SINBAD
Novels by C. KAY SCOTT
BLIND MICE
SINBAD
THE NAPOLEONS (In Preparation)
SIREN (In Preparation)
SINBAD
_A Romance_
BY
C. KAY SCOTT
_“Excellent men have not been wanting (to whose labour and industry
I feel myself much indebted) who have written excellently in great
quantity on the right manner of life, and left to men counsels full of
wisdom: yet no one has determined, as far as I know, the nature and
force of the emotions and what the mind can do in opposition to them
for their restraint.”_
SPINOZA--_Ethica ordine geometrico demonstrata, etc._
(_Trans. W. Hall White_)
[Illustration]
NEW YORK THOMAS SELTZER 1923
Copyright, 1923, by
THOMAS SELTZER, INC.
_All rights reserved._
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To
E. D. and C. W.,
Wiser than these.
_“Morte perchè m’hai fatta si gran guerra?”_
Canzoni--Giacomino Pugliese
CONTENTS
BOOK I: “LES”
I. MIRAGE
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
II. EYES A YEAR AFTER
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9
III. THE OCEAN
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7
IV. A POINT OF TIME
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8
BOOK II: HOWARD
I. THE ISLAND IN THE MOON
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
II. MIRROR MAZE
1 • 2 • 3
III. DILUTING THE NEEDS OF MAN
1 • 2 • 3
IV. THE SLEEPWALKER
1 • 2 • 3
V. THE TAMERS
1 • 2 • 3 • 4
VI. WEBS
1 • 2 • 3
BOOK III: ALGERIA
I. “THE EVERLASTING RETURN”
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6
II. FOOTLIGHTS!
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
III. CAKE
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6
IV. THE HAPPY ENDING
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
V. THE FEAR OF LIFE
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5
BOOK IV: “EM”
I. IMAGE
1 • 2 • 3
II. MIST
1 • 2 • 3
III. TIE
1 • 2
IV. “WHAT LITTLE GIRLS ARE MADE OF”
1 • 2
V. LOVE MAY GO ON
1 • 2 • 3 • 4
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
LESTER DRANE, a successful scientist, who trades all for romantic
love.
EMILY TYLER, a gifted girl, who trusts only her womanly intuition.
HOWARD STORY, a modern man, who despises life apart from Art.
ALGERIA WESTOVER, a true Bohemian, a person, no longer young, who
imitates herself.
GENEVIEVE STRANG, a “new woman,” a girl with the code of a gentleman.
OTHER PERSONS AND CREATURES, Bankers, People, Writers, Friends,
Radicals, Janitresses, Painters, Zoölogists, Waiters, Poets, Fakirs,
Prostitutes, Children, Critics, Marionettes, Enemies, Artists,
Ghosts, Etc.
SCENE: _The Metropolitan City of New York._
TIME: _Late Autumn, Winter, Early Spring, three years after the Great
War._
BOOK I: “LES”
_“I’m not a young man.... I had studied myself; I had had experience
of myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be....
But I had not--I feel it now--sufficiently considered her.... Did I
consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved
her, when everybody must, who knew her?... Did I consider that I took
her--at her age...? I have not found it out before.”_
CHARLES DICKENS--_“The Cricket on the Hearth”_
CHAPTER I
MIRAGE
_“I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
‘It is futile,’ I said,
‘You can never--’
‘You lie,’ he cried,
And ran on.”_
STEPHEN CRANE--_“The Black Riders”_
1
A low gray-green fog had crept over New York: the houses stood like
boulders in a stream. Two dim figures fled from the street, ran through
a hall and up the stairs.
“Good evening, Mr. Drane, good evening, Mrs. Drane.” The fat and kind
Polish janitress, with her dark, naïve eyes, smiled as she stood aside
for them.
“Good evening,” Emily and Lester called back almost in a breath.
They unlocked a door and entered. Ghost-pieces of furniture with
shadows perched on them, waves of city noise growling sullenly outside.
Emily lighted candles. To keep out the dark.... They smiled at each
other. Emily slender, green-gray eyes, chestnut hair, Celtic and quick:
Lester heavy, nearly swarthy, with blue eyes, deliberate and almost
noble in gesture. They removed their wraps, raced to a couch and
lighted cigarettes. Silence. Emily gazed dreamily through the smoke.
“Les!”
Lester answered affectionately.
“Yes, Em.”
“Isn’t it fun living with you! What were you like when you were a
little boy?”
“Oh, moony.” He did not like to talk about himself. Emily did.
She smiled seriously.
“I’ll bet you were! Aren’t things funny, Les? When I was a little girl
I used to think and think. People tried to keep things from me. I wrote
something bad on my slate at school once, and the teacher sent me
home. I tried to be in love when I was thirteen. Then soon I wanted so
badly to be popular that I was positively ill from anxiety after every
dance. And afterward, suffrage work: would you believe it of me now? It
was my religion for two years. You know the family all laughed at my
painting. I never should have been able to shake off things. But I’m
actually--oh, Les, you’ve been so good to me--” There was a catch in
her voice. She snuggled close to him and held him tight.
Lester kissed her hair but did not speak. His heart was tender toward
her. She’s my child ... hurt....
The fog crouched outside. The city was an enemy. Les is warmth, life.
She laid her cheek to his.
“Les, do you love me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
They sat in the silence. She felt warm and safe with him.
Strength. He knew himself. I may be a visionary, but I’m strong.
Moonstruck! Dim and cool forest ... spinning moon with her brood of
frightened stars ... hearts leap into the meshes of moonlight....
Emily spoke.
“Let’s go to bed, Les.”
2
A clear cool evening.
Emily Tyler and Lester Drane walked vigorously down the street. They
were going to dinner with friends.
“Did they say Manzinetti’s, Les?” Emily smiled at Lester. Her eyes were
very steady, except when she smiled--then they smiled too.
“Um-huh.” Lester paused to light a cigarette, shading the flaming match
with his hands.
The pink glow through his small fingers was pretty, Emily thought. She
put her arm through his.
“Are you tired tonight?”
“Not very.” Lester was not much taller than Emily, but his head was
strongly set on his body and almost massive. “Like a bishop’s,” she had
once said. He did not like being asked if he were tired. He was twenty
years older than Emily.
Greenwich Avenue, Eighth Street, down MacDougal, past the Square,
Bleecker Street, Little Italy, shops, holes, venders’ carts, stalls,
queer lights, foreign sounds--
“Do we turn to the right or left here?”
Lester laughed.
“Here we are,” he said after a moment, squeezing her arm and then
releasing it.
Emily preceded him into the dingy little Italian restaurant. At a long
table, dim with light, half a dozen of their friends were waiting.
Emily’s vivid face brightened at their noisy welcome. Her teeth
flashed. Lester smiled slowly.
“Hello, Em! Hello, Les! Em’s going to sit between me and Toby--No,
Em’s got to sit by me tonight--Les, you can sit between Jen and
Blanche--I’ll sit here--Now that’s not fair, Stuart. Em sat by you
last time--How are you kids, anyhow?--Where’s Michael?--Well, children,
what shall we eat?” Lester beckoned to a favorite waiter and the group
began to consult earnestly. _“Antipasti--minestrone--spaghetti--maiale
con peperoni--spumoni--”_
“Let’s have some red ink,” suggested Stuart Perinchief, rapping gravely
on the table for attention. He was always shabbily dressed, an air of
dryness and fatigue about him.
“All right! Good! Let’s! Yours is a great mind, Stuart!”
Lester whispered to the swarthy handsome young waiter who had a sweet
smile and angrily brilliant eyes.
_“Si, signor.”_ Large teacups were quickly placed before the diners and
three bottles skillfully whisked under Lester’s chair.
Conversation. Lester and Emily in coming to New York had innocently
looked forward to finding individuals who would comprehend and
sympathize with their aspirations. Thinking of themselves as
misunderstood, wounded and disheartened in a callous provincial
atmosphere, they had both unconsciously made the meeting of “fellow
artists” a last symbol. They had been naïvely religious in this
faith. To know people who can share and inspire instead of hinder and
destroy! Lester smiled now as he thought of it. A few months among
the jealousies, anemia and nerves of various hostile coteries had
driven him and Emily to gather about them a small circle of their
own. Not great, perhaps, but here at least is a little kindness, he
thought. Tonight in the obscure restaurant, warmed and confident for
the moment, all were talking at once, not brilliantly or profoundly,
but harmlessly. Affectionate smiles were turned to Emily. Lester felt
gentle toward these people. At last food came and the meal began.
“There’s Michael!” cried Emily, waving her fork at a tall youth with
the head of a poet. “Aren’t you ’shamed of yourself?”
Michael Kennedy hurried toward them. He sank into a chair beside Lester.
“Awfully sorry to be late.”
Genevieve Strang shook her enormous pendent earrings at him from across
the table.
“You always are, Michael,” she said in a rich low-pitched voice,
almost too perfectly modulated, her enunciation theatrically distinct.
Genevieve’s manner was well-bred to the point of discomfort.
Michael blushed and laughed self-consciously as he saluted the others.
His greeting to Mark Leighter, who sat nearly opposite him, beside
Genevieve, was especially warm. Leighter had the cadaverous exterior of
a romantic backwoodsman. He answered Michael cordially. They were both
in love with the same girl, and were being very noble.
On the other side of Lester was Blanche Dixon, a plump little person
whose bobbed hair spread out fan-like as she whirled toward him and
whispered in his ear, giggling as she talked. Her conversation was
rambling and ceaseless, but Lester smiled.
Em, at the head of the table, opposite Perinchief, was between Toby
Adams and Tit Miller. Small head held high, heavy hair; her face was
a pure oval, almost perfect in profile. Translucent brown eyes with
greenish lights, turning with sudden fearlessness from one person to
another. There was a delicate distinction to her body. She could sit
harmoniously on a chair. Toby leaned near her, seemed to glue his eyes
to her face, and whispered.
“You _dear_ thing!”
She smiled frankly and kindly.
“What’s the matter with me? Is my hat on crooked?”
“I’m tasting you with my eyes,” he responded soulfully. He had a
trick of looking at women that was cultivated and at the same time
unconscious--a narrowing of his lids and a relaxing of the focus of
vision in a moist gaze of admiration. Em was used to him.
“Now, Toby, don’t get messy,” said Genevieve, in a very
British-upper-middle-class manner. Her huge earrings were an
incongruous yet somehow attractive accompaniment to her small broad
face. Everything in Genevieve’s appearance pretended to languor and
sophistication. In this agglomeration of characteristics there was
nothing to explain the steady almost naïve sincerity of her long-lashed
dark blue eyes.
Em gave Adams’ arm a sisterly pat.
“Yes, keep your technique for some new girl, Toby dear.”
Tit Miller, on Em’s other side, was a dancer whose constant affectation
of esthetic attitudes had given him almost grotesquely feminine
motions. He invited her attention with a circular gesture of his slim
hand.
“And did you hear, Em, that when I danced unannounced last week at the
Settlement a girl came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘Are
you the great Fokine?’”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Stuart Perinchief with sudden violence from the
foot of the table. “What happened then? Were you wearing anything but
your--?”
“Stuart! Aren’t you dreadful!” exclaimed Blanche at his side.
“What did I say that was dreadful?” he demanded truculently.
“She knew what you might say and headed you off in time,” laughed
Leighter. He was never malicious in his remarks, as he was jealous of
his own sensitiveness and capacity to be hurt.
“Stuart makes me _so_ angry!” said Tit mincingly to Em and Toby.
The large teacups had been filled and emptied several times, and the
pile of bottles under Lester’s chair had grown. Michael began to hum
a song. The words were not yet discernible, but all except Em and
Perinchief looked worried. The tune Michael was humming was known to
his friends--and also the words.
“Go on, Michael!” Stuart spoke solemnly, like a squire in his cups.
“Now, Stuart,” protested Genevieve.
Blanche giggled hysterically.
“Let Michael sing, Jen,” said Emily, her eyes sparkling wickedly.
Genevieve was firm.
