The King's Mirror Part 43

To many the picture presented by my life might seem that of a man who detects the trap and yet walks into it, sinks under burdens that he might cast aside, groans at chains that he could break, and will not leave the prison although the door-key is in his pocket. Such an impression my record may well give, unless it be understood that what came upon me was not an impossibility of movement, but a paralysis of the will to move. In this there is nothing peculiar to one placed as I was. Most men could escape from what irks, confines, or burdens them at the cost of effacing their past lives, breaking the continuity of existence, cutting the cord that binds together, in a sequence of circ.u.mstances and incidents, youth, and maturity, and age. But who can do the thing? One man in a thousand, and he generally a scoundrel.

Our guests returned to Bartenstein, the d.u.c.h.ess still radiant and maternal, Elsa infinitely kind, infinitely apologetic, a little tearful, never for an instant wavering in her acceptance of the future.

Varvilliers took leave of me with great friendliness; there was in his air now just a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt, most decorously suppressed; he was charmingly unconscious of any possible seriousness in the position. My mother went to visit Styrian relatives. Victoria and William Adolphus had taken a villa by the seaside. I was quite alone at Artenberg, save for my faithful Vohrenlorf, and Vohrenlorf was bored to death. That will not appear strange; to me it seemed enviable. A prisoner under sentence probably discerns much that is attractive even in the restricted life of his jailer.

In a day or two there came upon me a persistent restlessness, and with it constant thoughts of Wetter. I wondered where he was and what he did; I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He brought with him other remembrances, of the pa.s.sions and the events that we two had, in friends.h.i.+p or hostility, witnessed together. They had seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when, as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.

Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest _incognito_; Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my _incognito_ was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me!

Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in that.

On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the Boulevards alone. In great cities n.o.body is known; I enjoyed the luxury of being ignored. I might pa.s.s for a student, a chemist, at a pinch, perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this here and this now were reality; the kings.h.i.+p, Elsa, the wedding and the rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, pa.s.sing by, stared hard at me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not staring at the king.

Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I saw Wetter coming toward the _cafe_. I had taken a table far back from the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him--so my heart went out to him--but the sight of his companion restrained me, and I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket that a hyperbole, so inevitable as to outstrip mere truth in fidelity, had called bigger. Besides there were the whiskers, the heavy jowl, the infinite fatness of the man, a fatness not of mere flesh only, but of manner, of air, of thought, of soul. There was no room for doubt or question. This was Coralie's impresario, Coralie's career, her duty, her destiny; in a word, everything to Coralie that poor little Cousin Elsa was to me. Nay, your pardon; that I was to Cousin Elsa. I put my cigar back in my mouth and smoked gravely; it seemed improper to laugh.

The two men sat down at an outer table. Wetter was silent now, and Struboff (I remembered suddenly that I had seen Coralie described as Madame Mansoni-Struboff) was talking. I could almost see the words treacling from his thick lips. What in Heaven's name made him Wetter's companion? What in Heaven's name made me such a fool as to ask the question? Men like Struboff can have but one merit, and, to be fair, but one serious crime. It is the same; they are the husbands of their wives.

I could contain myself no longer. I rose and walked forward. I laid my hand on Wetter's shoulder, saying:

"My dear friend, have you forgotten me--Baron de Neberhausen?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "My dear friend, have you forgotten me?"]

He looked up with a start, but when he saw me his eyes softened. He clasped my hand.

"Neberhausen?" he said.

"Yes; we met in Forstadt."

"To be sure," he laughed. "May I present my friend to you? M. le Baron de Neberhausen, M. Struboff. You will know Struboff's name. He gives us the best operas in the world, and the best singing."

"M. Struboff's fame has reached me," said I, sitting down.

Evidently Struboff did not know me; he received the introduction without any show of deference. I was delighted. I should have seen little of the true man had he been aware from the first who I was. Things being as they were, I could flatter him, and he had no motive for flattering me.

A mere baron had no effect on him. He resumed the interrupted conversation; he was telling Wetter how he could make money out of music, and then more music out of the money, then more money out of the music, and so on, in an endless chain of music and money, money and music, money, music, money. Wetter sat looking at him with a smile of malicious mockery.

"Happy man!" he cried suddenly. "You love only two things in the world, and you've married both."

Struboff pulled his whisker meditatively.

"Yes, I have done well," he said, and drained his gla.s.s. "But hasn't Coralie done well too? Where would she have been but for me?"

"Indeed, my dear Struboff, there's no telling, but I suppose in the arms of somebody else."

"Your own, for example?" growled the husband.

"Observe the usual reticences," said Wetter, with a laugh. "My dear Baron, Struboff mocks my misery by a pretended jealousy. You can rea.s.sure him. Did Madame Mansoni ever favour me?"

"I can speak only of what I know," I answered, smiling. "She never favoured you before me."

He caught the ambiguity of my words, and laughed again. Struboff turned toward me with a stare.

"You also knew my wife?" he asked.

"I had the honour," said I. "In Forstadt."

"In Forstadt! Do you know the king?"

"Not so well as I could wish," I answered. "About as well as I know Wetter here."

"That's admirably well!" cried Wetter. "Well enough not to trust me."

The fat man looked from one to the other of us in an obtuse suspicion of our hilarity.

"The king admired my wife's talents," said he. "We intend to visit Forstadt next year."

"Do you?" said I, and Wetter's peal broke out again.

"The king will find my wife's talent much increased by training,"

pursued Struboff.

"d.a.m.n your wife's talent!" said Wetter, quite suddenly. "You talk as much about it as she does of your beauty."

"I hope madame is well?" I interposed quickly and suavely, for Struboff had grown very red and gave signs of temper. Wetter did not allow him to answer. He sprang to his feet and dragged Struboff up by the arm.

"Take his other arm!" he cried to me. "Bring him along. Come, come, we'll all go and see how madame is."

"It's nearly eleven," remonstrated Struboff sourly. "I want to go to bed."

"You? You go to bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a h.e.l.l for men like us. For you above all! Think again, Struboff, think again!"

Struboff shrugged his fat shoulders in helpless bad temper. I was laughing so much (at what, at what?) that I could hardly do my part in hustling him along. Wetter set a hot pace, and Struboff soon began to pant.

"I can't walk. Call a cab!" he gasped.

"Cab? No, no. We can't sit still. Conscience, my dear Struboff! _Post equitem_--you know. There's nothing like walking for sinners like us.

Bring him along, Baron, bring him along!"

"Perhaps M. Struboff doesn't desire our company," I suggested.

"Perhaps!" shouted Wetter, with a laugh that turned a dozen heads toward him. "Oh, my dear Struboff, do you hear this suggestion of our friend the baron's? What a pity you have no breath to repudiate it!"

But now we were escaping from the crowd. Crossing in front of the Opera House, we made for the Rue de la Paix. The pace became smarter still; not only was Struboff breathless with being dragged along, but I was breathless with dragging him. I insisted on a cab. Wetter yielded, planted Struboff and me side by side, and took the little seat facing us himself. Here he sat, smiling maliciously, as the poor impresario mopped his forehead and fetched up deep gasps of breath. Where lay the inspiration of this horseplay of Wetter's?

"Quicker, quicker!" he cried to the driver. "I am impatient, my friends are impatient. Quick, quick! Only G.o.d is patient."

"He's mad," grunted Struboff. "He's quite mad. The devil, I'm hot!"

Wetter suddenly a.s.sumed an air of great dignity and blandness.