the letter that was never mailed

DJUNA BARNES

wherein friendship and loyalty all but droop beneath the hot winds of rivalry, but true love, as usual, conquers all in the end

All that winter, Berlin had talked of nothing but the charm, the ineffable grace and beauty of the little Viennese dancer, Vava Hajos. She had, at the beginning of the theatrical season, flashed upon the public in a whirl of tinted drapery as fleeting as a dying man's breath upon a mirror, through which her limbs shone with the cloudiness of a memory. Her head was a mass of exultant yellow hair, curling with a languid yet bright ferocity up from the nape of the neck, flaring above high arched brows. And the slow rallentando of her dance, that drew her feet across the stage as if they were held faintly captive by some fragrant, phantom web, had driven not only all of fashionable Berlin mad, but all the provincial solons and merchants who crowded into town that season.

As they streamed from the theatre where she was playing, the cold, frosted air glittered with their admiring comments. Her mouth, they cried, was as warm and scarlet as a poppy, the last, dying flutter of her hand a triumph of expression and beauty. "No other hand," they insisted, "has ever waved farewell with quite that largo. And the utter harmony that dwells in every long line of her body . . . the shoulders, so small, yet seeming wide and flat, the firm, tiny cylinder of the torso, tapering into hips that melt with the felicity of sleep into the lower leg and ankle, which in turn divinely concludes in a foot from which her very life seems to spring!" As bright as birds, the poems of praise fluttered nightly into the air above the gesturing hands and high, excited shoulders of Vava's worshipping public.

Four of the richest, most noble and ardently covetous eyes of all that besought her were those of the two friends, the Baron Anzengruber and the Vicomte Virevaude. Their ambitions in regard to her were definitely elaborate, for each was wealthy enough to retard the rhythm of even that matchless dancer a little by the weighty tribute of pearls and square-cut emeralds. Their passion for her was nothing short of insane. They paced their respective salons in a lashing torment of ifs, buts and maybes, that wore their shoe-leather to wafers, and their emotions to a shrill of intensity of despair; for, added to their mutual love-sickness was the almost intolerably dramatic fact that these rival swains had been bosom friends since childhood. They had shot marbles together on the same baronial floor, they had been thrown from the same horse in the Bois—for their families had always visited each other every year. Achieving manhood, they had suffered mutual losses on the Bourse, and had speculated with mutual satisfaction in the better Rhine wines. They had learned each other's language together, the Baron giving freund for the Vicomte's ami. They had hunted in Africa together, had shared fortune and adversity alike .... and, when the years began to tell on them, they had drunk glass for glass of healthful waters at their favourite spa. Their loyalty had become a legend, their friendship a noble structure founded upon the rock of truth.

And now, Vava Hajos had come into their lives. And where, before, they had marched companionably arm-in-arm, they must now tread softly, being careful of each other's toes; where all simplicity had dwelt, there was born, now, a doubt, a question. Across the tranquil path of their friendship the dread shadow of rivalry had fallen. They loved the same woman.

Strictly speaking, the Vicomte had an advantage of forty-eight hours over the Baron in the matter of Vava. He had seen her first, and had broken down under the acute enchantment of her "beauty to the extent of five dozen of those famous German roses that seem always to be wilting upon the stem for their country.

Drunk with love, the Vicomte had staggered home that night to light ecstatic candles to Vava's loveliness. Pacing his floor, he tried frantically to think of ways in which he could make himself worthy of this little unknown, this little dancing miscellany of gold and ivory and drifting tulle whose magic was so accurate, so unutterably potent; for there was something in the rhythmic break of Vava at the hips that spoke of deeds done darkly and long ago, before her father and mother had thought twice.

The Vicomte walked his rooms until the dawn. And, on the following night, took the Baron to the theatre with him, that he might look upon the exquisite girl. Skeptically, the Baron went—but when he saw Vava, a dizziness came upon him, and his heart pounded so wildly that he shook as though with laughter . . . .but he was not laughing.

In the entr'acte, they sat in the Zelten over

black coffee and cigars and talked of her, and their praise was wild, lyric, rococo. Afterward, they sat out the night together before the Baron's smouldering logs, and it was almost dawn before the Vicomte realized that his friend was not talking about Vava for friendship's sake, but because he was as enamoured as himself.

Then began a charming tête-à-tête. They acknowledged their mutual love, they clasped hands on it; they were at once exalted and profoundly miserable. It never occurred to either of them to give Vava herself a chance to choose between them, for that is the way of rich and titled gentlemen when the lady in question has only God to thank for her standing; such a battle of three is always fought by two. But what, they asked themselves and each other, was to be done about it?

