Part 39 (1/2)
These two brief words kept returning to his mind during every moment of rest, so that hours of noise and movement seemed to him a dream, and only those two words--unceasingly recurrent--the one true reality over which there was reason to be anxious.
Why had he taken on his head and hands this new burden of toil, which was greater than all the others? Why, in general, this climbing a sky-touching ladder with exertion of all his strength of nerve and brain? To what kind of heaven could he climb upon that ladder? New profits, ever-increasing wealth? But he had ceased to desire these! Although that seemed marvellous to the man himself, he had ceased really. Why? Did he own little? He was the possessor of enormously much. He had never been of those who make a golden chariot so as to sit in it with Bacchantes and with Bacchus. But pride? He laughed. Yes, pride, but that was before he had known, intimately, those giants who sit in various corners of the earth. He knows them now; he knows what they can do; and he knows his own power. Why toil? What for? But his worth; that worth which people esteem so immensely that they almost cast themselves at his feet, or do they cast themselves before his golden chariot? For, if that chariot were to shoot away from under him, would he retain the t.i.tle of modern Cid, t.i.tan, superhuman? It was wonderful with what clearness he saw then Maryan, sitting in that chair, and how distinctly he heard his voice inquiring: ”What is the object of your toil, father? The object; the object? That decides everything. What was the object?
Of course, not this world's salvation!” He laughed again. What cause was there for long thought here! His object had been to win new profits continually; to gain ever-increasing wealth; and now, since he had ceased to desire these, the question was--what for?
But the genius of that Maryan with his questions! He had gone down so deeply into his father's being that those questions remained there and continued their inquisitorial labor. A beautiful and genial fellow! A young prince; almost a sage. But what does that signify if--he lacks something? What is it that he lacks, and so lacks that he is as if he had nothing? What is it that he lacks?
With a slow movement, in which weariness was evident, Darvid turned his head toward the desk, which was lighted abundantly with tapers burning on lofty candlesticks. What did those candlesticks bring to his mind? Ah, yes, he remembers! On a time he gave one of them, in the inner drawing-room, to Cara, so that the candle burning in it might light the way to her. He remembers how her slender arm bent beneath its weight when her small hand took it, and how beautifully the flame of the candle was reflected in the dark pupils gazing at him with such--with such what? With such exaltation! But how wonderful, how intense was his happiness when that child lived and loved him as she did!
That was his only happiness! Then, holding the light in the heavy candlestick straight on before her rosy face, she went on into the darkness.
Again he looked around, not with a wearied movement as before, but abruptly. He looked around at the door beyond which thick darkness was hiding, impenetrably, a series of drawing-rooms.
This darkness was like a black wall outside the door. Along Darvid's shoulders ran a movement of the skin, the same as a man feels when something heavy from behind is placed upon his shoulders, or rides onto him. That black wall, in which an enchanted row of empty drawing-rooms stood silent, seemed to put itself down on him. But again he looked toward the desk; there, among a mult.i.tude of papers, lay a letter from Maryan, received many days before. Darvid had not destroyed or put away this letter, and not knowing himself the reason why, had left it on the desk there. The letter, in that great study, appeared definitely with its white color on the green of the malachite writing utensils. Moreover, it was not a letter. A number of lines merely. He had written that, wis.h.i.+ng to spare his father and himself a new personal interview; he gives notice, in writing, of his trip to America. But as he is slow to write letters he confines himself to a few words. Since an incomprehensible lack of logic in directing his life had forced him to become a laborer, he desired to choose the field and the manner according to his own individuality. He had turned his personal property into money; this had brought him a considerable sum; he had borrowed another sum; he did not ask pardon for acting thus, since this borrowing was the natural outcome of a position of which he was not the cause, but on the contrary the victim. He makes no reproaches, since he is ever of opinion that all such things as offences and services, crimes and virtues, are soup prepared from the bones of great-grandfathers, and served in painted pots to Arcadians. All this was concluded with a compliment which was smooth, rounded, exquisite as to style, plan, and execution.
