to
g. a. e. marshall
{260}
it has always seemed to me a most extraordinary thing that victor lo{261}velace should have been able to speak five languages. he was english, and englishmen are notoriously stupid in this respect. but lovelace spoke his languages perfectly, and as he was extremely obliging and full of information he was far and away the most popular waiter at the jupiter hotel in athens.
i have never believed lovelace was his real name; but that concerns neither you nor me. lovelace has a romantic sound, and this young man of twenty-three looked romantic. tall he was and slim: he carried himself well: unlike all the other waiters in the whole world, he looked you in the eyes when he spoke to you, and the eyes that looked into yours were large, brilliant, and unquestionably full of passion.
in april 1914, i stayed at the jupiter hotel, and at dinner on the day of my arrival i sat down at a table occupied solely by an englishwoman who appeared to be travelling alone. lovelace waited on us. before we were half-way through our dinner i was convinced that the englishwoman—her name was dorothy langdon—was in love with him. whenever he brought her food, she looked quickly up into his eyes, and once i observed her touch his hand lingeringly as she assisted him in supporting the dish from which she was helping herself to vegetables.
i confess i was interested: people always do interest me. and i said to myself: “is this love? or is it passion—a very frenzy of the senses?”
lovelace, for his part, showed neither desire nor distress. perhaps he was a little more assiduous in his waiting on the lady than he was in attending to my wants; but this might mean simply that she was a woma{262}n and i was merely a man.
during dinner miss langdon and i talked.
“you arrived to-day?” she asked.
“yes, i came from marseilles by the ispahan. do you know the messageries maritimes boats?”
“jolly little things, aren’t they?” she said, smiling. “i like the cosmopolitan passengers they carry, and i love curry for breakfast.”
she was very fair. her neck, wrists and ankles were exquisite, as thoroughbred as the human animal can ever hope to be.
“what i liked most of all,” said i, “was the rummy little music room on the deck with the piano that made such tender, melting sounds. i used to feel tremendously sentimental in the evenings. there was an italian girl who sang neapolitan songs as though she really meant them.”
“i know,” she said eagerly; “wouldn’t it be fine if all life were like that? but i suppose it wouldn’t, really. sweetness so soon cloys.”
“yes,” i agreed, “we all require bitter days in between: they add zest to our appetite when the good days come along.”
we talked obvious things of this kind all through the meal.
“will madame have coffee here or in the lounge?” asked lovelace when we had finished our fruit.
she looked up at him and smiled divinely, and in return he smiled a pleasant english smile that meant nothing of what she wished it to mean.
{263}
“it all depends on monsieur,” she said, turning to me. “shall we have coffee here?”
“as you please,” said i.
“very well, then, here.”
she took the cigarette case that was lying on the table at her side and offered me a smoke.
“this hotel is very pleasant,” she remarked; “have you ever stayed here before?”
“no, this is my first visit to athens. and you?”
“i also have never been here before.”
our little table was in a corner of the room farthest away from the door. all the diners except ourselves had left. lovelace stood some little way off, waiting i suppose, to minister to our possible wants. suddenly, he put down the table-napkin he was holding, and began to move towards the door. though my companion was not facing him, she saw—or felt—his withdrawal.
“lovelace!” she called softly.
he turned and approached our table.
“where are you going?” she asked.
“to wait on the ladies and gentlemen in the lounge,” he answered.
“must you go?”
“not if madame desires me to stay.”
“you may please yourself, of course. but if you went i should miss you.”
without embarrassment he bowed, walked a few paces away, and stationed himself out of reach of our talk.
i do not think my attempt to look unconcerned was entirely successful, and i betrayed myself, i am sure, by ask{264}ing:
“have you been here very long?”
(what i meant, of course, was: “do you know lovelace well?”).
“just five days,” she said, as though i had asked the most ordinary question in the world. then, after a pause, she asked: “i surprise you?”
“no, why?”
she smiled.
