Читать книгу The Clock and the Key - A. H. Vesey - Страница 3

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Our gondola, far out on the lagoon, hardly moved. But neither Jacqueline nor I, under the red and white striped awning, cared much, and Pietro even dared to light a cigarette.

Silver-gray dome, campanile, and spire gleamed through the golden haze that hung over the enchanted city. A great stillness was over all–only the ripple of Pietro’s lazy oar, and faintly, very faintly, bells chiming.

“I have dreamed of it,” said Jacqueline. “Only the dreams were such futile things compared with the reality. I close my eyes. I open them quickly. I am afraid it will all be blown away, vanish in a single moment. But there it is, your dear, dear Venice–the green garden away up there; the white Riva, basking in the sunlight; the rosy palace; and the red and orange sails, drifting slowly along. We shall return to the Piazza presently, and St. Mark’s will be there, and the pigeons, and the white palaces. Oh, there is not a false note to destroy the perfect charm of Venice, not one.”

I aroused myself. While Jacqueline had been intoxicated with the beauty of Venice, I had been intoxicated with the beauty of Jacqueline. I must say something, and something prosaic, or I should be forgetting myself.

“Oh, favored of the gods,” I murmured, “to be dead to unpleasant sights and sounds. And yet, not in Paradise, not even in this Paradise, are they quite shut out. Look, there is a penny steamer making its blatant way from the Molo to the Giudecca. And that far-off rumble is the express crossing the long bridge from Mestre. And, whew, that’s the twelve-o’clock whistle at the Arsenal. There you have three notes of progress and civilization in this city of dead dreams and dead hopes.”

Jacqueline turned in her seat and looked at me curiously.

“My dear Richard, will you answer me one question?”

“Gladly, if it is not too difficult. But don’t forget, Jacqueline, Venice is not exactly an intellectual center.”

“Then tell me, please, why it is that when you were in New York, hardly two months ago, you talked so charmingly of your Venetian skies and still lagoons that you quite made me long for them. But now, when I am at last under one of your wonderful skies and on your wonderful lagoon, instead of helping me to love it all, and sympathizing with me, you insist on the horrible things that clash–things I would so gladly forget for the happy moment.”

“Because,” I answered gravely, “I must not allow myself to forget that one happy moment is not a lifetime.”

“Really, I don’t understand you.“

She looked at me frankly–too frankly–that was the trouble. I hesitated. In spite of the flimsy excuses her aunt had suspiciously erected, I had brought Jacqueline alone with me here to tell her why I must not allow myself to love her; and, I may add, to hear her laugh to delicious scorn my reasons. And yet I hesitated. Sometimes I felt she cared for me. But if I answered her question truthfully, I risked a cruel awakening.

“Do you know how long I have been living in Venice?” I asked presently, with apparent irrelevance.

“Three years, is it not?”

“That is a long time to be dreaming and loafing, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Her eyes looked gravely out on the lagoon.

“And it seems to you hardly a manly, strenuous life for a man of–shall we say–thirty years of age, to spend three years rocking himself to sleep, as it were, in a gondola?”

“No,” she laughed nervously; “hardly a strenuous life.”

“Such a life as that,” I persisted, “must contrast rather unfavorably with the lives of men you know in New York, for example?”

“I suppose one may spend one’s life well even here in Venice.”

I laughed rather bitterly.

“One gets up at ten,” I murmured. “One has coffee in bed, and dawdles over the papers. A gentle, gentle walk till twelve–to the garden, perhaps–oh, you can walk miles in Venice, though most tourists think not. At twelve, breakfast at Florian’s on the Piazza. A long smoke, perhaps a row to the Lido and a swim, if it is summer. At five another long smoke and incidentally a long drink on the Piazza again, and the band. At seven, dinner at the Grundewald, a momentous affair, when one hesitates ten minutes over the menu. Then another long smoke out in the lagoon, under the stars, with the lights of Venice in the distance, and in the distance, too, the herd of tourists, splitting their gloves in ecstasy over the efforts of the tenor robusto under the balconies of the Grand Hotel. And then, wicked, dreamless slumber. The next morning, the same thing over again.”

Jacqueline gasped. She looked at me with a curious intentness, and I was uneasy under her gaze. I knew she was noting quite ruthlessly that I was getting fat.

“It is difficult to keep quite fit in Venice,” I pleaded.

“And you really have done that for three years,” she said at last, almost in admiration. It was as if I were a strange animal doing clever tricks.

“For three years, barring flights to New York and London in January and February, and a few weeks in the Tyrol during July and August,” I answered steadily.

“And you really like it?” she asked, still wonderingly.

“I can never imagine myself liking it again. I have despised myself since last Tuesday.”

“Since last Tuesday!” she echoed, and then blushed. It was on Tuesday that Jacqueline and her aunt had arrived in Venice. “But you are not answering my first question.”

“I am answering it in a roundabout way,” I replied dreamily. Then quite abruptly, “You didn’t know me until I was at Oxford, did you?”

“No.”

