THE STEPS TO THE SEA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 10

THE STEPS TO THE SEA.

HOW A GUITAR AWAKENED LO VE

(By Marvin Dana.)

Sar, when he had finished reading the letter, folded it with absent-minded carefulness and replaced it in the envelop. For a long minute he remained motionless in his chair. Only from his furrowed brows and compressed lips might one guess the emotion that boiled in his heart.

Then suddenly the apathy fell upon him. He sprang from the chair and began to pace hurriedly to and fro on the balcony. His huge form shook with the intensity of his feeling, his lips moved in muttered ravings, in his eyes ehone rage and despair. For an hour he wandered back and forth with swift, uneven steps. At last, trembling and exhausted by the war of passions, he threw himself again into the chair, and sank listlessly among its cushions. His lids dropped, his breathing grew even. He did not sleep, but for an interval a merciful tranquility settled on his brain and heart and gave him surcease from anguish. When finally he opened his eyes, the first horror of his position had passed ana left him with the power to* reason more, to feel less. One instant his gaze was held by the glory of the scene before him, then he forgot all else to face •the catastrophe that had come into his life.

To another than Sar, perhaps—to the world in general, certainly—what. Sar deemed catastrophe would have seemed little more than unpleasant incident. It wa» only that Ids wife had divorced him. For that matter it iiad become inevitable that she should do so —or that he should divorce her. Luckily, there were no children, so the world regarded the affair as one that concerned only the two. Sar, however, ©ould give no heed to mitigations; to

him this was overwhelming and complete disaster. Yet, obviously, there had been no other way. It had been bad enough when he learned that his wife had not a particle of love for him, not even the negative affection that may grow out of mutual domesticity. Indeed, there had been small opportunity to develop the interdependence which is the product of habitual association, because Sar and his wife had been much apart. Each liked best the places the other liked least. Sar accompanied his wife to the various capitals when he felt that such was his imperative duty as a husband. But he went no oftener than conscience commanded, and stayed no longer. On the other hand, the wife, undisturbed by ideas of right, visited her husband’s estates just as rarely as respectability would permit, and for the minimum time. Under such circumstances, where one loved the country, one the town, and neither the other, there was no chance for' the gradual upspringing of that calm affection which is the consolation of so many loveless marriages.

But, though this had been sufficiently disheartening, there was worse to come. Sar learned at last that his wife lavished on another the passion that was his right. Moreover, she so yielded to her fondness for the man in the case that she forgot her worldly pride and ran soma risk of compromising herself. Already scandal was busy with her name, and social downfall threatened her, when S!ar sought her out in Paris, in order to effect some conclusion of an intolerable situation. He lost no time in useless prayers; instead, he offered to allow her a divorce from him. Otherwise, he himself would obtain the divorce. She welcomed his proposal, and accepted it. Throughout, he had appeared calm and cold. So he had remained after returning to his estate on the Caspian Sea. He revealed no trace of the suffering that consumed him during the tedious time of waiting for the law’s processes, and none about him knew the condition of affairs. But to-night he had received the official notification that his wife had been granted her divorce; to-morrow the news would be scattered broadcast through the world. This was to Sar the culmination of the tragedy. For the time being, his self-control broke, and he gave full rein to the wrath and anguish of his spirit. Sar had always cherished a high selfrespect. He had a vast pride of birth, which was justified by all records. His family had been among the most distinguished in Eiurope, and among the oldest. History told much of them, and nothing not to their credit. The men had been brave and wise, the women stainless. If some among Sar’s forebear’s had wandered into forbidden ways, they had sought out paths that were hidden from the world, and the honour of the race had not suffered openly. Sar, cherishing the dignity of his fathers, had striven to live worthily. He tried to do his duty in the position to which, he believed, God had called him, and to sustain the traditional dignity of his blood. Possessing a keen mind, a frame of unusual size and strength, he was able to throw himself into affairs with untiring energy, and already his goverment looked upon him with confidence for aid in determining its most difficult questions. He was a handsome man, after a massive fashion ; but the lighter moods of women in social intercourse had never appealed to him, and his seriousness had not won, him popularity with the sex. With some self-condemnation, Sar now admitted to himself that he had married for an heir, rather than for love. In that fact lay the wife’s sole excuse. He had not really loved her, so why should she love him ? She had said as much to him, to his amazement. He had thought he displayed a, sufficient warmth toward her, and lier accusation was a blow to his self-satis-faction. He could make her no answer. Even at this crisis, Sar did not hate the woman who had been his wife. Instead, he loathed the fact, the whole miserable event, the lamentable circumstance by which ho was made contemptible before the world. It mattered not whose the greater fault, his or hers, or Destiny’s—the fact itself, the irremediable, infamous fact, was the cause of his torture.

