The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (52 page)

They talked of the "happy day!"-a phrase that scorched me like
a coal. They would win over the mother and the uncle presentlyyes, they were quite sure of it. Then they built their future-built
it out of sunshine and rainbows and rapture; and went on adding
and adding to its golden ecstasies until they were so intoxicated
with the prospect that words were no longer adequate to express
what they were foreseeing and pre-enjoying, and so died upon their
lips and gave place to love's true and richer language, wordless
soul-communion: the heaving breast, the deep sigh, the unrelaxing
embrace, the shoulder-pillowed head, the bliss-dimmed eyes, the
lingering kiss ... .

By God, my reason was leaving me! I swept forward and enveloped them as with a viewless cloud! In an instant Marget was
Lisbet again; and as she sprang to her feet divinely aflame with passion for me I stepped back, and back, and back, she following,
then I stopped and she fell panting in my arms, murmuring-

"Oh, my own, my idol, how wearily the time has dragged-do
not leave me again!"

That Dream-mush rose astonished, and stared stupidly, his
mouth working, but fetching out no words. Then he thought he
understood, and started toward us, saying-

"Walking in her sleep again-how suddenly it takes
her! . . . . . I wonder how she can lean over like that without
falling?"

He arrived and put his arms through me and around her to
support her, saying tenderly-

"Wake, dearheart, shake it off, I cannot bear to see you so!"

Lisbet freed herself from his arms and bent a stare of astonishment and wounded dignity upon him, accompanied by words to
match-

"Mr. Schwarz, you forget yourself!"

It knocked the reptile stupid for a moment; then he got his
bearings and said-

"Oh, please come to yourself, dear, it is so hard to see you like
this. But if you can't wake, do come to the divan and sleep it off,
and I will so lovingly watch over you, my darling, and protect you
from intrusion and discovery. Come, Marget-do!"

"PtIarget!" Lisbet's eyes kindled, as atva new affront. "What
Marget, please? Whom do you take me for? And why do you
venture these familiarities?" She softened a little then, seeing how
dazed and how pitiably distressed he looked, and added, "I have
always treated you with courtesy, Mr. Schwarz, and it is very
unkind of you to insult me in this wanton way."

In his miserable confusion he did not know what to say, and so
he said the wrong thing-

"Oh, my poor afflicted child, shake it off, be your sweet self
again, and let us steep our souls once more in dreams of our happy
marriage day and-"

It was too much. She would not let him finish, but broke wrathfully into the midst of his sentence.

"Go away!" she said; "your mind is disordered, you have been
drinking. Go-go at once! I cannot bear the sight of you!"

He crept humbly away and out at the door, mopping his eyes
with his handkerchief and muttering "Poor afflicted thing, it breaks
my heart to see her so!"

Dear Lisbet, she was just a girl-alternate sunshine and shower,
peremptory soldier one minute, crying the next. Sobbing, she took
refuge on my breast, saying-

"Love me, oh my precious one, give me peace, heal my hurts,
charm away the memory of the shame this odious creature has put
upon me!"

During half an hour we re-enacted that sofa-scene where it had
so lately been played before, detail by detail, kiss for kiss, dream for
dream, and the bliss of it was beyond words. But with an important
difference: in Marget's case there was a mamma to be pacified and
persuaded, but Lisbet von Arnim had no such incumbrances; if she
had a relative in the world she was not aware of it; she was free and
independent, she could marry whom she pleased and when she
pleased. And so, with the dearest and sweetest naivety she suggested that to-day and now was as good a time as any! The suddenness of it, the unexpectedness of it, would have taken my breath if I
had had any. As it was, it swept through me like a delicious wind
and set my whole fabric waving and fluttering. For a moment I was
gravely embarrassed. Would it be right, would it be honorable,
would it not be treason to let this confiding young creature marry
herself to a viewless detail of the atmosphere? I knew how to
accomplish it, and was burning to do it, but would it be fair? Ought
I not to at least tell her my condition, and let her decide for herself?
Ah . . ... She might decide the wrong way!

