CHAPTER NINE

Eduard was sitting at one of the little marble tables in Florian's cafe on the Piazza. He had chosen a seat in the back row, and was fluttering the pages of an illustrated paper. A small glass of vermouth stood on the table beside him. He had at last discarded his yachting jacket and white shoes, and was now clad in a light-coloured summer suit, enjoying the luxury of being ashore again after so many days at sea.

Here, in Venice, ran his thoughts, I hope to stay two days; but I don't mean to spend them in hunting up art treasures. I'm going to be an ascetic so far as such things are concerned. I wonder why she left the yacht so early? The time had certainly come when it was expedient to land somewhere!

Pictures of the last few days aboard the "Excelsior" passed before his eyes. All the cheerfulness of the first days had vanished; monosyllabic courtesy prevailed; laughter had become a stranger. Wilhelm spent half the day in solitude, apart; his friends watched him sadly as he sat crouching on a chair in the bows; he avoided Diana and the prince, and chose only Franklin's company, conversing with him about camels, elephant hair, and crocodile tears. When he played the lute, he touched its strings lightly, making music for himself alone, and he never sang now. Of an evening, he would creep down to where Giorgino, the ship's boy, sat on the companion steps, and Scherer as he went by heard them practising the Venetian dialect together.

Scherer, too, was restless, and tried every expedient to relieve his boredom, asking the captain for information concerning winds and tides, fogs and lighthouses. Eduard and Kyril had long discussions about the people as against the individual, at the end of which, they would fetch the chess board and sit down to a game. Four or five hours would go by, and neither would raise his eyes from the board; and even during the meals that followed, they would remain pensive and chary of words.

Every one on board had become suspect to Kyril, his fundamental mistrust of Diana having now spread to her friends; hardly had the fences which separated the two begun to be pulled down, than he carefully set them up again. On the whole, this state of affairs fell in with Eduard's humour, for the prince's uneasiness concerning Diana's little excursion with Wilhelm had assuaged his jealousy of the Russian, and it seemed to him that the latter's comradely attitude towards Diana was a good one to imitate. Diana herself, since that strangely poignant evening, had been constrained to greater precaution, seeing that the prince held back; indeed, he seemed to be slipping away altogether, and he for his part made no effort to hold her. She could not guess what he had been cogitating for months; all she was aware of was that he revered her instead of taking possession of her; her spirit was rent by the conflict between pride and inclination, a conflict in which pride usually gained the upper hand, and thereby augmented the alienation.

Eduard got up, paid his score, and was making for the colonnade by the public library, wishing to mix with the crowd that always promenaded there towards noon, when he heard himself called by name. As he abruptly turned in response, his sleeve caught the change the waiter had deposited on the little table, and swept it to the ground. Four hands were instantly stretched out to pick the money from the ground, and as the prince, too, stooped in order to help, he saw himself confronted by Kyril and another young Russian. All three laughed as they rose and shook hands.

"That's the first time I've ever seen you groping for money, most honoured Samoroff," cried Eduard. "You always allow it to roll away unheeded at Monte Carlo. Thanks," he added as the coins were returned to his hand.

"It's only to show myself an arrant foe of capitalism in the eyes of my old friend Kyril. We were students together. Otherwise, quand il aura puissance dans l'Institut Smolny, he might put me under lock and key in the dungeons of the Peter-Paul fortress!"

The elegant young gentleman who spoke these words, partly in broken German and partly in excellent French, was nearly as tall as Eduard. His walking cane between his legs, he was preparing to take a seat, when Kyril said, addressing Eduard:

"Dimiter Alexandrovitch will excuse me, I feel sure. He'll be happier chatting with you about the gaming table than with me about Kropotkin whom he met in London and whose samovar is the only thing he has been able to understand! Good-bye, I have other matters in hand."

He then turned to his compatriot, and took leave of him in Russian. Soon he was lost in the crowd. Eduard realized how glad Kyril was at such an easy escape, and with what relish the young man had foisted a compatriot of birth and standing upon himself as one of similar lineage.

