 4. During the winter months of 1897 to 1898, Lady Bertha S. studied the times, as well as her own local Scottish paper, with more than usual aciduity. It was not that she took a particular interest in the discussions of the House of Commons, indeed, since her husband's death, two years ago, she took little interest in anything connected with politics, but she was anxious concerning the fate of her only brother, who was engaged at that time in fighting the Afridis on the Afghan frontier. Captain Donald C. was his sister's junior by a few years. They had spent all the years of their childhood and youth together, and she learned to look up to him as the ideal of all that is honourable and true. Often, in her girlish fancies, she had compared him with those knights of old. He was so chivalrous, quixotic even, so devoid of all egotism and brutality. And a man of intelligence, too, a man of culture and heart, a lover of refinement, a scholar. His unwirried studies, indeed, had told severely upon his health on more than one occasion. She often wondered what strange freak had led him to join a profession that accorded so ill with his tastes and habits. She longed for the close of the war. Every morning as she read the paper, she dreaded lest she should find his name amongst the list of the fallen. And even so it fell out. Her eyes encountered, one February morning, a cold-worded telegram announcing his death. He had apparently perished in one of the numerous rearguard actions, the disgrace of the campaign when the enemy aimed securely in the twilight from behind rocks at the retreating British troops that ought to have been in camp two hours ago. Lady Bertha was calmed by nature and had been trained in the hard school of suffering. And yet what a blow! And in due course a melancholy parcel of papers arrived. Captain C. was one of those singular beings who, from sheer laziness, or from some dark religious motives, can hardly bring themselves to destroy anything they have ever written or received in writing. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that the parcel should contain any enormous amount of correspondence and papers of all kinds. Nor did it astonish Lady Bertha that she should have been selected by her brother as the one person fit to be entrusted with the task of sifting all this mass, with the task of sifting all this mass in the event of his death, knowing, as she did, that he was passionately attached to her and possessed implicit confidence in her judgment. For a day or two she left them untouched. Then, one cloudy afternoon, she opened the parcel with a feeling of dutiful reverence, and immediately there dropped out of it, by one of those curious chances, call them what you will, that guide our destinies. A certain old packet of papers, a fragmentary kind of diary as it proved, a diary of a foreign tour that Captain C. had been obliged to undertake for the benefit of his health, with his sister Bertha several years before her marriage. Ah! she exclaimed involuntarily, as her glance alighted upon it. But, as she continued to read, her brow contracted, and her pure features assumed a new and pained expression. Capri, March 20. It was a Homeric day. The atmosphere trembled with love and light. How happy I would be if I could divest myself of that feeling of loneliness. Capri, March 21. We spent the afternoon on the summit of our favorite hill, a magic spot where the spirits of sky and ocean still deign to hold communion with a favored few. The view at our feet is assuredly one of the most impressive in creation. An ancient world lies spread out in rare beauty of color and outline, and every inch of its ground is fraught with associations. Here, surely, on the gentle shores of the Mediterranean, true beauty resides with its harmony of form and color. The works of man in these regions stand out in just proportion to those of nature. Each supplements the other. Elsewhere, she is apt to be hostile to him. She comes either gloomy or monstrous. At the pole, mankind struggles with the elements and grows into a hero. The light fails, vegetation refuses her aid. He invokes the pale sun as a beneficent goddess. In the tropics his works shrink into insignificance. He is crushed by the vegetation devoured by the sun, whom he execrates as a fierce demon. Nature triumphs and man dwindles into a stoic. Here, surely, on the gentle shores of the Mediterranean, one might be happy. Capri, March 23. Bertha does her utmost to cheer me up. May she have her reward. The soul of goodness dwells in her. But shall I be always alone? An inward voice says, No. Capri, March 24. Far away, in the blue distance across the incomparable gulf, a promontory lies faintly shining. It is where Lucullus, the temperate wanderer, retired to meditate. And where is now his civilization? Nothing but ruins. Doubtless, he similarly thought upon the remains of old Hellenic culture that met his eye in every direction, and wondered when the time would come for his own to decay and perish. For he was not a man to cherish illusions on that score. It is only we who imagine that our state of things will last forever because we do not give ourselves the necessary leisure to reflect. That time has now come, and what would be his impressions on revisiting these scenes? Would he bow the knee to our ideal of beauty? Would he be eager to adopt our mode of life, our gods, our aspirations? I doubt it. And Tiberius, the dragon of Capri, whose breath still infects the island. Surely he cherished as few illusions as the other, for his was a yet more plastic mind. Though ruler of the earth, he was not blinded by his splendor. The arch-deceiver remained undeceived. He could read the signs of the times. He knew that his world was even then crumbling to ashes. Tiberius was an essentially modern type. No wonder that a man of his temper and capacities should have been misunderstood and misinterpreted in an age of ignorant bigotry. He was modern even in his failings. He suffered, in his old age, from a vice, and in human lust of cruelty, that some of us moderns can understand and would even imitate but for the fear of a law that had no terrors for Tiberius. Nowadays we would call him a neuropath. There is a stage when nothing short of the spectacle of tortures and rivers of red blood will prick the jaded appetite. I think I can understand a certain pleasurable emotion arising out of the sight. While we lingered, darkness came on with mysterious rapidity. The sun had set, but the sky at first still glowed with opalescent streaks of light that shone like flying meteors strayed from their path. Suddenly they vanished, and there was a great stillness. The landscape at our feet floated in an ocean of liquid pearl. Then a purple veil fell over all things. The evening star glittered overhead. Capri, March 25. This is what I wrote out for Bertha, a kind of daydream, for I still doze a good deal in the afternoons. When the whole island was covered with luxurious plantations and cool marble-paved quartz, Tiberius, the man-demon, could be seen slowly pacing its terraces or borne in cunningly wrought litter from one to the other of his pleasure He has arrested the bearers at a favorite spot and has stepped out in order to breathe the fresh sea air. He looks about him, and Argosi from Egypt comes wafted through the straits laden with corn for putioli and other merchandise. The remotest valleys of the east have been ransacked to produce perfumes and oils for the curled locks of Roman beauties, and many a laughter-provoking Malaysian fable is breathed westwards on the lips of the Greek sailors. It has entered the bay and an angry line contracts the old man's brow. When, thinks he, shall I set my foot once more upon Italian soil? The attendants are dismissed with a petulant gesture, and he walks towards the sunlit theater leaning on the arm of a slave and regretting the lost vigor of youth. Once seated in his ivory chair an irresistible drowsiness overcomes him. Sleepless nights have been his portion for many months. A silken couch has no attractions for one who dreads death at every hour and in every shape. He loathes his self-imposed solitude, and the animated theater alone invites to repose. The scene, with its Corinthian dancing girls, its pillars of Phrygian marble, its background of leafy garden and blue sea, is fast-feeding before his eyes. The soft tones of the flutes sound strangely distant. Tiberius reigns in another world, the imperial purple trails on the ground, and those restless lids are now half closed. A bunch of fragrant daffodils, the morning's offering of fair Theano, is tightly clutched in his withered hand. A sardonic smile hovers about his mouth. He is dreaming of sojenas. I wrote no more, but the strangest part of the dream followed. For Tiberius spoke to me. He said plainly, It will come. To what? To whom did he refer? To myself? So be it. Capri, March 27. Headache. The usual punishment for feeling too well. I am glad Raymond did not accompany us to this country. He is somewhat too boisterous a matter of fact. Capri, March 28. For ten months I have been forbidden to read books, or even newspapers, an intolerable restriction. That is why I have only today accidentally heard that the meteoric genius of Mopassant has sunk into the black night of madness, and just at the time when it gave promise of new and milder beauties. His works illustrate the difference between form and formalism. Alas, that fatal search after new sensations, the two frequent concomitant of the artistic mind. And Nietzsche smitten only the other day by the same fate. The lightning, says Herodotus, strikes the tallest trees. A curious coincidence. The German and French madman each conceived a being who should supersede mankind. Each of these conceptions is characteristic of its respective nation. The two tend ubermenge as philosophy, a nugget of gold. The Celtic horla as art, a priceless pearl. Capri, March 29. Tomorrow we return to our old quarters at Sorrento. Last night we hired a boat and paid a torchlight visit to our grotto. The effect of the illumination was fairy-like. Quick and tall shadows trembled on the moist roof as though troops of scared sea-ghosts were flitting dismally into the night. Here and there gleamed fiery eyes. A pungent smell of sea-rack filled the vault, and the restless waves could be heard as they caressed the dripping walls far away in the recesses. It