The Interpreter: A Tale of the War

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

It is one of the conventional grievances of the world to mourn ever the mutability of human affairs, the ever-recurring changes incidental to that short span of existence here which we are pleased to term Life, as if the scenes and characters with which we are familiar were always being mingled and shifted with the rapidity and confusion of a pantomime. It has often struck me that the circumstances which encircle us do not by any means change with such extraordinary rapidity and facility--that, like a French road, with its mile after mile of level fertility and unvarying poplars, our path is sometimes for years together undiversified by any great variety of incident, any glimpse of romance; and that the same people, the same habits, the same pleasures, and the same annoyances seem destined to surround and hem us in from the cradle to the grave. Which is the most numerous class, those who fear their lot may change, or those who hope it will? Can we make this change for ourselves? Are we the slaves of circumstances, or is not that the opportunity of the strong which is the destiny of the weak? Surely it must be so--surely the stout heart that struggles on must win at last--surely man is a free agent; and he who fails, fails not because his task is impossible, but that he himself is faint and weak and infatuated enough to hope that he alone will be an exception to the common lot, and achieve the prize without the labour, Sine pulvere palma.

The old castle at Edeldorf, at least, is but little changed from what I recollect it in my quiet boyhood, when with my dear father I first entered its lofty halls and made acquaintance with the beautiful blue-eyed child that now sits at the end of that table, a grown-up, handsome man. Yes, once more I am at Edeldorf. Despite all my scruples, despite all the struggles between my worse and better self, I could not resist the temptation of seeing her in her stately home; of satisfying myself with my own eyes that she was happy, and of bidding her a long and last farewell. Oh! I thirsted to see her just once again, only to see her, and then to go away and meet her never, never more. Therefore Ropsley and I journeyed through Bulgaria and up the Danube, and arrived late at Edeldorf, and were cordially welcomed by Victor, and dressed, and came down to dinner, and so I saw her.

She was altered, too; so much altered, and yet it was the well-known face, her face still; but there were lines on the white forehead I remembered once so smooth and fair, and the eyes were sunk and the cheek pale and fallen; when she smiled, too, the beautiful lips parted as sweetly as their wont, but the nether one quivered as though it were more used to weeping than laughing, and the smile vanished quickly, and left a deeper shadow as it faded. She was not happy. I was sure she was not happy, and shall I confess it? the certainty was not to me a feeling of unmixed pain. I would have given every drop of blood in my body to make her so, and yet I could not grieve as I felt I ought to grieve, that it was otherwise.

Perhaps one of the greatest trials imposed on us by the artificial state of society in which we live, is the mask of iron that it forces us to wear for the concealment of all the deeper and stronger feelings of our nature. There we sit in that magnificent hall, hung around with horn of stag and tusk of boar, and all the trophies of the chase, waited on by Hungarian retainers in their gorgeous hussar uniforms, before a table heaped to profusion with the good things that minister to the gratification of the palate, and conversing upon those light and frivolous topics beyond which it is treason to venture, while the hearts probably of every one of us are far, far distant in some region of pain unknown and unguessed by all save the secret sufferers, who hide away their hoarded sorrows under an exterior of flippant levity, and affect to ignore their neighbour's wounds as completely as they veil their own. What care Ropsley or Valèrie whether perdrix aux champignons is or is not a better thing than dindon aux truffes? They are dying to be alone with each other once more--she, all anxiety to hear of his campaign and his illness; he, restless and preoccupied till he can tell her of his plans and prospects, and the arrangements that must be concluded before he can make her his own. Both, for want of a better grievance, somewhat disgusted that the order of precedence in going to dinner has placed them opposite each other, instead of side by side. And yet Valèrie, who sits by me, seems well pleased to meet her old friend once more; if I had ever thought she really cared for me, I should be undeceived now, when I mark the joyous frankness of her manner, the happy blush that comes and goes upon her cheek, and the restless glances that ever and anon she casts at her lover's handsome face through the epergne of flowers and fruit that divides them. No, they think as little of the ball of conversation which we jugglers toss about to each other, and jingle and play with and despise, as does the pale stately Countess herself, with her dark eyes and her dreamy look apparently gazing far into another world. She is not watching Victor, she seems scarcely aware of his presence: and yet many a young wife as beautiful, as high-spirited, and as lately married, would sit uneasily at the top of her own table, would frown, and fret, and chafe to see her handsome husband so preoccupied by another as is the Count by the fair guest on his right hand--who but wicked Princess Vocqsal?