"How goes the world with you, cher Prince?" said Dimiter, slipping his hand lightly through Eduard's arm, and leading him towards the colonnade. He seemed a little distrait, but his manner was more cordial towards Eduard than the latter's towards him, for both by education and temperament the German was more reserved than the Russian globe-trotter. While they chatted, Dimiter sauntering easily along, Prince Eduard walking with greater decorum, the latter's mind was occupied with thoughts as to how he could get rid of his fortuitous companion. He feared Dimiter might invite him to lunch, that he, in turn, would have to reciprocate, and he was loath to bring this idler aboard Scherer's yacht since he, as member of the same caste, would thus render himself more or less responsible for the Russian. They had passed a few days together in Cannes a couple of years ago, empty days to be sure, but since Dimiter had just come from those parts, the conversation naturally turned to recollections of that time, whose charm was greatly exaggerated in retrospect by the Russian. In Eduard's memory those same few days were far from appearing so beautiful, and he was determined not to contribute anything to their glamour.

"I hear you've been cruising in the Mediterranean with a newspaper magnate," began Dimiter. But he broke off to say: "Just look, there, the girl on the right--look at the movement of her shoulder under her black shawl, you can actually see it as if it were being X-rayed!" He spoke with the utmost physical unconcern. "Superb," he continued, "only most of them smell so strong. In winter, it's not so bad.... Apropos, Kyril tells me you have a lady on board. Very convenient when one's at sea, only one must be sure the cabin doors open quietly, see that the hinges are well-oiled, otherwise the husband--I speak from experience! Enfin... Not going already?"

Eduard protested that he must rejoin his friends, though in reality he was under no obligation to do so, for it had been agreed among them that each was free to do what he liked ashore. As the prince was about to move away, it suddenly occurred to him that this loose-tongued gossip might give him information about Kyril. He therefore said somewhat irrelevantly: "You know, of course, that Dr. Sergievitch is a great favourite on board the yacht?"

"Naturally," exclaimed Dimiter with vivacity, and he unexpectedly sat himself down on one of the steps of the flagstaff belonging to the church of San Marco, his cane between his legs. "That goes without saying. When we were students together--my father wanted me to take my degree--I was to study law in Switzerland, at Lausanne, for the old man had friends there, exiles from Alexander's reign--and Kyril was to study there likewise. It was charming, for at Ouchy, in Madame Dorée's pension, there lived a most adorable woman, her daughter, you know--seventeen, noli me tangere type, brunette, slim as a boy, only up here, you know.--Eh bien, we were all crazy about this bronze divinity. But this poor devil---- Let's see, we must have been twenty-two at the time---- Yes, that's right, for it was in 1906, a year after the October revolution---- Well, Kyril, who was not in a position to make her a present of even so much as a bracelet, went straight to the goal, just as if this cool and suave young lady were a rutting bitch. Straight there, after seeing her but twice. I bet you it was his regard demoniaque and his magnificent teeth that did the trick." Dimiter struck viciously at the square red slabs with his cane. "Cette canaille!" he exclaimed. Then, unexpectedly, he sat silent, ruminating, filled with jealousy, as if he actually saw the couple before him in the flesh, ignoring the many years that had elapsed and the many successful adventures that had come his way since.

Eduard, standing in front of him, had at first listened, his hands resting on the small of his back, as he balanced himself on the soles of his brown shoes. But, his interest in the story waxing, he brought his face nearer to the speaker, placing one foot upon the step above and gripping the flagstaff with his left hand. He noticed the Russian's preoccupation and respected it for a while. Then, into the silence, he flung a question, lightly, as if he attached but little importance to the answer:

"He was very poor at the time?"

Dimiter looked up, blinking his eyes as he answered:

"Son of a cottager, Ukrainian peasant folk, adopted by some farmer or other. Suddenly wrenched from his natural surroundings and hurled into the vortex of revolutionary intrigue. Then he studied, buried himself in his work. Got subsidies, financed by the party--je ne connais pas les details. Later, I gather, he was sent to Siberia. Escaped, as usual.--En avant! Enough of this camelot! Come along to Danieli's. You must consent to be my guest at lunch, and tell me the most recent Berlin scandals."

"That would be delightful," rejoined Eduard, hoping to hide behind a mask of levity the pensive mood these scraps of information had induced. "Unfortunately I am a slave aboard the galley which you can see from here flaunting her charms in a robe of snow-white innocence. Tomorrow I'll drop you a line at your hotel. For today, I have no choice, I must aboard. Mille pardons!"

As soon as he had shaken the Russian off, Eduard made his way, with greater speed than was customary to him, through the strollers who were by now thronging the Piazza. He hailed a gondola, and, not wishing to be the prey of further questionings, called haphazard the first name that occurred to him:

"All' Accademia!"

