Ancestors: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  X

  "Of course I lived two lives before my father's death. My days weresufficiently filled with him, to say nothing of making both ends meet;for even after my uncle's death, I had only a small income until the dayof my complete liberty came. I slept soundly enough when I was notfollowing my father about the house with a candle, or about the hillswith a lantern. But such a life preyed upon my spirits. I imaginedmyself both melancholy and bitter and grew unhealthily romantic. Butfrom the conditions of my life I had two escapes--in books and indreams. My father hated company more and more and I rarely left him fora dance or one of those church festivities where all the young people ofmy set were sure to meet. I knew that I was regarded as rather a tragicfigure, and this enhanced my morbid egoism. I wonder if I shall ever beas really happy again!

  "During the year following my father's death I lived out here alone, butwith my hands tied by the executors of my uncle's will. I felt myselfquite the enchanted princess and put in most of my time dreaming aboutthe prince. I suppose no girl ever had such wild and impossible notionsof love. That is to say most girls have, but I had peculiaropportunities for indulgence and elaboration. At the same time Idespised or disliked every man I knew or ever had known--with thepossible exception of Judge Leslie. Not only had I found all the men ofmy little personal world weak, or selfish, or tyrannical, but those Iknew almost as well were narrow, or commonplace, or uninterested inanything but local politics or making money, or both combined. Not butthat Rosewater is the world in little. You never read of any old Italianduchy where there was more jealousy and intrigue; more silent and tense,or open and gnashing struggle for supremacy than is centered in thesethree banks. They have prevented the town from increasing in size andimportance, in spite of its prosperity, through their machinationsagainst one another. If a stranger comes to the town intending to investhis money in some one of the flourishing industries, or to introduceanother, the banker to whom he brings a letter, or whom he happens tomeet first, terrifies him with tales of the rapacity and dishonorablemethods of his rivals; and the other two, who fear that the first willget the stranger's business, warn him that Mr. Colton, for instance,never gave an hour's mercy. The three have made slow, sure, doggedfortunes, but each has prevented the others from becoming millionaires,and Rosewater from taking its proper place as county seat. And they areall afraid of new-comers, new capital, of authority passing out of theirhands. They are careful not to charge exorbitant rates of interest, andevery farmer and merchant in the county borrows from them; partly fromhabit, partly because the banks are uncommonly sound. They foreclosewithout mercy, but that does not frighten their old patrons, who havethe perennial optimism of the country. The only capital they have notsucceeded in frightening off is that controlled by the greatcorporations. One or two have wedged their way in and others will followin time. Doubtless when the younger men get the reins in their handsthey will trim with the times, but the older seem to be Biblical if notChristian, and the consequence is that most of the younger have left fora wider field.

  "Finally the day came when I could turn my back on California, and Ifelt sure that I should remain away for ten years at least. I thoughtthat the liberty I had longed for all my life was mine at last. In aconducted tour, I soon discovered, there was little liberty, to saynothing of privacy. Before I had been two days in the train I was madeto feel that there was something wrong with a person that showed adisposition to retire into herself. She was either aristocratic, or hadsomething to hide, unless she responded to the confidences natural topeople of that class. As there were just eighteen in the party, ofcourse I always had a room partner, and there was not a woman in theentire company that I would have known from choice. However, it wasexcellent discipline, not unenlightening, and the end came in six weeks.They sailed from Naples and I wandered about by myself. In a way theliberty was intoxicating, but of course the sum of it was lessened bythe daily irritations of travel in Europe: the rapacity of the Italiansand French, the wretched trains, the hordes of vulgar tourists, mostlyof my own nation, the absurd primness, quite foreign to my nature, I wasforced to assume when alone with a man who was neither English norAmerican, the awful fatigues, the ennuis of long rainy days in thesecond-rate hotels and pensions I had to frequent. Still, I was tooyoung for any unpleasant impression to take root and discourage me, andthere was much that was wholly delightful. I spent weeks in a city oreven village that took my fancy. But even so it was not long before Irealized that my liberty was as far off as ever, because my soul atleast was possessed by the image of the prince, the more tormenting andinsistent as his outlines were so remarkably vague. In the intervalswhen novelty ceased to appeal, when my very eyes refused to look atthings, I pictured inexpressibly thrilling and romantic futures. Then Iwould fall into a panic at the passing of youth, for a woman never feelsso old again as between eighteen and twenty-five--her firstquarter-century.

