Ray went home ill at ease with himself. He spent a bad night, and he
seemed to have sunk away only a moment from his troubles, when a knock
at his door brought him up again into the midst of them. He realized
them before he realized the knock sufficiently to call out, “Who’s
there?”
“Oh!” said Mr. Brandreth’s voice without; “you’re not up yet! Can I come
in?”
“Certainly,” said Ray, and he leaned forward and slid back the bolt of
his door: it was one advantage of a room so small that he could do this
without getting out of bed.
Mr. Brandreth seemed to beam with one radiance from his silk hat, his
collar, his boots, his scarf, his shining eyes and smooth-shaven
friendly face, as he entered.
“Of course,” he said, “you haven’t seen the _Metropolis_ yet?”
“No; what is the matter with the _Metropolis_?”
Mr. Brandreth, with his perfectly fitted gloves on, and his natty cane
dangling from his wrist, unfolded the supplement of the newspaper, and
accurately folded it again to the lines of the first three columns of
the page. Then he handed it to Ray, and delicately turned away and
looked out of the window.
Ray glanced at the space defined, and saw that it was occupied by a
review of _A Modern Romeo_. There were lengths of large open type for
the reviewer’s introduction and comments and conclusion, and embedded
among these, in closer and finer print, extracts from the novel, where
Ray saw his own language transfigured and glorified.
The critic struck in the beginning a note which he sounded throughout; a
cry of relief, of exultation, at what was apparently the beginning of a
new order of things in fiction. He hailed the unknown writer of _A
Modern Romeo_ as the champion of the imaginative and the ideal against
the photographic and the commonplace, and he expressed a pious joy in
the novel as a bold advance in the path that was to lead forever away
from the slough of realism. But he put on a philosophic air in making
the reader observe that it was not absolutely a new departure, a break,
a schism; it was a natural and scientific evolution, it was a
development of the spiritual from the material; the essential part of
realism was there, but freed from the grossness, the dulness of realism
as we had hitherto known it, and imbued with a fresh life. He called
attention to the firmness and fineness with which the situation was
portrayed and the characters studied before the imagination began to
deal with them; and then he asked the reader to notice how, when this
foundation had once been laid, it was made to serve as a
“star-ypointing pyramid” from which the author’s fancy took its bold
flight through realms untravelled by the photographic and the
commonplace. He praised the style of the book, which he said
corresponded to the dual nature of the conception, and recalled
Thackeray in the treatment of persons and things, and Hawthorne in the
handling of motives and ideas. There was, in fact, so much subtlety in
the author’s dealing with these, that one might almost suspect a
feminine touch, but for the free and virile strength shown in the
passages of passion and action.
The reviewer quoted several of such passages, and Ray followed with a
novel intensity of interest the words he already knew by heart. The
whole episode of throwing the cousin over the cliff was reprinted; but
the parts which the reviewer gave the largest room and the loudest
praise were those embodying the incidents of the hypnotic trance and the
tragical close of the story. Here, he said, was a piece of the most
palpitant actuality, and he applauded it as an instance of how the
imagination might deal with actuality. Nothing in the whole range of
commonplace, photographic, realistic fiction was of such striking effect
as this employment of a scientific discovery in the region of the ideal.
He contended that whatever lingering doubt people might have of the
usefulness of hypnotism as a remedial agent, there could be no question
of the splendid success with which the writer of this remarkable novel
had turned it to account in poetic fiction of a very high grade. He did
not say the highest grade; the book had many obvious faults. It was
evidently the first book of a young writer, whose experience of life had
apparently been limited to a narrow and comparatively obscure field. It
was in a certain sense provincial, even parochial; but perhaps the very
want of an extended horizon had concentrated the author’s thoughts the
more penetratingly on the life immediately at hand. What was important
was that he had seen this life with the vision of an idealist, and had
discerned its poetic uses with the sense of the born artist, and had set
it in
“The light that never was on sea or land.”
Much more followed to like effect, and the reviewer closed with a
promise to look with interest for the future performance of a writer who
had already given much more than the promise of mastery; who had given
proofs of it. His novel might not be the great American novel which we
had so long been expecting, but it was a most notable achievement in the
right direction. The author was the prophet of better things; he was a
Moses, who, if we followed him, would lead us up from the flesh-pots of
Realism toward the promised land of the Ideal.
From time to time Ray made a little apologetic show of not meaning to do
more than glance the review over, but Mr. Brandreth insisted upon his
taking his time and reading it all; he wanted to talk to him about it.
