 | CHAPTER XX.
A NOCTURNE. Cecil Dreeme |  |
20. CHAPTER XX.
A NOCTURNE.
Night! Night in the great city!
Night! when the sun, the eye of God, leaves
men to their own devices; when the moon is so
faint, and the stars so far away in the infinite,
that their inspection and record are forgotten;
when Light, the lawgiver and orderer of human
life, withdraws, and mankind are free to break or
obey the commands daylight has taught them.
Night! when the gas-lights, relit, reawaken
harmful purposes, that had slept through all the
hours of honest sunshine in their lairs; when
the tigers and tigresses take their stand where
their prey will be sure to come; when the rustic
in the peaceful country, with leaves whispering
and crickets singing around him, sees a glow on
the distant horizon, and wonders if the bad city
beneath it be indeed abandoned of its godly men,
and burning for its crimes. Night! the day of
the base, the guilty, and the desolate!
Every evening, when it was possible, of that
late winter and wintry spring, I abandoned club,
the brilliant world, to wander with Cecil Dreeme
about the gas-lit city, and study the side it showed
to night. And yet the phenomena of vice and
crime, my companion refused to consider fit objects
of curiosity. Vice and crime were tacitly
avoided by us. Dreeme's nature repelled even
the thought of them. I was happy to know one
solitary man whose mind the consciousness of
evil could not make less virgin.
It chanced one evening, a fortnight after our
conversation when Dreeme gave me the picture,
that walking as usual, and quite late, we passed
the Opera-House. Some star people were giving
an extra performance on an off night. The last
act of an heroic opera was just beginning. Dreeme
hummed the final air, — a noble burst of triumph
over a victory bought by a martyrdom.
“Your song makes me hungry to hear more,”
said I.
“I have been almost starving for music,” he
rejoined.
“Come in, then. You can take your stand in
the lobby, with your mysterious cloak about you,
and slouched hat over your eyes. I defy your
best friend or worst foe to know you.”
“No, no!” said he, nervously; “in the glare
of a theatre I should excite suspicion. I should
be seen.”
“And pounced upon and hurried off to durance
vile?” said I, lightly enough; for I began
at last to fancy that his panic of concealment was
the sole disorder of a singularly healthy brain.
“Well, I will not urge it. I cannot spare you.
I am selfish. I should soon go to the bad without
my friend and Mentor.”
“It is strange,” said Dreeme, bitterly, “that
I, with a soul white as daylight, should be compelled
to lurk about like a guilty thing, — to be
as one dead and buried.”
“I thank the mystery that secludes you for
my benefit, Dreeme,” I said. “I dread the time
when you will find a thousand friends, and many
closer than I.”
He dropped his cloak and took my arm. It
was the first time he had given me this slight
token of intimacy. We had been very distant in
our personal intercourse. I am not a man to
slap another on the back, shake him by the shoulder,
punch him in the ribs, or indulge in any rude
play or coarse liberties. Yet there is a certain
familiarity among men, by which we, after our
roughish and unbeautiful fashion, mean as much
tenderness for our friends as women do by their
sweet embraces and caresses. Nothing of this
kind had ever passed between Dreeme and me.
His reserve and self-dependence had made me
feel that it would be an impertinence to offer
man holds ready for a lesser and slighter.
It surprised me, then, a little, when Dreeme,
for the first time, took my arm familiarly.
“You have been a kind friend to me, Mr.
Byng,” said he; “there are not many men in
the world who would have treated my retirement
with such delicate forbearance and good faith.”
“Do not give me too much credit. I have
been a selfish friend. I know that I am a facile
person, something of the chameleon; I need the
fairer colors in contact with me to keep me from
becoming an ugly brown reptile. Having this
adaptability of character, I have had very close
relations with many of the best and noblest; but
of all the men I have ever known, your society
charms me most penetratingly. All the poetry
in my nature being latent, I need precisely you
to bring it to the surface. The feminine element
is largely developed in you, as a poetic artist. It
precisely supplies the want which a sisterless and
motherless man, like myself, has always felt.
Your influence over me is inexpressibly bland
and soothing. You certainly are my good spirit.
I like you so much, that I have been quite content
with your isolation; I get you all to myself.
These walks with you, since that famous oyster
supper, the very day of my return home, have
been the chief feature of my life. I count my
world. A third party would spoil the whole!
What would become of our confidence, our intimate
exchange of thought on every possible subject,
if there were another fellow by, who might
be a vulgarian or a muff? What could we do
with a chap to whom we should have to explain
our metaphysics, give page and line for our quotations,
interpret our puns, translate our allusions,
analyze our intuitions, define our God?
Such a companion would take the sparkle and
the flash of this rapid and unerring sympathy out
of our lives. No, Dreeme, this isolation of yours
suits me; and since you continue to tolerate my
society, I must suit you. We form a capital
exclusive pair, close as any of the historic ones,
— Orestes and Pylades, for example, — to close
my long discourse classically.”