“you lie so well,” she said, “that i feel i can trust you.”
i feebly protested my sincerity.
“i knew him last year in oxford,” she explained; “but he refuses to know me now. he is afraid of me.”
“surely not!” i exclaimed. “why should he be afraid?”
she did not answer me, but went on to speak of other things.
“will you promise me something?” she asked.
“of course i will. what is it?”
“i want you to promise always to sit at this table for your meals. they never lay more than two places here. if you speak to the head waiter, he will reserve that place for you.”
“you are very kind,” i said; “i shall be delighted. thanks awfully for asking me.”
and, this time, i meant every word i said.
in a few m{265}inutes we rose from the table and prepared to leave the room. she preceded me, and, in passing lovelace, gazed at him with a look so despairing and beseeching that i could but wonder he maintained so undisturbed a countenance.
having reached the door, she turned.
“good night, lovelace,” she said.
and behind me i heard his voice, low and grave:
“good night, madame.”
if she was beautiful that night, she was still more beautiful next morning at breakfast. poets have described the kind of woman she was: i cannot. i can but give you a few clumsy hints. she was as delicate as porcelain. her hair had the colour and the sheen of polished brass, and her face, when composed, was all innocence and trust. her innocence was a lure. one felt her sex. in the corner of her lips there lurked a mysterious suggestion of cruelty—or was it of hunger?
though she chattered a good deal whilst we ate, i felt that she was preoccupied. whenever lovelace approached her, she seemed to expand and open like a flower in the sun; whenever he withdrew, she closed in upon herself again. she rarely spoke to him without addressing him by name.
of the two it was he who interested me most, and after breakfast i sought an opportunity of talking to him.{266}
i asked him about—the best means of getting there, its distance from athens, and so on.
he answered my questions with politeness, but without deference; his manner was easy, even polished. it was quite evident he was a gentleman, and a gentleman of culture and experience.
i told him that i had recently attended a course of lectures at oxford on the social life of ancient athens, and at the word oxford he started a little and flushed. a minute later i noticed he was trembling and that his cheeks were pale.
“she is getting on his nerves,” i said to myself.
i had little compunction in trying to solve this mystery, for i had, so to speak, been dragged in to sit and watch its development. and after my ten minutes’ conversation with lovelace i formed the theory that he was as deeply in love with miss langdon as she was with him; but whereas her love was mingled with triumph and cruelty, his was strained with fear. his love urged him to remain, but his fear, i thought, was continually warning him to escape.
though i had business elsewhere, i returned to the hotel jupiter for lunch, thinking i might witness the “curtain” of the first act of this almost silent drama; but she did not appear. lovelace was pale and, i thought, anxious; but he kept himself so well under control, and he smiled so pleasantly when i made a joke about king constantine, whom i had that morning seen outside the palace, that i felt his seeming anxiety must be only the product of my imagination. his attitude towards me was both aloof and friendly: he was determined to keep his “place,” yet i was sure he liked me. i had copies of t{267}hat month’s fortnightly review and nineteenth century in my bedroom, also three or four recent numbers of punch; these i brought downstairs and gave to him, though i remember that, as i did so, the thought flashed into my mind that i might appear to him to be trying to purchase his confidence. but if he had such a suspicion, he did not show it.
i spent that afternoon in the museum, visiting the temple of jupiter before returning to the hotel. the enervating climate of athens in the early spring had tired me, and i felt a little depressed as i walked across the palace square. on entering the hotel i heard a woman’s voice singing in the drawing-room. opening the door, i discovered miss langdon, the only occupant of the room, sitting at the piano, accompanying herself. seeing me, she rose.
“may i come in and listen?” i asked.
“do. i love having an audience. do you play?”
“yes. rather well. at least, i accompany well. you were singing reynaldo hahn, weren’t you?”
“yes—i’ve only just got to know him. rather like overripe fruit, don’t you think? only, of course, the very best fruit.”
she laughed.
“come and play for me,” she said.
