THE VISION FROM THE KILLS[A]
For a long time that night I lay watching the gem-like glitter of the
lights that fringed the eastern horizon. A strong north wind shook the
house, sweeping the clouds before it with a contemptuous energy that had
in it a promise of frost on the morrow. As the stars rose it was as
though the lights of the city themselves were rising into the clear sky,
emblems of the vast and serene power that had sent them forth. High
above the level constellations soared the two great beacons of the
Metropolitan and Woolworth towers, like the masthead lights of some
enormous vessel, while away northward, almost hidden by the swinging
limbs of our elm, the occulting flash on the Times Building added a
disquieting element to the otherwise peaceful scene. For me at least the
glamour, the mystery and the beauty of that amazing city had never worn
thin. For me, after a day in her roaring streets, after a scramble in
her lotteries, there ever comes a recrudescence of that wonder with
which I beheld my first view of her from the Jersey shore. The cynical
American says, I know not with what truth, that the alien, clutching his
bundle and gazing with anxious, frightened eyes toward the mountainous
masonry of Manhattan, catching sight of the green sunlit image of
Liberty with her benign unfaltering regard, holds his breath and feels
within his bosom a fierce but short-lived ecstasy of joy. For one brief
instant (I still quote the cynical American) faith and hope flame in his
heart and the future lies before him as a shining pathway of industry
and peace.
For me, however, the impression that New York had made was neither so
unpractical nor so evanescent. For me there was reserved a certain
_fear_ of those multitudes and those heaven-kissing towers, an
apprehension that even a species of victory after defeat had not
sufficed to dethrone. Call it perhaps awe, mingled with homage to the
indomitable spirit of the race, rather than fear.
This I felt, and every visit to the heart of the city quickened it,
stirring my imagination to some fresh effort, and revealing some new
phase of the exhaustless energy of America.
It was only natural that in the course of my musings it should strike me
as strange that Mr. Carville displayed no shadow either of reverence or
dislike for a place which impressed itself upon me more even than San
Francisco or Chicago. It seemed to me strange that a man so sensitive to
detail, so conscious of the scant poetry of the commonplace, should have
no feeling for that astonishing accident which we call New York City.
That he was not aware of her I refused absolutely to credit. If he could
feel the beauty of Genoa and the immensity of London, he must
necessarily be conscious of the sublimity of Manhattan. I regretted
that I had not led him to speak of this. I regretted the possibility of
seeing him no more. I felt a pertinacious curiosity about him, as a man
who could contemplate with equanimity a spectacle that for me held
always an inscrutable problem. To the disgust of the cynical American I
always waved aside Washington and even Boston, ignored even that
mysterious bourne, the "Middle West," and claimed that he who found the
secret of New York had also found the secret of America. As I drowsed
that night I registered a vague resolve to see Mr. Carville again and
broach the subject to him. I felt sure that in some way or other he
would add something to my knowledge, not only of the city, but of
himself.
* * * * *
I became aware of Mac's voice in my ear, and struggling to rise, saw
that he held in his hand a letter bearing a special-delivery stamp. It
is one of the terrors, and no doubt advantages of the American mail,
that a letter may descend upon one at unexpected hours. You may be
locking up for the night, or enjoying your beauty sleep in the early
morn, when a breathless messenger will hammer at your door with a
letter, quite possibly containing a bill. Such a missive my friend held
over me like a Damocles sword, between thumb and finger, and awaited the
news with interest.
It did not, however, contain a bill. It was a request from an
advertising agency to proceed to Pleasant Plains, S. I., and interview
the president of a realty company who desired what we call tersely
enough a "write-up," an essentially modern development of English
Literature, in my opinion. Mac maintains with stubborn ingenuity that
Doctor Johnson and Goldsmith did "write-ups," just as Shakespeare wrote
melodramas, and Turner did "bird's-eye views." I make no such claim. The
point is that a write-up brings in fifty dollars, while sonnets are a
drug in the market. For this reason I sprang out of bed with unusual
alacrity and prepared to catch the eight o'clock express.
"It may mean a 'bird's-eye,'" I remarked, as I bolted my breakfast.
"You can make the suggestion," returned Mac, passing me half a grape
fruit. "There's no need to introduce either mosquitoes or ice-floes into
a 'bird's-eye.'" This in reference to New Yorkers' objections to Staten
Island.
