The Collected Short Stories

  He looked up in the other's face appealingly. Severn smiled, with a touch of bitterness. The two men grasped hands.

  To the end of their acquaintance, Severn and Thomas were close friends, with a gentleness in their bearing, one towards the other. On the other hand, Mrs. Thomas was only polite and formal with Severn, treating him as if he were a stranger.

  Kate, her fate disposed of by her "betters", passed out of their three lives.

  THE MORTAL COIL

  I

  She stood motionless in the middle of the room, something tense in her reckless bearing. Her gown of reddish stuff fell silkily about her feet; she looked tall and splendid in the candlelight. Her dark-blond hair was gathered loosely in a fold on top of her head, her young, blossom-fresh face was lifted. From her throat to her feet she was clothed in the elegantly-made dress of silky red stuff, the colour of red earth. She looked complete and lovely, only love could make her such a strange, complete blossom. Her cloak and hat were thrown across a table just in front of her.

  Quite alone, abstracted, she stood there arrested in a conflict of emotions. Her hand, down against her skirt, worked irritably, the ball of the thumb rubbing, rubbing across the tips of the fingers. There was a slight tension between her lifted brows.

  About her the room glowed softly, reflecting the candlelight from its whitewashed walls, and from the great, bowed, whitewashed ceiling. It was a large attic, with two windows, and the ceiling curving down on either side, so that both the far walls were low. Against one, on one side, was a single bed, opened for the night, the white over-bolster piled back. Not far from this was the iron stove. Near the window closest to the bed was a table with writing materials, and a handsome cactus-plant with clear scarlet blossoms threw its bizarre shadow on the wall. There was another table near the second window, and opposite was the door on which hung a military cloak. Along the far wall, were guns and fishing-tackle, and some clothes too, hung on pegs--all men's clothes, all military. It was evidently the room of a man, probably a young lieutenant.

  The girl, in her pure red dress that fell about her feet, so that she looked a woman, not a girl, at last broke from her abstraction and went aimlessly to the writing-table. Her mouth was closed down stubbornly, perhaps in anger, perhaps in pain. She picked up a large seal made of agate, looked at the ingraven coat of arms, then stood rubbing her finger across the cut-out stone, time after time. At last she put the seal down, and looked at the other things--a beautiful old beer-mug used as a tobacco-jar, a silver box like an urn, old and of exquisite shape, a bowl of sealing wax. She fingered the pieces of wax. This, the dark-green, had sealed her last letter. Ah, well! She carelessly turned over the blotting book, which again had his arms stamped on the cover. Then she went away to the window. There, in the window-recess, she stood and looked out. She opened the casement and took a deep breath of the cold night air. Ah, it was good! Far below was the street, a vague golden milky way beneath her, its tiny black figures moving and crossing and re-crossing with marionette, insect-like intentness. A small horse-car rumbled along the lines, so belittled, it was an absurdity. So much for the world! . . . he did not come.

  She looked overhead. The stars were white and flashing, they looked nearer than the street, more kin to her, more real. She stood pressing her breast on her arms, her face lifted to the stars, in the long, anguished suspense of waiting. Noises came up small from the street, as from some insect-world. But the great stars overhead struck white and invincible, infallible. Her heart felt cold like the stars.

  At last she started. There was a noisy knocking at the door, and a female voice calling:

  "Anybody there?"

  "Come in," replied the girl.

  She turned round, shrinking from this intrusion, unable to bear it, after the flashing stars.

  There entered a thin, handsome dark girl dressed in an extravagantly-made gown of dark purple silk and dark blue velvet. She was followed by a small swarthy, inconspicuous lieutenant in pale-blue uniform.

  "Ah you! . . . alone?" cried Teresa, the newcomer, advancing into the room. "Where's the Fritz, then?"

  The girl in red raised her shoulders in a shrug, and turned her face aside, but did not speak.

  "Not here! You don't know where he is? Ach, the dummy, the lout!" Teresa swung round on her companion.

  "Where is he?" she demanded.

  He also lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

  "He said he was coming in half an hour," the young lieutenant replied.

  "Ha!--half an hour! Looks like it! How long is that ago--two hours?"

