Speaker 1: The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Bradden. 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 the 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. It 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. Patus I
would return to you from the grave, Gertrude, 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 these fair arms would be clasped
round my neck, as they are 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 has 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 madness
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, no letter, for the
last time. For tomorrow is the day appointed for her bridle.
Her father will hear no entities, 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, better 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 meercham
pipe curling in blue wreaths fantastically in the pure morning air.
He has his sketch book 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 sketch book, 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 sketch
book 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 one 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 there, my friends, he says, Yes,
a corpse washed ashore an hour ago, drowned, Yes, drowned
a young girl. Very handsome. Suicide's are 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
a 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 bier 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 aile Chappelle. He whistles to
his dog, shouts to the postilion to stop and springs
into the coupe. 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 Reuben's and the great picture by Quentin Matcy'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 alne 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 Eila Chapelle. 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, someone, 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 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 on to 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 Cologne, 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 earn fare, 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 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 breadeus hanging on his arm. The boisterous gaiety, he feels, surely,
is his old light heartedness 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
light heartedness come back, that makes him so wildly gay.
The little Debrau Deus is wearied out. Her arm rests
on his should, 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 Debadeus 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, 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 salle. 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. The cold hands are clasped on his breast,
and now he does not shun their caress. Know 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 dyed from want of food, exhaustion, and
the breaking of a blood vessel. End of the Cold
Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Bradden