The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. He was an artist. Such things
as happened to him happened sometimes to artists. He was a German. Such
things as happened to him happened sometimes to Germans. He was young, handsome,
studious, enthusiastic, metaphysical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless, And being
young, handsome and eloquent, he was beloved. He was an orphan under
the guardianship of his dead father's brother, his uncle Wilhelm, in whose house
he had been brought up from a little child. And she who loved him
was his cousin, his cousin Gertrude, whom he swore he loved in return,
did he love her? Yes, When he first swore it, it
soon wore out. This passionate love. How threadbare and wretched a sentiment.
It became at last in this selfish heart of the student, but in its
first golden dawn, when he was only nineteen and had just returned from his
apprenticeship to a great painter at Antwerp, and they wandered together in the most
romantic outskirts of the city, at rosy sunset by holy moonlight, or bright
and joyous morning how beautiful a dream. They keep it a secret from Wilhelm,
as he has the father's ambition of a wealthy suitor for his only child,
a cold and dreary vision beside the lover's dream. So they are betrothed
and standing side by side. When the dying sun in the pale rising moon
divide the heavens, he puts the betrothal ring upon her finger, the white
and taper finger, whose slender shape he knows so well. This ring is
a peculiar one, a massive golden serpent, its tail in its mouth.
The symbol of eternity had been his mother's, and he would know it amongst
a thousand. If he were to become blind tomorrow, he could select it
from amongst a thousand by the touch alone. He places it on her finger,
and they swear to be true to each other forever and ever, through
trouble and danger, sorrow and change in wealth or poverty. Her father must
needs be one to consent to their union by and by, for they were
now betrothed, and death alone could part them. But the young student the
scoffer at revelation. Yet the enthusiastic adorer of the metaphysical asks can death,
pat Us, I would return to you from the grave girthroot. My soul
would come back to be near my love. And you you, if you
died before me, the cold earth would not hold you from me. If
you loved me, you would return, and again the fair arms would be
clasped round my neck, as they all now. But she told him,
with a holier light in her deep blue eyes than had ever shown in his.
She told him that the dead who die at peace with God are happy
in heaven and cannot return to the troubled earth, and that it is only
the suicide the lost wretch on whom sorrowful angels shut the door of paradise,
whose unholy spirit haunts the footsteps of the living. The first year of their
betrothal is passed, and she is alone, for he has gone to Italy
on a commission for some rich man to copy Raphael's Titians Guidos in a gallery
at Florence. He has gone to win fame, perhaps, but it is
not the less bitter he is gone. Of course, Her father misses his
young nephew, who has been as a son to him, And he thinks
his daughter said no more than a cousin should feel for a cousin's absence.
In the meantime, the weeks and months pass. The lover writes, often
at first, then seldom at last, not at all. How many excuses
she invents for him. How many times she goes to the distant little post
office to which he is to address his letters. How many times she hopes
only to be disappointed. How many times she despairs, only to hope again.
But real despair comes at last, and will not be put off anymore.
The rich suitor appears on the scene, and her father is determined she
is to marry at once. The wedding day is fixed, the fifteenth of
June. The date seems burned into her brain. The date written in fire
dances forever before her eyes. The date shrieked by the furies, sounds continually
in her ears. But there is time yet. It is the middle of
May. There is time for a letter to reach him at Florence. There
is time for him to come back to Brunswick, to take her away and
marry her, in spite of her father, in spite of the whole world.
But the days and weeks fly by, and he does not write.
He does not come This is indeed despair which usurps her heart and will not
be put away. It is the fourteenth of June. For the last time,
she goes to the little post office for the last time. She asks
the old question, and they give her, for the last time the dreary
answer, no letter, for the last time. For tomorrow is the day
appointed for her bridle. Her father will hear no enterities, her rich suitor
will not listen to her prayers. They will not be put off a day,
an hour tonight alone is hers, this night, which she may employ
as she will. She takes another path than that which leads home. She
hurries through some by streets of the city, out onto a lonely bridge,
where he and she had stood so often in the sunset, watching the rose
colored light glow, fade and die upon the river. He returns from Florence.