“Why, Em, you _know_ what he will--”
The conversation again became vague to Lester. He and Emily had many
acquaintances, but these were their friends. He was still studying
them. The hurly-burly of New York, its shadowy, grotesque, turgid,
“artistic” atmosphere, had placed upon him and Em necessity for human
contact. These chums had floated to them, clung to them. Blind in their
search for release? Waifs from the Middle West and South huddling
together in a city and drinking prohibition wine from teacups to get
laughter. Old virtues with new morals, he thought. Difference in
manners ... very human and pathetic ... they adore Em....
Les looked up. A tall hawk-faced young man, who had been eating alone
at a table beyond, was passing on his way out. He smiled at Mark
Leighter, who half rose and extended his hand.
“I want you to meet my friends,” said Mark in a persuasive tone. “Miss
Tyler, this is Howard Story--the etcher.”
Em’s constant gaze wavered a little as she glanced up into Story’s
thin keen face. The other introductions were made, and with an easy
gesture he drew a chair from another table and seated himself between
Tit and Em. There was a soft color in her cheeks. She now met Howard’s
greenish-brown eyes with her usual steadfast look. At the advent of a
stranger a slight constraint fell upon the intimate circle.
“Hooray!” shouted Michael incontinently.
Howard Story turned to him composedly.
“We’re tryin’ to abandon ourselves to the little we are,” hiccoughed
Stuart.
Howard smiled. Em noticed his hard chiseled mouth. She admitted no
faults in her friends. Her head was held a trifle higher.
“Don’t mind us, Mr. Story,” explained Genevieve haughtily. “We’re only
a little--_you_ know.”
Howard glanced at Em’s defiant head. He noted the brassy highlights in
her autumn-leaf brown hair, the delicacy of her face, the sureness of
her manner. He thought with irritation of what he had seen and heard of
her pictures. Her exceedingly feminine appearance disconcerted him and
stimulated his curiosity. He glided skillfully into the spirit of the
moment.
“Couldn’t we have some more wine?” he suggested pleasantly, beckoning
to the waiter as he spoke.
3
The laughter and chatter went round the table once more. Stuart and
Michael devoted themselves especially to the additional wine, and
thenceforth beamed on Howard as an initiate.
“What do your friends do?” asked Howard genially. He addressed Mark
Leighter, but Tit replied.
“Why, Emily and Mr. Leighter--”
“Of course I know Miss Tyler’s work, and Mark’s stuff.”
“Well, you see.” Tit made an eurythmic gesture. “Mr. Perinchief writes
under a pseudonym, Amos Boyd--”
“Oh, yes,” said Howard, concealing his boredom.
“And Toby is a research chemist, in his spare moments. Miss Strang
writes and draws and--things. And Michael does poems and reviews, and
Blanche--well, she’s a nice child. Of course I--”
“What are you, Mr. Drane?”
“Bank clerk,” said Lester. His clean-shaven cheeks and chin, with blue
shadows, and his deep-set eyes seemed part of his quietness. He felt
injured for his friends, in having them cruelly sorted out by what they
had done. This man Story is a Greenwich Village esthete. Recognizes
only people to fear ... worse than the bourgeois crowd....
Howard turned to Em. There was subtle respect in his voice and mien.
“Miss Tyler, it’s a real pleasure and--”
Blanche, at Lester’s side, giggled, and he lost the rest of the words.
He did see the interest in Em’s eyes. Howard had experienced intense
artistic gratification in Em’s appearance; now he felt a thrill of
satisfaction at the sound of her light-timbred vibrant contralto voice.
He exerted himself to be his best.
Genevieve whispered to Mark.
“Your friend Mr. Story exudes charm all over the place.”
The conversation gradually dwindled to a duet between Howard and Em,
and finally to a monologue by Howard. Les caught only some of the
phrases.
“Cezanne--the human stereoscope--abolished
sculpture--impressionists--prism convicts--Gauguin was the Pierre Loti
of painters--emotional wall-paper--Degas--forerunner of posters--the
ancestor of C. D. Gibson--”
Em laughed gleefully. There was admiration in her eyes. Howard knew he
was being brilliant.
“El Greco--the Delsarte skeleton man--Matisse first saw the beauty of
fetuses--vers librist of painting--baa, baa, baa, baa, baa, baa--” Les
could not distinguish the words.
“What was that, Howard?” In Mark’s tone was a proprietary elation over
the effect his friend was producing.
“I was saying that these damned futurists are painters of orations.”
Em’s usually mournful eyes were shining, her lips parted. Howard stole
a quick glance at her and hurried on.
“Synchromists--daubers with the heart-burn--Kandinsky, menstruates in
paint--neo-futurism is only--” The monologue across the table became
indistinct to Les again.
There were signs of restiveness. Stuart and Michael were nodding
drowsily. Les looked over to Genevieve. Loyal jealousy was written
on her face. He tried to be detached. Howard Story was the type of
Bohemian artist he detested. False art ... no human values ... surfaces
... intellectual snobbishness.... Les would not acknowledge a male
apprehensiveness.
Em sensed the pitch of the scene and, glancing hastily at Les, rose
to go. Howard sprang to assist her with her coat. A spot of color was
in each cheek and his sharp aquiline face was almost attractive. The
others rose, assumed their wraps, and the party filed out. Howard
walked with Les, Em and Genevieve together. The rest followed, Stuart
and Michael, with locked arms and uncertain step, bringing up the rear.
4
As the procession reached the corner Howard asked:
“Which way are you people going? How about walking through the Square?”
He slightly straightened his long stooping body and looked at Em as he
spoke. He had observed the beautiful manner of her walk and carriage.
“I suppose we’re going to our respective homes,” replied Genevieve
icily. She glanced furtively at Stuart. She was going to stay by Em.
Her tone was hostile for Les’s sake.
“I’m going this way,” said Blanche volubly. “You know, Les, John said
to me, ‘If you’ll come down tonight,’ and I said, ‘What! down to your
rooms--’” She rattled on serenely while the others consulted.
Toby looked at Em miserably.
“I have a date. I must hurry off.” He pointed in the direction Blanche
had indicated. He was in the clutches of a new love affair.
“Serves you right!” whispered Em viciously. There was irrelevant
elation in her voice.
Howard stood smiling.
“I’m going to take Stuart and Michael home and put them to bed,”
announced Mark benevolently.
Genevieve glanced gratefully at him. Now she felt free.
“I should love to take a stroll.” Tit Miller made a graceful gesture
with his arm as he spoke.
Howard glanced at him coldly.
Eagerness sat on Em. Les and Genevieve agreed politely, and the quintet
moved down the street. The two girls fell behind again and the three
men walked together. Les was combatively silent.
“I feel like dancing up Fifth Avenue!” announced Tit. His thick glasses
gave him almost an appearance of blindness, but his tall girlish body
was a nearly perfect object.
Howard turned ostentatiously to Les. Behind them Emily and Genevieve,
arms about each other’s waists, were talking earnestly.
“Stuart is so discouraged,” said Genevieve. “His literary broker is
always wanting him to cut out the good parts and tack happy endings to
his stories.” She was cunningly trying to bring Em back to relations
that were permanent.
Em was loyal interest at once.
“What Stuart should do is to write the things he wants to,” she
declared decidedly.
“Bread and butter.” Genevieve sighed and her piquant little face looked
older. “I wish I could--I’m glad he can get drunk occasionally, anyway.”
Em hugged her friend impulsively. Genevieve was the only woman she
really trusted. Genevieve sighed with mingled hope and indecision. She
was anxious about Stuart, too, but Em’s affection was assuring.
“Stuart’s a dear, Jen. And Les is sweet, and I wish I could--We both
wish--don’t we?”
Faithful Genevieve was content. She could leave.
“I must go back,” she whispered.
“Please don’t, Jen.”
“I’ll see you soon. Hug Les for me.” Genevieve kissed Em and slipped
away in the darkness.
Em hurried forward.
“Where’s Jen?” asked Les.
“She had to go,” said Em soberly.
Without comment Howard stepped back beside her while Les and Tit walked
on before them, Tit talking vivaciously. When Howard left them he shook
hands with Les and Em.
“It’s been an event to have met you,” he said, ignoring Tit. “I’m going
to be guilty of a party Thursday night, at Algeria Westover’s studio.
She’s in Europe, but her rooms are bigger than mine. I’d love to have
you both come. You know the place, same building Mark lives in, next
floor above.”
Genevieve had done all she dared. The impression she had striven
for still lived. But Em existed by moments. Howard was waiting
solicitously. She met his greenish-brown eyes happily.
“Thank you.”
Howard smiled again.
“Good-night.” He started away.
“I’m going your way. I’ll walk along,” called Tit, following him.
5
Em and Les went slowly toward home.
“I wish the boys wouldn’t drink so much,” she mused aloud. “But he’s
interesting, isn’t he?”
“Who? Tit?” asked Les.
Em smiled.
“I’ve seen his etchings at the Contemporary Society’s.”
Les did not answer. I wonder....
“New York seems empty without Carl,” he said after a pause. Carl had
been his one intimate.
“Our friends are a relief, aren’t they? Don’t you think they’re sweet
nuts?” Em’s voice was affectionate. “Don’t you love ’em, Les?”
“At least they don’t spout shop every minute.”
“Well, they’re ours, anyway.” Emily hummed a little tune as she walked
brightly at his side, her hand holding his tightly, within his overcoat
pocket. “Mark’s friend is much more like us than like most of the crazy
freaks we’ve run into.”
Les released her hand and fumbled for his keys.
“You seem impressed.” Nothing innate ... how can she ... feeling
through others ... an instrument....
Em followed him upstairs. He struck a match. Suddenly she blew it out
and threw her arms about his neck.
“Oh, Les, Les, let’s never allow anything to come between us!”
He felt her tears on his cheek in the darkness. He was afraid. She is
seeking. No joy ... love is not enough ... forever alone ... wind on my
face like a loved hand ... darkened sea ... the stars far off....
CHAPTER II
EYES A YEAR AFTER
_“The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that
in reality they honor and love only themselves (or their own ideal,
to express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable:
but in fact woman is essentially unpeaceable.”_
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE--_“Beyond Good and Evil”_
_(Trans. Helen Zimmern)_
1
Yellow shriveled leaves fluttering through the red light of the
slanting autumn sun.
Lester Drane always walked rapidly with body somewhat bent forward.
His shoulders were more ape-like than bowed. He was very strong.
He crossed the untidy square and turned down a little side street.
Several small Italian children were playing near the steps of the
house where he lived. His dark skin and thick brows seemed to make
him one of them. The leader of the games, a ten-year-old girl with
budding bosom, stumbled against him as he paused to take a bunch of
keys from his pocket. She glanced up, a look of instinctive fear in her
moist startled eyes. He smiled down at her. She paid him no further
attention, and resumed her shouting sway over her playmates.
Lester ran quickly up the old stairs.
As he entered the living-room he whistled, one note rising sharply
after the other, an old signal between him and Emily. Then his heart
sank at the silence and the darkened windows. Three months before she
had attempted suicide. Death as a playmate.... None of their friends
believed such things.
“Em!”
The habitual droop at the corners of his rather small straight mouth
was emphasized. But he knew she was there.
He called again.
“Em!”
2
Em lay on the tobacco-brown rug in the bedroom, a pale blot in the
darkness. He knelt beside her.
“What is it, darling?” Too-heavy brows--smudges on her dim face.
“Oh, Les--” she sobbed.
To Em all things were of equal importance if they were equally near
to her. It made her an artist. It made him wary. Em had cried daily
for four days. Even before that, ever since the meeting with Howard
Story in the restaurant, she had been distraught. Damn that night at
Manzinetti’s when Mark introduced him!
Four days. Howard Story’s party at Algeria Westover’s studio. Four days
ago. Why did I go? Algeria Westover in Europe. Howard in her studio.
Lovers.... There flashed on Les the picture of Howard and Em at the
party. Lazy blue smoke in the room. Candles ... dull green and yellow
mist ... broad couch ... Howard enthroned ... giant heron on a nest....
More talk. El Greco, Cezanne, Hodler--Em hanging on Howard’s words ...
defenseless eyes....
“What is it, dear?” Les asked again gently.
“Oh, I want to die--” she wailed with sudden harshness.
