The Martian: A Novel

And whenever they spoke French to you, these good people, they said "savez‐vous?" every other second; and whenever they spoke Flemish to each other it sounded so much like your own tongue as it is spoken in the north of England that you wondered why on earth you couldn't understand a single word.

Now and then, from under a hood, a handsome dark face with Spanish eyes would peer out – eloquent of the past history of the Low Countries, which Barty knew much better than I. But I believe there was once a Spanish invasion or occupation of some kind, and I dare say the fair Belgians are none the worse for it to‐day. (It might even have been good for some of us, perhaps, if that ill‐starred Armada hadn't come so entirely to grief. I'm fond of big, tawny‐black eyes.)

All this, so novel and so strange, was a perpetual feast for Lady Caroline. And they bought nice, cheap, savory things on the way home, to eke out the lunch from "la Cigogne."

In the afternoon Barty would take a solitary walk in the open country, or along one of those endless straight chaussées, paved in the middle, and bordered by equidistant poplars on either side, and leading from town to town, and the monotonous perspective of which is so desolating to heart and eye; backwards or forwards, it is always the same, with a flat sameness of outlook to right and left, and every 450 seconds the chime would boom and flounder heavily by, with a dozen sharp railway whistles after it, like swordfish after a whale, piercing it through and through.

Barty evidently had all this in his mind when he wrote the song of the seminarist in "Gleams," beginning:

"Twas April, and the sky was clear,An east wind blowing keenly;The sun gave out but little cheer,For all it shone serenely.The wayside poplars, all arow,For many a weary mile did throwDown on the dusty flags belowTheir shadows, picked out cleanly."Etc., etc., etc.

(Isn't it just like Barty to begin a lyric that will probably last as long as the English language with an innocent jingle worthy of a school‐boy?)

After dinner, in the evening, it was Lady Caroline's delight to read aloud, while Barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars – a concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that once or twice, when he went to Antwerp for a couple of days to stay with Tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a red‐hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her and make his absence less complete.

Thus she read to him Esmond, Hypatia, Never too Late to Mend, Les Maîtres Sonneurs, La Mare au Diable, and other delightful books, English and French, which were sent once a week from a circulating library in Brussels. How they blessed thy name, good Baron Tauchnitz!

"Oh, Aunt Caroline, if I could only illustrate books! If I could only illustrate Esmond and draw a passable Beatrix coming down the old staircase at Castlewood with her candle!" said Barty, one night.

That was not to be. Another was to illustrate Esmond, a poor devil who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering from a like disorder.1

As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five languages – three of which neither of them quite understood – accompanying himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school‐girl.

Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk about – what had just been read or played or sung, and many other things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by pity on one side, gratitude on the other – and a little remorse on both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and uncertain.

Sometimes l'Abbé Lefebvre, one of the professors at the séminaire and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored Balzac – and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:

"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"

Now and then the Abbé would bring with him a distinguished young priest, a Dominican – also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.

Father Louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift, and played to them Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and Schumann – and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time after), was to Barty as great a source of consolation as of unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. Though I'm afraid she preferred any little French song of Barty's to all the Schumanns in the world.

First of all, the priest would play the "Moonlight Sonata," let us say; and Barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and almost believe that Beethoven was talking to him like a father, and pointing out to him how small was the difference, really, between the greatest earthly joy and the greatest earthly sorrow: these were not like black and white, but merely different shades of gray, as on moonlit things a long way off! and Time, what a reconciler it was – like distance! and Death, what a perfect resolution of all possible discords, and how certain! and our own little life, how short, and without importance! what matters whether it's to‐day, this small individual flutter of ours; or was a hundred years ago; or will be a hundred years hence! it has or had to be got through – and it's better past than to come.

"It all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said Beethoven; "why, just see here – I'm stone‐deaf, and can't hear a note of what I'm singing to you! But it is not about that I weep, when I am weeping. It was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and I could no longer hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth going deaf, to hear all that I do. I have to write everything down, and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when I try to blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into sound by good father Louis the Dominican, will tell you, if you can only hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even that of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Erasmus, or Shakespeare; not even that of Christ himself, who speaks through me from His unknown grave, because I am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men – poor, paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they mean just nothing at all. It's a Tower of Babel. Just stop your ears and listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you shut your eyes or have lost them – and those are the only realities, mein armer Barty!"

Then the good Mozart would say:

"Lieber Barty – I'm so stupid about earthly things that I could never even say Boh to a goose, so I can't give you any good advice; all my heart overflowed into my brain when I was quite a little boy and made music for grown‐up people to hear; from the day of my birth to my fifth birthday I had gone on remembering everything, but learning nothing new – remembering all that music!