No, I couldn't bring myself to it, I couldn't run the risk. I must
think-think-think. I must hunt out a good and righteous reason
for the marriage without the revelation. That is the way we are
made; when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and
righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our
consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for
plausible ones.

I seemed to find what I was seeking, and I urgently pretended to
myself that it hadn't a defect in it. FortyFour was my friend; no
doubt I could persuade him to return my DreamSelf into my body
and lock it up there for good. Schwarz being thus put out of the
way, wouldn't my wife's Waking-Self presently lose interest in him
and cease from loving him? That looked plausible. Next, by throwing my Waking-Self in the way of her Waking-Self a good deal and
using tact and art, would not a time come when . . . . . Oh, it was
all as clear as a bell! Certainly. It wouldn't be long, it couldn't be
long, before I could retire my Soul into my body, then both Lisbet
and Marget being widows and longing for solace and tender companionship, would yield to the faithful beseechings and supplications of my poor inferior Waking-Self and marry him. Oh, the
scheme was perfect, it was flawless, and my enthusiasm over it was
without measure or limit. Lisbet caught that enthusiasm from my
face and cried out-

"I know what it is! It is going to be noiv!"

I began to volley the necessary "suggestions" into her head as fast
as I could load and fire-for by "suggestion," as 44 had told me, you
make the hypnotised subject see and do and feel whatever you
please: see people and things that are not there, hear words that are
not spoken, eat salt for sugar, drink vinegar for wine, find the rose's
sweetness in a stench, carry out all suggested acts-and forget the
whole of it when he wakes, and remember the whole of it again
whenever the hypnotic sleep returns!

In obedience to suggestion, Lisbet clothed herself as a bride; by
suggestion she made obeisance to imaginary altar and priest, and
smiled upon imaginary wedding-guests; made the solemn responses;
received the ring, bent her dear little head to the benediction, put
up her lips for the marriage kiss, and blushed as a new-made wife
should before people!

Then, by suggestion altar and priest and friends passed away and
we were alone-alone, immeasurably content, the happiest pair in
the Duchy of Austria!

Ali . . . . . footsteps! some one coming! I fled to the middle of
the room, to emancipate Lisbet from the embarrassment of the hypnotic sleep and be Marget again and ready for emergencies. She
began to gaze around and about, surprised, wondering, also a little
frightened, I thought.

"Why, where is Emil?" she said. "How strange; I did not see him
go. How could he go and I not see him? . . .. Emil! . . . . No
answer! Surely this magician's den is bewitched. But we've been
here many times, and nothing happened."

At that moment Emil slipped in, closed the door, and said,
apologetically and in a tone and manner charged with the most
respectful formality-

"Forgive me, Miss Regen, but I was afraid for you and have stood
guard-it would not do for you to be found in this place, and
asleep. Your mother is fretting about your absence-her nurse is
looking for you everywhere-I have misdirected her . . . . . pardon, what is the matter?"

Marget was gazing at him in a sort of stupefaction, with the tears
beginning to trickle down her face. She began to sob in her hands,
and said-

"If I have been asleep it was cruel of you to leave me. Oh, Emil,
how could you desert me at such a time, if you love me?"

The astonished and happy bullfrog had her in his arms in a
minute and was blistering her with kisses, which she paid back as
fast as she could register them, and she not cold yet from her
marriage-oath! A man-and such a man as that-hugging my wife
before my eyes, and she getting a gross and voracious satisfaction
out of it!-I could not endure the shameful sight. I rose and
winged my way thence, intending to kick a couple of his teeth out
as I passed over, but his mouth was employed and I could not get
at it.