The first time he heard this cry a year ago he had thought it only
words. Now. Belief always comes. My love of life has separated us
forever....
“Tell me what it is, Em.”
She raised herself on one long narrow hand. The beautiful curve to her
thin lips gone. Her face close to mine....
“You know, Les.”
His heavy eyelids twitched. Les feared Em’s concrete fleshliness
because he knew it could ignore his idea of himself. He would not bear
that anyone but himself should excite her. What he feared had come.
She rose to her knees and seized him fiercely in her arms.
“Les, do you hate living with me? Why didn’t you let me kill myself a
year ago?”
Her tears burned his cheek. He shut his eyes. Eyelids of day closing
... wide mantle of the moonlight ... nothing clear or simple ... sick
joy ... people like shadows ... formless suffering ... dogged by death
... Sophocles.... Em is right. More Jean Jacques Rousseau. Agh! Lights
on still water ... golden lilies with shining stems....
3
They had talked for an hour. They were tired. A candle burned on the
mantel. Both were standing now. Les began to walk slowly to and fro.
His small rigid hands clenched. His large brow wrinkled, eyes almost
colorless in thought.
His voice trembled slightly.
“I am not possessive, Em. You can see whom you wish--do what you wish.”
“Oh, you _intellectualize_ me so!” she cried. “It’s more subtle than
that. A woman--Can’t you see? Oh no, you can’t--you can’t. You hate
me--you hate me--” She hid her face in her hands.
“Don’t, Em. Please, Em.” No matter how subtle the reason is, the means
of hurting me is just as horrible.
She heard nothing he said. She only felt that he was repudiating her.
“You hate me--” she moaned. The slender fingers with widened tips were
trembling. Em gave an impression of delicacy and lack of physical
stamina.
Lester could be only quietly eloquent.
“We cannot talk. You hear only those words of mine that serve your
instinctive purpose to shatter our relation. You resent our relation
because I built it and not you. You have always failed it and therefore
you wish it away. It is not I who hate you, Em. You hate me when I
fight for our life together. If you had made it you would defend it
with your life blood. You would adore me because I was subject to what
you had made. But now you would destroy with secret joy because you
know the death-blow would be yours and not mine.” Stupid talk.... I
can’t. Professor. Schoolmaster ... the god of pity....
His face was lined and his usually ruddy skin was gray. He always
feared her response, fought for fixity in her desire.
Em looked up. She made a little movement toward him and then retreated.
The tense droop to his mouth gave slightly as the muscles of his
cheeks relaxed. She stared into his eyes with a tragic intensity that
hypnotized herself. He returned her gaze unwillingly because he did not
wish to lower his eyes. Irrelevantly he noted the faint down on her lip
and cheeks.
Em’s heart expanded in a sudden and uncontrollable wave of compassion.
“Oh, my darling--” She convulsively strained his head to her breast.
“My poor boy. Oh, Les, I love you--”
Strife made her amorous: peace made him amorous. His breath came
quickly. Em, can’t you see, _can’t_ you see you are killing me?
Dumb. Why can’t I say what I feel? She believes in me only when I am
weak.--Then she can pity me. I can’t think any more ... a body that
breaks ... swinging on the bough of life ... why....
The tears were running down her cheeks.
“Sweetheart--” she whispered.
They stood with their arms about each other.
“Em, I want you to see him whenever you care to.”
“But precious, I don’t want to see him--oh, I’ve hurt you--”
4
Lester was coming home again, this time early.
His clean-cut body, always swaying forward, moved neatly through the
crowds. Always between me and mine. Sex. He mused as he walked. Love
without life. Childhood ... shadows on the wall like great bats ...
wicked children ... little Hilda ... drawers unbuttoned ... music of
tiny bells ... millions of flowers bursting into bloom ... white birds
with shining wings ... women ... lustful kisses ... Em. Her weakness
cutting at the roots of life.
As he ascended the dingy stairs he knew Howard would be there.
Em was pouring tea.
“I asked Howard to come. I didn’t expect you so soon.” Em hated
evasions. She hadn’t a particle of malice and she hadn’t a particle of
mercy. What she did have was a straightforwardness that slew people.
Talk between them. Howard’s greenish eyes turned on Les.
“You’re a realist, Mr. Drane. A man of your scientific training
appraises us intellectually with no emotional sharing.”
Sunshine was streaming through a window in the Dranes’ living-room. It
threw saffron highlights on half of Lester’s large, almost four-square
nose, and on one heavily lobed ear.
“I suppose so.” His voice was cool and kind.
Em’s directness was like a sword-thrust.
“Bosh! Les is the sweetest thing you ever saw, Mr. Story. You’re
encouraging him in being a clam, that’s all.” Her Scotch-hazel eyes
flashed and the reddish glow warmed in her thick brown hair as she
moved nervously. They’re all alike--mythmakers, she thought. Lester
hated her impatience of moderation. Even when they were at peace, he
feared.
Howard crossed his long legs and bent over the table. He gazed like a
huge bird at one of Em’s unfinished drawings.
“No, I’m not a mythmaker, Mrs. Drane.” Em started visibly and pulled
her sagging green smock further up on her shoulder. “I knew you were
thinking that,” Howard continued, smiling. “We artists--”
Their voices grew vague to Les. Always seeking, he thought as Em and
Howard rattled on. Understands her soul. Every new person she meets is
to give her something I cannot.
“I appeal to Drane.”
Howard’s voice came to Les as from a perfect stillness.
“I beg your pardon,” said Lester awkwardly.
Howard was sure Lester disliked him. Em felt that she was being
reprimanded.
“These expressionists,” Howard turned formally to Lester. “Don’t you
think they are trying to get the exact opposite of impressionism?”
“I’m not sure that--” Les’s deep blue eyes sought Em’s.
Howard interrupted.
“Well, at any rate--”
The conversation flowed on again without Lester. Em makes me helpless
before my enemies. He feared flux, that which alone she trusted. He was
always fighting for their sanity. She would throw all into the dust in
a second. Pity has cut me off from her forever.... Howard was rising.
His gaunt length towered in the dim room.
He held out a bony hand.
“Well, Drane, I suppose we’ve bored you with this shop.”
“I’m not much of a conversationalist. You’ll have to get used to me.”
“Emily tells me you write. I’d love to see some of your stuff some
time.”
“Thank you.” The man’s like a marionette--sodomy with art!
Em’s eyes were dark and inscrutable.
“I’ll show you down.” She seized a candle and lighted it. “The stairs
are frightfully dark.”
“Thanks. Aren’t you nice?” smiled Howard. “Good-night, Drane.”
“Good-night.”
Dark. Darkness falling like rain ... calm and peace ... vain like acted
scenes ... dead and wordless pain ... lips white in pain ... shadow
like a shapeless stain ... the terror by night ... glowing sparks of
stars vanished altogether ... sprinkle tears of pity over the dumb
hearts of the earth....
5
Genevieve called Les on the telephone. He seized the receiver briskly.
Hair well trimmed, clothes not new but carefully brushed, perfect
linen, motions definite. He showed a confidence he never felt.
“Empire State Trust Company,” he said curtly.
“Hello, Les.”
“Hello,” he replied in another tone. Before him lay an orderly pile of
papers. Brazier Smelting Company Incorporated Twenty-Year Sinking-Fund
Convertible Gold Notes--Slater County Electric Transit Corporation
First Equipment Mortgage--It seemed impossible that any of his life
could come to him through the desk telephone in his hands.
“Are you and Em going to Manzinetti’s tonight?”
“No.” His end of the conversation must sound like a business call.
“Well, we’re not either. Come over to our place and I’ll cook dinner.
Michael will be here.”
“All right, thank you.”
Les’s assistant, young Babbitt, was listening.
“Was that the Potter-Wright people?”
“No,” said Les.
“Their manager called me three times yesterday. Worried as hell. We
won’t renew. They’ll get theirs all right all right.” Young Babbitt
licked his lips.
6
Em was asleep when Les reached Jane Street.
“I was dreaming.” Her eyes were soft.
“What did you dream?”
Em’s eyes changed but she did not answer. When she arose and put on her
hat and coat it was as though she were still in the dream.
On the street they were silent. They reached the narrow old-fashioned
red brick house where Genevieve and Stuart lived, and Stuart himself
opened the door to their ring. His small pale mouth was hard and in his
eyes lay a look of unacknowledged frustration. Genevieve came out of
the little kitchen. A large apron protected her severe dull-purple gown.
“Where did you get your new earrings?” asked Em listlessly.
“Eve sent them to me from Moscow. They’re from Samarkand.”
“What color of hair is she wearing now?” asked Les mischievously. Poor
old joke! I wonder how I’ll get through this evening.
Genevieve made a face at him. She wouldn’t argue about her friend Eve.
She wanted things to be gay to help Les and Em.
“We won’t wait for Michael. You children sit down and I’ll bring on the
nourishment.” Her rich voice was the same, but at home she dropped her
undue precision of speech.
“Good idea.” Les was almost dumb with pain. His pride made him speak
naturally.
“Stuart’s father wired yesterday that he was coming down for the night,
and so I had to go over and sleep with Blanche,” said Genevieve crossly
as they began their soup. “And my mother is coming Wednesday, so Stuart
will have to go over to Michael’s. One wonders when they’ll meet, or
one of them open a bureau drawer. Sweet land of liberty--it’s as bad as
being married!”
“Worse,” remarked Les.
“Well, I’m _not_, anyway, and nobody can alter that.”
“Nobody but yourself.”
“And I _won’t_ be, either.”
A ring. Stuart opened the door and Michael hurried in.
“Hello, kids. So sorry to be late.” He seated himself hastily and
pulled a large bottle from his coat pocket. Michael’s brown eyes gazed
at people with a passionate yet abstracted intensity. It was only when
one noted his thin wide mouth that he failed to resemble the portraits
of Lord Byron.
“As it occurs so seldom, you’re forgiven this once,” said Genevieve
ironically.
Michael flushed.
“I’ve brought some home-made Malaga as a peace offering,” he replied
humbly.
Emily said hardly a word. Stuart was engulfed in gloom. Lester seldom
talked much, and the meal was enlivened only by affectionate banter
between Genevieve and Michael. It was not the success of her dinner
that caused Genevieve’s anxious look. She glanced stealthily at Em from
time to time. After he had eaten, Stuart promptly went to sleep on the
couch. He had had a story rejected, and Genevieve was thinking of him,
too. Michael called Em over to one side of the room to read her a poem,
the writing of which had made him late to dinner. He laughingly refused
to let the others hear it.
“You’re worried, Les,” said Genevieve sympathetically.
There was a reserved but intricate emotional understanding between the
two. Her intellectual generalizations were usually crude and always on
the safe side of pessimism, but she was capable of intense personal
loyalty and her instinctive feeling was basically fine.
Les spoke in a low tone.
“I wish Carl were here.”
“Is it anything about you and Em?” she asked softly. She already knew.
“It probably is.” His face was immobile. Genevieve put her hand on his
and her eyes were moist. “You’re good, Jen,” he said.
They were both embarrassed by their emotion. Les lowered his eyes and
reached uneasily for his pipe. Genevieve moved across the room to a
chair beside Emily. Michael, when he saw that Les was alone, rose,
lighted a pipe also, and walked over and stood by the mantel. He stared
down at his friend.
“What’s the matter with Em tonight, Les?” he asked in a low tone.
“Nothing,” replied Les impatiently. Kindness. They pity me. I shall go
... healing in the spaces of the world....
Michael smoked in silence, a kind look in his remote eyes.
“What is it, dear?” Genevieve, screening herself from the others,
kissed Em.
“Oh, Jen, I don’t know.” Em tried to conceal her agitation. Tears
rolled down her cheeks and her lips quivered.
Genevieve stared at her sympathetically but a little severely.
“Les is a darling,” she said slowly at last.
“Oh, Jen, I know it.” Em gave a tiny sob.
“Is it--someone--when we all believed so in the relation between you
and Les?”
Em was mute, condemned but rebellious. They don’t know. Never anything
to touch. Something in me hates and fears the idealism Les loves. I
want to be touched--I want it to be me. Just being an artist isn’t
enough. I’m weak. I know it.