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They talked it over frankly. No sly, secret maneuvers should dim the fairness of their loyalty. They were comrades, brothers . . . they would face this thing together.

The Baron insisted that his friend, having seen Vava first, should have first advantage in approaching her. He himself, said the Baron, would take his chances. And when, after he had protested valiantly, the Vicomte was finally prevailed upon to agree, it turned out to be a very good thing indeed. For, on the following day, he received a telegram saying that his aged mother, having contracted a disease of the throat while spending a fortnight in Venice, had hurried back to her home in the south of France, and was even then lying at death's door. He planned to leave at once, and his few remaining hours in Berlin were devoted equally to anxiety for his mother and to a last desperate effort to solve the twin problems of his friendship and his love.

The Baron, longing to ease his friend's distress, swore that he would take not the faintest step toward winning Vava during his absence. The Vicomte, for his part, vowed to spend every hour of his journey in a constant effort to forget Vava for his friend's sake. As the train pulled out of the station, the Vicomte leaned far out of the window, and said:

"Do nothing, I beg of you my dear friend, until you hear from me. If I write you, it will mean that I have conquered my own heart for your sake —that I have succeeded in forgetting her. If, on the other hand, you do not hear from me within two weeks, you must forget her. And I think," he added, his eyes clouding, "that you will receive that letter."

Once in the South, the Vicomte fretted and fumed. He loved his mother and dutifully held her hand, glad to see her improving; but inwardly, he raged at the prolonged separation from Vava. As the days passed, he was further troubled by a sense of guilt, of disloyalty to his friendship for the Baron—for the two weeks had come to an end, and he had not sent the letter . . . that magic word that was to mean love and happiness, life itself, to his friend. How base he was, how utterly unworthy! Tortured, he pictured the Baron waiting, stoic and incorruptible, at the gates of Paradise, proof against temptation until he should hear from his friend.

Why could he not bring himself to write that letter? Half a dozen times in the past two weeks he had tried, had taken up his pen to write: "She is yours, my dear Baron. ... I give her to you." But each time, he had faltered and failed. He could not write the letter, he simply could not. He

would not give her up. After fifty years of friendship, he had become a miser denying his dearest friend that which meant everything to him. . . . What sort of man was he? he asked himself savagely. Why could he not be happy in the happiness of those two? He had promised to try, he had almost promised to succeed—and now, he could not.

As the hour approached when he was to return to Berlin, his despair mounted to such tragedy that, desperately, he bethought himself af a plan, a subterfuge. Would a little lie matter now, at the eleventh hour, if it was to save his friend? So many people lied like that, writing swift letters of pursuit after the phantoms of all the letters they should have written, and did not. "My dear!" they cried, in incredulous flourishes of the pen, "do you mean to say you never got the letter I wrote you a month ago? Why, I wrote. . . ." It was a white lie, a pale, martyred imitation of a lie. Why should he not make use of it now, mailing the letter of inquiry so that it would reach the Baron on the morning of the day when he himself would arrive in Berlin?

Hurriedly he wrote: "My dear friend, is it possible that you have never received my letter . . ." and added, "I arrive in Berlin the evening of the twenty-fourth. You must come and see me without delay." He sealed it with a heavy seal and mailed it, feeling happy for the first time.

He arrived in Berlin in a flutter of excitement. His friend would be waiting for him at his flat, waiting before the fire; and then, by the proper application of melancholy, by a subtly placed sigh of regret, a tragic gesture of renunciation, he would so affect the Baron that that emotional creature would surely, he felt, agree—nay, would insist upon giving up Vava once more, upon thrusting her back into the arms of his friend the Vicomte. And the Vicomte would be doubly blessed, since, having gone through all the motions of sacrifice, he would not suffer the loss of any prestige in the eyes of his friend. It was a subtle plan, magnificent in its simplicity.

He shook the snow off his collar as he ran up the steps of his flat. Breathlessly he inquired if the Baron had called. No, he was told, no one had called. He went into the salon where they had last talked together, poured himself a brandy and soda and looked at his watch. It was still early —probably the Baron would not arrive before half past ten. There was even, he reflected, time to call on Vava . . . but no. There should be no flaw in his final gesture. He would see his friend first.

He picked up his mail—bills, a letter from his tailor about a fitting . . . then he saw a letter, addressed in the Baron's handwriting and with a postmark four days old. Trembling and afraid, he tore it open.

"Has man ever been blessed with so noble, so generous a friend!" wrote the Baron. "Of course I received your letter—it came a week ago, just as you said. You are a sportsman, a hero, a gentleman . . . and Vava and I both embrace you!"