He began to talk before Ray finished; in fact he agonized him with
question and comment, all through; and when Ray laid the paper down at
last, he came and sat on the edge of his bed.
“Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I don’t believe in working on
Sunday, and that sort of thing; but I believe this is providential. My
wife does, too; she says it’s a reward for the faith we’ve had in the
book; and that it would be a sin to lose a moment’s time. If there is to
be any catch-on at all, it must be instantaneous; we mustn’t let the
effect of this review get cold, and I’m going to strike while it’s
red-hot.” The word seem to suggest the magnitude of the purpose which
Mr. Brandreth expressed with seriousness that befitted the day. “I’m
simply going to paint the universe red. You’ll see.”
“Well, well,” said Ray, “you’d better not tell me how. I guess I’ve got
as much as I can stand, now.”
“If that book doesn’t succeed,” said Mr. Brandreth, as solemnly as if
registering a vow, “it won’t be my fault.”
He went away, and Ray passed into a trance such as wraps a fortunate
lover from the outer world. But nothing was further from his thoughts
than love. The passion that possessed him was egotism flattered to an
intensity in which he had no life but in the sense of himself. No
experience could be more unwholesome while it lasted, but a condition so
intense could not endure. His first impulse was to keep away from every
one who could keep him from the voluptuous sense of his own success. He
knew very well that the review in the _Metropolis_ overrated his book,
but he liked it to be overrated; he wilfully renewed his delirium from
it by reading it again and again, over his breakfast, on the train to
the Park, and in the lonely places which he sought out there apart from
all who could know him or distract him from himself. At first it seemed
impossible; at last it became unintelligible. He threw the paper into
some bushes; then after he had got a long way off, he went back and
recovered it, and read the review once more. The sense had returned, the
praises had relumed their fires; again he bathed his spirit in their
splendor. It was he, he, he, of whom those things were said. He tried to
realize it. Who was he? The question scared him; perhaps he was going
out of his mind. At any rate he must get away from himself now; that was
his only safety. He thought whom he should turn to for refuge. There
were still people of his society acquaintance in town, and he could have
had a cup of tea poured for him by a charming girl at any one of a dozen
friendly houses. There were young men, more than enough of them, who
would have welcomed him to their bachelor quarters. There was old Kane.
But they would have all begun to talk to him about that review; Peace
herself would have done so. He ended by going home, and setting to work
on some notices for the next day’s _Every Evening_. The performance was
a play of double consciousness in which he struggled with himself as if
with some alien personality. But the next day he could take the time to
pay Mr. Brandreth a visit without wronging the work he had carried so
far.
On the way he bought the leading morning papers, and saw that the
publisher had reprinted long extracts from the _Metropolis_ review as
advertisements in the type of the editorial page; in the _Metropolis_
itself he reprinted the whole review. “This sort of thing will be in the
principal Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis
papers just as soon as the mail can carry them my copy. I _had_ thought
of telegraphing the advertisement, but it will cost money enough as it
is,” said Mr. Brandreth.
“Are you sure you’re not throwing your money away?” Ray asked, somewhat
aghast.
“I’m sure I’m not throwing my chance away,” the publisher retorted with
gay courage. He developed the plan of campaign as he had conceived it,
and Ray listened with a kind of nerveless avidity. He looked over at Mr.
Chapley’s room, where he knew that Peace was busily writing, and he
hoped that she did not know that he was there. His last talk with her
had mixed itself up with the intense experience that had followed, and
seemed of one frantic quality with it. He walked out to the street door
with Mr. Brandreth beside him, and did not turn for a glimpse of her.
“Oh by-the-way,” said the publisher at parting, “if you’d been here a
little sooner, I could have made you acquainted with your reviewer. He
dropped in a little while ago to ask who S. Ray was, and I did my best
to make him believe it was a real name. I don’t think he was more than
half convinced.”
“I don’t more than half believe in him,” said Ray, lightly, to cover his
disappointment. “Who is he?”
“Well, their regular man is off on sick leave, and this young
fellow--Worrell is his name--is a sort of under study. He was telling me
how he happened to go in for your book--those things are always
interesting. He meant to take another book up to his house with him, and
he found he had yours when he got home, and some things about hypnotism.
He went through them, and then he thought he would just glance at yours,
anyway, and he opened on the hypnotic trance scene, just when his mind
was full of the subject, and he couldn’t let go. He went back to the
beginning and read it all through, and then he gave you the benefit of
the other fellow’s chance. He wanted to see you, when I told him about
you. Curious how these things fall out, half the time?”
“Very,” said Ray, rather blankly.
“I knew you’d enjoy it.”
“Oh, I do.”