rest they took long walks in the environs of Paris and dined in the
open air in one of those little country inns where there are plenty
of mushrooms in the sauces and innocent enigmas on the bottoms of the
plates. There Jean François made his friend tell him all those things
of which those born in the cities are ignorant. He learned the names
of the trees, the flowers, the plants; the seasons for the different
harvests; he listened avidly to the thousand details of a farmer’s
labors: the autumn’s sowing, the winter’s work, the splendid _fêtes_ of
harvest-home and vintage, and the flails beating the ground, and the
noise of the mills by the borders of the streams, and the tired horses
led to the trough, and the morning hunting in the mists, and, above
all, the long evenings around the fire of vine-branches, shortened
by tales of wonder. He discovered in himself a spring of imagination
hitherto unsuspected, finding a singular delight in the mere recital of
these things, so gentle, calm, and monotonous.
22. One anxiety troubled him, however, that Savinien should not come
to know his past. Sometimes there escaped him a shady word of thieves’
slang, an ignoble gesture, vestiges of his horrible former existence;
and then he felt the pain of a man whose old wounds reopen, more
especially as he thought he saw then in Savinien the awakening of
an unhealthy curiosity. When the young man, already tempted by the
pleasures which Paris offers even to the poorest, questioned him about
the mysteries of the great city, Jean François feigned ignorance and
turned the conversation; but he had now conceived a vague inquietude
for the future of his friend.
23. This was not without foundation, and Savinien could not long
remain the naïve rustic he had been on his arrival in Paris. If the
gross and noisy pleasures of the wine-shop always were repugnant to
him, he was profoundly troubled by other desires full of danger for
the inexperience of his twenty years. When the spring came, he began
to seek solitude, and at first he wandered before the gayly lighted
entrances to the dancing-halls, through which he saw the girls going
in couples, without bonnets--and with their arms around each other’s
waists, whispering low. Then, one evening, when the lilacs shed their
perfume, and the appeal of the quadrilles was more entrancing, he
crossed the threshold, and after that Jean François saw him change
little by little in manners and in visage. Savinien became more
frivolous, more extravagant; often he borrowed from his friend his
miserable savings, which he forgot to repay. Jean François, feeling
himself abandoned, was both indulgent and jealous; he suffered and
kept silent. He did not think he had the right to reproach; but his
penetrating friendship had cruel and insurmountable presentiments.
24. One evening when he was climbing the stairs of his lodging,
absorbed in his preoccupations, he heard in the room he was about to
enter a dialogue of irritated voices, and he recognized one as that of
the old man from Auvergne, who lodged with him and Savinien. An old
habit of suspicion made him pause on the landing, and he listened to
learn the cause of the trouble.
25. “Yes,” said the man from Auvergne angrily, “I am sure that some one
has broken open my trunk and stolen the three louis which I had hidden
in a little box; and the man who has done this thing can only be one
of the two companions who sleep here, unless it is Maria, the servant.
This concerns you as much as me, since you are the master of the house,
and I will drag you before the judge if you do not let me at once open
up the valises of the two masons. My poor hoard! It was in its place
only yesterday; and I will tell you what it was, so that, if we find
it, no one can accuse me of lying. Oh, I know them, my three beautiful
gold pieces, and I can see them as plainly as I see you. One was a
little more worn than the others, of a slightly greenish gold, and that
had the portrait of the great Emperor; another had that of a fat old
fellow with a queue and epaulets; and the third had a Philippe with
side-whiskers. I had marked it with my teeth. No one can trick me, not
me. Do you know that I needed only two others like those to pay for my
vineyard? Come on, let us look through the things of these comrades, or
I will call the police. Make haste!”
26. “All right,” said the voice of the householder; “we’ll search with
Maria. So much the worse if you find nothing, and if the masons get
angry. It is you who have forced me to it.”
27. Jean François felt his heart fill with fear. He recalled the
poverty and the petty borrowings of Savinien, the sombre manner he had
borne the last few days. Yet he could not believe in any theft. He
heard the panting of the man from Auvergne in the ardor of his search,
and he clenched his fists against his breast as if to repress the
beatings of his heart.
