Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated)

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

  “But why should you like it to be me?” asked Ingram, to whom flattery, used as he was to it, was very pleasant, and feeling the comfort of the cat who is being gently tickled behind the ear.

  “Because,” said Ingeborg earnestly, “you’re somebody wonderful.”

  “Oh, but you’ll make me purr,” he said.

  “And I see your name in the papers at least once a week,” she said.

  “Oh, the glory!”

  “And Berlin’s got two of your pictures. Bought for the nation.”

  “Yes, it has. And haggled till it got them a dead bargain.”

  “And you’ve painted my sister.”

  “What?” he said quickly, staring at her again. “Why, of course. That’s it. That’s who you remind me of. The amazing Judith.”

  “Are you such friends?” she asked, surprised.

  “Oh, well, then, the wife of the Master of Ananias. Let us give her her honours. She’s the most entirely beautiful woman I’ve seen. But—”

  “But what?”

  “Oh, well. I did a very good portrait of her. The old boy didn’t like it.”

  “What old boy?”

  “The Master. He tried to stop my showing it. And so did the other old boy.”

  “What other old boy?”

  “The Bishop.”

  “But if it was so good?”

  “It was. It was exact. It was the living woman. It was a portrait of sheer, exquisite flesh.”

  “Well, then,” said Ingeborg.

  “Oh, but you know bishops—” He shrugged his shoulders. “Italy’s got it now. It’s at Venice. The State bought it. You must go and see it next time you’re there.”

  “I will,” she laughed, “the very next time.” And her laugh was the laugh of joyful amusement itself.

  Ingram was now forty three or four, and leaner than ever. His high shoulders were narrow, his thin neck came a long way out of his collar at the back and was partly hidden in front by his short red beard. His hair, darker than his beard, was plastered down neatly. He had very light, piercing eyes, and a nose that Ingeborg liked. She liked everything. She liked his tweed clothes, and his big thin hands — the wonderful hands that did the wonderful pictures — and his long thin nimble legs. She liked the way he fidgeted, and the quickness of his movements. And she glowed with pride to think she was sitting with a man who was mentioned in the papers at least once a week and whose pictures were bought by States, and she glowed with happiness because he did not this time seem anxious to go back to the Glambecks’ at once; but most of all she glowed with the heavenliness, the absolute heavenliness of being talked to.

  “And you’re her sister,” he said, staring at her. “Now that really is astonishing.”

  “But everybody can’t be beautiful.”

  “A sister of hers here, tucked away in this desert. It is a desert, you know. I’ve come to it because I wanted a desert — one does sometimes after too much of the opposite. But I go away again, and you live in it. What have you been doing all these years, since I was here last?”

  “Oh, I’ve — been busy.”

  “But not here? Not all the time here?”

  “Yes, all of it.”

  “What, not away at all?”

  “I went to Zoppot once.”

  “Zoppot? Where’s Zoppot? I never heard of Zoppot. I don’t believe Zoppot’s any good. Do you mean to say you’ve not been to a town, to a place where people say things and hear things and rub themselves alive against each other, since last I was here?”

  “Well, but pastors’ wives don’t rub.”

  “But it’s incredible! It’s like death. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I couldn’t.”

  “As though it weren’t possible to tear oneself free at least every now and then.”

  “You wait till you’re a pastor’s wife.”

  “But how do you manage to be so alive? For you shine, you know. When I think of all the things I’ve done since I was here last—” He broke off, and looked away from her across the lake. “Oh, well. Sickening things, really, most of them,” he finished.

  “Wonderful pictures,” said Ingeborg, leaning forward and flushing with her enthusiasm. “That’s what you’ve done.”

  “Yes. One paints and paints. But in between — it’s those in between the work-fits that hash one up. What do you do in between?”

  “In between what?”

  “Whatever it is you do in the morning and whatever it is you do in the evening.”

  “I enjoy myself.”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s what I’d like to do.”

  “But don’t you?”

