VERONIKA PATHZUOL was my betrothed. I must give some account of the circumstances under which she and I first met each other, so that my tale may be clear and complete from the beginning.
For a long while, without knowing why, I had been restless—hungry, without knowing for what I hungered. Teaching music to support myself, I employed all of the day that was not thus occupied in practicing on my own behalf. My life consequently was a solitary one, numbering but few acquaintances and not any friends. In my short intervals of leisure I was generally too tired to seek out society; I was too obscure and unimportant to be sought out in turn. Yet, young and of an ardent temperament, doubtless it was natural that I should have been dimly conscious of something wanting; and, not prone to selfanalysis, doubtless it was also natural that I should have had no distinct conception of what the wanting something was. Besides, it would soon be summer. The soft air and bright sunshine of spring awoke a myriad vague desires in my heart. I strove in vain to understand them. They were all the more poignant because they had no definite object. Twenty times a day I would catch myself heaving a mighty sigh; but asking, “What are you sighing for?” I had to answer, “Who can tell?” My thoughts got into the habit of wandering away would fly off to cloud-land at the most inopportune moments. While my pupils were blundering through their exercises their master would fall to thinking of other things—afterward impossible to remember what. From morning to night I went about with a feeling of expectancy—an event was impending—presently a change would come over the tenor of my life. I waited anxiously, on the alert for its first premonitory symptom.
I had taken to strolling through the streets at evening. One delicious night in May, I found myself leaning over the terrace at the eastern extremity of Fifty-first street. The moon had just risen, a huge red disk, out of the mist and smoke across the river, and was turning the waves to burnished copper. Through the open windows of the neighborhood escaped the sounds of quiet talk, of laughter, of piano playing. Now and then a low dark shape, with a single bright light gleaming like a jewel at its side, and spars and masts sharply outlined against the sky, slipped silently past upon the water. The atmosphere was quick with the warmth and the scent of spring. I stood there motionless, penetrated by the unspeakable beauty of the scene. The moon climbed higher and higher, and gradually exchanged its ruddy tint for its ordinary metallic blue. By and by somebody with a sweet soprano voice, in one of the nearest houses, began to sing the Ave Maria of Gounod. The impassioned music seemed made for the time and place. It caught the soul of the moment and gave it voice. I could feel my heart swelling with the crescendo: and then how it leaped and thrilled when the singer reached that glorious climax of the song, “Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae!” At that instant, as if released from a spell, I drew a long breath and looked around. Then for the first time I saw Veronika Pathzuol. Her eyes and mine met for the first time.
“A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange, and sad”—and pale. Her face was pale, like an angel’s. The wealth of black hair above it and the dark eyes that gazed sadly out of it rendered the pallor more intense. But it was not the pallor of ill-health; it was the pallor of a luminous white soul. As I beheld her standing there in the moonlight scarcely a yard away from me, I knew all at once what it was my heart had craved for so long a while. I knew at once, by the sudden pain that pierced it, that my heart had been waiting for this lady all its life. I did not stop to reflect and determine. Had I done so, most likely—nay, most certain-ly—I should never have had to tell this story. The words flew to my tongue and were spoken as soon as thought.—“Oh, how beautiful, how beautiful!” I exclaimed, meaning her.
“Very beautiful,” I heard her voice, clear and soft, respond. “It is almost a pain, the feeling such intense beauty gives,”—meaning the scene before us.
“And yet this is every-day, hum-drum, commercial New York,” added another voice, one that jarred upon my hearing like the scraping of a contre-bass after a cadenza by the flute. She was leaning on the arm of a man. I was at the verge of being straightway jealous, when I observed that his hair and beard were snowy and that his face was wrinkled.
We got into conversation without ceremony. Nature had introduced us. Our common appreciation of the loveliness round about broke the ice and provided a topic for speech. After her first impulsive utterance, Veronika said little. But the old man was voluble, evidently glad of the opportunity to express his ideas to a new person. And I was more than glad to listen, because while doing so I could gaze upon her face to my heart’s content.
Something that I had said, in reply to a remark of his upon the singing of the Ave, caused him to ask, “Ah, you understand music? You are a musician—yes?”
“I play the violin,” I answered.
“Do you hear, Veronika?” he cried. “Our friend plays the violin! My dear sir, you must do us the favor of playing for us before we part. Do not be surprised—pay no heed to the formalities. Is not music a free-masonry? Come, you shall try your skill upon an Amati. Such an evening as this must have an appropriate ending. Come.”
Without allowing me time to protest, had I been disposed to do so, he grasped my arm and started off. He kept on talking as we marched along. I had no attention for what he said. My mind was divided between delight at my good-fortune, and query as to what its upshot would be. We had not far to go. A few doors to the west of First avenue he turned up a stoop. It was a modest apartment-house. We climbed to the topmost story and stood still in the dark while he fumbled for a match. Then he lighted the gas and said, “Sit down.” The room was bare and cheerless. A chromo or two sufficed to decorate the walls. The furniture—a few chairs and a center-table—was stiff and shabby. The carpet was threadbare.
But a piano occupied a corner; and the floor, the table, and the chairs were littered thick with music. So I felt at home. As I look back at that meager little parlor now, it is transformed into a sanctuary. There the deepest moments of two lives were spent. Yet to-day strangers dwell in it; come and go, laugh and chatter, eat, drink, and make merry between its walls, all unconcernedly, never pausing to bestow a thought upon the sad, sweet lady whose presence once hallowed the place, whose tears more than once watered the floor over which they tread with indifferent footsteps.
The old man lighted the gas and said, “Sit down,” making obedience possible by clearing a chair of the music it held. Then scrutinizing my face: “You are a Jew, are you not?” he inquired, in his quick, nervous way.
“Yes,” I said, “by birth.”
“And by faith?”
“Well, I am not orthodox, not a zealot.”
“Your name?”
“Neuman—Ernest Neuman.”
“And mine, Tikulski—Baruch. You see we are of one race—the race—the chosen race! Neither am I orthodox. I keep Yom Kippur, to be sure, but I have no conscientious scruples against shell-fish, and indeed the ‘succulent oyster’ is especially congenial to my palate. This,” with a wave of the hand toward Veronika, “this is my niece, Miss Pathzuol—P-a-t-h-z-u-o-1—pronounced Patchuol—Hungarian name. Her mother was my sister.”
Veronika dropped a courtesy. Her eyes seemed to plead, “Do not laugh at my uncle. He is eccentric; but be charitable.”
“Now, Veronika, show Mr. Neuman your music and find something that you can play together. I will go fetch the violin.”
The old man left the room.
“What will you play?” asked Veronika. Her voice quavered. She was timid, as indeed it was natural she should be.
“I don’t know,” I said, my own voice not as firm as I could have wished. “What have you got?”
We commenced at the top of a big pile of music and had settled upon the prize song from the Meistersinger—not then as hackneyed as it is at present, not then the victim of every passable amateur—when Mr. Tikulski came back. It was in truth an Amati that he brought. The discolored, half obliterated label within said so—but the label might have lied. The strong, tense, ringing tone that it emitted in response to the A which Veronika gave me said so also—and that did not lie. I played as best I could. Rather, the music played itself. With a violin under my chin, I lapse into semi-consciousness, lose my identity. Another spirit impels my arm, pouring itself out through the voice of my instrument. Not until silence is restored do I realize that I have been the performer. While the music is going on my personality is annihilated. With the final note I seem to “come, to,” as one does from a trance.
When I came to this time it was to be embraced by my host with an effusiveness that overwhelmed me. “Ah, you are a true musician,” he cried, releasing me from his arms. “You have the inspiration. Veronika, speak, tell him how nobly he has played.”
“I can’t speak, I can’t tell him,” answered Veronika, “it has taken away all power of speech.” But she gave me a glance, allowed her eyes to stay with mine for a long moment. A fire had been smoldering in my breast from the first; at these words, at this glance, it burst into flame. A great light inundated my soul. I felt the arteries tingling to my very finger tips. I started tuning up, to hide my emotion. Then we played the march from Raff’s Lenore.
I am afraid my agitation marred the effect of Raffs diamatic composition. At any rate, the plaudits were faint when I had done. After a breathing spell Mr. Tikulski told Veronika to sing. She played her own accompaniment while I stood by to turn.
It would be useless for me to try to qualify her singing. Whatever critical faculty I had was stricken dumb. I can only say that she sang a song in French (an old, old romance, till then unfamiliar to me; so old that the composer’s name has been forgotten) in a splendid contralto voice, and that it seemed as if she was playing upon the inmost tissue of my life, so keenly I felt each note. I quite forgot to turn the page at the proper place, and Veronika had to prompt me. It was a little thing, and yet I remember as vividly as if from yesterday the nod of the head and the inflection with which she said, “Turn, please.”
“‘Le temps fait passer l’amour,’.rdquo; repeated Mr. Tikulski: it was the last line of the song. “Veronika, bring some wine. Le vin fait passer le temps,” and he chuckled at his joke. Another small thing that I remember vividly is how Tikulski, as she left the room, posed his forefinger upon his Adam’s-apple and said, “She carries a ‘cello here.”
He went on to this effect:—Veronika, as I already knew, was his niece. He also was a violinist: more than that, he was a composer, though as yet unpublished. With the self-conceit too characteristic of musical people, he told me how he was engaged upon “an epoch-making symphony”—had been engaged upon it for the last dozen years, would be engaged upon it for the dozen years to come. Then the world should have it, and he, not having lived in vain, would die content. Veronika was now one-and-twenty. During her childhood he had played in an orchestra and arranged dance-music and done other hackwork to earn money for her maintenance and education. She had received the best musical training, instrumental and vocal, that could be had in New York. Now he had turned the tables. Now he did nothing but compose—reserved all his time and strength for his masterpiece. Veronika had become the breadwinner. She taught on an average seven hours a day. She sang regularly in church and synagogue, and at concerts and musicals whenever she got a chance.—Veronika reentered the room bearing cakes and wine. She sat down near to us, and I forgot every thing in the contemplation of her beautiful, sad, strange face. Her eyes were bottomless. Far, far in their liquid depths the spirit shone like a star. All the history of Israel was in her glance.
Every touch of constraint had vanished from her bearing. She spoke with me as with one whom she knew well. I could scarcely believe that only an hour ago we had been ignorant of each other’s existence. We discussed music and found that our tastes were in accord. We compared notes on teaching and exchanged anecdotes about our respective pupils. She said among other things that more than half the money she earned her uncle sent to Germany for the relief of his widowed sister and her offspring, who were extremely poor! Her every syllable clove my heart like an arrow. I grew hot with indignation to think of this frail, delicate maiden slaving her life away in order that her relations might fatten in idleness and her fanatic of an uncle work at his impossible symphony. My fists clenched convulsively as I fancied her exposed to the ups and downs, the hardships, the humiliations, of a music-teacher’s career. I took no pains to regulate my manner: and, if she had possessed the least trace of sophistication, she would have guessed that I loved her from every modulation of my voice. Love her I did. I had already loved her for an eternity—from the moment my eyes had first encountered hers in the moonlight by the terrace.—But it was getting late. It would not do for me to wear my welcome out.
