1889
                          WISER THAN A GOD

                           by Kate Chopin









şiElectronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
DAK Upgraded Edition, Copyright 2000, DAK Industries 2000, Inc(R)şI

       «"To love and be wise is scarcely granted even to a God."»
                                                    Latin Proverb

{CH1
                                  I


  "You might at least show some distaste for the task, Paula," said
Mrs. Von Stoltz, in her querulous invalid voice, to her daughter who
stood before the glass bestowing a few final touches of
embellishment upon an otherwise plain toilet.
  "And to what purpose, Mutterchen? The task is not entirely to my
liking, I'll admit; but there can be no question as to its results,
which you even must concede are gratifying."
  "Well, it's not the career your poor father had in view for you. How
often he has told me when I complained that you were kept too
closely at work, 'I want that Paula shall be at the head,'" with
appealing look through the window and up into the gray, November sky
into that far "somewhere," which might be the abode of her departed
husband.
  "It isn't a career at all, mama; it's only a make-shift," answered
the girl, noting the happy effect of an amber pin that she had
thrust through the coils of her lustrous yellow hair. "The pot must be
kept boiling at all hazards, pending the appearance of that hoped
for career. And you forget that an occasion like this gives me the
very opportunities I want."
  "I can't see the advantages of bringing your talent down to such
banal servitude. Who are those people, anyway?"
  The mother's question ended in a cough which shook her into
speechless exhaustion.
  "Ah! I have let you sit too long by the window, mother," said Paula,
hastening to wheel the invalid's chair nearer the grate fire that
was throwing genial light and warmth into the room, turning its
plainness to beauty as by a touch of enchantment. "By the way," she
added, having arranged her mother as comfortably as might be, "I
haven't yet qualified for that 'banal servitude,' as you call it." And
approaching the piano which stood in a distant alcove of the room, she
took up a roll of music that lay curled up on the instrument,
straightened it out before her. Then, seeming to remember the question
which her mother had asked, turned on the stool to answer it. "Don't
you know? The Brainards, very swell people, and awfully rich. The
daughter is that girl whom I once told you about, having gone to the
Conservatory to cultivate her voice and old Engfelder told her in
his brusque way to go back home, that his system was not equal to
overcoming impossibilities."
  "Oh, those people."
  "Yes; this little party is given in honor of the son's return from
Yale or Harvard, or some place or other." And turning to the piano she
softly ran over the dances, whilst the mother gazed into the fire with
unresigned sadness, which the bright music seemed to deepen.
  "Well, there'll be no trouble about «that"» said Paula, with
comfortable assurance, having ended the last waltz. "There's nothing
here to tempt me into flights of originality; there'll be no
difficulty in keeping to the hand-organ effect."
  "Don't leave me with those dreadful impressions, Paula; my poor
nerves are on edge."
  "You are too hard on the dances, mamma. There are certain strains
here and there that I thought not bad."
  "It's your youth that finds it so; I have outlived such illusions."
  "What an inconsistent little mother it is!" the girl exclaimed,
laughing. "You told me only yesterday it was my youth that was so
impatient with the commonplace happenings of everyday life. That
age, needing to seek its delights, finds them often in unsuspected
places, wasn't that it?"
  "Don't chatter, Paula; some music, some music!"
  "What shall it be?" asked Paula, touching a succession of harmonious
chords. "It must be short."
  "The 'Berceuse,' then; Chopin's. But soft, soft and a little
slowly as your dear father used to play it."
  Mrs. Von Stoltz leaned her head back amongst the cushions, and
with eyes closed, drank in the wonderful strains that came like an
ethereal voice out of the past, lulling her spirit into the quiet of
sweet memories.
  When the last soft notes had melted into silence, Paula approached
her mother and looking into the pale face saw that tears stood beneath
the closed eyelids. "Ah! mamma, I have made you unhappy," she cried,
in distress.
  "No, my child; you have given me a joy that you don't dream of. I
have no more pain. Your music has done for me what Faranelli's singing
did for poor King Philip of Spain; it has cured me."
  There was a glow of pleasure on the warm face and the eyes with
almost the brightness of health. "Whilst I listened to you, Paula,
my soul went out from me and lived again through an evening long
ago. We were in our pretty room at Leipsic. The soft air and the
moonlight came through the open-curtained window, making a quivering
fretwork along the gleaming waxed floor. You lay in my arms and I felt
again the pressure of your warm, plump little body against me. Your
father was at the piano playing the 'Berceuse,' and all at once you
drew my head down and whispered, 'Ist es nicht wonderschen, mama?'
When it ended, you were sleeping and your father took you from my arms
and laid you gently in bed."
  Paula knelt beside her mother, holding the frail hands which she
kissed tenderly.
  "Now you must go, liebchen. Ring for Berta, she will do all that
is needed. I feel very strong to-night. But do not come back too
late."
  "I shall be home as early as possible; likely in the last car, I
couldn't stay longer or I should have to walk. You know the house in
case there should be need to send for me?"
  "Yes, yes; but there will be no need."
  Paula kissed her mother lovingly and went out into the drear
November night with the roll of dances under her arm.


