child has always been more or less morbid and sick-brained, I have been
aware. The world, marriage, and active existence will mend all that, I
hope. I fear she is a little spoilt and selfish. And she doesn't love me
very much. She has inherited all her father's passion for Poe's tales.
My dear friend, she is jealous--that's the only solution of this
shocking act. She disliked the idea of my portrait from the start. You
remember on this spot hardly a month ago she challenged you to paint her
as the drowned Ophelia!--and all her teasing about Monsieur Mineur and
his jealousy, and--"
"Our flirtation," added Hubert, sadly.
"Oh, pray do not say such a thing! She is so hot-headed, so fond of you.
Yes, I saw it from the beginning, and your talk about the insurmountable
wall of middle-age did not deceive me. I only hope that will not be a
tragic wall for her, for you--or for me...."
Her words trailed into a mere whisper. He put his hand over hers and
again they were silent. About them the green of the forest had been
transformed by the growing night into great clumps of velvety darkness
and the vault overhead was empty of stars. June airs fanned their
discontent into mild despair, and simultaneously they dreamed of another
life, of a harmonious existence far from Paris, into which the phantom
of Théophile Mineur would never intrude. Yet they made no demonstration
of their affection--they would have been happy to sit and dream on this
moon-haunted wall, near this nocturnal pool, forever. Hubert pictured
Berenice in her room, behind bolted doors, lying across the bed weeping,
or else staring in sullen repentance at the white ceiling. Why had she
indulged in such vandalism? The portrait was utterly destroyed by the
flaring smear laid on with a brush in the hand of an enraged young
animal. What sort of a woman might not develop from this tempestuous
girl! He knew that he had mortally offended her by his rudeness. But it
was after, not before, the cruel treatment of his beloved work. Yet, how
like a man had been his rapid succumbing to transitory temptation! For
it was transitory--of that he was sure. The woman he loved, with a
reverent love, was next to him, and if his pulse did not beat as
furiously at this moment as earlier in the day, why--all the better. He
was through forever with his boyish recklessness.
"Another peculiar thing," broke in Elaine, as if she had been thinking
aloud, "is that Berenice has been pestering Éloise for her father's
address."
"Her father's address?" echoed her companion.
"Yes; but whether she wrote to him Éloise could not say."
"Why should she write to him? She dislikes him--dislikes him almost as
much--" he was about to pronounce his own name. She caught him up.
"Yes, that is the singular part of this singular affair. She felt
slighted because you painted my portrait before hers. I confess I have
had my misgivings. You should have been more considerate of her
feelings, Hubert, my friend." She paused and sighed. For him the sigh
was a spark that blew up the magazine of his firmest resolves. He had
been touching her hands fraternally. His arm embraced her so that she
could not escape, as this middle-aged man told his passion with the
ardour of an enamoured youth.
"You dare not tell me you do not care for me! Elaine--let us reason. I
loved you since the first moment I met you. It is folly to talk of
Mineur and my friendship for him. I dislike, I despise him. It is folly
to talk of Berenice and her childish pranks. What if she did cruelly
spoil my work, _our_ work! She will get over it. Girls always do get
over these things. Let us accept conditions as they are. Say you love
me--a little bit--and I'll be content to remain at your side, a friend,
_always_ that. I'll paint you again--much more beautifully than before."
He was hoarse from the intensity of his feelings. The moon had risen and
tipped with its silver brush the tops of the trees.
"And--my husband? And Berenice?"
"Let things remain as they are." He pressed her to him. A crackling in
the underbrush and a faint plash in the lake startled them asunder. They
listened with ears that seemed like beating hearts. There was no
movement; only a night bird plaintively piped in the distance and a
clock struck the quarter.
Elaine, now thoroughly frightened, tried to get down from the wall.
Hubert restrained her, and as they stood thus, a moaning like the wind
in autumnal leaves reached them. The moon-rays began to touch the water,
and suddenly a nimbus of light formed about a floating face in the pool.
The luminous path broadened, and to their horror they saw Berenice, her
hair outspread, her arms crossed on her young bosom, lying in the little
lake. Elaine screamed:--
"My God! My God! It is Berenice!--Berenice, I am punished for my
wickedness to you!" Hubert, stunned by the vision, did not stir, as the
almost fainting mother gripped his neck.
And then the eyes of the whimsical girl opened. A malicious smile
distorted her pretty face. Slowly she arose, a dripping ghost in white,
and pointing her long, thin fingers in the direction of the Ecouen road
she mockingly cried:--
"There is some one to see your portrait at last, dear Master Painter."
