Ebook Phenomenology 2Nd Edition Shaun Gallagher Online PDF All Chapter
Ebook Phenomenology 2Nd Edition Shaun Gallagher Online PDF All Chapter
Ebook Phenomenology 2Nd Edition Shaun Gallagher Online PDF All Chapter
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Phenomenology and Perspectives on the Heart
Contributions to Phenomenology 117 Anthony J Steinbock
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"The lady wants to be seen home—and I'm going
to do it if I swing for it!"
"Nervy, you're a fool—a bigger fool than ever I believed you to be!"
exploded Saunders.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They were crossing a big open space, well lit, planted with trees, and
adorned in its centre by a big group of statuary. To their right was a huge
gothic building—a high ridged intricate structure of red sandstone—with a
tangle of fretted pinnacles and flying buttresses, and a couple of lofty
towers that stood out black against the starry heaven.
"That's the right spirit," he said gaily; "and what's this depressing-
looking place in front of us?"
"I see myself rescuing you from that topmost window," ventured
Trafford.
"They say not." There was a meaning behind her qualified denial and
Trafford demanded it. "Between official statements and actual facts there is
apt to be a serious discrepancy in this unfortunate land," she replied.
"Officially, no one resides in the Strafeburg but the caretaker and his
daughter. As a matter of fact, I am told that several political prisoners are
still rotting in its dungeons."
"Officially, also, the instruments of torture went out of use one hundred
and fifty years ago."
"You mean——"
"I mean," she continued, "that our dear humane monarch does not stick
at trifles when his interests are threatened."
Trafford opened his eyes wide, and regarded his companion with
amazement. In his curious, excitable brain was a largely developed loathing
of cruelty. Hard knocks he was prepared to give or receive in the world's
battle, big risks to life and limb he was prepared to incur or inflict with
heedless impartiality, but deliberate cruelty, the malicious and intentional
infliction of pain on man or brute, always roused him to a frenzy of wrath.
The Princess read his look and silence.
"You mean it?" demanded his fair companion, and her eyes were
pleading as they had pleaded with Captain von Hügelweiler in the
Thiergarten.
"And you are beginning to feel a handsome young man?" asked the
Princess gaily.
"You are not going to propose, are you?" she asked calmly, but with a
most delicious quiver of the lips.
They had entered a narrow side street, and the driver was pulling up his
horse before a disreputable-looking wine shop. Dismissing the sleigh the
Princess led the way into the building through a low, malodorous room—
where a number of men were swilling beery smoking, and playing
dominoes—and penetrated to inner chamber.
"One of them," was the reply. "An outlaw must sleep where she can—
it's wise to vary one's abode."
An old man in shirt-sleeves and apron entered the room and demanded
their pleasure.
"We want nothing except solitude," said the Princess. "May we have
that, Herr Krantz?"
"Most certainly, your High——, gracious lady. You will not be
interrupted unless——"
The old landlord inclined his bald head and quitted the shabby
apartment. The Princess motioned to her companion to be seated, pointing
to a chair at a small table, then taking a seat opposite him, she rested her
pretty head on her hands, her elbows resting on the table, and surprised him
by suddenly popping out:
"We have not known each other at all," she quickly interrupted.
The Princess bit her lips and nodded silently, as if weighing his words.
Something, however, impelled her to make the obvious objection.
The Princess remained a moment in silent thought. Then she broke out
into her merriest laugh.
"We are building castles in the air," she hastened to say. "Yes, I promise
—on those conditions. But you perceive the badness of the bargain you are
making? A marriage that will be no marriage—a contract that will not be
worth the paper it is written on?"
"In that event and on those conditions you shall have my hand."
The Princess flushed deeply as slowly she scanned the man who faced
her. It was patent that a battle was raging in her heaving bosom. For a full
half-minute silence reigned, a silence broken only by faint murmurs and the
clink of beer glasses from the outer room. And all the time Trafford's face
preserved an expressionless immobility, his eyes a gleam of stern
directness. The Princess heaved a deep sigh. The battle was over; something
was lost, something was won.
