The Martian: A Novel

In the fulness of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other very dearly.

"Que me voilà donc bien contente, mon petit Barty – et toi? la jolie ville, hein?"

"C'est le ciel, tout bonnement – et tu vas m'apprendre l'allemand, n'est‐ce‐pas, m'amour?"

"Oui, et nous lirons Heine ensemble; tiens, à propos! regarde le nom de la rue qui fait le coin! Bolker Strasse! c'est là qu'il est né, le pauvre Heine! Ôte ton chapeau!"

(Barty nearly always spoke French with Daphne, as he did with my sister and me, and said "thee and thou.")

They found a furnished house that suited them in the Schadow Strasse, opposite Geissler's, where for two hours every Thursday and Sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and drink coffee, beer, or Maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and dance in the evening under cover to strains of Strauss, Lanner, and Gungl, and other heavenly waltz‐makers! With all their faults, they know how to make the best of their lives, these good Vaterlanders, and how to dance, and especially how to make music – and also how to fight! So we won't quarrel with them, after all!

Barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters – some of them English and some American. He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the fir‐clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good‐humored slavy in the garden below:

"Johanna, mein Frühstück, bitte!"

A phrase he had carefully rehearsed with Daphne the evening before.

And, to his delight and surprise, Johanna understood the mysterious jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most good‐humored grin he had ever seen on a female face.

Coffee and a roll and a pat of butter.

First of all, he went to see Dr. Hasenclever at Riffrath, which was about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk – an immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe, even from America. The train that took Barty thither was full of them; for some chose to live in Düsseldorf.

The great man saw his patients on the ground‐floor of the König's Hotel, the principal hotel in Riffrath, the hall of which was always crowded with these afflicted ones – patiently waiting each his turn, or hers; and there Barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he had sent in his name at 10 A.M., and been told that he would be seen after four o'clock. Then he walked about the village, which was charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages in the Richter albums by black beams – and full of English, many of them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a stick, alas!

Barty met the three Royces, walking with an old gentleman of aristocratic appearance, and a very nice‐looking young one (who was Captain Graham‐Reece). The Admiral gave him a friendly nod – Lady Jane a nod that almost amounted to a cut direct. But the divine Julia gave him a look and a smile that were warm enough to make up for much maternal frigidity.

Later on, in a tobacconist's shop, he again met the Admiral, who introduced him to the aristocratic old gentleman, Mr. Beresford Duff, secretary to the Admiralty – who evidently knew all about him, and inquired quite affectionately after Lady Caroline, and invited him to come and drink tea at five o'clock: a new form of hospitality of his own invention – it has caught on!

Barty lunched at the König's Hotel table d'hôte, which was crowded, principally with English people, none of whom he had ever met or heard of. But from these he heard a good deal of the Royces and Captain Graham‐Reece and Mr. Beresford Duff, and other smart people who lived in furnished houses or expensive apartments away from the rest of the world, and were objects of general interest and curiosity among the smaller British fry.

Riffrath was a microcosm of English society, from the lower middle class upwards, with all its respectabilities and incompatibilities and disabilities – its narrownesses and meannesses and snobbishnesses, its gossipings and backbitings and toadyings and snubbings – delicate little social things of England that foreigners don't understand!

The sensation of the hour was the advent of Julia, the divine Julia! Gossip was already rife about her and Captain Reece. They had taken a long walk in the woods together the day before – with Lady Jane and the Admiral far behind, out of ear‐shot, almost out of sight!

In the afternoon, between four and five, Barty had his interview with the doctor – a splendid, white‐haired old man, of benign and intelligent aspect, almost mesmeric, with his assistant sitting by him.

He used no new‐fangled ophthalmoscope, but asked many questions in fairly good French, and felt with his fingers, and had many German asides with the assistant. He told Barty that he had lost the sight of his left eye forever; but that with care he would keep that of the right one for the rest of his life – barring accidents, of course. That he must never eat cheese nor drink beer. That he (the doctor) would like to see him once a week or fortnight or so for a few months yet – and gave him a prescription for an eye‐lotion and dismissed him happy.

