Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches

M >> Maurice Baring >> Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches


It happened when the snows melted and the meadows were flooded; the
first fine day in April. The larks were singing over the plains, which
were beginning to show themselves once more under the melting snow; the
sun shone on the large patches of water, and turned the flooded meadows
in the valley into a fantastic vision. It was on a Sunday after church
that this new thing happened. He had often seen Tatiana before: that day
she was different and new to him. It was as if a bandage had been taken
from his eyes, and at the same moment he realised that Tatiana was a new
Tatiana. He also knew that the old world in which he had lived hitherto
had crumbled to pieces; and that a new world, far brighter and more
wonderful, had been created for him. As for Tatiana, she loved him at
once. There was no delay, no hesitation, no misunderstandings, no doubt:
and at the first not much speech; but first love came to them straight
and swift, with the first sunshine of the spring, as it does to the
birds.

All the spring and summer they kept company and walked out together in
the evenings. When the snows entirely melted and the true spring came,
it came with a rush; in a fortnight's time all the trees except the ash
were green, and the bees boomed round the thick clusters of pear-blossom
and apple-blossom, which shone like snow against the bright azure.
During that time Petrushka and Tatiana walked in the apple orchard
in the evening and they talked to each other in the divinest of all
languages, the language of first love, which is no language at all but a
confused medley and murmur of broken phrases, whisperings, twitterings,
pauses, and silences--a language so wonderful that it cannot be put
down into speech or words, although Shakespeare and the very great poets
translate the spirit of it into music, and the great musicians catch the
echo of it in their song. Then a fortnight later, when the woods were
carpeted and thick with lilies of the valley, Petrushka and Tatiana
walked in the woods and picked the last white violets, and later again
they sought the alleys of the landlord's property, where the lilac
bushes were a mass of blossom and fragrance, and there they listened to
the nightingale, the bird of spring. Then came the summer, the fragrance
of the beanfields, and the ripening of corn and the wonderful long
twilights, and July, when the corn, ripe and tall and stiff, changed the
plains into a vast rippling ocean of gold.

After the harvest, at the very beginning of autumn, they were to be
married. There had been a slight difficulty about money. Tatiana's
father had insisted that Petrushka should produce a certain not very
large sum; but the difficulty had been overcome and the money had been
found. There were no more obstacles, everything was smooth and settled.
Petrushka no longer thought of travels in foreign lands; he had
forgotten the old dreams which "Monte Cristo" had once kindled in him.

It was in the middle of August that the carpenter received instructions
from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix
them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did
not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one
afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their place.
The river was broad, the banks were wooded with willow trees, and the
undergrowth was thick, for the woods reached to the river bank, which
was flat, but which ended sheer above the water over a slope of mud and
roots, so that a bather needed steps or a raft or a springboard, so as
to dive or to enter and leave the water with comfort.

Petrushka put the steps in their place--which was where the wood
ended--and made fast the floating raft to them. Not far from the bank
the ground was marshy and the spot was suspected by some people of being
haunted by malaria. It was a still, sultry day. The river was like oil,
the sky clouded but not entirely overclouded, and among the high banks
of grey cloud there were patches of blue.

When Petrushka had finished the job, he sat on the wooden steps, and
rolling some tobacco into a primitive cigarette, contemplated the
grey, oily water and the willow trees. It was too late in the year, he
thought, to make a bathing place. He dipped his hand in the water: it
was cold, but not too cold. Yet in a fortnight's time it would not be
pleasant to bathe. However, people had their whims, and he mused on the
scheme of the universe which ordained that certain people should have
whims, and that others should humour those whims whether they liked it
or not. Many people--many of his fellow-workers--talked of the day
when the universal levelling would take place and when all men could be
equal. Petrushka did not much believe in the advent of that day; he was
not quite sure whether he ardently desired it; in any case, he was very
happy as he was.

At that moment he heard two sharp short sounds, less musical than a pipe
and not so loud or harsh as a scream. He looked up. A kingfisher had
flown across the oily water. Petrushka shouted; and the kingfisher
skimmed over the water once more and disappeared in the trees on the
other side of the river. Petrushka rolled and lit another cigarette.
Presently he heard the two sharp sounds once more, and the kingfisher
darted again across the water: a bit of fish was in its beak. It
disappeared into the bank of the river on the same side on which
Petrushka was sitting, only lower down.

"Its nest must be there," thought Petrushka, and he remembered that
he had heard it said that no one had ever been able to carry off a
kingfisher's nest intact. Why should he not be the first person to do
so? He was skilful with his fingers, his touch was sure and light. It
was evidently a carpenter's job, and few carpenters had the leisure or
opportunity to look for kingfishers' nests. What a rare present it would
be for Tatiana--a whole kingfisher's nest with every bone in it intact.