sounded like the heavy breathing of some monster of the deep. A sailor sang us one of his Neapolitan songs. They are the pure expression of joy of life, a natural product of human life on this divine coast. Even as Italian music in general, that soulless cult of rhythm, the child's love of repeating musical sounds over and over again, reflects the character of the nation as a whole. Bertha said, I think she must have been quoting, where words cease, music begins. I said, and where music ceases, kissing begins. While we listened there rose up from the sea another sound that certainly spoke not of love of life. Its weird tones could be construed into no clear expression of human sentiment. It only recalled a sense of hopeless yearning. It was one of those primeval chants of mankind whose sphinx-like melodies still linger on this coast and defy the musicians' art to record them. The long-drawn notes spoke of submission to a dark fate. They sounded ominous to my ears. Capri, March 30. We have delayed a day. Bertha asks me, apropos de bote, what objection I have to the religion of these people. I told her that it offends me at every turn that it is a permanent source of irritation to me on account of its ugliness and cruelty, but idea of eternal suffering. Sorrento, Tuesday. This is evidently a feast day of some kind. These people, if you believe them, are always on the brink of starvation. Yet they find time for two or three feast days every week. They are letting off the fireworks in broad daylight. They cannot wait until it is evening, just like children. Day after day I sit under this islex. Once more a calm begins to grow up around me. But it is a calm, a hush, that can be felt. I suppose they were right in saying that my nerves were over-strong. Indeed, I can well believe it, for my intelligence seems to have become completely apathetic and numbed as regards certain things. In other matters I am hypersensitive, and one of them is precisely this calm that can be felt. I am overcome with loneliness with the feeling of an unutterable solitude that surrounds me. You are having a good rest, cheer up, old fellow, says Bertha. I nod and smile. Rest for the body, yes, but rest for the spirit. It has become a nightmare, a positive oppression. It is not distrust of others or disgust of life, but simply the result of dispassionate reasoning thus. Whatever I do I shall never be able to make myself completely understood by my friends. Friends, the very word is a mockery. They listen to what I say, they sympathize, they try to understand. And then I turn away and leave them, feeling that with my confidences I have given away the most precious part of myself. Then follows regret and self-humiliation. Surely, surely others have felt the same. I feel that it is all in vain, that I am alone, that a gulf, yes, a gulf, yawns between me and all human creatures. Shall I explain once more to Bertha? No, it only pains her and affords me no relief. And if she cannot understand who can, let be, one way or another something must happen soon. Sorrento, Saturday, another glorious day, I am always up betimes. Are there any moments more divine than those of earliest morning when something of the mystery of night and of its moist caresses still clings to nature? Afterwards this gossamer enchantment is rent asunder by the sounds and glaring light of day. The breeze has not sprung up yet, and I can see the gray olive branches glittering steadily as though carved in silver against the sea's unruffled surface of pale turquoise. The sea has an inexplicable attraction for me. Ever since I was a child I have longed to be a diver and to explore those mystery people lands under the green roof of water. I never look at its glassy depths without feeling a yearning to plunge in. Who knows what lovely beings may inhabit the twilight caverns of the deep. And then those gray pink tufa crags and the white limestone with its tender mauve reflexes. How much could be enjoyed in this world if, if one were not always hopelessly alone? I know that the severer beauty of Rome, the tender gleams of her golden light and the unspeakable melancholy of the Campania, is more congenial to Bertha's nature. The beauty of Sorrento is too palpitating, vital, and sensual. One longs to grasp it, to absorb it within oneself, to drain it as one drains a cup of wine. Here I sit every morning and enjoy a spell of sunshine and brief repose. Repose, for my nights are still restless, and when I rise in the morning it is as if I came out of a battlefield. Reading is still forbidden, and Bertha is stern, although I am yearning to unpack my books. Here I sit and try to construct within myself another and a better world. Why not? But that, I suppose, is why Raymond, whenever he wished to irritate me, used to say, You are not a real scholar, you know, you are only a vague, sentimental enthusiast. There is, I hope, some sentiment in my composition, but no sentimentality. What can you expect from him? These athletic people may be happy, but they are not always amiable. My Ilex and the Olives in this garden alone preserve their primitive shapes. The Olives, indeed, seem to enjoy a particular veneration as an Oedipus on colonus. All the other plants are cropped, pruned, tortured, and mutilated out of all semblance of their former shape. Why do the Italians love to mutilate everything? Their childlike, or rather childish, temperament derives pleasure, no doubt, from exercising its authority upon living things. How have they become so degenerate in every respect? Ages of oppression, misrule, and slavery, I imagine, have crushed every better feeling out of them, brutalized their instincts, perverted their taste, vulgarized their whole conception of life. Where are those pioneers of free thought who woke their slumbering country from her dream of monkish deceits, men who wade the earth and counted the stars, who peered into worlds unknown, exploring a drop of water as if it were an ocean, who enticed the electric spark out of the reluctant ore? Where is the spirit that animated them? In the municipio. Where are those artists and philosophers that once shed the light of beauty and wisdom over the whole world? The artists of modern Italy are her statesmen, whose ingenuity in designing new taxes amounts to nothing short of genius, and her philosophers are the starving peasants who have to pay them. The best energies and aspirations of a free country are consumed in narrow political strife. Italy is the reductio ad absurdum of parliamentary government. A land of lawyers and assassins. Bertha always says I am unjust towards the Italians. She says I must try not to get fixed ideas into my head. Fixed ideas. Sorrento, April 10. It is positively incredible if I had not seen it with my own eyes. In the entrance of this house are two rows of artificial paper flowers resembling red camellias. This is bad taste anywhere, but especially in a land where so many lovely live plants can be obtained. I always hoped the porter would remove this eyesore. Even then my surprise, when I saw him this morning, can in hand, busily watering these pots. I went up and examined them closely. The artificial flowers have been fixed by means of wires into the branches of a living plant. Shades of Raphael, Dante, and Michelangelo. Such things can only be witnessed in Italia liberata. I fetched Bertha. She was equally horrified. She could hardly believe her eyes. And then she thought I took it too seriously and began to palliate their crimes. But I told her that people who do such things are capable also of murdering their own fathers. She said that did not follow. In fact I am afraid I got into a regular state, one of those states that are so bad for me. The buzzing in my head began again. Then Bertha was frightened and began to agree with me, simply as I could see in order to humor me. After a while she said, you must admit, Donald, that they have their good qualities like all other nations. Perhaps they have, I replied calmly. I am always open to conviction. To what do you refer? They understand the art of making mayonaise sauce. Ha, ha, excellent! This anticlimax had the desired effect. Afterwards I became more reasonable and thought a good deal about the Italians and their strong points. That is the worst feature of my temperament. Whenever an inquiry is started, my subordinate consciousness broods over it for days and weeks. And I have discovered another good quality. They can build first-class roads. In fact they know how to deal with rocks and rivers and to make them subservient to purposes of human intercourse. I suppose this is a legacy from the Romans. If they had only inherited a little more. The sense of justice, for instance. The vilest murders go unpunished in this country. Wherein lies the attraction which murders and they alone possess for the human imagination. Is it because, by their vast complexity and the variety of their motives, they afford us some means of judging of the range of our own weaknesses and passions? That would be the intellectual attraction. And the emotional one is clearly this. That we feel a kind of relief in contemplating our distance from those depths of misery and depravity where man kills man. From hunger, envy, or simple love of killing. Yes, this simple innate love of killing is a not uncommon motive, nor without interest for the psychologist and student of morals in as much as it accounts for the origin of many of our social institutions. Also, besides all this, it would be strange if we did not feel a natural concern in the extinction of a human life, seeing that we must all go that way. That something, which was, what was it? Where is it now? How went it? And when that mystery is made to ooze out, painfully, forcibly, deliberately, the attraction naturally increases. Bertha thinks murders quite inexcusable under all circumstances, and she added, they are not only horrible, but stupid. I could not help smiling. Sorrento, April 11. Headache again. What exquisite shade these olives yield, and yet not veritable shade but a pearly atmosphere of fairy land. Sorrento, April 12. My eyes never tire of admiring the sublime outlines of Vesuvius. And what a feast of color, during those minutes, when the shades of sunset crawl up his inflamed flanks. Then the stupendous dome glows in rosy it and amethystine lights, ever changing. It swells and heaves with life. The solid mountain dissolves