Milt was punctual and the friends ate one; of Madame Felicé's excellent
luncheons in a receptive mood. The conversation ranged from food to
metaphysics. "Ah, Ulick"! cried Milt, who was unusually expansive,
"if you would only make up your mind as to your future." "But I
have," asserted Ulick. "I have. I mean to become a good American
citizen and write artistic books." "I doubt if you will ever become
one or accomplish the other," was the unexpected criticism of this
young theological student, who saw life steadily. "The foreign virus
is in your blood, Ulick. You are one-half Frenchman, the other half
cosmopolitan; both are fatal to true Americanism. You should have
remained in Paris----" "Another"! groaned Ulick-"and married some nice
girl, any nationality so she would be nice, raise a family and settle
down." "What a dear old philistine you are, Milt. Why don't you?" Milt
slightly coloured. "Because I've chosen the better part like Mary in
the gospel. The highest function permitted man is that of the priest.
Many are called, few chosen. I tremble before the responsibility of
my vocation. I can only pray in all humility that I shall not be an
unworthy servant of the Lord." Ulick suddenly changed the subject by
asking: "Milt, what is your first name? I've never heard you called
anything but Milt, except when Alfred calls you Mel." Milt solemnly
envisaged his questioner. "My first name is a secret. Alfred happens to
know because we were at college for years in the same classes. It is
a name sacred to me, my mother's idea, yet a name that I fear to use
because it excites mirth. "Good heavens! what an awful name it must be.
Melodeon or molasses"? "I said sacred, Ulick. Let's drop the question."
Milt was so grave that his companion shrugged in despair.
"Why do you think I'll never write artistic books"? he demanded. "It's
not the artistic I'm fearing, it's the fact that unless you develop
character your books will not even fill the belly with the east wind."
"Precisely what Huysmans said. Without personality, no talent in a
writer." "Your Huysmans left out morality in his schedule." "What's
morality got to do with art?" "Only this," earnestly continued Milt,
"it must be at least implicit in every book a man or woman writes, else
the book will rot. Don't forget--decayed souls stink. The books of
your predilection are such that he who reads must run away, or imperil
his soul's salvation. Vanitas! Ulick. I speak without picking amiable
words. Yours is a case that demands radical treatment." "Wait a bit.
I'm not religious. Your God is too remote for me. From the frosty
altitude where he reigns he makes no sign of granting our prayers. Does
he even love his grovelling earth-creatures"? Milt was not shocked
at these impetuous questions. "Baruch Spinoza has said: 'That whoso
loveth God truly, must not expect to be loved by God in return.'"
"But Spinoza was a Jew and an atheist. Neither his synagogue nor the
Christian Church would have aught of him." "True," answered Milt, "I
only quoted him to prove my contention. Finite creatures must love
their creator. The act of worship constitutes their salvation." Again
Ulick groaned. "What has your religion to do with my projected books"?
He was getting impatient at the airs of amateur omniscience assumed by
the other. They went to Ulick's chamber.
Milt's eye roved over the books on a dozen shelves. "Ah! Here are your
gods. Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Maurice
Barrès--how I loathe that metaphysical dandy!--Nietzsche, unfortunate
madman, Ibsen, Max Stirner, William Blake, another lunatic--a nice
gang of mind-poisoners. With exception of Huysmans they are corrupters
of youth. Listen to this----" and he opened on the last page of "À
Rebours" 'Take pity, O Lord, on the Christian who doubts, on the
sceptic who seeks to believe, on the convict of life, who embarks
alone, in the night, beneath a sky no longer lit by the consoling
beacons of ancient faith.' For me, that is the saddest sentence in
all the music of your prose-men. Great artists? Yes. But guides to
damnation. Moral anarchs, their teaching will lead to the anarchy of
physical violence. Mark my words. All Europe will suffer sometime from
their doctrines. As for your Barrès, while he is no longer the anarch
of his Enemy of the Laws and is going in for nationalism nowadays,
nevertheless his is a dilettante preciosity whose gift of assimilation
is his prime quality. Also to be labelled 'dangerous', though only
for the intellectual. He possesses a barren imagination. I grant you
he writes supple, harmonious prose, though he is a mere neophyte
compared with those charming princes of corruption, Ernest Renan and
Anatole France. All your modern heroes, whom you resemble, Ulick, I am
sorry to say, derive from that abominable Julien Sorel in Stendhal's
Red and Black. The admirable antidote to that criminal, free-man,
individualist, is Robert Greslou in Paul Bourget's Disciple. Therein
you may see where unbridled indulgence, whether in thought or act, will
lead a young man. What are you writing just now, Ulick?" Milt took up
some sheets from the desk.