And saying this she vanished in the gloom, instantly followed by her
agitated mother.
Hubert turned toward the wall, and upon it he recognized the stepfather
of Berenice. After staring at each other like two moon-struck wights,
the American spoke:--
"I swear that I, alone, am to blame for this--" The other wore the grin
of a malevolent satyr. His voice was thick.
"Why apologize, Hubert? You know that it has been my devoted wish that
you marry Berenice." He swayed on his perch. Hubert's brain was in a
fog.
"Berenice!" said he.
"Yes--Berenice. Why not? She loves you."
"Then--you--Madame Mineur--" stammered Hubert. The Frenchman placed his
finger on his nose and slyly whispered:--
"Don't be afraid! I'll not tell my wife that I caught Berenice with you
alone in the park--you Don Juan! Now to the portrait--I must see that
masterpiece of yours. Berenice wrote me about it." He nodded his head
sleepily.
"Berenice wrote you about it!" was the mechanical reply.
"I'll join you and we'll go to the house." He tried to step down, but
rolled over at Hubert's feet.
"What a joke is this champagne," he growled as he was lifted to his
tottering legs. "We had a glorious time this afternoon before I left
Paris. Hurrah! You're to be my son-in-law. And, my boy, I don't envy
you--that's the truth. With such a little demon for a wife--I pity you,
pity you--hurrah!"
"I am more to be despised," muttered Hubert Falcroft, as they moved away
from the peaceful moonlit wall.
XIII
A SENTIMENTAL REBELLION
I came not to send peace, but a sword.... I am come to send fire on
the earth.
I
Her living room was a material projection of Yetta Silverman's soul. The
apartment on the north side of Tompkins Square, was small, sunny, and
comfortable. From its windows in spring and summer she could see the
boys and girls playing around the big, bare park, and when her eyes grew
tired of the street she rested them on her beloved books and pictures.
On one wall hung the portraits of Herzen, Bakounine and Kropotkin--the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of the anarchistic movement, as she piously
called them. Other images of the propaganda were scattered over the
walls: Netschajew--the St. Paul of the Nihilists--Ravachol, Octave
Mirbeau, Jean Grave, Reclus, Spies, Parsons, Engels, and Lingg--the last
four victims of the Haymarket affair, and the Fenians, Allen, Larkin,
and O'Brien, the Manchester martyrs. Among the philosophers, poets, and
artists were Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, Max Stirner--a rare drawing--Ibsen,
Thoreau, Emerson--the great American individualists--Beethoven, Zola,
Richard Strauss, Carlyle, Nietzsche, Gorky, Walt Whitman, Dostoiēwsky,
Mazzini, Rodin, Constantin Meunier, Shelley, Turgénieff, Bernard Shaw,
and finally the kindly face and intellectual head of the lawyer who so
zealously defended the Chicago anarchists. This diversified group,
together with much revolutionary literature, poems, pamphlets, the works
of Proudhon, Songs Before Sunrise, by Swinburne, and a beautiful etching
of Makart's proletarian Christ, completed, with an old square
pianoforte, the ensemble of an individual room, a room that expressed,
as her admirers said, the strong, suffering soul of Yetta Silverman,
Russian anarchist, agitator, and exile.
"Come in," she cried out in her sharp, though not unpleasant, voice. A
thin young man entered. She clapped her hands.
"Oh, so you changed your mind!" He looked at her over his glasses with
his weak, blue eyes, the white of which predominated. Simply dressed, he
nevertheless gave the impression of superior social station. He was of
the New England theological-seminary type--narrow-chested, gaunt as to
visage, by temperament drawn to theology, or, in default of religious
belief, an ardent enthusiast in sociology. The contracted temples,
uncertain gaze, and absence of fulness beneath the eyes betrayed the
unimaginative man. Art was a sealed book to him, though taxation fairly
fired his suspicious soul. He was nervous because he was dyspeptic, and
at one time of his career he mistook stomach trouble for a call to the
pulpit. And he was a millionnaire more times than he took the trouble to
count.
"Yes," he timidly replied, "I _did_ change my wavering mind--as you call
that deficient organ of mine--and so I returned. I hope I don't disturb
you!"