{CH2
                                  II


  The door of the stately mansion at which Paula rang, was opened by a
footman, who invited her to "kindly walk upstairs."
  "Show the young lady into the music room, James," called from some
upper region a voice, doubtless the same whose impossibilities had
been so summarily dealt with by Herr Engfelder, and Paula was led
through a suite of handsome apartments, the warmth and mellow light of
which were very grateful, after the chill outdoor air.
  Once in the music room, she removed her wraps and seated herself
comfortably to await developments. Before her stood the magnificent
Steinway, on which her eyes rested with greedy admiration, and her
fingers twitched with a desire to awaken its inviting possibilities.
The odor of flowers impregnated the air like a subtle intoxicant and
over everything hung a quiet smile of expectancy, disturbed by an
occasional feminine flutter above stairs, or muffled suggestions of
distant household sounds.
  Presently, a young man entered the drawing room,- no doubt, the
college student, for he looked critically and with an air of
proprietorship at the festive arrangements, venturing the bestowal
of a few improving touches. Then, gazing with pardonable complacency
at his own handsome, athletic figure in the mirror, he saw reflected
Paula looking at him, with a demure smile lighting her blue eyes.
  "By Jove!" was his startled exclamation. Then, approaching, "I beg
pardon, Miss- Miss-"
  "Von Stoltz."
  "Miss Von Stoltz," drawing the right conclusion from her simple
toilet and the roll of music. "I hadn't seen you when I came in.
Have you been here long? and sitting all alone, too? That's
certainly rough."
  "Oh, I've been here but a few moments, and was very well
entertained."
  "I dare say," with a glance full of prognostic complimentary
utterances, which a further acquaintance might develop.
  As he was lighting the gas of a side bracket that she might better
see to read her music, Mrs. Brainard and her daughter came into the
room, radiantly attired and both approached Paula with sweet and
polite greeting.
  "George, in mercy!" exclaimed her mother, "put out that gas, you are
killing the effect of the candle light."
  "But Miss Von Stoltz can't read her music without it, mother."
  "I've no doubt Miss Von Stoltz knows her pieces by heart," Mrs.
Brainard replied, seeking corroboration from Paula's glance.
  "No, madam; I'm not accustomed to playing dance music, and this is
quite new to me," the girl rejoined, touching the loose sheets that
George had conveniently straightened out and placed on the rack.
  "Oh, dear! 'not accustomed,'?" said Miss Brainard. "And Mr.
Sohmeir told us he knew you would give satisfaction."
  Paula hastened to reassure the thoroughly alarmed young lady on
the point of her ability to give perfect satisfaction.
  The door bell now began to ring incessantly. Up the stairs,
tripped fleeting opera-cloaked figures, followed by their black
robed attendants. The rooms commenced to fill with the pretty
hub-bub that a bevy of girls can make when inspired by a close
masculine proximity; and Paula, not waiting to be asked, struck the
opening bars of an inspiring waltz.
  Some hours later, during a lull in the dancing, when the men were
making vigorous applications of fans and handkerchiefs; and the
girls beginning to throw themselves into attitudes of picturesque
exhaustion- save for the always indefatigable few- a proposition was
ventured, backed by clamorous entreaties, which induced George to
bring forth his banjo. And an agreeable moment followed, in which that
young man's skill met with a truly deserving applause. Never had his
audience beheld such proficiency as he displayed in the handling of
his instrument, which was now behind him, now overhead, and again
swinging in mid-air like the pendulum of a clock and sending forth the
sounds of stirring melody. Sounds so inspiring that a pretty little
black-eyed fairy, an acknowledged votary of Terpsichore, and
