beat to two measures) that the father has some difficulty in maintaining
his equilibrium, but the bride herself moves steadily and erectly,
almost seeming to float. Her face is thickly encrusted with talcum in
its various forms, so that she is almost a dead white. She keeps her
eyelids lowered modestly, but is still acutely aware of every glance
fastened upon her--not in the mass, but every glance individually. For
example, she sees clearly, even through her eyelids, the still, cold
smile of a girl in Pew 8 R--a girl who once made an unwomanly attempt
upon the bridegroom's affections, and was routed and put to flight by
superior strategy. And her ears are open, too: she hears every "How
sweet!" and "Oh, lovely!" and "Ain't she pale!" from the latitude of
the last pew to the very glacis of the altar of God.
While she has thus made her progress up the hymeneal chute, the
bridegroom and his best man have emerged from the vestryroom and begun
the short march to the prie-dieu. They walk haltingly, clumsily,
uncertainly, stealing occasional glances at the advancing bridal party.
The bridegroom feels of his lower right-hand waistcoat pocket; the ring
is still there. The best man wriggles his cuffs. No one, however, pays
any heed to them. They are not even seen, indeed, until the bride and
her father reach the open space in front of the altar. There the bride
and the bridegroom find themselves standing side by side, but not a word
is exchanged between them, nor even a look of recognition. They stand
motionless, contemplating the ornate cushion at their feet, until the
bride's father and the bridesmaids file to the left of the bride and the
ushers, now wholly disorganized and imbecile, drape themselves in an
irregular file along the altar rail. Then, the music having died down to
a faint murmur and a hush having fallen upon the assemblage, they look
up.
Before them, framed by foliage, stands the reverend gentleman of God who
will presently link them in indissoluble chains--the estimable rector
of the parish. He has got there just in time; it was, indeed, a close
shave. But no trace of haste or of anything else of a disturbing
character is now visible upon his smooth, glistening, somewhat feverish
face. That face is wholly occupied by his official smile, a thing of oil
and honey all compact, a balmy, unctuous illumination--the secret of his
success in life. Slowly his cheeks puff out, gleaming like soap-bubbles.
Slowly he lifts his prayer-book from the prie-dieu and holds it
droopingly. Slowly his soft caressing eyes engage it. There is an almost
imperceptible stiffening of his frame. His mouth opens with a faint
click. He begins to read.
The Ceremony of Marriage has begun._
_IV.--THE VISIONARY_
_IV.--The Visionary_
"Yes," said Cheops, helping his guest over a ticklish place, "I daresay
this pile of rocks will last. It has cost me a pretty penny, believe me.
I made up my mind at the start that it would be built of honest stone,
or not at all. No cheap and shoddy brickwork for _me_! Look at Babylon.
It's all brick, and it's always tumbling down. My ambassador there tells
me that it costs a million a year to keep up the walls alone--mind you,
the walls alone! What must it cost to keep up the palace, with all that
fancy work!
"Yes, I grant you that brickwork _looks_ good. But what of it? So does a
cheap cotton night-shirt--you know the gaudy things those Theban
peddlers sell to my sand-hogs down on the river bank. But does it
_last_? Of course it doesn't. Well, I am putting up this pyramid to
_stay_ put, and I don't give a damn for its looks. I hear all sorts of
funny cracks about it. My barber is a sharp nigger and keeps his ears
open: he brings me all the gossip. But I let it go. This is _my_
pyramid. I am putting up the money for it, and I have got to be mortared
up in it when I die. So I am trying to make a good, substantial job of
it, and letting the mere beauty of it go hang.
"Anyhow, there are plenty of uglier things in Egypt. Look at some of
those fifth-rate pyramids up the river. When it comes to shape they are
pretty much the same as this one, and when it comes to size, they look
like warts beside it. And look at the Sphinx. There is something that
cost four millions if it cost a copper--and what is it now? A burlesque!
