"I hope you will finish it soon," Jack observed after a while. "Youhaven't done much of late."
"A similar reflection was on my mind when you came yesterday. Thataccounts for the low spirits in which you found me."
"Ah, indeed," Jack replied, measuring Ernest with a look of wonder. "Butnow your face is aglow. It seems that the blood rushes to your headswifter at the call of an idea than at the kiss of a girl."
"Thank God!" Ernest remarked with a sigh of relief. "Mighty forceswithin me are fashioning the limpid thought. Passion may grip us by thethroat momentarily; upon our backs we may feel the lashes of desire andbathe our souls in flames of many hues; but the joy of activity is theultimate passion."
IX
It seemed, indeed, as if work was to Ernest what the sting of pleasureis to the average human animal. The inter-play of his mental forces gavehim the sensuous satisfaction of a woman's embrace. His eyes sparkled.His muscle tightened. The joy of creation was upon him.
Often very material reasons, like stone weights tied to the wings of abird, stayed the flight of his imagination. Magazines were waiting forhis copy, and he was not in the position to let them wait. They suppliedhis bread and butter.
Between the bread and butter, however, the play was growing scene byscene. In the lone hours of the night he spun upon the loom of his fancya brilliant weft of swift desire--heavy, perfumed, Oriental--interwovenwith bits of gruesome tenderness. The thread of his own life intertwinedwith the thread of the story. All genuine art is autobiography. It isnot, however, necessarily a revelation of the artist's actual self, butof a myriad of potential selves. Ah, our own potential selves! They aresometimes beautiful, often horrible, and always fascinating. They loomto heavens none too high for our reach; they stray to yawning hellsbeneath our very feet.
The man who encompasses heaven and hell is a perfect man. But there aremany heavens and more hells. The artist snatches fire from both. Surelythe assassin feels no more intensely the lust of murder than the poetwho depicts it in glowing words. The things he writes are as real to himas the things that he lives. But in his realm the poet is supreme. Hishands may be red with blood or white with leprosy: he still remainsking. Woe to him, however, if he transcends the limits of his kingdomand translates into action the secret of his dreams. The throng thatbefore applauded him will stone his quivering body or nail to the crosshis delicate hands and feet.
Sometimes days passed before Ernest could concentrate his mind upon hisplay. Then the fever seized him again, and he strung pearl on pearl,line on line, without entrusting a word to paper. Even to discuss hiswork before it had received the final brush-strokes would have seemedindecent to him.
Reginald, too, seemed to be in a turmoil of work. Ernest had littlechance to speak to him. And to drop even a hint of his plans between thecourses at breakfast would have been desecration.
Sunset followed sunset, night followed night. The stripling April hadmade room for the lady May. The play was almost completed in Ernest'smind, and he thought, with a little shudder, of the physical travail ofthe actual writing. He felt that the transcript from brain to paperwould demand all his powers. For, of late, his thoughts seemed strangelyevanescent; they seemed to run away from him whenever he attempted toseize them.
The day was glad with sunshine, and he decided to take a long walk inthe solitude of the Palisades, to steady hand and nerve for the finaltask.
He told Reginald of his intention, but met with little response.Reginald's face was wan and bore the peculiar pallor of one who hadworked late at night.
"You must be frightfully busy?" Ernest asked, with genuine concern.
"So I am," Reginald replied. "I always work in a white heat. I amrestless, nervous, feverish, and can find no peace until I have givenutterance to all that clamours after birth."
"What is it that is so engaging your mind, the epic of the FrenchRevolution?"
"Oh, no. I should never have undertaken that. I haven't done a stroke ofwork on it for several weeks. In fact, ever since Walkham called, Isimply couldn't. It seemed as if a rough hand had in some way destroyedthe web of my thought. Poetry in the writing is like red hot glassbefore the master-blower has fashioned it into birds and trees andstrange fantastic shapes. A draught, caused by the opening of a door maydistort it. But at present I am engaged upon more important work. I ammodelling a vessel not of fine-spun glass, but of molten gold."
"You make me exceedingly anxious to know what you have in store for us.It seems to me you have reached a point where even you can no longersurpass yourself."
