Part 59

"O Martia, Martia!" he said, aloud, as he suddenly felt the north at the right of him, "I hope that you are some loving female soul, and that you know my weakness--namely, that one woman in every ten thousand has a face that drives me mad; and that I can see just as well with one eye as with two, in spite of my punctum coecum! and that when that face is all but on a level with mine, good Lord! then am I lost indeed! I am but a poor penniless devil, without a name; oh, keep me from that ten-thousandth face, and cover my retreat!"

Next morning Lady Jane and Julia and the Admiral left for Riffrath--and Barty and his aunt and cousin went in search of lodgings; sweet it was, and bright and sunny, as they strolled down the broad Allée Strasse; a regiment of Uhlans came along on horseback, splendid fellows, the band playing the "Lorelei."

In the fulness of their hearts Daphne and Barty squeezed each other's hand to express the joy and elation they felt at the pleasantness of everything. She was his little sister once more, from whom he had so long been parted, and they loved each other very dearly.

"Que me voilà donc bien contente, mon petit Barty--et toi? la jolie ville, hein?"

"C'est le ciel, tout bonnement--et tu vas m'apprendre l'allemand, n'est-ce-pas, m'amour?"

"Oui, et nous lirons Heine ensemble; tiens, à propos! regarde le nom de la rue qui fait le coin! Bolker Strasse! c'est là qu'il est né, le pauvre Heine! Ôte ton chapeau!"

(Barty nearly always spoke French with Daphne, as he did with my sister and me, and said "thee and thou.")

They found a furnished house that suited them in the Schadow Strasse, opposite Geissler's, where for two hours every Thursday and Sunday afternoon you might sit for sixpence in a pretty garden and drink coffee, beer, or Maitrank, and listen to lovely music, and dance in the evening under cover to strains of Strauss, Lanner, and Gungl, and other heavenly waltz-makers! With all their faults, they know how to make the best of their lives, these good Vaterlanders, and how to dance, and especially how to make music--and also how to fight! So we won't quarrel with them, after all!

Barty found for himself a cheap bedroom, high up in an immense house tenanted by many painters--some of them English and some American. He never forgot the delight with which he awoke next morning and opened his window and saw the silver Rhine among the trees, and the fir-clad hills of Grafenberg, and heard the gay painter fellows singing as they dressed; and he called out to the good-humored slavy in the garden below:

"Johanna, mein Frühstück, bitte!"

A phrase he had carefully rehearsed with Daphne the evening before.

And, to his delight and surprise, Johanna understood the mysterious jargon quite easily, and brought him what he wanted with the most good-humored grin he had ever seen on a female face.

Coffee and a roll and a pat of butter.

First of all, he went to see Dr. Hasenclever at Riffrath, which was about half an hour by train, and then half an hour's walk--an immensely prosperous village, which owed its prosperity to the famous doctor, who attracted patients from all parts of the globe, even from America. The train that took Barty thither was full of them; for some chose to live in Düsseldorf.

The great man saw his patients on the ground-floor of the König's Hotel, the principal hotel in Riffrath, the hall of which was always crowded with these afflicted ones--patiently waiting each his turn, or hers; and there Barty took his place at four in the afternoon; he had sent in his name at 10 A.M., and been told that he would be seen after four o'clock. Then he walked about the village, which was charming, with its gabled white houses, ornamented like the cottages in the Richter albums by black beams--and full of English, many of them with green shades or blue spectacles or a black patch over one eye; some of them being led, or picking their way by means of a stick, alas!

Barty met the three Royces, walking with an old gentleman of aristocratic appearance, and a very nice-looking young one (who was Captain Graham-Reece). The Admiral gave him a friendly nod--Lady Jane a nod that almost amounted to a cut direct. But the divine Julia gave him a look and a smile that were warm enough to make up for much maternal frigidity.

Later on, in a tobacconist's shop, he again met the Admiral, who introduced him to the aristocratic old gentleman, Mr. Beresford Duff, secretary to the Admiralty--who evidently knew all about him, and inquired quite affectionately after Lady Caroline, and invited him to come and drink tea at five o'clock: a new form of hospitality of his own invention--it has caught on!

Barty lunched at the König's Hotel table d'hôte, which was crowded, principally with English people, none of whom he had ever met or heard of. But from these he heard a good deal of the Royces and Captain Graham-Reece and Mr. Beresford Duff, and other smart people who lived in furnished houses or expensive apartments away from the rest of the world, and were objects of general interest and curiosity among the smaller British fry.

Riffrath was a microcosm of English society, from the lower middle class upwards, with all its respectabilities and incompatibilities and disabilities--its narrownesses and meannesses and snobbishnesses, its gossipings and backbitings and toadyings and snubbings--delicate little social things of England that foreigners don't understand!

The sensation of the hour was the advent of Julia, the divine Julia! Gossip was already rife about her and Captain Reece. They had taken a long walk in the woods together the day before--with Lady Jane and the Admiral far behind, out of ear-shot, almost out of sight.

In the afternoon, between four and five, Barty had his interview with the doctor--a splendid, white-haired old man, of benign and intelligent aspect, almost mesmeric, with his assistant sitting by him.

He used no new-fangled ophthalmoscope, but asked many questions in fairly good French, and felt with his fingers, and had many German asides with the assistant. He told Barty that he had lost the sight of his left eye forever; but that with care he would keep that of the right one for the rest of his life--barring accidents, of course. That he must never eat cheese nor drink beer. That he (the doctor) would like to see him once a week or fortnight or so for a few months yet--and gave him a prescription for an eye-lotion and dismissed him happy.

Half a loaf is so much better than no bread, if you can only count upon it!

Barty went straight to Mr. Beresford Duff's, and there found a very agreeable party, including the divine Julia, who was singing little songs very prettily and accompanying herself on a guitar.

"'You ask me why I look so pale?'" sang Julia, just as Barty entered: and red as a rose was she.

Lady Jane didn't seem at all overjoyed to see Barty, but Julia did, and did not disguise the seeming.

There were eight or ten people there, and they all appeared to know about him, and all that concerned or belonged to him. It was the old London world over again, in little! the same tittle-tattle about well-known people, and nothing else--as if nothing else existed; a genial, easy-going, good-natured world, that he had so often found charming for a time, but in which he was never quite happy and had no proper place of his own, all through that fatal bar-sinister--la barre de bâtardise; a world that was his and yet not his, and in whose midst his position was a false one, but where every one took him for granted at once as one of them, so long as he never trespassed beyond that sufferance; that there must be no love-making to lovely young heiresses by the bastard of Antoinette Josselin was taken for granted also!

Before Barty had been there half an hour two or three people had evidently lost their hearts to him in friendship; among them, to Lady Jane's great discomfiture, the handsome and amiable Graham-Reece, the cynosure of all female eyes in Riffrath; and when Barty (after very little pressing by Miss Royce) twanged her guitar and sang little songs--French and English, funny and sentimental--he became, as he had so often become in other scenes, the Rigoletto of the company; and Riffrath was a kingdom in which he might be court jester in ordinary if he chose, whenever he elected to honor it with his gracious and facetious musical presence.