A caricature! An architectural cripple! So long as it was _new_, good
enough! It was a showy piece of work. People came all the way from
Sicyonia and Tyre to gape at it. Everybody said it was one of the sights
no one could afford to miss. But by and by a piece began to peel off
here and another piece there, and then the nose cracked, and then an ear
dropped off, and then one of the eyes began to get mushy and watery
looking, and finally it was a mere smudge, a false-face, a scarecrow. My
father spent a lot of money trying to fix it up, but what good did it
do? By the time he had the nose cobbled the ears were loose again, and
so on. In the end he gave it up as a bad job.
"Yes; this pyramid has kept me on the jump, but I'm going to stick to it
if it breaks me. Some say I ought to have built it across the river,
where the quarries are. Such gabble makes me sick. Do I look like a man
who would go looking around for such _child's-play_? I hope not. A
one-legged man could have done _that_. Even a Babylonian could have done
it. It would have been as easy as milking a cow. What _I_ wanted was
something that would keep me on the jump--something that would put a
strain on me. So I decided to haul the whole business _across_ the
river--six million tons of rock. And when the engineers said that it
couldn't be done, I gave them two days to get out of Egypt, and then
tackled it myself. It was something new and hard. It was a job I could
get my teeth into.
"Well, I suppose you know what a time I had of it at the start. First I
tried a pontoon bridge, but the stones for the bottom course were so
heavy that they sank the pontoons, and I lost a couple of hundred
niggers before I saw that it couldn't be done. Then I tried a big raft,
but in order to get her to float with the stones I had to use such big
logs that she was unwieldy, and before I knew what had struck me I had
lost six big dressed stones and another hundred niggers. I got the
laugh, of course. Every numskull in Egypt wagged his beard over it; I
could hear the chatter myself. But I kept quiet and stuck to the
problem, and by and by I solved it.
"I suppose you know how I did it. In a general way? Well, the details
are simple. First I made a new raft, a good deal lighter than the old
one, and then I got a thousand water-tight goat-skins and had them blown
up until they were as tight as drums. Then I got together a thousand
niggers who were good swimmers, and gave each of them one of the
blown-up goat-skins. On each goat-skin there was a leather thong, and on
the bottom of the raft, spread over it evenly, there were a thousand
hooks. Do you get the idea? Yes; that's it exactly. The niggers dived
overboard with the goat-skins, swam under the raft, and tied the thongs
to the hooks. And when all of them were tied on, the raft floated like a
bladder. You simply _couldn't_ sink it.
"Naturally enough, the thing took time, and there were accidents and
setbacks. For instance, some of the niggers were so light in weight that
they couldn't hold their goat-skins under water long enough to get them
under the raft. I had to weight those fellows by having rocks tied
around their middles. And when they had fastened their goat-skins and
tried to swim back, some of them were carried down by the rocks. I never
made any exact count, but I suppose that two or three hundred of them
were drowned in that way. Besides, a couple of hundred were drowned
because they couldn't hold their breaths long enough to swim under the
raft and back. But what of it? I wasn't trying to hoard up niggers, but
to make a raft that would float. And I did it.
"Well, once I showed how it could be done, all the wiseacres caught the
idea, and after that I put a big gang to work making more rafts, and by
and by I had sixteen of them in operation, and was hauling more stone
than the masons could set. But I won't go into all that. Here is the
pyramid; it speaks for itself. One year more and I'll have the top
course laid and begin on the surfacing. I am going to make it plain
marble, with no fancy work. I could bring in a gang of Theban
stonecutters and have it carved all over with lions' heads and tiger
claws and all that sort of gim-crackery, but why waste time and money?
This isn't a menagerie, but a pyramid. My idea was to make it the boss
pyramid of the world. The king who tries to beat it will have to get up
pretty early in the morning.
