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THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE


BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

AUTHOR OF THE KING IN YELLOW, THE RED REPUBLIC, A KING AND A FEW DUKES,
THE MAKER OF MOONS, ETC.


NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1897




COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.




_DEDICATION._


 _There is a maid, demure as she is wise,
  With all of April in her winsome eyes,
  And to my tales she listens pensively,
  With slender fingers clasped about her knee,
  Watching the sparrows on the balcony._

   _Shy eyes that, lifted up to me,
    Free all my heart of vanity;
    Clear eyes, that speak all silently,
    Sweet as the silence of a nunnery--
    Read, for I write my rede for you alone,
    Here where the city's mighty monotone
    Deepens the silence to a symphony--
    Silence of Saints, and Seers, and Sorcery._

 _Arms and the Man! A noble theme, I ween!
  Alas! I can not sing of these, Eileen--
  Only of maids and men and meadow-grass,
  Of sea and fields and woodlands, where I pass;
  Nothing but these I know, Eileen, alas!_

   _Clear eyes that, lifted up to me,
    Free all my soul from vanity;
    Gray eyes, that speak all wistfully--
    Nothing but these I know, alas!_

                                       _R. W. C._

 _April, 1896._




INTRODUCTION.


 _I._

 _Where two fair paths, deep flowered
                        And leaf-embowered,
  Creep East and West across a World concealed,
  Which shall he take who journeys far afield?_

 _II._

 _Canst thou then say, "I go,"
                        Or "I forego"?
  What turns thee East or West, as thistles blow?
  Is fair more fair than fair--and dost thou know?_

 _III._

 _Turn to the West, unblessed
                        And uncaressed;
  Turn to the East, and, seated at the Feast
  Thou shalt find Life, or Death from Life released._

 _IV._

 _And thou who lovest best
                        A maid dark-tressed,
  And passest others by with careless eye,
  Canst thou tell why thou choosest? Tell, then; why?_

  _V._

 _So when thy kiss is given
                        Or half-forgiven,
  Why should she tremble, with her face flame-hot,
  Or laugh and whisper, "Love, I tremble not"?_

 _VI._

 _Or when thy hand may catch
                        A half-drawn latch,
  What draws thee from the door, to turn and pass
  Through streets unknown, dim, still, and choked with grass?_

 _VII._

 _What! Canst thou not foresee
                        The Mystery?
  Heed! For a Voice commands thy every deed!
  And it hath sounded. And thou needs must heed!_

                                       _R. W. C._

 _1896._




CONTENTS.


                               PAGE

  THE PURPLE EMPEROR              1

  POMPE FUNEBRE                  39

  THE MESSENGER                  47

  THE WHITE SHADOW              109

  PASSEUR                       175

  THE KEY TO GRIEF              185

  A MATTER OF INTEREST          213

  ENVOI                         283




THE PURPLE EMPEROR.




THE PURPLE EMPEROR.

  Un souvenir heureux est peut-etre, sur terre,
    Plus vrai que le bonheur.

                                        A. DE MUSSET.


I.

The Purple Emperor watched me in silence. I cast again, spinning out
six feet more of waterproof silk, and, as the line hissed through the
air far across the pool, I saw my three flies fall on the water like
drifting thistledown. The Purple Emperor sneered.

"You see," he said, "I am right. There is not a trout in Brittany that
will rise to a tailed fly."

"They do in America," I replied.

"Zut! for America!" observed the Purple Emperor.

"And trout take a tailed fly in England," I insisted sharply.

"Now do I care what things or people do in England?" demanded the
Purple Emperor.

"You don't care for anything except yourself and your wriggling
caterpillars," I said, more annoyed than I had yet been.

The Purple Emperor sniffed. His broad, hairless, sunburnt features bore
that obstinate expression which always irritated me. Perhaps the manner
in which he wore his hat intensified the irritation, for the flapping
brim rested on both ears, and the two little velvet ribbons which
hung from the silver buckle in front wiggled and fluttered with every
trivial breeze. His cunning eyes and sharp-pointed nose were out of all
keeping with his fat red face. When he met my eye, he chuckled.

"I know more about insects than any man in Morbihan--or Finistere
either, for that matter," he said.

"The Red Admiral knows as much as you do," I retorted.

"He doesn't," replied the Purple Emperor angrily.

"And his collection of butterflies is twice as large as yours," I
added, moving down the stream to a spot directly opposite him.

"It is, is it?" sneered the Purple Emperor. "Well, let me tell you,
Monsieur Darrel, in all his collection he hasn't a specimen, a single
specimen, of that magnificent butterfly, Apatura Iris, commonly known
as the 'Purple Emperor.'"

