The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer any standing
room and many were even sitting on the steps of the aisles. In the boxes
the gentlemen were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell
of gas, of plush upholstery, of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine
vapour as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded the house,
blurring the lowered lights and dimming the splendour of the great glass
chandelier.
It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth that perspiration
did not relieve, while the air itself was stale and close as though
fouled by being breathed over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must have been unbearable.
The only movement perceptible throughout the audience was the little
swaying of gay-coloured fans like the balancing of butterflies about to
light. Occasionally there would be a vast rustling like the sound of
wind in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the leaves
simultaneously.
The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling, the first violins
wailing in unison, while all the bows went up and down together like
parts of a well-regulated machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at
exact intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling of the harp
like the pattering of raindrops between peals of thunder. The leader
swayed from side to side in his place, beating time with his baton, his
hand, and his head.
On the stage itself the act was drawing to a close. There had just been
a duel. The baritone lay stretched upon the floor at left centre, his
sword fallen at some paces from him. On the left of the scene, front,
stood the tenor who had killed him, singing in his highest register,
very red in the face, continually striking his hand upon his breast and
pointing with his sword toward his fallen enemy. Next him on the extreme
left was his friend the basso, in high leather boots, growling from time
to time during a sustained chord, "_Mon honneur et ma foi._" In the
centre of the stage, the soprano, the star, the prima donna chanted a
fervid but ineffectual appeal to the tenor who cried, "_Jamais,
jamais!_" striking his breast and pointing with his sword. The prima
donna cried, "_Ah, mon Dieu, ayez pitié de moi._" Her confidante, the
mezzo-soprano, came to her support, repeating her words with an
impersonal meaning, "_Ayez pitié d'elle._" "_Mon honneur et ma foi_,"
growled the basso. The contralto, dressed as a man, turned toward the
audience on the extreme right, bringing out her notes with a wrench and
a twist of her body and neck, and intoning, "_Ah, malheureuse! Mon Dieu,
ayez pitié d'elle._"
The leader of the chorus, costumed as the captain of the watch, leaned
over the dead baritone and sang, "_Il est mort, il est mort. Mon Dieu,
ayez pitié de lui._" The soldiers of the watch were huddled together
immediately back of him. They wore tin helmets, much too large, and
green peplums, and repeated his words continually.
The chorus itself was made up of citizens of the town; it was in a
semicircle at the back of the stage--the men on one side, the women on
the other. They made all their gestures together and chanted without
ceasing: "_O horreur, O mystére! Il est mort. Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de
nous!_"
"_De Grace!_" cried the prima donna.
"_Jamais, jamais!_" echoed the tenor, striking his breast and pointing
with his sword.
"_O mystére!_" chanted the chorus, while the basso struck his hand upon
his sword hilt, growling "_Mon honneur et ma foi._"
The orchestra redoubled. The finale began; all the pieces of the
orchestra, all the voices on the stage, commenced over again very loud.
They all took a step forward, and the rhythm became more rapid, till it
reached a climax where the prima donna's voice jumped to a C in alt,
holding it long enough for the basso to thunder, "_Mon honneur et ma
foi_" twice. Then they all struck the attitudes for the closing tableau
and in one last burst of music sang all together, "_Mon Dieu, ayez pitié
de moi_" and "_de lui_" and "_d'elle_" and "_de nous_." Then the
orchestra closed with a long roll of the kettle-drums, and the prima
donna fainted into the arms of her confidante. The curtain fell.
There was a roar of applause. The gallery whistled and stamped. Every
one relaxed his or her position, drawing a long breath, looking about.
There was a general stir; the lights in the great glass chandelier
clicked and blazed up, and a murmur of conversation arose. The
footlights were lowered and the orchestra left their places and
disappeared underneath the stage, leaving the audience with the
conviction that they had gone out after beer. All over the house one
heard the shrill voices of boys crying out, "Op'ra books--books for the
op'ra--words and music for the op'ra."
Throughout the boxes a great coming and going took place and an
interchange of visits. The gentlemen out in the foyer stood about
conversing in groups or walked up and down smoking cigarettes, often
pausing in front of the big floral piece that was to be given to the
prima donna at the end of the great scene in the fourth act.
