Part 29

He settled down into the big armchair by the fire, having taken from his valise three books which he had selected for his travelling companions: "Baedeker's London Guide," "The Pickwick Papers," and "David Copperfield." The latter was in a cheap American edition which he had bought with his schoolboy's savings; a tattered volume which he knew almost by heart; which, when he took it up, opened at that part of David's "Personal History and Experience" where his aunt tells him of her financial losses, and where he dreamed his dreams of poverty in all sorts of shapes, and, as he read, this paragraph flew out at his eye:

"There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quickly as I could, and leaving Peggotty to look after my Aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk treatment might freshen my wits a little."

Ralph's sleep in the old bed was unquiet. He was transported back into the England of the old coaching days, and found himself seated on the box-seat of the Ipswich coach, next a stout, red-faced, elderly coachman, his throat and chest muffled by capacious shawls, who said to him:

"If ever you are attacked with the gout, just you marry a widder as had got a good loud woice with a decent notion of using it, and you will never have the gout agin!" Then suddenly the film of the smart coach, with passengers inside and out, faded away, and Ralph found himself drinking hot brandy and water with Mr. Pickwick, in a room of a very homely description, apparently under the special patronage of Mr. Weller and other stage coachmen, for there sat the former smoking with great vehemence. The vision flashed out into darkness.

Then came deep, early morning sleep from which a sharp knock at his door aroused him, and a valet entered with a hot-water can and a cup of tea, saying: "Beg pardon, sir, eight o'clock, sir, thank you, sir."

Ralph's first inclination was to say "_Thank you_," but he restrained himself from this in time to save upsetting the foundations of British social life, and instead he asked:

"What kind of a morning is it?"

"Oh, sir, thank you, sir, if I should say that it is a nasty morning, sir, I should be telling the truth indeed, foggy and raining, sir, thank you, sir."

All the time he was quietly taking up Ralph's clothes, which were scattered in convulsions around the room.

"Shall I not unpack your box, sir?" asked the valet.

Ralph stopped from sipping his tea to nod assent, and the man proceeded with the unpacking with a hand which practice had made perfect.

"This is my first morning in London," observed Ralph. The valet pretended not to hear him, being unwilling to engage in any line of conversation which by any chance could take him out of the station in life to which he had been called.

"What is your name?" finally asked the American.

"Postlethwaite, sir, but I answer to the name of 'Enery."

"Well, 'Enery, did you ever hear of a Roman bath in a little street off the Strand?"

"A Roman bath, sir, in a little street off the Strand, sir? No, sir, thank you, sir, my word, sir, the Italians never take baths, sir."

"They used to take them, 'Enery, and my guide-book says that there is one of theirs to this day in Strand Lane."

The valet was silent as he continued his unpacking and arranging of Tuckerman's clothes, and the latter felt a little uncomfortable as this proceeding went on, for he was conscious of the inadequacy of his outfit, not only in the eyes of an English servant, but in his own, for he had purposely travelled "light," intending to replenish his wardrobe in London; but the well-trained servant treated the worn-out suits and frayed shirts with the utmost outward respect as he folded them up and put them away in the clothes-press.

An hour later, on the top of a 'bus, Ralph sat watching the complicated movement of traffic in the London streets, directed by the helmeted policemen. It was before the days of the motor-car, an endless stream of omnibuses, drays, hansoms, and four-wheelers, even at that early hour in the morning was pouring through the great artery of the heart of the world. This first ride on a London 'bus and the sights of the street traffic were inspiring, but familiar to the mind's eye of the young American. The Thames, alive with barges and steamers, the smoke-stained buildings, the processions of clerks, the crossing and sweepers, the smart policemen, the cab-drivers, the draymen, he knew from Leech's drawings, and he was on his way, marvellous to relate, to the oldest work of man in the city, in which the water flowed as it had been flowing ever since London was Londineum.

He got off the 'bus at Strand Lane and found a little way down the street the building he was looking for. It was a commonplace brick structure, the exterior giving no hint of its contents. A notice was posted on the black entrance door, stating the hours at which the bath was open to visitors. Ralph found out that he had fifteen minutes to wait before he could plunge head foremost into the pool. He walked somewhat impatiently up and down the street, finding the waiting unpleasant, for although it was not raining hard, the mist was cold and disagreeable. After a few turns, he came up to the door again and there found a young gentleman, dressed in a long surtout, reading the notice; the stranger turned about as Ralph approached; his face was smooth-shaven, his eyes large and melancholy, his whimsical, sensitive mouth was upcurved at the corners, his waving chestnut hair was longer than was then the fashion, the soft felt hat was pulled down over his forehead as if to ward off the fog. He swung to and fro with his right hand a Malacca joint with a chiselled gold head.

