Mariana's neighbor sat in his room. He sat motionless, his head resting
upon his hands, his arms resting upon an office desk, which was plainly
finished and of cheap walnut. At his left elbow a lamp cast an
illumination upon his relaxed and exhausted figure, upon the straight,
dark hair, upon the bulging brow, and upon the sinewy and squarely
shaped hands, with their thin and nervous fingers.
The desk upon which he leaned was covered with a litter of closely
written letter-sheets, and at the back a row of pigeon-holes contained
an unassorted profusion of manuscripts.
The walls of the room were lined with roughly constructed shelves of
painted wood, which were filled to overflowing with well-worn volumes in
English, French, and German, Oken's _Die Zeugung_ upon the north side
confronting Darwin's _The Variation of Animals and Plants Under
Domestication_ upon the south. A cabinet in one corner contained a
number of alcoholic specimens of embryonic development, and a small
table near by supported a microscope and several instruments for
physiological experiments. Above the mantel, perhaps arranged in
freakish disregard of superstition, hung a skull and a pair of
cross-bones, and beneath them a series of photographs illustrating the
evolution of rudimentary nervous systems.
Upon the hearth, within convenient reach of the desk, stood a small
spirit-stove, and on it a coffee-pot, which emitted a strong and
stimulating aroma. Beside it a table was spread, with the remains of a
cold supper and an unused cup and saucer.
The man lifted his head from his hands, turned up the wick of the lamp,
and took up his pen.
From without came the rumble of the elevated road and the shrill cries
of a newsboy proclaiming the redundant virtues of the _Evening Post_. A
warm August breeze, entering at the open window, which was raised from
the floor, caused the flame of the lamp to flicker slightly. Outside
upon the fire-escape the young plants were arranged in rows of
systematic precision, their tender leaves revealed in the narrow path of
lamplight leading from the heated room to the iron railing overlooking
the street. With absent-minded elaboration the man drew an irregular
line upon the paper before him. The line bore no relation whatever to
the heading of the paper, which was written in a remarkably firm and
heavy hand, and read:
"Transmission of Acquired Characteristics."
Suddenly he laid the pen aside, and rose, wiping the moisture from his
brow with his handkerchief. Then he threw off his coat and drew up his
shirt-sleeves. It was oppressively warm, and the lamp seemed to possess
the heating qualities of a Latrobe stove. For a couple of minutes he
walked slowly up and down the uncarpeted floor. From the adjoining room
came the sound of a piano and a woman singing. He shook his head
impatiently, but the sound continued, and he yawned and stretched his
arms with resentful resignation. After which he lifted the coffee-pot
from the little stove and filled the cup upon the table.
Returning to his seat, he drank his coffee slowly, allowing his
abstracted gaze to wander through the window and into the city night
without. Upon the drawn shades of the opposite tenement-house he could
trace the shadows of men and women passing to and fro like the
unsubstantial outlines of figures remembered in a dream. His thoughts
fluttered restlessly. He was tired. Yes, but the coffee would get him
into shape again, and he must work. It was barely ten o'clock. The day
had been trying. The experiments made in the college laboratory had been
unsuccessful. He had gone about them wrongly. Professor Myers had been
mistaken in his calculations. It was unfortunate. The opportunity for
work had been excellent, and in September, when the session began, his
lectures at that infernal Woman's College would take a good two hours
daily, to say nothing of the preparations. What a bore it would be! If
he had only money enough to follow out his work independently he might
make a splendid success of it. True, he had spent enough on those
travels and excavations in Egypt and Assyria to have supported an
ordinary Philistine in comfort for an ordinary lifetime. But he did not
regret them. They had given balance to his judgment, and he had acquired
an immense amount of information. And those studies in Ancient India.
Why, they had even more direct bearing upon his theories. Involuntarily
his glance strayed round the book-lined walls and to the manuscripts in
his desk. He devoured the closely written, almost illegible pages with
insatiable eyes--eyes stricken with the mania for knowledge. The bronzed
and sallow face he turned towards the light was suffused with the glow
of a consuming purpose. In its deep-eyed, thin-lipped severity of
drawing, every sensuous curve had been erased by lines of toil.