There was a little titter of an electric bell. The curtain was about to
go up, and a great rush for seats began. The orchestra were coming back
and tuning up. They sent up a prolonged medley of sounds, little minor
chirps and cries from the violins, liquid runs and mellow gurgles from
the oboes, flutes, and wood-wind instruments, and an occasional
deep-toned purring from the bass viols. A bell rang faintly from behind
the wings, the house lights sank, and the footlights blazed up. The
leader tapped with his baton; a great silence fell upon the house, while
here and there one heard an energetic "Ssh! ssh!" The fourth act was
about to begin.
When the curtain rose on the fourth act one saw the prima donna standing
in a very dejected pose in the midst of a vast apartment that might have
been a bedchamber, a council hall, or a hall of audience. She was alone.
She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms
were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to
her girdle. She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
the famous quartet in the "great scene."
But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
the right, and the pure.
To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.
The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
in him; now it had turned in one more revolt, crying out against him,
protesting for the last time against its own perversion and destruction.
Vandover felt that he was at the great crisis of his life.
After all was over he walked home through the silent streets, proceeding
slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bent down, his mind very
busy. Once in his rooms he threw off his things and, having stirred up
the drowsing fire in the tiled stove, sat down before it in his
shirt-sleeves, the bosom of his full dress shirt bulging from his vest
and faintly creaking as from time to time he drew a long breath. He had
been lured into a mood where he was himself at his very best, where the
other Vandover, the better Vandover, drew apart with eyes turned
askance, looking inward and downward into the depths of his own
character, shuddering, terrified. Far down there in the darkest, lowest
places he had seen the brute, squat, deformed, hideous; he had seen it
crawling to and fro dimly, through a dark shadow he had heard it
growling, chafing at the least restraint, restless to be free. For now
at last it was huge, strong, insatiable, swollen and distorted out of
all size, grown to be a monster, glutted yet still ravenous, some
fearful bestial satyr, grovelling, perverse, horrible beyond words.
And with the eyes of this better self he saw again, little by little,
the course of his whole life, and witnessed again the eternal struggle
between good and evil that had been going on within him since his very
earliest years. He was sure that at the first the good had been the
strongest. Little by little the brute had grown, and he,
pleasure-loving, adapting himself to every change of environment,
luxurious, self-indulgent, shrinking with the shrinking of a sensuous
artist-nature from all that was irksome and disagreeable, had shut his
ears to the voices that shouted warnings of the danger, and had allowed
the brute to thrive and to grow, its abominable famine gorged from the
store of that in him which he felt to be the purest, the cleanest, and
the best, its bulk fattened upon the rot and the decay of all that was
good, growing larger day by day, noisome, swollen, poddy, a filthy
inordinate ghoul, gorged and bloated by feeding on the good things that
were dead.
Besides this he saw how one by one he had wrenched himself free from all
those influences that had tended to foster and to cultivate all the
better part of him.
First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed
that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which
dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating
under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt,
partly of pity, partly of genuine regret.
Next it had been his father. The Old Gentleman had exerted a great
influence over Vandover; he had never forgotten that scene the morning
after he had told him of his measure of responsibility in Ida Wade's
suicide, the recovery from the first shock of dazed bewilderment and
then the forgiveness, the solicitude and the encouragement to begin over
again, to live it down and to do that which was right and good and true.
Not only had he stopped his ears to this voice, but also, something told
him, he had done much to silence it forever. Despite the Old Gentleman's
apparent fortitude the blow must have carried home. What must he not
have suffered during those long weeks while Vandover was away, what
lonely broodings in the empty house; and then the news of the wreck, the
days of suspense!
It all must have told; the Old Gentleman was not strong; Vandover could
not but feel that he had hastened his death, and that in so doing he had
destroyed another influence which would have cultivated and fostered his
better self, would have made it strong against the attacks of the brute.
The other person who had helped to bring out all that was best in
Vandover had been Turner Ravis. There was no denying that when he had
first known her he had loved her sincerely. Things were vastly different
with him when Turner had been his companion; things that were unworthy,
that were low, that were impure and vicious, did not seem worth while
then; not only did they have no attraction for him, but he even shunned
and avoided them. He knew he was a better man for loving her; invariably
she made him wish to be better. But little by little as he frequented
the society of such girls as Ida Wade, Grace Irving, and Flossie, his
affection for Turner faded. As the habits of passionate and unhealthy
excitement grew upon him he lost first the taste and then the very
capacity for a calm, pure feeling. His affection for her he frittered
away with fast girls and abandoned women, strangled it in the foul
musk-laden air of disreputable houses, dragged and defiled it in the
wine-lees of the Imperial. In the end he had quite destroyed it,
wilfully, wantonly killed it. As Turner herself had said, she could only
be in love with being loved; her affection for him had dwindled as
well; at last they had come to be indifferent to each other, she no
longer inspired him to be better, and thus he had shaken off this good
influence as well.