"Oh, this a very bad. What next? 'Ideas and Images of Evil.' That's
simply a Baudelairian title, and while that wonderful poet--yes, I
won't deny that I have read him with more interest than the atheist
Victor Hugo--recognized the existence of evil, of a personal devil,
Satan or Lucifer, he didn't fall down and worship him." "How about the
Litany of Satan"? interrupted Ulick. "It is to be read in a Manichean
sense. It is objective" "And how about Carducci's Hymn to Satan? ('Inno
a Satana')
"Salute, O Satana
O ribellione
O forza vindice
Della ragione."
"Simply Italianate Baudelaire," cried Milt, and in a rage he exclaimed:
"You actually memorize such vile blasphemers. But I'm very sure you
can't repeat the Lord's Prayer, the Confiteor, or recite the Litany of
our Blessed Virgin." Ulick stood in the middle of the room, his hands
clasped, his eyes closed, and recited the prayer, the Confiteor and the
Litany, adding in a low voice, "A pure heart pierceth heaven and hell."
Milt was overjoyed. He shook Ulick's hand, crying: "You know Thomas à
Kempis, too? Come, there is hope for your immortal soul. Oh, Ulick! Why
don't you forswear your evil ways of living! Give over your inveterate
concupiscence." Ulick answered by quoting: "Tandem ergo discubuimus
pueris Alexandrinis...." "Stop, Ulick! How dare you quote that vilest
of pagans, Petronius Arbiter, almost in the same breath with the divine
à Kempis?" For answer Ulick drew from his pocket a tiny book entitled
"The Christian's Pattern, by Thomas à Kempis, edited by John Wesley A.
M." bearing the date 1832 and published in New York, by Charles Wells.
"My mother's copy," he curtly said. Milt saw a feminine signature in
the battered little copy. He was much touched by the image of Ulick's
filial piety prompting him to carry about him his mother's favorite
prayers--for what else are those meditations of the practically unknown
mediaeval monk but sighs of suffering wafted on high by a burning soul!
Ulick added: "I read Petronius every day." Milt sketched a gesture of
despair. He could make no answer to a man who blew hot and cold in
the same breath. À Kempis and Petronius. Ormuzd and Ahriman! Apollo
and Marsyas. Lucifer, when he was Prince of the Morning, and Satan
Mekatrig. Milt switched the conversation.
"Among the subjects discussed the other night at the Arena you spoke
of something your friend Remy de Gourmont told you. You remember? It
was to this effect: that mankind, all organic life, is the slave of
its reproductive organs; that those ancient cults were justified in
worshipping the phallus, and the female sex-principle. Do you know,
Ulick, that the teaching of our Church doesn't widely differ from that
horrible idea. Sexuality is our master--if we let it rule; from that
to the worship of those organs, in a word, devil worship, is only a
step. I wonder you haven't noticed the grimly brief distance between
the highest type of intellect, if not guided by faith, and the beasts
of the field. The most depraved of degenerates sometimes have been men
of lofty genius and in their fall they grovelled in filth. Gods become
gorillas. De Maupassant on all fours eating his excrements, as did
Voltaire; poor Nietzsche, a victim of drugs and like Stendhal slain
by syphilis; Baudelaire wallowing in nastiness at his end; Heine, a
victim to sexual over-indulgence, dying from tabes dorsalis; Huysmans,
punished for his early blasphemies and his self-confessed degeneracies,
dies of cancer in the throat; Ibsen gone mad, and the religious
degenerate, Tolstoy, too; Oscar Wilde----"
"What a preacher you will make, Milt," enthusiastically exclaimed
Ulick. "But while you are dragging in those awful examples, why not
adduce the names of abnormally normal genius: Plato, Shakespeare,
Michelangelo, Montaigne, Napoleon, Beethoven, Thackeray and their
specific maladies mental and moral...." Milt shook his head. "I'm
only thinking of you, Ulick." "Thanks for the compliment. Nice
company you put me in. No wonder you recommend a course of conjugal
calisthenics...." He laughed aloud. "No joke, my boy. You don't drink
or smoke. Good. But you are living in a bog of slimy voluptuousness.
