Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  Pacing to and fro the brick floor of the tower looking down on the sands and rocks of the coast, his thoughts were incessantly with Wanda von Szalras in her stately ancient house, built so high up amidst the mountains and walled in by the great forests and the ice slopes of the glaciers. In the heat and stench of carnage he had longed for a breath of that mountain breeze, for a glance from those serene eyes; he longed for them still.

  As he passed to and fro in the wild wintry weather, his heart was sick with hope deferred, with unavailing regret and repentance, with useless longings.

  It was near noonday; there was no sun; a heavy wrack of cloud was sweeping up from the west; on the air the odour of rotting fish and of fish-oil, and of sewage trickling uncovered to the beach, were too strong to be driven away by the pungency of the sea.

  The sea was high and moaning loud; the dusk was full of rain; the wind-tormented trees groaned and seemed to sigh; their boughs were still scarce in bud though May had come. He felt cold, weary, hopeless. His walk brought no warmth to his veins, and his thoughts none to his heart. The moisture of the air seemed to chill him to the bone, and he went within and mounted the broken granite stairs to his solitary chamber, bare of all save the simplest necessaries, gloomy and cheerless with the winds and the bats beating together at the high iron-barred casement. He wearily lighted a little oil lamp, and threw a log or two of drift-wood on the hearth and set fire to them with a faggot of dried ling.

  He dreaded his long lonely evening.

  He had set the lamp on a table while he had set fire to the wood; its light fell palely on a small white square thing. It was a letter. He took it up eagerly; he, who in Paris had often tossed aside, with a passing glance, the social invitations of the highest personages and the flattering words of the loveliest women.

  Here, any letter seemed a friend, and as he took up this his pulse quickened; he saw that it was sealed with armorial bearings which he knew — a shield bearing three vultures with two knights as supporters, and with the motto ‘Gott und mein Schwert;’ the same arms, the same motto as were borne upon the great red and gold banner floating from the keep on the north winds at the Hohenszalrasburg. He opened it with a hand which shook a little and a quick throb of pleasure at his heart. He had scarcely hoped that she would write again to him. The sight of her writing filled him with a boundless joy, the purest he had ever known called forth by the hand of woman.

  The letter was brief, grave, kind. As he read he seemed to hear the calm harmonious voice of the lady of Hohenszalras speaking to him in her mellowed and softened German tongue.

  She sent him words of consolation, of sympathy, of congratulation, on the course of action he had taken in a time of tribulation, which had been the touchstone of character to so many.

  ‘Tell me something of Romaris,’ she said in conclusion. ‘I am sure you will grow to care for the place and the people, now that you seek both in the hour of the martyrdom of France. Have you any friends near you? Have you books? How do your days pass? How do you fill up time, which must seem so dull and blank to you after the fierce excitations and the rapid changes of war? Tell me all about your present life, and remember that we at Hohenszalras know how to honour courage and heroic misfortune.’

  He laid the letter down after twice reading it. Life seemed no longer all over for him. He had earned her praise and her sympathy. It was doubtful if years of the most brilliant political successes would have done as much as his adversity, his misadventure, and his daring had done for him in her esteem. She had the blood of twenty generations of warriors in her, and nothing appealed so forcibly to her sympathies and her instincts as the heroism of the sword. Those few lines too were a permission to write to her. He replied at once, with a gratitude somewhat guardedly expressed, and with details almost wholly impersonal.

  She was disappointed that he said so little of himself, but she did justice to the delicacy of the carefully guarded words from a man whose passion appealed to her by its silence, where it would only have alienated her by any eloquence. Of Romaris he said nothing, save that, had Dante ever been upon their coast, he would have added another canto to the ‘Purgatorio,’ more desolate and more unrelieved in gloom than any other.

  ‘Does he regret Cochonette?’ she thought, with a jealous contemptuousness of which she was ashamed as soon as she felt it.

