A Spirit in Prison. Robert Hichens
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“I have never broken my heart for any one, though I have known agitations. But even those were long ago. And since I was thirty-five I have never felt really dominated by any one. Before that time I occasionally passed under the yoke, I believe, like other men. Why do you fix your eyes on me like that?”
“I was wondering if you could ever pass under the yoke again.”
“Honestly, I do not think so. I am not sure. When can one be certain that one will never be, or do, this or that? Surely,”—he smiled—“you are not afraid for me?”
“I do not say that. But I think you have forces in you not fully exercised even by your work.”
“Possibly. But there the years do really step in and count for something, even for much. There is no doubt that as the years increase, the man who cares at all for intellectual pleasures is able to care for them more, is able to substitute them, without keen regret, without wailing and gnashing of teeth, for certain other pleasures, to which, perhaps, formerly he clung. That is why the man who is mentally and bodily—you know what I mean?”
“Yes.”
“Has such an immense advantage in years of decline over the man who is merely a bodily man.”
“I am sure that is true. But—”
“What is it?”
“The heart? What about that?”
“Perhaps there are some hearts that can fulfil themselves sufficiently in friendship.”
As Artois said this his eyes rested upon Hermione with an expression in them that revealed much that he never spoke in words. She put out her hand, and took his, and pressed it, holding hers over it upon the oar.
“Emile,” she said, “sometimes you make me feel unworthy and ungrateful because—because I still need, I dare to need more than I have been given. Without you I don’t know how I should have faced it.”
“Without me you would never have had to face it.”
That was the cry that rose up perpetually in the heart of Artois, the cry that Hermione must never hear. He said to her now:
“Without you, Hermione, I should be dust in the dust of Africa!”
“Perhaps we each owe something to the other,” she said. “It is blessed to have a debt to a friend.”
“Would to God that I could pay all my debt to you!” Artois exclaimed.
Again the cavern took up his voice and threw it back to the sea in confused and hollow mutterings. They both looked up, as if some one were above them, warning them or rebuking them. At that instant they had the feeling that they were being watched. But there was only the empty gray sea about them, and over their heads the rugged, weary rock that had leaned over the sea for countless years.
“Hark!” said Artois, “it is telling me that my debt to you can never be paid: only in one way could it be partially discharged. If I could show you a path to happiness, the happiness you long for, and need, the passionate happiness of the heart that is giving where it rejoices to give—for your happiness must always be in generosity—I should have partially paid my debt to you. But that is impossible.”
“I’ve made you sad to-day by my complaining,” she said, with self-rebuke; “I’m sorry. You didn’t realize?”
“How it was with you? No, not quite—I thought you were more at peace than you are.”
“Till to-day I believe I was half deceived too.”
“That singing boy, that—what is his name?”
“Ruffo.”
“That Ruffo, I should like to run a knife into him under the left shoulder-blade. How dare he, a ragamuffin from some hovel of Naples, make you know that you are unhappy?”
“How strange it is what outside things, or people who have no connection with us or with our lives, can do to us unconsciously!” she said. “I have heard a hundred boys sing on the Bay, seen a hundred rowing their boats into the Pool—and just this one touches some chord, and all the strings of my soul quiver.”
“Some people act upon us somewhat as nature does sometimes. And Vere paid the boy. There is another irony of unconsciousness. Vere, bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, rewards your pain-giver. How we hide ourselves from those we love best and live with most intimately! You, her mother, are a stranger to Vere. Does not to-day prove it?”
“Ah, but Vere is not a stranger to me. That is where the mother has the advantage of the child.”
Artois did not make any response to this remark. To cover his silence, perhaps, he grasped the oars more firmly and began to back the boat out of the cave. Both felt that it was no longer necessary to stay in this confessional of the rock.
As they came out under the grayness of the sky, Hermione, with a change of tone, said:
“And your friend? The Marchese—what is his name?”
“Isidoro Panacci.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He is a very perfect type of a complete Neapolitan of his class. He has scarcely travelled at all, except in Italy. Once he has been in Paris, where I met him, and once to Lucerne for a fortnight. Both his father and mother are Neapolitans. He is a charming fellow, utterly unintellectual, but quite clever; shrewd, sharp at reading character, marvellously able to take care of himself, and hold his own with anybody. A cat to fall on his feet! He is apparently born without any sense of fear, and with a profound belief in destiny. He can drive four-in-hand, swim for any number of hours without tiring, ride—well, as an Italian cavalry officer can ride, and that is not badly. His accomplishments? He can speak French—abominably, and pick out all imaginable tunes on the piano, putting instinctively quite tolerable basses. I don’t think he ever reads anything, except the Giorno and the Mattino. He doesn’t care for politics, and likes cards, but apparently not too much. They’re no craze with him. He knows Naples inside out, and is as frank as a child that has never been punished.”
“I should think he must be decidedly attractive?”
“Oh, he is. One great attraction he has—he appears to have no sense at all that difference of age can be a barrier between two men. He is twenty-four, and I am what I am. He is quite unaware that there is any gulf between us. In every way he treats me as if I were twenty-four.”
“Is that refreshing or embarrassing?”
“I find it generally refreshing. His family accepts the situation with perfect naivete. I am welcomed as Doro’s chum with all the good-will in the world.”
Hermione could not help laughing, and Artois echoed her laugh.
“Merely talking about him has made you look years younger,” she declared. “The influence of the day has lifted from you.”
“It would not have fallen upon Isidoro, I think. And yet he is full of sentiment. He is a curious instance of a very common Neapolitan obsession.”
“What is that?”
“He is entirely obsessed by woman. His life centres round woman. You observe I use the singular. I do that because it is so much more plural than the plural in this case. His life is passed in love-affairs, in a sort of chaos of amours.”
“How strange that is!”
“You think so, my friend?”
“Yes. I never can understand how human beings can pass from love to love, as many of them do. I never could understand it, even before I—even before Sicily.”
“You are not made to understand such a thing.”
“But you do?”
“I?