Public opinion had been a great check upon him, the fear of scandal, the
desire to stand well with the world he knew. Trivial though he felt it
to be, the dread of what people would say had to a great extent held
Vandover back. He had a position to maintain, a reputation to keep up in
the parlours and at the dinner tables where he was received. It could
not be denied that society had influenced Vandover for good. But this,
too, like all the others, he had cast from him. Now he was ostracized,
society cared no longer what he did, his position was gone, his
reputation was destroyed. There was no one now to stand in his way.
Vandover could not fall back on any religious influence. Religion had
never affected him very deeply. It was true that he had been baptized,
confirmed, and had gone to church with considerable regularity. If he
had been asked if he was a Christian and believed in God he would have
answered "Certainly, certainly." Until the time of his father's death he
had even said his prayers every night, the last thing before turning out
the gas, sitting upon the edge of his bed in his night-gown, his head in
both his hands. He added to the Lord's Prayer certain other petitions as
to those who were in trouble, sorrow, poverty, or any other privations;
he asked for blessings upon his father and upon himself, praying for the
former's health and prosperity, and for himself, that he might become a
great artist, that the "Last Enemy" might be admitted to the Salon when
he had painted it, and that it might make him famous. But, as a rule,
Vandover thought very little about religious matters and when he did,
told himself that he was too intelligent to believe in a literal heaven,
a literal hell, and a personal God personally interfering in human
affairs like any Jove or Odin. But the moment he rejected a concrete
religion Vandover was almost helpless. He was not mystic enough to find
any meaning in signs or symbols, nor philosophic enough to grasp vague
and immense abstractions. Infinities, Presences, Forces, could not help
him withstand temptation, could not strengthen him against the brute. He
felt that somewhere, some time, there was punishment for evildoing,
but, as happened in the case of Ida Wade's death, to dwell on such
thoughts disturbed and terrified him. He did not dare to look long in
that direction. Conscience, remorse, repentance, all these had been keen
enough at first, but he had so persistently kicked against the pricks
that little by little he had ceased to feel them at all.
Then an immense and overwhelming terror seized upon him. Was there
nothing, then--nothing left which he could lay hold of to save him? He
knew that he could not deliver himself by his own exertions. Religion
could not help him, he had killed his father, estranged the girl he
might have loved, outraged the world, and at a single breath blighted
the fine innate purity of his early years. It was as if he had entered
into his life in the world as into some vast labyrinth, wandering on
aimlessly, flinging from him one by one the threads, the clues, that
might have led him again to a safe exit, going down deeper and deeper
until, when near the centre, he had suddenly felt the presence of the
brute, had heard its loathsome muttering growl, had at last seen it far
down at the end of a passage, dimly and in a dark shadow; terrified, he
had started back, looking wildly about for any avenue of escape,
searching with frantic haste and eagerness for any one of those clues he
had so carelessly cast from him, realizing that without such guidance he
would inevitably tend down again to that fatal central place where the
brute had its lair.
There was nothing, nothing. He clearly saw the fate toward which he was
hurrying; it was not too late to save himself if he only could find
help, but he could find _no_ help. His terror increased almost to
hysteria. It was one of those dreadful moments that men sometimes
undergo that must be met alone, and that when past, remain in the memory
for all time; a glimpse far down into the springs and wheels of life; a
glimpse that does not come often lest the reason brought to the edge of
the fearful gulf should grow dizzy at the sight, and reeling, topple
headlong.
But suddenly Vandover rose to his feet, the tears came to his eyes, and
with a long breath he exclaimed: "Thank God for it!" He grew calmer in a
moment, the crisis had passed, he had found a clue beneath his groping
fingers.
He had remembered his art, turning to it instinctively as he always did
when greatly moved. This was the one good thing that yet survived. It
was the strongest side of him; it would be the last to go; he felt it
there yet. It was the one thing that could save him.
The thought had come to him so suddenly and with such marvellous
clearness that in his present exalted state of mind it filled him with a
vague sense of awe, it seemed like a manifestation, a writing on the
wall. Might it not be some sort of miracle? He had heard of men
reforming their lives, transformed almost in an instant, and had scoffed
at the idea. But might it not be true, after all? What was this
wonderful thing that had happened to him? Was this less strange than a
miracle? Less divine?
