During this winter the distress in Mr. Saltus' legs increased to such a
degree that it took him ten minutes to walk from the Arizona to the corner
of Amsterdam Avenue, a distance of only a few yards. Most of the time he
went in a taxi, but even getting out of one and walking the length of the
hall to the elevator, was so tiresome and so painful that he had to sit in
the lobby for fifteen minutes or more before coming upstairs.
Speaking of elevators, brings back Mr. Saltus' chronic objection to meeting
people. It had increased with the years so as to become almost an
obsession. He would wait any length of time in the lobby of the Arizona,
rather than get in an elevator if there was anyone else in it. He was
afraid someone might speak to him. When I had visitors (which, owing to my
illness and his aversion, was infrequent) he would shoot past the
living-room and down the hall to his study, forcing his tortured legs to
such activity that it often took him hours to recover from the effects of
it.
A year passed after the death of our beloved Toto,--a year so like inferno,
that even to think of it makes me shudder. With Mr. Saltus' helplessness it
was a toss-up which of us was in the worse condition. I looked up one day
to find him weeping. When questioned he said:--
"I wish we could die together, before you lose your reason entirely. While
I live I can take care of you no matter what happens, but after----? It's
killing me to watch you open bureau drawers and stand there striving to
think why you opened them: to see you grasp the top of your head trying to
remember. All these years you have surmounted everything. Now only, you
cannot make the grade, poor child. Death should be meaningless to one who
understands it as you do. Cannot you make your philosophy concrete?"
It was hard, but it made me take notice. A strait-jacket and a padded cell
sprang into the perspective with his words, and the selfishness of sorrow
stared me in the face. For the first time I realized what, in my
indifference to everything, I had become, and it stunned me. While this was
sinking in he spoke again:--
"I will be with little Toto so soon, and we will wait together until you
come over. You know as well as I do that your tears are vitriol on her
spirit, retarding her evolution. For God's sake never agonize over me,
unless you want to keep me earthbound and in prison."
Not one man in a million would have lived under the conditions he accepted
in silence for over a year. The average good husband would have left and
asked for a divorce. Mr. Saltus not only never complained, but was
concerned only for me. From that hour I decided to pull myself together.
By the time "The Imperial Orgy" was finished, Mr. Saltus was in such bad
shape that it was hazardous for him to leave the house alone. Twice he
dropped in the street with heart attacks. The "flu" epidemic coming on, his
infection-complex swam into evidence again. He ceased going in public
conveyances, and took a taxi whenever he thought it necessary to go out. A
handkerchief saturated with camphor held to his nose, he took the chance
now and again. Although he carried a card with his name and address in his
pocket, it was always with dread that I saw him leave the apartment. A
flask of whisky was in another pocket, a bottle of peppermint and tablets
of nitroglycerin were in a third, and yet he was really in no shape to go
at all.
It was after a sudden heart attack in the street, that I decided he must
remain indoors till physicians could tell more definitely about his
condition. The "flu" epidemic offered the chance I had been looking for.
Had I come into the open and told him I was fearful he might be brought
home in an ambulance, he would have died there and then at my feet. The
impossibility of telling him anything unpleasant was a handicap. I was
obliged to keep up the pleasing fiction that he was getting better every
day, and to say that the increasing lameness and pain were but results of
the treatment he was undergoing to effect a permanent cure. Any
over-anxiety on my part would have been disastrous. Knowing his reactions,
I said quite casually one day:--
"You must have to wait longer to pick up taxis these days."
"Why?" he asked in surprise.
"Because in default of enough ambulances, they are in such demand taking
patients to the hospitals."
The implication was successful--Jean, the tree and the bubonic plague
became as trifles compared to an infectious taxi.
"Great Heavens! I never thought of that," he exclaimed. "Are you sure?"
"I know only what I read and hear, but it may not be true," I said.
That was enough. It was weeks and weeks before Mr. Saltus could be
persuaded to leave the apartment. Meanwhile, the plot of "The Ghost Girl"
was occupying his mind. Though the central situation was one he had used
before, in a short story called "A Bouquet of Illusions," he hoped to
justify his use of it again by his amplification of it.