George's particular admiration, was moved to contribute a few passes
of a Virginia breakdown, as she had studied it from life on a Southern
plantation. The act closing amid a spontaneous babel of hand
clapping and admiring bravos.
  It must be admitted that this little episode, however graceful,
was hardly a fitting prelude to the magnificent "Jewel Song from
'Faust,'" with which Miss Brainard next consented to regale the
company. That Miss Brainard possessed a voice, was a fact that had
existed as matter of tradition in the family as far back almost as the
days of that young lady's baby utterances, in which loving ears had
already detected the promise which time had so recklessly fulfilled.
  True genius is not to be held in abeyance, though a host of
Engfelders would rise to quell it with their mundane protests!
  Miss Brainard's rendition was a triumphant achievement of sound, and
with the proud flush of success moving her to kind condescension,
she asked Miss Von Stoltz to "please play something."
  Paula amiably consented, choosing a selection from the Modern
Classic. How little did her auditors appreciate in the performance the
results of a life study, of a drilling that had made her amongst the
knowing an acknowledged mistress of technique. But to her skill she
added the touch and interpretation of the artist; and in hearing
her, even Ignorance paid to her genius the tribute of a silent
emotion.
  When she arose there was a moment of quiet, which was broken by
the black-eyed fairy, always ready to cast herself into a breach,
observing, flippantly, "How pretty!" "Just lovely!" from another;
and "What wouldn't I give to play like that." Each inane compliment
falling like a dash of cold water on Paula's ardor.
  She then became solicitous about the hour, with reference to her
car, and George who stood near looked at his watch and informed her
that the last car had gone by a full half hour before.
  "But," he added, "if you are not expecting any one to call for
you, I will gladly see you home."
  "I expect no one, for the car that passes here would have set me
down at my door," and in this avowal of difficulties, she tacitly
accepted George's offer.
  The situation was new. It gave her a feeling of elation to be
walking through the quiet night with this handsome young fellow. He
talked so freely and so pleasantly. She felt such a comfort in his
strong protective nearness. In clinging to him against the buffets
of the staggering wind she could feel the muscles of his arms, like
steel.
  He was so unlike any man of her acquaintance. Strictly unlike
Poldorf, the pianist, the short rotundity of whose person could have
been less objectionable, if she had not known its cause to lie in an
inordinate consumption of beer. Old Engfelder, with his long hair, his
spectacles and his loose, disjointed figure, was hors de combat in
comparison. And of Max Kuntzler, the talented composer, her teacher of
harmony, she could at the moment think of no positive point of
objection against him, save the vague, general, serious one of his
unlikeness to George.
  Her new-awakened admiration, though, was not deaf to a little
inexplicable wish that he had not been so proficient with the banjo.
  On they went chatting gaily, until turning the corner of the
street in which she lived, Paula saw that before the door stood Dr.
Sinn's buggy.
  Brainard could feel the quiver of surprised distress that shook
her frame, as she said, hurrying along, "Oh! mamma must be ill- worse;
they have called the doctor."
  Reaching the house, she threw open wide the door that was
unlocked, and he stood hesitatingly back. The gas in the small hall
burned at its full, and showed Berta at the top of the stairs,
speechless, with terrified eyes, looking down at her. And coming to
meet her, was a neighbor, who strove with well-meaning solicitude to
keep her back, to hold her yet a moment in ignorance of the cruel blow
that fate had dealt her whilst she had in happy unconsciousness played
her music for the dance.


