Trist soon saw his luggage into the hands of the guard. The ticket was taken, and more than one fussy tourist at the booking-office window turned to look again at the quiet, unobtrusive man whose destination was so far afield as Bucharest.
The little tragedies of real life differ in one important point from those represented on the stage for our amusement and instruction. This point is the lamentable lack of stage management. On the boards we have appropriate scenery—a bosky glade, and far away up the stage a shimmering calm sea with moonlight cleverly thrown upon it. There is also slow music—piano, pianissimo—and lowered footlights and pretty dresses. But in real life there are none of these accessories. In my time I also have dabbled a little in tragedy, as most of us are, sooner or later, likely to do; and there was no soft music, no distant shimmering sea, no whispering pine-trees and sighing glades. When I look back (with a peculiar sensation in the region of the collar), there are only memories of railway-stations, and brief moments at the head of the staircase, in brilliant ball-rooms, with laughter all round us. On the platform, in the midst of hurrying porters and unsentimental trunks, I have no recollection of neatly punctuated periods or flowery observations respecting an impossible future. (Ah, that time-worn platitude about meeting hereafter, and living an impossible earthly life in heaven, how sickening it is!) A quick touch of nervous fingers, an instantaneous glance full of vague fear, that is all I remember. There was a singular lack of that hesitating, 'pauseful' eloquence which makes the well-fed old ladies in the stalls snivel again. But if there is fault to be found I must be to blame, because the histrionic school of pathos appears to be universally accepted.
After Trist had secured his seat and lighted his cigar, there were still five minutes to spare. The two men walked backwards and forwards, smoking placidly, and observing the excited manœuvres of the British tourist with a slight cynicism.
'I do not,' said the editor, 'see anyone I know.'
'Nor I,' replied Trist; 'and I am not sorry. Travelling with casual acquaintances is not an unmixed pleasure. Besides, I want to read all the way to Vienna. My ignorance regarding the political intricacies of Montenegro, Servia, and Bulgaria is positively appalling.'
'What a practical beast you are, Trist!'
'In some things. And even in those it is merely a matter of exercising common-sense as against popular sentiment.'
The editor raised his thoughtful gray eyes, and looked round him. There were last greetings in the very atmosphere, and to his ears came snatches of conversation—promises, most of them, and certain of unfulfilment, to write and think of those left behind or going afield; half-shed tears, heaving bosoms, wan smiles, and convulsively crushed handkerchiefs.
'This sort of thing?' inquired the journalist, with a comprehensive wave of his cigar.
'Yes; cultivated sorrow. Tears carefully forced and brought on by artificial fertilization or cheap sentiment. With some people, more especially among women, sorrow is nothing else than a "culte"—almost a religion. They look upon it as their bounden duty to spin out to the utmost limit of agony their farewells and their wearisome troubles. All these people would be better employed in reading the evening paper at home. They only get in the way of the porters, and puzzle the ticket-collectors at the barrier.'