Paul Patoff Part 51

Madame Patoff had not received the news of Alexander's accident with indifference, and it had been necessary that he should a.s.sure her himself that he was not seriously hurt before she could be quieted. He had been badly stunned, however, and his head gave him much pain during several days, as was natural enough. He spent most of his time on the sofa in his mother's sitting-room, and she would sit for hours talking to him and trying to soothe his pain. The sympathy between the two seemed strengthened, and it was strange to see how, when together, their manner changed. The relation between the mother and the spoiled child is a very peculiar one, and occupies an entirely separate division in the scale of human affections; for while the mother's love in such a case is sincere, though generally founded on a mere capricious preference, the over-indulged affection of the child breeds nothing but caprice and a ruthless desire to see that caprice satisfied. Madame Patoff loved Alexander so much that the belief in his death had driven her mad; he on his side loved his mother because he knew that in all cases, just and unjust, she would defend him, take his part, and help him to get what he wanted. But he never missed her when they were separated, and he never took any pains to see her unless in so doing he could satisfy some other wish at the same time. He was selfish, willful, and obstinate at two-and-thirty as he had been at ten years of age. His mother was willful, obstinate, and capricious, but as far as he was concerned she was incapable of selfishness.

What was most remarkable in her manner was her ease in talking with Professor Cutter, and her indifference in referring to her past insanity. She did not appear to realize it; she hardly seemed to care whether any one knew it or not, and regarded it as an unfortunate accident, but one which there was little object in concealing. As the scientist talked with her and observed her, he opened his eyes wider and wider behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and grew more and more silent when any one spoke to him of her. I knew later that he detected in her conduct certain symptoms which alarmed him, but felt obliged to hold his peace on account of the extreme difficulty of his position. He felt that to watch her again, or to put her under any kind of restraint, might now lead to far more serious results than before, and he determined to bide his time. An incident occurred very soon, however, which helped him to make up his mind.

One afternoon we arranged an excursion to the ruined castle of Anadoli Kavak, on the Asian sh.o.r.e, near the mouth of the Black Sea. Mrs. Carvel, who was not a good sailor, stayed at home, but Miss Dabstreak, Madame Patoff, and Hermione were of the party, with Paul, Macaulay Carvel, Professor Cutter, and myself. Macaulay had borrowed a good-sized cutter from one of his many colleagues who kept yachts on the Bosphorus, and at three o'clock in the afternoon we started from the Buyukdere quay. There was a smart northerly breeze as we hoisted the jib, and it was evident that we should have to make several tacks before we could beat up to our destination. The boat was of about ten tons burden, with a full deck, broken only by a well leading to the cabin; a low rail ran round the bulwarks, for the yacht was intended for pleasure excursions and the accommodation of ladies. The members of the party sat in a group on the edge of the well, and I took the helm. Chrysophrasia was in a particularly Oriental frame of mind. The deep blue sky, the emerald green of the hills, and the cool clear water rippling under the breeze, no doubt acted soothingly upon her nerves.

"I feel quite like Sindbad the Sailor," she said. "Mr. Griggs, you ought really to tell us a tale from the Arabian Nights. I am sure it would seem so very real, you know."

"If I were to spin yarns while steering, Miss Dabstreak," I said, "your fate would probably resemble Sindbad's. You would be wrecked six or seven times between here and Kavak."

"So delightfully exciting," murmured Chrysophrasia. "Annie," she continued, addressing her sister, "shall we not ask Mr. Griggs to wreck us? I have always longed to be on a wreck."

"No," said Madame Patoff, glancing at her foolish sister with her great dark eyes. "I should not like to be drowned."

"Of course not; how very dreadful!" exclaimed Miss Dabstreak. "But Sindbad was never drowned, you remember. It was always somebody else."

"Oh--somebody else," repeated Madame Patoff, looking down at the deep water. "Yes, to drown somebody else,--that would be very different."

I think we were all a little startled, and Hermione looked at Paul and turned pale. As for Cutter, he very slowly and solemnly drew a cigar from his case, lit it carefully, crossed one knee over the other, and gazed fixedly at Madame Patoff during several minutes, before he spoke.

"Would you really like to see anybody drowned?" he asked at last.

"Why do you ask?" inquired Madame Patoff, rather sharply.

"Because I thought you said so, and I wanted to know if you were in earnest."

"I suppose we should all like to see our enemies die," said the old lady. "Not painfully, of course, but so that we should be quite sure of it." She laid a strong emphasis on the last words, and as she looked up I thought she glanced at Paul.

"If you had seen many people die, you would not care for the sight,"

said the professor quietly. "Besides, you have no enemies."

"What is death?" asked Madame Patoff, looking at him with a curiously calm smile as she asked the question.

"The only thing we know about it, is that it appears to be in every way the opposite of life," was the scientist's answer. "Life separates us for a time from the state of what we call inanimate matter. When life ceases, we return to that state."

"Why do you say 'what we call inanimate matter'?" inquired Paul.

"Because it has been very well said that names are labels, not definitions. As a definition, inanimate matter means generally the earth, the water, the air; but the name would be a very poor definition,--as poor as the word 'man' used to define the human animal."

"You do not think that inanimate matter is really lifeless?" I asked.

"Unless it is so hot that it melts," laughed the professor. "Even then it may not be true,--indeed, it may be quite false. We call the moon dead, because we have reason to believe that she has cooled to the centre. We call Jupiter and Saturn live planets, though we believe them still too hot to support life."

