Part 18

"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, "you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as to lay a finger on you without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I love you better than the whole world; and though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of the house; and a clatter of armor in the corridor showed that the retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an end.

"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning toward him with her lips and eyes.

"I have heard nothing," he replied.

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his ear.

"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms, and covered her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew a good morning.

NOTES

[1] Published in 1878. Acknowledgment is due to the Charles Scribner's Sons Company, Publishers, for the use of the text of their edition of Stevenson's works.

[2] 207:18 bartizan. A small overhanging turret with loop-holes and embrasures projecting from the parapet of a medieval building.

[3] 208:1 gargoyles. Mouths of spouts, in antic shapes.

[4] 209:30 debouched. Passed out.

[5] 212:29 Leonardo. (1452-1519.) A famous Italian painter, architect, sculptor, scientist, engineer, mechanician, and musician.

[6] 222:7 salle. French word for hall or room.

[7] 223:13 Charlemagne. (742 or 747-814.) A great king of the Franks and emperor of the Romans.

[8] 225:25 poltroon. A coward, a dastard.

[9] 229:12 Hercules. A mighty hero in Greek and Roman mythology.

[10] 229:13 Solomon. Son of David. King of Israel, 993-953 B.C.

[11] 231: 26 steadings. A farmstead—barns, stables, cattle-sheds, etc.

BIOGRAPHY

Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh. He was an only child. On his mother's side he came from a line of Scotch philosophers and ministers; on his father's, from a line of active workers and scientists. His grandfather, Robert Stevenson, and his father, Thomas Stevenson, gained world-wide reputations in engineering.

Robert inherited from his mother throat and lung troubles. His health was very poor from his birth and his life was preserved only by the careful watchfulness of his mother and his devoted nurse, Alison Cunningham. As a child he was very lovable and possessed a very active imagination.

He went to school in Edinburgh between the years 1858-1867. He first attended a preparatory school, then the Edinburgh academy. He spent considerable time at his maternal grandfather's home. It was there that he first tasted the delights of romance. In his school work he was none too studious, but all his teachers were charmed by his pleasing manner and general intelligence. Though an idler in other things, he worked constantly on the art of writing. Throughout his study in Edinburgh University and his unsuccessful efforts in engineering and the practice of law, literature became more and more a passion with him.

The period between 1875 and 1879 was one of improved health and considerable literary activity. During this time he published _A Lodging for the Night, Will o' the Mill, The New Arabian Nights_, and an _Inland Voyage_.

While in southern Europe he met and fell in love with Mrs. Osbourne. So after she returned to her home in California, Stevenson received the news that she was seriously ill. He immediately sailed for San Francisco, travelling as a steerage passenger because of lack of funds and a desire for literary material. Out of this experience grew a number of stories and essays. Exposure on the voyage affected his health and caused a very dangerous illness. After his recovery he married Mrs. Osbourne and returned to England with his wife and stepson.

For a few years his work was more or less spasmodic on account of his bitter struggle with poor health, in 1883 he achieved success by the publication of _Treasure Island_. _Markheim_ appeared in 1884. _Kidnapped_ and _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ were published in 1886.

After the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed to America, where they settled in the Adirondacks for the winter of 1888. Here his health was good and he wrote a number of essays for _Scribner's Magazine_. In the spring of the same year they started on a cruise of the south seas. They visited many of the southern islands and settled at Vailima, Samoa. Stevenson was interested in the Samoaas and took an active part in their political affairs. The tropical climate agreed with him and his creative power was renewed. He wrote a number of short stories, a series of letters on the South Seas, and the novel _David Balfour_.

Political reverses and failing strength took away for a time his power to write. He was again stimulated, however, by the love and appreciation of his Samoan followers, and started on what promised to be his period of highest achievement. This promise was soon blighted by his untimely death from a stroke of apoplexy, December 13, 1894. He was buried in Samoa.

BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

_Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, 2 vols., Graham Balfour.

_Robert Louis Stevenson_, Isobel Strong.

_Memories and Portraits_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_Friends on the Shelf_, Bradford Torrey.

"Personal Recollections," Edmund Gosse, _Century Magazine_, 50:447.

"Character Sketch," _Atlantic Monthly_, 89:89-99.

"The Real Stevenson," _Atlantic Monthly_, 85:702-5.

_A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson_, W.F. Prideaux.

CRITICISMS

Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation, sentimentality, and exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most original writing is _The Child's Garden of Verses_. His touch is light and his thought is clear and lucid. _Across the Plains_ is written in his most straightforward and natural style.

