“You ought to be able to see,” she answered, laughing lightly, “but when you cannot, perhaps I will tell you.”
“Pray do,” said he. “I am very stupid about such things, — but then, I am always in earnest, even when I want to be funny. Perhaps you might think me most diverting when I am most in earnest.”
“No,” said Leonora, “I should not think that. I should think you might be very unpleasant when you are in earnest — at least, from the things you write.”
“That is a doubtful compliment,” remarked Julius, smiling.
“Is it? I cannot imagine anything more delightful than having the power to be as unpleasant as you want to be.”
“Is there anything I can do for you, Marchesa? I should be most happy, I am sure, — short of poisoning your enemies, as you suggested the other day.”
“You ought not to draw the line,” she said with a laugh.
“Oh, very well. I will do the poisoning too, if you wish it.”
“Of course. What is the use of having friends if you cannot rely on them to do anything you want?”
“If I could be one of your friends,” he said gravely, “I am sure I would not ‘draw any line,’ as you call it.”
“With what seriousness you say that!” she exclaimed, very much amused. She was nervous from the knowledge that he had found her out in the church, and she laughed at anything rather recklessly. But Batiscombe had turned grave again.
“Would you rather that one should ask such a privilege in jest?” he asked.
“No indeed,” said she, a little frightened at the point to which she had brought him.
“Then I ask it very much in earnest,” he answered.
“To be my friend?” she asked, looking straight before her.
“Yes, to be your friend,” said he, watching her closely.
“Really? In earnest?”
“Really — in earnest,” he answered. She stopped suddenly in the road.
“I accept,” she said, frankly holding out her hand.
“I am very proud,” he said quietly. He took off his hat and touched her fingers with his lips. Then they walked on without a word for some minutes.
“What a strange thing life is!” exclaimed Leonora, at last.
“Yes, it is very strange,” he answered. “Here are we two, on the smallest provocation, swearing eternal friendship on the high road, as though we were going to storm a citadel, or head an Arctic expedition. But I am really very glad, and very grateful.”
Somehow the reflection did not sound light or flippant; and to tell the truth, Leonora was thinking precisely the same thing, wondering inwardly how she could possibly have gone to such a length with a mere acquaintance. But the land of friendship was an untried territory for Leonora, and she seemed to find in the idea a sudden rest from a sense of danger. A friend could never be a lover, — she knew that! This was the meaning of the dream. But she answered quietly enough.
“If things are real at all,” she said, “they are as real at one time as at another.”
“Yes,” answered Batiscombe. “Malakoff or Sorrento, it is all the same.”
CHAPTER X.
“YOU WILL COME in?” said Leonora when they reached the gate.
“Thanks; I should like to very much,” answered Batiscombe, and he followed her through the gate into the garden. They passed into the house, and Leonora received from the servant a telegram which had come when she was out. It was the one Marcantonio had dispatched when he had decided to stay a few days in Rome and to bring his sister to Sorrento.
Leonora opened it quickly and glanced over the message. It was very evident from her expression that she was annoyed and somewhat surprised. Batiscombe looked away.
“It is too bad!” she exclaimed; her companion examined the handle of his stick, as though there were something wrong with it. He was not curious, and he had very good manners. Leonora folded the dispatch and put it away.
“Let us go out again,” she said, “it is so close indoors.”
Batiscombe followed her in silence, obediently. They sat down among the orange-trees on an old stone bench. The air was still and very warm, and the lizards were taking their last peep at the sun wherever they could, climbing up the trunks of the trees and the wall of the house to catch a glimpse of him before he set.
“My husband telegraphs that he will be away some time,” said Leonora after a minute. “He has business that keeps him, and his sister is in Rome.”
“You must be very lonely here,” remarked Batiscombe in answer.
“Do you know Madame de Charleroi?” asked Leonora, taking no notice of the observation.
“Yes,” said Batiscombe, “I know her. Somebody told me she was in Pegli.”
“So she was. But she had to come to Rome on business, and now my husband is going to bring her here.”
“Indeed?” exclaimed Batiscombe. “To pass the summer?”
“Oh no; only for a week, I suppose. Do you know? I am rather glad; I hardly know her at all, and she seems so hard to know.”
“Hard to know?” repeated Julius. “Perhaps she is. It is always hard to know very charming women.”
“Is it?” asked Leonora, smiling at the frankness of the remark; it seemed to her that he had found it easy enough to swear friendship with her half an hour ago. “Is it? Is she such a very charming woman?”
“Yes, indeed,” he answered.
“Yes to which question?”
“Both,” said Julius. “Madame de Charleroi is charming, and it is very hard to know women of her sort well. Think how long it is since I first met you, Marchesa, and we are just beginning to know each other.”
“Do you think we are?” asked Leonora. She was full of questions.
“I think so — yes. At least, I hope so,” he said with a pleasant smile.
“If you were writing a book about us, Mr. Batiscombe, would you say that we were beginning to know each other? no one would believe that we stopped in the road and shook hands and swore to be friends. It would be very amusing, would it not? I do not know why we did it; I wish you would explain.” She laughed a little, and stuck the point of her parasol into the earth. Batiscombe laughed too.
