Villa Rubein, and Other Stories

After a long morning’s sitting the girls had started forth with Harz and Dawney to spend the afternoon at the ruin; Miss Naylor, kept at home by headache, watched them depart with words of caution against sunstroke, stinging nettles, and strange dogs.

Since the painter’s return Christian and he had hardly spoken to each other. Below the battlement on which they sat, in a railed gallery with little tables, Dawney and Greta were playing dominoes, two soldiers drinking beer, and at the top of a flight of stairs the Custodian’s wife sewing at a garment. Christian said suddenly: “I thought we were friends.”

“Well, Fraulein Christian, aren’t we?”

“You went away without a word; friends don’t do that.”

Harz bit his lips.

“I don’t think you care,” she went on with a sort of desperate haste, “whether you hurt people or not. You have been here all this time without even going to see your father and mother.”

“Do you think they would want to see me?”

Christian looked up.

“It’s all been so soft for you,” he said bitterly; “you don’t understand.”

He turned his head away, and then burst out: “I’m proud to come straight from the soil – I wouldn’t have it otherwise; but they are of ‘the people,’ everything is narrow with them – they only understand what they can see and touch.”

“I’m sorry I spoke like that,” said Christian softly; “you’ve never told me about yourself.”

There was something just a little cruel in the way the painter looked at her, then seeming to feel compunction, he said quickly: “I always hated – the peasant life – I wanted to get away into the world; I had a feeling in here – I wanted – I don’t know what I wanted! I did run away at last to a house-painter at Meran. The priest wrote me a letter from my father – they threw me off; that’s all.”

Christian’s eyes were very bright, her lips moved, like the lips of a child listening to a story.

“Go on,” she said.

“I stayed at Meran two years, till I’d learnt all I could there, then a brother of my mother’s helped me to get to Vienna; I was lucky enough to find work with a man who used to decorate churches. We went about the country together. Once when he was ill I painted the roof of a church entirely by myself; I lay on my back on the scaffold boards all day for a week – I was proud of that roof.” He paused.

“When did you begin painting pictures?”

“A friend asked me why I didn’t try for the Academie. That started me going to the night schools; I worked every minute – I had to get my living as well, of course, so I worked at night.

“Then when the examination came, I thought I could do nothing – it was just as if I had never had a brush or pencil in my hand. But the second day a professor in passing me said, ‘Good! Quite good!’ That gave me courage. I was sure I had failed though; but I was second out of sixty.”

Christian nodded.

“To work in the schools after that I had to give up my business, of course. There was only one teacher who ever taught me anything; the others all seemed fools. This man would come and rub out what you’d done with his sleeve. I used to cry with rage – but I told him I could only learn from him, and he was so astonished that he got me into his class.”

“But how did you live without money?” asked Christian.

His face burned with a dark flush. “I don’t know how I lived; you must have been through these things to know, you would never understand.”

“But I want to understand, please.”

“What do you want me to tell you? How I went twice a week to eat free dinners! How I took charity! How I was hungry! There was a rich cousin of my mother’s – I used to go to him. I didn’t like it. But if you’re starving in the winter.”

Christian put out her hand.

“I used to borrow apronsful of coals from other students who were as poor – but I never went to the rich students.”

The flush had died out of his face.

“That sort of thing makes you hate the world! You work till you stagger; you’re cold and hungry; you see rich people in their carriages, wrapped in furs, and all the time you want to do something great. You pray for a chance, any chance; nothing comes to the poor! It makes you hate the world.”

Christian’s eyes filled with tears. He went on:

“But I wasn’t the only one in that condition; we used to meet. Garin, a Russian with a brown beard and patches of cheek showing through, and yellow teeth, who always looked hungry. Paunitz, who came from sympathy! He had fat cheeks and little eyes, and a big gold chain – the swine! And little Misek. It was in his room we met, with the paper peeling off the walls, and two doors with cracks in them, so that there was always a draught. We used to sit on his bed, and pull the dirty blankets over us for warmth; and smoke – tobacco was the last thing we ever went without. Over the bed was a Virgin and Child – Misek was a very devout Catholic; but one day when he had had no dinner and a dealer had kept his picture without paying him, he took the image and threw it on the floor before our eyes; it broke, and he trampled on the bits. Lendorf was another, a heavy fellow who was always puffing out his white cheeks and smiting himself, and saying: ‘Cursed society!’ And Schonborn, an aristocrat who had quarrelled with his family. He was the poorest of us all; but only he and I would ever have dared to do anything – they all knew that!”