in golden mist. It is transformed into a web of cloud. You can see through it. A rare illusion. Leoparty's Genestra is a sympathetic poem, but I can understand Bertha when she says that in reading Italian poets she cannot dismiss the notion that she is dealing with a race of buffoons. There is certainly a deal of mere intellectual gymnastics about their productions. As to the divine comedy, that monument of bigotry, much of its beauty is swallowed up by the detestable sentiments, sentiments that are enough to prejudice any feeling mind against the faith which it proclaims. I cannot bear the idea of eternal imprisonment. The poor prisoners chained up and deprived of love and sunshine. What foul outrageous cruelty is enacted between man and man. This is one of those subjects which, when I think of it, makes me shudder with impotent rage. Who can imagine their hopelessness, their sufferings, their solitude? My own case, surrounded as I am by a wall of loneliness, indeed every one of us has a citadel, his individuality, into the inner recesses of which none can penetrate. My own case makes me sympathize with their sad lot. Yes, this citadel, we pour out our whole heart to a chosen friend. He or she listens. Then suddenly there rises up before our mind's eye a something which says, it is useless, stop. Then you look and behold the gulf. My private opinion is that Dr. N. suggested my coming to this gay and sunny climate because he imagined I was really suffering from some melancholy delusion about my solitude. That shows how little he knows my character. If I should ever suffer from any delusion at all, it would, I hope, have some more worthy and disinterested object than mere self. Sorrento, April 14. They talk of a visitation of the cholera. Bertha is not alarmed in the least. No more am I. We must all die at our appointed hour. These great waves of destruction have something weirdly fascinating. They show the absolute worthlessness of the individual before the tribunal of nature. He sets up his own standards of just and unjust. What does she care? A dreadful plague in London was in the year sixty-five, which swept a hundred thousand souls away, yet I alive. We have been keeping Pompeii for the last, as a sort of bonnet bouche, but we cannot restrain our curiosity any longer. Tomorrow we shall drive there in the cool of the evening. Bertha is looking forward to it almost more than I am. She has a truly refined mind, and an unfamed appreciation of what is beautiful. Soraco is blowing. Capri and Ishea are veiled in a cap of clouds. I feel unhappy and lonely again, but must try not to let her notice it. April 14. Night. I have committed a sin, and how angry Bertha would be if she knew it. The fact is, when a temptation becomes too great, I simply yield. What is the good I say of wrestling with the inevitable? At the same time I take full responsibility for all my actions. I do not lay the blame on others. When I do anything, I do not profess to have been guided by any heavenly inspiration, in order to impress my actions with the stamp of righteousness. Read the life of any religious enthusiast, church reformer, or sectarian, and you will understand what I mean. It was told me in a dream to do this and that. An angel appeared to me and said, etc., etc. I would like immensely to have such dreams. So convenient, you know. They take away all responsibility. Of course, persons whose every action, even the most trivial detail of life, is ordained by providence, such persons cannot go far wrong. That, I suppose, is what makes pious men so pious. Well then, I was seized with an irresistible longing to read something, to be again in touch with the minds of others. So I simply unpacked a book or two. I felt so lonely I must read or die. I have been subject to these cravings ever since my birth, and I always know beforehand whether I shall yield or resist. I generally yield. Eat and drink, said Dr. N., but don't read. Reading is poison for you. Those who may read whatever they like can hardly appreciate my impatience at this long separation from my favorite occupation, for I am only allowed a little writing, not more than half an hour a day. What it is to be an invalid! So I unpacked a few books. I looked into Plato's symposium, and compared the translations of Shelley, Jowett, and Schleyermacher. They happened to lie together. It will probably cost me the whole night's sleep. As to Shelley, he is by far the weakest. His version, a transcription, lacks the completeness, the scholarship, and the Saxon virility of Jowett. The German comes, perhaps, first of all. His translation has a curious kinship with the original. Perhaps his language gives him an unfair advantage. In what consists Plato's peculiar charm? Why, simply in this, that, with the magic of his language, he makes me think I know more than I do. He exalts my opinion of myself. Is this a deliberate use of his genius? Hardly. Would it be a legitimate use? Call him verbose if you like. Ruskin thinks Shelley empty and verbose. Yes, I can well believe that each of us is continually looking for his other half, and this desire of union is called love. His other half. Where is mine? Shall we ever meet? Is she near at hand, or is she separated from me by leagues of sea and continent, by ages of time? Why is there so much unhappiness in this world? Because, alas, not every one of us finds his other half. This attic fable seems to call an echo from the most secret caverns of my soul. Bertha often wonders whether I shall ever find my ideal as she calls it. I tell her that if my ideal were to appear now, it would be none too soon. I am lonely. That doctrine of elective affinity, what an ugly word for so lovely a truth. And when one of them finds his other half, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and will not be out of one another's sight, as I may say, even for a moment. An amazement of love. Have I ever been lost in an amazement of love? No, but I feel that such things may be, therefore they may be for me. The intense yearning which each of them has towards the other appears to be desire of something of which the soul has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. There are no words to describe it. But the soul devines that which it seeks and traces obscurely the footsteps of its obscure desire. The footsteps of its obscure desire. Weighty words, these. Pompey, April 15. The drive was delicious. It was an idyllic evening, cloudless and pure. The sun's heat tempered by a gentle Tramontana breeze that carried coolness from the still snowy Apennines, and waked out of shady gardens the fragrance of purple-clustered Glycinia blossoms. The sublime and the vile touch hands in this country. Men lie sprawling in the gutters, and women, of forbidding aspect, shriek the morning's gossip to each other in hoarse tones across the street. Such voices, continual bawling from the cradle to the grave, has made them unlike anything else in the world. But poverty wears a smiling aspect. The children, though numerous, do not suggest the overbreeding and underfeeding of many parts of England. Pompey is a revelation. We have only been a cursory visit of an hour or two. Bertha is enchanted with the town itself, whereas the human element of the place is what appeals most to my imagination. The small museum, with its well-preserved human remains, is a weird spot. One could dream of it. There are wonderfully intact plaster casts taken from the hollow mold formerly occupied by the actual bodies of those who perished in the catastrophe. The process is one of the discoveries of Mr. Fiorelli, the principal archaeologist. There was one of a young woman, with eyes half closed as though in pain. It seemed to fascinate Bertha by its life-like grace and beauty. "'Poor girl,' she said at last, after standing entranced before it, chained up in that narrow case. Who can she have been? Perhaps the daughter of some patrician hurrying away to escape the awful vengeance of her gods. It is revolting,' she added, to expose even her ashes to the gaze of the whole world. A truly womanly afterthought. I said I thought she looked more like a nymph. After returning through the temple of Apollo, a curious fancy possessed me. I took Bertha with me along the dusty street as far as the modern church of Pompey. Heavens, what cult has defaced this globe? What tinsally, tawdry, gloomy structures? What a groveling herd of humanity? Assuredly, these preposterous, semitic conceptions, this outrage upon the good sense of mankind, can only have been imposed upon a world of free men in a moment of supreme weakness. Like gypsies, they have stolen, and now claim as their own, the fair child of Plato, and they try to disguise him by disfiguring his figures and bedobbing his skin to resemble their own tawny hide. And the superstition, such as it is, has already degenerated into mere form. Where are the cathedrals, the penances, the crusades of earlier days? We laugh at the infatuation of our ancestors. Our cult is a discarded husk, a gilded chrysalis lying on the wet ground, out of which, faith, the splendor-winged insect, has crept to seek a sunnier abode. Raymond seriously invokes the human soul, the soul, that unhappy word has been the refuge of empty minds ever since the world began. Bertha and myself have just discussed a well-worn subject, that of marriage, but there is still a note of sadness in her voice. I know what it means. I know well enough what she has suffered ever since B's death in those vile barracks. That was four years ago. Will she never be comforted? But I respect her grief, and she is grateful for this, grateful and serene, a classical character that looks upon life and death otherwise than the majority of this generation. I explained to her the meaning of that passage from the symposium. She said that she had always felt it and believed it to be even so. Then she said, I can see that you have been reading. You know how wrong it is, and that the least reading may do you incalculable harm just now. I promised faithfully not to do so again. In proportion as I grow old, I learn to love her gentle nature. I have a presentiment that something will happen, a presentiment so persistent as almost to amount to bodily discomfort. Pompeii, April 16. Today's visit was more detailed, but my head is yet too full to call the impressions into their proper perspective. My brain is clouded. There is one