"I shan't mention them in the booklet unless they specially ask me to,"
I said with a grin. We are always facetious when a new job comes up. I
should not be surprised if the immortals were much the same.
Catching the eight o'clock express is with us rather a legend than a
solid fact, in spite of our vaunted breakfast at half after seven. One
has to shave, collect the necessary papers, put on one's boots, pocket
tobacco and matches, run upstairs for a fresh handkerchief, things that
somehow or other take time. As a rule we find ourselves halfway to the
station, running breathlessly, only to find that we have two left-hand
gloves, or that some vitally important document has been left behind.
The seasoned commuter, by long and arduous practice, eliminates these
errors; but we, who go to New York but once in a week or so, are
unskilled in early morning hustles, and generally see the tail-end of
the express disappearing in the cutting. This morning, however, I
managed to get out of the house by three minutes to eight, sufficient
time for an athlete to do the half-mile to the station. With a silent
prayer that the train might be a few minutes overdue I raced across the
lot and down Pine Street.
I saw, as I hurried down the straight incline of Walnut Avenue, that I
was in time, and slackened my pace to a walk. The morning, as I had
expected, was clear and cold; a sharp frost had glazed the puddles in
the roadway, and on the uplands of the further bank of the Pasayack
River light patches of snow lay among the trees. The sun shone
gloriously in a blue sky, and a keen wind blew the leaves into swirling
eddies about the stoops of the houses. At the bottom of the hill was the
station, a small low-roofed structure of wood. Some score of commuters
were clustered about it, and I perceived, seated sedately upon a
hand-truck, his feet crossed, his corn-cob drawing serenely, and his
brown-gloved hands holding a copy of the _New York Daily News_, none
other than Mr. Carville.
He raised his hand in salute as I came up. I hurried into the office to
buy a ticket, and the train came in as I came out, the locomotive-bell
clanging faintly above the gasp of the air-brakes and the blowing of
steam.
"Good morning," I said. "You are away early."
We climbed into the smoker and took a seat not likely to incommode the
card-players.
"Ah," said he, smiling, "I expect we'll be going out to-night, you see,
and it wouldn't do for the Chief to miss his passage, would it?"
"So soon!" I said, in some surprise.
Mr. Carville gave me one of his quick, good-tempered glances.
"Soon?" he echoed. "Do you know, sir, how long it takes to load the
_Raritan_? Just eight hours. Humph!"
Mr. Carville was fond of using this ejaculation of his in a double
sense, if I may say so. As he spoke his eyes were fixed with some
interest upon four of our neighbours, who had seated themselves near us
and had laid a grey mill-board card-table across their knees. Whether it
was the card-table, or the extraordinary speed with which the _Raritan_
was loaded, that excited his amusement, I am unable to decide. I was too
familiar with the American habit of gambling in trains to take much
notice of it. It is possible that Mr. Carville was less sophisticated.
"That," I said, "does not give you much time on shore."
"No," he said, "it doesn't. Speaking in a general way, we're glad to get
to sea. In port, at this end at any rate, it's one continual rush. Shore
people have very little consideration for sea-going men. They come and
bang at your door any time, day or night. You may be changing your
shift--don't matter, in they come. Some business or other. At sea," he
concluded, "we do have a little peace."
"Where are you bound for?" I asked, opening my paper.
"Oh, Savona or some Riviera port, I expect. They don't give us our
orders till we're off Sandy Hook. You're going to New York, I suppose,
sir, on business?"
"Not exactly. I'm going to Staten Island," I replied, "and I believe
this is the quickest way."
He regarded me with astonishment.
"Is that so? I suppose you'll be taking the ferry to St. George, then?"
I said that such was my intention, and asked why.
"Why, you see, I'm going that way myself, to Communipaw. The _Raritan_
is lying down there."
"Dear me! It never struck me----" I began. He laughed quietly.
"No," he said, "I don't suppose, if you asked a thousand New Yorkers
where such and such a ship was loaded, that more than one could tell
you. They know the _Lusitania_ lies somewhere about Eighteenth Street
and the _Oceanic_'s next to her, and that's about all. It's the same
everywhere. Ask a man in the Strand how to get to Tidal Basin; he won't
know what Tidal Basin is, let alone _where_ it is. As for an
oil-boat--Humph!"
"I shall have your company, then?" I said. He shrugged his shoulders.
