THE QUEEREST YARN IN THE WORLD
The way the story leaked out was this: A young Irishman from Sligo,
as he blushingly admitted, whose face was a passport of honesty
stamped by nature herself, had served two customers over the bar of
the old chop-house across the street from the opera-house. To him
they were just two throats athirst; nothing more. They ordered
drinks, and this first attracted his attention, for they agreed on
cognac. Now, brandy after dinner is not an unusual drink, but this
pair had asked for a large glass. Old brandy was given them, and
such huge swallows followed that the bartender was compelled by his
conscience to ring up one dollar for the two drinks. It was paid,
and another round commanded, as if the two men were hurried, as
indeed they were, for it was during an entr'acte at the opera that
they had slipped out for liquid refreshments. Against the bar of the
establishment a dozen or more humans were ranged, and the noise was
deafening, but not so great as to prevent the Irishman from catching
scraps of the conversation dropped by the brandy-drinkers. Their
talk went something like this, and, although Michael had little
schooling, his memory was excellent, and, being a decent chap, there
is no need to impeach the veracity of his report.
The taller man, neither young, neither old, and, like his friend,
without a grey hair, burst out laughing after the disappearance of
the second cognac. "I say, old pal, who was it wrote that brandy was
for heroes? Kipling? What?" The other man, stockily built,
foreign-looking, answered in a contemptuous tone ("sneering-like,"
as my informant put it):
"Where's your memory? Gone to rack and ruin like your ideals, I
suppose! Kipling! What do such youngsters know? Doctor Johnson or
Walter Savage Landor was the originator of the lying epigram; after
them Byron gobbled it up, as he gobbled up most of the good things
of his generation, and after him, the deluge of this mediocre
century. When I told Byron this, at Milan, I think it was, he vowed
me an ass. Now, it was Doctor Johnson."
"Cheer up, it's not so bad. I remember once at Paris, or was it
Vienna, you said the same thing about----" and here followed a
strange name.
"And, anyhow, you are mixing dates; Landor followed Byron, please,
but I suppose he said it first. I told Metternich of your bon-mot,
and, egad! he laughed, did that old parchment face. As for
Bonaparte, upstart and charlatan, he was too selfish to smile at
anybody's wit but his own, and little he had. Do you remember the
Congress of Vienna?"
"Do I--1815?"
"Some such year. Or was it in 1750 when we saw Casanova at Venice?
Well--" At this point the alarm-signal went off, and the mob went
over to the opera. The young bartender's heart was beating so fast
that it "leapt up in his bosom," as he described it. Two middle-aged
men talking of a century ago as calmly as if they had spoken of
yesterday flustered him a bit. He heard the dates. He noticed the
perfectly natural manner in which events were mentioned. There was
no mystification. For the first time in his life Michael was sorry
the between-act pause was so short, and he longed for the next one,
though fatigued from the labours of the last. Would these gentlemen
return for more cognac? In an hour they came back with the crowd,
again drank old five-star brandy, and gossiped about a lot of
incomprehensible things that had evidently taken place in the
sixteenth or seventeenth century; at least, Michael overheard them
disputing dates, and one of them bet the other that the big fire in
London occurred in 1666, and referred the question to Mr. Peppers,
or Peps--some such name.
"Ah, poor old Pepys," sighed the dark man; "if he had only taken
better care of himself he might have been with us to-day instead of
mouldering in his grave."
"Oh, well! you can't expect every one to believe in your Struldbrug
cure," replied his friend dreamily. "Even Her Majesty, Queen Anne,
would not take your advice, though Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley begged
her to."
"Yes, about the only thing they ever agreed upon in their life.
Where is Harley to-day?"
"Oh, I suppose in London," carelessly replied the other. "For a
young bird of several centuries he's looking as fit as a fiddle; but
see here, Swift, old boy, your bogy-tales are worrying our young
friend," and with that Michael says they pointed to him, heartily
laughed, and went away.
He crossed himself, and for a moment the electric lights burned dim,
so it seemed to the superstitious laddie-buck. But he had had a good
chance to study the odd pair. They were not, as he repeated, old
men, neither were they youthful. Say thirty-five or forty years, and
he noticed this time the freshness of their complexions, the
brilliancy of their eyes. They were just gentlemen in evening
clothes and had run across Broadway without overcoats, a
reprehensible act even for a young man. But they were healthy,
self-contained, and hard-headed--they took, according to the
statistician behind the bar, about a quart of brandy between them,
and were as fresh as daisies after the fiery stuff. Who were they?