  "And I did not lack opportunities. I met many people, some of them quitecharming. But they left me cold.

  "Then I lived the student life in Paris, studying art just enough togive me the raison d'etre. It was very gay, very irresponsible, veryeducating to a provincial miss. The restaurants with their sandedfloors, and the cosmopolitan mixture of students, generally eccentric tolook at, brandishing temperament until the poor thing must have beenworn out before its harness of technique was ready--all was a perpetualsource of delight to me, and I used to let my mind dwell on Rosewaterfor the sake of enjoying myself with the more wonder and gratitude.

  "But of course in such a life I had to have a companion, I could notlong go to students' restaurants alone. I had taken a tiny flat in theLatin Quarter at the top of a house, and overlooking a convent where thenuns were always walking in the garden. A _femme de menage_ cooked mybreakfast and kept my rooms in order; but although I was quitecomfortable and never lonely, I had not been established a fortnightbefore certain experiences at the restaurants and on the street, whichyou can imagine for yourself, convinced me that I could not live alone.So I looked hurriedly over the field, and decided that an American girlin my class suggested fewest complications. Moreover, she interested me.She had a pale tense face, rarely spoke to anybody, and worked as if herlife depended upon every stroke, although her talent was notconspicuous. It was not easy to approach her, but one day, after I haddined alone in my flat five times in succession, I noticed that she waspaler than usual, and that her hands were trembling. Then I felt certainshe was in trouble, and it would have been my instinct to help her inany case. I joined her as we left the atelier, and asked her to walk abit. It was not long before she admitted that her money was practicallygone, and that her family would not send her any more; they had neverapproved of her coming to Paris to study art. They were not at all welloff, and as she had a facility in trimming hats they had thought it herduty to contribute more immediately to the support of the family. Shehad not advanced as rapidly as she had hoped to do, and it would beinsupportable humiliation to return.

  "Here was my opportunity. I exultingly invited her to share myapartment, told her that my income was quite enough for two, that I wasmerely studying life, and that her protection would more than compensateme for the little extra outlay. She declined at first, hesitated for aweek; but in the end she came. I grew very fond of her, and sheinterested me more and more. Her real bitterness taught me what a purelyyouthful symptom mine had been, and she was rather a clever girl, oftenentertaining. She was about twenty-six, I fancy, and had received a goodeducation at the academy of the Western town in which she had been born.Her grandparents were Italian emigrants, and she had fine black eyesand a beautiful mouth.

  "Well, before many months had passed I knew that she was in desperatestraits, and she offered to go away, reiterating that she had onlyintended to take advantage of the temporary haven while she fed hercourage and painted something that might sell. I knew that if she leftme she would throw herself into the Seine, and I persuaded her to stay.It is not difficult to persuade a stricken woman to remain unde
r afriendly roof. I was full of sympathy for the poor little thing, but Idon't deny that I was immensely interested, and fairly palpitated withthe thought that I was actually seeing life at first hand. Who the heroof her romance was I never discovered, except that he was of her ownrace, and married, a fact he had concealed until ready to leave Paris.She told me enough to make me hate all men so violently that the princetook himself off and left me in peace. But I had trouble enough in myhousehold. As time went on Veronica's alternate attacks of melancholyand hysteria were terrible. I sat up night after night to keep her fromthrowing herself out of the window; at times she seemed to be quite offher head. And then she still loved the wretch, and would maunder by thehour. But it ended, as everything does; and the poor girl died. I haveno desire to linger over the climax. If anything was needed to set thefinal seal upon my disgust with life at first hand it was the mean andsordid details that attend death and burial in Paris. The landlordbehaved like the mercenary fiends they all are; I was obliged to call inthe assistance of the American consul before I could get the body out ofthe house, and between all the trouble and fuss poor Veronica's storywas published from the house-tops.

