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BEHIND THE BEYOND
by
STEPHEN LEACOCK
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NONSENSE NOVELS
12mo. Cloth. Net, $1.00
LITERARY LAPSES
12mo. Cloth. Net, $1.25
SUNSHINE SKETCHES
12mo. Cloth. Net, $1.25
JOHN LANE COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE PROLOGUE]
BEHIND THE ::: BEYOND :::
And Other Contributions to Human Knowledge
by
STEPHEN LEACOCK
Author of "Nonsense Novels," "Literary
::: Lapses," "Sunshine Sketches," Etc. :::
Illustrated by A. H. Fish
[Illustration]
New York: John Lane Company
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head
Toronto: Bell & Cockburn. Mcmxiii
Copyright, 1913, by
The Crowell Publishing Company
Copyright, 1913, by
The Century Company
Copyright, 1913, by
John Lane Company
CONTENTS
BEHIND THE BEYOND 11
FAMILIAR INCIDENTS
I. WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER 53
II. THE DENTIST AND THE GAS 61
III. MY LOST OPPORTUNITIES 69
IV. MY UNKNOWN FRIEND 74
V. UNDER THE BARBER'S KNIFE 84
PARISIAN PASTIMES
I. THE ADVANTAGES OF A POLITE EDUCATION 93
II. THE JOYS OF PHILANTHROPY 104
III. THE SIMPLE LIFE IN PARIS 117
IV. A VISIT TO VERSAILLES 129
V. PARIS AT NIGHT 143
THE RETROACTIVE EXISTENCE OF MR. JUGGINS 159
MAKING A MAGAZINE 169
HOMER AND HUMBUG 185
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PROLOGUE _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
THE CURTAIN RISES 12
THEIR EXPRESSION IS STAMPED WITH DEEP THOUGHT 28
HE KISSES HER ON THE BARE SHOULDER 30
HE TAKES HER IN HIS ARMS 50
"IS IT ME?" 58
I DID GO--I KEPT THE APPOINTMENT 66
HE SHOWED ME A CHURCH THAT I COULD HAVE BOUGHT FOR A
HUNDRED THOUSAND 72
I SHALL NOT TRY TO BE QUITE SO EXTRAORDINARILY CLEVER 84
WHEN HE REACHED MY FACE HE LOOKED SEARCHINGLY AT IT 88
THE TAILOR SHRUGGED HIS SHOULDERS 98
SOMETHING IN THE QUIET DIGNITY OF THE YOUNG MAN HELD ME 114
THE PARISIAN DOG 120
PERSONALLY I PLEAD GUILTY TO SOMETHING OF THE SAME SPIRIT 142
THE LADY'S FACE IS AGLOW WITH MORAL ENTHUSIASM 146
MEANWHILE HE HAD BECOME A QUAINT-LOOKING ELDERLY MAN 166
WITH ALL THE LOW CUNNING OF AN AUTHOR STAMPED ON HIS FEATURES 174
_BEHIND THE BEYOND_
_A Modern Problem Play_
_Act I.--Behind the Beyond_
THE curtain rises, disclosing the ushers of the theater still moving up
and down the aisles. Cries of "Program!" "Program!" are heard. There is
a buzz of brilliant conversation, illuminated with flashes of opera
glasses and the rattle of expensive jewelry.
Then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, in fact just as if done, so to
speak, by machinery, the lights all over the theater, except on the
stage, are extinguished. Absolute silence falls. Here and there is heard
the crackle of a shirt front. But there is no other sound.
In this expectant hush, a man in a check tweed suit walks on the stage:
only one man, one single man. Because if he had been accompanied by a
chorus, that would have been a burlesque; if four citizens in togas had
been with him, that would have been Shakespeare; if two Russian
soldiers had walked after him, that would have been melodrama. But this
is none of these. This is a problem play. So he steps in alone, all
alone, and with that absolute finish of step, that ability to walk as
if,--how can one express it?--as if he were walking, that betrays the
finished actor.
He has, in fact, barely had time to lay down his silk hat, when he is
completely betrayed. You can see that he is a finished actor--finished
about fifteen years ago. He lays the hat, hollow side up, on the silk
hat table on the stage right center--bearing north, northeast, half a
point west from the red mica fire on the stage which warms the theater.
All this is done very, very quietly, very impressively. No one in the
theater has ever seen a man lay a silk hat on a table before, and so
there is a breathless hush. Then he takes off his gloves, one by one,
_not_ two or three at a time, and lays them in his hat. The expectancy
is almost painful. If he had thrown his gloves into the mica fire it
would have been a relief. But he doesn't.
[Illustration: The Curtain rises.]
The man on the stage picks up a pile of letters from the letter
department of the hat table. There are a great many of these letters,
because all his business correspondence, as well as his private letters,
are sent here by the General Post Office. Getting his letters in this
way at night, he is able to read them like lightning. Some of them he
merely holds upside down for a fraction of a second.
Then at last he speaks. It has become absolutely necessary or
he wouldn't do it. "So--Sao Paolo risen two--hum--Rio Tinto
down again--Moreby anxious, 'better sell for half a million
sterling'--hum . . ."
(Did you hear that? Half a million sterling and he takes it just as
quietly as that. And it isn't really in the play either. Sao Paolo and
Rio Tinto just come in to let you know the sort of man you're dealing
with.)
"Lady Gathorne--dinner--Thursday the ninth--lunch with the
Ambassador--Friday the tenth."
(And mind you even this is just patter. The Ambassador doesn't come
into the play either. He and Lady Gathorne are just put in to let the
people in the cheaper seats know the kind of thing they're up against.)
Then the man steps across the stage and presses a button. A bell rings.
