind whistled, my anguish increased. Here we had been walking together when the spring sunshine lay on the tender green, when the Scotch firs put forth their purple blossoms, which exhale a perfume like that of the wild strawberry; when the juniper scattered its yellow pollen into the wind; when the anemones pushed their white heads through the dead leaves under the hazel bushes. Her little feet had pressed the soft, brown moss, spread out like a rug, while with a silvery voice she had sung her Finnish songs. Guided by the clear light of remembrance, I found again the two gigantic trees, grown together in an unending embrace; the two trunks were bending to the violent gusts of the wind, and rubbed against each other with a grating noise. From here she had taken a little footpath to gather a water-lily which grew in a swamp.

With the zeal of a setter I tried to discover the trace of her pretty foot, the imprint of which, however light, I felt sure I could not miss. With bent shoulders and eyes glued to the ground, I searched the path without finding anything. The ground was covered with the foot-prints of the deer, and I might just as well have tried to follow the trail of a wood nymph, than discover the spot which the dainty shoe of the adored woman had trod. Nothing but mud-holes, refuse, fungi, toadstools, puff-balls, decaying and decayed, and the broken stalks of flowers. Arrived at the edge of the swamp, which was filled with black water, I found a certain fleeting comfort in the thought that it had once reflected the sweetest face in all the world. In vain I looked for the spot where the water lilies grew; it was covered up by dead leaves, blown down by the wind from the birch trees.

I retraced my footsteps and plunged into the heart of the forest; the soughing of the wind in the branches deepened with the growing size of the trees. In the very depth of despair I sobbed aloud, the tears raining down my cheeks; like a wild stag I trampled on the fungi and toadstools, tore up the young plants, dashed myself against the trees. What did I want? I didn't know myself. My pulses throbbed, an inexpressible longing to see her again came over me. She, whom I loved too deeply for desire, had taken possession of my soul. And now that everything was at an end, I longed to die, for life without her was impossible.

But, with the cunning of a madman, I decided to get some satisfaction out of my death by contracting pneumonia, or a similar fatal disease; for in that case, I argued, I should have to be in bed for some time; I could see her again and could kiss her hand in saying good-bye for ever.

Comforted by this sudden thought, I turned my steps towards the coast; it was not difficult to find it, I had but to be guided by the roar of the breakers, which led me across the wood.

The coast was precipitous and the water deep, everything as it should be. With careful attention, which betrayed nothing of my sinister purpose, I undressed myself; I hid my clothes in a plantation of alder trees and pushed my watch into a hole in the rock. The wind was cold; at this time of the year, in October, the temperature of the water could be but a few degrees above freezing-point. I took a run over the rocks and threw myself headlong into the water, aiming at a cleft between two gigantic waves. I felt as if I had fallen into red-hot lava. But I rose quickly to the surface, dragging up with me pieces of seaweed which I had glimpsed at the bottom, and the tiny vesicles of which were scratching my legs. I swam out into the open sea, breasting the huge waves, greeted by the laughter of the sea gulls and the cawing of the crows. When my strength began to fail, I turned and swam back to the cliff.

Now the moment of greatest importance had arrived. According to all instructions given to bathers, the real danger consists in remaining too long out of the water in a state of nudity. I sat down on the rock which was most fully exposed to the wind, and allowed the October gale to lash my bare back. My muscles, my chest immediately contracted, as if the instinct of self-preservation would protect the vital organs at any price. But I was unable to remain on the same spot, and, seizing the branch of an alder tree, I climbed to its top. The tree swayed with the convulsive, uncontrollable movements of my muscles. In this way I succeeded in remaining in the same place for some time. The icy air scorched my skin like a red-hot iron.

At last I was convinced that I had attained my end, and hastily dressed myself.

In the meantime night had fallen. When I re-entered the wood it was quite dark. Terror seized me; I knocked my head against the lower branches of the trees, and was obliged to feel my way along. Suddenly, under the influence of my frantic fear, my senses became so acute that I could tell the variety of the trees which surrounded me by the rustling of their branches. What depth there was in the bass of the Scotch firs, with their firm and closely-set needles, forming, as it were, gigantic guitars; the tall and more pliable stems of the pines gave a higher note; their sibilant fife resembled the hissing of a thousand snakes; the dry rustling of the branches of the birch trees recalled to me memories of my childhood, with its mingled griefs and pleasures; the rustling of the dead leaves clinging to the branches of the oaks sounded like the rustling of paper; the muttering of the junipers was almost like the whispering voices of women, telling each other secrets. The gale tore off the branch of an alder tree, and it crashed to the ground with a hollow thud. I could have distinguished a pine cone from the cone of a Scotch fir by the sound it made in falling; my sense of smell detected the proximity of a mushroom, and the nerves of my large toe seemed to feel whether it trod on soil, clubmoss or maidenhair.

