Hania

Turning her eyes, filled with feigned terror, to his face, which was really like the face of a madman, she asked, —

"Do you want to kill me?"

"I want pay – not in money!" answered he, in a stifled voice. Then growing paler yet, he seized her in his arms; and she began to defend herself. But she did so like a fainting woman whom terror deprives of strength and consciousness.

CHAPTER V

SVIRSKI, on arriving at Villa Franca, got out and went to the harbor; for it occurred to him that he might return to Nice by boat. He found, just at the edge of the harbor, a fisherman, an old acquaintance, who, pleased at the sight of a liberal customer, undertook with usual Ligurian boastfulness to take him "even to Corsica though the Sirocco were to turn the sea bottom upward."

But the question was only of a short trip, all the easier because there was not the slightest breeze. Svirski took his place at the stern, and they moved over the smooth sea. After a time, when they had passed the luxurious private yachts, they approached ironclads, whose calm, black immensities were outlined firmly and distinctly in the afternoon sunlight. The deck of the "Formidable" was garlanded already with lamps of various colors, for the ball of the following evening, to which Svirski was to receive an invitation. At the bulwarks were sailors, who, seen from below, looked like pygmies when compared with the ship. The iron walls of the vessel, the smoke-stacks, the masts, the rigging, were reflected in the transparent water as in a mirror. From time to time among the ironclads pushed a boat, which from a distance seemed a black beetle, moving its row of legs symmetrically. Beyond the vessels began empty space, in which the sea surface, as is usual when anything leaves the harbor, rose and fell, though there was no wind, now raising, now letting down Svirski's boat, with a movement at once broad and agreeable. Soon they were approaching lofty cliffs, on the right side of the harbor, along which extended a gray, dusty road; lower down was a parade-ground, where soldiers were practising on trumpets. At last, when they had turned the promontory, against which waves were rolling, they sailed into deep water.

Beyond the harbor there is always some breeze, therefore the fisherman hoisted his sails. Svirski, instead of steering toward Nice, turned to the open sea.

They went straight ahead, rocked by the swell. The sun was lowering toward evening. The rocky cliffs and the sea had grown purple; everything round about was calm, quiet, and so immense that, in spite of himself, Svirski thought how contemptible and petty life was in view of those elements which surrounded him at that moment. Suddenly he felt as if his own affairs, and those of other men, had gone somewhere very far off. Pani Elzen, Romulus, Remus, and all his acquaintances along the shore, all that swarm of people filled with fever, unrest, paltry ambitions, and wretched desires, were belittled in his eyes. As a man accustomed to analyze what happens within him, he was frightened at that impression; for he considered that if he loved Pani Elzen really, her portrait would not be covered by anything, would not be dimmed, would not be decreased, would not disappear. Such had been the case with him formerly. Svirski remembered that when a woman whom he loved got married, he went on a journey. At that time he learned first to know Italy, Rome, Sicily, and the sea, and the coast of Africa; and no impression dimmed in his mind the memory of the beloved woman. In the galleries of Florence and Rome, on the sea and in the desert, she was with him; through her he received every impression, and everywhere he said to her, as if present, "Look at this!" The difference between those distant years and to-day filled him with sadness.

But the calm of the sea acted on him in a manner that was healing. They had sailed out so far that the shores began to be concealed. Then the sun went down; one star twinkled, and then another. The dolphins, which in the evening twilight passed before the boat with the motion of waves, disturbing the calm surface with their sharp backs, sank in the depth, and from no point came an echo. The surface of the water had grown so smooth that at moments the sails became limp. Finally, the moon rose from beyond the mountains, pouring a greenish light over the sea and illuminating it far off to the limit of the horizon.

