Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories Part 18

"You are a fortunate man," remarked I, "who can afford to indulge such expensive tastes."

"Expensive," he repeated musingly, as if that idea had never until then occurred to him. "You are quite mistaken. Expensive, as I understand the term, is not that which has a high intrinsic worth, but that which can only be procured at a price considerably above its real value. In this sense, a hobby is not an expensive thing. It is, as I regard it, one of the safest investments life has to offer. An unambitious man like myself, without a hobby, would necessarily be either an idler or a knave. And I am neither the one nor the other.

The truth is, my life was very poorly furnished at the start, and I have been laboring ever since to supply the deficiency. I am one of those crude colorless, superfluous products which Nature throws off with listless ease in her leisure moments when her thoughts are wandering and her strength has been exhausted by some great and n.o.ble effort."

Mr. Storm uttered these extraordinary sentiments, not with a careless toss of the head, and loud demonstrative ardor, but with a grave, measured intonation, as if he were reciting from some tedious moral book recommended by ministers of the gospel and fathers of families.

His long, dry face, with its perpendicular wrinkles, and the whole absurd proportion between his longitude and lat.i.tude, suggested to me the idea that Nature had originally made him short and stout, and then, having suddenly changed her mind, had subjected him to a prolonged process of stretching in order to adapt him to the altered type. I had no doubt that if I could see those parts of his body which were now covered, they would show by longitudinal wrinkles the effects of this hypothetical stretching. His features in their original shape may have been handsome, although I am inclined to doubt it; there were glimpses of fine intentions in them, but, as a whole, he was right in p.r.o.nouncing them rather a second-rate piece of workmanship. His nose was thin, sharp, and aquiline, and the bone seemed to exert a severe strain upon the epidermis, which was stretched over the projecting bridge with the tensity of a drum-head. I will not reveal what an unpleasant possibility this n.i.g.g.ardliness on Nature's part suggested to me. His eyes (the only feature in him which was distinctly Norse) were of a warm gray tint, and expressed frank severity. You saw at once that, whatever his eccentricities might be, here was a Norseman in whom there was no guile. It was these fine Norse eyes which at once prepossessed me in Storm's favor. They furnished me approximately with the key-note to his character; I knew that G.o.d did not expend such eyes upon any but the rarest natures. Storm's taste for old furniture was no longer a mystery; in fact, I began to suspect that there lurked a fantastic streak of some warm, deep-tinged hue somewhere in his bony composition, and my fingers began to itch with the desire to make a psychological autopsy.

"Apropos of crude workmanship," began my host after a pause, during which he had been examining his long fingers with an air of criticism and doubtful approbation. "You know why I wrote to you?"

I confessed that I was unable to guess his motive.

"Well, then, listen to me. Your article was written with a good deal of youthful power; but it was thoroughly false. You spoke of what you did not know. I thought it was my duty to guard you from future errors, especially as I felt that you were a young man standing upon the threshold of life, about to enter upon a career of great mischief or great usefulness. Then you are of my own blood--but there is no need of apologies. You have come, as I thought you would."

"It was especially my sentiments regarding Norsewomen, I believe, that you objected to," I said hesitatingly; for in spite of his fine eyes, my friend still impressed me as an unknown quant.i.ty, and I mentally labelled him _x_, and determined by slow degrees to solve his equation.

"Yes," he answered; "your sentiments about Norsewomen, or rather about women in general. They are made very much of the same stuff the world over. I do not mind telling you that I speak from bitter experience, and my words ought, therefore, to have the more weight."

"Your experience must have been very wide," I answered by way of pleasantry, "since, as you hint, it includes the whole world."

He stared for a moment, did not respond to my smile, but continued in the same imperturbable monotone:

"When G.o.d abstracted that seventh or ninth rib from Adam, and fashioned a woman of it, the result was, _entre nous_, nothing to boast of. I have ever ceased to regret that Adam did not wake up in time to thwart that hazardous experiment. It may have been necessary to introduce some tragic element into our lives, and if that was the intention, I admit that the means were ingenious. To my mind the only hope of salvation for the human race lies in its gradual emanc.i.p.ation from that baleful pa.s.sion which draws men and women so irresistibly to each other. Love and reason in a well-regulated human being, form at best an armed neutrality, but can never cordially co-operate. But few men arrive in this life at this ideal state, and women never. As it is now, our best energies are wasted in vain endeavors to solve the matrimonial problem at the very time when our vitality is greatest and our strength might be expended with the best effect in the service of the race, for the advancement of science, art, or industry."

