The Kinzer Portraits
I KNEW when I did it that I was doing an inconsiderate thing. It was clearly apparent that the portraits did not wish to be separated. Perhaps I should better convey my sense of the impression of passionate unity they gave me if I said that they willed not to be separated. You may think me talking nonsense, but when I told Schlatter to send me Captain Kinzer’s likeness only, I was conscious, even as I spoke, of agitation roused round about me, of active opposition, of indignation waxing to anger. Don’t ask me how I knew this. I can only tell you what intelligent people know already, — that those who love and collect “ old things ” have a kind of sixth sense that enables them to perceive atmosphere where other people see only more or less pleasing shapes of wood, porcelain, metal, canvas, and paint. And sometimes, somehow, this perception of atmosphere, of the aura about old portraits, furniture, jewels, and such-like, is raised to thenth power and passes over into a perception of emotion. The experience is as vivid as strange, as convincing as incredible. But you must take my word for it in this case. I have no other proof to offer — save two bits of broken string.
Just this miracle of an enlarged perception took place for me as I stood in the back room of Schlatter’s shop, before the pictures of Nicholas Pabodie Kinzer and Susan Woolsey, his wife, appraising them critically with reference to their merits and the needs of my dining-room. I felt the musty, dusty air of the crowded place throb and stir around me suddenly, and I knew myself in the presence of old passions that, somehow, I had roused.
Schlatter’s shop is up a side-street that ascends the hill. You go down a few steps into the front room, dark, and crammed with the most alluring pieces of his old mahogany, pewter, and china. Passing edge-wise and cautiously through this jumble, you enter a larger, lighter place at the back, where everything is dust and disorder. Old pictures on the walls, decrepit furniture piled in stacks awaiting the repairer, mouldy books, tarnished silver, decaying work-baskets where ancient needles are rusting in bits of yellowed flannel — all the heaped-up paraphernalia of forgotten lives is here. You know the kind of room, the sight and the odor of it, or else this tale is not for you. Here, with the rest, on this day were the two portraits I speak of, one of which I meant to possess. I am a mildly obstinate man, and it did not occur to me to wince or retreat before that curious impression I gained of opposition to my will in this matter. Rather, I think, the feeling moved me to be more heady, and I paid no attention to Schlatter’s gentle insistence. I think he felt what I did. Certainly he looked disturbed and roused himself to expostulation, an attitude unusual in him toward his patrons.
“ I like the man’s face,” I repeated with decision. “ I wall take that one, but not the woman.”
“ O Mr. Raynie, sir — I would hardly like to separate them,” urged Schlatter. “ Don’t you feel for yourself, sir, that it would be — inadvisable? And the lot ought to go together. I did but get the two portraits at the sale, and Captain Kinzer’s chronometer and his wife’s writing-case. Besides, of the two portraits, the woman’s is the better work.”
This was true. Both pictures had been done by some obscure portraitpainter of the early nineteenth century, and were conscientious work for that period; but the artist had a touch of cleverness that came out most strongly in his presentation of the woman’s face.
The handsome captain whose likeness I coveted looked wooden in comparison with his wife. He was of the physical type one immediately designates as a “ fine man,” ruddy, chestnut-haired, clear of eye, and cheerful of countenance. He was arrayed in fine blue cloth and ruffles, obviously his best attire. Apparently he was taller and less squarely-built than the typical sea-captain of a hundred years ago, and his face, while not sensitive, looked as if you might call him interesting if you met him on the street. What I am trying to say is that he did not appear simply full-fed, active, and jolly. There was about him a hint of something finer than the mere animal satisfaction of the typical “ fine man,” and yet he was also obviously comfortable, sensible, and squarely set upon the earth. It was for just this combination of fine and coarse that I liked him and coveted his portrait. I have coveted that union of qualities for myself all my life long! But I shall go to my grave, as I came from my cradle, lean, inquisitive, thoughtful; overfragile in body, and over-speculative in mind. Since Plymouth Rock there have been two types of men among my father’s people — the red-headed Raynies, and the big-nosed Raynies. The former are the fighters, the more forceful strain. I myself am a big-nosed Raynie, which means that I was born doomed to an irritable temper, critical tastes, and a somewhat malicious humor. I am a little bald, a little stooped, and much softer-hearted than I seem. But I was not soft-hearted enough to feel sentimental objections about separating the portraits of this oncehappy pair, nor were the attractions of Susan Woolsey Kinzer of a kind to melt me. At thirty I admired a woman of that type —who failed to admire me. Ever since I have felt what seems to me a decent and becoming irritation against her like.
