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_“Pleasure drives out Pain: and because Pain is felt in excess men
pursue Pleasure in excess._
_“The attempted answer of Speusippus ‘that Pleasure may be opposed and
yet not contrary to Pain...’ will not hold: for he cannot say that
Pleasure is identical with evil of any kind.”_
_“The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle”_
(_Trans. D. P. Chase_)
1
All the negativeness of Howard’s personal egotism was becoming positive
on the artistic side.
He rather enjoyed self-contempt, dismissing himself on the plane of
human relations. His frank lack of moral pride relieved his vanity
from ethical obligation. It allowed him not only to do what he
liked, but also eased him from the inner necessity to make it up
to himself. Nevertheless he was really unhappy. This unhappiness,
while chiefly with himself, was not merely a vague disappointment
and dissatisfaction. He needed for Em to worship him more, not as an
individual, for he had a genuine pleasure in confessing his faults,
but as an artist. He longed for it. Her own artistic achievement was
unanswerable, and therefore some reversal of her attitude became
requisite. She did not condemn but ignored his art. So, still thirsting
for her recognition, he unconsciously shifted his hope to the more
equal field of the personal emulations that he despised.
Howard’s increasing absences at night bothered Em. It was not a
conventional grievance. Freedom was her god. Her philosophy of conduct
did not permit her to object to any philandering he might see fit
to practice. One of her hostilities toward Les had grown from the
feeling that he forced himself to ignore all other relations except his
relation to her. Sacrifice oppressed her. But Howard had come gradually
to neglect her unbearably. Since her rush of confession to her friends
and his, she saw almost no one. Something in her needed contact. There
was panic in the world.
Darkness. It was nearly midnight. The bell rang. Em had sat for hours
almost motionless in a big chair. She sprang up with unconcealed
eagerness and opened the door. Her thin face hectic. It was Mitra. He
entered silently. He looked first at her and then around the apartment.
She was alone. He exclaimed with cheerless delight.
“Elephants!” Em smiled. It was good that someone had come. “I came to
walk.” Needless words always seemed to hurt him.
“With me?”
Mitra nodded. To Em after her evening alone it was a challenge. My
trouble is that I’m daunted. She put on her hat and coat and they went
down to the street.
“Good!” His voice was secret and remote.
They walked slowly. Em conversed uneasily to her mute companion. It was
only when they were passing Algeria’s studio that she realized why.
After a few turns in the Square they came back by Algeria’s studio.
Howard and Celia were at the door. He was fitting his key in the lock:
but Celia saw Mitra and Em.
“It’s after one,” Em said quietly, glancing at her watch. She was
holding herself. Mitra’s being with her helped her. “I think I shall go
to bed.”
Mitra tried to see her face. He paced silently at her side until they
reached the apartment.
“May I come up?”
“No,” said Em kindly.
His dark eyes were lustrous.
“I love you, little white tiger.” He stood motionless before her.
“Don’t, please.” She was still gentle.
“He has--for a long time.”
“That makes no difference.” She held out her hand with an affectionate
gesture. Mitra’s silent dramatic complacency was disconcerting to her
Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness. She smiled. “Let’s be friends.”
Almost before she spoke he was gone.
2
Em decided against seclusion. She went to lunch at Esther’s the next
day. She wore one of her most becoming costumes, a brown hand-woven
wool skirt and smock, hat covered with the same material. Her slightly
hollowed cheeks were carefully rouged, her eyes alight and unswerving.
Howard, Celia and Gouvain were seated at a table that was directly
before her as she entered.
Gouvain sprang to his feet and pulled back the vacant chair.
“Zis wass reserve for you!” he exclaimed with his warming smile. His
seeking eyes rested happily on hers.
Em returned his smile with decision.
“Hello,” she said in a natural tone to Howard and Celia.
Constraint was reduced to a minimum. The new manners do not yet admit
breaches of good form in public. However, Gouvain’s glowing eyes
perplexed Em slightly. His eyes no longer considered Howard. She felt
surprisingly uncertain. When sex is no longer connected with a beloved
person there is no stopping-place. Celia, Mitra and Gouvain seemed
a welter of sex. But she was glad Howard was free. I’m enduring for
him what Les endured for me. Em was almost happy to be made to feel
something about it.
Gouvain talked to her with an air of intimacy. Howard and Celia
flippantly discussed art. Celia’s silken indolent voice came to Em.
“A woman with a body like mine doesn’t need to be an artist.”
Em was astonished at the close of the meal when Howard turned to
Gouvain.
“Will you take Celia home, Pierre? I’m going to walk along with Em.”
Celia never showed wonder. Gouvain glanced docilely at Em.
“I am enchant.”
On the way to the apartment neither Em nor Howard spoke.
3
Howard and Em could still talk things out, still fight to release, so
she clung to him.
From the beginning of their relation he had always been faithful to
the secrets of all the women with whom he had had affairs, including a
schoolgirl sweetheart of his college days. Thus he possessed a psychic
harem from which Em felt he was excluding her. Now they sat down to
debate the present situation. Howard had invited this by coming home
with Em. He could not convince himself that he was ready to risk losing
her, but also he could not desist in his attempt to punish her through
Celia. Em’s calmness mystified him. She seemed stronger. Her delicate
form seemed more definite and steady. She began the discussion.
“Don’t you feel that we should be frank about things, Howard?”
“By which I suppose you mean for me to be frank.”
“I mean both of us,” she said patiently.
“You’re very frank about Gouvain,” he responded coldly.
“I’m perfectly willing to tell you everything about him and me.”
“And about Mitra,” he added with more heat.
Em crimsoned.
“I can tell you every word I’ve ever said to Mitra.”
“What about the things he’s said to you?” Em was silent. “Hasn’t he
made love to you?”
“Yes,” she answered honestly.
“Well, if you let men make love to you without my knowledge, why should
I report to you everything I do?” Under the pretext of sharing I’m
allowed only the aspects of sex she enjoys!
“I didn’t let him!” exclaimed Em indignantly.
Howard was intoxicated in the thought of her retreat before him. His
green eyes shone, his curling lip quivered.
“I presume Drane reported on all the time he spent out of your sight.”
“I never asked--” she began in a choking voice. Her body swayed and she
clenched her hands.
“How much has he told you about this girl with the ‘candied’ eyes you
fancied so?” Howard was instinctively sowing doubt.
“I know he never--I don’t believe--” Em burst into tears. This
suggestion inflicted far more pain than her jealousy of Howard aroused.
Howard was pitiless. He wanted to hold her and yet not relinquish his
goad. I’ll use her bombastic idea of duty!
“What you and I need is a little good taste in our relations, Em,” he
said with cynical tolerance. “Now Algeria and I, she’s like me in such
matters, we never--” He hesitated involuntarily before the sudden anger
in Em’s eyes.
He realized that he had made a false step. Em seemed most desirable
when she was aroused, but he felt unable to end what he had begun.
Before he could continue she burst into a storm of irate words.
“Don’t talk to me! I hate you--you and your Algeria--and that little
baby-faced whore--all of you--go away--leave me--” Em stopped for
breath. She was frightened at herself, but relieved by her own
violence. Her lips still quivered but her gaze disowned him.
Howard’s tone altered.
“Listen, Em--”
“Get away from me!” she cried hoarsely, her eyes dark with bitter
abhorrence.
“I shall,” he snarled, striding from the room and slamming the door
after him.
As he passed down the stairs he felt ill with depression. He had no
regret for Em, but he felt lost. There seemed nothing for him to look
forward to. Some great artist to acknowledge his personality! He did
not admit greatness in Em, but at least something real--without her,
nothing. He recalled bitterly and without gratitude the men and women
who admired him: he despised them, with hatred, for the insult of their
too easy tribute.
Left alone. Em sank into a chair by the table and buried her face
in her arms. Rough sobs grated in her throat, her shoulders heaved
jerkily, the muscles of her neck twitched. The gathering darkness at
last hid her shivering form.
BOOK III: ALGERIA
_“Enter Magda, brilliantly dressed, with a large mantle, and a
Spanish veil on her head. She embraces Marie._
_Magda._--My puss! My little one! How my little one has grown! My
pet--my--(_kissing her passionately_). But what’s the matter? You’re
dizzy. Come, sit down. No, no, please sit down. Now. Yes, you must.
(_Places Marie in an arm-chair._) Dear little hands, dear little
hands! (_Kneels before her, kissing and stroking her hands._) But
they’re rough and red, and my darling is pale. There are rings around
her eyes.”
HERMANN SUDERMANN--_“Die Heimat”_ (_Trans. C. E. A. Winslow_)
CHAPTER I
“THE EVERLASTING RETURN”
_“O’er the hill-tops all
Lies gentle rest,
In the tree-tops tall
Thou scarce feelest
One single quivering breath.
E’en the birds are silent now:
Wait, yes wait, for thou
Must, too, soon rest in death.”_
W. V. GOETHE--_“Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh”_
(_Trans. by the author in his fourteenth year_)
1
New York. Dizzy ranges of buildings, sluggish sloughs between, whirring
moan of human machines, unresting nights spurting fire in puerile
designs. Les walked again in his city. Smoke and filth above. Unseen
stars lit by unseen acolytes ... moon gliding on like a dying swan ...
