Orpheus in Mayfair, and Other Stories and Sketches Part 12

"You know all my stories," she said.

"That doesn't matter," said the boy. "You can tell us an old one."

"Well," said the old woman, "I suppose I must. There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter." At the sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of the old woman's long cloak.

"No, not that one," one of the little boys interrupted, "tell us about the Queen without a heart." So the old woman began and said:--

"There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had one daughter, and they invited all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses to the feast which they gave in honour of the birth of their child. The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses came and gave the child every gift they could think of; she was to be the most beautiful woman in the whole world, she was to dance like the West wind, to laugh like the stream, and to sing like the lark. Her hair should be made of sunshine, and her eyes should be as the sea in midsummer. She should excel in all things, in knowledge, in wit, and in skill; she should be fleet of foot, a cunning harp-player, adept at all manner of woman-like crafts, and deft with the needle and the spinning-wheel, and at the loom. Zeus himself gave her stateliness and majesty, the Lord of the Sun gave a voice as of a golden flute; Poseidon gave her the laughter of all the waves of the sea, the King of the Underworld gave her a red ruby to wear on her breast more precious than all the gems of the world. Artemis gave her swiftness and radiance, Persephone the fragrance and the freshness of all the flowers of spring; Pallas Athene gave her curious knowledge and pleasant speech; and, lastly, the Seaborn G.o.ddess breathed upon her and gave her the beauty of the rose, the pearl, the dew, and the sh.e.l.ls and the foam of the sea. But, alas! the King and Queen had forgotten to ask one guest. The G.o.ddess of Envy and Discord had been left out, and she came unbidden, and when all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses had given their gifts, she said: 'I too have a gift to give, a gift that will be more precious to her than any. I will give her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.'

So saying the G.o.ddess of Envy took away the child's heart and put in its place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem.

And the G.o.ddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were greatly concerned, and they asked the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses whether their daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the G.o.ddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child's heart to the man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal.

"The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the G.o.ddess of Envy once more troubled the child's life. For owing to her subtle planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world, and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the whole world was filled with the fame of the King's wife and of her beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others, believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that by the time they accomplished it the King's wife would be an old woman, and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair's breadth for all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great Queen.

"The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire, and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and wherever she pa.s.sed she left behind her strife and sorrow like a burning trail. After many voyages she returned home and lived prosperously.

The King her husband died, her children grew up and married and bore children themselves, and she continued to live peacefully in her palace.

Her fame and her glory brought her neither joy nor sorrow, nor did she heed the spell that she cast on the hearts of men.

"One day a harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But her smile filled him with such a pa.s.sion of wonder and worship that he resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird promised him that he should find the Queen's heart. All he had to do was to go home and to seek the Queen's palace. So the harper went home to the Queen's palace, and when he reached it he found the Queen had grown old; her hair was grey and there were lines on her cheek. But she smiled on him, and he knelt down before her, for he loved her more than ever, and to him she was as beautiful as ever she had been. At that moment, for the first time in her life the Queen's eyes filled with tears, for her heart had been given back to her. And that is all the story."

"And what happened to the harper?" asked one of the little boys.

"He lived in the palace and played to the Queen till he died."

"And is the story true?" asked the other little boy.

"Yes," said the old woman, "quite true."

The boys jumped up and kissed the old woman, and the elder of them, growing pensive, said:--

"Grandmother, were you ever young yourself?"

"Yes, my child," said the old woman, smiling, "I was once young--a very long time ago."

She got up, for the twilight had come and it was almost dark. She walked into the house, and as she rose she was neither bowed nor bent, but she trod the ground with a straightness which was not stiff but full of grace, and she moved royally like a G.o.ddess. As she walked past the smoking flames the children noticed that large tears were welling from her eyes and trickling down her faded cheek.

DR. FAUST'S LAST DAY

The Doctor got up at dawn, as was his wont, and as soon as he was dressed he sat down at his desk in his library overlooking the sea, and immersed himself in the studies which were the lodestar of his existence. His hours were mapped out with rigid regularity like those of a school-boy, and his methodical life worked as though by clockwork. He rose at dawn and read without interruption until eight o'clock. He then partook of some light food (he was a strict vegetarian), after which he walked in the garden of his house, overlooking the Bay of Naples, until ten. From ten to twelve he received sick people, peasants from the village, or any visitors that needed his advice or his company. At twelve he ate a frugal meal. From one o'clock until three he enjoyed a siesta. At three he resumed his studies, which continued without interruption until six when he partook of a second meal. At seven he took another stroll in the village or by the seash.o.r.e and remained out of doors until nine. He then withdrew into his study, and at midnight went to bed.

It was, perhaps, the extreme regularity of his life, combined with the strict diet which he observed, that accounted for his good health. This day was his seventieth birthday, and his body was as vigorous and his mind as alert as they had been in his fortieth year. His thick hair and beard were scarcely grey, and the wrinkles on his white, thoughtful face were rare. Yet the Doctor, when questioned as to the secret of his youthfulness, being like many learned men fond of a paradox, used to reply that diet and regularity had nothing to do with it, and that the Southern sun and the climate of the Neapolitan coast, which he had chosen among all places to be the abode of his old age, were in reality responsible for his excellent health.

"I lead a regular life," he used to say, "not in order to keep well, but in order to get through my work. Unless my hours were mapped out regularly I should be the prey of every idler in the place and I should never get any work done at all."

