Peter is here tonight, I hazarded.
Is he? she parried, without any apparent interest.
What are you doing now?
What I have always been doing, studying for opera. That teacher in
Paris nearly ruined my voice. I am really, it seems, a contralto,
and that fool had me studying Manon. Carmen is to be my great rôle.
I have a splendid teacher now and I am working hard. In two or three
more years, I should be ready for my début. I want to get into the
Metropolitan.... You, I hear, are with the Times. Perhaps you can help
me....
So she rambled on. I had heard everything she had to say many times
before and I have heard it many times since; I found it hard to listen.
Looking across the room, I saw Peter gazing at us. So he knew she was
there, but he only smiled and turned back his attention to the book he
held in his hand. Clara, however, had caught his eye. Her face became
hard and bitter.
He might speak to me, she said and there was a tone of defiance in her
voice. Then, more calmly, I never understood Peter; I don't understand
him now. For three days, a week, perhaps, I thought he loved me. One
day he disappeared, without any explanation; nothing, not a sign, not
a word. I knew that he had left Paris, because he had taken the cat
with him. I was not very much in love with him and so it didn't hurt,
at least it didn't hurt deeply, but what do you make of a man like that?
He contradicts himself, I put in rather lamely, searching for words.
That's it! He contradicts himself. Why, do you know, I don't believe
he cared at all for my singing. After the day I sang for you, he never
asked me to sing again and when I offered to he always put me off.
An old lady in a black satin dress, trimmed with cataracts of jet
beads, addressed me and fortunately drew me out of Clara's orbit.
Mrs. Dale has some remarkable pictures of the new school, she began,
but, of course, I don't like them. Now, if you want to see pictures--I
hadn't said that I did--you should go to Henry Frick's. Do you know Mr.
Frick?
No, but I know the man who shot him.
The old lady grew almost apoplectic and the jet beads jangled like
Æolian harps in a heavy wind. She managed, however, to gasp out with a
sound that was remarkably like gurgling, O! indeed! How interesting!
Then, peering about nervously, I don't suppose he's here tonight.
I haven't seen him, I said, but he often comes here and, as I see Emma
Goldman yonder, I should think it extremely likely that he will appear
later.
O! indeed! The old lady leitmotived once more, How interesting! How
very interesting! Would you mind telling me the time?
It's a quarter of ten.
O! As late as that!--She had just arrived. Really, I had no idea it
was so late. John--this to a decrepit old gentleman in shiny evening
clothes--, John, it's a quarter to ten.
What of it? querulously demanded the old gentleman, with a curious
upward turn to his ridiculous side-whiskers. What of it?
The old lady, forgetting her fifty years of training in the most
exclusive drawing-rooms, turned and whispered something in his ear.
Now it was the turn of the old gentleman to feel a touch of apoplexy.
Berkman! he roared, Berkman! Where is the scoundrel? Where is the
assassin?
The old lady looked almost shame-faced as she tried to pacify John:
He's not here yet, but he may come.
We shall leave at once, announced the old gentleman decisively. Edith
is trespassing on our good nature. She is going too far. We shall leave
at once.
He offered the old lady his arm and they made their way rapidly out,
rubbing against, in the passageway, a one-eyed man nearly seven feet
tall. Now Edith had neither observed the coming or the going of this
elderly couple but Bill Haywood had not crossed the threshold before
she was shaking his hand and, a moment later, she had drawn him with
her through a doorway into a little room at one side of the salon,
where she could talk to him more privately.
The most fascinating man alive, volunteered a stranger at my elbow,
a little fellow with a few wisps of yellow hair and a face like a
pug-dog, that Bill Haywood. No show about him, nothing theatrical,
not a bit like the usual labour leader. Genuine power, that's what he
has. He never goes in for melodrama, not even at a strike meeting. The
other day in Paterson, a child was hurt while the police were clearing
the street of strikers. One of the policemen, with his billy, struck
down the boy's mother and a man who was helping her to her feet. At
the meeting the next day, Haywood recited the facts, just the bare
facts, without comment or colour and without raising his voice. What's
the policeman's name? cried a voice in the hall. His name, replied
Haywood, as coldly as possible, is said to be Edward Duffy; his number
is 72. That was all, but Edward Duffy, No 72, had been consigned to
the perpetual hatred of every one of the two thousand men present at
the meeting. He spurns eloquence and soap-box platitudes. He never
gibbers about the brotherhood of man, the socialist commonwealth rising
upon the ruins of the capitalist system, death to the exploiters, and
all the other clichés of the ordinary labour agitator. Workers want
simple, homely facts regarding their trades and he gives them these
facts. He is--
What are all these God damn bourgeois doing here? demanded a high,
shrill voice from the next room.
My companion smiled. That is Hippolyte Havel. He always asks that
question, even at anarchist meetings, but it isn't a cliché with him;
it's part of his charm.
Hippolyte, sweet, blinking, amblyoptic Hippolyte, his hair as snarly as
the Medusa's, strode into the room.
Hush, some one adjured us, Hush! Yorska is going to recite.