Les rose to go. “Hadn’t we better leave these people their sleep?” He
could not prolong the evening. His face was gaunt. Genevieve, turning
from Emily, made no comment. Stuart was roused from the couch, where
he had been reposing with privileged rudeness, and shook hands with
affectionate depression. Michael smiled evasively. They realized
something was wrong, and their powerless sympathy left them constrained.
“Good-by.”
Em and Les went down the stairs. They walked a little apart, Em
glancing at him now and then with a furtive and apologetic anxiousness.
She felt helpless.
7
Lester had been a university professor and dean, a naturalist of
international fame, organizer of a dozen scientific expeditions.
Tropical lands, great laboratories, students flocking, presidencies of
learned societies, degrees, dinners, speeches--We have with us tonight
... researches that have shed undying luster....
Undying poppycock. He had given up everything when he met Em. Scandal.
Em, from a small Southern town, had run away with him. Distinguished
colleagues cut him. He knew that to those who needed less than he did
the absoluteness of his gesture seemed false. Artist. Write. Having Em,
he wanted to write. He had always wanted to write. Grandiose. He still
had verses written when he was twelve years old. His Ballad of the
Mayden Bride written at sixteen. Les could repeat it to himself to this
day.
_Come lithe ye then kind gentlemen
And harken to this verse,
So alle may learn that love wyl spurn
And break cruell Dethe’s curse._
_A noble knyght wyth armour bright
There rode from his demesne,
Who kist wyth pride his ladye bride
That ne’er his wyf had been._
_Proud to bee sent on quest urgént
Yf on his marriage morn,
He rode away the somer’s day
From his dere love forlorn._
_Who to him sayde, “Ye have I wed
And even shulde I dey
E’er me ye wive, I shal yet lyeve
To kiss ye tenderly.”_
How his boy’s heart had thrilled to have written it!
_Ten years were fled ere returnéd
Alle gaunt and pale the knyght:
His errand made, his steed a jade,
At the postern he did lyght._
_He walked silént and then sone went
Into the busy court
Wher his folk stode talking not loud,
And the children laughed at sport._
_When he cam there they eche did stare
And fell round and kneeléd;
“Dere Lorde,” they cried, “our Ladye died
Last even in her bed.”_
Have I really outgrown this?
_He sayde no reply and went straightly
Up to the chamber above
Thyder was layd his wyf yet a maide
Whom his bolde herte did love._
_He kneeled to rest his hede on her breast
And clipt her his arms around:
Wyth gentle syghs she oped her ees
As coming fro a swound._
_Her pale cheek did flush wyth love’s swete blush
And she kist his lips anoon;
Then he lift his hede for she was agayne dead,
And he rose and stode allone._
Les decided that he liked it, even yet.
_He past the court through and his people trewe,
And no wordis did they saye
Till that the knyght in the fading lyght
Rode once agayne away._
In India, Africa and the islands of the sea he had tried to write.
_Un Byron de nos jours._ When he was through with it, it all seemed
flaunting. There was something--so he discovered--he hadn’t yet
realized about himself. Sonnets on Fate--
_O impotent Philosophy! What sage
Hath e’er devis’d a meaning of our birth
Or death--the reason of the stars, this earth?
As well the gibber of some ancient mage
As the blind wilderings of mine own age,
Or God, created in man’s piteous dearth
Of alternate, to build with hideous mirth
The universe to be our mad souls’ cage._
_Sophist avaunt! What good to know or learn
These meaningless inventions of the mind?
O fool, what boots to bind thy soul ’neath stern
Discipline’s rod, who hastest as the wind
From nothing--hurl’d through fancied life and fate--
To endless nothing of the ultimate?_
Cosmic. Bah! He smiled at this, but his bitterness even now made such
a gesture. Sometimes he seemed to himself the only actuality in an
unreal world. To write this! To write. The itch was still in him. More
than ever, perhaps. But he knew better now. Novels. He had written and
burned half a dozen. Had shown them to no one, had learned from his
despair. He must snare significances more subtly. Grasp the shimmering
inexpressibilities....
He saw in each failure how he might say the hitherto impossible. He
felt he had at last come to strive for the evocation of the simple. It
was a deep personal necessity for him to articulate himself. None of
them understood--never would. He was an artist. He knew it. The last
novel at least--half-finished and now in his desk--showed it: in it he
longed to imprison forever the poignance of trifles, to record for all
time for beautiful souls the grave mystery of the body. Alone, he had
never deeply distrusted himself; but Em’s hungry specificness made him
doubt his pale wide solutions of inner tragedies. He poured senseless
oblation before her momentary color, but he was afraid of it. The logic
of the ideal: the fallacy of the flesh! Where was the way? He only knew
he must go on.
His name was not Lester Drane. Em’s name was not Emily Tyler. Also
they were not married, though all but their most trusted friends
supposed they were. She loved passion for itself. He had destroyed his
background at one blow. To be free. To write. Chimera. No, it was
not fantastic. He believed. He had known that he must feel the inner
sympathy of another artist. Emily was an artist. Someone in Europe once
said she was and so America had found it out. She was one who did the
things other women threaten to do. Her hair was glorious.
They had lived together now for nearly two years. It had taken a year
of the time for the scandal to blow away and leave them in peace.
They were in Greenwich Village. Why they could not tell. Living among
the blackmailers of art, he thought. He longed for the wilderness.
Sentimentalists. At first they had accepted the extravaganza. It was
new. Babes in the wood. Em had been smothered in a traditional home.
They needed background. Untrammeled! The lion’s den. Les ceased to
think.
8
Les deceived himself, but not about Em’s interest in Howard.
It was no ordinary affair. Em had had such. Howard was a
symbol--because he seemed to have no reservations. Hawk face with
pleading lips. Color of temperament ... red beads ... green and yellow
... a string of beads without the string.... Latin.... Preserving his
emotional integrity by capitulation. Em believed in no feeling that
did not go out in emotional language.
Howard was fluid--not fixed with shame.
Les knew that if he could weep Em would be all tenderness to him,
too. I cannot.... I cannot.... She resented that in him which she
didn’t touch--but he felt she shouldn’t want to touch it. Thus she
kept hurting herself to hurt him. Intimacy without tenderness. What
does she want now? Never forgiving strength ... she strong and I weak
... repelled by my subjection.... Em, Em, Em ... not perfect but what
all other women lack she has ... they seem dingy ... never passive in
anything ... piercing like a white flame ... body like ... love me....
He slept badly. Too much thinking.
Tonight Em sat up in bed, her slim body tightening, her small breasts
rising beautifully behind the yoke of her nightgown.
“Les, why don’t you like Howard Story?”
Talk till morning. It was trying to grasp smoke. At first they had been
able, when things came between, to release themselves by talking. Em
still could strike through the mist with ruthless words. Drawing fire
to warm.... But he had not been able to bear it. He had taken refuge.
“You won’t face the simple fact that you’re a jealous husband, Les.”
Les sprang out of bed and opened the window. His heavy features were
quiet. The arclight guilty before the dawn ... rose and pearl ...
floating on the blue pool of heaven ... peace like warm snow ... street
gleaming like a reptile ... night soaring ... dead of light....
Em looked at him scornfully.
“My God, but you’re romantic, Les!”
9
Les was romantic--no doubt of it.
He was walking in the park but he did not see the park.
Sand ... drifted and white to the horizon ... camels rocking like ships
... sun of blood plunging over night’s verge ... mother-of-pearl fields
... sleep....
Snaky caravans winding ... groined forests ... church ... jungles with
leaden leaves ... snuffling beasts in the dark ... thatched kraals
... haystacks ... naked women ... bronze statues ... drums in the
moonlight, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum....
Palms beckoning in the still night ... coral beach ... faint white
sickle of shore ... moon like the Holy Ghost ... hidden eyes ...
breasts like eyes in the pale radiance ... flower in her hair....
Peons ... lean faces in Rembrandt shadows ... knife flash ... life
blood spurting down ... fireflies worn for jewels ... lace bobbins,
tap, tap ... lips on her jonquil skin ... stars ... a thousand golden
throats singing ... Algol sang loudest of all....
Crashing colors in a blinding glare ... wise giants crawling ... red
and gold howdahs on their backs ... tinkle, tinkle, tinkle ... smells
... thousands of smells ... rubies ... bracelets rubies ... rubies set
in beautiful noses ... maddening bodies hidden under swaying cloth ...
dust ... gray dust ... blue dust ... soldiers ... pah!...
He rarely spoke of fifteen years spent at the ends of the earth.
CHAPTER III
THE OCEAN
_“The waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing--
Away!”_
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY--_“The Fugitives”_
1
The rain dripped softly and the paved streets were filled with dim
reflections. Window-panes were streaked with tiny rivulets. People bent
under umbrellas. Early-lit street-lamps glowed nebulously. Long ribbons
of light glistened on the sidewalks. As usual Les walked quickly. His
shapely feet were sure. He was thinking of the country. Next best thing
to wilderness. Rain falling steadily in starless darkness ... flooded
roads ... dim fields ... woods of bare trees ... branches strewn with
unseen pearls....
Flotsam in New York, knowing so few. Les was statistician for the
Empire State Trust Company. Big granite pile, mahogany desks and
well-groomed bank officers. He compiled figures. Still biometrical!
His epoch-making statistical work in zoölogy had fitted him for his
tasteless job. Figures, millions, billions, columns on long sheets,
funded debts, bonds, gold certificates, sinking funds, hell!
He had free-lanced until a year ago.
His novel. No time. Articles on Gauguin, _unanimistes_,
_neuroromantik_, book reviews. Waiting in outer rooms, casual office
girls, polite and bored editors, attic, poor food.
He and Em had been through this together. Good artists seldom make
good money. Em’s earnings were not enough for herself. Empire State
Trust Company, comfortable studio in Jane Street now, novel still
half-finished.
When Les reached Jane Street he found a note.
_“Gone to have tea at Howard’s rooms. Back at seven. Em.”_
Les lay on the bed in the twilight, listening to the rain. His long
hair that had been brushed back from his brow was tumbled. Nameless
dread lay with him. Why had sex tricked him through his art? The agony
of creation that had gone astray in imaginative laboratory experiments!
They are classical now.... Associates astounded and resentful. Les
smiled in his fear. Science is as staggered as religion by personality.
Obscure ... forgotten.... Earning bread in the Empire State Trust
Company! His old colleagues were probably busy damning young
enthusiasts who had the temerity to doubt data that his forgotten
researches tentatively suggested--data he had once regarded as hints of
perhaps significant things beyond. The more he had become dissatisfied
with discovery the more he had inspired others. Before he left it all
he had actually hugged a perverse pride in presenting plodding minds
with flashes, outlines, prophecies--that worked out to their credit
alone. Jean Jacques again, no doubt. It was fitting that he should end
up as a Greenwich Village dabbler!
His novel. The sweat stood on his forehead. He had thought of love as
a light. Star-gazer. Les was really thinking of the stars. Angels sow
stars ... wreaths of stars ... orbits hung round the neck of night ...
stars in the hair of night ... starlit windows of the house of God....
“Your vanity refuses to let you face what love is,” he said aloud.
2
Em was in Howard’s flat. Hyper-restrained color-scheme, Matisse, two
priceless Japanese prints. Howard was pouring tea this time.
Talk at first esthetic. Cubists and futurists. Picasso.
Marinetti. München and Düsseldorf. Kandinsky--musical color.
_Expressionismus_--Marc and Chagall, Kokoscha and Meidner, Max
Pechstein’s child paintings. Music--Arnold Schönberg, Satie.
Dada--Gertrude Stein, Tristan Tsara, free association. Blah!
“Drane is an anachronism--a real man,” spurted Howard suddenly, his
thin face rather cruel. “What sort of stuff does he write?”
“Oh, bitter.” Em’s voice was at once antagonistic.
“Confessions, I suppose.”
“It’s damned good realism, _I_ think.” She frowned and fumbled for a
cigarette.
Howard pointed to a small dark-red tabourette.
“Smokes at your elbow,” he said. When she had lighted the cigarette he
continued in the same tone, “I suppose that Ryder is really our only
great--”
“Don’t be silly,” she snapped.
Howard smiled.