He walked stealthily through the bushes down the bank of the river,
making as little noise as possible. He thought he had marked the
spot where the kingfisher had dived into the bank. As he walked, the
undergrowth grew thicker and the path darker, for he had reached the
wood, on the outskirts and end of which was the spot where he had
made the steps. He walked on and on without thinking, oblivious of
his surroundings, until he suddenly realised that he had gone too far.
Moreover, he must have been walking for some time, for it was getting
dark, or was it a thunder-shower? The air, too, was unbearably sultry;
he stopped and wiped his forehead with a big print handkerchief. It was
impossible to reach the bank from the place where he now stood, as he
was separated from it by a wide ditch of stagnant water. He therefore
retraced his footsteps through the wood. It grew darker and darker; it
must be, he thought, the evening deepening and no storm.

All at once he started; he had heard a sound, a high pipe. Was it the
kingfisher? He paused and listened. Distinctly, and not far off in the
undergrowth, he heard a laugh, a woman's laugh. It flashed across his
mind that it might be Tatiana, but it was not her laugh. Something
rustled in the bushes to the left of him; he followed the rustling and
it led him through the bushes--he had now passed the ditch--to the river
bank. The sun had set behind the woods from which he had just emerged;
the sky was as grey as the water, and there was no reflection of the
sunset in the east. Except the water and the trees he saw nothing; there
was not a sound to be heard, not a ripple on the river, not a whisper
from the woods.

Then all at once the stillness was broken again by quick rippling laughs
immediately behind him. He turned sharply round, and saw a woman in the
bushes: her eyes were large and green and sad; her hair straggling and
dishevelled; she was dressed in reeds and leaves; she was very pale. She
stared at him fixedly, and smiled, showing gleaming teeth, and when she
smiled there was no light nor laughter in her eyes, which remained sad
and green and glazed like those of a drowned person. She laughed again
and ran into the bushes. Petrushka ran after her, but although he was
quite close to her he lost all trace of her immediately. It was as if
she had vanished under the earth or into the air.

"It's a Russalka," thought Petrushka, and he shivered. Then he added
to himself, with the pride of the new scepticism he had learnt from
the factory hands: "There is no such thing; only women believe in such
things. It was some drunken woman."

Petrushka walked quickly back to the edge of the wood, where he had left
his cart, and drove home. The next day was Sunday, and Tatiana noticed
that he was different--moody, melancholy, and absent-minded. She asked
him what was the matter; he said his head ached. Towards five o'clock he
told her--they were standing outside her cottage--that he was obliged to
go to the river to work.

"To-day is holiday," she said quietly.

"I left something there yesterday: one of my tools. I must fetch it," he
explained.

Tatiana looked at him, and her intuition told her, firstly, that this
was not true, and, secondly, that it was not well for Petrushka to go to
the river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would
be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go.
Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex
him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly she gave in at last.

Petrushka went to the river, and Tatiana watched him go with a heavy
heart. She felt quite certain some disaster was about to happen.

At seven o'clock Petrushka had not yet returned, and he did not return
that night. The next morning the carpenter and two others went to
the river to look for him. They found his body in the shallow water,
entangled in the ropes of the raft he had made. He had been drowned, no
doubt, in setting the raft straight.

During all that Sunday night, Tatiana had said no word, nor had she
moved from her doorstep: it was only when they brought back the dripping
body to the village that she stirred, and when she saw it she laughed
a dreadful laugh, and the spirit went from her eyes, leaving a fixed
stare.




THE OLD WOMAN

The old woman was spinning at her wheel near a fire of myrtle boughs
which burnt fragrantly in the open yard. Through the stone columns the
sea was visible, smooth, dark, and blue; the low sun bathed the brown
hills of the coast in a golden mist. It was December. The shepherds were
driving home their flocks, the work of the day was done, and a noise of
light laughter and rippling talk came from the Slaves' quarter.

In the middle of the stone-flagged yard two little boys were playing at
quoits. Their eyes and hair were as dark as their brown skin, which had
been tanned by the sun. In one of the corners of the yard a fair-haired,
blue-eyed girl was nursing a kitten and singing it to sleep. The old
woman was singing too, or rather humming a tune to herself as she turned
her wheel. She was very old: her hair was white and silvery, and her
face was furrowed by a hundred wrinkles. Her eyes were blue as the sky,
and perhaps they had once been full of fire and laughter, but all that
had been quenched and washed out long ago, and Time, with his noiseless
chisel, had sharpened her delicate features and hollowed out her cheeks,
which were as white as ivory. But her hands as they twisted the wood
were the hands of a young woman, and seemed as though they had been
fashioned by a rare craftsman, so perfect were they in shape and
proportion, as firm as carved marble, as delicate as flowers.