That lady has, according to custom, surrounded herself by a system of fortification wherewith, as it were, she seems metaphorically to set the world at defiance: a challenge which, to do her justice, the Princess is ever ready to offer, the antagonist not always willing to accept. She delights in being the object of small attentions, so she invariably requires a footstool, an extra cushion or two, and a flask of eau de Cologne, in addition to her bouquet, her fan, her gloves, her pocket-handkerchief, and such necessary articles of female superfluity. With these outworks and fences within which to retire on the failure of an attack, it is easy to carry out a system of aggressive warfare; and whether it is the presence of his wife that makes the amusement particularly exciting, or whether Count de Rohan has made himself to-day peculiarly agreeable, or whether it is possible, though this contingency is extremely unlikely, that the Prince has told her not, certainly Madame la Princesse is taking unusual pains, and that most unnecessarily, to bring Victor into more than common subjection to her fascinations.

She is without contradiction the best-dressed woman in the room; her light gossamer robe, fold upon fold, and flounce upon flounce, floats around her like a drapery of clouds; her gloves fit her to a miracle; her exquisitely-shaped hands and round white arms bear few ornaments, but these are of the rarest and costliest description; her blooming, fresh complexion accords well with those luxuriant masses of soft brown hair escaping here and there from its smooth shining folds in large glossy curls. Her rich red lips are parted with a malicious smile, half playful, half coquettish, that is inexpressibly provoking and attractive; while, although the question as to whether she does really rouge or not is still undecided, her blue eyes seem positively to dance and sparkle in the candle-light. Her voice is low, and soft, and silvery; all she says racy, humorous, full of meaning, and to the point. Poor Victor de Rohan!

He, too, is at first in unusually high spirits; his courteous, well-bred manner is livelier than his wont, but the deferential air with which he responds to his neighbour's gay remarks is dashed by a shade of sarcasm, and I, who know him so well, can detect a tone of bitter irony in his voice, can trace some acute inward pang that ever and anon convulses for a moment his frank, handsome features. I am sure he is ill at ease, and dissatisfied with himself. I observe, too, that, though he scarcely touches the contents of his plate, his glass is filled again and again to the brim, and he quaffs off his wine with the eager feverish thirst of one who seeks to drown reflection and remorse in the Lethean draught. Worst sign of all, and one which never fails to denote mental suffering, his spirits fall in proportion to his potations, and that which in a well-balanced nature "makes glad the heart of man," seems but to clog the wings of Victor's fancy, and to sink him deeper and deeper in despondency. Ere long he becomes pale, silent, almost morose, and the charming Princess has all the conversation to herself.

But one individual in the party attends thoroughly to the business in hand. Without doubt, for the time being he has the best of it. Prince Vocqsal possesses an excellent appetite, a digestion, as he says himself, that, like his conscience, can carry a great weight and be all the better for it; a faultless judgment in wine, and a tendency to enjoy the pleasures of the table, enhanced, if possible, by the occasional fit of gout with which this indulgence must unfortunately be purchased. Fancy-free is the Prince, and troubled neither by memories of the past, misgivings for the present, nor anxieties for the future. Many such passive natures there are--we see them every day. Men who are content to take the world as it is, and, like the ox in his pasture, browse, and bask, and ruminate, and never wish to overleap the boundary that forbids them to wander in the flowery meadow beyond. And yet it may be that these too have once bathed in the forbidden stream, the lava-stream that scorches and sears where it touches; it may be that the heart we deem so hard, so callous, has been welded in the fire, and beaten on the anvil, till it has assumed the consistency of steel. It winced and quivered once, perhaps nearly broke, and now it can bid defiance even to the memory of pain. Who knows? who can tell his neighbour's history, or guess his neighbour's thoughts? who can read the truth, even in the depth of those eyes that look the fondest into his own? Well! there is One that knows all secrets, and He will judge, but not as man judges.

So Prince Vocqsal thinks not of the days that are past, the hearts he has broken, the friends he has lost, the duels he has fought, the money he has squandered, the chances he has thrown away; or, if he does allow his mind to dwell for an instant on such trifles, it is with a sort of dreamy satisfaction at the quantity of enjoyment he has squeezed out of life, tinged with a vague regret that so much of it is over. Why, it was but to-day that, as he dressed for dinner, he apostrophised the grimacing image in his looking-glass,--"Courage, mon gaillard," muttered the Prince, certainly not to his valet, who was tightening his waistbelt, "courage! you are worth a good many of the young ones, still, and your appetite is as good as it was at sixteen."

He is splendid now, though somewhat apoplectic. His wig curls over his magnificent head in hyacinthine luxuriance, his dyed whiskers and moustache blush purple in the candlelight; his neckcloth is tied somewhat too tight, and seems to have forced more than a wholesome quantity of blood into his face and eyes, but its whiteness is dazzling, and the diamond studs beneath it are of extraordinary brilliance; nor does his waistbelt, though it defies repletion, modify in any great degree the goodly outline of the corpulent person it enfolds. Altogether he is a very jolly-looking old gentleman, and the only one of the party that seems for the nonce to be "the right man in the right place."