Chapter II (1)

The morning of Mrs. Bergmann’s luncheon had arrived. She had asked thirteen men and nine women.

But an hour before luncheon an incident happened which nearly drove Mrs. Bergmann distracted. One of her guests, who was also one of her most intimate friends, Mrs. Lockton, telephoned to her saying she had quite forgotten, but she had asked on that day a man to luncheon whom she did not know, and who had been sent to her by Walford, the famous professor. She ended the message by saying she would bring the stranger with her.

“What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, not without intense irritation, meaning to put a veto on the suggestion.

“His name is----” and at that moment the telephone communication was interrupted, and in spite of desperate efforts Mrs. Bergmann was unable to get on to Mrs. Lockton again. She reflected that it was quite useless for her to send a message saying that she had no room at her table, because Angela Lockton would probably bring the stranger all the same. Then she further reflected that in the excitement caused by the presence of Shakespeare it would not really much matter whether there was a stranger there or not. A little before half-past one the guests began to arrive. Lord Pantry of Assouan, the famous soldier, was the first comer. He was soon followed by Professor Morgan, an authority on Greek literature; Mr. Peebles, the ex-Prime Minister; Mrs. Hubert Baldwin, the immensely popular novelist; the fascinating Mrs. Rupert Duncan, who was lending her genius to one of Ibsen’s heroines at that moment; Miss Medea Tring, one of the latest American beauties; Corporal, the portrait-painter; Richard Giles, critic and man of letters; Hereward Blenheim, a young and rising politician, who before the age of thirty had already risen higher than most men of sixty; Sir Horace Silvester, K.C.M.G., the brilliant financier, with his beautiful wife Lady Irene; Professor Leo Newcastle, the eminent man of science; Lady Hyacinth Gloucester, and Mrs. Milden, who were well known for their beauty and charm; Osmond Hall, the paradoxical playwright; Monsieur Faubourg, the psychological novelist; Count Sciarra, an Italian nobleman, about fifty years old, who had written a history of the Popes, and who was now staying in London; Lady Herman, the beauty of a former generation, still extremely handsome; and Willmott, the successful actor-manager. They were all assembled in the drawing-room upstairs, talking in knots and groups, and pervaded by a feeling of pleasurable excitement and expectation, so much so that conversation was intermittent, and nearly everybody was talking about the weather. The Right Hon. John Lockton, the eminent lawyer, was the last guest to arrive.

“Angela will be here in a moment,” he explained; “she asked me to come on first.”

Mrs. Bergmann grew restless. It was half-past one, and no Shakespeare. She tried to make her guests talk, with indifferent success. The expectation was too great. Everybody was absorbed by the thought of what was going to happen next. Ten minutes passed thus, and Mrs. Bergmann grew more and more anxious.

At last the bell rang, and soon Mrs. Lockton walked upstairs, leading with her a quite insignificant, ordinary-looking, middle-aged, rather portly man with shiny black hair, bald on the top of his head, and a blank, good-natured expression.

“I’m so sorry to be so late, Louise, dear,” she said. “Let me introduce Mr. ---- to you.” And whether she had forgotten the name or not, Mrs. Bergmann did not know or care at the time, but it was mumbled in such a manner that it was impossible to catch it. Mrs. Bergmann shook hands with him absent-mindedly, and, looking at the clock, saw that it was ten minutes to two.

“I have been deceived,” she thought to herself, and anger rose in her breast like a wave. At the same time she felt the one thing necessary was not to lose her head, or let anything damp the spirits of her guests.

“We’ll go down to luncheon directly,” she said. “I’m expecting some one else, but he probably won’t come till later.” She led the way and everybody trooped downstairs to the dining-room, feeling that disappointment was in store for them. Mrs. Bergmann left the place on her right vacant; she did not dare fill it up, because in her heart of hearts she felt certain Shakespeare would arrive, and she looked forward to a _coup de theatre_, which would be quite spoilt if his place was occupied. On her left sat Count Sciarra; the unknown friend of Angela Lockton sat at the end of the table next to Willmott.

The luncheon started haltingly. Angela Lockton’s friend was heard saying in a clear voice that the dust in London was very trying.

“Have you come from the country?” asked M. Faubourg. “I myself am just returned from Oxford, where I once more admired your admirable English lawns--_vos pelouses seculaires_.”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “I only came up to town to-day, because it seems indeed a waste and a pity to spend the finest time of the year in London.”

Count Sciarra, who had not uttered a word since he had entered the house, turned to his hostess and asked her whom she considered, after herself, to be the most beautiful woman in the room, Lady Irene, Lady Hyacinth, or Mrs. Milden?

“Mrs. Milden,” he went on, “has the smile of La Gioconda, and hands and hair for Leonardo to paint. Lady Gloucester,” he continued, leaving out the Christian name, “is English, like one of Shakespeare’s women, Desdemona or Imogen; and Lady Irene has no nationality, she belongs to the dream worlds of Shelley and D’Annunzio: she is the guardian Lady of Shelley’s ‘Sensitiva,’ the vision of the lily. ‘Quale un vaso liturgico d’argento.’ And you, madame, you take away all my sense of criticism. ‘Vous me troublez trop pour que je definisse votre genre de beaute.’”