Half a loaf is so much better than no bread, if you can only count upon it!

Barty went straight to Mr. Beresford Duff's, and there found a very agreeable party, including the divine Julia, who was singing little songs very prettily and accompanying herself on a guitar.

"'You ask me why I look so pale?'" sang Julia, just Barty entered: and red as a rose was she.

Lady Jane didn't seem at all overjoyed to see Barty, but Julia did, and did not disguise the seeming.

There were eight or ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle‐tattle about well‐known people, and nothing else – as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy‐going, good‐natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper place of his own, all through that fatal bar‐sinister – la barre de bâtardise; a world that was his and yet not his, and in whose midst his position was a false one, but where every one took him for granted at once as one of them, so long as he never trespassed beyond that sufferance; that there must be no love‐making to lovely young heiresses by the bastard of Antoinette Josselin was taken for granted also!

Before Barty had been there half an hour two or three people had evidently lost their hearts to him in friendship; among them, to Lady Jane's great discomfiture, the handsome and amiable Graham‐Reece, the cynosure of all female eyes in Riffrath; and when Barty (after very little pressing by Miss Royce) twanged her guitar and sang little songs – French and English, funny and sentimental – he became, as he had so often become in other scenes, the Rigoletto of the company; and Riffrath was a kingdom in which he might be court jester in ordinary if he chose, whenever he elected to honor it with his gracious and facetious musical presence.

So much for his début in that strange little overgrown busy village! What must it be like now?

Dr. Hasenclever has been gathered to his fathers long ago, and nobody that I know of has taken his place. All those new hotels and lodging‐houses and smart shops – what can they have been turned into? Barracks? prisons? military hospitals and sanatoriums? How dull!

Lady Caroline and Daphne and Barty between them added considerably to the gayety of Düsseldorf that summer – especially when Royces and Reeces and Duffs and such like people came there from Riffrath to lunch, or tea, or dinner, or for walks or drives or rides to Grafenberg or Neanderthal, or steamboatings to Neuss.

There were one or two other English families in Düsseldorf, living there for economy's sake, but yet of the world – of the kind that got to be friends with the Rohans; half‐pay old soldiers and sailors and their families, who introduced agreeable and handsome Uhlans and hussars – from their Serene Highnesses the Princes Fritz and Hans von Eselbraten – Himmelsblutwürst – Silberschinken, each passing rich on £200 a year, down to poor Lieutenants von this or von that, with nothing but their pay and their thirty‐two quarterings.

Also a few counts and barons, and princes not serene, but with fine German fortunes looming for them in the future, though none amounting to £1000 a day, like little Lord Orrisroot's!

Soon there was hardly a military heart left whole in the town; Julia had eaten them all up, except one or two that had been unconsciously nibbled by little Daphne.

Barty did not join in these aristocratic revels; he had become a pupil of Herr Duffenthaler, and worked hard in his master's studio with two brothers of the brush – one English, the other American; delightful men who remained his friends for life.

Indeed, he lived among the painters, who all got to love "der schöne Barty Josselin" like a brother.

Now and then, of an evening, being much pressed by his aunt, he would show himself at a small party in Schadow Strasse, and sing and be funny, and attentive to the ladies, and render himself discreetly useful and agreeable all round – and make that party go off. Lady Caroline would have been far happier had he lived with them altogether. But she felt herself responsible for her innocent and wealthy little niece.

It was an article of faith with Lady Caroline that no normal and properly constituted young woman could see much of Barty without falling over head and ears in love with him – and this would never do for Daphne. Besides, they were first‐cousins. So she acquiesced in the independence of his life apart from them. She was not responsible for the divine Julia, who might fall in love with him just as she pleased, and welcome! That was Lady Jane's lookout, and Captain Graham‐Reece's.

