V.
His good fairy came punctually at four. She tripped in like a fairy, indeed, and leaned over him and kissed him on his forehead, while her little hand rested in his. She, too seemed unconscious of the presence of Marguerite in the adjoining room. She removed her wrap with a gesture of determination—as if warding off an intruder—and settled down by his couch, as if she meant to stay with him forever.
“Let me look at your sweet Swabian face,” he whispered and raised the lifeless eyelid of his right eye. “You have a face of a Swabian Gelb-Vögelein,” he breathed in her ear.
He was glad Marguerite had never learned German. He could now speak freely with his Butterfly. And this was only the second time she had been near him! He felt that he had always known her; everything about her seemed strangely familiar to him; he felt as if he had met her in a previous existence and now met her again after a lapse of many years; and while his memory failed him as to her name and the place he had met her, his feelings toward her were those of an old friend.
“You haven’t told me yet your right name,” he murmured, seeking her hand, which she readily placed in his. “You elusive Butterfly!” He emitted a soft laugh, “I never stopped thinking of you for a moment since you left. I wondered if you were but a fairy of dreamland and feared that I might wake at any moment and find you had vanished. What is your name, fairy mine?”
“Call me Butterfly——”
“My Butterfly you shall always be, but what is your real name—who are you? It seems to me I have known you for ages—I am beginning to believe in the transmigration of souls—I feel that I met you before in a different sphere——”
Her hand still resting in his she looked at his bloodless face wistfully; she seemed absent minded, as if she had not heard his words, and yet knew what he said.
“You are right, I know I met you before.” She was speaking in a hushed voice, an expression on her pensive face as if she were under a hypnotic influence; there was a strange glitter in her blue eyes. “When I was a little girl—when I first read your poems—your words seemed familiar to me as if I had heard them before. When I read your verses, I heard you recite them to me—the voice I now hear was the voice I always heard. When I told my mother about this she only laughed and patted me and said I was an imaginative child. The older I grew the more convinced I was that souls did migrate—that your soul and mine had loved each other before and had been parted and that we were destined to meet again. I always knew I’d meet you. When my mother brought me to Paris—I was little then—I heard some one speak of you. I can recall the trembling of my heart at the mention of your presence in Paris. But I was only a child then. I felt like a young girl, as yet unfamiliar with her own passions, suddenly awakened to the consciousness of male attraction. I trembled every time I heard your name mentioned and yet never dared learn of your whereabouts in this great Babel and see you in the flesh. Sometimes I heard people speak of you in uncomplimentary terms—they said you were immoral—and I felt mortified but I did not believe anything evil of you. I could not believe it. I have always known you—always! When I met Herr Metzger on the train he made some remark to me in French, but I could see that he was German so I addressed him in his language. He was piqued at first. People speaking a foreign language are always piqued when you make them feel their adopted tongue is not quite their own. We are all vain about it—even the great Albert Zorn!”
She gave a roguish little laugh and he pressed her hand tenderly without venturing a retort. He had listened to her so attentively that he did not wish to interrupt her speech.
“He thought I was flirting with him,” she continued with a gentle toss of her well-poised head. “Herr Metzger is very vain about his physique. Of course, he is good looking but he knows nothing about women—nothing! I was alone in the compartment—just he and I—and the train was speeding. During travel intimacies are quickly formed. Before long he told me the history of his life—he told me everything about himself, even of his love affairs, his conquests.” She chuckled. “He thought he made me jealous when I teased him about his frankness. Mind you, I was then only seventeen and he was a man already—years and years older than I—and within half an hour he revealed himself to me completely while I had told him nothing about myself—literally nothing! When he began to probe he found all avenues closed. Then he began to boast—all men begin to boast when they fear they have not made sufficient impression upon a woman; they don’t realize that their boasting, like a frost in late spring, nips the first buds. He was telling me what a great poet he was and what the critics said of him, incidentally mentioning what you had said of him. He must have noticed my sudden interest in him. He misunderstood the reason. He boasted of friendship with you and I showed still greater interest in him. He felt flattered. I wished to meet him again when he returned here—I wanted to renew my acquaintance with such a close friend of yours. I hoped to meet you through him. Was that mean of me?”
Albert sighed and only pressed her small hand with his thin fingers.