Les’s body in motion still bent forward, but not eagerly. He wished for
Carl.
Les resigned from the Empire State Trust Company.
“Of course it’s exclusively your affair, Mr. Drane, but perhaps I ought
to say that we feel there’s a future for you with us if you cared to
stay. Your work in Chicago was unusually--” The Vice President had
devoted two costly minutes to Les. “If a reasonable increase in salary
now and--”
“I’m afraid I must--” Nose like a rudder! Might be human if--
“Well, you know best. Good day, Mr. Drane, and good luck.” Mr. Sutton
turned to the papers before him.
Book reviews, odd jobs and the novel drove Les to a single room in
Patchin Place. Some instinct made him treasure the money he had saved
in Chicago. Saw no one.
He craved music. New York concerts at a prohibitive price, occasionally
even Skriabin, Stravinsky, Leo Ornstein. One night he sat beside a
young Jewess. Dark golden eyes.... In the pauses she talked of Ernest
Bloch. From experience Les expected her name to be Dorothy or Margaret.
It was Cicely. “Oh, yes, I’ve met Miss Tyler--I knew that she and you--”
Cicely lived four doors from him. Another concert. Concerts. Walks on
Sunday. Surprises, in and out to tidy his things, mend, curtains made,
cozy dinners for two, smoke, quiet talk. Polished black hair. Skin of
sweet ivory. Restful breasts. Kind hands.
“Stay tonight--”
“Dear, dear boy, I’d love to be good to you--” Trembling....
Les thought his life had more peace.
2
It was weeks before Les ran into Howard.
“How are you, Drane?”
“I’m very well.” Les gazed collectedly into Howard’s eluding eyes.
“Wonderful winter weather.”
“Charming,” said Les. He looked sunken down within himself, as though
nothing could touch him.
Howard walked thoughtfully toward his apartment. Once he glanced back
at Les who moved skillfully on through the crowded street.
Since the scene with Em about Celia and Algeria, Howard had spent more
time at home. Neither he nor Em knew just how they remained together.
Something held him. Why do I hang to her? Can’t get away? Howard had
conceded--almost begged. He astonished himself, I wish she’d paint.
Their relation persisted. Some day she will do something great. Em
looked wan. He hated pathos worse than he hated dependence. Good Lord!
I’m becoming marital.
Celia never endured neglect. There was excellent steel under her velvet
voice and she made Howard writhe. One night he had found Mitra at her
place.
“I came over to take you to dinner,” Howard had said, seating himself
rather nervously.
Mitra had sat staring at the floor.
“Thanks,” Celia had replied languidly. “Mitra is going to cook me some
curry at his rooms.”
Howard, rising stiffly:
“I suppose I might as well go on.”
Celia, with indolent impertinence:
“Yes, you’d better run back to Emily. I shall probably stay all night
with Mitra.”
As the door had closed after Howard, a whisper from Mitra to Celia:
“Elephants!”
When Howard reached his apartment after having seen Les, Em was out.
She had evidently been downstairs to open the mail-box: he found
another letter from Algeria lying conspicuously on a table. Algeria was
coming to New York! For some time fear had kept him from mentioning her
to Em. But with Les in New York and Celia with Mitra, he felt more than
ever that he needed Algeria for a weapon. Em’s key rattled in the lock
and he put the letter in his pocket.
Em entered with rather jerky, fidgety movements. As she removed her hat
and coat her face and figure appeared almost pitifully thin and frail.
Howard did not look up.
“Hello, Howard,” she said in a low voice. He made no reply. “Have you
been in long?”
“No.”
“I just ran across a friend of yours,” she pursued restlessly.
“I just ran across a friend of _yours_.”
“Who?” asked Em quickly, hesitating in the removal of her coat.
“Mr. Drane.” Howard’s tone was almost mocking, but she did not notice
it. He would not admit his own uneasiness.
“What! Les? Is he here? Where did you see him?” Em’s cheeks had grown
white and the spots of rouge on them appeared more unnatural than
ever. She twisted her handkerchief nervously in her hands and her eyes
searched Howard’s face eagerly.
Howard had determined to be magnanimous toward Les, but the longing in
Em repulsed him. He spoke sharply.
“I saw him on the street.”
“Was he well? How long has he been in New York?” Em’s excitement became
more and more visible with every word. Howard’s sense of inexplicable
injury grew.
“He did inform me that he was in good health. I didn’t ask how long he
has been in the city. I wasn’t particularly interested.”
Tears started to Em’s eyes. She did not oppose pain that was related to
Les.
“Oh, Howard! How can you, after he has been so lovely about everything!
Didn’t you ask him to come and see us?” Em barely knew what she was
saying. “Where is he staying?”
Howard’s lip curled.
“I certainly did not invite him to visit us, and don’t know where he is
sojourning.”
Em scarcely heard him. She was putting on her hat and coat again.
Howard had no intention or desire to prevent her from seeing Les,
no liking for the conventional attitude, but it wounded him to be
forgotten. If, at the news of Les’s proximity, she had turned to _him_
he could easily have been noble about it. He thought of Celia, then
of Algeria. He would stay that night at Algeria’s studio. Algeria
would return soon. He unconsciously imputed to Em’s obliviousness
all his desire for infidelity. Without his knowing it she deepened
his self-distrust. His face was set. He wanted to chasten her for
humiliating him. He felt remorseless toward her.
“Are you going to take your things?” he inquired caustically as she
passed by him on her way to the door.
“Don’t, Howard.” Em put her arms around him tremulously. “Please
don’t.” It was sweet to her to be hurt for Les. She loved Howard for
doing it.
He made no response to her endearment, but she hardly knew it. A rapt
look was in her eyes as she left him. Howard was jealous only of what
seemed her painless capacity for emotion.
3
Les and Cicely walking across the Square in the thin pale sunshine,
Cicely’s dark cheeks mantled with a glow from the cold air. She looked
happily at him.
“Isn’t it a lovely day, Les?” Her world was complete. She admired him,
however, almost to the point of discomfiture.
A call behind them. Les looked around. Stuart and Genevieve! Les’s
world had come back. I must act again....
“Well, stranger!” Stuart spoke shyly, but gripped Les’s hand hard. He
nodded awkwardly to Cicely.
“Hello, Jen.” Les was disconcerted. She is hurt. There must be no
display. Jen is good....
Genevieve had poise.
“How long have you been back?” she demanded before committing herself
to any demonstration. “How do you do, Miss--Miss--”
“Cicely Frank,” supplied Les. “She’s been at your house.”
“Miss Frank.” Genevieve bowed distantly. “Yes, I remember you. Michael
brought you.”
“I’ve been here some time,” Les admitted, holding out his hand.
Genevieve placed hers in it, but her eyes looked into his without
forgiveness. She admired Em too much to be jealous of her, but she
resented Cicely.
“Have you seen Em?” she asked with cruel solicitude.
Les glanced at Cicely.
“No,” he answered. I should have stayed--I can’t endure....
“Les, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Reproach was in Genevieve’s
face. She ignored the others.
Cicely looked from one to the other of the group.
“Let’s discuss something else,” said Les after a pause.
Genevieve straightened.
“Let’s,” she agreed loftily. Only her eyes showed that she had been
wounded. “I gather that you wouldn’t care to come and see us sometime.”
Genevieve had a code of worldliness, and her vanity made her demand
some sexual recognition from most of the men she met. But unknown to
herself her tendency was toward a morally beautiful idealism. Her
affection for Em and Les had aroused this feeling. The sight of Les
with Cicely justified it, and revived Genevieve’s antagonism, and
distrust of women. By ignoring the conventions she felt that she had
defied all moral justifications and could ask no quarter. As she did
not demand fidelity from any man as her moral right, she had to command
it by her physical attractions. This feeling that her vanity was at bay
extended even to her friendships. She was now resentful that she, who
had deferred her egotism to Em’s, should have to admit the intrusion of
what she thought Les’s inferior preference.
Les glanced again at Cicely, and back at Genevieve.
“I’m sure to come sometime,” he smiled.
Genevieve showed plainly that she was offended.
“Well, we won’t keep you any longer. Good-by, Miss--”
“Frank.” Cicely without malice felt her advantage. She smiled and held
out her hand.
Genevieve barely touched it. Stuart smiled dryly, nodded again, and
they moved on.
Les and Cicely continued their walk across the Square. I can’t help
it--Les did not know he was blaming Cicely for Genevieve’s grudge. I
can’t explain. No one can see--If Carl were here....
“Shall we go home?” Cicely asked timidly.
“No. I want to be alone.” Why did I say that? Hurting her because I’m
hurt....
Tears came to Cicely’s eyes. She turned and walked rapidly from him.
Les resumed his unheeded way. I don’t want decision. I can’t stand
struggle. Better alone than friendship with--I hate generosity! Just
something kind....
A familiar railing caught his eye. He looked up at his windows, puzzled
that he had come home after all.