  Having once written to her, however, he thought himself privileged to write again, and did so several times. He wrote with ease, grace, and elegance: he wrote as he spoke, which gives this charm to correspondence, seem close at hand to the reader in intimate communion. The high culture of his mind displayed itself without effort, and he had that ability of polished expression which is in our day too often a neglected one. His letters became welcome to her: she answered them briefly, but she let him see that they were agreeable to her. There was in them the note of a profound depression, of an unuttered, but suggested hopelessness which touched her. If he had expressed it in plain words, it would not have appealed to her one half so forcibly.

  They remained only the letters of a man of culture to a woman capable of comprehending the intellectual movement of the time, but it was because of this limitation that she allowed them. Any show of tenderness would have both alarmed and alienated her. There was no reason after all, she thought, why a frank friendship should not exist between them.

  Sometimes she was surprised at herself for having conceded so much, and angry that she had done so. Happily he had the good taste to take no advantage of it. Interesting as his letters were they might have been read from the housetops. With that inconsistency of her sex from which hitherto she had always flattered herself she had been free, she occasionally felt a passing disappointment that they were not more personal as regarded himself. Reticence is a fine quality; it is the marble of human nature. But sometimes it provokes the impatience that the marble awoke in Pygmalion.

  Once only he spoke of his own aims. Then he wrote:

  ‘You bade me do good at Romaris. Candidly, I see no way to do it except in saving a crew off a wreck, which is not an occasion that presents itself every week. I cannot benefit these people materially, since I am poor; I cannot benefit them morally, because I have not their faith in the things unseen, and I have not their morality in the things tangible. They are God-fearing, infinitely patient, faithful in their daily lives, and they reproach no one for their hard lot, cast on an iron shore and forced to win their scanty bread at risk of their lives. They do not murmur either at duty or mankind. What should I say to them? I, whose whole life is one restless impatience, one petulant mutiny against circumstance? If I talk with them I only take them what the world always takes into solitude — discontent. It would be a cruel gift, yet my hand is incapable of holding out any other. It is a homely saying that no blood comes out of a stone; so, out of a life saturated with the ironies, the contempt, the disbelief, the frivolous philosophies, the hopeless negations of what we call society, there can be drawn no water of hope and charity, for the well-head — belief — is dried up at its source. Some pretend, indeed, to find in humanity what they deny to exist as deity, but I should be incapable of the illogical exchange. It is to deny that the seed sprang from a root; it is to replace a grand and illimitable theism by a finite and vainglorious bathos. Of all the creeds that have debased mankind, the new creed that would centre itself in man seems to me the poorest and the most baseless of all. If humanity be but a vibrion, a conglomeration of gases, a mere mould holding chemicals, a mere bundle of phosphorus and carbon? how can it contain the elements of worship; what matter when or how each bubble of it bursts? This is the weakness of all materialism when it attempts to ally itself with duty. It becomes ridiculous. The carpe diem of the classic sensualists, the morality of the “Satyricon” or the “Decamerone,” are its only natural concomitants and outcome; but as yet it is not honest enough to say this. It affects the soothsayer’s long robe, the sacerdotal frown, and is a hypocrite.’

  In answer she wrote back t
o him:

  ‘I do not urge you to have my faith: what is the use? Goethe was right. It is a question between a man and his own heart. No one should venture to intrude there. But taking life even as you do, it is surely a casket of mysteries. May we not trust that at the bottom of it, as at the bottom of Pandora’s, there may be hope? I wish again to think with Goethe that immortality is not an inheritance, but a greatness to be achieved like any other greatness, by courage, self-denial, and purity of purpose — a reward allotted to the just. This is fanciful, may be, but it is not illogical. And without being either a Christian or a Materialist, without beholding either majesty or divinity in humanity, surely the best emotion that our natures know — pity — must be large enough to draw us to console where we can, and sustain where we can, in view of the endless suffering, the continual injustice, the appalling contrasts, with which the world is full. Whether man be the vibrion or the heir to immortality, the bundle of carbon or the care of angels, one fact is indisputable: he suffers agonies, mental and physical, that are wholly out of proportion to the brevity of his life, while he is too often weighted from infancy with hereditary maladies, both of body and of character. This is reason enough, I think, for us all to help each other, even though we feel, as you feel, that we are as lost children wandering in a great darkness, with no thread or clue to guide us to the end.’

