Iolanthe's Wedding Part 3

I made right for a mirror--lit all the lights, locked the door--back to the mirror. Examined myself front and back, and, with the help of my shaving mirror, my n.o.ble profile, too.

Result--crushing. A heavy bald pate, bull's neck, puffs under my eyes, double chin, my skin a fiery russet, like a glowing copper kettle.

And what was worse than all that--when I looked at myself in all my six feet of bulk, a chandelier went up. I knew why everybody immediately called me a "good fellow." Even in the regiment they used to call me a good fellow.

Once you are branded with a Cain's mark like that, the rest of your life turns into nothing but a series of events to prove the truth of it. People come to you with hard-luck stories, you're a b.u.t.t for their jokes, they blarney you and borrow from you. If once you make a timid attempt to defend yourself, then they say, "Why I thought you were a good fellow!" So you can't get out of it. You are and you remain a good fellow. You've been stamped and sealed.

And then you, a good fellow, want to take up with women? With women, who languish for the Mephistophelean, who, to love properly, want to be deserted, duped, and generally maltreated.

"Hanckel, don't be an a.s.s," I said to myself. "Go away from the mirror, put out the lights, knock those silly dreams out of your head, and get into bed."

Gentlemen, I had a bed--and still have it--a perfectly ordinary bed, as narrow as a coffin, of pine, stained red--no springs, no mattress--a deerskin instead. Twice a year it is filled with fresh straw. That was the extent of my luxury. Gentlemen, there are many stories about the poor camp cots of persons in high life. You see them on exhibition in castles and historical museums, and when the visitors are herded past them, they invariably clasp their hands and dutifully exclaim:

"What power of renunciation! What Spartan simplicity!"

Buncombe, gentlemen! You can't sleep more comfortably anywhere than on a bed like that--provided, of course, that you have a good day's work _behind_ you, a good conscience _within_ you, and no woman _beside_ you--which all amount to about the same thing.

You stretch yourself deliciously until your feet just touch the bottom of the bed, you bite the comfortable a few times, burrow in the pillows, reach out for a good book lying on the table next to the bed, and groan from sheer bliss.

That's what I did that night after the tempter had left me, and as I slowly dozed off I thought:

"Well, well, no woman will make you traitor to your dear, hard, narrow bachelor's sack of straw, even if her name is Iolanthe, and even if she is the finest thoroughbred that ever galloped about on G.o.d's lovely pastures.

"Perhaps all the less so.

"Because--who knows?"

CHAPTER III

The next day I turned in my report to the boy--leaving out my asininities, of course.

He glowered at me with his dark eyes, and said:

"Let's say no more about it. I thought so."

But a week later he returned to the subject sort of by the way.

"You ought to go there again after all, uncle."

"Are you crazy, boy?" I said, though I felt as good as if a woman's soft warm hand were tickling the nape of my neck.

"You needn't mention me," he said, examining the tips of his boots, "but if you go there several times, perhaps things will gradually right themselves."

Gentlemen, you couldn't have broken a reed more easily than my resolution.

So I drove over again. And again and again.

I would let old Krakow go on with his vapourings, and I'd drink the coffee his wife made for me, and listen devoutly while Iolanthe sang her loveliest songs, even though music--in general--well, the oftener I visited Krakowitz the uncannier the business became, but something always tugged me back again. I couldn't help myself.

The old Adam in me, before going to sleep forever, wanted a Last Supper, even if it consisted of nothing but the pleasant sensation of a woman's nearness. In the depths of my soul I had no hopes of anything beyond that.

To be sure, Iolanthe continued to cast furtive glances at me, but what they indicated--whether a reproach, a cry for help, or merely the wish to be admired--I never could make out.

Then--on my third or fourth visit--the following happened.

It was early in the afternoon--blazing hot. From boredom or impatience I drove to Krakowitz.

"The Baron and Baroness are asleep," said the lackey, "but the young lady is on the verandah."

I began to suspect all sorts of things, and my heart started to thump.

I wanted to go back home again, but when I saw her standing there, tall and snowy white in her mull dress, as if chiselled in marble, my old asininity came upon me again, stronger than ever.

"How nice of you to come, Baron," she said. "I've been frightfully bored. Let's go take a walk in the garden. There's a cool arbour where we can have a pleasant chat without being disturbed."

When she put her arm in mine, I began to tremble. I tell you, climbing a hill under fire was easier than going down those steps.

She said nothing--I said nothing. The atmosphere grew heavier. The gravel crunched under our tread, the bees buzzed about the spiraea bushes. Nothing else to be heard far or near. She clung to my arm quite confidentially, and every now and then made me stop when she pulled out a weed or plucked a piece of mignonette to tickle her nose with for an instant and then throw it away.

"I wish I loved flowers," she said. "There are so many people who love flowers, or say they love them. In love affairs you can never get at the truth."

"Why not?" I asked. "Don't you think it ever happens that two human beings like each other and say so--quite simply--without design or ulterior motives?"

"Like each other--like each other," she said tauntingly. "Are you such an icicle that you translate 'love' by 'like'?"

"Unfortunately, whether I am an icicle or not no longer matters," I answered.

"You're a n.o.ble-hearted man," she said, and looked at me sidewise, a bit coquettishly. "Everything you think comes out as straight as if shot from a pistol."

"But I know how to keep quiet, too," I said.

"Oh, I feel that," she answered hastily. "I could confide everything to you, everything." It seemed to me that she pressed my arm very gently.

"What does she want of you?" I asked myself, and I felt my heart beating in my throat.

At last we reached the arbour, an arbour of Virginia creeper, with those broad, pointed leaves which keep the sun out entirely. It's always night in arbours of Virginia creeper, you know.

She let go my arm, kneeled on the ground, and crept through a little hole on all fours. The entrance was completely overgrown, and that was the only way to get inside.

And I, Baron von Hanckel of Ilgenstein, I, a paragon of dignity, I got down on all fours, and crawled through a hole no larger than an oven door.

Yes, gentlemen, that is what the women do with us.

Inside in the cool twilight she stretched herself out on a bench in a half reclining position, and wiped her bared throat with her handkerchief. Beautiful! I tell you, she looked perfectly beautiful.

When I got up and stood in front of her breathless, panting like a bear--at forty-eight years of age, gentlemen, you don't go dancing on all fours with impunity--she burst out laughing--a short, sharp, nervous laugh.