The following day Vandover rented a studio. It was the lofty room with
hardwood floors and the immense north light in that suite which he had
rejected when looking for rooms on the former occasion. He gave notice
to the clerk in the apartment house where his quarters were situated
that he intended to vacate after the first of the month. Charming as he
had found these rooms, he gave up, with scarcely a regret, the idea of
living in them any longer. In a month it would be summer and he would be
on his way to Paris.
But so great was his desire for work now, so eager was he to start the
"Last Enemy," so strong was the new energy that shook him, that Vandover
could not wait until summer to begin work again. He grudged everything
now that kept him away from his easel.
He disappeared from the sight of his ordinary companions; he did not
even seek the society of Geary or of young Haight. All the sketches he
had made for the "Last Enemy," together with his easel and his disused
palette, his colour-box, tubes, brushes and all the other materials and
tools for his work, he caused to be transferred to the new studio.
Besides this he had the stretcher made, best twill canvas on a frame
four feet long, two and a half feet high. This was for the large sketch
of the picture. But the finished work he calculated would demand an
eight by five stretcher.
He did not think of decorating the room, of putting any ornaments about
the wall. He was too serious, too much in earnest now to think of that.
The studio was not to be his lounging place, but his workshop. His art
was work with him now, hard, serious work. It was above all _work_ that
he needed to set him right again, regular work, steady, earnest work,
not the dilettante fancy of an amateur content with making pretty
things.
Never in his life had Vandover been so happy. He came and went
continually between his rooms, his studio, and his art dealers, tramping
grandly about the city, whistling to himself, strong, elated, filled
with energy, vigour, ambition. At times his mind was full of
thankfulness at this deliverance at the eleventh hour; at times it was
busy with the details of the picture, its composition, its colour
scheme. The main effects he wanted to produce were isolation and intense
heat, the shadows on the sand would be blue, the horizon line high on
the canvas, the sky would be light in tone, almost white near the earth.
The morning when he first began to work was charming. His new studio was
in the top floor of a five-story building, and on arriving there,
breathless from his long climb up the stairs, Vandover threw open the
window and gazed out and down upon the city spread out below him,
enjoying the view a moment before settling to his work.
A little later the trades would be blowing strong and brisk from the
ocean, driving steadily through the Golden Gate, filling the city with a
taint of salt; but at present the air was calm, touched with a certain
nimbleness, a sparkling effervescence, invigourating, exhilarating.
It was early in the forenoon, not yet past nine o'clock, and the mist
that gathers over the city just before dawn was steaming off under the
sun, very thin and delicate, turning all distant objects a flat tone of
pale blue. Over the roofs of the houses he could catch a glimpse of the
distant mountains, faint purple masses against the pale edge of the sky,
rimming the horizon round with a fillet of delicate colour. But any
larger view was barred by a huge frame house with a slated mansard roof,
directly opposite him across the street, a residence house, one of the
few in the neighbourhood. It had been newly painted white and showed
brave and gay against the dark blue of the sky and the ruddy greens of
the great garden in which it stood. Vandover from his window could from
time to time catch the smell of eucalyptus trees coming to him in long
aromatic breaths mingled with the odour of wet grass and fresh paint.
Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of
song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each
other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.
Vandover turned back to his work. Under the huge north light was the
easel, and clamped upon it the stretcher, blank, and untouched. The very
sight of the heavy cream-white twill was an inspiration. Already
Vandover saw a great picture upon it; a great wave of emotion suddenly
welled up within him and he cried with enthusiasm:
"By God! it is in moods like this that _chef d'oeuvres_ are made."
Around the baseboard of the room were a row of _esquisses_ for the
picture, on small landscape-stretchers, mere blotches of colour laid on
with the palette knife and large brushes, almost unintelligible to any
one but Vandover. He selected two or three of these and fastened them to
the easel above the big stretcher where he could have them continually
in his eye. He lit his pipe, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and standing
before the easel, began to sharpen a stick of charcoal with an old
razor, drawing the blade toward him so as to keep the point of the stick
from breaking. Then at last with a deep breath of satisfaction he began
blocking in the first large construction lines of his picture.