  "As soon as it was over I left Paris and started to travel slowlythrough Germany, feeling now a real sense of liberty, inasmuch as I wassure I could be all intellect henceforth, dependent upon nothing sounsatisfactory as human happiness. I never wanted another real contactwith life. I would travel, and study, and develop my mind, possibly somelatent talent. Many talents are manufactured anyhow, and the world isalways hailing them as genius.

  "But, of course, in time, and with constant change of scene, to saynothing of youth, the impression faded; the painful experience hoveredfaintly in the background of the past; the romantic imp in my brain, alittle pale and emaciated from its long sojourn in the cellar, resumedthe throne. Once more I began to realize that I was human, and to castabout for the mate that must surely be roaming in search of me. It wasthen that I arrived in Munich.

  "I saw him first in the Englischergarten. You remember it, thatwonderful imitation of a great stretch of open country, with fieldswhere they make hay, and bits of wild woods, and crooked pathways, andbridges over a branch of the Isar, greenest and loveliest of rivers. Andthen the little beer-gardens, where the people are always sitting andlistening to the band--and beyond the tree-tops, the spires and domes ofthe beautiful city.

  "I was standing by the lake watching the swans when he rode by, and I ambound to say that he made no great impression. I hardly should havenoticed him had it not been for his excessively English appearance, anda certain piercing quality in the glance with which he favored me. Ishould never have given him another thought, but a week later I met himformally. It came about oddly enough.

  "That evening in looking through my trunk for a business paper I cameupon a letter of introduction given me by a friend I had made in Italy.It was to a Baroness L., of Munich. I had quite forgotten it, and thesight of it inspired me with no desire for the social curiosities. I wasinfatuated with Munich, and its exteriors satisfied me. It has a largecourteous grandly-hospitable air, as if it were the private property ofa king, to which, however, all strangers are royally welcome. It is theideal king's city: life but no bustle; neither business, as weunderstand the word, nor poverty; a city of infinite leisure andinfinite interest, a superb living picture-book, where one is everamused, interested, both stimulated and soothed. I had been in it threeweeks and had almost made up my mind to live there, and dream away therest of my life. Knote and Morena, Feinhals and Bender were singing atthe Hof Theatre. Mottl was conducting. Lili Marberg's Salome wassomething to be seen again and again. You forgot the play itself. AndBardou-Mueller's Mrs. Alving! I did not sleep for two nights.

  "Well, I left the letter on my table, instead of returning it to theportfolio of my trunk, and it exercised a certain insistence. What areletters of introduction for? And should I not see the social life ofEurope when the opportunity offered? So I left a card on the baroness.She returned it in the course of a day or two, then wrote, asking me todrink tea with her. I went. There were perhaps fifty people there. Ihave not the faintest idea who they were or what they looked like.Prestage--that was only one of his names, but it will do--askedimmediately to be introduced to me, and we talked in a corner for anhour. Before we had talked for ten minutes I knew that the great gateswere swinging open. It is not possible for a woman to define one man'sfascination to another, and I hardly know myself why this man socompletely turned my head. He was not exactly good-looking, but he hadremarkable eyes and a singular tensity of manner, which made me almostbreathless at times. He was, moreover, brilliantly educated andaccomplished, and the most finished specimen of the man of the world Ihad met. He was an American of inherited fortune who had spent thegreater part of his life in Europe, alternating between Paris andLondon, although he knew the society of other cities well enough. Hiscontempt for the vulgarity of the huge modern fortunes, and hisadmiration for Munich, were the first subjects to discover to us thesimilarity of our tastes.

