Magdalen (Machar)/Chapter 2
II
READER, I warn you against psychological authors! Do not believe in the logical sequence of thoughts which, they say, manifests itself in the souls of heroes and heroines. Do not believe in their long-spun monologues, nor in the reminiscences which are drawn out in chainlike order from souls stirred by dreams,—those are old, well-known nets which the sly author, following the good examples of others, casts for your unwary faith: he spreads them out, rubs his hands in glee, and whispers softly: “Only read, and you will be mine.”
Our soul . . . just look into it: it is as though you saw the surface of the water. Upon it is beautifully reflected the azure of the skies, the white cloud, the splendor of the sun, the ruddy west, the bird that flits somewhere into the distance, the tree that leans over it. A soft breeze gently ripples it, but the raging storm destroys that pure mirror, and you see the dark waves towering and driving each other, you hear their despairing disconsolate melody,—even thus we know our soul to be.
Below, somewhere in the depth, a strange world is hidden from your view. There may be there an abyss, sand, rocks, a coral reef, nacre, whirlpools, strange creatures,—there is something within you that you know not of. . . . Only rarely, during quiet sleep, do you for a moment look into its mysterious depth. Sometimes a mighty storm throws up upon the shore some tiny shells, or some monstrons thing.
Our thoughts are nothing more than silvery fishes, daughters of the deep, which we see for a moment leisurely swimming in masses near the sunlit surface. Here and there one will flash like a silver coin in the air, will flash and disappear. . . . Where are here the logical steps? Why did it flash by, why at that particular moment? Whence did it come, and whither does it swim? . . .
My reader, I warn you against psychological authors!
Nine o’cloek. Jiří raised his head a little from his white feather bed, and looked with a sleepy eye at the green shade, through which the thin sunbeams burst into the room like rods of gold. He glanced at the cage where a canary was just then dipping its bushy head into its bathtub. Then he yawned loudly and looked at the ceiling, and at the lamp, around which tiny flies were whirling and softly buzzing.
Suddenly there flashed through his brain this picture, just this picture: he saw the maiden with unbraided blonde hair looking into the lamplight: “I do not think, and there is no time for such foolishness as thinking.” The picture disappeared.
Another scene. The dissolute old man approached him with wavering step: “She is my Antigone,” said he. A weak smile twitched Jiří’s lips. He stretched himself and placed his arms under his head. . . .
Then he saw a bit of Italy: a golden country, burnt by the sun. The air in motion. The Apennines. Rocks everywhere. Veined stones all around him. The view was open only in one direction: there, towering sharply against the azure sky, a cypress stood out,—black, sad, disconsolate. . . .
That flashed by. . . . “Rather would I see you lying dead in a coffin, than here alive,” thus his own words now were dinning in his soul, and he kept repeating them to the slender maiden who drooped her head to one side.
“Was I not a fool last night? Did not the girl secretly laugh at my words?” the thought suddenly passed through his brain. And thus through his soul flashed scenes, pictures and words without logic or connection, like silvery fishes that gleam near the calm surface of the sunlit waters. . . .
Some one knocked softly at the door.
“Aunty?”
Into the room stepped a small, wizened, yellow-faced old woman, in a white cap, with pale-blue, kindly eyes, her sere lips muttering a “Good morning.” She placed a tray with coffee upon a small table near the bed, looked lovingly at the disheveled head upon the pillows, but did not speak.
“Well, Aunty,” began Jiří, “how did you rest? What is the news? Well, how are your poor people?” he asked in a careless manner, as he drank his coffee.
“I dreamt of the country and of your father,—a mixed-up dream, I really do not understand what it all comes from. . . . My poor? I sent yesterday a few rags to the mason’s wife nearby. That woman has five children. Her husband was killed a month ago while at work. . . . So I have now five families upon my hands. . . .”
“I see,” smiled Jiří, “the whole Ward will soon be depending upon you. You will have more orders than the best tailor in Prague. Your whole house will be a small store for children’s clothing!”
“Laugh as much as you please! I would not mind that. If only my eyes would serve me hetter. . . . O Lord, that is my pleasure, my amusement. Jiříček,[1] I just wanted to ask you what we are to do this year about going into the country? When shall we leave? It is already hot, and half of Prague is already away.”
“Foolish woman, what is it that drives you out into the country? A fine life it is! To sit in a room, where through the windows you may smell manure. At night the frogs croak you to sleep. In the morning there is the cock. No end of flies everywhere. And then the gossips of the best local society, of Mrs. Judge, Mrs. Taxcollector, Mrs. Doctor. And those homely, awkward maidens, with their tiny brains. . . . Well, if you want to, go,”
“No, Jiříček, don’t be angry, I shan’t go. I meant it for your own good. You look bilious, and you are thin. Believe me, Italy did not do you any good.”
“Oh, leave me alone with your care of me! Thin! Do you expect me always to be well, until I give up the ghost?”
“My Jiříček.” His aunt wrung her hands, and two large tears glistened in her dim eyes. She shook her head and went out.