It was one o'clock before he knew it. He went downtown and had a hasty
lunch, jealous of every moment that was not spent on his picture. The
sight of it as he re-entered the room sent a thrill all over him; he was
succeeding better than he could have expected, doing better than he
thought he would. He felt sure that now he should do good work; every
stage of the picture's progress was an inspiration for the next one. At
this time the figures had only been "placed," broadly sketched in large
lines, "blocked in" as he called it. The next step was the second
drawing, much more finished.
He rapped the stretcher sharply with his knuckles; it responded
sonorously like a drumhead, the vibration shaking the charcoal from the
tracings, filling the air with a fine dust. The outlines grew faint,
just perceptible enough to guide him in the second more detailed
drawing.
He brought his stick of charcoal to a very fine edge and set to work
carefully. In a moment he stopped and, with his chamois cloth, dusted
out what he had drawn. He had made a false start, he began but could not
recall how the lines should run, his fingers were willing enough; in his
imagination he saw just how the outlines should be, but somehow he could
not make his hand interpret what was in his head. Some third medium
through which the one used to act upon the other was sluggish, dull;
worse than that, it seemed to be absent. _"Well,"_ he muttered, "can't I
make this come out right?" Then he tried more carefully. His imagination
saw the picture clearer, his hand moved with more assurance, but the two
seemed to act independently of each other. The forms he made on the
canvas were no adequate reflection of those in his brain; some third
delicate and subtle faculty that coordinated the other two and that
called forth a sure and instant response to the dictates of his mind,
was lacking. The lines on his canvas were those of a child just learning
to draw; one saw for what they were intended, but they were crude, they
had no life, no meaning. The very thing that would have made them
intelligible, interpretive, that would have made them art, was absent. A
third, a fourth, and a fifth time Vandover made the attempt. It was
useless. He knew that it was not because his hand lacked cunning on
account of long disuse; such a thing, in spite of popular belief, never
happened to artists--a good artist might abandon his work for five
years, ten years--and take it up again precisely where he had laid it
down with no loss of technical skill. No, this thing seemed more subtle,
so subtle that at first he could hardly grasp it. But suddenly a great
fear came upon him, a momentary return of that wild hysterical terror
from which he believed he had forever escaped.
"Is it gone?" he cried out. "Is it gone from me? My art? Steady," he
went on, passing his hand over his face with a reassuring smile;
"steady, old man, this won't do, again--and so soon! It won't do for you
to get scared twice like that. This is just nervousness, you are
overexcited. Pshaw! What's the matter with me? Let's get to work."
Still another time he dusted out what he had done and recommenced,
concentrating all his attention with a tremendous effort of the will.
Grotesque and meaningless shapes, the mocking caricatures of those he
saw in his fancy, grew under his charcoal, while slowly, slowly, a
queer, numb feeling came in his head, like a rising fog, and the touch
of that unreasoning terror returned, this time stronger, more
persistent, more tenacious than before.
Vandover nerved himself against it, not daring to give in, fearing to
allow himself to see what this really meant. He passed one hand over his
cheek and along the side of his head, the fingers dancing. "Hum!" he
muttered, looking vaguely about him, "this is bad. I mustn't let this
get the better of me now. I'll knock off for to-day, take a little rest,
begin again to-morrow."
In ten minutes he was back at his easel again. His charcoal wandered,
tracing empty lines on his canvas, the strange numbness grew again in
his head. All the objects in the range of his eyes seemed to move back
and stand on the same plane. He became a little dizzy.
"It's the _tobacco_," he exclaimed. "That pipe always was too strong."
He turned away to the open window, feeling an irresistible need of
distraction, of amusement, and he remained there resting on his elbows,
listening and looking, trying to be interested.
It was toward the middle of the afternoon. The morning mist was long
since evaporated and the first faint puffs of the inevitable trade wind
were just stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In
the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had
opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and
arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears
in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white
linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a
bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came
and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, while occasionally a
whistle blew very far off. At the corner of the street by a
livery-stable a little boy in a flat-topped leather cap was calling
incessantly for some unseen dog, whistling and slapping his knees. An ex
press-wagon stopped a few doors below the white house and the driver
pulled down the back-board with a strident rattle of chains; the cable
in its slot kept up an unceasing burr and clack while the cars
themselves trundled up and down the street, starting and stopping with a
jangling of bells, the jostled glass windows whirring in a prolonged
vibrant note. All these sounds played lightly over the steady muffled
roar that seemed to come from all quarters at once; it was that deep
murmur, that great minor diapason that always disengages itself from
vast bodies, from mountains, from oceans, from forests, from sleeping
armies.
