Читать книгу A Woman's Will - Warner Anne - Страница 4

“HAVE you ever thought what is love and what is passion?”

It was the man who spoke as they leaned against the rail of that afternoon steamer which is scheduled to make port at the Quai by seven o’clock, at the Gare by seven-ten.

Rosina simply shook her head.

“I am going to tell you that,” he said, turning his dark gaze down upon the shadows in the wake behind them; “we part perhaps this night, and I have a fancy to talk of just that. Perhaps it will come that we never meet again, but when you love you will think of what I have say.”

“I never shall love,” she said thoughtfully.

He did not appear to hear her at all.

“It is as this,” he said, his eyes glowing into the tossing foam below: “many may love, and there may be very many loves; very few can know a passion, and they can know but one. You may love, and have it for one that is quite of another rank or all of another world, but one has a passion only for what one may hope for one’s own. Love, that is a feeling, a something of the heart,” – he touched his bosom as he spoke but never raised his eyes, – “what I may have known, – or you. But passion, that is only half a feeling, and the other half must be in some other, or if it be not there it must be of a force put there, because with passion there must be two, and one must find the other and possess the other; that other heart must be, and must be won, and be your own, and be your own all alone.” He paused a moment and took out his cigarette case, and contemplated it and put it back. She leaned on the rail and listened, undisturbed by the strength of his speech. In the few short hours of their acquaintance the breadth of mutual comprehension between them seemed to be widening at a ratio similar to the circles spread by a stone striking still water.

“I am going to speak to you in my tongue,” he went on presently, “I am going to explain what I say with my music. Will you think to understand?”

“I will try,” she told him simply.

“It is so easy there,” he said; “I think if I had but my violin I could tell you all things. Because in music is all things. You must have feel that yourself. Only I fear you must smile at my language – it is not so easy to place your soul on a strange tongue.”

“I shall not smile,” she reassured him, “I am deeply interested.”

“That is good of you,” he replied, raising his head to cast a briefly grateful glance at her, “if you may only really understand! For, just as there are all colors for the painter to use, so are there all of the same within music. There is from darkness far below the under bass to the dazzle of sun in the high over the treble, and in between there are gray, and rose, and rain, and twilight, so that with my bow I may make you all a sad picture between the clefs or a gay one of flowers blooming from G to upper C. And there is heat and cold there too, – one gasps in the F flat down low and one shivers at the needle frost above high C. And there are all feelings too. I may sing you to sleep, I may thunder you awake, I may even steal your heart forever while you think to only listen in pleasure.”

“Not my heart,” said Rosina decidedly.

“Ah, now it reminds me what I have begin to tell you,” he exclaimed, – “of love and of passion. I must get some music and teach you that. Do you know the ‘Souvenir’ of Vieuxtemps?” he asked her abruptly.

“The ‘Souvenir d’Amérique’?”

“No, no,” he said impatiently, “not one of those. ‘Le Souvenir’ it is. Not of anything. Just alone. If we were only to be of some together I would teach it to you; I have never teach any one, but I would trouble me to teach you that.”

Then he paused and, producing his étui for the second time, lit a cigarette.

“It is like this,” he went on, staring again upon the now rapidly darkening waters, “you may learn all that I have begin to tell you there in that one piece of music. There is love singing up and up in the treble, and one listens and finds that nothing may be sweeter or of more beauty, and then, most sudden and terrible there sounds there, below, a cry, ‘E, – F, – F sharp, – G;’ and it is not a cry, rather a scream, strength, force, – a Must made of the music, – and one perceives of a lightning flash that all the love was but the background of the passion of that cry of those four notes; and one listens, one trembles, one feels that they were to come before they are there, and when they have come, one can but shake and know their force.” He stopped and took his cigarette from between his lips. “Mon Dieu,” he cried violently, “of what was the composer thinking when he beat out those bars? When you shall play them you shall take only your forefinger and draw all your strength within it, and when the notes shriek in pain you shall have one secret of passion there beneath your hand.”

He spoke with such force, – such a tremendous force of feeling, that her face betrayed her wonder.

“I frighten you, – yes?” he asked with a smile of reassurance; “oh, that must not be. I only speak so because I will that you know too. It is good to know. Many go to the end and never know but love and are very well content, but I think you will know more. I did love myself once. She was never mine, and the time is gone, and I have thought to suffer much forever, and then I have stop to suffer, and now I am all forget. But,” he flung his cigarette to the waves, and for the first time during his monologue turned squarely towards her, “but if I have a passion come to me now, that woman shall be mine! If I die for it she shall be mine. Because what I feel shall be so strong that she shall of force feel it too. Every day, every night, every hour, the need of me will go to her strongly and make her weaker, and weaker, and weaker, until she have no choice but of the being all mine. And so you are quite decided to go to Zurich to-morrow?”