"All that does not explain death," objected Madame Patoff.

"If I could explain death, I could explain life," answered Cutter. "And if I could explain life, I should have made a great step towards producing it artificially."

"If one could only produce artificial death!" exclaimed Madame Patoff.

"It would be very amusing," answered Cutter, with a smile, folding his huge white hands upon his knee. "We could try it on ourselves, and then we should know what to expect. I have often thought about it, I a.s.sure you. I once had the curiosity to put myself into a trance by the Munich method of shining disks,--they use it in the hospitals instead of ether, you know,--and I remained in the state half an hour."

"And then, what happened when you woke up?"

"I had a bad headache and my eyes hurt me," replied the professor dryly.

"I dare say that if a dead man came to life he would feel much the same thing."

"I dare say," a.s.sented Madame Patoff; but there was a vague look in her eyes, which showed that her thoughts were somewhere else. We were close upon the Asian sh.o.r.e, and I put the helm down to go about. The ladies changed their places, and there was a little confusion, in which Cutter found himself close to me.

"Keep an eye on her," he said quickly, in a low voice. "She is very queer."

I thought so, too, and I watched Madame Patoff to see whether she would return to the subject which seemed to attract her. Cutter kept up the conversation, however, and did not again show any apprehension about his former patient's state of mind, though I could see that he watched her as closely as I did. The fresh breeze filled the sails, and the next tack took us clear up to Yeni Mahalle on the European side; for the little yacht was quick in stays, and, moreover, had a good hold on the water, enabling her to beat quickly up against wind and current. Once again I went about, and, running briskly across, made the little pier below Anadoli Kavak, little more than three quarters of an hour after we had started. We landed, and went up the green slope to the place where the little coffee-shop stands under the trees. We intended to climb the hill to the ruined castle. To my surprise, Professor Cutter suggested to Madame Patoff that they should stay below, while the rest made the ascent. He said he feared she would tire herself too much. But she would not listen to him.

"I insist upon going," she said. "I am as strong as any of you. It is quite absurd."

Cutter temporized by suggesting that we should have coffee before the walk, and Chrysophrasia sank languidly down upon a straw chair.

"If the man has any loukoum, I could bear a cup of coffee," she murmured. The man had loukoum, it appeared, and Chrysophrasia was satisfied. We all sat down in a circle under the huge oak-tree, and enjoyed the freshness and greenness of the place. The kaffeji, in loose white garments and a fez, presently brought out a polished bra.s.s tray, bearing the requisite number of tiny cups and two little white saucers filled with pieces of loukoum-rahat, the Turkish national sweetmeat, commonly called by schoolboys fig-paste.

"Why was I not born a Turk!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia. "This joyous life in the open air is so intensely real, so profoundly true!"

"Life is real anywhere," remarked Cutter, with a smile. "The important question is whether it is agreeable to the liver."

"Death is real, too," said Madame Patoff, in such a curious tone that we all started slightly, as we had done in the boat. My nerves are good, but I felt a weird horror of the woman stealing over me. The imperturbable scientist only glanced at me, as though to remind me of what he had said before. Then he took up the question.

"No, madam," he said, coldly. "Death is a negation, almost a universal negation. It is not real; it only devours reality, and then denies it.

You can see that life is to breathe, to think, to eat, to drink, to love, to fear,--any of these. Death is only the negation of all these things, because we can only say that in death we do none of them.

Reality is motion, in the broad sense, as far as man is concerned; death is only the cessation of the ability to move. You cannot predicate anything else of it."

"Oh, your dry, dry science!" exclaimed Chrysophrasia, casting up her green eyes. "You would turn our fair fields and limpid--ahem--skies--into the joyless waste of a London pavement, or one of your horrid dissecting-rooms!"

"I don't see the point of your simile, Miss Dabstreak," answered Cutter, with pardonable bluntness. "Besides, that is philosophy, and not science."

"What is the difference. Mr. Griggs?" asked Hermione, turning to me.

"My dear young lady," said I, "science, I think, means the state of being wise, and hence, the thing known, which gives a man the t.i.tle of wise. Philosophy means the love of wisdom."

"Rather involved definition," observed the professor, with a laugh.

"There is not much difference between the state of being wise and the state of loving wisdom."

"The one a.s.serts the possession of that which the other aspires to possess, but considers to be very difficult of attainment," I tried to explain. "The scientist says to the world, 'I have found the origin of life: it is protoplasm, it is your G.o.d, and all your religious beliefs are merely the result of your ignorance of protoplasm.' The philosopher answers, 'I allow that this protoplasm is the origin of life, but how did this origin itself originate? And if you can show how it originated from inanimate matter, how did the inanimate matter begin to exist? And how was s.p.a.ce found in which it could exist? And why does anything exist, animate or inanimate? And is the existence of matter a proof of a supreme design, or is it not?' Thereupon science gets very red in the face, and says that these questions are absurd, after previously stating that everything ought to be questioned."

"Science," answered the professor, "says that man has enough to do in questioning his immediate surroundings, without going into the matter of transcendental inquiry."

"Then she ought to keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot.

"The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded a.s.sumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that there is no G.o.d."

"That is strong language, Mr. Griggs,--very strong language," repeated the professor. "You exaggerate the position too much, I think. But it is useless to argue with transcendentalists. You always fall back upon the question of faith, and you refuse to listen to reason."