“I was sent to Eton when I was a sickly, timid little chap of fourteen. I had had a lonely life of it in New York. My mother was so afraid I should have a good time like other boys, and shout and play and talk with an American accent, that she chained me to a priggish English tutor, who took me for solemn walks in the park for recreation. I was hardly any better off than the pale-faced little idiots you see marching about Rome and Palermo two by two, dressed up in ridiculous uniforms of broadcloth, and carrying canes–not so well off, for there are many of them, and only one slovenly priest. But my keeper had me all to himself. Think of it, I never held a baseball in my little fist. Imagine that kind of a youngster set down in the midst of half a thousand lusty young English schoolboys, and an American at that.”

“Poor little homesick boy,” she murmured. “And then?”

“Just five years of being shunned and moping and long solitary rows on the river, and dreams bad for a boy of my years–just a long stretch of that sort of thing, that was my life at the public school.

“At Oxford it was pretty much the same. I pulled through in a listless sort of fashion and got my degree. But the habits of boyhood told now. I found it harder than ever to get into things. I found myself more and more the mere spectator of life–not a happy existence, nor a good foundation for an American to begin the duties of life with.”

“I should think not,” said Jacqueline severely. If she had pity for the lonely little boy, she had no mercy for the man. “And so because you idled through college and liked it, you came here to Venice to idle away the rest of your life?” she asked with some scorn.

“Well, it was hardly so deliberate as that,” I said patiently. “No, I went back to America, and for the first time came face to face with my father. At least it was the first time that he had taken the trouble to speak to me in a heart-to-heart sort of way. You know my father well, so I needn’t expatiate on his virtues.”

Jacqueline smiled. But no malice hovered on her lips as on mine. American women are supposed to demand much of their husbands and fathers. But at least they respect the husbands and fathers who toil that they may play. So she answered primly:

“I have always found your father a most interesting man, I know he loves you in his way. That you have so little ambition is the bitter disappointment of his life. He has often spoken of you to me.”

“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, “no doubt he loves me in his own fashion. But we hardly understand each other. The morning after I landed from England, after I had taken my degree, he called me into his office and asked me without any preliminaries what I thought I was fit for. I told him that I really hadn’t any idea. He thumped his great fist on his desk and roared: ‘So far, young man, your mother has had her turn. She’s mammied you, and made a fool of you with your English education and English accent. Now it’s my turn. Go back to Germany. Stay there two years and come back a chemist. I want you to help me in the factory.’

“I never dreamed of opposing him. I was rather relieved to get out of his presence. So I took the check that he handed to me, and shook him dutifully by the hand. ‘Good-by,’ he said, ‘and when I say a chemist, I mean a good chemist. If you aren’t that, you needn’t bother to come back at all.’ The next morning I engaged passage for Bremen.”

“The rest I know about,” said Jacqueline looking at her watch.

“I dare say, only I should like you to understand it from my point of view. I went to Berlin. My name was entered on the roll of students of the university. I drank a lot of beer, but I studied very little chemistry. At the end of my two years’ probation, I began to think with apprehension of my father’s parting words: ‘And a good chemist, or you needn’t trouble to come back.’

“And then, one day, when I was quite at a loss what to do, I received word that my mother had died suddenly. She left me a small fortune.

“I dreaded more than ever to return to my father. Why should I? I began to ask myself. Why should I? echoed my one friend.

“This friend was a wizened, eccentric, boastful little man, but with an undying enthusiasm for the rare and the beautiful. He spoke cunning words to entice me: ‘Your father’s idea of a successful life is one of work and yet more work–of tasks and habits that bind one more and more inexorably as the years go on. This is not success at all, but the direst failure. A life made up of habits and tasks that safely steer one through one’s existence, minute by minute, is a life with all the excitement and keen delight and ecstasy left out. To live such a life is to be a machine and no man.

“‘Come,’ he said, ‘with me to Venice. I will show you how to live. Why should you go back to America and the hideous? There are millions of fools to labor doggedly–to keep the world a-going–why should you be dragged into the ranks of the slaves to the lash? There are thousands to agonize and strive, to create the beautiful–and to fail, terribly. Why should you be dragged into the ranks of those slaves to an ideal? There are hundreds to make the world better. Why should you be a slave to conscience? But there are so few to make a fine art of living. Be one of them. Enjoy perfectly. Enjoy wisely. Life may be for you something so rare and beautiful that the horrible and the vulgar shall not exist for you.’ I listened to him. I came to Venice. Here I am.”

“There is something rather fine about it all,” said Jacqueline wistfully. “But there’s sophistry somewhere. And it seems brutally selfish.”

“Sophistry! Selfish! How subtle the sophistry and selfishness I alone can tell. Dear Jacqueline, I had left one thing out of my calculations in building this fool’s paradise.”

“And that?” Jacqueline looked troubled. I know she pitied me.

“I had forgotten that one may love.”

I leaned over toward her. Regardless of Pietro, who, I knew, was squinting through the red and white striped awning, I took her hand. “Dear Jacqueline, do you think that it is too late for me to begin again?”

Jacqueline was silent. She withdrew her hand gently. I had felt it tremble in mine.