"Herr Trafford," she began in a mechanical voice, "I want to tell you the
history of my maiden fancies. At the age of seventeen—when staying at
Weissheim, at my father's schloss, the Marienkastel—I fell in love with a
young officer in the Guides. He was handsome, aristocratic, a gallant man
with a refined nature and a superb athlete as well. He loved me dearly—was
more to me than my father, mother or anyone or anything in the kingdom of
Grimland. But my infatuation was divined, and we were separated. I wept, I
stormed, I vowed nothing would ever comfort me. Nevertheless, in six
months I was a happy, laughing girl again with an intense love of life, and
only an occasional stab of regret for a heart I had sworn to call my own."
"Then came the winter of 1904," the Princess went on with the same
unemotional tone. "In our unsuccessful rebellion of that fatal winter an
Englishman performed prodigies of valor. It was mainly owing to his
foresight and daring that King Karl saved his throne—and my father and
brother met death instead of the crown that was within their grasp. Later, it
is true, this same Englishman saved my life and procured my escape from
Grimland. But, even so, would any girl not dowered by Providence with a
fickle disposition permit any feeling to dwell in her heart other than hate
and horror for such a man? And yet, I was on the point of experiencing
something more than admiration for this fearless Englishman, a second
conquest of my heart was imminent"—she paused to scrutinise the face of
the man at her side, watching keenly for some signs of disapproval—"when
it was nipped in the bud, strangled in its infancy, if ever there, by his
choosing a mate elsewhere. So, once again I was fancy free. What then is
love—my love?" she exclaimed wistfully. "A gust that blusters and dies
down, a swift passing thunder-storm, a mocking dream,"—her voice
quavered and sank,—"a false vision of a sun that never rose on plain or on
mountain."
Trafford met the sadness of her gaze with eyes that twinkled with a
strange kindliness. The story of her life had moved him strongly. At the
beginning of their interview he had felt like a seafarer listening to the voice
of the siren. He had been bartering his strength and manhood for the silken
joys of a woman's allurements. His native shrewdness had told him that he
was being enticed less for himself than the usufruct of his brain and
muscles; but the bait was so sweet that his exalted senses had deemed it
more than worthy of the price he paid. Had the Princess Gloria avowed a
deep and spontaneous passion for him, he would not have believed her; but
he would have been content, and well content, with the agreeable lie. But
she had been honest with him,—honest to the detriment of her own interest.
"On the contrary," she responded frankly, "I like you well, Herr
Trafford."
And at that she put her hand bravely on his shoulder and smiled at him.
"Never mind, comrade," she told him, "your heart is big enough and
warm enough for two."
"Princess," he went blindly on, "you have told me your story, let me tell
you mine—it is brevity itself."
Trafford spread out his hands in an explanatory gesture, and then for the
first time he noted the heightened colour in the Princess's cheek, that her
eyes were aflame, and that an explosion of some kind was imminent.
"And you had the impudence to make love to me!" she cried in that
wonderful voice that had captivated audiences with every intonation, from
the angry tones of a jealous grisette to the caressing notes of the ingenue.
"To amuse yourself by feigning a pure devotion——" But the Princess's
words failed her, and the hand of a Schattenberg was raised so
threateningly,—at any rate, so it seemed to Trafford—that in surprise and
consternation he rose from his chair, and as he did so, his head came in
contact with the electric light, which hung low from the dingy ceiling.
Simultaneously the white fire in the glass bulb was extinguished to a thin,
dull red line, and in two seconds they were in total darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE BARGAIN
Noiselessly the Princess tiptoed to the glazed partition that separated the
inner chamber from the wine-shop, and drawing back a curtain gazed
cautiously through the chink.