"But what troubles I have had! Believe me, there has been nothing but
trouble, trouble, trouble from the start. I set aside the engineering
difficulties. They were hard for the engineers, but easy for me, once I
put my mind on them. But the way these niggers have carried on has been
something terrible. At the beginning I had only a thousand or two, and
they all came from one tribe; so they got along fairly well. During the
whole first year I doubt that more than twenty or thirty were killed in
fights. But then I began to get fresh batches from up the river, and
after that it was nothing but one fight after another. For two weeks
running not a stroke of work was done. I really thought, at one time,
that I'd have to give up. But finally the army put down the row, and
after a couple of hundred of the ringleaders had been thrown into the
river peace was restored. But it cost me, first and last, fully three
thousand niggers, and set me back at least six months.
"Then came the so-called labor unions, and the strikes, and more
trouble. These labor unions were started by a couple of smart, yellow
niggers from Chaldea, one of them a sort of lay preacher, a fellow with
a lot of gab. Before I got wind of them, they had gone so far it was
almost impossible to squelch them. First I tried conciliation, but it
didn't work a bit. They made the craziest demands you ever heard of--a
holiday every six days, meat every day, no night work and regular houses
to live in. Some of them even had the effrontery to ask for money! Think
of it! Niggers asking for money! Finally, I had to order out the army
again and let some blood. But every time one was knocked over, I had to
get another one to take his place, and that meant sending the army up
the river, and more expense, and more devilish worry and nuisance.
"In my grandfather's time niggers were honest and faithful workmen. You
could take one fresh from the bush, teach him to handle a shovel or pull
a rope in a year or so, and after that he was worth almost as much as he
could eat. But the nigger of to-day isn't worth a damn. He never does an
honest day's work if he can help it, and he is forever wanting
something. Take these fellows I have now--mainly young bucks from around
the First Cataract. Here are niggers who never saw baker's bread or
butcher's meat until my men grabbed them. They lived there in the bush
like so many hyenas. They were ten days' march from a lemon. Well, now
they get first-class beef twice a week, good bread and all the fish they
can catch. They don't have to begin work until broad daylight, and they
lay off at dark. There is hardly one of them that hasn't got a psaltery,
or a harp, or some other musical instrument. If they want to dress up
and make believe they are Egyptians, I give them clothes. If one of them
is killed on the work, or by a stray lion, or in a fight, I have him
embalmed by my own embalmers and plant him like a man. If one of them
breaks a leg or loses an arm or gets too old to work, I turn him loose
without complaining, and he is free to go home if he wants to.
"But are they contented? Do they show any gratitude? Not at all.
Scarcely a day passes that I don't hear of some fresh soldiering. And,
what is worse, they have stirred up some of my own people--the
carpenters, stone-cutters, gang bosses and so on. Every now and then my
inspectors find some rotten libel cut on a stone--something to the
effect that I am overworking them, and knocking them about, and holding
them against their will, and generally mistreating them. I haven't the
slightest doubt that some of these inscriptions have actually gone into
the pyramid: it's impossible to watch every stone. Well, in the years to
come, they will be dug out and read by strangers, and I will get a black
eye. People will think of Cheops as a heartless old rapscallion--_me_,
mind you! Can you beat it?"