28. “There they are!” suddenly screamed the victorious miser. “There
they are, my louis, my dear treasure! And in the Sunday waistcoat of
the little hypocrite from Limoges. Look, landlord! they are just as I
told you. There’s the Napoleon, and the man with the queue, and the
Philippe I had dented with my teeth. Look at the mark. Ah, the little
rascal with his saintly look! I should more likely have suspected the
other. Ah, the villain! He will have to go to the galleys!”
29. At this moment Jean François heard the well-known step of Savinien,
who was slowly mounting the stairs.
30. “He is going to his betrayal,” thought he. “Three flights. I have
time!”
31. And, pushing open the door, he entered, pale as death, into the
room where he saw the landlord and the stupefied servant in a corner,
and the man from Auvergne on his knees amid the disordered clothes,
lovingly kissing his gold pieces.
32. “Enough of this,” he said in a thick voice. “It is I who have taken
the money and who have put it in my comrade’s trunk. But that is too
disgusting. I am a thief and not a Judas. Go hunt for the police. I’ll
not try to save myself. Only, I must say a word in private to Savinien,
who is here.”
33. The little man from Limoges had, in fact, just arrived, and, seeing
his crime discovered, and believing himself lost, he stood still, his
eyes fixed, his arms drooping.
34. Jean François seized him violently about the neck as though to
embrace him; he pressed his mouth to Savinien’s ear and said to him in
a voice low and supplicating:
35. “Be quiet!”
36. Then, turning to the others:
37. “Leave me alone with him. I shall not go away, I tell you. Shut us
up, if you wish, but leave us alone.”
38. And, with a gesture of command, he showed them the door. They went
out.
39. Savinien, broken with anguish, had seated himself on a bed, and
dropped his eyes without comprehending.
40. “Listen,” said Jean François, who approached to take his hands. “I
understand you have stolen three gold pieces to buy some trifle for a
girl. That would have cost six months of prison for you. But one does
not get out of that except to go back again, and you would have become
a pillar of the police tribunals and the courts of assizes. I know all
about them. I have done seven years in the Reform School, one year
at Sainte-Pélagie, three years at Poissy, and five years at Toulon.
Now, have no fear. All is arranged. I have taken this affair on my
shoulders.”
41. “Unhappy fellow!” cried Savinien; but hope was already coming back
to his cowardly heart.
42. “When the elder brother is serving under the colors, the younger
does not go,” Jean François went on. “I’m your substitute, that’s all.
You love me a little, do you not? I am paid. Do not be a baby. Do not
refuse. They would have caught me one of these days, for I have broken
my exile. And then, you see, that life out there will be less hard for
me than for you; I know it, and shall not complain if I do not render
you this service in vain and if you swear to me that you will not do it
again. Savinien, I have loved you well, and your friendship has made me
very happy, for it is thanks to my knowing you that I have kept honest
and straight, as I might have been, perhaps, if I had had, like you, a
father to put a tool in my hands, a mother to teach me my prayers. My
only regret was that I was useless to you and that I was deceiving you
about my past. To-day I lay aside the mask in saving you. It is all
right. Come, good-bye! Do not weep; and embrace me, for already I hear
the big boots on the stairs. They are returning with the police; and we
must not seem to know each other so well before these fellows.”
43. He pressed Savinien hurriedly to his breast, and then he pushed him
away as the door opened wide.
44. It was the landlord and the man from Auvergne, who were bringing
the police. Jean François started forward to the landing and held out
his hands for the handcuffs and said, laughing:
45. “Forward, bad lot!”
46. To-day he is at Cayenne, condemned for life, as an incorrigible.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
1. Write a paragraph showing how character is affected (a) unfavorably
and (b) favorably by the two tests, as shown by these two stories.
2. In your opinion, was each character changed or merely revealed by
the crisis which occurred in each instance?
3. Which of these stories seems the more real to you?
4. Have you ever heard of a similar instance in real life? If so, cite
it.
5. Write a paragraph contrasting the trivial and the important crisis
in each story, though both led to important results.
6. Set down all the traits of character exhibited by the two leading
actors in each story.
7. Select a character-study from some book or magazine and write a
brief discussion of it.
8. Do the same for another character-study by (a) Maupassant, and (b)
Coppée.
TEN REPRESENTATIVE CHARACTER STUDIES
“The Captain’s Vices,” François Coppée, translated in _Ten Tales by
Coppée_.
