The reader can hardly be more amazed at the last chapter than is the
writer,—amazed not so much at its contents as at its existence. I
agree, at the close of the forty-fifth chapter, to exclude all save the
loves of the Don from these pages, and then devote the whole of the
forty-sixth to the amours of Charley and Alice! I break a promise almost
in the act of making it. Some explanation seems proper, and one lies
close at hand.
Your modern Genius is an out-and-out business man. He may be trusted to
furnish his publisher just so many chapters, just so many pages,
paragraphs, lines, words, as shall precisely fill the space allotted him
in the magazine. Nor baker with his loaves, nor grocer with his herring,
could be more exact. Pegasus no longer champs his bit, as of old, nor
paws the earth. He goes in shafts, in these days, and is warranted not
to kick in harness. He trots up to your front door, goods are delivered,
and he jogs off to another customer, his flanks cool, no foam upon rein.
Now, I, being a mere Bushwhacker, bestride, of course, an untrained,
shaggy mustang,—an animal sorely given to buck-jumping and to
unaccountable bursts in every direction save along the beaten track. And
how, pray, am I to know, astride such a disreputable prairie-Pegasus,
whither I am going, and how far; and when, if ever, I may hope to
return?
The average reader would probably accept this apology, but as I am (in a
small way) a disciple of Epaminondas (who, as every school-boy knows,
would not fib, even in jest), I shall not offer it in palliation of my
conduct. The true explanation (and therefore the only one that that
unique Grecian would have thought of giving) is to be found in the
rather peculiar way in which this story is being written.
The romantic among my readers doubtless picture me to themselves seated
in my arm-chair, my feet encased in embroidered slippers, my graceful
person (for they did not believe me when I admitted that I was fat)
wrapped in the folds of a rich dressing-gown. My intellectual brow is
half shaded by my long hair, half illumined by the pale light of the
midnight lamp. Meantime, with upturned eyes I await inspiration.
This, though a pretty enough picture, is not such as would have earned
the approval of the hero who first taught the Spartans how to yield;
for, on the contrary, this tale, so far, has been put together in a very
different fashion—and as follows:
Whenever Charley and Alice are accessible to me,—when, that is, either
they are spending a few weeks in Richmond, or I can run down to
Leicester for a little holiday,—it is understood that we three are to
get together, alone, of course, and at such hours as we are least liable
to interruption. The door is then locked (never double-locked,—to
Alice’s great regret,—for she says that this precaution is invariable
in novels; but, for the life of us, none of the three could ever find
out how to double-lock a door), and we begin talking over those old
times, Alice and Charley doing most of it. For, as the reader may
recall, either one or the other of them was an eye-witness of most of
the scenes depicted in this volume. My part in the transactions is
simple. From time to time I contribute some little incident which may
have come within my personal knowledge; but, as a rule, I confine myself
to taking notes; by the aid of which, I, in my leisure moments, draw up,
between meetings, as clear a narrative as I can; and this being
submitted to my coadjutors, is brought into its final shape by the
combined efforts of the trio.
This method of composition explains, though I fear it will not excuse,
what many readers will deem a grave defect in our joint production.
Confined to what either Alice or Charley or myself saw or heard with our
mere outward eyes or ears, there was obviously no place in these pages
for any of that subtle analysis of thoughts, that deep insight into
feelings, that far-reaching penetration into the inmost recesses of the
mind and heart, that marks modern Genius.
But it is just on this point that Charley and I have had battle after
battle with Alice. She will insist on Insight, on Analysis. People must
be told, by the ream, what Mary felt, what the Don thought; and she
cites novel after novel to fortify her position.
“Why do you bring up those books,” said Charley, one day. “Are we
writing a novel, pray? We are writing, as I understand it, a—by the
way, Jack-Whack, what _are_ we writing—for instance?”
“A symph—”
“Exactly so! We are composing a Symphonic Monograph,—precisely. Now
show me, in the whole range of literature, one solitary instance of a
writer of symph—ic—graphs—”
Charley was not stammering. He has of late years almost entirely freed
himself from this infirmity. The verbal fragments above represented
escaped from alternate corners of his mouth, Alice having dammed the
main channel of utterance in the most extraordinary manner. [It was a
way she had. During the composition of this entire work, whenever
Charley has seemed on the point of saying something that she was pleased
to consider humorous, she would fly at him in the most barefaced manner,
shaking with laughter, and cut him off. Then Charley glances at me, and
tries to frown: “Oh, it is nobody but Jack,” says she.]
“Besides,” went on Charley, without even wiping his lips, “you know
perfectly well, Alice, that you always skip that stuff. Look me in the
eyes,” said he, seizing her firmly by the wrist,—“look me in the eyes
and deny it!”
“Yes, but I am but a plain body, without pretensions; whereas people of
ideas, of culture, you know—”
“Then you admit that where you come to pages, solid pages of Insight,
you incontinently skip them for those passages where the characters are
either acting or speaking? Is it not so, you little humbug?”