“Nay, stay,” interposed Mr. Tikulski, “you have not heard me play yet.”
“Oh, yes, you must hear my uncle play,” said Veronika. “The Adagio of Handel? she asked of him.
“No, child,” he answered, with a tinge of impatience, “the minuet—from my own symphony,” aiming the last words at me.
Veronika returned to the piano. They began.
Indeed, the old man played superbly. His selection was a marvelous finger-exercise—but of true music it contained none save that which he informed it with by the fervor of his performance. He was a perfect executant. His tone was equal to Wilhelm’s. It was a pity, a great pity, that he should fritter himself away in the endeavor to compose. Veronika and I said as much as this to each other with our eyes when finally his bow had reached a standstill.
“Well, if you will insist on going,” he said, “you must at least agree to come as soon as possible again. This is Wednesday. We are always at home on Wednesday evening. The other nights of the week Veronika is engaged: Monday and Tuesday, lessons; Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, rehearsals and services at church and synagogue. The church is in Hoboken: she doesn’t get home till eleven o’clock. So on Wednesday we will see you without fail—yes?”
As I looked forward, Wednesday seemed a million years away. “What an old brute you are to make that child track over to Hoboken two nights a week!” I thought; and said, “Thank you. You are very kind. Good-by.”
Veronika gave me her hand. The long slim fingers clasped mine cordially and sent an electric thrill into my heart.
I SUPPOSE it is needless to say that I passed a sleepless night, haunted till morning by Veronika’s face and voice; that I tossed endlessly from pillow to pillow, going over in memory every circumstance from our meeting to our parting; that I built a hundred wondrous castles in the air and that Veronika presided as chatelaine in each. I thought I should boil over with rage when I dwelt upon the enforced drudgery of her life. I could hardly contain myself for sheer joy when I made bold to say, “Why, it is not impossible that some day she may love you—not impossible that some day she may consent to become your wife.” One doubt, the inevitable one, harassed me: Had I a clear field? Was there perchance another suitor there before me? Perhaps her affections were already spoken. Still, on the whole, probably not. For, where had he kept himself during the evening? Surely, if he had existed at all, he would have been at her side. Yet on the other hand she was so beautiful, it could scarcely be believed that she had attained the age of one-and-twenty without taking some heart captive. And that sad, mysterious expression in her eyes—how had it come about except through love?—Thus between despair and hope I swung, pendulum-like, all night.
Dawn filtered through the window. “Thursday!” I muttered. “Seven days still to be dragged through—but then!”—Imagination faltered at the prospect. I went about my usual business in a sort of intoxication. My footstep had acquired an unwonted briskness. Every five minutes my heart jumped into my throat and lost a beat. But my pupils suffered.
I was more inclined to absent-mindedness than ever. At dusk I revisited the terrace despite the rain that fell in torrents, and walked by her house and lived through the whole happy episode again.
Be assured I was punctual when at last Wednesday came. I remember, as I mounted the staircase that led to their abode, an absurd fear beset me. What if they had moved away?
What if I should not find her after this interminable week of waiting? My hand shook as I pulled the bell-knob. I was nerving myself for the worst in the interval that elapsed before the door was opened.—The door was opened by Veronika herself!
“Ah, good-evening. We were expecting you,” she said.
I stammered a response. My temples were throbbing madly.
Veronika led me into the dining-room. They were still at table. I began to apologize. Tikulski stopped me.
“You have come just at the proper moment,” he cried. “You shall now have occasion to confess that my niece is as good a cook as she is a player.”
“But I have dined,” I protested.
“But you can make room for one morsel more—for a mere taste of pudding.”
Veronika, with infinite grace, was moving about the room, getting a plate and napkin. Then with her own hands she helped me to the pudding.
“Doesn’t that flavor do her credit?” cried Tikulski. “It is a melody materialized, is it not?”
We all laughed; and I ate my pudding at perfect ease.
“I hope Mr. Neuman has brought his violin,” said Veronika, “for then we can have a first and second.”
“Yes, I took that liberty,” I answered.
And afterward, adjourning to the parlor, I played second to the old man’s first for an hour or more—reading at sight from his own manuscript music, which was not the lightest of tasks. Then Veronika sang to us. And then, as it was extremely hot, Mr. Tikulski proposed that we betake ourselves to a concert garden in the neighborhood and spend the rest of the evening in the open air. We sat at a round table under an ailanthus tree, and watched the people come and go, and listened to light tunes discoursed by a tolerable band, and by and by had a delicious little supper; and while Mr. Tikulski puffed a huge cigar, Veronika and I enjoyed a long, delightful confidential talk in which our minds got wonderfully close together, and during which one scrap of information dropped from her lips that afforded me infinite relief. Speaking of her nocturnal pilgrimages to Hoboken, she said, “I go over by myself in the summer because it is still light; but coming home, the organist takes me to the ferry, where uncle meets me.”
“So,” I concluded, “there is no one ahead of me; for if there were, of course he would be her escort.” And I lost no time about putting in a word for myself. “I am very anxious to hear you sing in church,” I said. “Your voice can not attain its full effect between the narrow walls of a parlor.”
And it was agreed that I should call upon them Sunday afternoon and that we should all three take a walk in Central Park, Veronika and I afterward going to Hoboken together. Music had, indeed, proved a freemasonry, so far as we were concerned. This was only our second interview; and already we treated each other like old and intimate friends.
A thunder shower broke above our heads on the way back to Fifty-first street, and in default of an umbrella, I lent Veronika my handkerchief to protect her hat. She returned it to me at the door of her house, and lo! it was freighted with a faint, sweet perfume that it had caught from contact with her. I stowed the handkerchief religiously in my pocket, and for a week afterward it still retained a trace of the same dainty odor. It was a touchstone, by means of which I could call her up bodily before me whenever I desired.
As I sat alone in my bed-chamber that night, I acknowledged that I was more deeply in love than ever. The reader would not wonder at this if he could form a true conception of Veronika’s presence. I wish I could describe her—that is, render in words the impression wrought upon me by her face, and her voice, and her manner, and the things she said. I am not accustomed to expressing such matters in words, but with my violin I should have no sort of difficulty. If I wanted to give utterance to my idea of Veronika, all I should have to do would be to take my violin and play this heavenly melody from Chopin’s Impromptu in C-sharp minor:—Sotto voce.
It seems almost as though Chopin must have had Veronika in mind when he composed it. Its color, its passion, its vague dreamy sadness, and withal its transparent simplicity, make it for me a perfect musical portrait. Those were the traits which most constantly and conspicuously abode in my thought of her. Her simplicity, her child-like simplicity, and her naturalness, and the serene purity of her soul, made her as different from other women that I had seen—though, to be sure, I had seen but few women except as I passed them in the street or rode with them in the horse-car—made her as different from those I had seen, at any rate, as a lily plucked on the hillside is different from a hothouse flower, as daylight is different from gaslight, as Schubert’s music is different from Liszt’s. In every thing and from every point of view, she was simple and natural and serene. Her great pale face, and the dark eyes, and the smile that came and went like a melody across her lips, and the way she wore her hair, and the way she dressed, and the way she played, sang, spoke, and her gestures, and the low, sad, musical laughter that I heard only once or twice from the beginning to the end—all were simple, and natural, and serene. And yet there was a mystery attaching to each of them, a something beyond my comprehension, a something that tinged my love for her with awe. A mystery that would neither be defined nor penetrated nor ignored, brooded over her, as the perfume broods over a rose. I doubt whether an American woman can be like this unless she is older and has had certain experiences of her own. Veronika had not had sufficient experience of her own to account for what I have described: but she was a Jewess, and all the experience of the Jewish race, all the martyrdom of the scattered hosts, were hers by inheritance.
No matter how I was occupied, whether teaching, or practicing, or reading, or writing, or walking, or talking to other people, I was always conscious of the love of Veronika astir in my heart. Just as through all the vicissitudes of a fugue the subject melody will survive in one form or another and be at no minute altogether silenced, so through all the changes of my busy day the thought of Veronika lingered in my mind. I can not tell how completely the whole aspect of the world had been altered since the night I first saw her standing in the moonlight. It was as if my life up to that moment had been passed beneath gray skies, and suddenly the clouds had dispersed and the sunshine flooded the earth. A myriad things became plain and clear that had been invisible until now, and old things acquired a new significance. My heart welled with tenderness for all living creatures—the overflow of the tenderness it had for her. All my senses, all my capacities for pain and pleasure, were more acute than before. Suddenly music, which had been my art, became my religion: she had glorified it by her devotion. I looked forward to my next visit with her as a benighted traveler looks forward to the glowing window that promises rest and shelter: only in my case the light illuminated my whole pathway and made the progress toward its source a constant delight instead of a perfunctory labor. But this is the common story of a man in love, and stands without telling. Suffice it that before our acquaintance was a month old I had got upon the most intimate terms with Mr. Tikulski and Veronika, spending not only every Wednesday evening at their house but also each Sunday afternoon, and accompanying her to Hoboken as regularly as she had to go. Never was there a prouder man than I at those junctures when, with her hand pressed tightly under my arm, I felt that she was trusting herself entirely to my charge and that I was answerable for her safety and well-being. The Hoboken ferry-boats became to my thinking vastly more interesting than the most romantic of Venetian gondolas; and to this day I can not sniff the peculiar stuffy odor that always pervades a ferry-boat cabin without being transported back across the years to that happy, happy time. I actually blessed the necessity that forced her to journey so far for her livelihood; and it was with an emphatic pang that I listened to the plans which she and Tikulski were prone to discuss whereby she was shortly to get an engagement nearer home: though the sight of her pale, tired cheek reproached me the moment after. On her side she made no concealment of a most cordial regard for me. Her face always lighted up at my arrival; she was always eager to share her ideas with me and to call forth my opinion of her work, appearing pleased by my praise and impressed by my criticism. She set me an admirable example of frankness. She would say precisely what she thought of my renditions, sparing not their blemishes and indicating how an effective point might be improved.
But as yet I had not dared to hope that she loved, or was even in train to love me. So as yet I had not intended to speak of love at all.
But one day—one Sunday late in June—she proposed to sing me a song she had just been learning.
“What is it?” I asked.
“From Le D茅sert of Felicien David,” she said, handing me the music.