Guided by the acuteness of my sensations, I came to the enclosure of the graveyard, and walked up the wooden steps. I felt a momentary pleasure in the sound of the weeping willow lashing the tombstones which they overhung. At last, stiff with cold, shaking at every unexpected noise, I reached the village and walked past the houses, which shone feebly in the dark, to the hotel.

As soon as I had arrived in my room I sent off a telegram to the Baron, informing him of my sudden illness and enforced landing. Then I drew up for him a full statement of my mental condition, mentioning my former attacks, and asking him to keep the matter quiet. I gave him to understand that my illness was caused by the conduct of my unfaithful love, whose publicly announced engagement had robbed me of all hope.

I went to bed exhausted, certain of having contracted a fatal fever. Then I rang for the servant and asked her to send for a doctor. On her reply that no doctor was available, I begged her to send for a clergyman, so that I could make my last wishes known to him.

And from that moment I was prepared to die or go out of my mind.

The clergyman appeared almost immediately. He was a man about thirty, and looked like a farm laborer in Sunday clothes. Red-haired and freckled, with a half-vacant look in his eyes, he did not inspire me with sympathy; for a long time I could find no words, for I did not know what to say to this man, who possessed neither education, the wisdom of age, nor a knowledge of the human heart.

He remained standing in the centre of the room, self-conscious, like a provincial in the presence of the inhabitant of a large city, until I motioned him to take a chair.

Then he began his cross-examination.

"You have sent for me, sir? You are in trouble?"

"Yes."

"There is no happiness but in Jesus."

Although I was hankering after quite another sort of happiness, I did not contradict him, and the evangelist rambled on, uninterruptedly, monotonously, verbosely. The old tenets of the catechism lulled me gently to sleep, and the presence of a human being entering into spiritual relationship with my soul gave me new strength.

But the preacher, suddenly doubting my sincerity, interrupted his discourse with a question—

"Do you hold the true faith?"

"No," I replied, "but go on speaking, your words are doing me good...."

And he returned to his work.

The monotonous sound of his voice, the radiations from his eyes, the warmth which emanated from his body, affected me like a magnetic fluid. In half-an-hour's time I was fast asleep.

When I awoke, the mesmerist had gone; the servant brought me a sleeping-draught, with strict injunctions from the chemist to be careful, as the bottle contained sufficient poison to kill a man. Needless to say, as soon as she had turned her back, I drank the whole contents of the flask at a gulp. Then, firmly determined to die, I buried myself under the blankets, and sleep was not long in coming.

When I opened my eyes on the following morning I was not in the least surprised to find my room flooded by the rays of a brilliant sun, for my sleep had been visited by bright and rosy dreams.

"I dream, therefore I exist," I said to myself. I felt my body all over, so as to discern the height of the fever, or the presence of any signs of pneumonia. But, in spite of my firm resolution to bring about a crisis, my condition was fairly normal. My brain, although a little stupefied, functioned easily, no longer under the high pressure of the previous day, and twelve hours' sleep had fully restored the vigor which, thanks to bodily exercises of all descriptions, practised since my early youth, I usually enjoyed.

... A telegram was handed me. My friends were informing me that they would arrive by the two o'clock boat.

I was overwhelmed with shame. What was I to say? What attitude was I to adopt?... I reflected....

My reawakened manhood rebelled against humiliating resolutions; after a hasty review of the circumstances, I decided to remain at the hotel until I had completely recovered, and continue my journey by the next steamer. In this way honour would be saved, and the visit from my friends would be but one more leave-taking—the very last.

When I remembered what had occurred on the previous day, I hated myself. That I, the strong-minded, the sceptic, should have committed such absurdities! And that clergyman's visit! How was I to explain that? It was true, I had only sent for him in his official capacity, and, as far as I was concerned, he had but acted as a hypnotist! But to outsiders it was bound to look like a conversion. Monstrous confessions would very likely be hinted at, a criminal's last avowal of his crime on his deathbed. What a pretty topic for the villagers who stood in close communication with the town! What a treat for the porters!

A trip abroad, undertaken at once, was the only way out of this unbearable situation. Like a castaway, I spent the morning in walking up and down before the verandah, watching the barometer, studying the time-tables. Time passed fairly rapidly. The steamer appeared at the mouth of the estuary before I had made up my mind whether to walk to the landing-stage or remain at the hotel. As I had no desire to be stared at by an inquisitive crowd, I at last went to my room.

A few minutes later I heard the voice of the Baroness: she was making inquiries of the landlady about my health. I went out to meet her, and she almost kissed me before the eyes of all the by-standers. With a heart full to overflowing, she deplored my illness, which she regarded as the result of overwork, and advised me to return to town, and put off my journey until the spring.