Lack of logic. Those three words had fixed themselves in Darvid's memory, and after the words ”what for?” appeared in it most frequently. Could they really relate to him? Had he in fact committed an error in logic? Yes, it seemed so. In that case his clear, sober, logical reason had deceived him. He rose, and with his profile toward the door, felt again, rather than saw, a black wall of darkness beyond. Again a s.h.i.+ver ran along the skin of his shoulders, which quivered and bent somewhat. He went to the desk, from which he took another letter, thrown down a moment before, and unread yet. Something in the room was moving; certain little steps ran along the carpet quietly. Puffie had woke; had run to the man, and begun to squirm at his feet.
”Puffie!” said Darvid, and he began to read the letter. It was an invitation from Prince Zeno to a grand farewell ball. The prince and his family were going abroad, and wished to take farewell of their acquaintances in the first rank of them with the ”modern Cid.” Prince Zeno had often given this t.i.tle to Darvid. But to-day the ”modern Cid” read the letter of invitation while his mouth was awry from disgust. It had not the famous smile bristling with pin-points, but simply that disfigurement of the lips which accompanies the swallowing of something which is nauseating and repugnant. He placed before his mind the society in which some time before he had pa.s.sed a few days at the hunting trip. This society would fill the prince's drawing-rooms on that day, and not only did he note in himself an utter absence of desire to be in that society, but a repulsion for it. Not that he cherished hatred toward those people, but they were perfectly indifferent to him. He did not reproach that society; but when he thought of it he was conscious again of a boundless s.p.a.ce and a vacuum, which divided him from those who formed it. He imagined to himself Prince Zeno's drawing-rooms filled with faces, costumes, conversations, card-tables; and, it seemed to him, that it all existed at an immense distance--on the other side of a s.p.a.ce that was infinite and empty--on one edge of this s.p.a.ce was he; on the other were they; between him and them lay a vacuum; no bond between them; not even one as slender as a spider-web.
In the midst of the lofty chamber, above the round table, burned the lamp with a great and calm light; on the desk, in ma.s.sive candlesticks, burned candles. In that abundant light Darvid stood near the desk, with bent shoulders; a number of wrinkles between his brows; his face inclined low toward the paper which he held in his hand. At his feet, on the rug, like a tiny statue, sat the motionless Puffie; with upraised head, and through silken hair, the dog looked into the face of the man. But Darvid did not see the little animal, and did not read the flattering phrases on the paper; he only repeated the words which, on a time, he had heard from his daughter:
”What do you want of so many people, father? Do you love them? Do they love you? What comes of this? Pleasure or profit? What is it all for?”
”I do not love them, little one, and they do not love me. Profit comes to me from this--significance in society.”
”But what is significance to you, father? What do you want of significance? Does it give you happiness?”
This time there appeared on his lips the smile full of pinpoints, which was famous in society.
”It has not given it, little one!”
His child had let down on her question his thought to the basis of life, as if on threads. Now he looked around, and his smile was bristling with pin-points of irony, increasing in sharpness.
He thought a long time before he said, aloud:
”What comes of this?”
And afterward, in an inquiring tone, he almost cried:
”An error?”
In the light of this thought that his life with its toils, its conflicts, and its triumphs could be an error, he saw, again, that Medusa-face, pale with terror.
Puffie, perhaps frightened by the cry which had been rent from his master, fell to barking. Darvid turned from the desk, and his glance met the black wall beyond the door.
”Was it an error?” he repeated.
The darkness was silent, and a face without eyes seemed to gaze at him persistently, with attention. He moved forward a few steps quickly, and pressed the bell-k.n.o.b. To the incoming servant he indicated the door, and said:
”Light up the drawing-rooms!”
After a few moments the series of drawing-rooms emerged from the darkness, and stood in the light of blazing lamps and candles.
Globe-lamps, burning at the walls, cast a hazy half-light, in which glittered, here and there, golden gleams, and appeared the features of painted faces and landscapes.
From shady corners emerged, partially, the forms of slender and swelling vases; portions of white garlands on the walls; the delicate mists of dim colors on Gobelin tapestry; the bright scarlet and blue of silk drapery. Farther on, in the small drawing-room, burned, in two chandeliers, a bundle of tapers, beneath which hung a crown of crystals, glittering like icicles, or immense congealed tears. Farther on still, in the dining-room, with its dark walls, gleamed a bright spot in the grand lamp of pendant bronze above the table. This point seemed very distant from Darvid's study; but on the whole expanse which divided him from it there was neither voice nor sound--there was nothing living. Notwithstanding the mult.i.tude of objects scattered, or collected, this was a desert on which silence had imposed itself.