Christian listened with awe. “Do you mean?” she said, “do you mean, that you – ?”

“You see! you’re afraid of me at once. It’s impossible even for you to understand. It only makes you afraid. A hungry man living on charity, sick with rage and shame, is a wolf even to you!”

Christian looked straight into his eyes.

“That’s not true. If I can’t understand, I can feel. Would you be the same now if it were to come again?”

“Yes, it drives me mad even now to think of people fatted with prosperity, sneering and holding up their hands at poor devils who have suffered ten times more than the most those soft animals could bear. I’m older; I’ve lived – I know things can’t be put right by violence – nothing will put things right, but that doesn’t stop my feeling.”

“Did you do anything? You must tell me all now.”

“We talked – we were always talking.”

“No, tell me everything!”

Unconsciously she claimed, and he seemed unconsciously to admit her right to this knowledge.

“There’s not much to tell. One day we began talking in low voices – Garin began it; he had been in some affair in Russia. We took an oath; after that we never raised our voices. We had a plan. It was all new to me, and I hated the whole thing – but I was always hungry, or sick from taking charity, and I would have done anything. They knew that; they used to look at me and Schonborn; we knew that no one else had any courage. He and I were great friends, but we never talked of that; we tried to keep our minds away from the thought of it. If we had a good day and were not so hungry, it seemed unnatural; but when the day had not been good – then it seemed natural enough. I wasn’t afraid, but I used to wake up in the night; I hated the oath we had taken, I hated every one of those fellows; the thing was not what I was made for, it wasn’t my work, it wasn’t my nature, it was forced on me – I hated it, but sometimes I was like a madman.”

“Yes, yes,” she murmured.

“All this time I was working at the Academie, and learning all I could… One evening that we met, Paunitz was not there. Misek was telling us how the thing had been arranged. Schonborn and I looked at each other – it was warm – perhaps we were not hungry – it was springtime, too, and in the Spring it’s different. There is something.”

Christian nodded.

“While we were talking there came a knock at the door. Lendorf put his eye to the keyhole, and made a sign. The police were there. Nobody said anything, but Misek crawled under the bed; we all followed; and the knocking grew louder and louder. In the wall at the back of the bed was a little door into an empty cellar. We crept through. There was a trap-door behind some cases, where they used to roll barrels in. We crawled through that into the back street. We went different ways.”

He paused, and Christian gasped.

“I thought I would get my money, but there was a policeman before my door. They had us finely. It was Paunitz; if I met him even now I should wring his neck. I swore I wouldn’t be caught, but I had no idea where to go. Then I thought of a little Italian barber who used to shave me when I had money for a shave; I knew he would help. He belonged to some Italian Society; he often talked to me, under his breath, of course. I went to him. He was shaving himself before going to a ball. I told him what had happened; it was funny to see him put his back against the door. He was very frightened, understanding this sort of thing better than I did – for I was only twenty then. He shaved my head and moustache and put me on a fair wig. Then he brought me macaroni, and some meat, to eat. He gave me a big fair moustache, and a cap, and hid the moustache in the lining. He brought me a cloak of his own, and four gulden. All the time he was extremely frightened, and kept listening, and saying: ‘Eat!’

“When I had done, he just said: ‘Go away, I refuse to know anything more of you.’

“I thanked him and went out. I walked about all that night; for I couldn’t think of anything to do or anywhere to go. In the morning I slept on a seat in one of the squares. Then I thought I would go to the Gallerien; and I spent the whole day looking at the pictures. When the Galleries were shut I was very tired, so I went into a cafe, and had some beer. When I came out I sat on the same seat in the Square. I meant to wait till dark and then walk out of the city and take the train at some little station, but while I was sitting there I went to sleep. A policeman woke me. He had my wig in his hand.

“‘Why do you wear a wig?’ he said.

“I answered: ‘Because I am bald.’

“‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re not bald, you’ve been shaved. I can feel the hair coming.’