4
Em went to Jane Street for the first time since she had moved her
things away. The once-friendly Polish janitress stared at her
suspiciously.
“Mr. Drane went quite a while ago,” she said grudgingly. “He’s
somewhere in Patchin Place, I think.” The fat janitress had always
liked Les.
Em left on light feet. Scanning intently the cards on door after door
in Patchin Place, she rang several bells in succession. A tall surly
blond girl answered one.
“Does Mr. Drane live here?” Em was a picture of expectancy.
“Second floor,” replied the girl ungraciously.
Em flew up the stairs. Les opened the door slowly in answer to her
repeated knocking. For an instant she saw the small crowded room, the
litter of papers on a table, Les’s shoes, a girl’s dress. Then the
reality of her surroundings passed.
“Oh, Les!” she cried. “Oh, Les!” She seized him hungrily in her arms
and wept in an abandon of joy.
He drew her into the room after a moment and led her to a chair.
She was so happy in his presence that she had not noticed his
self-conscious response. She gazed at him avidly. Les was only slightly
taller than Em, and this surprised her after Howard’s length. His
active body, his firm skin, hair dark-sprinkled with gray and slightly
wavy at the ends, growing thin on the crown of his head, his wide
clean-shaven chin, deep lines from the wing of the nose on each side to
a point between the cheek and chin--Les looked older. He’s beautiful.
It’s because he has unity of personality, she thought. Dear, dear Les--
She could not speak for emotion.
He looked at her anxiously.
“You’ve been ill, Em.” His voice was medicine to her bruised vanity.
“You’re thin.”
“Oh, Les, how could you be in New York and not try to see me?” Her tone
was too loving for rebuke. She was with him.
“I didn’t know whether--” What is the use? Can’t pain end? She doesn’t
know....
“Nothing can ever make me not want to see you, Les.” She rose and went
to him, kissed him lingeringly. “I shall always love you--always--”
Her voice broke. She walked to and fro for a moment and then reseated
herself. “You look tired, Les.”
“I’m older than you,” he smiled. “Older in body and spirit.... I
must tell you something--” He hesitated painfully. “I--I’m--there’s
somebody--”
The little pang hardly hurt Em.
“I know,” she said, gazing at him fondly. “That girl with the candid
eyes. I’ve seen her since Howard’s party. She’s sweet.” Him loved
to have him talking intimately to her. Nothing mattered besides his
nearness.
Les showed surprise. His embarrassment was smoothed.
“No. It’s another girl--a Jewess.”
Em laughed affectionately.
“Jews are just like other people, only more so,” she admitted
tolerantly.
“She’s been lovely and sympathetic.” Les could talk easily now.
“You dear! I think you’re cute with your love affairs!” She felt gay.
They were both really talking about their own comfort in being together
again.
“It’s nice of you--” His voice was unsteady.
“Why, Les, I shall love her. I love everyone who is--is--” She could
not go on. Her heart was full. She felt close to him--that they
understood each other better through frankness than ever before.
Something in her sang.
There was a timid noise at the door.
“There she is now, probably.” Les spoke in a subdued tone.
Constraint had descended upon them. Cicely, plump pretty body,
well-made clothes, and air of modesty, opened the door hesitatingly
and stopped blankly as she saw Em. Cicely was confused--contrite for
something she did not understand. Her eyes were deprecating. She
glanced apprehensively at Les.
“Come in, Cicely,” he said with kind restraint. How easily things are
begun--No one can know....
Cicely entered and closed the door, Em rebounded to need for strength.
She rose and held out her hand.
“Why, I know you! How do you do?”
“Yes,” said Cicely shyly, “I met you at Miss Strang’s.” Then her fear
swept away. She could not control her emotion, though she felt that Em
might condemn it. She put her arms about Em and kissed her. She was
grateful that Em had not taken Les from her. I must be what Les wishes,
thought Em, returning the kiss painfully.
Cicely removed her hat and wrap, a little stab in Em’s heart.
“Shall I make tea?”
“Should you like some?” Les asked Em.
“Oh, no, thank you.” She could not drink tea made by Cicely in his
room. I must be bigger than this. Marriage. Owning people. Hideous. I
won’t. “How did you like Chicago, Les?”
“Not so well as New York.” Suffering without death. Did I think I could
bear? Blind in the night.... God--
Cicely was touched by the gentleness of them both. She felt unworthy to
love Les. She knew she could worship Em and so prove to herself that
there was no need of self-reproach. At parting Em kissed them both. Her
body was weak, her heart beating far off. I must be strong.
“Come and see us often, won’t you, _please_?” Cicely begged, won by
Em’s loveliness.
Les was silent.
5
While Les was telling her of Cicely, Em had felt no jealousy. She had
even felt her love for Les extending to this girl who had comforted
him. Cicely had begun to seem part of herself. But to her own surprise,
when she saw Cicely in the room with Les, Em realized that she had been
crudely and bodily jealous. She could not explain her feelings that
shamed and pained her. She was going home! Talking to herself made it
no easier.
“Em!”
“What is it, Les?” She halted and looked around. Only people passing
like a battalion. She could have sworn it was Les’s voice.
Em! She knew now.
What is it, Les?
I want you, Em.
Oh, Les, I’m yours.
Em!
What is it, dear Les?
I need you, Em.
Oh, Les, I--
Em! His face was before her. Suddenly it changed to Cicely’s.
Les! Don’t--_don’t_--
Em!
“Les--” She had spoken aloud again. She stopped. A woman bumped into
her. Faces floated by. What is the matter with me? Is my mind--Am I
crazy? Perhaps my heart was talking. Oh, Les--Les--
She walked rapidly, almost ran along the street, but the exertion did
not numb her suffering. She tried to be detached. Les could not live
alone and homeless. But the fact that he was physically with Cicely
swept it all away. She felt helplessly that she hated Cicely. No! I
pity her. She’s not to blame for loving Les. She can’t understand how
fine he is. Em rebelled against Les seeking appreciation from Cicely.
I gave him more than that, she thought. I know I did. Em’s vanity was
most cruelly wounded because Cicely was intellectually so commonplace.
It must have been on account of Cicely’s more exuberant physique that
Les wanted her. The defect in me is physical. He didn’t want my body.
I’m worn out. This hurt her pride unbearably. She hated her self-pity,
that she had to recognize.
She was glad, when she reached the apartment, that Howard was not there.
6
When Em saw Howard at the apartment the next day he was astonished by
her demonstrativeness toward him. There was something about it he could
not understand. He had thought it was all over. His egotism was pleased.
But she demanded an exaggerated physical response from him. He looked
at her with wonder. His desire was weak with hatreds. I can’t. There
have been too many things.
“Do you want me, Howard? Am I nice?” Em’s despairing coquetry was
ghastly even to herself. She ignored the shame to her dignity. She
debased herself in her own eyes to excite him. It _must_ be that I am
not unpleasing, she was thinking.
The vision of Les and Cicely in passionate attitudes suddenly swam
before her. She sprang up and fled into another room. The memory of
Gouvain’s tender eyes rebuked her. I’m not bad, I’m not!
“Where are you going, Em?” Howard was aroused. He rose and went to
the door after her. She had locked it in his face. He could hear her
sobbing within.
Cicely in innocence had subtly precipitated something new into Em’s
attitude toward Howard. But he had not the lust to convince her of
herself. She longed for Mitra’s eager licentiousness. I must be
desired. Celia! I am no longer a woman.
Em had the jealousy of loneliness. Neither Les nor Howard wants me. If
I could die--
CHAPTER II
FOOTLIGHTS!
_“Here is our Drama played, our Farce begun....
Here our souls speak their mirth and grief and rage--
Satires in silk, light wit, and passion’s heat,
Unspoken pain, hid sorrows, amours fleet
And all the vanities with which we play
Our pose of yester and our real today.”_
HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL--_Prologue to Schnitzler’s
“Anatol” (Trans. T. Blackmore)_
1
The sword of the sun! It was a bright, piercing day.
Howard was pleasantly excited over the prospect of Algeria’s arrival.
His green eyes were softer, almost brown, when he was interested or
occupied. Em was gentle before his evident emotion, even though it was
for another. It exists, anyway. She felt that until she saw Les again
life was only watching others live.
The steamer was not to dock until ten o’clock, but he rose early and
shaved and dressed with great care. Thank God, the day was beautiful!
Em was kind and maternal toward his eager anticipation. Her jealous
agony had passed. Cicely--Les is here again!
“Shouldn’t you like to go, Em?” Howard had asked half-heartedly.
“I don’t think so,” she had replied with a smile.
Although it was only eight o’clock, Howard hurried through
his breakfast. At nine he went out. Em spent the day at home,
half-expecting his return and musing over his enthusiasm for Algeria.
Now that Les was in New York, what Howard felt and did seemed so much
less important. She had a vague sense of waiting.
2
It was nearly four o’clock and Howard had not come.
The bell rang. Em opened the door. Genevieve stood in the hall. Her
clear eyes were a little hard. Em seized her in a fierce hug.
“Why, Jen, how sweet of you!”
“Are you alone?” asked Genevieve sternly, responding stiffly and almost
indignantly to the embrace.