Marguerite passed through the room, and the girl quickly withdrew her hand. Marguerite paused to ask him if he minded her going to the theatre that evening. She had not yet seen Scribe’s latest play. Albert said he did not mind it at all. In fact, he wished she would go and get a little fresh air. Would he mind if she took the nurse along and got dinner at one of the restaurants? No, he did not mind this either. He had not felt as well in years as at the present. Marguerite wabbled away, humming a bar of the latest popular song.
“Go on. And then?” he turned to the girl by his couch.
“Then something dreadful happened to me.” She crossed her legs and gripped her knee between her clasped hands. “My mother urged me to get married. She was at the end of her string, she confided to me, with tears in her eyes. She did not want me to repeat her blunder. She thought I was too impetuous—she said she herself had been too impetuous and ruined her whole life. I, too, might prove indiscreet if I fell in love. She believed in the orthodox fashion of French marriages, a husband chosen by the parents. She wished she had listened to her mother when she was seventeen. Instead—instead she had a daughter on her hands without a father to look after her. Men were all alike, she preached to me, unless they were tied by legal fetters they flew away to warmer climates when the air at home grew cold. This was a shocking revelation to me. I had never known my father but my mother had never mentioned his name so I thought he had died, I asked no further questions. I now understood my mother’s tragedy—and mine. A few days later she introduced me to a middle-aged Frenchman and told me he wished to marry me. He was rich, she added, and would provide well for me. I made no protests. I married him.”
She paused. There were tears in her eyes, there were tears in her voice. The poet lay still, his bloodless lips compressed, his paralyzed eyelids sealed. The clock on the mantel seemed to tick louder than ever. Through the open glass door over the balcony came noises from the street; rolling vehicles, snapping whips, floating laughter. The parrot was calling “Bon jour” and then joined in the laughter outside.
“I thought I was quite worldly then,” she soon preceded; “at least, quite sophisticated for a girl of seventeen. I had always mingled with people older than myself and assimilated their maturity. I had traveled considerably and my close association with my mother—who is a very intellectual and cultured woman and was governess in her younger days in one of the most influential aristocratic families in Germany—should have given me an understanding of life. Yes, I thought I did understand life much more than most girls of my age but I had soon learned that seventeen is but seventeen; my knowledge of the world was too superficial—it was like most conversations between pseudo-cultured people—meaningless phrases that sound well and vapid platitudes that pass for cleverness but contain not a grain of real sense. Stranger still, while I was a precocious child, impetuous, passionate, with a strong sex sense, I did not have the least intimation of the relationship between the sexes. It doesn’t found credible, but it was so. My inquisitiveness had never led me to probe the relationship of the sexes. I found myself married to a native of Paris, a man twenty-six years older than myself, a man to whom sex was an open book, one to whom sex had only one meaning. No, I can’t quite make clear to you my feelings when he first kissed me, when he ravished my body. Oh, it was revolting!” She shuddered visibly. “I had had visions of sweetness, of tenderness, of transporting passion, of ecstasy, and found—oh, I can’t describe it—it is too horrible to dwell upon it.”
She paused, a sob in her throat. Albert’s hand was caressing hers sympathetically, silently.
“I wonder if any man understands the difference between the passion of a woman and that of a man!” She heaved a sigh, and there was agony in her voice. She felt the tender grip of his hand and added smilingly, “Poets sometimes do understand the difference, but then poets are feminine in their instincts. A man may prefer one woman to another—just as he may prefer champagne to claret—but when he can’t have his preference the inferior is quite as agreeable. A woman is a woman. I am told even a man as wise as Benjamin Franklin felt this about women. Of course, Franklin was no poet. To a woman only her preference exists—the other are abscheulich! The fact that many women submit to men they don’t love proves nothing. In a society in which more than half of life is artificial, forced, and the woman the weaker, she can’t help but submit. But, oh! if man could but read the innermost secrets of woman’s heart! Thousands of years of self-suppression have made women incapable of even revealing themselves to themselves.