Mrs. Kinzer had black hair, opaque gray eyes, an aquiline nose, an air of much breeding and great restlessness. Her face was thin, strong, intense, almost pleading. There is no calm where such women are. They are not comfortable to live with. I said something of this sort to Schlatter.
“ Does that matter in a portrait, sir? ” he inquired disapprovingly.
“ More than anywhere else,” I said promptly. “ If she were a live woman, she would be out of the house, gadding, half her time, but a picture is at home forever. Really, I can’t have her about, Schlatter. She is a Lucifer of a lady, I tell you. She would be stirring up dissensions when she seemed to be hanging quietly on the wall looking down at my guests. She would be working against me behind my back. She is much better off leading a quiet life secluded here in your dusty room, where there is no mischief within her reach. I’ll take the captain’s portrait, but not hers. Now show me what other relics you have of them.”
Schlatter did not think me crazy, because he is used to the prattle of would-be collectors like myself, and has learned to be tolerant of their fancies for the excellent reason that the most whimsical buy most freely. But he did think me almost indecently regardless of the finer proprieties in thus parting husband and wife. I could see his opinion in the set of his head as he turned away to look in the surrounding piles of junk for the other things that had once belonged to the Kinzers. He was very stiff with me, and obstinate in his haggling.
In the end I bargained and paid for the man’s portrait and the lady’s writing-case, the latter being an old-fashioned rosewood box such as our grandmothers used. The chronometer and the lady herself were left in Schlatter’s back room, but the scamp got from me a check nearly as large as he had intended to ask for the pair of portraits, and so we both were satisfied. If I had outraged the unwritten civilities of collecting, I had at least paid damages.
Schlatter sent home my purchase promptly. The captain’s portrait, with its atmosphere of geniality and good comradeship, was destined for the dining-room ultimately; but for the time being, it was hung over the fireplace in the library. I have a trick of liking to live with new belongings for a time; partly, I suppose, from something like a small boy’s candid joy in a new possession, and partly from a more sophisticated desire to see if they wear well in close intimacy.
I sat down before the fire that evening in a complacent frame of mind, pleased with my purchases and, within limits, with myself. Had I not stood firm in the face of Schlatter’s desire to foist upon my domestic life the simulacrum of an eager, self-centred, agitating woman, whose mere pictured presence was enough to upset the comfort of my bachelor establishment? I leaned back luxuriously in my deep leather chair, lit my cigar, snapped my fingers at the recollection of Mrs. Kinzer’s plain but ardent face, and looked, for sympathy in my mood, up to the portrait of Captain Nicholas Pabodie Kinzer. Doubtless he too had known at times this pleasant sense of escape, this satisfaction that Mrs. Kinzer was not always at his elbow!
The hearth-fire blazed up fitfully and threw intermittent lights and shadows over his handsome face. Yes, I liked the man and felt that I understood him. Probably the lady had liked him too. Even his painted personality was winning, lovable; and yet, with all his cordial, open gaze, there was a something I could not quite make out that seemed enhanced a little now I had him to myself. What was it? a subacid edge? a note of disapproval? or only a natural reserve? He could — if you will pardon the language of the day—he could “keep you guessing.” His amiability was no mere stupid, temperamental affair. He would be a man of resource and some subtlety, if driven to the wall.
From studying the captain’s comely face I turned, when my cigar was out, to examining Mrs. Kinzer’s writingcase. It was a handsome article, the rosewood inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver ornaments, opening at an angle to form a sloping desk in the lap. It contained some yellowing stationery headed by elaborately interlaced initials in pale violet; one or two small coins; a withered rose; a bit of bead-work; a tarnished trinket or two — about such a collection, all told, as I imagine would be found in most ladies’ writing-cases. The deeper of the two compartments possessed a perfectly obvious and simple-minded false bottom, which I presently removed. Underneath it I found what I had hoped I might — a few of the documents in the case. These were, as might have been expected, a small collection of letters from Captain Kinzer to his wife, written on his various voyages, and each one apparently preserved for some definite reason. They were rather dry and formal letters, most of them. A number contained explicit directions about matters of business, and had evidently been preserved on that account. But there was one, of many pages and worn with much handling, that was of a different sort. I took it up with a hesitation that I felt to be unduly sentimental. Why should I not hear what they had to say to each other, this long-silent pair? Evidently there was no soul left on earth who cared for them or had an interest in their effects but myself, else these latter would never have come to the auction-room.
