human
The other gentleman
gpt
My friend has gone out. I hope he will return soon. He has--I hardly know what to say to you, sir. He has done himself great injustice; but it was natural that under the circumstances
human
Perfectly. I should have lost my temper, too; but I think I should have waited at the request--the prayer of an older man. I don't mind his temper; the other villain had _no_ temper. Sir, am I right in addressing you as the Rev. Arthur Cummings?
gpt
My name is Arthur Cummings. I am a minister.
human
I thought I was not mistaken this time. I heard you preach last Sunday in Boston; and I know your cousin, Major Cummings of the 34th Artillery. I am General Wyatt.
gpt
General Wyatt?
human
Your cousin has mentioned me to you?
gpt
Yes,--oh yes, certainly; certainly, very often, General Wyatt. But --endeavouring to recover himself--
human
I was in Paris three weeks ago.
gpt
I am sorry my friend is not here to meet you. I ought to say, in justice to him, that his hasty temper does great wrong to his heart and judgment.
human
Why, yes, sir; so does mine--so does mine.
gpt
And I know that he will certainly be grieved in this instance to have yielded to it.
human
I hope so, sir. But I am not altogether sorry that he has done it. I have not only an explanation but a request to make,--a very great and strange favour to ask,--and I am not sure that I should be able to treat him civilly enough throughout an entire interview to ask it properly. Cummings listens with an air of attentive respect, but makes, to this strange statement, no response other than a look of question, while the General pokes about on the carpet at his feet with the point of his stick for a moment before he brings it resolutely down upon the floor with a thump, and resumes, fiercely again:
gpt
Sir, your friend is the victim of an extraordinary resemblance, which is so much more painful to us than we could have made it to him that I have to struggle with my reason to believe that the apology should not come from his side rather than mine. He may feel that we have outraged him, but every look of his, every movement, every tone of his voice, is a mortal wound, a deadly insult to us. He should not live, sir, in the same solar system! The General deals the floor another stab with his cane, while his eyes burn vindictively upon the mild brown orbs of Cummings, wide open with astonishment. He falters, with returning consciousness of his attitude:
human
I--I beg your pardon, sir; I am ridiculous. He closes his lips pathetically, and lets fall his head. When he lifts it again, it is to address Cummings with a singular gentleness:
gpt
I know that I speak to a gentleman.
human
I try to be a good man.
gpt
I had formed that idea of you, sir, in the pulpit. Will you do me the great kindness to answer a question, personal to myself, which I must ask?
human
By all means.
gpt
You spoke of supposing me still in Paris. Are you aware of any circumstances--painful circumstances--connected with my presence there? Pardon my asking; I wouldn't press you if I could help.
human
I had just heard something about--a letter from a friend
gpt
The news has travelled fast. Well, sir, a curious chance--a pitiless caprice of destiny--connects your friend with that miserable story. At Cummings's look of amaze:
human
Through no fault of his, sir; through no fault of his. Sir, I shall not seem to obtrude my trouble unjustifiably upon you when I tell you how; you will see that it was necessary for me to speak. I am glad you already know something of the affair, and I am sure that you will regard what I have to say with the right feeling of a gentleman,--of, as you say, a good man.
gpt
Whatever you think necessary to say to me shall be sacred. But I hope you won't feel that it is necessary to say anything more. I am confident that when my friend has your assurance from me that what has happened is the result of a distressing association
human
I thank you, sir. But something more is due to him; how much more you shall judge. Something more is due to us: I wish to preserve the appearance of sanity, in his eyes and your own. Nevertheless --the General's tone and bearing perceptibly stiffen--
gpt
General Wyatt, I shall feel deeply honoured by whatever confidence you repose in me. I need not say how dear your fame is to us all. General Wyatt, visibly moved, bows to the young minister.
human
It was only on your account that I hesitated.
gpt
Thanks. I understand. I will be explicit, but I will try to be brief. Your friend bears this striking, this painful resemblance to the man who has brought this blight upon us all; yes, sir, --at Cummings's look of deprecation,--
human
--the General advances defiantly upon Cummings, who unconsciously retires a pace--
gpt
I don't exactly understand.