He had received her letter, that letter, blotted with tears, entreating
despairing. He had received it, but he loved her no longer. A
young Florentine who has sat to him for a model, had bewitched his fancy,
that fancy which with him stood in place of a heart. And Gertrude
had been half forgotten if she had a rich suitor, good, let her
marry him, for her better far for himself. He had no wish to
fetter himself with a wife, had he not his art, always, his
eternal bride, his unchanging mistress. Thus he thought it wiser to delay his
journey to Brunswick, so that he should arrive when the wedding was over,
arrive in time to salute the bride and the vows. The mystical fancies,
the belief in his return, even after death, to the embrace of his
beloved Oh, gone out of his life, melted away forever, those foolish
dreams of his boyhood. So on the fifteenth of June he enters Brunswick by
that very bridge on which she stood, the stars looking down on her the
night before. He strolls across the bridge and down by the water's edge,
a great rough dog at his heels, and the smoke from his short Meerschaum
pipe curling in blue wreaths fantastically in the pure morning air. He has his
sketchbook under his arm, and attracted now and then by some object that catches
his artist's eye, stops to draw a few weeds and pebbles, on the
river's bank, a crag on the opposite shore, a group of pollard willows
in the distance. When he has done, he admires his drawing, shuts
his sketchbook, empties the ashes from his pipe, refills from his tobacco pouch,
sings the refrain of a gay drinking song, calls to his dog,
smokes again, and walks on. Suddenly he opens his sketchbook again, this
time that which attracts him as a group of figures. But what is it?
It is not a funeral, for there are no mourners. It is
not a funeral, but a corpse lying on a rough buyer, covered with
an old sail, carried between two bearers. It is not a funeral,
for the bearers are fishermen, fishermen in their everyday garb. About a hundred
yards from him, they rest their burden on a bank. One stands at
the head of the buyer, the other throws himself down at the foot of
it, and thus they form a perfect group. He walks back two or
three paces, selects his point of sight, and begins to sketch a hurried
outline. He has finished it before they move. He hears their voices,
though he cannot hear their words, and wonders what they can be talking of.
Presently, he walks on and joins them. You have a corpse,
them my friends, he says, Yes, a corpse washed ashore an hour
ago, drowned, Yes, drowned, a young girl. Very handsome.
Suicide's allwit's handsome, says the painter. And then he stands for a little
while, idly smoking and meditating, looking at the sharp outline of the corpse
and the stiff folds of the rough canvas covering life. Is such a golden
holiday for him, young, ambitious, clever, that it seems as though
sorrow and death could have no part in his destiny. At last, he
says that, as this poor suicide is so handsome, he should like to
make a sketch of her. He gives the fisherman some money, and they
offer to remove the sailcloth that covers her features. No, he will do
it himself. He lifts the rough, coarse, wet canvas from her face.
What face, the face that shone on the dreams of his foolish boyhood,
the face which once was the light of his uncle's home, his cousin
Gertrude, his betrothed. He sees as in one glance while he draws one
breath, the rigid features, the marble arms, the hands crossed on the
cold bosom, and on the third finger of the left hand, the ring
which had been his mother's, the golden serpent, the ring which, if
he were to become blind, he could select from a thousand others by the
touch alone. But he is a genius and a metaphysician. Grief, true
grief, is not for such as he. His first thought is flight,
flight, anywhere out of that accursed city, anywhere, far from the brink
of that hideous river, anywhere away from remorse, anywhere to forget. He
is miles on the road that leads away from Brunswick before he knows that he
has walked the step. It is only when his dog lies down, panting
at his feet that he feels how exhausted he is himself, and sits down
upon a bank to rest. How the landscape spins round and round before his
dazzled eyes, while his morning sketch of the two fishermen and the canvas covered
buyer glares redly at him out of the twilight. At last, after sitting
a long time by the roadside, idly playing with his dog, idly smoking,
idly lounging, looking as any idle, light hearted traveling student might look,
yet all the while acting over that morning scene in his burning brain a
hundred times a minute. At last, he grows a little more composed and
tries presently to think of himself as he is. Apart from his cousin's suicide.