She was beautiful to-day. In her closely-fitting fur coat, with its long and supple hairs, she looked like a llama. The sea-breezes had brought the blood to her cheeks, and in her eyes, magnified by the excitement of her visit, I could read an expression of infinite tenderness. In vain I begged her not to alarm herself on my account, and assured her that I had almost fully recovered. She found that I looked like a corpse, declared me unfit for work, and treated me like a child. And how sweetly she played the part of a mother! The tone of her voice was a caress; she playfully used terms of endearment; she wrapped her shawl around me; at table she spread my dinner-napkin over my knees, poured out some wine for me, looked after me in every way. I wondered why she did not thus devote herself to her child rather than to the man who was all the time striving to hide his passion, which threatened to defy all control.

In this disguise of the sick child, it seemed to me that I was like the wolf who, after having devoured the grandmother, lies down on her bed waiting for Little Red Riding-hood, that he may devour her also.

I blushed before this unsophisticated and sincere husband, who overwhelmed me with kindness, asked for no explanations. And yet I was not at fault. I obstinately hardened my heart, and received all the attentions which the Baroness showered on me with an almost insulting indifference.

At dessert, when the time for the return journey had come, the Baron proposed that I should return with them. He offered me a room in his house which, he said, was waiting to receive me. I am glad to say that my answer was a decided refusal. Terrified at this dangerous playing with fire, I was firm in my decision. I would stay here for a week to recover entirely, and then return to town to my old attic.

In spite of all their objections, I persisted. Strange; as soon as I pulled myself together and made a determined stand, the Baroness became almost hostile to me. The more I vacillated and humored her whims, the fonder she seemed of me, the more she praised my wisdom, my amiability. She swayed and bewildered me, but as soon as I opposed her seriously, she turned her back on me and treated me with dislike, almost with rudeness.

While we were discussing the Baron's proposal to live under one roof, she drew a glowing picture of such an arrangement, dwelling on the pleasantness of being able to see one another at any time without a previous invitation.

"But, my dear Baroness," I objected, "what would people say if you were to receive a bachelor into your young ménage?"

"What does it matter what people say?"

"But your mother, your aunt? Moreover, my man's pride rebels against a measure which is only permissible in the case of a minor."

"Bother your man's pride! Do you think it manly to perish without opening your lips?"

"Yes, it behooves a man to be strong."

She grew angry, and refused to admit that a man's case differed from that of a woman. Her woman's logic confused my brain. I turned to the Baron, whose answering smile showed plainly what a small opinion he had of female brain-power.

About six o'clock the steamer weighed anchor and bore my friends away. I returned to the hotel alone.

It was a splendid evening. The sun had set in an orange-coloured sky, white stripes were lying on the deep blue water, a coppery moon was rising behind the Scotch firs.

I was sitting at a table in the dining-room, lost in thought, now mournful, now serene, and did not notice the landlady until she stood close by me.

"The lady who's just left is your sister, isn't she?" she asked.

"Not at all."

"Isn't she? How strangely you resemble one another! I should have sworn that you are brother and sister."

I was not in the mood to continue such a conversation, but it left me in a ferment of thoughts.

Had my constant intercourse with the Baroness affected the expression of her features? Or had the expression of her face influenced mine during this six months' union of our souls? Had the instinctive desire to please one another at any price been the cause of an unconscious selection of gestures and expressions, suppressing the less pleasing in favour of the more seductive? It was not at all unthinkable that a blending of our souls had taken place, and that we no longer belonged to ourselves. Destiny, or rather instinct, had played its fateful, inevitable part; the ball had been set rolling, overthrowing and destroying everything that barred its way: honour, reason, happiness, loyalty, wisdom, virtue!

... And this guilelessness to propose to receive under her roof an ardent young man, a man of the age when the passions are so strong that control is often almost impossible! Was she vicious, or had love obscured her reason? Vicious! No, a thousand times no! I appreciated her candid ways, her gaiety, her sincerity, her motherly tenderness. That she was eccentric, that her mind was badly balanced, she had herself acknowledged in speaking of her faults—but vicious? No! Even the little tricks which she occasionally resorted to in order to cheer me up were much more the tricks of a mature woman who amuses herself by teasing and bewildering a timid youth, and then laughs at his confusion, than those of a coquette whose object it is to excite a man's passions.

But I must exorcise the demon, and continue to mislead my friends. I sat down at the writing-table and wrote a letter on the hackneyed subject of my unhappy love affair. I added two impassioned poems entitled "To Her"—poems which could be understood in two ways. It was open to the Baroness to be annoyed.

Letter and poems remained unanswered; perhaps the trick had grown threadbare, perhaps the subject was no longer found interesting.

The calm and tranquil days which followed hastened my recovery. The surrounding landscape seemed to have adopted the favourite colours of the adored woman. The wood, in which I had spent hours of purgatory, now smiled on me. Never in my morning rambles did I find as much as the shadow even of a painful memory lurking in its deep recesses, where I had fought with all the demons of the human heart. Her visit, and the certainty that I should see her again, had given me back life and reason.

VII

Knowing from experience that nobody who returns unexpectedly is quite welcome, it was not without a feeling of constraint, not without misgivings, that I called on the Baroness as soon as I was back in town.