“Do you see now that I am answering your question?” I asked. “When I was in New York, and knew at last that I should always love you, I had to keep reminding myself that this was my world. I had set before myself an ideal. I must be faithful to it. So, now, when you are in Venice, I have tried to remind myself just as strongly that you come from the world of the penny steamboat and factory–a workaday world–a relentless world. In that world men tear and rend one another for a name, for a position. Each one is for himself, ruthless of others, unscrupulous often. Each one strives madly for something that is just out of his reach. That is the world you come from. I have reminded myself of it over and over. But it’s no use. I can’t keep silent. I must speak. Jacqueline, I love you.”

She sat motionless. Her eyes looked out on the lagoon. Then she clasped her knees, and looked at me with a curious intentness. When she did speak, it was so slowly, so decisively that her words sounded like an inexorable fate.

“My dear Richard, you are an extraordinary man. You are one of the rare specimens who hold a perfectly impossible ideal. When you fail to attain that ideal, you frankly abandon yourself to materialism–a materialism that smothers you. You have not even attempted to play the man. It is incredible that you should deliberately lay yourself down to loll on a flowery bed of ease for three years. Your very last words about my poor world show how great a gulf is fixed between you and me. Yes, I am of that world. I glory in it. But you sneer at the very qualities you lack. That is so easy, and, forgive me, so weak. You call my poor world ruthless. But often ruthlessness, yes, and unscrupulousness even, go with strength. The man I love must have a touch of this relentlessness you despise. Better that he be unscrupulous than weak. And as for patience, surely to be greatly patient is to be greatly strong. But you, my dear Dick, you area piece of bric-à-brac, you and your ideals. You should be under a glass case. You are too précieux for the struggle in the world you shrink from. Return your love? Impossible. You have done nothing to deserve it.”

I could not speak. She had told me the truth. Presently she looked at me. Then she touched my arm lightly.

“I have hurt you,” she pleaded.

“Well, why not?” I answered roughly. “It is the truth. But, Jacqueline, is your answer quite final? If I plunge into this struggle–if I show you that I too can strive and achieve things for the woman I love, if not for myself, will you let me tell you again that I love you?”

“Can the leopard change his spots?” she asked lightly.

“That remains to be seen. Let me prove to you that I am not merely the dilettante that you see on the surface. If I have not cared to succeed before, perhaps it was because there was nothing or no one to work for. If I show you that I really have those qualities that you demand and think I lack, will you let me tell you again that I love you?”

“What could you do to show that?” asked Jacqueline softly.

“I could go back to New York to-morrow. I could join my father in business.”

“To New York to-morrow!” she said in dismay.

“Yes,” I cried joyously. I had caught the note of dismay.

“But I dare not advise you to do that. I could not take that responsibility unless I loved you. I do not love you. But if you are not fitted for business, you would surely fail.”

“Would you discourage me in the attempt to do what you have condemned me for not doing?” I asked with impatience.

“It may be that here in Venice is a task.”

“In Venice? Impossible.”

“You told me the other day that you had once thought of writing up the legends of Venice. You said they had really never been done well. Why not attempt that?”

“Oh, that!” I exclaimed discontentedly.

“And why not?”

“It must be an entire change of life–of habits and ambition and tastes. Why not attempt something big while I am about it?”

“My dear Richard,” insisted Jacqueline gently, “it makes no difference how obscure one’s task is. It may be even a useless task, only one must show patience and strength in the performance of it.”

“Jacqueline, you are giving me hope.”

She held up her gloved hand, smiling.

“No, I give you no hope. Nor do I give you reason to despair. I do not love you, now. I could not love such a one as you. Whether I could love you if you were different–if you had ambition and stamina–I can not tell.”

“I shall yet make you love me, Jacqueline.”

Our eyes met for one instant, then hers fell before my steady gaze.

“Will you please tell the gondolier to row faster? I shall be late for luncheon, and I have an appointment at three.”

“Then I sha’n’t see you this afternoon?”

“Perhaps. If you care to accompany my aunt and myself on a little expedition.”

“I shall be delighted. And where?”

“To an old Venetian palace on the Grand Canal. We are to inspect it from garret to basement. A dealer in antiquities is to take us there. He is to buy the contents of the palace as they stand. You know my aunt, Mrs. Gordon, is never so happy as when buying some useless piece of bric-à-brac.”

“Beware of the dealer in bric-à-brac here in Venice. He is a Jew, your dealer–be sure of that.”

“Oh, no, he is not. Aunt and I know him well. He is an American.”

“His name?”

“St. Hilary. He has an immense shop on Fifth Avenue.”

“St. Hilary!” I exclaimed, “and he is here in Venice!”

“Do you know him?”

“Why, this St. Hilary is the man I told you of,” I answered slowly, “who first charmed me into coming to Venice. He is responsible for my wasting these past three years. I feel a grudge against him for that. He owes me some reparation. Yes; I shall be interested in seeing your palace with St. Hilary as guide. When shall I meet you?”

“Outside Florian’s, on the Piazza at three. But you have not yet aroused your gondolier.”

I poked Pietro with my walking-stick. Pietro flung away his cigarette and bent to his oar. The gondola, like a thing of life, leaped joyously toward the Molo.