“But should we not always seek the praise of the judicious?”
“Oh, the simplicity of your soul, to imagine that we are making a book
for the edification of the wise! As I understand it, Jack-Whack, it is
composed exclusively for the delectation of—”
Alice held up her hand.
“Of the majority,” added Charley. [Interruption, remonstrance,
confusion. “Pshaw! who minds Jack?”]
“The fact is,” resumed Charley, with traces of a hypocritical frown
still lingering on his features,—“the fact is, all that kind of stuff
which you profess to admire, but confess you never read, reminds one of
the annotations of the classics for schools. They are not intended to
instruct the boys, but are written by one pedant to astound other
pedants. By the way, Jack, a capital idea strikes me. It will give our
book such a taking and original air. Suppose we go through it from
beginning to end, and simply cut out all the _skipienda_,—every line of
it,—and leave only what is intended to be read?”
“And then publish it in the kingdom of Liliput?” inquired Alice.
This, then, my reader, is the way we talk while we write this story;
some account of which I thought might interest you; and it was after a
discussion like that just recorded that we three agreed (by a strictly
party vote of two to one) that our lovers must, for the rest of the
book, be reduced to a single pair. We reached this decision at the
conclusion of our labors on the forty-fifth chapter. We also settled it
to our own satisfaction, that by the time our future readers had reached
this stage in our story, they would probably be consumed with curiosity
to know whether it was Lucy or Mary, that, with the Don, was to
constitute that favored pair. The fact is, it had now begun to dawn upon
us that (although _we_ knew better) we had actually given the supposed
reader some right to look upon our mysterious hero as an emissary from
Utah. So putting our heads together, we decided that it was time that he
showed his colors. With a view to forwarding this end, therefore, I
requested Alice and Charley to give me some account of a certain
interview had between them, when the former had endeavored to discover
from him which of the two girls had captured the Don. For Alice had
often told me that she had made up her mind, on the night before that
dinner at Oakhurst, to make an attack on the redoubtable Mr. Frobisher
on that day, with this information in view. And she had formed this
resolution owing to something that had occurred between Mary and
herself.
It appears that on the night previous to this dinner, that reserve which
Mary had shown Alice ever since the Don had crossed her path had
suddenly given way. The two girls had gone to bed together, as was their
wont. The Don’s visits to Oakhurst had been growing in frequency, and it
was understood that this dinner was given in his honor.
“What, aren’t you asleep yet?” said Alice.
“No,” said Mary. Something in her voice touched her friend.
“You must not lie awake in this way,” said Alice. And she began to pass
her fingers across Mary’s forehead and through her hair.
It was a simple action, but Mary broke down under it. Throwing her arms
around her life-long friend, she pressed her convulsively to her bosom,
and hiding her face in her pillow, wept in silence. After a while they
began to talk, and they talked all night, as I am told that sex and age
not unfrequently do. Alice arose next morning with a fixed determination
to unravel the mystery that was giving her friend so much pain. Mr.
Frobisher could make things plain, if he would. But would he? At any
rate, she would try; for she was a plucky little soul. And so, when
Charley had offered her his arm, that day, after dinner, for a promenade
on the piazza, she felt that she had her opportunity. But it would
appear that Charley had been looking for an opportunity himself; and so,
the other day, when I asked this couple to let me have an account of the
matter, with a view to the forty-sixth chapter of the Symphonic
Monograph, it leaked out that Master Charles had, on this occasion,
taken up Alice’s time not in telling her whom the Don loved, but whom
Charles adored. This discovery, coming upon me so suddenly, upset my
determination to exclude the loves of Charley and Alice from our story,
and I called for an account of the courtship. For I felt assured that an
authentic account of the first and only love-making of Charles The
Silent would be the most delicious morsel in the whole Monograph. But at
the merest allusion to such a thing, Alice blushed in the most becoming
way; and when Charley, clearing his throat and putting on a bold look,
made as though he were about to begin, her face became as scarlet; and
rising from her seat she gave him the most dignified look that I have
ever seen in those merry-glancing hazel eyes. Thereupon Charley and I
laughed so heartily that Alice saw that she had been taken in by her
husband’s serious face. “I thought not!” said she, laughing in turn. But
the idea of a chapter given to the amours of Charles The Silent and
Alice The Merry had seized upon my mind with so strong a fascination
that I could not shake it off; and, as soon as I reached my bachelor
quarters that night, I seized my pen. My eyes were soon in a fine
phrensy rolling, I presume; for in the forty-sixth, or _Galaxy_ Chapter,
as I call it, from the numerous stars with which it is bespangled,
distinct traces of Genius may be detected by the practised eye (with my
assistance).