“Yes,” said Em joyfully. “Come in, darling.” Genevieve allowed herself
to be led into the room. “I’m _so_ glad to see you!” declared Em
boisterously, pushing Genevieve into a chair and kissing her again.
Genevieve remained severe.
“You’ve not shown yourself very anxious--”
Em knelt by her friend.
“Jen--please, Jen; there are--things--”
“There are.” Genevieve softened and she took Em’s hand in hers. “That’s
why I’m here. I can’t understand you, Em. If I come _here_, you know
that--”
“I know, Jen.” Em nestled against her. She did not want to hear more.
“How are you and Stuart, Jen?”
“Oh, life is about as cheerful as a crutch just now. Stuart continues
to get flattering letters from editors, but no checks--all jobs melt
at one glance of my beautiful eyes. But I didn’t come to say that. Les
came down to our place last night, and--”
“I’ve seen him,” said Em excitedly.
There was a sound at the door. Both girls started nervously.
“I must go,” said Genevieve decisively, her expression becoming
instantly hard and uneasy.
“Please don’t, Jen, _please_--” Genevieve seemed part of Les.
“All right.” Genevieve lifted her head rather dramatically and bit her
lips.
Em rose and seated herself in a casual attitude on a chair opposite
Genevieve. Howard entered. His step was swinging and he removed his hat
and overcoat with energetic movements.
“Good afternoon,” he said vigorously. Genevieve’s remoteness piqued
and irritated him. Who was _she_! Damned commercial artist--pot
boilers--lady’s magazine--
Genevieve bowed with cold distinction.
“Good afternoon,” she replied in her most perfect accent.
Howard tried to be oblivious to them both.
“Did Miss Westover come?” asked Em casually. A repressed happiness
clung about her.
“Yes, a mob of people to meet her. They’ve carried her off to half a
dozen places, but she’s coming here to tea.” He began to bustle about
collecting trays, cups and saucers and other tea things.
“I really must go.” Genevieve rose elegantly.
“Don’t go, Jen.” Em’s eyes were pleading. She wanted an opportunity to
talk alone with Genevieve, away from Stuart and Michael and the others.
“Won’t you stay and have some of my tea?” offered Howard, staring at
Genevieve with insulting yet insidiously complimentary attention.
Genevieve was looking her best.
“I really mustn’t.” She half rose.
“I’ll walk along with you then,” Em announced determinedly, rising also.
“I’d hoped you’d both stay and meet Algeria.” Howard’s tone was
friendly, but deliberately perfunctory.
Em pressed Genevieve’s arm persuasively.
“It’s really very good of you--” Genevieve began with a sarcastic
intonation.
Em clapped her hands.
“Yes, Jen, please. Oh, that’s fine!” Em glanced gratefully at Howard.
Genevieve, feeling helpless and excited by her own capitulation, sank
gracefully in her chair.
3
Tea was ready. Howard paced the floor, glancing from time to time at
his watch and talking with unusual geniality. The sunlight was already
fading. Em’s curiosity at his impatience was not resentful. He’s like a
child before a doll party, she thought. The tea grew cold. Howard made
some fresh. This, too, was growing cold. He heated water for another
brew, leaving the kettle on the stove in the kitchenette. Em’s cheeks
glowed. I wonder if Les--At last the bell rang. Howard rushed to the
door.
“A dramatic late arrival,” whispered Genevieve to Em. Algeria swam
into the room, followed by Gouvain and three humble satellites unknown
either to Em or Genevieve. Pausing, erect, to get the effect on her
audience, Algeria toddled forward, a hand on each breast, her head
back. She ambled into the group like a giant Geisha girl. “‘Enter
Madame!’” Genevieve murmured cattily.
Everything about Algeria seemed to float. Her entire costume appeared
to be made of scarves. A pink chiffon scarf was about her head,
the loose ends wafting in long streamers as she turned. When her
dull lilac-colored cloak was removed by obsequious hands, another
enveloping scarf of pink chiffon was seen to cover her shoulders. This
clung about her and, following the gestures of her arms in emphasis
to her conversation, long free banners of it waved through the air.
There were also lesser mauve stringers--festooned to her somehow and
somewhere--there was no doubt as to the effect.
She halted and sent a dazzling smile around the room.
“Here is the Troll Maiden!” she trilled, roguishly rising to her
tiptoes and throwing kisses in every direction. “I’d just _love_ to hug
all you peeties!”
Algeria had an interesting Flemish face but she tried, by cultivating a
piquant expression and by making her eyes twinkle, to look Gallic. She
was thinking now of the effect on Howard of her conquering entrance.
A glance assured her that he still seemed impressed. She had been
secretly perturbed over the reports of Em’s influence. Algeria never
relinquished a conquest without a struggle. She was really clever and
relentless. Every thought and gesture was conscious. Followers might
rebel, but they remained. She was relieved at the sight of Em’s
sensitive face and straightforward manner. That Strang woman is the
dangerous one, she thought.
“This is Miss Tyler,” said Howard.
“Is _this_ the wonderful Emily? My dear, you’re _succulent_!”
Hesitating an instant with a demure grimace, Algeria trotted forward,
seized Em, who had approached to shake hands, and kissed her
rapturously. Algeria usually gushed the most over people she resented
or feared. She thought quickly. The situation was somewhat special.
“And Miss Strang,” continued Howard.
Genevieve stood her ground warily.
“Miss Westover,” she responded in the apotheosis of her most patrician
bearing.
But Algeria’s widely curved mouth kept smiling, a perfect painted smile
of sophisticated ingenuousness. Her sharply penciled eyes expressed
what seemed frank enjoyment of her own daring. She had already
recognized someone worthy of her best resources.
“Ah, yes, _where_ have I seen Miss Strang?”
“I don’t think you’ve seen me,” said Genevieve delicately, “although
I’ve seen you rather often.”
Algeria laughed merrily. She was never disconcerted. When she began
something seriously and dramatically and failed to produce her effect,
she always deftly changed the attempt to a jest.
“_Now_ I’m sure we’re old friends,” she declared with silvery hilarity.
The admiring satellites, one equine girl and two anemic young men, were
perfunctorily introduced.
“You sit there, Algeria,” suggested Howard.
One of the male satellites, who had thoughtlessly advanced toward
the indicated chair in the center of the room, stepped back hastily.
Algeria arranged herself in it with an effective pose. Her dark sleek
head, hair cut in the fashion of an Elizabethan page-boy, was in sharp
relief against her draperies. Her plump arms were beautifully white,
her too-small hands exquisitely kept. She had the unreal animation of a
stolid-bodied but wickedly intelligent doll.
“You may sit here by _me_, Pierre,” she commanded. Gouvain obeyed
sheepishly. “I’m _so_ glad to get back to Sandwich Village,” she cooed,
glancing at the tea-tray and then expectantly at her audience. Howard
smiled and the three satellites giggled. “Let’s have some _magic_,
dearestie.” Algeria smiled irresistibly. Her gaze was astonishingly
direct, and yet somehow behind its naïveté she remained invitingly
hidden.
Howard rose and ran into the kitchenette, returning with a bottle and
some glasses. Em marveled at his submission.
“What kind of a voyage did you have?” inquired the girl satellite
reverently, as Howard served the tea and wine.
“Rather _oceany_,” smiled Algeria, dimpling. Her throat was very white
and thick. “I kept away from the dining-room, stayed in my _suite_,
don’t you know. The passengers were really _quite_ terrible. They ate
so _eatfully_. I just _couldn’t_ bear it!” Again she pealed silvery
laughter in which the satellites dutifully joined.
“And Paris?” The girl again, ecstatically.
Algeria shrugged her heavy, incongruously voluptuous shoulders
Frenchwise.
“It weaved around too much! You know Paris is so--_winey_. I’m _afraid_
I was a badix.”
“Recite one of your poems, darling, _please_ do,” continued the
horse-faced girl humbly.
“Yes!” murmured the other satellites eagerly, “please do.”
Algeria smiled graciously, with a little grimace of elaborate
gratification. She seemed to understand her own absurdity. Her air was
of privileged outrageousness, innocently sophisticated.
“All right, peeties, s-h-a-l-l we?” Her ascending chromatic intonation
of the word “shall” was indescribable. “Which one do you want?”
“Haf you one zat iss new?” Gouvain inquired apprehensively.
“Millions!” beamed Algeria, making a mental note against him. “Let
me see. Oh! Here’s a little magic I wrote one night in _Venice_. We
just _ran down_ there for a few days, to drink a little _beauty_, you
know.” With her tiny smooth claw-like perfectly manicured hands she
pushed back her bobbed hair, dyed with a little gray still showing at
the roots. Throwing back her head on her short white neck, she produced
from some mysterious part of her a dilapidated comb--a comb that should
never be seen anywhere--and violently combed out her mane. Howard was
embarrassed by this operation, but he justified it with the gallant
deliberateness of all her sexual gestures, however trivial.
The satellites arranged themselves in attitudes of breathless attention
as she began to half recite, half sing, her poem, her eyes fixed on
space, her heavy body swaying a little to the rhythm.