Mrs. Milden was soon engaged in a deep tete-a-tete with Mr. Peebles, who was heard every now and then to say, “Quite, quite,” Miss Tring was holding forth to Silvester on French sculpture, and Silvester now and again said: “Oh! really!” in the tone of intense interest which his friends knew indicated that he was being acutely bored. Lady Hyacinth was discussing Socialism with Osmond Hall, Lady Herman was discussing the theory of evolution with Professor Newcastle, Mrs. Lockton, the question of the French Church, with Faubourg; and Blenheim was discharging molten fragments of embryo exordiums and perorations on the subject of the stage to Willmott; in fact, there was a general buzz of conversation.

“Have you been to see Antony and Cleopatra?” asked Willmott of the stranger.

“Yes,” said the neighbour, “I went last night; many authors have treated the subject, and the version I saw last night was very pretty. I couldn’t get a programme so I didn’t see who----”

“I think my version,” interrupted Willmott, with pride, “is admitted to be the best.”

“Ah! it is your version!” said the stranger. “I beg your pardon, I think you treated the subject very well.”

“Yes,” said Willmott, “it is ungrateful material, but I think I made something fine of it.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the stranger.

“Do tell us,” Mrs. Baldwin was heard to ask M. Faubourg across the table, “what the young generation are doing in France? Who are the young novelists?”

“There are no young novelists worth mentioning,” answered M. Faubourg.

Miss Tring broke in and said she considered “Le Visage Emerveille,” by the Comtesse de Noailles, to be the most beautiful book of the century, with the exception, perhaps, of the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen.”

But from the end of the table Blenheim’s utterance was heard preponderating over that of his neighbours. He was making a fine speech on the modern stage, comparing an actor-manager to Napoleon, and commenting on the campaigns of the latter in detail.

Quite heedless of this Mr. Willmott was carrying on an equally impassioned but much slower monologue on his conception of the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he said he intended to produce. “Cyrano,” he said, “has been maligned by Coquelin. Coquelin is a great artist, but he did not understand Cyrano. Cyrano is a dreamer, a poet; he is a martyr of thought like Tolstoi, a sacrifice to wasted, useless action, like Hamlet; he is a Moliere come too soon, a Bayard come too late, a John the Baptist of the stage, calling out in vain in the wilderness--of bricks and mortar; he is misunderstood;--an enigma, an anachronism, a premature herald, a false dawn.”

Count Sciarra was engaged in a third monologue at the head of the table. He was talking at the same time to Mrs. Bergmann, Lady Irene, and Lady Hyacinth about the devil. “Ah que j’aime le diable!” he was saying in low, tender tones. “The devil who creates your beauty to lure us to destruction, the devil who puts honey into the voice of the siren, the dolce sirena--

“Che i marinari in mezzo il mar dismaga”

(and he hummed this line in a sing-song two or three times over)--“the devil who makes us dream and doubt, and who made life interesting by persuading Eve to eat the silver apple--what would life have been if she had not eaten the apple? We should all be in the silly trees of the Garden of Eden, and I should be sitting next to you” (he said to Mrs. Bergmann), “without knowing that you were beautiful; que vous etes belle et que vous etes desirable; que vous etes puissante et caline, que je fais naufrage dans une mer d’amour--e il naufragio m’e dolce in questo mare--en un mot, que je vous aime.”

“Life outside the garden of Eden has many drawbacks,” said Mrs. Bergmann, who, although she was inwardly pleased by Count Sciarra’s remarks, saw by Lady Irene’s expression that she thought he was mad.

“Aucun ‘drawback,’” answered Sciarra, “n’egalerait celui de comtempler les divins contours feminins sans un frisson. Pensez donc si Madame Bergmann----”

“Count Sciarra,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, terrified of what was coming next, “do tell me about the book you are writing on Venice.”

Mrs. Lockton was at that moment discussing portraiture in novels with M. Faubourg, and during a pause Miss Tring was heard to make the following remark: “And is it true M. Faubourg, that ‘Cecile’ in ‘La Mauvaise Bonte’ is a portrait of some one you once loved and who treated you very badly?”

M. Faubourg, a little embarrassed, said that a creative artist made a character out of many originals.

Then, seeing that nobody was saying a word to his neighbour, he turned round and asked him if he had been to the Academy.

“Yes,” answered the stranger; “it gets worse every year doesn’t it?”

“But Mr. Corporal’s pictures are always worth seeing,” said Faubourg.

“I think he paints men better than women,” said the stranger; “he doesn’t flatter people, but of course his pictures are very clever.”

At this moment the attention of the whole table was monopolised by Osmond Hall, who began to discuss the scenario of a new play he was writing. “My play,” he began, “is going to be called ‘The King of the North Pole.’ I have never been to the North Pole, and I don’t mean to go there. It’s not necessary to have first-hand knowledge of technical subjects in order to write a play. People say that Shakespeare must have studied the law, because his allusions to the law are frequent and accurate. That does not prove that he knew law any more than the fact that he put a sea in Bohemia proves that he did not know geography. It proves he was a dramatist. He wanted a sea in Bohemia. He wanted lawyer’s ‘shop.’ I should do just the same thing myself. I wrote a play about doctors, knowing nothing about medicine: I asked a friend to give me the necessary information. Shakespeare, I expect, asked his friends to give him the legal information he required.”