human
Why, sir, it happens often enough in this shabby world that a man gains a poor girl's love, and then jilts her. I chose what I thought the less terrible sorrow for my child. I could not tell her how filthily unworthy he was without bringing to her pure heart a sense of intolerable contamination; I could not endure to speak of it even to my wife. It seemed better that they should both suffer such wrong as a broken engagement might bring them than that they should know what I knew. He was master of the part, and played it well; he showed himself to them simply a heartless scoundrel, and he remains in my power, an outcast now and a convict whenever I will. My story, as it seems to be, is well known in Paris; but the worst is unknown. I choose still that it shall be thought my girl was the victim of a dastardly slight, and I bear with her and her mother the insolent pity with which the world visits such sorrow. He pauses, and then brokenly resumes:
gpt
The affair has not turned out as I hoped, in the little I could hope from it. My trust that the blow, which must sink so deeply into her heart, would touch her pride, and that this would help her to react against it, was mistaken. In such things it appears a woman has no pride; I did not know it; we men are different. The blow crushed her; that was all. Sometimes I am afraid that I must yet try the effect of the whole truth upon her; that I must try if the knowledge of all his baseness cannot restore to her the self-respect which the wrong done herself seems to have robbed her of. And yet I tremble lest the sense of his fouler shame--I may be fatally temporising; but in her present state, I dread any new shock for her; it may be death--I -- He pauses again, and sets his lips firmly; all at once he breaks into a sob.
human
I--I beg your pardon, sir.
gpt
Don't! You wrong yourself and me. I have seen Miss Wyatt; but I hope
human
You have seen her ghost. You have not seen the radiant creature that was once alive. Well, sir; enough of this. There is little left to trouble you with. We landed eight days ago, and I have since been looking about for some place in which my daughter could hide herself; I can't otherwise suggest her morbid sensitiveness, her terror of people. This region was highly commended to me for its healthfulness; but I have come upon this house by chance. I understood that it was empty, and I thought it more than probable that we might pass the autumn months here unmolested by the presence of any one belonging to our world, if not in entire seclusion. At the best, my daughter would hardly have been able to endure another change at once; so far as anything could give her pleasure, the beauty and the wild quiet of the region had pleased her, but she is now quite prostrated, sir,
gpt
My friend will go away at once. There is nothing else for it.
human
That is too much to ask.
gpt
I won't conceal my belief that he will think so. But there can be no question with him when
human
When you tell him our story? After a moment:
gpt
Yes, he has a right to know it--as the rest of the world knows it. You must tell him, sir.
human
No, he need know nothing beyond the fact of this resemblance to some one painfully associated with your past lives. He is a man whose real tenderness of heart would revolt from knowledge that could inflict further sorrow upon you.
gpt
Sir, will you convey to this friend of yours an old man's very humble apology, and sincere prayer for his forgiveness?
human
He will not exact anything of that sort. The evidence of misunderstanding will be clear to him at a word from me.
gpt
But he has a right to this explanation from my own lips, and-- Sir, I am culpably weak. But now that I have missed seeing him here, I confess that I would willingly avoid meeting him. The mere sound of his voice, as I heard it before I saw him, in first coming upon you, was enough to madden me. Can you excuse my senseless dereliction to him?
human
I will answer for him.
gpt
Thanks. It seems monstrous that I should be asking and accepting these great favours. But you are doing a deed of charity to a helpless man utterly beggared in pride. He chokes with emotion, and does not speak for a moment.
human
Your friend is also--he is not also--a clergyman?
gpt
No. He is a painter.
human
Is he a man of note? Successful in his profession?
gpt
Not yet. But that is certain to come.
human
He is poor?
gpt
He is a young painter.
human
Sir, excuse me. Had he planned to remain here some time yet?
gpt
He has been sketching here. He had expected to stay through October.
human
You make the sacrifice hard to accept--I beg your pardon! But I must accept it. I am bound hand and foot.
