Love's Pilgrimage Part 37

And when thou waken'st, wilt thou think of me, Of Cedric, him that loved thee, oh so true?

Nay, for they said thou shouldst no sorrow know, And that would be a sorrow, yea, it would.

And must thou then forget me, thou my love?

And canst not give me but one single word, To tell me that I do not die in vain?

Gaze at me, Eileen, see, thy love is here, Here as of old, above thee stooping light, To press a kiss upon thy tender lips.-- Ah, I can kiss thee--kiss thee, my Eileen, Kiss as of yore, with all my pa.s.sion's woe!'

And as he spoke he pressed her to his heart, Long, long, with yearning, and he felt the leap Of molten metal through his throbbing veins; His eyes shot fire, and anguish racked his limbs, And he fell back, and reeled, and clutched his brow.

An instant only gazed he on her face, And saw new life within her gray cheek leap, And her dark eyelids tremble. Then with moan, And fearful struggle, swift he fled away, That she might nothing of his strife perceive.

And then, reminded of his gift of flight, He started from the earth, and beat aloft, Each sweep of his great wings a torture-stroke Upon his fainting heart. And thus away, With languid flight he moved, and Eileen, raised In new-born joy from off her couch of pain, Saw a strange bird into the distance fade."

And so Cedric went back to the seamed rock, and there he heard a voice calling, "I seek Caradrion!" And as before he answered,

"Come not, except to sorrow thou be born!"

And again, in the cave--

"The hours of night sped by.

And sounds came forth as when a woman fights In savage pain, a life from hers to free.

But Eileen dwelt within the happy vale, Thinking no thought of him that went away."

Section 4. This had come so very easily to Thyrsis that he could not believe that it was good. "Just a little story," he said to Corydon, when he read it to her, and he was surprised to see how it affected her--how the tears welled into her eyes, and she clung to him sobbing.

It meant more to her than any other thing that he had written; it was the very voice of their tenderness and their grief.

Then Thyrsis took it to the one editor he knew who was a lover of poetry, and was surprised again, at this man's delight. But he smiled sadly as he realized that the editor did not use poetry--they did not praise so recklessly when it was a question of something to be purchased!

"The poem is too long for any magazine," was the verdict, "and it's not long enough for a book. And besides, poetry doesn't sell." But none the less Thyrsis, who would never take a defeat, began to offer it about; and so "Caradrion" was added to the list of stamp-consuming ma.n.u.scripts, and set out to see the world at the expense of its creator's stomach.

So there was one more wasted vision, one more futile effort--and one more grapple with despair, in the hours when he and his wife sat wrapped in a blanket in the tenement-room. Corydon was growing more nervous and unhappy every day, it seemed to him. There were, apparently, endless humiliations to be experienced by a woman "whose husband did not support her". Some zealous relative had suggested to her the idea that the "hall-boys" might think she was not really married; and so now she was impelled to speculate upon the psychology of these Ethiopian functionaries, and look for slights and disapproval from them!

Thyrsis, from much work and little sleep, was haggard and wild of aspect; the cry of the world, "Take a position!" rang in his ears day and night. The springs of book-reviews had dried up entirely, and by sheer starvation he was forced to a stage lower yet. A former college friend was editing a work of "contemporary biography", and offered Thyrsis some hack-writing. It meant the carrying home of huge bundles of correspondence from the world's most brightly-s.h.i.+ning lights, and the making up of biographical sketches from their eulogies of themselves.

With every light there came a portrait, showing what manner of light it was. As for Thyrsis, he did his writing with the feeling that he would like to explore with a poniard the interiors of each one of these people.

For nearly three months now an eminent editor had been trying to summon up the courage to accept "The Hearer of Truth". He had written several letters to tell the author how good a work it was; and now that it was to be definitely rejected, he soothed his conscience by inviting the author to lunch. The function came off at one of the most august and stately of the city's clubs, a marble building near Fifth Avenue, where Thyrsis, with a new clean collar, and his worn shoes newly s.h.i.+ned, pa.s.sed under the suspicious eyes of the liveried menials, and was ushered before the eminent editor. About the vast room were portraits of bygone dignitaries; and there were great leather-upholstered arm-chairs in which one might see the dignitaries of the present--some of them with little tables at their sides, and decanters and soda and cracked ice. They went into the dining-room, where everyone spoke and ate in whispers, and the waiters flitted about like black and white ghosts; and while Thyrsis consumed a cupful of cold _bouillon_, and a squab _en ca.s.serole_, and a plate of what might be described as an honorific salad, he listened to the soft-voiced editor discussing the problem of his future career.