Even before it has finished ringing, nay, just before it begins to ring,
a cardboard door swings aside and a valet enters. You can tell he is a
valet because he is dressed in the usual home dress of a stage valet.
He says, "Did you ring, Sir John?"
There is a rustle of programs all over the house. You can hear a buzz of
voices say, "He's Sir John Trevor." They're all on to him.
When the valet says, "Did you ring, Sir John," he ought to answer, "No,
I merely knocked the bell over to see how it would sound," but he misses
it and doesn't say it.
"Has her ladyship come home?"
"Yes, Sir John."
"Has any one been here?"
"Mr. Harding, Sir John."
"Any one else?"
"No, Sir John."
"Very good."
The valet bows and goes out of the cardboard door, and everybody in the
theater, or at least everybody in the seats worth over a dollar, knows
that there's something strange in the relations of Lady Cicely Trevor
and Mr. Harding. You notice--Mr. Harding was there and no one else was
there. That's enough in a problem play.
The double door at the back of the stage, used only by the principal
characters, is opened and Lady Cicely Trevor enters. She is young and
very beautiful, and wears a droopy hat and long slinky clothes which she
drags across the stage. She throws down her feather hat and her crêpe de
what-you-call-it boa on the boa stand. Later on the valet comes in and
gathers them up. He is always gathering up things like this on the
stage--hats and boas and walking sticks thrown away by the actors,--but
nobody notices him. They are his perquisites.
Sir John says to Lady Cicely, "Shall I ring for tea?"
And Lady Cicely says, "Thanks. No," in a weary tone.
This shows that they are the kind of people who can have tea at any
time. All through a problem play it is understood that any of the
characters may ring for tea and get it. Tea in a problem play is the
same as whisky in a melodrama.
Then there ensues a dialogue to this effect: Sir John asks Lady Cicely
if she has been out. He might almost have guessed it from her coming in
in a hat and cloak, but Sir John is an English baronet.
Lady Cicely says, "Yes, the usual round," and distributes a few details
about Duchesses and Princesses, for the general good of the audience.
Then Lady Cicely says to Sir John, "You are going out?"
"Yes, immediately."
"To the _House_, I suppose."
This is very impressive. It doesn't mean, as you might think, the
Workhouse, or the White House, or the Station House, or the Bon Marché.
It is the name given by people of Lady Cicely's class to the House of
Commons.
"Yes. I am extremely sorry. I had hoped I might ask to go with you to
the opera. I fear it is impossible--an important sitting--the Ministers
will bring down the papers--the Kafoonistan business. The House will
probably divide in committee. Gatherson will ask a question. We must
stop it at all costs. The fate of the party hangs on it."
Sir John has risen. His manner has changed. His look is altered. You can
see him alter it. It is now that of a statesman. The technical details
given above have gone to his head. He can't stop.
He goes on: "They will force a closure on the second reading, go into
committee, come out of it again, redivide, subdivide and force us to
bring down the estimates."
While Sir John speaks, Lady Cicely's manner has been that of utter
weariness. She has picked up the London _Times_ and thrown it aside;
taken up a copy of _Punch_ and let it fall with a thud to the floor,
looked idly at a piece of music and decided, evidently, _not_ to sing
it. Sir John runs out of technical terms and stops.
The dialogue has clearly brought out the following points: Sir John is
in the House of Commons. Lady Cicely is not. Sir John is twenty-five
years older than Lady Cicely. He doesn't see--isn't he a fool, when
everybody in the gallery can see it?--that his parliamentary work is
meaningless to her, that her life is insufficient. That's it. Lady
Cicely is being "starved." All that she has is money, position, clothes,
and jewelry. These things starve any woman. They cramp her. That's what
makes problem plays.
Lady Cicely speaks, very quietly, "Are you taking Mr. Harding with you?"
"Why?"
"Nothing. I thought perhaps I might ask him to take me to the opera.
Puffi is to sing."
"Do, pray do. Take Harding with you by all means. Poor boy, do take him
with you."
Sir John pauses. He looks at Lady Cicely very quietly for a moment. He
goes on with a slight change in his voice.
"Do you know, Cicely, I've been rather troubled about Harding lately.
There's something the matter with the boy, something wrong."
"Yes?"
"He seems abstracted, moody--I think, in fact I'm sure that the boy is
in love."
"Yes?"
Lady Cicely has turned slightly pale. The weariness is out of her
manner.
"Trust the instinct of an old man, my dear. There's a woman in it. We
old parliamentary hands are very shrewd, you know, even in these things.
Some one is playing the devil with Jack--with Harding."
Sir John is now putting on his gloves again and gathering up his
parliamentary papers from the parliamentary paper stand on the left.
He cannot see the change in Lady Cicely's face. He is not meant to see
it. But even the little girls in the tenth row of the gallery are wise.
He goes on. "Talk to Harding. Get it out of him. You women can do these
things. Find out what the trouble is and let me know. I must help him."
(A pause. Sir John is speaking almost to himself--and the gallery.) "I
promised his mother when she sent him home, sent him to England, that I
would."
Lady Cicely speaks. "You knew Mr. Harding's mother very well?"
Sir John: "Very well."
"That was long ago, wasn't it?"
"Long ago."
"Was she married then?"
"No, not then."
"Here in London?"
"Yes, in London. I was only a barrister then with my way to make and she
a famous beauty." (Sir John is speaking with a forced levity that
doesn't deceive even the ushers.) "She married Harding of the Guards.
They went to India. And there he spent her fortune--and broke her
heart." Sir John sighs.
"You have seen her since?"
"Never."
"She has never written you?"
"Only once. She sent her boy home and wrote to me for help. That was how
I took him as my secretary."
"And that was why he came to us in Italy two years ago, just after our
marriage."
