THE SHADOW OF SUCCESS
I was killing my chief priest in a blaze of glory when Anastasia
invaded the room that between meals is called my bureau, at meals the
_salle-à-manger_, in the evening the _salon_.
“Don’t speak to me,” I cried; “I’m at a critical point.”
With which I ran my fingers through my hair, took hold of my teeming
skull with both hands, and glared fiercely at the blank sheet of paper
in my typewriter. With a look almost of awe the wife of the great
author tip-toed out again.
About an hour after, having duly been delivered of my great thoughts, I
rejoined her. “What is it?” I asked kindly.
“Oh, darleen, I have letter from my muzzaire. She want us have dinner
on Sunday. What must I say?”
“Say yes, of course. The old lady wants to give us her consent and her
blessing. Incidentally, a handsome _dot_ for you. Shouldn’t wonder if
she’d taken a shine to me after all.”
“Any one take shine to such lovely sing like you, darleen; but I don’t
know about my muzzaire. Well, I write and tell her we come. Oh, and
anuzzer sing, I have seen Rougette this morning. She look so happy. She
have come out of the _hôpital_, and she tell me she get married with
Monsieur Lorrimer, July. You nevaire knew she have been burn. It is
all down her neck and shoulder. You cannot see.”
“I’m so glad. They say beauty is only skin-deep, but it’s deep enough
to change the destiny of nations. Who would not rather be born
beautiful than good? Why was I not born beautiful?”
“You are, darleen. You are just beautiful, and what is better, you are
great writer.”
(I’m afraid Anastasia sees me with the eyes of posterity.)
“Well, now,” I went on, “I must try and bring off that triangular
marriage scheme of mine. We’ll fix it all up with my _belle-mère_ on
Sunday, and in the meantime I’ll go out and see the others.”
So I set forth in high spirits. Everything was going beautifully it
seemed; and when a few moments later I happened on Monsieur Bébérose
issuing from his apartment, I beamed on him, and he beamed in return.
He was dressed with more care than usual; a hemispherical figure in a
frock coat and tall hat. He was anxiously trying to get a new pair of
lavender kid gloves on his podgy hands without splitting them, and the
imperial that gave distinction to his series of crisp chins had been
trimmed and brilliantined. Plainly Monsieur Bébérose had dressed for no
ordinary occasion, and chaffingly I told him so.
“Ah, no! Ah, no!” he admitted coyly. “I go to give a _déjeûner_ to my
future _belle-mère_ at the Café Anglais.”
“Ha! Who is it? Juliette or Lucille?”
“Oh, neither,” he said, with the archness of a baby elephant. “It is a
new one. I think I will be satisfied this time.”
“Is she a widow?”
“No; but her mother is; and an old friend of mine.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Pretty; only twenty and with some money.”
“Ah! young, charming and with a comfortable _dot_; what could be more
delightful? Allow me to congratulate you, my friend. How you must dream
of her!”
“Truly, yes; day and night. She is adorable. She melts in the mouth.”
“What a lucky dog you are! I’m dying to see her.”
“But I have not seen her myself yet. I have just seen the mother. Ah!
I will have that pleasure in a few days though. Then it is she return
from the friend with whom she is visiting.”
“Well, I wish you luck. I hope your troubles are at an end.”
How pleasant it was, I thought, to see all these wild creatures of the
ranges being rounded up into the blissful corral of matrimony! How
comforting, after one’s own feathers have been trimmed, to see others
joining the ranks of the wing-clipped! Love should not be represented
as a rosy Cupid, but as a red-jowled recruiting sergeant. True, I have
one of the best wives in the world; yet, what man is there, who, if he
has ever roved the Barbary coasts of Philander Land, does not once in
a while sigh for the old freedom? Marriage is a constraint to be good,
against which the best of us feel moments of faint, futile rebellion.
Sometimes I wished that Anastasia was not so desperately practical.
