The Captain's Dol

her eyes were so clear and bright and different. Like a child's

  that is listening to something, and is going to be frightened. She

  was always listening--and waiting--for something else. I tell you

  what, she was exactly like that fairy in the Scotch song, who is in

  love with a mortal, and sits by the high road in terror waiting for

  him to come, and hearing the plovers and the curlews. Only

  nowadays motor-lorries go along the moor roads and the poor thing

  is struck unconscious, and carried into our world in a state of

  unconsciousness, and when she comes round, she tries to talk our

  language and behave as we behave, and she can't remember anything

  else, so she goes on and on, till she falls with a crash, back to

  her own world.'

  Hannele was silent, and so was he.

  'You loved her then?' she said at length.

  'Yes. But in this way. When I was a boy I caught a bird, a black-

  cap, and I put it in a cage. And I loved that bird. I don't know

  why, but I loved it. I simply loved that bird. All the gorse, and

  the heather, and the rock, and the hot smell of yellow gorse

  blossom, and the sky that seemed to have no end to it, when I was a

  boy, everything that I almost was MAD with, as boys are, seemed to

  me to be in that little, fluttering black-cap. And it would peck

  its seed as if it didn't quite know what else to do; and look round

  about, and begin to sing. But in quite a few days it turned its

  head aside and died. Yes, it died. I never had the feeling again

  that I got from that black-cap when I was a boy--not until I saw

  her. And then I felt it all again. I felt it all again. And it

  was the same feeling. I knew, quite soon I knew, that she would

  die. She would peck her seed and look round in the cage just the

  same. But she would die in the end. Only it would last much

  longer. But she would die in the cage, like the black-cap.'

  'But she loved the cage. She loved her clothes and her jewels.

  She must have loved her house and her furniture and all that with a

  perfect frenzy.'

  'She did. She did. But like a child with playthings. Only they

  were big, marvellous playthings to her. Oh yes, she was never away

  from them. She never forgot her things--her trinkets and her furs

  and her furniture. She never got away from them for a minute. And

  everything in her mind was mixed up with them.'

  'Dreadful!' said Hannele.

  'Yes, it was dreadful,' he answered.

  'Dreadful,' repeated Hannele.

  'Yes, quite. Quite! And it got worse. And her way of talking got

  worse. As if it bubbled off her lips. But her eyes never lost

  their brightness, they never lost that faery look. Only I used to

  see fear in them. Fear of everything--even all the things she

  surrounded herself with. Just like my black-cap used to look out

  of his cage--so bright and sharp, and yet as if he didn't know that

  it was just the cage that was between him and the outside. He

  thought it was inside himself, the barrier. He thought it was part

  of his own nature to be shut in. And she thought it was part of

  her own nature. And so they both died.'

  'What I can't see,' said Hannele, 'is what she would have done

  outside her cage. What other life could she have, except her

  bibelots and her furniture, and her talk?'

  'Why, none. There IS no life outside for human beings.'

  'Then there's nothing,' said Hannele.

  'That's true. In a great measure, there's nothing.'

  'Thank you,' said Hannele.

  There was a long pause.

  'And perhaps I was to blame. Perhaps I ought to have made some

  sort of a move. But I didn't know what to do. For my life, I

  didn't know what to do, except try to make her happy. She had

  enough money--and I didn't think it mattered if she shared it with

  me. I always had a garden--and the astronomy. It's been an

  immense relief to me watching the moon. It's been wonderful.

  Instead of looking inside the cage, as I did at my bird, or at her--

  I look right out--into freedom--into freedom.'

  'The moon, you mean?' said Hannele.

  'Yes, the moon.'

  'And that's your freedom?'

  'That's where I've found the greatest sense of freedom,' he said.

  'Well, I'm not going to be jealous of the moon,' said Hannele at

  length.

  'Why should you? It's not a thing to be jealous of.'

  In a little while, she bade him good-night and left him.