He would thus gain time to consider where he would next order the man to go, and meanwhile he could give himself up to meditation. Lounging on the well-worn leather cushions, he saw nothing of the sights around him. His mental vision was filled with Kyril's form; he saw Kyril's eyes asparkle, Kyril's teeth gleaming; he heard Dimiter's envious voice saying, "Straight there, after seeing her but twice," and again Dimiter's tone as he uttered the words "bronze divinity," words that had pierced Eduard's heart. Then the dim interior of a peasant's hut rose before the prince's eyes, a new-born baby was crying, the farmer in his high boots entering and carrying the child away, the snow, the heat, the endless steppe, a resolute lad growing up on a farm, a propagandist on his rounds whispering the word of promise for a brighter future and giving the boy a book, the youngster devouring page after page, his face aglow--now the lad is packing his few things, scraping a handful of coins together, making for the railway station, journeying to Moscow--public meetings, a kopeck or two spent on food, all the rest of his scanty hoard going to buy books, and again books--then, suddenly, reindeer drawing a sleigh over Siberian wastes, Kyril sitting inside it, hastening onwards, for ever hastening, that "they" might not catch him, onward till he reaches the coast--now the youth is aboard a sailing vessel, none of your spick-and-span white yachts--and then the vision of the girl of seventeen summers, a bronze divinity, spurning the advances of the scion of a princely race in order to give herself to the meanly born swain who possessed her then and there as if she were "a rutting bitch." ...

"O--hé! Guarda--mi!"

The gondolier's warning cry broke in upon his reverie. The man's voice reminded him of the voice of his first tutor calling to him as he played in the park at home, summoning him back to his quarters in the left wing of the castle. But first he must bring his wooden ducks ashore, lovely white-lacquer birds, with which he had been playing in the marble basin where the goldfish swam; they must not be allowed to stay out over night. "Johann! Johann!" And the old servant would come running along the avenue of yew trees while the youngster stamped about in water, crying: "Johann, catch my ducks! No, not yet; first help me on with my shoes, I've got to be quick, Stefan is already with Herr Hollrigel, we've got to do twice two today!"

At this very hour, Diana was sitting alone in the cool, spacious hall of the Accademia, looking up at Titian's last masterpiece.

"What depth, what weight," thought she. "This is surely the climax of the century when, after so glorious a course, after hundreds of paintings depicting sunlit nudities, red-gold, shimmering hair, lute players twanging love-lorn ditties beside Aphrodite; of pictures of chains and war-harness, of boldness and of freedom--there should be conceived this canvas, showing beneath a green-gold cupola of transcendental loveliness, the dusky and livid body of Our Lord being taken down from the cross before the gloomy eyes of the watchful Magdalen.... To die young ... younger even than He ... in the dread ecstasy of love, in the throes of a twin pulsation, naked, up on a couch within earshot of the surges of a southern sea, under the skies in full view of one's guiding star.... Is my constellation really the Scales? Last night, when I heard them lowering the anchor, and the chain rattled over the cathead, I looked out through the port-hole, straight across to San Giorgio's point, and there was Saturn, the girdled god.... I must get away from this tragical picture.... It was here I saw those enigmatic angel heads of Leonardo's that time when I came away from Rome.... They were under glass, and some one carefully rolled back the cloth that protected them from the light.... They must be over there...."

Diana got up, passed through two other rooms, full of people coming and going and chatting, to reach a little gallery whose walls were adorned with glass cases. The place was deserted but for one other, a glimpse of whose back she caught in the farther corner. She started looking at the pages which were spread out for inspection beneath the glass. They were drawings by Leonardo himself.

She looked long and lovingly at these sweet angel faces with their ecstatic upward gaze and their unearthly, enigmatic smile; herein she read nothing but heavenly love, desireless and candid; and her heart, which had been troubled of late, gradually found ease and quietude from the contemplation of these pure and ethereal beings; she felt her soul flooded with the reflected laughter and devotion of these fanciful creations. The face of the master who had conjured them forth from the recesses of his fancy rose before her, and as peace invaded her and wrapped her round she felt that his spirit must be near at hand. A light footfall to her left brought her back to reality, though for a moment, so greatly was she under the spell of her musings, she thought it was the tread of the great master himself.