"And I went on remembering more and more till I was thirty‐five; and even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that it tired me to try and remember so much – and I went back thither. And thither back shall you go too, Barty – when you are some thirty years older!

"And you already know from me how pleasant life is there – how sunny and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and well‐bred the natives – and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what lovely gavottes and minuets we dance – and how tenderly we make love – and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well dressed and kind we all are – and the likes of you, how welcome! Thirty years is soon over, Barty, Barty! Bel Mazetto! Ha, ha! good!"

Then says the good Schubert:

"I'm a loud, rollicking, beer‐drinking Kerl, I am! Ich bin ein lustiger Student, mein Pardy; and full of droll practical jokes; worse than even you, when you were a young scapegrace in the Guards, and wrenched off knockers, and ran away with a poor policeman's hat! But I don't put my practical jokes into my music; if I did, I shouldn't be the poor devil I am! I'm very hungry when I go to bed, and when I wake up in the morning I have Katzenjammer (from an empty stomach) and a headache, and a heartache, and penitence and shame and remorse; and know there is nothing in this world or beyond it worth a moment's care but Love, Love, Love! Liebe, Liebe! The good love that knows neither concealment nor shame – from the love of the brave man for the pure maiden whom he weds, to the young nun's love of the Lord! and all the other good loves lie between these two, and are inside them, or come out of them, … and that's the love I put into my music. Indeed, my music is the only love I know, since I am not beautiful to the eye, and can only care for tunes!..

"But you, Pardy, are handsome and gallant and gay, and have always been well beloved by man and woman and child, and always will be; and know how to love back again – even a dog! however blind you go, you will always have that, the loving heart – and as long as you can hear and sing, you will always have my tunes to fall back upon…"

"And mine!" says Chopin. "If there's one thing sweeter than love, it's the sadness that it can't last; she loved me once – and now she loves tout le monde! and that's a little sweet melodic sadness of mine that will never fail you, as long as there's a piano within your reach, and a friend who knows how to play me on it for you to hear. You shall revel in my sadness till you forget your own. Oh, the sorrow of my sweet pipings! Whatever becomes of your eyes, keep your two ears for my sake; and for your sake too! You don't know what exquisite ears you've got. You are like me – you and I are made of silk, Barty – as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love, of ashes; and their joys, of dust!

"Even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't understand what I am talking about half so well as you do, who can't read a word I write! He had to learn my language note by note from the best music‐master in Brussels. It's your mother‐tongue! You learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my poor love‐child! And all through her, your ears, like your remaining eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind – and some day it will be the same with your heart and brain…"

"Yes" – continues Schumann – "but you'll have to suffer first – like me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because I am going mad – and that's worse than any blindness! and like Beethoven who went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been singing to you to‐night; that's why our songs never pall – because we are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite sincere. The older you get, the more you will love us and our songs: other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the heart forever!"

In some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well‐trained finger‐tips. They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self‐love! The finger‐tips (whosesoever's finger‐tips they be) have only to be intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself.

Musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine‐merchants about wine – but vice versa!

When Father Louis got up from the music‐stool, the Abbé would say to Barty, in his delightful, pure French:

"And now, mon ami – just for me, you know – a little song of autrefois."

"All right, M. l'Abbé – I will sing you the 'Adelaïde,' of Beethoven … if Father Louis will play for me."

"Oh, non, mon ami, do not throw away such a beautiful organ as yours on such really beautiful music, which doesn't want it; it would be sinful waste; it's not so much the tune that I want to hear as the fresh young voice; sing me something French, something light, something amiable and droll; that I may forget the song, and only remember the singer."

"All right, M. l'Abbé," and Barty sings a delightful little song by Gustave Nadaud, called "Petit bonhomme vit encore."

And the good Abbé is in the seventh heaven, and quite forgets to forget the song.

And so, cakes and wine, and good‐night – and M. l'Abbé goes humming all the way home…

"Hé, quoi! pour des peccadillesGronder ces pauvres amours?Les femmes sont si gentilles,Et l'on n'aime pas toujours!C'est bonhommeQu'on me nomme…Ma gaîté, c'est mon trésor!Et bonhomme vit encor' —Et bonhomme vit encor'!"

An extraordinary susceptibility to musical sound was growing in Barty since his trouble had overtaken him, and with it an extraordinary sensitiveness to the troubles of other people, their partings and bereavements and wants, and aches and pains, even those of people he didn't know; and especially the woes of children, and dogs and cats and horses, and aged folk – and all the live things that have to be driven to market and killed for our eating – or shot at for our fun!