gpt
I am sorry to have been obliged to tell you this.
human
I obliged you, sir; I obliged you. Give me your advice, sir; you know your friend. What shall I do? I am not rich. I don't belong to a branch of the government service in which people enrich themselves. But I have my pay; and if your friend could sell me the pictures he's been painting here
gpt
That's quite impossible. There is no form in which I could propose such a thing to a man of his generous pride.
human
Well, then, sir, I must satisfy myself as I can to remain his debtor. Will you kindly undertake to tell him?
gpt
General Wyatt.
human
Yes, Mary! Well?
gpt
Mrs. Wyatt wishes to speak with you.
human
I must go, sir. I leave unsaid what I cannot even try to say.
gpt
Everything is understood. But as Mr. Cummings returns from following General Wyatt to the door, his face does not confirm the entire security of his words. He looks anxious and perturbed, and when he has taken up his hat and stick, he stands pondering absent-mindedly. At last he puts on his hat and starts briskly toward the door. Before he reaches it, he encounters Bartlett, who advances abruptly into the room.
human
Oh! I was going to look for you.
gpt
Were you?
human
Yes. In great embarrassment:
gpt
Bartlett, General Wyatt has been here.
human
Who is General Wyatt?
gpt
I mean the gentleman who--whom you wouldn't wait to see.
human
Um!
gpt
Bartlett, Bartlett! Don't go! I implore you, if you have any regard for me whatever, to hear what I have to say. It's boyish, it's cruel, it's cowardly to behave as you're doing!
human
Anything more, Mr. Cummings? I give you benefit of clergy.
gpt
I take it--to denounce your proceeding as something that you'll always be sorry for and ashamed of.
human
Oh! Then, if you have quite freed your mind, I think I may go.
gpt
No, no! You mustn't go. Don't go, my dear fellow. Forgive me! I know how insulted you feel, but upon my soul it's all a mistake,--it is, indeed. General Wyatt --Bartlett falters a moment and stands as if irresolute whether to stay and listen or push on out of the room--
human
Well? I'm sorry for _you_, Cummings. I left a very awkward business to you, and it wasn't yours either. As for General Wyatt, as he chooses to call himself
gpt
Oh, very likely! So is King David his name, when he happens to be in a Scriptural craze. What explanation have you been commissioned to make me? What apology?
human
The most definite, the most satisfactory. You resemble in a most extraordinary manner a man who has inflicted an abominable wrong upon these people, a treacherous and cowardly villain
gpt
Stop! Is that your idea of an apology, an explanation? Isn't it enough that I should be threatened, and vilified, and have people fainting at the sight of me, but I must be told by way of reparation that it all happens because I look like a rascal?
human
My dear friend! Do listen to me!
gpt
No, sir, I won't listen to you! I've listened too much! What right, I should like to know, have they to find this resemblance in me? And do they suppose that I'm going to be placated by being told that they treat me like a rogue because I look like one? It is a little too much. A man calls 'Stop thief' after me and expects me to be delighted when he tells me I look like a thief! The reparation is an additional insult. I don't choose to know that they fancy this infamous resemblance in me. Their pretending it is an outrage; and your reporting it to me is an offence. Will you tell them what I say? Will you tell this General Wyatt and the rest of his Bedlam-broke-loose, that they may all go to the
human
For shame, for shame! You outrage a terrible sorrow! You insult a trouble sore to death! You trample upon, an anguish that should be sacred to your tears!
gpt
What--what do you mean, Cummings?
human
What do I mean? What you are not worthy to know! I mean that these people, against whom you vent your stupid rage, are worthy of angelic pity. I mean that by some disastrous mischance you resemble to the life, in tone, manner, and feature, the wretch who won that poor girl's heart, and then crushed it; who--Bartlett, look here! These are the people--this is the young lady--of whom my friend wrote me from Paris: do you understand?
gpt
No, I don't understand.
human
Why, you know what we were talking of just before they came in: you know what I told you of that cruel business.
gpt
Well?