Em was long-waisted, so that her clothes hung well. Her manner of
sitting revealed emphasis and grace without restraint. Her cheeks
showed slight color when she was excited. She had slender ankles and
feet. Now she tucked her fine legs under her in the wide, soft chair.
When she was comfortable Howard spoke again.
“He hates psychical cruelty as I do physical. We’re different kinds of
cowards.”
Em rested her chin in her hand.
“Les isn’t a coward,” she said.
“He should have someone like himself. You’ve no gentleness in you. You
have abandon, but there’s no friendliness in your love. He’s unhappy.”
Howard’s artistic vanity often made him say things he grudged.
Em winced.
“It’s my fault.”
“You’re a spiritual dadaist. One thing’s as valuable as another. That’s
why you resent sacrifice.”
“But he’s so--so--” Her eyes hardened and misted faintly with tears.
“Pooh! His repugnance to over-emotion is dictated by his sense of
personal harmony. He’s preëminently moral--you’re not. You’re the wrong
one for him, that’s all. Why not be sensible?”
Em loved edge. She was thankful for being hurt. I shouldn’t have to eat
_myself_ at any rate, she thought. People were afraid to flatter Em
crudely: she was too great in their eyes. So she felt that none desired
her as other women are desired. She was looking for anybody. Howard
dared to aspire. He rose and bent over her.
“I suppose you don’t kiss,” he said.
She closed her eyes. Les would have thought it ugly. When Howard
released her she got up and took her hat and gloves. She felt vaguely
unhappy, but pleased with her unhappiness. Howard didn’t idolize her.
As they parted at the door he said:
“I’m going to have another party--here--Thursday night. Hope you’ll
both come.”
3
Accident. Howard was at the Piedmont galleries. Em came in. There were
few people in the long room. He smiled and came toward her.
“Hello! Came to look at your blue-green thing.”
“So did I,” laughed Em.
They both squinted at her picture. The glow from the skylight over
them made Em’s face under her small soft hat look haggard and a little
pathetic in its animation.
“My dry-points are at the Contemporary Society’s barn.” Howard never
omitted to mention his etchings.
“Let’s go and see them, too,” she proposed, still laughing.
“Let’s.”
They left together. The air was like wine, the sunlight old gold,
sumptuous limousines passing them, down the broad, clean avenue.
“Why don’t I ever see any of your etchings at your place?”
“Keep ’em out of sight. Public’s bad enough, let alone one’s friends.
Nice to see you so soon again.”
There was blankness in her relief. Her delicate oval face flushed.
Sensitive gestures, voice softly musical. Em conveyed a wistful
gallant boy-girl quality. She spoke quickly.
“I’m glad.”
“Want to see you all the time.” She did not answer. His intensifying
determination pleased her and frightened her. It forced her to admit
clearly something which made her fidelity to Les a lie. “Going to,
too.” Howard’s nostrils widened cruelly. Unadmittedly he wanted her
because he envied her work. Em relaxed in the feeling that she was
acting inevitably from her inner nature. She breathed deeply. Howard’s
voice reached her. “I’ve got to have what I want.” Doubts contended in
her. Les could keep me if he tried. I’m not to blame for my qualities.
He doesn’t want my honesty. He has his ideal. She was glowing with the
power of a new enterprise. “Do you know that, Em?” Howard’s tone was
mercilessly insistent.
“Don’t be too sure.”
“You talk like an ingenue. Look at me. Do you love me?”
“Yes,” said Em. She startled herself with her unanticipated response. I
don’t conceal things from myself!
4
New York Bohemia. The grave of achievement. The place artists leave as
soon as they can. Tobacco smoke, sex talk, post-prohibition alcoholic
messes, communism. New conventions more implacable than the old. “Yes,
we’re married, but--” Envy, mysticism, scandal, art, homo-sexuality,
hope. Coteries: painters, writers, sculptors, poets, batikers, critics,
back-room theaters, “just artists in living,” _suum cuique_, fools,
children, people. A few human beings not yet tired of the lure.
Greenwich Village needs food. A very few working pitiably. Once in a
year a moment of beauty that catches one’s throat. A little corner of
life after the great war. The place that had been cruel to Les and Em.
The night of the party. Les’s pride made him go. Most of the guests
were assembled by the time he and Em arrived. Howard met them at the
door. His tall, stooped form seemed somber.
“I’m not going to introduce you.” He bent down to them and spoke
distinctly amid the burst of sound that flowed into the hall. “You’ll
know everybody before the evening is over, even if you don’t now.” He
already felt a proprietary vanity in Em, but it did not keep him from
resenting her. He hated to owe an intellectual pleasure to a woman.
Several fellow-painters recognized Em and drew her into their circle.
Les seated himself in a corner by a girl he knew. Her eyes seemed
honest in the crowd. Near him Frank Stieg, the clever Village bore, was
clearing his throat preparatory to further speech. Stieg was scarcely
five feet tall and weighed perhaps ninety pounds. His skin, hair,
mustache and goatee were all of the same yellow hue. His smoke-stained
teeth and his eyes were brown. A tomthumb-uncle-sam physique. His voice
startled one, however--it was enormous. A small group of girls hung on
his words.
“He always discourses in triplets,” Lester’s acquaintance whispered
maliciously.
“Everything comes to me in triads,” Stieg boomed suddenly. “I’m at
a book now--on Aristophanes, Villon and Rabelais. Humorists if you
please--that is _male_ wits. The humorist is hopeless and therefore
tolerant.”
“But contemporary--” A fair auditor hesitated and was drowned.
“Today? None! They’ve winked out in Anatole France, Schnitzler and
Hermann Bahr.”
As the crash of Stieg’s voice died away Les caught the thin sound of a
woman’s tones near him. He glanced at its almost emaciated hungry-eyed
owner, who was talking earnestly to a stout young Jew. This was the
Great Critic, and he had coldly focused blue eyes.
“When the dream becomes unbearable your psychic censor--” The hungry
woman was absurdly wealthy. The Critic listened.
“Another book on Tacitus, Cervantes and Swift,” shouted Stieg. “Yes,
satirists--_female_ wits. The satirist has faith, poor thing--wants to
make things better.”
Across the room Pierre Gouvain, the sculptor, his long black hair
rumpled, his charming eyes glowing, was gesticulating and almost
screaming.
“My weemen may be fat, but zat iss not ze question. Ze question iss,
are zey not beautéfool?” He glared at his _vis-à-vis_ indignantly.
The hungry-eyed woman’s voice again intervened.
“--incest-wish is the well-spring of all romance.”
“_Modern_ satirists!” Stieg was bawling contemptuously. “Mark Twain,
Shaw and Rose Macauley!”
“In prison again?” Two feminine Radicals had paused near Les. The
elder, a poet, was speaking. “Poor dear! Yes, she’s an eagle, too.”
Howard, a tray in his hands, approached them.
“Won’t you have a glass of wine?”
“Ugh!” shivered the younger of the two women: it was Eve, Genevieve’s
friend, just back from Moscow with an entirely new shade of hair. “I
couldn’t. It reminds me of--the blood of Russia.”
“Rousseau, Byron and Romain Rolland--” Stieg’s larynx was like a
trumpet.
“All Schopenhauer meant was the libido,” sang the hungry soul’s high
soprano. “The phallic symbol of--”
“Humph!” snorted Stieg. “Jean Jacques’ grandchildren--Wassermann, Van
Eeden and our younger English novelists.”
Les looked around the room for Em. His glance passed Lou Kohn, leading
_amateuse_ of the Teacup Theater (who was draped against a door _à la_
Sarah Bernhardt), and rested on Em and Howard--alone in a window-seat.
He rose and walked toward them. His girl acquaintance turned to a
neighbor.
“Mr. Drane’s not a poet because he says he isn’t,” she remarked
carefully.
A last hungry piping followed Les.
“--such as Gridley’s novel on the Elektra complex. It’s not only
narcistic fixation--”
A final stentorian challenge from Stieg.
“St. Paul, Spinoza and Nietzsche--all _Gottbetrunkene Menschen_.”
Les reached Em’s side. Her cheeks were crimson. She looked up quickly.
“Shall we go, Em?”
“Sorry you must run away,” said Howard kindly.
Les and Em knew many in the throng: Eitero Tanaka, smiling in silence
all evening, Jasper Jobson the successful novelist, looking successful,
Dhas Mitra (and his turban) whose single exclamation for all occasions
was “Elephant!” and Carmen Stubbs--always like a character-actress
playing the part of a prostitute--“One thousand bucks for a single
story, my dear!” Little Celia St. John, ever the center of a group of
men, smiled up into the face of a giant young painter as Em and Les
passed. Celia recalled a wax lily.
“Well, tired little boy, if it’s too far to your place, you might spend
the night with me, only one flight down in this same building,” she was
saying. No one laughed.
All this ... understand ... belong ... Howard ... Dante ... limbo ...
he and Em ... Les felt sick.
“Thoreau, Whitman and myself--all _revoltés_,” yelled Stieg as the door
was closing after them.
5
Les was alone in Jane Street. His face was a little more lined, his
eyes deeper. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, at last picked up
a book of short stories by a young writer he admired. He opened the
volume idly.
_“Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known
history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk
of art and are passionately, almost feverishly, in earnest about it.
They think it matters much more than it does.”_
Les put down the book. Em ... the party last night ... how can she ...
once she was like me ... God, how he hated Greenwich Village! Letters.
He knew Howard’s handwriting. One lay open on the table from which he
had taken the book. He tried not to look at it.
_“My darling_,
_“When can you come again? The only mystery is flesh--ideals are
manageable--they are for fools--”_
The words blurred.
She has always put me between her and life. Living in a well of
emotion, remote from consequences. Jealous of what she doesn’t give. I
can’t fight it. Breasts whiter than snow ... wings like curved flames
... funeral pyre of stars....
His tears were real, anyway.
He was alone. I must think. His eyes that sometimes glowed blue with
kindness were pale and vague. Howard was the type he abhorred. How can
such a thing be? I have--I have--I _can’t_ think. She has--she would
stop at nothing to _see_ me feel. Reduce the beloved object, expects
from me what she’s killed, not kind even to those at her mercy....
Les sobbed once, wiped his eyes. He tried to overcome his
grandiosity--to condemn Em. It’s about good enough for her. No. She’s
mine ... little Em.... The heavy muscles hardened under his coat.
“God _damn_ that jumping jack!”
No. This is 1923. It’s not done.
He went out to walk.
6
Why does one talk.... Les never had realized that Em’s medium was
not words. Even when he saw her trembling and weeping at a canvas he
realized it only intellectually. He was continually aghast before her
incomplete revelations.
I am worse. I say more but I talk like a stockbroker. We _must_
understand things together. His heart shook. He remembered her coming
to him. Eyes giving ... breasts pointing ... body calling ... something
not in words....
Five o’clock. Into the crowded street. He escaped from the Empire State
Trust Company’s building as from a mountain. It’s not that long-legged
crane. He’s only an irritant. I should have shown Em that I love her.
Poor little child....
Les climbed the stairs slowly. Oh, how I hate talkytalk. In the
half-light that filled the long comfortable room Em sat, bent over his
desk, her face lying in her arms. Her frail shoulder-blades heaved.
“Sweetheart--” Les touched her shoulder. She raised her white
tear-blotted face. “Em, I want us to see things clearly.” Em’s eyes
cannot look like that! Where ... appeal to death ... how can she....
“This is a fine time to begin,” she cried savagely.
“We must look at things now as we shall in another year from now.”
“Thank you, Mr. Drane.” He removed his hand from her shoulder. She’s
childish. He resented her indulgence in irresponsible emotions and
tried to envy her, but his pride would not let him. “You ought to
realize what I feel, no matter what I say,” she sobbed abruptly.
“I understand, Em.”
“Oh, but you don’t--”
“Em, my God--”
“You make me feel I’m a horrible creature.” She moaned carelessly.
“If you cared for what I--you only _think_ about it, about what other
people will think--” She wanted to condemn herself beyond argument. He
was cruel, too. He wanted to subjugate her so he could be kind to her.
Les seated himself close to her. He did not touch her.