He brought forth the question in such sudden change of subject that she started involuntarily. But then relief at the descent into the commonplace came on her and she replied:

“Yes, I want to go there to-morrow.”

“But why do you not want to on Tuesday – or next week?”

“My friend is there,” she reminded him.

His brow clouded, and she knew the reason why.

“You are so typically European,” she laughed; “I do believe that humanity over here has only two bases of action, and they are governed by ‘Cherchez la femme’ and ‘Cherchez l’homme.’”

“Mais c’est vrai, ça!” he said doggedly.

“Not always,” she replied; “or perhaps not always in the usual sense. It is true that I am going to Zurich to meet some one, but it is so very innocent when a woman goes ‘cherchant la femme,’ and, as I told you before, it is a woman that I go to meet, or, rather, it is a girl.”

“Are you sure?” he asked suspiciously.

“You don’t believe my word yet, do you?”

“I did not say that.”

“No, but really you do not.”

He gave a slight shrug.

“My friend is an Irish girl,” Rosina went on placidly. “I do love her so. We shall have such a good time being together next week.”

“You are sure that she is not English?” the man asked, with a little touch of sarcasm in his inflection.

“If you could hear her speak you could tell that from her accent.”

Von Ibn took out his case and lit another cigarette.

“What hotel do you go at in Zurich?” he asked presently.

“I shall go wherever my friend is.”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know; I write her Poste Restante. She has been travelling for a long time with a Russian friend, – a lady,” she added, with a jerk.

“I hope you will go to the Victoria,” Von Ibn said slowly; “that is where I always have stay in Zurich.”

“So that we may have our dining-room souvenir in common, I suppose?”

“It is a very nice place,” he cried hotly; “it is not at all common! It is one of the best hotels in Zurich.”

She hastily interposed an explanation of the error in his comprehension of her meaning, and by the time that he understood, the lights of Lucerne were hazing the darkness, while the Rigi and Pilate had each hung out their rope ladder of stars.

“What time do you travel in the morning?” he asked then, turning his eyes downward upon her face.

“By the first express; it goes, I believe, about eight o’clock.”

“I shall not be awake,” he said gloomily.

“I shall not be, either; but Ottillie will get me aboard somehow.”

“If it was noon that you go, I should certainly come to the Gare,” he said thoughtfully; then he reflected for a short space, and added eagerly, “why do you not go later, and make an excursion by Zug; it is just on your way, and a so interesting journey.”

“I know Zug, and the lake too; I’ve coached all through there.”

“Then it would not again interest you?”

“No; I want to go straight to Molly as fast as I can.”

“To Molli! Where is that? You said to Zurich you went.”

She laughed and explained.

“Molly is the name of my girl friend.”

“Ah, truly.”

Then he was silent, and she was silent, and the lights of Lucerne continued to draw nearer and nearer.

“I wonder if I shall really never see you again,” he said, after a long interval.

“I wonder.”

“It is very unlikely that we shall ever meet again.”

“Very.”

In spite of herself her voice sounded dry.

“Where is your bank address?”

“Deutsches-Filiale, Munich, while I am in this part of the world. But why? Were you thinking of writing me weekly?”

“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “but I might send you a carte-postale sometimes, if you liked.”

She felt obliged to laugh.

“Would you send a colored one, or just one of the regular dix-centime kind,” she inquired with interest.

Von Ibn contemplated her curiously.

“You have such a pretty mouth!” he murmured.

She laughed afresh.

“But with the stamp it is fifteen centimes anyway,” he continued.

“Stamp, what stamp? Oh, yes, the postal card,” she nodded; and then, “I never really expect to see you again, but I’m glad, very glad that I met you, because you have interested and amused me so much.”

“American men are so very stupid, are they not?” he said sympathetically.

“No, indeed,” she cried indignantly; “American men are charming, and they always rise and give their seats to women in the trams, which the men here never think of doing.”

“You need not speak to me so hotly,” said Von Ibn, “I always take a cab.”

The ending of his remark was sufficiently unexpected to cause a short break in the conversation; then Rosina went on:

“I saw a man do a very gallant thing once, he hurried to carry a poor old woman’s big bundle of washing for her because the tram stopped in the wrong place and she would have so far to take it. Wasn’t that royal in him?”

He did not appear impressed.