  VIII

  The chief thing that the captain knew, at this juncture, was that a

  hatchet had gone through the ligatures and veins that connected him

  with the people of his affection, and that he was left with the

  bleeding ends of all his vital human relationships. Why it should

  be so he did not know. But then one never can know the whys and

  the wherefores of one's passional changes.

  He only knew that it was so. The emotional flow between him and

  all the people he knew and cared for was broken, and for the time

  being he was conscious only of the cleavage. The cleavage that had

  occurred between him and his fellow-men, the cleft that was now

  between him and them. It was not the fault of anybody or anything.

  He could neither reproach himself nor them. What had happened had

  been preparing for a long time. Now suddenly the cleavage. There

  had been a long, slow weaning away: and now this sudden silent

  rupture.

  What it amounted to principally was that he did not want even to

  see Hannele. He did not want to think of her even. But neither

  did he want to see anybody else, or to think of anybody else. He

  shrank with a feeling almost of disgust from his friends and

  acquaintances, and their expressions of sympathy. It affected him

  with instantaneous disgust when anybody wanted to share emotions

  with him. He did not want to share emotions or feelings of any

  sort. He wanted to be by himself, essentially, even if he was

  moving about among other people.

  So he went to England to settle his own affairs, and out of duty to

  see his children. He wished his children all the well in the

  world--everything except any emotional connexion with himself. He

  decided to take his girl away from the convent at once, and to put

  her into a jolly English school. His boy was all right where he

  was.

  The captain had now an income sufficient to give him his

  independence, but not sufficient to keep up his wife's house. So

  he prepared to sell the house and most of the things in it. He

  decided also to leave the army as soon as he could be free. And he

  thought he would wander about for a time, till he came upon

  something he wanted.

  So the winter passed, without his going back to Germany. He was

  free of the army. He drifted along, settling his affairs. They

  were of no very great importance. And all the time he never wrote

  once to Hannele. He could not get over his disgust that people

  insisted on his sharing their emotions. He could not bear their

  emotions, neither their activities. Other people might have all


  the emotions and feelings and earnestness and busy activities they

  liked. Quite nice even that they had such a multifarious commotion

  for themselves. But the moment they approached him to spread their

  feelings over him or to entangle him in their activities a helpless

  disgust came up in him, and until he could get away he felt sick,

  even physically.

  This was no state of mind for a lover. He could not even think of

  Hannele. Anybody else he felt he need not think about. He was

  deeply, profoundly thankful that his wife was dead. It was an end

  of pity now; because, poor thing, she had escaped and gone her own

  way into the void, like a flown bird.

  IX

  Nevertheless, a man hasn't finished his life at forty. He may,

  however, have finished one great phase of his life.

  And Alexander Hepburn was not the man to live alone. All our

  troubles, says somebody wise, come upon us because we cannot be

  alone. And that is all very well. We must all be ABLE to be

  alone, otherwise we are just victims. But when we ARE able to be

  alone, then we realize that the only thing to do is to start a new

  relationship with another--or even the same--human being. That

  people should all be stuck up apart, like so many telegraph-poles,

  is nonsense.

  So with our dear captain. He had his convulsion into a sort of

  telegraph-pole isolation: which was absolutely necessary for him.

  But then he began to bud with a new yearning for--for what? For

  love?

  It was a question he kept nicely putting to himself. And really,

  the nice young girls of eighteen or twenty attracted him very much:

  so fresh, so impulsive, and looking up to him as if he were

  something wonderful. If only he could have married two or three of

  them, instead of just one!

  Love! When a man has no particular ambition, his mind turns back

  perpetually, as a needle towards the pole. That tiresome word

  Love. It means so many things. It meant the feeling he had had

  for his wife. He had loved her. But he shuddered at the thought

  of having to go through such love again. It meant also the feeling

  he had for the awfully nice young things he met here and there:

  fresh, impulsive girls ready to give all their hearts away. Oh

  yes, he could fall in love with half a dozen of them. But he knew

  he'd better not.