On this day, as it was his seventieth birthday, the Doctor had asked a few friends to share his mid-day meal, and when he returned from his morning stroll he sent for his housekeeper to give her a few final instructions. The housekeeper, who was a voluble Italian peasant-woman, after receiving his orders, handed him a piece of paper on which a few words were scrawled in reddish-brown ink, saying it had been left by a Signore.

"What Signore?" asked the Doctor, as he perused the doc.u.ment, which consisted of words in the German tongue to the effect that the writer regretted his absence from the Doctor's feast, but would call at midnight. It was not signed.

"He was a Signore, like all Signores," said the housekeeper; "he just left the letter and went away."

The Doctor was puzzled, and in spite of much cross-examination he was unable to extract anything more beyond the fact that he was a "Signore."

"Shall I lay one place less?" asked the housekeeper.

"Certainly not," said the Doctor. "All my guests will be present." And he threw the piece of paper on the table.

The housekeeper left the room, but she had not been gone many minutes before she returned and said that Maria, the wife of the late Giovanni, the baker, wished to speak to him. The Doctor nodded, and Maria burst into the room, sobbing.

When her tears had somewhat subsided she told her story in broken sentences. Her daughter, Margherita, who was seventeen years old, had been allowed to spend the summer at Sorrento with her late father's sister. There, it appeared, she had met a "Signore," who had given her jewels, made love to her, promised her marriage, and held clandestine meetings with her. Her aunt professed now to have been unaware of this; but Maria a.s.sured the Doctor that her sister-in-law, who had the evil eye and had more than once trafficked with Satan, must have had knowledge of the business, even if she were not directly responsible, which was highly probable. In the meantime Margherita's brother Anselmo had returned from the wars in the North, and, discovering the truth, had sworn to kill the Signore unless he married Margherita.

"And what do you wish me to do?" asked the Doctor, after he had listened to the story.

"Anything, anything," she answered, "only calm my son Anselmo or else there will be a disaster."

"Who is the Signore?" asked the Doctor.

"The Conte Guido da Siena," she answered.

The Doctor reflected a moment, and then said: "I will see what can be done. The matter can be arranged. Send your son to me later." And then, after scolding Maria for not having taken proper care of her daughter, he sent her away.

As he did so he caught sight of the dirty piece of paper on his table.

For one second he had the impression that the letters on it were written in blood, and he shivered, but the momentary hallucination and sense of discomfort pa.s.sed immediately.

At mid-day the guests arrived. They consisted of Dr. Cornelius, Vienna's most learned scholar; Taddeo Mainardi, the painter; a Danish student from the University of Wittenberg; a young English n.o.bleman, who was travelling in Italy; and Guido da Siena, philosopher and poet, who was said to be the handsomest man in Italy. The Doctor set before his guests a precious wine from Cyprus, in which he toasted them, although as a rule he drank only water. The meal was served in the cool loggia overlooking the bay, and the talk, which was of the men and books of many climes, flowed like a rippling stream on which the sunshine of laughter lightly played.

The student asked the Doctor whether in Italy men of taste took any interest in the recent experiments of a French Huguenot, who professed to be able to send people into a trance. Moreover, the patient when in the trance, so it was alleged, was able to act as a bridge between the material and the spiritual worlds, and the dead could be summoned and made to speak through the unconscious patient.

"We take no thought of such things here," said the Doctor. "In my youth, when I studied in the North, experiments of that nature exercised a powerful sway over my mind. I dabbled in alchemy; I tried and indeed considered that I succeeded in raising spirits and visions; but two things are necessary for such a study: youth, and the mists of the Northern country. Here the generous sun kills such phantasies. There are no phantoms here. Moreover, I am convinced that in all such experiments success depends on the state of mind of the inquirer, which not only persuades, but indeed compels itself by a strange magnetic quality to see the vision it desires. In my youth I considered that I had evoked visions of Satan and Helen of Troy, and what not--such things are fit for the young. We greybeards have more serious things to occupy us, and when a man has one foot in the grave, he has no time to waste."

"To my mind," said the painter, "this world has sufficient beauty and mystery to satisfy the most ardent inquirer."

"But," said the Englishman, "is not this world a phantom and a dream as insubstantial as the visions of the ardent mind?"

"Men and women are the only study fit for a man," interrupted Guido, "and as for the philosopher's stone I have found it. I found it some months ago in a garden at Sorrento. It is a pearl radiant with all the hues of the rainbow."

"With regard to that matter," said the Doctor, "we will have some talk later. The wench's brother has returned from the war. We must find her a husband."

"You misunderstand me," said Guido. "You do not think I am going to throw my precious pearl to the swine? I have sworn to wed Margherita, and wed her I shall, and that swiftly."

"Such an act of folly would only lead," said the Doctor, "to your unhappiness and to hers. It is the selfish act of a fool. You must not think of it."

"Ah!" said Guido, "you are young at seventy, Doctor, but you were old at twenty-five, and you cannot know what these things mean."

"I was young in my day," said the Doctor, "and I found many such pearls; believe me, they are all very well in their native sh.e.l.l. To move them is to destroy their beauty."

"You do not understand," said Guido. "I have loved countless times; but she is different. You never felt the revelation of the real, true thing that is different from all the rest and transforms a man's life."