"Yes, that was why."
"Does Mr. Harding know?"
"Know what?"
"That you--knew his mother?"
Sir John shakes his head. "I have never talked with him about his
mother's early life."
The stage clock on the mantelpiece begins to strike. Sir John lets it
strike up to four or five, and then says, "There, eight o'clock. I must
go. I shall be late at the House. Good-by."
He moves over to Lady Cicely and kisses her. There is softness in his
manner--such softness that he forgets the bundle of parliamentary papers
that he had laid down. Everybody can see that he has forgotten them.
They were right there under his very eye.
Sir John goes out.
Lady Cicely stands looking fixedly at the fire. She speaks out loud to
herself. "How his voice changed--twenty-five years ago--so long as
that--I wonder if Jack knows."
There is heard the ring of a bell off the stage. The valet enters.
"Mr. Harding is downstairs, my lady."
"Show him up, Ransome."
A moment later Mr. Harding enters. He is a narrow young man in a frock
coat. His face is weak. It has to be. Mr. Harding is meant to typify
weakness. Lady Cicely walks straight to him. She puts her two hands on
his shoulders and looks right into his face.
"MY DARLING," she says. Just like that. In capital letters. You can feel
the thrill of it run through the orchestra chairs. All the audience look
at Mr. Harding, some with opera glasses, others with eyeglasses on
sticks. They can see that he is just the sort of ineffectual young man
that a starved woman in a problem play goes mad over.
Lady Cicely repeats "My darling" several times. Mr. Harding says "Hush,"
and tries to disengage himself. She won't let him. He offers to ring
for tea. She won't have any. "Oh, Jack," she says. "I can't go on any
longer. I can't. When first you loved me, I thought I could. But I
can't. It throttles me here--this house, this life, everything----" She
has drawn him to a sofa and has sunk down in a wave at his feet. "Do you
remember, Jack, when first you came, in Italy, that night, at Amalfi,
when we sat on the piazza of the palazzo?" She is looking rapturously
into his face.
Mr. Harding says that he does.
"And that day at Fiesole among the orange trees, and Pisa and the
Capello de Terisa and the Mona Lisa--Oh, Jack, take me away from all
this, take me to the Riviera, among the contadini, where we can stand
together with my head on your shoulder just as we did in the Duomo at
Milano, or on the piaggia at Verona. Take me to Corfu, to the Campo
Santo, to Civita Vecchia, to Para Noia--anywhere----"
Mr. Harding, smothered with her kisses, says, "My dearest, I will, I
will." Any man in the audience would do as much. They'd take her to
Honolulu.
While she is speaking, Sir John's voice had been heard off the stage.
"No, thank you, Ransome, I'll get them myself, I know just where I left
them." Sir John enters hurriedly, advances and picks up his papers on
the table--turns--and stands----
He sees his wife's attitude and hears her say "Riviera, Amalfi,
Orangieri, Contadini and Capello Santo." It is enough. He drops his
parliamentary papers. They fall against the fire irons with a crash.
These in falling upset a small table with one leg. The ball of wool that
is on it falls to the floor. The noise of this disturbs the lovers.
They turn. All three look at one another. For a moment they make a
motion as if to ring for tea. Then they stand petrified.
"You!" gasps Lady Cicely. She does this awfully well. Everybody says
afterward that it was just splendid when she said "You."
Sir John stands gazing in horror. "Him! My God! He!" Mr. Harding says
nothing. He looks very weak.
Lady Cicely unpetrifies first.
She breaks out, speaking through her nostrils. "Yes, I love him, I love
him. I'm not ashamed of it. What right have you to deny it me? You gave
me nothing. You made me a chattel, a thing----"
You can feel the rustle of indignation through the house at this. To
make a woman a thing is the crowning horror of a problem play.
"You starved me here. You throttled me." Lady Cicely takes herself by
the neck and throttles herself a little to show how.
"You smothered me. I couldn't breathe--and now I'm going, do you hear,
going away, to life, to love, behind the beyond!" She gathers up Mr.
Harding (practically) and carries him passionately away. He looks back
weakly as he goes.
Sir John has sunk down upon a chair. His face is set.
"Jack," he mutters, "my God, Jack!"
As he sits there, the valet enters with a telegram on a tray.
"A telegram, Sir John."
Sir John (dazed and trying to collect himself), "What?"
"A telegram, sir,--a cablegram."
Sir John takes it, opens it and reads aloud:
"He is dead. My duty is ended. I am coming home--Margaret Harding."
"Margaret coming home. It only needed that--my God."
. . . . . . .
As he says it, the curtain falls.
The lights flick up. There is a great burst of applause. The curtain
rises and falls. Lady Cicely and Mr. Harding and Sir John all come out
and bow charmingly. There is no trace of worry on their faces, and they
hold one another's hands. Then the curtain falls and the orchestra
breaks out into a Winter Garden waltz. The boxes buzz with discussion.
Some of the people think that Lady Cicely is right in claiming the right
to realize herself: others think that before realizing herself she
should have developed herself. Others ask indignantly how she could
know herself if her husband refused to let her be herself. But everybody
feels that the subject is a delicious one.
Those of the people who have seen the play before very kindly explain
how it ends, so as to help the rest to enjoy it. But the more
serious-minded of the men have risen, very gently, and are sneaking up
the aisles. Their expression is stamped with deep thought as if
pondering over the play. But their step is as that of leopards on the
march, and no one is deceived as to their purpose.
The music continues. The discussion goes on.