  Again the young man only shrugged. He had beautiful black eye-lashes, and steady eyes. He stood rather deprecatingly, whilst his girl, golden like a young panther, hung over him.

  "One knows where he is," said Teresa, going and sitting on the opened bed. A dangerous contraction came between the brows of Marta, the girl in red, at this act.

  "Wine, Women and Cards!" said Teresa, in her loud voice. "But they prefer the women on the cards.

  'My love he has four Queenies,

  Four Queenies has my lo-o-ove,'"

  she sang. Then she broke off, and turned to Podewils. "Was he winning when you left him, Karl?"

  Again the young baron raised his shoulders.

  "Tant pis que mal,' he replied, cryptically.

  "Ah, you!" cried Teresa, "with your tant pis que mal! Are you tant pis que mal?" She laughed her deep, strange laugh. "Well," she added, "he'll be coming in with a fortune for you, Marta--"

  There was a vague, unhappy silence.

  "I know his fortunes," said Marta.

  "Yes," said Teresa, in sudden sober irony, "he's a horse-shoe round your neck, is that young jockey.--But what are you going to do, Matzen dearest? You're not going to wait for him any longer?--Don't dream of it! The idea, waiting for that young gentleman as if you were married to him!--Put your hat on, dearest, and come along with us . . . Where are we going, Karl, you pillar of salt?--Eh?--Geier's?--To Geier's, Marta, my dear. Come, quick, up--you've been martyred enough, Marta, my martyr--haw!--haw!!--put your hat on. Up--away!"

  Teresa sprang up like an explosion, anxious to be off.

  "No, I'll wait for him," said Marta, sullenly.

  "Don't be such a fool!" cried Teresa, in her deep voice. "Wait for him! I'd give him wait for him. Catch this little bird waiting." She lifted her hand and blew a little puff across the fingers. "Choo-fly!" she sang, as if a bird had just flown.

  The young lieutenant stood silent with smiling dark eyes. Teresa was quick, and golden as a panther.

  "No, but really, Marta, you're not going to wait any more--really! It's stupid for you to play Gretchen--your eyes are much too green. Put your hat on, there's a darling."

  "No," said Marta, her flower-like face strangely stubborn. "I'll wait for him. He'll have to come some time."

  There was a moment's uneasy pause.

  "Well," said Teresa, holding her long shoulders for her cloak, "so long as you don't wait as long as Lenora-fuhr-ums-Morgenrot--! Adieu, my dear, God be with you."

  The young lieutenant bowed a solicitous bow, and the two went out, leaving the girl in red once more alone.

  She went to the writing table, and on a sheet of paper began writing her name in stiff Gothic characters, time after time:

  Marta Hohenest

  Marta Hohenest

  Marta Hohenest.

  The vague sounds from the street below continued. The wind was cold. She rose and shut the window. Then she sat down again.

  At last the door opened, and a young officer entered. He was buttoned up in a dark-blue great-coat, with large silver buttons going down on either side of the breast. He entered quickly, glancing over the room, at Marta, as she sat with her back to him. She was marking with a pencil on paper. He closed the door. Then with fine beautiful movements he divested himself of his coat and went to hang it up. How well Marta knew the sound of his movements, the quick light step! But she continued mechanically making crosses
on the paper, her head bent forward between the candles, so that her hair made fine threads and mist of light, very beautiful. He saw this, and it touched him. But he could not afford to be touched any further.

  "You have been waiting?" he said formally. The insulting futile question! She made no sign, as if she had not heard. He was absorbed in the tragedy of himself, and hardly heeded her.

  He was a slim, good-looking youth, clear-cut and delicate in mould. His features now were pale, there was something evasive in his dilated, vibrating eyes. He was barely conscious of the girl, intoxicated with his own desperation, that held him mindless and distant.

  To her, the atmosphere of the room was almost unbreathable, since he had come in. She felt terribly bound, walled up. She rose with a sudden movement that tore his nerves. She looked to him tall and bright and dangerous, as she faced round on him.

  "Have you come back with a fortune?" she cried, in mockery, her eyes full of dangerous light.

