Without a transposition the conversation glided to the theme of women.
Bell, who was beginning to feel his liqueur, intoned a toast which he
swore he had heard at a dentists' banquet, but a nudge under the table
from Alfred kept him from further rambling. Milt wasn't annoyed. He
calmly sipped his beer, his hearing keen for fluctuations in the moral
market. He had said that a priest must know the human soul inside and
out. To be in the world, yet not of it, to wade through the sins and
heresies of this ignominious age, yet never wallow in them. To stand
in front of the monkey-cage we call life, watch the antics of the
inmates but never imperil his soul by approving of the sarabande of
sex surrounding him. That was the ideal of Milt. He had the makings in
him of a lover, a thinker, a rebel. But never did he lapse into that
stupration of the soul, that orgasm of the intellect, we call desire
and pride; that mass of confused emotion evoked by the curves of the
female form he never indulged in. The brief, dizzy syncope which ensues
during the frantic bundling of the two sexes he had never experienced,
though he yearned for it, during moments of weakness. But he was a
level-headed young man. He knew the strait way, and also the path of
flaming ecstacy. He meant to work long and faithfully in the vineyard
of the Lord, and to accomplish his self-imposed mission he prepared
by studying life from all angles, dubious or beautiful. His heart was
a reservoir overflowing with love for his fellow-men. He cherished
profound affection for his sister, also profound distrust. Her many
excellent, even superlative, qualities were offset by a perverse twist,
not congenital. It might prove her undoing. He fervently prayed for
her conversion, and by some odd association of ideas he prayed for the
salvation of Ulick Invern's soul; that he, with his splendid heritage
of faith, family, fortune, talent, be given the boon of light. Ulick
and Mona made a pleasant picture in the mind of this candidate for the
order of Melchizedek.
"Say, Milt," speculated Stone in his most aggressively malicious
manner, "whenever I look at a fresh-colored young priest like you, I
don't wonder that the girls swarm about you like flies in a molasses
cask. Your purity is written in your eyes. It oozes from your
expression. It's an aura. The female ever in pursuit of masculine honey
feels this, and you are her idol, as is, in a different fashion, a
tenor." Milt protested. Paul suddenly lost his head, crying: "Woman
is the split-infinitive in the grammar of life," which was capped
by Bell: "Woman is an ecstasy-breeding machine." "I hate speeches
beginning with--Woman is this, woman is that," proclaimed Ulick.
"When men foregather and booze they suddenly land in that bohemia of
dead-sea fruit, the woman question. Women are human like men, and the
little difference"--"Bless de Lawd fer de difference, as the darky
preacher said--" It was the thick voice of Bell--"is the cause for the
lot of rotten talk and theorizing." "Bravo, Ulick"! said Milt, with
sentimental vehemence. "Faire remonter tout son sexe dans son cerveau,"
he added. But Stone was curious. "I'd like to know the trick of that
sex-transposition. Women are a nuisance--sometimes; often I should
like to do without them; but I acknowledge I can't. What's the method,
Milt, camphor or prayer"? Milt, scandalized, didn't reply. To break
the embarrassing silence Ulick turned to Paul and asked him if he knew
anything new.
"Oh, yes, Marie, the singing comedienne, had just had a row with her
last husband. You know that fastidious baronet of hers who wears a
bangle on his ankle. The other night at Lady Murchison's dinner I sat
next to her. I wished to be friendly so I asked how she was getting
along with her young man. "Oh nicely," she said, with that dazzling
Celtic smile, "we never quarrel unless we fall in love with the same
man." A roar followed. Milt groaned.
"Only the women a man doesn't win are desirable." "Listen to the
Rochefoucauld! Bell, where do you get your novel ideas"? "Such
ideas should be caged like monkeys"--this from Milt. Then he arose,
disgusted. "You chaps are rubbing it in. One would suppose that
sex ruled this planet, instead of being perhaps, only a necessary
incident, or by-product. I'll move homewards. Will you be seen
tomorrow afternoon, Ulick"? He knows something, thought Ulick, but he
cordially invited Milt assuring him that he would be found any time
after the midday breakfast. Couldn't Milt take that meal with him?