He bowed politely to Ralph, remarking:

"So you, too, are waiting for a plunge into the waters of the Holywell?"

"You are right, sir; I guess that we shall find the Roman bath cold this morning."

"You are an American, are you not?"

"I am, and therefore, sir, I am a seeker after the curious and ancient things of this city; it is my first morning in London."

"May I ask how you found out about this ancient bath? It is but little known, even to old Londoners. I often come here for a plunge, but I seldom find any other bathers here."

"Well, sir, I came across an allusion to it in 'David Copperfield,' just before I retired last night, and I looked up the locality in my guide-book."

"'David Copperfield'!" exclaimed the young man with a low whistle, and he started off upon a walking up and down as if to keep himself warm while waiting.

A moment later the heavy black door of the bathhouse was opened, and the bath attendant stepped out on the threshold, looking out into the rain; a dark-haired, heavily built man, with coarse features, a tight, cruel mouth; if he had not been dressed in rough, modern working clothes, he might well have been a holdover from the days of the Roman occupation.

"The admission is two shillings," announced the attendant as he showed the American into a dressing-room, and as the latter was paying his fee he saw the other visitor glide into a dressing-room adjoining his.

The bath was small, dark, and disappointing in appearance to the man from overseas, to whom the term "Roman bath" had conveyed an impression of vast vaulted rooms, and marble-lined swimming-pools. The bath itself was long enough for a plunge, but too small for a swim, and a hasty diver would be in danger of bumping his head on the bottom. The bricks at the side were laid edgewise, and the floor of the bath was of brick covered with cement. At the point where the water from the Holywell Spring flowed in, Ralph could see the old Roman pavement. The water in the bath was clear, but it was dark and cold looking.

As Ralph stood at the edge, reluctant to spring in, he saw the young Englishman dart from his dressing-room like a graceful sprite and make a beautiful dive into the pool. His slender body made no splash, but entered the water like a beam of light, refracting as he swam a stroke under water.

In a trice his face appeared above the surface, with no ripple or disturbance of the water.

"I feel better already," he called out. "I passed such a terrible night, almost as bad as poor Clarence's. How miserable I was last night when I lay down! I need not go into details. A loss of property; a sudden misfortune had upset my hopes of a career and of happiness.

"It was difficult to believe that night, so long to me, could be short for any one else. This consideration set me thinking, and thinking of an imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away until that became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune, and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance without taking the least notice of me."

"I too dreamed the night through," thought Ralph. "And am I dreaming now?"

"I dreamed of poverty in all sorts of shapes. I seemed to dream without the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I was ragged, now I ran out of my office in a nightgown and boots, now I was hungrily picking up the crumbs of a poor man's scanty bread, and, still more or less conscious of my own room, I was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a sea of bedclothes. But come, my friend, plunge in, for if you passed any such night as mine, the clear cold water of Holywell Spring has marvellous healing properties, and it will freshen your wits for whatever the day may bring for them to puzzle over."

As he spoke he drew himself up on the opposite side of the bath from Ralph, and watched the latter as he took a clumsy header, his body striking the water flat, and sending great splashes over the room. When Ralph, recovering from his rude entrance into the water, looked for the other bather, he was gone. The cold water did not invite a protracted immersion, so that Ralph scrambled hastily out of it, and after a rub with a harsh towel, put on his clothes; then he noticed that the door of the stranger's cubicle was open; he looked into it to say good-by to his chance acquaintance, but it was empty, and in the corner he saw the Malacca cane with the gold head. He picked it up and carefully examined it; the head was of gold in the form of a face, eyes wide open, spectacles turned up on the forehead.

"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Ralph, "Old Marley!"

The attendant just then appeared, Ralph handed him the cane, saying: "I found this cane in the other gentleman's dressing-room." The attendant stared at him and said gruffly:

"None of your larks, sir; there wasn't no other gentleman, and that's no cane; its my cleaning mop that I get under the seats with."

FOOTNOTE:

[18] Copyright, 1920, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1921, by John T. Wheelwright.

AMAZEMENT[19]

#By# STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN

From _Harper's Magazine_

There is sometimes melancholy in revisiting after years of absence, a place where one was joyous in the days of youth. That is why sadness stole over me on the evening of my return to Florence.

To be sure, the physical beauties of the Italian city were intact. Modernity had not farther encroached upon the landmarks that had witnessed the birth of a new age, powerful, even violent, in its individualism. From those relics, indeed--from the massive palaces, the noble porches, the monuments rising in the public squares--there still seemed to issue a faint vibration of ancient audacity and force. It was as if stone and bronze had absorbed into their particles, and stored through centuries, the great emotions released in Florence during that time of mental expansion called the Renaissance.

