'Twixt Dog and Wolf (Valancourt Classics) Read online

  But one man passed far above these things, too far for sight. He yet made, had there been any to behold him, a single dark stain upon the unapproachable whiteness of the snow. But his face, ever lifted towards the moon, showed the paleness of the planet; and in each of his eyes she saw herself.

  To his fellows below he was a man distraught. The beings of the height, the storms which sat musing with ready wings in the clefts of the mountains, the avalanche which stood rapt poising a glittering spear watched him struggle on, and neither waved him back nor gave him welcome. Only the moon might seem to beckon him onward; for once she bowed her head through the veil edged with rainbow. The genii of the frost and snow looked at one another as he clambered onwards and mutely made him the sign of warning—might he but understand. Only on one condition may mortal men venture among these demons of the Alps.

  The man distraught climbed up and up, for he thought that at the highest point he should see the moon unveiled and eye to eye.

  And almost now had he begun the last ascent when the moon deepened her veil, and imposing black upon black she hid her face.

  Then it seemed to the alp wanderer that she fled from him, and he cried aloud to the goddess. Below the mandrake under the hand of the witch gave forth the yell which draws men to madness. Penthesilea struck blood from her breast, and hellebore forgot to breathe into the darkened air.

  Alas! At a sign the musing winds arose. With horrid cries they swept up with their wings white tornadoes which danced like witches in the chill air. Avalanche sprang from his peak, hurling his spear before him as he leapt. His white shaft struck the rash adventuring man.

  The moon uncovered her face. No more did any stain of blackness mar the eternal snows. No more, for ever, did she behold her face reflected as but then in human eyes.

  II—Destination

  Those steps approaching and approaching along my dark passage, wooden gallery call it, like the between decks of some huge old hull, wooden above, wooden on both sides, wooden beneath; how they echo! Always they draw nearer and nearer to my atelier[1] door (why will they not make for one of the other studios?), yet never reaching it. No, never reaching it, though I should wait for them an hour. But there is no use in waiting. Anybody would know that they meant a summons. What the late tenant of my studio did when he heard them I need not guess. Did he ever hear them? or have they now come for the first time?

  It was a winter afternoon, with even some attempts at sleeting; and already the shadows were beginning to collect in groups in the corners, in doorways. There was quite a regiment of them drawn up in the Rue de Grenelle.

  It was in the Rue de Grenelle, which, except for the shadows, I had to myself, that I heard my own footsteps following and going in front of me all at once: even when I stopped they went on. The next thing I saw was a fat boy in a black tablier[2] and a leathern belt crying by himself in an archway. After that I was not, of course, surprised, when I crossed over to look in at the armourer’s in the Rue des Saints-Pères, to see in the midst of the Francis I shield in the window, instead of the gorgon’s head which ought to have been there, my own face very neatly carved in bronze.

  At the corner of the Rue de Rennes I found a conveyance without coachman or horses making its way up the street, so I got in. Now, a great number of years ago—I was returning from my first visit to France—I met in the train a fellow countryman in the fruit-dealing interest, whose business had taken him to the Channel Islands and Normandy, and his pleasure or adventure to Paris. As he knew scarce a word of the French he contrived, as he explained to me, this method of seeing the town: he mounted on the top of any public vehicle which was passing, and simply said the word destination, and so stayed undisturbed till he came to the journey’s end. The sudden recollection of the fruit merchant suggested to me my course of procedure. Wherefore I had no sooner got inside the conveyance and shut the door behind me than I pronounced this word, destination, though, had I thought of it, there was neither driver nor conductor to pay attention to my wishes.

  The word had some effect, however. For among the figures in the dark interior there went round a light titter, and I very distinctly heard some one say—though I cannot, in looking back, declare whether it was uttered in French or English—‘Ah, yes, that is where we are all bound.’

