Othmar

by Ouida

Such thoughts drifted through his mind as he paced the beautiful rose-colonnades and magnolia-groves of these gardens which had in them the sadness inseparable from all places which have a history and have once been peopled by a historic race.

Neither power nor place had any fascination for him, and the meannesses of mankind wearied him and left his heart barren. When the world grudges the rich man his 'unearned increment,' it forgets how much base coin it gives him in revenge for his possessions; it is for ever seeking to cheat or, at best, to use him; the parasite and the sycophant are always licking the dust from his path, that, unseen, they may steal the gold from his pocket; the meanest side of all humanity is exposed to him; even friendship becomes scarcely distinguishable from flattery, and the greed, the envy, and the low foibles of his fellows, though the base toys with which the cynic plays, leave his soul sick when it is not covered with the cynic's buckler.

Othmar was no cynic, and his knowledge of his fellows had saddened and oppressed him. This knowledge had not made him serve them less faithfully, but it had taught him that all such service was utterly vain, either to secure gratitude or to ennoble society. The world rolls on, soaked in dulness, in bestiality, in cruelty, in a hideous monotony of vulgar inventions and crafty crimes and imbecile conventionalities; it has America instead of Athens, a machine instead of an art, a Krapotkine instead of a Socrates—and it prates of progress!

Governed by money as men are, things were possible to Othmar which would have been impossible, or most difficult at least, to many. His position made a vast number and variety of persons of all classes known to him; his large liberalities had endeared him to many people of all kinds, who would have done anything he desired in return for his benefits; he had always dealt with his fellows with great kindliness and indulgence, but with perspicuity and intelligence; he was well served by those who laboured for him, and was seldom betrayed. Ingratitude and treachery he met with sometimes, but less often than his own slight estimate of human nature led him to expect, and when he needed assistance or service he could always find on the instant instruments adapted to his end. If he had had the instincts of a bad nature he could have contributed endlessly to the demoralisation of his fellow-men; with the temperament he possessed he never asked any return for his benefits or expected any thankfulness for them. Nevertheless the world was set thick with his debtors, if he believed that he numbered few friends, and whenever he wanted anything done it was as easy for him to discover doers of it as it was for the Borgia to find the hand that would fill the cup, the fingers that would use the dagger.

One half-hour's thought, as he wandered through the lonely gardens of his château, sufficed him to dispose of the problem of Damaris's fate. She must be made to believe, he decided, that her grandfather had left her enough to keep her from want, and she must be placed somewhere in safety. As for her genius, if genius she had, it would find its way to culture as surely as a plant to the light. But meantime she must live: and live without imagining that she lived on charity. The only way to make it possible for her to do so would be to induce her to think that she had not been wholly forgotten by Jean Bérarde. So he reasoned, and acted on his conclusions without weighing their possible consequences to himself or her.

He was a man much more truthful than life in the world makes men usually. A falsehood was contemptible and cowardly in his sight. One of his most continual contentions with Friedrich Othmar had always been his refusal to admit that lying was needful in politics and finance; and in private life his wife laughed at him frequently for his distaste to those mere social untruths which have become the small change of society's currency. He disliked all subterfuge, all sophism, all distortion of fact, and even the harmless falsehood of compliment.

But this single untruth to be told to Damaris seemed so necessary, so harmless, that it carried with it no odour of dishonesty to him. In no other way could she be kept from want and danger. Without some such simple ruse she could never be saved from herself, and from all that impetuosity and ignorance which would destroy her as surely as a like enthusiasm destroyed the virgin of Domrémy.

Rich people, who have many connections and dependents, can arrange circumstances to their liking in many small ways, with a facility which is sometimes in pathetic contrast with their powerlessness to command personal happiness and health, human gratitude or human contentment. To Othmar it was easy to arrange circumstances for those in whom he was interested, though it was out of his power to make his own life the thing he would have liked it to be. His wide command of money, and his great knowledge of men and women, enabled him sometimes to play the part of deus ex machinâ successfully. He tried to play it for Damaris: tried, with an honest wish to serve her, and a boyish disregard of consequences, which would have made his wife, had she known of them, call him a berger de Florian in pitiless ridicule.

Amongst the many persons who owed him more than a common debt, there was an old woman whose only remaining grandson, a young student at the time, had been compromised in the days of the Commune, and would have been numbered amongst those who were to be shot without mercy, had not Othmar, who was at Versailles at the time, interceded for and saved him, being touched by the youth's fine countenance and his entreaty to be allowed to see his grandmother ere he died. On inquiry and further knowledge of the lad he had been more and more interested in him, perceiving that mistaken creeds and distorted ideals had brought him amongst this sorry company of pillagers and pétroleuses. He had influence enough with M. Thiers to get a free pardon for the youth, on condition of his leaving France at once. He sent him at his own expense out of the country, gave him a clerkship in his house at Vienna, and had the satisfaction of seeing him become in a few years a peaceable and happy citizen, a diligent and devoted servant.