Apart from that, he was no worse off than he was yesterday.
His genius was not gone. The money he had earned at Florence still lined
his pocketbook. He was his own master, free to go whither he would.
And while he sits on the roadside, trying to separate himself from the
scene of that morning, trying to put away the image of the corpse covered
with the damp canvas sail, trying to think of what he should do next,
where he should go, to be farthest away from Brunswick and remorse.
The old diligence comes, rumbling and jingling along. He remembers it. It
goes from Brunswick to Aila Chapelle. He whistles to his dog, shouts to
the postilion to stop, and springs into the coupee. During the whole evening
through the long night, he does not once close his eyes. He never
speaks a word. But when morning dawns and the other passengers away can begin
to talk to each other, he joins in the conversation. He tells them
that he is an artist, that he is going to Cologne and to Antwerp
to copy Rubenses and the great picture by Quentin Natzie's in the museum. He
remembered afterwards that he talked and laughed boisterously, and that when he was talking
and laughing loudest, a passenger older and graver than the rest, opened the
window near him and told him to put his head out. He remembered the
fresh air blowing in his face, the singing of the birds in his ears,
and the flat fields and roadside reeling before his eyes. He remembered this,
and then falling in a lifeless heap on the floor of the Diligence.
It is a fever that keeps him for six long weeks on a bed at
a hotel in ailas Chabad. He gets well and accompanied by his dog,
starts on foot for Cologne. By this time he is his former self once
more again. The blue smoke from his short Meerschaum curls upwards in the morning
air. Again, he sings some old university drinking song again, stops here
and there, meditating and sketching. He is happy, and he has forgotten
his cousin, and so on to Cologne. It is by the great cathedral
he is standing, with his dog at his side. It is night.
The bells have just chimed the hour, and the clocks are striking eleven.
The moonlight shines full upon the magnificent pile over which the artist's eye wanders,
absorbed in the beauty of form. He is not thinking of his drowned cousin,
for he has forgotten her and is happy. Suddenly, some one,
something from behind him, puts two cold arms round his neck and clasps its
hands on his breast. And yet there is no one behind him, for
on the flags bathed in the broad moonlight, there are only two shadows,
his own and his dogs. He turns quickly round. There is no one,
nothing to be seen in the broad square but himself and his dog.
And though he feels he cannot see the cold arms clasped round his neck,
it is not ghostly. This embrace for it is palpable to the touch.
It cannot be real, for it is invisible. He tries to throw off
the cold caress. He clasps the hands in his own, to tear them
asunder, and to cast them off his neck. He can feel the long,
delicate fingers, cold and wet beneath his touch. And on the third
finger of the left hand he can feel the ring which was his mother's,
the golden serpent, the ring which he has always said he would know among
a thousand by the touch alone. He knows it now. His dead cousin's
cold arms are round his neck. His dead cousin's wet hands are clasp upon
his breast. He asks himself if he is mad. Up Leo. He
shouts up, up, boy, and the Newfoundland leaps up onto his shoulders.
The dog's paws are on the dead hands, and the animal utters a
terrific howl and springs away from his master. The student stands in the moonlight,
the dead arms round his neck, and the dog at a little distance,
moaning piteously. Presently, a watchman, alarmed by the howling of the
dog, comes into the square to see what is wrong. In a breath,
the cold arms are gone. He takes the watchman home to the hotel
with him and gives him money. In his gratitude. He could have given
that man half his little fortune. Will it ever come to him again?
This embrace of the dead. He tries never to be alone. He makes
a hundred acquaintances and shares the chamber of another student. He starts up if
he is left by himself in the public room at the inn where he is
staying, and runs into the street. People notice his strange actions and begin
to think that he is mad. But in spite of all, he is
alone once more for one night, the public room being empty for a moment,
when on some idle pretense, he strolls into the street. The street
is empty too, and for the second time he feels the cold arms round
his neck, and for the second time when he calls his dog, the
animal SLINKs away from him with a piteous howl. After this, he leaves
Colonne, still traveling on foot of necessity. Now, for his money is
getting low, he joins traveling hawkers. He walks side by side with laborers.