All his old loathing of sport had come back, and he was getting his old dislike of meat once more, and to sicken at the sight of a butcher's shop; and the sight of a blind man stirred him to the depths … even when he learnt how happy a blind man can be!

These unhappy things that can't be helped preoccupied him as if he had been twenty, thirty, fifty years older; and the world seemed to him a shocking place, a gray, bleak, melancholy hell where there was nothing but sadness, and badness, and madness.

And bit by bit, but very soon, all his old trust in an all‐merciful, all‐powerful ruler of the universe fell from him; he shed it like an old skin; it sloughed itself away; and with it all his old conceit of himself as a very fine fellow, taller, handsomer, cleverer than anybody else, "bar two or three"! Such darling beliefs are the best stays we can have; and he found life hard to face without them.

And he got as careful of his aunt Caroline, and as anxious about her little fads and fancies and ailments, as if he'd been an old woman himself.

Imagine how she grew to dote on him!

And he quite lost his old liability to sudden freaks and fits of noisy fractiousness about trifles – when he would stamp and rave and curse and swear, and be quite pacified in a moment: "Soupe‐au‐lait," as he was nicknamed in Troplong's studio!

Besides his seton and his cuppings, dry and wet, and his blisters on his arms and back, and his mustard poultices on his feet and legs, and his doses of mercury and alteratives, he had also to deplete himself of blood three times a week by a dozen or twenty leeches behind his left ear and on his temple. All this softens and relaxes the heart towards others, as a good tonic will harden it.

So that he looked a mere shadow of his former self when I went over to spend my Christmas with him.

And his eye was getting worse instead of better; at night he couldn't sleep for the fireworks it let off in the dark. By day the trouble was even worse, as it so interfered with the sight of the other eye – even if he wore a patch, which he hated. He never knew peace but when his aunt was reading to him in the dimly lighted room, and he forgot himself in listening.

Yet he was as lively and droll as ever, with a wan face as eloquent of grief as any face I ever saw; he had it in his head that the right eye would go the same way as the left. He could no longer see the satellites of Jupiter with it: hardly Jupiter itself, except as a luminous blur; indeed, it was getting quite near‐sighted, and full of spots and specks and little movable clouds —muscæ volitantes, as I believe they are called by the faculty. He was always on the lookout for new symptoms, and never in vain; and his burden was as much as he could bear.

He would half sincerely long for death, of which he yet had such a horror that he was often tempted to kill himself to get the bother of it well over at once. The idea of death in the dark, however remote – an idea that constantly haunted him as his own most probable end – so appalled him that it would stir the roots of his hair!

Lady Caroline confided to me her terrible anxiety, which she managed to hide from him. She herself had been to see M. Noiret, who was no longer so confident and cocksure about recovery.

I went to see him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like the man – he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade me that no other treatment was even to be thought of.

I inquired about him in Brussels, and found his reputation was of the highest. What could I do? I knew nothing of such things! And what a responsibility for me to volunteer advice!

I could see that my deep affection for Barty was a source of immense comfort to Lady Caroline, for whom I conceived a great and warm regard, besides being very much charmed with her.

She was one of those gentle, genial, kindly, intelligent women of the world, absolutely natural and sincere, in whom it is impossible not to confide and trust.

When I left off talking about Barty, because there was really nothing more to say, I fell into talking about myself: it was irresistible – she made one! I even showed her Leah's last photograph, and told her of my secret aspirations; and she was so warmly sympathetic and said such beautiful things to me about Leah's face and aspect and all they promised of good that I have never forgotten them, and never shall – they showed such a prophetic insight! they fanned a flame that needed no fanning, good heavens! and rang in my ears and my heart all the way to Barge Yard, Bucklersbury – while my eyes were full of Barty's figure as he again watched me depart by the Baron Osy from the Quai de la Place Verte in Antwerp; a sight that wrung me, when I remembered what a magnificent figure of a youth he looked as he left the wharf at London Bridge on the Boulogne steamer, hardly more than two short years ago.

When I got back to London, after spending my Christmas holiday with Barty, I found the beginning of a little trouble of my own.

My father was abroad; my mother and sister were staying with some friends in Chiselhurst, and after having settled all business matters in Barge Yard I called at the Gibsons', in Tavistock Square, just after dusk. Mrs. Gibson and Leah were at home, and three or four young men were there, also calling. There had been a party on Christmas‐eve.