“He put his finger on my head. I felt reckless and laughed.

“‘Ah!’ he said, ‘you’ll come with me and explain all this; your nose and eyes are looked for.’

“I went with him quietly to the police-station…”

Harz seemed carried away by his story. His quick dark face worked, his steel-grey eyes stared as though he were again passing through all these long-past emotions.

The hot sun struck down; Christian drew herself together, sitting with her hands clasped round her knees.

X

“I didn’t care by then what came of it. I didn’t even think what I was going to say. He led me down a passage to a room with bars across the windows and long seats, and maps on the walls. We sat and waited. He kept his eye on me all the time; and I saw no hope. Presently the Inspector came. ‘Bring him in here,’ he said; I remember feeling I could kill him for ordering me about! We went into the next room. It had a large clock, a writing-table, and a window, without bars, looking on a courtyard. Long policemen’s coats and caps were hanging from some pegs. The Inspector told me to take off my cap. I took it off, wig and all. He asked me who I was, but I refused to answer. Just then there was a loud sound of voices in the room we had come from. The Inspector told the policeman to look after me, and went to see what it was. I could hear him talking. He called out: ‘Come here, Becker!’ I stood very quiet, and Becker went towards the door. I heard the Inspector say: ‘Go and find Schwartz, I will see after this fellow.’ The policeman went, and the Inspector stood with his back to me in the half-open door, and began again to talk to the man in the other room. Once or twice he looked round at me, but I stood quiet all the time. They began to disagree, and their voices got angry. The Inspector moved a little into the other room. ‘Now!’ I thought, and slipped off my cloak. I hooked off a policeman’s coat and cap, and put them on. My heart beat till I felt sick. I went on tiptoe to the window. There was no one outside, but at the entrance a man was holding some horses. I opened the window a little and held my breath. I heard the Inspector say: ‘I will report you for impertinence!’ and slipped through the window. The coat came down nearly to my heels, and the cap over my eyes. I walked up to the man with the horses, and said: ‘Good-evening.’ One of the horses had begun to kick, and he only grunted at me. I got into a passing tram; it was five minutes to the West Bahnhof; I got out there. There was a train starting; they were shouting ‘Einsteigen!’ I ran. The collector tried to stop me. I shouted: ‘Business – important!’ He let me by. I jumped into a carriage. The train started.”

He paused, and Christian heaved a sigh.

Harz went on, twisting a twig of ivy in his hands: “There was another man in the carriage reading a paper. Presently I said to him, ‘Where do we stop first?’ ‘St. Polten.’ Then I knew it was the Munich express – St. Polten, Amstetten, Linz, and Salzburg – four stops before the frontier. The man put down his paper and looked at me; he had a big fair moustache and rather shabby clothes. His looking at me disturbed me, for I thought every minute he would say: ‘You’re no policeman!’ And suddenly it came into my mind that if they looked for me in this train, it would be as a policeman! – they would know, of course, at the station that a policeman had run past at the last minute. I wanted to get rid of the coat and cap, but the man was there, and I didn’t like to move out of the carriage for other people to notice. So I sat on. We came to St. Polten at last. The man in my carriage took his bag, got out, and left his paper on the seat. We started again; I breathed at last, and as soon as I could took the cap and coat and threw them out into the darkness. I thought: ‘I shall get across the frontier now.’ I took my own cap out and found the moustache Luigi gave me; rubbed my clothes as clean as possible; stuck on the moustache, and with some little ends of chalk in my pocket made my eyebrows light; then drew some lines in my face to make it older, and pulled my cap well down above my wig. I did it pretty well – I was quite like the man who had got out. I sat in his corner, took up his newspaper, and waited for Amstetten. It seemed a tremendous time before we got there. From behind my paper I could see five or six policemen on the platform, one quite close. He opened the door, looked at me, and walked through the carriage into the corridor. I took some tobacco and rolled up a cigarette, but it shook, Harz lifted the ivy twig, like this. In a minute the conductor and two more policemen came. ‘He was here,’ said the conductor, ‘with this gentleman.’ One of them looked at me, and asked: ‘Have you seen a policeman travelling on this train?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Where?’ ‘He got out at St. Polten.’ The policeman asked the conductor: ‘Did you see him get out there?’ The conductor shook his head. I said: ‘He got out as the train was moving.’ ‘Ah!’ said the policeman, ‘what was he like?’ ‘Rather short, and no moustache. Why?’ ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘only that he wore coloured trousers. What’s the matter?’ One policeman said to the other: ‘That’s our man! Send a telegram to St. Polten; he has more than an hour’s start.’ He asked me where I was going. I told him: ‘Linz.’ ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘you’ll have to give evidence; your name and address please?’ ‘Josef Reinhardt, 17 Donau Strasse.’ He wrote it down. The conductor said: ‘We are late, can we start?’ They shut the door. I heard them say to the conductor: ‘Search again at Linz, and report to the Inspector there.’ They hurried on to the platform, and we started. At first I thought I would get out as soon as the train had left the station. Then, that I should be too far from the frontier; better to go on to Linz and take my chance there. I sat still and tried not to think.