“thanks awfu{268}lly. i was hoping you would ask me to.”
quite the most exciting occupation in the world is to read new pianoforte music for a good singer. reynaldo hahn is the most atmospheric of composers, the most delicate, the most decadent: not a great man, of course, but an interesting man. like my companion’s voice, his music has no colour: it consists of whites, blacks, and innumerable shades of grey.
“you play almost as well as i sing,” she remarked, after we had gone through an entire volume of songs.
“you make me play well,” i said; “you are sympathetic. that’s a silly word—but you know what i mean.”
“but it’s really very heartless music,” said she; “it’s so sentimental, so insincere. it suits me. i can’t do the real things—not even the modern people—hugo wolfe, for example. the great men lacerate me so, and i don’t like being lacerated.”
“no,” said i mischievously, “you’d rather lacerate other people. your friend from oxford for example.”
“ah! lovelace, you mean. i thought you would be curious about him.”
“well, i confess it: i am curious.”
she laughed teasingly.
“if you wait long enough, you will find out everything. but there goes the first dinner-gong, and you’re not dressed.”
i hurried away to change. though i dressed as speedily as possible, the dinner had begun when i entered the dining-room. as i noticed that lovelace was bending low over the table at whi{269}ch miss langdon sat, and that she was speaking to him with some vehemence, i approached them very slowly and deliberately; even so, their conversation was not finished when i had sat down at my place.
“ ...and what happened to walter had nothing to do with me,” she protested, though she knew i was present; “and if it had—what then? am i to love all the men who love me? are men children that they require nurses?”
“no, madame,” he said. “will madame take thick or clear soup?”
“i will take no soup at all. write down your answer on a piece of paper and bring it with the entrée.”
he departed, white and trembling, and for a minute my sympathy was entirely with him.
“what surprises me,” i said to her, “is that you asked me always to sit at your table.”
though a minute previously she had been speaking passionately, almost angrily, to lovelace, she now turned to me a face at once gentle and beseeching.
“do you mind?” she asked.
“well—no. to be perfectly frank, you do make me feel a little uncomfortable. lovelace is a gentleman. even if he weren’t, i shouldn’t like to interrupt your private conversations with him.”
“but you don’t,” she protested.
“well, then, i don’t like overhearing them.”{270}
“that,” said she, “is unavoidable. believe me, you are doing me a kindness by sharing my table. if you didn’t sit there somebody else would—and i trust you. really, you are doing me a great kindness.”
“very well, then. if that is the case, i don’t mind—or, at all events, i shall try to mind as little as possible.”
presently, lovelace brought our entrées.
“where is my answer?” she asked.
without a moment’s pause, he replied:
“the answer, madame, is ‘no.’”
“but,” said she firmly, as though stating an incontrovertible fact, “but you will change your mind.”
when he had left our table, she turned to me with a smile.
“have you ever been in love?” she asked.
“well, i have often thought i was in love. but it soon passed. it always passes.”
she shook her head and smiled.
immediately after dinner she disappeared.
the night was ghostly with a swollen moon. looking from my bedroom window at about ten o’clock i saw white buildings with ink-black shadows. the streets were almost deserted. somebody out there was singing a restless song, and the restlessness of the music awakened in me an almost insufferable pain—an ache—a dark turbulence of the spirit. i felt my heart beating wildly, and in my soul there was a deep desire to scatter myself on the night. what was the matter? was i in love once more? and if so, with what?—with whom?... when one asks questions of this kind, one already knows the answers; nevertheless, one does not stop asking those questions. i was in love with her.{271}
i left my room and sought her vainly in the lounge and in the drawing-room. then i went to the deserted entrance-hall and thence to the open door. on the top step lovelace was standing irresolutely, his hat on. i stepped up to him.
“don’t go!” i said in a low voice.
it was a random shot, but it hit the mark.
“i don’t wish to,” he said, “but she draws and pulls.”
he was trembling violently.
“i thought of visiting the acropolis,” i said, though indeed i had no such thought.