He set the cup aside and returned to his work. From a drawer of his desk
he drew a thick volume, consisting of a number of legal-cap sheets,
bound with a systematic regard for subject. Upon the cover was written
in printed letters: "Notes," and beneath: "A History of Man, with
Special Application of the Science of Ontogeny."
After consulting this briefly he laid it away and fell to writing. From
the adjoining room still came the sound of a woman singing. The voice
was light and flippant.
"Damn it!" said the man, suddenly, with angry impatience. He said it
vehemently, looking up from his work with nervous irritability. At the
same moment there came a slight tap at his door.
He laid aside his pen, rose, and opened it. Mr. Paul stood upon the
outside.
"Well, Mr. Algarcife," he began, grimly, "you see I have broken a
life-long principle and taken a man at his word. I came for the book you
spoke of."
Algarcife welcomed him impatiently. "So I suppose I must prove your
principle relative, if not erroneous," he answered. His voice was
singularly full and clear. "It was _Milligan on the Vocabulary of
Aboriginal Tasmanians_, was it not? Yes, I think it will aid you."
Mr. Paul came in and they sat down. Algarcife offered him coffee and
cigars, but he declined. He sat stiffly in his chair and looked at the
other with cynical interest.
"You write all night on this lye, I suppose?" he said, abruptly. "A
combined production of brains and coffee."
Algarcife lighted his pipe and leaned back in his chair, blowing gray
circles of smoke upon the atmosphere.
"You are right," he responded; "I find I do my best work after midnight,
when I am drunk on caffeine or coffee. I suppose it will do for me in
the end."
Mr. Paul returned his indifferent gaze with one of severity. "You are
all nerves as it is," he said. "You haven't an ounce of good barbarian
blood in your body--merely a colorless machine for ratiocination. I tell
you, there is no bigger fool than the man who, because he possesses a
few brains, forgets that he is an animal."
The other laughed abstractedly.
"What wholesome truths you deliver," he said. "I think Luther must have
had your manner. Well, if I were in your place, I should probably say
the same, though less forcibly. But they are theories. You see, I argue
this way: with one man's mind and one man's power of work, I could never
accomplish what I have before me--any more than poor Buckle, with the
brain of a giant, could accomplish what he undertook. It is too big for
a single man in this stage of development. So, with one man's mind, I
intend to do six men's amount of labor. If I hold out, I will have my
reward; if I go to pieces, I shall at least have the satisfaction of a
good fight."
His voice was distinct and forcible, with a widely varied range of
expression.
There was a second tap at the door, and Mr. Nevins entered, looking
depressed and ill-humored.
"Hello, Anthony!" he called. "What! is Mr. Paul squandering your
midnight oil? You should have sent him to bed long ago."
"It is not my hour for retiring," responded Mr. Paul.
Anthony interrupted pacifically.
"Mr. Paul is exhorting me," he said, "and I have no doubt that, with
slight modifications, his sermon may be adapted to your case. He
predicts brain-softening and general senility."
"An inspired prophecy," returned Mr. Nevins, crossly, "and savoring of
Jeremiah. As for myself, it is but common justice that a man who has
conscientiously refused the cultivation of the mind should not be called
upon to lose what he doesn't possess." Then he grew suddenly cheerful.
"Confound it! What's the use of being a philosopher on paper when you
can be one in practice. What's the use of dying when you can eat,
drink, and be merry?"
"Eating," remarked Mr. Paul, with depressing effect, "produces
dyspepsia, drinking produces gout."
"And thought, paresis," added Anthony, lightly. "They are all merely
different forms of dissipation. I have chosen mine; Nevins has chosen
his. Only, as a matter of taste, I'd rather die by work than wine.
Personally, I prefer consumption to apoplexy."
"There is such a thing as the means justifying the end," responded Mr.
