On the Bright Shore
CHAPTER I
The artist was sitting beside Pani Elzen in an open carriage; on the front seat were her sons, the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus. He was partly conversing with the lady, partly thinking of a question which required prompt decision, and partly looking at the sea. There was something to look at. They were driving from Nice toward Monte Carlo by the so-called Old Cornice; that is, by a road along impending cliffs, high above the water. On the left, the view was hidden by naked towering rocks, which were gray, with a rosy pearl tinge; on the right was the blue Mediterranean, which appeared to lie immensely low down, thus producing the effect of an abyss and of boundlessness. From the height on which they were moving, the small fishing-boats seemed like white spots, so that frequently it was difficult to distinguish a distant sail from a seamew circling above the water.
Pani Elzen had placed her hand on Svirski's arm; her face was that of a woman delighted and forgetful of what she is doing; she gazed with dreamy eyes over the mirror of the sea.
Svirski felt the touch; a quiver of delight ran through him, and he thought that if at that moment Romulus and Remus had not been in front of them, he might have placed his arm around the young woman, perhaps, and pressed her to his bosom.
But straightway a certain fear seized him at the thought that hesitation would then have an end, and the question be settled.
"Stop the carriage, please," said Pani Elzen.
Svirski stopped the carriage, and they were silent a moment.
"How quiet it is here after the bustle of Monte Carlo!" said the young widow.
"I hear only music," answered the artist; "perhaps the bands are playing on the ironclads in Villa Franca."
In fact, from below came at intervals muffled sounds of music, borne thither by the same breeze which brought the odor of orange-blossoms and heliotropes. Beneath them were visible the roofs of villas, dotting the shore, and almost hidden in groves of eucalyptus, while round about were large white spots formed by blossoming almond-trees, and rosy spots made by peach blossoms. Lower down was the dark-blue sunlit bay of Villa Franca, with crowds of great ships.
The life seething there presented a marvellous contrast to the deep deadness of the naked, barren mountains, above which extended the sky, cloudless and so transparent that it was monotonous and glassy. Everything was dimmed and belittled amid that calm greatness; the carriage with its occupants seemed, as it were, a kind of beetle, clinging to the cliffs along which it was climbing to the summit with insolence.
"Here life ends altogether," said Svirski, looking at the naked cliffs.
Pani Elzen leaned more heavily on his shoulder, and answered with a drowsy, drawling voice,—
"But it seems to me that here life begins."
After a moment Svirski answered with a certain emotion, "Perhaps you are right."
And he looked with an inquiring glance at her. Pani Elzen raised her eyes to him in answer, but dropped them quickly, as if confused, and, though her two sons were sitting on the front seat of the carriage, she looked at that moment like a maiden whose eyes could not endure the first ray of love. After that, both were silent; while from below came snatches of music.
Meanwhile, far away at sea, at the very entrance to the bay, appeared a dark pillar of smoke, and the quiet of the company was broken by Remus, who sprang up, and cried,—
"Tiens! le 'Fohmidable'!"
Pani Elzen cast a glance of displeasure at her younger son. She knew the value of that moment, in which every next word might weigh in her fate decisively.
"Remus," said she, "will you be quiet?"
"But, mamma, it is the 'Fohmidable'!"[1]
"What an unendurable boy!"
"Pouhquoi?"[1]
"He is a duhen[1] [duren, a simpleton]; but this time he is right," called out Romulus, quickly; "yesterday we were at Villa Franca,"—here he turned to Svirski. "You saw us go on velocipedes; they told us there that the whole squadron had arrived except the 'Fohmidable,' which was due to-day."
To this Remus answered with a strong accent on every last syllable,—
"Thou art a duhen,[1] thyself!"
The boys fell to punching each other with their elbows. Pani Elzen, knowing how Svirski disliked her sons' style of speech, and generally the manner in which they were reared, commanded them to be silent.
"I have told you and Pan Kresovich," said she, "not to speak among yourselves in any language but Polish."
Kresovich was a student from Zürich, with incipient lung disease; Pani Elzen had found him on the Riviera, and engaged him as tutor for her sons, after her acquaintance with Svirski, and especially after a public declaration of the malicious and wealthy Pan Vyadrovski, that respectable houses had ceased to rear their sons as commercial travellers.
Meanwhile the unlucky "Formidable" had spoiled the temper of the sensitive artist. After a time the carriage, gritting along the stones, moved on.
"You took their part, and I brought them," said Pani Elzen, with a sweet voice; "you are too kind to the boys. But one should be here during moonlight. Would you like to come to-night?"
"I like to come always; but to-night there will be no moon, and of course your dinner will end late."
"That is true; but let me know when the next full moon comes. It is a pity that I did not ask you alone to this dinner—With a full moon it must be beautiful here, though on these heights I have always a throbbing of the heart. If you could see how it throbs at this moment; but look at my pulse, you can see it even through the glove."
She turned her palm, which was confined so tightly in the Danish glove as to be turned almost into a tube, and stretched it to Svirski. He took the hand in both of his, and looked at it.
