CHAPTER XVI. A REVELATION.
It was unknown, as regards time, to Reineke and Inarime whether minutes or hours had passed before Selaka and his sister rejoined them. The massive woman looked sharply at Gustav, then nodded to her brother in emphatic approval. A keen and not unkindly glance took in the situation, and it was possible she liked Reineke all the more for the tell-tale colour that mounted to his cheeks under her searching inspection.
“Now, my children,” said Selaka, with as near an approach to the ordinary gesture of rubbing the hands as a man so wedded to the customs and restraint of the ancients could display. Here was a son-in-law, if you will, not a popinjay from Athens, not a superficial European, not a gross Teniote; but a man who was accustomed to deep draughts from the old founts of learning! Whose youth still ran fire through his veins, while the beauty of his face was enhanced by a delicate suggestion of strength and burning life! Yes, Selaka was thoroughly pleased with Gustav, and, in spite of his philosophic condemnation of the impetuosities and frenzied purposes of an age he had long since passed, something within him thrilled to their memoried delights. Upon reflection, he would perhaps have viewed less enthusiastically the love of a saner and older man for Inarime; and there might be moments of sceptical acknowledgment of the sage reticence and colder blood of the other different son-in-law he had dreamed of. There remained nothing now to be discovered but the pecuniary circumstances of Reineke, and some slight knowledge of his parentage. He looked very unlike a German, but German blood might be crossed as well as any other. Inarime had escaped, and Reineke stood rivetted to the very spot she had left with a dazed look on his face as if he felt rather than saw. He was awakened from the dreamy sensations that enveloped him by the touch of Kyria Helene’s hand.
“Pericles tells me that you have come to take Inarime from us,” said she, and then nodded reassuringly to him, as if she thought it on the whole an extremely reasonable intention on his part.
“I am glad you think me worthy,” said Gustav, with a foolish lover’s smile.
“Oh, for that I don’t know; you may and you may not be. Young people must take their chance; it’s for them to choose, and for them to decide. You are comfortably off, I hope?”
“Comfortably off!” burst out Gustav in radiant incoherence, “you ask a man to whom the gates of Paradise have been opened if he is comfortably off? I pray you, do not speak to me about it; settle everything as you will, only leave me to my thoughts and my happiness.”
This might suit a lover, but could hardly be expected to suit the young lady’s guardians.
“That is very well, but I refer to your means of support. Are you in a position to maintain a wife?” asked the practical Kyria Helene.
“I do not know,” said Gustav; “I am accounted a rich man.”
“But do your people live in Germany?” she proceeded, catechising him severely.
And then came the one great difficulty in Gustav’s path. Oh, if he could have abjured his nationality, gladly then would he have done so. A Turk, and to confess that to these Greeks!—It seemed a horrible risk. Gathering all his energies together, he shook back his head defiantly, and rather gasped than said:
“No, my people do not live in Germany. I am not a German. I am a Turk.”
“A Turk!” cried the woman, and held up her hands in dismay and repulsion.
To Selaka no word was possible; for him the Turk was the symbol of all that is most hateful in his country’s past. He stood transfixed, staring at the young man whom a moment ago he had been prepared to take to his heart, and to whom he had so readily consigned the one treasure of his existence. No, that was not possible. Inarime wed a Turk! It did not seem to him that worse degradation could be for a daughter of free Greece! Despite his contempt of the present, his patriotic pride was very fierce and unbending. He took a step nearer to Gustav, who was looking at him now not defiantly but imploringly, and said:
“There is surely some mistake. Perhaps you mean that you have been born in Turkey. But your name is surely German?”
“No, my name is not German, I merely adopted a German name in coming to Greece so that I might not wound national susceptibilities, and bring upon myself unnecessary coldness. My name is Daoud Bey. Kyria Selaka, what difference can this make? I love not Inarime the less because my people once oppressed yours. I am not responsible for the blunders of generations. You do not surely imagine that I am less likely to cherish and reverence your daughter than one of her own countrymen? Rather do I believe that the very fact of the past wrongs that her race endured at the hands of mine will add to my solemn charge on the day she entrusts herself to my care. That it shall not be for her grief you may believe, for I love her. Besides, you must think of Inarime, if even you refuse to think of me. For now she is mine, and nothing in regard to my nationality or race can alter that fact. You must accept it.”