“after dusk one requires a ticket to pass through the gates,” he said. “she is there. she will be standing like one of the caryatides, the moon on her face, hatless. and perhaps her feet will be bare.”
“oh, but this is madness!” i exclaimed. “what is she to you or you to her?”
“i wonder,” he answered helplessly. then, obeying an impulse he seemed unable to control, he held out a ticket.
“take this!” he said. “it will admit you through the gates. she will be waiting.”
“no,” said i. “it is you she wants.”
“but i can’t go. i may not. i daren’t. i told her i wouldn’t.”
and, with a deep sigh, he turned and walked into the hotel.
all that night i lay midway between reality and dreams. my se{272}nses mingled, and i knew not what was reality and what was phantasy. was it possible i should see her at breakfast next morning? was there really such a woman or had i imagined her? had i been dreaming these last thirty-six hours?
the spirit of her was in my brain and in my veins like a drug. at length i must have slept, for i heard whisperings and a voice of menace, and again a loud voice threatening mankind and me, and then voluptuous sighings and secret whisperings; m?nads rushed to and fro in ghostly meadows, and on them the moon poured golden blood; and then again the voice reached me and each word it uttered was like a heavy weight falling upon my bleeding heart.
i awoke and sat up in bed and:
“lovelace! lovelace!” i heard, or seemed to hear, breathed through the corridor.
“the huntress!” i exclaimed. “the authentic vampire! the incarnation of hungry sex!”
shuddering i rose, raised the blind and leant through the open window. the world outside was unreal: it brought me no solace. the houses were insubstantial; the solidity of my own body was incommunicable to my senses; all the world was an illusion; nothing existed save the brain that had placed things there....
a cold bath early next morning did little to restore my nerves to health. my soul was sick: it was covered with indestructible dust from the {273}vampire’s wings.
i arrived at our table before she did. lovelace brought me food. though his manner was calm, his face was deathly pale. had he, like myself, been agonized through the night? i spoke to him, and he looked into my eyes distrustfully.
“i am going to eleusis to-day,” i said. “can you get a few sandwiches made up for me? and some fruit and a bottle of wine?”
“yes, certainly. i will tell the head waiter. but be careful. don’t go into any of the cottages, for fever is raging there.”
“thanks, i won’t.... i say, lovelace.” i spoke low, and he bent down to catch my words. “lovelace, i say. tell me: what is the meaning of all this—of everything? do you not believe i am your friend?”
“but you love her!”
“or hate her!” i exclaimed. “which is it?”
“they are both the same,” he said.
and then, most quietly and with a wild m?nad-look in her eyes and about her lips, she sat down and:
“good morning, lovelace,” she said.
“good morning, madame.”
i could see that he was putting forth a great effort in order to master himself.
she turned to me and began to talk of the weather. with difficulty i met her gaze. yes, there was a wild look in her eyes; it was as though she had learned some secret in the night. though she sat quite calmly, she seemed to be shedding vitality all around her. her presence quickened me. and the sound of her voice was both a lure and an excitement.{274}
“i am going to eleusis to-day,” i told her, “but i shall be back for dinner.”
“and what do you expect to find there?”
“not very much, i’m afraid. just a heap of broken marble.”
“but underneath the marble are the mysteries—the eleusinian mysteries. do you know what they were?”
“no,” said i; “does any one?”
“yes: i do. they were sex mysteries. the ancient greeks worshipped woman in the form of a goddess. they sacrificed to her. in those days they feared women, and they were continually trying to propitiate them. but since then they have tamed my sex. only a few of us remain.”
“‘us'?” i queried.
“yes—the devastators—the women who have no use for a man once they have known him. you have heard of the marriage in the sky?”
i shook my head.
“the queen bee marries the best male of the hive high in the blue of heaven, out of sight. the ecstasy over, the male drops down to earth, dead. you will find it all in fabre.”
“yes? and then?”
“nothing—that’s the end of it.”