  The vehicle was not a large one, and was not lighted—at any rate not properly, for I could hardly see the persons I was close to. But it seemed to be almost choke-full. The only fellow travellers I did take note of were a man and a woman seated side by side at the top end. Not so much that I distinctly saw them as that, feeling a little ashamed, I think, of the titter which had gone round at my expense, they gave a slight apologetic bow in my direction, and I bowed back.

  While I was taking in all these things at my leisure, we certainly ought to have arrived at the top of the Rue de Rennes. This, at least, I was momentarily expecting at first. I was too tightly wedged in to turn and look, and there must have been a thickish sleet or snow falling now, for the windows were encrusted by it. I saw no lights of shops or gas lamps. We had gone straight on. Surely by this time we should have arrived at the Montparnasse terminus? For you know that the Gare de Montparnasse shuts in all the southern end of the Place de Rennes, into which the Rue de Rennes debouches from the northern side. Or had we reversed a feat of a Western Railway locomotive not long since; and, as that jumped through one of the windows of Montparnasse Station into the Place, had we jumped from the latter into the Station, and got thence by rail into the open country?

  Not by rail: that at least was clear. The jog-jog and grind-grind of the roadway were still beneath us. But were we going on for ever? Surely there were trees visible at the side; nay, by glimpses, what looked like a whole snowy landscape. How cold it was! How thickly the snow coated the window panes! Now I think of it, it had been a mild, humid day until the time when I went out for a second while and found myself presently in the Rue de Grenelle. Well, in for a penny in for a pound! There was something inexpressibly fascinating in the suggestion of those high swaying trees, of that snowy landscape. Besides, was it not the night of St. Sylvester?

  One reason why the conveyance was colder than it had been was that there were so much fewer people in it. Why I had not noticed this earlier I do not know. For, instinctively, I had taken advantage of the fact to wedge myself nearer and nearer the upper end of the car, away from the door. Wherefore now I was no distance from the old gentleman and lady who had first made a motion towards me. I say ‘old’: I judged them so from their figures, their faces I could hardly see. They seemed quite ready for me to speak to them, and I did so. Whether we talked in English or in French I vow I cannot recall.

  We exchanged the usual banalities. Presently the old gentleman said: ‘I was glad to see you get in—we were glad to see you get in.’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ the lady assented, and gave a little sigh.

  ‘It is so much more comfortable when people once make up their minds to do it.’ This from her neighbour.

  ‘O, as for that,’ I said, ‘there was no making up my mind in my case——’

  ‘No, of course,’ the man put in. ‘That is a mere façon de parler.’[3]

  ‘I got in by mere accident——’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he interrupted again.

  ‘And in the impulse of the moment.’

  Once again I heard what I might call the ghost of a titter going round the carriage. But not, so far as I could detect, from either of my interlocutors. The man only gave a vague motion of assent.

  ‘And I haven’t a notion of how long I shall stay or where I am going to.’

  ‘Chutch—chutch.’ That certainly came from the old gentleman. There had been once more the thinnest ghost of a laugh from the other travellers.

  ‘Yet I thought you mentioned the place?’ he queried urbanely.

  ‘The
place? O—ah, yes. I said Destination. But that was only a—’ ‘joke’ I had been going to say, and then to tell him the story of my Northumbrian fruit merchant. But somehow before I ever arrived at that word ‘joke’ I heard so distinctly, somewhere at the back of my head (for I will swear there was complete silence on behalf of my fellow passengers) the phrase ‘O, yes: we all came here only for a joke’: and at the end of the response the same laugh that I had already listened to three times, and which was beginning to grow disagreeable to me—I heard all these things, I say, so plainly by anticipation, that I stopped suddenly with my sentence unfinished.

  Then the old lady for the first time opened the conversation. She seemed to be a rather sentimental personage with a tendency to sigh:—‘It is so interesting that you should be travelling with us again.’

  ‘Again?’ I put in.

  ‘Yes, it is indeed,’ the man said, as speaking to his neighbour. And then, turning to me: ‘And in my opinion it’s greatly to your credit.’