“I do not accept it,” said Selaka, “my daughter will not marry a Turk. I have said it.” Words of reproach for the lateness of the avowal were on his lips but he repressed the natural retort “you have deceived me.”
“Is this your decision?” asked Gustav, growing chill with fright.
“It is my decision.”
“Then I will only abide by the voice of Inarime. If she bids me go, I will go even without her, but not otherwise. You may be her father, but I am her lover. You have the claim of long years of devoted care and affection, and I have but the claim of a moment of transcendent passion. But, sir, your claim weighed with mine would prove but a feather as opposed to the barque of love on the waters of destiny!”
“No, I think not,” said Selaka. “Inarime will see your race in her lover, and she will not take your name, whatever the effort of parting may cost her.”
“Kyrie Selaka,” cried Gustav, with frantic urgency, “I have but one request to make you, and you must grant it. Not one word of this will be uttered to Inarime; she will only hear from my lips of that which you regard as an impassable barrier to our union.”
Selaka shot a swift inquiry in the direction of his sister.
“I think,” said Helen, “we may accede to this demand. It is reasonable, and it does the young man credit that he should urge it.”
Gustav looked his humble gratitude, and then went out on the terrace, which was nearly dry after the recent deluge. The wet leaves gleamed under their clear burden, while the damp air brought out all the exquisite odours of hillside and valley. Gustav could have almost laughed aloud in the surety of triumph. What could it matter to him the decision of two cold-blooded old people, who perhaps never knew the mighty force of love, or, having known it, had completely forgotten it? He allow himself to be calmly divorced from his mate, and sit down tamely upon the sudden ruins of his life! Such mad acceptance of the control of others might be befitting a phlegmatic Teuton, but it was quite incompatible with the fire of an Oriental. And, then, Inarime could not forsake him; and this theory of race antagonism would be shivered on the first word of his that should fall on her ears. It would mean only a little delay; some indecision, and perhaps some tears; and then for them success lay ahead. Oh, why does nature give youth its volcanic impulse and its ardent impetuosity! Strife, struggle, delay! These but gave an added impetus to his passion.
Flaming clouds shot from the west, heralds to proclaim the sun’s departure in one burst of splendour. They touched the plane and pepper-trees with light, and spurred the lagging birds into song. A breeze, like a sigh after protracted sobbing, swept from the east, and met the moist earth with a throb of promise. It brushed past over Reineke’s hot cheek, and fanned his thrilled senses into exultation. A silent shout of defiance from the invisible host that march in the wake of triumphant love went up, and Reineke felt his heart impervious to doubt. He heard a step, a light, quick step that he should have recognised in a thousand, and it lashed him with insufferable force.
“Inarime! stay! One moment, beloved,” he cried, in a voice of prayer.
That prayer was her command. She stood still, but did not dare advance lest answering passion should fling her in transport into his arms.
They stood thus, trifling with the eternal moments, their aching glances rivetted as under the spell of enchantment. Then he moved towards her, and her hands met his in silence.
“You are mine, Inarime,” he said, in a whisper. “Nothing now can alter that.”
“Nothing.”
It was hardly speech. Her lips moved, but it was her eyes that spoke.
“Say it aloud, beloved, that all may hear it, and know that you promised,—the earth, the trees, the birds and the departing sun. Aloud! Aloud!”
“I am afraid! Can I know? Who are you? Tell me, tell me.”
She retreated, but held him with the bewildering tenderness of her glance.
“Your lover! Lord of you, my lady. Inarime, your husband.”
“I love you,” she cried, and covered her face with her hands.
“My own! Your eyes spoke first. I knew it. Nothing shall part us. Say you believe it.”
“I cannot; but I love you.”
He drew nearer, and his dark, impassioned gaze flamed fire into hers. His breath was on her hair, and he held her hand to his lips.
“Oh, my beloved, thou art the eye of my soul, the voice of my heart,” he burst out, incoherently. At that moment of high-wrought sensation and terrible sincerity, he could no more hold Eastern metaphor in abeyance than he could bid his gaze close upon the light it avidly drank—as sun-drained flowers drink dew. The restraints of European customs and education were broken and overtopped by the strong heat of passion, and wild words gushed upon its wave.
“Inarime, Inarime, thy slim fingers are the rivets that bind my willing feet to high service. Command me! Anything, I pray, but silence and averted looks. Withhold me not thy promise.”
“I cannot,” she said again, startled by his outburst.