* * * * *
The leopards come stealing back. The orchestra boils over in a cadence
and stops. The theater is darkened again. The footlights come on with a
flash. The curtain silently lifts, and it is--
_Act II.--Six Months Later_
THE programs rustle. The people look to see where it is. And they find
that it is "An Apartment in Paris." Notice that this place which is used
in every problem play is just called _An Apartment_. It is not called
Mr. Harding's Apartment, or an Apartment for which Mr. Harding pays the
Rent. Not a bit. It is just an Apartment. Even if it were "A Apartment"
it would feel easier. But "_An Apartment_"!! The very words give the
audience a delicious shiver of uncomfortableness.
When the curtain rises it discloses a French maid moving about the stage
in four-dollar silk stockings. She is setting things on a little table,
evidently for supper. She explains this in French as she does it, so as
to make it clear.
[Illustration: Their expression is stamped with deep thought.]
"_Bon! la serviette de monsieur! bon! la serviette de madame, bien--du
champagne, bon! langouste aux champignons, bien, bon._--" This is all
the French she knows, poor little thing, but _langouste aux
champignons_ beats the audience, so she is all right.
Anyway, this supper scene has to come in. It is symbolical. You can't
really show Amalfi and Fiesole and the orange trees, so this kind of
supper takes their place.
As the maid moves about there is a loud knock at the cardboard door of
the apartment. A man in official clothes sticks his head in. He is
evidently a postal special messenger because he is all in postal attire
with a postal glazed hat.
"Monsieur Arrding?" he says.
"_Oui._"
"_Bon! Une lettre._"
"_Merci, monsieur._" He goes out. The audience feel a thrill of pride at
having learned French and being able to follow the intense realism of
this dialogue. The maid lays the letter on the supper table.
Just as she does it the door opens and there enter Mr. Harding and Lady
Cicely. Yes, them. Both of them. The audience catches it like a flash.
They _live_ here.
Lady Cicely throws aside her cloak. There is great gaiety in her manner.
Her face is paler. There is a bright spot in each cheek. Her eyes are
very bright.
* * * * *
There follows the well-known supper scene. Lady Cicely is very gay. She
pours champagne into Mr. Harding's glass. They both drink from it. She
asks him if he is a happy boy now. He says he is. She runs her fingers
through his hair. He kisses her on the bare shoulder. This is also
symbolic.
Lady Cicely rattles on about Amalfi and Fiesole. She asks Mr. Harding if
he remembers that night in the olive trees at Santa Clara, with just one
thrush singing in the night sky. He says he does. He remembers the very
thrush. You can see from the talk that they have been all over
Baedeker's guide to the Adriatic.
At times Lady Cicely's animation breaks. She falls into a fit of
coughing and presses her hand to her side. Mr. Harding looks at her
apprehensively. She says, "It is nothing, silly boy, it will be gone
in a moment." It is only because she is so happy.
[Illustration: He kisses her on the bare shoulder.]
Then, quite suddenly, she breaks down and falls at Mr. Harding's knees.
"Oh, Jack, Jack, I can't stand it! I can't stand it any longer. It is
choking me!"
"My darling, what is it?"
"This, all this, it is choking me--this apartment, these pictures, the
French maid, all of it. I can't stand it. I'm being suffocated. Oh,
Jack, take me away--take me somewhere where it is quiet, take me to
Norway to the great solemn hills and the fjords----"
* * * * *
Then suddenly Mr. Harding sees the letter in its light blue envelope
lying on the supper table. It has been lying right beside him for ten
minutes. Everybody in the theater could see it and was getting
uncomfortable about it. He clutches it and tears it open. There is a
hunted look in his face as he reads.
"What is it?"
"My mother--good God, she is coming. She is at the Bristol and is
coming here. What can I do?"
Lady Cicely is quiet now.
"Does she know?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"How did she find you?"
"I don't know. I can't imagine. I knew when I saw in the papers that my
father was dead that she would come home. But I kept back the address. I
told the solicitors, curse them, to keep it secret."
Mr. Harding paces the stage giving an imitation of a weak man trapped.
He keeps muttering, "What can I do?"
Lady Cicely speaks very firmly and proudly. "Jack."
"What?"
"There is only one thing to do. Tell her."
Mr. Harding, aghast, "Tell her?"
"Yes, tell her about our love, about everything. I am not ashamed. Let
her judge me."
Mr. Harding sinks into a chair. He keeps shivering and saying, "I tell
you, I can't; I can't. She wouldn't understand." The letter is
fluttering in his hand. His face is contemptible. He does it splendidly.
Lady Cicely picks the letter from his hand. She reads it aloud, her eyes
widening as she reads:
HOTEL BRISTOL, PARIS.
MY DARLING BOY:
I have found you at last--why have you sought
to avoid me? God grant there is nothing wrong.
He is dead, the man I taught you to call your
father, and I can tell you all now. I am coming
to you this instant.
MARGARET HARDING.
Lady Cicely reads, her eyes widen and her voice chokes with horror.
She advances to him and grips his hand. "What does it mean, Jack, tell
me what does it mean?"
"Good God, Cicely, don't speak like that."
"This--these lines--about your father."
"I don't know what it means--I don't care--I hated him, the brute. I'm
glad he's dead. I don't care for that. But she's coming here, any
minute, and I can't face it."
Lady Cicely, more quietly, "Jack, tell me, did my--did Sir John Trevor
ever talk to you about your father?"
"No. He never spoke of him."
"Did he know him?"
"Yes--I think so--long ago. But they were enemies--Trevor challenged him
to a duel--over some woman--and he wouldn't fight--the cur."
Lady Cicely (dazed and aghast)--"I--understand--it--now." She recovers
herself and speaks quickly.
"Listen. There is time yet. Go to the hotel. Go at once. Tell your
mother nothing. Nothing, you _understand_. Keep her from coming here.