"No, not yet. I am sitting with my hands folded in my lap, like the
women of your class--_ladies_, you call them." She accented the title,
without bitterness. A cursory estimate of her appearance would have
placed her in the profession of a trained nurse, or perhaps in the
remotest analysis, a sewing woman of superior tastes. She was small,
wiry, her head too large for her body; but the abounding nervous
vitality, the harsh fire that burned in her large brown eyes, and the
firm mouth would have attracted the attention of the most careless. Her
mask, with its high Slavic cheek-bones and sharp Jewish nose, proclaimed
her a magnetic woman. In her quarter on the far East Side the children
called her "Aunt Yetta." She was a sister of charity in the guise of a
revolutionist.
"You sit but you think, and _my_ ladies never think," he answered, in
his boyish voice. He seemed proud to be so near this distinguished
creature. Had she not been sent to Siberia, driven out of France and
Germany, and arrested in New York for her incendiary speeches? She
possessed the most extraordinary power over an audience. Once, at Cooper
Union, Arthur had seen her control a crazy mob bent on destroying the
building because a few stupid police had interfered with the meeting.
Among her brethren Yetta Silverman was classed with Louise Michel,
Sophia Perowskaia, and Vera Zassoulitch, those valiant women, true
guardian angels, veritable martyrs to the cause. He thought of them as
he watched the delicate-looking young woman before him.
Arthur was too chilly of blood to fall in love with her; his admiration
was purely cerebral. He was unlucky enough to have had for a father a
shrewd, visionary man, that curious combination of merchant and dreamer
once to be found in New England. A follower of Fourier, a friend of
Emerson, the elder Wyartz had gone to Brook Farm and had left it in a
few months. Dollars, not dreams, was his true ambition. But he
registered his dissatisfaction with this futile attempt by christening
his only son, Arthur Schopenhauer; it was old Wyartz's way of getting
even with the ideal. Obsessed from the age of spelling by his
pessimistic middle name, the boy had grown up in a cloudy compromise of
rebellion and the church. For a few years he vacillated; he went to
Harvard, studied the Higher Criticism, made a trip abroad, wrote a
little book recording the contending impulses of his pale, harassed
soul--Oscillations was the title--and returned to Boston a mild anarch.
Emerson the mystic, transposed to the key of France, sometimes makes
bizarre music.
She arose and, walking over to him, put her hand nonchalantly on his
shoulder.
"Arthur, comrade, what do you mean to do with yourself--come, what will
all this enthusiasm bring forth?" He fumbled his glasses with his thumb
and index finger--a characteristic gesture--and nervously regarded her
before answering. Then he smiled at his idea.
"We might marry and fight the great fight together like the Jenkins
crowd."
"Marry!" she exclaimed--her guttural Russian accent manifested itself
when she became excited--"marry! You are only a baby, Arthur
Schopenhauer Wyartz--_Herrgott_, this child bears _such_ a name!--and
while I am sure the thin Yankee blood of the Jenkins family needed a
Jewish wife, and a Slav, I am not that way of thinking for myself. I am
married to the revolution." Her eyes dwelt with reverence on her new
Christian saints, those Christs of the gutter, who had sacrificed their
lives in the modern arena for the idea of liberty, who were thrown to
the wild beasts and slaughtered by the latter-day pagans of wealth, and
barbarians in purple. He followed her glance. It lashed him to jerky
enthusiasm.
"I am not joking," he earnestly asserted, "so pardon my rashness. Only
believe in my sincerity. I am no anarch on paper. I am devoted to your
cause and to you, Yetta, to my last heart's blood. Do you need my
wealth? It is yours. You can work miracles with millions in America.
Take it all."
"It's not money we need, but men," she answered darkly. "Your millions,
which came to you innocently enough, represent the misery of--how many?
Let the multi-millionnaires give away their money to found theological
colleges and libraries--_my_ party will have none of it. Its men are
armed by the ideas that we prefer. I don't blame the rich or the
political tyrants--the mob has to be educated, the unhappy proletarians,
who have so long submitted to the crack of the whip that they wouldn't
know what to do with their freedom if they had it. All mobs believe
alike in filth and fire, whether antique slaves free for their day's
Saturnalia, or the Paris crowds of '93. Their ideas of happiness are
pillage, bloodshed, drunkenness, revenge. Every popular uprising sinks
the _people_ deeper in their misery. Every bomb thrown discredits the
cause of liberty."
Astonished by this concession, Arthur wondered how she had ever earned
her reputation as the Russian "Red Virgin," as an unequivocal terrorist.
Thus he had heard her hailed at all the meetings which she addressed.
But she did not notice his perturbation, she was following another
train.