“Nay, thou art offended. Oh! blind me not with thy anger, Inarime. But as thou wilt. Thy anger will I bear rather than that thou shouldst leave me. O fair one, O desired of my life! Thy kiss upon my eyelids shall be as the dawn of my Paradise. Be to me, sweet, as an angel of morning. Lift the gloom and fever of unsatisfied longing from my heart. Be to me as the sun, moon, and stars to this earth of ours—light, life, warmth, and colour. I grow chill with the fear of thy unwillingness, Inarime. Worse than perpetual deafness were to my ear thy ‘nay.’ But ‘nay’ it cannot be, beloved. Thou lovest me. The light has shown it in thy eyes. My voice has revealed it on thy face. Mine art thou, O Inarime, and by our love must thou abide.”
“Can I promise, not knowing? But I love you,” she cried, and her voice rose in passionate protest, as though she felt the blood of feeling rise within her like a mighty sea and encompass her to her doom.
They looked at each other an instant gravely—a look of immeasurable love! And while the flaming heralds were ebbing back into the sea, and the sunken sun followed them through a bed of crimson and orange, drawing a purple pall over his vacated place, these two were locked in each other’s arms. Hush, foolish birds! There is no song of yours sweet enough to pierce their ears. The harmonies of love have swelled upon the silence, and its song is measured by their heart-beats.
Inside, two others were holding sharp counsel over the destiny of this miserable privileged pair.
“Can nothing satisfactory be settled, Pericles?” asked Helene.
“Certainly. He goes,” retorted her brother, bringing down his upper lip shortly upon this unpleasant decision.
“But he is rich, Pericles. Be a sane father for once in your life. A rich man! Panaghia mou! You are an idiot.”
“He is a Turk.”
“Oh, a Turk! Never fear, I will keep a careful eye upon him. With me there will be no danger. He will neither desert Inarime, nor outrage her with other wives.”
“I have not thought of that,” said Pericles, reflectively.
“Dystychia mou! that is the only thing to be feared in wedding a Turk,” remarked the practical Kyria Helene.
“It is a side-issue, important, I admit, but below the main barrier. I had forgotten, however, that the sentimental and impersonal side would be the one least likely to touch you, Helene.”
“Sentiment and impersonality won’t find your daughter a suitable match, I can assure you,” said Helene, wisely.
“True enough. But you are ever there, my sister, to shunt the train on to the proper line when you detect a tendency to divagation.”
He smiled sadly as he spoke, for his heart was torn with the torture of the coming severity for those tender young people outside. He heard the ardent murmur of Reineke’s voice, and his eyes filled with tears. But he knew that there were no words the lover could utter that would make him abandon his first decision. That Inarime would seek to shake his resolution he had no fear. Was she not Greek of the very Greek?
“Well, and what are you going to do, Pericles?”
“Inarime will stay here with you, and he will return with me to Xinara at once. Tell your servant to call for the mules. Ten minutes more will I give them, and then their parting is irrevocable.”
“But if Inarime loves this young man? He says she does.”
“Trust her to me. It will be a wrench, but she will get over it. I will take her to Athens, and through the Peloponnesus. New scenes will heal the ache of a young heart.”
Meanwhile, the two outside had dropped from the pinnacle of hardly conscious bliss. She knew his name now, and was standing with one hand stretched across his breast and resting upon his shoulder, and their speech was a happy murmur. No thought of separation here. A life together was what they were speaking of when Selaka interrupted them.
“My children, it is time to part,” he said.
“To part!” cried Inarime. “Then I am not to return to Xinara to-night with you—and him?”
“You are to stay here, and he is to go. Have you not told her?” he demanded sternly of Reineke.
“Nay, sir, consider. Had I time? Can I tell her?” Gustav pleaded, with a broken voice.
Inarime looked from one to the other. In the dusk the light in her lover’s eyes seemed to baffle her searching gaze, and she approached her father a step, her glance still wedded to Gustav’s.
“What is there to tell me?” she commanded of both.
“He is a Turk, my daughter. There can be nothing between you,” said Selaka, sadly.
“Oh, father! That may not be. I love him, his lips have sealed my promise upon mine. I cannot now take back that which I have given. You do not forsake me?” she cried, turning to Gustav, in an impulse of childish yearning.
“I! Inarime!”
His throat rose and choked further speech. He held out his arms, and her head sought protection on his breast.