“When people have known each other in society for a long time,” he said, “and then begin to be friends, there is always some ice to break, and it always seems odd for a little while after it is broken.”
“I suppose that is the reason that such things always seem improbable in books, until you know about them yourself.”
“Amusing books, and interesting ones, are made up of improbabilities,” answered Julius. “And the people who write them are even more improbable. It is always improbable that a man who has lived a great deal should have the talent, or the patience if you like, to make stories out of his own experience, — or that a man who has not seen a great deal of the world should be able to evolve a good novel out of his inner consciousness. The probabilities for most men are that they will eat and drink and wear out their clothes and be buried. All those things are a great bore to do, a greater bore to describe, and an intolerable bore to read about. The most amusing books are either true stories of a very exceptional kind, or else they are rank, glaring, stupendous improbabilities, invented to illustrate a great theory, or a great play of passions, — like Bulwer’s ‘Coming Race,’ or Goethe’s ‘Faust.’ I am sure I am boring you dreadfully.”
“Oh no!” cried Leonora, who was interested and taken out of herself by his talk. “But I think I prefer the ‘exceptional true stories,’ as you call them, like Shakespeare, — the historical part, I mean.”
“The worst of it is,” said Batiscombe, “that the true stories are generally the ones that no one believes. Critics always say that such things are a tissue of utter impossibilities.”
“Oh, the critics,” exclaimed Leonora; “they must be the most horrid people. I wonder you authors let them live!”
“Thanks,” said Batiscombe, laughing, “I was a critic mysel
f before I was an author, and I do not think I was a very horrid person.”
“That is different,” said Leonora. “Of course a man may do ever so many things before he finds his real vocation.”
“Authors owe a great deal to critics,” continued Julius. “More men have come to grief at their hands by over-praise than by too much discouragement. A very little praise is often enough to ruin a man, and a man who has much talent will always survive a great deal of abuse and disappointment. If any one asked my advice about adopting literature as a career, I would certainly tell him to have nothing to do with it; I should be quite sure that if he were born to it nothing would keep him from it for long.”
“That is the way with other things,” said Leonora, looking rather wistfully away at the setting sun, just below the green leaves of the orange grove. “It is the way with everything, good and bad. Some people are born to be saints, and some people are quite sure to turn out the most dreadful sinners, whatever they do.”
“What a depressing theory!” exclaimed Batiscombe, who had much more cause to think so than Leonora.
“Depressing is no name for it,” she answered. “One makes such mistakes in life, and then there is no way out of it but to make others.”
“And the worst of it is, that one knows one is making them, and cannot help it.”
“Yes,” said she, “one always knows, — if one only knew.” Then she laughed suddenly. “What a ridiculous speech!”
“No,” said Batiscombe, “I understand exactly what you mean. Just when one is doing the wrong thing, there is always a little instinct against it. But it is often so very little, that one does not quite know it from ever so many other instincts. And then, before one is quite sure that one knows what is right, — before one’s mind has time to think it over logically, — one has done the wrong thing. At least, it seems afterwards as if that were what happened; but I suppose it is because we are weak.”
Leonora looked at Julius, who seemed deep in his thoughts. He had exactly put her idea into words, but she could not tell whether he believed what he said, or was merely amusing himself with his faculty for explanation. He interested her extremely. It was just this kind of introspection that most delighted her, — this cutting up and skinning of conscience and soul. Nevertheless she did not think that Batiscombe was the man to analyse his own actions. It was more likely, she thought, that he was very clever, and could talk to please his listener. But he interested her greatly, and she was curious to know how he had got his knowledge of human nature.
“You must have had a wonderful life,” she said, presently, saying aloud what she was thinking, rather than hoping to draw him on to talk about himself.
“Oh no — very commonplace, I assure you,” said he, with a laugh that sounded natural enough. “Only, you see, I have had to make capital of what I know. But it spoils one’s own enjoyment to analyse anything, and I shall have to give it up, or resign myself to a miserable existence.”
“I wonder whether you are right,” said Leonora, reflectively.
“Of course I am,” he answered gayly. “The man who carves the pheasant does not enjoy it, but the man who eats it does.”
“Then let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. Is that the end of your experience?” asked Leonora, gloomily.
“Oh — well — if you put it so. Only if you do not eat and drink too much, you may possibly not die until the day after to-morrow.”
“Or you may spend your life in cooking the dinner, and die before it is served?” suggested Leonora.
“Or anything — what carnal similes!” laughed Batiscombe. “But they are very apt for any one who cares for eating. If that is really an important enjoyment, it may as well stand as the type.”
“Exactly— ‘if.’ I am sure you do not think it is, nor that any material satisfaction can possibly stand as a type, nor that we should enjoy to-day without thought of to-morrow, nor a great many other things you have said.” She watched him as she spoke, and he liked to feel her eyes on him.