After a few seconds, there was silence. All the chairs were filled;
many were sitting on the floor or standing against the wall or in the
doorways; ladies in black velvet, wearing diamonds, ladies in batik
and Greenwich village sacks, ladies with bobbed hair and mannish-cut
garments, men in evening dress, men in workmen's clothes. No one
present, I noted, looked quite so untidy as Peter. Yorska, her tragic
face emerging from three yards of black tulle and satin, recited, in
French, Baudelaire's Le Balcon, fingering a red rose at her waist. As
she uttered the last lines with passionate intensity,
--O serments! O parfums! O baisers infinis!
there was a scattered clapping of hands, a few exclamations of delight.
Now the Tuscan butler, as cynical as Herbert Spencer, threw open the
doors to the dining-room, exposing the table laden with sandwiches,
salads, cold meats, glasses, and bottles, including kümmel bottles in
the form of Russian bears. A few of the young radicals were the first
to surge to the repast. My companion and I slipped out in time to hear
an instructive lecture on the subject of collective bargaining from
a young man with a black flowing tie, who grasped a pinchbottle so
fervidly that I felt sure it would never leave his hand until he had
usurped the contents. Representation was a word which, in its different
senses, was often used that evening. The labourers cooed over it,
worshipped it, and set it up in a shrine, while the artists spurned it
and cast it from them; "mere photography" was the phrase.
Helen Westley, black and limp, stood beside me.
Who, she asked, is that young man you brought here tonight?
Peter Whiffle, I replied.
Peter Whistle? was her interrogative reproduction.
Presently the quiet even voice of Bill Haywood was heard from the
drawing-room, a voice that by its very mildness compelled silence:
Violence, yes, we advocate violence of the most violent sort, violence
that consists in keeping your mouth shut and your hands in your
pockets. Don't fold your arms, I say to the men, but keep your hands
in your pockets to keep hired thugs and detectives from putting bombs
there. In doing this and staying on strike you are committing the most
violent acts in the world, for you are stopping industry and keeping it
stopped until the mill owners grant your demands, an eight hour day,
two looms to a worker, and higher wages.
See how he talks, pointed out my unidentified companion, rubbing his
flabby fingers the while around the flange of his wine-glass, about
half-full of red California wine. No rage, no emotion, a simple
explanation of the humanities. Let us go in where we can hear him
better.
But when we joined the throng in the drawing-room, we discovered that
Haywood was not beginning. He had already finished what he had to say
to the group and had returned to his more intimate conversation with
Edith. He brought back to my mind Cunninghame Graham's description of
Parnell, not popular, in the hail-fellow-well-met and loudly cheered
conception of the word, but yet with an attraction for all women whom
he came across, who were drawn to him by his careless treatment of
them, and by the wish that nature has implanted in their sex, to be the
rulers of all men who stand above their kind.
Did it ever occur to you? my companion began again, that there is some
strange relationship between trade unionism and tribal magic? You know
how the men of one union cannot do the work for the men of another
union. What is this restriction but the taboo?
What, indeed? I echoed pleasantly, unable to think of anything more
apposite to say. Besides, my attention was wandering. I had discovered
Peter, who appeared to be engrossed in the charms of a pretty girl of
whom I knew little except that her name was Mahalah Wiggins.
Now the round-faced, cherubic Max Weber rose to speak.
The art consciousness is the great life consciousness, he began in his
somewhat high-pitched voice. Its product and the appreciation of its
product are the very flower of life.... Hutchins Hapgood's companion
continued to finger lovingly the polished wooden African figure.... Its
presence in man is Godliness on earth. It humanizes mankind. Were it
spread broadcast it would do away with dry, cold intellectualism, which
dead and unfired, always seeks refuge in pretending to be more than it
is.... Bill Haywood, the giant Arimaspian, was pounding the seat of the
brocaded sofa with his great fist.... Art or art consciousness is the
real proof of genuine human sympathy. It oozes spiritual expression.
Were it fostered it would sooner solve the great modern economic
problem than any labour propaganda.... Helen Westley was yawning,
with a great open jaw, which she made no effort to conceal.... A lack
of this art consciousness--Weber was very earnest, but in no sense
theatrical--, on the part of both capital and labour, is one cause of
this great modern struggle. Were this art consciousness more general,
material possession would be less valued; the covetous spirit would
soon die out.... Yorska, a wraith of black satin and black tulle, her
pale Pierrot face slit with crimson and punctuated with two black
holes, lined with purple, stood in the doorway motionless, like another
Rachel, with one hand lifted above her head, grasping the curtain,
trying to look uncovetous.... Art socializes more than socialism
with its platform and its platitudes.... Bravo! This from Hippolyte
Havel.... Economists go not deep enough into the modern monetary
disease. They deal only with materialism. They concentrate only on what
is obvious, the physical starvation of the toiling class, but never
do they see or seem to realize the spiritual starvation or the lack
of an art consciousness to both capital and labour. They would argue
that the material relief must come first. I reply, now as always, we
must begin with the spiritual. I do not see, however, how the spiritual
or æsthetic can be separated from the material.... Clara Barnes gave
an angry shake to her long ear-rings, but Donald Evans had the rapt
attentive air of a man hearing a great truth for the first time.... The
common solution of this great problem is too dry, too matter of fact,
too calculated, too technical, too scientifically intellectual and
not enough intellectually imaginative. Art consciousness is not merely
a form of etiquette, nor a phase of culture--it is life--the quality
of sensitive breathing, seeing, hearing, developed to a high true
spirituality. Man would value man more. The wonder of and the faith in
other human beings would kindle a new social and spiritual life.