I fortified myself with the remembrance that the big-nosed Raynies were always soft-hearted at the wrong time, and unfolded the brittle sheets. After I had once begun reading them, it would have been impossible for me to put them down again, so alive did the letter seem to me, so vital in its survey of the relations of this wedded pair, and —yes, by Heaven! — so true to the hearts of all loving men and women who yet war with one another, as loving men and women have always done and will always do.
The letter was dated in some Brazilian sea-port, and its beginning was as abrupt as a blow on the face from a friendly hand.
MY DEAR WIFE, — God knows what you mean by the letter I found awaiting me here. I do not. What have I done that a man ought not to do? What have I left undone that a man should do? Have I not been faithful to you? Provided for you as comfortably as my means allow? Cherished you in sickness and in health? Reasoned with you in your tantrums and absurdities, and patiently sought to bring you back to the paths of common sense when you wandered from them, as women will? Not that I consider you more unreasonable than other women, and, indeed, I believe you better than most, more amenable to loving persuasion and less obstinate than the common run. But Heaven knows I do not understand the disposition of a female, nor do I consider it wholly desirable that a man should do so. In that case I think the world would never get forward, nor the business of life be done.
Such things as this are always coming up between you and me. They have clouded our marital happiness from the beginning. I would be thinking that the sun shone and the skies were fair, that we were happy in our circumstances and contented in one another, and, suddenly, as though at some secret signal unheard by me, there would arise a storm, tears and wild reproaches, or, worse, frowns, dark looks, and sulky silences. You would behave as a woman grieved, cut to the heart — and by me! But how, when, where, as Heaven is my witness, I have never adequately known, nor could I by any reasonable endeavors ascertain from you. A man grows tired of these things. Were I a drunkard, or a spendthrift; were I miserly, or sharp of tongue, or footless, then might you have some justice in these moods. But, wife, I am none of these things, as is well known to you. I am a simple man, seeking to be an upright one, and a loving husband when I am so allowed.
I do not know that writing you this will help to clear up this to-do, but I am well aware that to have speech with you on the subject is impossible. If I am to free my mind wholly, it must be by the written word. You may tear my letter to pieces unread if you choose, but I counsel you not to do so.
Look now at the way this matter you complain of in the letter that has just reached me, looks to me. It is a mere tempest in a tea-pot, and must seem so to any folk of decent judgment:
You receive a letter from me written hastily as we came to port after a severe storm at sea, during which I lost two men overboard and my vessel was not a little damaged by the fury of the wind and waves. You do not think, “He was completely exhausted by his anxieties when he wrote thus hastily and incompletely to me.” You refuse to use any such tender imagination as regards my condition and that of the ship whose safety is more to me than my own. You seem to pity yourself for the brevity of my epistle, rather than me for the length of my troubles.
Perhaps I did indeed write somewhat dryly, and, as you phrase it, austerely. It would not be wonderful were it so, since I was suffering from a broken arm at the time (the which I concealed from you for your greater comfort) and had not recovered from the exhaustion of nearly seventy hours of hurricane. These, madam, are not the conditions under which a man writes a letter like an epithalamium to a consort of ten years’ standing. Be a little reasonable, my Susan. I hear you say, as I have so often heard, that Love is not reasonable, and you love me. Pray believe that I thank Heaven for your affection, without which my life would indeed be destitute of soft influences, but do not expect of me the incredible. I firmly believe it not possible for a man doing a man’s work in the world to meet the demands for sympathy and affection made upon him by a childless wife. Do not expect it, even of me. Fix your thoughts upon higher things, and thank your Creator that all is so nearly well with us as it is, instead of repining because you do not find me such a lover as you meet in the sickly romances with which you divert your unoccupied mind.
And yet in truth there are moments even in my busiest days when I think of you with a longing that I verily believe would satisfy (for the moment) even your unreasonable self, and more than once in every voyage I waken in these nights of tropic stars with such a yearning for the soft rain of kisses on my eyelids that in very truth it seems I can hardly support my lonely, unwived estate longer.
Thus, you see, even I am unmanly enough at times to repine because of the separation my calling involves. Why, then, should I chide you because you always do so? Forgive me, Susan, if I am harsh with you for your own good, but I would have you see and perform the part of a reasonable woman and good wife.
Doubtless at this point you would tell me again that unreason is a lover’s part. ’T is a notion you seem to cherish. Now I am unread in romances and perhaps unwise in dealing with women, but to me it seems that reasonableness should dignify every function that we exercise in life.