She seems to consider that I am a species of great child, and must be
looked after accordingly. I am an ardent suffragist; I have always
advocated the rights of woman; I have always believed in her higher
destiny; I scoff at the idea that woman’s sphere is the home, and
desire to see her marching shoulder to shoulder with man in the ranks
of progress. Yet, alas! I cannot make a convert of Anastasia.
Often I have tried to interest her in the burning question; to inspire
in her a sense of having a mission, of being oppressed; but Anastasia
only laughs softly. She seems to have the ridiculous and old-fashioned
idea that her duty is to make me happy, to surround me with comfortable
routine, to remove from my daily path all irritating and distracting
protuberances. I have left, with elaborate carelessness on her kitchen
table, enough feminist literature to convert a dozen women. But
Anastasia only rearranges it neatly, props an open cook-book against
it, and studies some new recipe for stuffing duck.
“Ah, no,” she would say. “I must not waste my time reading. That is not
serious of me. I have my _ménage_, my marketing, my sewing,-- Oh, so
much to do! If I threw away my time reading, my Lovely One might have
holes in his socks; and just think what a shame that would be for me!”
Yes, it is sad to relate, but I believe if I had offered her the choice
between a new hat and the vote she would take the hat.
How often have I wished she had more individuality! Her idea seems to
be to mould her nature to mine, so that every day she becomes more
like a faithful shadow. How anxiously she watches me as I eat my soup,
so afraid it may not be to my taste! How cheerful, how patient, how
eager to please she is! Oh, for a flare of temper sometimes, a sign
of spirit, something to show that she is a woman of character, of
originality! But no. Her duty, as she conceives it, is to minister to
my material comfort, to see that I enjoy my food, to make me wrap up
sufficiently. Yet in these things she is rather tyrannical, insisting
on my coming home to my meals at the hour I have decided on, emphatic
that I change my socks at least twice a week, indignant if I brush
my hair after putting on my coat. However, she keeps my things in
beautiful order, and although I feel at times that she is a little
exacting I yield with good grace. After all, one ought to consider
one’s wife sometimes.
On the other hand, I have insisted on some concessions on her part
that are revolutionary to the French mind--that of sleeping with the
window open, for instance. I over-ruled her objection that the snow
and rain entering during the night, spoiled her _parquet_. She keeps
it beautifully polished, by the way, and claims that the shining of it
every day gives her enough exercise without the Swedish gymnastics I
insist on her taking under my direction. But I am so anxious she should
keep slim and lissom, and the exercises are certainly effective.
But another matter is beginning to occupy my mind and to give me a
strange mixture of satisfaction and regret. This is the apparent
success of _Tom, Dick and Harry_. About a month ago I received my six
presentation copies. MacWaddy and Wedge had done their work well.
The cover was stirring in the extreme. An American publicity man on
his probation had seized on it as a medium for his first efforts. It
was advertised in the weekly, and even in the daily papers; a royal
princess was announced as having included it in her library, and more
or less picturesque paragraphs about the author began to go the round
of the press. The imaginative efforts of the publicity man were not
stultified by any sordid knowledge of his subject.
Then press clippings began to come in. A great many of these were
a repetition of the puff on the paper wrapper, which I had written
myself, and therefore were favourable. But the reviewers who read
the books they review did not let me down so easily. _The Times_
was tolerant; _The Academy_ acidulous; _The Spectator_ severe. On
the whole, however, my _début_ was decidedly successful. Nearly all
concluded by saying that “despite its obvious faults, the faults
of a beginner, its crudeness, its obviousness, its thinness of
character-drawing, this first book of Silenus Starset showed more than
the average promise, and his future work should be looked forward to
with some expectation.”
I gave copies to Helstern and Lorrimer, and they were both enthusiastic
in that tolerant way one’s friends have of applauding one’s
performances.
“For a first novel, it’s wonderful,” said the sculptor.
“You’re a marvel for a beginner,” said the artist.
These back-handed compliments rather discounted my pleasure. On the
other hand, Anastasia, who read it with rapture, thought it the most
wonderful production since “Les Misérables.” She hugged and treasured
it as if it were something rarely precious, and verily I believe if she
had been asked to choose between it and the Bible she would have chosen
_Tom, Dick and Harry_.