In the front garden everything proclaimed the winter; the trees were bare, the garden seats had been removed; there were gaps in the fence where the gates had been; the wind was playing with the withered leaves on the paths; the cellar holes were stuffed with straw.

I found it difficult to breathe in the close atmosphere of the drawing-room, heated by a tiled stove. Fixed to the walls, the stoves had the appearance of sheets suspended from the ceiling, large and white. The double-windows hung in their hinges, every chink was pasted over with paper; the space between the inner and outer windows was filled with snow-white cotton wool, giving the large room the appearance of a death-chamber. In imagination I endeavoured to strip it of its semi-fashionable furniture, and recall its former aspect of rough homeliness. In those days the walls had been bare, the floor plain deal; the memory of the black dinings table, which could boast of no cover and with its eight legs resembled a huge spider, called up the severe faces of my father and stepmother.

The Baroness received me cordially, but her melancholy face betrayed grief. Both uncle and father-in-law were there, playing cards with the Baron in an adjoining room. I shook hands with the players, and then returned with the Baroness into the drawing-room. She sat down in an arm-chair underneath the lamp and took up some crochet work. Taciturn, morose, not at all pretty, she left the conversation entirely to me, and since she made no replies, it soon degenerated into a monologue.

I watched her from my chimney comer as she sat with drooping head, bending over her work. Profoundly mysterious, lost in thought, she seemed at times oblivious of my presence. I wondered whether I had called at an inconvenient time, or whether my return to town had really created the unfavourable impression which I had half anticipated. All at once my eyes, travelling round the room, were arrested by a display of her ankles underneath the tablecloth. I beheld her finely-shaped calf, clothed in a white stocking; a gaily embroidered garter belted that charming muscle which turns a man's brain because it stimulates his imagination and tempts him to the construction of the whole of the remaining form. Her arched foot with its high instep was dressed in a Cinderella's slipper.

At the time I took it for an accident, but later on I learned that a woman is always conscious of being looked at when she exhibits more than her ankles. Fascinated by the sight I changed the conversation, and aptly turned it on the subject of my supposed love affair.

She drew herself up, turned towards me, and glanced at me sharply.

"You can at least pride yourself on being a faithful lover!"

My eyes remained riveted on the spot underneath the tablecloth, where the snowy stocking shone below the cherry-coloured ribbon. With an effort I pulled myself together; we looked at each other; her pupils shone large in the lamplight.

"Unfortunately I can!" I replied dryly.

The sound of the falling cards and the exclamations of the players accompanied this brief passage of arms.

A painful silence ensued. She resumed her crochet work, and with a quick movement allowed the skirts to drop over her ankles. The spell was broken. My eyes were gazing at a listless woman, badly dressed. Before another quarter of an hour had gone by I took my leave, pretending that I did not feel well.

As soon as I arrived in my attic I brought out my play, which I had resolved to re-write. Hard work would help me to get over this hopeless love, otherwise bound to end in a crime from which inclination, instinct, cowardice and education made me shrink. And once more I decided to break off these fatal relations.

An unexpected incident came to my assistance: two days later the cataloguing of a library, belonging to a collector who lived at some distance from the town, was offered to me.

And thus I came to pitch my tent in a spacious room, lined with books up to the ceiling, of an old manor house dating from the seventeenth century. Sitting there, I could let my imagination travel through all the epochs of my country's history. The whole Swedish literature was represented, from the old prints of the fifteenth century to the latest publications. I gave myself up to my work, eager to find forgetfulness—and I succeeded. A week had elapsed and I had never once missed my friends. On Saturday, the day on which the Baroness generally was "at home," an orderly brought me an invitation from the Baron, full of friendly rebuke for having kept away from them so long. I was half-pleased, half-sorry to find myself able to send an amiable refusal in reply, regretting that my time was no longer my own.

When a second week had gone by another orderly, in full dress, brought me another communication; this time it came from the Baroness. It was a rather curt request to call and see her husband, who, she said, was laid up with a cold. She begged me to let them have news of me. It was impossible to make further excuses, and so I went.

The Baroness did not look well, and the slightly indisposed Baron seemed bored. He was in bed, and I was asked to go and see him. The sight of this Holy of Holies, which I had been spared up to now, excited my instinctive repugnance; this sharing of a common room by a married couple, this perpetual presence of a witness on the thousand occasions which demand privacy, revolted me. The large bed which the Baron occupied, brazenly proclaimed the intimacy of their union; the heap of pillows, piled up by the side of the sick man, boldly marked the wife's place. The dressing-table, the wash-stands, the towels, everything struck me as being unclean, and I had to make myself blind to overcome my disgust.

After a few words at the foot end of the bed, the Baroness invited me to take a glass of liqueur in the drawing-room, and, as if she had divined them, she gave expression to my thoughts as soon as we were alone. In short, disjointed sentences she poured out her heart to me.

"Isn't it wretched?"

"What?"

