"But there is something more singular than that for you to investigate,"
she said calmly. "Look down at that circle of steam which makes a perfect
ring around the bowl of the crater, halfway down. Do you see the flicker
of fire under the vapour?"
"Yes."
She leaned so near and spoke in such a low voice that her fragrant breath
fell upon my cheek:
"In the fire, under the vapours, there are little animals."
"What!!"
"Little beasts live in the fire--slim, furry creatures, smaller
than a weasel. I've seen them peep out of the fire and scurry back
into it.... _Now_ are you sorry that I wrote you to come? And will
you forgive me for bringing you out here?"
An indescribable excitement seized me, endowing me with a fluency and
eloquence unusual:
"I thank you from the bottom of my heart!" I cried; "--from the depths of
a heart the emotions of which are entirely and exclusively of scientific
origin!"
In the impulse of the moment I held out my hand; she laid hers in it with
charming diffidence.
"Yours is the discovery," I said. "Yours shall be the glory. Fame shall
crown you; and perhaps if there remains any reflected light in the form
of a by-product, some modest and negligible little ray may chance to
illuminate me."
Surprised and deeply moved by my eloquence, I bent over her hand and
saluted it with my lips.
She thanked me. Her pretty face was rosy.
It appeared that she had three cows to milk, new-laid eggs to gather, and
the construction of some fresh butter to be accomplished.
At the bars of the grassy pasture slope she dropped me a curtsey,
declining very shyly to let me carry her lacteal paraphernalia.
So I continued on to the bungalow garden, where Blythe sat on a camp
stool under a green umbrella, painting a picture of something or other.
"Mr. Blythe!" I cried, striving to subdue my enthusiasm. "The eyes of the
scientific world are now open upon this house! The searchlight of Fame is
about to be turned upon you--"
"I prefer privacy," he interrupted. "That's why I came here. I'll be
obliged if you'll turn off that searchlight."
"But, my dear Mr. Blythe--"
"I want to be let alone," he repeated irritably. "I came out here to
paint and to enjoy privately my own paintings."
If what stood on his easel was a sample of his pictures, nobody was
likely to share his enjoyment.
"Your work," said I, politely, "is--is----"
"Is what!" he snapped. "_What_ is it--if you think you know?"
"It is entirely, so to speak, _per se_--by itself--"
"What the devil do you mean by that?"
I looked at his picture, appalled. The entire canvas was one monotonous
vermillion conflagration. I examined it with my head on one side, then on
the other side; I made a funnel with both hands and peered intently
through it at the picture. A menacing murmuring sound came from him.
"Satisfying--exquisitely satisfying," I concluded. "I have often seen
such sunsets--"
"What!"
"I mean such prairie fires--"
"Damnation!" he exclaimed. "I'm painting a bowl of nasturtiums!"
"I was speaking purely in metaphor," said I with a sickly smile. "To me
a nasturtium by the river brink is more than a simple flower. It is a
broader, grander, more magnificent, more stupendous symbol. It may mean
anything, everything--such as sunsets and conflagrations and
Götterdämmerungs! Or--" and my voice was subtly modulated to an
appealing and persuasive softness--"it may mean nothing at all--chaos,
void, vacuum, negation, the exquisite annihilation of what has never even
existed."
He glared at me over his shoulder. If he was infected by Cubist
tendencies he evidently had not understood what I said.
"If you won't talk about my pictures I don't mind your investigating this
district," he grunted, dabbing at his palette and plastering a wad of
vermilion upon his canvas; "but I object to any public invasion of my
artistic privacy until I am ready for it."
"When will that be?"
He pointed with one vermilion-soaked brush toward a long, low, log
building.
"In that structure," he said, "are packed one thousand and ninety-five
paintings--all signed by me. I have executed one or two every day since I
came here. When I have painted exactly ten thousand pictures, no more, no
less, I shall erect here a gallery large enough to contain them all.
"Only real lovers of art will ever come here to study them. It is five
hundred miles from the railroad. Therefore, I shall never have to endure
the praises of the dilettante, the patronage of the idler, the vapid
rhapsodies of the vulgar. Only those who understand will care to make the
pilgrimage."
He waved his brushes at me:
"The conservation of national resources is all well enough--the setting
aside of timber reserves, game preserves, bird refuges, all these
projects are very good in a way. But I have dedicated this wilderness
as a last and only refuge in all the world for true Art! Because
true Art, except for my pictures, is, I believe, now practically
extinct!... You're in my way. Would you mind getting out?"
I had sidled around between him and his bowl of nasturtiums, and I
hastily stepped aside. He squinted at the flowers, mixed up a flamboyant
mess of colour on his palette, and daubed away with unfeigned
satisfaction, no longer noticing me until I started to go. Then:
"What is it you're here for, anyway?" he demanded abruptly. I said with
dignity:
"I am here to investigate those huge rings of earth thrown up in the
forest as by a gigantic mole." He continued to paint for a few moments:
"Well, go and investigate 'em," he snapped. "I'm not infatuated with your
society."
"What do you think they are?" I asked, mildly ignoring his wretched
manners.
"I don't know and I don't care, except, that sometimes when I begin to
paint several trees, the very trees I'm painting are suddenly heaved up
and tilted in every direction, and all my work goes for nothing. _That_
makes me mad! Otherwise, the matter has no interest for me."
"But what in the world could cause--"
"I don't know and I don't care!" he shouted, waving palette and brushes
angrily. "Maybe it's an army of moles working all together under the
ground; maybe it's some species of circular earthquake. I don't know! I
don't care! But it annoys me. And if you can devise any scientific means
to stop it, I'll be much obliged to you. Otherwise, to be perfectly
frank, you bore me."
"The mission of Science," said I solemnly, "is to alleviate the
inconveniences of mundane existence. Science, therefore, shall extend
a helping hand to her frailer sister, Art--"
"Science can't patronize Art while I'm around!" he retorted. "I won't
have it!"
"But, my dear Mr. Blythe--"
"I won't dispute with you, either! I don't like to dispute!" he shouted.
"Don't try to make me. Don't attempt to inveigle me into discussion! I
know all I want to know. I don't want to know anything you want me to
know, either!"