But Barty always dined with his aunt and cousin on Thursdays and Sundays, after listening to the music in Geissler's Garden, opposite, and drinking coffee with them there, and also with Prince Fritz and Prince Hans, who always joined the party and smoked their cheap cigars; and sometimes the divine Julia would make one of the party too, with her mother and uncle and Captain Reece; and the good painter fellows would envy from afar their beloved but too fortunate comrade; and the hussars and Uhlans, von this and von that, would find seats and tables as near the princely company as possible.

And every time a general officer entered the garden, up stood every officer of inferior rank till the great man had comfortably seated himself somewhere in the azure sunshine of Julia's forget‐me‐not warm glance.

And before the summer had fulfilled itself, and the roses at Geissler's were overblown, it became evident to Lady Caroline, if to none other, that Julia had eyes for no one else in the world but Barty Josselin. I had it from Lady Caroline herself.

But Barty Josselin had eyes only (such eyes as they were) for his work at Herr Duffenthaler's, and lived laborious days, except on Thursday and Sunday afternoons, and shunned delights, except to dine at the Runsberg Speiserei with his two fellow‐pupils, and Henley and Armstrong and Bancroft and du Maurier and others, all painters, mostly British and Yankee; and an uncommonly lively and agreeable repast that was! And afterwards, long walks by moon or star light, or music at each other's rooms, and that engrossing technical shop talk that never palls on those who talk it. No Guardsman's talk of turf or sport or the ballet had ever been so good as this, in Barty's estimation; no agreeable society gossip at Mr. Beresford Duff's Riffrath tea‐parties!

Once in every fortnight or so Barty would report him‐self to Dr. Hasenclever, and spend the day in Riffrath and lunch with the good old Beresford Duff, who was very fond of him, and who lamented over his loss of caste in devoting himself professionally to art.

"God bless me – my dear Barty, you don't mean to say you're going to paint for hire!"

"Indeed I am, if any one will hire me. How else am I to live?"

"Well, you know best, my dear boy; but I should have thought the Rohans might have got you something better than that. It's true, Buckner does it, and Swinton, and Francis Grant! But still, you know … there are other ways of getting on for a fellow like you. Look at Prince Gelbioso, who ran away with the Duchess of Flitwick! He didn't sing a bit better than you do, and as for looks, you beat him hollow, my dear boy; yet all London went mad about Prince Gelbioso, and so did she; and off she bolted with him, bag and baggage, leaving husband and children and friends and all! and she'd got ten thousand a year of her own; and when the Duke divorced her they were married, and lived happily ever after – in Italy; and some of the best people called upon 'em, by George!.. just to spite the Duke!"

Barty felt it would seem priggish or even insincere if he were to disclaim any wish to emulate Prince Gelbioso; so he merely said he thought painting easier on the whole, and not so risky; and the good Beresford Duff talked of other things – of the divine Julia, and what a good thing it would be if she and Graham‐Reece could make a match of it.

"Two of the finest fortunes in England, by George! they ought to come together, if only just for the fun of the thing! Not that she is a bit in love with him – I'll eat my hat if she is! What a pity you ain't goin' to be Lord Ironsides, Barty!"

Barty frankly confessed he shouldn't much object, for one.

"But, 'ni l'or ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux,' as we used to be taught at school."

"Ah, that's all gammon; wait till you're my age, my young friend, and as poor as I am," said Beresford Duff. And so the two friends talked on, Mentor and Telemachus – and we needn't listen any further.

Part Seventh

"Old winter was goneIn his weakness back to the mountains hoar,And the spring came downFrom the planet that hovers upon the shoreWhere the sea of sunlight encroachesOn the limits of wintry night;If the land, and the air, and the seaRejoice not when spring approaches,We did not rejoice in thee, Ginevra!"– Shelley.