The editor's theme was what the public wanted. The world had existed for a long time, it seemed, and was not easily to be changed; it was necessary for an author to take its prejudices into consideration--especially if he was young, and unknown, and--er--dependent upon his own resources. It seemed to Thyrsis, as he listened, that the great man must have arranged this luncheon as a stage-setting for his remarks--planning it on purpose to light a blaze of bitterness in the soul of the hungry poet. "Look at me," he seemed to say--"this is the way the job is done. Once I was poor and unknown like you--actually, though you might not credit it, a raw boy from the country. But I had taste and talent, and I was judicious; and so now for thirty years I have been at the head of one of the country's leading magazines. And see--by my mere word I am able to bring you here into the very citadel of power! For these men about you are the masters of the metropolis. There is a rich publisher--his name is a household word--and you saw how he touched me on the shoulder. There is an ex-mayor of the city--you saw how he nodded to me! Yonder is the head of one of the oldest and most exclusive of the city's landed families--even with him I am acquainted! And this is power! You may know it by all these signs of mahogany furniture, and leather upholstery, and waiters of reverential deportment. You may know it by the signs of respectability and awesomeness and chaste abundance. Make haste to pay homage to it, and enroll yourself in its service!"

Thyrsis held himself in, and parted from the editor with all courtesy; but then, as he walked down Fifth Avenue, his fury burst into flame.

Here, too, was power--here, too, the signs of it! Palaces of granite and marble, arid towering apartment-hotels; an endless vista of carriages and automobiles, with rich women lolling in them, or descending into shops whose windows blazed with jewels and silver and gold. Here were the masters of the metropolis, the masters of life; the dispensers of patronage--that "public" which he had to please. He would bring his vision and lay it at their feet, and they would give him or deny him opportunity! And what was it that they wanted? Was it wors.h.i.+p and consecration and love? One could read the answer in their purse-proud glances; in the barriers of steel and bronze with which they protected the gates of their palaces; in the aspects of their flunkeys, whose casual glances were like blows in the face. One could read the answer in the pitiful features of the little errand-girl who went past, carrying some bit of their splendor to them; or of the ragged beggar, who hovered in the shelter of a side-street, fearing their displeasure. No, they were not lovers of life, and protectors; they were parasites and destroyers, devourers of the hopes of humanity! Their splendors were the distilled essence of the tears and agonies of millions of defeated people--their jewels were drops of blood from the heart of the human race!

Section 5. So, with rage and bitterness, Thyrsis was gnawing out his soul in the night-time; distilling those fierce poisons which he was to pour into the next of his works--the most terrible of them all, and the one which the world would never forgive him.

There came another episode, to bring matters to a crisis. In the far Northwest lived another branch of Thyrsis' family, the head of which had become what the papers called a "lumber-king". One of this great man's radiant daughters was to be married, and the family made the selecting of her trousseau the occasion for a flying visit to the metropolis. So there were family reunions, and Thyrsis was invited to bring his wife and call.

Corydon voiced her perplexity.

"What do they want to see _us_ for?" she asked.

"I belong to their line," he said.

"But--you are poor!" she exclaimed.

"I know," he said, "but the family's the family, and they are too proud to be sn.o.bbish."

"But--why do they ask me?"

Thyrsis pondered. "They know we have published a book," he said. "It must be their tribute to literature."

"Are they people of culture?" she asked.

"Not unless they've tried very hard," he answered. "But they have old traditions--and they want to be aristocratic."

"I won't go," said Corydon. "I couldn't stand them."

And so Thyrsis went alone--to that same temple of luxury where he had called upon the college-professor. And there he met the lumber-king, who was tall and imposing of aspect; and the lumber-queen, who was verging on stoutness; and the three lumber-princesses, who were disturbing creatures for a poet to gaze upon. It seemed to Thyrsis that he had been dwelling in the slums all his life--so sharp was the shock which came to him at the meeting with these young girls. They were exquisite beyond telling: the graceful lines of their figures, the perfect features, the radiant complexions; the soft, filmy gowns they wore, the faint, intoxicating perfumes that clung to them, the atmosphere of serenity which they radiated. There was that in Thyrsis which thrilled at their presence--he had been born into such a world, and might have had such a woman for his mate.

But he put such thoughts from him--he had made his choice long ago, and it was not the primrose-path. Perhaps he was over-sensitive, acutely aware of himself as a strange creature with no cuffs, and with hardly any soles to his shoes. And all the time of these women was taken up by the arrival of packages of gowns and millinery; their conversation was of diamonds and automobiles, and the forthcoming honeymoon upon the Riviera. So it was hard for him not to feel bitterness; hard for him to keep his thoughts from going back to the lonely child-wife wandering about in the park--to all her deprivations, her blasted hopes and dying glories of soul.