Every allusion to Shakespeare was a stab to Mrs. Bergmann.

“Shakespeare’s knowledge of the law is very thorough,” broke in Lockton.

“Not so thorough as the knowledge of medicine which is revealed in my play,” said Hall.

“Shakespeare knew law by intuition,” murmured Willmott, “but he did not guess what the modern stage would make of his plays.”

“Let us hope not,” said Giles.

“Shakespeare,” said Faubourg, “was a psychologue; he had the power, I cannot say it in English, de deviner ce qu’il ne savait pas en puisant dans le fond et le trefond de son ame.”

“Gammon!” said Hall; “he had the power of asking his friends for the information he required.”

“Do you really think,” asked Giles, “that before he wrote ‘Time delves the parallel on beauty’s brow,’ he consulted his lawyer as to a legal metaphor suitable for a sonnet?”

“And do you think,” asked Mrs. Duncan, “that he asked his female relations what it would feel like to be jealous of Octavia if one happened to be Cleopatra?”

“Shakespeare was a married man,” said Hall, “and if his wife found the MSS. of his sonnets lying about he must have known a jealous woman.”

“Shakespeare evidently didn’t trouble his friends for information on natural history, not for a playwright,” said Hall. “I myself should not mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk. I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it suited the dramatic situation.”

The whole of this conversation was torture to Mrs. Bergmann.

“Shakespeare,” said Lady Hyacinth, “had a universal nature; one can’t help thinking he was almost like God.”

“That’s what people will say of me a hundred years hence,” said Hall; “only it is to be hoped they’ll leave out the ‘almost.’”

“Shakespeare understood love,” said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; “he knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I’m not sure that I could have resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare’s men is Othello. That’s a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It’s not wonderful that Othello didn’t see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course, Othello was a fool too.”

“Yes,” broke in Mrs. Lockton, “if Napoleon had married Desdemona he would have made Iago marry one of his sisters.”

“I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare’s heroines,” said Lady Hyacinth; “don’t you think so, Mr. Hall?”

“It’s easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a nigger,” answered Hall. “Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare would have started fair.”

“If only Shakespeare had lived later,” sighed Willmott, “and understood the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite differently.”

“If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels,” said Faubourg.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Baldwin, “I feel sure you are right there.”

“If Shakespeare had lived now,” said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, “we shouldn’t notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout le monde--like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg,” he added in a low voice.

“The problem about Shakespeare,” broke in Hall, “is not how he wrote his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the problem is--What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning to know how to do it? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years ago.”

“Perhaps,” said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, “he had made enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the country.”

Nobody took any notice of this remark.

“If Bacon was really the playwright,” said Lockton, “the problem is a very different one.”

“If Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays,” said Silvester, “they wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“There seems to me to be only one argument,” said Professor Morgan, “in favour of the Bacon theory, and that is that the range of mind displayed in Shakespeare’s plays is so great that it would have been child’s play for the man who wrote Shakespeare’s plays to have written the works of Bacon.”

“Yes,” said Hall, “but because it would be child’s play for the man who wrote my plays to have written your works and those of Professor Newcastle--which it would--it doesn’t prove that you wrote my plays.”

“Bacon was a philosopher,” said Willmott, “and Shakespeare was a poet--a dramatic poet; but Shakespeare was also an actor, an actor-manager, and only an actor-manager could have written the plays.”

“What do you think of the Bacon theory?” asked Faubourg of the stranger.

“I think,” said the stranger, “that we shall soon have to say eggs and Shakespeare instead of eggs and Bacon.”

This remark caused a slight shudder to pass through all the guests, and Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to prevent the stranger’s intrusion.

“Shakespeare wrote his own plays,” said Sciarra, “and I don’t know if he knew law, but he knew _le coeur de la femme_. Cleopatra bids her slave find out the colour of Octavia’s hair; that is just what my wife, my Angelica, would do if I were to marry some one in London while she was at Rome.”

“Mr. Gladstone used to say,” broke in Lockton, “that Dante was inferior to Shakespeare, because he was too great an optimist.”

“Dante was not an optimist,” said Sciarra, “about the future life of politicians. But I think they were both of them pessimists about man and both optimists about God.”

“Shakespeare,” began Blenheim; but he was interrupted by Mrs. Duncan who cried out:--

“I wish he were alive now and would write me a part, a real woman’s part. The women have so little to do in Shakespeare’s plays. There’s Juliet; but one can’t play Juliet till one’s forty, and then one’s too old to look fourteen. There’s Lady Macbeth; but she’s got nothing to do except walk in her sleep and say, ‘Out, damned spot!’ There were not actresses in his days, and of course it was no use writing a woman’s part for a boy.”

“You should have been born in France,” said Faubourg, “Racine’s women are created for you to play.”

“Ah! you’ve got Sarah,” said Mrs. Duncan, “you don’t want anyone else.”

“I think Racine’s boring,” said Mrs. Lockton, “he’s so artificial.”

“Oh! don’t say that,” said Giles, “Racine is the most exquisite of poets, so sensitive, so acute, and so harmonious.”