It was the “O, belle nuit, O, sois plus lente,” originally written for tenor.
“I should hardly think it would suit your voice,” I said, running over the music.
“Neither did I, at first; but listen, anyway.” And she began.
Her voice had never been in better order, had never been more resonant, never more electric. Contrary to my misgivings, the song suited it perfectly, afforded its ‘cello quality full scope. She sang with an enthusiasm, a precision, a delicacy of shading, that carried me away. As the last tender note melted on her lips, she swung around on the piano-stool and looked a question with her great, dark, serious eyes. I know not what possessed me. A blindness fell upon my sight. My heart gave a mighty bound. In another instant I was at her side and had caught her—my darling—in my arms. In another instant she was sobbing her life out upon my shoulder.
By and by, after the first stress of our emotion had subsided, I mustered voice to say, “Then, Veronika, you love me?”
Her hand nestled in mine by way of answer.
I told her as well I could how I had loved her from the first.
“It is strange,” she said, “when you turned to me there on the terrace and spoke, it was as if a light broke into my life. And it has been the same ever since—my heart has been full of light. Oh, I have wanted you so much! I was afraid you did not care for me. Why have you waited so long?”
No need of putting down my answer nor the rest of our dialogue. When Mr. Tikulski came back I confessed every thing. He asked but a single question, imposed but a single condition.
I replied that I earned enough by my teaching to support him and her comfortably and to contribute toward the maintenance of the widow and her brood in Germany. Furthermore, I had solid grounds for expecting to earn more next winter. There would be an opening for me in the Symphony and Philharmonic Societies, and as I was gaining something of a reputation I might reasonably demand a higher price for my lessons. It was arranged that we should be married the first week in August.
Our journey to Hoboken was all too short that night. Never had horse-car or ferry-boat advanced with such velocity before. As we left the church she asked, “Did you notice how my voice trembled in my solo?
“It only added to its effect,” I answered. “Were you nervous?”
“Oh, no, I was happy, so happy that I could not control my voice.”
Ah, but I had a full heart as I walked home that night. The future was all radiant radiant beyond my wildest dream. It frightened me. Such perfect bliss seemed scarcely possible, seemed too great and glorious to last. And yet had not Veronika’s own lips promised it? and sealed the promise with a kiss that burned still where she had placed it? It was useless for me to go to bed; it was useless for me to stay in the house. I put on my hat and went out and spent the night pacing up and down before her door. And as soon as the morning was far enough advanced I rang the bell and invited myself to breakfast with her; and after breakfast I helped her to wash the dishes, to Mr. Tikulski’s unutterable disapproval—it was “unteeknified,” he said—and after that I accompanied her as far as the first house where she had to give a lesson.
While writing the above I had almost forgotten. Now I remember. I must stop for a space to get used to remembering again that she is dead.
YES, she is dead. That is the truth. If truth is good, as men proclaim it to be, then goodness is intrinsically cruel. That Veronika is dead is the truth which lies like a hot coal upon my consciousness, and goads me along as I tell this tale. And the manner of her death and the speediness of it—I must tell all.
And yet, although I know her to be dead, although I repeat to myself a hundred times a day, “She is dead, dead, dead,” and although, God help me, I think I realize too well that she is dead, yet to this day I can scarcely bring myself to believe it. Truth as it is, it seems to be in utter contradiction to the rest of truth. Even those who have abandoned faith in Religion, still profess faith in Nature, saying, “Nature is provident, beneficent, and wise; Nature is alive with beauty.” And at most times, it seems as if these assertions were not to be contested. Yet, how can they be true when Nature contained the possibility of Veronika’s death? How can Nature be wise, and yet have permitted that maiden life to be destroyed?—provident, and yet have flung away her finest product?—beneficent, and yet have torn bleeding from my life all that made my life worth living?—beautiful, and yet have quenched the beautifying light of Veronika’s presence, and hushed the voice that made the world musical? The mere fact that Veronika could die gives the lie to the Nature-worshipers. In the light of that fact, or rather in the darkness of it, it is mockery to sing songs of praise to Nature.—That is why it is so hard for me to believe—to believe a thing which annihilates the harmony of the universe, and proclaims the optimism of the philosophers to be a delusion, a superstition. How could I believe my senses if I should hear Christine Nilsson utter a hideous false note? So is it hard for me to believe that Nature has allowed Veronika to die. And yet it is the truth, the unmistakable, irrevocable, relentless truth.
I suppose all lovers are happy: but it does not seem possible that other lovers can ever have had such unmitigated happiness as ours was—happiness so keen as almost to be a pain. The light of love that burst suddenly into our lives, and filled each cranny full to overflowing, was so pure and bright as almost to blind us. The happiness was all the keener, the light all the brighter, because of the hardship and the monotony of our daily tasks. If we had been rich, if we had had leisure and friends and many resources for diversion, then most likely our delight in each other would not have been so great. But as we were—poor, hard worked, and alone in the world—we found all the happiness we had, in ourselves, in communing together; and happiness concentrated, was proportionately more intense. The few hours in the week which we were permitted to spend side by side glittered like diamonds against the dull background of the rest. And we improved them to the full. We called upon each fleeting moment to stay and perpetuate itself; and we could not understand how Faust had had to wait so many years before he could do the same. The season was divine, clear skies and balmy weather day after day, and the Park being easily accessible, we could imagine ourselves among the green fields of the country whenever the fancy seized us. I believe that as a matter of fact the turf of the common was sadly parched and brown; but we were not critical so long as we could wander over it hand in hand. Then, our characters were perfectly accorded; their unison was faultless. Each called for the other, needed the other, as the dominant chord calls for and needs its tonic. We had not a hope, a fear, an ambition, an aspiration, but it was shared equally between us. Our art was a mutual passion which we pursued together. When Veronika was seated at the piano and I stood at her side with my violin at my shoulder, our cup of contentment was full to the brim. Nothing more was wanting. I remember, one evening, in the middle of a phrase, her fingers faltered and she wheeled around and lifted her eyes upon my face.—“What is the matter, darling?” I asked.—“I only want to look at you to realize that it isn’t a dream,” she answered.—And yet she is dead.
June and half July had wound away; in little more than a fortnight our wedding would be celebrated. The night was sultry, and she and I sat together by an open window. Her uncle was absent: an idea had come to him just before dinner, she explained, and according to his custom he had gone out to walk the streets until he had mastered it. We were by no means sorry to be alone. We had plenty to talk about; but even without talking it was marvelously pleasant to sit together and think the happy thoughts that filled our minds and listen to the subdued sounds of human life that came in by the window.
Veronika had shown me some of her bridal outfit, telling how she had worked at it in her short snatches of leisure. We took as much pleasure in the contemplation of this modest little trousseau as though it had boasted all the rubies and silken fabrics of the Indies. This set us to talking of the future and making plans. And afterward we talked of the past. We spoke of how strange it was that we should have come together in the way we had—by the merest accident, as it seemed; and we doubted if it was indeed an accident, if destiny had not purposely guided our footsteps that memorable night.—“Why,” she exclaimed, “if uncle and I had been but a few moments earlier or later, we never should have seen each other at all. Think of the terrible risk we ran! Think if we had never known each other!” and her fingers tightened around mine.
“And then,” I went on, “that I should have spoken to you, a strange lady, and that you should have answered!”
“It seemed perfectly natural for me to answer; I had done so before I stopped to think. But afterward I was ashamed; I was afraid you might think it indelicate. But, somehow, the words spoke themselves. I am glad of it now.”
“I do believe God’s hand was in it! I do believe it was all pre-ordained in heaven. I believe that our Guardian Angel prompted me to speak and you to answer. It can’t be that we, who were made for each other, were left to find it out by a mere perilous chance—it isn’t credible.”
“But nobody except myself—not even you, can understand how like a miracle it all is to me, because nobody else can know how much I needed you. Nobody else can know how dreary and empty my life was before you came, or how completely you have filled it and gladdened it.”
Here we stopped talking for a while.
By and by she resumed, “I think that music differs from the other arts. I think the musician instinctively needs a companion worker. I know that in the old days when I would play or sing, my heart seemed to cry out continually for some one to come and share its feeling. Perhaps this was because music is the most emotional of the arts, the most sympathetic. Really, sometimes I could not bear to touch the piano, the pain of being alone was so acute. Of course I had my uncle, a most thorough musician; but I wanted somebody who would feel precisely as I did, and he did not. He always analyzed and criticised, never allowed himself to be carried away, never forgot the intellectual side of the things I would play. But now—now that you are with me, my music is a constant source of joy. And then, the thought that we are going to work together all our lives, the thought of the music we are going to make together—oh, it is too great, it takes my breath away! I don’t dare to believe it. I am afraid all the time that something will happen to prevent it coming true.”
Again for a while we did not speak.
Again by and by she resumed, “And then you can not know how lonely I was in other ways, how I longed for a little affection, a little tenderness. Of course uncle is very good, has always been very good to me; but do you think it was ungrateful for me to want a little more affection than he gave me? I mean a little more manifest affection; because I know that in the bottom of his heart he loves me very warmly. But I longed for somebody to show a little care for me, and uncle is very undemonstrative—he is so absorbed in his symphony, and then sometimes he is exceedingly severe. When I would get home at night it was so dreary not to have any one to speak to about the trials of the day—not to have any one who would sympathize and understand. You see, other girls have their mothers or their brothers and sisters and friends: but I had nobody except my uncle; and he was so much older, and regarded things so differently, that I do not think it was unnatural for me to wish for some one else. Besides, I had so much responsibility; I felt so weak and helpless. I thought, what if something should happen to my uncle! or what if I should get sick and be unable to teach! Oh, the rest and security that you brought to me!”
What I replied—a mass of broken sentences—was too incoherent to bear recording.