Yes, it had all the appearance of success, and yet I was, in a way,
disappointed. It was the equal of my other work--no better, no worse.
It had the same fresh, impetuous spirit, the same wheedling, human
quality, the same light-hearted ingenuity. It had the points that made
for popularity: yet I had hoped to strike a truer note. I had a fatal
faculty for success. I began to fear that I was doomed irrevocably to
be a best-sellermonger.
Well, it must be as the public willed. I could only write in the way
that was natural to me. Still I hoped that in _The Great Quietus_
I would show that I could aspire to better things. There were
opportunities in it for idyllic description, for the display of
imagination. I would try to rise to this new occasion.
So I was deep in the book the following Sunday morning when Anastasia
reminded me it was the day we had promised to dine with her mother. The
old lady, she said, had asked her to go in the afternoon and help to
prepare dinner. Would I follow about six in the evening? I promised,
glad to get the extra time on my manuscript.
About six, then, I looked up from my work; suddenly remembered the
important engagement, and rushed on my best garments. I called a
taxi and told the chauffeur to stop at the beginning of the street.
Anastasia, if she saw me, would give me a lecture on extravagance.
The house was in the rue Montgolfier, up five flights. I knocked and
Anastasia answered the door. She looked as if she had been crying.
There was a sound of conversation from an interior room, where I saw a
table set for dinner, with the red checked table-cloth beloved of the
_bourgeois_.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered.
“Oh, I’m so glad you come. Wat you think she want, that bad muzzaire of
me? She ask another man here and she want that I leave you and marry
him. He is quite rich, and she say she geeve me twenty tousand francs
for _dot_. All afternoon she _discute_ with me. She tell me I always am
poor wiz you, and nevaire have much _confort_. And then she say you are
stranger and some day you leave me. She tell me the uzzer man geeve me
automobile and I will be very grand. And what you sink? When I say no,
no, no, I nevaire, nevaire leeve you, she say she geeve you two tousand
francs and you geeve me up like nothing. Oh, I ’ave awful, awful time.”
“I don’t care two pins for your mother,” I said. “But where’s the other
party to this arrangement? Where’s the damned Frenchman? I’m going to
knock his face in.”
Suddenly Madame Guinoval appeared, wearing a black satin robe that
crackled on her and threatened to burst with every movement of her
swelling muscles. The slightly moustached mouth was grim as a closed
trap, and the red face was flushed and angry looking.
I was furious, but I tried to be calm.
“Madam,” I said, “Anastasia has just told me all. You are her mother
so I do not express my opinion of you, but,” I added in a voice of
thunder, “where is the sacred pig who wants to steal away my wife?”
There was a movement of alarm from the dining-room.
“Because here’s where I show,” I went on, “that an American is equal to
two Frenchmen. Let me get at the brute.”
Anastasia clung to me, begging me to be calm, but Madame Guinoval was
haughtily intrepid.
“Hegesippe! Hegesippe!” she cried, “come out and show this _coquin_ you
are a brave man.”
There was no alacrity on the part of Hegesippe, so the lady entered and
fairly boosted him to the front. I stared; I gasped; my hands dropped;
for the suitor, looking very much alarmed indeed, was little Monsieur
Bébérose.
“Well,” I said, “you’re a fine man to try and steal a friend’s wife.”
It was now the turn of Anastasia and Madame Guinoval to gasp, for
Monsieur Bébérose burst away from the grasp of the latter and rushing
to me began to stammer a flood of apologies. He was so sorry; he had
not known how things were; he had been deceived. “It was _that_ woman
had deceived him,” he said dramatically, pointing to Madame Guinoval.
“That woman” retorted by a terrible calm, a calm more menacing than any
storm, a calm pregnant with withering contempt.
“Out of my house,” she said at last; “out, out, you _sale goujat_!” And
Monsieur Bébérose needed no second bidding. He grabbed his hat from the
rack and his cane from the stand and vanished. Then the virago turned
to us. Going into the bedroom she brought Anastasia’s coat and hat. She
ignored me utterly.