A southern night began, as mild as it was silent. Svirski sheltered himself in the coat lent him by the fisherman, and meditated: "All that surrounds me is not only beauty, but truth as well. The life of man, if it is to be normal, should be ingrafted on the trunk of nature, grow out of it, as a branch grows out of a tree, and exist in virtue of those same laws. Then it will be truthful and besides moral, for morality is at bottom nothing else than the agreement of life with the universal law of nature. For instance, simplicity and calm surrounds me; I understand this, and I feel it is as an artist; but I haven't it in myself as a man, for my life, and the life of these people among whom I live, has departed from nature, it has ceased to fit itself to that law, to be its result, and has made itself a lie. Everything in us is artificial, even the feeling of natural laws has perished in us. Our relations are founded on falsehood. Our senses are crooked; our souls and our impulses sick. We deceive one another and even ourselves, till at last no man is sure that he wishes really that toward which he is striving, or that he will strive toward that which he wishes."

And there, in presence of that night, of that infinity of the sea, of the stars, of all nature, of its calmness, its simplicity, its immensity, he was seized by a feeling of the gigantic falsehood of the relations between men. False seemed to him his love for Pani Elzen; false her relation to him, to her children, to other men, to society; false the life on that bright shore; false their present and false their future. "I am encircled, as if by a net," thought he; "and I know not how to tear myself out of it." And indeed that was true. For if all life is a falsehood, what is to be done in face of that fact? Return to nature? Begin some sort of life half savage, half peasant? Break with people and become a reformer right away? Svirski felt too old for this, and too sceptical. For such a course one needs to have the dogmatism of Kresovich, and to feel evil as a spur to battle and reform, not as a mere impression which may grow faint to-morrow! But another thought came to Svirski's mind as a recompense. The man who does not feel in himself power to reform the world, may flee from it, for a time, at least, and draw breath. For instance, he could go to Marseilles the next day, and a couple of days later somewhere else, out on the open ocean, hundreds of miles from the shore, from sickly life, from lies and deceptions. In this way all would be settled immediately, or rather cut off as if with a knife.

And in one moment he was seized by such a desire to turn that idea into action that he gave command to return to Nice.

"The wild beast, which feels itself in a net," thought he, "tries first of all to get out. That is its first right – and just that is in accord with nature, hence it is moral. The net around me is not Pani Elzen alone, but all things taken together. I feel perfectly that in marrying her I shall marry a life of lies. That might happen even without her fault, and through the necessity of things – from such a complication one is always free to escape."

And now he pictured other scenes to himself, – scenes which he might see in his flight: broad deserts with water and with sand, unknown lands and people, the sincerity and truth of their primitive life, and finally the variety of events, and all the difference between days to come and the present.

"I ought to have done this long since," said he to himself.

Then a thought entered his mind which could come only to an artist, that if he should leave his betrothed suddenly and go to Paris, for example, the act would belong to "vile literature;" but should he shoot off beyond the equator, to the land where pepper grows, the fact of leaving her would be diminished in view of the distance, the affair would make another impression, would appear more original, and, for that very reason, in better taste.

"But I," thought he, "will go devilish far!"

Meanwhile from a distance Nice rose before him in the form of a bundle of lights. In the middle of that bundle was the building called "Jetée Promenade," which gleamed in the form of a gigantic lighthouse. As the boat, urged by a strong breeze, approached the harbor, every one of those lights changed, as it were, into a pillar of fire, which quivered on the moving water near the shore. The sight of these gleams sobered Svirski.

"The city! – and life!" thought he.

And at once his former plans began to fall apart like dream-visions born of night and emptiness. That which a moment earlier he thought justifiable, necessary, and easy of accomplishment, seemed a whim devoid of the essence of reality, and in part dishonest. "With life, whatever it be, one must reckon. Whoso has lived under its laws the years that I have, must feel responsible to it. It is no great thing to say to one's self: I used them as long as they were pleasant, but the moment they were painful I went back to nature."

Then he fell to thinking more connectedly, not of general theories, but of Pani Elzen.