“And then, the mere physical fatigue—day after day, work, work, work, and never any respite. Of course, every body has to work, but almost every body has a holiday now and then; and I never had a single day that I could call all my own. In winter it was hardest. No matter how tired I was, I had to be up and off giving lessons even if the snow was ankle deep. And the ice in the river made it such hard work getting to Hoboken, made the journey so very long. I had to do the housework too, you know. We couldn’t afford to keep a servant, on account of the money we had to send abroad. When I would come home all fagged out I had to clean the rooms and cook the dinner; though I am afraid that sometimes I did not more than half do my duty. Sometimes I would let the dust lie for a week on the mantle-piece. And every day was just the same as the day that had gone before. It was like traveling in a circle. When I would go to bed at night my weariness would be all the harder because of the thought, ‘To-morrow will be just the same, the same round of lessons, the same dead fatigue, the same monotonous drudgery from beginning to end.’ And as I saw no promise of change, as I thought it would be the same all my life, I could not help asking what the use was of having been born. Wasn’t I a dreadful grumbler? Yet, what could I do? I think it is natural when one is young to long for something to look forward to, for just a little pleasure and just a little companionship. But then you came, and every thing was altered. Do you remember in the Creation the wonderful awakening one feels when they sing, ‘And the Lord said, Let there be light,’ very low, and then with a mighty burst of sound, ‘And there was LIGHT?’ Do you remember how one’s heart leaps and seems to grow big in one’s breast? It was like that when you came to me. I used to wonder why I had ever felt unhappy or discontented. The mere prospect of seeing you at the week’s end made my heart sing from morning to night. It gave a motive, an object, to my life—made me feel that I was working to a purpose, that I should have my reward. I had been growing hard and indifferent, even indifferent to music. But now I began to love my music more than ever: and no matter how tired I might be, when I had a moment of leisure I would sit down and practice so as to be able to play well for you. Music seemed to express all the unutterable feeling that you inspired me with. One day I had sung the Ave Maria of Cherubini to you, and you said, ‘It is so religious—it expresses precisely the emotions one experiences in a church.’ But for me it expressed rather the emotions a woman has when she is in the presence of the man she loves. All the time I had no idea that you would ever feel in the same way toward me.”
My kisses silenced her. Afterward she sang from Pergolese’s Stabat Mater, and played a medley of bits from Chopin: until, looking at my watch, I saw it was nearing midnight. Time for me to go away. But her uncle had not yet come home. I did not like to leave her alone. I said so.
“Oh, that is nothing,” she explained. “It always happens when he has one of his ideas. Very likely he won’t come in till morning. I am quite accustomed to it, and not a bit afraid.”
“In that event,” I thought, “I certainly ought to go. It may embarrass her, my staying so late; and besides, she needs the sleep.”
I started to say good-by. Our parting was hard. Again and again, as I reached the door, I turned back and began anew. But at last I found myself in the street. I looked up at the parlor window, and remained on the curbstone until I saw her close the sash and pull the shade, and the light being extinguished, knew that she had gone to her bedroom. Then I set my face toward home.
I had never loved her as I loved her now. Every lover will understand that what she had said during the evening had added fuel to the fire. My tenderness for her had increased a hundredfold. All my life should be dedicated to soothing her and protecting her and making her glad. The tired child should find rest and peace in my arms. To think of how she had been exposed to the noise and the heat and the glare of the fierce work-a-day world! Ah, Veronika, Veronika, I wanted, late as it was, to return and pour out the yearning of my spirit at your feet. Why had I left her at all? Each heart-beat seemed to speak her name. And when the knowledge that in a fortnight we were really going to be married, that I was really going to have the right to be to her what I wished—when that knowledge flashed in upon me, I had to turn away lest it should overwhelm me. I could not contemplate it any more than I could have gazed straight upon the sun.—Finally I fell asleep and dreamed that I was seated at her side, caressing her brow and emptying my life into her eyes.
I awoke next morning with a start. My first sensation was one of anxiety and unrest. As I dressed, this feeling intensified. I had a presentiment that something had gone wrong. I tried to reason it away. The more I reasoned, the stronger it waxed. I wanted to see her and satisfy myself that every thing was right. It was eight o’clock. She would leave for her lessons in half an hour. Luckily to-day my own engagements did not begin till ten. If I hurried, I should be in time to catch her. I put on my hat and walked at top-speed toward Fifty-first street.
Arrived at the door of the apartment-house, my worry subsided as abruptly and with as little provocation as it had sprung up. Indeed, I laughed as I remembered it. “Of course,” I said, “nothing is the matter. Still I am not sorry to have come.”
“Has Miss Pathzuol gone out yet?” I asked the janitress who let me in.
“I have not seen her,” she answered. “But she may have done so without my noticing.”
I ran up the stairs and rang Veronika’s bell.—No response.—I rang again.—Again no response.—A third ring, with waning hope of success: and, “So,” I thought, “I am too late.”
Disappointed, I was retracing my steps down the staircase. I stood aside to let some one pass.
“Ah, how do you do?” exclaimed Mr. Tikulski. “What brings you out so early?”
I explained.
“Never mind,” he said, “but come back with me and have a cup of coffee. I have been out all night, struggling with an obstinate little aria. I will play it for you.”
He unlocked the door. The parlor was dark. The shades had not yet been drawn. As he sent them flying up with a screech, my heart sank. Every thing was just as we had left it last night; but it was cheerless and empty with her away. There lay the Chopin still open on the music rest. There were our two chairs still close together as we had placed them.
Tikulski went after the coffee apparatus; presently returned, arranged it on the table, and applied a match to the lamp.
“While we wait for the water to boil,” he said, “I will give you the result of my night’s labor. I composed it walking up and down under the trees in the park, so that they—the trees—might claim it for their fruit! Ha-ha! A heavenly night: the sky could scarcely hold the stars, there were so many; but terribly warm.”
Again he went away—to fetch his instrument.
He was gone a long while. The water began to boil—boiled loudly and more loudly. A dense stream of vapor gushed from the nozzle of the pot. Still he remained.
At last I lost patience. Stepping to the threshold, I called his name. At first he did not answer.
“Mr. Tikulski!” I repeated.
I seemed to hear—no, certainly did hear—his voice, low, inarticulate, down at the other end of the hallway. It alarmed me. Had he met with an accident? hurt himself? fainted after the night’s vigil? paralysis? apoplexy? I hastened toward him, entered the room whence his voice had sounded. There he stood. He stood in the center of the floor, immobile as a statue, his face livid, his attitude that of a man who has seen a ghost.
“For God’s sake, what has happened?” I cried.
He appeared not to hear. I repeated my question.
He roused himself. A tremor swept over him. A painful rattling was audible in his throat. He raised his arm heavily and pointed. “L-look,” he gasped.
I looked. How can I tell what I saw?
AND yet I must tell it, though the telling consume me like a flame. I saw a bed and Veronika lying on it, face downward. She was dressed in her customary black gown. I supposed she was asleep. I supposed she was asleep, for one short moment. That was the last moment of my life. For then the truth burst upon me, fell upon me like a shaft from out the skies and hurled me into hell. I saw—not that she was dead only. If she had only died it would be different. I saw—merciful God!—I saw that she was murdered.
Oh, of course I would not, could not, believe it. Of course it was a dream, a nightmare, an hallucination, from which I should presently awake. Of course the thing was impossible, could not be. Of course I flung myself upon the bed at her side and crushed her between my arms and covered her with kisses and called and cried to her to move, to speak, to come back to life. And although her hands were icy cold and her body rigid and her face as white as marble, and although—ah, no! I may leave out the horrible detail—still I could not believe. I could not believe—yet how could I deny? There she lay, my sweetheart, my promised bride, deaf to my voice, blind to my presence, unmoved by my despair, beyond the reach of my strongest love, never to care for me again—Veronika, my tender, sad Veronika—oh, she lay there, dead, murdered! And still, with the knife-hilt staring at me like the face of Satan, still I could not believe. It was the fact, the unalterable fact, the fact that extinguished the light of the sun and stars and flooded the universe with blackness: and still, in spite of it, I called to her and crushed her in my embrace and kissed her and caressed her and was sure it could not be true. And meantime people came and filled the room.
I did not see the people. Only in a vague way I knew that they were there, heard the murmur of their voices, as if they were a long distance off. I had no senses left. I could neither see nor hear distinctly. My eyes were burned by a fierce red fire. My ears were full of the uproar of a thousand devils. But I knew that people had intruded upon us. I knew that I hated them because they would not leave us two alone. I remember I rose and faced them and cursed them and told them to be gone. And then I took her in my arms again and pressed her hard to me and forgot every thing but that she would not answer.
Gradually, however, nature was coming to my rescue. Gradually I seemed to be sinking into a stupor—had no sensation left except a numb, bruised feeling from head to foot—forgot what the matter was, forgot even Veronika, simply existed in a state of half conscious wretchedness. The first frenzy of grief had spent itself. The very immensity of the pain I had suffered acted as an opiate, exhausted and rendered me insensible. I heard the voices of the people as a soldier who is wounded may still hear something of the din of battle.
I don’t know how long I had lain thus when I became aware that a hand was placed upon my shoulder. Some one shook me roughly and said, “Get up and come away.” Passively, I obeyed. “Sit down,” said the same person, pushing me into a chair. I sat down and relapsed into my stupor.
Again I don’t know how long it was before they disturbed me for a second time. Two or three men were standing in front of me. One of them was in uniform. Slowly I recognized that he was an officer, a captain of police. He spoke. I heard what he said without understanding, as one who is half asleep hears what is said at his bedside. This much only I gathered, that he wanted me to go with him somewhere. I was too much dazed to care what I did or what was done with me. He took my arm and led me away. He led me into the street. There was a a great crowd. I shut my eyes and tottered along at his side. We entered a house. Somebody asked me a lot of questions—my name and where I lived and so forth—to which my lips framed mechanical answers. I can remember nothing more.
When consciousness revived I was made to understand that I had fainted.
“But where am I? What has happened?” I asked, trying to remember.
The police-captain explained. “Mr. Neuman,” he said, “I have made all the inquiry that is as yet possible, and the result is that I deem it my duty to take you in custody. I prefer no charge, but I believe I am bound to hold you for the inquest. The hour of your leaving her last night, the time that Miss Pathzuol has apparently been dead, and the fact that you were the last person known to have been in her company, make it incumbent upon me to place you under arrest.”
I pondered his words. Every thing came back. I was accused, or at least suspected, of having murdered Veronika—I!
I felt no emotion. I was stunned as yet, like a man who has received a blow between the eyes. My brain had turned to stone. I repeated over to myself all that the captain had said. The words wrought no effect. I did not even experience pain as I thought of her. She is dead? I queried. They were three vapid syllables. My senses I had recovered—I could see and hear plainly now—could remember the events of the morning in detail and in their correct order. But somehow I had lost all capacity for feeling.
AND so it continued throughout the inquest and throughout the trial—for, yes, they tried me for my sweetheart’s murder. I ate, drank, slept, and answered the questions that were put to me, all in a dazed, dull way, but suffered no pain, no surprise, no indignation, had no more sensation than a dead man. That Veronika had been killed, and that I was accused of having killed her, were the facts which I heard told and told again from morning till night each day; yet I had not the least conception of what they signified. I was too stunned and benumbed to realize.