“Do not compare us to those ill-omened two.
Orestes was ordained to slay his parent for her
sin,” my friend rejoined, in an uneasy tone.
“It was a judicial murder, — the guiltless execution
of a decree of fate. And all turned out
happily at last, you remember. Orestes became
king of Argos, and gave his sister in marriage to
his Pylades, the faithful. Who knows but when
your tragic duty is over, whatever it be, and you
have brought the guilty to justice, you will resume
your proper crown, and find a sister for
flame should not smile, that would be admirable.
Your sister for me would make our brotherhood
actual.”
“My sister for you!” said Dreeme, with an
accent almost of horror; and I could feel, by his
arm in mine, that a strong shudder ran through
him.
We had by this time passed from the side-front
of the Opera-House, where this conversation began,
had walked along Quatorze Street, and turned
up into the Avenue. Quatorze Street, as only a
total stranger need be informed, is named in triumphant
remembrance of the minikin monarch
whom we defeated in the old French war. The
crossing of Quatorze Street and the Avenue was,
at that time, the very focus of fashion. Within
half a mile of that corner, Everybody lived —
Everybody who was not Nobody.
It was mid-March. Lent was in full sigh.
Balls were over until Easter. Fasting people
cannot take violent exercise. One can dance on
full, but not on meagre diet, — on turkey, not on
fish. But in default of balls, Mrs. Bilkes, still a
leader of fashion, had her Lent evenings. They
were The Thing, so Everybody agreed, and this
evening was one of them. I had deserted for my
walk with Dreeme.
Mrs. Bilkes's house was just far enough above
van of the upward march of fashion. Files of
carriages announced that all the world was with
her that evening. The usual band discoursed
the usual music within; but wanting the cadence
of dancers' feet to enliven them, those
Lenten strains came dolefully forth.
We were passing this mansion when Dreeme
had last spoken. Before I had time to ask him
what meant his agitation at the thought of me
for possible brother-in-law, the factotum of the
Bilkes party, the well-known professional, hailed
me from the steps, where he stood in authority;
for by the bright light from the house he
could easily recognize me.
“What, Mr. Byng! You wont drop in upon
us? They 're packed close as coffins inside, but
there 's always room for another like yourself.
Better come in, — Mrs. Bilkes will take on tremendous
if she finds I let you go by without
stopping.”
I paused a moment, half disgusted, half amused
by the privileged man's speech. As I did so, a
gentleman coming down the steps addressed me.
And it is such trivial pauses as these that bid us
halt till Destiny overtakes our unconscious steps.
I turned with a slight start, for I had not observed
the new-comer as an acquaintance until
he was at my side.
It was Densdeth.
He looked, with his keen, hasty glance, at my
companion. He seemed to recognize him as a
stranger. He did not bow, but turned to me,
and said, —
“What, Byng! Are you not going in? It is
very brilliant. All the fair penitents are there,
keeping Lent, in their usual severe simplicity of
penitential garb. I asked Matilda Mildood if I
should give her a bit of partridge and some
chicken-salad. `I 'm quite ashamed of you, Mr.
Densdeth,' says Matilda, with the air of one
resolutely mortifying the flesh; `don't you remember
it 's Lent. Oysters and lobster-salad, if
you please, and a little terrapin, if there is any.'”
While Densdeth made this talk, he glanced
again at my companion. Dreeme had withdrawn
his arm, and stood a little apart, half
turned away from us, avoiding notice, as usual.
“Don't throw away your cigar, Byng,” continued
Densdeth, taking out his case, and stepping
toward the lamp-post, to make, as it seemed
to me, a very elaborate selection. “Give me
a light first. Will you try one of mine?”
“No, thank you. I have had my allowance.”
Densdeth took my cigar to light his. The
slight glow was sufficient to illuminate his face
darkly. Its expression seemed to me singularly
cruel and relentless. It was withal scornful
which gave Densdeth satisfacton. Whom
had he vanquished to-night?
The cigar would not draw.
“Bah!” said Densdeth, tearing it in two,
with his white-gloved hands, with a manner
of dainty torture, as if he were inflicting an
indignity upon a foe. “Bah!” said he, taking
out another cigar, with even more elaborate
selection, and as he did so glancing, quick and
sharp, at my friend, who had retreated from
the lamp. “I don't allow cigars, any more than
other creatures, to baffle me. Excuse me, Byng,
for detaining you. The second trial must succeed;
if not, I 'll try a third time, — that always
wins. Thanks!”
He lighted his cigar. Again by the glow I
observed the same relentless, triumphant look.
Densdeth turned down the Avenue. I rejoined
Dreeme. He took my arm again and
clung to it almost weakly.