"You know what I mean.... A woman's existence: without an object in life, without a future, without occupation. It's killing me!"

"But your child, Baroness! It will soon be time to begin her education.... And she may have brothers and sisters...."

"I will have no more children! Am I in the world for the sole purpose of being a nurse?"

"Not a nurse, but a mother in the highest meaning of the word, equal to her task."

"Mother or housekeeper! Thank you! One can hire a housekeeper! It's easier. And then? How am I to occupy myself? I have two maids, excellent substitutes. No! I want to live...."

"Go on the stage?"

"Yes!"

"But that's out of the question!"

"I know that only too well! And it irritates me, makes me stupid ... kills me!"

"What about a literary career? It's not in such bad repute as the stage!"

"The dramatic art is, in my opinion, the highest of all arts. Come what may, I shall never cease to regret the fact that I have missed my vocation. And what have I got in exchange?... A disappointment!"

The Baron called to us, and we returned to his bedside.

"What was she talking about?" he asked me.

"We were talking about the theatre," I replied.

"She's crazy!"

"Not as crazy as you think," retorted the Baroness, and left the room, slamming the door.

"She doesn't sleep at night," began the husband, growing confidential.

"No?"

"She plays the piano, she lies on the sofa, or, rather, she chooses the hours of the night to do her accounts. For heaven's sake, my dear young sage, tell me what I'm to do to put an end to this madness!"

"Perhaps if she had a large family?" I ventured.

He pulled a face, then he tried to look unconcerned.

"She was very ill after her first baby was born ... and the doctor has warned her ... and moreover, children cost so much.... You understand?"

I understood, and I took care not to refer again to the subject. I was too young at the time to know that it is the patient who orders the doctor what to prescribe for her.

Presently the Baroness returned with her little girl, and began to put her to bed in her small iron cot. But the little one refused to be undressed, and began to scream. After a few futile attempts to calm her, her mother threatened her with the rod.

I cannot bear to see a child being punished without losing my temper. I remembered on one such occasion raising my hand against my own father. I allowed my anger to get the better of me, and interfered.

"Allow me," I said ... "but do you think that a child cries without a reason?"

"She's naughty."

"Then there's some cause for it. Perhaps she's sleepy, and our presence and the lamplight irritate her."

She agreed, taken aback, and, perhaps, conscious that her shrewish conduct had produced an unfavourable impression on me.

This glimpse of her home life cured me for some weeks of my love, and I must confess that the scene with the rod had contributed more than anything else to my disillusion.

The autumn dragged on monotonously and Christmas drew near. The arrival of a newly-married couple from Finland, friends of the Baroness, brought a little more life in our relationship, which had lost much of its charm. Thanks to the Baroness, I received numerous invitations, and presented myself in evening dress at suppers, dinners and occasionally even at a dance.

While moving in this, her world, which in my opinion lacked dignity, I could not help noticing that the Baroness, under cover of an exaggerated candour, paid a great deal of attention to the young men, watching me furtively all the while, however, to see the effect of her conduct on me. Irritated and disgusted by her brazen flirtations, which I considered bad form, I responded by a callouse indifference. It hurt me that the woman whom I adored should behave like a vulgar coquette.

She always seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, and prolonged the parties till the small hours of the morning; I became the more and more convinced that she was discontented and bored with her home life; that her longing for an artistic career was dictated by a petty vanity, a desire to be seen and enjoy herself. Vivacious, full of exuberant spirits, of a restless disposition, she possessed the art to shine; she was always the centre of a crowd, more in consequence of a certain gift to attract people than because of her natural charms. Her great vitality, her nervous excitability, compelled the most refractory to listen to her, to pay homage to her. And I also noticed that as soon as her nervous force was exhausted, the spell was broken, and she was left sitting alone and unnoticed in a quiet corner. Ambitious, yearning for power, perhaps heartless, she took care that the men paid her every attention; the society of women had no attraction for her.

Doubtless, she had made up her mind to see me at her feet, doting, vanquished, sighing. One day, after an evening of triumph, she told one of her friends that I was head over ears in love with her. When I called at her friend's house a short time afterwards, I stupidly remarked that I had hoped to meet the Baroness.

"Oh, indeed!" laughed the lady of the house, "you haven't come to see me then! How unkind of you!"

"Well, I haven't. To tell you the truth, I'm here by appointment."

"A tryst, then!"

"You may call it so, if you like! Anyhow, you'll give me credit for having put in a prompt appearance!"

The meeting had indeed been arranged by the Baroness. I had but carried out her instructions in calling. She had given me away to save her own skin.

I paid her out by spoiling a number of parties for her, for my absence robbed her of the enjoyment which she drew from the contemplation of my sufferings. But I had to pay a heavy penalty! Watching the houses to which I knew her to be invited, I plunged the dagger into my heart, trembling with jealous rage whenever I saw her, in the arms of a partner, gliding past the windows in her blue silk dress, with her sunny curls rising and falling in the quick movements of the dance, with her charming figure, on the tiniest feet in the world.