"If you don't object, sir," he said.
"I should like it above all things," I returned. "I was thinking last
night that there were many things I should like to ask you, but I was
afraid that possibly you might not visit us again for a long time."
"Not at all," he said. "I was very glad to step in. You've got an
atmosphere ... if I can call it that. I mean there's something I don't
get on a ship, or for that matter, at home ... you understand? Now and
again I feel I'd like to talk to people who _do_ understand."
"That reminds me," I said, "that I have been wondering how New York
impresses you. I think it is rather wonderful myself."
Mr. Carville smoked silently for a few moments while the card-players
pursued their games and the train thundered through the flat swamps of
Riverside.
"Have you ever seen it," he asked, "from the Narrows?"
I shook my head. The _Campania_ had come up in a dank fog, when I had
arrived seven years before. I mentioned the customs formalities that
keep one below at such a time. Mr. Carville smiled gently.
"I always think," he said, "that for an artist, that view is the best,
because it's the first. I was looking at that picture in your friend's
studio last night; that one of New York from Brooklyn, and I couldn't
help noticing how heavy he'd made it. See what I mean? He was too close.
The weight of the buildings gets on one's mind. That's the trouble with
Americans, anyway. They show you a building and tell you the weight of
it, and then the cost of it. Even women are judged by their weight. Only
last night I saw in the papers something about a suffragette. They said
she weighed one hundred and fifty pounds! I think it is a mistake,
myself. Tonnage is all right in a ship; but it doesn't signify much,
either in a city or a woman."
Rather astonished, I agreed that this was sound aesthetic doctrine.
"Now," went on Mr. Carville, "if you ask me how New York impresses me, I
should say that it reminds me of Venice."
The train stopped at Newark. For an instant I was quite unable to
determine whether Mr. Carville was joking or not. One look at his face,
however, precluded any such surmise. I waited until the doors banged and
the train was moving before I said, "In what way, Mr. Carville?"
"Mind you, it may not impress you in any way like Venice----"
"I regret never to have been there," I interrupted.
"You may," he assented. "You may. A man can do easy enough without ever
seeing Naples; but Venice----ah!"
"Yes, I can imagine that," I said, "but in what way----?"
"Well, I'll show you, as you're going to St. George--_San Giorgio_ as
you might say"--he chuckled--"and you can tell me what you think."
I fell into a study at this, a study that lasted until the train slid
slowly into Jersey City and we joined the throng that were hurrying
towards Chambers Street Ferry. I decided to let the matter stand over
for the moment. It would not do to act illiberally towards a man who
combined a knowledge of seafaring with Italian literature, and who had
evidently arrived, however unacademically, at certain original judgments
and criteria of life. I offered no remarks as the Erie ferry bore us
swiftly across the glittering and congested Hudson to Chambers Street,
and I observed that Mr. Carville was absorbed in watching how the vessel
was piloted among the traffic. It was natural that his imagination
should be stirred by a familiar skill. As we crossed the bows of an
incoming liner I saw his eyes sweep over her, keen, critical,
appraising. No doubt he saw many things that escaped my landward vision.
For me ships are very much alike. I expect he realized this and forbore
to bewilder me with matters of technical interest. I have a sneaking
appreciation of the mystery and beauty of a ship in full sail on the
open sea, an appreciation I scarcely cared to reveal to an engineer. He
stood by my side on the upper deck, his corn-cob in his hand,
imperturbably observant, a miracle of detached respectability. And he
thought New York like Venice!
Nor did we talk very much as we walked quickly down West Street to the
Battery. Once he looked at his watch and remarked that he wanted "to be
aboard by ten." The sun shone on the water dazzlingly as we rounded the
end of Manhattan, showing the hull of the Ellis Island ferry a black
mass. The usual crowd of foreigners with their dark eyes and Slavic
features, shoe-shine boys, touts and officials waited around the
entrance. I put my hand on Mr. Carville's arm.
"Our steamer isn't in yet," I said. "Suppose we see them land."
He glanced up and nodded, and we paused.