Stevenson was a careful writer, doing with great skill any established piece of art. He practised diligently, and gained, as he himself states, his high rank by constantly drilling himself in the art of writing. This imitation of form to the point of perfection, rather than an expression of a great and moving idea, gives an air of insincerity to some of Stevenson's works. Yet, although seemingly artificial, he never chose words for the sake of mere sounds, but for their accuracy in truth and fitness. He was as an ephemeral shadow with an optimistic and real spirit. He infused an intimacy and spirituality into his writings that prove delightful to all his readers.

The subject of Markheim, a man failing through weakness, was a favorite topic for Stevenson. Markheim is almost an ideal specimen of the impressionistic short-story. It has a plot in which Hawthorne might justly have revelled, a treatment as intellectual as that of Poe, descriptions not unlike those of Flaubert's, and a moral ending true to the Puritanic type. The movement of the story is swift and possesses perfect unity. The surprise at the end comes as a shock although the author has consistently and logically constructed his plot.

GENERAL REFERENCES

_Emerson and Other Essays_, John Jay Chapman.

_Robert Louis Stevenson_, L. Cope Cornford.

_Modern Novelists_, William Lyon Phelps.

_Makers of English Fiction_, W.J. Dawson.

"Art of Stevenson," _North American Review_, 171: 348-358.

"Criticism," _Dial_, 30:345. May 18, 1901.

COLLATERAL READINGS

_The Suicide Club (New Arabian Nights)_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_The Adventure of the Hansom Cab_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_The Rajah's Diamond_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_The Story of the House with the Green Blinds_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_The Adventure of Prince Florizel and the Detective_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_A Lodging for the Night_, Robert Louis Stevenson,

_Providence and the Guitar_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_In the Valley_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_With the Children of Israel_, Robert Louis Stevenson.

_The Lotus and the Cockleburrs_, "O. Henry."

_Two Bites at a Cherry_, Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

_The Notary of Perigueux_, Henry W. Longfellow.

MARKHEIM[1]

_By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)_

"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls[2] are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend[3] on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case," he continued, "I profit by my virtue."

Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.

The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christmas Day," he resumed, "when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay, besides; for a kind of manner that I remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for it." The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, "You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?" he continued. "Still your uncle's cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!"

And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tiptoe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.

"This time," said he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot: even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek, a Christmas present for a lady," he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared; "and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected."

There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.

"Well, sir," said the dealer, "be it so. You are an old customer after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady, now," he went on, "this hand glass—fifteenth century, warranted; comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector."

The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot, a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand that now received the glass.

"A glass," he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more clearly. "A glass? For Christmas? Surely not."

"And why not?" cried the dealer. "Why not a glass?"

Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. "You ask me why not?" he said. "Why, look here—look in it—look at yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor I—nor any man."

The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing worse on hand, he chuckled. "Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard favored," said he.

"I ask you," said Markheim, "for a Christmas present, and you give me this—this damned reminder of years and sins and follies—this hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself, I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?"

The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.

"What are you driving at?" the dealer asked.

"Not charitable?" returned the other, gloomily. "Not charitable; not pious; not scrupulous; unloving; unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?"

"I will tell you what it is," began the dealer, with some sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. "But I see this is a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady's health."

"Ah!" cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity, "Ah, have you been in love? Tell me about that."

"I!" cried the dealer. "I in love! I never had the time, nor have I the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?"

"Where is the hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should, rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other; why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?"

"I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer. "Either make your purchase, or walk out of my shop."

"True, true," said Markheim. "Enough fooling. To business. Show me something else."

The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination, and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.

"This, perhaps, may suit," observed the dealer; and then, as he began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long, skewer-like[4] dagger flashed and fell. The dealer straggled like a hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a heap.

Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age, others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer[5] of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.

From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found. Found! aye, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that when the brains were out[6]," he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had dosed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer.

The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.

The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And still as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him, with a sickening iteration[7], of the thousand faults of his design. He should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now startlingly recalled from that tender exercise: happy family parties, struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger; every degree and age and humor, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.

But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweethearting, in her poor best, "out for the day" written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; and yet, in the bulk of empty house about him, he could surely hear a stir of delicate footing—he was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious, of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and hatred.

At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, did there not hang wavering a shadow?

Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to beat with a staff on the shop door, accompanying his blows with shouts and railleries[8] in which the dealer was continually called upon by name. Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no! he lay quite still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows and shoutings; he was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had become an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted from his knocking and departed.

Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get forth from, this accusing neighborhood, to plunge into a bath of London multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of safety and apparent, innocence—-his bed. One visitor had come: at any moment it another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure. The money, that was now Markheim's concern: and as a means to that, the keys.