“I don’t care what people think, dear. It’s not you, but your suffering
that hurts me. I don’t feel the same things, but I feel. Can’t you see
that?” Another lecture. Where are the students? I’ll write tracts next.
I’ve held her in my arms. Nights ... roses pale in sleep ... white
ghosts of clouds....
“Yes, Les, I see that you suffer in your own way.” She straightened up,
drew a long breath. Diagrammatic emotions--lost in his own generality.
“Les--”
“Yes, Em.” Why did we give up so much for each other?
“If you’d only kissed me instead of getting hurt. So many times.” She
spoke dully.
“I can’t get over things as quickly as you, Em.” His lips quivered. He
controlled his voice well.
“I’m sorry,” said Em.
“Em, can’t you--” he began timidly.
“I’m unfitted for any human relationship, Les.” Her eyes suddenly swam
with tears again. Suspend yourself from his strength--ugh!
“Oh, Em--” He reached swiftly toward her, but she evaded his gesture.
The bell rang. Les seized his hat and opened the door.
“Good evening,” said Howard. “Should you people like to go some place
to dinner?”
“I’ll bring candles.” Em left the room.
“Sit down,” Les invited.
Em returned with lights. As she set them down the vague glow made her
face look strange. Her hair was smoothed, her cheeks rouged.
“I have an engagement.” Les carefully creased the crown of his hat.
Howard hesitated, almost contemptuously.
“Don’t look at me like that, Howard.” Em laughed uneasily. “It’s just
plain pip. Les and I both have it. I’ll go with you.”
7
Sunday morning. Les rose from the breakfast table and sought his hat
and ulster. Em spoke timidly.
“I’ll come too, Les, if you’re going to walk.”
He halted, in his eyes a mixture of fear and desire.
“I’d love to have you.”
Something in his gaze made her ashamed for them both.
They found the park. They walked silently side by side. Each held an
effort to overlook the other’s misunderstanding. They tacitly strolled
away from the thronged roads. A pool. Bare tree beside it. Twigs
grasping stiffly at emptiness. Em and Les stopped and stood together on
the path.
“We ought to be frank, Les.” She glanced at his face with merciless
interest. She was afraid of menacing unreality. He has the secret of
permanence, she thought.
“I’ve tried to be frank,” he said.
“Inside yourself maybe, but not to me, Les.”
“You don’t want frankness, Em. You don’t want to know me.”
“Nor you me.”
Moment by moment their sense of virtue was deepening their resentment.
Les’s fear conquered the surface of his hurt.
“Yes, I do, Em. I’ve tried--”
Em was blindly rebellious. She did not want her emotion to be
crystallized. Self-righteous--nobody loves me, she cried within
herself. Les was unable to go on. Nobody capable of tenderness. Love of
a savage. He hated sex. If it must be like this I don’t--Human pity ...
hurt....
“I must have intensity, Les--somebody to _let go_ with me. Oh, can’t
you see? You make me feel as if there were nothing real.”
“I must have love that is kind. Love that recognizes me, that is not
ugly. My reality isn’t cruel--turgid. I’d rather have nothing than
that. I--”
“Rather than me, is what you mean!” Her face was drawn and in
her widened eyes lay humiliation and triumph. “Well, I’ll have
_something_--no matter what!” She left him.
Les felt alone, in the park. All these people.... Like Em--I’m not
either kind. He was helpless but dumbly certain of his needs. If I have
to lose her.... He could almost have hated her now. I can’t bear it....
CHAPTER IV
A POINT OF TIME
_“Never, never, I return:
Still for Victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I’ll have:
And when dead I’ll be thy Grave.”_
WILLIAM BLAKE--_(Rossetti MS.)_
1
Em sometimes feared Howard. She wished his detachment were often less
complete. His contempt of morality seemed to her a little false. We’re
all dependent on each other, she thought, why pretend to ignore it?
His tall frame was grotesque. His aquiline profile, his receding
brow--almost beautiful in its clear line--his eyes. They were his
most compelling feature: translucent greenish-brown, abstraction and
elation, a half-mad look. When he was stirred their focus relaxed. He
suggested capacity for abandon, and irresponsibility. His hands were
ugly--hopelessly sensitive. He invited one to evoke his emotions, yet
one knew he would disdain consequences.
Les’s solid blue eyes.
Howard did not consider her. I consider _him_, she thought.
“Drane is too frank in his worship to make it valuable.” Howard was
secretly a little afraid of Les. His effort to despise him showed it.
If one _feels_, it’s real though it hurts, Em thought as she watched
Howard walking beside her, his angular features, his sweet bitter
mouth, curved and hard. But how can he say such things? (“Don’t believe
in good taste,” he had once said. “Involves too many modifications
of my self-expression.”) Now he continued, taking jerky puffs at a
cigarette. “A woman like him would have made him like you.”
Em looked at Howard malignantly.
“You shan’t talk this way.”
“Pooh! He’s a great man. I’ve said nothing against him. I’m speaking
of you. Must be terrible to take oneself seriously, though. The most
frightful of all decisions is to decide not to decide.” Howard didn’t
want to have to respect the feeling between Em and Les. Why doesn’t he
give her up? “I can’t live on vicarious excitement myself.”
“He’s an angel,” vowed Em.
“Exactly.” Howard grimaced.
“I hate you.” Tears stood in her eyes.
“Better try him again. He’ll never fail you. But don’t forget that
what’s invariable is dead.”
2
Les had said nothing more to Em. They lived as before, except that Em
didn’t paint now. On occasion Les and Howard met naturally, modern
style. Conversation on safe matters. Em was out a great deal. Les took
longer and more frequent walks. When they were together they made each
other unhappy. Em protested her theories of reality and denied to
herself her feeling of guilt. But she couldn’t talk about Howard. It
was Les’s fault. He wouldn’t let her, she told herself.
Morning and Empire State Trust Company. Streets stuffed with people.
Les swung rapidly along. Why do I go to work? Two kinds of fools, men
and women. I’m both kinds. I can’t be cynical--
One of the lesser bank officers greeted him.
“It’s a fine day, Mr. Drane.”
“Yes, indeed.” Yellow bearded sun ... beams dripping a golden stain ...
leaves falling like dark tears ... The difference between a man and a
woman is a child. Reefs of clouds....
He was in the high building. Elevators. Crowding employees.
“Mr. Sutton wants to see you, Drane.”
Glass door marked “Vice President,” bald Mr. Sutton, narrow nose
deflected, eyes slumbering, “human dynamo.” Les opened the door. He
had seen the man twice before.
“Sit down. Your work has shown considerable judgment. We’d like you to
run out to Chicago and get the statistical men started off the right
foot in the new branch we’ve just acquired--this is confidential as
yet--formerly the Dearborn Trust Company. It’ll take you about a month
or six weeks. An allowance will be made you for expenses while away.”
Mr. Sutton made a note on a silver-bound memorandum calendar. “You’d
better start Monday. Let’s see, Friday--take today and Saturday off and
that’ll give you three days. Turn your work here over to young Babbitt.
Good luck.” The Vice President smiled and held out his hand.
“Gee, I wish I was in your shoes!” Young Babbitt surveyed Les
respectfully. “It’s the first step up for you, all right all right.”
3
Boy and girl, they sat in their living-room, Pale gray walls, purple
painted floor and black rugs. On the low couch, pillows--red, green,
heavy blue, purple, black. The old candlesticks on the mantel were
dull. Through an archway Em’s workshop, her pictures, tense erotic
colors harshly juxtaposed. Manuscript neat on Les’s desk by a window.
The place held the affection of familiarity.
Both were thinking of his coming departure. I wonder if he cares. He
won’t talk about it. Les watched the blackness quietly fall. Leopard
night put on your mottled cloak. Moon passing along the street of
heaven. Good to be together in the dark. Forever and ever.... Em
safe.... Tenderness had them both. I can’t lose her. I can’t leave him.
Candles burning by their bed in the next room. They could scarcely see
each other in the dim light, she like a slender wraith, he formless and
motionless. They drew unconsciously closer together.
“Em.” His voice was quiet.
“Yes.”
“I feel that my going--that--”
“Yes, dear.”
“If you could only be--”
“Be you.”
Pain sprang at their throats. They talked on in the night. Something
between. Neither thought of Howard. No anger. Both drew away sick.
4
She found Howard pacing up and down his apartment.
“I’m glad you’ve come at last, Em. It’s been two days since you were
here.”
“Don’t be silly, Howard. Les is going to Chicago day after tomorrow. I
wanted to see something of him.”
“I must wait for my turn.”
Em flushed.
“That’s not very nice, Howard.”
“I don’t bother over niceties, except in art.”
His eyes would not meet hers. Em was elated at his displeasure. She
seated herself and studied first one Japanese print on the wall and
then the other.
“They’re lovely,” she remarked.
“Yes, I’m sophisticated.” His lips curled. “Superiority of a limited
view.”
Em smiled.
“You’re not very good-tempered, are you, sonny?” She leaned back
gracefully and clasped her hands behind her head. “You’re a cute child,
though,” she added. Howard still paced the room. Em contentedly lighted
a cigarette. The energy of the instant was food to her. “Howard--”
“Shut up,” he growled.
Her apparent humility had been the momentary inversion of intense
vanity. She stood up, coldly.
“It’s not necessary to be any cruder. I’m going.”
Howard stopped in front of her. Her sudden malignant antagonism fired
him. His greenish-brown eyes were sharp and excited. Though his glance
touched her long white neck, her defiant head, her breasts rising and
falling beneath her smock, he scarcely seemed to see her.
“You’re _not_ going.” He seized her roughly in his arms, crushed
her to his body, kissed her mouth and eyes. When Howard was stirred
by her, physically or emotionally, she felt that he was wrapped in
the experience of himself. Even now she was depressed at being shut
out of him while she was the stimulus of his passion. But a sort of
morbid pleasure and power came to her as she saw him react to her so
intensely, though he disavowed her. She did not resist. He said, “You
are going to stay with me tonight.”
5
A bright clear cold morning, dust of the city in the sunlight like fine
bronze powder.
Em turned a corner swiftly and almost ran into the arms of Genevieve.
Mark and Blanche were with her. Genevieve, no matter how studied the
appearance of her dress, invariably gave the impression that she was
carelessly groomed. She was fond of dull colors and severe lines,
velvets which seemed a little shabby, and fur trimmings that were
barbaric without being smart.
“Why, how are you, dear?” She exclaimed in pleased surprise. “We
haven’t seen you for a long time. What is the matter? Have you given
us up for some new group of our younger intellectuals? Is Les well?”
“He’s in Chicago,” said Em. Her eyes did not meet Genevieve’s.
“In _Chicago_?” exclaimed Blanche. “Well, I like _that_! Why in the
world didn’t he let some of his friends know? You’d better look out or
he’ll find some other girl out there. I’d never have let him go alone.
You know I said to John--” Blanche giggled and began her monologue that
no one ever listened to.
“Well, _my_ feelings are hurt.” Genevieve’s frank eyes confirmed her
words.
Em hesitated guiltily.
“He had to go suddenly.”
“I know--” Mark paused, his gawky figure drooping. Almost passionately
helpless, his aggressive tolerance for others was an unconscious excuse
for self-tolerance.
Genevieve was disconcertingly definite.
“Are you going, too?”
Em hesitated again, and answered timidly. She could lie gorgeously, but
hated puny and implied falsehoods.
“I--think so.”
“Well, don’t _you_ serve us the same way, dear. Let me know in plenty
of time and we’ll give a farewell party. I shan’t know what to think
if you don’t.” Genevieve spoke tartly, but her smile and eyes were
affectionate.
“How is Stuart?” asked Em. She drew a long breath.
“Terribly depressed. His last story was promptly turned down. He’s
trying to get another started. Good-by, dear.” She kissed Em.
Mark tore himself away from Blanche and took Em’s hand. He smiled
without speaking, his sensitive mouth trembling slightly.
“Bye-bye, darling,” said Blanche heartily. “You know, Mark, I think
that John--” Her monotonous voice floated back as the three passed on.
Em walked slowly in the other direction.