“What is the matter, Dreeme?” I asked, my
tenderness for him all awake.
No answer, but a nervous pressure on my arm.
“You are tired. Shall we turn back?”
“Not the way that man has gone,” said he.
“Why not? What do you fear?”
“I heard him name himself Densdeth. I
saw his face — that cruel face of his. Mr. Byng,
evil to the core. You call me your Mentor,
your good influence; take my warning! Obey
me, and shun him, as you would a fiend. You
say that I have a fresh nature; believe that my
instinct of aversion for a villain is unerring.”
“Is not this prejudice?” said I, somewhat
moved by his panic, but still fancying so much
alarm idle.
“It might before have been prejudice, derived
from your own account of him; but now
I have seen him, face to face.”
“A glance merely, and in a dusky light.”
“Yes, but one look at that face of his sears
it into the heart.”
“You seem to have been as inquisitive about
him as he about you. He studied your back
pretty thoroughly. In fact, I believe it was to
observe you that he made such parade of breaking
up his delinquent cigar. He evidently meant
to know for what comrade I was abandoning
the charms of the Bilkes soirée.”
“I shudder at the thought of such a man's
observation. What ugly fate brought me here?”
Dreeme turned, and looked back.
I involuntarily did the same.
The Avenue, at that late hour, was nearly
deserted of promenaders. As far away as two
blocks behind us, I noticed the spark of a cigar,
see him take the cigar from his lips with a
white-gloved hand. He even seemed to brandish
it triumphantly.
“He is following us!” cried Dreeme.
The painter whirled me about a corner, and
dragged me, almost at a run, along several
humbler streets. At last we turned into one
of the avenues by the North River, far away
from the beat of any guest of Mrs. Bilkes.
There Dreeme paused, and spoke.
“Good exercise I have given you by my
panic,” said he, with a forced laugh. “How
absurd I have been! Pardon me! You are
aware how nervous I get, being so much shut
up alone. And then, you know, I was only
hurrying you away from your devil.”
“Strange fellow you are, Dreeme! I suppose
this very strangeness is one element of
your control over me. You excite my curiosity
in degree, though not in kind, quite as
much as Densdeth does. And now that you
and he are brought together, I hope these two
mysterious personages will explain each other
by some flash of hostile electricity. I wait for
light from the meeting of the thunder-clouds.”
“It must be very late,” said Dreeme in a
weary tone. “What a dismal part of the city!
This squalor sickens me. These rows of grogshops
sin everywhere, and the sorrow that never can
be divorced from sin! How can we escape?
How can we save others? These nocturnal
wanderings of ours have told me of a breadth
and a depth of misery that years of a charitable
lifetime would never have revealed. If I ever
have opportunities for action and influence, I
shall know my duty, and how to do it. I see,
Mr. Byng, as I have before told you, that you
do not thoroughly share my sympathy for poverty
and suffering and crime.”
“Perhaps not fully. My heart is not so tender
as yours. I cannot seem to make other people's
distress my personal business, as you do. I endure
the misfortunes of strangers with reasonable
philosophy. Suffering, like pain, I suppose is to
be borne heroically, until it passes off. Every
man has his hard times.”
“You are not cruel,” said Dreeme, “but you
talk cruelly on a subject you hardly understand.
Wait until the hours of your own bitterness come,
and you will learn the precious lesson of sympathy!
You will soften to others, and most to
those who suffer for no fault of theirs, — the
wronged, driven to despair by wrong-doing in
those they love, — the erring, visited with what
we name ruin, for some miserable mistake of
inexperience. But let us hasten home! I have
future, so oppressed by the `weary weight of all
this unintelligible world,' as I do at this moment.”
“Dreeme, are you never to take your future
into your own hands, and live a healthy, natural
life, like other men? Think of yourself! Do
not be so wretched with other people's faults!
You cannot annihilate the troubles that have
made you unhappy; but do not brood over them.
Be young, and live young, in sunshine and
gayety.”
“Be young!” said he, more drearily than
ever.
“Yes; make me your confidant! Face down
your difficulties! If you do not trust my experience,
and think me too recent in the country to
give you practical help, there is my friend, Mr.
Churm. He will be here to-morrow from a
journey. Churm is true as steel. Trust him!
He and I will pull you through.”
“I trust no one but you. Do not press me
yet. I am generally contented, as you know,
with my art and your society. Only to-night the
sight of that bad man has discomposed me.”
“Discomposed is a mild term,” said I, as I
unlocked the outer door of Chrysalis.
“Well, I am composed now. But I wish,”
said he in a trepidating way, that belied his
door.”
I did so, and we parted, closer friends than
ever.
Densdeth, Cecil Dreeme, Emma Denman,
— these three figures battled strangely in my
dreams.
| CHAPTER XX.
A NOCTURNE. Cecil Dreeme | |