Again the glory of the scene caught Saris eyes. This time it held his gaze, and he stared long out over the sea. Something of the peace there crept into his troubled sou!, and stilled its madness.

This was the favourite with fe'iar among all his properties. Rarely lie occupied his hotel in Piiris. It seemed to him that there was little to be got from the gay capital except by students of art. Often he went to Dresden, for lie loved the opera there, and something of the quiet simplicity of life in his villa., just outside the city, appealed to him strongly. Still more often ho passed the winter in liiy palace at Sit. Petersburg, for his hardy \soul exulted in the freezing air and the vigours it stirred in his blood. In the wild rush of liis thoroughbreds over the ice road of the Neva, lie found a physical e-x----ments; but its primitive, barbaric charm was untouched. Through out it was the feudal palace, garnished with

hilaration that was impossible elsewhere. But, too, he regarded with fondness everyone of his many estates. He went here and there often. He looked on himself as a father to all his peasants, and endeavoured, accord- j ing to his lights, to do his duty by j them. , j Yet there was no other place like this by the Caspian Sea. This was most nearly home. It lacked only wife and love to render it complete. In all other things it was perfect. The old castle had been renovated to meet the requirements of this age’s ultra-refine- i later luxuries —vast, majestic, powerful and sybaritical. Within it was crowded with the best treasures Sar had accumu- I lated, for hitherto he sent all that he , most esteemed for its personal appeal paintings, statues, miniatures, jewels, swords, guns, tapestries, horses, dogs, anything he fancied, whether hook, servant or automobile. Without the j country was without flaw, a bower in its J season of green, undulating into magni- j ficent prospects on every side, except ; where lay the plain of the It was a place to dream of, and more, a place to dream in. Beautiful everywhere, it was most beautiful cn the balcony. It was there that Sar , passed his time in the pleasant days, ! and it was there that, he was now, when at last the glory of the seen© caught and held his gaze. !

The balcony itself was a rod in width and half a hundred yards in length. Along the outer edge ran a score of fluted marble columns. Connecting these was a low, carved balustrade, and close to it, here and there, stone benches were drawn, their broad seats and high hacks made inviting by innumerable cushions. But the master’s ; seat was a great chan- of marble that j was like a throne, for its towering hack was surmounted with the arms of his house. Its hulk was enough to hold two ordinary persons, and there was more than room for Sar, even. This chair, littered with cushions, was always keot in one spot, a little to the right of the centre of the balcony, close ~heside a pillar and almost, at the head of the steps tliat ran down to the sea. : Here Sar loved to sit of an afternoon to watch the sunset, or at night when the moon cast enchantment, on the waters. The whole prospect, whatever the hour or the season, was a noble one, tremendous in storm, lovely in peace. Yet the single thing that most drew Sar’s love to it was the flight of steps ; that ran down to the sea.

These steps were broad and shallow, as if tempting one to walk down to the waters. There were perhaps two- score of them in all, hut at high tide half of them were covered by the waves, and always the lowest, of the flight were hidden beneath the sea. "When one stood on the step next the water’s edge he could see far through the clear green, and distinguish the black rocks which were the foundations of the balcony. glome times, when the tide was quiet, a bass could he seen loitering in the cool shadows, or a wreath of seaweed floating in the depths like a mermaid’s hair.