"But would you then abolish marriage?" I ventured to ask. "That would mean, as I understand it, to abolish the race itself."

"No," he answered calmly. "In my ideal state, marriage should be tolerated; but it should be regulated by the government, with a total disregard of individual preferences, and with a sole view to the physical and intellectual improvement of the race. There should be a permanent government commission appointed, say one in each State consisting of the most prominent scientists and moral teachers. No marriage should be legal without being approved and confirmed by them.

Marriage, as it is at present, is, in nine cases out of ten, an unqualified evil; as Schopenhauer puts it, it halves our joys and doubles our sorrows--"

"And triples our expenses," I prompted, laughing.

"And triples our expenses," he repeated gravely. "Talk about finding your affinity and all that sort of stuff! Supposing the world to be a huge bag, as in reality it is; then take several hundred million blocks, representing human beings, and label each one by pairs, giving them a corresponding mark and color. Then shake the whole bag violently, and you will admit that the chances of an encounter between the two with the same label are extremely slim. It is just so with marriage. It is all chance--a heartless, aimless, and cruel lottery.

There are more valuable human lives wrecked every hour of the day in this dangerous game than by all the vices that barbarism or civilization has ever invented."

I hazarded some feeble remonstrance against these revolutionary heresies (as I conceived them to be), but my opponent met me on all sides with his inflexible logic. We spent several hours together without at all approaching an agreement, and finally parted with the promise to dine together and resume the discussion the next day.

This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the pessimist, Edmund Storm.

II.

"Freundschaft, Liebe, Stein der Weisen, Diese Dreie hort' ich preisen, Und ich pries und suchte sie, Aber ach! ich fand sie nie."--HEINE.

During the next two years there was never a week, and seldom a day, when I did not see Storm. We lunched together at a much-frequented restaurant not far from Wall street, and my friend's sarcastic epigrams would do much to reconcile me to my temperance habits by supplying in a more ethereal form the stimulants with which others strove to facilitate or to ruin their digestions.

"Existence is even at best a doubtful boon," he would say while he dissected his beefsteak with the seriousness of a scientific observer.

"A man's philosophy is regulated by his stomach. No amount of stoicism can reconcile a man to dyspepsia. If our nationality were not by nature endowed with the digestion of a boa-constrictor, I should seriously consider the propriety of vanishing into the Nirvana."

I often wondered what could be the secret of Storm's liking for me; for that he liked me, in his own lugubrious fashion, there could be no doubt. As for myself, I never could determine how far I reciprocated his feeling. I should hardly say that I loved him, but his talk fascinated me, and it always irritated me to hear any one speak ill of him. He was the very opposite of what the world calls "a good fellow;"

he did not slap you on the shoulder and salute you with a "Hallo, old boy!" and I am inclined to think that he would have promptly resented any undue familiarity. He was a man of the most exact habits, painfully conscientious in all his dealings, and absolutely devoid of vices, unless, indeed, his extravagance in the purchase of old furniture might be cla.s.sed under that head. To people of slipshod habits, his painstaking exactness was of course highly exasperating, and I often myself felt that he was in need of a redeeming vice. If I could have induced him to smoke, take snuff, or indulge in a little innocent gambling, I believe it would have given me a good deal of satisfaction. Once, I remember, I exerted myself to the utmost to beguile him into taking a humorous view of a mendacious tramp, who, after having treated us to a highly pathetic autobiography, importuned us for a quarter. But no, Storm could see nothing but the moral hideousness of the man, lectured him severely, and would have sent him away unrewarded, if I had not temporarily suspended my principles.

During our continued intercourse, I naturally learned a good deal about my friend's previous life and occupation. He was of very good family, had enjoyed an excellent university education, and had the finest prospects of a prosperous career at home, when, as far as I could ascertain, he took a sudden freak to emigrate. He had inherited a modest fortune, and now maintained himself as cashier in a large tea importing house in the city. He read the newspapers diligently, apparently with a view to convincing himself of the universal wretchedness of mankind in general and the American people in particular, had a profound contempt for ambition of every sort, believed nothing that life could offer worthy of an effort, except--old furniture.