_V.--THE ARTIST_
_V.--The Artist. A Drama Without Words_
CHARACTERS:
A GREAT PIANIST
A JANITOR
SIX MUSICAL CRITICS
A MARRIED WOMAN
A VIRGIN
SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE OTHER WOMEN
SIX OTHER MEN
PLACE--_A City of the United States._
TIME--_A December afternoon._
(_During the action of the play not a word is uttered aloud. All of the
speeches of the characters are supposed to be unspoken meditations
only._)
_A large, gloomy hall, with many rows of uncushioned, uncomfortable
seats, designed, it would seem, by some one misinformed as to the
average width of the normal human pelvis. A number of busts of
celebrated composers, once white, but now a dirty gray, stand in niches
along the walls. At one end of the hall there is a bare, uncarpeted
stage, with nothing on it save a grand piano and a chair. It is raining
outside, and, as hundreds of people come crowding in, the air is laden
with the mingled scents of umbrellas, raincoats, goloshes, cosmetics,
perfumery and wet hair._
_At eight minutes past four,_ THE JANITOR, _after smoothing his hair
with his hands and putting on a pair of detachable cuffs, emerges from
the wings and crosses the stage, his shoes squeaking hideously at each
step. Arriving at the piano, he opens it with solemn slowness. The job
seems so absurdly trivial, even to so mean an understanding, that he
can't refrain from glorifying it with a bit of hocus-pocus. This takes
the form of a careful adjustment of a mysterious something within the
instrument. He reaches in, pauses a moment as if in doubt, reaches in
again, and then permits a faint smile of conscious sapience and
efficiency to illuminate his face. All of this accomplished, he tiptoes
back to the wings, his shoes again squeaking._
THE JANITOR
Now all of them people think I'm the professor's tuner. (_The thought
gives him such delight that, for the moment, his brain is numbed. Then
he proceeds._) I guess them tuners make pretty good money. I wish I
could get the hang of the trick. It _looks_ easy. (_By this time he has
disappeared in the wings and the stage is again a desert. Two or three
women, far back in the hall, start a halfhearted handclapping. It dies
out at once. The noise of rustling programs and shuffling feet succeeds
it._)
FOUR HUNDRED OF THE WOMEN
Oh, I do _certainly_ hope he plays that lovely _Valse Poupée_ as an
encore! They say he does it better than Bloomfield-Zeisler.
ONE OF THE CRITICS
I hope the animal doesn't pull any encore numbers that I don't
recognize. All of these people will buy the paper to-morrow morning just
to find out what they have heard. It's infernally embarrassing to have
to ask the manager. The public expects a musical critic to be a sort of
walking thematic catalogue. The public is an ass.
THE SIX OTHER MEN
Oh, Lord! What a way to spend an afternoon!
A HUNDRED OF THE WOMEN
I wonder if he's as handsome as Paderewski.
ANOTHER HUNDRED OF THE WOMEN
I wonder if he's as gentlemanly as Josef Hofmann.
STILL ANOTHER HUNDRED WOMEN
I wonder if he's as fascinating as De Pachmann.
YET OTHER HUNDREDS
I wonder if he has dark eyes. You never can tell by those awful
photographs in the newspapers.
HALF A DOZEN WOMEN
I wonder if he can really play the piano.
THE CRITIC AFORESAID
What a hell of a wait! These rotten piano-thumping immigrants deserve a
hard call-down. But what's the use? The piano manufacturers bring them
over here to wallop their pianos--and the piano manufacturers are not
afraid to advertise. If you knock them too hard you have a nasty
business-office row on your hands.
ONE OF THE MEN
If they allowed smoking, it wouldn't be so bad.
ANOTHER MAN
I wonder if that woman across the aisle----
(THE GREAT PIANIST _bounces upon the stage so suddenly that he is bowing
in the center before any one thinks to applaud. He makes three stiff
bows. At the second the applause begins, swelling at once to a roar. He
steps up to the piano, bows three times more, and then sits down. He
hunches his shoulders, reaches for the pedals with his feet, spreads out
his hands and waits for the clapper-clawing to cease. He is an
undersized, paunchy East German, with hair the color of wet hay, and an
extremely pallid complexion. Talcum powder hides the fact that his nose
is shiny and somewhat pink. His eyebrows are carefully penciled and
there are artificial shadows under his eyes. His face is absolutely
expressionless._)
THE VIRGIN
Oh!
THE MARRIED WOMEN
Oh!
THE OTHER WOMEN
Oh! How dreadfully handsome!
THE VIRGIN
Oh, such eyes, such depth! How he must have suffered! I'd like to hear
him play the Prélude in D flat major. It would drive you crazy!