"Blagueurs," said I, after I had carefully deciphered the runic
inscriptions in Michael's mind. (This was a week later.) Two
fellows out on a lark, bent on scaring a poor Irish boy. But what
was Swift, or Queen Anne, or Metternich, or Mr. Harley to him? Just
words. Bonaparte he might be expected to remember. It was curious
all the same that he could reel off the unusual names of Mrs. Masham
and Casanova. The deuce! was there something in the horrid tale? Two
immortals stalking the globe when their very bones should have been
dissolved into everlasting dust! Two wraiths revisiting the glimpses
of the moon--hold on! Struldbrug! Who was Struldbrug? What his cure?
I tried to summon from the vasty deep all the worthies of the
eighteenth century. Struldbrug. Swift. Struldbrug. Sir William
Temple. Struldbrug--ah! by the great horn spoon! The Struldbrugs of
the Island of Laputa! Gulliver's hideous immortals--and then the
horror of the story enveloped me, but, despite my aversion to
meeting the dead, I determined to live in the chop-house till I saw
face to face these ghosts from a vanished past. My curiosity was
soon gratified, as the sequel will show.
Just one week after the appearance of this pair I stood talking to
the Irish barman, when I saw him start and pale. Ha! I thought, here
are my men. I was not mistaken. Two well-built and well-groomed
gentlemen asked for brandy, and swallowed it in silence. They were
polite enough to avoid my rather rude stare. No wonder I stared.
They recalled familiar faces, yet I couldn't at once place the
owners. Presently they went over to a table and seated themselves.
Loudly calling for a mug of musty ale, I boldly put myself at an
adjacent spot, and continued my spying tactics. The friends were
soon in hot dispute. It concerned the literary reputation of Balzac.
I sat with my mouth wide open.
The elder of the pair, the one called Swift, snapped at his friend:
"Zounds, sir! you and your Balzac. Hogwash and roosters in
rut--that's about his capacity. Of course, when your own dull stuff
appeared he praised you for the sake of the paradox. You moderns!
Balzac the father of French fiction! You the father, or is it
grandfather, of psychology--a nice crew! That boy Maupassant had
more stuff in him than a wilderness of Zolas, Goncourts, and the
rest. He is almost as amusing as Paul de Kock--" The other, the
little man, bristled with rage.
"Because you wrote a popular boy's book, full of filth and
pessimism, you think you know all literature. And didn't you copy
Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyagers, and Defoe? You satirise every one
except God, whom you spare because you don't know him. I don't care
much for Balzac, though I'm free to confess he did treat me
handsomely in praising my Chartreuse----"
"Good God!" I groaned, "it's Stendhal, otherwise Henry Beyle, laying
down the law to the tremendous author of Gulliver's Travels." And
yet neither man looked the accepted portrait of himself. Above all,
no Struldbrug moles were in view. I forgot my former fear, being
interested in the dispute of these two giant writers who are more
akin artistically than ever taken cognisance of by criticism. Dead?
What did I care! They were surely alive now, and I was not dreaming.
I didn't need to pinch myself, for my eyes and ears reported the
occurrence. A miracle? Why not. Miracles are daily, if we but knew
it. Living is the most wonderful of all miracles. The discussion
proceeded. Swift spoke tersely, just as he wrote:
"Enough, friend Beyle. You are a charlatan. Your knowledge of the
human heart is on a par with your taste in literature. You abominate
Flaubert because his prose is more rhythmic than yours."
"I vow I protest," interrupted Stendhal.
"No matter. I'm right. Merimee, your pupil, is your master at every
point."
I could no longer contain myself, and, bursting with curiosity, I
cried:
"Pardon me, dear masters, for interrupting such a luminous
altercation, but, notwithstanding the queerness of the situation,
may I not say that I meet in the flesh, Jonathan Swift and Henry
Beyle-Stendhal?"
"Discovered, by the eternal Jehovah!" roared Swift, adding an
obscene phrase, which I discreetly omit. Stendhal took the incident
coolly.
"As I am rediscovered about every decade by ambitious young critics
anxious to achieve reputations, I am not disturbed by our young
friend here. Your apology, monsieur, is accepted. Pray, join us in a
fresh drink and conversation." But I was only thirsty for more talk,
oceans of talk. I eagerly asked Stendhal, who regarded me with
cynical eyes, all the while fingering his little whisker: "Did you
ever hear Chopin play?"
"Who," he solemnly asked in turn, "is Chopin?"
"He was at his best in the forties, and as you didn't die till----"
"Pardon me, monsieur. I never died. Your Chopin may have died, but I
am immortal."