"Krantz extinguished the light," she whispered. "It was not your head,
stupid, that did it! It was the danger-signal agreed upon between us—there
are a couple of police agents in the shop."
"You are foolish," she returned, accepting the situation and walking
briskly down the street. "This quarter of Weidenbruck is anything but a safe
one, despite its present tranquillity. There are queer folk dwelling in these
gabled old houses—men who live by the knife and the garote! You would
be wise to reseek the civilisation of the Hôtel Concordia."
"By making love—such love! You nearly blow your brains out for a
silly American girl, and then have the impertinence to ask me—me, the
Princess Gloria von Schattenberg—to marry you, informing me casually
that your heart is dead and cold."
"But your heart is dead and cold, too," he argued fatuously. "And you
were not willing to accept me. It seems that we are in the same boat. We
offered too little, and we asked too much."
"I am terribly angry with you," she persisted, nevertheless, with what
Trafford could have sworn was a veritable wink.
"Don't imagine that I am not angry because I'm laughing," declared the
Princess. "I have—unfortunately, perhaps—a painfully acute sense of
humour. I very often laugh when I am feeling most deeply."
"I'll forgive you when you have seen me home," she replied. "But I
absolutely repudiate the bargain we made at Herr Krantz's wine shop. We
may have much in common ... but surely you don't suppose that I would
marry a man with a dead heart?"
"As to the bargain, I surmised as much when you raised your hand to
——" he broke off suddenly, and then added: "I suppose the deal is off,
then? Well, perhaps it's just as well for both of us. May I ask where your
home is?"
Trafford felt his arm gripped tight by a little hand, either from
excitement or from a desire for protection.
The Princess produced a tiny revolver from a satin handbag, which she
pressed on her companion.
"I must investigate this," said Trafford, but before he could take action
there was a great crash of riven glass, and a dark form fell rolling and
clutching from the shattered window into the street. The fall was
considerable, but the snow broke its force, and the man stirred where he lay.
"Is it he?" asked the Princess breathlessly. "No, thank God!" she
answered herself as the man raised a bearded face from the snow, and
groaned in agony.
"Look out!" said Trafford, for there were sounds of men descending a
staircase at breakneck speed, and as he spoke a dark form issued from the
doorway. As it did so, one of the two men who were waiting without, threw
a cloak over the head and arms of the emerging man. Simultaneously the
other raised a weapon and struck. A half-second later and another man
issued from the house, and leaped like a wild beast on the back of the
enmeshed and stricken man.
This was too much for Trafford's tingling nerves. Leaving the Princess
where she stood in the archway, he darted across the road with the speed of
a football end going down the field under a punt to tackle the opposing
fullback. His passage was rendered noiseless by the soft carpet of thick
snow, and he arrived unseen and unheard at the scene of the mêlée. The
man with the dagger was just about to strike again. He had been making
desperate efforts to do so for several moments, but his would-be victim was
struggling like a trapped tiger, and the heaving, writhing mass of humanity,
wherein aggressors and quarry were inextricably entangled, offered no safe
mark for the assassin's steel. However, just as his point was raised aloft with
desperate intent, Trafford anticipated his action with a swinging blow on the
side of the head. The man fell, dazed and stunned, against the wall.
Trafford, with his fighting lust now thoroughly inflamed, turned his instant
attention to the other aggressors. Now, however, he had no unprepared
victim for his vigorous arm. A vile-looking ruffian, with low brow and
matted hair, had extricated himself from the involved struggle, and was
feeling for a broad knife that lay ready to hand in his leather belt.
With the swift acumen born of pressing danger, Trafford stooped down,
and picking up a lump of frozen snow, dashed it in his enemy's face. A
shrewd blow in the midriff followed this tactical success, and further
punishment would have befallen the unhappy man had not his original
victim, freed from two of his three aggressors, gained his feet, and in his
effort to escape, cannoned so violently and unexpectedly into Trafford, that
the enterprising American lost his balance and fell precipitately into the soft
snow. When he regained his feet he saw a tall form flying rapidly down the
street, with two assailants in hot pursuit.