“was that the end of walter?” i asked, goaded on by i know not what. and, as she did not reply, i added: “is that to be the end of lovelace? is that why he is afraid of you{275}? do you carry about with you some evil spell?—some enchantment of death?”
she drew away from me a little and sat back in her chair.
“you are afraid of me,” she said.
“i think not,” i answered, “but you disturb my dreams. most horribly you disturb them.”
“so already it has begun to work on you,” she said with mild interest.
“have you cast a spell upon me?” i asked. “am i in a state of semi-hypnosis?”
“i have done nothing. it is not you whom i want. it is lovelace.”
i made but a scanty meal, and as i walked to the station i was resolved that miss langdon should not enter my thoughts all day. she had spoken the truth: i was afraid of her. i feared her as the drunkard fears alcohol, as the morphinomaniac fears his drug.
but who can command his thoughts when those thoughts have for their breeding-place senses that have been whipped to excitement by the invitation of sex? i was unhappy all day.
from eleusis i walked along a narrow track to the sea. i bathed, and then sat naked in the sun. again i bathed among the rocks, and once more sat gazing upon the blue islands and the purple islands and the green land near. no human being was in sight, no dwelling-place, no sign of life. even the sky was empty of birds.
it was not difficult for me to imagine it was two thousand years ago. then everything—sky, sea, and land—would appear exactly as {276}it did now. perhaps in those times men were wiser than they are to-day. true, mankind had collected and co-ordinated a few million facts unknown to the men and women who worshipped and sacrificed in the temple of demeter, but, after all, what are facts? are they not the very masks of truth, as a man’s face is the mask of his soul?...
almost could i see her in the divine temple, worshipped and feared.... woman enthroned; man on his knees, craving a boon. woman in league with nature: man nature’s victim. woman accepting; man giving....
i dressed, and ate the food i had brought with me. the wine enervated me, and soon i slept.
again she sent her thoughts to me, and my dreams were soaked through and through with her rapacious personality. i was being nailed down under a rich carpet in samarcand. in another room of the palace were proud music and rejoicings....
haunted myself by those dreams, i will not stain this page by recording them....
i awoke.
“if sleep means this,” i exclaimed aloud, “i’ll sleep no more.”
on my way back to athens i told myself that on the following day i would set out for corinth. i would escape. but i must see the parthenon first. i would borrow lovelace’s ticket and go to-night. there would be a moon....
there were no bounds{277} to my relief when lovelace, bringing me my soup at dinner-time told me, in answer to my inquiry, that miss langdon was resting.
“madame has a headache,” he said, “and will dine in her own room.”
immeasurable relief—yes! but profound disappointment and anxiety also!
what an unaccountable hunger mine was! love-hunger! the wish to love what one fears and perhaps hates!
“you look ill, lovelace,” i said.
“i am feeling ill,” he confessed.
“and so am i. not sick in body, but sick in soul.”
“i also,” he said.
“come nearer, lovelace. bend down. now—” i lowered my voice almost to a whisper—“won’t you tell me? please tell me.”
“it’s happened before in the world,” he said, “many times. keats wrote about it in his ‘la belle dame sans merci.’”
“but this is different,” i urged.
“no, i think not. it is much the same.”
“but that was poetry and this is madness.”
“all things are very much the same. even fire and water are not so much opposed as we sometimes believe, and i remember being taught at school that diamonds and charcoal are first cousins.”
“yes—but about walter. who was walter? what did she do to him?”
“she killed him,” said lovelace; “he shot him{278}self. he was my brother.”
“oh, do forgive me for asking you. i had no idea—i say, lovelace, i’m leaving to-morrow. i can’t stand it any longer.”
“you are very wise. i am going also.”
he moved away—this man who was a stranger to me, but whom i seemed to know so well.
i could eat very little, so i left the dining-room for the lounge, where i ordered a large brandy-and-soda. i stayed there smoking and drinking for some time, but she did not come, and, at length, i rose and sought lovelace. he was wandering about aimlessly in the hall.