As Odo of Cluny has written of man's connection with woman: 'Quomodo
ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus,' and for this 'sack of
dung'--don't wince, those monks had the unpleasant habit of calling
things by their right names--for this vain, skin-deep beauty, harboring
all manners of impurities, you are risking your hopes of heaven"! "How
unfair you fanatics are! Why throw muck at the very source of life!
We are conceived in corruption, in sin, according to the Church. But
how could the Church get souls were it not for this same fornication,
despised and berated? Don't speak of sanctification by the sacraments.
Fornication is fornication, and were it not for the 'sin' we wouldn't
be sitting here. That's what I can't understand; the divorce of theory
and practice. Don't start in Milt, let me finish first. Havelock Ellis
writes: 'When we find it assumed that there are things good to do and
not good to justify we may strongly suspect that we have come across
a mental muddle.' And that's gospel truth. Hypocrisy rules the world.
In fact, life without hypocrisy is unthinkable. They are inseparable.
My friend Jules de Gaultier's philosophy is sound. Bovarysme, or the
desire of man to appear other than he is. The eternal illusion. The
divine humbuggery." "Hypocrisy is, as you say, necessary to screen
certain unpleasant realities, Ulick. It is a pia fraus; painted veils!
painted lies. People who will persist in crudely naming unmentionable
matters usually end in jail or in the lunatic asylum. Back to 'our
mutton'. Why don't you marry? Believe me, the humdrum life of a
bourgeois will give you the proper atmosphere for your studies.
Think of your Flaubert and his labourious life, with its colourless
background. He urged the young writer to be ascetic in his life, that
he could be all the more violent in his art. Vance Thompson's advice is
sound: Artists should marry women with the feather-bed temperament. Why
are you looking like that at me, Ulick?" Ulick only smiled, but there
was a covert sneer in the smile that caused Milt to blush.
"Honestly, entre-nous, Milt, you know more than a specialist in
psychopathy. Now tell me, I'll keep it secret, how do you contrive to
stay clear of the petticoats? It's a personal question, but I dare
put it because you are so frank with me as to my own soul-hygiene.
You are such an old soul-sniffer!" Milt didn't hesitate. "I pray.
Prayer, naught else. Lead us not into temptation. Et ne nos inducas
in tentationem. All the talk of psychologists about transposing the
nervous fluid to the brain would be mere wind, were it not for prayer.
Faith moves mountains. Volition is born of humility and prayer. That's
my secret, and it's the secret of every priest. But just to show you,
Ulick, that we do not necessarily violate the laws of nature, let me
quote two phrases which I copied in my note book concerning sex. In
his 'L'Egoisme, base de toute Société' Felix Le Dantec makes rather
astonishing statements, and what's more, proves their validity. The
first is this: 'lacte sexual n'est pas un phénomène vital,' in a word,
this act so often sung of by the poets, this act which assures the
continuity of life, is a drama in which the living are not the chief
actors; the spermatazoa and the ova are. The second proposition is:
'Les éléments sexuels sont morts.' Neither one can live by itself.
Nature, prompted by the divine design brings them together in the
inexpressible act, an act that even the lowest of humans always seeks
the darkness to consummate. Which is a salutary hypocrisy." Ulick
calmly took a book down and remarked: "Here is Le Dantec himself. But
you don't quote what he says of the 'gamète' the unfecundated sexual
cells, poisoning a man swifter than does absinthe. In a word, Milt,
the sexes separated are unnatural, and joined, whether in wedlock
or concubinage--bedlock is the ultimate outcome--they are natural,
healthy. Waldstein, Ekler and other biologists have proved that the
sperma of the male actually enters into the veinal circulation of the
woman. 'Bone of my bone'! You, because you lead a so-called pure life,
are continually haunted by impure images."