“I like Rostand better,” said Mrs. Lockton.

“Rostand!” exclaimed Miss Tring, in disgust, “he writes such bad verses--du caoutchouc--he’s so vulgar.”

“It is true,” said Willmott, “he’s an amateur. He has never written professionally for his bread but only for his pleasure.”

“But in that sense,” said Giles, “God is an amateur.”

“I confess,” said Peebles, “that I cannot appreciate French poetry. I can read Rousseau with pleasure, and Bossuet; but I cannot admire Corneille and Racine.”

“Everybody writes plays now,” said Faubourg, with a sigh.

“I have never written a play,” said Lord Pantry.

“Nor I,” said Lockton.

“But nearly everyone at this table has,” said Faubourg. “Mrs. Baldwin has written ‘Matilda,’ Mr. Giles has written a tragedy called ‘Queen Swaflod,’ I wrote a play in my youth, my ‘Le Menetrier de Parme’; I’m sure Corporal has written a play. Count Sciarra must have written several; have you ever written a play?” he said, turning to his neighbour, the stranger.

“Yes,” answered the stranger, “I once wrote a play called ‘Hamlet.’”

“You were courageous with such an original before you,” said Faubourg, severely.

“Yes,” said the stranger, “the original was very good, but I think,” he added modestly, “that I improved upon it.”

“Encore un faiseur de paradoxes!” murmured Faubourg to himself in disgust.

In the meantime Willmott was giving Professor Morgan the benefit of his views on Greek art, punctuated with allusions to Tariff Reform and devolution for the benefit of Blenheim.

Luncheon was over and cigarettes were lighted. Mrs. Bergmann had quite made up her mind that she had been cheated, and there was only one thing for which she consoled herself, and that was that she had not waited for luncheon but had gone down immediately, since so far all her guests had kept up a continuous stream of conversation, which had every now and then become general, though they still every now and then glanced at the empty chair and wondered what the coming attraction was going to be. Mrs. Milden had carried on two almost interrupted tete-a-tetes, first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. In fact everybody had talked, except the stranger, who had hardly spoken, and since Faubourg had turned away from him in disgust, nobody had taken any further notice of him.

Mrs. Baldwin, remarking this, good-naturedly leant across the table and asked him if he had come to London for the Wagner cycle.

“No,” he answered, “I came for the Horse Show at Olympia.”

At this moment Count Sciarra, having finished his third cigarette, turned to his hostess and thanked her for having allowed him to meet the most beautiful women of London in the most beautiful house in London, and in the house of the most beautiful hostess in London.

“J’ai vu chez vous,” he said, “le lys argente et la rose blanche, mais vous etes la rose ecarlate, la rose d’amour dont le parfum vivra dans mon coeur comme un poison dore (and here he hummed in a sing-song):--

‘Io son, cantava, Io son, dolce sirena’ Addio, dolce sirena.”

Then he suddenly and abruptly got up, kissed his hostess’s hand vehemently three times, and said he was very sorry, but he must hasten to keep a pressing engagement. He then left the room.

Mrs. Bergmann got up and said, “Let us go upstairs.” But the men had most of them to go, some to the House of Commons, others to fulfil various engagements.

The stranger thanked Mrs. Bergmann for her kind hospitality and left. And the remaining guests, seeing that it was obvious that no further attraction was to be expected, now took their leave reluctantly and went, feeling that they had been cheated.

Angela Lockton stayed a moment.

“Who were you expecting, Louise, dear?” she asked.

“Only an old friend,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “whom you would all have been very glad to see. Only as he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s in London, I couldn’t tell you all who he was.”

“But tell me now,” said Mrs. Lockton; “you know how discreet I am.”

“I promised not to, dearest Angela,” she answered; “and, by the way, what was the name of the man you brought with you?”

“Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me!” said Mrs. Lockton. “It’s a very easy name to remember: Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.”

FETE GALANTE

To Cecilia Fisher

“The King said that nobody had ever danced as I danced to-night,” said Columbine. “He said it was more than dancing, it was magic.”

“It is true,” said Harlequin, “you never danced like that before.”

But Pierrot paid no heed to their remarks, and stared vacantly at the sky. They were sitting on the deserted stage of the grass amphitheatre where they had been playing. Behind them were the clumps of cypress trees which framed a vista of endless wooden garden and formed their drop scene. They were sitting immediately beneath the wooden framework made of two upright beams and one horizontal, which formed the primitive proscenium, and from which little coloured lights had hung during the performance. The King and Queen and their lords and ladies who had looked on at the living puppet show had all left the amphitheatre; they had put on their masks and their dominoes, and were now dancing on the lawns, whispering in the alleys and the avenues, or sitting in groups under the tall dark trees. Some of them were in boats on the lake, and everywhere one went, from the dark boscages, came sounds of music, thin, tinkling tunes played on guitars by skilled hands, and the bird-like twittering and whistling of flageolets.

