_Wherein our Hero goes out into the Night_
Noll slept till late into the afternoon, awoke heavy, and loafed
aimlessly about his room, hoping to do some work before the dusk fell;
but ideas were shy of him, and, as the afternoon wore on, he grew ever
more restless. Flinging into an armchair, he opened the book of the
wisdom of Schopenhauer which tells of the Refuge from the brutalities
of Life in Works of Art--in the contemplation of the Beautiful. And he
steeped himself in the pessimistic writings until the light failed. At
the coming of the darkness he roused, made himself some coffee, lit the
lamp, and getting back to his easy-chair he pored over the gospel of
Art for Art’s sake until midnight.
At midnight he stretched, yawned, and, putting on his cloak and hat,
turned out the light, and drifted to the streets again and so to the
tavern of _The Golden Sun_.
Hélène was there, at a table, watching the door for his coming. A
pretty flush warmed her pale cheeks as she saw him enter and scan the
place for sign of her. She beckoned him to the empty chair beside
her--and he went.
The handsome young Englishman, virile, frank, gentle in his strength,
fascinated her. His attitude towards her interested her, a little
piqued her, flattered her, baffled her. All the shafts of her country’s
wit against the amourousless habits of his people tickled her to
the smiling point; yet she suspected that behind the self-confident
eyes strong passions lurked.... She herself thrilled at his touch,
would have flung herself upon him, clung to him--would gladly have
yielded body or soul to him--yet she saw that he was in no mood for
her surrender. She was burnt, fevered, with the eagerness of reckless
passion. Yet his frank liking for her, his friendliness, his charming
desire to hear always her criticism of life and of art and of things,
his pretty homage and deference to her intellectual point of view, won
her to him in a pleasant comradeship that gave new life to her. She had
heard of these friendships with men--but Paris had never before offered
her such sweets. She would watch him with curious eyes that were lit
with a smile when he turned to look upon her.
So it came that Noll drifted away from the boisterous community of
the students and their nightly riot, and took to haunting the tavern
of _The Golden Sun_--drifted from his blithe companions in all their
irresponsible rollicking gaiety of youth and fell into the drab habits
of these shiftless folk who put artistry and the beautiful before life.
By day he slept; and when he did not sleep he pored over this
Schopenhauer’s scheme of evading all thought of the misery of living in
the contemplation of the Beautiful--at night he lived it.
Time passed.
The first freshness wore off.
Youth became restless.
The contemplation of the beautiful, in works of art, was no deliverance
from the striving of the desire to live. Even in enjoying the beauty of
craftsmanship the struggle for life and the cruel facts of life could
only be put out of one’s thoughts but for a very little while; nay,
art even pointed to life; nay, more, this very art is in its essence
the emotional statement of nature and of life!... Fool! Life that was
beautiful to contemplate in its parts could not be wholly ugly in the
living.
Youth rubbed awakening eyes.
Art as a refuge from life was a failure.
He looked round at these faded wits about him.
This devotion to beauty of craftsmanship, to mere letters, to paint,
to music, to technical achievement--it could only bring passing
consolation of delight. It did not, it could not bring perfect
rest--absolute contentment. Sordid hours had still to be lived--and,
God! what sordid hours!
Even whilst they spoke the half-truth that Craft must and should always
be beautiful, must aim at perfection of statement, be pleasant, give
delight--poor souls--their wan eyes could not wholly put from them
that Craft is but the tool of Art; and Art is the expression of all
the emotions and sensations--ranges the whole gamut of life, good and
bad, ugly and beautiful, tragedy and comedy. Art therefore inspires
or it debases; and thus and so stimulates life to fulfil itself--or
not to fulfil. Art is good or it is bad--is as powerful for bad as
for good--good when it enlarges life; bad when it narrows life. The
emotions discover for us far more vasty continents than the eyes of
voyagers shall ever behold.
Youth awoke.
These people about him were Failures--the pallid ghosts of men and
women.
They were taken up with the shadow.
Could this delight in the mere craftsmanship of art be enough? Was
this sufficient end? Was it for this the world had been evolved, to
this that was set the vast music of the spheres? To this end--to be
set down beautifully in man’s handwriting--that the thunders brought
the lightnings to the riven oak, that the wondrous mystic seasons took
their courses, that the waters leaped hissing to the tornado’s smite,
that the angry majesty of the resounding heavens gave place to exultant
sunshine and serenest peace! Were these things so, but to be set down
in man’s scrap-albums?
Was delight in craftsmanship enough to live for?
Tush! this was absolute, if subtle, suicide--self-killing of the body
and intellect and conscience and will and energy. This sipping at the
mere pleasantnesses of life--it was emaciating them in mind, body,
will, senses.
Their very loves were a dandified make-believe. The kiss of a woman’s
mouth was become but a passing pleasure. All these shabby little
adulteries were without desire for the child beyond--the child when it
came was an unlooked-for inconsequence, a burden, a thing of shame. The
sweetest thing in life an affair of accident--to be feared--flinched
from!
Life might be a tragedy. These were making of it a melancholy and a
ghastly farce.
Noll got up from his place and slipped from the smoke-befogged room
amidst the clamorous din of applause that greeted the recital of an Ode
in Envy of One who had died Young.
He went out into the night.
And as he stepped out into the darkness the bitter cold gripped him
by the throat and cut into his lungs. He drew his collar about his
neck, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and tramped down dingy
streets that echoed his footfall along their haunted ways--he thought
with a pang of the threadbare coats of these pallid revellers in the
beautiful. It was the black hour that goes before the coming of the
daybreak; and blacker than the blackness of the night loomed the great
bulk of the cathedral of Notre Dame, its towers lost in the reek of
the bleak heavens above--there were lights that showed low down and
beyond--the lights of the Morgue were not yet burnt out.
The youth stood on the bridge and peered at the sighing sound that told
of the river below; but his brows were knit upon the destiny of these
kindly gentle people he had left behind him.
Where was this sorry tragedy of art for art’s sake hurrying these
sinking wits?
Those dark shadows that slept under the bridges, were they the husks
of such human things? Was that the end? To share the dank shelter with
the rats that made their litter there! Or perhaps in the black waters
icy oblivion would solve their sorry problem of evading the tragedy of
living! The Morgue.
Nay, how they clung to this despised life, for all its sordidness, for
all its misery--even the Failures!