  At last he wrote to Hannele: and got no answer. So he wrote to

  Mitchka and still got no answer. So he wrote for information--and

  there was none forthcoming, except that the two women had gone to

  Munich.

  For the time being he left it at that. To him, Hannele did not

  exactly represent rosy love. Rather a hard destiny. He did not

  adore her. He did not feel one bit of adoration for her. As a

  matter of fact, not all the beauties and virtues of woman put

  together with all the gold in the Indies would have tempted him

  into the business of adoration any more. He had gone on his knees

  once, vowing with faltering tones to try and make the adored one

  happy. And now--never again. Never.

  The temptation this time was to be adored. One of those fresh

  young things would have adored him as if he were a god. And there

  was something VERY alluring about the thought. Very--very

  alluring. To be god-almighty in your own house, with a lovely

  young thing adoring you, and you giving off beams of bright

  effulgence like a Gloria! Who wouldn't be tempted: at the age of

  forty? And this was why he dallied.

  But in the end he suddenly took the train to Munich. And when he

  got there he found the town beastly uncomfortable, the Bavarians

  rude and disagreeable, and no sign of the missing females, not even

  in the Caf? St?phanie. He wandered round and round.

  And then one day, oh heaven, he saw his doll in a shop window: a

  little art shop. He stood and stared quite spellbound.

  'Well, if that isn't the devil,' he said. 'Seeing yourself in a

  shop window!'

  He was so disgusted that he would not go into the shop.

  Then, every day for a week did he walk down that little street and

  look at himself in the shop window. Yes, there he stood, with one

  hand in his pocket. And the figure had one hand in its pocket.

  There he stood, with his cap pulled rather low over his brow. And

  the figure had its cap pulled low over its brow. But, thank

  goodness, his own cap now was a civilian tweed. But there he

  stood, his head rather forward, gazing with fixed dark eyes. And

  himself in little, that wretched figure, stood there with its head

  rather forward, staring with fixed dark eyes. It was such a real

  little MAN that it fairly staggered him. The oftener he saw it,

  the more it staggered him. And the more he hated it. Yet it

  fascinated him, and he came again to look.

  And it was always there. A lonely little individual lounging there

  with one hand in its pocket, and nothing to do, among the bric-?-

  brac and the bibelots. Poor devil, stuck so incongruously in the

  world. And yet losing none of his masculinity.

  A male little devil, for all his forlornness. But such an air of

  isolation, or not-belonging. Yet taut and male, in his tartan

  trews. And what a situation to be in!--lounging with his back

  against a little Japanese lacquer cabinet, with a few old pots on

  his right hand and a tiresome brass ink-tray on his left, while

  pieces of not-very-nice filet lace hung their length up and down

  the background. Poor little devil: it was like a deliberate

  satire.

  And then one day it was gone. There was the cabinet and the filet

  lace and the tiresome ink-stand tray: and the little gentleman

  wasn't there. The captain at once walked into the shop.

  'Have you sold that doll?--that unknown soldier?' he added, without

  knowing quite what he was saying.

  The doll was sold.

  'Do you know who bought it?'

  The girl looked at him very coldly, and did not know.

  'I once knew the lady who made it. In fact, the doll was ME,' he

  said.

  The girl now looked at him with sudden interest.

  'Don't you think it was like me?' he said.

  'Perhaps'--she began to smile.

  'It was me. And the lady who made it was a friend of mine. Do you

  know her name?'

  'Yes.'

  'Gr?fin zu Rassentlow,' he cried, his eyes shining.

  'Oh yes. But her dolls are famous.'

  'Do you know where she is? Is she in Munich?'

  'That I don't know.'

  'Could you find out?'

  'I don't know. I can ask.'

  'Or the Baroness von Prielau-Carolath.'