human
Well, this is the young lady
gpt
Oh, come now! You don't expect me to believe that! It isn't a stage-play.
human
Indeed, indeed, I tell you the miserable truth.
gpt
Do you mean to say that _this_ is the young girl who was jilted in that way? Who--Do you mean-- Do you intend to tell me-- Do you suppose--Cummings
human
Yes, yes, yes!
gpt
Why, man, she's in Paris, according to your own showing!
human
She was in Paris three weeks ago. They have just brought her home, to help her hide her suffering, as if it were her shame, from all who know it. They are in this house by chance, but they are here. I mean what I say. You _must_ believe it, shocking and wild as it is.
gpt
If you were a man capable of such a ghastly joke--but that's impossible. He is silent again, as before.
human
And I-- What did you say about me? That I look like a man who -- He stops and stares into Cummings's face without speaking, as if he were trying to puzzle the mystery out; then, with fallen head, he muses in a voice of devout and reverent tenderness:
gpt
That--that--broken--lily! Oh! With a sudden start he flings his burden upon the closed piano, whose hidden strings hum with the blow, and advances upon Cummings:
human
And you can _tell_ it? Shame on _you_! It ought to be known to no one upon earth! And you--you show that gentle creature's death-wound to teach something like human reason to a surly dog like me? Oh, it's monstrous! I _wasn't_ worth it. Better have let me go, where I would, how I would. What did it matter what I thought or said? And I--I look like that devil, do I? I have his voice, his face, his movement? Cummings, you've over-avenged yourself.
gpt
Don't take it that way, Bartlett. It _is_ hideous. But I didn't make it so, nor you. It's a fatality, it's a hateful chance. But you see now, don't you, Bartlett, how the sight of you must affect them, and how anxious her father must be to avoid you? He most humbly asked your forgiveness, and he hardly knew how to ask that you would not let her see you again. But I told him there could be no question with you; that of course you would prevent it, and at once. I know it's a great sacrifice to expect you to go
human
Go? What are you talking about? He breaks again from the daze into which he had relapsed.
gpt
If there's a hole on the face of the earth where I can hide myself from them, I want to find it. What do you think I'm made of? Go? I ought to be shot away out of a mortar; I ought to be struck away by lightning! Oh, I can't excuse you, Cummings! The indelicacy, the brutality of telling me that! No, no,--I can't overlook it. He shakes his head and walks away from his friend; then he returns, and bends on him a look of curious inquiry.
human
Am I really such a ruffian --he speaks very gently, almost meekly, now--
gpt
Her father.
human
Oh, that's too loathsome! Had the man no soul, no mercy? Did he think me such a consummate beast that nothing less would drive me away? Yes, he did! Yes, I made him think so! Oh!
gpt
I don't know that he did you that injustice; but I'm afraid _I_ did. I was at my wits' end.
human
Oh, I don't know that you were wrong.
gpt
I suppose that his anxiety for her life made it comparatively easy for him to speak of the hurt to her pride. She can't be long for this world.
human
No, she had the dying look! After a long pause, in which he has continued to wander aimlessly about the room:
gpt
Cummings, is it necessary that you should tell him you told me?
human
You know I hate concealments of any kind, Bartlett.
gpt
Oh, well; do it then!
human
But I don't know that we shall see him again; and even if we do, I don't see how I can tell him unless he asks. It's rather painful.
gpt
Well, take that little sin on your conscience if you can. It seems to me too ghastly that I should know what you've told me; it's indecent. Cummings, --after another pause,--
human
After a silence:
gpt
I feel as if there were blood on me! He goes to the piano, and gathering up his things turns about towards Cummings again:
human
Come, man; I'm going. It's sacrilege to stay an instant,--to exist.
gpt
Don't take it in that way, Bartlett. I blame myself very much for not having spared you in what I said. I wouldn't have told you of it, if I could have supposed that an accidental resemblance of the sort would distress you so.
human
You had to tell me. I forced you to extreme measures. I'm quite worthy to look like him. Good Lord! I suppose I should be capable of his work.