“Does that man take the broom and sweep a little for the street-cleaner when he meets her?” he asked, after a brief period for reflection.

“We do not have women street-cleaners in America.”

Then he yawned, with no attempt at disguise. She felt piqued at such an open display of ennui, and turned from him to the now brilliant shore past which they were gliding.

After a minute or two he took out his note-book and pencil.

“Deutsches-Filiale, Munich, you said, did you not?”

She nodded.

“Can you write my name?” he asked.

“If strict necessity should drive me to it.”

“Write it here, please.”

He held the book upon the rail and she obeyed the request. Afterwards he held the page to the light until he was apparently thoroughly assured of some doubtful point, and then put it back in his pocket.

“I shall send you a card Poste Restante at Zurich,” he announced, as the lights of Lucerne blazed up close beside them.

“Be sure that you spell my name right.”

“Yes,” he said, taking out his note-book again; “it is like this, n’est ce pas?” and he wrote, and then showed her the result.

“Yes, that’s it,” she assented.

He continued to regard his book with deep attention.

“It exasperates me to have my name spelled wrong,” she went on; “doesn’t it you?”

“Yes,” he said; “it is for that that I look in my book.”

She came close and looked at what she had written, – “Von Ebn.”

“Isn’t that right?” she asked in surprise.

“It is your English E, but not my letter.”

“How do you spell your name?”

“I-b-n.”

“Oh!”

She laughed, and he laughed with her.

“That was very stupid in me,” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” he replied, with one of his rare smiles; “but I would have said nothing, only that at the Poste Restante I shall lose all my letters from you.”

“All! what leads you to suppose that there would ever be any?”

He turned and looked steadily at her, his eyes widely earnest.

“What, not even a post card?”

Rosina forgave the yawn, or perhaps she had forgotten it.

“Do you really want to hear from me again?”

“Yes, really.”

“Shall you remember me after I am gone?”

“Natürlich.”

“For how long?”

At that he shrugged his shoulders. Down below they were making ready for the landing.

“Who can say?” he answered at last.

“At least, monsieur, you are frank.”

“I am always frank.”

“Is that always best?”

“I think so.”

People were beginning to move towards the staircase. Below, the man stood ready to fling the rope.

“Let us go to the other landing and walk back across the stone bridge,” he suggested.

“There is not time; it is quite seven o’clock now.”

“But I shall not again be with you, and there is something that I must say.”

“You must say it here, then.”

The rope was thrown and caught, and every one aboard received the violent jolt that attends some boat-landings. Rosina was thrown against her companion and he was thrown against the stair-rail.

“Can you hear if I speak now,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You will see that I really interest myself in you.”

Just then some one in front trod on a dog, which yelped violently for three minutes; for a brief space speech was impossible, and then they were on the gang-plank, and he bent above her once more.

“I want to ask you something; will you do it if I ask you?”

“What is it?”

“Will you promise me to do it?”

They were now squeezing past the ticket kiosque.

“But what is it?”

“It is this – ”

A man behind stepped on Rosina’s skirt and nearly pulled her over backward; something ripped violently and she gave a low cry. The man said, “Mille pardons,” and Von Ibn looked ready to murder him.

“Are you undone?” he asked her solicitously.

“No, I’m only badly torn.”

“Do you want a pin?”

“Yes; have you one?”

“Malheureusement que non.”

“I think that I can hold it up,” she said bravely.

“It is unpardonable – a such man!”

He turned to scowl again at the offender. They were now in the Promenade.

“He couldn’t see in the dark, I suppose,” she murmured.

“But why was he come so near? If it was I who had torn from being too near, that would be quite different.”

“If you don’t take care it will be exactly the same thing.”

He laughed, and gave way three inches.

“You have not yet promise,” he said then.

“Promised what?”

“To do what I ask.”

“Tell me what it is; if I can do it I will.”

He took her arm to cross towards the hotel.

“You can do it if you will,” he said; “it is this – ”

The Schweizerhof shone before them, great and white and sparkling; every window was lighted, every table on the terrace was full. Rosina quickened her steps.

“Oh, I’m so late,” she cried, “and I have such a toilette to make!”

Von Ibn had his hand upon her arm still.

“It is this,” he said emphatically, “promise me that you will go to the Victoria Hotel at Zurich; yes?”

Later in her own room, as Ottillie dressed her hair, she closed her eyes and tried to reduce her thoughts to a rational basis. But she gave up in despair.

“From the ‘Souvenir’ to the Victoria,” she murmured; “oh, he is most certainly a genius!” then she sighed a little. “I’m sorry that we shall probably never meet again,” she added sadly.