“The King said I looked like a moon fairy,” said Columbine to Pierrot. Pierrot only stared at the sky and laughed inanely. “If you persist in slighting me like this,” she whispered in his ear, in a whisper which was like a hiss, “I will abandon you for ever. I will give my heart to Harlequin, and you shall never see me again.” But Pierrot continued to stare at the sky, and laughed once more inanely. Then Columbine got up, her eyes flashing with rage; taking Harlequin by the arm she dragged him swiftly away. They danced across the grass semi-circle of the amphitheatre and up the steps away into the alleys. Pierrot was left alone with Pantaloon, who was asleep, for he was old and clowning fatigued him. Then Pierrot left the amphitheatre also, and putting a black mask on his face he joined the revellers who were everywhere dancing, whispering, talking, and making music in subdued tones. He sought out a long lonely avenue, in one side of which there nestled, almost entirely concealed by bushes and undergrowth, a round open Greek temple. Right at the end of the avenue a foaming waterfall splashed down into a large marble basin, from which a tall fountain rose, white and ghostly, and made a sobbing noise. Pierrot went towards the temple, then he turned back and walked right into the undergrowth through the bushes, and lay down on the grass, and listened to the singing of the night-jar. The whole garden that night seemed to be sighing and whispering; there was a soft warm wind, and a smell of mown hay in the air, and an intoxicating sweetness came from the bushes of syringa. Columbine and Harlequin also joined the revellers. They passed from group to group, with aimless curiosity, pausing sometimes by the artificial ponds and sometimes by the dainty groups of dancers, whose satin and whose pearls glimmered faintly in the shifting moonlight, for the night was cloudy. At last they too were tired of the revel, they wandered towards a more secluded place and made for the avenue which Pierrot had sought. On their way they passed through a narrow grass walk between two rows of closely cropped yew hedges. There on a marble seat a tall man in a black domino was sitting, his head resting on his hands; and between the loose folds of his satin cloak, one caught the glint of precious stones. When they had passed him Columbine whispered to Harlequin: “That is the King. I caught sight of his jewelled collar.” They presently found themselves in the long avenue at the end of which were the waterfall and the fountain. They wandered on till they reached the Greek temple, and there suddenly Columbine put her finger on her lips. Then she led Harlequin back a little way and took him round through the undergrowth to the back of the temple, and, crouching down in the bushes, bade him look. In the middle of the temple there was a statue of Eros holding a torch in his hands. Standing close beside the statue were two figures, a man dressed as a Pierrot, and a beautiful lady who wore a grey satin domino. She had taken off her mask and pushed back the hood from her hair, which was encircled by a diadem made of something shining and silvery, and a ray of moonlight fell on her face, which was as delicate as the petal of a flower. Pierrot was masked; he was holding her hand and looking into her eyes, which were turned upwards towards his.

“It is the Queen!” whispered Columbine to Harlequin. And once more putting her finger on her lips, she deftly led him by the hand and noiselessly threaded her way through the bushes and back into the avenue, and without saying a word ran swiftly with him to the place where they had seen the King. He was still there, alone, his head resting upon his hands.

* * * * *

In the temple the Queen was upbraiding her lover for his temerity in having crossed the frontier into the land from which he had been banished for ever, and for having dared to appear at the court revel disguised as Pierrot. “Remember,” she was saying, “the enemies that surround us, the dreadful peril, and the doom that awaits us.” And her lover said: “What is doom, and what is death? You whispered to the night and I heard. You sighed and I am here!” He tore the mask from his face, and the Queen looked at him and smiled. At that moment a rustle was heard in the undergrowth, and the Queen started back from him, whispering: “We are betrayed! Fly!” And her lover put on his mask and darted through the undergrowth, following a path which he and no one else knew, till he came to an open space where his squire awaited him with horses, and they galloped away safe from all pursuit.

Then the King walked into the temple and led the Queen back to the palace without saying a word; but the whole avenue was full of dark men bearing torches and armed with swords, who were searching the undergrowth. And presently they found Pierrot who, ignorant of all that had happened, had been listening all night to the song of the night-jar. He was dragged to the palace and cast into a dungeon, and the King was told. But the revel did not cease, and the dancing and the music continued softly as before. The King sent for Columbine and told her she should have speech with Pierrot in his prison, for haply he might have something to confess to her. And Columbine was taken to Pierrot’s dungeon, and the King followed her without her knowing it, and concealed himself behind the door, which he set ajar.

Columbine upbraided Pierrot and said: “All this was my work. I have always known that you loved the Queen. And yet for the sake of past days, tell me the truth. Was it love or a joke, such as those you love to play?”

Pierrot laughed inanely. “It was a joke,” he said. “It is my trade to make jokes. What else can I do?”

“You love the Queen nevertheless,” said Columbine, “of that I am sure, and for that I have had my revenge.”

“It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed again.

And though she talked and raved and wept, she could get no other answer from him. Then she left him, and the King entered the dungeon.

“I have heard what you said,” said the King, “but to me you must tell the truth. I do not believe it was you who met the Queen in the temple; tell me the truth, and your life shall be spared.”

“It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed. Then the King grew fierce and stormed and threatened. But his rage and threats were in vain! for Pierrot only laughed. Then the King appealed to him as man to man and implored him to tell him the truth; for he would have given his kingdom to believe that it was the real Pierrot who had met the Queen and that the adventure had been a joke. Pierrot only repeated what he had said, and laughed and giggled inanely.