Milt demurred, then said rather maliciously: "Ulick, who is this Dora
that you and Paul Godard share so happily? Modern polyandry"? "Who told
you about her"? rudely demanded Ulick, visibly annoyed. "Little birds
fly up the state even to our college. Alfred, if it will relieve you
to know, was my informant." "I thought so," muttered Ulick. "Another
busybody. I don't mind telling you that the psychology of Dora is as
simple as a single-cell structure. She is of the genus prostitute, a
superior prostitute. As false as your Hell, and as pretty as a June
rose. Wouldn't you like to meet her, Milt?" "Don't talk rot, lad. Now
there is another person I should like to speak of--Miss Brandès. What
about her? Are you still smitten?" Ulick shook his head. "Where did you
get that notion? Alfred, I suppose. Guess again. Isn't the old Adam
stirring in you, Milt? Easter is a very seductive girl." This time
Ulick scored a bull's eye. His bolt made a palpable hit. From crimson
Milt turned ghastly white. Irritably he took up his hat, strode to the
door, but halted, controlled himself, and returned to Ulick. Putting a
hand on his shoulder and peering into the young's man's eyes, he said,
and in affectionate tones:
"Don't worry about my condition, Ulick. God, I pray, will give me
strength to fight carnal temptation. Those subtle sophists, your daily
intellectual pabulum, deny the potency of prayer, yet it is one of
the certitudes of our otherwise miserable existence. Once you cast on
the vast current of prayer your harassed soul you are at peace with
man and God. No adversity can pierce the cuirass of your soul. But
Ulick--my dear Ulick Invern, I can't leave you without speaking to
you of something that is very dear and near to me...." (He knows all,
thought Ulick, tightly holding the back of a chair) "and that is my
sister Mona. Are you behaving honourably towards her, Ulick? If not,
if you are indulging in one of your numerous masculine caprices, for
God's sake remember that she is my sister, the only daughter of her
mother and father, who adore the girl. She is read in the 'modernity'
you admire, too deeply for her spiritual repose. She is a sceptic. I
am a convert. My parents are easy-going, though my mother is naturally
pious. But their religion is invertebrate. Without dogma a religion is
like a body without skeleton. It can't stand. It won't endure. So Mona
leads too free a life. Now, Ulick, I conjure you by your friendship,
don't poison that girl's mind, don't tempt her young heart." Milt's
manner was cordial, even tender. He loved his friend, but he loved his
sister more than a thousand friends. Ulick was moved. "I swear Milt. I
am afraid I already care too much. I'd better go back to Paris, after
all." Milt took his hand. "If you love Mona, why not tell her so? She
has a beautiful soul. Don't torture her any longer. She is very unhappy
just now. Write her frankly, confessing your faults. She knows. She
will forgive, I'm sure."
"She knows," too, cried Ulick. "Who told her? Alfred again? I think
Master Alfred is riding for a fall, as far as I'm concerned ... he
is due for a good hiding." "Now, don't judge too hastily, Ulick.
Remember that Alfred has been a close friend of my family for years.
Naturally he is interested in Mona, and doesn't wish harm to come to
her." "That's why Mona went away without telling me, without saying
good-bye, without writing," pondered Ulick. "That's why," answered
the brother, guessing the reason of his embarrassment. "Write Mona,
Ulick. Play fairly with her. I can't speak plainer. Give up your
loose living. You are intended for better things. You are gifted,
independent, young, above all, young. I don't advise marriage--not
immediately. But don't let happiness slip through your fingers. It
may offer itself but once, and you are very careless. A woman's heart
contains treasures of affection. Don't waste them; cynicism is worse
than corrosive-sublimate. It poisons, kills your higher brain-centres.
Pardon my brotherly solicitude, Ulick. I'm a bore, but right is
sometimes on the side of the stupid, and victory doesn't always perch
on the banners of the intellectually elect. Write Mona, Ulick, and
may God bless you." He was gone, his kind face happy with the idea
of having accomplished good, before Ulick could gather his wits.
The ending of this afternoon seance had been a great shock to the
young man. Nor had his not particularly sensitive conscience escaped
troubling. He was a Roman Catholic. He was what the world has agreed
to call a gentleman; the inward monitor, out of those multiple egos,
reproved him for his manner of living, for his behaviour to that sweet,
if not precisely, innocent, young woman. A virgin? Yes. How long would
she remain one in his corrupting company? This question he quickly
buried. What a lot of psychologic palaver over a girl, he mused.
Perhaps Milt wished to marry his sister to a good parti. Dismissing
this mean suggestion, he posed the naked question: "Shall or shan't I
write to Mona? And if I do write, where shall I send the letter? And
what shall I say to her? Go to confession, get down on my marrow-bones
and say 'mea culpa'? No, decided Ulick, as he sat down to his desk,
I'll send her a fairy-tale instead of a history of my wicked life."
Ulick took up his pen and began to write.