But the enticement of the spot to Sar was the effect of the stairway in the view, as he saw it from his chair. Thus seen,’ the steps were always weaving a spell that lay on the watcher with curious, insistent power. The fascination seemed to bo in the fact that, they led down to the sea. Their easy descentmerged gently in the throb of the waves. I was as if they were calling one’s feet to the vast plain of the ocean. In some subtle fashion of their own, they wooed the fancy to journeyings over the deep, strange journeyings that should have no end, but go on forever.

When Sar rested motionless and yielded to the mood, from watching the steps as they ceaselessly went down to the sea, it was as if his soul crept softly from, the flesh, and was wafted over the tremulous waves. At such times a secret., impersonal joy thrilled him, and he revelled in the solitude, the vastness, the splendour of colour, the rhythm of sound. Sometimes, as the sunset added its grace to. the horizon, his soul seemed to wing a farther flight., into- glories

mysterious and supernal. The blood of some old mystic of his race dominated Sar in these musings, and they were to his profit, since he always issued from them with greater peace of spirit and with new belief in himself, in his fellows and in God.

But to-day, though the glory of the scene caught and held his gaze, his soul could not fly from his body into the calm of space. Instead, it remained to continue its trouble; only the form of its suffering was changed. Now, in place of rage, in place of fear for his honour in the world’s sight, came a fierce longing, an agony of desire for that he lacked —what? The intensity o p his torment came, indeed, from this vagueness as to that he craved. His soul clamoured for something—what? Something he lacked, something that was the breath of life ; something lie had never had, something unknown, the clue to happiness. For a long time he wrestled with the problem, until he was worn with x he struggle; hut always the answer eluded him. *” The loveliness before his eyes was torture, for in the’glory of sea and sky was a symbol, a symbol that answered the cry of his soul, and yet he could not understand.

S'ar put forth his will and turned his thoughts resolutely to the definite; hut as he did so he realised his own fatigue-. He must rest. So following his habit, he rang a little bell that hung from the pillar by Ids chair, and when a servant came asked that his cousin Alma ho informed thst he awaited her on the balcony. Within a minute the girl came, bringing with her a guitar, for she understood the meaning of the summons.

Sar did not look up as she appealed, though he might well have done so. She was extremely fair, with a sweet, gracious girlish beauty. She and lier mother were kin to Sar, and pensioners on his bounty at this castle. It was with delight that Alma had learned the power of her music to sooth Sar, and she welcomed every opportunity thug to lay the treasures of lier skill at his feet-.

So now she came quietly, and having tossed some cushions at the foot, of the pillar facing Stir’s chair, just at the head of the steps, she seated herself, and began at once to brush soft chords from the guitar. Then, the prelude done, she sang a tender love-song of the province. And another and another, while Sar sat with closed eyes, and the passionate melodies softened his grief. At last Sar looked up, with a touch of self-rep roach “You must be wearied, little one,” he said gently. “I have been selfish.” But Alma interposed eagerly: “No, no, Sar. I love the singing. I could sing to you for horn's without fatigue. If you are tired of the music, I shall go; but if you wish more please let me play to you.” Her willingness was pleasant to Sar. It was the first gleam of human kindness that had come to him in his trouble. He had many friends, yet almost none intimate enough to give him sympathy at a time like this ; but Alma was of his own blood, and of his own household throughout her life. And Alma had been kind to him always. It occurred to him that his most constant joy had been given him by her music while ho mused on this balcony. Sar cast a grateful glance toward the girl, who sat bent over the guitar. Leaning thus against the pilfar, with the tinted background of cushions, sho harmonised with the glory of the scene and -completed it. For a little time Sar regarded her with new appreciation of her fresh, pure beauty. Then, of a sudden, the black horror rushed again on his spirits, made more awful by the little interval where lie had thought only of the kindliness and beauty of Alma. lit this lapse into despair, the music failed, and he forgot time and place in his anguish.