The sun sank behind the hills of the coast, and a flood of scarlet light
spread along the West just above them, melting higher up into orange,
and still higher into a luminous blue, which turned to green later as
the evening deepened. The air was cool and sharp, and the little boys,
who had finished their game, drew near to the fire.

"Tell us a story," said the elder of the two boys, as they curled
themselves up at the feet of the old woman.

"You know all my stories," she said.

"That doesn't matter," said the boy. "You can tell us an old one."

"Well," said the old woman, "I suppose I must. There was once upon a
time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter." At the
sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of
the old woman's long cloak.

"No, not that one," one of the little boys interrupted, "tell us about
the Queen without a heart." So the old woman began and said:--

"There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had one daughter, and
they invited all the gods and goddesses to the feast which they gave in
honour of the birth of their child. The gods and goddesses came and
gave the child every gift they could think of; she was to be the most
beautiful woman in the whole world, she was to dance like the West wind,
to laugh like the stream, and to sing like the lark. Her hair should be
made of sunshine, and her eyes should be as the sea in midsummer. She
should excel in all things, in knowledge, in wit, and in skill; she
should be fleet of foot, a cunning harp-player, adept at all manner of
woman-like crafts, and deft with the needle and the spinning-wheel, and
at the loom. Zeus himself gave her stateliness and majesty, the Lord
of the Sun gave a voice as of a golden flute; Poseidon gave her the
laughter of all the waves of the sea, the King of the Underworld gave
her a red ruby to wear on her breast more precious than all the gems
of the world. Artemis gave her swiftness and radiance, Persephone the
fragrance and the freshness of all the flowers of spring; Pallas Athene
gave her curious knowledge and pleasant speech; and, lastly, the Seaborn
Goddess breathed upon her and gave her the beauty of the rose, the
pearl, the dew, and the shells and the foam of the sea. But, alas! the
King and Queen had forgotten to ask one guest. The Goddess of Envy and
Discord had been left out, and she came unbidden, and when all the gods
and goddesses had given their gifts, she said: 'I too have a gift to
give, a gift that will be more precious to her than any. I will give
her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.'
So saying the Goddess of Envy took away the child's heart and put in its
place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem.
And the Goddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were
greatly concerned, and they asked the gods and goddesses whether their
daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the
Goddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child's heart to the
man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely
happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal.

"The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married
to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess
of Envy once more troubled the child's life. For owing to her subtle
planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world,
and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia
to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men
and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for
ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife
home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the
whole world was filled with the fame of the King's wife and of her
beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her
heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others,
believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that
by the time they accomplished it the King's wife would be an old woman,
and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not
believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed
her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even
if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and
they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair's breadth for
all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned
it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great
Queen.

"The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of
the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and
to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire,
and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and
wherever she passed she left behind her strife and sorrow like a burning
trail. After many voyages she returned home and lived prosperously.
The King her husband died, her children grew up and married and bore
children themselves, and she continued to live peacefully in her palace.
Her fame and her glory brought her neither joy nor sorrow, nor did she
heed the spell that she cast on the hearts of men.

"One day a harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before
her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept
save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But
her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he
resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the
tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years
he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he
found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird
promised him that he should find the Queen's heart. All he had to do was
to go home and to seek the Queen's palace. So the harper went home to
the Queen's palace, and when he reached it he found the Queen had grown
old; her hair was grey and there were lines on her cheek. But she smiled
on him, and he knelt down before her, for he loved her more than ever,
and to him she was as beautiful as ever she had been. At that moment,
for the first time in her life the Queen's eyes filled with tears, for
her heart had been given back to her. And that is all the story."

"And what happened to the harper?" asked one of the little boys.

"He lived in the palace and played to the Queen till he died."

"And is the story true?" asked the other little boy.

"Yes," said the old woman, "quite true."

The boys jumped up and kissed the old woman, and the elder of them,
growing pensive, said:--

"Grandmother, were you ever young yourself?"

"Yes, my child," said the old woman, smiling, "I was once young--a very
long time ago."

She got up, for the twilight had come and it was almost dark. She walked
into the house, and as she rose she was neither bowed nor bent, but
she trod the ground with a straightness which was not stiff but full
of grace, and she moved royally like a goddess. As she walked past the
smoking flames the children noticed that large tears were welling from
her eyes and trickling down her faded cheek.