“The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney,” Rudyard Kipling, in
_Soldiers Three_.
“A New England Nun,” Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, in volume of same
title.
“The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock,” Thomas Nelson Page,
_Harper’s Magazine_, Oct., 1894.
“The Sick-a-Bed Lady,” Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, in volume of same
title.
“The Insurgent,” Ludovic Halévy, translated in _Short-Story
Masterpieces_.
“Caybigan,” James Hopper, in volume of same title.
“The Liar,” Henry James, in _Short-Story Classics, American_.
“Editha,” W. D. Howells, in _Harper’s Novelettes_.
“Our Sermon Taster,” Ian Maclaren, in _Beside the Bonnie Briar
Bush_.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Copyright, 1911, by J. B. Lippincott Co., and used by permission.
VIII
PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
_Markheim._--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_On the Stairs._--ARTHUR MORRISON
He [the author] can sometimes rouse our intense curiosity and
eagerness by the mere depiction of a psychological state, as Walter
Pater has done in the case of Sebastian Storck and other personages
of his _Imaginary Portraits_. The fact that “nothing happens”
in stories of this kind may be precisely what most interests
us, because we are made to understand what it is that inhibits
action.--BLISS PERRY, _A Study of Prose Fiction_.
PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
A subtle distinction is to be observed between the character-study and
the psychological study, but it will not be supposed that writers of
short-stories plainly label the distinction, or that the two types are
frequently, if ever, found entirely separate. In the character-study
more attention is paid to the true natures of the actors, and the
demonstration of their natures is shown in the action of the story; in
the psychological study more stress is laid upon the actual operation
of thought, feeling and purpose--it is a laboratory study of what goes
on in the human heart, to use a somewhat vague but necessary term,
under stress of crisis.
The psychological study is the most difficult because the most
penetrating of all short-story forms, and in consequence the most rare
in its perfect presentation. To show the processes of reasoning, the
interplay of motive, the power of feeling acting upon feeling, and
the intricate combinations of these, calls for the most clear-sighted
understanding of man, and the utmost skill in literary art, lest
the story be lost in a fog of tiresome analysis and discussion. In
“Markheim” and “On the Stairs,” two master story-tellers are easily
at their best, for they never obtrude their own opinions, but swiftly
and with a firm onward movement the stories disclose the true inward
workings of the unique characters, while from mood, speech, and action
we infallibly infer all the soul-processes by which their conclusions
are reached.
MARKHEIM
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
[Sidenote: INTRODUCTION. Remarkable because it at once touches upon the
external crisis of the story.]
“Yes,” said the dealer, “our wind-falls are of various kinds. Some
customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior
knowledge. Some are dishonest,” and here he held up the candle, so
that the light fell strongly on his visitor, “and in that case,” he
continued, “I profit by my virtue.”
[Sidenote: Note double reason.]
2. Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his
eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in
the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the
flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.
[Sidenote: See how daringly the author plays with the reader
without arousing suspicion. Compare Stevenson’s reasoning as to the
reader’s suspicions with Dupin’s reasoning in “The Purloined Letter,”
pp. 91, 92.]
[Sidenote: Markheim has been there before.]
3. The dealer chuckled. “You come to me on Christmas-day,” he resumed,
“when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and
make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that;
you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing
my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I
remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion,
and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer can not look me in
the eye, he has to pay for it.” The dealer once more chuckled; and
then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of
irony, “You can give, as usual, a clean account of how you came into
possession of the object?” he continued. “Still your uncle’s cabinet? A
remarkable collector, sir!”
4. And the little, pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on
tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his
head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one
of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
[Sidenote: Insincerity evident.]
5. “This time,” he said, “you are in error. I have not come to sell,
but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle’s cabinet is bare
to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the
Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my
errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas-present for a
lady,” he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he
had prepared; “and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing
you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I
must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well
know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected.”
6. There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh
this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the
curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near
thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.
[Sidenote: Compare this setting, as it is gradually unfolded, with that
of Gautier’s “The Mummy’s Foot.”]
7. “Well, sir,” said the dealer, “be it so. You are an old customer
after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage,
far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady
now,” he went on, “this hand-glass--fifteenth century, warranted; comes
from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests
of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and
sole heir of a remarkable collector.”