Anything, but not that. Ernestine,"--She calls to the maid who reappears
for a second--"a taxi--at once."
She hurriedly gets Harding's hat and coat. The stage is full of bustle.
There is a great sense of hurry. The audience are in an agony for fear
Ernestine is too slow, or calls a four-wheel cab by mistake. If the play
is really well put on, you can presently hear the taxi buzzing outside.
Mr. Harding goes to kiss Lady Cicely. She puts him from her in horror
and hastens him out.
She calls the maid. "Ernestine, quick, put my things, anything, into a
valise."
"Madame is going away!"
"Yes, yes, at once."
"Madame will not eat?"
"No, no."
"Madame will not first rest?" (The slow comprehension of these French
maids is something exasperating.) "Madame will not await monsieur?
"Madame will not first eat, nor drink--no? Madame will not sleep?"
"No, no--quick, Ernestine. Bring me what I want. Summon a fiacre. I
shall be ready in a moment." Lady Cicely passes through a side door into
an inner room.
She is scarcely gone when Mrs. Harding enters. She is a woman about
forty-five, still very beautiful. She is dressed in deep black.
(The play is now moving very fast. You have to sit tight to follow it
all.)
She speaks to Ernestine. "Is this Mr. Harding's apartment?"
"Yes, madame."
"Is he here?" She looks about her.
"No, madame, he is gone this moment in a taxi--to the Hotel Bristol, I
heard him say."
Mrs. Harding, faltering. "Is--any one--here?"
"No, madame, no one--milady was here a moment ago. She, too, has gone
out." (This is a lie but of course the maid is a French maid.)
"Then it is true--there is some one----" She is just saying this when
the bell rings, the door opens and there enters--Sir John Trevor.
"You!" says Mrs. Harding.
"I am too late!" gasps Sir John.
She goes to him tremblingly--"After all these years," she says.
"It is a long time."
"You have not changed."
She has taken his hands and is looking into his face, and she goes on
speaking. "I have thought of you so often in all these bitter years--it
sustained me even at the worst--and I knew, John, that it was for my
sake that you had never married----"
* * * * *
Then, as she goes on talking, the audience realize with a thrill that
Mrs. Harding does not know that Sir John married two years ago, that she
has come home, as she thought, to the man who loved her, and, more than
that, they get another thrill when they realize that Lady Cicely is
learning it too. She has pushed the door half open and is standing there
unseen, listening. She wears a hat and cloak; there is a folded letter
in her hand--her eyes are wide. Mrs. Harding continues:
"And now, John, I want your help, only you can help me, you are so
strong--my Jack, I must save him." She looks about the room. Something
seems to overcome her. "Oh, John, this place--his being here like
this--it seems a judgment on us."
The audience are getting it fast now. And when Mrs. Harding speaks of
"our awful moment of folly," "the retribution of our own sins," they
grasp it and shiver with the luxury of it.
After that when Mrs. Harding says: "Our wretched boy, we must save
him,"--they all know why she says "our."
She goes on more calmly. "I realized. I knew--he is not alone here."
Sir John's voice is quiet, almost hollow. "He is not alone."
"But this woman--can you not deal with her--persuade her--beg her for my
sake--bribe her to leave my boy?"
Lady Cicely steps out. "There is no bribe needed. I am going. If I have
wronged him, and you, it shall be atoned."
Sir John has given no sign. He is standing stunned. She turns to him. "I
have heard and know now. I cannot ask for pity. But when I am gone--when
it is over--I want you to give him this letter--and I want you, you two,
to--to be as if I had never lived."
She lays the letter in his hand. Then without a sign, Lady Cicely passes
out. There is a great stillness in the house. Mrs. Harding has watched
Lady Cicely and Sir John in amazement. Sir John has sunk into a chair.
She breaks out, "John, for God's sake what does it mean--this
woman--speak--there is something awful, I must know."
"Yes, you must know. It is fate. Margaret, you do not know all. Two
years ago I married----"
"But this woman, this woman----"
"She is--she was--my wife."
. . . . . . .
And at this moment Harding breaks into the room. "Cicely, Cicely, I was
too late----" He sees the others. "Mother," he says in agony, "and
you----" He looks about. "Where is she? What is happening? I must
know----"
Sir John, as if following a mechanical impulse, has handed Harding the
letter. He tears it open and reads:
"Dearest, I am going away, to die. It cannot be long now. The doctor
told me to-day. That was why I couldn't speak or explain it to you and
was so strange at supper. But I am glad now. Good-by."
Harding turns upon Sir John with the snarl of a wolf. "What have you
done? Why have you driven her away? What right had you to her, you
devil? I loved her--She was mine----"
He had seized a pointed knife from the supper table. His shoulders are
crouched--he is about to spring on Sir John. Mrs. Harding has thrown
herself between them.
"Jack, Jack, you mustn't strike."
"Out of the way, I say, I'll----"
"Jack, Jack, you mustn't strike. Can't you understand? Don't you
see--what it is. . . ."
"What do you mean--stand back from me."
"Jack he--is--your--father."
The knife clatters to the floor. "My God!"
* * * * *
And then the curtain falls--and there's a burst of applause and, in
accordance with all the best traditions of the stage, one moment later,
Lady Cicely and Mr. Harding and Sir John and Mrs. Harding are all bowing
and smiling like anything, and even the little French maid sneaks on in
a corner of the stage and simpers.
Then the orchestra plays and the leopards sneak out and the people in
the boxes are all talking gayly to show that they're not the least
affected. And everybody is wondering how it will come out, or rather how
it can _possibly_ come out at all, because some of them explain that
it's all wrong, and just as they are making it clear that there
shouldn't be any third act, the curtain goes up and it's----
_Act III. Three Months Later_
THE curtain rises on a drawing-room in Mrs. Harding's house in London.