Reginald smiled. "Your praise is too generous, yet it warms likesunshine. I will confess that my conception is unique. It combines withthe ripeness of my technique the freshness of a second spring."
Ernest was bubbling with anticipated delights. His soul responded toReginald's touch as a harp to the winds. "When," he cried, "shall we beprivileged to see it?"
Reginald's eyes were already straying back to his writing table. "If thegods are propitious," he remarked, "I shall complete it to-night.To-morrow is my reception, and I have half promised to read it then."
"Perhaps I shall be in the position soon to let you see my play."
"Let us hope so," Reginald replied absent-mindedly. The egotism of theartist had once more chained him to his work.
X
That night a brilliant crowd had gathered in Reginald Clarke's house.From the studio and the adjoining salon arose a continual murmur ofwell-tuned voices. On bare white throats jewels shone as if in each asoul were imprisoned, and voluptuously rustled the silk that clung tothe fair slim forms of its bearers in an undulating caress. Subtleperfumes emanated from the hair and the hands of syren women,commingling with the soft plump scent of their flesh. Fragrant tapers,burning in precious crystal globules stained with exquisite colours,sprinkled their shimmering light over the fashionable assemblage andlent a false radiance to the faces of the men, while in the hair and thejewels of the women each ray seemed to dance like an imp with its mate.
A seat like a throne, covered with furs of tropic beasts of prey, stoodin one corner of the room in the full glare of the light, waiting forthe monarch to come. Above were arranged with artistic _raffinement_weird oriental draperies, resembling a crimson canopy in the totaleffect. Chattering visitors were standing in groups, or had seatedthemselves on the divans and curiously-fashioned chairs that werescattered in seeming disorder throughout the salon. There were criticsand writers and men of the world. Everybody who was anybody and a littlebigger than somebody else was holding court in his own small circle ofenthusiastic admirers. The Bohemian element was subdued, but notentirely lacking. The magic of Reginald Clarke's name made stately damesblind to the presence of some individuals whom they would have passed onthe street without recognition.
Ernest surveyed this gorgeous assembly with the absent look of asleep-walker. Not that his sensuous soul was unsusceptible to theatmosphere of culture and corruption that permeated the whole, nor tothe dazzling colour effects that tantalised while they delighted theeye. But to-night they shrivelled into insignificance before thesplendour of his inner vision. A radiant dreamland palace, his play, hadrisen from the night of inchoate thought. It was wonderful, it was real,and needed for its completion only the detail of actual construction.And now the characters were hovering in the recesses of his brain, wereyearning to leave that many-winded labyrinth to become real beings ofpaper and ink. He would probably have tarried overlong in this fancifulmansion, had not the reappearance of an unexpected guest broken hisreverie.
"Jack!" he exclaimed in surprise, "I thought you a hundred miles awayfrom here."
"That shows that you no longer care for me," Jack playfully answered."When our friendship was young, you always had a presentiment of mypresence."
"Ah, perhaps I had. But tell me, where do you hail from?"
"Clarke called me up on the telephone--long-distance, you know. Isuppose it was meant as a surprise for you. And you certainly lookedsurprised--not e
ven pleasantly. I am really head-over-heels at work.But you know how it is. Sometimes a little imp whispers into my earsdaring me to do a thing which I know is foolish. But what of it? My legsare strong enough not to permit my follies to overtake me."
"It was certainly good of you to come. In fact, you make me very glad. Ifeel that I need you to-night--I don't know why. The feeling camesuddenly--suddenly as you. I only know I need you. How long can youstay?"
"I must leave you to-morrow morning. I have to hustle somewhat. You knowmy examinations are taking place in a day or two and I've got to cram upa lot of things."
"Still," remarked Ernest, "your visit will repay you for the loss oftime. Clarke will read to us to-night his masterpiece."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. I only know it's the real thing. It's worth all thewisdom bald-headed professors may administer to you in concentrateddoses at five thousand a year."
"Come now," Jack could not help saying, "is your memory giving way?Don't you remember your own days in college--especially the mathematicalexaminations? You know that your marks came always pretty near theabsolute zero."
"Jack," cried Ernest in honest indignation, "not the last time. The lasttime I didn't flunk."