The girl saw his white, twitching face, and paused in alarm. Thus she awaited his will, silent, uncertain whether sho should go or stay, but filled with tender pity. Soon Alma forgot her doubts in anxiety: for 'Sar was evidently in the*

grip of overmast©ring passion. The face, that always hitherto she had seen grave with thought or smiling happily, was now contorted; its beauty had vanished amid the convulsions of emotion. Alma crouched affrighted, and watched with dilated eyes.

Sar was beside himself. The self-con-trol by which ho had gone calmly through his troubles without giving any Lint of them now reacted on him, and in the throes of feeling he was a puppet buffeted by crowding thoughts of despair, and made the plaything of frenzy. He had no command over his ideas or his emotions. Wrath against fate chiefly assailed him, and after that, despair. Suddenly he rose, and began pacing back and forth with d soldered .steps. Words tumbled from his lips, incoherent ravings. Once he paired at the- top of the stairs and glared out towards the sun, which wa,s just sinking from -sight behind a sombre bank of storm-clouds;. It was red as blood and glowed from the dun envelop like a huge emblem of evil pnadons. Its appearance .stung Sar to new fury. It seemed to him that even this favoured spot had become something vile, to fill the measure of his woe.

‘•The* world is curved,” lie muttered, ‘'and I am most surely cursed!” Alma heard the words, and shuddered, and wondered what Sar might mean. For a weary while Sa,r hurried to and fro, while the sun vanished, softer colours finned in the west, then died, and the soft radiance of the stars foil on the sea.

Saris mood charmed from the active to the passive. Instead of violent suffering. desolation now wrapped h’m about. An abject pessimism thralled his spirit. It seemed to him that effort must end only in disaster. What had he ever accomplished in the world? "What could ho accomplish of good? He had fulfilled certain duties, a; any other might have fulfilled them ; but in the failure of his marriage, the one thing that was hia most individual act, he had demonstrated his worthlessness. He was alone in the world, and by his own fault. Why should he strive further, when lie stood revealed in his own inability? He only of all his race had been ignoble, since he had been unable so to rule his life as to ga n the respect of men, the respect of himself. Hopelessness lay heavy on him. A thin crescent of moon shone wanly in the aenith, and Sar rsuv in if the epitome of his own endeavour. It was a wraith of light, even as Ills strivings had been wraiths of accomplishment. He had achieved nothing; he could never achieve anything worth while. Since he had dimmed the lustre of his lineage, why should the race not cease before a worse thing befell? There were tlie steps that ran down to the sea. This time Sar believed that he understood the mystery in their constant appeal. It was the path to the unknown. he way toward peace. Often his soul had floated in the vast spaces there over the waters, and always it had found peace. Why should it not go there now, without the fleshly anchor to hold it from the supreme flight? The steps awaited him. He had only to descend them, to enter the tiny boat that rocked at the foot of the stair, to unmoor it. to drift away on che ebb of the tide out into* the sea, on and on, until this wasting flesh should leave its chains from his spirit, and he should fly forever in the infinite distance. Why should he remain for sorrow, when there he must find peace? Sar stood by the pillar against which Alma crouched and spoke aloud in the force of his conviction: “Ay, I’ll end it! Why should I live, a thing of scorn to myself and to the world? I have failed in life. Let it end!” He spoke the decision with calm neve, gravely and finally, as if sorrow had not driven him mad. With the resolve firm in his heart, Sar descended the first step. A sound of sobbing caused him to pause. He looked about him in bewilderment for a moment, as he had believed himself alone. Then he saw the crouching figure by the pillar, and remembered Alma. Instantly his selfpitv yielded to pity for her. “Why, Alma,” he said gently, “I thought you went long ago. Child, you should gave gone. Your music wrought its spell, as always, and was a delight to mo. I thank you, Alma. Now go, dear.” Bub the bowed figure did not move from its place. Sar waited in growing astonishment. “But, Alma, do you not hear?” Sobs were his only answer. “Alma!” Still only the sobbing of the girl. “Alma, Alma!” 'Sarcried, now thoroughly alarmed. “ What does this mean? Are you in troubleP Are you ill? Tell me, child. Let- me help you. What is it?” Then at last the girl spoke, haltingly : “Sar, T—l—heard you !” Sar uttered an ejaculation of dismay. “You lieaid me? You mean I spoke aloud? What did you hear? What?” He stepped toward her, and seized the hand she held toward him. “What did. you hear?” He drew her to her feet, and stared into her eyes. “Tell me 1” “Sar, I heard you say: ‘Let it end I’ ” “I spoke of a trouble.” •‘Yes, of your life.” Sar was silent. Even now he could