He talks to every foot passenger he falls in with, and tries from
morning till night to get company on the road. At night he sleeps by
the fire in the kitchen of the inn at which he stops, but do
what he will. He is often alone, and it is now a common
thing for him to feel the cold arms round his neck. Many months have
passed since his cousin's death, autumn, winter, early spring. His money
is nearly gone, his health is utterly broken. He is the shadow of
his former self, and he is getting near to Paris. He will reach
that city at the time of the carnival. To this he looks forward in
Paris in carnival time, he need never surely be alone, never feel that
deadly caress. He may even recover his lost gaiety, his lost health,
once more, resume his profession, once more earned aim and money by his
art. How hard he tries to get over the distance that divides him from
Paris, while day by day he grows weaker and his steps slower and more
heavy. But there is an end. At last, the long, dreary
roads are past. This is Paris, which he enters for the first time,
Paris of which he has dreamed so much, Paris whose million voices are
to exercise his phantom to him tonight, Paris seems one vast chaos of lights,
music and confusion, Lights which dance before his eyes and will not be
still, Music that rings in his ears and deafens him, Confusion which makes
his head whirl round and round. But in spite of all he finds the
opera house, where there is a masked ball. He has enough money left
by a ticket of admission, and to hire a domino to throw over his
shabby dress. It seems only a moment after his entering the gates of Paris
that he is in the very midst of all the wild gaiety of the opera
house ball. No more darkness, no more loneliness, but a mad crowd
shouting and dancing, and a lovely de balduce hanging on his arm. The
boisterous gaiety, he feels, surely is his old lightheartedness come back. He
hears the people round him talking of the outrageous conduct of some drunken student.
And it is to him they point when they say this, to him who
has not moistened his lips since yesterday at noon. For even now he will
not drink. Though his lips are parched and his throat burning, he cannot
drink. His voice is thick and hoarse, and his utterance indistinct. But
still this must be his old lightheartedness come back, that makes him so wildly
gay. The little de Balduce is wearied out. Her arm rests on his
should, older, heavier than lead. The other dancers one by one drop
off. The lights, and the chandeliers one by one, die out.
The decorations look pale and shadowy in that dim light, which is neither night
nor day, A faint glimmer from the dying lamps, a pale streak of
cold gray light from the newborn day, creeping in through half open shutters.
And by this light, the bright eyed Debriadus fades sadly. He looks her
in the face. How the brightness of her eyes dies out again. He
looks her in the face, How white that face has grown again. And
now it is the shadow of a face alone that looks in his again,
And they are gone, the bright eyes, the face, the shadow of
the face. He is alone in that vast saloon, alone, and in
the terrible silence he hears the echoes of his own footsteps, in that dismal
dance which has no music, no music, but the beating of his breast
for the cold arms are round his neck. They whirl with him. They
will not be flung off or cast away. He can no more escape from
their icy grip than he can escape from death. He looks behind him.
There is nothing but himself in the great empty sadle. But he can feel
cold deathlike. But oh how palpable, the long, slender fingers, and
the ring which was his mother's. He tries to shout, but he has
no power in his burning throat. The silence of the place is only broken
by the echoes of his own footsteps, in the dance from which he cannot
extricate himself, who says he has no part nor the cold hands are clasped
on his breast, and now he does not shun their caress. No one
more polka if he drops down dead. The lights are all out, and
half an hour after the gendarmes come in with a lantern to see that the
house is empty. They are followed by a great dog that they have found
seated howling on the steps of the theater. Near the principal entrance. They
stumble over the body of a student who has died from want of food,
exhaustion, and the breaking of a blood Vessel End of the Cold Embrace by
Mary Elizabeth Bradden