The family was going to the matinee; as there was room in their car, they asked Thyrsis to go with them. So he watched the lumber-king (who had refused to lend him money, but had offered him a "position") draw out a bank-note from a large roll, and pay for a box in one of Broadway's great palaces of art. And now--having been advised so often to study what the public wanted--now Thyrsis had a chance to recline at his ease and follow the advice.

"The Princess of Prague", it was called; it was a "musical comedy"; and evidently exactly what the public wanted, for the house was crowded to the doors. The leading comedian was said by the papers to be receiving a salary of a thousand dollars a week. He held the center of the stage, clad in the costume of a lieutenant of marines, and winked and grinned, and performed antics, and sang songs of no doubtful significance, and emitted a fusillade of cynical jests. He was supposed to be half-drunk, and making love to a run-away princess--who would at one moment accept his caresses, and then spurn him coquettishly, and then execute an unlovely dance with him. In between these diverting procedures a chorus would come on, a score or so of highly-painted women, hopping and gliding about, each time clad in new costumes more cunningly indecent than the last.

From beginning to end of this piece there was not a single line of real humor, a spark of human sentiment, a gleam of intelligence; it was a kind of delirium tremens of the drama. To Thyrsis it seemed as if a whole civilization, with all its resources of science and art--its music and painting and costumes, its poets and composers, its actors, singers, orchestra, and audience--had all at once fallen victims to an attack of St. Vitus' dance. He sat and listened, while the theatre full of people roared and howled its applause; while the family beside him--mother and father and daughters--laughed over jokes that made him ashamed to turn and look at them. In the end the realization of what this scene meant--not only the break-down of a civilization, but the trap in which his own spirit was caught--made him sick and faint all over. He had to ask to be excused, and went out and sat in the lobby until the "show"

was done.

The family found him there, and the bride-to-be inquired if he "felt better"; then, looking at his pale face, an idea occurred to her, and after a bit of hesitation, she asked him if he would not stay to dinner.

In her mind was the conflict between pity for this poor boy, and doubt as to the fitness of his costume; and Thyrsis, having read her mind in a flash, was divided between his humiliation, and his desire for some food. In the end the baser motive won; he buried his pride, and went to dinner.--And so, as the fates had planned it, the impulse to his next book was born.

Section 6. There came another guest to the meal--the rector of the fas.h.i.+onable church which the family attended at home. He was a young man, renowned for the charm of his oratory; smooth-shaven, pink-and-white-cheeked, exquisite in his manners, gracious and insinuating. His ideas and his language and his morals were all as perfectly polished as his finger-nails; and never before in his life had Thyrsis had such a red rag waved in his face. But he had come there for the dinner, and he attended to that, and let Dr. Holland provide the flow of soul; until at the very end, when the doctor was sipping his _demi-ta.s.se_.

The conversation had come, by some devious route, to Vegetarianism; and the clergyman was disapproving of it. That made no difference to Thyrsis, who was not a vegetarian, and knew nothing about it; but how he hated the arguments the man advanced! For that which made the doctor an anti-vegetarian was an att.i.tude to life, which had also made him a Republican and an Imperialist, a graduate of Harvard and a beneficiary of the Apostolic Succession. Because life was a survival of the fittest, and because G.o.d had intended the less fit to take the doctor's word as their sentence of extermination.

The duty of animals, as the clergyman set it forth to them, was to convert plant-tissue into a more concentrated and perfect form of nutriment. "The protein of animal flesh," he was saying, "is more nearly allied to human tissue; and so it is clearly more fitted for our food."

Here Thyrsis entered the conversation. "Doctor Holland," he said, mildly, "I should think it would occur to you to follow your argument to its conclusion."

The other turned to look at him. "What conclusion?" he asked.

"I should think you would become a cannibal," Thyrsis replied.

And then there was silence at the table. When Dr. Holland spoke again it was to hurry the conversation elsewhere; and from time to time thereafter he would steal a puzzled glance at Thyrsis.

But this the boy did not see. His thoughts had gone whirling on; here, in this elegant dining-room, the throes of creation seized hold of him. For this was the image he had been seeking, the phrase that would embrace it all and express it all--the concentrated bitterness of his poisoned life! Yes, he had them! He had them, with all their glory and their power! They were Cannibals. _Cannibals_!

So, when he set out from the hotel, he did not go home, but walked instead for uncounted hours in the park. And in those hours he lived through the whole of his new book, the unspeakable book--"The Higher Cannibalism"!

In the morning he told Corydon about it. She cried in terror, "But, Thyrsis, n.o.body would publish it!"

"Of course not," said he.

"But then," she asked, "how can you write it?"