Milt consented. "Then sit down a moment, Milt, I should like to tell
you of a theory advanced by Remy de Gourmont concerning sex. You
spoke of a "necessary incident." Milt sat down. "It's this," resumed
Ulick. "De Gourmont insisted that the real protagonist of humanity,
indeed, of all organic life, is to be found in the procreative process,
which act epitomizes all creation. This theory may not be found in his
remarkable Physique de l'Amour, it was something he thought out later.
Briefly, we are not the rulers of our personal destiny, but only an
envelope of flesh and blood to protect the chief factor of our being,
our sex-organs. As long as they are vital our organism flourishes;
when they weaken, men and women weaken with them, wither and die. It
has a sinister ring, hasn't it, this idea of a hidden force directing
our energies, our very fate. It is supported by the seers who through
the ages have recognized a blind, remorseless power in whose grip
our individual happiness is as helpless as a straw in a hurricane.
Only the species counts. Love is always tragic, even the amours of a
ragpicker and a gutter-wench. Fatality is stamped on the forehead of
every human. Little wonder primitive nations in the dusky depths of
Asiatic mystic groves have prostrated themselves before the carved
images of the lingam and yoni, the male and female principles. Sex is
in the background of every modern religion, from the phallic symbol of
the churchspire to the worshipping of the matrix." "I'm off," cried
Milt, as he jumped up. "I can't stay here any longer in such a fetid
atmosphere to have religion bespattered. Good-night, boys. Ulick--I'll
be with you at the Maison Felicé at one o'clock, or thereabouts" He
disappeared.
"I say, Ulick," remarked Paul, "you do draw the longbow, don't you,
about sex-worship? Did you yarn for Milt's benefit or is it all gospel
truth?" "It is in the gospels that you will find it," answered Ulick,
who was distrait and feeling anxious over that projected visit. What
did it presage! Stone nudged Bell who was in his cups and snoring.
"Give us a rest with your sex-symbolism. I heard a good story this
afternoon--wake up Bell, this will fit your case someday--from Dr.
Williams. He's my doctor. The best ever. Hasn't sent me a bill for
years because the last one we shook dice for and I won. He has a
patient, an old chap of sixty who came to him one day and begged, on
his knees, the Doc said, for once more, only once! His doctor bluntly
told him a man isn't like a woman--toujours prête--but given by
nature a certain number of cartridges which he is to use as suits his
temperament. If he fires them off in his youth, in middle-age he will
be empty-handed and must avoid targets and rifle-ranges. The wise space
their shooting and we sometimes, not often, witness the spectacle of
an old man, hale and hearty, buying a buxom young target and actually
scoring bullseyes. This, however, is an exceptional occurrence. The
offspring of aged men are not taken seriously, as is evidenced by the
brutal query: 'Who is the other fellow?' Horns seldom decorate the
brows of youthful males. To make a short story long the doctor gave
the poor old top a doze of some devilish compound, a Brown-Séquard
cocktail containing picric acid with mountain oysters, or lamb-fries as
a chaser. He was curious enough to ask his patient where he would fire
off his last cartridge. The chap became voluble. He had an old wife
whom he loved very much, but he kept all physical manifestations for
his mistress, a younger woman, who supported her husband and a large
family in the sweat of her deceit. A conscientious hard-working woman,
who never deceived her lover, except with the aid of her legitimate
husband--an arrangement understood, I believe. But the funny thing
was that the old fellow became jealous of this same husband. He had
boasted so much of the naked conflicts he had waged when young that he
greatly desired to give the lady of his affections a touch of his early
quality. With the potent fluid of the doctor's drug sizzling in him
he literally, so the Doc averred to me, scampered off helter-skelter
to his beloved. Not his wife, mind you. Oh, no! That would be wasting
powder and shot on a fortress already captured. He had telephoned the
faithful concubine, who awaited him, her curiosity aroused. She felt
certain that he would again make his usual fiasco. As the rejuvenated
old goat bounded over the sidewalk, his blood tingling with the passion
of youth and Damiana Mormon Elder's Wafers, a pretty puss of eighteen
touched his elbow. She was an impudent mutt, but provocative. She
winked and whispered:
"Hello Pop! Come along and I'll give you the time of your life"! and by
God he went with her, and that patient Griselda waiting for him in his
second home, not to mention the wife of his bosom, at home (where she
played a stiff Bridge every afternoon and never bothered her head about
her foolish matrimonial partner). Yes, he went to the new rifle-range
and heaven knows what lie he invented for the benefit of his mistress.