thing that cannot fail to strike all visitors to this town, namely the lavishness of the Romans in regard to their public edifices and the smallness of their private houses. They knew what was required for the expansion of intimate family life for social intercourse as adapted to the climate for the fostering of genial, kindly conversation, bright courtyards and small rooms. I, they knew the old Romans. They and the Orientals alone have grasped the secret. These vast, cheerless rooms of modern Italy, each with three or four doors, they disquiet the spirit. The softer emotions take flight and are dissipated in bleak, empty space. Ah, these Italian palazzi, interminable deserts of stuccoed ugliness, fit abodes for suicides. They are only another symptom of the disease from which the whole nation suffers, megalomania. One wonders about them, oppressed with a sense of solitude. Solitude. Ah, propo, Bertha said a curious thing yesterday. On our way home she wished to pay another visit to the museum, for it seems to have a great attraction for her. We also talked to the keeper, Francesco by name, an old man with a kindly and intelligent face. Bertha looked for a long time at her favorite plaster cast. I am sure her eyes were violet, she said at last. No, I replied, they were blue. What made me say that, I cannot think. You seem to be pretty well acquainted with her, she laughed. Whatever color they were, they must have been lovely. She is altogether lovely, I said, truth mirrored in beauty. Don't be sententious, and yet you are right, for it is strange to think that she is no artistic creation but an actual human being like ourselves. Precisely so. I wish she could speak, I am sure I should love her, poor girl, and so would you. Perhaps you would want to marry her, perhaps she is the ideal you have been seeking. She looks unhappy, and no doubt she had her griefs like, like all of us, and then she broke off sadly. It is a remarkable fact that women often make sensible suggestions when they least intend to do so. Why was I not born in those days? Marriage, I thought again. Yes, but not according to the hideous and debasing ceremonial of our days. Mine should be a flowery rite of joy and love, an orgy of self-effacement, the very negation of human love. For what is human love, but the apotheosis of self, sordid and vile, and its means, and its end? Such considerations have hitherto prevented, and I fear ever will prevent, my viewing the question of marriage in a serious light. And still it is a subject, in its wider sense, upon which I could become enthusiastic and emotional, for I still take myself seriously. Indifference, lack of faith, lack of enthusiasm, these be the real mortal sins, these be the outward signs of a moral fatigue of the race, these be the cankers that undermine the body's social and politic. A strong man should be capable of strong emotions. Pompeii, April 17. A reference to a few pages back shows me that the sentiments recorded in connection with the Church of Pompeii were harsh and intolerant, and possibly unjust. May nemesis, that truly Hellenic personification, be ever before my mind's eye, and let me have the Romans broad-minded tolerance towards such creeds as are repugnant to my own sense of beauty and justice. Who could guess by what quaintly winding thought process this confession has found in outlet? It is a wondrous voyage, when one remounts the meanderings of that river, thought, that flows unceasingly day and night, from birth to death. What dim, half-forgotten landscapes one traverses. Is this I, one wonders, who thought and felt thus and thus only yesterday, only five minutes ago? How I change! Well I was dreaming, as I often do, about the sea, and then, waking up into a kind of half-sleep, there occurred to me that most characteristic of all eastern tales, the tale of Abdullah the Merman and Abdullah the Landman. There is a most pertinent moral attached to it, worthy of the consideration of all thinking minds. Do you remember how the Merman plunges into the deep, and, while the other is already blaming his thoughtlessness for allowing him to escape, returns to his astonished friend with each hand full of priceless gems, rubies and pearls, and jasons, and glowing emeralds. Glowing emeralds, how delicious! And that truly oriental touch. Pardon me, my brother, I had no basket at hand, else I would have filled it for you. And then their voyage together in the humid element. But here comes the defect of the story. It is here that the oriental fantasy fails. And this is also that part of the tale that my own imagination loves to fill up. And the end of this strange friendship? A religious dispute. One of them suddenly distrusts his friend's common honesty merely because he does not share his own particular opinion upon a matter of dogma. To such an extent are we blinded, and such has been the fate of mankind ever since theology took morality under its wings. Bertha says I am obstinate and intolerant. I reply, perhaps, but the blame does not rest with me. Our faults, our virtues, are distilled for us beforehand in the silent laboratory of the past. A comfortable creed. I have never willfully heard a living creature. That is the first law. I am a harmless lover of the spirit of beauty. You will find her in elusive sprite. That is what attracts me. A mere idea? I reply, precisely. The essence of true love is self-effacement. I have fallen in love with a mere idea. You women are too personal. You have no veneration except for tangible objects. That is why you are never really religious. An idea, pure and simple, never interests you. There must be a man standing behind it. Pompey, April 18. With infinite trouble I persuaded Bertha to visit the ruins once more this morning. She would have liked to interpose a day and go for a drive somewhere else. But I insisted and she came. The fact is I am interested in certain things that will admit of little delay. Francesco, the old keeper of the museum, who actually sleeps there every night as guardian of the relics, was standing at the door and nodded to us. We looked at the girl again, but I can see that Bertha is growing tired of her. That specimen, said Francesco, edging up to us confidentially and observing our interest, that Signorina is considered one of the finest and most successfully reproduced. It is as if she could speak. Molto Benriusita Ma Molto. Professor Fiorelli himself admires her most of his whole collection. Look you, there was an artist, Signor Rapino, who made studies of the head for his great Maria Magdalena picture last year. Well, he used to say that one could almost fall in love with her, like that young man mentioned somewhere in Lucian. Look at her pretty foot. How they do love to hear themselves talk, these Italians, said Bertha. The poor Signorina is now imprisoned in a narrow cell. I could see that Francesco has no real sense of veneration or he would not have spoken in that fashion. But lack of veneration is one of the chief characteristics of the Italian people and a symptom of an exhausted race. And yet, when she was alive, no doubt she loved to play with her friends and to walk on the Corso and go to the theatre and to take pleasure like all of us. Observe her. It is as if she breathed with life. Pare viva, pare una cristiana. Look, look, I said suddenly to Bertha, for it really seemed as if a faint pink flush had for a moment suffused her ashy features. Bertha sighed, too. She said it was only the reflection from the red-brown panel of the door. I envy Francesco living near so much beauty. We had a discussion about it in the evening, and I pretended to believe that the girl was really alive and that I was going to marry her. It was quite amusing to listen how Bertha argued with me. She has never learnt the true art of arguing. Nonsense was all she could find to say. You may call it nonsense if you like, I calmly replied, but I know what I know. This fortunate phrase you observed did not commit me to any opinion, and I kept on repeating it until she became quite angry. You repeat these things until you end in believing them. I know what I know, my dear. Nonsense. Call it nonsense, then, but I know what I know. I do wish you would drive that stupid idea out of your head. She said at last. Then you ought not to have put it there, I replied. It was yourself who proposed the marriage. I kept thinking about this all last night. Pompey, April 20. My brain was too tired to write anything yesterday. I have been thinking the whole time. We hardly referred to the museum discussion again. Somehow or other it has become a sore subject between us, or at least one to be avoided. I think I weary her with my remarks, and she tries to turn the current of my ideas to other matters. At last she declared outright that the girl was nothing but a heap of ashes, and that — No, not a heap, I retorted, seizing the long sought for opportunity. Remember, form tyrannies over matter. Yes, she admitted. And love triumphs over death, I added slowly. Yes, and then she sighed. I could guess her thoughts. She was thinking of B. But could she, or anyone else in this world, have guessed mine? I had carefully prepared the sequence of these two remarks, and I watched their effect upon her. They went home. I fear I am beginning to take a pleasure in annoying, or at least terrifying her. I never knew that there was so much capacity for mischief in my constitution. Bertha suggests that we should go back to Naples soon. She says I am becoming irritable. It is really wrong of me to vex Bertha after her untiring kindness and solicitude for me. Why must I do it? Whom have I in the world besides her? Who loves me as she does? Who? No one? Is there indeed no one? Or perhaps... April 21, 3 a.m. I have just awoke from a divine dream. I was standing on a beach, all alone, and gazing sadly eastwards, and then someone came and whispered for a moment in my ear such truths, things that I have never heard and yet knew. How do you explain that? And what were they? I have forgotten. And who was she? Ah! How shall words, mere words, convey any sense of the utter bliss of those short moments? Imagine it if you can. As for me, if death be like this, let me die. 11 a.m. This is an adventurous expedition. I crept in the gray of dawn before sunrise and immediately after my dream, in the well-known direction. Bertha knows nothing, so much the better. This dusty, hot, uncheltered