"You Americans do not love money as much as the Europeans--who hoard it
away, who worship it on their naked knees; but you do something
worse--you love it for the sake of the sport, a cruel sport for the
poor. You go into speculation as the English go after big game. It is a
sport. This sport involves food--and you gamble with wheat and meat for
counters, while starving men and women pay for the game. America is yet
rich enough to afford this sport, but some day it will become crowded
like Europe, and then, beware! Wasn't it James Hinton who said that
'Overthrowing society means an inverted pyramid getting straight'?
"And America," she continued, "bribes us with the gilded sentimental
phrases of Rousseau, Mirabeau, and Thomas Paine woven into your national
constitution, with its presumptuous declaration that all men are born
free and equal--shades of Darwin and Nietzsche!--and that universal
suffrage is a panacea for all evils. In no country boasting itself
Christian is there a system so artfully devised for keeping the _poor_
free and unequal, no country where so-called public opinion, as
expressed in the press, is used to club the majority into submission.
And you are all proud of this liberty--a liberty at which the despised
serf in Russia or the man of the street in London sneers--there is
to-day more _individual_ liberty in England and Germany than in the
United States. Don't smile! I can prove it. As for France or Italy--they
are a hundred years ahead of you in municipal government. But I shan't
talk blue-books at you, Arthur!"
"Why not, why not?" he quickly interposed. "You always impress me by
your easy handling of facts. And why won't my money be of use to the
social revolution?" Scornfully she started up again and began walking.
"Why? Because convictions can't be bought with cash! Why! Because
philanthropy is the most selfish of vices. You may do good here and
there--but you do more harm. You create more paupers, you fine
gentlemen, with your Mission houses and your Settlement workers! You are
trying to cover the ugly sores with a plaster of greenbacks. It won't
heal the sickness--it won't heal it, I tell you." Her eyes were flaming
and she stamped the floor passionately.
"We workers on the East Side have a name for you millionnaires. We call
you the White Mice. You have pretty words and white lies, pretty ways
and false smiles. Lies! lies! lies! You are only giving back, with the
aid of your superficial fine ladies, the money stolen from the true
money earners. You have discovered the Ghetto--you and the impertinent
newspaper men. And like the reporters you come down to use us for
'copy.' You live here in comfort among us and then go away, write a book
about our wretchedness and pose as altruistic heroes in your own silly
set. How I loathe that word--altruism! As if the sacrifice of your
personality does not always lead to self-deception, to hypocrisy! It is
an excuse for the busybody-rich to advertise their charities. If they
were as many armed as Briareus or the octopus, their charity would be
known to each and every hand on their arms. These sentimental anarchs!
They even marry our girls and carry them off to coddle their conscience
with gilded gingerbread. Yet they would turn their backs on Christ if he
came to Hester Street--Christ, the first modern anarch, a
destructionist, a proletarian who preached fire and sword for the evil
rich of his times. Nowadays he would be sent to Blackwell's Island for
six months as a disturber of the peace or for healing without a license
from the County Medical Association!"
"Like Johann Most," he ventured. She blazed at the name.
"No jokes, please. Most, too, has suffered. But I am no worshipper of
bombs--and beer." This made him laugh, but as the laugh was not echoed
he stared about him.
"But Yetta,--we must begin somewhere. I wish to become--to
become--something like you.--"
She interrupted him roughly:
"To become--you an anarch! You are a sentimental rebel because your
stomach is not strong enough for the gourmands who waste their time at
your clubs. If your nerves were sound you might make a speech. But the
New England conscience of your forefathers--they were nearly all
clergymen, weren't they?--has ruined your strength. The best thing you
can do, my boy, is to enter a seminary and later go to China as a
missionary; else turn literary and edit an American edition of Who's Who
in Hell! But leave our East Side alone. Do you know what New York
reminds me of? Its centre is a strip of green and gold between two
smouldering red rivers of fire--the East and West Sides. If they ever
spill over the banks, all the little parasites of greater parasites, the
lawyers, brokers, bankers, journalists, ecclesiastics, and middle men,
will be devoured. Oh, what a glorious day! And oh, that terrible night
when we marched behind the black flag and muffled drums down Broadway,
that night in 1887 when the four martyrs were murdered, the hero Lingg
having killed himself. What would you have done in those awful times?"
"Try me," he muttered, as he pulled down his cuffs, "try me!"
"Very well, I'll try you. Like Carlo Cafiero, the rich Italian anarch,
you must give your money to us--every cent of it. Come with me to-night.