At dawn the prison door was opened and three masked men led Pierrot out through the courtyard into the garden. The revellers had gone home, but here and there lights still twinkled and flickered and a stray note or two of music was still heard. Some of the latest of the revellers were going home. The dawn was grey and chilly; they led Pierrot through the alleys to the grass amphitheatre, and they hanged him on the horizontal beam which formed part of the primitive proscenium where he and Columbine had danced so wildly in the night. They hanged him and his white figure dangled from the beam as though he were still dancing; and the new Pierrot, who was appointed the next day, was told that such would be the fate of all mummers who went too far, and whose jokes and pranks overstepped the limits of decency and good breeding.

THE GARLAND

The _Referendarius_ had three junior clerks to carry on the business of his department, and they in their turn were assisted by two scribes, who did most of the copying and kept the records. The work of the Department consisted in filing and annotating the petitions and cases which were referred from the lower Courts, through the channel of the _Referendarius_, to the Emperor.

The three clerks and their two scribes occupied a high marble room in the spacious office. It was as yet early in April, but, nevertheless, the sun out of doors was almost fierce. The high marble rooms of the office were cool and stuffy at the same time, and the spring sunshine without, the soft breeze from the sea, the call of the flower-sellers in the street, and the lazy murmur of the town had, in these shaded, musty, and parchment-smelling halls, diffused an atmosphere of laziness which inspired the clerks in question with an overwhelming desire to do nothing.

There was, indeed, no pressing work on hand. Only from time to time the _Referendarius_, who occupied a room to himself next door to theirs, would communicate with them through a hole in the wall, demanding information on some point or asking to be supplied with certain documents. Then the clerks would make a momentary pretence of being busy, and ultimately the scribes would find either the documents or the information which were required.

As it was, the clerks were all of them engaged in occupations which were remote from official work. The eldest of them, Cephalus by name--a man who was distinguished from the others by a certain refined sobriety both in his dark dress and in his quiet demeanour--was reading a treatise on algebra; the second, Theophilus, a musician, whose tunic was as bright as his flaming hair, was mending a small organ; and the third, Rufinus, a rather pale, short-sighted, and untidy youth, was scribbling on a tablet. The scribes were busy sorting old records and putting them away in their permanent places.

Presently an official strolled in from another department. He was a middle-aged, corpulent, and cheerful-looking man, dressed in gaudy coloured tissue, on which all manner of strange birds were depicted. He was bursting with news.

“Phocas is going to win,” he said. “It is certain.”

Cephalus looked vaguely up from his book and said: “Oh!”

Theophilus and Rufinus paid no attention to the remark.

“Well,” continued the new-comer cheerfully, “Who will come to the races with me?”

As soon as he heard the word races, Rufinus looked up from his scribbling. “I will come,” he said, “if I can get leave.”

“I did not know you cared for that sort of thing,” said Cephalus.

Rufinus blushed and murmured something about going every now and then. He walked out of the room, and sought the _Referendarius_ in the next room. This official was reading a document. He did not look up when Rufinus entered, but went on with his reading. At last, after a prolonged interval, he turned round and said: “What is it?”

“May I go to the races?” asked Rufinus.

“Well,” said the high official, “what about your work?”

“We’ve finished everything,” said the clerk.

The Head of the Department assumed an air of mystery and coughed.

“I don’t think I can very well see my way to letting you go,” he said. “I am very sorry,” he added quickly, “and if it depended on me you should go at once. But He,” he added--he always alluded to the Head of the Office as He--“does not like it. He may come in at any moment and find you gone. No; I’m afraid I can’t let you go to-day. Now, if it had been yesterday you could have gone.”

“I should only be away an hour,” said Rufinus, tentatively.

“He might choose just that hour to come round. If it depended only on me you should go at once,” and he laughed and slapped Rufinus on the back, jocularly.

The clerk did not press the point further.

“You’d better get on with that index,” said the high official as Rufinus withdrew.

He told the result of his interview to his sporting friend, who started out by himself to the Hippodrome.

Rufinus settled down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least. It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him. He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes, adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with broad purple; he saw the Generals with their barbaric officers--Bulgarians, Persians, Arabs, Slavs--the long line of savage-looking prisoners in their chains, and the golden breastplates of the standard-bearers. He saw the immense silk _velum_ floating in the azure air over that rippling sea of men, those hundreds of thousands who swarmed on the marble steps of the Hippodrome. He saw the Emperor in his high-pillared box, on his circular throne of dull gold, surrounded by slaves fanning him with jewel-coloured plumes, and fenced round with golden swords.

And opposite him, on the other side of the Stadium, the Empress, mantled in a stiff pontifical robe, laden with heavy embroidered stuffs, her little head framed like a portrait in a square crown of gold and diamonds, whence chains of emeralds hung down to her breast; motionless as an idol, impassive as a gilded mummy.