path, with its scanty grass at the sides, was invested in that early light with a dewy charm and rindalint of a subtle fragrance exhaled by the rich volcanic soil. I imagined myself some lover creeping to a secret meeting with his betrothed. That is a pleasant illusion and can harm no one. Altogether, considering how little harm I do, I am sometimes surprised at the number of those who secretly bear me ill-will. The door was locked. Francesco was evidently still asleep. At last he heard my knocking and appeared in his negligee. How funny he looked! Have you ever skinned an owl? No, I have, and that is what his appearance recalled to my mind. Your owl looks large and imposing in its ruffled feathers, but when you have relieved him of his skin he has transformed into a meek and diminutive pink deformity with huge eyes, and he looks so funny. And Francesco, without his official uniform, seemed to have shrunk into a mannequin that one might crush in one's hand. Indeed, strange to say, I had a curious inclination to throttle him then and there. I know not why. Jealousy, perhaps. He let me in somewhat surprised at my early visit, and I wandered round the apartment with an air of proprietorship, as one who has entered his own house. It is so pleasant to have a house of one's own. The senority can make himself quite at home. He said as he took my hat. I should think so. Then I gazed at her long and intently. But no, she gave no sign of life, not a sign, not a sign. She seemed to slumber. Is Bertha right, after all? I must try to have a good rest this afternoon. Pompey, April 22nd. The chivalrous adventure has been repeated, and I am taking a great fancy to these little excursions. But Francesco was surprised and seemed suspicious, so that I was obliged at first to wander round the room in a nonchalant manner, looking at all the other things, and only glancing at her coily now and then, like a bashful lover out of the corners of my eyes. I believe he thinks I came to steal something. And so I did. I came to steal a heart. He asks if he can be of any use to the senore. I reply, perhaps some other time. This means, I suppose, that he wants money for his trouble. I gave him some, and his humor improved. What weak creatures we are! Then, observing the direction of my glance, he remarked, Fiorelli is indeed a genius, is it not so? I told him that I did not care to hear about Professor Fiorelli. Un genio, he repeated. A man of taste, I corrected. Un vero genio, he went on, shaking his old head with conviction. Francesco is becoming decidedly intrusive. I do not wish to have his name mentioned, Francesco. He is a talented archaeologist who is doing his duty, Basta. Talent, he asked. We call it. Who are you, obstinate old man, to pronounce on the enigma of genius? Your archaeologist is a clever man, a Basta. Un grande genio, he repeated, with the pig-headedness of his race. Yes, you may well look at her, senore. She is as near perfection as art can make her. A divinity. Pare la natura. Art, nature, divinity, genius. How you Italians throw the words about. The confusion in your head, my dear Francesco, would drive me mad. And I felt as if I could have murdered him. I did indeed. Even seeing that he looked really scared, I tried to laugh. But I only half succeeded, because at that moment a curious fancy entered my head, or rather an intuitive conviction. The conviction, namely, that if I could be allowed to touch her for one instant only, she would feel my touch, and perhaps—ah, God!—perhaps open her eyes with a look of thankfulness, the thankfulness of a poor prisoner who has found one heart that throbs in sympathy with her own sad lot. I hinted my desire to Francesco in my most engaging and insinuating manner. It is surprising how humble I made myself. I felt I could do anything good or evil to obtain my wish. That, no doubt, is the true lover's spirit. E imposible, caro signore. He replied, shrugging his shoulders and pointing to the cap of his official uniform with an expressive gesture. Then I must try to do without him. Pompey, April 26. I have made a grievous and well-knight irreparable mistake. I have told Bertha all, all, my whole heart, the whole truth. She shook her head obstinately and began arguing, convincing me, as she called it. I told her that the time for discussions was now past. Alas, the gulf, the immeasurable gulf. She even wishes to take me away. She refused to understand me. Then I told her to suspend her judgment for the present at least. No. Come and see for yourself? No. Then I bowed and left the room. Assuredly I have done my best for all three parties concerned. Three parties? Yes, there are now three of us. The gulf. But now I am no longer without hope of a comforter. I can afford to lose Bertha, who, even in her most expansive moments, never really entered into my ideas and projects. And what is the truth? Believe it or not, here it is. All yesterday I had a bad headache and lay in bed, else I could have written down a good many things that occurred to me which I have forgotten by this time again. And as I lay, there came another dream to me, wonderfully vivid. Was it indeed only a dream? I was away, far away, in a calm purple twilight under the waves. And a well-known voice pronounced these words. Save me! She also told me that she was neither Grecian nor Roman, but the daughter of an ocean king. I always thought so. And then, and then, she whispered in my ear her name, the sweet name by which, henceforth, I am to know her, Narenda. Surely as I tried to explain afterwards to Bertha, the mere fact of my knowing and remembering this name proves that this was no idle dream like others. I swear upon my honor that I have never in my life willfully deceived others, that I never invented this name. Indeed, that I could not invent it if I tried. But Bertha would not listen. The gulf. I suppose it came to you, she said at last. It came to me, I echoed. Do things happen without a cause? It came to me. Do things come and go as they please? And if so, why did it not come to you instead? Then she pretended to cry. One thing is quite certain, and that is, that if they all go on ill-treating me in this fashion, I shall have to take to deceit and dissimulation, however unwillingly I may do it. Listen now to what followed. For all this was only a kind of prelude. Although, so far as I am concerned, I was not in the least surprised at what then occurred. Indeed, I was thoroughly prepared for it. I may confidently say that I knew it beforehand. I awoke from this dream, this vision, this visitation, this visit at about three o'clock in the morning. That is my usual hour for waking. I felt inspired. Dressing hastily, I crept in the dark along the well-known path to Francesco and woke him up. The day was barely dawning, and there hovered a yellow brown mist over the mountains. He lighted a candle for the interior of the museum was still almost dark. Now that I am quite calm again, I can well understand why Francesco should find me in a state of great excitement and ask me what on earth had brought me to him at that extraordinary hour of the night. What indeed! Here was a dilemma! I had never thought about that, but I was master of the situation instantly. The fact is, I explained, hastily inventing a ready lie. We are leaving today, this very morning, and I wished to come once more and thank you for all the trouble you have taken. I may not have time later on. There is always so much to do at the last moment. Please accept this little remembrance from my sister and myself. And I gave him a blood-stone ring which I happened to be wearing. Blood-stone. The senorais, too, generous, he cried, sincerely moved, and trying to kiss my hand. How shall I ever thank you both? But then, he added, with a laugh, you must surely come and say good-bye to Professor Fiorelli's senorina. You have taken so much interest in her. She is not Professor Fiorelli's senorina, she is mine. As you wish, Excellenza, he replied with a conciliatory smile. So far good, I thought. Give me a candle, Francesco, and will you please look if the sun has not risen yet? That was sly of me. So he went out through the half-open door, all unsuspecting, and took a turn outside on the stones to sniff the morning air. You see, I remember the smallest incident. I am something of an artist in my love of detail. So far good. And was it to be farewell? Was my devotion to go unrequited? Was my faith, my love, my hope, to be shattered without one sign of recognition? Narenda, Narenda, I prayed. Do you not remember? And the tears fell, I, they reigned, from my eyes. I prayed with the faith that can move mountains, with the ecstatic rapture of a saint. I lost all shyness. What cared I if the whole world were looking on? How I prayed? And how I gazed? Narenda, my heart's desire, my other self, a sign. And lo! it happened even as I expected. Her cheeks colored, and her curled lips quivered slightly, ever so slightly, like an anemone flower trembling in the breeze. Life, for one short moment, flowed through those delicate veins. As for her eyes, I gazed and me thought I looked into another world. The sun is rising, senore, and the weather promises. Come here quickly, Francesco, I interrupted, even then still ready to doubt the evidence of my own senses. Now look, Francesco, and tell me honestly, what do you see? Pare viva! he began confused. No wonder you are astonished, I said calmly. It was my turn to be calm now. Ah! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it from the first day I saw her. And in that moment my plan of action was decided. A path of duty lies plain before me. I left the building, elated, triumphant, convinced. Then, in the course of the morning, I told Bertha all. I thought she would... I was interrupted in my writing just now. By whom? By a visitor. And do you know who she was? Ah! I thought Bertha would wish me joy. But no! She has been disappointed in her own love, and I suppose it is naturally enough she now wishes to spoil my pleasure. Natural, but not agreeable. The gulf! I shall make no more confidences. She proposes to go to Naples tomorrow, but I propose to propose something else. New Veron. End of Section 4. Section 5 of Unprofessional Tales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Unprofessional Tales by Norman Douglas. Narenda, Part 2. Velino de Fiori Castellamar, May 2. The reign of dissimilation has begun. I have atoned for my mistake by a brilliant stroke of policy. I told Bertha that Naples was too noisy and unhealthy, and that my nerves were not yet in as good a state as they should be, those were my exact words, and they seemed to weigh with her, and that the purer air and country life of this place would do me good. So we have hired this little villa, which suits me admirably. A hotel would have been impossible for my purpose. I pretend to have forgotten Pompeii, and I succeed beyond all expectation. Whenever she tries to test me, by referring to it accidentally, as it were, I laugh and treat the whole matter as a joke. Ha-ha! As I do not yet read anything myself, I have persuaded her to read aloud to me Folque's Undine, which she does all the more gladly because it is one of her favorite stories. She little guesses what it is that attracts me so particularly in this tale. It is in this garden that I sit and think and think and elaborate my plans. She could never imagine my real motive for living here, but I must be circumspect and stealthy as a cat. I am like a general on the eve of a battle, reconnoitering the ground and spying out the enemy's camp. Who is the enemy? The whole world. I cannot go to see Narenda at present in order not to attract Bertha's attention, but to atone for that Narenda appears to me in my dreams almost whenever I wish, so we meet after all. And this is how I have come to know the truth. She loves me. The more I think upon it, the more I hesitate whether to weep or to laugh. Listen, Bertha professes to love me. She regrets bitterly that I have not yet found my ideal. At last I find my ideal, then she becomes angry. She even mistrusts me. Surely there is something radically wrong with this world. Castellamar, May 3, 330 A.M. My eyes continually wander in the direction of Pompeii, but that is forbidden ground at present, though I have made exhaustive surveys of the roads. Comte Zeit, Comte Roth. May 4, 325 A.M. I arise from dreams of thee in the first sweet sleep of night. One kiss, one kiss, and if it costs my life. Besides, I must discuss certain plans with her before taking decisive action. But why my life? Why not that of another? Do the stars care what little atom is extinguished here below? Who is he that dares to interpose between me and my immortal love? I will make one more attempt. It has been an ignominious failure. I have found my way in the grey dawn to Pompeii along the small field paths already marked out for the final triumphant entry. Not a soul saw me. I was obliged to swim the river bearing my bundle of clothes in one hand. Who cares? I should know the path now in the very darkest night. My life has grown full of chivalry and romance. How beautifully fresh the air! It did my head good. What relief to be in physical contact with nature? I am weary of men and their treachery. Francesco was there and opened the door as usual. He seemed surprised to see me. I went straight to the point. Is it impossible for you to open that case even after what you yourself saw the other day? I added with emphasis. Impossible, dear sir. I would give you enough money. I have a wife and five grown-up children. I will provide for them. It would cost me my official position to accept your proposal, dear sir. What of that? Supposing it cost you your life to refuse it, I asked seriously. The Signore is pleased to joke with me, he replied, smiling. A stupid smile. I tried to explain. I argued. I begged. I threatened. In vain. What is to be done with such a man? We shall see. I have done my best. After that I wandered about carelessly, avoiding her eyes, for I dreaded to see the look of just disappointment in them. Assuredly, if I were to name the principal characteristic of the Italian people, it would be their mental inaccessibility. True, they are born with a certain amount of ready knowledge inherited from more talented ancestors, but any fresh idea, however commendable, however luminous, however self-evident, it cannot enter their head. They think themselves perfect, another sign of an exhausted race. My brain feels different to what it did yesterday. Indeed, it feels different nearly every day. I suppose that is as it should be. Malur a qui ne sait contradict pas une fois par jour, says Renan. Returned be times, it is a long walk. Bertha remains unaware of this escapade, and it gives me pleasure to deceive her and to watch her face. Yes, it warms the cockles of my heart. Castellamar, May 5. Received a letter from Raymond this morning. He is engaged to be married. What a most extraordinary coincidence! Shall I tell him about myself? Perhaps later, when it is a fate accompli. Castellamar, May 6, 330 a.m. I live in a dream of bliss. I keep my secret as the miser hordes his gold. Who has just been sitting in this chair? The treasure of an empire would not tempt me to let her name cross my lips. Alas, the dreams wear off towards morning. 11 a.m. Shirako again. It blows softly, almost imperceptibly. Islands and continent float in a gray haze. There is a heaviness in the air, a stillness, the stillness of things to come. 8 p.m. All living things are hushed. Even intimate nature seems to feel the spell. We walked along the beach in the afternoon. There are some picturesque turret-shaped islets out at sea opposite the mouth of my river. Bertha and I are longing to explore them. Thank heaven that we still agree in something! I imagine they are those mentioned by Pliny, who says that the fish there only eat bread thrown into the sea, and refuse to touch any bait which conceals a hook. Wise creatures, let me follow your example. I picked up a water-worn pebble with a distinct female face on it. How came it there? I showed it to Bertha. She at once detected some resemblance. Resemblance to whom, I asked pointedly? Resemblance to the caricature of a human face, she said. Not at all a caricature, I told her. It is a portrait. And then I threw it away. There were tears in her eyes. What a curious girl she is to grudge me my happiness! Female jealousy? Or perhaps it reminded her of someone else. Her character must be undergoing a complete change. It is becoming altogether abnormal. I have noticed it for some time past. But I pretend not to see. As we passed near the deep harbour, Nerinda was there, pillowed on the curled surface of a blue wave. There she was, pointing downwards into the depths. Nothing but the sense of a duty still to be performed restrained me from plunging in there and then. She loves me. But I said nothing to Bertha. Oh no! I have learned the lesson, the hard lesson, of keeping my own counsel, of closing my lips when my heart is bursting to communicate its joys to my fellow creatures. Villino de Fiori, Castellamar, May 8, 3 a.m. Wind and weather being favourable, we hired a boat to convey us across to those bizarre islets, a truly bironic spot. Bertha seemed depressed, but perhaps it is only part of some plan that she is hatching. I must be on my guard. In proportion as her spirits sink, mine rise. This afternoon I positively surpassed myself in wittiness. I made one or two puns that would have convulsed a saint. Then suddenly I became sad. Why? Because near the medieval tower on the summit of the rock there stands a small fig tree, all alone among the stones. I was sorry for it. The magic of love! It softens the heart for all that suffers in solitude. We looked into a little sea cave near the base of the rock whose roof was painted with tremulous garlands of light. The little hushed wavelets throbbed like stolen kisses. Narenda was there. I read her wishes in her eyes. They were my commands. Save me. This was precisely at 11.35 in the morning. I did not speak to her for fear of Bertha, but I waved my hand. Then Bertha, seeing this, smiled at me, or tried to smile, such a smile, more like a grimace. I always judge people by their way of smiling. Smile, Bertha, smile, world. Unbelief is sterile. Faith alone creates. Going home the wind had freshened to a breeze, and I remarked that the waves were tipped with crimson crests. What does it mean? I shall not be long in finding it out. Bertha saw it, too, and said that it was only in these climates that one could appreciate the sense of Homer's colour epithets. She likes to pose I observe. This is something new. Castellamar, May 9, 3.30 am. All these days I have been suffering from a bad headache. Better now. That which is in my heart shall never be committed to paper. Indeed, I feel as if thought alone constituted a betrayal of trust, a kind of sacrilege. If so, may I be forgiven. Castellamar, May 11. A final council has just been held, and all the details are settled. The allies have affected a junction. The enemy is in complete ignorance of our position. How my ideas change from one hour to another. They are not fixed, apparently. What does it all mean? A struggle is going on. There is no retaining my thoughts. Whenever I pursue them, they flit tantalizingly like the phantoms that chase one another before my closed eyes in the interval betwixt sleep and waking. My mind is like a troubled ocean full of eddies and cross currents and whirlpools, where the recollections are suddenly cast up in flashing pictures and again swiftly engulfed. Surely the whole world is mad. Here is Rubenstein, who writes in Ocean Symphony and assures me that he detests the sea. I shall never forget those evenings at Peterhoff. He made me play chess till my head ached. A passionate chess player. Moltke, too. All generals ought to be chess players. I am a general. May 12, 3 a.m., a contrary current. What is the law? An institution of mankind, but mankind is liable to error. What is the moral sense of man? A matter of time and place. What is the life of man? Even as the grass is cut down, dried up, and withered, the microcosm counts as nothing. His blood does but fertilize the soil for coming generations. A dreadful plague in London was in the year 65, which swept a hundred thousand souls away, yet I alive. I alive! Alive! Why alive? Even so it was preordained. We all have our appointed task and our appointed lifetime, which cannot be prolonged by one second. Happy are the dead, for their sufferings are ended. Someday, tomorrow perhaps, this will be said of me. Let it be added, then, that I was not afraid of death, that I died in endeavoring to save others. And who shall estimate the sufferings, the torture of soul, that one poor human atom must undergo? Ah, my