“Inarime, are you not shamed? Leave that man’s embrace. What! do you not see in him the long years of servitude and degradation under which your country groaned? Are you less proud, less worthy of your glorious ancestors than the Greek woman who flung herself and her babes from a rock into the engulfing sea rather than yield to Turkish embraces? Does Hellenic blood run so sluggishly in your veins that revolt does not cry for shame? Come to me, my daughter. That man and you must part.”
“Have pity, sir, I beg you,” almost shouted Gustav, lifting up his head, which had been bent upon the girl’s, and still holding her form closely to him. “Is there no eloquence in her tears? Can I say naught to shake your harsh resolve?”
“Naught. Young tears are soon dried. Inarime!”
She lifted her head from Gustav’s breast, and held her throat to keep back the fierce sobs that shook her.
“Father,” she said, “have I ever disobeyed you? Have I ever once deliberately thwarted or offended you?”
“Never, my beloved child, never. To me you have been a reward and a support.”
“Then, father, by that past unblotted by tear or wrangle, by the memory of my mother, by your own vanished youth, I beseech you, spare me! I love him, father, leave him to me,” she cried.
Her hands were in Gustav’s, and her praying eyes pierced the heart of Selaka.
“My child, you know not what you ask. I tell you, the man is a Turk. It is mad, it is base of you to be willing to give yourself to him. Do not force me to renounce you.”
She dropped Gustav’s hands, and her face was blanched in a transport of pain.
“Oh, father, blame me not. Your voice has never yet been harsh to me. I am young. Show me some pity. Think what it is, on the threshold of life, to be asked to relinquish life’s best happiness. Plead with me—you,” she urged Gustav, her brows drawn in one line of repressed anguish.
“Sir, is there any sacrifice you will be satisfied with as a proof that for her sake I must utterly renounce my nationality? If I adopt Greece as my home, and your name instead of mine? Inarime is my life, my world, my future,” cried Gustav.
“You are a Turk. You cannot undo or alter that fact.”
“Father, I cannot give him up,” said Inarime.
“Then you are dead to me. Choose between us, my child. Marry him, and go hence without a father. Drop your past, and take up your future alone.”
“Oh, sir, this is a cruel choice for so tender a daughter. I cannot allow it,” Gustav protested.
“It is my decision. Choose at once, Inarime.”
“Leave you, father, or leave—him?” she said, slowly, dazed with the stress of the moment.
She looked from one to the other, and then with a little sob flung out her arms towards her father, her eyes fastened in piteous entreaty on Gustav’s.
“You will forgive me,” she whispered to Gustav; “you will understand? My father! I cannot leave him. He cared so greatly for me. It would be wicked. It would be cruel. He is old. We are young. Oh, dear God, help me!” she cried, in shuddering sobs, but when her father approached to touch her, she shrank from him in a kind of dismay and repugnance.
Shaken by an answering force of agony, Gustav was on his knees before her, kissing her dress, her feet, her icy fingers. She trembled, and a wave of colour spread over her face as she stooped and pressed her hands against his wet eyes.
“Dearest, it will be worse for me,” she murmured.
“It is monstrous. I cannot, I will not accept dismissal. Youth is the time of ardent purpose and revolt. Every nerve in our bodies, every beat of our hearts must revolt against such cruelty. Your father must relent if we both join against him.”
“I will not relent. Stand up, Herr Reineke. Accept your sentence like a man, and be not less brave than a mere child.”
Thus chidden, Reineke stood up, like one struck mortally. His glance never left Inarime’s and both were filled with an unfathomable tenderness.
“Go, my daughter, to your room. This gentleman and I will start at once for Xinara.”
Inarime made a step back towards the window, her face still turned to Reineke’s, as a flower’s to the sun.
“Inarime!” cried Gustav, and in an instant she had bounded across the terrace, and was clinging to him as if for sheer life.
“You see, sir,” said Gustav, looking up triumphantly, when their lips were parted. “Love is ever conqueror.”
“I think not. My daughter, say at once, is this our parting—our last parting and our first?”
Inarime lifted her head and removed her arms from her lover’s neck. She gazed questioningly at both men, begged for pity from the one, and for strength from the other.
The old man was sad and stern, as immovable as his own great Castro. Gustav’s beautiful Eastern face was aflame and radiant in youth and strength and passion.
Could she forsake the old and worn?
“Not that, father, not that,” she cried.
“Then leave that man and go inside.”
“I will obey you, father,” she said. “Farewell,” she cried, turning to Gustav, and with one long look she passed from the terrace.