She made no reference at all to Varvilliers. There was always something to be learned from Princess Heinrich. From early youth I was inured to a certain degree of painfulness in the lesson.
"Willingly give thyself up to Clotho." My mother was more than willing. She was proud; and, if I may be allowed to vary the metaphor, she embarked on the ship of destiny with a family ticket.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A PARADOX OF SENSIBILITY.
To many the picture presented by my life might seem that of a man who detects the trap and yet walks into it, sinks under burdens that he might cast aside, groans at chains that he could break, and will not leave the prison although the door-key is in his pocket. Such an impression my record may well give, unless it be understood that what came upon me was not an impossibility of movement, but a paralysis of the will to move. In this there is nothing peculiar to one placed as I was. Most men could escape from what irks, confines, or burdens them at the cost of effacing their past lives, breaking the continuity of existence, cutting the cord that binds together, in a sequence of circumstances and incidents, youth, and maturity, and age. But who can do the thing? One man in a thousand, and he generally a scoundrel.
Our guests returned to Bartenstein, the Duchess still radiant and maternal, Elsa infinitely kind, infinitely apologetic, a little tearful, never for an instant wavering in her acceptance of the future. Varvilliers took leave of me with great friendliness; there was in his air now just a hint of amusement, most decorously suppressed; he was charmingly unconscious of any possible seriousness in the position. My mother went to visit Styrian relatives. Victoria and William Adolphus had taken a villa by the seaside. I was quite alone at Artenberg, save for my faithful Vohrenlorf, and Vohrenlorf was bored to death. That will not appear strange; to me it seemed enviable. A prisoner under sentence probably discerns much that is attractive even in the restricted life of his jailer.
In a day or two there came upon me a persistent restlessness, and with it constant thoughts of Wetter. I wondered where he was and what he did; I longed to share the tempestuousness of his life and thoughts. He brought with him other remembrances, of the passions and the events that we two had, in friendship or hostility, witnessed together. They had seemed, all of them, far behind in the past, belonging to the days when, as old Vohrenlorf had told me, I had still six years. Now I had only a month; but the images were with me, importunate and pleading. I was asking whether I could not, even now, save something out of life.
Three days later found me established in a hotel in the Place Vendome at Paris, Vohrenlorf my only companion. I was in strictest incognito; Baron de Neberhausen was my name. But in Paris in August my incognito was almost a superfluity for me, although a convenience to others. It was very hot; I did not care. The town was absolutely empty. Not for me! Here is my secret. Wetter was in Paris. I had seen it stated in the newspaper. What brought the man of moods to Paris in August? I could answer the question in one way only: the woman of his mood. I did not care about her; I wanted to see him and hear again from his own lips what he thought of the universe, of my part and his in it, and of the ways of the Power that ruled it. In a month I should be on my honeymoon with Cousin Elsa. I fought desperately against the finality implied in that.
On the second evening I gave Vohrenlorf the slip, and went out on the Boulevards alone. In great cities nobody is known; I enjoyed the luxury of being ignored. I might pass for a student, a chemist, at a pinch, perhaps, for a poet of a reflective type. My natural manner would seem no more than a touch of youth's pardonable arrogance. I sat down and had some coffee. It was half-past ten, and the pavements were full. I bought a paper and read a paragraph about Elsa and myself. Elsa and myself both seemed rather a long way off. It was delicious to make believe that this here and this now were reality; the kingship, Elsa, the wedding and the rest, some story or poem that I, the student, had been making laboriously before working hours ended, and I was free to seek the Boulevards. I was pleased when a pretty girl, passing by, stared hard at me and seemed to like my looks; this tribute was my own; she was not staring at the king.
Satisfaction, not surprise, filled me when, in about twenty minutes, I saw Wetter coming toward the café. I had taken a table far back from the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him—so my heart went out to him—but the sight of his companion restrained me, and I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big stomach and the locket that a hyperbole, so inevitable as to outstrip mere truth in fidelity, had called bigger. Besides there were the whiskers, the heavy jowl, the infinite fatness of the man, a fatness not of mere flesh only, but of manner, of air, of thought, of soul. There was no room for doubt or question. This was Coralie's impresario, Coralie's career, her duty, her destiny; in a word, everything to Coralie that poor little Cousin Elsa was to me. Nay, your pardon; that I was to Cousin Elsa. I put my cigar back in my mouth and smoked gravely; it seemed improper to laugh.