In the autumn of 187- he was taken violently ill with inflammation of the lungs, and I naturally devoted every evening to him that I could spare from my work. He suffered acutely, but was perfectly calm and hardly ever moved a muscle.

"I seldom indulge in the luxury of whining," he said to me once, as I was seated at his bedside. "But, if I should die, as I believe I shall, it would be a pity if the lesson of my life should be lost to humanity. It is the only valuable thing I leave behind me, except, perhaps, my furniture, which I bequeath to you."

He lay for a while looking with grave criticism at his long, lean fingers, and then told me the following story, of which I shall give a brief _resume_.

Some ten years ago, while he was yet in the university, he had made the acquaintance of a young girl, Emily Gerstad, the daughter of a widow in whose house he lived. She was a wild unruly thing, full of coquettish airs, frivolous as a kitten, but for all that, a phenomenon of most absorbing interest. She was a blonde of the purest Northern type, with a magnificent wealth of thick curly hair and a pair of blue eyes, which seemed capable of expressing the very finest things that G.o.d ever deposited in a woman's nature. It was useless to disapprove of her, and to argue with her on the error of her ways was a waste of breath: her moral nature was too fatally flexible. She could a.s.sume with astonishing facility a hundred different att.i.tudes on the same question, and acted the penitent, the indifferent, the defiant, with such a perfection of art as really to deceive herself. And in spite of all this, poor Storm soon found that she had wound herself so closely about his heart, that the process of unwinding, as he expressed it, would require greater strength and a sterner philosophy than he believed himself to possess. He had always been shy of women, not because he distrusted them, but because he was painfully conscious of being, in point of physical finish, a second-rate article, a bungling piece of work, and naturally felt his disadvantages more keenly in the presence of those upon whom Nature had expended all her best art. He was, according to his own a.s.sertion, an idealist by temperament, and had kept a sacred chamber in his heart where the vestal fire burned with a pure flame. Now the deepest strata of his being were stirred, and he loved with an overwhelming fervor and intensity which fairly frightened him. In a moment of abject despair he proposed to Emily, and to his surprise was accepted. And what was more, it was no comedy on her part; he even now believed that she really loved him. All the turbulent forces of her being were toned down to a beautiful, womanly tenderness. She clung to him with a pa.s.sionate devotion which seemed to be no less of a surprise to herself than it was to him--clung to his stronger self, perhaps, as a refuge from her own waywardness, listened with a sweet, shame-faced happiness to his bright plans for their common future, and shared his pleasures and his light disappointments with an ardor and an ever ready sympathy, as if her whole previous life had been an education for this one end--to be a perfect wife and to be his wife.

But alas, their happiness was of brief duration. At the end of a year he had finished his legal studies, and pa.s.sed a brilliant examination.

An excellent situation was obtained for him in a small town on the sea-coast, whither he removed and began to prepare for the foundation of his home. It was here he contracted his taste for quaint furniture, all that was now left to him of his happiness--nay, of his life.

Suddenly, at the end of eight months, she ceased writing to him--a fact which after all, argued well for her sincerity; full of apprehension, he hastened to the capital and found her engaged to a young lieutenant,--a dashing, hare-brained fellow, covered all over with gilt embroidery, undeniably handsome, but otherwise of very little worth. At least that was Storm's impression of him; he may have done him injustice, he added, with his usual conscientiousness. A man who sees the whole structure of his life tumbling down over his head is not apt to take a charitable view of the author of the ruin. A week later, Storm was on his way to America,--that was the end of the story.

Yes, if my friend had died, according to his promise, the story would have ended here; but, as for once, he broke his word, I am obliged to add the sequel. I noticed that for some time after his recovery he kept shy of me. As he afterward plainly told me, he felt as if I had purloined a piece of his most precious private property, in sharing a grief which had hitherto been his own exclusive treasure.

III.

Furcht' dich nicht, du liebes Kindchen, Vor der bosen Geister Macht; Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen, Halten Engel bei dir Wacht.--HEINE.