But this integrity of scene and influence only increased my regrets. Though the familiar setting was still here, the familiar human figures seemed all departed. I looked in vain for sobered versions of the faces that had smiled, of old, around tables in comfortable cafés, in an atmosphere of youthful gaiety, where at any moment one might be enmeshed in a Florentine prank that Boccaccio could not have bettered.

One such prank rose, all at once, before my minds eye, and suddenly, in the midst of my pessimism, I laughed aloud.

I recalled the final scene of that escapade, which I myself had managed to devise. The old café had rung with a bellow of delight; the victim, ridiculous in his consternation, had rushed at me howling for vengeance. But the audience, hemming him in, had danced 'round him singing a ribald little song. The air was full of battered felt hats, coffee spoons, lumps of sugar, and waving handkerchiefs. Out on the piazza the old cab-horses had pricked up their ears; the shopkeepers had run to their doorways; the police had taken notice. It was not every day that the champion joker among us was caught in such a net as he delighted to spread.

Where were they, all my jolly young men and women? Maturity, matrimony, perhaps still other acts of fate, had scattered them. Here and there a grizzled waiter let fall the old names with a shrug of perplexity, then hastened to answer the call of a rising generation as cheerful as if it were not doomed, also, to dispersion and regrets.

Then, too, in returning I had been so unfortunate as to find Florence on the verge of spring.

The soft evening air was full of a sweetness exhaled by the surrounding cup of hills. From baskets of roses, on the steps of porticoes, a fragrance floated up like incense round the limbs of statues, which were bathed in a golden light by the lamps of the piazza. Those marble countenances were placid with an eternal youth, beneath the same stars that had embellished irrevocable nights, that recalled some excursions into an enchanted world, some romantic gestures the knack for which was gone.

"After all," I thought, "it is better not to find one of the old circle. We should make each other miserable by our reminiscences."

No sooner had I reflected thus than I found myself face to face with Antonio.

Antonio was scarcely changed. His dark visage was still vital with intelligence, still keen and strange from the exercise of an inexhaustible imagination. Yet in his eyes, which formerly had sparkled with the wit of youth, there was more depth and a hint of somberness. He had become a celebrated satirist.

"What luck!" he cried, embracing me with sincere delight. "But to think that I should have to run into you on the street!"

"I asked for you everywhere."

"In the old places? I never go to them. You have not dined? Nor I. Here, let us take this cab."

He hurried me off to a restaurant of the suburbs. Under the starry sky we sat down at a table beside a sunken garden, in which nightingales were trying their voices among the blossoms, whose perfume had been intensified by dew.

It was an old-time dinner, at least, that Antonio provided; but, alas! those others were not there to eke out the illusion of the past. To each name, as I uttered it, Antonio added an epitaph. This one had gone to bury himself in the Abruzzi hills. That one had become a professor at Bologna. Others, in vanishing, had left no trace behind them.

"And Leonello, who was going to surpass Michael Angelo?"

"Oh," my friend responded, "Leonello is still here, painting his pictures. Like me, he could not live long beyond the air of Florence."

Antonio, in fact, could trace his family back through Florentine history into the Middle Ages.

"Is Leonello the same?" I pursued. "Always up to some nonsense? But you were not much behind him in those insane adventures."

"Take that to yourself," Antonio retorted. "I recall one antic, just before you left us--" He broke off to meditate. Clicking his tongue against his teeth, he gazed at me almost with resentment, as if I were responsible for this depressing work of time. "No!" he exclaimed, looking at me in gloomy speculation, while, in the depths of his eyes, one seemed to see his extraordinary intelligence perplexed and baffled. "That war of wit is surely over. The old days are gone for good. Let us make the best of it." And he asked me what I had been doing.

I made my confession. In those years I had become fascinated by psychic phenomena--by the intrusion into human experience of weird happenings that materialism could not very well explain. Many of these happenings indicated, at least to my satisfaction, not only future existences, but also previous ones. I admitted to Antonio that, since I was in Italy again, I intended to investigate the case of a Perugian peasant girl who, though she had never been associated with educated persons, was subject to trances in which she babbled the Greek language of Cleopatra's time, and accurately described the appearance of pre-Christian Alexandria.

"I am writing a book on such matters," I concluded. "You, of course, will laugh at it----"

His somber eyes, which had been watching me intently, became blank for a time, then suddenly gave forth a flash.