  “I can’t.”

  “What — you can’t?” she said. “But you live in beauty. You make it. You pour it over the world—”

  She stopped abruptly, hit by a sudden thought. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I don’t know anything really. Perhaps — you’re in mourning?”

  He looked at her. “No,” he said, “I’m not in mourning.”

  “Or perhaps — no, you’re not ill. And you can’t be poor. Well, then, why in the world don’t you enjoy yourself?”

  “Aren’t you ever bored?” he answered.

  “The days aren’t long enough.”

  He looked round at the empty landscape and shuddered.

  “Here. In Kökensee,” he said. “It’s spring now. But what about the wet days, the howling days? What about unmanageable months like February? Why” — he turned to her— “you must be a perfect little seething vessel of independent happiness, bubbling over with just your own contentments.”

  “I never was called a seething vessel before,” said Ingeborg, hugging her knees, her eyes dancing. “What an impression for a respectable woman to produce!”

  “What a gift to possess, you mean. The greatest of all. To carry one’s happiness about with one.”

  “But that’s exactly what you do. Aren’t you spilling joy at every step? Splashing it into all the galleries of the world? Leaving beauty behind you wherever you’ve been?”

  He twisted himself round to lie at full length and look up at her. “What delightful things you say!” he said. “I wish I could think you mean them.”

  “Mean them?” she exclaimed, flushing again. “Do you suppose I’d waste the precious minutes saying things I don’t mean? I haven’t talked to any one really for years — not to any one who answered back. And now it’s you! Why, it’s too wonderful! As though I’d waste a second of it.”

  “You’re the queerest, most surprising thing to find here on the edge of the world,” he said, gazing up at her. “And there’s the sun just got at your hair through the trees. Are you always full of molten enthusiasms for people?”

  “Only for you.”

  “But what am I to say to these repeated pattings?” he cried.

  “You got into my imagination that day I met you and you’ve been in it ever since. I was in the stupidest state of dull giving in. You pulled me out.”

  He stared at her, his chin on his hand. “Imagine me pulling anybody out of anything,” he said. “Generally I pull them in.”

  “It’s true I’ve had relapses,” she said. “Five relapses.”

  “Five?”

  She nodded. “Five since then. But here I am, seething as you call it, and it’s you who started me, and I believe I shall go on now doing it uninterruptedly for ever.”

  Ingram put out his hand with a quick movement, as though he were going to touch the edge of her dress. “Teach me how to seethe,” he said.

  “That’s rather like asking a worm to give lessons in twinkling to a star.”

  “Wonderful,” he said softly, after a little pause, “to lie here having sweet things said to one. Why didn’t I find you before? I’ve been being bored at the Glambecks’ for a whole frightful week.”

  “Oh, have you been there a week already?” she asked anxiously. “Then you’ll go away soon?”

  “I was going to-morrow.”
r />   “That’s like last time. You were just going when I met you.”

  “But now I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay and paint you.”

  She jumped. “Oh!” she exclaimed, awe-struck. “Oh—”

  “Paint you, and paint you, and paint you,” said Ingram, “and see if I can catch some of your happiness for myself. Get at your secret. Find out where it all comes from.”

  “But it comes from you — at this moment it’s all you—”

  “It doesn’t. It’s inside you. And I want to get as much of it as I can. I’m dusty and hot and sick of everything. I’ll come and stay near you and paint you, and you shall make me clean and cool again.”

  “The stuff you talk!” she said, leaning forward, her face full of laughter. “As though I could do anything for you! You’re really making fun of me the whole time. But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything so long as you won’t go away.”

  “You needn’t be afraid I’m going away. I’m going to have a bath of remoteness and peace. I’ll chuck the Glambecks and get a room in your village. I’ll come every day and paint you. You’re like a little golden leaf, a beech leaf in autumn blown suddenly from God knows where across my path.”

  “Now it’s you making me purr,” she said.

  “You’re like everything that’s clear and bright and cool and fresh.”