Riffrath, besides its natives and its regular English colony of residents, had a floating population that constantly changed. And every day new faces were to be found drinking tea with Mr. Beresford Duff – and all these faces were well known in society at home, you may be sure; and Barty made capital caricatures of them all, which were treasured up and carried back to England; one or two of them turn up now and then at a sale at Christie's and fetch a great price. I got a little pen‐and‐ink outline of Captain Reece there, drawn before he came into the title. I had to give forty‐seven pounds ten for it, not only because it was a speaking likeness of the late Lord Ironsides as a young man, but on account of the little "B. J." in the corner.

And only the other evening I sat at dinner next to the Dowager Countess. Heavens! what a beautiful creature she still is, with her prematurely white hair and her long thick neck!

And after dinner we talked of Barty – she with that delightful frankness that always characterized her through life, I am told:

"Dear Barty Josselin! how desperately in love I was with that man, to be sure! Everybody was – he might have thrown the handkerchief as he pleased in Riffrath, I can tell you, Sir Robert! He was the handsomest man I ever saw, and wore a black pork‐pie hat and a little yellow Vandyck beard and mustache; just the color of Turkish tobacco, like his hair! All that sounds odd now, doesn't it? Fashions have changed – but not for the better! And what a figure! and such fun he was! and always in such good spirits, poor boy! and now he's dead, and it's one of the greatest names in all the world! Well, if he'd thrown that handkerchief at me just about then, I should have picked it up – and you're welcome to tell all the world so, Sir Robert!"

And next day I got a kind and pretty little letter:

"Dear Sir Robert, – I was quite serious last night. Barty Josselin was _mes premières amours_! Whether he ever guessed it or not, I can't say. If not, he was very obtuse! Perhaps he feared to fall, and didn't feel fain to climb in consequence. I all but proposed to him, in fact! Anyhow, I am proud my girlish fancy should have fallen on such a man!

"I told him so myself only last year, and we had a good laugh over old times; and then I told his wife, and she seemed much pleased. I can understand his preference, and am old enough to forgive it and laugh – although there is even now a tear in the laughter. You know his daughter, Julia Mainwaring, is my godchild; sometimes she sings her father's old songs to me:

"'Petit chagrin de notre enfanceCoûte un soupir!'

"Do you remember?

"Poor Ironsides knew all about it when he married me, and often declared I had amply made up to him for that and many other things – over and over again. Il avait bien raison; and made of me a very happy wife and a most unhappy widow.

"Put this in your book, if you like.

"Sincerely yours,"Julia Ironsides."

Thus time flowed smoothly and pleasantly for Barty all through the summer. In August the Royces left, and also Captain Reece – they for Scotland, he for Algiers – and appointed to meet again in Riffrath next spring.

In October Lady Caroline took her niece to Rome, and Barty was left behind to his work, very much to her grief and Daphne's.

He wrote to them every Monday, and always got a letter back on the Saturday following.

Barty spent the winter hard at work, but with lots of play between, and was happy among his painter fellows – and sketching and caricaturing, and skating and sleighing with the English who remained in Düsseldorf, and young von this and young von that. I have many of his letters describing this genial, easy life – letters full of droll and charming sketches.

He does not mention the fair Julia much, but there is no doubt that the remembrance of her much preoccupied him, and kept him from losing his heart to any of the fair damsels, English and German, whom he skated and danced with, and sketched and sang to.

As a matter of fact, he had never yet lost his heart in his life – not even to Julia. He never said much about his love‐making with Julia to me. But his aunt did – and I listened between the words, as I always do. His four or five years' career in London as a thoroughgoing young rake had given him a very deep insight into woman's nature – an insight rare at his age, for all his perceptions were astonishingly acute, and his unconscious faculty of sympathetic observation and induction and deduction immense.

And, strange to say, if that heart had never been touched, it had never been corrupted either, and probably for that very reason – that he had never been in love with these sirens. It is only when true love fades away at last in the arms of lust that the youthful, manly heart is wrecked and ruined and befouled.