"I? Laugh because you have been enthralled by weirdness?" he cried, as one who, all at once, has been profoundly moved. Yet laugh he did, in loud tones that were almost wild with strange elation. "Pardon me," he stammered, passing a trembling hand across his forehead. "You do not know the man that I have become of late."

What had my words called to his mind? From that moment everything was changed. The weight of some mysterious circumstances had descended upon Antonio, overwhelming, as it seemed to me, the pleasure that he had found in this reunion. Through the rest of the dinner he was silent, a prey to that dark exultancy, to that uncanny agitation.

This silence persisted while the cab bore us back into the city.

In the narrow streets a blaze of light from the open fronts of cook-shops flooded the lower stories of some palaces which once on a time had housed much fierceness and beauty, treachery and perverse seductiveness. Knowing Antonio's intimate acquaintance with those splendid days, I strove to rouse him by congenial allusions. His preoccupation continued; the historic syllables that issued from my lips were wasted in the clamor of the street. Yet when I pronounced the name of one of those bygone belles, Fiammetta Adimari, he repeated slowly, like a man who has found the key to everything:

"Fiammetta!"

"What is it, Antonio? Are you in love?"

He gave me a piercing look and sprang from the cab. We had reached the door of his house.

Antonio's bachelor apartment was distinguished by handsome austerity. The red-tiled floors reflected faintly the lights of antique candelabra, which shed their luster also upon chests quaintly carved, bric-à-brac that museums would have coveted, and chairs adorned with threadbare coats of arms. Beside the mantelpiece hung a small oil-painting, as I thought, of Antonio himself, his black hair reaching to his shoulders, and on his head a hat of the Renaissance.

"No," said he, giving me another of his strange looks, "it is my ancestor, Antonio di Manzecca, who died in the year fifteen hundred."

I remembered that somewhere in the hills north of the city there was a dilapidated stronghold called the Castle of Manzecca. Behind those walls, in the confusion of the Middle Ages, Antonio's family had developed into a nest of rural tyrants. Those old steel-clad men of the Manzecca had become what were called "Signorotti"--lords of a height or two, swooping down to raid passing convoys, waging petty wars against the neighboring castles, and at times, like bantams, too arrogant to bear in mind the shortness of their spurs, defying even Florence. In the end, as I recalled the matter, Florence had chastened the Manzecca, together with all the other lordlings of that region. The survivors had come to live in the city, where, through these hundreds of years, many changes of fortune had befallen them. My friend Antonio was their last descendant.

"But," I protested, examining the portrait, "your resemblance to this Antonio of the Renaissance could not possibly be closer."

Instead of replying, he sat down, rested his elbow on his knees, and pressed his fists against his temples. Presently I became aware that he was laughing, very softly, but in such an unnatural manner that I shivered.

I grew alarmed. It was true that in our years of separation Antonio's physical appearance had not greatly changed; but what was the meaning of this mental difference? Was his mind in danger of some sinister overshadowing? Were these queer manners the symptoms of an incipient mania? It is proposed that genius is a form of madness. Was the genius of Antonio, in its phenomenal development, on the point of losing touch with sanity? As my thoughts leaped from one conjecture to another, the tiled room took on the chill that pervades a mausoleum. From the bowl on the table the petals of a dying rose fell in a sudden cascade, like a dismal portent.

"The Castle of Manzecca," I ventured, merely to break the silence, "is quite ruined, I suppose?"

"No, the best part of it still stands. I have had some rooms restored."

"You own it?"

"I bought it back a year ago. It is there that I----" He buried his face in his hands.

"Antonio," I said, "you are in some great trouble."

"It is not trouble," he answered, in smothered tones. "But why should I hesitate to make my old friend, whose mind does not reject weirdness, my confidant? I warn you, however, that it will be a confidence weird enough to make even your experience in such matters seem tame. Go first to Perugia. Examine the peasant girl who chatters of ancient Alexandria. Return to my house one week from to-night, at dusk, and you shall share my secret."

He rose, averted his face, and went to throw himself upon a couch, or porch-bed, another relic, its woodwork covered with faded paint and gilt, amid which one might trace the gallants of the sixteenth century in pursuit of nymphs--an allegory of that age's longing for the classic past. I left him thus, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling, oblivious of my farewell.

Poor Antonio! What a return to Florence!

A week from that night, at dusk, I returned. At Perugia I had filled a pocket-book with notes on the peasant girl's trances. The spell of those strange revelations was yet on me, but at Antonio's door I felt that I stood on the threshold of a still more agitating disclosure.

My knock was answered by Antonio himself, his hat on his head and a motorcoat over his arm. He seemed burning with impatience.

"You have your overcoat? Good." And he locked the door on the outside.