I address a meeting of the brethren at Schwab's place--you know, the
saloon across the street, off the square. We can eat our supper there,
and then--"
"Try me," he reiterated, and his voice was hoarse with emotion, his
pulse painfully irregular.
II
Notwithstanding his vows of heroism, Arthur could not force himself to
like the establishment of Schwab, where the meeting was to take place.
It was a beer-saloon, not one of those mock-mediæval uptown palaces, but
a long room with a low ceiling, gaslit and shabby. The tables and chairs
of hard, coarse wood were greasy--napkins and table-cloths were not to
be mentioned, else would the brethren suspect the presence of an
aristocrat. At the upper end, beyond the little black bar, there was a
platform, upon it a table, a pianoforte, and a stool. Still he managed
to conceal his repugnance to all these uninviting things and he sipped
his diluted Rhine wine, ate his sandwich--an unpalatable one--under the
watchful eyes of his companion. By eight o'clock the room was jammed
with working-people, all talking and in a half dozen tongues.
Occasionally Yetta left him to join a group, and where she went silence
fell. She was the oracle of the crowd. At nine o'clock Arthur's head
ached. He had smoked all his Turkish cigarettes, the odour of which
caused some surprise--there was a capitalist present and they knew him.
Only Yetta prevented disagreeable comment. The men, who belonged to the
proletarian class, were poorly dressed and intelligent; the women wore
shawls on their heads and smoked bad cigarettes. The saloon did not
smell nice, Arthur thought. He had offered Yetta one of his imported
cigarettes, but she lighted a horrible weed and blew the smoke in his
face.
At ten o'clock he wished himself away. But a short, stout man with a
lopsided face showing through his tangled beard, stood up and said in
German:--
"All who are not _our_ friends, please leave the house."
No one stirred. The patron went from group to group saluting his
customers and eying those who were not. Whether any password or signal
was given Arthur could not say. When the blond, good-natured Schwab
reached him, Yetta whispered in his ear. The host beamed on the young
American and gave him a friendly poke in the back; Arthur felt as if he
had been knighted. He said this to Yetta, but her attention was
elsewhere. The doors and windows were quickly shut and bolted. She
nudged his elbow--for they were sitting six at the table, much to his
disgust; the other four drank noisily--and he followed her to the top of
the room. A babble broke out as they moved along.
"It's Yetta's new catch. Yetta's rich fellow. Wait until she gets
through with him--poor devil." These broken phrases made him shiver,
especially as Yetta's expression, at first enigmatic, was now openly
sardonic. What did she mean? Was she only tormenting him? Was this to be
his test, his trial? His head was almost splitting, for the heat was
great and the air bad. Again he wished himself home.
They reached the platform. "Jump up, Arthur, and help me," she
commanded. He did so. But his discomfiture only grew apace with the
increased heat--the dingy ceiling crushed him--and the rows in front,
the entire floor seemed transformed to eyes, malicious eyes. She told
him to sit down at the piano and play the Marseillaise. Then standing
before the table she drew from her bosom a scarlet flag, and accompanied
by the enthusiastic shoutings she led the singing. Arthur at the
keyboard felt exalted. Forgotten the pains of a moment before. He
hammered the keys vigorously, extorting from the battered instrument a
series of curious croakings. Some of the keys did not "speak," some gave
forth a brazen clangour from the rusty wires. No one cared. The singing
stopped with the last verse.
"Now La Ravachole for our French brethren." This combination of
revolutionary lyrics--Ça Ira and Carmagnole--was chanted fervidly. Then
came for the benefit of the German the stirring measures from the
Scotch-German John Henry Mackay's Sturm:--
Das ist der Kampf, den allnächtlich
Bevor das Dunkel zerrinnt,
Einsam und gramvoll auskämpt
Des Jahrhunderts verlorenes Kind.
Yetta waved her long and beautifully shaped hands--they were her
solitary vanity. The audience became still. She addressed them at first
in deliberate tones, and Arthur noted that the interest was genuine--he
wondered how long his fat-witted club friends could endure or
appreciate the easy manner in which Yetta Silverman quoted from great
thinkers, and sprinkled these quotations with her own biting
observations.
"Richard Wagner--who loved humanity when he wrote Siegfried and
regretted that love in Parsifal!
"Richard Wagner--who loved ice-cream more than Dresden's
freedom--Wagner: the Swiss family bell-ringer of '48!