What I mean is, that chapter was composed in the manner in which true
Creative Genius is in the habit of composing, as I understand; made,
that is, out of the whole cloth,—woven of strands of air. But even
here, though mounted on a genuine (though borrowed) earth-spurning
Pegasus, I have not swerved far from the line that the great Bœotian
would have marked out for me. Charley’s courtship was quite real. It was
the words only that I have had to invent, left in the lurch as I was by
my two collaborators. And I was going to add that, in all probability,
Charley made use of not one of those I have put in his mouth, when I
recalled a coincidence so singular that I feel that the reader is
entitled to hear of it. When I read to my coadjutors my version of their
amours, their merriment was uproarious. Charley, I may mention, who only
smiled when he was a bachelor, has, since his marriage, grown stout and
taken to laughing. So far as he was concerned, my putting the word
“abyss” in his mouth was the master-stroke of the whole chapter.
“Why,” said he, choking with laughter, “I am sure I never made use of
the word in my whole life!”
“Neither had you ever before in your life made love to a girl,” I
objected.
“Don’t be too sure of that!” said Charley, with a knowing look.
“H’m!” put in Alice.
“What makes the thing so truly delicious,” said Charley, “is the
lachrymose and woe-begone figure you make me cut; whereas—”
“Ah?” said Alice, bridling up.
“Whereas a chirpier lover than—”
“Chirpy! oh!”
“Why, Jack-Whack, if she did not love me the very first time she ever
saw me,—_love_?—if she did not dote upon—”
“Dote indeed! Very well! very well! He felt sure, did he? Now, Jack,
I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell you just what he said, and let you
decide whether they were the words of a ‘chirpy’ lover. Chirpy, indeed!
Mr. Frobisher, you are too absurd! We were walking up and down the
piazza, and I had on my green and white silk dress,—plaid, you know;
and he said—the first thing he said was—I remember it as well as if it
had been yesterday—”
I drew forth my pencil. Here, after all, providentially as it were, we
were to have an authentic version of the amours of the silent man and
her of the merry-glancing hazel eyes.
“My dear,” began Charley, with nervous haste, “we are interrupting Jack;
let him go on with his reading.”
“Aha!” cried Alice, in triumph, “I thought—”
Here Alice detected Charley giving me, with his off eye, a wink so huge
that its corrugations (like waves bursting over a breakwater) scaled the
barrier of his nose and betrayed what the other side of his face was at.
Charley ducked his head just in time; and immediately thereafter began a
series of dextrous manœuvres among the chairs and other furniture in the
room, in evading Alice’s persistent efforts to smooth out some of the
wrinkles that wicked wink had wrought. At last he tumbled into his seat
rather blown, and with one cheek redder than the other.
Amid such scenes as this has this tale been tacked together. Can the
reader wonder at its harum-scarum way of getting itself told? Am I not
driving a team of mustangs?
“They are all alike,” puffed Charley; “they love us to distraction, but
we must not know it. Go on, my boy.”
I read on amid much hilarity; and it was such reception of this solitary
effort of my individual muse that induced me to retain it in the body of
the work. At last we came to the passage where occurred the coincidence
to which I have alluded.
In my fabulous and starry account of the billing and cooing on the
piazza, I make Charley ask, _May my heart beat in the frolic rhythm of
the scherzo?_ This—for why should I hide my harmless self-content from
my friend, the reader?—this I don’t deny that I thought a very neat and
unhackneyed way of asking a girl whether she gave you leave to consider
yourself a happy dog. It was my little climax, and—I confess it—my
heart fluttered a little as I drew near the passage, in anticipation of
the plaudits I trusted to receive.
No clapping of hands. A dead silence, rather; and looking up, I saw my
friends staring at one another.
“What’s the matter?” asked I, a little sheepishly. “I rather thought,” I
stammered, “that—that that was—not so bad?”
“Mr. Frobisher, I am astonished at you!” [At that period it was not
usual for Virginia wives to call their husbands by their Christian
names.]
“Indeed, my dear—”
“You need not say one word! I should not have thought it of you, that’s
all!”
“But, Alice—”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked I, bewildered.
“Oh, nothing!” said Alice, with a toss of her head. “Jack-Whack, I’ll
tell you; she thinks I have been blabbing to you.”
“Thinks!”
“But I have not!”
“Do you mean to tell me that Jack, without a hint from you—actually—”
she hesitated.
“‘Frolic rhythm of the scherzo!’” I shouted, in joyous derision; “and
you positively used that phrase, you sentimental old fraud!”
Charley turned very red,—redder still, when Alice, relieved of the
suspicion that he had been revealing their little love-mysteries,
laughed merrily at his discomfiture.
“It was not quite so b-b-b-b-ad as that. I admit the ‘scherzo’ part;
b-b-b-ut ‘frolic rhythm’! I was not so many kinds of an idiot as that
amounts to.”
And so—I swear it by the shades of Epaminondas—I had actually hit upon
the very word,—and truth is again stranger than fiction.