"No," said he; "I cannot see the pulse clearly, but perhaps I can hear it."
And, inclining his head, he put his ear to the buttons of her glove; for a moment he pressed the glove firmly to his face, then touched it lightly with his lips, and said,—
"In years of childhood I was able sometimes to catch a bird, and its heart beat just this way. The beating here is just as in a captured bird!"
She laughed, almost with melancholy, and repeated, "'As in a captured bird.' But what did you do with the captured birds?"
"I grew attached to them, immensely. But they always flew away."
"Bad birds."
"And thus my life arranged itself," continued the artist, with emotion; "I have sought in vain for something which would consent to stay with me, till at last I have lost even hope."
"Do not lose that; have confidence," answered Pani Elzen.
Svirski thought then to himself, that, since the affair had begun so long before, there was need to end it, and let that come which God permits. He felt at the moment like a man who closes his eyes and ears with his fingers; but he felt also that it was needful to act thus, and that there was no time for hesitation.
"Perhaps it would be better for you to walk a little," said he. "The carriage will follow, and, besides, we shall be able to speak more in freedom."
"Very well," answered Pani Elzen, with a resigned voice.
Svirski punched the driver with his cane; the carriage halted; and they stepped out. Romulus and Remus ran forward at once, and only stopped, when some tens of yards ahead, to look from above at the houses in Eze, and roll stones into the olive-groves growing below. Svirski and Pani Elzen were left alone; but that day some fatality seemed to weigh on them, for before they could use the moment they saw that a horseman, coming from the direction of Monaco, had stopped near Romulus and Remus. Behind him was a groom dressed in the English manner.
"That is De Sinten," said Pani Elzen, with impatience.
"Yes, I recognize him."
In fact, they saw next moment before them a horse's head, and above it the equine face of young De Sinten. He hesitated whether or not to salute and go on, but considering evidently that if they had wanted to be alone they would not have brought the boys, he sprang from the horse, and, beckoning to the groom, began to greet them.
"Good-day," answered Pani Elzen, somewhat dryly. "Is this your hour?"
"It is. Mornings, I shoot at pigeons with Wilkis Bey, so I cannot ride lest I disturb my pulse. I am now seven pigeons ahead of him. Do you know that the 'Formidable' comes to Villa Franca to-day, and to-morrow the admiral will give a ball on deck?"
"We saw it arrive."
"I was just going to Villa Franca to see one of the officers whom I know, but it is late. If you permit, I will go with you to Monte Carlo."
Pani Elzen nodded, and they went on together. De Sinten, since he was a horseman by nature, began at once to speak of the "hunter" on which he had come.
"I bought him from Waxdorf," said he. "Waxdorf lost at trente et quarante, and needed money. He bet inverse, and hit on a lucky series, but afterward fortune changed." Here he turned to the horse. "He is of pure Irish blood, and I will give my neck that there is not a better hunter on the whole Cornice; but it is difficult to mount him."
"Is he vicious?" inquired Svirski.
"Once you are in the saddle he is like a child. He is used to me; but you, for instance, could not mount him."
At this Svirski, who in matters of sport was childishly vain, asked at once,—
"How is that?"
"Do not try, especially here above the precipice!" cried Pani Elzen.
But Svirski had his hand on the horse's shoulder already, and a twinkle later was in the saddle, without the least resistance from the horse; perhaps the beast was not at all vicious, and understood, too, that on the edge of a cliff above a precipice it was better not to indulge in pranks.
The rider and the horse disappeared at a slow gallop along the turn of the road.
"He rides very well," said De Sinten; "but he will spoil my horse's feet. There is no road here for riding."
"The horse has turned out perfectly gentle," said Pani Elzen.
"I am greatly pleased at this, for here an accident happens easily—and I was a little afraid."
On his face, however, there was a certain concern; first, because what he had said about the horse's stubbornness at mounting seemed like untruth, and, second, because there existed a secret dislike between him and Svirski. De Sinten had not, it is true, at any time serious designs touching Pani Elzen; but he would have preferred that no one should oppose him in such designs as he had. Besides, some weeks before, he and Svirski had engaged in a rather lively talk. De Sinten, who was an irrepressible aristocrat, had declared, during a dinner at Pani Elzen's, that to his thinking man begins only at the baron. To this Svirski, in a moment of ill-humor, answered with an inquiry,—
"In what direction?" (up or down).
De Sinten took this reply so seriously that he sought advice of Vyadrovski and Councillor Kladzki as to how he ought to act, and learned, with genuine astonishment, that Svirski had a coronet on his shield. A knowledge of the artist's uncommon strength, and his skill in shooting, had a soothing effect, perhaps, on the baron's nerves; it suffices that the negotiation had no result, except to leave in the hearts of both men an indefinite dislike. From the time that Pani Elzen seemed to incline decidedly toward Svirski, the dislike had become quite Platonic.