"Everybody in Brittany knows that," I said, casting across the
sparkling water; "but just because you happen to be the only man who
ever captured a 'Purple Emperor' in Morbihan, it doesn't follow that
you are an authority on sea-trout flies. Why do you say that a Breton
sea-trout won't touch a tailed fly?"

"It's so," he replied.

"Why? There are plenty of May-flies about the stream."

"Let 'em fly!" snarled the Purple Emperor, "you won't see a trout touch
'em."

My arm was aching, but I grasped my split bamboo more firmly, and,
half turning, waded out into the stream and began to whip the ripples
at the head of the pool. A great green dragon-fly came drifting by on
the summer breeze and hung a moment above the pool, glittering like an
emerald.

"There's a chance! Where is your butterfly net?" I called across the
stream.

"What for? That dragon-fly? I've got dozens--Anax Junius, Drury,
characteristic, anal angle of posterior wings, in male, round; thorax
marked with----"

"That will do," I said fiercely. "Can't I point out an insect in
the air without this burst of erudition? Can you tell me, in simple
everyday French, what this little fly is--this one, flitting over the
eel grass here beside me? See, it has fallen on the water."

"Huh!" sneered the Purple Emperor, "that's a Linnobia annulus."

"What's that?" I demanded.

Before he could answer there came a heavy splash in the pool, and the
fly disappeared.

"He! he! he!" tittered the Purple Emperor. "Didn't I tell you the fish
knew their business? That was a sea-trout. I hope you don't get him."

He gathered up his butterfly net, collecting box, chloroform bottle,
and cyanide jar. Then he rose, swung the box over his shoulder, stuffed
the poison bottles into the pockets of his silver-buttoned velvet
coat, and lighted his pipe. This latter operation was a demoralizing
spectacle, for the Purple Emperor, like all Breton peasants, smoked one
of those microscopical Breton pipes which requires ten minutes to find,
ten minutes to fill, ten minutes to light, and ten seconds to finish.
With true Breton stolidity he went through this solemn rite, blew three
puffs of smoke into the air, scratched his pointed nose reflectively,
and waddled away, calling back an ironical "Au revoir, and bad luck to
all Yankees!"

I watched him out of sight, thinking sadly of the young girl whose life
he made a hell upon earth--Lys Trevec, his niece. She never admitted
it, but we all knew what the black-and-blue marks meant on her soft,
round arm, and it made me sick to see the look of fear come into her
eyes when the Purple Emperor waddled into the cafe of the Groix Inn.

It was commonly said that he half-starved her. This she denied. Marie
Joseph and 'Fine Lelocard had seen him strike her the day after the
Pardon of the Birds because she had liberated three bullfinches which
he had limed the day before. I asked Lys if this were true, and she
refused to speak to me for the rest of the week. There was nothing to
do about it. If the Purple Emperor had not been avaricious, I should
never have seen Lys at all, but he could not resist the thirty francs
a week which I offered him; and Lys posed for me all day long, happy
as a linnet in a pink thorn hedge. Nevertheless, the Purple Emperor
hated me, and constantly threatened to send Lys back to her dreary
flax-spinning. He was suspicious, too, and when he had gulped down
the single glass of cider which proves fatal to the sobriety of most
Bretons, he would pound the long, discoloured oaken table and roar
curses on me, on Yves Terrec, and on the Red Admiral. We were the
three objects in the world which he most hated: me, because I was a
foreigner, and didn't care a rap for him and his butterflies; and the
Red Admiral, because he was a rival entomologist.

He had other reasons for hating Terrec.

The Red Admiral, a little wizened wretch, with a badly adjusted
glass eye and a passion for brandy, took his name from a butterfly
which predominated in his collection. This butterfly, commonly known
to amateurs as the "Red Admiral," and to entomologists as Vanessa
Atalanta, had been the occasion of scandal among the entomologists of
France and Brittany. For the Red Admiral had taken one of these common
insects, dyed it a brilliant yellow by the aid of chemicals, and palmed
it off on a credulous collector as a South African species, absolutely
unique. The fifty francs which he gained by this rascality were,
however, absorbed in a suit for damages brought by the outraged amateur
a month later; and when he had sat in the Quimperle jail for a month,
he reappeared in the little village of St. Gildas soured, thirsty, and
burning for revenge. Of course we named him the Red Admiral, and he
accepted the name with suppressed fury.

The Purple Emperor, on the other hand, had gained his imperial title
legitimately, for it was an undisputed fact that the only specimen of
that beautiful butterfly, Apatura Iris, or the Purple Emperor, as it