"You've begun well!" said a soft voice in his ear. Trafford turned and
faced the Princess.
He looked into her fearless eyes, which fell at length before his own.
"We will let it stand," he agreed curtly. "But what of your friend?" he
went on, "will he get away?"
"If he wishes," answered the Princess easily. "It would take more than
two men to capture Father Bernhardt. I have no further anxiety on his
account, but what about me—poor me?"
Trafford grasped the Princess's hand and dragged her across the street.
"Then what——?"
"Yes. Your sister has just arrived from England and wants a small room
at the top of the house. Her luggage, naturally, has gone astray. You are a
friend of Herr Saunders, and consequently above suspicion. Do not be
alarmed, my friend, I shall leave early and I will pay for my bed and
breakfast."
"So be it," he said at length. "It is all part of the bargain. Come, little
new-found sister, let us find a sleigh to drive us to the Hôtel Concordia."
CHAPTER NINE
THE KING'S BREAKFAST
Like most members of the kingly caste, Karl XXII. was a big eater and
an early riser. On the morning following Trafford's adventures in the slums
of Weidenbruck, the genial monarch was breakfasting on innumerable fried
eggs and abundant grilled ham at the early hour of seven. He was dressed in
high, white leggings, stout boots, and a dark brown woollen jersey; and the
reason of his athletic attire was a suggested ski-ing expedition in the
neighbourhood of Nussheim,—a small village some ten miles distant from
the capital. His Majesty was breakfasting alone save for his faithful major-
domo, Herr Bomcke, an old gentleman of great dignity and superb
whiskers. Bomcke moved noiselessly about the room, with one eye on his
royal master's needs, and the other on the doorway, which was guarded by a
young officer in a snow-white uniform and glistening steel cuirass. The
apartment itself was the moderate-sized chamber where Karl was wont to
conduct his private affairs. In one corner stood a satinwood bureau strewn
thick with papers; in another a marble bust of his father on a malachite
pedestal. Two entire sides of the room were devoted to book-shelves, which
contained such diverse treasures as fifteenth-century bestiaries, "Alice in
Wonderland," "Moltke's History of the Franco-Prussian War," and the
Badminton volume on "Winter Sports." The whole of the apartment had a
mellow golden tinge, a soft atmosphere of affluent homeliness and regal
respectability.
Just as his Majesty was consuming his fourth roll and honey, there was
a whispering in the doorway and Saunders' name was announced in the
mellifluous tones of the major-domo.
"Good-morning," began the King. "You are ready for our expedition, I
perceive."
"Talk away," said the King, attacking another roll, and draining his
coffee cup.
"The Princess Gloria is in Weidenbruck."
"I don't know. I did not want to know, so I refused to see her home last
night."
"Is being very closely watched," said a voice from the doorway. It was
General Meyer, who had entered unannounced, as was his privilege.
"And how about Father Bernhardt?" grunted the King, puffing at his
pipe without looking up. "He has been closely watched for some time."
"It was about him that I came to speak," said the General, walking into
the middle of the room.
"You have taken him, of course," said the King. "I told you to employ
four men."
"I followed your Majesty's advice," said Meyer. "I was wrong. I should
have followed Herr Saunders'. He advised, if I remember rightly, a battalion
of Guards and a squadron of Dragoons."
"Do you mean to say," demanded the King, with some warmth, "that
four armed men were incapable of dealing with one priest?"
"So it appears," returned Meyer calmly. "They say there was some sort
of a rescue. That, of course, may be a lie to excuse their failure. Any way,
one of them is suffering from a broken thigh, the result of a fall from a
window. Another has a dislocated jaw. Two others,—who pursued our
friend down the Sichelgasse—were foolish enough to follow him along the
banks of the Niederkessel. Fortunately they could both swim."