He saw the crowd of gorgeous women, grouped like Eastern flowers around her: he saw one woman. He saw one form as fresh as a lily of the valley, all white amidst that hard metallic splendour; frail as a dewy anemone, slender as the moist narcissus. He saw one face like the chalice of a rose, and amidst all those fiery jewels two large eyes as soft as dark violets. And the sumptuous Court, the plumes, the swords, the standards, the hot, vari-coloured crowd melted away and disappeared, so that when the Emperor rose and made the sign of the Cross over his people, first to the right, and then to the left, and thirdly over the half-circle behind him, and the singers of Saint Sofia and the Church of the Holy Apostles mingled their bass chant with the shrill trebles of the chorus of the Hippodrome, to the sound of silver organs, he thought that the great hymn of praise was rising to her and to her alone; and that men had come from the uttermost parts of the earth to pay homage to her, to sing her praise, to kneel to her--to her, the wondrous, the very beautiful: peerless, radiant, perfect.

A voice, followed by a cough, called from the hole in the wall; but Rufinus paid no heed, so deeply sunk was he in his vision.

“Rufinus, the Chief is calling you,” said Cephalus.

Rufinus started, and hurried to the hole in the wall. The Head of the Department gave him a message for an official in another department.

Rufinus hurried with the message downstairs and delivered it. On his way back he passed the main portico on the ground floor. He walked out into the street: it was empty. Everybody was at the games.

A dark-skinned country girl passed him singing a song about the swallow and the spring. She was bearing a basket full of anemones, violets, narcissi, wild roses, and lilies of the valley.

“Will you sell me your flowers?” he asked, and he held out a silver coin.

“You are welcome to them,” said the girl. “I do not need your money.”

He took the flowers and returned to the room upstairs. The flowers filled the stuffy place with an unwonted and wonderful fragrance.

Then he sat down and appeared to be once more busily engrossed in his index. But side by side with the index he had a small tablet, and on this, every now and then, he added or erased a word to a short poem. The sense of it was something like this:--

Rhodocleia, flowers of spring
I have woven in a ring;
Take this wreath, my offering, Rhodocleia.

Here’s the lily, here the rose
Her full chalice shall disclose;
Here’s narcissus wet with dew,
Windflower and the violet blue.
Wear the garland I have made;
Crowned with it, put pride away;
For the wreath that blooms must fade;
Thou thyself must fade some day, Rhodocleia.

THE SPIDER’S WEB

To K. L.

He heard the bell of the Badia sound hour after hour, and still sleep refused its solace. He got up and looked through the narrow window. The sky in the East was soft with that luminous intensity, as of a melted sapphire, that comes just before the dawn. One large star was shining next to the paling moon. He watched the sky as it grew more and more transparent, and a fresh breeze blew from the hills. It was the second night that he had spent without sleeping, but the weariness of his body was as nothing compared with the aching emptiness which possessed his spirit. Only three days ago the world had seemed to him starred and gemmed like the Celestial City--an enchanted kingdom, waiting like a sleeping Princess for the kiss of the adventurous conqueror; and now the colours had faded, the dream had vanished, the sun seemed to be deprived of his glory, and the summer had lost its sweetness.

His eye fell upon some papers which were lying loose upon his table. There was an unfinished sonnet which he had begun three days ago. The octet was finished and the first two lines of the sestet. He would never finish it now. It had no longer any reason to be; for it was a cry to ears which were now deaf, a question, an appeal, which demanded an answering smile, a consenting echo; and the lips, the only lips which could frame that answer, were dumb. He remembered that Casella, the musician, had asked him a week ago for the text of a _canzone_ which he had repeated to him one day. He had promised to let him have it. The promise had entirely gone out of his mind. Then he reflected that because the ship of his hopes and dreams had been wrecked there was no reason why he should neglect his obligations to his fellow-travellers on the uncertain sea.

He sat down and transcribed by the light of the dawn in his exquisite handwriting the stanzas which had been the fruit of a brighter day. And the memory of this dead joy was exceedingly bitter to him, so that he sat musing for some time on the unutterable sadness which the ghosts of perished joys bring to man in his misery, and a line of Virgil buzzed in his brain; but not, as of yore, did it afford him the luxury of causeless melancholy, but like a cruel finger it touched his open wound. The ancients, he thought, knew how to bear misfortune.

Levius fit patientia
Quidquid corrigere est nefas.

As the words occurred to him he thought how much better equipped he was for the bitter trial, since had he not the certain hope of another life, and of meeting his beloved in the spaces of endless felicity? Surely then he should be able to bear his sorrow with as great a fortitude as the pagan poets, who looked forward to nothing but the dust; to whom the fabled dim country beyond the Styx was a cheerless dream, and to whom a living dog upon the earth was more worthy of envy than the King of all Elysium. He must learn of the ancients.

The magic of the lemon-coloured dawn had vanished now before the swift daylight. Many bells were ringing in the city, and the first signs of life were stirring in the streets. He searched for a little book, and read of the consolation which Cicero gave to Laelius in the _De Amicitia_. But he had not read many lines before he closed the book. His wound was too fresh for the balm of reason and philosophy.

“Later,” he thought, “this will strengthen and help me, but not to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was and to-day she is not.”

He felt a desire to escape from his room, which had been the chapel of such holy prayers, the shrine where so many fervent tapers of hope had burnt, where so sweet an incense of dream had risen. He left his room and hurried down the narrow stone stairs into the street. As he left the house he turned to his right and walked on till he reached Or San Michele; there he turned to his right again and walked straight on till he reached the churches of Santa Reparata and San Giovanni. He entered San Giovanni and said a brief prayer; then he took the nearest street, east of Santa Reparata, to the Porta a ballo, and found himself beyond the walls of the city. He walked towards Fiesole.