This nettled Jiří a little. Thus frequently ended their conversations. He felt pity for the good old soul, and often a kindly word stood on his lips, but was choked in his throat by some customary inconsiderateness. Perchance it was the fear lest he should suddenly find himself in a ridiculous, stupid attitude of sentimentality.
So he waved his hand, arose, and washed himself, dressed himself, combed his hair for a long time, curled his mustache, poured some perfume upon his shirt front, handkerchief, and coat, rapidly surveyed himself in the mirror, pulled on his yellow gloves, and went out, whistling the march from Faust.
The day dragged on painfully, endlessly, and he waited for the evening. As if attracted by some magnetic power, he hastened at twilight to the house in the Fifth Ward.
(Enough. The reader will permit me to become a dry, businesslike, precise reporter. I have reasons for it. Many people, honest, respectable people, pastors of pious souls, virtuous ladies, will perhaps bid farewell to the author and this, his story. I should not like that, for I have in my head some six thousand verses more, and they echo within me and press me on,—may I not be so neglected as that famous man in the fable, who whispered his woe into the bosom of a hollow old willow.)
Jiří was for a whole evening drowned in the glitter of Lucy’s eyes. For a whole evening he felt within himself a sense of moral rectitude, and he chid and pitied her. He spoke impassionately, and he spoke much. At midnight he pressed her hand, and went home through the damp night.
As he walked, the icy calm returned to him. He called himself an ideal ass and fool, to allow himself to be seduced by treacherously clear eyes to play a stupid comedy. He swore he would never put his foot again in that house. . . . On reaching home, he retired and slept a peaceful sleep, as ever, until nine.
So passed five or six days. Jiří became a target for the jokes of his friends. They teased him in the coffeehouse and in the street. They asked for his “Manon,” his “charming Manon.” They told him how the old madam was cursing him. They said that Lucy had for several days been as coy as a nun, that she shut herself up in her room for the whole day and the whole evening, and that she neither spoke nor smiled, and only answered with a nod of her head all the questions of the old madam. They maintained that she would carry away the prize at an exhibition of virtue. Jiří laughed at all these remarks, but inwardly he felt their biting irony:
“They are right,” thought he; “I am acting ridiculously. A fine ending that! After all that life has taught me, after all that I have experienced, I have sunk into this mire. And what is it that attracts me to it? Is it that ancient Romanticism which they call love? Nonsense, nonsense! These strings have broken in me long ago. It is nothing but an every-day paradox, a flower cast into the mud, which I should otherwise never have noticed in my life. . . . Let us make an end of it!”
All kinds of things occurred to him: to disappear, to travel,—but then the final effect would be lacking. He would only be over and again ridiculous, like a detected schoolboy. But why run? He would go once more into that place, would look her up like anybody else, would treat her like anybody else, would pay her like anybody else,—for had she not a superb body, and would it not be glorious to abate the fire of his passion by it? . . . a dainty morsel {{...} why had he not thought sooner of it? Then he could again sit with a clear brow in the circle of his friends.
A gloomy, leaden night descended upon the jumble of streets. The sky was filled with heavy clouds, and stifling vapors rose into the hot air. The gaslight flickered weakly. Here and there a few small drops fell on the dust of the pavement. A murky moment that chokes the human throat. The soul is crowded in an awful circle, in which it tosses about aimlessly and hopelessly. Gloomy thoughts strike it; gloomy scenes arise in it; disconsolate melodies stir its very depths. It would gladly fly out of the heavy fetters of its body, away from this beclouded earth, higher, higher, somewhere into the ether, beyond the darkling heavens. . . .
These moments Lucy was passing alone in her room. On the round table before her lay a book, nearby, some needle-work; perchance both had occupied her since noon. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. A lamp with a colored shade stood at the edge of the table, and threw a faint light upon her profile.
Her bewildered eyes scanned the paper on the opposite wall. At times she closed them, and she sighed, as if exhausted from thinking; at others, again, she softly turned her head, as if answering her own questions. For two or three days she had been thus inwardly agitated. It seemed to her that some illness was overpowering her. The nerves of her head were strained. She often thought she could hear her blood beating in her temples.
At times she recalled how it all was a month, two weeks before,—and she was frightened, for it appeared to her to have happened long, long ago, two or three years ago. She was a stranger to herself, as if some one had withdrawn from under her feet the soil on which she had been standing firmly heretofore, as if, after a dizzy flight, she had fallen into some strange, unknown place.
She felt a constant sadness. Within her all was black,—in her childhood she had seen thus the church on Good-Friday,—some one had died. Ah, and her merriment? She would never laugh again. . . . And as a complement to these pictures appeared to her the head of a man, with thin hair, dark eyes, and impassioned, fervid speech, who said to her:
“You are wretched, you are miserable in this life! How can you breathe here? Do you think of the future? Will your fate be like Kata’’s? Or, perhaps, otherwise? I would rather see you in the coffin!”