"You venerable Struldbrug," giggled Swift. I was disagreeably
impressed, yet held my ground:
"You must have met him. He was a friend of Balzac--his music was
then in vogue at Paris--" I stumbled in my speech.
"He probably means that little Polish piano-player who dangled at
the petticoats of George Sand," interpolated Swift.
"I knew Cimarosa, Rossini I saw, but I never heard of Chopin. As for
the Sand woman, that cow who chewed and rechewed her literary
cud--don't mention her name to me, please. She is the village pump
of fiction; water, wet water. Balzac was bad enough." My heart
sank. Chopin not even remembered by a contemporary! This then is
fame. But the immortality of Stendhal, of Swift--what of
that? Its reality was patent to me. Perhaps Balzac, Sand, Flaubert
were still alive. I propounded the question. Swift answered it.
* * * * *
"Yes, they are alive. My Struldbrugs are meant to symbolise the
immortality of genius. Only stupid people die. Sand is a barmaid in
London. Balzac is on the road selling knit-goods, and a mighty good
drummer he is sure to be; but poor Flaubert has had hard luck. He
was the reader to a publishing house, and forced to pass judgment on
the novels of the day--favourable judgment, mind you, on the popular
stuff. He nearly burst a blood-vessel when they gave him a Marie
Corelli manuscript to correct--to correct the style, mind you, he,
Flaubert! The gods are certainly capricious. Now the old chap--he
has aged since 1880--is in New York reading proof at a daily
newspaper office. He sits at the same desk with Ben de Casseres, and
every time he mutters over the rhythm of a sentence Ben raps him on
the knuckles, and says:
"'You are an old-fashioned bourgeois, Pop Flaubert! Some night I'll
take you over to Jack's and recite my Sermon on Suicide, to teach
you what brilliance and Bovarysme really mean.'" I was shocked at
this blasphemy, and said so. Stendhal calmly bade me to keep my
temper.
"But isn't Mr. Swift joking?"
"Mr. Swift is always joking," was the far from reassuring reply. To
fill in the interval I called for the waiter. The ghosts again
demanded cognac. Stendhal looked like the caricature by Felicien
Rops, in which his little pot-bellied figure, broad face, snub nose,
and protuberant eyes are shown dominating some strange Cosmopolis of
1932. In life--or death--he seemed supremely self-satisfied. He
glowered at the name of Flaubert, rejoicing in the sad existence of
the mighty prose master, but he smiled superciliously when I
reproached him with not knowing Chopin. Heine's poetic fantasy of
the gods of Greece, alive, and still in hiding, was not precisely
convincing in the present reincarnation. A feeling of repulsion
ensued, and finally I arose and said good night to my very new and
very old friends. Swift's picture of the Struldbrugs was realised,
and it was an unpleasant one. Men of genius should never be seen; in
their works alone they live. Swift, with his nasty, sly, constipated
humour; Stendhal, with his overwhelming air of arrogance and
superiority, did not win my sympathy. They evidently noted my
dismay.
"You're disappointed. So sorry!" said Swift ironically. "At first I
was vastly intrigued at the opportunity of talking with one of you
modern persons, but I see I'm mistaken--ha! Beyle, what d'ye say?"
Stendhal pondered. "Cimarosa, Rossini, and Haydn I knew. Correggio I
admire, but who was Chopin?"
Stung to anger, I retorted: "Yours is the loss, not Chopin's."
Whereat Michael, the bartender, merrily laughed, and the company
joined him. I was the sacrificial goat. My head was on the
chopping-block, and Stendhal was the executioner. Forgetting the
respect due to such illustrious shades, I shook my finger under
Stendhal's upturned nostrils: "You may be a couple of impostors for
all I know, but even if you are not, I wish to tell you how heartily
I dislike your petty carping criticisms. Better oblivion than
immortality for your lean and sinister souls." Again hysterical
laughter. As I left I overheard Swift say in reproachful accents, as
if his vanity had been wounded:
"This saucy Yahoo reads our books and believes in them, but when we
talk he doubts us. As Sam Johnson used to say, 'The reciprocal
civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce
of life.'"
Stendhal boomed out: "He is dead himself but doesn't know it yet.
All critics are stillborn. But _we_ live on for ever. Garcon! some
more brandy."
Out on crowded, expressive Broadway I stood, dazed and irritated.
After all the palaver of authors, it is the critic who has the last
word, like a woman. Rejoicing over the originality of the idea, I
went my wooden way.