A HUNDRED OTHER WOMEN
I certainly _do_ hope he plays some Schumann.
OTHER WOMEN
What beautiful hands! I could kiss them!
(THE GREAT PIANIST, _throwing back his head, strikes the massive opening
chords of a Beethoven sonata. There is a sudden hush and each note is
heard clearly. The tempo of the first movement, which begins after a
grand pause, is_ allegro con brio, _and the first subject is given out
in a sparkling cascade of sound. But, despite the buoyancy of the music,
there is an unmistakable undercurrent of melancholy in the playing. The
audience doesn't fail to notice it._)
THE VIRGIN
Oh, perfect! I could love him! Paderewski played it like a fox trot.
What poetry _he_ puts into it! I can see a soldier lover marching off to
war.
ONE OF THE CRITICS
The ass is dragging it. Doesn't _con brio_ mean--well, what the devil
_does_ it mean? I forget. I must look it up before I write the notice.
Somehow, _brio_ suggests cheese. Anyhow, Pachmann plays it a damn sight
faster. It's safe to say _that_, at all events.
THE MARRIED WOMAN
Oh, I could listen to that sonata all day! The poetry he puts into
it--even into the _allegro_! Just think what the _andante_ will be! I
like music to be sad.
ANOTHER WOMAN
What a sob he gets into it!
MANY OTHER WOMEN
How exquisite!
THE GREAT PIANIST
(_Gathering himself together for the difficult development section._)
That American beer will be the death of me! I wonder what they put in it
to give it its gassy taste. And the so-called German beer they sell over
here--_du heiliger Herr Jesu!_ Even Bremen would be ashamed of it. In
München the police would take a hand.
(_Aiming for the first and second C's above the staff, he accidentally
strikes the C sharps instead and has to transpose three measures to get
back into the key. The effect is harrowing, and he gives his audience a
swift glance of apprehension._)
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY WOMEN
What new beauties he gets out of it!
A MAN
He can tickle the ivories, all right, all right!
A CRITIC
Well, at any rate, he doesn't try to imitate Paderewski.
THE GREAT PIANIST
(_Relieved by the non-appearance of the hisses he expected._) Well, it's
lucky for me that I'm not in Leipzig to-day! But in Leipzig an artist
runs no risks: the beer is pure. The authorities see to that. The worse
enemy of technic is biliousness, and biliousness is sure to follow bad
beer. (_He gets to the_ coda _at last and takes it at a somewhat
livelier pace._)
THE VIRGIN
How I envy the woman he loves! How it would thrill me to feel his arms
about me--to be drawn closer, closer, closer! I would give up the whole
world! What are conventions, prejudices, legal forms, morality, after
all? Vanities! Love is beyond and above them all--and art is love! I
think I must be a pagan.
THE GREAT PIANIST
And the herring! Good God, what herring! These barbarous Americans----
THE VIRGIN
Really, I am quite indecent! I should blush, I suppose. But love is
never ashamed--How people misunderstand me!
THE MARRIED WOMAN
I wonder if he's faithful. The chances are against it. I never heard of
a man who was. (_An agreeable melancholy overcomes her and she gives
herself up to the mood without thought._)
THE GREAT PIANIST
I wonder whatever became of that girl in Dresden. Every time I think of
her, she suggests pleasant thoughts--good beer, a fine band,
_Gemütlichkeit_. I must have been in love with her--not much, of course,
but just enough to make things pleasant. And not a single letter from
her! I suppose she thinks I'm starving to death over here--or tuning
pianos. Well, when I get back with the money there'll be a shock for
her. A shock--but not a _Pfennig_!