As the ferry came alongside the crowd gradually drew together more
closely, and some, who had been sitting in dejection on the seats, rose
and joined us. A tall policeman walked to and fro, keeping us back,
bending his head to listen to a woman with a baby. Young men in flashy
button-boots and extravagantly-cut clothes chuckled among themselves,
while two serious-looking men talked German, an endless argument. Above
us the Stars and Stripes fluttered and snapped in the breeze, and the
trains on the Elevated Road crawled carefully round the curve. Now and
again the deep bellow of a steamer's whistle smote on our ears, smears
of sound on the persistent roar of the city behind us. The feet of the
little crowd shuffled as they shifted to get a better view, and two
boys, chewing gum, climbed on the seats and stood up. A small girl of
ten or so sped past on roller-skates, uttering shrill cries to a
companion beyond the grass-plot. And then the gates opened and they came
out to us, a little flock of frightened animals, each with his ticket
pinned on his breast, each looking round for an instant as sheep do when
let out of a pen, instantly herded by officials in peaked caps. A big,
unshaved man in a black sheepskin cap opened his arms and the woman with
the baby hurried to him. A smart girl behind us pushed through and went
up to a sullen-looking old man with a Derby hat and a high-arched nose.
The boys on the seat exchanged ribaldry that drew the eyes of the tall
policeman to them, and they vanished. The little crowd of aliens began
to move towards the East Side and we followed as far as the Staten
Island Ferry. I turned to Mr. Carville, thinking he might have some
comment to make. He shrugged his shoulders and drew out his little brass
tobacco-box.
"Humph!" he said. "They've got it all to come," and began to pare the
tobacco into his hand. I could detect no sympathy in his tone, only a
grim humour and contempt for the credulity of those trembling peasants
now hurrying to their doom. And as I thought of this, quite suddenly he
began to talk of his brother.
"I've often wondered what Frank would have made of all this," he said,
waving his hand towards the sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge. "Not that I'd
like him to come near me and mine, but just out of curiosity, I've
wondered."
"I should say he would be likely to get on well," I said.
"You're right--he would! He would take hold right away and as they say
here get away with it. He's a citizen of the world, is Frank. He'd be on
Fifth Avenue or in Sing Sing within a twelvemonth. But there's no need
for him to come to America. He's fallen on his feet again apparently in
London. I hope he stops there."
"You seem to have some secret fear of your brother, Mr. Carville----" I
began.
"Secret? There's nothing secret about it, sir. I'm scared of him. You
don't know him, so you can't understand how you'd feel about it. I tell
you the mere presence of that chap in the room unsettles people. He's a
disturbing influence. Even strangers notice it. Suppose he was over
here, and me away in the Mediterranean? You've no idea how he can talk
and wheedle and explain everything to suit his own ends. I do."
I did not say so, but I understood Mr. Carville's feelings. Cecil's
letters bore him out very completely.
"There's another thing you may not appreciate. When you're married you
will, no doubt. A man and his wife aren't always on the same dead level
terms with each other. Little differences, lasting perhaps an hour or a
minute, sometimes till breakfast, crop up. Even in a case like mine,
here to-day and gone to-morrow, we can get on each other's nerves.
There's friction in every machine ... unavoidable. You understand me,
sir?"
"Yes," I said. "As well as a bachelor can, I think I appreciate your
point. You mean that since you can't foresee these minor affairs and
since you may leave home before the clouds roll by...."
"That's just it! Imagine a man like Frank living next door say, a man
who has known Rosa, as I told you ... See?"
As we stepped upon the ferry I noticed that his features were sharp and
bore the impress of a quite unusual secret care, I felt guiltily that we
had been unwise to tell so much to the painter-cousin. Who could tell
what it might not lead to, even after so long an interval, with so
incalculable a man as this brother?
With the bellow of the whistle Mr. Carville's face cleared and assumed
its wonted placidity. The deck trembled as the screw began to revolve,
and imperceptibly we moved out towards Governor's Island. It was just
here, I think, as we began our little six-mile journey to St. George,
that a sudden illumination came to me. I understood Mr. Carville's
reason for waiting instead of explaining his impression of New York. He
gave me credit, apparently, for the ability to find it out for myself.
The vessel was going swiftly now over the shining waters of New York
Bay. To the left lay the low and sombre buildings of Governor's Island;
to the right the prison-like pile of Ellis Island showed red in the
sunlight. On either side the shores fell away from us, leaving
Bartholdi's statue, for a brief moment, the dominant note in the scene.