  ‘Of course I say the same,’ the woman said.

  Now we none of us like to disown a thing which is esteemed greatly to our credit. Still after a diplomatic hesitation truth, or curiosity, got the better of me. ‘But I don’t—I haven’t the honour,’ I was beginning.

  ‘O come, come!’ cried the man, ‘you won’t pretend you do not know my voice?’

  ‘Well, I must confess its tones are familiar. But I couldn’t add a name to them.’

  ‘Do you go so far as to say you would not know me again?’ And this time the man spoke with a hint of severity.

  ‘Or me?’ said the sentimental old lady in a slightly espiègle[4] manner.

  ‘Why, y—yes,’ I stammered, ‘I do know you if it comes to that. I—I know you quite well though you’re changed. You are——’

  ‘Your First Love and your First Ambition.’ The two elderly people spoke almost in unison, and bowed towards me as they spoke.

  Now, I confess that up to that moment, though the man I had been inclined to like from the first, I had been three parts disposed to think his companion some flighty middle-aged matron or maid. But the longer I looked at her kindly face, somewhat wrinkled though it was, and her serene blue eyes, the less and less was I ready to confirm my earlier judgment. Nay, before a minute had gone by I found a great rush of friendliness, not to say, tenderness, in my feelings towards both these two elderly creatures, who sat so bravely and uprightly side by side, and seemed to support the fatigues of the jolty conveyance, the cold of the night, so well. For, though I was no longer acutely conscious of things outside, we must by now have got—how I cannot guess—far away into the bleak, open country. I had a second consciousness of a great plain, such as are common enough in France. It was shrouded in snow, and the wind blew across it keenly; and everywhere ice was crunching in the streams and canals. I had a secondary consciousness of these things, though distinctly recognise them I could not. My first thoughts were all taken up by the two nearly opposite me, and in that sudden inrush of softness in the direction of both whereof I have spoken, I held out a hand to each. ‘Now we have met once more,’ I exclaimed heartily, ‘we’ll travel on to the—to the “destination.” ’ ‘But couldn’t I,’ I thought, ‘get a seat right opposite you?’ And I moved as if to go one place higher up.

  ‘Hardly that!’ I don’t know to this day whether the man spoke in answer to my word or to my act. ‘This seat is occupied,’ he went on. And, indeed, the very while that he spoke I seemed to see a shadowy form in that last chair at the extreme end of the conveyance. The dim light or something else had prevented my seeing before that it was taken.

  ‘You must present him,’ the old lady said, and she sighed once again.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the man; and, though he spoke with a great show of cheerfulness, I fancied the tone was a thought forced. ‘Yes, I must make you known to one another. This,’—and as he spoke he waved his hand towards the dim figure in the last chair—‘is your last love and your last ambition. And his name is Père La Chaise.’[5]

  III—The Puppet Show

  ‘Well, they’ve put poor Gribble into his box.’ He heard that in fancy as distinctly as with actual ears—spoken at his club, the Windham. And though he had not been previously notable for a sense of humour, this sentence made him almost burst with laughter.

  ‘Into his box, that’s just it! Such a delightful idea! Put yourself into a box like a toy.’ It was the Thought at his Elbow which said that. But the testator laughed till he almost crowed at the notion.

  To be a toy—the very summit of ambition. The most delightful thing imaginable, a toy among toys. ‘A toy of the right sort,’ said the Thought at his Elbow, ‘such as that, for instance.’ And, by Heaven, it was a toy of toys.

