A Romance of Two Worlds Part 11

"Much better," I said, looking earnestly into the lovely star-like eyes that regarded me with such interest and friendliness. "Indeed, to-day I have felt so well, that I cannot realize ever having been ill."

"I am very glad," said Zara, "I know you are a musician, and I think there can be no bitterer fate than for one belonging to your art to be incapacitated from performance of work by some physical obstacle. Poor grand old Beethoven! Can anything be more pitiful to think of than his deafness? Yet how splendidly he bore up against it! And Chopin, too--so delicate in health that he was too often morbid even in his music.

Strength is needed to accomplish great things--the double strength of body and soul."

"Are you, too, a musician?" I inquired.

"No. I love music pa.s.sionately, and I play a little on the organ in our private chapel; but I follow a different art altogether. I am a mere imitator of n.o.ble form--I am a sculptress."

"You?" I said in some wonder, looking at the very small, beautifully formed white hand that lay pa.s.sively on the edge of the couch beside me. "You make statues in marble like Michael Angelo?"

"Like Angelo?" murmured Zara; and she lowered her brilliant eyes with a reverential gravity. "No one in these modern days can approach the immortal splendour of that great master. He must have known heroes and talked with G.o.ds to be able to hew out of the rocks such perfection of shape and att.i.tude as his 'David.' Alas! my strength of brain and hand is mere child's play compared to what HAS been done in sculpture, and what WILL yet be done; still, I love the work for its own sake, and I am always trying to render a resemblance of--"

Here she broke off abruptly, and a deep blush suffused her cheeks.

Then, looking up suddenly, she took my hand impulsively, and pressed it.

"Be my friend," she said, with a caressing inflection in her rich voice, "I have no friends of my own s.e.x, and I wish to love you. My brother has always had so much distrust of the companionship of women for me. You know his theories; and he has always a.s.serted that the sphere of thought in which I have lived all my life is so widely apart from those in which other women exist--that nothing but unhappiness for me could come out of a.s.sociating us together. When he told me yesterday that you were coming to see me to-day, I knew he must have discovered something in your nature that was not antipathetic to mine; otherwise he would not have brought you to me. Do you think you can like me?--perhaps LOVE me after a little while?"

It would have been a cold heart indeed that would not have responded to such a speech as this, uttered with the pleading prettiness of a loving child. Besides, I had warmed to her from the first moment I had touched her hand; and I was overjoyed to think that she was willing to elect me as a friend. I therefore replied to her words by putting my arm affectionately round her waist and kissing her. My beautiful, tender Zara! How innocently happy she seemed to be thus embraced! and how gently her fragrant lips met mine in that sisterly caress! She leaned her dark head for a moment on my shoulder, and the mysterious jewel on her breast flashed into a weird red hue like the light of a stormy sunset.

"And now we have drawn up, signed, and sealed our compact of friendship," she said gaily, "will you come and see my studio? There is nothing in it that deserves to last, I think; still, one has patience with a child when he builds his brick houses, and you must have equal patience with me. Come!"

And she led the way through her lovely room, which I now noticed was full of delicate statuary, fine paintings, and exquisite embroidery, while flowers were everywhere in abundance. Lifting the hangings at the farther end of the apartment, she pa.s.sed, I following, into a lofty studio, filled with all the appurtenances of the sculptor's art. Here and there were the usual spectral effects which are always suggested to the mind by unfinished plaster models--an arm in one place, a head in another; a torso, or a single hand, protruding ghost-like from a fold of dark drapery. At the very end of the room stood a large erect figure, the outlines of which could but dimly be seen through its linen coverings; and to this work, whatever it was, Zara did not appear desirous of attracting my attention. She led me to one particular corner; and, throwing aside a small crimson velvet curtain, said:

"This is the last thing I have finished in marble. I call it 'Approaching Evening.'"

I stood silently before the statue, lost in admiration. I could not conceive it possible that the fragile little hand of the woman who stood beside me could have executed such a perfect work. She had depicted "Evening" as a beautiful nude female figure in the act of stepping forward on tip-toe; the eyes were half closed, and the sweet mouth slightly parted in a dreamily serious smile. The right forefinger was laid lightly on the lips, as though suggesting silence; and in the left hand was loosely clasped a bunch of poppies. That was all. But the poetry and force of the whole conception as carried out in the statue was marvellous.

"Do you like it?" asked Zara, half timidly.

"Like it!" I exclaimed. "It is lovely--wonderful! It is worthy to rank with the finest Italian masterpieces."

"Oh, no!" remonstrated Zara; "no, indeed! When the great Italian sculptors lived and worked--ah! one may say with the Scriptures, 'There were giants in those days.' Giants--veritable ones; and we modernists are the pigmies. We can only see Art now through the eyes of others who came before us. We cannot create anything new. We look at painting through Raphael; sculpture through Angelo; poetry through Shakespeare; philosophy through Plato. It is all done for us; we are copyists. The world is getting old--how glorious to have lived when it was young! But nowadays the very children are blase."

"And you--are not you blase to talk like that, with your genius and all the world before you?" I asked laughingly, slipping my arm through hers. "Come, confess!"

