The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy Part 13

"As for me," he returned, "I confess it. That has happened which I thought never would happen. I am once more interested in life. The wish to live has come back. I am glad to be alive. Carl, your first case has been a success."

"No thanks to me," I said. "Beyond seeing that you didn't displace the broken pieces of your thigh-bone, what have I done? Nothing. No one knows that better than you do."

"That's your modesty--your incurable modesty."

I shook my head, and went to stand by his couch. I was profoundly aware then, despite all the efforts of my self-conceit to convince myself to the contrary, that I had effected nothing whatever towards his recovery, that it had accomplished itself without external aid.

But that did not lessen my intense pleasure in the improvement. By this time I had a most genuine affection for Alresca. The rare qualities of the man--his serenity, his sense of justice, his invariable politeness and consideration, the pureness of his soul--had captured me completely. I was his friend. Perhaps I was his best friend in the world. The singular circ.u.mstances of our coming together had helped much to strengthen the tie between us. I glanced down at him, full of my affection for him, and minded to take advantage of the rights of that affection for once in a way.

"Alresca," I said quietly.

"Well?"

"What was it?"

"What was what?"

I met his gaze.

"What was that thing that you have fought and driven off? What is the mystery of it? You know--you must know. Tell me."

His eyelids fell.

"Better to leave the past alone," said he. "Granting that I had formed an idea, I could not put it into proper words. I have tried to do so.

In the expectation of death I wrote down certain matters. But these I shall now destroy. I am wiser, less morbid. I can perceive that there are fields of thought of which it is advisable to keep closed the gates. Do as I do, Carl--forget. Take the credit for my recovery, and be content with that."

I felt that he was right, and resumed my position near the window, humming a tune.

"In a week you may put your foot to the ground; you will then no longer have to be carried about like a parcel." I spoke in a casual tone.

"Good!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"And then our engagement will come to an end, and you will begin to sing again."

"Ah!" he said contemplatively, after a pause, "sing!"

It seemed as if singing was a different matter.

"Yes," I repeated, "sing. You must throw yourself into that. It will be the best of all tonics."

"Have I not told you that I should never sing again?"

"Perhaps you have," I replied; "but I don't remember. And even if you have, as you yourself have just said, you are now wiser, less morbid."

"True!" he murmured. "Yes, I must sing. They want me at Chicago. I will go, and while there I will spread abroad the fame of Carl Foster."

He smiled gaily, and then his face became meditative and sad.

"My artistic career has never been far away from tragedy," he said at length. "It was founded on a tragedy, and not long ago I thought it would end in one."

I waited in silence, knowing that if he wished to tell me any private history, he would begin of his own accord.

"You are listening, Carl?"

I nodded. It was growing dusk.

"You remember I pointed out to you the other day the little house in the Rue d'Ostende where my parents lived?"

"Perfectly."

"That," he proceeded, using that curiously formal and elaborate English which he must have learned from reading-books, "that was the scene of the tragedy which made me an artist. I have told you that my father was a schoolmaster. He was the kindest of men, but he had moods of frightful severity--moods which subsided as quickly as they arose.

At the age of three, just as I was beginning to talk easily, I became, for a period, subject to fits; and in one of these I lost the power of speech. I, Alresca, could make no sound; and for seven years that tenor whom in the future people were to call 'golden-throated,' and 'world-famous,' and 'unrivalled,' had no voice." He made a deprecatory gesture. "When I think of it, Carl, I can scarcely believe it--so strange are the chances of life. I could hear and understand, but I could not speak.

"Of course, that was forty years ago, and the system of teaching mutes to talk was not then invented, or, at any rate, not generally understood. So I was known and pitied as the poor dumb boy. I took pleasure in dumb animals, and had for pets a silver-gray cat, a goat, and a little spaniel. One afternoon--I should be about ten years old--my father came home from his school and sitting down, laid his head on the table and began to cry. Seeing him cry, I also began to cry; I was acutely sensitive.

"'What is the matter?' asked my good mother.

"'Alas!' he said, 'I am a murderer!'

"'Nay, that cannot be,' she replied.

"'I say it is so,' said my father. 'I have murdered a child--a little girl. I grumbled at her yesterday. I was annoyed and angry--because she had done her lessons ill. I sent her home, but instead of going home she went to the outer ca.n.a.l and drowned herself. They came and told me this afternoon. Yes, I am a murderer!'

"I howled, while my mother tried to comfort my father, pointing out to him that if he had spoken roughly to the child it was done for the child's good, and that he could not possibly have foreseen the catastrophe. But her words were in vain.

"We all went to bed. In the middle of the night I heard my dear silver-gray cat mewing at the back of the house. She had been locked out. I rose and went down-stairs to let her in. To do so it was necessary for me to pa.s.s through the kitchen. It was quite dark, and I knocked against something in the darkness. With an inarticulate scream, I raced up-stairs again to my parents' bedroom. I seized my mother by her night-dress and dragged her towards the door. She stopped only to light a candle, and hand-in-hand we went down-stairs to the kitchen. The candle threw around its fitful, shuddering glare, and my mother's eyes followed mine. Some strange thing happened in my throat.

"'Mother!' I cried, in a hoa.r.s.e, uncouth, horrible voice, and, casting myself against her bosom, I clung convulsively to her. From a hook in the ceiling beam my father's corpse dangled. He had hanged himself in the frenzy of his remorse. So my speech came to me again."

All the man's genius for tragic acting, that genius which had made him unique in "Tristan" and in "Tannhauser," had been displayed in this recital; and its solitary auditor was more moved by it than superficially appeared. Neither of us spoke a word for a few minutes.

Then Alresca, taking aim, threw the end of his cigar out of the window.

"Yes," I said at length, "that was tragedy, that was!"

He proceeded:

"The critics are always praising me for the emotional qualities in my singing. Well, I cannot use my voice without thinking of the dreadful circ.u.mstance under which Fate saw fit to restore that which Fate had taken away."

And there fell a long silence, and night descended on the ca.n.a.l, and the swans were nothing now but pale ghosts wandering soundlessly over the water.

"Carl," Alresca burst out with a start--he was decidedly in a mood to be communicative that evening--"have you ever been in love?"

In the gloom I could just distinguish that he was leaning his head on his arm.

"No," I answered; "at least, I think not;" and I wondered if I had been, if I was, in love.

"You have that which pleases women, you know, and you will have chances, plenty of chances. Let me advise you--either fall in love young or not at all. If you have a disappointment before you are twenty-five it is nothing. If you have a disappointment after you are thirty-five, it is--everything."

He sighed.