The desire for movement, for diversion, for anything that would keep him
from thinking was not to be resisted. Vandover caught up his hat and
fled from the room, not daring to look again at the easel. Once outside,
he began to walk, anywhere, straight before him, going on with great
strides, his head in the air.
He found Charlie Geary and took him to supper. Vandover talked
continually on all sorts of subjects, speaking very rapidly. In the
evening he insisted on Geary going to the theatre with him. He paid the
closest attention to the play, letting it occupy his mind entirely. When
the play was over and the two were about to say good night, Vandover
began to urge Geary to sleep up at his rooms that night. He overrode his
objections, interrupting him, taking hold of his arm, and starting off.
But Geary, a little surprised at his manner, refused. There were certain
law papers he had taken home with him from the office that afternoon and
that it was necessary he should return in the morning. Ah, you bet, he
would get it right in the neck if old Beale didn't have those
depositions the first thing when the office was open. Ah, he was getting
to be indispensable down there. He had had Fischer's place now for a
year. Fischer had never come back, and he had the promise of being taken
on as head clerk as soon as Beale Jr. went into the partnership with old
Beale. "I'll make my way in this town yet," he declared. "I'll be in
that partnership myself some day. You see; yes, sir; ah, you bet!"
The idea of passing the night alone terrified Vandover. He started
toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in
his pockets. All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused
himself and looked about him. There was a smell of eucalyptus in the
air. Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he
had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of
which his studio was situated. All day Vandover's mind had been in the
greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither
like terrified birds in a cage. Just now he underwent a sudden reaction.
It had all been a matter of fancy, nothing but nervousness; he had not
drawn for some time, his hand lacked cunning from long disuse. The
desire for work came upon him again overpoweringly. He wanted to see
again if he could not draw just as truly and freely as in the old days.
No, he could not wait till morning; he must put himself to the test
again at once, at the very instant. It was a sudden feminine caprice,
induced, no doubt, by the exalted, strained, and unnatural condition of
his nerves, a caprice that could not be reasoned with, that could not be
withstood. He had his keys with him, he opened the outside door and
groped his way up the four long flights of stairs to his studio.
The studio was full of a sombre half-light, like a fog, spreading
downward from the great north light in the sloping roof. The window was
still wide open, the stretcher showed a pale gray blur. Vandover was
about to light the gas when he checked himself, his arm still raised
above his head. Ah, no; he did not dare to look at the result of his
day's work. It would be better to start in afresh from the beginning. He
found the chamois skin on the tray of the easel and rubbed out all the
drawing on the canvas. Then he lit the gas.
As he turned to his work once more a little thrill of joy and of relief
passed over him. This time his hand was sure, steady, his head was
clear. It had been nervousness after all. As he picked up his charcoal
he even exclaimed to himself, "Just the same, that _was_ a curious
experience this afternoon."
But the curious experience repeated itself again that night as soon as
he tried to work. Once more certain shapes and figures were born upon
his canvas, but they were no longer the true children of his
imagination, they were no longer his own; they were changelings,
grotesque abortions. It was as if the brute in him, like some malicious
witch, had stolen away the true offspring of his mind, putting in their
place these deformed dwarfs, its own hideous spawn.
Through the numbness and giddiness that gradually came into his head
like a poisonous murk he saw one thing clearly: It was gone--his art was
gone, the one thing that could save him. That, too, like all the other
good things of his life, he had destroyed. At some time during those
years of debauchery it had died, that subtle, elusive something,
delicate as a flower; he had ruined it. Little by little it had exhaled
away, wilting in the air of unrestrained debauches, perishing in the
warm musk-laden atmosphere of disreputable houses, defiled by the breath
of abandoned women, trampled into the spilt wine-lees of the Imperial,
dragged all fouled and polluted through the lowest mire of the great
city's vice.
For a moment Vandover felt as though he was losing his hold upon his
reason; the return of the hysteria shook him like a dry, light leaf. He
suddenly had a sensation that the room was too small to hold him; he
ran, almost reeled, to the open window, drawing his breath deep and
fast, inhaling the cool night air, rolling his eyes wildly.
It was night. He looked out into a vast blue-gray space sown with points
of light, winking lamps, and steady slow-burning stars. Below him was
the sleeping city. All the lesser staccato noises of the day had long
since died to silence; there only remained that prolonged and sullen
diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
air in one long wave of sound.
It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
darkness.