not till a deliberate lie; and he could not admit the truth. “Go, now, Alma. Later me may speak of this again.” I cannot go, Sar.” “Why ?” “I dare not.” -Why?” “You said •” S-ho was looking into his eyes ; in hers he read her purpose and its reason, and he knew that evasion must bo in vain. There was no resource except to convince her. “Alma,” ho said, with slow intensity, “I have no choice.” “Why?” the girl asked, in her turn. “1 do not- understand. You have everything. You are among the great of this world. Your blood is of the noblest. Your life is without stain. You—-—” But Sar interrupted her: ‘You do not understand. Alma. I—l am disgraced!” “You disgraced? Impossible!” “My wife has divorced me.” “She divorced you ?” ‘Wes.” “But it is- monstrous!” “It is true.” “How dared you! How dared you bo so base?” “How dared I? I—base? What do you mean, Alma?” Sar was aghast at tire vivid anger in the girl’s words. But Alma did not hesitate: “You let her divorce you ?” ‘Yes.” “If an unclean thing came into your chamber, Sar, would you leave it there to defile the place? Would you not drive it forth, or dertroy it? Tell me.” “Yes. I -should destroy it, or drive it forth.” “Would you not be a coward, Sar, to fly from it, and leave it to taint the spot?” ‘Yes, I should be a coward.” “Then you are not a coward? We know, the world knows, all know, how it was between you and her. You were not vile, Sar. You did no wrong; yon committed no crime; yet you disgrace yourself and your name. Why?” “But she ” “She is a woman, you would say—your chivalry! But chivalry is for goodness. There is no chivalry in protecting evil. What of the chivalry that should save your race from dishonour?” “My wife—” ‘‘Never truly your wife, Sar; she never loved you.” “It may be it was my fault. It was my fault that I never tried to win her Love. I should have loved her.” “‘And you did not?” Despite herself, a note of exultation was in Alma’s voice. “No; though onoe I thought—<” “Folly, Sar! As if you could ever Love one so unworthy I Oh, Sar, Sar! I never spoke one word against her while she was your wife. I never even Let my thoughts assail her, wilfully. For she was part of you, part of your honour, and therefore sacred. But now all is changed. Let me speak as I feci.” “Do not blame her, Alma. I told her that I loved her. I lied, though I did not know I lied, then. Do not blame her because she sought love elsewhere. A wife has a right to her husband’s Love.” ‘You did not turn from her to love another. She turned from you, Sar. To turn from you to • another!”

“No, Aima, I feel that I sinned heavily against her. I dare not blame her. Love demands lc-ve.”

“No. no, it is not true, Sar. Love may subsist on l-ess than nothing, yet remain faithful forever. She never loved you. If she had ” Alma paused abruptly, her eyes flashing. Sar stepped closer and looked at the girl curiously. “What do you know of love, little one?”

Alma, answered with eager emphasis: “Love, true love, is not for self alone; it- is for the o-no loved. It can live and find joy in the happiness of the one loved, though itself unhonoured, unknown. Love finds its- real life in the life of the loved one, whose bliss is its bliss, whose grief is its grief. When a woman loves one who is worthy of her heart,, she is glad as he is glad, even though her heart breaks!” The girl’s voice ceased, and a sob broke fro-m her. Wonder had fallen on Sar as she spoke. The passion in her words stirred him to new emotion. A strange fire burned in his bosom, and warmed the places that suffering had chilled. Alma stood olo.se before him, her fail’ face aglow with feeling, her eyes sparkling with the tears her pride restrained. Her parted lips were a trembling crimson gleam in the soft light of the moon. Again there arose in his memory the constant sweetness, the unobtrusive goodness, the gentle thoughtfulness, that had characterised Alma’s every act toward him. And now to these was added this revelation of awoman’s heart-, eager, intense, throbbing with emotion.