If you wish to know the heart, of a man, I will show it you. We are like this: unreason repels us; exactions annoy us; tears eat away the substance of affection as the winter tides gnaw away the shore. I know not why these things are so, but when you implore me to tell you that I love you, my whole soul rises in revolt. I cannot say the words at that moment, nor have I any desire to say them. A coyness of spirit torments me, and sets me far from you in my spirit. Yet sometimes when you are wayward or unloving, almost could I pour out my heart before you, molten, and cry “I love you” till my clamor reaches the gate of Heaven. God, who made man and woman both, alone knows why these things are so, knows why my proud heart refuses to meet your longing with the words you so desire, — knows why they spring unbidden to my lips such time as you desire them not. It is all too deep for me. I can only beg you to forbear to ask for words of love from me — in order that I may lavish them upon you to your heart’s content; for, again, God alone knows how devoutly, how sincerely, I do believe that, in spite of my proud stomach or your begging lips, in spite of all these whimsies, which, I take it, are not You nor I, but merely the old Adam and Eve in us, unmastered and unchastened — I do believe, I say and swear, that you are the woman God created for my mate. More than this I cannot say; less than this I do not feel, no matter how perverse you find my lips, how feeble my pen. If there be unity in marriage, then is there unity between us two.
Do you not know that we were meant to be peace and refreshment, not torment and disturbance, to one another? Ay, and a sweetness like to that of a midsummer noon. Could I but show you what I sometimes feel!
And now may God bless you and keep you, woman of my heart, and hasten the day when I shall take you in my arms again. And if when that day comes, you find me silent, or find me awkward; if you think scornfully of my speech, or slightingly of my caresses — then read again this writing. I have tried to set forth fully, once for all, what I feel in my heart concerning these matters, both of satisfaction and displeasure. And if I seem to contradict myself, it is but the heart of man that is contradictory. Now that the task is once accomplished, I shall not try again. But I am
Your husband forever,
NICHOLAS KINZER.
I put down the faded sheets excitedly. To me these seemed brave and living words, and there was a stirring at my heart such as I had not felt for years. Just then the fire flared up sharply and threw the light on Captain Kinzer’s face. He was looking down at me with gravity and something like reproach. He seemed to be asking me austerely where was my vaunted Raynie delicacy and good taste, and where I thought to find my own profit in this revelation of the passion of hearts that had ceased to beat?
I did not know how to tell him how greatly it seemed to my advantage to feel this vivid interest in him and his remote predicament, and so I stared stupidly back at him from my chair.
As I sat thus, I could have sworn that I saw the picture move slightly to one side and back again, and that I heard the long creak of the string supporting it as it see-sawed across the picture-hook. This startled me somewhat. I felt a pricking at the back of my neck, and my spinal cord seemed to turn to water for the moment. Then I rallied my forces and looked at him more boldly. I was not really thinking of the creaking string, or the moving picture, or even of my own sudden fear, but of the blurred words on the yellowing pages. They had bitten deep into my consciousness. Those anguished misunderstandings and fiercely tender reconciliations were a part of all that I had missed. Just for the instant I was profoundly conscious of this loss, and these old squabbles seemed not so much futile as infinitely touching, human, and, in their final result, effectual. Yes, effectual, for they had aided this restless, alien pair to achieve that union for which the poised and the hysterical alike yearn.
To my own surprise I lifted up my voice and bore witness to my thought.
“You were a diverse pair,” I said. “You were irresistibly drawn together; you fluttered feebly apart. She was caught in the net of her own temperament, beating her wings ceaselessly against obstacles that existed only in her thought. You were the captive of your own stolidity, the victim of your own grave excellences. But, with all your battlings, you two were one. You found that unity which is the end of love. You achieved the Ultimate Desire.”
I said this enviously, bitterly even. For, curiously and incomprehensively, the old pain was tearing at my heart, and I felt again the stabbing of the old despair. My cynic humor disappeared like a mist-wreath. I forgot the mental attitude suitable for a bignosed Raynie. I was magnetized by contact with the vital earnestness of Nicholas Kinzer. If any miracle happened in my house that night, it was this: I felt again, and keenly. This was, and to me still is, the incomparable marvel. But I cannot deny that another curious thing also occurred, and I explain one as little as the other.
While I spoke, the door into the hall suddenly jarred open and swung back as if it were in the grip of a strong wind, though the outside door was fast, and no windows were open. Then the picture above the mantel moved forward like something straining against a leash, and again I heard that creaking of the string across the hook. As I sprang up, the picture came to the ground, but instead of crashing at my feet it seemed to be lifted gently by the draft and was borne across the room without damage and left leaning, face inward, against the farther wall, beside the open door through which that viewless wind so strongly blew. Following and gazing down at the picture, I saw that the string was broken raggedly as if it had been sawed across. I did not know what to think or say. There came to me a poignant, overwhelming sense of the closeness of the most vital of all human relations, and a sense of my own incredible folly in that the years had gone by and left me lonely and unbound to any soul. I babbled something senselessly, stupid with shock or fright. I know I heard myself saying, “ Why, my life has been wasted, just wasted — " And then, somehow, I found myself across the hall, up the stairs and safe in my own bed-room where no marvels were. My grandmother’s mahogany was solid to the touch, and the switch of the electric lights was under my hand. I lit the room brilliantly, locked the door, and shut even my own thoughts on the outside.