But this dislike was more decided in the artist than in De Sinten. No one had supposed that the affair of the widow and the artist could end in marriage; but among their acquaintances people had begun to speak of Svirski's feelings toward Pani Elzen, and he had a suspicion that De Sinten and his party were ridiculing him as a man of simple mind. They, it is true, did not betray themselves by the slightest word on any occasion; but in Svirski the conviction was glimmering that his suspicion was justified, and this pained him, specially out of regard for Pani Elzen.
He was glad, therefore, that on this occasion, thanks to the horse's gentleness, De Sinten seemed a person who, without reason, told things which were untrue; hence he said, on returning,—
"A good horse, and specially good because he is as tame as a sheep."
He dismounted, and they walked on together, three of them, and even five, for Romulus and Remus followed closely. Pani Elzen, to spite De Sinten, and perhaps from a wish to be rid of him, turned the conversation to pictures and art in general, of which the young sportsman had not the faintest idea. But he began to retail gossip from the Casino, and congratulated the young woman on her luck of yesterday; she listened with constraint, being ashamed, in presence of Svirski, of having taken part in play. Her vexation was increased when Romulus called out,—
"Mamma, but did you not tell us that you never play; will you give us a louis d'or for that?"
"I sought Councillor Kladzki, wishing to invite him to dinner to-day; when I found him he and I played a little," answered she, as if speaking to no one in particular.
"Give us a louis d'or apiece," repeated Romulus.
"Or buy us a little roulette table," added Remus.
"Do not annoy me! Let us go to the carriage," said she, turning to Svirski. Then she took farewell of De Sinten.
"At seven, did you say?" inquired he.
"At seven."
They parted; and after a while Svirski found himself again at the side of the beautiful widow. This time they occupied the front seat, since they wished to look at the setting sun.
"People say that Monte Carlo is more sheltered than Mentone," remarked the widow; "but, oh, how it bores me at times! That endless noise, that movement, those acquaintances which one must make, willingly or unwillingly. Sometimes I wish to rush away and spend the rest of the winter in some quiet corner where I should see only those whom I see with pleasure—What place do you like best?"
"I like San Raphael greatly; the pines there go down to the sea."
"True, but it is far from Nice," answered she, in a low voice; "and your studio is in Nice."
A moment of silence followed, after which Pani Elzen inquired,—
"But Antibes?"
"True! I forgot Antibes."
"Besides, it is so near Nice. After dinner you will stop with me a little and talk of a place where one might escape from society."
"Do you wish really to flee from people?"
"Let us talk sincerely; I detect doubt in your question. You suspect me of speaking as I do so as to appear better, or at least less shallow, than I am—And you have a right to your suspicion, since you see me always in the whirl of society. But my answer is this: We move frequently with a force not our own, because once we were impelled in a given direction, and endure now in spite of us the results of previous life. As to me, it may be that this is because of the weakness of woman, who has not strength to free herself without the aid of another—I confess this—But that fact does not save one from yearning greatly and sincerely for some quiet corner and a calmer life. Let people say what they choose, we women are like climbing plants, which creep along the ground when they cannot grow upward. For this reason, people are often mistaken, thinking that we creep of our own choice. By creeping, I understand empty society life, without lofty thought. But how am I, for example, to defend myself against this! Some one begs permission to present an acquaintance; the man presented makes a visit, after that a second, a third, and a tenth—what am I to do? Not permit the presentation? Of course I permit it; even for this reason, that the more people I receive the more indifferent I am to each, and the more each is prevented from occupying an exceptional position."
"You are right," said Svirski.
"But do you see that in this way is created that current of social life from which I cannot tear myself with my own strength, and which wearies and tortures me to such a degree that at times I could scream out from pain."
"I believe you."
"You ought to believe me; but believe also that I am better and less vain than I seem. When doubts come to you, or when people speak ill of me, think to yourself: She must have her good side. If you will not think thus, I shall be very unhappy."
"I give you my word, that I wish always to think the best of you."
"And you should think so," said she, with a soft voice; "for though everything which is good in me were more stifled than it is, it would bloom out afresh were I near you, so much depends on those with whom one associates—I should like to say something; but I am afraid—"
"Say it."
"You will not think me fanciful, or even worse? I am not fanciful; I talk like a sober-minded woman who states only that which is real, and looks at things coolly. At your side, for example, I should regain my former spirit, as calm and collected as when I was a girl; and now I am almost a grandmother—thirty-five years of age."
Svirski looked at her with a clear face, very nearly in love; then he raised her hand slowly to his lips, and said,—
"Ah! In comparison with me you are really a child. Forty-eight is my age—and that is my picture!" said he, pointing to the setting sun.
She began to gaze at that light which was reflected in her shining eyes, and said, in a low voice, as if to herself, "Great, marvellous, beloved sun!"
Then silence followed. The calm ruddy light was falling on the faces of both. The sun was setting in genuine majesty and grandeur. Beneath it, slender clouds, recently blown asunder, took on the forms of palm lilies, and were gleaming like gold. The sea along the shore was sunk in shadow; farther out, in open spaces, lay a boundless light. In the valley the motionless cypress-trees were outlined sharply on the lily-colored background of the sky.