Quickly we hurried by, and Black Tom, with his fringe of cranes and
stacks, his dark panoply of low-lying smoke, was revealed. Before us
uprose the wooded heights of Staten Island, and far down the Narrows a
glimpse of the blue Atlantic. A couple of tramp steamers, one with much
red paint on her bows, were coming up past us, and I noticed the Red
Ensign was flying from the poop. With large gestures Mr. Carville's arm
swept the horizon, indicating the salient points. Almost before I was
aware of it we were entering the ferry station and he was calling my
attention to the chimneys and buildings on the Communipaw shore.
"Now," said he, as we emerged upon the street, "your road lies down the
coast, but if you have an hour to spare, you might come over and look at
the ship. We'll take the trolley to New Brighton and ferry across from
there. But of course----"
"With pleasure," I said hastily. It occurred to me that I could do worse
than visit Mr. Carville's ship. We boarded a trolley-car.
"You see," said Mr. Carville, "I'm interested in Staten Island. In a way
it's very English. About a year ago I bought a lot up at Richmond
Bridge. The house will be ready in the spring and we'll move in. I've
had a fancy for a long while to have a home of my own. We did think of
buying in your part, but it's rather a long way for me, besides being
dear."
"You'll be leaving Van Diemen's Avenue?" I said. He nodded.
"Sure. The wife's not very anxious to stay out there. She's funny in
some ways. Thinks there's a prejudice against her."
"I assure you----" I began.
"Oh, I don't mean you, sir. She means in the stores. She's heard
things.... Women are quick to take offence. She has her own way of
living and it's a good way. We shouldn't like to feel we weren't wanted.
And you know, in your parts, there's a good deal of gentility creeping
in. I was reading the local paper last night.... Mrs. This and Mrs. That
entertaining to bridge, and so on! Humph!"
The car jingled and swayed round the corners, keeping close to the
shore, and pulled up with a jerk at New Brighton. Across the narrow belt
of water I could see the sterns of many ships.
"Here we are," said Mr. Carville. "The launch starts down there."
A stiff breeze was blowing and we were occupied with our hats until we
reached the Communipaw side. Mr. Carville muttered a warning about no
smoking "... five hundred dollars fine ... necessary, you see," and I
saw his corn-cob no more until we reached his room.
"There she is," he remarked, indicating two very red funnels projecting
above a roof. "That's the _Raritan_."
A faint smell of petroleum was in the air as we threaded our way among
the blue-ended barrels and lengths of oily hose. In one way this ship of
Mr. Carville's was novel to me. There was about her decks no noise of
cranes lifting cargo, no open hatchways, no whiffs of steam or screaming
of pulley-blocks, with huge bales of merchandise swinging in mid-air. As
we ascended the accommodation ladder I saw nothing save a young man with
thick gauntlets standing guard over an iron wheel valve in a big pipe
that ran along the deck. A stout, iron-grey man in uniform was leaning
against the sky-light on the poop-deck as we came past the funnels. With
a slight bashfulness Mr. Carville turned, and making a vague
introductory gesture, pronounced our names. I caught the words "Chief
Officer" and "come to have a look round!" There was a little further
parley, in which the "Old Man," "stores," and "The Second" bore some
part. I did not pay much attention to the conversation, to tell the
truth. I was looking northward across New York Bay and comprehending the
significance of Mr. Carville's parallel between Manhattan and the City
of the Lagoons. For a moment I forgot that I was standing on the deck of
a ship. From my lacustrine vantage the whole of the wide harbour lay in
view, the more distant edge of Long Island forming an irregular and
dusky line betwixt the blue waters and the bluer sky. In the middle
distance stood the statue of Liberty, islanded in the incoming tide-way,
while away beyond, rising in superb splendour from a pearly haze, the
innumerable towers of Manhattan floated and gleamed before my eyes.
Irresistibly there came to me a memory of Turner's Venetian
masterpieces, and I knew that even that great magician would have seized
upon the scene before me with avidity, would have delighted in the
fairy-like threads of the bridges, the poetic groupings of the vast
buildings, and the innumerable fenestrations of the _campanili_. One by
one half-forgotten fragments of Byron came back to me as I looked out
across the wide lagoon. I thought of Venice "throned on her hundred
Isles," of him who said,
"I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn and of wealth the mart."