  "We soon discovered others. I think he fell as deeply in love with me ashe was capable of doing. He was forty-one and had fairly exhausted hiscapacity, for he had lived the life of pleasure only; but no doubt I wassomething new in his experience, and penetrated the ashes like a strongwestern breeze. I have seen him turn quite white when I suddenlyappeared at one of our trysts.

  "Of course I lived in a pension. I had no private sitting-room, and hepositively refused to sit in the salon a second time. So we used to takeinterminable walks about Munich, lingering in all the quaint old Gothiccorners, along the magnificent stretches of Renaissance; lunching on theterraces of the restaurants under the shade of the green trees, or inquaint little back gardens set in the angle of buildings as mediaeval asRothenburg; the people looking down at us from the narrow windows or thelittle balconies. We spent hours in the Englischergarten, sitting on thebanks of the Isar; often took the train to the beautiful Isarthal andspent the day in the woods; or sailed on one of the lakes with thetumbled glittering peaks of the Alps always in sight. We visitedLudwig's castles together, attended peasants' festivals in themountains, lunching in some dilapidated old garden of a Gasthaus. And ofcourse we went constantly to the opera. It was positive heaven for atime, and as romantic as the heart of any romantic idiot could wish. Iwas so happy I could not even think, even when I was alone. I simply satlike one in a trance and gazed into space, vague rose-colored dreamsturning the slow wheel of my brain. No one paid any attention to us.Everybody in the pension was studying something; we avoided the Americanchurch and consulate and even the Baroness L. We were determined to haveour blissful dream unvulgarized by gossip.

  "There is no doubt that for a time my young enthusiasm gave him back aflicker of the romance of his own youth, but of course it couldn't last.I hardly know when it was I began to realize that the whole base of hisnature was honeycombed with ennui, and that any structure reared upon itmight topple at a moment's notice. I had been steeped to the eyes in thepresent. I had no wish to marry. Marriage was prosaic. Life was a fairytale, why materialize it? I soon discovered that man's capacity forliving on air is limited, and I had almost yielded to his entreaties tocross to England where we could marry without tiresome formalities, whenone day--this was perhaps a month after we had met--he was late at atryst. I lived a lifetime in five minutes. When he arrived he was soapologetic and so charming that if I had been an older woman I shouldhave known that something was wrong. The next day, as it happened, I hadto go to bed with influenza, and wrote him that I might not get out fora week. He wrote twice a day and sent me flowers. On the fourth morningI felt so much better that I sent him a note by a _dinstmann_ tellinghim that I should lunch on the terrace of the Neue Buerse restaurant. Hewas not awaiting me; nor did he come at all. Later I saw him drivingwith an astonishingly handsome woman; who looked as if she had been bornwithout crudities or illusions.

  "There are no words to express the tortures of jealousy and disgust thatI en
dured that afternoon. But at five came a note stating that he hadbeen out of town on a lonely voyage of discovery, and begging me to comefor a cup of chocolate at the Cafe Luitpold--where we had gone so oftento watch the motley crowd. I went, wrath and horror struggling in myheart with the sanguineness of woman. He had never been so charming andso plausible. I let him go on, exulting in the discovery that he was aliar, for I knew that it pushed me a step towards recovery. When he hadfinished I told him that I had seen him in the Hofgarten. I never shallforget how white he turned. But if he had been an adventurer his mindcould not have been more nimble. He recovered himself instantly,admitted the impeachment, insisted that he had just returned when I sawhim, had accepted a seat in the lady's carriage as he was entering hishotel--before he had time to go to his room and find my note. I knewthat he was lying, but when he changed the subject to impassionedpleading that I would cross to England at once, I was forced to believethat he loved me.

  "But I was miserably undecided. Moreover, I could not leave Munich. Myquarterly remittance was unaccountably delayed. I told him this. He knewthat I would not move without my own money, but he sent off severalcables. The reply came that the drafts had gone and must have been lostin the mails. Duplicates would be sent. There was nothing to do butwait.