DR. FAUST'S LAST DAY

The Doctor got up at dawn, as was his wont, and as soon as he was
dressed he sat down at his desk in his library overlooking the sea,
and immersed himself in the studies which were the lodestar of his
existence. His hours were mapped out with rigid regularity like those of
a school-boy, and his methodical life worked as though by clockwork. He
rose at dawn and read without interruption until eight o'clock. He then
partook of some light food (he was a strict vegetarian), after which he
walked in the garden of his house, overlooking the Bay of Naples, until
ten. From ten to twelve he received sick people, peasants from the
village, or any visitors that needed his advice or his company. At
twelve he ate a frugal meal. From one o'clock until three he enjoyed
a siesta. At three he resumed his studies, which continued without
interruption until six when he partook of a second meal. At seven he
took another stroll in the village or by the seashore and remained out
of doors until nine. He then withdrew into his study, and at midnight
went to bed.

It was, perhaps, the extreme regularity of his life, combined with the
strict diet which he observed, that accounted for his good health. This
day was his seventieth birthday, and his body was as vigorous and his
mind as alert as they had been in his fortieth year. His thick hair and
beard were scarcely grey, and the wrinkles on his white, thoughtful
face were rare. Yet the Doctor, when questioned as to the secret of his
youthfulness, being like many learned men fond of a paradox, used to
reply that diet and regularity had nothing to do with it, and that
the Southern sun and the climate of the Neapolitan coast, which he had
chosen among all places to be the abode of his old age, were in reality
responsible for his excellent health.

"I lead a regular life," he used to say, "not in order to keep well,
but in order to get through my work. Unless my hours were mapped out
regularly I should be the prey of every idler in the place and I should
never get any work done at all."

On this day, as it was his seventieth birthday, the Doctor had asked
a few friends to share his mid-day meal, and when he returned from
his morning stroll he sent for his housekeeper to give her a few final
instructions. The housekeeper, who was a voluble Italian peasant-woman,
after receiving his orders, handed him a piece of paper on which a few
words were scrawled in reddish-brown ink, saying it had been left by a
Signore.

"What Signore?" asked the Doctor, as he perused the document, which
consisted of words in the German tongue to the effect that the writer
regretted his absence from the Doctor's feast, but would call at
midnight. It was not signed.

"He was a Signore, like all Signores," said the housekeeper; "he just
left the letter and went away."

The Doctor was puzzled, and in spite of much cross-examination he was
unable to extract anything more beyond the fact that he was a "Signore."

"Shall I lay one place less?" asked the housekeeper.

"Certainly not," said the Doctor. "All my guests will be present." And
he threw the piece of paper on the table.

The housekeeper left the room, but she had not been gone many minutes
before she returned and said that Maria, the wife of the late Giovanni,
the baker, wished to speak to him. The Doctor nodded, and Maria burst
into the room, sobbing.

When her tears had somewhat subsided she told her story in broken
sentences. Her daughter, Margherita, who was seventeen years old, had
been allowed to spend the summer at Sorrento with her late father's
sister. There, it appeared, she had met a "Signore," who had given her
jewels, made love to her, promised her marriage, and held clandestine
meetings with her. Her aunt professed now to have been unaware of this;
but Maria assured the Doctor that her sister-in-law, who had the
evil eye and had more than once trafficked with Satan, must have had
knowledge of the business, even if she were not directly responsible,
which was highly probable. In the meantime Margherita's brother Anselmo
had returned from the wars in the North, and, discovering the truth, had
sworn to kill the Signore unless he married Margherita.

"And what do you wish me to do?" asked the Doctor, after he had listened
to the story.

"Anything, anything," she answered, "only calm my son Anselmo or else
there will be a disaster."

"Who is the Signore?" asked the Doctor.

"The Conte Guido da Siena," she answered.

The Doctor reflected a moment, and then said: "I will see what can be
done. The matter can be arranged. Send your son to me later." And then,
after scolding Maria for not having taken proper care of her daughter,
he sent her away.

As he did so he caught sight of the dirty piece of paper on his table.
For one second he had the impression that the letters on it were written
in blood, and he shivered, but the momentary hallucination and sense of
discomfort passed immediately.

At mid-day the guests arrived. They consisted of Dr. Cornelius, Vienna's
most learned scholar; Taddeo Mainardi, the painter; a Danish student
from the University of Wittenberg; a young English nobleman, who was
travelling in Italy; and Guido da Siena, philosopher and poet, who was
said to be the handsomest man in Italy. The Doctor set before his guests
a precious wine from Cyprus, in which he toasted them, although as
a rule he drank only water. The meal was served in the cool loggia
overlooking the bay, and the talk, which was of the men and books of
many climes, flowed like a rippling stream on which the sunshine of
laughter lightly played.

The student asked the Doctor whether in Italy men of taste took any
interest in the recent experiments of a French Huguenot, who professed
to be able to send people into a trance. Moreover, the patient when in
the trance, so it was alleged, was able to act as a bridge between the
material and the spiritual worlds, and the dead could be summoned and
made to speak through the unconscious patient.