[Sidenote: Analyse its nature.]
8. The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had
stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so,
a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot,
a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as
swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the
hand that now received the glass.
[Sidenote: Contributory incident.]
9. “A glass,” he said, hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more
clearly. “A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?”
10. “And why not?” cried the dealer. “Why not a glass?”
[Sidenote: Forecast.]
11. Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression.
“You ask me why not?” he said. “Why, look here--look in it--look at
yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor I--nor any man.”
12. The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly
confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing
worse on hand, he chuckled. “Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard
favoured,” said he.
[Sidenote: Note the working of Markheim’s morbid conscience, not yet
understood by himself.]
13. “I ask you,” said Markheim, “for a Christmas-present, and you give
me this--this damned reminder of years, and sins and follies--this
hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell
me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself.
I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?”
[Sidenote: FIRST MORAL CRISIS.]
14. The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd,
Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face
like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.
15. “What are you driving at?” the dealer asked.
16. “Not charitable?” returned the other, gloomily. “Not charitable;
not pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a
safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?”
17. “I will tell you what it is,” began the dealer, with some
sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. “But I see this is
a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady’s health.”
18. “Ah!” cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. “Ah, have you been
in love? Tell me about that.”
[Sidenote: Note change of attitude.]
19. “I,” cried the dealer. “I in love! I never had the time, nor have I
the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?”
[Sidenote: Analyse the forces back of Markheim’s parleying.]
20. “Where is the hurry?” returned Markheim. “It is very pleasant to
stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not
hurry away from any pleasure--no, not even from so mild a one as this.
We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at
a cliff’s edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it--a cliff
a mile high--high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature
of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each
other; why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows,
we might become friends?”
21. “I have just one word to say to you,” said the dealer. “Either make
your purchase, or walk out of my shop.”
[Sidenote: Note how quickly Markheim follows the unconscious lead.]
22. “True, true,” said Markheim. “Enough fooling. To business. Show me
something else.”
[Sidenote: FIRST EXTERNAL CRISIS.]
23. The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon
the shelf, his thin blonde hair falling over his eyes as he did so.
[Sidenote: Note all these.]
Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his
great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time
many different emotions were depicted together on his face--terror,
horror and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a
haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.
[Sidenote: He was prepared for the crime.]
24. “This, perhaps, may suit,” observed the dealer; and then, as he
began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The
long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a
hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in
a heap.
[Sidenote: FIRST MINOR CLIMAX.]
[Sidenote: Beginning of the internal action. Note how all external
things now begin to play upon the internal man.]
[Sidenote: Throughout, note Stevenson’s rich imagery, and also his
unusual vocabulary.]
[Sidenote: An unusual word.]
25. Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and
slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried.
All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then
the passage of a lad’s feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in
upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness
of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood
on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that
inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless
bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross
blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces
of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images
in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of
shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
[Sidenote: Picture.]
[Sidenote: Evidence of premeditation.]
[Sidenote: Note the interplay of the outward picture and Markheim’s
mind. Keep before you always the double movement of this study as both
progress side by side, finally resulting in the predominance of the
spiritual.]
26. From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim’s eyes returned to
the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling,
incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor,
miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much
sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And
yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began
to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the
cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion--there it must lie
till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift
up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the
echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead, or not, this was still the enemy. “Time
was that when the brains were out,” he thought; and the first word
struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished--time,
which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for
the slayer.
27. The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another,
with every variety of pace and voice--one deep as the bell from a
cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a
waltz--the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
[Sidenote: The old motive reasserts itself.]
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: As fear subsides craft returns.]
[Sidenote: A significant expression.]
[Sidenote: Contrast physical and moral fear. Consider how the two are
related.]
28. The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber
staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the
candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by
chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some
from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it
were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound
of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet.
And still as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him,
with a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He
should have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi;
he should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and
only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have
been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all
things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the
mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to
be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all
this activity, brute terrors, like scurrying of rats in a deserted
attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the
hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves
would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the
dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.
[Sidenote: Note the primary use of the word “rumor.”]
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
[Sidenote: Study of fear.]
[Sidenote: Impressionism.]