  When Sabran read this answer, he mused to himself:

  ‘Pity! how far would her pity reach? How great offences would it cover? She has compassion for the evil-doers, but it is easy, since the evil does not touch her. She sits on the high white throne of her honour and purity, and surveys the world with beautiful but serene compassion. If the mud of its miry labyrinths reached and soiled her, would her theories prevail? They are noble, but they are the theories of one who sits in safety behind a gate of ivory and jasper, whilst outside, far below, the bitter tide of the human sea surges and moans too far off, too low down, for its sound to reach within. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. But since she would never understand, how could she ever pardon? There are things that the nature must understand rather than the mind; and her nature is as high, as calm, as pure as the snows of her high hills.’

  And then the impulse came over him for a passing moment to tell her what he had never told any living creature; to make confession to her and abide her judgment, even though he should never see her face again. But the impulse shrank and died away before the remembrance of her clear, proud eyes. He could not humiliate himself before her. He would have risked her anger; he could not brave her disdain. Moreover, straight and open ways were hot natural to him, though he was physically brave to folly. There was a subtlety and a reticence in him which were the enemies of candour.

  To her he was more frank than to any other because her influence was great on him, and a strong reverence was awakened in him that was touched by a timid fear quite alien to a character naturally contemptuously cynical and essentially proud. But even to her he could not bring himself to be entirely truthful in revelation of his past. Truthfulness is in much a habit, and he had never acquired its habit. When he was most sincere there was always some reserve lying behind it. This was perhaps one of the causes of the attraction he exercised on all women. All women are allured by the shadows and the suggestions of what is but imperfectly revealed. Even on the clear, strong nature of Wanda von Szalras it had its unconscious and intangible charm. She herself was like daylight, but the subtle vague charm of the shadows had their seduction for her; Night holds dreams and passions that fade and flee before the lucid noon, and who, at noonday wishes not for night?

  For himself, the letters he received from her seemed the only things that bound him to life at all.

  The betrayal of him by a base and mercenary woman had hurt him more than it was worthy to do; it had stung his pride and saddened him in this period of adversity with a sense of degradation. He had been sold by a courtezan; it seemed to him to make him ridiculous as Samson was ridiculous, and he had no gates of Gaza to pull down upon himself and her. He could only be idle, and stare at an unoccupied and valueless future. The summer went on, and he remained at Romaris. An old servant had sent him word that all his possessions were safe in Paris, and his apartments unharmed; but he felt no inclination to go there: he felt no sympathy with Communists or Versaillists, with Gambetta or Gallifet. He stayed on at the old storm-beaten sea-washed tower, counting his days chiefly by the coming to him of any line from the castle by the lake.

  She seemed to understand that and pity it, for each week brought him some tidings.

  At midsummer she wrote him word that she was about to be honoured again by a two days’ visit of her Imperial friends.

  ‘We shall have, perforce, a large house party,’ she said. ‘Will you be inclined this time to join it? It is natural that you should sorrow without hope for your country, but the fault of her disasters lies not with you. It is, perhaps, time that you should enter the world again; will you commence with what for two days only will be worldly — Hohenszalras? Your old friends the monks will welcome you willingly and lovingly on the Holy Isle?’

  He replied with gratitude, but he refused. He did not make any plea or excuse; he thought it best to let the simple denial stand by itself. She would understand it.

  ‘Do not think, however,’ he wrote, ‘that I am the less profoundly touched by your admirable goodness to a worsted and disarmed combatant in a lost cause.’