_“Our Spanish Cæsar’s flotilla,
The Pope’s, and John’s of Austria,
We sailed the tideless sea to win
It from the curse of Keyr-ed-din._
_“The old Venetian Admiral
Was fierce commander of us all;
Andrea Doria’s masterie
Was hard o’er all the tideless sea.”_
“Unusual power of epithet!” ejaculated the lesser male satellite as
Algeria paused raptly. She drew a brave breath and chanted on. Her
voice was caressing, beautifully but rather meaninglessly modulated.
_“The fleet sailed out for Barbary:
My lady fair she sailed with me,
For love of me, it came to pass,
Aboard my royal galleasse._
_“Then fell the storm that reft us from
Our mates, and when the morn was come
Nor nef nor galley could we see:
’Twixt sky and wave alone sailed we.”_
“Eerie!” shivered the other male satellite.
_“We followed south to join anon
Our noble sister ships agone,
Until a day three sails were seen
Ahanging aft us late at e’en._
_“When near we saw with hatred cold
The cursed crescent flying bold,
With Allah’s name a hundred fold
Writ over it in words of gold.”_
Algeria paused again for her audience to recover.
“Marvelous!” sighed the girl. “It frightens me.”
_“The chase turned to a hell the ship:
I walked the middle plank with whip;
The naked Paynim rowers moaned
And strained her forward till she groaned.”_
“Terribly vivid picture,” observed the larger male satellite.
_“And then I swore a fearful oath:
‘God’s splendour,’ vowed I by my troth,
‘An we gain free I will glad part
With what is dearest to my heart!’_
_“And in the thwarts there knelt in prayer
My tender bride with golden hair:
‘Saint John and Holy Sepulchre?’
She prayed with whited lips in fear.”_
“It wrings my heart!” said the equine girl pitifully, as Algeria looked
in her direction.
“I _knew_ you’d love that,” gurgled Algeria sweetly, intoning on with
even higher unction.
Great heavens, will it ever end? groaned Genevieve silently.
_“And lo! in answer to her plea
We saw the land a league away,
And as we neared the island’s shore
From bastions rang the cannon’s roar._
_“A banner waved and for its boss
The Hospitallers’ eight armed cross:
The Corsairs’ brood then drew away
While dead within their galleys lay._
_“I turned from friends my love to see,
She turned from God and reached to me;
And then my heart it burgeoned out,
I caught her to me with a shout.”_
“Oh!” breathed the girl, her hand on her breast.
_“But I was dumb ere thanks I said,
The form I gathered up was dead;
Ashore I bore her tenderly:
She sleeps beside the tideless sea.”_
“Wonderful! Exquisite! Impossible beauty!” vowed the satellites in
impassioned chorus.
Algeria’s eyes regally swept the excited group. Her pupils were
exaggerated, her vermilion lips pouted. She was crudely voluptuous.
Howard sometimes suffered acutely in witnessing Algeria’s lack of
subtlety. Some months of absence, and his determination to conserve the
value of Algeria’s admiration for his work had dimmed his recollection
of her most blatant phase. He had not remembered that it was as bad as
this. But his discomfort was interrupted when Algeria, emerging for a
flash from the prepossession of her artificial personality, gave him
a confidential glance of amusement in which she maliciously deprecated
her audience. Aren’t they absurd to believe in me, she seemed to say.
Or so, in relief to his vanity, he interpreted it.
“Well, peeties, they _are_ rather nice! We’re _doing_ it, aren’t we?”
For an instant, as if drawing aside the curtain before a mystery, she
flashed the others a piquant smile of seemingly frank and innocent
pleasure in herself.
“Of all things! in this day and age!” Genevieve spoke almost inaudibly
to Em.
“It has a certain go to it, don’t you think?” said Howard, turning
to Genevieve. During the recital he had been studying Genevieve’s
harmonious make-up with critical approval.
“Good restoration jingle,” she replied with elaborate carelessness.
Howard’s glance had not escaped Algeria.
“Won’t _you_ recite something, Miss Strang?”
“I don’t write,” returned Genevieve in her poised manner.
“What _do_ you do? You look so clever I’m _sure_ it must be something
delightful.”
“Nothing,” said Genevieve calmly. She was thinking quickly, too. This
woman is positively sinister, she decided.
“Just _live_?” smiled Algeria.
“That depends on where I am,” rejoined Genevieve a little crudely.
Algeria never let the moment turn cold. Ostentatiously forgetting to
reply to Genevieve’s remark, she rose with a bird-sweep of arms and
draperies.
“Come, dearesties! So _dreadful_ to live in New York again! We shall be
_oh_, so tired when we come back from our parties tonight. But we’re
not losing any of our _petals_, are we?” She lifted her brows in an
arch caressing grimace. The satellites flocked to her like chicks.
Gouvain smiled sadly at Em. “Bring me my cloak, Pierre darling,”
Algeria ordered quickly, intercepting Gouvain’s look. She had the
immediate impulse to separate him from the rest of the group. (Behold,
my fellow-countrymen--and women--Pierre! Don’t you see why I want to
save Howard?) “And Howard dear, _you_ must take me to Celia’s, people
will be _waiting_.” Impartial proprietary pats and squeezes. A dramatic
pause at the door before exit. “_Good_-by, sweetestkins!” She swooped
down upon Em and kissed her destructively. “You _must_ come to see me
every day.” A finger uplifted. “Now don’t _forget_!” Algeria turned at
last to Genevieve. “Miss Strang!”
Genevieve bowed.
Algeria, banners streaming, smiling triumphantly, followed by her
entire cortege, dissolved spectacularly through the doorway.
Em and Genevieve were alone.
4
Genevieve drew a long breath.
Em was thinking. Puzzled. Deeply resentful because Howard had preached
Algeria all this time. What do I mean if this is his ideal? It’s too
absurd! I can’t realize it. He never did mean anything to me. He
couldn’t. That unbelievable woman! The thought of Les came back and her
face cleared.
“Well?” said Genevieve, raising her eyebrows.
“Isn’t it funny?” Em smiled a little.
“If you’d take those Loie Fuller draperies away she’d look like a
washerwoman.” Genevieve’s spoken comments were usually social.
Em laughed.
“You’re chronically disillusioned, Jen.”
“Yea, verily, I am a bitter female.”
Em’s eyes grew soft again.
“Tell me about Les.”
“He’s wasting himself on that girl,” declared Genevieve shortly. I must
get Em out of this somehow. Genevieve was frankly Howard’s enemy--and
now Algeria!
“I’m so sorry for Cicely,” replied Em earnestly.
“I’m sorry for _him_!” snapped Genevieve, “You’re treating him
rottenly, Em.”
“How, Jen? What can I do?” Em wanted Genevieve to make her do what she
herself wished.
“Do! You can act like a human being toward him. Just because you’ve
broken off your affair there’s no reason why you should both behave
like early Victorians.” Genevieve’s affectionate anxiety seemed to
vent itself in reproof. I _must_ get Em away from these awful people!
Something terrible will happen if I don’t. She tried to think only of
Em. She did not acknowledge that Les came into her plan.
“I--I’d--love to--to be--” Em had not gone to Patchin Place because
Les had not sought her. No. Because Cicely was there! But she felt
that something would happen to let her see Les again. Les was hers. Of
course their love relation was over--
“I’m going to have you two down to dinner,” announced Genevieve firmly.
“Oh, _Jen_, you darling!” Em rushed happily at her friend. “You sweet
thing!” Tears were in Em’s eyes. She forgot that Howard had gone away
in Algeria’s train.
“Well, I must be going.” Genevieve’s Anglo-Saxon imperturbability was
strained. Arms about each other the two walked to the door. “I’ll let
you know the time,” said Genevieve in a matter-of-fact tone.
“O-o-o-h! you _dear_!” Em kissed her again.
After Genevieve had gone Em in the dusk danced a pirouette around the
cold, gray living-room.
5
Algeria was here! Algeria had been the nurse of Howard’s vanity. He
had always been pathetically grateful for praise, but had received
little as an etcher and none as an individual. He had long known, deep
within himself, what Algeria was; but could not acknowledge it because
she insisted that he was a great artist. Then, other people admired
her--fools, of course, but--
Now that she was back, he found that his life with Em had cruelly
rendered him more incapable than ever of accepting the old
make-believe. But Em held no promise of future obeisance to his
artistic achievement. Therefore he could not destroy Algeria--the
symbol of his past. He also could not help studying Algeria with a new
detachment.
Arriving late at Celia’s place Algeria, with Howard, Gouvain, and
the three satellites in tow, paused dramatically as usual and, all
streamers flying, sailed overpoweringly into the crowded room.
“Oh, _dear_!” she exclaimed with an appealing, frightened air and a
demure arching of her rather lovely brows. “Why, this is a _great big_
party, isn’t it?”
Howard’s unaccountable irritation and shame returned. He had always
accepted her kittenishness before. Transparent but pleasant--makes
living easier--Now he thought: the woman has real taste, why the devil
does she--He would not think!
During the party Algeria had a series of little confidential chats
with each of her principal admirers. When she sank on the soft couch
and snuggled down beside Carmen, Howard was near and could hear the
conversation.