  "I suppose that money enters into all things. It certainly ruled mydestiny. The fortnight that ensued I never think of if I can help it. Hewas desperately bored with Munich, but too polite to leave me alone. Isaw him with the woman three or four times. She was an Austrian who didnot visit the Baroness L., and she was staying at his hotel. There wasno doubt that he still wished to marry me, but I was in even less doubtthat his ruined nature would yield more and more to this sort offascination when my novelty had worn thin. Before my money arrived mymind was made up. I dared not trust myself to the seduction of hismanner and voice--he was a past-master in the art of making love. Iwrote him that I would not marry a man I could not trust, and fled toVienna, telling my Munich bankers to keep my letters until I sent forthem. For two weeks I travelled madly through Austria and Hungary. Neverfor a moment was I free of torments. Never before had I actuallycomprehended what love meant. I hardly ate or slept. I arrived at aplace only to leave it. The hotel-keepers thought I was the Americantourist overtaken by that final madness they had always anticipated.When the fortnight finished I looked back upon an eternity in purgatory.I surrendered; at least he loved me in his way. He had never ceased tourge our marriage. Who could say that I might not be fascinating enoughto hold him? It was worth the trial, and I despised myself for layingdown my arms without a struggle.

  "I took the Oriental express from Budapest, but during the journey,swift as it was, I underwent certain reactions. I knew that he must haveleft Munich, that all I could do was to take a letter to his bank andask that it be forwarded. I wrote the letter as soon as I arrived, butdecided to post it; my pride revolted at facing the sharp eye of theperson that handled the letters of credit. I had gone to the bank withPrestage more than once.

  "As soon as the letter was posted I experienced a certain measure ofpeace, having done all I could. Nevertheless, to sit still wasimpossible, and I set out for a walk. It was one of those brilliantclear crisp days with which that high plateau can put even California tothe blush. I saw that all the tram-cars were crowded, and that carriageloads of people had flower pieces. I asked if it were a Feiertag and wasreminded that it was the 1st of November, All Saints' Day; Munich was onits way to the several cemeteries to decorate the graves. I had seen AllSaints' Day in Venice and felt a mild curiosity to compare the Bavarianfestival with the Italian. So I walked out to the great Alt Sud Friedhofwhere so many celebrities are buried, and where I fancied the scenewould be most complete. When I arrived at the entrance the frames thathad been set up in the outer court were almost denuded of the flowerpieces the countrywomen had brought in to sell, but I bought a wreath atthe solicitation of a peasant in a picturesque head-dress, and followedthe crowd. The cemetery is on three sides of the entrance and enclosedby a high brick wall. I stood a moment at the inner official entrance,hardly knowing which way to turn; but seeing a number of staring peoplein a corridor on my right that faced one great division of the cemetery,I was turning into it mechanically when a policeman waved me back withthe information that the entrance was at the other end. But not until Ihad seen, stared, and gasped. In an alcove was a figure, almost upright,that, in the first dazed seconds I took to be a wax-work, butimmediately knew to be a dead woman. As I almost ran out I recalled thatin Bavaria the dead are taken from the house within six hours, and arekept in a public mortuary for three days, or until all danger ofpremature interment is over.

  "I do not think I should mind, particularly, seeing a ghost; I am suremy mental curiosity would get the better of my unwilling flesh; but Ihave a real horror of the corpse. I tried to forget the grotesqueexhibition I had stumbled upon, in the novel and interesting scene aboutme. The long aisles of the cemetery were filled with well-dressedpeople, some strolling, others decorating, all apparently enjoyingthemselves. Almost all of the graves and monuments were bedecked, andpresented a most Elysian appearance with the masses of bright flowers,the streamers of wide ribbon, the lighted lanterns, many of them antiqueand beautiful, above all the tall flambeaux, whose flames looked whiteand unearthly against the bright atmosphere. Above was a deep-blue skywith those thick low masses of snow-white clouds one sees only inBavaria.