One by one, moreover, there came before me still more convincing
evidence that this casual analogy had in it a deeper significance, that
here the Queen of the Adriatic was indeed resuscitated and the Venetian
Republic born to a sublimer destiny. Surely the same indomitable spirit,
the same high courage, that had reared that wondrous city out of the
sea, was here before me, piling story upon story, pinnacle beyond
pinnacle, till our old-world hearts sickened and our unaccustomed brains
grew dizzy at the sight.
For a time--I know not how long--I stood with my hand on the rail,
looking out upon that vision from the Kills. I heard Mr. Carville's
voice behind me, and I turned.
"What do you think, sir?" he said, and waved his hand.
"You are right," I replied in a low tone. "You are certainly right. As
for your _San Giorgio_," I smiled, "I'm afraid, Mr. Carville, you are a
cleverer man than I thought you!"
"Come down and have a smoke," he said. "I've some letters to see to."
We descended the companion-way and crossed a large cabin with berths
all round. Mr. Carville selected a Yale key from his bunch and opened
his door. A young man in a soiled serge suit came out of the next room
with some letters.
"Ah!" said Mr. Carville, hanging up his Derby hat. "How's things,
mister?" and he took the letters.
The young man addressed as mister made several incoherent remarks of a
technical nature, and with a glance in my direction withdrew.
"Sit down," said Mr. Carville, shutting the door. "You'll excuse me for
a minute?"
I sat down on a red plush settee while my host settled into a wicker
easy chair by a small desk. The room by our computation would be small,
yet I perceived that Mr. Carville had within reach of his hand almost
every convenience of civilization. At his elbow were a telephone and a
speaking tube; just above him an electric fan. Electric lights were
placed all over the room. His bed lay below the port-holes and a
wash-basin of polished mahogany was folded up beside the bed. On the
table were cigars and whisky. And between the bed and the wardrobe, on
four shelves, were ranged some two hundred volumes; even for a landsman
a respectable library.
He sat for some moments reading his letters with patient attention,
pinching his lower lip between thumb and finger. My estimate of him had
undergone several changes since leaving the Battery; since leaving deck,
even. I felt somehow that this quiet, sedate person was no longer
apologetic in his attitude towards me. Here he was master, and a subtle
alteration of his demeanour indicated this to me. He sat there, as I
watched him, solid and secure by inalienable right of succession, a son
of that stern, imaginative adventurer, his father; a son, moreover, of
that sea which he served from year to year. I looked up at the
photograph of his wife which he had mentioned, a photograph set in
silver. The soft shadows of the platinotype suited Mrs. Carville.
Evidently this had been taken about the time of her marriage; the fine
modelling of her face and the poise of her head were instinct with
youth. In her eyes I fancied something of the mild expression with which
she accompanied her remark, "He is a good man." On either side of the
silver frame were small pictures of the boys.
Mr. Carville put the two letters in a wire clip and offered me a cigar.
"Now you can see for yourself," said he, "where I live." He laughed.
"I'm one of the few people who haven't got a bad word to say of the
Standard Oil Co. They give me more cubic feet of private space, bigger
cabin space, and better food than any shipowner across the water. They
give me any mortal thing for my engines except time to overhaul them.
The newspapers tell me they're a blood-sucking trust battening on the
body-politic, and so on. Personally ..." and Mr. Carville drew the
stopper from a square bottle, "personally, I find them very decent
people to work for."
I sat looking at him for some time as he busied himself with a drawer
which contained, he assured me, an apollinaris. It struck me that though
he had gained in certain external trappings of the mind since entering
his room, he had ceased to appear to me as a heroic figure. Even the
perception which had appreciated the grandeur of New York, the wit which
had connected St. George with _San Giorgio Maggiore_, seemed to me
incongruous with the present phase of his character. Quite possibly I
had been so drilled in hatred of Standard Oil that I unconsciously
revolted from the notion that any good could come out of that protean
enterprise! And yet, when I reflected, I could not but wonder whether,
after all, he, in his quiet efficiency, his sober sense, and his
deliberate renunciation of the glory of romance, was not as logical a
product of our modern age as the corporation he served.
"You serve both God and Mammon," I remarked as the soda-water splashed
into the glass. He nodded, smiling.
"Yes," he said, "or rather let us call it rendering unto Caesar. After
all, something must bend if you are going to make ends meet. Caesar," he
added, lifting up his glass, "isn't such a bad proposition when you have
a family to provide for."
I agreed that this was so and scanned the books on the shelves. They at
least were a noble company, their gold and green and blue broken by the
plain yellow paper backs of Italian books. Shakespeare was there and St.