The first day passed by, and the second and the third, every one of them busy with events that meant life or death for me: yet I took no notice. When left to myself, invariably I closed my eyes, and the stupor settled over my senses like a cloud of smoke. When aroused, I did whatever was required as passively as an automaton. I remember those first few days as one remembers a hateful dream. I remember being driven in a dark, noisy vehicle from the station-house to the city prison, and having in the latter place a cell assigned to me which was destined to serve as my home for many weeks. I remember making several trips, handcuffed to my custodian, from the jail to the office where the inquest was held and back: but my only recollection of the inquest itself is a confused one—a crowded, foul-smelling room, a chaos of faces and voices, endless talking, endless questioning of myself by men who were strangers to me. I remember that by and by these journeys came to an end: but what the verdict of the inquest was I do not remember—I do not think I troubled myself to ask at the time. Then I remember that after some days spent alone in my cell one of the keepers said, “You are indicted,” and inquired whether I wished to communicate with my attorney. Indicted? My attorney? I did not comprehend. I do not remember what I answered.
Once the door of my cell opened, and they brought in a trunk and a violin-case and placed them on the floor at the foot of my cot.
I recognized these for my own property. Mechanically I took out my violin and drew forth one long, clear note. That note was like a sudden flash of light. For a single instant the desolation to which my world had been reduced became visible in all its ghastliness. For a single instant I realized my position, realized that Veronika was dead, and the rest. The truth pierced my consciousness like an arrow and made my body quake with pain. But immediately the darkness settled over me again, the stupor returned.
Slowly, however, this stupor was changing its character. By degrees, so far as my mere thinking faculties were involved, it began to be dissipated. By degrees my mind struggled out of it. I began to notice and to understand things, and was able to converse and to appreciate what was said. But over my feelings it retained its sway. Although I was quite competent now to follow the explanations of my lawyer—how Veronika had been murdered and how and why I was suspected as the murderer—still I had no feeling of any sort about the matter. I might have been a log of wood.
My lawyer had presented himself one day and volunteered his services. I had accepted them without even inquiring his name.
“Don’t you remember me?” he asked.
I looked at his face but could not recall having seen it before.
“My name is Epstein,” he said. “We went to school together.”
“Oh, yes; I remember,” I replied.
Regularly each day he came and reported the progress of affairs.
“They are building up a strong case against you,” he said. “Our only hope lies in an alibi.”
“What is that?” I inquired dully.
He explained; and continued, “Of course the prosecution won’t tell me what tack they mean to pursue, but from several little things that have leaked out I infer that they have a pretty strong case. Now, at what hour did you leave Miss Pathzuol that night?”
“At about midnight.”
“And went directly home?”
“Directly home.”
“After entering your house did you meet any of the other occupants? any of your fellow-lodgers?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But you must make an effort to remember. Try.”
“I tell you, I don’t remember,” I repeated. His persistence irritated me.
“You appear to take as little interest in this case as though it were the life of a dog hanging in the scales instead of your own,” he said, and that was the truth.
Next day his face wore a somber expression.
“This is too bad,” he cried. “I have interviewed your landlady and your fellow-lodgers, and not one of them can swear to your alibi. I know you are innocent, but I don t see how I am to prove it.”
At last the trial began.
I sat through that trial, the most indifferent person in the court-room. I heard the testimony of the witnesses and the speeches of the lawyers simply because I was close at hand and could not help it. But I was the least interested of the many auditors, the least curious as to the result. Yet, stolid, indifferent, inattentive as I was, every detail of the trial is stamped upon my memory in indelible hues. Here is the story of it.
The first day was used in securing a jury.
The second day commenced with an address—an “opening” they called it—by the counsel for the prosecution. He told quietly who Veronika was, how she had lived alone with her uncle, and how on the morning of the 13th July they had found her, murdered. He said that a remarkable train of circumstantial evidence pointed to one man as the murderer. Then he raised his voice and dwelt upon the blackness of that man’s soul. Then he faced around and bade the prisoner stand up. Shaking his finger at me, “Gentlemen of the jury,” he thundered, “there is the man.”
The first witness was Tikulski. He testified to the discovery of the murder in the manner already known; told how he had been absent all night that night; and explained the nature of the relations that subsisted between Veronika and myself.
“When you got home on the morning of the 13th in what condition was the door of your apartment?” asked the district-attorney.
“In its usual condition.”
“That is to say, locked?”
“Precisely.”
“It had not been broken open or tampered with?”
“Not so far as I could see.”
“That’s all.”
On cross-examination he said that he had never heard a harsh word pass between Veronika and myself, that on the contrary I had given him every reason for considering me a most tender and devoted lover.
“And when made aware of the death of his betrothed,” pursued my lawyer, “how did Mr. Neuman conduct himself?”
“He acted like a crazy man—like one paralyzed by a tremendous blow.”
“You can go, Mr. Tikulski,” said my lawyer. “But I wish to say,” began Tikulski, “that I do not believe——”
“Stop,” cried the prosecutor. “Your honor, I object to any expression of opinion by the witness.”
“No matter about what you don’t believe,” said the Judge to Tikulski.
“But——-”
“But you must hold your tongue,” imperiously. “You can go.”
The old man left the stand and elbowed his way to my side.
“What I wished to say was,” he whispered into my ear, “that I believe you are as innocent as I myself. It is outrageous, this trial. They compelled me to testify. But you must understand that I am sure of your innocence. I don’t know why they hushed me up.”
Meanwhile the captain of police had succeeded him, and sworn to having visited the scene of the crime and to having placed the prisoner under arrest.
“Captain,” said the district-attorney, “here is a key. Have you seen it before?” handing a key to the witness.
“I have,” was the reply.
“Tell us when and where.”
“I took it from the prisoner on the morning of his arrest.”
“What further can you say about it?”
“Subsequently it was identified as a key to the apartments occupied by the deceased.”
“Did you try it yourself?”
“I did. It fitted the lock.”
“How is this?” Epstein asked me. “How did you come by that key?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t remember ever having had it in my possession.”
“But it is an ugly circumstance, and must be accounted for.”
“Oh, what difference does it make?” I retorted petulantly. “Leave me alone.”
“A few little trifles like this may make the difference of your neck,” muttered Epstein, and he looked disturbed.
“Captain,” continued the district-attorney, “just one thing more. Do you recognize this handkerchief?”
“Yes; it was found in the pocket of the prisoner when he was searched at the station-house.”
My lawyer got hold of the handkerchief and exhibited it to me. It was stained dull brown. “This is blood,” he said. “How did it happen?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t an idea,” was the utmost I could respond. Epstein looked more uneasy than before.
“That’s enough, Captain,” said the prosecutor.
“But before you leave the stand,” put in Epstein, “kindly tell us what the prisoner’s conduct was from the time you took charge of the premises down to the time you locked him up.”
“At first he acted as though he was crazy; raved and carried on like a madman. Afterward he became quiet and sort of dull. At the station-house he fainted away.”
“Didn’t act as though he liked it—as though the death of Miss Pathzuol was a thing that pleased him?”
“No, sir; on the contrary. He acted as though it had been a great shock to him.”
“You can go.”
Next came a physician.
He said he was a police-surgeon. At about nine o’clock on the morning of July 13th he had been summoned to the house of the decedent; had examined the body and satisfied himself as to the mode of death. There were three separate knife-wounds. These he proceeded to describe in technical language. Not one of them could have been self-inflicted; any one of them was sufficient to have caused immediate death.
“Dr. Merrill,” inquired the prosecutor, “how long—how many hours—prior to your arrival must the crime have been perpetrated?”
“From seven to ten hours.”
“So that—?”
“So that the crime must have been perpetrated between eleven and two o’clock.”
“Good.—Now, Doctor, here is a handkerchief which the captain says he took from the prisoner on the morning of his arrest. Do you recognize it?”
“I do.”
“Go on—what about it?”
“It was submitted to me for chemical analysis—to analyze the substance, with which it is discolored.”
“And you found?”
“I found that it was stained with blood,”
“Human blood?”
“Precisely.”
“About how long had it been shed? Did its condition indicate?”
“From its condition when submitted to me—that is, at about noon on the 13th—I inferred that it had been shed not much less nor much more than twelve hours.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said the lawyer. To Epstein, “Your witness.”
“One moment, Doctor,” said Epstein. Turning to me, “You can give no explanation of this circumstance?” he whispered.—“None,” I answered.—To the witness, “Doctor, blood may be shed in divers ways, may it not? This blood on the handkerchief, for instance—it might have come from—say, a nose-bleed, eh?”
The surgeon smiled, hesitated, then replied, “Possibly, though not probably. Its quality is rather that of blood from a wound than that of blood from congested capillaries. But it is quite possible.”
“You can go, Doctor.”—To me, “Are you sure you didn’t have a nose-bleed on the night in question?”
“I know nothing at all about it.”
The next witness was a woman.
She said she was the janitress of the apartment-house, No.—East Fifty-first street. It was a portion of her duty as such to open the street-door when the bell was rung. On the evening of July 12th, she had opened the door and admitted the prisoner between seven and eight o’clock.
“Can you say at what hour the prisoner left the house?”
“Yes, sir, I can. It was a warm night, and me and my husband were seated out on the stoop for the sake of the breeze till late. Mr. Neuman went out a little before twelve o’clock.”
“He entered between seven and eight. He left at about midnight. Now, meanwhile, whom else did you admit?”
“No one at all. From half past seven until midnight no one went in except Mr. Neuman.”
“Was not that a somewhat unusual circumstance?”
“Most extraordinary. Me and my husband spoke about it at the time.”
“You can swear positively on this score?”
“Yes, because we staid on the stoop the whole evening and not a soul could have passed us without our seeing.”
“Are there any other means of ingress to the house of which you have charge than the street door?”
“Yes, sir; the basement-door and the scuttle-door in the roof.”
“What was their condition on the night of the 12th of July?”
“They were locked and bolted.”
“What was their condition on the morning of the 13th?”
“At six o’clock when I opened the house they were still locked and bolted.”
“Meantime could they have been unlocked?”
“No, because I carried the keys in my pocket.”
“Now, what are the means of ingress to the flat occupied by Mr. Tikulski?”
“The door that opens from his private hall into the outer hall of the house.”
“Any other?”
“No, your honor.”
“Do you recognize this key?” handing to the witness the key that the officer had identified.
“I do, sir.”
“Well?”
“It’s a key to Mr. Tikulski’s door?”
Here befell a pause, during which the jurymen shifted in their seats and the prosecutor consulted with his colleague. In a moment he resumed.
“Now, Mrs. Marshall, you have testified that the prisoner at the bar, Ernest Neuman, left the house, No.—East Fifty-first street, shortly before midnight on the 12th of July. Your memory on this point is entirely trustworthy?”
“It is, sir.”
“Very well. Did you notice his movements after that?”
“I did, sir.”
“Tell us what they were.”
“Well, sir, he crossed over the street and stood on the sidewalk under a lamp-post looking up at the front of the house toward Mr. Tikulski’s windows, and then—”
“For how long?”
