An American novelist who wanted sales, and who was willing to sacrifice
all but the core of his character to get sales, found himself recently
in a challenging situation. As he expressed it:
“Along about page two hundred in the copy of the novel I am on, the
woman’s soul wakes up.”
“A woman’s novel?” I asked.
“Meant to be,” said he. “Study of a woman all through. Begins as a
little girl—different, you know—sensitive, does a whole lot of thinking
that her family doesn’t follow. Tries to tell ’em at first, but finds
herself in bad. Then keeps quiet for years—putting on power and beauty
in the good old way of bumps and misunderstanding. She’s pure white fire
presently—body and brain—something else asleep. She wants to be a
mother, but the ghastly sordidness of the love stories of her sisters to
this enactment, frightens her from men and marriage as the world
conducts it——”
“I follow you,” said I.
“Well, I’m not going to do the novel here for you,” he added. “You
wouldn’t think there was a ray of light in it from this kind of telling.
A man who spends five months of his best hours of life in telling a
story, can’t do it over in ten minutes and drive a machine at the same
time——”
“We’re getting out of the crowd. What does the girl do?” I asked.
“Well, she wanted a little baby—was ready to die for it, but had her own
ideas of what the father should be. A million married women have thought
the same thing here in America—pricked the obscene sham of the whole
business but too late. Moreover they’re the best women we’ve got. There
are——”
He actually shook the hat off his head—back into the seat at this point.
“There are some young women coming up into maturity here in America—God
bless ’em—who are almost brave enough to set out on the Quest for the
Father of the baby that haunts them to be born.... That’s what she did.
“He was a young man doing his own kind of work—doctoring among the poor,
let us say, mainly for nothing—killing himself among men and women and
babies; living on next to nothing, but having a half-divine kind of
madness to lift the world.... She saw him. You can picture that. They
were two to make one—and a third. She knew. There was a gold light about
his head for her eyes. Some of his poor had seen it. The young man
himself didn’t know it, and the world missed it altogether.
“She went to him. It’s cruel to put it this way.... I’m not saying
anything about the writing or about what happened, but the scene as it
came to me was the finest thing I ever saw. We always fall down in the
handling, you know.... I did it the best I could.... No, I’m not going
to tell you what happened. Only this: A little afterward—along about
page two hundred of the copy—her soul woke up.”
“Why not, in God’s name?”
He glanced quickly at me as a man does from ahead, when his car is
pressing the limit.
“Ever have a book fail?” he asked.
“Seven,” said I.
He cleared his throat and the kindest smile came into his eyes.
“They tell me at my publisher’s that I slowed up my last book badly—by
taking a woman’s soul out for an airing—just a little invalid kind of a
soul, too. Souls don’t wake up in American novels any more. You can’t do
much more in print nowadays than you can do on canvas—I mean movie
canvas. Of course, you can paint soul, but you can’t photograph
it—that’s the point. The movies have put imagination to death. We have
to compete. You can’t see a soul without imagination—or some sort of
madness—and the good people who want imagination in their novels don’t
buy ’em. They rent or borrow. It’s the crowds that go to the movies that
have bright colored strings of American novels, as the product runs—on
their shelves—little shiny varnished shelves—red carpets—painted birds
on the lampshades and callers in the evenings....”
There was a good silence.
“Do you know,” he said presently, “I’ve about come to the conclusion
that a novel must play altogether on sensuous tissue to catch the crowd?
Look at the big movie pictures—the actors make love like painted
animals.... I’m not humorous or ironical. It’s a big problem to me——”
“Why, you can’t touch the hem of the garment of a real love story until
you are off the sensuous,” I offered. “The Quest only begins there. I’m
not averse to that. It belongs in part. We are sensuous beings—in part.
But I am averse to letting it contain all. Why, the real glow comes to a
romance—when a woman’s soul wakes up. There’s a hotter fire than that
which glows blood-red——”
“I know,” he said quickly. “I know. That blood-red stuff is the cheapest
thing in the world, but that’s where the great thing called human
interest lives.... I’m sure of this story until her soul wakes up. She
stirs in her sleep, and I see a giantess ahead—the kind of woman who
could whistle to me or to you—and we’d follow her out—dazed by the draw
of her. They are in the world. I reckon souls do wake up—but I can feel
the public dropping off every page after two hundred—like chilled
bees—dropping off page by page—and the old familiar battle ahead. I can
feel that tight look about the eyes again——”
“Are you going to put her soul back to sleep?” I asked, as we turned
again into the crowd.
I wasn’t the least lordly in this question. I knew his struggle, and
something of the market, too. I was thinking of tradesmen—how easy it is
to be a tradesman; in fact, how difficult it is to be otherwise—when the
very passion of the racial soul moves in the midst of trade.
“She’s beautiful—even asleep,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to give
her something. I’m building a house. She’s in the comprehension of the
little varnished shelves—asleep.”
“Doesn’t a tight look come about the eyes—from much use of that sort of
anæsthetic?” I asked.
“Let’s get a drink,” he answered.
A fairly widespread intellectual movement, though it be madness,
has a profound and almost sacred significance. Primitive races
believe that madmen are the voice of God. As much might be said
of artists. Their madness is often wiser than the average
wisdom.—_Romain Rolland._