“No,” he answered, “you are quite right. I do not think those things at all. But I am sure I generally do them,” he added, smiling.
“But what do you think — really? Is there anything really high and noble in the world? It all seems so little and so hollow, sometimes.”
She sighed, thinking how, formerly, she had said such things speculatively, and for the sake of raising an argument with her friends. Batiscombe turned on the stone seat, so that he faced her.
“Of course there are high and noble things in the world,” he answered. “It is when you look into the small workings of the mind and soul, as you have been making me do, that you lose sight of the great ones. Material nature is most interesting under a microscope, and generally most beautiful in great masses at a distance. But if you walk close to the grandest cliff in nature, and flatten your face against it, and hold your eye half an inch from the rock, the grandeur and the beauty are all gone, and without a microscope wherewith to examine your particular point, you will find the close inspection tiresome after a time. There is no microscope for the soul, any more than for the heart, or the mind. You gain nothing by looking too closely at it. It is ten to one that you hit upon a diseased spot for your examination. It may amuse you for a time to study other people’s souls, because you can hardly get so near to them as to lose all impression of the whole, as you can with yourself. What does it matter what you know about your soul, so long as you do what is right?”
“That sounds true,” said Leonora, “but I suppose there is something wrong about it.”
“All good similes sound true,” said Batiscombe, laughing. “That is the reason why popular orators and preachers are so fond of them. The real use of a simile is for an explanation; the moment you make an argument upon it, you are revelling in words without logic, calling illustrations facts and generally making game of your audience.”
“What a discouraging person you are,” said Leonora. “You make one almost believe a thing, and then you turn round and tell one there is nothing to believe after all.”
“Not so bad as that,” said Batiscombe, leaning back and clasping his brown hands over his knee. “I have not said there was nothing to believe in. Only take care you do not believe in anything because it bears a tempting resemblance to something you like.”
“That is ingenious, but I wish you would be positive about something. I wish you would tell me, for instance, what you yourself believe in.” Her eyes turned towards him in the twilight. For the sun had gone down, and the orange-trees brought the shadows early where the two were sitting.
“What I believe in?” he repeated. “I suppose that, apart from religious matters, I believe most in sympathy and antipathy.”
“That is not exactly a course of action or a rule of life,” remarked Leonora, smiling and looking away.
“No. But in nine cases out of ten they are what determine both. At all events I believe in them. They always carry the day over logic, philosophy, and all manner of calculation and forethought. You may determine that it is your duty to like a person, you may induce yourself to think that you do, and you may make every one believe you do; but if you really do not — there is an end of it. And the reverse is just as true.”
“I should think every one knew that,” said Leonora in an indifferent way. But she was wondering why he had said it, whether he had any suspicion of her own state of mind. “It is very safe to say you believe in things of that sort — everybody does. You are a very indefinite person, Mr. Batiscombe.”
“What is the use of defining everything? Lots of people have been burned alive, and have had their heads cut off for defining things they knew nothing about. Of course they were quite sure they knew better; but then, is it worth while to die for your personal opinion of an abstract question?”
“It is very fine and noble, though,” said Leonora.
“There is a tradition that it is fine and noble to ‘die for’ anything. It sounds well. Every one
admires it. But reflect that the common murderer ‘dies for’ his individual views of the social state. The woman who maintained that scissors were better than a knife for cutting an apple suffered her husband to drown her rather than give up the point, and as she sank her fingers still opened and closed, to imitate the instrument she preferred. She ‘died for’ her opinion, just as much as Savonarola or Giordano Bruno, whom my countrymen are so fond of raving about.”
“You know that is not what I mean,” said Leonora. “I mean it is noble to die for what is right.”
“The question is, what is right? There are cases when it is eminently heroic to sacrifice one’s life.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, to die for the liberty of one’s own country, — for the defence and safety of one’s king, who represents the embodiment of the social principle, — or for the honour of an innocent woman.”
“But about liberty and one’s king, and that sort of thing,” said Leonora, “where can you draw the line? There is no successful treason, you know, because when it succeeds it is called by other names. There must be a standard of absolute good — or something.”
“I should think you must be a very unhappy person, Marchesa, if you are always trying to draw a line and to define absolute good. What is the use? Every one knows that it cannot be done.”
Leonora was silent. It had interested her to hear the brilliant, successful man, apparently so happy and contented with his lot, talk seriously about the things she was always puzzling over. But what did it come to? What was the use? Those were his last words.
The warm gloom of the night settled softly round them, laden with the sweetness of the oranges and the aromatic scent of the late carnations. Batiscombe could just see Leonora by his side, her head bent forward as she rested her chin upon her hand. The indescribable atmosphere and faint perfume that surrounds women of high beauty and degree intoxicated him. She was so English in her beauty and so Russian in her delicate exuberance of vitality; above all, she was so intensely feminine, that Batiscombe felt his senses giving way to the magnetic influence. He leaned forward in the dark till he was nearer to her, looking at the faint outline of her face. Leonora sighed, and the gentle sound seemed like the softened echo of past weeping.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 65