  Who could have believed it was possible to make houses with such an exactitude in every detail as those which towered up, enclosing a paved court? Every stone, and a few chance blades of grass at one corner where a paving stone had been a little displaced; nay, almost down to the flakes of soot floating in the air; a thing of wonder. But after all this wonderful detail of the setting (so to call it) of the toy was as nothing compared to the thing when it began to work. For there came into it a perfect crowd of live manikins, almost all in black coats and shiny silk hats. They walked about, and formed themselves into little groups from two to three up to near a dozen. Some appeared laughing and joking: others extremely serious. The most part had little pocket-books in which they were continually making entries, and a good number had printed sheets in their hands, others unfolded newspapers. Then high up in one window, which overlooked the court, Gribble could see a pale woman working a type-writer. Higher up still, in an attic, was an old creature trying to sew by the brown light.

  ‘Or that,’ said the Thought at his Elbow, after a good period had gone by. And the second toy was not less wonderful than the first. It represented a lighted drawing-room. The little electric lights in the centre of the ceiling, about as large as a pin-head, were all countable. The manikins were men and women, who walked about, moved their fans, blew their noses, twirled with their watch-chains, and thrust pocket handkerchiefs up their cuffs. And when Gribble had contemplated this for a long time, he turned back to look at the first. And this time he saw many things that had escaped him before.

  ‘By all that’s holy,’ he cried, ‘it’s Capel Court! Why, and that’s Tommy Sneyd. Hang me, if it isn’t!’ Gribble used much more moderate expressions than he had been wont to do formerly. ‘That’s Howard Jones; that’s Cavendish Smith; there goes White-White; there’s . . .’ and one by one he made out all his old acquaintance.

  Moreover, the manikins did not always repeat the same action. Now one who had been looking into a newspaper, would fold it up and join a group. From that group another would separate, and go out of the court. And so on. It may be fancied that the interest of watching all these changes was not easily exhausted. And, when he did get a little satiated, he turned back to the second toy. Here, again, it put on a new character, for now he recognised acquaintance just as numerous here. ‘The missis and Bella!’ he cried with such delight, and slapped his thigh so vigorously that the tears stood in his eyes. For at last he had discovered his wife and daughter in the room.

  Now more alert, he at once recognised in a third toy the card-room at the Windham, got absorbed in watching—for he could count all the pips, though the cards were not a tenth the size of postage-stamps—the hand which Beresford-Budge was playing against White-White and Hartshill, and with the Colonel (of Volunteers).

  Nor was this all. There were other manikin-toys just as interesting. ‘One could go on looking at them for an eternity, couldn’t one?’ said the Thought at Gribble’s elbow. Gribble was too much absorbed to answer that moment. But after a while, how long a while he could form no guess, he suddenly remembered that he had been spoken to. ‘Well, not for an eternity, exac
tly,’ he replied. But the Thought at his Elbow was no longer there.

  ‘Not for ever,’ at last said Gribble again, stretching himself a little as if preparatory to a yawn. It seemed to invite a remark from some one. But there was no answer. Certainly they were curious, these toys. He became absorbed once more for another period. But eventually he completed his yawn.

  ‘It’s about time this should stop,’ Gribble said finally, turning away from a view of a country picnic. But that only brought him face to face with the card-room at the Windham. ‘Jolly good time it should stop—for a bit. I’m da—hanged if it isn’t.’ But the shows went on.

  At length a voice out of the Void explained things. ‘You see,’ it said, ‘that—over there—you were not remarkable for a sense of humour, but you were distinguished by a marked business capacity. And business capacity consists, if you come to think of it, in treating your fellow creatures, not as if they were sentient beings, but as if they were puppets. The result is that the living beings who come here do not care to associate with you. We are trying to find what amusement we can for you. This is really the best we have to offer.’

  Here Gribble lost his temper. ‘How long, confound it, am I to go on looking at the infernal things?’ he said, getting purple.

  ‘You might be more polite. I said we were doing our best.’

  ‘How long—that’s what I want to know—am I to go on looking at the conf—the toys? It seems an age already since—’

  ‘It is an age. It’s exactly a hundred years.’

  From purple Gribble turned ghastly pale. His teeth chattered. ‘A hun—a hundred years! Good God! . . . And to—how long must I go on still?’