“Isn’t it _dear_ of little Celia to do all this for _me_? _See_ her
over there! Isn’t it just _too_ sweet? It’s my _own_ little soul, you
know!”
“Cel’a’s shome kid,” agreed Carmen tipsily. She had drunk far too much
in honor of Algeria’s restoration to the group, but she honestly adored
Celia.
Celia, curled up in an arm-chair, was hardly less inebriated and her
short skirt was strikingly disarranged.
“Do you see its _cute_ little head?” continued Algeria in a cuddling
voice, “and,” with a low, hushed tone, “its _adorable_ knee? Do tell me
that you see its cute little _knee_? We can’t call _attention_ to it,
you know. It might cause a moment of _embarrassment_, and then it would
be covered up. Isn’t it just _too_ cute?”
Carmen nodded sapiently, a vacuous drunken smile on her good-natured
face. Howard writhed.
“_Do_ recite one of your poems, darling,” begged the girl satellite.
Algeria recited. In the midst of the long, rhymed ballad, celebrating
the loves of “The Brown Singer and the Gold Singer,” Howard slipped
from the room.
He was confused. He could not disown the part Algeria had played in
his life! How had he changed? Earlier in the evening his vanity had
been tortured almost unendurably by the three satellites who, seizing
a cue from Algeria, had raved stupidly over two or three of his poorer
things which Celia had. Being ignored hurt him, but adulation from
people he despised degraded him. He blamed Algeria for the crudeness of
it. Algeria’s mistake lay in the complacency of her contempt for those
unlike herself. Howard enjoyed her refusal to take life seriously,
but his very appreciation of her desire to escape the banality of
responsibility made it intolerable for him to accept any implied
condescension toward himself. He would laugh with her, but in one thing
he would not be laughed at--
Behind Em’s new attitude of sisterly toleration he felt Les and
Genevieve. Em’s jealousy of Algeria would have been balm to him. But Em
took delight in tormenting him--she punished him for Les’s sake, he
told himself. Her superiority to Algeria helped to make him inexorable.
As he hurried down the steps to the street he ran into an acquaintance,
a third-rate pianist--one of Algeria’s numerous outer circle. Algeria
herself composed music!
“Hello, Story,” said the smirking musician. “Heard Algeria Westover’s
back and holding forth here tonight.”
“Well,” replied Howard coldly.
“I came around to be amused,” smiled the other. “The old girl’s a
scream, isn’t she?”
“_You’re_ a damned fool,” spat Howard, leaving his interlocutor
breathless.
What’s the matter with me, Howard asked himself as he rushed down the
street. Thinking himself detached from the illusions and dependencies
of others he could not understand his unhappiness. I’m not working
hard enough, he decided. He imagined he could do without the false
sentimentality which disordered Em. Algeria at least was a decadent
like himself. She belonged, with all her elaborate absurdities, to the
select disillusioned. Bodily functions were as repulsive to her as they
were to him.
Her poetry showed little or nothing of herself, beyond the desire to
escape factual life which made it romantic. Algeria called herself
pagan, but her mind was full of a mediæval terror of the flesh.
She had never achieved public expression as a painter, but she drew
cleverly--caricatures of men and women in romantic sexual postures
in which there was a leer of bestiality. There was real sincerity
in these pictures. Her revolt from the actual was so sharp as to
envelop everything physical in a romantic horror, and she herself was
fascinated by this hideousness. All the sexual details of physiognomy
were distorted to subjective representation.
Howard and Algeria shared this protest against themselves, a
romanticism of pollution. This quality of outrage, of making all
unclothing violent, and thereby lewd, terrified Howard as it applied to
himself. He imagined himself stripped to Algeria’s imagination, and he
was grotesque, like a fat clergyman in a bathtub. He had to preserve
his alliance in cruelty.
CHAPTER III
CAKE
_“Roussillon dismounted and opening the dead man’s breast with a
knife, with his own hands tore out his heart ... and calling the
cook, said to him, ‘Take this wild boar’s heart and look thou make
a dainty dish thereof, the best and most delectable to eat that
thou knowest, and when I am at table, send it to me in a silver
porringer.’ The lady, who was nowise squeamish, tasted thereof and
finding it good, ate it all; which when the knight saw, he said to
her, ‘Wife, how deem you of this dish?’ ‘In good sooth, my lord,’
answered she, ‘it liketh me exceedingly.’ Whereupon, ‘So God be mine
aid,’ quoth Roussillon; ‘I do believe it you, nor do I marvel if that
please you, dead, which, alive, pleased you more than aught else.’
The lady, hearing this, hesitated awhile, then said, ‘How? What have
you made me eat?’ ‘This that you have eaten,’ answered the knight,
‘was in very truth the heart of Sir Guillaume de Guardestaing whom
you so loved.’”_
_“The Decameron of Boccaccio”_ (_Trans. Anonymous_)
1
Algeria could not bear to fail. More quietly and conventionally
dressed, her manner subdued, she called on Em the next day. She talked
skillfully of serious things. She would not accept dislike. Em was
on the verge of capitulating to Algeria’s undoubted personality. She
could respect Algeria’s neat malice, and Algeria’s insidious device of
taking an auditor into her confidence about her victims almost disarmed
Em. Perhaps I’ve misjudged her--But Algeria could not resist the
temptation to quote a popular French painter’s _mot_ anent Em’s work.
It seemed safe. Em impressed Algeria as being rather helpless.
_“Une explosion érotique.”_ Algeria laughed deprecatingly as she
repeated the phrase. “Of course _I_ thought he was horrid, my dear.”
Em unadmittedly made every criticism of her art a personal matter.
“He’s a spiritual toad,” she said relentlessly.
Algeria’s deftness was inadequate in regaining the lost key, so she
departed uttering fervid eulogies of her own.
2
Howard hurried in. Em held an open letter in her hand.
“Has Algeria been here?” he asked, frowning.
“She just left.”
“I’ve run all over the Village looking for her. I’m giving a party here
for her Thursday night and I’ve already invited most of the crowd, but
I want to find out whom else she wants.” Em did not reply. “Will you
help Celia with the refreshments?”
“I shan’t be here,” said Em.
Howard started.
“Why not?” he demanded with annoyance.
“I have a dinner.”
“What dinner?” Irritation was rapidly gathering in his voice.
“At Jen’s.” There was a conscious elation in her tone. I shall see Les--
“Put it off.” He spoke dictatorially. He must have Em and Algeria
together if he was to subdue Em.
“I shall do no such thing.” Em raised her head fearlessly.
“It must be an important function,” he sneered. “Who are the
celebrities you can’t incommode?”
Em glanced at her letter.
“Stuart and Jen and Les,” she said defiantly. Em’s eyes were bright, a
slight color in her face. Her bearing was enticing. His eyes gleamed
involuntarily.
“Why, this is simply insulting Algeria!” he exclaimed angrily. “What
has _she_ done?” Loyalty to Algeria armed him against Em.
“Nothing,” replied Em. “She’s a pill and a windbag, but I’ve nothing
against her. I’m simply not coming, that’s all.” Em did not notice her
harshness. She was triumphant. The fact of Les being near made her
unassailable. When Algeria was present Howard seemed to shrink up.
Algeria subdued him. He grew dim to Em.
Howard would not acknowledge that he hated to have Em force on him
a deeper disillusion of Algeria. Algeria in the flesh was already a
burden. But she meant freedom from Em. He sought for escape from his
real provocation.
“Then it’s I you wish to discipline!” he retorted menacingly. “Well,
the easiest way to feed your vanity is to hurt someone.”
3
Genevieve’s dinner was a sad affair.
Em had spent an inordinate amount of time adorning herself. A plain
gray silk dress, hair arranged and rearranged until it exactly pleased
her, careful rouging--her cheeks _were_ growing hollow--a single long
string of green glass beads--how thin my neck is!--nails perfect, eyes
excited.
When she rang at the little tenement and was admitted by Genevieve
herself, Les was sitting with Stuart on the broad couch. Les looked
pale and haggard. Em had fancied herself rushing again into his arms,
but as he rose she could only hesitate and hold out her hand. Even
Genevieve and Stuart were outsiders.
“Hello, Les.”
“Hello, Em.”
“Stuff!” said Genevieve brusquely to Em. “Kiss him, you little goose!”
Em and Les kissed timidly. Stuart stared with melancholy approval
through the smoke from his pipe. “Now let’s have dinner before it gets
cold,” Genevieve continued, almost bustling about in her tension. This
was the cool, languid Genevieve! “You sit here, Les, and Em there.
Come, Stuart--” She managed the moments like a presiding officer. I’ll
be a wreck before the evening’s over, she thought desperately.
The conversation would not come. Genevieve tried frantically.
“It’s nice to have you here again.”
“Thank you,” said Les.
“Like old times.”
Silence.
Even Stuart attempted to talk.
Until she saw Cicely with Les, Em had not emotionally realized that she
had lost him as a sex partner. Les’s presence without Cicely did not
remove the pain. Cicely’s form in Em’s fancy was always at his side.