head! Another current. Is it right to take the life of man? Let me rather ask, is it wrong? I am a poor man. I have but a few shillings in my possession. Then someone comes and endeavors to rob me. I defend myself and kill him. The law acquits me. Beautiful law! I am a poor man. I have but one portion in this world, one treasure, one desire. And he who would rob me of my portion, what shall be done unto him? Ah, now I understand the meaning of those crimson-crested waves. I alive! I cannot drive those waves away from my eyes. Doubtless they signify a command. My father was a soldier, and I myself must have inherited soldier instincts. And this idea, in proportion as I have dwelt upon it, has become anything but repugnant or distasteful to me. On the contrary, I reckon it must be pleasant to watch his struggles, to carve him as a dish for the gods, and to behold the warm blood pouring out of a thousand gushing mouths. I suppose this must be the artist's love of remodeling the raw material and impressing it with a stamp of his own, the craving of transformation of making something new out of what was different before. To transform a man into a fountain. How I change, I can now sympathize with the Italian's love of mutilating living things, if I could only do it to the accompaniment of a full orchestra. But it must be a peculiar melody, fateful and yet kind. There is a trio in the seventh symphony of Beethoven, an orient pearl gravely glowing. May 13. She will doubtless appear to me before I start with final instructions. How clear my head is! I know I shall succeed. Yet I alive! It is accomplished. A thunder of applause has greeted my return home. Pale sunlight is creeping into the room. And how easy, how voluptuously easy, it is to kill a man. One man, two men. How many were there? I have forgotten. My memory is confused, like after a dream. They performed their task, I mine. I seem to be surrounded by a legion, and the room was full of strange creatures that spoke and shouted at me. She waved her arm and beckoned to me, but I could not distinguish her voice for the buzzing in my head. Ah, Narenda, my joy, you are come. Lead me away, then, I shall follow you to your calm abode. That was all. But Lady Bertha sat stunned as with a mighty blow she hardly dared to lift her eyes. The last sheet of paper had dropped from her trembling hands. Darkness was falling, and the familiar objects in the room looked indistinct and began to assume strange shapes. Outside, the wind shrieked among the pines. For one of those boisterous vernal gales had sprung up, cleansing the air of wintery mists and sweeping the hills in its wild career, till the sturdy mansion seemed to rock on its granite foundation. Down the glen, far away, resounded the moan of the fredful Atlantic. Then a footman, with velvet step, entered and placed a lamp, swiftly, discreetly, on the table at Lady Bertha's elbow. The room was flooded in light. She turned to look, but the door had already closed again. She began to remember certain little details. Bloodstone. It struck her a few days afterwards, when she found time to collect her senses, that such an event as the murder of Francesco can hardly have passed by unnoticed, and that some information might be gained by pursuing the newspapers of that period. She wrote for them. For in the confusion that followed her brother's drowning accident, as she thought it, there had not been time to think of such matters. What with his complete mental collapse, produced, as she imagined, by that accident, and the consequent care and responsibility that devolved upon her, every moment was fully occupied. She had left for Scotland on the same morning, and had hardly quitted her brother's side from that time till the day when he had finally found a home for many long months prior to his presumably definite cure, in a private institution for mental maladies near Neuf Châtel. What days those were! Days of anguish and tears! By the time she read the papers again the whole affair was naturally forgotten. They came, the old newspapers, and this is what the Neapolitan courier Partinopeo had reported to its readers of that year. Pompey, May 14. A sanguinary deed was perpetrated last night in our usually so quiet neighborhood, and its victim is none other than Francesco Sportino, a government official and senior guide to the ruins of Pompey. The peculiarity of the site chosen renders it doubly mysterious. No details are known at present beyond this that his body was found mutilated almost beyond recognition at the entrance of the local museum, where the unfortunate man has slept nearly every night for the last eight years as keeper of the relics which it contains. These relics seem likewise to have been tampered with. The robbers have doubtless chosen Saturday with the express intention of carrying off his weekly wages, which are regularly paid to him at two o'clock on that afternoon. In this they were disappointed, as he had providentially left the amount with his family before retiring to the museum for the night. Indeed, it seems that they must have been disturbed at their work, perhaps by some noise of a passing country cart, for they omitted to possess themselves of a valuable ring which he wore on his finger, a recent gift from a distinguished foreigner. Universal sympathy is felt for the family of this highly respected old man, who seems to have had not an enemy in this world. He leaves a wife and five children. Poor widow, poor children. Naples, May 15, blank. Immediately upon the receipt of the news of this outrage, Senor Verdi Grissetti, our energetic minister of public works, who happens to be in Naples at this moment, left for the spot with some other gentlemen. The museum presented a spectacle of chaotic confusion. Some of the unique relics have suffered considerable damage in consequence of the scuffle that must have ensued. Lovers of art, and who is not a lover of art in our country, will greatly regret that one of the gems of the collection, case number twelve, containing the plaster cast of a young woman reproduced according to the ingenious process of our immortal fiorelli, is completely shattered, that the shaft over, with its clinging draperies and delicately formed limbs, is now reduced to a mass of shapeless fragments. It is understood that Senor Verdi Grissetti has convinced himself of the necessity of a complete reorganization of the system at present in vogue. The museum is to be entirely remodeled. Pompeii, May 16. Amongst those arrested on suspicion is a certain Antonio Giuseppini of Castellamar, who is formerly a workman employed in the excavations of Pompeii, but has lately been dismissed for some reason or other. He was unpopular with our workmen, and, a significant detail, is the only one of those arrested who could claim a personal acquaintance with the deceased Capoguida. There are witnesses who testify that they have heard him using menacing language in referring to the deceased as the cause of his dismissal. For the rest, there seems to be not a word of truth in what he says. This individual did not return to his home on that night, but claims to have slept in the amphitheater of Pompeii, and to have done this for some time past in the hopes of obtaining re-employment in the morning. We shall see. The mystery must be cleared up. The honor of our town is at stake. Castellamar, May 17. As a curious sequel, or rather concomitant, of the crime of Pompeii, we learn, from a private but trustworthy source, that the American duke, to whose generosity the Capoguida Francesco was indebted for the ring, was rescued out of the harbor of Castellamar in a drowning condition on the very morning after the outrage. The robbers, for it is now clear that there must have been a gang of them, had doubtless guessed his wealth to be on a par with his magnanimity, and, studying his habit of early rising, had thought to kill two birds with one stone. It is not known how the assault took place, or even whether and to what extent this gentleman was robbed, for he was completely prostrated as may be imagined, and his sister, mortally terrified, left the same morning for England in his company. We do not wonder at their decision. Our heart beats in sympathy with the amiable senorina. Our compliments to the senore for his narrow escape. May he have a speedy recovery, and bear us no ill will. There is indeed universal regret at their departure. They have made themselves many friends during their short stay among us. Let us add, if this is the way that foreign noblemen are to be treated in the very hearts of our cities, is it likely that the tourist seasons will continue to be as satisfactory as formerly? There were numberless other references to the incident in foreign and English papers, and the end of the whole matter was thus summed up in the words of the Times. June 2. Thanks to the vigilance of the Italian police, there has been no attempt at a repetition of the crime of the thirteenth ultimo at Pompeii. Travelers, if not deterred by the heat, may be confidently recommended to return to their former haunts. The incriminated individual, Antonio Giuseppini, has been condemned on circumstantial evidence, and will probably end his days in the prisons of Nesida or Ponza, there being no capital punishment in Italy. He persistently refused to reveal his accomplices, but there is reason for believing that some of his relations are implicated, and that they are in hiding among the precipitous and woody hills above Castile Mar. Section 6 of Unprofessional Tales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Wayne Cook. Unprofessional Tales by Norman Douglas. Section 6. Impromptu. Seen. Hell. The Great Palace of Pandemonium. Persons. Satan in Council surrounded by his ministers of state and angels, according to their station and degree, powers of darkness, unclean spirits, etc., etc. Clash of Symbols and Drums. Satan. This evening we have summoned you to hear, if need be, your enlightened views upon a matter of no small concern, whose hungry specter gnaws away our rest and bodes calamity to this, our realm, and all of you. We will be brief, but clear. Attention! It is a most notorious fact and open secret these last thousand years that human souls have lost their former dread of this, our majesty. They quake no more at mention of our name. They even doubt the fact of our existence. We do blush to utter these unpalatable