THAT NIGHT I had a terrible misfortune. The way it came about
was this. I was so unutterably happy and so unspeakably unhappy
that my life was become an enchanted ecstasy and a crushing
burden. I did not know what to do, and took to drink. Merely for that evening. It was by Doangivadam's suggestion that I did this. He
did not know what the matter was, and I did not tell him; but he
could see that something was the matter and wanted regulating,
and in his judgment it would be well to try drink, for it might do
good and couldn't do harm. Ile was ready to do any kindness for
me, because I had been 44's friend; and he loved to have me talk
about 44, and mourn with him over his burning. I couldn't tell him
44 was alive again, for the mysterious check fell upon my tongue
whenever I tried to. Very well; we were drinking and mourning
together, and I took a shade too much and it biased my judgment. I
was not what one could call at all far gone, but I had reached the
heedless stage, the unwatchful stage, when we parted, and I forgot
to make myself invisible! And so, eager and unafraid, I entered the
boudoir of my bride confident of the glad welcome which would of
course have been mine if I had come as Martin von Giesbach,
whom she loved, instead of as August Feldner, whom she cared
nothing about. The boudoir was dark, but the bedroom door was
standing open, and through it I saw an enchanting picture and
stopped to contemplate it and enjoy it. It was Marget. She was
sitting before a pier glass, snowily arrayed in her dainty nightie,
with her left side toward me; and upon her delicate profile and her
shining cataract of dark red hair streaming unvexed to the floor a
strong light was falling. Her maid was busily grooming her with
brush and comb, and gossiping, and now and then Marget smiled
up at her and she smiled back, and I smiled at both in sympathy
and good-fellowship out of the dusk, and altogether it was a gracious and contenting condition of things, and my heart sang with
happiness. But the picture was not quite complete, not wholly
perfect-there was a pair of lovely blue eyes that persistently failed
to turn my way. I thought I would go nearer and correct that
defect. Supposing that I was invisible I tranquilly stepped just
within the room and stood there; at the same moment Marget's
mother appeared in the further door; and also at the same moment
the three indignant women discovered me and began to shriek and
scream in the one breath!

I fled the place. I went to my quarters, resumed my flesh, and sat
mournfully down to wait for trouble. It was not long coming. I expected the master to call, and was not disappointed. He came in
anger-which was natural,-but to my relief and surprise I soon
found that his denunciations were not for me! What an uplift it
was! No, they were all for my Duplicate-all that the master
wanted from me was a denial that I was the person who had
profaned the sanctity of his niece's bedchamber. When he said that
. . . . well, it took the most of the buoyancy out of the uplift. If he
had stopped there and challenged me to testify, I-but he didn't.
He went right on recounting and re-recounting the details of the
exasperating episode, never suspecting that they were not news to
me, and all the while he freely lashed the Duplicate and took quite
for granted that he was the criminal and that my character placed
me above suspicion. This was all so pleasant to my ear that I was
glad to let him continue: indeed the more he abused Schwarz the
better I liked it, and soon I was feeling grateful that he had
neglected to ask for my testimony. He was very bitter, and when I
perceived that he was minded to handle my detestable rival with
severity I rejoiced exceedingly in my secret heart. Also I became
evilly eager to keep him in that mind, and hoped for chances to that
end.

It appeared that both the mother and the maid were positive that
the Duplicate was the offender. The master kept dwelling upon
that, and never referring to Marget as a witness, a thing that
seemed so strange to me that at last I ventured to call his attention
to the omission.

"Oh, her unsupported opinion is of no consequence!" he said,
indifferently. "She says it was you-which is nonsense, in the face
of the other evidence and your denial. She is only a child-how can
she know one of you from the other? To satisfy her I said I would
bring your denial; as for Emil Schwarz's testimony I don't want it
and shouldn't value it. These Duplicates are ready to say anything
that comes into their dreamy heads. This one is a good enough
fellow, there's no deliberate harm in him, but-oh, as a witness he
is not to be considered. He has made a blunderin another person
it would have been a crime-and by consequence my niece is
compromised, for sure, for the maid can't keep the secret; poor thing, she's like all her kind-a secret, in a lady's-maid, is water in a
basket. Oh, yes, it's true that this Duplicate has merely committed
a blunder, but all the same my mind is made up as to one
thing . . . . . the bell is tolling midnight, it marks a change for
him . . . . . when I am through with him to-day, let him blunder
as much as he likes he'll not compromise my niece again!"

I suppose it was wicked to feel such joy as I felt, but I couldn't
help it. To have that hated rival put summarily out of my way and
my road left free-the thought was intoxicating! The master asked
me-as a formality-to deny that I was the person who had invaded Marget's chamber.