Les’s heart ached. What have I done? Never....
Em and Les beyond help. Finally each went home.
“My God!” Genevieve burst into tears on Stuart’s shoulder.
4
Howard’s spite at her repudiation of his party spurred his desire
to make Em jealous of Algeria. He was devoted to Algeria, planned
constantly for Algeria’s diversion, was seen with Algeria early and
late. With Les apart from Cicely Em would not have succumbed. But it
was borne in on her that both the men she had elected to prefer no
longer preferred her.
Although Em’s absence from his party was the seal of Howard’s defeat,
he still wished to do her post-bellum injury. He resented her defection
as he had once resented having to acknowledge her to others. In the
same way he had formerly hated her for being a greater artist than
himself, and now he could not forgive her for accomplishing nothing.
She was even going off physically--She had been no credit to him either
personally or in public.
The morning after the party. Howard ostentatiously abstracted. Em came
into the living-room and could see him through the open door of the
kitchenette as, his tall figure wrapped in a gray dressing-gown, he
prepared his coffee. She felt peculiarly depressed and hesitant.
“Good morning, Howard.” She had waited in vain for him to speak to her.
Howard answered over his shoulder.
“Good morning.” He began very softly to whistle a theme from “Pelleas
and Melisande.”
Em came and stood uneasily in the doorway.
“Can I help? Have you made enough coffee for both of us?”
Without glancing at her, Howard lifted the lid of the percolator and
peered in.
“I think so.”
Forcing herself to overcome the desire to immolate herself which she
had brought from her meeting with Les, she placed some dishes on a
table by one of the windows in the living-room. Howard brought out the
coffee and toast and they began their meal. Em watched him furtively,
ashamed of her anxiety as to his reactions toward her. Where is my
pride?
Howard was perfectly conscious of Em’s uneasiness. Her presence in the
house after seeing Les at Genevieve’s in some way convinced him that
she would stay. Even if she went, she must come back. She would not
leave him with Algeria. Howard had learned of Cicely. He had grown
confident. His wounds were healing. Algeria would help him make Em
pay. He lighted a cigarette and, as he smoked and sipped his coffee,
stared through the window at the damp roofs opposite glistening in the
pearly morning light. Sparrows quarreling in a tin gutter. Lilac spiral
of smoke rising from a chimney. Howard admitted some apprehensiveness
but he was determined to express to Em nothing but satisfaction and
well-being.
“How was the party?” she asked with a nervous effort. The coffee
nauseated her and the toast seemed tasteless.
“Oh, what a party always is.” His agreeable tone suggested that
something other than the party--some more intimate memory--was
responsible for his complacent abstraction. He added: “Of course
Algeria was the party--she always is. It’s amusing the way these people
down here in the Village fight for a chance to pour oblations before
her.”
Em tried not to feel spiteful.
“She has a very compelling personality.” Em recognized Algeria’s force.
I must be honest about it. She _has_ personality--and charm--the
personality of a successful vaudeville artist. She should be a great
actress. Algeria’s adamant will where her own interests were touched,
her dominance over her superiors by tricks just crude enough to be
unanswerable--some Jews have this genius--these Em instinctively
divined.
Howard flecked ash from his cigarette. He felt Em’s suppressed
attitude of condescension toward Algeria. It seemed to him an indirect
condescension to himself. It made him resent Algeria more, and blame
Em violently for his added resentment. His eyes, staring deliberately
away from her, hardened in bitterness. He smiled to himself as if
unconsciously.
“I wonder what are the components of Algeria’s personality. Of course
an acute mind--she never fools herself. And then, too, she has that
saving attribute, a sense of humor.”
Em gazed steadily at Howard. She felt ill physically, and there was a
horrible mental illness in her consciousness that her body was sick.
“I don’t think she has much humor.”
“Why not?” For the first time, pugnaciously, Howard met Em’s eyes with
his hard bright ones.
“She’d laugh at herself oftener than she does.”
“My dear Em.” Howard was conspicuously patient. “Algeria always laughs
at herself. That’s why she is so delightful. She is too profoundly
a pessimist to take anything seriously. You probably haven’t caught
her spirit because your own deadly seriousness has excluded you from
participation. Take care that she doesn’t laugh at you, too.”
Tears rose to Em’s eyes. She could not hide them from Howard’s
mercilessly detached scrutiny. I look ugly. I can’t help it. She tried
to harden herself against him. If he feels like this I oughtn’t to care.
Howard was inwardly jubilant. He was salving his old injuries. In
their early days his acuteness had discovered that any praise of other
women’s attraction was accepted by Em as an implied comparison. He
knew exactly what to say. She doesn’t dream how much I’ve suffered--
“I suppose she does laugh at me!” Em’s pride came. “It would just be a
part of her shallow philosophy to laugh at anything real. Like an ant
laughing at--at an avalanche.”
Howard’s lip twitched. His eyes were angry, but he tried to seem amused.
“Pooh!” What bombast--sickening! “Algeria realizes as all intelligent
people do that since the war the world’s a joke.”
“It always was, in that sense. It hasn’t changed any. Why doesn’t she
think she’s part of the joke?”
“She does.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Howard began to feel at bay. He could not weather reversals.
“A beautiful woman can’t really be expected to be serious--not as a
habit.” It was as if he were defending himself. He could not forgive Em
for forcing him to this explanation of Algeria.
“Beautiful!!” Em’s cheeks flushed. The warmth of blood in them hurt
her. She was angry at what seemed to her the preposterousness of
Howard’s exaggeration. He only says that to bait me, she said to
herself. At the same time the comparison he suggested was insidious.
Once in a moment of analysis and with no intent of malice he had,
in his inhuman detachment as an artist, remarked that Em’s mind, a
crystalline something, attracted and compelled men rather than her
body. He had noted her emotional confusion and her effort to avoid
admitting the hurt of his words. Now he watched her jealously. Algeria!
she thought. Is that what men really admire? Even Les--One had just
as well face it--the elemental basis of relationship between men and
women. You have to please. Then they will let you love them, Howard
spoke.
“Why, yes. I think Algeria is often quite beautiful. Don’t let jealousy
prejudice you, Em.” He laughed boyishly, feeling somehow released from
the humiliation of defending Algeria.
“I’m certainly not jealous! I couldn’t be--of her.”
Howard thought quickly of Les. Has their reconciliation really been a
go? Why isn’t she more affected by this? His expression, in an attempt
to conceal the changes of his emotion, became sarcastic.
“Of course you’re jealous. There are two types of women--those who
have minds and those who have bodies. They always envy each other. The
woman of brains wants to be considered a siren, and the woman with a
beautiful body insists that you discover her soul.”
Em had accepted in advance all the inferences about herself. She
despised Howard for his cruelty. How can he! Doesn’t he see any pathos
in me? He wants to pity himself. I’d never torture him for what he
can’t help.
“I thought you said Algeria had both beauty and wit.”
“She has; but of course for all her mental acuteness she is
preëminently a body. Algeria would have lovers if she were stupid.”
Em thought of Algeria’s faded piquancy, her dyed hair, her
disenchanting appearance in street dress--But she was affected just the
same. Self-distrust had poisoned her too deeply.
Howard had begun to use his insight to torture Em for destroying his
illusion of Algeria, and for ignoring Algeria’s jealousy of her. The
pathos of Em’s naked desire to receive from him a sign of her physical
power had rehabilitated his faith in himself.
5
Em was afraid. She now argued with Howard for kindness as Les had
pleaded with her. But the time had come when she and Howard were no
more able to speak each other’s language than she and Les had been.
Em’s love for pain was that of a drug addict: more and more was
required. She had sought to seize life through suffering. The god of
pain was dead.
Left alone Howard and Em’s affair would by now have been naturally
effete. They had gotten everything from each other. But Les’s
return--and Cicely--with Howard’s appeal to Algeria, had injected
something new and imponderable. Its momentum of waste and strife
carried it on. Though tortured on both sides, Em could not give up both
and have her individual self-respect.
After Howard’s inhumanness she went to see Les. Cicely was there, but
departed at once, almost eagerly, and left them alone. Her garments
hanging in the room were like flames to Em’s flesh. They could not
talk, Les was too kind. She was beating against mist. His thoughts were
his own. A frozen river--
When Em returned to the apartment she felt bewildered. Les and I
couldn’t have gone on. Why should I mind! She felt she could never
reveal herself. She could not paint. She was penniless. Dust!
Howard came. When he entered the room his first quick glance noted her
listless attitude as she sat by a window staring into the street. He
wanted something violent to happen, but he did not have the courage to
precipitate the kind of crisis that would have relieved him.
“Howard, I must talk to you.”
His mouth was grim and frustrate. He had decided to be unyielding.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Howard, I can’t stand it.”
“Neither can I.”
Howard found his conception of his own detachment was becoming
ridiculous. He turned and left her. She does not see that I am in pain.
Em was showing him the impossibility of escaping sentimental delusions.
Muck! Give me more of Algeria’s poison--
6
Em threw herself on the couch.