“After a long time, we began to run more slowly. I put my head out and could see in the distance a ring of lights hanging in the blackness. I loosened the carriage door and waited for the train to run slower still; I didn’t mean to go into Linz like a rat into a trap. At last I could wait no longer; I opened the door, jumped and fell into some bushes. I was not much hurt, but bruised, and the breath knocked out of me. As soon as I could, I crawled out. It was very dark. I felt heavy and sore, and for some time went stumbling in and out amongst trees. Presently I came to a clear space; on one side I could see the town’s shape drawn in lighted lamps, and on the other a dark mass, which I think was forest; in the distance too was a thin chain of lights. I thought: ‘They must be the lights of a bridge.’ Just then the moon came out, and I could see the river shining below. It was cold and damp, and I walked quickly. At last I came out on a road, past houses and barking dogs, down to the river bank; there I sat against a shed and went to sleep. I woke very stiff. It was darker than before; the moon was gone. I could just see the river. I stumbled on, to get through the town before dawn. It was all black shapes-houses and sheds, and the smell of the river, the smell of rotting hay, apples, tar, mud, fish; and here and there on a wharf a lantern. I stumbled over casks and ropes and boxes; I saw I should never get clear – the dawn had begun already on the other side. Some men came from a house behind me. I bent, and crept behind some barrels. They passed along the wharf; they seemed to drop into the river. I heard one of them say: ‘Passau before night.’ I stood up and saw they had walked on board a steamer which was lying head up-stream, with some barges in tow. There was a plank laid to the steamer, and a lantern at the other end. I could hear the fellows moving below deck, getting up steam. I ran across the plank and crept to the end of the steamer. I meant to go with them to Passau! The rope which towed the barges was nearly taut; and I knew if I could get on to the barges I should be safe. I climbed down on this rope and crawled along. I was desperate, I knew they’d soon be coming up, and it was getting light. I thought I should fall into the water several times, but I got to the barge at last. It was laden with straw. There was nobody on board. I was hungry and thirsty – I looked for something to eat; there was nothing but the ashes of a fire and a man’s coat. I crept into the straw. Soon a boat brought men, one for each barge, and there were sounds of steam. As soon as we began moving through the water, I fell asleep. When I woke we were creeping through a heavy mist. I made a little hole in the straw and saw the bargeman. He was sitting by a fire at the barge’s edge, so that the sparks and smoke blew away over the water. He ate and drank with both hands, and funny enough he looked in the mist, like a big bird flapping its wings; there was a good smell of coffee, and I sneezed. How the fellow started! But presently he took a pitchfork and prodded the straw. Then I stood up. I couldn’t help laughing, he was so surprised – a huge, dark man, with a great black beard. I pointed to the fire and said ‘Give me some, brother!’ He pulled me out of the straw; I was so stiff, I couldn’t move. I sat by the fire, and ate black bread and turnips, and drank coffee; while he stood by, watching me and muttering. I couldn’t understand him well – he spoke a dialect from Hungary. He asked me: How I got there – who I was – where I was from? I looked up in his face, and he looked down at me, sucking his pipe. He was a big man, he lived alone on the river, and I was tired of telling lies, so I told him the whole thing. When I had done he just grunted. I can see him now standing over me, with the mist hanging in his beard, and his great naked arms. He drew me some water, and I washed and showed him my wig and moustache, and threw them overboard. All that day we lay out on the barge in the mist, with our feet to the fire, smoking; now and then he would spit into the ashes and mutter into his beard. I shall never forget that day. The steamer was like a monster with fiery nostrils, and the other barges were dumb creatures with eyes, where the fires were; we couldn’t see the bank, but now and then a bluff and high trees, or a castle, showed in the mist. If I had only had paint and canvas that day!” He sighed.