When that man for the first time crossed her thoughts (it was that Saturday evening, when she had unbraided her blonde hair), it occurred to her that he was not good-looking, but nothing else. Then he came again with that speech. And the words sounded in her soul like the buzzing of a bee in flight, as she wantonly laughed in the circle of her teasing companions. She was angry with herself, and wanted to laugh louder, but the voice whispered sternly to her: “You are wretched! You are judged!”—The laughter was choked in her throat. . . . The evening came. She awaited him with secret fear. He came. He again looked at her with pity. And he again spoke sternly. “You are wretched!”
Strange man! How many others had come before with such reproachful words! But here, in her room, they all were silenced, and only showered kisses upon her body. . . . A feeling of disgust and loathing overcame her at the recollection of those moments. . . . He did not wish anything else from her but the pressure of her hand!
She was instinctively seized by terror in the presence of that man. It would be better, if he did not come at all, if he never came again! Why did he always speak of that which could nevermore be changed?
She now felt like one who had carried a heavy burden for many hours. Her hands lay helpless in her lap; all ber limbs were relaxed; she felt a heavy weight pressing her down. . . .
An old, dim picture of childhood kept stubbornly returning to her; she was sitting somewhere in a distant room upon the floor, playing with a doll. Her mother, whose features she saw but indistinetly, was leaning over her, and with dried-up hand was smoothing her hair: “May the Lord give you happiness, my angel!” she heard her whispering.
She was heavy with grief, and she felt like weeping: “Why did that man come? Why did he tear away from my eyes the veil through which I had been looking at the world and at myself? And at my life!—‘Judged . . . and outcast?—Will he come to-day?”—And she was worried lest he should not come.
She heard steps, and she recognized them.
She rapidly cast a look into the mirror, and with her soft hand smoothed the hair over her brow. Jiří entered, faultlessly polite, his hat in his hand, and, as ever, with a civil greeting upon his lips.
The first raindrops were beating against the windowpanes. There was lightning and thunder.
He sat opposite her and again looked at those eyes that formerly were gay and smiling, but now veiled with sadness. He looked at her, and he felt embarrassed by all his latest plans. He did not wish to think of them even. The blood rushed to his head, and whole streams of great speeches flooded his brain and dinned in his soul.
In a subdued voice he told her that to-day was the last time he had come to see her; that for days and nights he had been doing nothing but thinking of her, and that now he wanted her decision. He asked her whether she wanted to give up her present life, and that poisonous atmosphere; whether she wished again to live in the world, among decent people,—and he continued speaking in that strain. A feeling of elation took possession of him, and he chose words, expressions, and elevated phrases from the poems and novels which he had read at some time or other.
He told her that he was sufficiently well-to-do, that he was endowed with an active mind, that be was experienced in the ways of the world, and that he also was quite cultured, but that, like that man in Holy Writ, who had buried his treasure in the lap of the earth, he had not made use of his life before, neither for his good, nor for the good of the world. . . . He was a cipher among men, and his life had no aims. He had paid for it dearly; had despaired, had suffered cruel losses, much unspeakable torment, and he had nothing from all that but a series of wearisome hours. He knew full well that he would not in the future be any better, that his bones would be lying in a forgotten grave. . . .
Now, if he could at least draw her out of this mire, and turn her pure eyes once more to the light into which she was now looking, there would then be in his life at least one proper tabula rasa. . . .
He told her he had an aunt,—a good woman, like a child, like an angel,—he had himself sinned so much against her that he was ashamed of himself,—and he intended to take Lucy to her. Her silvery hair would be Lucy’s shield. He was sure she would take care of her as of her daughter. He intended to take her there soon, even that day, right away, if she only wanted. . . .
Lucy looked with clouded eyes at one spot: at his hand which was nervously twitching upon the table. Without a word, she suddenly seized it, pressed it to her lips, and sobbed out loud.
The door was softly opened, and the old madam looked discretely into the room.
“I knocked at least five times, so pardon me for interrupting you. I just wanted to say a few words to you, sir. . . .”
“And I to you,” Jiří answered. “We shall both leave together this evening, the young lady and I, forever.”
“So there will be a wedding?”
“No, no,” Lucy quickly answered, her face and neck burning.
“The young lady will return to the world, to respectable people,” Jiří explained with dignity.
“I wish you luck, Lucy, with all my heart, only I do not know, I do not know. . . .”
“Enough, enough talking, let us rather pass to business, dear madam,” Jiří sternly interrupted her speech.
“Godspeed, Lucy, Godspeed, my sweet dove! Remember this: if you do not feel at home in that world, my house will always be open for you.”
Saying this, the old madam kissed Lucy’s brow. . . .
A beating ram fell slantingly upon the street pavement. The gaslight flickered in the lamps; the sky was black, the city empty. Only here and there a watchful janitor in a dark mantle pressed against the house gate.
That night Lucy walked to Jiří’s house, to begin a new life. . . .
- ↑ Diminutive of Jiří (George).