Mrs. Harding is sitting at a table. She is sorting out parcels. There is
a great air of quiet about the scene. The third act of a problem play
always has to be very quiet. It is like a punctured football with the
wind going out of it. The play has to just poof itself out noiselessly.
For instance, this is the way it is done.
Does Mrs. Harding start to talk about Lady Cicely and Jack, and Paris?
Not a bit. She is simply looking over the parcels and writing names and
talking to herself so that the audience can get the names.
"For the Orphans' Home--poor little things. For the Foundlings'
Protection Society. For the Lost Infants' Preservation League" (a deep
sigh)--"poor, poor children."
Now what is all this about? What has this to do with the play? Why,
don't you see that it is the symbol of philanthropy, of gentleness, of
melancholy sadness? The storm is over and there is nothing in Mrs.
Harding's heart but pity. Don't you see that she is dressed in deeper
black than ever, and do you notice that look on her face--that third-act
air--that resignation?
Don't you see that the play is really all over? They're just letting the
wind out of it.
A man announces "Sir John Trevor."
Sir John steps in. Mrs. Harding goes to meet him with both hands out.
"My dear, dear friend," she says in rich, sad tones.
Sir John is all in black. He is much aged, but very firm and very quiet.
You can feel that he's been spending the morning with the committee of
the Homeless Newsboys' League or among the Directorate of the Lost
Waifs' Encouragement Association. In fact he begins to talk of these
things at once. The people who are not used to third acts are wondering
what it is all about. The real playgoers know that this is _atmosphere_.
Then presently----
"Tea?" says Mrs. Harding, "shall I ring?"
"Pray do," says Sir John. He seats himself with great weariness. The
full melancholy of the third act is on him. The tea which has been made
for three acts is brought in. They drink it and it begins to go to their
heads. The "atmosphere" clears off just a little.
"You have news, I know," says Mrs. Harding, "you have seen him?"
"I have seen him."
"And he is gone?"
"Yes, he has sailed," says Sir John. "He went on board last night, only
a few hours after my return to London. I saw him off. Poor Jack.
Gatherson has been most kind. They will take him into the embassy at
Lima. There, please God, he can begin life again. The Peruvian
Ambassador has promised to do all in his power."
Sir John sighs deeply and is silent. This to let the fact soak into the
audience that Jack has gone to Peru. Any reasonable person would have
known it. Where else could he go to?
"He will do well in Peru," says Mrs. Harding. She is imitating a woman
being very brave.
"Yes, I trust so," says Sir John. There is silence again. In fact the
whole third act is diluted with thirty per cent. of silence. Presently
Mrs. Harding speaks again in a low tone.
"You have other news, I know."
"I have other news."
"Of her?"
"Yes. I have been to Switzerland. I have seen the curé--a good man. He
has told me all there is to tell. I found him at the hospice, busy with
his _oeuvre de bienfaisance_. He led me to her grave."
Sir John is bowed in deep silence.
Lady Cicely dead! Everybody in the theater gasps. Dead! But what an
unfair way to kill her! To face an open death on the stage in fair hand
to hand acting is one thing, but this new system of dragging off the
characters to Switzerland between the acts, and then returning and
saying that they are dead is quite another.
Presently Mrs. Harding speaks, very softly. "And you? You will take up
your work here again?"
"No; I am going away."
"Going?"
"Yes, far away. I am going to Kafoonistan."
Mrs. Harding looks at him in pain. "To Kafoonistan?"
"Yes. To Kafoonistan. There's work there for me to do."
. . . . . . .
There is silence again. Then Sir John speaks. "And you? You will settle
down here in London?"
"No. I am going away."
"Going away?"
"Yes, back to Balla Walla. I want to be alone. I want to forget. I want
to think. I want to try to realize."
"You are going alone?"
"Yes, quite alone. But I shall not feel alone when I get there. The
Maharanee will receive me with open arms. And my life will be useful
there. The women need me; I will teach them to read, to sew, to sing."
"Mrs. Harding--Margaret--you must not do this. You have sacrificed your
life enough--you have the right to live----"
There is emotion in Sir John's tone. It is very rough on him to find his
plan of going to Kafoonistan has been outdone by Mrs. Harding's going to
Balla Walla. She shakes her head.
"No, no; my life is of no account now. But you, John, you are needed
here, the country needs you. Men look to you to lead them."
Mrs. Harding would particularize if she could, but she can't just for
the minute remember what it is Sir John can lead them to. Sir John
shakes his head.
"No, no; my work lies there in Kafoonistan. There is a man's work to be
done there. The tribes are ignorant, uncivilized."
This dialogue goes on for some time. Mrs. Harding keeps shaking her head
and saying that Sir John must not go to Kafoonistan, and Sir John says
she must not go to Balla Walla. He protests that he wants to work and
she claims that she wants to try to think clearly. But it is all a
bluff. They are not going. Neither of them. And everybody knows it.
Presently Mrs. Harding says:
"You will think of me sometimes?"
"I shall never forget you."
"I'm glad of that."
"Wherever I am, I shall think of you--out there in the deserts, or at
night, alone there among the great silent hills with only the stars
overhead, I shall think of you. Your face will guide me wherever I am."
He has taken her hand.
"And you," he says, "you will think of me sometimes in Balla Walla?"
"Yes, always. All day while I am with the Maharanee and her women, and
at night, the great silent Indian night when all the palace is asleep
and there is heard nothing but the sounds of the jungle, the cry of the
hyena and the bray of the laughing jackass, I shall seem to hear your
voice."
She is much moved. She rises, clenches her hands and then adds, "I have
heard it so for five and twenty years."