The form she had glimpsed as she entered the gallery had detached itself from the shadowy corner, and was now studying the contents of the cases, just as she was, only from the other end. He was a tall man in the middle sixties, dressed in a suit of dark cloth, and, from the position of his body as he bent to look at the drawings, it was difficult to decide whether he would be equally bent when walking or not. He wore no hat, his hair was silvery white, and his delicate face with its long nose and thin lips looked like an etching, especially when seen in profile and when one could appreciate the line of his long, white beard which fell softly over chin and throat. Indeed his head resembled the portrait Leonardo has left us of himself.

It was thus, in profile, as he bent over the cases, that Diana caught sight of him on raising her eyes, her pulses still throbbing from the glory of her vision. She started, for she recognized him at once.

"Father!" she cried, never stirring from where she stood. He looked up, without haste, and she saw his blue eyes turned towards her, kindly and inquiring now, whereas once they had been like shafts of glittering steel.

"Diana! It is you, my dear daughter!"

His voice struck to her very heart, just as his eyes had done. It had become more cordial during these three years since she had heard it last.

"Father!"

Slowly, as if she were a little girl, she went towards him. He raised his arms, but did not open them for an embrace, and kissed her on the forehead. It was as though he were giving her his blessing. They were silent for a while.

"Just before I caught sight of you," she said softly, "the head of this magician loomed near me, and when I heard footsteps approaching I thought it could be none other than he."

"And it turned out to be only your old father! How simply things explain themselves! As I look at you now you seem to me all aglow inside."

"I come from the company of angels," said Diana, casting another look at the drawings under the glass.

"And I am on my way to them, for at my end there were nothing but grimacing devils. I always start down there and make my way upward."

"Shall I have to go down among the devils?"

"Are you afraid of them?" he asked, scrutinizing her closely.

"I fear no one," said she, tossing her head defiantly, and thus making her curls dance around the edge of her cap.

He stood motionless as if captivated. Then he raised his arms once more in that peculiar gesture of his, and spoke in a voice that sounded younger and sweeter:

"Helena! That's just the way Helena had of tossing her head...."

The reference to her mother made Diana long to throw herself at his feet. She stood silent, controlling the impulse, for she knew that at any moment a stranger might appear in the doorway. He, too, made an effort to regain composure.

"Will you stay a little while with me?" he said at last.

"I--shall come with you, Father!"

As she spoke, she remembered other claims, the yacht, the prince, her own desires; and her father was quick to perceive that there was an obstacle to the free disposal of her time, an impediment imposed from without. He said:

"Not long ago I dreamed that I might meet you."

"When was that? Do you remember?"

"I remember not only the day when each of my dreams has occurred, but almost the time as well, for I have written them all down these twelve years past. This one came three days ago, towards evening, when I fell asleep in my arm-chair--a very unusual thing for me to do. It must have been nearly seven o'clock, for when I awoke I saw the little steamer passing by. So I could not have been asleep long."

She nodded her head.

"And at the same hour, three days ago, I was standing on the deck of a pleasure yacht, thinking: We are going to Venice! It is April, perhaps Father will be there!"

"There, you see how simple it all is!" The old man smiled genially. "And now let's go and have some lunch and a good talk."

With the deliberate and courtly gesture appropriate to a man of his years, he offered his daughter an arm. As she took it, a surge of maternal solicitude flooded her heart: she saw the soft hat he held in his hand, and looked up at his silvery head:

"Won't you," she began, "... it is rather cold in these rooms...."

"I cannot wear a hat in the presence of the master's work," he said simply, as they went on their way.

As they were about to descend, she caught sight of the prince who was in the act of landing. He, however, changed his mind, stepping back into the gondola, hastily pulling the curtains around the seat, and thus concealing himself from the passers-by. Since the gondolier had brought his fare to the place he was bidden, the man waited patiently till it should please the gentleman to alight. But Eduard did not stir.

Hidden by the curtains, the prince watched Diana stepping lightly between the huge couchant lions. She looked the embodiment of youth as she accommodated her springy gait to that of the tall old gentleman at her side: she was in a light-coloured coat and skirt that the wind from the lagoon played with as she walked; he in well-tailored black, leaning upon an ivory-handled stick. Eduard's mind was still full of reminiscences of his childhood days, and for him the broad steps were those of his ancestral halls where likewise two couchant lions kept guard, and Diana was descending them, leaning on the arm of his own old father.

As she stepped into a gondola near by, the prince suddenly resolved to follow her.