VIII

We had navigated the cape of the New Year and spring was approaching. We had spent the winter in gay festivities, in intimate companionship, the three of us. But it had all been very dreary: we had quarrelled and become reconciled, fought battles and made armistices, teased one another and become the best of friends again. I had stayed away and had come back.

Now March was near, a fateful month in the countries of the north, because passion becomes all-powerful and the destinies of lovers are fulfilled: vows are broken, the ties of honour, of family, of friendship are set side.

The Baron was on duty early in the month, and invited me to spend a day with him at the guard-house. I accepted his invitation. A son of the people, a descendant of the middle-classes, cannot but be impressed by the insignia of the highest power in the land. At the side of my friend I walked along the passage, continually saluted by passing officers; I listened to the rattling of the swords; the "Who goes there?" of the sentinels, the beating of the drums. We arrived at the guard-room. The military decorations of the room stirred my imagination; the portraits of the great generals filled me with reverence; the colours taken at Lützen and Leipzic, the new flags, the bust of the reigning king, the helmets, the resplendent breast-pieces, the plans of battles, all these roused in me that feeling of uneasiness which the lower classes feel in contemplating the symbols of the ruling powers. And in his impressive surroundings the personality of the captain became more imposing; I kept close to his side in case any unpleasantness should arise.

As we entered a lieutenant rose and saluted, standing, and I, too, felt myself the superior of these lieutenants, the sworn foes of the sons of the people, and the authors' rivals in the favour of the ladies.

A soldier brought us a bowl of punch, and we lighted our cigars. The Baron, anxious to amuse me, showed me the Golden Book of the regiment, an artistic collection of sketches, water paintings and drawings, all of them representing distinguished officers, who had during the last twenty years belonged to the Royal Guards; portraits of the men who had been the envy and admiration of my school friends, whom they had aped in their boyish games. It tickled my middle-class instincts to see all those favourites of fortune caricatured in this book, and counting on the applause of the democratic Baron, I indulged in little sallies at the expense of those disarmed rivals. But the boundary-line of the Baron's democratic sympathies differed from mine, and he resented my sallies; the spirit of caste prevailed: he turned the leaves more quickly, and did not stop until he came to a large drawing representing the insurrection of 1868.

"Look at this!" he said, with a sarcastic smile, "how we charged into that mob!"

"Did you take part in it?"

"Didn't I! I was on duty that day, and my orders were to protect the stand opposite the monument which the mob was attacking. A stone hit my helmet. I was Serving out the cartridges, when a royal messenger on horseback arrived and stopped my little band from firing. But I remained proof-butt and target for the stones thrown by the crowd. That's all I ever got for my democratic sympathies."

And after a pause he continued, still laughing and trying to catch my eye—

"You remember the occasion?"

"Perfectly," I said; "I was walking in the procession of the students." But I did not mention the fact that I was one of that special mob on which he had been so anxious to fire. My sense of justice had been outraged because that particular stand had been reserved for a favoured few and denied to the people on a public festival. I had been on the side of the attacking party, and had not forgotten the stones which I had flung at the soldiers.

The moment I heard him pronounce the word "mob" with aristocratic disdain, I remembered and understood my feeling of discomfort in entering the enemy's fortress, and the sudden change which had come over my friend's features at my sarcasms depressed me. The hatred of race, the hatred of caste, tradition, rose between us like an insurmountable barrier, and as I regarded him sitting there, the sword between his knees—a sword of honour, the hilt of which was ornamented with the name and crown of the royal giver—I felt strongly that our friendship was but an artificial one, the work of a woman, who constituted the only link between us. The haughty tone of his voice, the expression of his face, seemed more and more in harmony with his surroundings and took him further and further away from me. To bridge over the gulf which separated us, I changed the conversation and inquired after his wife and little daughter. Instantly his brow cleared, his features relaxed and resumed their normal expression of good-nature. Seeing him look at me with the benevolent eyes of the ogre caressing Tom Thumb, I made bold to pull three hairs out of the ogre's beard.

"Cousin Matilda is expected at Easter, isn't she?" I asked.

"She is."

"I shall make love to her."

He emptied his glass. "You can try," he sneered, with a murderous scowl.

"Try? Is it possible that her affections are otherwise engaged?"

"Not ... that I know of! But ... I think I may say that.... Well, you can try!"

And with a tone of deepest conviction—

"You may be sure to get your money's worth!"

This sneering remark was an insult, and roused my desire to defy him. If I made love to that other woman, it might not only save me from my criminal passion, but it would also give satisfaction to the Baroness, whose legitimate feelings had been outraged.

It had grown dark. I rose to go home. The captain accompanied me past the sentinels. We shook hands at the barrier gate, which he slammed after me as if he wanted to challenge me.