Sa-r was profoundly moved. The flame in his breast burned stronger. A desire hitherto unknown welled within him. His eyes, fixed on the girl’s face, glowed with longing. It was beyond belief, yet this little one, this maiden of his household, knew more of the world’s greatest truth than he did, Sar, the head of his family, the counsel of his nation, the learned in many ways. In this second it flashed on him that the girl possessed tjho clue for which he had .sought in vain—the one thing by which man touches the divine—love. He felt himself, as it were, clothed by her pure passion. For her eyes met his, and in their tender entreaty he realised that it wan by her own gift to him she had come to understand so much of love. t£ Then love is content with no return ?” “Yes,” Alma replied, firmly. But she added, beneath her breath : “Yes, though the heart breaks.” Sar caught the words, and a smile hovered on his lips; but ho said nothing. There was a moment’s interval, then Sar pointed toward where, beyond the steps that led down to the sea, a shimmering trail of moonlight reached into the mystery or the night. “Does not one trust, where one loves?” Bar asked softly. “Yes.” the girl answered. “Then come,” Sa.r said. Slowly, hand in hand, the >.wo passed down the stairs that ran t o -sea. When they came to the ! e , .stair, Bar paused by the little boat that was moored there, and by a gesture d : rented Alma to enter it. Without a w ord the girl obeyed. Sar followed her. and cast

the boat adrift. At onoe it yielded to the ebb and swung; swiftly out to sea. Alma spoke timidly: “Where are we going, Sar?” The man made reply, gently and reverently : “Into the unknown, dearest one. Aro you afraid ?” The girl’s words quivered with happiness. Had he not called her “dearest?”

“I am not afraid with you, in life or in death.”

Sar made ready the sail. sie came to where Alma sat on tire cushions of the stern, and seated himself beside her. He tightened the sail, until the wind caught it and the tiller guided t-heir course. The breeze came steadily and mildly. Sar made the sheet fast, then, with one hand on the helm, he placed the other beneath Alma’s face and raised it. Long the two looked into each other’s eyes. At- last, Sar bent swiftly and kissed her lips. “In life or death, Alma?” “In life or death.”

The little boat danced over the moonlit waves, on and on, toward the mystery of the night. The moon itself, that had been thin and pale like a wraith of happiness, now seemed to shine with soft, penetrant, pure splendour, infinitely subtle, infinitely holy. Again Sar thought of the evils that had so tortured him; but now, amid the beautiful silence of the night, with the tender clasp of Alma’s hand in his, these things grew less hideous, 1 ess complete, lass final. Yet he saw mom clearly, more truly. It was as if Love had. stretched a silver veil between him. and all that was not of love Surely, his own self-respect was unassailable, since he had done no deliberate wrong. If lie had not already accomplished his whole duty in the world, the more reason ho should live to achieve it in the future. He had as yeb wrought nothing of great worth, because lie had not been guided by the secret source of all that is most worthy—love. His wrath at fate, his agony of vague longing, were past, for he had found the one thing needed, the mainspring of happiness, the beginning and end of endeavour, the sum of eternity—love. Thank Bod! theix? was yeb time for him to do his work in the world. For him, then, remained—not death, he passing of one both miser able and cowardly—but life, a life of noble purpose, of high accomplishment.

“We go to life,” Sar murmured, “to life, not death, to life and happiness, together.”

Slowly, beneath his hand on the tiller, the little boat swam in a great- circle, until Sar could see. vaguely in the distance, the white outline of the stops that ran down to the sea. But now ho saw that they were waiting to welcome him, waiting to welcome him home.