“It was early Spring, and the river was in flood; they were going to Regensburg to unload there, take fresh cargo, and back to Linz. As soon as the mist began to clear, the bargeman hid me in the straw. At Passau was the frontier; they lay there for the night, but nothing happened, and I slept in the straw. The next day I lay out on the barge deck; there was no mist, but I was free – the sun shone gold on the straw and the green sacking; the water seemed to dance, and I laughed – I laughed all the time, and the barge man laughed with me. A fine fellow he was! At Regensburg I helped them to unload; for more than a week we worked; they nicknamed me baldhead, and when it was all over I gave the money I earned for the unloading to the big bargeman. We kissed each other at parting. I had still three of the gulden that Luigi gave me, and I went to a house-painter and got work with him. For six months I stayed there to save money; then I wrote to my mother’s cousin in Vienna, and told him I was going to London. He gave me an introduction to some friends there. I went to Hamburg, and from there to London in a cargo steamer, and I’ve never been back till now.”

XI

After a minute’s silence Christian said in a startled voice: “They could arrest you then!”

Harz laughed.

“If they knew; but it’s seven years ago.”

“Why did you come here, when it’s so dangerous?”

“I had been working too hard, I wanted to see my country – after seven years, and when it’s forbidden! But I’m ready to go back now.” He looked down at her, frowning.

“Had you a hard time in London, too?”

“Harder, at first – I couldn’t speak the language. In my profession it’s hard work to get recognised, it’s hard work to make a living. There are too many whose interest it is to keep you down – I shan’t forget them.”

“But every one is not like that?”

“No; there are fine fellows, too. I shan’t forget them either. I can sell my pictures now; I’m no longer weak, and I promise you I shan’t forget. If in the future I have power, and I shall have power – I shan’t forget.”

A shower of fine gravel came rattling on the wall. Dawney was standing below them with an amused expression on his upturned face.

“Are you going to stay there all night?” he asked. “Greta and I have bored each other.”

“We’re coming,” called Christian hastily.

On the way back neither spoke a word, but when they reached the Villa, Harz took her hand, and said: “Fraulein Christian, I can’t do any more with your picture. I shan’t touch it again after this.”

She made no answer, but they looked at each other, and both seemed to ask, to entreat, something more; then her eyes fell. He dropped her hand, and saying, “Good-night,” ran after Dawney.

In the corridor, Dominique, carrying a dish of fruit, met the sisters; he informed them that Miss Naylor had retired to bed; that Herr Paul would not be home to dinner; his master was dining in his room; dinner would be served for Mrs. Decie and the two young ladies in a quarter of an hour: “And the fish is good to-night; little trouts! try them, Signorina!” He moved on quickly, softly, like a cat, the tails of his dress-coat flapping, and the heels of his white socks gleaming.

Christian ran upstairs. She flew about her room, feeling that if she once stood still it would all crystallise in hard painful thought, which motion alone kept away. She washed, changed her dress and shoes, and ran down to her uncle’s room. Mr. Treffry had just finished dinner, pushed the little table back, and was sitting in his chair, with his glasses on his nose, reading the Tines. Christian touched his forehead with her lips.

“Glad to see you, Chris. Your stepfather’s out to dinner, and I can’t stand your aunt when she’s in one of her talking moods – bit of a humbug, Chris, between ourselves; eh, isn’t she?” His eyes twinkled.

Christian smiled. There was a curious happy restlessness in her that would not let her keep still.

“Picture finished?” Mr. Treffry asked suddenly, taking up the paper with a crackle. “Don’t go and fall in love with the painter, Chris.”

Christian was still enough now.

‘Why not?’ she thought. ‘What should you know about him? Isn’t he good enough for me?’ A gong sounded.