Spring had come. The snow had melted, the streets were free from ice. Half-starved children were selling little bunches of liverwort in the streets. The windows of the flower-shops glowed with azaleas, rhododendron and other early blossoms; golden oranges gleamed in the greengrocers' shops; lobsters, radishes and cauliflower appeared on the costers' barrows. Under the North Bridge the waves reflected the rays of the sun. On the quays the steamers were being newly rigged and painted in sea-green and scarlet. The men who had grown weak in the winter darkness, recovered in the sunlight. Woe to the weakling when love gives free play to the long-restrained passions!

The pretty little she-devil had arrived, and was staying with the Baroness.

I paid her a great deal of attention. She had apparently been informed of my designs, and consequently she amused herself with me. We had been playing a duet, and she was leaning against my left arm with her right shoulder. The Baroness noticed it and winced. The Baron glared at me with jealous rage. At one moment he was jealous of his wife, at the next he accused me of flirting with the cousin. Whenever he left his wife, to whisper in a corner to Matilda, and I started a conversation with the Baroness, he lost his temper and interrupted our conversation with an irrelevant question. I answered him with a sarcastic smile, and sometimes I took no notice whatever of him.

One evening we were all having supper in the strictest family circle. The mother of the Baroness was present. She had grown fond of me, and with the prevision frequently met with in old women, suspected that something was going on behind the scenes.

Following an impulse of motherly love, dreading some unknown danger, she seized my hands, and holding me with her eyes said gravely—

"I'm sure that you're a man of honour. I don't know what's going on in this house. But promise me that you will watch over my daughter, my only child, and if ever anything should happen ... which must not happen, promise that you will come to me and tell me everything."

"I promise," I answered, and kissed her hand in the Russian fashion, for she had been married to a Russian for many years and had been left a widow not very long ago.

And I shall keep my promise!

We were dancing on the edge of a crater. The Baroness had grown pale, emaciated, plain. The Baron was jealous, rude and insolent. If I stayed away for a day or two, he sent for me; received me with open arms and tried to explain everything by a misunderstanding, while in reality we understood each other only too well.

The Lord knows what was going on in this house!

One evening the charming Matilda had retired into her bedroom to try on a ball dress. The Baron quietly disappeared soon after, leaving me alone with his wife. After half-an-hour had gone by, I asked what had become of her husband?

"He's playing lady's maid to Matilda," she replied.

I understood. Presently, evidently regretting her words, she added—

"There's no harm in it; they're relations. One shouldn't be too ready to think evil!"

Then she changed her tone.

"Are you jealous?"

"Are you?"

"Perhaps I shall be by and by."

"God grant that you will be soon! It's the wish of a true friend."

The Baron returned, and with him the girl, dressed in a pale green evening dress, cut very low.

I pretended to be dazzled by her appearance, and screening my eyes with both my hands, exclaimed—

"Don't you know that it's dangerous to look at you?"

"Isn't she lovely?" asked the Baroness in a strange voice.

After a short time the couple withdrew, and for the second time we were left by ourselves.

"Why are you so unkind to me these days?" she asked, with tears in her voice, gazing at me wistfully, with the eyes of an ill-treated dog.

"I?... I had no idea that...."

"You've changed towards me; I wonder why.... If I'm to blame in any way...."

She pushed her chair closer to mine, looked at me with luminous eyes, trembled and ... I jumped up.

"The Baron's absence is really extraordinary, don't you think so? This confidence on his part is insulting!"

"What d'you mean?"

"It's not right of him to leave his wife alone with a young man and shut himself up with a girl....

"You're right, it's an insult to me.... But your manners!..."

"Never mind my manners! It's hateful! I shall despise you if you won't be more jealous of your dignity.... What are those two doing?"

"He's interested in Matilda's ball dress!" she answered, with an innocent face and a fleeting smile. "What do you want me to do?"

"A man doesn't assist a woman at her toilet unless there are certain relations between them."

"She is a child, he says, and looks upon him as a father."

"I should never allow any children to play 'papa and mamma,' much less grown-up people."

The Baroness rose, went out of the room and returned with her husband.

We spent the rest of the evening in making experiments with animal magnetism. I made a few passes over her forehead, and she acknowledged that it calmed her nerves. But all of a sudden, just as she was going into a trance, she shook herself, started to her feet, and looked at me with troubled eyes.

"Let me go!" she exclaimed; "I won't! You are bewitching me!"

"It's your turn now to try your magnetic powers," I said, and I submitted to the same treatment to which I had subjected her.

I sat with half-closed eyes; there was deep silence on the other side of the piano; my glances strayed to the legs and the lyre-shaped pedal of the instrument and ... I thought I must be dreaming, and sprang up from my chair. At the same moment the Baron appeared from behind the piano and offered me a glass of punch. The four of us raised our glasses. The Baron looked at his wife—

"Drink to your reconciliation with Matilda," he pleaded.

"Your health, little witch!" exclaimed the Baroness with a smile, and turning to me she added—

"I must tell you we quarrelled about you!"

For a moment I did not know how to reply. Then I asked her to explain her words.