He has moved to her.
"Margaret!"
"John!"
"I cannot let you go, your life lies here--with me--next my heart--I
want your help, your love, here inside the beyond."
And as he speaks and takes her in his arms, the curtain sinks upon them,
rises, falls, rises, and then sinks again asbestos and all, and the play
is over. The lights are on, the audience rises in a body and puts on its
wraps. All over the theater you can hear the words "perfectly rotten,"
"utterly untrue," and so on. The general judgment seems to be that it is
a perfectly rotten play, but very strong.
They are saying this as they surge out in great waves of furs and
silks, with black crush hats floating on billows of white wraps among
the foam of gossamer scarfs. Through it all is the squawk of the motor
horn, the call of the taxi numbers and the inrush of the fresh night
air.
But just inside the theater, in the office, is a man in a circus
waistcoat adding up dollars with a blue pencil, and he knows that the
play is all right.
[Illustration: He takes her in his arms.]
_FAMILIAR INCIDENTS_
_I.--With the Photographer_
"I WANT my photograph taken," I said. The photographer looked at me
without enthusiasm. He was a drooping man in a gray suit, with the dim
eye of a natural scientist. But there is no need to describe him.
Everybody knows what a photographer is like.
"Sit there," he said, "and wait."
I waited an hour. I read the _Ladies Companion_ for 1912, the _Girls
Magazine_ for 1902 and the _Infants Journal_ for 1888. I began to see
that I had done an unwarrantable thing in breaking in on the privacy of
this man's scientific pursuits with a face like mine.
After an hour the photographer opened the inner door.
"Come in," he said severely.
I went into the studio.
"Sit down," said the photographer.
I sat down in a beam of sunlight filtered through a sheet of factory
cotton hung against a frosted skylight.
The photographer rolled a machine into the middle of the room and
crawled into it from behind.
He was only in it a second,--just time enough for one look at me,--and
then he was out again, tearing at the cotton sheet and the window panes
with a hooked stick, apparently frantic for light and air.
Then he crawled back into the machine again and drew a little black
cloth over himself. This time he was very quiet in there. I knew that he
was praying and I kept still.
When the photographer came out at last, he looked very grave and shook
his head.
"The face is quite wrong," he said.
"I know," I answered quietly; "I have always known it."
He sighed.
"I think," he said, "the face would be better three-quarters full."
"I'm sure it would," I said enthusiastically, for I was glad to find
that the man had such a human side to him. "So would yours. In fact," I
continued, "how many faces one sees that are apparently hard, narrow,
limited, but the minute you get them three-quarters full they get wide,
large, almost boundless in----"
But the photographer had ceased to listen. He came over and took my head
in his hands and twisted it sideways. I thought he meant to kiss me, and
I closed my eyes.
But I was wrong.
He twisted my face as far as it would go and then stood looking at it.
He sighed again.
"I don't like the head," he said.
Then he went back to the machine and took another look.
"Open the mouth a little," he said.
I started to do so.
"Close it," he added quickly.
Then he looked again.
"The ears are _bad_," he said; "droop them a little more. Thank you. Now
the eyes. Roll them in under the lids. Put the hands on the knees,
please, and turn the face just a little upward. Yes, that's better. Now
just expand the lungs! So! And hump the neck--that's it--and just
contract the waist--ha!--and twist the hip up toward the elbow--now! I
still don't quite like the face, it's just a trifle _too_ full, but----"
I swung myself round on the stool.
"Stop," I said with emotion but, I think, with dignity. "This face is
_my_ face. It is not yours, it is mine. I've lived with it for forty
years and I know its faults. I know it's out of drawing. I know it
wasn't made for me, but it's _my_ face, the only one I have--" I was
conscious of a break in my voice but I went on--"such as it is, I've
learned to love it. And this is my mouth, not yours. These ears are
_mine_, and if your machine is too narrow--" Here I started to rise from
the seat.
Snick!
The photographer had pulled a string. The photograph taken. I could see
the machine still staggering from the shock.
"I think," said the photographer, pursing his lips in a pleased smile,
"that I caught the features just in a moment of animation."
"So!" I said bitingly,--"features, eh? You didn't think I could animate
them, I suppose? But let me see the picture."
"Oh, there's nothing to see yet," he said, "I have to develop the
negative first. Come back on Saturday and I'll let you see a proof of
it."
On Saturday I went back.
The photographer beckoned me in. I thought he seemed quieter and graver
than before. I think, too, there was a certain pride in his manner.
He unfolded the proof of a large photograph, and we both looked at it in
silence.
"Is it me?" I asked.
"Yes," he said quietly, "it is you," and we went on looking at it.
"The eyes," I said hesitatingly, "don't look very much like mine."
"Oh, no," he answered, "I've retouched them. They come out splendidly,
don't they?"
"Fine," I said, "but surely my eyebrows are not like that?"
"No," said the photographer, with a momentary glance at my face, "the
eyebrows are removed. We have a process now--the Delphide--for putting
in new ones. You'll notice here where we've applied it to carry the hair
away from the brow. I don't like the hair low on the skull."
"Oh, you don't, don't you?" I said.
"No," he went on, "I don't care for it. I like to get the hair clear
back to the superficies and make out a new brow line."
"What about the mouth?" I said with a bitterness that was lost on the
photographer; "is that mine?"
"It's adjusted a little," he said, "yours is too low. I found I couldn't
use it."
"The ears, though," I said, "strike me as a good likeness; they're just
like mine."
[Illustration: "Is it me?"]