truths. Movement of suppressed anger amongst the hosts. What says Beesle-Bub? First Minister. Tis but true. Satan's a myth, they say. Second Minister. How shall we consolidate this ancient empire's bulk, where find recruits? Third Minister. Had Zau but given ear to my proposals 1900 years ago and listened, thus the humankind, by losing their belief in us, have lost one cause of fear, and gained some liberty to our own damage. Murmurs. Times alas have changed, and now would doth behoove us, one and all, to act with resolution lest our realm totter with sword convulsion to its fall in unsubstantial chaos, and dissolve in glorious. Mark our read. The humankind have now attained a further stage, a stage which promises them freedom absolute and ease unspeakable and calm content. Who'll unperplex the case? The humankind have lost belief in him, who rules in heaven. They mock his stories and his promises, and thus a prospect dawns before their eyes. A prospect of such careless happy lives as never surely could have been foreseen when, on creation's morning, was wound out their complicated engine of disease and fear. A grievous oversight, for while they dreaded him in heaven, we caught at least the renegades. But as it stands, a gross lamentable oversight, but not an oversight on our part. There are those amongst you who will doubtless call to mind that, when creation's scheme was first discussed between ourselves and him who rules in heaven, we pointed out its errors and withheld our approbation, then arose the schism that soon conduced to our defeat and management. But why revive the melancholy past? If yet we shared his scepter and his empire as of old with undivided purpose, these alarms would I be slumbering in the lap of time. But since that most unfortunate divorce, our strength declines and both these realms have lost their credit. We foresaw it, but he scorned our counsel. An angel advancing to the throne, if at please, Your Majesty, an hour ago, I happened to converse with one that yesterday from earth arrived to Tartarus and black perdition dammed. Head foremost in the scalding mirror he pitched with Hidea Shriek and weltering lay where rolls red filigthons tormented wave and wreaks prodigious stench of naphtha-dripped goats, noisome, incessant. One whose power of position amongst his fellow creatures may entitle him to give a true account of what is now their faith. I found impact in a consignment of ten thousand souls from London or New York or Aberdeen. I don't remember the precise address, but if Your Majesty desires, produce him. The angel departs and instantly returns with human shape on pitchfork, sleek and steaming and attired in shreds of dripping clerical garments. He deposits the shape before the throne where it presently unrolls itself and begins to kick and wriggle convulsively. Satan surveys the shape, recognizes it, and laughs immoderately. Ministers and angels aside, and old acquaintance, speak the truth for once. Tell all these present weather, wilts on earth, thou harborsst any serious belief in this, our true existence, or a dread of all the punishment which we are apt and willing to inflict. Didst thou conceive sincere respect for this, Our Majesty? Alas, Your Majesty, none whatever, but lay no blame on me. The fact is, I was educated in this regrettable ignorance by such as professed faith in him who rules in heaven, and you know what kind of people they are. I was one of them myself by profession, and we had not the slightest fear of Your Majesty or dread of Your punishments because we thought you were only a symbol, a type, a part of me, a contrivance to scare weak souls into obedience. But now I know better, and if so it appears, and did this lack of fear contribute to thy earthly happiness, the shape pulls at its garments nervously and wipes perspiration. No, no, I mean no, dear me, where am I? This is no place for lying, speak the truth. I will, I will, but what very awkward questions. Most unavoidably it did thus contribute, and why? Because it gave me a sense of partial freedom and relief from fear, because you understand because? Movement among the hosts. Enough! Didst thou hold any true belief in him who rules in heaven, or any hope of those emoluments which he has apt and willing to bestow? Didst entertain respect for his celestial majesty? I did preach respect for his majesty. Indeed, I made it the business of my life to do so, but of course I consider myself much to enlighten to believe in rewards of punishment of any kind. Now, I had no fear of his majesty. There are not many left of those who have. Not among my acquaintances at least. There are reckoned as the most pious in the whole country, and this lack of fear of him did round my earthly happiness, for I thus breathed absolute freedom. We all did. Fitting no taskmasters and heaven or hell, we all lived cheerfully. Neither did I fear my equals, for I accounted none better than myself. If your majesty had only given me due warning of what was to come, only let me return to earth, and I will gladly devote my life to preaching your soul glory, and oh, oh, please, others remain on earth who execute that task to our entire satisfaction. To angel, remove it. Angel disappears with shape on pitchfork, shrieking and vociferating. Thus the matter then doth lie. The humankind have medicineed their sight. They have abandoned every fear of us, and him who rules in heaven. They comprehend our separate devices, and our aims. Would we were still united as of war? But that's past cure, now to the point. Today, today, they mean to regulate afresh the ancient scheme of hopeless anarchy, which on creation's day was framed. A scheme that, but for some of mere technical defects, would have outlasted all eternity. Tomorrow, they will grapple with that vast, ineffable confusion, whence both we and he who rules in heaven derive our life, and whence of our existence doth proceed the sole justification. Do you grasp the import of our language, and what then? They mock our threats and bribes. They kill our plagues. They thwart our lightnings. Are we not become a laughing stock to children? Would we were still fast united as in days of war? Then both realms prospered. Now they both decay. My warning has come true. We cannot live except conjoined. The principles of good exists alone in virtue of the bad. A most deplorable dilemma is not a time for petulant complaints. Unless the spacious realms of heaven and hell are to become bereft and unrefreshed with young and lusty broods, we must contrive to force the humankind to reassume their twilight lives of inward questionings and doubts and apprehensions. Fear must be their emblem and their theme. For this it is that stamps them with its own peculiar curse and constitutes their difference from the beasts of earth, who nothing fear and nothing lack. To fear supplies recruits for both our realms. The meanest actions of their daily lives and its most solemn issues must be hatched in thunder-laden atmosphere of dread. Now, since they fear not us, nor him in heaven, whom shall they fear? So human shape confesses a dreaded nod-ser equals a subordinate angel. Let them fear their servants. A general murmur of surprise ministers are seen hurrying to and fro, comparing notes, then profound silence, while aisle eyes are turned on his majesty. Good, so let it be, and let those on whom it is incumbent undertake that this, our new enactment, be upheld throughout the whole extent of our domain. Each to his several posts, the greater powers to undermine the social state of man, sunder the ancient ties of servitude, tumble the rich, the wise, the old of line, and raise as natural slave the common herd of lowly birth, engendering novel ills calamitous. The minor imps, meanwhile, to compass minor mischiefs, recollect, one joy destroyed outright is better far than fifty scotched. Depart, and let us learn to understand the end timely and good reports. We now adjourn. The assembly disperses amidst violent thunderclaps. End of Section 6. Section 7 of Unprofessional Tales. By David Brent Unprofessional Tales by Norman Douglas Nocturn I opened the casement and looked out upon the night. At first all was still. Then, slowly, they grew upon my ears a confusion of faint moans. Every town, every hamlet, every cottage gave forth sounds. There were voices of little children, of strong men, and weak, of righteous and unrighteous, and all cried out in pain, cries of fear and agony and blasphemous despair. And the voices grew louder until I could understand not a few spoken words. They lamented dismally amongst themselves in many tongues. How I suffer. What have I done to deserve this? Not a day of health, not a ray of hope. Save me. Kill me, for I can endure it no longer. I am bereft. Forsaken. I languish in chains. Oh, the shame of it. Oh, the pain of it. Is this my reward? I have prayed in vain. Why was I born? None so wretched as I, doomed to long years of suffering, to a painful death. Spare me. Kill me. Be merciful and kill me. Kill. Then I said to myself, this is the paint of suffering humanity. A paint such as might melt the fiend to pity. And the voices grew yet louder and more piteous, a wail of bitterness, a discord of hideous shrieks that rang into the still night, ear piercing, heart rending. And I marveled and said, how comes it that I have hitherto been deaf to these distressful tones? And as I continued to hearken, a change crept over the universal paint. For the howls and groans, the prayers and curses ceased to sound in their separate manifestations, and the scords melted, mingled like the strains of an Aeolian harp, to form a symphony of tremendous chords, shrill and deep that filled the air. As when the south wind, in furious gusts, breathed through the open reeds of a mighty organ, till all is drowned in a seething ocean of melody. Even so, this harmonious taunt poured fitfully upon the night. Now it swelled, now sunk low, and swelled again, and never wholly ceased. Passing wonderful, for low, it was the self-same familiar chant that had sung in my ears ever since the day of my birth, but into whose origin it was not given me to inquire. And now, as my ear grew conscious, and once more accustomed to the throbbing sound, I found it, in truth, not altogether unpleasant. Then I understood, and I said, doubtless there is some being who takes pleasure in this music, and hath contrived it for his own delectation.