6
_“Dear Les_,
_“I’m going away with Howard. It will be easier to go before you get
back._
_“If you had wanted to talk to me before you left it might have been
different. You’ve never thought of what I’ve wanted, always of what
I ought to want. We’re going to Europe. I can’t bear New York. I
haven’t told anybody about it._
_“I think you can’t understand why I suffer because you can’t share
it. Les, I was never allowed to do things from childhood, not even
little things like to ride or swim. Always things decided for me.
I’ve been trying to give myself to someone ever since I grew up, but
I never found anyone who wanted me--the me that I know. People
always like me at first and then get afraid of me. Even you have been
afraid of me. I don’t think he will. I want to be loved, but for what
I am._
_“Perhaps I don’t know what love is. I guess it’s oneself. I know
you’ve been jealous, when you knew I’d stayed with Howard. I’ve been
jealous of you too, but only of your past and your vagueness about
it. I wouldn’t have cared what you did when you were with me. I
couldn’t be jealous of anything I knew. Then it would be mine._
_“I can’t work. Maybe I can afterwards. I hope you can finish your
novel, too. Oh, Les, I will always love you._
_Em.”_
7
_“Dear Em_,
_“I have been thinking over your letter all night._
_“I don’t feel that Howard Story is really part of things at all. It
is something more than that._
_“Your resentments toward me have been subtly growing since we first
knew each other. I could have lived your life or mine, but not both.
I cannot be alternately loved and despised. I hate the atmosphere
of formless horror that has gradually come to hover over us. You’ve
grown more and more pitiless in wringing reactions from me. One
occasion for hurting me was as good as another. You’ve never had
any compunction in striking the smile from my lips. You have traded
on my potentiality for sacrifice, you have fed my fears for you. You
always found ultimatums easier than kindness. You resent that I’ve
never given you dramatic cause either for loving or punishing me. Yet
you’ve insisted that I be happy as a tribute to you, that I build for
you to tear down. You admit no resources you do not share, Em. Peace
kills you._
_“This isn’t blame or criticism. I’m sure you’re as much of a person
as I. I’m only trying to explain things to myself. It may sound like
a homily, but I can’t help it. I feel that you are in my life. I
can’t get away from the feeling. Don’t ever do the one thing that
is irrevocable, Em--please. Won’t you call on me at any time, for
anything?_
_“I don’t know how long I shall stay in Chicago. I may be here a
couple of months more._
_“Les.”_
8
He went down to the street to mail his letter. The act of walking. The
call! Go away. Desert wastes. Vultures wheeling far above me. Tunneled
growth. Leaves tingling with life. She not with me. Swamps. Pleading
arms of mist ... pain of God.... Of such were the real and excellent
reasons for the expeditions that had made his reputation. No. I can’t
run from life. Must take myself. A place to lie down. Baby on her
breast.... He stopped suddenly. Not anguish of hunger....
“I think my vanity is hurt,” he said.
He must write his novel. When he got back to his room at the hotel, he
picked up some manuscript from his desk. Sheets of paper, what about?
I remember it was half done. _“Chapter XII. ‘Let me go--let me live,’
she sobbed piteously. He smiled. ‘You think you must be understood.
Comprehension has nothing to do with love._’” Damn the fool book! What
did I mean? He threw the pages aside. They together. Throbbing ship.
Night.... He beat his head with his fists. If he drives her to death
I’ll--But what for? It will be too late.
Figures were kind. Long columns, the longer the better, reams, no time
to think.
The Chicago manager had been kind.
“Mr. Drane, I’ve written Mr. Sutton how extremely pleased we are with
the work you’ve done while with us. I thought it only your due.” The
manager paused and scrutinized Les. “I don’t see anything to laugh at,
Mr. Drane.”
“That’s why I’m laughing.”
Drink. Make life purely physical. Other women. Whores. The girl at
Howard’s party, she loves me. Ladies. Champagne-colored silk and
chiffon. Breasts like marble.... No. Oh, Em, Em--
He gave up his passionate assumption of right. Finding relief in
his self-contempt. I wanted to draw her to harmony with myself. To
subjection. Terrible. She’ll not die now. Merciful God forgive. No God.
How could I, how could I--Accept the body but refuse the spirit! A
master unknown to me....
Perhaps the romantic never gets hurt enough.
BOOK II: HOWARD
_“I may be allowed to observe, that his honour, to my great
admiration, appeared to understand the nature of the YAHOOS much
better than myself. He went through all our vices and follies, and
discovered many which I had never mentioned to him, by only supposing
what qualities a YAHOO of their country, with a small proportion of
reason, might be capable of exerting; and concluded, with too much
probability, how vile, as well as miserable, such a creature must
be.”_
JONATHAN SWIFT--_“Gulliver’s Travels”_
CHAPTER I
THE ISLAND IN THE MOON
“SCHWARZ--_You’re just making believe!_
LULU--_You’re making believe yourself, it seems to me.
I make believe? What makes you think that?_
I never needed to do that.”
FRANK WEDEKIND--_“Erdgeist”_
(_Trans. S. A. Eliot, Jr._)
1
Home again! Liberty drowning in the harbor, Manhattan mushrooms
sprouting in the haze (lower Broadway dividing them like a gash), murky
snakes of water curling round the low island--the big ship slouches
up to the pier. Tiny tugs and thin hawsers tease her into the slip,
and gently and imperceptibly she is captured, bound helpless to the
land. High above, on the upper deck, Howard and Em silently watched the
waiting crowd on the dock. No familiar face. Em shivered slightly.
“Cold? Suppose we go on shore here.” Howard’s tone was careless. He did
not look at her.
Bustle, luggage, customs inspector, porters.
“Get me a taxi.”
“Here you are, sir.”
Streets of New York. Clanging cars, autos, whish! trucks thundering,
screaming fire-engine, scattering people, black crowds, all dead,
tramp, tramp, thud, thud, something steady and awful. Over all, this
giant rhythm. A dark face in the mass on the sidewalk, Dhas Mitra,
“Elephants!” Through Em’s mind stride the lines of a young New York
poet.
_“With huge diaphanous feet,
March the leaden velvet elephants,
Pressing the bodies back into the earth.”_
And the sky overhead was dull, the buildings stood stiffly, remote and
unfriendly amid the impudent din. The throbbing beat grew dim again. To
Em the city seemed vague. It belonged to Les. She and Howard did not
speak until the taxi drew up before Howard’s apartment.
“We’ll stop here, for the present at least,” he said. Dead gray walls,
Matisse etching, two priceless Japanese prints, conspiring degradation
and fear. Em was dumb. Did I ever belong here? Howard pointed to a
door. “Take off your things in there.”
Em entered the bedroom and looked with wretched interest in the mirror.
Her chin seemed more pointed, her cheek-bones accentuated. She had
almost no color.
2
Em and Howard at Esther’s. Dingy cellar restaurant, flaring orange
curtains, tables with rickets, spineless chairs, green candles,
bad drawings by habitués. Skimpy table-of-the-host dinners,
demi-celebrities. The place now favored by emotional dilettantes.
Conversation nine feet high!
“Dada is a snort--_junge Kunst_, pooh!--all art is
music--Kokoscha--instead of giving you people gives the feeling
people give him--” Howard seldom tried his brilliance on Em
now. She ate laxly, almost without hearing him. But others were
listening. His voice was raised a little. “Matthias Grünewald--de
Sade with a brush--necrophiles--wax tears on a coffin--beauty is
digestion--Renoirism--tra, la, la, la, la, la--don’t you think so, Em?”
“What did you say, Howard?”
“Why don’t you listen? Might learn something.” His voice, keyed
lower, was hard. Something ached in her. The smell of Greenwich
Village revolted her. Chicago. I wonder if I loved everything he
did, she was helplessly musing. Not like Howard’s contemptuous
understanding. “_Indépendants_--André Lhote--sugar teats--_refusés_--”
The monologue across the little table became indistinct to her again.
“Intransigents--_communards_--painting with a broom--_blague_--”
Howard’s voice had become saw-like. “Why in hell don’t you pay some
attention to what I say, Em?”
“I’m sorry, Howard.”
His face cleared at her unpassionate tone. Howard was just back from
Europe.
“Cezanne--form and color have no--” he resumed complacently.
“You’ve said that before, Howard. I don’t care about the pathos of the
artist’s expression, or impression. I can’t paint now.” Cezanne again!
She longed for the liquid darkness outside. Les would--
“It’s because you’re losing your interest in it. Good thing. Art’s
a perversion in women, anyway.” Howard laughed. Em bit her lips. He
offered her a cigarette but she shook her head without looking at him.
He was ashamed for her recent failures. When she did well, something in
him hurt in resentment, but he boasted of her to others. He despised
the blatant conceit of other men in sex. He wanted a woman who did him
more subtle credit. “You ought to etch. Give you outline. You need it.”
He lighted his own cigarette contentedly. “What did you think of what I
said about Kokoscha?”
Her voice had stiffened.
“The same thing I thought the last time you said it. I can’t understand
your idea that color and form are different things. I don’t care
whether Kokoscha gives you people or the feeling people give him--you
give me neither.”
Howard flushed.
“I’ll take back what I just said. What you need is a new man.”
“I need something besides what I get from you,” she flamed.
“Ditto,” said Howard viciously. He was a little frightened at his own
words.
Life was more concrete to Em. She was glad of pain. It was definite and
familiar.
3
Two days later they ran into a large group of Howard’s friends uptown.
Too late to evade them.
“Of course you know Miss Tyler. She was nice enough to lunch with me
today.” No implication that it was not a casual occurrence.
Em remembered that twice recently when the door-bell rang Howard
had refused to answer. She wondered how many people he had written
to about their relationship while they were abroad. She greeted his
acquaintances distantly. Howard’s eyes menacing.
“Come right with us!” invited Carmen Stubbs raucously. Whorey-aired
goodsoul, she was a perpetual virgin, yet kind. “It’s Celia’s twentieth
birthday. We were just going into Boutelle’s here. We can get hooch.
They know _me_. Just got paid for a bum story and I’m going to spend
some of it on the dear child.” Pale delicate-featured Celia St. John
did not even smile.
“All right,” acquiesced Howard without glancing at Em.
The party filed into the restaurant. Two tables in an alcove were
pushed together.
“Me at the head of the board for once,” announced Carmen huskily. She
patted the chair at her right. “And the blessed damozel must sit here.”
Celia seated herself composedly. “Come up here, you.” Carmen beckoned
to the Great Modern Critic, who had again honored the occasion with his
presence. He glanced apprehensively around, visibly relieved at the
absence of the Hungry Soul. The Critic seats himself at Carmen’s left.
Howard is next to Celia, Em between him and Jobson, the novelist.
Mitra, at Jobson’s side, produces an olive-colored crumpled cloth from
his coat pocket and calmly winds it about his head as a turban.
“And I go to the foot of the class for once.” The rafters ring with
bullofbashan little Stieg’s proclamation. He seats himself impressively
opposite Carmen. None of the others notice him. A passionate poetess,
very fat and with hairy upper lip, is at Stieg’s right. Next her is
Tanaka, smiling and silent. Les’s girl acquaintance sits between the
Jap and the sculptor, Pierre Gouvain. She has candid eyes. There
is considerable chatter and laughing as the party settles round the
tables. Gouvain turns to the Critic.
“It wass you who haf said zat my weemen are fat, eh?” He rumples his
black hair reproachfully.
The Critic (more impressive than when he spent the evening of Howard’s
party in the clutches of the Hungry Soul) turns his blue fish-eyes on
Gouvain, but his reply is inaudible in the general prefatory discussion
of food. The ancient ascetic waiter, in full keeping with the faded
hangings and shabby dignified furnishings, is bending discreetly over
Howard and Em. Howard has ordered liberally. She shakes her head.
“Madame cares for nossing?”
Howard answers shortly.
“You bring the food and we’ll decide who’s to eat it.”
Synthetic cocktails, eagerly gulped by all save Em, the two Orientals
and the Critic. Stieg breaks out (stentorian tones).
“All modern fiction can be traced to the influence of three men--my
next book on Stendhal, Dostoievsky and--” (_The_ GREAT CRITIC _is
beginning to speak and the company frowns resentfully at_ STIEG. CARMEN
_says_, “Sh-h-h.” STIEG, _evidently overawed for the time, subsides_.)