“Well, I found myself legally tied to a man whom I abhorred. His mere presence was loathsome to me. When he touched me I was filled with revulsion. Instead of a vivacious, highly sensitive girl that I had been I had become a depressed, morbid woman. I could not even read your songs—all beauty had become ugliness to me. I thought seriously of ending my life. Many a time I carried carbolic acid to my lips and put it away from me by sheer force. At times I raved like a maniac. My husband showered gifts upon me—he gave me jewels and fine clothes—men are always so stupid and imagine trinkets win affection—but that made me hate him the more. He told me I ought to consult a physician but I knew opiates could not cure me. How could a sordid business man, to whom the acquisition of wealth was all that life offered, understand what ailed me? One day he suggested travel. I welcomed it. I hoped new scenes might take me away from myself. But it proved the reverse. It only made me realize that there were fragrant woods and that I was confined in a narrow little cage in a dingy attic. My husband was beside himself. When we got to London he decided that I was insane. Perhaps I was. At least, I acted like a lunatic. The excitement of the English metropolis had a strange effect upon me. I had suddenly grown hilarious, pulled my husband from music hall to music hall, from one jewelry shop to another—and made him squander his hard-earned money as if I were his mistress. It was then—on the Strand—that Metzger met me and spoke to me but, to his amazement, I denied his acquaintance. I could not think of the time when I read you poetry and was in love with the beauty of life. But a few days later the reaction set in. I flung my jewels away, I tore up my finery, I shrank from my distracted husband and wept.
“Days passed. He implored me, he beseeched me to be rational, but I was hysterical. One day on the pretext of taking a drive to get fresh air, he finally coaxed me to leave my room. The next thing I remember is that he escorted me to a luxurious villa, where I was met by a fine looking elderly gentleman, who talked to me as if I were a little child. That amused me and I couldn’t help bursting into laughter. He patted my shoulder and said I would be all right in time, and his strange actions amused me still more although his French was enough to send one into convulsions. Before I realized what was happening, I was locked in a room, alone. The next day I discovered that my husband had placed me in a private sanitorium. But, thank God, I was rid of my husband, I said to myself; I was alone and free from his loathsome attentions. After a few days’ rest I had a talk with the head physician—a very sane individual—who was very sympathetic and kind. It did not take him long to understand my case. He gave me the five hundred pounds my husband had left with him for my care for three months and bade me God-speed. ‘Yes, I understand—I understand,’ he kept murmuring sadly. ‘God help you,’ he added in a prayerful tone.
“At last I was free. Instead of going back to my mother I went to Vienna, where I had relatives. I was afraid my mother might try to bring about a reconciliation with my husband. Before long I was myself again. Besides the money left me by my husband I earned a good deal by giving French lessons, and I lived economically. One day I made the acquaintance of a musician, a composer—a dreamy sort of chap—who seemed to be falling in love with me.
“He always carried a volume of your poems in his pocket or under his arm. And how he recited your songs! The poor young man was lovelorn. He thought he was in love with me but I knew he was intoxicated with love. He was a poet. And he set some of your songs to music most charmingly. I presume I encouraged his attentions and his visits—the poor young man was so helpless, so child-like, and I was so eager to hear him hum your songs—but when he began to make violent love to me I realized I had gone too far with him. I told him I could not love him—I could not love anybody—and that, besides, I was married. But I could not get rid of him. He was the most helpless creature I have ever known and the most sentimental. It was pitiful. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart and gave him some financial assistance. He took it, but he was not a parasite. He was just helpless. I then decided to return to Paris. I had exacted a promise from my mother that she would not mention my husband’s name. And I have been living with her ever since. I have never discussed the source of her income but I know she has always received a monthly stipend from a well known noble family in Germany—it may be from my father—and her allowance is quite liberal.”
“Armes Kind,” Albert murmured affectionately.
She paused. Marguerite, overdressed and overperfumed—large hipped and full-breasted, with rouged fleshy cheeks—came to bid Albert goodbye. She leaned over him and kissed his forehead but he made no attempt to raise his eyelid. He only murmured au revoir, and as he turned his face to one side a deep sadness flitted across his cadaverous cheeks. As Marguerite turned to leave, she turned around and gave the young girl a quizzical look.
When the outside door closed the invalid stretched out his hand toward his visitor and she replaced her hand into his.
“Du letzte Blume meines larmoyanten Herbstes,” he murmured, caressing her hand.
A moment later he added, “You won’t leave me now, since you have at last appeared, my last ray of sunshine. All my friends have left me—all—” There was a checked sob in his breast.
“Never, never, never!—” There were tears in her voice.
“Don’t cry, holdes Herz, life is a comedy, and death its final scene. Last night I dreamt I was dead and hugely enjoyed the ceremony of my burial.”
He gave a soft laugh and his bloodless lips puckered like those of a pouting child.
