The Hippodrome Part 6

"As I introduced you to the Brotherhood, I should naturally be the one chosen to execute judgment on you. _Enfin_, my dear Arith.e.l.li, I should be called upon to shoot you. We don't forgive traitors. If we let everyone draw back from their work simply because they happened to be afraid, what would become of the Cause? Also let me remind you how you came to me boasting of your love of freedom. 'I'm a red-hot Socialist.' That's what you said, didn't you? Perhaps you have forgotten it. Well, I haven't. Socialism doesn't consist of standing up in a room to sing."

Arith.e.l.li made no answer. She lay like a dead thing, and after a pause the slow cynical voice went on.

"There was another woman in our affair about two years ago. Her name was Felise Rivaz. She got engaged to one of the men, and then it suddenly occurred to her that comfortable matrimony and Anarchy didn't seem likely to be enjoyed at one and the same time. So she persuaded the man to turn traitor and run away to England with her, where they proposed to get married.

"Their plans came out,--naturally,--those things generally do. We all spy upon each other. They both felt so secure that they came together to a last meeting--I can show you the house if you like. It's down in the Parelelo, the revolutionary quarter.

"They strangled the woman, and cut off her arm above the elbow--I remember she had a thick gold bracelet round it with a date (a _gage d'amour_ from her lover I suppose)--and they made him drink the blood.

He went mad afterwards. The best thing he could do under the circ.u.mstances." Emile shrugged.

"There are plenty more similar _histoires_. But perhaps I have told you enough to convince you of the futility of attempting to draw back from what you have undertaken."

Still there was neither movement nor answer. Emile got up, and came to the bed.

"_Allons_! It's time you were dressing. You'll be late again, and one of these days you'll find yourself dismissed. You must just go on and put up with it all. Life mostly consists of putting up with things."

But even this consoling philosophy failed to have a rousing effect.

For the first time in her life Arith.e.l.li had fainted.

When she came to her senses that evening Emile sent the landlady with a message to the Hippodrome, telling the Manager to subst.i.tute another turn, and then made Arith.e.l.li get into bed. Her dress and boots came off and reposed upon the floor. The rest of her clothes were left on.

These details did not worry Emile. Then he found a book and sat reading till she had drifted into a heavy sleep, the sleep of exhaustion.

In his own way he was sorry for her, and his feelings were by no means as brutal as his words. At the same time he did not believe in a display of sympathy. According to his ideas it was demoralising, and cured no one of complaints, imaginary or otherwise.

Also it was likely to make people hysterical. Therefore when Arith.e.l.li woke at six o'clock in the morning, and sat up panting, with a hand at her left side, he elevated both shoulders and eyebrows.

"_Qu'est ce-qu vous avez donc_? You're all right now."

He knew perfectly well that there was no pretence of illness. The strained eyes, the blue shadows round the mouth told their own tale.

"Oh, Emile, my heart feels so queer! I'm sure it must be all wrong."

"_Ma foi_! _Ces femmes la_! _Il y a tou jours quelque chose_! First a faint, then a heart! How often am I to tell you, Arith.e.l.li, that that part of your--your--how do you say it?--anatomy--is quite without use here? Have you any brandy in the room?"

"There's Eau de Cologne on the washstand."

He mixed water with the spirit and gave her a liberal dose that soon helped her to look less ghastly.

She lay back feeling almost comfortable, wishing Emile would see fit to depart, but Count Poleski returned again to the subject of her misbehaviour.

Like most men he was not at his best in the early morning, and the night's vigil had not improved his temper.

He sat scowling after his manner, black eyebrows meeting over grey eyes, hard as flint. "If you are going in for this kind of performance, what will be the use of you?" he enquired sarcastically.

Perhaps after all Sobrenski had been right in employing no women.

"Even the best machine will get out of order sometimes," the girl replied wearily.

"And when that happens one sets to work to find another machine to take its place."

"I didn't know about the horrors; you ought to have told me. It isn't fair."

There was neither pa.s.sion nor resentment in the low voice. "What shall I do?" she went on, after waiting for Emile to speak.

"Put up with it, or better still go in for the Cause seriously."

"Don't you call this serious? Blood and brutalities and slave-driving?

You talked about _l'entresol de l'enfer_, but I'm beginning to think I've stepped over the threshold."

"_Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_!"

Arith.e.l.li bit her lips. "I don't feel in the mood for arguing now. I wish you would leave me alone."

"On condition that you won't go in for any more hysterics, I'll go and settle with the Manager that you don't have to appear to-night. It's lucky there happens to be a new turn with those trapeze people. The audience won't miss you. Has Sobrenski given you anything to do to-day?"

"I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, yes, I was to go to the Baroni's at two o'clock."

"I'll see to that. A cipher message?"

"Yes. It's fastened under my hair." She dragged herself into a sitting position and extracted the little wad of paper with shaking hands. Emile took it.

"Good! I shall be back at five o'clock. You can get up later and come round to my rooms. Do you understand?"

"Yes!"

When he had gone she cowered down into the big bed shivering. Every bone in her body ached as if she had been beaten. She had the sensation of one who has been awakened from a bad dream. Was it all real or not?

Last night and its doings seemed centuries ago. She still heard Emile's voice as if from a distance, telling the story of the lovely siren woman who had been strangled, and then the room rocked, and the walls closed in upon her.

His words worked in her brain: "_Go in for the Cause seriously.

Remember it's liberty we are fighting for. A life more or less--what's that? Yours or mine? What does it matter? Do you wonder we don't make love to women? It's a G.o.ddess and not a woman before whom we burn incense. Blood and tears, money and life! Is there any sacrifice too great for her altar?_"

And she had been both frightened and fascinated.

This was what Anarchism made of men like the cynical Emile. It had never occurred to her before that even Sobrenski, whom she regarded solely as a brutal task-master, was himself a living sacrifice.

She drowsed and brooded through the day, and having arrived at Emile's room and finding it empty, she "prowled," as she herself would have expressed it, among his few belongings, for she possessed a very feminine curiosity. Under a pile of loose music she found the portrait of a little blond woman, beautiful of curve and outline, in a lace robe that could only have been made in Paris or Vienna.

The picture was signed _Marie Roumanoff_, and on the back was written "_Tout pa.s.se, tout ca.s.se, tout la.s.se!_" There were songs too scrawled with love-messages in Emile's handwriting.

She pored over them with a vivid interest quite unmingled with any thought of jealousy. Emile always said that no revolutionist ever wasted time or thought on women.

After all, if she were shot to-morrow who would care? She had written to her people and sent them photographs and newspapers with the accounts of her triumph.