  “Oh,” murmured Ingeborg, radiant, “and I haven’t even got a tail to wag!”

  “Already, after only ten minutes of you, I feel as if I were eating cold, fresh, very crisp lettuce.”

  “That’s not nearly so nice. I don’t think I like being lettuce.”

  “I don’t care. You are. And I’m going to paint you. I’m going to paint your soul. Tell me some addresses for lodgings,” he said, snatching up a sheet of paper and a pencil.

  “There aren’t any.”

  “Then I must stay at your vicarage.”

  “You’ll have to sleep with Robert, then.”

  “What? Who is Robert?”

  “My husband.”

  “Oh, yes. But how absurd that sounds!”

  “What does?”

  “Your having a husband.”

  “I don’t see how you can help having a husband if you’re a wife.”

  “No. It’s inevitable. But it’s — quaint. That you should be anybody’s wife, let alone a pastor’s. Here in Kökensee.”

  She got up impulsively. “Come and see him,” she said. “You wouldn’t last time. Come now. Let me make tea for you. Let me have the pride of making tea for you.”

  “But not this minute!” he begged, as she stood over him holding out her hand to pull him up.

  “Yes, yes. He’s in now. He’ll be out in his fields later. He’ll be frightfully pleased. We’ll tell him about the picture. Oh, but you did mean it, didn’t you?” she added, suddenly anxious.

  He got up reluctantly and grumbling: “I don’t want to see Robert. Why should I see Robert? I don’t believe I’m going to like Robert,” he muttered, looking down at her from what seemed an immense height. “Of course I mean it about the picture,” he added in a different voice, quick and interested. “It’ll be a companion portrait to your sister’s.”

  He laughed. “That would really be very amusing,” he said, stooping down and neatly putting his scattered things together.

  Ingeborg flushed. “But — that’s rather cruel fun, isn’t it, that you’re making of me now?” she murmured.

  “What?” he asked, straightening himself to look at her.

  The light had gone out of her face.

  “What? Why — didn’t I tell you my picture of you is to be the portrait of a spirit?”

  He pounced on his things and gathered them up in his arms.

  “Come along,” he said impatiently, “and be intelligent. Let me beg you to be intelligent. Come along. I suppose I’m to go in the punt. What’s in it? Books by the dozen. What’s this? Eucken? Keats? Pragmatism? O Lord!”

  “Why O Lord?” she asked, getting in and picking up the paddle while he gave the punt a vigorous shove off and jumped on to it as it went. She was radiant again. She was tingling with pride and joy. He really meant it about the picture. He hadn’t made fun of her. On the contrary.... “Why O Lord?” she asked. “You said that, or something like it, last time because I didn’t read.”

  “Well, now I say it because you do,” he said, crouching at the opposite end watching her movements as she paddled.

  “But that doesn’t seem to have much consistency, does it?” she said.

  “Hang consistency! I don’t want you addled. And you’ll get addled if you topple all these different stuffs into your little head together.”

  “But I’d rather be addled than empty.”

  “Nonsense! If I could I’d stop your doing anything that may alter you a hairbreadth from what you are at this moment.”

  To that she remarked, suspending her paddle in mid air, her face as sparkling as the shining drops that flashed from it, that she really was greatly enjoying herself; and they both laughed.

  Ingram waited in the parlour, where he stood taking in with attentive eyes the details of that neglected, almost snubbed little room, while Ingeborg went to the laboratory, so happy and proud that she forgot she was breaking rules, to fetch, as she said, Robert.

  Robert, however, would not be fetched. He looked up at her with a great reproach on her entrance, for as invariably happened on the rare occasions when the tremendousness of what she had to say seemed to her to justify interrupting, he thought he had just arrived within reach, after an infinite patient stalking, of the coy, illusive heart of the problem.

  “Mr. Ingram’s here,” she said breathlessly.

  He gazed at her over his spectacles.

