circle of public worshipers and with feminine coquetry they try to attract new suitors. I am like them. I do not need to create beauty, for as they say, I have it in myself. I am my own work, but I love glory; I need admiration; and for that reason I give myself generously, content with the happiness which I apportion, but keeping my public at my feet, without allowing myself to be dominated by those whom I seek."
Michael was sure that many artists must have left their imprint on that woman's life. It was evident in the words and imagery with which she endeavored to express her enthusiasm for her own body. Her pride in her beauty was boundless. What were the ambitions of men, compared to the satisfaction of being lovely and desired? Only the glory of warriors, of blood-stained conquerors, whose names are known even in the remotest wilds of the earth, equals the glory that a woman feels in the sense of universal power over men.
"To me," continued Alicia, "the truest and most beautiful thing ever written is 'the old men on the wall.'"
The Prince looked at her questioningly; so she went on to explain. She referred to the old Trojan men in the Iliad, who were protesting against the long siege of their city, against the blood sacrifice of thousands of heroes, against poverty and hardship, all due to the fault of a woman… But Helen, majestic in her beauty, passed before the old men, trailing her golden tunic; and they all lapsed into silent contemplation, rapt in wonder, as though divine Aphrodite had descended upon earth; and they murmured like a prayer: "It is indeed fitting that we should suffer thus for her. So lovely she is!"
"I like to see men suffer on my account. How glorious if I might be the cause of a great slaughter, like that ancient immortal woman!.. I have an exultant feeling of pride when I notice that envy and spite are whispering behind my back, starting all that gossip that makes my mother so furious. Only extraordinary people stir up torrents of abuse… And afterwards, in the drawing rooms, the very same austere gentlemen who have seconded all that their wives and daughters have to say against me, look at me with sly admiring glances, as I pass; and some of them blush in confusion and others turn pale. It is easy to guess that I have only to beckon and their silent admiration would… I too have my 'old men on the wall.'"
Michael suddenly realized that while she was talking she had been coming gradually closer, from cushion to cushion as she lay resting on her elbows. She was almost at his feet, with head held high, endeavoring to envelop him in a wave of magnetism from her fixed and dominating eyes. She seemed like a black and white snake, twisting forward little by little among the cushions as though they were rocks of various colors.
"The only man of whom I have ever thought the least bit, the only one I ever considered at all different from other men," she continued in a half whisper, "is you… Don't be alarmed: it isn't love. I am not going to invert rôles, and propose to you. Perhaps it is because, as children, we used to hate each other; because you never wanted me. That is such an unheard of thing in my life, that it alone is enough to interest me."
She put her hands on his knees, as though she were about to rise.
"When I saw you in the cemetery, after so many years, I remembered all that I had heard about you. Many women whom I know have been sweethearts of yours, and I said to myself: Why not I, too? Then I thought of all the men who have come into my life, and I added: Why not he?" …
And now Alicia's elbows were resting on his knees, and as the Prince was seated on but two pillows, their lips and eyes were almost on a level. As she talked he could feel her breath on his face. It was like the breeze in an Asiatic forest, whispering beneath the moon. The spices and flowers with which the wine was saturated seemed to float in that volatile caress.
Michael tried to avoid her advance, but one of Alicia's hands was already on his shoulder. He merely shook his head.
"Don't be afraid," she added, exaggerating the caressing quality of her sigh. "There are no embarrassing obligations with me. You may leave me when you wish; perhaps I shall be the one to leave you first. I have wanted you for the last few days. You must surely desire me as the others do… Let us live this moment, like people who know the secret of life and all it can give… Then if we tire of each other, good-by, with no hard feeling and no pining!"
When from time to time in after years the Prince recalled that scene, he always felt a certain dissatisfaction with himself. He was sure he had seemed brutal as well as ridiculous. In his travels he had approached women frequently in the most matter of fact way, often remembering them afterwards with some repugnance; yet here he was, rebelling with a feeling of offended modesty at the advances of the Duchess. No! With her, never! Rising within him he felt the same displeasure that had once made him raise his whip in his youth.
He found himself on his feet in the middle of the study, looking anxiously toward the door and muttering stupid excuses. "No, I must go: it is late. Some friends are waiting for me…" She had gained control of herself. She too was standing looking at him with astonishment and wrath.
"You are the only one who could do a thing like this," she said, in a cutting tone, as they parted. "I see it all clearly now. I hate you as you hate me. My whim was a stupid one. You have permitted yourself a liberty which no one in the world will ever be able to take again. If I were younger than I am I would thrash you again as I did in the Bois; but instead, just consider that I am repeating everything I said then."
They did not see each other again.
When the Prince had set in order everything concerning the inheritance from his mother, he thought of resuming his voyages, but on a more magnificent scale. It was no longer necessary for him to ask the Princess for money. He was one of the great millionaires of the world. Those who were in charge of the administration of his affairs – an office with numerous clerks, almost equalling the government bureau of a small state – made the announcement that the fifteen million francs which the Princess had received annually would soon be twenty, through the development of Russian railways, which allowed more intensive working of his mines.
The Colonel was commissioned to have the heavy medieval walls of Villa Sirena torn down, and the place replanned according to the Prince's tastes. The latter hated architectural resuscitations. He could not bear modern buildings patterned to flatter the pride of the rich proprietors, after the Alhambra, the palaces of Florence, or the solemn and orderly constructions of Versailles.
"The furniture ought to correspond to the period," said Michael, "and people ought to live in such houses as they lived in in the century which produced that particular style. People living in an ancient house ought to dress and eat as in former times… What an absurdity to reconstruct those historic shells, with the interior arranged to suit the needs of modern men who are forced to commit an anachronism at every step!"
He recalled the project of a millionaire friend of his, a member of the Institute, who had built a Roman house on the Riviera, Roman in all the exactness of its details. At the house-warming the guests were obliged to sleep on corded beds and to eat reclining on couches; and even more intimate conveniences were modeled on the principle of hygiene known to the ancient Cæsars. Within twenty-four hours they all pretended they had received urgent telegrams calling them to Paris, and the owner himself after a few months, left his house in charge of a keeper to show to tourists as a museum.
Michael was fond of modern architecture, whose cathedrals are machine shops and large railway stations. Applied to dwellings it pleased him for its lack of style: white walls, a few moldings, rounded corners, with no angles whatsoever, so that the dust might be pursued to its remotest hiding places, wide openings letting in the breeze and the sunlight, double walls between which hot or cold air, and water at various temperatures, could circulate.
"Up to the present time," the Prince asserted, "man has lived in magnificent jewel cases of art and filth. Modern architects have done more in the last thirty years to make life pleasant than the artist-builders, so much admired by history, did in three thousand.