"No, no! no explanation!" answered a chorus of voices.

"That's a pity," I replied; "in my opinion we've been playing 'hide-and-seek' far too long."

The rest of the evening passed amid general constraint.

"Well, I don't care!" I muttered on my way home, searching my conscience.

What was the meaning of all this? Was it nothing but the innocent whim of a fantastic mind? Two women quarrelling over a man! They must be jealous, then. Was the Baroness mad that she gave herself away in such a manner? I did not think so. I felt sure there was something else at the bottom of it.

"What is going on in this house?" I asked myself, brooding over the strange scene which had startled me in the evening, the very improbability of which made me hesitate to believe that I had seen anything really wrong.

This senseless jealousy, the apprehension of the old mother, the love of the Baroness, stimulated by the spring air, all this confused my mind, seethed and fermented in my brain, and after spending a sleepless night, I decided for a second time not to see her again, and so prevent the threatening calamity.

With this intention I arose in the morning and wrote her a sensible, candid and humble letter; in carefully chosen language I protested against an excessive abuse of friendship; firmly, without any explanation, I asked for forgiveness of my sins, blamed myself for having caused ill-feeling between relatives, and goodness knows what else I said!

The result was that I met the Baroness, as if by accident, on leaving the library at my usual time. She stopped me on the North Bridge, and we walked together through one of the avenues leading to Charles XII Square. Almost with tears in her eyes she entreated me to come back, not to ask for explanations, but just to be one of them again as in the old days.

She was charming this morning. But I loved her too dearly to compromise her.

"Leave me! You are ruining your reputation," I said, watching the passers-by, whose curious glances embarrassed us. "Go home at once, or I shall leave you standing here!"

She looked at me with eyes so full of misery that I longed to kneel down before her, kiss her feet and ask her forgiveness.

But instead I turned my back on her and hastily disappeared down a side street.

After dinner I went home to my attic, glowing with the satisfaction of a duty done, but with a broken heart. Her eyes haunted me.

A short rest gave me back my determination. I rose and looked at the almanac which hung on the wall. It was the thirteenth of March. "Beware the Ides of March!" These famous words, which Shakespeare quotes in his Julius Cæsar, sounded in my ears as the servant entered, bringing me a note from the Baron.

In it he begged me to spend a lonely evening with him, saying that his wife was not well and that Matilda was going out.

I had not the nerve to refuse, and so I went.

The Baroness, more dead than alive, met me in the drawing-room, pressed my hand against her heart and thanked me warmly for having resolved not to rob her of a friend, a brother, for the sake of a mere nothing, a misunderstanding.

"I really think she's going out of her mind," laughed the Baron, releasing me from her hands.

"I am mad, I know, mad with joy that our friend has come back to us after he had decided to leave us for ever."

And she burst into tears.

"She's been suffering a great deal," explained her husband, disconcerted by this scene.

And, indeed, she looked as if she were in a high fever. A sombre fire burned in her eyes, which seemed to take up half of the little face; her cheeks were of a greenish pallor. The sight of her hurt me. Her frail body was shaken by fits of coughing.

Her uncle and father-in-law arrived unexpectedly. The fuel in the great stove was replenished, and we sat down before the fire, without lighting the lamps, to enjoy the cosy hour of the gathering twilight.

She took a seat by my side, while the three men began to talk politics.

I saw her eyes shine through the dusk, I felt the warmth which radiated from her body.

Her skirts brushed against me, she leaned over to say something meant for me alone, and attacked me with a whispered question—

"Do you believe in love?"

"No!"

My "no" struck her like a blow, for I had at the same time jumped up and changed my seat.

She must be mad, I thought; and afraid of a scene I suggested that we should have the lamps lighted.

During supper uncle and father-in-law discussed cousin Matilda to their heart's content, praising her domesticity, her skill in needlework. The Baron, who had drunk several glasses of punch, burst out into extravagant eulogies and deplored, with alcoholic tears, the unkind treatment to which the "dear child" was subjected at home. But when apparently in the very depth of sympathetic sorrow, he suddenly pulled out his watch and prepared to leave us, as if called away by the stern voice of duty.

"You must excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "but I have promised Baby to meet her and see her home. Don't let me disturb you, I shall be back in an hour."

The old Baron, his father, vainly tried to detain him; his artful son insisted on keeping his word and slipped away, after having extracted a promise from me to await his return.

We remained at table for another quarter of an hour and then went into the drawing-room; the two old gentlemen soon left us and retired to the uncle's room, which the nephew had fitted up for him a little while ago.

I cursed fate for having caught me in a trap which I had done my utmost to avoid. I steeled my throbbing heart; proudly, as a cock raises his comb, I raised my head; my hair bristled like the hair of a sheep dog, and I determined to crush at the outset any attempt to create a tearful or amorous scene.

Leaning against the stove I smoked my cigar, silent, cold and stiff, awaiting events.

The Baroness was the first to speak.