Zara looked at me gravely.

"I sincerely hope the world is NOT all before me," she said; "I should be very sorry if I thought so. To have the world all before you in the general acceptation of that term means to live long, to barter whatever genius you have for gold, to hear the fulsome and unmeaning flatteries of the ignorant, who are as ready with condemnation as praise--to be envied and maligned by those less lucky than you are. Heaven defend me from such a fate!"

She spoke with earnestness and solemnity; then, dropping the curtain before her statue, turned away. I was admiring the vine-wreathed head of a young Bacchante that stood on a pedestal near me, and was about to ask Zara what subject she had chosen for the large veiled figure at the farthest end of her studio, when we were interrupted by the entrance of the little Greek page whom I had seen on my first visit to the house.

He saluted us both, and addressing himself to Zara, said:

"Monsieur le Comte desires me to tell you, madame, that Prince Ivan will be present at dinner."

Zara looked somewhat vexed; but the shade of annoyance flitted away from her fair face like a pa.s.sing shadow, as she replied quietly:

"Tell Monsieur le Comte, my brother, that I shall be happy to receive Prince Ivan."

The page bowed deferentially and departed. Zara turned round, and I saw the jewel on her breast flashing with a steely glitter like the blade of a sharp sword.

"I do not like Prince Ivan myself," she said; "but he is a singularly brave and resolute man, and Casimir has some reason for admitting him to our companionship. Though I greatly doubt if--" Here a flood of music broke upon our ears like the sound of a distant orchestra. Zara looked at me and smiled. "Dinner is ready!" she announced; "but you must not imagine that we keep a band to play us to our table in triumph. It is simply a musical instrument worked by electricity that imitates the orchestra; both Casimir and I prefer it to a gong!"

And slipping her arm affectionately through mine, she drew me from the studio into the pa.s.sage, and together we went down the staircase into a large dining-room, rich with oil-paintings and carved oak, where Heliobas awaited us. Close by him stood another gentleman, who was introduced to me as Prince Ivan Petroffsky. He was a fine-looking, handsome-featured young man, of about thirty, tall and broad-shouldered, though beside the commanding stature of Heliobas, his figure did not show to so much advantage as it might have done beside a less imposing contrast. He bowed to me with easy and courteous grace; but his deeply reverential salute to Zara had something in it of that humility which a slave might render to a queen. She bent her head slightly in answer, and still holding me by the hand, moved to her seat at the bottom of the table, while her brother took the head. My seat was at the right hand of Heliobas, Prince Ivan's at the left, so that we directly faced each other.

There were two men-servants in attendance, dressed in dark livery, who waited upon us with noiseless alacrity. The dinner was exceedingly choice; there was nothing coa.r.s.e or vulgar in the dishes--no great heavy joints swimming in thin gravy a la Anglaise; no tureens of unpalatable sauce; no clumsy decanters filled with burning sherry or drowsy port. The table itself was laid out in the most perfect taste, with the finest Venetian gla.s.s and old Dresden ware, in which tempting fruits gleamed amid cl.u.s.ters of glossy dark leaves. Flowers in tall vases bloomed wherever they could be placed effectively; and in the centre of the board a small fountain played, tinkling as it rose and fell like a very faintly echoing fairy chime. The wines that were served to us were most delicious, though their flavour was quite unknown to me--one in especial, of a pale pink colour, that sparkled slightly as it was poured into my gla.s.s, seemed to me a kind of nectar of the G.o.ds, so soft it was to the palate. The conversation, at first somewhat desultory, grew more concentrated as the time went on, though Zara spoke little and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts more than once. The Prince, warmed with the wine and the general good cheer, became witty and amusing in his conversation; he was a man who had evidently seen a good deal of the world, and who was accustomed to take everything in life a la bagatelle. He told us gay stories of his life in St. Petersburg; of the pranks he had played in the Florentine Carnival; of his journey to the American States, and his narrow escape from the matrimonial clutches of a Boston heiress.

Heliobas listened to him with a sort of indulgent kindness, only smiling now and then at the preposterous puns the young man would insist on making at every opportunity that presented itself.

"You are a lucky fellow, Ivan," he said at last. "You like the good things of life, and you have got them all without any trouble on your own part. You are one of those men who have absolutely nothing to wish for."

Prince Ivan frowned and pulled his dark moustache with no very satisfied air.

"I am not so sure about that," he returned. "No one is contented in this world, I believe. There is always something left to desire, and the last thing longed for always seems the most necessary to happiness."

"The truest philosophy," said Heliobas, "is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of its coming."

"What do you mean by 'the reason of its coming'?" questioned Prince Ivan. "Do you know, Casimir, I find you sometimes as puzzling as Socrates."