When the plot was mapped out, he announced that he was ready to start work,
and "the kennel" could be cleaned up. "The kennel" referred to his study,
which I have described elsewhere, and which at that time resembled a cross
between a junk-shop and an ash-heap. It was cleaned only between novels,
the debris of one being removed to make a place for another.
During this time Mr. Saltus was undergoing treatments of various kinds with
no apparent improvement. Day after day we went from one specialist to
another, seeking and hoping. It was tragic, and he was very brave about it,
smiling and joking about his condition, worrying because it worried me.
When the weather was inviting we would walk the short block to Morningside
Park and sit there an entire afternoon, enjoying the green. Trees
interested Mr. Saltus,--old trees especially. When we sat down our seat
became the magic carpet, and we alighted among the druids in an enchanted
wood. We followed their festivals, picked out their occult symbols and
searched for the mistletoe. We found ourselves surrounded by the spirits of
the trees, and became a part of an evolution other than human. Nature
spirits, gnomes and fairies peeped in and out of the shrubs, as Mr. Saltus'
imagination soared on delightfully. There was no pain in this world,--no
mundane muddle to mess it up. Living more or less in a subjective universe,
our rambles in thought were better tonics than medicine to him. Pan lived
again, while nymphs and satyrs chased through the brush at our feet.
Day after day we sat there on the same seat and in a dream world, till the
sun beginning to sink, and the chill in the air which followed, recalled
Mr. Saltus to aching legs and a man-made world.
Realizing as I did then that his condition was critical, it seemed the
moment to effect a reconciliation with his daughter. The long hours he had
to spend shut in an apartment would have been brightened by her presence.
During this time we had written one another at intervals, and she knew that
I would do my best to bring it about. Photographs of her in various places
in our rooms, although not referred to by Mr. Saltus, helped to keep her in
mind. One day, while we were on the subject of parents and children, I
thought the psychological moment had arrived, and, reversing the role a
stepmother is supposed to take, I led up to the subject, suggesting that I
ask Mrs. Munds and her husband up to see him. Ill as he was, Mr. Saltus
flamed.
"Thou too, Brutus!" he exclaimed. "You, too, are going to fail me at last?
That I have lived to this!"
It was the one subject on which he could not talk rationally. From his
reaction I could see how much he loved her, for only a great affection can
be hurt so deeply.
"If you want to kill me, send for her. I will know then that my case is
hopeless, and between you it most certainly will be."
It was futile to persist. I could not make him see that she had not put him
out of her life deliberately. That was his view of it. Having been put out,
he refused to go back. In his condition arguments reacted badly upon his
heart.
There was a time when the papers meant much to Mr. Saltus. For an hour, at
least, every morning he would absorb them with his coffee and rolls. They
meant not only material for articles, but links with the world from which
he was shut off. With his increasing disability his interest in the papers
waned, and he would scan the headlines only and read a few book reviews.
There was one reviewer who especially interested him. Frequently of a
Sunday morning he would call out:--
"Anything worth while in the paper to-day?"
This meant one thing. If there was a book review or an article by Benjamin
de Casseres it was worth while, and that part of the paper was taken in to
him. If not, it could wait until he had an idle moment during the day. Mr.
Saltus admired de Casseres' work very much. He used to chuckle over it, and
say:--
"That man was born a hundred years too soon."
The pity was that, admiring each other as they did, they never met. The
hermit habit had so encroached with the years, that it had become
impossible for Mr. Saltus even to think of meeting people in the flesh,
however much he admired them in the spirit. His world becoming subjective
more and more each day as he internalized, objective existence became
shadowy and unsatisfying. With entire unselfishness he concerned himself
more and more for me, always a frail and fragile being in his eyes, one
possessing little physical strength to fight her way alone in a sordid and
selfish world. The fear of it haunted him.
"I'm a pretty ill man, am I not, Mowgy?" he asked me one day. "It will not
kill me to die, but I should be prepared."
"Indisposed for the moment," I told him. "Now that you can eat and grow
young again, I may have to take out an insurance at Lloyd's against someone
stealing you."