  "But that grotesque little figure with its shrunken yellow face underthe pitiless sun glare, its bony old hands, attached I knew, to thestring of a distant bell, did not leave my mind for an instant. I walkeddown every path, I examined every interesting monument, I even went intothe other divisions where there are so many statues in the alcove tombs;but all in vain. I felt that I should see that old woman to the end ofmy days. I could recall the very pattern of the cheap black lace of hercap. There was but one way to rid my mind of the obsession, and thatwas to return to the corridor, stand in front of every earthen figure,remain there until my mind was satiated, in consequence delivered.

  "I set my teeth and went back to the Leichenhalle. Of course there weremany to keep me company. I looked long and unflinchingly at twogentlemen in evening clothes, an old maid dressed for once on earth as abride, a young woman and her infant. The coffins lay on an inclinedplane and the edges were so concealed by a mass of flowers and greenerythat the ghastly company looked as if half rising to hold a reception.

  "And then I stood for I do not know how long before the alcove next tothe old woman beside the exit, not knowing whether I were turned tostone or sitting by the Rosewater marsh indulging in some wild morbidflight of imagination.

  "For there he was. For a second I did not fully recognize him, he was soyellow, his lower jaw had so hideously retreated, completely alteringthe slightly cynical expression of the mouth. The bright gay sunlightsearched out every line carved by too much living, the little wrinklesabout the eyes, the weakness of the handsome polished hands. He lookedunspeakably aged and hideous. I had never dreamed that a brilliant mindcould leave so miserable a shell behind it, that the body was such amean poverty-stricken thing, a thing to be thrust out of sight as soonas it had fulfilled its work of balking and ruining the soul. I hadnever looked at Veronica after her death, and only once at my father,who had not horrified me, for here the undertaker has arts unknown,apparently, in Bavaria.

  "My love died without a gasp. I shrank and curdled with horror that Ihad loved that hideous clay. What he had aroused in me was merely theresponse of youth to the masculine magnet, a trifle more specializedthan I had heretofore encountered; the inevitable fever when infectionappears. All personal feeling vanished out of me so completely that evenwhile I stood there I felt the same pity for him that I had for theothers, the helpless dead so mercilessly exposed to the vulgarindifferent crowd. If I could have hurried him into the privacy of thegrave I would have exerted every effort, but before the laws of thecountry I was powerless. As I was leaving the cemetery I discovered t
hatI still carried the wreath. I went back and added it to the bank ofgreenery which his valet no doubt had provided.

  "When I returned to my pension I sent for the man and learned that heand the Consul-General of the United States had done all that theauthorities had left in their hands. The body was to be shipped to NewYork within the month. He had died of Bright's disease. It had declareditself a day or two after I left. After ten days of intermittentsuffering, during which the valet had felt no apprehension, he had diedsuddenly.

  "I left Munich the same day. If I have failed to give you any adequateimpression of my agonies, it will be next to impossible to describe mysubsequent states of mind. Indeed I have little remembrance of my mentalcondition during the weeks of travel in Switzerland and Italy thatfollowed. I was deliberately living up on the surface of my nature,indifferent to what was awaiting recognition below, although I knew itto be nothing unwelcome. Then, finally, I felt the time had come when Icould draw aside the black curtain which I had hung for decency's sakebetween my consciousness and my depths, and tell the new guest to comeforth. The guest was the liberty I had waited for all my life. I feltindescribably free, light, strong. The tyranny of love, even while itwas but the love idea, that had shackled me for so many years, narrowingmy interests, warping my imagination, clouding the future, wasdissipated at last. I had paid the tribute to my youth and sex. I feltreally alive for the first time, existing in the actual not in the dreamworld. There are women and women; and quite enough of the fine olddomestic order to keep the world going; but there is a vast andincreasing number that are never really alive and worth anything tothemselves or life until they have worked through that necessarymadness, buried it, and settled down to those infinite interests uponwhich matrimony, happy or otherwise, bolts a thousand doors. Some day Iwill tell you my theory of what such women are really born for, but youhave had enough for one night and the story is finished."