The glory of the sunrise was still in the sky, the fragrance of the dawning summer (it was the 11th of June) was in the air. He walked towards the East. The corn on the hills was green, and pink wild roses fringed every plot of wheat. The grass was wet with dew. The city glittered in the plain beneath, clean and fresh in the dazzling air; it seemed a part of the pageant of summer, an unreal piece of imagery, distinct and clear-cut, yet miraculous, like a mirage seen in mid-ocean. “Truly,” he thought, “this is the city of the flower, and the lily is its fitting emblem.”

But while his heart went out towards his native town he felt a sharp pang as he remembered that the flower of flowers, the queen of the lilies, had been mowed down by the scythe, and the city which to him had heretofore been an altar was now a tomb. The lovely Virgilian dirge,

Manibus date lilia plenis . . .
His saltem accumulem donis et fungar inani
Munere,

rang in his ears, and he thought that he too must bring a gift and scatter lilies on her grave; handfuls of lilies; but they must be unfading flowers, wet with immortal tears. He pondered on this gift. It must be a gift of song, a temple built in verse. But he was still unsatisfied. No dirge, however tender and solemn; no elegy, however soft and majestic; no song, however piteous, could be a sufficient offering for the glorious being who had died in her youth and beauty. But what could he fashion or build? He thought with envy of Arnolfo and of Giotto: the one with his bricks could have built a tomb which would prove to be one of the wonders of the world, and the other with his brush could have fixed her features for ever, for the wonder of future generations. And yet was not his instrument the most potent of all, his vehicle the most enduring? Stones decayed, and colours faded, but verse remained, outliving bronze and marble. Yes, his monument should be more lasting than all the masterpieces of Giotto, than all the proud designs of Arnolfo; but how should it be?

He had reached a narrow lane at the foot of a steep hill covered with corn and dotted with olives. He lay down under a hedge in the shade. The sun was shining on two large bramble bushes which grew on the hedge opposite him. Above him, on his right, was a tall cypress tree standing by itself, and the corn plots stretched up behind him till they reached the rocky summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds. Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that he must grow and gather and lay upon her tomb.

The spider’s web caught his eye, and from where he lay the sight was marvellous. The spider seemed like a small globe of fire in the midst of a number of concentric silvery lines studded with dewy gems; it was like a miniature sun in the midst of a system of gleaming stars. The delicate web with its shining films and dewdrops seemed to him as he lay there to be a vision of the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars revolving around the central orb of light. It was as though a veil had been torn away and he were looking on the naked glory of the spheres, the heart of Heaven, the very home of God.

He looked and looked, his whole spirit filled with ineffable awe and breathless humility. He lay gazing on the chance miracle of nature till a passing cloud obscured the sun, and the spider’s web wore once more its ordinary appearance. Then he arose with tears in his eyes and gave a great sigh of thankfulness.

“I have found it,” he thought, “I will say of her what has never yet been said of any woman. I will paint all Hell, all Purgatory, and all that is in them, to make more glorious the glory of her abode, and I will reveal to man that glory. I will show her in the circle of spotless flame, among the rivers and rings of eternal light, which revolve around the inmost heart, the fiery rose, and move obedient to the Love which moves the sun.” And his thought shaped itself into verse and he murmured to himself:

L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.

EDWARD II. AT BERKELEY CASTLE BY AN EYE-WITNESS (With apologies to Mr. H. Belloc)

The King had not slept for three nights. He looked at his face in the muddy pool of water which had settled in the worn flagstones of his prison floor, and noticed that his beard was of a week’s growth. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. In the room next door, which was the canteen, the soldiers were playing on a drum. Over the tall hills the dawn was ruffling the clouds. There was a faint glimmer on the waters of the river. The footsteps of the gaolers were heard on the outer rampart. At seven o’clock they brought the King a good dinner: they allowed him burgundy from France, and yellow mead, and white bread baked in the ovens of the Abbey, although he was constrained to drink out of pewter, and plates were forbidden him. Eustace, his page, timidly offered him music. The King bade him sing the “Lay of the Sussex Lass,” which begins thus:

Triumphant, oh! triumphant now she stands,
Above my Sussex, and above my sea!
She stretches out her thin ulterior hands
Across the morning . . .

But the King, to whom memories were portentous, called for another song and Eustace sang a stave of that ballad which was made on the Pyrenees, and which is still unfinished (for the modern world has no need of these things), telling of how Lord Raymond drank in a little tent with Charlemagne:

Enormous through the morning the tall battalions run:
The men who fought with Charlemagne are very dearly done;
The wine is dark beneath the night, the stars are in the sky,
The hammer’s in the blacksmith’s hand in case he wants to try.
We’ll ride to Fontarabia, we’ll storm the stubborn wall,
And I call.

And Uriel and his Seraphim are hammering a shield;
And twice along the valley has the horn of Roland pealed;
And Cleopatra on the Nile, Iseult in Brittany,
And Lancelot in Camelot, and Drake upon the sea;
And behind the young Republic are the fellows with the flag,
And I brag!