This remark, no matter how often I made it, pleased him. He hated the idea
of being old in my eyes, almost as much as hearing disagreeable things. The
pleasing lies he loved were tonics, and I had to be very diplomatic with
him.
"Yes, I am on the mend a bit,--but you never know."
Subconsciously he knew that he could not live long at best, but objectively
he was always talking of getting better and planning for the future. On
this occasion, however, he kept repeating "You never know" several times,
following it with the remark:--
"I've been an incident to you,--a big one, but only an incident after all."
It was not like him to repeat himself, and I asked what he meant by it.
What follows I have put in and taken out of this biography several times.
There is too much concerning myself in it to be of interest to the public,
and yet the unusual nature and quality of Mr. Saltus' mind are nowhere more
forcefully exemplified.
"You might be my child. You may marry again some day?" he said.
"I might be struck by a comet or tumble on the third rail, with more
probability. Jamais! Having broken you in has taken me to the door of the
asylum. No more experiments. My arm is tired from wielding a
cat-o'-nine-tails."
"Quite so, but all literary men are not 'litterers,' and all men are not
literary. You might select more wisely next time."
"Disabuse your mind of that," I told him. "Such small wisdom as I have
acquired has been paid for too dearly. Besides, there is only one Snipps,
and no one else would understand me."
"That's it," he said. "I was awake half of last night thinking about it.
It's an awful thing to leave a helpless little girl all alone in a world of
demons and vultures. The possibility haunts me."
"Then take your medicine like a good boy and stay here to look after me,"
he was told. "If it comes to a wheeled chair, I will wheel it, and we will
go to California and live under blue skies and rose bushes, or to India,
and sit at Mrs. Besant's feet."
This comforted him. Although he spoke constantly of dying, and quite as a
matter of course, it was to be contradicted. He knew it was possible, but
never did he admit that it was probable. The next day opened with a
surprise. On my breakfast tray was the following, carefully written in Mr.
Saltus' best copper-plate hand:--
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR MY SUCCESSOR.
Read, mark, learn and inwardly reject.
1.--Thou shalt have no other God before or behind
Mowgy. She will be supreme or nothing. Safety first.
2.--Few people will ever understand Mowgy. You will get
the key quickly or never. If you haven't it,--run.
3.--Mowgy must have her own way entirely and in all
things. It makes her ill to be contended with. Besides,
her way is usually the best in the end. Save trouble
and take it first.
4.--Mowgy can never be questioned. The slightest
interrogation irritates her beyond expression. Let her
alone. She is too frank for comfort. She will tell you
everything sooner or later, and you will wish she
hadn't.
5.--Mowgy never remembers anything you ask her to do,
unless it is vital or concerns animals. Don't expect
it. On the plane where she lives, trifles do not
exist. She forgets her own requirements. How can she
remember yours?
6.--Mowgy is no housekeeper. Her intentions, not the
results, are excellent. If she remembers to order meals
be thankful. If she doesn't, be thankful that she is as
she is. Keep accounts at the nearest restaurants and
shut up.
7.--Mowgy is truthful. Don't ask her a question unless
you want the unvarnished truth. It is better to take it
varnished.
8.--Mowgy never picks up anything. Absent-mindedness
only. Look carefully under chairs and tables before
leaving a place. Gold bags, money, jewelry or important
papers may be on the floor. She will drop you if you
are not on the alert to avoid it.
9.--Mowgy does not live on this plane. Understand that
clearly. She cannot be made to conform to the image and
likeness of others. Don't try. You would not like her
if you could make her over. Let well enough alone.
10.--The foregoing are Mowgy's limitations from the
normal viewpoint. You must be abnormal or this will not
apply to you. If she takes you it will be to make you
over. The process is crucifying but curative. You will
wonder how you ever managed to live without her. She
has a world of her own, and it is the best world I know
of to live in. If you have a chance to get there, make
a fight for it. She is the only one of her kind on
earth. My blessing, E. S.
Such a document! Though written in jest, there was an undercurrent of
seriousness about it. One could not read it unmoved. From that paper alone
a psychologist could rebuild Edgar Saltus as he was. To me it is the most
characteristic bit of writing he left behind him.