“Do you still,” she said, “intend to remain with this man?”
Anastasia nodded a determined head, at which the mother threw the coat
and hat at her feet.
“Then go, and never let me see your face again. Never will I give my
consent to your marriage in France. May my tongue wither if I ever give
it.”
“Put on your hat outside,” I said to Anastasia, and pushed her out.
Then I turned to the woman:
“It does not matter,” I hissed. “You’re a devil. You’ve tried to play a
dirty game, but it won’t do. And now listen to me.”
Then I took a step towards her and adopted the manner of a stage
villain. My face was apparently convulsed with rage, and my raised lips
showed my teeth in a vicious snarl. It was most effective. I vow the
woman shrank back a moment.
“I’ll pay you out, you harridan. I’ll make you smart for this. Nobody
ever did me a bad turn but what I did them a worse. Beware, Madame,
beware. I will have my revenge.”
I slammed the door in her face. Then I laughed loud and long.
“I say! it’s all awfully funny, Little Thing. Now let’s go and have
some dinner in place of the one we should have had with your mother.”
When we got home that night, another matter claimed my attention. On
opening _The Bookman_, which had arrived that morning, I found therein
a well-displayed advertisement of _Tom, Dick and Harry_. There was
half a column of press extracts carefully culled and pruned, the evil
of them having in some inexplicable way evaporated. But, oh, wonderful
fact that made me scratch my head thoughtfully! in bracketed italics
was the announcement: Seventh Impression. There was no guessing how
many copies went to an impression. If the publishers were boosting up
the number of editions by printing only five hundred copies at a time
this did not mean much. But it was hardly likely. In any case it did
not look as if MacWaddy and Wedge were losing money over their venture.
The result was that next morning I read over my contract with them.
Thank goodness! I still had the American rights; so by the first post
I wrote to Widgeon & Co., the literary agents, putting the matter in
their hands. There was a reply by return saying that there were several
representatives of American firms in London at that time, and that they
would get in touch with them without delay.
The following day there came a telegram: “Messrs. Liverwood & Son offer
to publish book on fifteen per cent. royalty basis. Will we accept.
Widgeon.”
I immediately wired back: “Accept for immediate publication.”
Well, that was off my mind anyway. A few days after, I got a letter
from MacWaddy & Wedge saying that they hoped to have a new book from me
soon. What were the prospects, they wanted to know, of me being able to
let them have it for their autumn lists? In which case they would begin
an advertising campaign right away. I wrote back that my affairs were
now in the hands of Widgeon & Co. and that all business would be done
through them.
A week went past. Every day I had new proof that _Tom, Dick and Harry_
was going well. Then one morning I had a letter from my agents. They
had, they said, an opportunity to place a good serial. Would I send
them as much of my new book as I had finished and give a synopsis of
the rest. I did so, and in three weeks’ time they wrote again to say
that the American magazine _Uplift_ had bought the serial rights for a
thousand dollars.
That, too, was as satisfactory as it was unexpected. It was like
finding the money. Once more I seemed to have entered on the avenue of
success that seemed to open up before me in spite of myself. From now
on, there would be nothing but monotonous vistas of smooth going. I
was doomed to popular applause. Once more would I leap into the lists
as a writer of best-sellers. So strongly had I the gift of interesting
narrative that I could win half a dozen new reputations; of that I felt
sure.
Yes, I had succeeded--no, I mean I had failed, failed by these later
lights that Paris had kindled within me. Here, amid art that is
eternal, art that means sacrifice, surrender, renunciation, I had
learned to despise that work which merely serves the caprice of an
hour. I had come to crave form, to strive for style. Yet what can one
do? My efforts for art’s sake were artificial and stilted; it was only
when I had a story to tell that I became entirely pleasing. Well, let
me take my own measure. I would always be a bagman of letters. In that
great division of scribes into sheep and goats I would never be other
than a bleating and incorrigible goat.