I'm afraid I did not think much, as a rule, of the young men I met at the Gibsons'. They were mostly in business, like myself; and why I should have felt at all supercilious I can't quite see! But I did. Was it because I was very tall, and dressed by Barty's tailor, in Jermyn Street? Was it because I knew French? Was it because I was a friend of Barty the Guardsman, who had never been supercilious towards anybody in his life? Or was it those maternally ancestral Irish Blakes of Derrydown stirring within me?

The simplest excuse I can make for myself is that I was a young snob, and couldn't help it. Many fellows are at that age. Some grow out of it, and some don't. And the Gibsons were by way of spoiling me, because I was Leah's bosom friend's brother, and I gave myself airs in consequence.

As I sat perfectly content, telling Leah all about poor Barty, another visitor was announced – a Mr. Scatcherd, whom I didn't know; but I saw at a glance that it would not do to be supercilious with Mr. Scatcherd. He was quite as tall as I, for one thing, if not taller. His tailor might have been Poole himself; and he was extremely good‐looking, and had all the appearance and manners of a man of the world. He might have been a Guardsman. He was not that, it seemed – only a barrister.

He had been at Eton, had taken his degree at Cambridge, and ignored me just as frankly as I ignored Tom, Dick, and Harry – whoever they were; and I didn't like it at all. He ignored everybody but Leah and her mamma: her papa was not there. It turned out that he was the only son of the great wholesale furrier in Ludgate Hill, the largest house of the kind in the world, with a branch in New York and another in Quebec or Montreal. He had been called to the bar to please a whim of his father's.

He had been at the Gibson party on Christmas‐eve, and had paid Leah much attention there; and came to tell them that his mother hoped to call on Mrs. Gibson on the following day. I was savagely glad that he did not succeed in monopolizing Leah; not even I could do that. She was kind to us all round, and never made any differences in her own house.

Mr. Scatcherd soon took his departure, and it was then that I heard all about him.

There was no doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Gibson were immensely flattered by the civilities of this very important and somewhat consequential young man, and those of his mother, which were to follow; for within a week the Gibsons and Leah dined with Mr. and Mrs. Scatcherd in Portland Place.

On this occasion Mr. Gibson was, as usual, very funny, it seems. Whether his fun was appreciated I doubt, for he confided to me that Mr. Scatcherd, senior, was a pompous and stuck‐up old ass. People have such different notions of what is funny. Nobody roared at Mr. Gibson's funniments more than I did; but he was Leah's papa.

"Let him joke his bellyful;I'll bear it all for Sally!"

Young Scatcherd was fond of his joke too – a kind of supersubtly satirical Cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for I am no Cantab, and the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made use of the choicest language in doing so; and Mrs. Scatcherd was immensely genteel.

Young Scatcherd became the plague of my life. The worst of it is that he grew quite civil – seemed to take a liking. His hobby was to become a good French scholar, and he practised his French – which was uncommonly good of its English kind – on me. And I am bound to say that his manners were so agreeable (when he wasn't joking), and he was such a thoroughly good fellow, that it was impossible to snub him; besides, he wouldn't have cared if I had.

Once or twice he actually asked me to dine with him at his club, and I actually did; and actually he with me, at mine! And we spoke French all through dinner, and I taught him a lot of French school‐boy slang, with which he was delighted. Then he came to see me in Barge Yard, and I even introduced him to my mother and sister, who couldn't help being charmed with him. He was fond of the best music only (he had no ear whatever, and didn't know a note), and only cared for old pictures – the National Gallery, and all that; and read no novels but French – Balzac and George Sand – and that only for practice for he was a singularly pure young man, the purest in all Cambridge, and in those days I thought him a quite unforgivable prig.

So Scatcherd was in my thoughts all day and in my dreams all night – a kind of incubus; and my mother made herself very unhappy about him, on Leah's account and mine; except that now and then she would fancy it was Ida he was thinking of. And that would have pleased my mother very much; and me too!

His mother called on mine, who returned the call – but there was no invitation for us to dine in Portland Place.

Nothing of all this interrupted for a moment the bosom‐friendship between my sister and Leah; nothing ever altered the genial sweetness of Leah's manners to me, nor indeed the cordiality of her parents: Mr. Gibson could not get on without that big guffaw of mine, at whatever he looked or said or did; no Scatcherd could laugh as loudly and as readily as I! But I was very wretched indeed, and poured out my woes to Barty in long letters of poetical Blaze, and he would bid me hope and be of good cheer in his droll way; and a Blaze letter from him would hearten me up wonderfully – till I was told of Leah's going to the theatre with Mrs. Scatcherd and her son, or saw his horses and groom parading up and down Tavistock Square while he was at the Gibsons', or heard of his dining there without Ida or me!