“I couldn’t tell exactly, but maybe for the time it would take you to walk around the block.”
“For five minutes?”
“Yes, or more likely for ten.”
“And then—?”
“Well, and then, as I was saying, he marched straight away toward the avenue.”
“Toward what avenue?”
“Toward Second avenue.”
“And disappeared?”
“And disappeared.”
“Did you see any thing more of him that night?”
“I did, sir.”
“When and under what circumstances?”
“In about a quarter of an hour, your honor, Mr. Neuman he comes back and stands leaning up against the railing across the way; and pretty soon crosses over and goes past us without speaking a word and enters the house, the door being open, and goes up the stairs.” My lawyer turned sharply to me. “Is this true?” he whispered. “No, it is entirely false,” I answered. But I did not care.
“This,” resumed the district-attorney, “was at about what hour?”
“Sure, you can reckon it for yourself, sir. It was a little after twelve.”
“Very good. Now, at what hour did you shut up the house?”
“It was after one o’clock.”
“Had the prisoner meantime gone out?”
“He had not.”
“So that consecutively from the moment of his re毛ntrance to the hour of your closing up, he was in the house?”
“He was, sir.”
“Meanwhile, who else had entered?”
“Two of the tenants, Mr. and Mrs.————, the tenants of the first flat.”
“Any one else?”
“No one else.”
“That will do, Mrs. Marshall.”
My lawyer cross-questioned her for an hour. His utmost art was powerless to shake her. She reiterated absolutely and word for word what she had already sworn to.
“John Marshall!” called the prosecutor.
It was the husband of the janitress. He confirmed her story, and like her, was impregnable to Epstein’s assaults.
“That’s our case, your honor,” said the district-attorney to the judge.
“Then we will adjourn until to-morrow,” replied the latter.
I was handcuffed and led back to the Tombs, a crowd following. Epstein joined me in my cell.
“How about that key?” he demanded.
“I know nothing about it.”
“How about the blood on your handkerchief?”
“I don’t remember. Perhaps, as you suggested, I had a nose-bleed.”
“You are sure you did not reenter the house?”
“Yes, I am sure of that. I went straight home and to bed.”
“Then the Marshalls have lied out and out?”
“They have.”
“Will you take the stand?”
“What for?”
“Why, to defend, to exonerate yourself.”
“No.”
“I feared as much. My friend, your life depends upon it.”
“What do I care for my life?”
“But your good name—you cherish your good name, do you not?’
“No,” I replied, stubbornly.
He attempted to plead, to reason with me. “No, no, no,” I insisted. He went his way.
“Your honor,” he said next day in court, “I ask that the jury be directed to render a verdict of not guilty, on the ground that the prosecution has failed to show any motive on the part of my client for the crime of which he is accused. Where the evidence is wholly circumstantial, as in the present case, a failure to show motive is fatal.”
“I shall not hamper the jury,” said the judge. “They must decide the case on its merits.” Epstein called, “Mrs. Burrows.” My landlady took the witness-chair and testified to my excellent character. He called a handful more to testify to the same thing; then said, “I am ready to sum up, your honor.”
“Do so,” replied the Court.
Epstein spoke shortly and quietly. I remember his argument word for word; yet I was not conscious of attending to it at the time.
He said, “We are not prepared to contest the matters of fact alleged by the prosecution, nor to deny that their bearing is against my client. That Mr. Neuman was in Miss Pathzuol’s company on the night of July 12th, and that the next morning a blood-stained handkerchief and a key to Mr. Tikulski’s door were taken from his pocket, we admit. We will even admit that these circumstances are of a sort to cast suspicion upon him: all that we claim is that they are not sufficient to confirm that suspicion and make it certainty. It is the liberty, perhaps the life, of a human being which you have at your disposal. No matter how dark the shadow over him may be, if you can entertain a reasonable doubt of his guilt, you must acquit. And, putting it to you in all simplicity and sincerity, I ask: Does not the evidence offered by the prosecution leave room for a reasonable doubt? Is it not possible that some other hand than Neuman’s dealt the blows by which Veronika Pathzuol met her death? If such a possibility exists, you must give Neuman the benefit of it; you must acquit. Consider his good character; consider that he was the betrothed of the lady whose murderer they would make him out to be; consider that absolutely no trace of motive has been brought home to him; consider that on the contrary he was the one man who above all others most desired that she might live; consider these matters, and then decide whether in reasonableness his guilt is not in doubt. Remember that it is not sufficient that there should be a presumption against him. Remember that there must be proof. Remember also what a grave duty yours is, and how grave the consequences, should you send an innocent man to the gallows.
“Only one word more. I had naturally intended to place my client upon the stand, and let him justify himself by his own word of mouth. But, unfortunately, I am not able to do so, because morally and physically he is prostrated and unfitted for sustaining the strain of an examination. But after all, if you will for a moment imagine yourselves in Mr. Neuman’s position, you can conceive that his defense must necessarily be of a passive, not of an active, kind. In his position what could you say? Why, only that you were ignorant of the whole transaction, and innocent despite appearances, and as much at loss for a solution of the mystery involving it as his honor himself. This is what Neuman would say were he able to go upon the stand. But one thing more he would say. He would impugn the veracity of the Marshalls. He would maintain that they lied in toto when they swore to his second entrance. He would tell you that when he left the house in Fifty-first street at midnight, he went directly home and to his bed, and that he returned no more until the next morning. And he would leave you to choose between his story and that of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. My opponent will ask, ‘Why not prove an alibi, then?’ Because, when Mr. Neuman returned to his lodging-house late that night, every body, as might have been expected, was asleep. He encountered no one in the hall or on the stairs. He mounted straight to his own bed-chamber and went to bed.
“I trust the matter to your discretion. I am sure that you will weigh it carefully and conscientiously. You will realize that the life of a fellow man hangs upon your verdict, and you will deliberate well, if there be not, on the whole, a reasonable doubt in his favor. You will, I am confident, in no uncertain mind consign Ernest Neuman to the grave of a felon.” The district-attorney’s address was florid and rhetorical. It lasted about two hours. He resumed the evidence. He said that an ordinary process of elimination would suffice to fasten the guilt upon the prisoner at the bar. The gist of his argument was that as Neuman had been the only person in the victim’s company at the time of the commission of the crime, he was consequently the only person who by a physical possibility could be guilty. He warned the jury against allowing their sympathies to interfere with their judgment, and read at length from a law book respecting the value of circumstantial proof. He ridiculed Epstein’s impeachment of the Marshalls, and added that even without their testimony the doctor’s story and the police-captain’s story, coupled with my own “eloquent silence,” were conclusive. It was the obvious duty of the jury to convict.
The judge delivered his charge, dealing with the legal aspect of the case.
Epstein rose again. “I request your honor,” he said, “to charge that in the event of the jurymen finding that there is a reasonable doubt in Neuman’s favor, they must acquit.”
“I so charge,” assented the judge.
“I request your honor,” Epstein continued, “to charge that if the jurymen consider the fact of no motive having been shown, sufficient to establish a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt, they must acquit.”
“I so charge you, gentlemen,” said the judge.
The jurymen filed out of the room. The judge left the bench. It was now about four in the afternoon. Half an hour passed. The court-room began to empty. Another half hour passed. Only the court attendants, Epstein, the district-attorney’s colleague, and the prisoner remained. One of the attendants held a whispered conference with Epstein: then said to me, “There is no prospect of a speedy agreement. Come.” I rose, followed him to the rear of the room, and was locked up in the prisoner’s pen.
It got dark. I sat still in the dark and waited. The stupor bound my faculties like a frost.
It had been dark many hours when the door of the pen swung open. The same attendant again said, “Come.”
The court-room was lighted by a few feeble gas jets. The judge sat on the bench. The district-attorney was laughing and chatting with him. Epstein said, “For God’s sake, summon all your strength. They have agreed.”
The jurymen entered in single file, took their places, settled themselves in their chairs. The judge and the prosecutor suspended their pleasantries. The clerk cleared his throat. There was a second of dead silence. Then, “Prisoner, stand up,” called the clerk.
I stood up.
“Prisoner, look you upon the jury. Jury, look you upon the prisoner,” the clerk cried, machine-like.
In the murky light of the gas I could have gathered nothing from the faces of the jurymen, even had I been concerned to do so.
“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?” the metallic voice of the clerk rang out.
The foreman rose. “We have,” he answered.
“How say you, do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty of the offense for which he stands indicted?”
“Not guilty,” said the foreman.
Epstein grasped my hand and crunched it hard. His own was clammy. He did not speak.
“Gentlemen of the jury, you say you find the prisoner at the bar not guilty of homicide in the first degree, and so your verdict stands recorded. Neuman, you are discharged.” It was the clerk’s last word.
I quitted the court-room, a free man. I was as indifferent to my freedom as I had been to my peril. There was no consciousness of relief in my breast.
Epstein stood at my elbow. “You must be weak and faint,” he said. “Come with me.”
He led me through the silent streets and into a restaurant.
“This is an all-night place,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “and much frequented by journalists. What will you have?”
“I am not hungry,” I answered.
“Oh, but you must take something,” he urged with a touch of ruefulness, “just a bite to celebrate our victory.”
I drank a cup of coffee. When we were again out-doors, Epstein cried, “Why, see; it is beginning to get light. Morning already.” A fresh wind blew in our faces, and the blackness of the sky was giving place to gray. “I must leave you now,” said Epstein, “and hurry home. Where will you go?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll stroll about for a while. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
I WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few weeks. I was astonished at my own blank insensibility. “Why, Veronika, the Veronika you loved, is dead, murdered,” I said to myself, “and you, you who loved her, have been in prison and on trial for the crime. They have outraged you. They have sworn falsely against you. And the very core of your life has been torn out. Yet you—what has come over you? Are you heartless, have you no capacity for grief or indignation? Oris it that you are still half stunned? And that presently you will come to and begin to feel?” I strode on and on. It was broad day now. By and by I looked around.
I was in Second avenue, near its southern extremity. I was standing in front of a large red brick house. A white placard nailed to the door caught my eye. “Room to let,” it said in big black letters.
“Room to let?” I repeated. “Why, I am in need of a room.” And I entered the house and engaged the room. The landlady asked my name. I told her it was Lexow, that having been the maiden-name of my mother. Neuman had acquired too unpleasant a notoriety through the published accounts of the trial. As Lexow I have been known ever since.
I employed an express agent to go to the Tombs and bring back my luggage.