The affair only proves that any woman who can give to an old man the
illusion of virility, he will not only marry her, but he will wear her
on his heart of hearts; become her slave, in fact. Sex dies hard in us,
and despite popular belief, it is the last of the passions, pushing out
avarice and gluttony, which pair of entertaining passions are supposed
to illuminate the dusty lonesome years of a man's existence. Goethe
married his cook, a stout country wench who drank herself into her
grave in the august presence of her husband-poet. And all those old
women titled and otherwise who marry coachmen, gardeners and grooms,
husky young fellows--do they do this for intellectual companionship?
The darky woman who said when asked as to her sex emotions: "I'se over
eighty. You've got to ask some lady older than me, illustrates that
sex fights as long as it can. The original Adam in us. That de Gourmont
theory, Ulick, is a horrible idea; sex is hideous if you study it. Let
the boys and girls keep their illusions and don't let them believe
old Schopenhauer and his instinct of the species dictating their
destiny"--"For the sake of sanity, Alfred, shut your trap and let's go
home. Wake up, Bell. There's a fresh wife waiting you," said Ulick,
glad to get away. "Which wife?" sleepily inquired Bell. "It seems as
if a crowd of men can't end the evening without talking sex," grumbled
Ulick. "I'm sick of sex." "So are we all," Stone assented, "because sex
is a sickly thing. It's not health and conservation, but destruction,
disease, death." Ulick fairly ran from him when they reached the
street. Sex and damnation! he said between his teeth.
* * * * *
The first news of Easter came over the cables. She made her début at a
concert in Berlin under the powerful wing of Lilli Lehmann and achieved
a remarkable success. Her brilliant beauty was a factor, but it was her
voice, luscious as an August sunset and her emotional temperament that
caused the furore. (A press-agent's fiction. There are no "furores"
in concert rooms, or at the opera. A lot of noise-loving imbeciles
stamp their feet and shout. The claque is always busy. Hysterical
criticism does the rest.) Certain exalted personages in the royal-box
condescended to express their approval of Fraülein Esther Brandès, who
was at once offered huge sums to sign a contract for future European
appearances. (These offers are always announced in cablegrams.) Easter
must have been ubiquitous for in the foreign dispatches next day was
a sensational account of a duel she fought with Mary Garden in the
Bois at Paris with Johnstone Bennett--dear old sporting "Johnny"
as referee. Sybil Sanderson and Augusta Holmès sat in a balcony and
compared scandals. Mary, lithe, elastic, and younger than Easter,
pinked her antagonist. The duellists clasped hands and the party,
chiefly composed of Parisian newspaper men, adjourned to Pré au Catalan
there to drink fresh milk and stale gossip. Rumour had it that the two
girls were in love with the same man, no less than the fascinating
barytone at the Opera, Maurice Renaud. When Allie Wentworth, who was
Easter's second, read this in "Le Soir" she burst into laughter and
showed the story to "Johnny", who only lighted a fresh cigarette
repeating the classic, "cinq lettres, le mot de Cambronne."