CARMEN.--(_Smiling to her left._) Shoot again, please.
CRITIC.--(_Speaks quietly and insolently. His first words are heard
only by those near him, but the others soon listen in silence._) The
revolt against naturalism, through the neo-Stendhalians, such as, for
example, Bourget, while a psychologic throw-back to Stendhal, still
clings to the pseudo-scientific manner of Zola. The revolt is, of
course, wider than this, and may be seen, too, in the--(_The company
grows restive. Whispering at the other end of the tables._)
PASSIONATE POETESS.--(_Known to her friends as P. P. Is heard audibly
repeating her last verses to_ TANAKA.)
All his desire
Lisped in his yearning blood,
His hungry hands upon her gleaming thighs--
CELIA.--(_Laughs musically, her face like a Botticelli angel._) How
much farther did he go? (_The P. P. glowers._ TANAKA _stops smiling for
the first time during the meal_.)
HOWARD.--(_Smiles at_ CELIA, _replies to something the_ CRITIC _has
said during the confusion_.) Sternheim! Pooh! The expressionists belch
instead of write!
(EM, _her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stares steadfastly at her
plate_.)
CRITIC.--(_With hauteur, raising his voice slightly._) In order
intelligently to understand a movement one cannot overlook its genesis.
The wave of naturalism that routed the Goethe-Heine romantic lyricism
split up, as I see it, under three principal influences: Whitman,
Nietzsche and the Russians--
STIEG.--(_Eager, voice like a hallo._) A new book of mine, three--
CARMEN.--(_Hoarsely._) Be still, Stieg. (_Adds briskly with cajoling
cheerfulness._) Why won’t you kids listen?
(EM _has not touched the food_ HOWARD _has insisted on placing before
her. Her face suggests vicious despair. The novelist, his mouth full,
addresses her._)
JOBSON.--(_Enigmatically._) Good royalties! (_This is his sole remark
during the whole course of the meal._ EM _glares at him without reply._
Jobson _bends obliviously over his plate again. His Hindoo neighbor
adjusts turban and exclaims explosively._)
MITRA.--Elephants! (_Then, leaning behind the busy_ _Jobson_, _he
whispers caressingly to_ EM.) Little tiger! (EM _does not appear to
hear_.)
CRITIC.--(_Resuming Johnsonian sway with practiced hand._) All Russian
literature is pre- or post-Pushkin. When he, with Gogol and Lermontov,
brought--
STIEG.--(_Almost screaming._) The three--
HALF A DOZEN VOICES.--Shut up! Down, Fido! Chloroform! etc.
GOUVAIN.--(_Clasping his head wildly._) What ze hell! I shall go--how
you say?--dement.
(_During the mêlée, the girl with candid eyes leans over the table and
speaks to_ EM. HOWARD _is intent on a whispered conversation with_
CELIA, _and does not hear._)
“How is Mr. Drane? I haven’t seen him for weeks.”
Em was very pale.
“He’s in Chicago.”
Stieg’s feelings were evidently hurt, because the P. P. was cautiously
consoling him with more verse. The Critic held the floor again.
“In Italy the reaction away from the grandiose gestures of Carducci,
D’Annunzio and Pascoli--” (Stieg trembled at the mention of a trinity,
but the P. P. soothed him) “the spiritual voracity of Papini and the
fanatical ethicism of Croce--”
Em ceased to hear the cadenced tones. Brrh! Not their equal in
sophistication, not Howard’s equal! _He_ trying to reduce me as an
artist! Never himself except in jest. This is their Bohemia! Bloodless.
Cynical. Ugly and false life. Death of art. I’m more than all of them.
I’m honest--not--I’m--I’m--I wonder how well Les knows that girl with
nice eyes. Les. He’s the only one good--A burning wave flooded her.
Les! Where are you--She breathed quickly and her eyes were suffused
with unshed tears. Mad--better to die--The people and sounds all grew
dim. Howard still whispering to Celia--Em rose unsteadily from the
table.
“I’m going, Howard,” she said in a hysterical undertone.
The Critic paused in the middle of a word and looked peevish.
“Why dearie--” Carmen expostulated breathily.
Howard turned.
“You can’t go now.” He spoke rapidly in a low voice and tried to pull
her down. Her face was pale and she jerked her arm from Howard’s grasp.
Pierre Gouvain’s beautiful eyes sent her a look that made her grateful.
“You win,” said Howard with slow malice. He turned away from her and
resumed his talk, trying not to acknowledge his confusion even to
himself. She could humiliate him.
Mitra shot Howard a glance of feline hate, but was immediately again
impassive. Trembling, Em adjusted a fur scarf about her neck. She tried
to keep from seeing the eyes turned upon her, especially the eyes of
Les’s girl friend, who looked frank and sympathetic.
“Are you ill? Shall I go with you?”
“No!” Em’s mouth quivered and she almost whimpered as she hastily left
the table.
The P. P. was holding Stieg’s hand.
“I hope you--” Celia’s cool saint-eyes lingered on Howard’s.
“I’m not going,” he said shortly.
Carmen beckoned to the waiter.
“More wine, son,” she whispered shrilly.
As Em moved between the other tables toward the door, the group she had
left relaxed into attitudes of relief. The Critic settled himself with
dignity and resumed his oration.
“The rejection by the younger Scandinavian writers of the realistic
formula--”
4
Em rushed rapidly, almost running, along the slate-colored side street.
The cold wind flapped her dark skirt against her knees. She carried
her gloves in one hand, her bare fingers felt like ice. The sky was
unendurable, a gray that had no blue or pink in it, gray like a dead
dilution of lampblack. The whole world was terror.
No happiness or unhappiness, only pain, nothing strong and beautiful. I
_am_ an artist. Oh, I need--Where shall I seek? These people. The froth
of life. This Howard with no mercy. Oh, Les--he servant of peace, dead
in calm--Em was crying but she did not wipe away her tears.
She stopped short. I wonder if Howard and Celia went--_She_ can’t
be hurt. Em hugged her own power of being hurt. She had to convince
herself of life. I can get peace alone. I don’t want--The sky is dead.
Oh, I _won’t_ die, she said to herself. It was almost as if she had
spoken the words aloud.
Several children paused in their play to look solemnly at her. Em
turned and started for Howard’s apartment.
5
The thin sunshine thrust through the overhanging haze and waved its
broad smoky-silver fans of light at all the strange pale windows of the
city. In Howard’s apartment the small clock ticked garrulously to the
secretive walls and to the something of silence that filled the rooms.
Celia’s birthday had been too symbolic.
Em and Howard both hurt for days. This morning after breakfast she
sits wordless by a window. Medium height and slim, feet under her,
body curved nicely into a chair. Lilac smock, flood of hair, too heavy
brows, too thin nose, too narrow long chin, all lovely in profile. Les
is right. Tongues in cheeks. No art. Life without conduct. The way to
death. She was using Les’s thoughts unknowingly. Howard sulks, coarse
wiry hair untidy, avian head thrust forward, walking back and forth
with graceless steps. Wish she were never anything but profile! Em
disenchanted! Rot! What pretentiousness! He felt he had been uselessly
humiliated. Not enough, Em thought. Savagely helpless.
The clock ticked blithely and shamelessly.
“How long is this going to last?” he jerked out finally, pausing to
light a cigarette.
“I don’t care how long it lasts, Howard.” Em did not look up. She was
seeking for his weapons. “I’m perfectly satisfied.”
“You look it,” said Howard with a sarcasm that he knew to be feeble.
Em could be grim. Howard’s vanity needed that their relation should
mean more to her than to him. I must be like them, she told herself.
“Well, I am. I never expected too much. You’re only an experience,
young Mr. Story--I knew that when I took you--and you’ve _been_ one.”
It seemed sinister that Em should be flippant. Always so direct. I’m
the one--Besides, he was suffering from silence. Howard was not coldly,
but temperamentally superficial. He could be brilliant only when he was
in the ascendant. He knew that Em had cried alone in the night, and now
he looked at her with mingled curiosity and fear.
“What are you talking about, Em?”
“Women are cut off from different experiences. I don’t mean to be.
You’ve taught me something. Not much. You play one tune, but it’s in
different keys, you know. So my time’s not entirely wasted, is it?”
Her face was hard. Oh, how can I, she groaned soundlessly. No real
words to reach anyone. To feel only through hatred. To test life by its
pain--She was tired of it.
Howard was silent. Tinkle of the door-bell. Em rose. A telegram. Howard
received the envelope and handed it to her. She opened it.
“Oh, Howard!” She burst into tears.
“What is it?” he asked with nervous impatience.
“My pictures, my pictures!”
“Those we left in Paris with Lepelletier? What’s happened to them?”
“Yes! He got _three_ hung at the Munich show, and one received
honorable mention! You remember the one, the purply-orange thing? Dear
old Lepelletier! He _always_ believed in me.”
“Well, what are you crying for?” Howard was not gracious.
“For delight,” she wept.
“You seem delighted,” he remarked cuttingly.
Em was oblivious to his vexation.
“I am! Oh, I am, I am!” She laughed hysterically, tears still in her
eyes and running down her cheeks. “Oh, Howard, I’m so _happy_!” She
seized him in a bear’s hug and danced him unwillingly around the room.
Em felt vindicated. This was the answer to her doubts. I can work now,
she thought joyously. She was already far away from all pettiness. Life
was resolved once more. Now her pride was untainted with artifice. She
_felt_, without suffering. She loved Howard. The world was real again.
I wish Les knew--“Isn’t it gorgeous?” She released Howard and dived
contentedly among the feathery cushions on a couch, Her cheeks had a
thin color and her eyes were softly brilliant. She lighted a cigarette
and began to smoke briskly and with gusto.
Howard’s sex vanity had always, half-consciously, kept him from showing
Em his reluctant admiration of her superiority as an artist. His
etchings were not fine. They were workmanlike. That his temperament was
for life and not for art hurt him. He felt maimed, and like a cripple
he wanted to torture something for it. His appreciations were keen
enough to see that Em’s passionate particularness in feeling was real
art, and that his intellectual mood-stuff was formula. This added to
the bitterness of his half-acknowledged jealousy that tried to destroy
her, that his own art--which he secretly despised--might live. Now he
was chafed by the addition of European tribute coming so soon after
the light words she had used about his importance as a lover. His
mightiness was raw, and he chose words with deliberation.
“Not surprising,” he said carelessly. “You’re in style. Women can
adapt. I admit you’re clever, but of course this fad you excel in won’t
last.”
Her beautiful teeth still showed in a happy smile. His jealousy was too
obvious to take seriously. She almost loved him for it.
“Howard’s mad,
And I’m glad,
And I know what to p-l-e-a-s-e
him,”
she sang impudently. Something in her again wanted her life
with him. She wanted it simple. Howard never was. He had always
to be playing to an audience in himself. He was afraid of his own
self-criticism. He did not smile.
“Emotional language without meaning, a Rodin technique applied to
nothing--”
“You’re very kind, Mr. National Arts Clubber!” Em tossed her head with
lofty sarcasm.
“Kindness is an attempt to focus attention on oneself. I forego that to
point out that being mentioned by a small bunch of esthetic quacks in
Germany isn’t immortality.” Howard’s green-brown eyes sparkled and his
mouth recovered its curve. He was tearing now, not being torn.
Em pointed a teasing finger at him.
“Sour grapes! Sour grapes! You formulated old etcher. You’re jealous.
Booh!”
“I wish I were,” he retorted cruelly.
She flinched, but continued to smile.
“Well, let’s go out to lunch and celebrate, anyway. You might have
thought of that, and not I.”
Em’s elation was broken but not dead. She still hoped, but belief was
tainted. He didn’t mean it, she insisted to herself. I hadn’t been
very nice to him. I don’t think he meant it. But she could no longer
whole-heartedly delight in her good fortune.
Howard felt absurd. The blatancy of his outburst made him ridiculous
to himself, and vicious toward Em. To be justified he had to discover
the falseness of her art. He began to study her work with a warped
bitterness of criticism. Complacency is the beginning of the end, he
thought. At least I’m decently dissatisfied with myself.