I’ll kill myself if my head goes wrong. She had never felt that she
need heed consequences. If a situation became impossible she could
escape it like this. She tried to tell herself that she did not love
life too much. Once she had said this to Howard.
“Pooh!” he had replied. “You think if you’re reckless enough, someone
will be aghast and interfere.”
He could be neither a human being nor an artist. He had hated her
because she could not help being an artist but wanted only to be a
human being.
I can’t live. She went to her bedroom and took a tiny bottle from
a drawer. It was poison she had stolen from Toby’s room one night
when he had cooked dinner there for them both. Toby was always
experimenting with strange chemicals. She remembered the skull and
cross-bones on the label of the green flask she had taken it from.
“Oh, Les, Les--” she sobbed, but no tears came.
She could have borne losing Howard to Algeria if Les had not been
in New York. This is what it all comes to. Algeria. Pose. Sound. I
hate it. Algeria the deification of Greenwich Village. Deformed with
Christianity--exposing grotesque bodies in attitudes that mock their
own pretense of paganism. She belongs there! The death of expression.
Eaten my hope. Bohemia! Menagerie. Animals. No--animals are genuine.
Marionettes. Ghosts. Greenwich Village is a monster. No one. My body is
dry. Mitra. New York. Tread of elephants. Village. Wasps buzzing. Air!
Les--Cicely! The betrayal of emotion to a third person. It isn’t
Algeria. Em felt as if Cicely had stolen her pride--her reserve. Oh,
Les, why did you--Howard! I did too, Emotion. Unseeing emotion. Emotion
without object. Sick vanity. Em beat her face with her fists.
Cicely’s soft breasts. Em threw the vial across the room. I can’t leave
life with Les in it. She meant “with Cicely.” Her pride would not let
her give her life to another woman. Cicely had saved her.
Really she was still vacillating. How she admired and adored Les! But
could she exist without the strain and stress with Howard that she felt
was real in its pain? She was ashamed that she had not the courage to
die. She was ashamed that she was clinging to Howard after he had tired
of her.
CHAPTER IV
THE HAPPY ENDING
_“He who bred me up sold a certain young maid of Rome; whom when I
saw many years after, I remembered her, and began to love her as a
sister. It happened some time afterwards that I saw her washing in
the river Tyber; and I reached out my hand unto her, and brought her
out of the river: and when I saw her, I thought with myself, saying,
How happy should I be if I had such a wife, both for beauty and
manners. This I thought with myself; nor did I think any thing more.
But not long after, as I was walking, and musing on these thoughts, I
began to honour this creature of God, thinking with myself how noble
and beautiful she was. And when I had walked a little I fell asleep.
And ... the heaven was opened, and I saw the woman I had coveted,
saluting me from heaven, and saying, Hermas, hail! and I looking upon
her, answered, Lady, what dost thou do here?”_
_“The Shepherd of Hermas”_ (_Trans. Archbishop Wake_)
1
Les thought he loved Cicely because she was comfortable. He was
grateful to those who relieved him of self-expression. I adore people
who draw no emotion. But he had seen Em. Em had never gone away. She
was. He did not sleep. Thinking at night, Cicely relaxed and quiet
beside him. Slow years ... I hear the shadows ... hours unfolding like
petals ... cliffs of white mist ... road flying on like a bird....
Cicely was not to blame. His dissatisfaction was with her sweetness. He
leaned over and looked at her in the dim gathering light. She gave too
much. He was ashamed that he found any burden in her giving. Her mouth
drooped a little. She knew in her dreams.
Dawn! Crimson banners of dawn ... slaying the stars ... tears of dew
... gold arms of the sun ... Cicely sat up and stretched her young
body. Her gold-brown eyes were soft. Cicely had formerly worked
downtown in an office. Living with Les had frightened her of life a
little, but it made her feel superior to her undistinguished existence.
“Are you awake, Les?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes.”
She seized him in her arms and kissed him.
2
Em rose early. She bathed and dressed carefully. There was decision in
her. I can’t paint and I won’t make my living in bed. She persuaded
herself that she had no intention of going to Les. Em felt that she
could do without Howard, there were enough other things to hurt her.
She was her own.
Breakfast. Waiting for Howard. That she could not kill herself had
clarified things to her. Her trunks were packed, her easel tied
up. It was after ten o’clock when he came to the apartment. Cold
good-mornings. He moved about the rooms collecting some etchings.
“Howard, we must talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he replied shortly. Howard had
misjudged Em. What he had thought was patience with him had been an
approaching indifference. It’s beginning over again, I don’t love the
woman, he kept telling himself. Sexual mystifications, I’m through with
it. Em had either to come through as an artist or die. I’m through with
her unless she conforms to _me_. If she isn’t an artist, she’s nothing.
None of us are. He felt cursed by his own banality, viciously anxious
to achieve something in his work. If I were self-deceived like the
others, things would be easy for me, he thought.
“It shall be our last talk,” said Em.
Howard halted and looked at her keenly. She imagined there was gladness
in his eyes. She was humiliated. He hasn’t the courage, she thought to
comfort herself. He pulled forward a chair, seated himself wearily and
lighted a cigarette, his hand playing nervously with the chair arm.
“What do you want, Em?”
“I’m going.” She resented his lack of surprise.
“Why should we have to talk about it?” He could repress himself
strongly. Let her go. Algeria. She’ll come back. His air was almost
insolent.
Em wanted to break self-respectingly with Howard. She wanted to force
him to prove to her that he was worthy of the moment. He must salve
her vanity. He must show himself big enough to justify her for having
allowed him to mean so much to her.
“I want us to be friends, Howard.”
“I hate friendship. Most people haven’t the guts to recognize death
when they see it. Why dress up a corpse?” Howard was bearding danger.
He was determined to compel her to cease stipulating.
Em did not want a discussion. She needed an event.
“Howard, _must_ we end like this?”
“Why did we ever begin?” His mouth was ugly. Algeria had deliberately
overdone her suggestion to Howard. Algeria wanted to be rid of Em. So
she had shrewdly led him to believe that Em could not be driven away.
Far more cunningly had Algeria dropped into his mind seeds of the idea
that _he_ was finished with Em.
Em’s patience was ever short-lived, even when she wanted something.
“I began because I thought we could be honest and live together
decently for a while.”
“We began honestly enough, why can’t we end so? Why the conventional
lie? We’re through with each other. Your idea of honesty is telling
disagreeable truths to someone for your own pleasure.”
It was out now! He felt ill with despair which he would not attribute
to Em. He loathed the memory of his etchings. He was through with
them--through with everything. There was a stealthy undercurrent to
this explanation of his emotions. He would not admit it. Em thought
again of her desired scene. I can’t part with a quarrel. Howard looks
ill. She was excited--sorry for him. She wished for the dignity of Les.
“You’re not very gentle with people yourself, Howard.”
“Gentleness is habitual timidity.” He threw his cigarette into the
grate and rose. His eyes were implacable.
Em’s head was up, her eyes antagonistic. She had forgotten her worthy
parting scene.
“Then why do you blame me? You’re very virtuous all at once!”
“I admit to a few virtues. I may despise them as springing from
cowardice, but the trouble with you is you can’t see they’re as
necessary as if they didn’t.” I _don’t_ believe in virtue, he said to
himself. Virtue isn’t necessary. What is necessary is to recognize dry
rot of the emotions, but anything to get rid of her--His mind was clear
at last!
Em remembered. A gesture--She strove desperately to keep the upper
hand, but she felt the occasion too much. She had something to lose.
“I want you to know that I don’t see myself as you see me, Howard.” She
was incapable of taking dialectical advantage, always a hostage to her
own frankness.
Howard observed her increased agitation.
“You don’t see yourself at all. What you’ve always resented is that I
do see you. The result has been a series of vulgar squabbles. You’ve
convinced me of the value of good breeding.” Algeria echoing in him.
“I don’t care for good breeding!” returned Em hotly. “I respect only
something real--” Why breeding? They were eternally talking about
breeding!
“Breeding never does affect women. The most they ever learn is to
appraise breeding in men, and you’ve never learned that. You disgust
me with your idea that crudity is synonymous with reality. Damn
reality!”
Em began to feel the old-time thrill of his cruelty.
“You’ve never learned to be human,” she accused bitterly. “All you care
for is a shallow artistic creed.” They were both regardless. There’s no
more hope for us now, she thought.
“I care for what has never come into our relation, a little beauty,” he
retorted with equal bitterness. Algeria again.
Em sprang to her feet.
“I’ve had enough of beauty without any pity!” she cried with passionate
emphasis. “To me beauty means something--something true.”
“Blah!” exclaimed Howard. “And I’ve had enough of your predilection for
hurting people and then wanting them to ‘understand’ it. There must be
manners between lovers.”
They stood facing each other angrily. They were drunk with pain. He
had caused her so much pain that for a moment she could not bear the
thought of losing him. Then pride rushed over her, she was drunk with
disdain. She spoke very distinctly.
“I’m glad I’ve hurt you.” Power was more than love.
His face was contorted with defeat. Everything else was forgotten. He
spoke for himself now.
“You’ve got the blood-lust of a well-fed criminal,” he said brutally.