“i’m going to the acropolis,” i said; “would you be so kind as to lend me your ticket—that is, if you are not going to use it yourself.”
he gave me a strange, inquiring look.
“certainly. i have it with me—here it is.”
i went alone, half hoping, wholly fearing, that miss langdon might be there.
passing the temple of jupiter, i walked up the steep road that winds along the side of the acropolis. nothing stirred. the moon seemed to be fixed in the sky by its own cold passion. the thick dust on the road looked like powdered silver. a few crickets chirped. up above, within the parthenon itself no doubt, a man was singing one of the dichterliebe. it was a night of intolerable heartache. my soul seemed to melt and diffuse itself through every part of my body....
i arrived at the gates and, refusing the proffered services of a guide, was admitted. above me the columns of the parthenon gleamed coldly in the light of the moon. i mounted the marble steps, reached t{279}he nearest column, and touched it. for a moment i felt soothed. sitting down, i pondered on that turn of fate which had brought me to athens, had directed me to that hotel, had guided me to that table. even here where i sat her spirit was about me. oh, if only she were there by my side! if only my lips were on hers and her hand on my heart!
almost suffocated with longing, i arose and wandered to and fro, looking at everything, but seeing nothing.
then, near the caryatides, i stumbled upon her. she was lying full-length on the ground.
“so you have come, victor,” she said.
for a moment i paused, breathless and afraid.
“no: it is i.”
“you?”
“lovelace lent me his ticket.”
“thinking he himself would escape?”
“i don’t know what he thought. i am not in lovelace’s confidence.”
“sit down by my side!” she commanded.
i dropped to the ground and lay down; my lips closed on hers; she rested in my arms. neither of us spoke; nor did we move. for some minutes we had remained thus, when i began to experience a sensation of vague discomfort which rapidly changed to one of fear. something inimical and powerful emanated from her body to mine. i withdrew my lips and she sought them with hers. i slackened my arms and hers tightened about me.
“let me go!” i exclaimed. “what are you? for god’s sake, let me go!”{280}
brutally i tore her arms away and flung her from me as a man would fling away a snake that had coiled round him in his sleep. she sighed deeply and moaned.
“pray do not leave me. i am ill.”
but i walked rapidly away, unheeding. in an instant she was with me, soft-footed, eager-eyed. she watched me as a panther watches its prey. her mouth smiled with mysterious knowledge, and her intuitive elflike hands were spread out before her. in my terror i imagined i could feel evil oozing from her pores.
“stay with me! love me!” she said in a voice of most treacherous music.
i turned upon her with arms upraised and fists clenched, threatening her, but she sank all shuddering upon my breast.
it was then that i was overcome by panic fear. tearing her from me, i ran to the entrance-gate, rushed down the pathway and on to the road, and escaped to the hotel. then i sought lovelace.
“here is your pass,” i said.
“ah, you have escaped! she was there?”
“it was an ‘escape’ then?” i asked. “she really is evil?”
“she is very much to be feared,” he said.
that night i slept not at all. i did not wish to sleep: i was afraid to surrender myself to the unknown. i kept my light burning and, to pass the {281}time, ruled many sheets of paper with the bass and treble clefs, and began to write down beethoven’s “sonate pathétique” from memory. strange how this noble music seemed to decay as it passed through my mind! strange how the familiar melodies were tinged with wickedness!...
night passed and dawn came early. at seven o’clock i rang my bell and when the chambermaid appeared i ordered my breakfast.
“will monsieur have it in his room?”
“no” said i. “i will have it downstairs in half an hour. please have my bill made out ready for me.”
the dining-room was deserted as i sat down. a waiter came.
“where is lovelace?” i asked.
the man hesitated a moment.
“where is lovelace?” i asked again; “i wish to see him before i leave.”
“lovelace, sir? monsieur will not betray my confidence?”
“no, no. what is it? what has happened?”
“we have orders not to speak of it. but lovelace was found dead in his bedroom an hour ago. he has shot himself.”