  He was unfastening his belt, to change his tunic. She watched him up and down, all the time. He could not answer, his lips seemed dumb. Besides, silence was his strength.

  "Have you come back with a fortune?" she repeated, in her strong, clear voice of mockery.

  "No," he said, suddenly turning. "Let it please you that--that I've come back at all."

  He spoke desperately, and tailed off into silence. He was a man doomed. She looked at him: he was insignificant in his doom. She turned in ridicule. And yet she was afraid; she loved him.

  He had stood long enough exposed, in his helplessness. With difficulty he took a few steps, went and sat down at the writing-table. He looked to her like a dog with its tail between its legs.

  He saw the paper, where her name was repeatedly written. She must find great satisfaction in her own name, he thought vaguely. Then he picked up the seal and kept twisting it round in his fingers, doing some little trick. And continually the seal fell on to the table with a sudden rattle that made Marta stiffen cruelly. He was quite oblivious of her.

  She stood watching as he sat bent forward in his stupefaction. The fine cloth of his uniform showed the moulding of his back. And something tortured her as she saw him, till she could hardly bear it: the desire of his finely-shaped body, the stupefaction and the abjectness of him now, his immersion in the tragedy of himself, his being unaware of her. All her will seemed to grip him, to bruise some manly nonchalance and attention out of him.

  "I suppose you're in a fury with me, for being late?" he said, with impotent irony in his voice. Her fury over trifles, when he was lost in calamity! How great was his real misery, how trivial her small offendedness!

  Something in his tone burned her, and made her soul go cold.

  "I'm not exactly pleased," she said coldly, turning away to a window.

  Still he sat bent over the table, twisting something with his fingers. She glanced round on him. How nervy he was! He had beautiful hands, and the big topaz signet-ring on his finger made yellow lights. Ah, if only his hands were really dare-devil and reckless! They always seemed so guilty, so cowardly.

  "I'm done for now," he said suddenly, as if to himself, tilting back his chair a little. In all his physical movement he was so fine and poised, so sensitive! Oh, and it attracted her so much!

  "Why?" she said, carelessly.

  An anger burned in him. She was so flippant. If he were going to be shot, she would not be moved more than about half a pound of sweets.

  "Why!" he repeated laconically. "The same unimportant reason as ever."

  "Debts?" she cried, in contempt.

  "Exactly."

  Her soul burned in anger.

  "What have you done now?--lost more money?"

  "Three thousand marks."

  She was silent in deep wrath.

  "More fool you!" she said. Then, in her anger, she was silent for some minutes. "And so you're done for, for three thousand marks?" she exclaimed, jeering at him. "You go pretty cheap."

  "Three thousand--and the rest," he said, keeping up a manly sang froid."

  "And the rest!" she repeated in contempt. "And for three thousand--and the rest, your life is over!"

  "My career," he corrected her.

  "Oh," she mocked, "only your career! I thought it was a matter of life and death. Only your career? Oh, only that!"

  His eyes grew furious under her mockery.

  "My career is my life," he said.

  "Oh, is it!--You're not a man then, you are only a career?"

  "I am a gentleman."

  "Oh, are you! How amusing! How very amusing, to be a gentleman, and not a man!--I suppose that's what it means, to be a gentleman, to have no guts outside your career?"

  "Outside my honour--none."

  "And might I ask what is your honour?" She spoke in extreme irony.

  "Yes, you may ask," he replied coolly. "But if you don't know without being told, I'm afraid I could never explain it."

  "Oh, you couldn't! No, I believe you--you are incapable of explaining it, it wouldn't bear explaining." There was a long, tense pause. "So you've made too many debts, and you're afraid they'll kick you out of the army, therefore your honour is gone, is it?--And what then--what after that?"

  She spoke in extreme irony. He winced again at her phrase "kick you out of the army". But he tilted his chair back with assumed nonchalance.

  "I've made too many debts, and I know they'll kick me out of the army," he repeated, thrusting the thorn right home to the quick. "After that--I can shoot myself. Or I might even be a waiter in a restaurant--or possibly a clerk, with twenty-five shillings a week."

  "Really!--All those alternatives!--Well, why not, why not be a waiter in the Germania? It might be awfully jolly."