  'The Baroness is dead.'

  'Dead!'

  'She was shot in a riot in Salzburg. They say a lover--'

  'How do you know?'

  'From the newspapers.'

  'Dead! Is it possible. Poor Hannele.'

  There was a pause.

  'Well,' he said, 'if you would inquire about the address--I'll call

  again.'

  Then he turned back from the door.

  'By the way, do you mind telli
ng me how much you sold the doll

  for?'

  The girl hesitated. She was by no means anxious to give away any

  of her trade details. But at length she answered reluctantly:

  'Five hundred marks.'

  'So cheap,' he said.' Good-day. Then I will call again.'

  X

  Then again he got a trace. It was in the Chit-Chat column of the

  M?nchener Neue Zeitung: under Studio-Comments. 'Theodor

  Worpswede's latest picture is a still-life, containing an

  entertaining group of a doll, two sunflowers in a glass jar, and a

  poached egg on toast. The contrast between the three substances is

  highly diverting and instructive, and this is perhaps one of the

  most interesting of Worpswede's works. The doll, by the way, is

  one of the creations of our fertile Countess Hannele. It is the

  figure of an English, or rather Scottish, officer in the famous

  tartan trousers which, clinging closely to the legs of the lively

  Gaul, so shocked the eminent Julius Caesar and his cohorts. We, of

  course, are no longer shocked, but full of admiration for the

  creative genius of our dear Countess. The doll itself is a

  masterpiece, and has begotten another masterpiece in Theodor

  Worpswede's Still-life. We have heard, by the way, a rumour of

  Countess zu Rassentlow's engagement. Apparently the Herr

  Regierungsrat von Poldi, of that most beautiful of summer resorts,

  Kaprun, in the Tyrol, is the fortunate man--'

  XI

  The captain bought the Still-life. This new version of himself

  along with the poached egg and the sunflowers was rather

  frightening. So he packed up for Austria, for Kaprun, with his

  picture, and had a fight to get the beastly thing out of Germany,

  and another fight to get it into Austria. Fatigued and furious he

  arrived in Salzburg, seeing no beauty in anything. Next day he was

  in Kaprun.

  It was an elegant and fashionable watering-place before the war: a

  lovely little lake in the midst of the Alps, an old Tyrolese town

  on the water-side, green slopes sheering up opposite, and away

  beyond a glacier. It was still crowded and still elegant. But

  alas, with a broken, bankrupt, desperate elegance, and almost empty

  shops.

  The captain felt rather dazed. He found himself in an hotel full

  of Jews of the wrong, rich sort, and wondered what next. The place

  was beautiful, but the life wasn't.

  XII

  The Herr Regierungsrat was not at first sight prepossessing. He

  was approaching fifty, and had gone stout and rather loose, as so

  many men of his class and race do. Then he wore one of those

  dreadful full-bottom coats, a kind of poor relation to our full-

  skirted frock-coat: it would best be described as a family coat.

  It flapped about him as he walked, and he looked at first glance

  lower middle class.

  But he wasn't. Of course, being in office in the collapsed

  Austria, he was a republican. But by nature he was a monarchist,

  nay, an imperialist, as every true Austrian is. And he was a true

  Austrian. And as such he was much finer and subtler than he

  looked. As one got used to him, his rather fat face, with its fine

  nose and slightly bitter, pursed mouth, came to have a resemblance

  to the busts of some of the late Roman emperors. And as one was

  with him, one came gradually to realize that out of all his baggy

  bourgeois appearance came something of a grand geste. He could not

  help it. There was something sweeping and careless about his soul:

  big, rather assertive, and ill-bred-seeming; but, in fact, not ill-

  bred at all, only a little bitter and a good deal indifferent to

  his surroundings. He looked at first sight so common and parvenu.

  And then one had to realize that he was a member of a big, old

  empire, fallen into a sort of epicureanism, and a little bitter.