In the morning I slept later than usual. When I awoke, it was to hear the telephone jingling sharply in the hall below, and I rose on my elbow and took down the receiver from the extension that stood on my bedside table. Schlatter was on the line, asking for me. He requested somewhat urgently that I stop in at his shop on my way to the office. For an impassive .German, his manner might be called agitated, and I pondered this fact as I made my toilet. When I went downstairs, I found that the library as well as the other rooms had already undergone the morning dusting and putting to rights. The shades were raised, the sunshine was pouring in, and Lena, the bright-faced Nova Scotian who presides over these matters, was stirring about briskly.
I looked cautiously in at the library door on my way to breakfast. There was nothing uncanny in the familiar aspect of the room, but, undeniably, the portrait of Captain Nicholas Pabodie Kinzer was no longer hanging over the mantelpiece. Lena had moved it a little, but it was still leaning against the wall, face inward, trailing its broken strings across the rug.
The morning sun was pouring into Schlatter’s little front room also, but Schlatter himself was gloomy and I might say accusing. The morning smile was missing from his round German face.
“ Mr. Raynie, sir,” he began, “ an odd thing has happened, a very odd thing. I don’t like it — not at all.”
“ What do you mean, Schlatter? ”
He shook his head. His eyes bulged with a mixture of emotions as he led me into the back room. He pointed to the wall where the Kinzer portraits had hung together, side by side. It was bare and vacant. Involuntarily I turned and looked beside the door through which we entered. Leaning against the wall, close to the doorjamb, face inward, was a picture that I recognized from its size and frame as Mrs. Kinzer’s portrait. The string that had held it was broken raggedly as though it had been sawed across a nail, and the fraying ends were trailing on the dusty floor.
“ Last night, Mr. Raynie,” said Schlatter solemnly and breathing deep, “ when I locked this room and left the shop, Mrs. Kinzer’s portrait was hanging on the wall yonder, where it has always hung. This morning ” — he paused — “ this morning, sir, I found it there beside the door. The room had not been entered. The windows were tight. The door had not been tampered with. But — there it was. You may not believe me, but it is God’s truth. Did n’t I tell you, Mr. Raynie, sir, that it was — inadvisable to separate the portraits? ”
He stepped forward, took up the picture, and turned it about, face outward. Susan Woolsey Kinzer looked me squarely in the eye. Her lean, highbred face was irradiated with something that made it look less plain. It seemed to me that there was a curious light in those opaque gray eyes. And why not? Had she not borne testimony to the eternal things, and conquered me as well as Nicholas Kinzer?
“ I know it sounds perfectly mad,” said Schlatter nervously, “ but — but if you had lived with old things as long as I have, sir — ”
“ Oh, don’t apologize, Schlatter,” I said with an attempt at airiness, though my heart was beating hard and fast, “ I know a bit about old things myself.” And with that I bethought me to take off my hat, as I was in a lady’s presence. Schlatter looked relieved, but still apprehensive. Just then some one opened the door of the front shop, and with a muttered apology he slipped out and left me alone with Mrs. Kinzer. Hat in hand, I stood there staring at her. At last I shook my head.
“ You need not have been so melodramatic,” I said. “ Women like you always conquer. They always conquer, and they are never forgotten. I would inevitably have returned for you today or to-morrow. You would have had your own way without this spectacular touch. I am capable of understanding a long attachment — and incapable of cruelty. I do not criticise your passion, but I do assail your methods. Those bits of broken string — it was beneath you, really! ”
The opaque gray eyes looked through me, beyond me, as insolently as they might have done in life if their owner, hearing, had not wished to seem to hear. Feeling somehow rebuked for my attempted frivolity in the face of her intensity, I followed Schlatter into the front shop and gave him there the order to send Mrs. Kinzer’s portrait to my house.
The pictures hang side by side today above my library mantelpiece. To the collection of odds and ends in Mrs. Kinzer’s writing-case, I have added some bits of frayed and broken string. I cannot say that I enjoy my evenings as I used. The library is no longer a restful room, and I have thought of building on another if it can be well contrived.