Francis of Assisi; _Fors Clavigera_ in a cabinet edition; Symonds'
_Renaissance_ and Pater in wide-margined dignity. Tucked in corners,
too, were books in that quaint pocket edition of the _Bibliotheque
Nationale_: _Rabelais_, in five volumes, Beaumarchais' _Memoirs_,
Rousseau, Scarron's _Travesty of Virgil_ and that extraordinary work of
genius, The _Maxims_ of La Rochefoucauld. As I turned them over I saw on
their pages the purple rubber-stamps of some bookseller in Tunis,
Bizerta, Tangier, and other places even more obscure. I had a vision of
the man making his way, in some perspiration, through the press of Arabs
and Moors to the little shop under the arches. I saw him scanning the
shelves, the Derby hat pushed back, the vest open, the thumb and finger
pinching the lower lip.... I turned to him with a worn copy of _Heine_
in my hand.
"I think," I said, "I must fit out an expedition, to go and dredge the
Java Sea for that manuscript you threw overboard."
"No," he replied, settling in his chair. "It wouldn't be worth it."
"We don't often find a man who could do it," I said.
"That's because they lack balance. The mistake artists and literary
people make is, they think that because a thing is priceless, we can't
do without it. I think it's a mistake. Someone pays half-a-million
dollars for a Turner, say. Well, even if it was burnt up, lost
overboard, what of it? It can be done again."
"Do you think so?" I asked. I was glad Mac did not hear this.
"Certainly!" replied Mr. Carville. "Everything's been done, which is a
sound argument for supposing it can be done again. There's plenty of men
doing much better than they did in olden times. I can't see much sense
in the theory that because a picture is old it's a masterpiece, and
because it's new it's junk. We ought to take longer views. How do _we_
know what the youngsters are going to do?"
"That indeed is on the knees of the gods," I said as I put the _Heine_
back on the shelf. I looked at my watch.
"I must be off to Pleasant Plains," I said. "If you are not going out at
once, I should like to return in the afternoon; but I must run now."
"I expect we'll be bunkered and out by tea-time," he said, rising.
"Still, some other time.... We're not away very long, month or so...."
He followed me to the gangway and I bade him farewell and _bon-voyage_.
He had donned a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and a cap with a
badge and gold cord on it. The effect on my mind was somewhat
disquieting. He seemed to have vanished behind an official mask, a mask
whose sympathy with and knowledge of me was inexpressibly remote. I
looked back as I crossed over towards the ferry, and saw him in deep
conversation with the Chief Officer.
It was between four and five when I boarded the Staten Island ferry once
more. The wind had gone down with the sun, whose red globe flung long
bars of ruddy gold athwart the still water. I took my stand on the
upper deck. Once again I looked across the bay and beheld that wonderful
vision of New York floating above a blue haze, a mass of glittering
pinnacles and rose-pink walls flaunting snowy pennants of white vapour,
and looped to the sombre vagueness of Brooklyn by the long catenary
curves of the suspension bridges. As the steamer started I walked aft,
that I might not see the dissolution of the phantasy. It may be a
weakness; but there is to me, mingled with all perception of beauty, a
feeling akin to pain. Often I have envied those more robust souls who
can gaze with unfaltering eyes at the beauty of this world, and feel no
pang. I am not so. I was absorbed in this thought when I saw a steamer
with two red funnels coming round from the Kills. At the masthead blew a
flag with a blue eagle. As she came across our track I saw that she was
the _Raritan_. On the poop-deck was a familiar figure, short, rotund and
blue. I stepped to the end of the deck and waved my hand. Mr. Carville
was walking back and forth, hands in pockets, his corn-cob pipe in his
mouth. He paused and caught my signal, answering heartily. As the
distance between us increased he resumed his promenade, and the
_Raritan_, threading the Narrows, dwindled to a dark blot surmounted by
a patch of vivid red. Once again I turned northwards, and the swift dusk
of evening was falling. The sun had dropped behind the Jersey hills, and
uprising behind Manhattan was a grey mist and a steely sky, ominous of
snow.
As I walked up Pine Street to Van Diemen's Avenue the air was opaque and
silent, while the thick, soft flakes that touched my face like chill
fingers clung to my coat and balled under my feet. Winter, as we know it
not in England, was come at last.