"Socrates?--Socrates was as clear as a drop of morning dew, my dear fellow," replied Heliobas. "There was nothing puzzling about him. His remarks were all true and trenchant--hitting smartly home to the heart like daggers plunged down to the hilt. That was the worst of him--he was too clear--too honest--too disdainful of opinions. Society does not love such men. What do I mean, you ask, by accepting everything as it comes, and trying to find out the reason of its coming? Why, I mean what I say. Each circ.u.mstance that happens to each one of us brings its own special lesson and meaning--forms a link or part of a link in the chain of our existence. It seems nothing to you that you walk down a particular street at a particular hour, and yet that slight action of yours may lead to a result you wot not of. 'Accept the hint of each new experience,' says the American imitator of Plato--Emerson. If this advice is faithfully followed, we all have enough to occupy us busily from the cradle to the grave."

Prince Ivan looked at Zara, who sat quietly thoughtful, only lifting her bright eyes now and then to glance at her brother as he spoke.

"I tell you," he said, with sudden moroseness, "there are some hints that we cannot accept--some circ.u.mstances that we must not yield to.

Why should a man, for instance, be subjected to an undeserved and bitter disappointment?"

"Because," said Zara, joining in the conversation for the first time, "he has most likely desired what he is not fated to obtain."

The Prince bit his lips, and gave a forced laugh.

"I know, madame, you are against me in all our arguments," he observed, with some bitterness in his tone. "As Casimir suggests, I am a bad philosopher. I do not pretend to more than the ordinary attributes of an ordinary man; it is fortunate, if I may be permitted to say so, that the rest of the word's inhabitants are very like me, for if everyone reached to the sublime heights of science and knowledge that you and your brother have attained---"

"The course of human destiny would run out, and Paradise would be an established fact," laughed Heliobas. "Come, Ivan! You are a true Epicurean. Have some more wine, and a truce to discussions for the present." And, beckoning to one of the servants, he ordered the Prince's gla.s.s to be refilled.

Dessert was now served, and luscious fruits in profusion, including peaches, bananas, plantains, green figs, melons, pine-apples, and magnificent grapes, were offered for our choice. As I made a selection for my own plate, I became aware of something soft rubbing itself gently against my dress; and looking down, I saw the n.o.ble head and dark intelligent eyes of my old acquaintance Leo, whom I had last met at Cannes. I gave an exclamation of pleasure, and the dog, encouraged, stood up and laid a caressing paw on my arm.

"You know Leo, of course," said Heliobas, turning to me. "He went to see Raffaello while you were at Cannes. He is a wonderful animal--more valuable to me than his weight in gold."

Prince Ivan, whose transient moodiness had pa.s.sed away like a bad devil exorcised by the power of good wine, joined heartily in the praise bestowed on this four-footed friend of the family.

"It was really through Leo," he said, "that you were induced to follow out your experiments in human electricity, Casimir, was it not?"

"Yes," replied Heliobas, calling the dog, who went to him immediately to be fondled. "I should never have been much encouraged in my researches, had he not been at hand. I feared to experimentalize much on my sister, she being young at the time--and women are always frail of construction--but Leo was willing and ready to be a victim to science, if necessary. Instead of a martyr he is a living triumph--are you not, old boy?" he continued, stroking the silky coat of the animal, who responded with a short low bark of satisfaction.

My curiosity was much excited by these remarks, and I said eagerly:

"Will you tell me in what way Leo has been useful to you? I have a great affection for dogs, and I never tire of hearing stories of their wonderful intelligence."

"I will certainly tell you," replied Heliobas. "To some people the story might appear improbable, but it is perfectly true and at the same time simple of comprehension. When I was a very young man, younger than Prince Ivan, I absorbed myself in the study of electricity--its wonderful powers, and its various capabilities. From the consideration of electricity in the different forms by which it is known to civilized Europe, I began to look back through history, to what are ignorantly called 'the dark ages,' but which might more justly be termed the enlightened youth of the world. I found that the force of electricity was well understood by the ancients--better understood by them, in fact, than it is by the scientists of our day. The 'MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN' that glittered in unearthly characters on the wall at Belshazzar's feast, was written by electricity; and the Chaldean kings and priests understood a great many secrets of another form of electric force which the world to-day scoffs at and almost ignores--I mean human electricity, which we all possess, but which we do not all cultivate within us. When once I realized the existence of the fact of human electric force, I applied the discovery to myself, and spared no pains to foster and educate whatever germ of this power lay within me. I succeeded with more ease and celerity than I had imagined possible. At the time I pursued these studies, Leo here was quite a young dog, full of the clumsy playfulness and untrained ignorance of a Newfoundland puppy. One day I was very busy reading an interesting Sanskrit scroll which treated of ancient medicines and remedies, and Leo was gambolling in his awkward way about the room, playing with an old slipper and worrying it with his teeth. The noise he made irritated and disturbed me, and I rose in my chair and called him by name, somewhat angrily. He paused in his game and looked up--his eyes met mine exactly. His head drooped; he shivered uneasily, whined, and lay down motionless. He never stirred once from the position he had taken, till I gave him permission--and remember, he was untrained. This strange behaviour led me to try other experiments with him, and all succeeded. I gradually led him up to the point I desired--that is, _I_ FORCED HIM TO RECEIVE MY THOUGHT AND ACT UPON IT, as far as his canine capabilities could do, and he has never once failed. It is sufficient for me to strongly WILL him to do a certain thing, and I can convey that command of mine to his brain without uttering a single word, and he will obey me."