"By what right could I leave her? If her life has been artificial and false, if her past is not clear, I, who knew that, might have refrained from proposing. At present I could have the right to break with her only in case I discovered in her evil which she concealed, or if she committed some fault touching me. But she has committed no fault of that sort. She has been honest and sincere with me. Besides, there is something in her which attracts me; if not, I should not have proposed. At moments I feel that I love her; and because doubt comes at times on me, must she be the sufferer? My flight would in every case be an injustice to the woman, and who knows that it would not be a blow."

He understood now, that to think of flight and permit it are, for a decent man, two opposite poles. He could only think of it. He could appear before the eyes of Pani Elzen more easily, and ask her to return his word to him; but to flee from danger was a thing directly opposed to his personal nature and the character of his stock, which was thoroughly civilized. Besides, at the very thought of doing injustice to a woman, the heart quivered in him; and Pani Elzen grew nearer and dearer to him.

They had sailed almost into the harbor; and a moment later the boat arrived. Svirski paid, and taking a seat in a carriage, gave directions to drive to his studio. On the street, amid the glare of lamps, the noise and the movement, he was carried away again by a yearning for that quiet, that endless spread of water, that calmness, that boundless truth of God, from which he had parted a moment before. At last, when he was near the studio, the following idea came to his head: "It is a marvellous thing that I, who feared women so much, and was so distrustful of them, have in the end of ends chosen one capable of rousing more fear than all the others."

There was in that a certain fatality, as it were; and Svirski would have found beyond doubt in that concourse of things material for meditation during a whole evening, had it not been that as he entered the servant gave him two letters. In one, was an invitation to the ball of the following day on board the "Formidable," the other was from Pani Lageat, the owner of the house.

She informed him of her departure in a couple of days for Marseilles, and at the same time told him that she had found a model who ought to satisfy his most extravagant taste, and who would come the next morning.

CHAPTER VI

THE promised miracle came on the following morning at nine. Svirski was dressed and waiting with impatience and nervousness; happily his fears proved unfounded. The first glance satisfied him. The model was tall, slender, very graceful; she had a small head, a delicate face, a beautiful structure of forehead, long eyelashes, and great freshness of complexion. But, beyond all, Svirski was charmed by this, that she had "her own" style of face, and in her expression there was something girl-like. "She has noble movements," thought he; "and if she is formed as she seems, then 'Eureka!' I will engage her for a long time, and take her with me."

He was struck also by her timidity and a look, as it were, of fright. He knew, it is true, that models sometimes feign timidity. He admitted, however, that this one did not.

"What is thy name, my child?" asked he.

"Maria Cervi."

"Art thou from Nice?"

"From Nice."

"Hast ever been a model?"

"No, sir."

"Trained models know what is needed; with new ones there is trouble. Thou hast never been a model in thy life?"

"No, sir."

"How didst thou get the wish to be a model?"

She hesitated, and blushed somewhat.

"Pani Lageat told me that I should be able to earn something."

"True, but evidently thou art afraid. What dost thou fear? I will not eat thee! How much dost thou ask for a sitting?"

"Pani Lageat told me that you would pay five francs."

"Pani Lageat was mistaken. I pay ten."

Joy gleamed in the girl's face, and her cheeks grew still redder.

"When must I begin?" asked she, with a somewhat trembling voice.

"To-day, immediately," answered Svirski, pointing to the picture already begun. "There is the screen; go behind, undress to the waist only. Thou wilt sit for the head, the bosom, and a part of the stomach."

She turned to him an astonished face; her hands dropped slowly along her dress.

"How is that, sir?" asked she, looking at him with terrified eyes.

"My child," answered the artist, a little impatiently, "I understand that it may be difficult the first time. But either thou art a model, or thou art not. I need the head, the bosom, and a part of the stomach; I need these absolutely; dost thou understand? And be sure, at the same time, that there is nothing bad in me; but, first of all, think it over – and quickly; for, if thou art not willing, I shall look for another."

He spoke as a man somewhat vexed; for in his mind the point was that just she should be the model, and that he should not have to look for another. Meanwhile silence came. The model grew pale very evidently; still, after a while, she went behind the screen.