  “In the parlour,” said Ingeborg. “He’s come to tea. Isn’t it wonderful? He’s going to paint—”

  “Who is here, Ingeborg?”

  “Mr. Ingram. Edward Ingram. Come and talk to him while I get tea.”

  She had even forgotten to shut the door in her excitement, and a puff of wind from the open window picked up Herr Dremmel’s papers and blew them into confusion.

  He endeavoured to catch them, and requested her in a tone of controlled irritation to shut the door.

  “Oh, how dreadful of me!” she said, hastily doing it, but with gaiety.

  “I do not know,” then said Herr Dremmel, mastering his annoyance, “Mr. Ingram.”

  “Rut, Robert, it’s the Mr. Ingram. Edward Ingram. The greatest artist there is now. The great portrait painter. Berlin has—”

  “Is he a connection of your family’s, Ingeborg?”

  “No, but he painted Ju—”

  “Then it is not necessary for me to interrupt my afternoon on his behalf.”

  And Herr Dremmel bent his head over his papers again.

  “But, Robert, he’s great — he’s very great—”

  Herr Dremmel, with a wetted thumb, diligently rearranged his pages.

  “But — why, I told him you’d love to see him. What am I to say to him if you don’t come?”

  Herr Dremmel, his eye caught by a sentence he had written, was reading with a deep enormous appetite.

  “Tea,” said Ingeborg desperately. “There’s tea. You always do come to tea. It’ll be ready in a minute.”

  He looked up at her, gathering her into his consciousness again. “Tea?” he said.

  But even as he said it his thoughts fell off to his problem, and without removing his eyes from hers he began carefully to consider a new aspect of it that in that instant had occurred to him.

  There was nothing for it but to go away. So she went.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Ingram’s visit to the Glambecks, had in any case been coming to an end the next day, when he was to have gone to Königsberg on his way to the Caucasus, a place he hoped might trick him by its novelty for at least a time out of boredom, and the Baron and Baroness were greatly surprised when he told them he was not going to
the Caucasus but to Kökensee instead.

  With one voice they exclaimed, “Kökensee?”

  “To paint the pastor’s wife’s hair,” said Ingram.

  The Baron and Baroness were silent. The explanation seemed to them beyond comment. Its disreputableness robbed them of speech. Herr Ingram, of course, an artist of renown — if he had not been of very great renown they could not have seen their way to admitting him on terms of equality into their circle — might paint whoever’s hair he pleased; but was there not some ecclesiastical law forbidding that the hair of one’s pastor’s wife should be painted? To have one’s hair painted when one was a pastor’s wife was hardly more respectable than having it dyed. People of family were painted in order to hand down their portrait to succeeding generations, but you had to have generations, you had to have scions, you had to have a noble stock for the scions to spring from, and the painting was entered into soberly, discreetly, advisedly, in the fear of God, for the delectation of children, not lightly or wantonly, not for effect, not, as Herr Ingram had added of Frau Pastor’s hair, because any portion of one’s person was strangely beautiful. Strangely beautiful? They looked at each other; and the Baroness raised her large and undulating white hands from her black lap for a moment and let them drop on to it again, and the Baron slowly nodded his entire agreement.

  Ingram had found a room in the village inn at Kökensee, a place so sordid, so entirely impossible as the next habitation after theirs for one who had been their guest, that the Baron and Baroness were concerned for what their servants must think when they heard him direct their coachman in the presence of their butler and footman, as he clambered nimbly into the dogcart, to take him to it. And the Baroness went in and wrote at once to her son Hildebrand in Berlin, who had introduced Ingram to Glambeck, and told him she did not intend permitting Herr Ingram to visit her again. “To please you,” she wrote, “I did it. But how true it is that these artists can never rise beyond being artists! I have finished with outsiders, however clever. Give me gentlemen.”

  She did not mention, she found she could not mention, the hair; and to the Baron that evening she expressed the hope that at least the picture would only be in watercolour. Watercolour, she felt, seemed somehow nearer the Commandments than oils.