He made up his mind that art should be his sole mistress henceforward, and that the devotion of a lifetime would not be price enough to pay for her favors, if but she would one day be kind. He had to make up for so much lost time, and had begun his wooing so late! Then he was so happy with his male friends! Whatever void remained in him when his work was done for the day could be so thoroughly filled up by Henley and Bancroft and Armstrong and du Maurier and the rest that there was no room for any other and warmer passion. Work was a joy by itself; the rest from it as great a joy; and these alternations were enough to fill a life. To how many great artists had they sufficed! and what happy lives had been led, with no other distraction, and how glorious and successful! Only the divine Julia, in all the universe, was worthy to be weighed in the scales with these, and she was not for the likes of Mr. Nobody of Nowhere.

Besides, there was the faithful Martia. Punctually every evening the ever‐comforting sense of the north filled him as he jumped into bed; and he whispered his prayers audibly to this helpful spirit, or whatever it might be, that had given him a sign and saved him from a cowardly death, and filled his life and thoughts as even no Julia could.

And yet, although he loved best to forgather with those of his own sex, woman meant much for him! There must be a woman somewhere in the world – a needle in a bottle of hay – a nature that could dovetail and fit in with his own; but what a life‐long quest to find her! She must be young and beautiful, like Julia – rien que ça! – and as kind and clever and simple and well‐bred and easy to live with as Aunt Caroline, and, heavens! how many things besides, before poor Mr. Nobody of Nowhere could make her happy, and be made happy by her!

So Mr. Nobody of Nowhere gave it up, and stuck to his work, and made much progress, and was well content with things as they were.

He had begun late, and found many difficulties in spite of his great natural facility. His principal stock in trade was his keen perception of human beauty, of shape and feature and expression, male or female – of face or figure or movement; and a great love and appreciation of human limbs, especially hands and feet.

With a very few little pen‐strokes he could give the most marvellously subtle likenesses of people he knew – beautiful or ordinary or plain or hideous; and the beauty of the beautiful people, just hinted in mere outline, was so keen and true and fascinating that this extraordinary power of expressing it amounted to real genius.

It is a difficult thing, even for a master, to fully render with an ordinary steel pen and a drop of common ink (and of a size no bigger than your little finger nail) the full face of a beautiful woman, let us say; or a child, in sadness or merriment or thoughtful contemplation; and make it as easily and unmistakably recognizable as a good photograph, but with all the subtle human charm and individuality of expression delicately emphasized in a way that no photograph has ever achieved yet.

And this he could always do in a minute from sheer memory and unconscious observation; and in another few minutes he would add on the body, in movement or repose, and of a resemblance so wonderful and a grace so enchanting, or a humor so happily, naïvely droll, that one forgot to criticise the technique, which was quite that of an amateur; indeed, with all the success he achieved as an artist, he remained an amateur all his life. Yet his greatest admirers were among the most consummate and finished artists of their day, both here and abroad.

It was with his art as with his singing: both were all wrong, yet both gave extraordinary pleasure; one almost feared that regular training would mar the gift of God, so much of the charm we all so keenly felt lay in the very imperfections themselves – just as one loved him personally as much for his faults as for his virtues.

"Il a les qualités de ses défauts, le beau Josselin," said M. Taine one day.

"Mon cher," said M. Renan, "ses défauts sont ses meilleures qualités."

So he spent a tranquil happy winter, and wrote of his happiness and his tranquillity to Lady Caroline and Daphne and Ida and me; and before he knew where he was, or we, the almond‐trees blossomed again, and then the lilacs and limes and horse‐chestnuts and syringas; and the fireflies flew in and out of his bedroom at night, and the many nightingales made such music in the Hof gardens that he could scarcely sleep for them; and other nightingales came to make music for him too – most memorable music! Stockhausen, Jenny Ney, Joachim, Madame Schumann; for the triennial Musik festival was held in Düsseldorf that year (a month later than usual); and musical festivals are things they manage uncommonly well in Germany. Barty, unseen and unheard, as becomes a chorus‐singer, sang in the choruses of Gluck's Iphigenia, and heard and saw everything for nothing.