“They laid me in a gorgeous mausoleum of costly marble, and the walls were bas reliefs of grotesque scenes, sacred and profane—all the utterances of my whole life seemed illustrated on those walls. When they lowered my coffin I began to laugh and could not stop laughing even when they screwed on the lid. Then all of a sudden, as if by magic, I noticed a dark-blue flower spring from the ground at the foot of my tomb. It looked like a passion flower from which were suspended all the instruments of torture used during the Inquisition in Spain. All at once the passion flower assumed human form; it was a living being; it had the sweet face of a charming young woman; a sweet, sad face, full of tenderness and love, was leaning over my dead body. I stared in amazement. It was your sweet countenance, liebstes Kind, and hot burning tears were dripping from your eyes and falling upon my dead face. Ah, these dreams! Since the earliest recollections of my childhood I have always been dreaming—my days and nights were veritably different existences. So, you see, I have really lived longer than most men. You must multiply my age by two. I have long passed the century mark. Yes, indeed, I am a centenarian.”
She leaned over him and kissed his emaciated hand in silence.
The next moment sadness appeared on his face. He turned his head and muttered, “Ach, das ist schrecklich! Ein Toter, lechzend nach den lebendigsten Lebensgenüssen. All my life I wished to write a Faust—a Faust different from all the Fausts ever written, different also from Goethe’s—but I never fully understood my Faust until now. The conception of my Faust is a devout monk who had piously practiced self-denial and the mortification of his body to such an extent that his flesh shrivelled. Then Mephistopheles comes to tantalize him and brings him a maiden of matchless beauty. The saintly monk falls from grace, flings his life-long belief aside, and woos the fair Marguerite, who returns his love, but the poor monk can play his tune on only one string. Of all his earthly senses desire is the only one left him; a thirst unquenchable. Like old Job, he curses the day on which he was born even as he scraped himself with a potsherd to soothe his pain, but, unlike the Man of Uz, Faust dies with a curse of God upon his lips, without realizing that the great beauty-loving God has punished him for his failure to listen to His Voice earlier in life. The wasted monk is then taken to the region of the Styx, where other fools like himself are baptised in waters of spouting flame and anointed with boiling oil and sulphur, and after a period of purification is sent back to earth, fully rejuvenated. In the second volume of my Faust I would sing of Paradise Regained.”
Albert chuckled. The Butterfly now understood why the critics spoke of him as the German Voltaire. No one could be at once so reverent and blasphemous as Albert.
The sun was setting, the afternoon glow was gone, invisible shades of darkness were descending upon the sick room; silence was round them. Even the parrot was hushed.
“Ah, the first volume of my Faust I have already lived,” he sighed, “but there won’t be a second volume.” Then, with a light laugh, “who can tell, perhaps the life of Paradise Regained may yet be granted me, too. I rather like the Buddhistic doctrine of Reincarnation. I may return to earth as the crowned Sultan of Turkey.”
She caught the spirit of his levity and remarked, “From all reports you have already lived the life of a Sultan—only uncrowned!”
“Unsinn!” There was scorn in his voice. All levity immediately fled from him. “The world has taken me too literally. Alas! When I was in earnest they thought I was jesting and when I jested they failed to grasp my humor—the French are the only people who understand me. When I meant to be a Socrates they mistook me for an Aristophanes and when I played Aristophanes they charged me with trying to be a Socrates. I a profligate! He who has lived the life of a profligate often writes virtuous tracts. It is your priest, your morality-preaching Philistine, your man wrapped in the pure white robe of piety, who is often the real profligate. My life has been given to devotion—I have been a Carmelite, locked in the cell of my dreams. I was a little Ishmael in the wilderness of Beer Sheba dying of thirst. Ah! that consuming thirst, the thirst of beauty that sears one’s soul—thirsting, thirsting—thirsting to the end! I have always loved honorably, earnestly, with all the senses God meant for love. Ah, love! There is nothing else in life worth striving after. What else is there in life? Fame, riches, achievements?—they are only coal burnt to clinkers. If I only had a child on whom to lavish my love in my dying days!——”
A sigh, almost a groan, escaped his parted lips.
“Let me take the place of a child,” she pleaded in a whisper, tears filling her eyes.
“Indeed you are my allersüsstes Kind.”
He was fondling her fingers tenderly. “The fates have been kind to me after all to send you to me now, my good fairy.”
Dusk came, the invisible shades of twilight were thickening. With his eyes sealed he felt the approach of night.
“Will you come tomorrow, my child?”
“I’ll come every tomorrow.”
“Until there will be no tomorrow—” He caught his breath as he completed her thought.