Once, on a warm moonlight night in September, Storm and I took a walk in the Park. The night always tuned him into a gentle mood, and I even suspect that he had some sentiment about it. The currents of life, he said, then ran more serenely, with a slower and healthier pulse-beat; the unfathomable mysteries of life crowded in upon us; our shallow individualities were quenched, and our larger human traits rose nearer to the surface. The best test of sympathy was a night walk; two persons who then jarred upon each other might safely conclude that they were const.i.tutionally unsympathetic. He had known silly girls who in moonlight were sublime; but it was dangerous to build one's hopes of happiness upon this moonlight sublimity. Just as all complexions, except positive black, were fair when touched by the radiance of the night, so all shades of character, except downright wickedness, borrowed a finer human tinge under this illusory illumination. Thus ran his talk, I throwing in the necessary expletives, and as I am neither black nor absolutely wicked, I have reason to believe that I appeared to good advantage.

"It is very curious about women," he broke forth after a long meditative pause. "In spite of all my pondering on the subject, I never quite could understand the secret of their fascination. Their goodness, if they are good, is usually of the quality of oatmeal, and when they are bad--"

"'They are horrid,'" I quoted promptly.

"Amen," he added with a contented chuckle. "I never could see the appropriateness of the Bible precept about coveting your neighbor's wife," he resumed after another brief silence. "I, for my part, never found my neighbor's wife worth coveting. But I will admit that I have, in a few instances, felt inclined to covet my neighbor's child. No amount of pessimism can quite fortify a man against the desire to have children. A child is not always a 'thing of beauty,' nor is it apt to be a 'joy for ever'; but I never yet met the man who would not be willing to take his chances. It is a confounded thing that the paternal instinct is so deeply implanted, even in such a piece of dried-up parchment as myself. It is like discovering a warm, live vein of throbbing blood under the shrivelled skin of an Egyptian mummy."

We sauntered on for more than an hour, now plunging into dense ma.s.ses of shadow, now again emerging into cool pathways of light. The conversation turned on various topics, all of which Storm touched with a kindlier humor than was his wont. The world was a failure, but for all that, it was the part of a wise man to make the best of it as it was. The clock in some neighboring tower struck ten; we took a street-car and rode home. As we were about to alight (I first, and Storm following closely after me), I noticed a woman with a wild, frightened face hurrying away from the street-lamp right in front of us. My friend, owing either to his near-sightedness, or his preoccupation, had evidently not observed her. We climbed the long dimly lighted stairs to his room, and both stumbled at the door against a large basket.

"That detestable washwoman!" he muttered. "How often have I told her not to place her basket where everybody is sure to run into it!"

He opened the door and I carried the basket into the room, while he struck a match and lighted the drop-light on the table.

"Excuse me for a moment," he went on, stooping to lift the cloth which covered the basket. "I want to count--Gracious heavens! what is this?"

he cried suddenly, springing up as if he had stepped on something alive; then he sank down into an arm-chair, and sat staring vacantly before him. In the basket lay a sleeping infant, apparently about eight months old. As soon as I had recovered from my first astonishment, I bent down over it and regarded it attentively. It was a beautiful, healthy-looking child,--not a mere formless ma.s.s of fat with hastily sketched features, as babes of that age are apt to be.

Its face was of exquisite finish, a straight, well-modelled little nose, a softly defined dimpled little chin, and a fresh, finely curved mouth, through which the even breath came and went with a quiet, hardly perceptible rhythm. It was all as sweet, harmonious, and artistically perfect as a Tennysonian stanza. The little waif won my heart at once, and it was a severe test of my self-denial that I had to repress my desire to kiss it. I somehow felt that my friend ought to be the first to recognize it as a member of his household.

"Storm," I said, looking up at his pale, vacant face. "It is a dangerous thing to covet one's neighbor's child. But, if you don't adopt this little dumb supplicant, I fear you will tempt me to break the tenth commandment. I believe there is a clause there about coveting children."

Storm opened his eyes wide, and with an effort to rouse himself, pushed back the chair and knelt down at the side of the basket. With a gentle movement he drew off the cover under which the child slept, and discovered on its bosom a letter which he eagerly seized. As he glanced at the direction of the envelope, his face underwent a marvellous change; it was as if a mask had suddenly been removed, revealing a new type of warmer, purer, and tenderer manhood.