Nevins, in reckless ill-humor. "And it is a great principle. If I wasn't
a fool, I'd make a bonfire of my brush and palette, and start afresh on
a level with my appetite. I would become the apostle of good-living,
which means fast living. I tell you, an hour of downright devilment is
worth all the art since Adam. Aristippus is greater than Raphael."
"What has gone wrong?" demanded Algarcife, soothingly. "Too much purple
in the 'Andromeda'? I always said that purple was the imperial color of
his satanic majesty. If you had followed the orthodox art of your
college days, and hadn't gone wandering after strange gods, you might
have escaped a dash of that purple melancholia."
"You're a proper fellow," returned Mr. Nevins, with disgust. "Who was it
that won that last debate in '82 by a glowing defence of Christianity
against agnosticism, and, when the Reverend Miles lit out about the new
orator in his flock, floored him with: 'Was that good? Then what a
magnificent thing I could have made of the other side!'"
Mr. Paul had opened his book, and glanced up with candid lack of
interest. Anthony laughed languidly.
"I saw Miles some weeks ago," he said, "and he is still talking about my
'defection,' as he calls it. I couldn't convince him that I was merely
the counsel for a weak case, and that I was always an agnostic at
heart."
Mr. Nevins lighted a cigar in silence. Then he nodded abruptly towards
the wall. "What's that noise?" he demanded, irritably.
"That," replied Algarcife, "is a fiend in woman's form, who makes night
hideous. I can't begin to work until she sings herself hoarse, and she
doesn't do that until midnight. Verily, she is possessed of seven
devils, and singing devils at that."
Mr. Nevins was listening attentively. His irritability had vanished.
"Why, it's Mariana!" he exclaimed. "Bless her pretty throat! An hour of
Mariana is worth all the spoken or unspoken thoughts of--of Marcus
Aurelius, to say nothing of Solomon."
Mr. Paul closed his book and looked up gravely. "A worthy young woman,"
he observed, "though a trifle fast. As for Solomon, his wisdom has been
greatly exaggerated."
"Fast!" protested Mr. Nevins. "She's as fast as--as Mr. Paul--"
"Your insinuation is absurd," returned Mr. Paul, stiffly. But Mr. Nevins
was not to be suppressed.
"Then don't display your ignorance of such matters. As for this St.
Anthony, he thinks every woman who walks the New York streets a bleached
pattern of virtue. I don't believe he'd know a painted Jezebel unless
she wore a scarlet letter."
Anthony turned upon him resentfully. "Confound it, Nevins," he said, "I
am not a born fool!"
"Only an innocent," retorted Mr. Nevins, complacently.
A resounding rap upon the panels of the door interrupted them. Mr.
Nevins rose.
"That's Ardly," he said. "He and I are doing New York to-night."
Ardly came inside, and stood with his hand upon the door-knob.
"Come on, Nevins," he said. "I've got to do a column on that new
_danseuse_. She dances like a midge, but, by Jove! she has a figure to
swear by--"
"And escape perjury," added Mr. Nevins. "Mariana says it is false."
"Mariana," replied Ardly, "is a sworn enemy to polite illusions. She
surveys the stage through a microscope situated upon the end of a
lorgnette. It is a mistake. One should never look at a woman through
glasses unless they be rose-colored ones. A man preserves this
principle, and his faith in plumpness and curves along with it; a woman
penetrates to the padding and powder. Come on, Nevins."
Mr. Nevins followed him into the hall, and then turned to look in again.
"Algarcife, won't you join us on a jolly little drunk? Won't you, Mr.
Paul?"
When they had gone, and Mr. Paul had gone likewise, though upon a
different way, Anthony heated the coffee, drank two cups, and resumed
his work.
"Taken collectively," he remarked, "the human race is a consummate
nuisance. What a deuced opportunity for work the last man will
have--only, most likely, he'll be an ass."
The next day he passed Mariana on the stairs without seeing her. He was
returning from the college laboratory, and his mind was full of his
experiments. Later in the afternoon, when he watered his plants, he
turned his can, in absent-minded custom, upon the geranium, and saw that
there was a scarlet bloom among the leaves. The sight pleased him. It
was as if he had given sustenance to a famished life.