{CH3
                                 III


  Several months had passed since the dreadful night when death had
deprived Paula for the second time of a loved parent.
  After the first shock of grief was over, the girl had thrown all her
energies into work, with the view of attaining that position in the
musical world which her father and mother had dreamed might be hers.
  She had remained in the small home occupying now but the half of it;
and here she kept house with the faithful Berta's aid.
  Friends were both kind and attentive to the stricken girl. But there
had been two, whose constant devotion spoke of an interest deeper than
mere friendly solicitude.
  Max Kuntzler's love for Paula was something that had taken hold of
his sober middle age with an enduring strength which was not to be
lessened or shaken, by her rejection of it. He had asked leave to
remain her friend, and while holding the tender, watchful privileges
which that comprehensive title may imply, had refrained from further
thrusting a warmer feeling on her acceptance.
  Paula one evening was seated in her small sitting-room, working over
some musical transpositions, when a bang at the bell was followed by a
footstep in the hall which made her hand and heart tremble.
  George Brainard entered the room, and before she could rise to greet
him, had seated himself in the vacant chair beside her.
  "What an untiring worker you are," he said, glancing down at the
scores before her. "I always feel that my presence interrupts you; and
yet I don't know that a judicious interruption isn't the wholesomest
thing for you sometimes."
  "You forget," she said, smiling into his face, "that I was trained
to it. I must keep myself fitted to my calling. Rest would mean
deterioration."
  "Would you not be willing to follow some other calling?" he asked,
looking at her with unusual earnestness in his dark, handsome eyes.
  "Oh, never!"
  "Not if it were a calling that asked only for the labor of loving?"
  She made no answer, but kept her eyes fixed on the idle traceries
that she drew with her pencil on the sheets before her.
  He arose and made a few impatient turns about the room, then
coming again to her side, said abruptly:
  "Paula, I love you. It isn't telling you something that you don't
know, unless you have been without bodily perceptions. Today there
is something driving me to speak it out in words. Since I have known
you," he continued, striving to look into her face that bent low
over the work before her, "I have been mounting into higher and always
higher circles of Paradise, under a blessed illusion that you- cared
for me. But today, a feeling of dread has been forcing itself upon me-
dread that with a word you might throw me back into a gulf that
would now be one of everlasting misery. Say if you love me, Paula. I
believe you do, and yet I wait with indefinable doubts for your
answer."
  He took her hand which she did not withdraw from his.
  "Why are you speechless? Why don't you say something to me!" he
asked desperately.
  "I am speechless with joy and misery," she answered. "To know that
you love me, gives me happiness enough to brighten a lifetime. And I
am miserable, feeling that you have spoken the signal that must part
us."
  "You love me, and speak of parting. Never! You will be my wife. From
this moment we belong to each other. Oh, my Paula," he said, drawing
her to his side, "my whole existence will be devoted to your
happiness."
  "I can't marry you," she said shortly, disengaging his hand from her
waist.
  "Why?" he asked abruptly. They stood looking into each other's eyes.
  "Because it doesn't enter into the purpose of my life."
  "I don't ask you to give up anything in your life. I only beg you to
let me share it with you."
  George had known Paula only as the daughter of the undemonstrative
American woman. He had never before seen her with the father's
emotional nature aroused in her. The color mounted into her cheeks,
and her blue eyes were almost black with intensity of feeling.
  "Hush," she said; "don't tempt me further." And she cast herself
on her knees before the table near which they stood, gathering the
music that lay upon it into an armful, and resting her hot cheek
upon it.

  "What do you know of my life," she exclaimed passionately. "What can
you guess of it? Is music anything more to you than the pleasing
distraction? Can't you feel that with me, it courses with the blood
through my veins? That it's something dearer than life, than riches,
even than love?" with a quiver of pain.
  "Paula listen to me; don't speak like a mad woman."
  She sprang up and held out an arm to ward away his nearer approach.
  "Would you go into a convent, and ask to be your wife a nun who
has vowed herself to the service of God?"
  "Yes, if that nun loved me; she would owe to herself, to me and to
God to be my wife."
  Paula seated herself on the sofa, all emotion seeming suddenly to
have left her; and he came and sat beside her.
  "Say only that you love me, Paula," he urged persistently.
  "I love you," she answered low and with pale lips.
  He took her in his arms, holding her in silent rapture against his
heart and kissing the white lips back into red life.
  "You will be my wife?"
  "You must wait. Come back in a week and I will answer you." He was
forced to be content with the delay.
  The days of probation being over, George went for his answer,
which was given him by the old lady who occupied the upper story.
  "Ach Gott! Fraulein Von Stoltz ist schon im Leipsic gegangen!"- *001
All that has not been many years ago. George Brainard is as handsome
as ever, though growing a little stout in the quiet routine of
domestic life. He has quite lost a pretty taste for music that
formerly distinguished him as a skilful banjoist. This loss his little
black-eyed wife deplores; though she has herself made concessions to
the advancing years, and abandoned Virginia breakdowns as incompatible
with the serious offices of wifehood and matrimony.
  You may have seen in the morning paper, that the renowned pianist,
Fraulein Paula Von Stoltz, is resting in Leipsic, after an extended
and remunerative concert tour.
  Professor Max Kuntzler is also in Leipsic- with the ever
persistent will- the dogged patience that so often wins in the end.


                               THE END