  "Why not?" he repeated ironically. "Because it wouldn't become me."

  She looked at him, at his aristocratic fineness of physique, his extreme physical sensitiveness. And all her German worship for his old, proud family rose up in her. No, he could not be a waiter in the Germania: she could not bear it. He was too refined and beautiful a thing.

  "Ha!" she cried suddenly. "It wouldn't come to that, either. If they kick you out of the army, you'll find somebody to get round--you're like a cat, you'll land on your feet."

  But this was just what he was not. He was not like a cat. His self-mistrust was too deep. Ultimately he had no belief in himself, as a separate isolated being. He knew he was sufficiently clever, an aristocrat, good-looking, the sensitive superior of most men. The trouble was, that apart from the social fabric he belonged to, he felt himself nothing, a cipher. He bitterly envied the common working-men for a certain manly aplomb, a grounded, almost stupid self-confidence he saw in them. Himself--he could lead such men through the gates of hell--for what did he care about danger or hurt to himself, whilst he was leading? But--cut him off from all this, and what was he? A palpitating rag of meaningless human life.

  But she, coming from the people, could not fully understand. And it was best to leave her in the dark. The free indomitable self-sufficient being which a man must be in his relation to a woman who loves him--this he could pretend. But he knew he was not it. He knew that the world of man from which he took his value was his mistress beyond any woman. He wished, secretly, cravingly, almost cravenly, in his heart, it was not so. But so it was.

  Therefore, he heard her phrase "you're like a cat," with some bitter envy.

  "Whom shall I get round?--some woman, who will marry me?" he said.

  This was a way out. And it was almost the inevitable thing, for him. But he felt it the last ruin of his manhood, even he.

  The speech hurt her mortally, worse than death. She would rather he died, because then her own love would not turn to ash.

  "Get married, then, if you want to," she said, in a small broken voice.

  "Naturally," he said.

  There was a long silence, a foretaste of barren hopelessness.

  "Why is it so terrible to you," she asked at length, "to come out of the army and trust
to your own resources? Other men are strong enough."

  "Other men are not me," he said.

  Why would she torture him? She seemed to enjoy torturing him. The thought of his expulsion from the army was an agony to him, really worse than death. He saw himself in the despicable civilian clothes, engaged in some menial occupation. And he could not bear it. It was too heavy a cross.

  Who was she to talk? She was herself, an actress, daughter of a tradesman. He was himself. How should one of them speak for the other? It was impossible. He loved her. He loved her far better than men usually loved their mistresses. He really cared.--And he was strangely proud of his love for her, as if it were a distinction to him . . . But there was a limit to her understanding. There was a point beyond which she had nothing to do with him, and she had better leave him alone. Here in this crisis, which was his crisis, his downfall, she should not presume to talk, because she did not understand.--But she loved to torture him, that was the truth.

  "Why should it hurt you to work?" she reiterated.

  He lifted his face, white and tortured, his grey eyes flaring with fear and hate.

  "Work!" he cried. "What do you think I am worth?--Twenty-five shillings a week, if I am lucky."

  His evident anguish penetrated her. She sat dumbfounded, looking at him with wide eyes. He was white with misery and fear; his hand, that lay loose on the table, was abandoned in nervous ignominy. Her mind filled with wonder, and with deep, cold dread. Did he really care so much? But did it really matter so much to him? When he said he was worth twenty-five shillings a week, he was like a man whose soul is pierced. He sat there, annihilated. She looked for him, and he was nothing then. She looked for the man, the free being that loved her. And he was not, he was gone, this blank figure remained. Something with a blanched face sat there in the chair, staring at nothing.

  His amazement deepened with intolerable dread. It was as if the world had fallen away into chaos. Nothing remained. She seemed to grasp the air for foothold.

  He sat staring in front of him, a dull numbness settled on his brain. He was watching the flame of the candle. And, in his detachment, he realized the flame was a swiftly travelling flood, flowing swiftly from the source of the wick through a white surge and on into the darkness above. It was like a fountain suddenly foaming out, then running on dark and smooth. Could one dam the flood? He took a piece of paper, and cut off the flame for a second.