Then I sat at my window and watched the people pass in the street. I sat there stockstill all day. I was aware of a vague feeling of wretchedness, of a vague craving for a relief which I could not name. As dusk gathered, a lump grew bigger and bigger in my throat. “I am beginning to be unhappy,” I thought. “It is high time.” My insensibility had frightened as well as puzzled me. Instinctively, I knew it could not last forever, knew it for the calm that precedes the storm. I was anxious that the storm should break while I was still strong enough to cope with its fury. Waiting weakened me. Besides, I was ashamed of myself, hated myself as one shallow and disloyal. That I could be indifferent to Veronika’s death! I, who had called myself her lover!
But now, as the lump grew in my throat, now, I thought, perhaps the hour has come. I sat still in my chair, fanning this forlorn spark of hope.
In the end, by imperceptible degrees, sleep stole upon me. It was natural. I had been up for more than six-and-thirty hours.
When I awoke a singular thing happened. Memory played me a singular trick.
I awoke, conscious of a great luminous joy in my heart. It was full morning. “Ah,” I thought, “how bright the sunshine is! how sweet the air! To-day I will go to Veronika to-day, after my lessons—and spend the lest of the afternoon and the evening at her side!” My heart leaped at this prospect of happiness in store: and I commenced to plan the afternoon and evening in detail. At last I jumped up, eager to begin the delicious day.
The trick that memory played me was a simple one, after all. The recent past had simply for the moment been obliterated, and I transported back for a moment into the old time. As I stood now in the middle of the floor, my eye was struck by the strangeness of my surroundings.
“Why, how is this?” I questioned. “Where am I?”
For a trice I was bewildered, but only for a trice. The truth reasserted itself all at once—rose up and faced me with its grim, deathly visage, as if cleared by a stroke of lightning. All at once I remembered; and what is more, all at once the stupor that had hung like a cloud between me and the facts, rolled away. I looked at my world. It was dust and ashes, a waste space, peopled by ghosts. My heart recoiled, sickened, horrified; then began to throb with the pain that had been ripening in its womb ever since the morning when Tikulski pointed to her, stretched murdered upon the bed.
Well, at last the storm had broken; at last I realized. At last I could no longer reproach myself for a want of sensibility. At last I had my desire. I yielded myself to the enjoyment of it for the remainder of the day.
For weeks afterward I lay at the point of death. The slow convalescence that ensued afforded me plenty of time to examine my position from every point of view, and to get accustomed to understanding that the light had gone out of my sky. Of course I hated the fate that condemned me to regain my health. The thought that I should have to drag out years and years of blank, aimless, joyless life, appalled me. The future was a night through which I should be compelled to toil with no hope of morning. Strangely enough, the idea of suicide never once suggested itself.
When I was able to go out, I repaired to Epstein’s office. Several little matters remained to be settled with him. As I was about to leave, he said, “Neuman, do you propose to take any steps toward finding the murderer?”
“Toward finding the murderer? Why, no; I had not thought of doing so.”
“But of course you will. You won’t allow the affair to rest in statu quo?”
“Why not?”
“Why, considering your relations to Miss Pathzuol, I should think your motive would be plain. Don’t you want to see her murderer punished, her death atoned for?”
“Her death atoned for! Her death can never be atoned for. And the punishment of her murderer—would that restore her to me? Would that undo the fact that she is dead? Else, why should I bestir myself about it?”
“Common human nature ought to be enough; the natural wish to square accounts with him.”
“Do you fancy, Epstein, that such an account as this can be squared? Suppose we had him here now at our mercy, what could we do by way of squaring accounts? Put him to death? Would that square the account? To say so would be to compare his miserable life to hers.—But besides, he is not at our mercy. We have no clew to him.”
“Yes, on the contrary, we have.”
“Indeed? What is it?”
“Why, the most apparent one. You are sure the Marshalls lied?”
“Oh yes; I am sure of that.”
“Well, what earthly inducement could they have had for lying—for perjuring themselves, mind you, and running the risk of being caught and sent to prison—what earthly inducement, unless thereby they hoped to cover up their own guilt by throwing suspicion upon another man?”
“Yes; that is so. I had not thought of that.”
“Well, now, if you and I are sure that the Marshalls participated in that crime, there is a solid starting-point. Now, will you not join me and help to fasten the guilt upon them?”
“What good would it do? I say again, would that give her back to me?”
“But, my dear fellow, even if you have no desire to see the murderer punished, you must at least wish to retaliate upon the wretches who jeopardized your life by their false swearing, who sought to thrust upon your innocent shoulders the brunt of their own offending.”
“No; I confess, I have no such wish.”
“But—but you amaze me. Have you not the ordinary instincts of a man?
“It is the business of the police, any how. Let them move in the matter. You ought to understand that I am sick and tired, that all I wish for is to be left alone. No, no; if the Marshalls should ever be brought to justice it will not be by my efforts. The police can manage it for themselves.”
“But there is just the point.” Epstein hesitated; at length went on, “There is just the point I wanted to bring to your notice. It will be hard for you to hear, but you ought to understand—it is only right that I should tell you—that—that—why, hang it, the police will remain idle because they suppose they have already finished the business, already put their finger on the—the man.”
“Well, why should they remain idle on that account? Why don’t they arrest him and try him, as they did me, before a jury?”
“You don’t comprehend, Neuman. The fact of the matter is—you must pardon me for saying so—the fact is, they still suspect you.”
“Suspect me? What, after the very jury has acquitted me? I thought the verdict of the jury was conclusive.”
“So it is, in one sense. They can’t put you in jeopardy again. But this is the way they stand. They say, ‘We haven’t sufficient legal evidence to warrant a conviction, but we feel morally certain, all the same, and so there’s no use prying further.’ That is my reason for broaching the subject and for urging you so strongly. You ought to clear your character, vindicate your innocence, by proving to the police that they are wrong, that the guilt rests with their own witnesses, the Marshalls.
“I thank you, Epstein, for telling me this. I am glad to realize just what my status is. But let me cherish no misconception. Is this theory of the police—is it held by others?”
“To be frank, I am afraid it is. The newspapers took it up and—and I’m afraid it s the opinion of the public generally.”
“Then the verdict did not signify?”
“Well, at least not so far as public opinion is concerned.”
“So that I am to rest under this stigma all my life?”
“Why, no—not if you choose to exonerate yourself, as I have indicated.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that. I don’t care to exonerate myself. What difference would it make? Would it make the fact that she is lost to me forever one shade less true? Only, it is well that I should have a clear understanding of my position, and I thank you for giving it to me.”
“You don’t mean to say that you are going to drop the case there?” Epstein demanded. “I assure you, I never should have opened my mouth about it, had I foreseen this.”
“Don’t reproach yourself. You have simply done your duty. It was my right to hear this from you.—Yes, of course I shall drop the case. Good-by.”
“You will think better of it; you will reconsider it; you will come back to-morrow in a wiser frame of mind. Good-by.”
As I reentered my lodging-house the landlady met me; thrust an envelope into my hand; and vanished.
I was surprised to see that the envelope was addressed to “E. Neuman, Esquire.” It will be remembered that I had introduced myself as Mr. Lexow. I tore it open. It inclosed a memorandum of my arrears of rent and a notice to quit, the latter couched thus: “Mr. Neuman’s real name having been learned during his sickness, please move out as soon as you have paid up.”
I caught sight of myself in the glass. “So,” I said, “you are the person whom people suspect as a murderer! and it is thus that you are to be regarded all the rest of your life as one touched with the plague.”
I counted my ready money and paid the landlady her due.
“I am very sorry,” she began, “but the reputation of my house—but the other lodgers—but—”
“You needn’t apologize,” I interposed, and left the house.
It occurred to me that it would be necessary to find work whereby to earn my livelihood. I had quite forgotten that I was poor. What should I do?
The notion of giving music lessons again I could not entertain. Music had become hateful to me. I could not touch my violin. I could not even unlock the case and look at the instrument. It was too closely associated with the cause of my sorrow. The mere memory of a strain of music, drifting through my mind, was enough to cut my heart like a knife. Music was out of the question.
I had had a little money in the Savings Bank. With this sum I had intended to furnish the rooms which she and I were to have occupied! Now it was all spent; three-quarters swallowed up by the expenses of my trial, the residue by the expenses of my illness and the landlady’s score for rent. I opened my purse. I had less than a dollar left. So it behooved me to lose no time. I must find a means of support at once.
But music apart, what remained?—My wits were sluggish. Revolving the problem over and over as I walked along, they could arrive at no solution.
We were in December. The day was bitter cold. I had not proceeded a great distance before the cold began to tell upon me. “I must step in somewhere and warm myself,” I said. I was still feeble. I could not endure the stress of the weather as I might have done formerly. I made for the first shop I saw.
It was a wine-shop, kept by a German, as the name above the door denoted. I took a table near the stove and asked for a glass of wine. As my senses thawed, I became aware that a quarrel was going on in the room—angry voices penetrated my hearing.
The proprietor, a fat man in his shirt-sleeves, stood behind the bar. His face was very red! In his native tongue loudly and volubly he was berating one of his assistants—a waiter with a scared face.
“Go, go at once. You are a rascal, a good-for-naught,” he was saying; “here is your money. Clear out, before I hurt you.”
The culprit was nervously untying his apron strings. “Yes, sir, at once, at once,” he stammered. In the end he put on his hat and accomplished a frightened exit. His confreres watched his decapitation with repressed sympathy.
After he had gone, the proprietor’s wrath began perceptibly to mitigate. He settled down in his chair. The tint of his skin gradually cooled. He lighted a cigar. He picked up a newspaper.
I had taken in these various proceedings mechanically, without bestowing upon them any special attention. But now an idea, prompted by them, began to fructify. By and by I approached the counter and ventured a timid, “I beg your pardon.”
The proprietor glanced up.
“I beg your pardon,” I continued in German, “but you have discharged a waiter!”
“Well?” he responded.
“Well, you will probably need somebody to take his place?”
“Well? What of it?”
“I—I—that is, if you think I would do, I should like the employment.”
The proprietor looked thoughtful. He scratched his chin, puffed vigorously at his cigar, and asked my name. He shook his head when I confessed that I had had no experience of the business; but seemed impressed by my remark that on that account I would be willing to serve for smaller wages. He mentioned a stipend. It was ridiculously slender; but what cared I? It would keep body and soul together. I desired nothing more.
“What references can you give?” he inquired.
I mentioned Epstein.
“All right,” he said. “You can go to work at once. To-morrow I will look up your reference. If it be satisfactory, I will keep you.”
The Oberkellner provided me with an apron and a short alpaca jacket; and in this garb Ernest Neuman, musician, merged his identity, as he supposed for good and all, into that of Ernest Lexow, waiter.