THE MARRIED WOMAN
(_Her emotional coma ended._) Still, you can hardly blame him. There
must be a good deal of temptation for a great artist. All of these
frumps here would----
THE VIRGIN
Ah, how dolorous, how exquisite is love! How small the world would seem
if----
THE MARRIED WOMAN
Of course you could hardly call such old scarecrows temptations. But
still----
(THE GREAT PIANIST _comes to the last measure of the_ coda--_a passage
of almost Haydnesque clarity and spirit. As he strikes the broad chord
of the tonic there comes a roar of applause. He arises, moves a step or
two down the stage, and makes a series of low bows, his hands to his
heart._)
THE GREAT PIANIST
(_Bowing._) I wonder why the American women always wear raincoats to
piano recitals. Even when the sun is shining brightly, one sees hundreds
of them. What a disagreeable smell they give to the hall. (_More
applause and more bows._) An American audience always smells of rubber
and lilies-of-the-valley. How different in London! There an audience
always smells of soap. In Paris it reminds you of sachet bags--and
_lingerie_.
(_The applause ceases and he returns to the piano._)
And now comes that _verfluchte adagio_.
(_As he begins to play, a deathlike silence falls upon the hall._)
ONE OF THE CRITICS
What rotten pedaling!
ANOTHER CRITIC
A touch like a xylophone player, but he knows how to use his feet. That
suggests a good line for the notice--"he plays better with his feet than
with his hands," or something like that. I'll have to think it over and
polish it up.
ONE OF THE OTHER MEN
Now comes some more of that awful classical stuff.
THE VIRGIN
Suppose he can't speak English? But that wouldn't matter. Nothing
matters. Love is beyond and above----
SIX HUNDRED WOMEN
Oh, how beautiful!
THE MARRIED WOMAN
Perfect!
THE DEAN OF THE CRITICS
(_Sinking quickly into the slumber which always overtakes him during
the_ adagio.) C-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!
THE YOUNGEST CRITIC
There is that old fraud asleep again. And to-morrow he'll print half a
column of vapid reminiscence and call it criticism. It's a wonder his
paper stands for him. Because he once heard Liszt, he....
THE GREAT PIANIST
That plump girl over there on the left is not so bad. As for the rest, I
beg to be excused. The American women have no more shape than so many
matches. They are too tall and too thin. I like a nice rubbery
armful--like that Dresden girl. Or that harpist in Moscow--the girl with
the Pilsner hair. Let me see, what was her name? Oh, Fritzi, to be
sure--but her last name? Schmidt? Kraus? Meyer? I'll have to try to
think of it, and send her a postcard.
THE MARRIED WOMAN
What delicious flutelike tones!
ONE OF THE WOMEN
If Beethoven could only be here to hear it! He would cry for very joy!
Maybe he _does_ hear it. Who knows? I believe he does. I am _sure_ he
does.
(THE GREAT PIANIST _reaches the end of the_ adagio, _and there is
another burst of applause, which awakens_ THE DEAN OF THE CRITICS.)
THE DEAN OF THE CRITICS
Oh, piffle! Compared to Gottschalk, the man is an amateur. Let him go
back to the conservatory for a couple of years.
ONE OF THE MEN
(_Looking at his program._) Next comes the _shirt-so_. I hope it has
some tune in it.
THE VIRGIN
The _adagio_ is love's agony, but the _scherzo_ is love triumphant. What
beautiful eyes he has! And how pale he is!
THE GREAT PIANIST
(_Resuming his grim toil._) Well, there's half of it over. But this
_scherzo_ is ticklish business. That horrible evening in Prague--will I
ever forget it? Those hisses--and the papers next day!
ONE OF THE MEN
Go it, professor! That's the best you've done yet!
ONE OF THE CRITICS
Too fast!
ANOTHER CRITIC
Too slow!
A YOUNG GIRL
My, but ain't the professor just full of talent!
THE GREAT PIANIST
Well, so far no accident. (_He negotiates a difficult passage, and plays
it triumphantly, but at some expenditure of cold perspiration._) What a
way for a man to make a living!
THE VIRGIN
What passion he puts into it! His soul is in his finger-tips.
A CRITIC
A human pianola!
THE GREAT PIANIST