"Yes," said the photographer thoughtfully, "that's so; but I can fix
that all right in the print. We have a process now--the Sulphide--for
removing the ears entirely. I'll see if----"
"Listen!" I interrupted, drawing myself up and animating my features to
their full extent and speaking with a withering scorn that should have
blasted the man on the spot. "Listen! I came here for a photograph--a
picture--something which (mad though it seems) would have looked like
me. I wanted something that would depict my face as Heaven gave it to
me, humble though the gift may have been. I wanted something that my
friends might keep after my death, to reconcile them to my loss. It
seems that I was mistaken. What I wanted is no longer done. Go on, then,
with your brutal work. Take your negative, or whatever it is you call
it,--dip it in sulphide, bromide, oxide, cowhide,--anything you
like,--remove the eyes, correct the mouth, adjust the face, restore the
lips, reanimate the necktie and reconstruct the waistcoat. Coat it with
an inch of gloss, shade it, emboss it, gild it, till even you
acknowledge that it is finished. Then when you have done all that--keep
it for yourself and your friends. They may value it. To me it is but a
worthless bauble."
I broke into tears and left.
_II.--The Dentist and the Gas_
"I THINK," said the dentist, stepping outside again, "I'd better give
you gas."
Then he moved aside and hummed an air from a light opera while he mixed
up cement.
I sat up in my shroud.
"Gas!" I said.
"Yes," he repeated, "gas, or else ether or a sulphuric anesthetic, or
else beat you into insensibility with a club, or give you three thousand
bolts of electricity."
These may not have been his exact words. But they convey the feeling of
them very nicely.
I could see the light of primitive criminality shining behind the man's
spectacles.
And to think that this was _my_ fault--the result of my own reckless
neglect. I had grown so used to sitting back dozing in my shroud in the
dentist's chair, listening to the twittering of the birds outside, my
eyes closed in the sweet half sleep of perfect security, that the old
apprehensiveness and mental agony had practically all gone.
He didn't hurt me, and I knew it.
I had grown--I know it sounds mad--almost to like him.
For a time I had kept up the appearance of being hurt every few minutes,
just as a precaution. Then even that had ceased and I had dropped into
vainglorious apathy.
It was this, of course, which had infuriated the dentist. He meant to
reassert his power. He knew that nothing but gas could rouse me out of
my lethargy and he meant to apply it--either gas or some other powerful
pain stimulant.
So, as soon as he said "_gas_," my senses were alert in a moment.
"When are you going to do it?" I said in horror.
"Right now, if you like," he answered.
His eyes were glittering with what the Germans call _Blutlust_. All
dentists have it.
I could see that if I took my eye off him for a moment he might spring
at me, gas in hand, and throttle me.
"No, not now, I can't stay now," I said, "I have an appointment, a whole
lot of appointments, urgent ones, the most urgent I ever had." I was
unfastening my shroud as I spoke.
"Well, then, to-morrow," said the dentist.
"No," I said, "to-morrow is Saturday. And Saturday is a day when I
simply can't take gas. If I take gas, even the least bit of gas on a
Saturday, I find it's misunderstood----"
"Monday then."
"Monday, I'm afraid, won't do. It's a bad day for me--worse than I can
explain."
"Tuesday?" said the dentist.
"Not Tuesday," I answered. "Tuesday is the worst day of all. On Tuesday
my church society meets, and I _must_ go to it."
I hadn't been near it, in reality, for three years, but suddenly I felt
a longing to attend it.
"On Wednesday," I went on, speaking hurriedly and wildly, "I have
another appointment, a swimming club, and on Thursday two appointments,
a choral society and a funeral. On Friday I have another funeral.
Saturday is market day. Sunday is washing day. Monday is drying day----"
"Hold on," said the dentist, speaking very firmly. "You come to-morrow
morning: I'll write the engagement for ten o'clock."
I think it must have been hypnotism.
Before I knew it, I had said "Yes."
I went out.
On the street I met a man I knew.
"Have you ever taken gas from a dentist?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," he said; "it's nothing."
Soon after I met another man.
"Have you ever taken gas?" I asked.
"Oh, certainly," he answered, "it's nothing, nothing at all."
Altogether I asked about fifty people that day about gas, and they all
said that it was absolutely nothing. When I said that I was to take it
to-morrow, they showed no concern whatever. I looked in their faces for
traces of anxiety. There weren't any. They all said that it wouldn't
hurt me, that it was nothing.
So then I was glad because I knew that gas was nothing.
It began to seem hardly worth while to keep the appointment. Why go all
the way downtown for such a mere nothing?
But I did go.
I kept the appointment.
What followed was such an absolute nothing that I shouldn't bother to
relate it except for the sake of my friends.
The dentist was there with two assistants. All three had white coats on,
as rigid as naval uniforms.
I forget whether they carried revolvers.
Nothing could exceed their quiet courage. Let me pay them that tribute.
I was laid out in my shroud in a long chair and tied down to it (I think
I was tied down; perhaps I was fastened with nails). This part of it was
a mere nothing. It simply felt like being tied down by three strong men
armed with pinchers.
After that a gas tank and a pump were placed beside me and a set of
rubber tubes fastened tight over my mouth and nose. Even those who have
never taken gas can realize how ridiculously simple this is.
Then they began pumping in gas. The sensation of this part of it I
cannot, unfortunately, recall. It happened that just as they began to
administer the gas, I fell asleep. I don't quite know why. Perhaps I was
overtired. Perhaps it was the simple home charm of the surroundings, the
soft drowsy hum of the gas pump, the twittering of the dentists in the
trees--did I say the trees? No; of course they weren't in the
trees--imagine dentists in the trees--ha! ha! Here, take off this
gaspipe from my face till I laugh--really I just want to laugh--only to
laugh----
Well,--that's what it felt like.
Meanwhile they were operating.
[Illustration: I did go . . . I kept the appointment.]