TWO years elapsed. Their history is easily told. I lived and moved and had my being in a profound apathy to all that passed around me. The material conditions of my existence caused me no distress. I dwelt in a dingy room in a dirty house; ate poor food, wore poor clothing, worked long hours; was treated as a menial and had to put up with a hundred indignities every day; but I was wholly indifferent, had other things to think of. My thoughts and my feelings were concentrated upon my one great grief. My heart had no room left in it for pettier troubles. I do not believe that there was a waking moment in those two years’ when I was unconscious of my love and my loss. Veronika abode with me morning, noon, and night. My memory of her and my unutterable sorrow for her engrossed me to the exclusion of all else.
My violin I did not unlock from year’s end to year’s end. I could not get over my hatred for the bare idea of music. Music recalled the past too vividly. I had not the fortitude to endure it. The sound of a hand-organ in the street was enough to cause me a twinge like that of a nerve touched by steel.
As the winter leaped into spring, and days came which were the duplicates of those I had spent with her, of course my pain grew more acute. The murmur of out-door life and the warmth and perfume of the spring air, penetrated to the very quick of memory and made it quiver. But at about this time I began to taste an unexpected pleasure. It was an odd one. Of old, during our betrothal, I had been tormented almost nightly by bad dreams. As surely as I laid my head upon its pillow, so surely would I be wafted off into an ugly nightmare—she and I were separated—we had quarreled—she had ceased to love me. But now that my worst dream had been excelled by the reality, I began to have dreams of quite another sort. As soon as sleep closed upon me, the truth was annihilated, Veronika came back. All night long we were supremely happy; we played and sang and talked together, just as we had been used to do. These dreams were astonishingly life-like. Indeed, in the morning after one, I would wonder which was the very fact, the dream or the waking. My nightly dream got to be a goal to look forward to during the day. But as the summer deepened, I dreamed less and less frequently, and at length ceased altogether.
Autumn returned, and winter; and my life did not vary. Time was slow about healing my wounds, if time meant to heal them at all. But time did not mean to heal them at all, as ere long became apparent.
One afternoon in November, a month or so before the two years would have terminated, a young man entered the shop and ensconced himself at a table in the corner. Having delivered his order and lighted a cigarette, he pulled out a yellow covered French book from the pocket of his coat, and speedily became immersed in its perusal. I don’t know what it was in the appearance of this young man that attracted my attention. Almost from the moment of his advent my eyes kept going back to him. His own eyes being fastened upon his book, I could stare at him without giving offense. And stare at him I did to my heart’s content.
He was a tall young fellow and wore his hair a trifle longer than the fashion is. He was dressed rather carelessly; he knocked his cigarette ashes about so that they soiled his clothes. He had a dark skin, and, in singular contrast to it, a pair of large blue eyes. His forehead, nose, and chin were strongly modeled and expressed force of character without pretending to conventional beauty. He was not a handsome, but a distinguished looking man. The absence of beard and mustache lent him somewhat of the aspect of a Catholic priest. His big blue eyes were full of good-nature and intelligence. He had a quick, energetic way of moving which announced plenty of dash within. He had entered the shop like a gust of wind, had shot across the floor and taken his seat at the table as if impelled by the force of gunpowder, and now he turned the pages of his book with the air of a man whose life depended upon what he was doing. No sooner had he consumed one of his cigarettes than he applied a match to its successor.
I stared at him mercilessly and wondered what manner of individual he was.
“He is not a business-man,” I said, “nor a lawyer nor a doctor: that is evident from his whole bearing; and besides, what would he be doing in a wine-shop at this hour of the afternoon? I don’t think he is a musician, either—he hasn’t the musician’s eyes or mouth. Possibly he is a school-teacher, or it may be—yes, I should say most certainly, he is an artist of some sort, a painter or sculptor, or perhaps a writer.”
My speculations had proceeded thus far when in the quick, energetic way above alluded to the young man looked at his watch, slammed to his book, shoved back his chair, and commenced hammering upon the table with the bottom of his empty beer-mug.
“Yes, sir,” I said, responding to his summons.
“Check,” he demanded laconically.
I handed him his check. He thrust his fingers into his waistcoat-pocket for the money. They roamed about, apparently unrewarded.
A puzzled expression came upon his face. The fingers paused in their occupation; presently emerged and dived into another pocket and then into another. The puzzled expression deepened: at last changed its character, became an expression of intense annoyance. He knitted his brows and bit his lip. Glancing up, he said, “This is really very awkward. I—I find I haven’t a sou about me. It’s—bother it all, I suppose you’ll take me for a beat. But—here, I can leave my watch.”
“Oh, that’s entirely unnecessary,” I hastened to put in. “Don’t let it distress you. Tomorrow, or any other day you happen to be passing, will do as well.”
He looked at the same time surprised and relieved. “That’s not a conservative way of doing business,” he said. “How do you know I may not take advantage of you?”
“Oh, I’m quite at rest about that. You need not be disturbed.”
“Well, such faith in human nature is stimulating,” he answered. “I should hate to imperil it. So you may be sure I’ll turn up to-morrow. Meanwhile I’m awfully obliged.”
Thereat he went away.
I paid his reckoning from my own purse, and immediately fell again to wondering about him.
By and by it occurred to me, “Why, that is the first human being who has taken you out of yourself for the last two years!” And thereupon I transferred my wonder to the interest he had managed to arouse in my own preoccupied mind. Then gradually my thoughts flowed back into their customary channels.
But early the next day I caught myself asking, “Will he return?” and devoutly hoping that he would. Not on account of the money; I had no anxiety about the money. But somehow, self-centered as I was, I had felt drawn toward this blue-eyed young man, and anticipated seeing him again with an approach to genuine pleasure.
Surely enough, in the course of the afternoon the door opened and he entered.
“Ah,” he said, “you see, I am faithful to my trust. Here is the lucre: count it and be satisfied that the sum is just. Really,” he added, dropping the mock theatrical manner he had assumed, “really, it was frightfully embarrassing yesterday. But I’m a victim of absentmindedness, and in changing my clothes I had omitted to transfer my pocket-book from the one suit to the other. I can’t tell you how much indebted I am for your considerateness. I suppose you are overrun with dead-beats who play that dodge regularly—eh?”
I gave him the answer his question called for, served him with the drinkables he ordered, and stationed, myself at a respectful distance.
He lighted his inevitable cigarette and produced his book. He read and smoked for a few moments in silence. Suddenly he flung the book angrily upon the table, pushed back his glass, and uttered an audible “Confound it!”
I hastened forward to learn the subject of his discomposure and to supply what remedy I might.
“I beg your pardon,” I ventured, “is there any thing wrong with the wine?”
“Eh—what?” he queried. “With the wine? Any thing wrong? Oh—I perceive. Oh, no—the wine s all right. It’s this beastly pedantic author. He is describing the Jewish ritual, and now just observe his idiocy. He goes on at a great rate about the beauty of a certain prayer—gets the reader’s curiosity all screwed up—and then—fancy his airs!—and then quotes the stuff in the original Hebrew! It’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even condescend to affix a translation in a foot-note. Look.”
He opened the book and pointed, with a finger dyed brown by tobacco-smoke, to the troublesome passage.
Now I, having been brought up as an orthodox Jew, had a smattering of Hebrew, and at a glance I saw that I could easily translate the few sentences in question. So, impulsively and without stopping to reflect that my conduct might seem officious, I said, “If you would like, I think perhaps I may be able to aid you.”
“What!” he exclaimed, fixing a pair of wide open eyes upon my face.
“Yes, I think I can translate it.”
“The deuce!” he cried. “I didn’t suspect you were a scholar. How in the name of goodness did you learn Hebrew?”
“A scholar I am not, surely enough: but I am a Jew, and like the rest of my faith I studied Hebrew as a boy.”
“Ah, I understand. Well, fire away.”
I took the book and read the Hebrew aloud. It was a prayer, which, when a child, I had known by heart. Afterward I explained its sense while my friend jotted it down with a pencil upon the margin.
“Thanks,” he was good enough to say. “I don’t know what I should have done without your help.—And so you are a Jew? You don’t look it. You look like a full-blown Teuton. But I congratulate you all the same.”
“Congratulate me for looking like a Teuton?” The shop being empty, there was no harm in my joining in conversation with a client. Besides, I did not stop to think whether there was harm in it or not. I yielded to the attraction which this young man exerted over me.
“No—for belonging to the ancient and honorable race of Jews,” he answered. “Your ancestors were civilized and dwelt in cities and wrote poems, thousands of years ago: whereas mine at that epoch inhabited caves and dressed in bearskins and occasionally dined on a roasted neighbor. I should be proud of my lineage, were I a Jew.”
“But it is the fashion for the Gentiles to despise us.”
“Oh, bosh! It is the fashion for a certain ignorant, stupid set of Philistines to do so—but those who pretend to the least enlightenment, on the contrary, regard the Jews as a most enviable people. They envy your history, they envy the success that waits upon your enterprises. For my part, I believe the whole future of America depends upon the Jews.”
“Indeed, how is that?”
“Why, look here. What is the American people to-day? There is no American people—or rather there are twenty American peoples—the Irish, the German, the Jewish, the English, and the Negro elements—all existing independently at the same time, and each as truly American as any of the others. Good! But in the future, after emigration has ceased, these elements will begin to amalgamate. A single people of homogeneous blood will be the consequence. Do you follow?”
“I think I follow. But the Jews?”
“But the Jews—precisely, the Jews. It is the Jewish element that is to leaven the whole lump—color the whole mixture. The English element alone is, so to speak, one portion of pure water; the German element, one portion of eau sucr茅e; now add the Jewish—it is a dose of rich strong wine. It will give fire and flavor to the decoction. The future Americans, thanks to the Jew in them, will have passions, enthusiasms. They will paint great pictures, compose great music, write great poems, be capable of great heroism. Have I said enough?”
The result was that we chatted together for half an hour with the freedom of old acquaintances. He quite made me forget that I was his servant for the time, and led me to speak out my mind with the unreserve of equal to equal. I enjoyed a peculiar sense of exhilaration that lasted even after he had gone away. In spite of myself I could not help relishing this contact with a superior man. Again I fell to wondering about his occupation. I was more and more persuaded that he must be an artist of some sort, or a writer.
The next day he came again, and the next, and the next, and regularly every day at about the same hour for a fortnight. As surely as he seated himself at the corner table, so surely would he beckon to me and begin to talk. In these dialogues he afforded me no end of entertainment, touching in a racy way upon a score of topics. He had resided abroad for some years—seemed equally at home in Paris, Rome, and Munich—and his anecdotes of foreign life were like glimpses into dream-land for me. He had the faculty of making me forget myself, and for that reason, if for no other, I should have valued his friendliness. Our interviews occurred as bright spots in the sad gray monotone of my daily life.