  ‘It is the causes that are lost which are generally the noble ones,’ she said in answer. ‘I do not see why you should deem your life at an end because a sham empire, which you always despised, has fallen to pieces. If it had not perished by a blow from without, it would have crumbled to pieces from its own internal putrefaction.’

  ‘The visit has passed off very well,’ she continued. ‘Every one was content, which shows their kindness, for these things are all of necessity so much alike that it is difficult to make them entertaining. The weather was fortunately fine, and the old house looked bright. You did rightly not to be present, if you felt festivity out of tone with your thoughts. If, however, you are ever inclined for another self-imprisonment upon the island, you know that your friends, both at the monastery and at the burg, will be glad to see you, and the monks bid me salute you with affection.’

  A message from Mdme. Ottilie, a little news of the horses, a few phrases on the politics of the hour, and the letter was done. But, simple as it was, it seemed to him to be like a ray of sunshine amidst the gloom of his empty chamber.

  From her the permission to return to the monastery when he would seemed to say so much. He wrote her back calm and grateful words of congratulation and cordiality; he commenced with the German formality, ‘Most High Lady,’ and ended them with the equally formal ‘devoted and obedient servant;’ but it seemed to him as if under that cover of ceremony she must see his heart beating, his blood throbbing; she must know very well, and if knowing, she suffered him to return to the Holy Isle, why then — he was all alone, but he felt the colour rise to his face.

  ‘And I must not go! I must not go!’ he thought, and looked at his pistols.

  He ought sooner to blow his brains out, and leave a written confession for her.

  The hoarse sound of the sea surging amongst the rocks at the base of the tower was all that stirred the stillness; evening was spreading over all the monotonous inland country; a west wind was blowing and rustling amidst the gorse; a woman led a cow between the dolmen, stopping for it to crop grass here and there; the fishing-boats were far out to sea, hidden under the vapours and the shadows. It was all melancholy, sad-coloured, chill, lonesome. As he leaned against the embrasure of the window and looked down, other familiar scenes, long lost, rose up to his memory. He saw a wide green rolling river, long lines of willows and of larches bending under a steel-hued sky, a vast dim plain stretching away to touch blue mountains, a great solitude, a silence filled at intervals with the pathetic song of the swans, chanting sorrowfully because
the nights grew cold, the ice began to gather, the food became scanty, and they were many in number.

  ‘I must not go!’ he said to himself; ‘I must never see Hohenszalras.’

  And he lit his study lamp, and held her letter to it and burnt it. It was his best way to do it honour, to keep it holy. He had the letters of so many worthless women locked in his drawers and caskets in his rooms in Paris. He held himself unworthy to retain hers. He had burned each written by her as it had come to him, in that sort of exaggeration of respect with which it seemed to him she was most fittingly treated by him. There are less worthy offerings than the first scruple of an unscrupulous life. It is like the first pure drops that fall from a long turbid and dust-choked fountain.

  As he walked the next day upon the windblown, rock-strewn strip of sand that parted the old oak wood from the sea, he thought restlessly of her in those days of stately ceremony which suited her so well. What did he do here, what chance had he to be remembered by her? He chafed at his absence, yet it seemed to him impossible that he could ever go to her. What had been at first keen calculation with him had now become a finer instinct, was now due to a more delicate sentiment, a truer and loftier emotion. What could he ever look to her if he sought her but a mere base fortune-seeker, a mere liar, with no pride and no manhood in him? And what else was he? he thought, with bitterness, as he paced to and fro the rough strip of beach, with the dusky heaving waves trembling under a cloudy sky, where a red glow told the place of the setting sun.

  There were few bolder men living than He, and he was cynical and reckless before many things that most men reverence; but at the thought of her possible scorn he felt himself tremble like a child. He thought he would rather never see her face again than risk her disdain; there was in him a vague romantic wishfulness rather to die, so that she might think well of his memory, than live in her love through any baseness that would be unworthy of her.