That's good talk, was Bill Haywood's comment.
What does it all mean? Clara Barnes caught my attention again; it was
obvious that she could catch no one else's.
It means what you are willing or able to put into it, nothing more, I
affirmed.
Well, said Clara, yawning, I guess I can't put much into it. This is
worse than a party I went to last week, given by a baritone of the
Aborn Opera Company.
At this point, a little school-marm type of person, with a sharp nose
and eye-glasses, rose and shrilly began to complain.
I am a mere lay woman. I don't know a thing about modern art. I've
been trying to learn something for five years. In the effort, I have
attended all the meetings of this kind that I could in Paris, New York,
and London. There's always a lot of talk but nothing is ever clear.
Now I'd like to know if there isn't some explanation of modern art, an
explanation that a mere lay woman could understand.
There was a ripple of amused laughter among the young artists and a
rapid exchange of glances, but not one of them rose. Instead, a rather
massive female, utterly unknown to me, with as many rows of gold braid
across her chest as a French academician, a porter at the Crédit
Lyonnais, or a soldier in the army of the Prince of Monaco, stood on
her feet.
What, exactly, would you like to know? she asked in a voice in which
authority and confidence were equal elements.
I'd like to know everything, but I'd be satisfied with anything. What,
for instance, is the meaning of that picture?
She pointed to Andrew Dasburg's The Absence of Edith Dale, a cubistic
contribution to æsthetic production in several planes and the colours
of red, yellow, and blue.
The massive lady began with some hesitation. Her confidence had not
deserted her but she seemed to be searching for precise words.
Well, she said, that picture is the kind of picture that gives pleasure
to the kind of people who like that kind of picture. The arrangement of
planes and colours is very satisfying. Perhaps I could explain it to
you in terms of music. Do you understand the terminology of music?
Not at all, snapped the little woman with the eye-glasses.
The massive lady seemed gratified and continued, In that case, you may
have difficulty in following me, but if you take the first and second
themes of a sonata, their statement, the development or working-out
section, the recapitulation, the coda.... It has some relation to the
sonata form certainly, but.... The artist is in the room, the artist
who painted the picture. Won't you explain the picture, Mr. Dasburg?
Andrew, very much amused, did not take the trouble to rise.
The picture is there, he said. You can look at it. Then, after a pause,
he added, Henry James says, Woe, in the æsthetic line, to any example
that requires the escort of precept. It is like a guest arriving to
dine accompanied by constables.
Then, said the little lady, solemnly, I say, Woe to that picture, woe
to it, for it certainly requires the escort of precept. Moreover, I
don't think any one here knows anything, not a thing! she cried, her
voice rising to a shrill intensity, not a blessed thing. It's just
like the last chapter of Alice. If I shouted, Why, you're only a pack
of cards, you'd all fly up in the air, a lot of flat paste-boards with
kings, queens, aces, and deuces painted on your faces! I shall never
ask another question about modern art. My private impression is that
it's just so much junk.
Very indignant now, she wrapped an ice-wool shawl around her bony
shoulders and made her way out of the room.
There wasn't an instant's pause and her departure caused no comment. A
new speaker began,
The world, it may be stated, for the purposes of classification,
is divided into four groups: the proletariat, the aristocrats, the
middle class, and the artist class. The artist class may be called
by any other name, bohemians, anarchists, revolutionists, what you
will. It includes those who think and act freely, without traditions
or inhibitions, and not all people who write or paint belong to this
class at all. The artist class lives the way it _wants_ to live. The
proletariat and the aristocrats live the way they _have_ to live. The
middle class is composed of members of the proletariat trying to live
like the aristocrats....
My mind wandered. I glanced across at Peter. He was still absorbed in
Mahalah Wiggins and did not appear to be listening to the speaker.
Yet, if he were really writing a realistic novel, the talk, the whole
atmosphere of the evening should have interested and enthralled him. He
never looked up and he was whispering very rapidly.
Some people resemble animals; some, perhaps, minerals; assuredly, some
resemble flowers. Mahalah Wiggins was like a pansy. Her hair was black
with purple lights; her eyes were a pale pansy blue; her face bore an
ingenuous pansy expression that made one wonder why pansies were for
thoughts. She wore a purple velvet dress with long tight sleeves ending
in points which reached her knuckles, and, around her throat, a chain
of crystal beads that hung almost to her waist.
Intercepting the long look I gave the girl, Neith Boyce smiled.
Are you, too, interested in Mahalah? she asked.