But Mariana, engrossed in lesser things, had seen him upon the stairs
and upon the balcony. She still cherished an unreasonable resentment at
what she considered his trespass upon her individual rights; and yet,
despite herself, the trenchant quality in the dark, massive-browed face
had not been without effect upon her. The ascetic self-repression that
chastened his lips, and the utter absence of emotion in the mental heat
of his glance tantalized her in its very unlikeness to her own nature.
She, who thrilled into responsive joy or gloom at reflected light or
shade, found her quick senses awake to each passing impression, and had
learned to recognize her neighbor's step upon the stair; while he,
wrapped in an intellectual trance, created his environment at will, and
was as oblivious of the girl at the other end of the fire-escape as he
was to the articles of furniture in his room.
It was as if semi-barbarism, in all its exuberance of undisciplined
emotion, had converged with the highest type of modern civilization--the
civilization in which the flesh is degraded from its pedestal and forced
to serve as a jangled vehicle for the progress of the mind.
The next night, as Algarcife stood at his window looking idly down upon
the street below, he heard the sound of a woman sobbing in the adjoining
room. His first impulse was to hasten in the direction from whence the
sound came. He curbed the impulse with a shake.
"Hang it," he said, "it is no business of mine!"
But the suppressed sobbing from the darkness beyond invited him with its
enlistment of his quick sympathies.
The electric light, falling upon the fire-escape, cast inky shadows from
end to end. They formed themselves into dense outlines, which shivered
as if stirred by a phantom breeze.
He turned and went back to his desk. Upon the table he had spread the
supper of which he intended partaking at eleven o'clock. For an unknown
reason he had conceived an aversion to the restaurant in the basement,
and seldom entered it. He slept late in the day and worked at night,
and his meals were apt to be at irregular hours.
He wrote a line, and rose and went back to the window. For an instant he
stood and listened, then stepped out upon the fire-escape and walked
across the shivering shadows towards the open window beyond.
Upon the little door beneath the window a girl was leaning, her head
bowed upon her outstretched arm. The light in the room beyond was low,
but he could see distinctly the slight outlines of her figure and the
confusion of her heavy hair. She was sobbing softly.
"I beg your pardon," he said, the sympathetic quality in his voice
dominating, "but I am sure that I can help you."
His forcible self-confidence exercised a compelling effect. The girl
lifted her head and looked at him. Tears stood in her eyes, and as the
electric light caught the clear drops they cast out scintillant flashes.
Against the dim interior her head, with its nimbus of hair, had the
droop and poise of the head of a mediaeval saint.
"Oh, but you don't know how unhappy I am!" she said.
He spoke as he would have spoken to Mr. Paul in the same circumstances.
"You have no one to whom you can go?"
"No."
"Then tell me about it."
His tone was that in which a physician might inquire the condition of a
patient's digestion. It was absolutely devoid of the recognition of sex.
"Oh, I have worked so hard!" said Mariana.
"Yes?"
"And I hoped to sing in opera, and--Morani tells me that--it will be
impossible."
"Ah!" In the peculiar power of his voice the exclamation had the warmth
of a handshake.
Mariana rested her chin upon her clasped hands and looked at him. "He
says it must be a music-hall--or--or nothing," she added.
He was silent for a moment. He felt that it was a case in which his
sympathy could be exceeded only by his ignorance. "And this is why you
are unhappy?" he asked. "Is there nothing else?"
She gave a little sob. "I am tired," she said. "My allowance hasn't
come--and I missed my dinner, and I am--hungry."
Algarcife responded with relieved cheerfulness.
"Why, we are prepared for that," he said. "I was just sitting down to my
supper, and you will join me."
In his complete estrangement from the artificial restraints of society,
it seemed to him the simplest of possible adjustments of the difficulty.
He felt that his intervention had not been wholly without beneficial
results.
Mariana glanced swiftly up into his face.
"Come!" he said; and she rose and followed him.