"No, because your sonnet on Cartesian geometry roused even themath-fiend to compassion. And don't you remember Professor Squeeler,whose heart seemed to leap with delight whenever he could tell you that,in spite of incessant toil on your part, he had again flunked you inphysics with fifty-nine and a half per cent.?"
"And he wouldn't raise the mark to sixty! God forgive him,--I cannot."
Here their exchange of reminiscences was interrupted. There was a stir.The little potentates of conversation hastened to their seats, beforetheir minions had wholly deserted them.
The king was moving to his throne!
Assuredly Reginald Clarke had the bearing of a king. Leisurely he tookhis seat under the canopy.
A hush fell on the audience; not a fan stirred as he slowly unfolded hismanuscript.
XI
The music of Reginald Clarke's intonation captivated every ear.Voluptuously, in measured cadence, it rose and fell; now full and stronglike the sound of an organ, now soft and clear like the tinkling ofbells. His voice detracted by its very tunefulness from what he said.The powerful spell charmed even Ernest's accustomed ear. The first pagegracefully glided from Reginald's hand to the carpet before the boydimly realised that he was intimately familiar with every word that fellfrom Reginald's lips. When the second page slipped with seemingcarelessness from the reader's hand, a sudden shudder ran through theboy's frame. It was as if an icy hand had gripped his heart. There couldbe no doubt of it. This was more than mere coincidence. It wasplagiarism. He wanted to cry out. But the room swam before his eyes.Surely he must be dreaming. It was a dream. The faces of the audience,the lights, Reginald, Jack--all phantasmagoria of a dream.
Perhaps he had been ill for a long time. Perhaps Clarke was reading theplay for him. He did not remember having written it. But he probably hadfallen sick after its completion. What strange pranks our memories willplay us! But no! He was not dreaming, and he had not been ill.
He could endure the horrible uncertainty no longer. His overstrungnerves must find relaxation in some way or break with a twang. He turnedto his friend who was listening with rapt attention.
"Jack, Jack!" he whispered.
"What is it?"
"That is my play!"
"You mean that you inspired it?"
"No, I have written it, or rather, was going to write it."
"Wake up, Ernest! You are mad!"
"No, in all seriousness. It is mine. I told you--don't youremember--when we returned from Coney Island--that I was writing aplay."
"Ah, but not this play."
"Yes, this play. I conceived it, I practically wrote it."
"The more's the pity that Clarke had preconceived it."
"But it is mine!"
"Did you tell him a word about it?"
"No, to be sure."
"Did you leave the manuscript in your room?"
"I had, in fact, not written a line of it. No, I had not begun theactual writing."
"Why should a man of Clarke's reputation plagiarise your plays, writtenor unwritten?"
"I can see no reason. But--"
"Tut, tut."
For already this whispered conversation had elicited a look like a stabfrom a lady before them.
Ernest held fast to the edge of a chair. He must cling to some reality,or else drift rudderless in a dim sea of vague apprehensions.
Or was Jack right?
Was his mind giving way? No! No! No! There must be a monstrous secretsomewhere, but what matter? Did anything matter? He had called on hismate like a ship lost in the fog. For the first time he had notresponded. He had not understood. The bitterness of tears rose to theboy's eyes.
Above it all, melodiously, ebbed and flowed the rich accents of ReginaldClarke.
Ernest listened to the words of his own play coming from the older man'smouth. The horrible fascination of the scene held him entranced. He sawthe creations of his mind pass in review before him, as a man might lookupon the face of his double grinning at him from behind a door in thehideous hours of night.
They were all there! The mad king. The subtle-witted courtiers. Thesombre-hearted Prince. The Queen-Mother who had loved a jester betterthan her royal mate, and the fruit of their shameful alliance, thePrincess Marigold, a creature woven of sunshine and sin.
Swiftly the action progressed. Shadows of impending death darkened thehouse of the King. In the horrible agony of the rack the old jesterconfessed. Stripped of his cap and bells, crowned with a wreath ofblood, he looked so pathetically funny that the Princess Marigold couldnot help laughing between her tears.
The Queen stood there all trembling and pale. Without a complaint shesaw her lover die. The executioner's sword smote the old man's headstraight from the trunk. It rolled at the feet of the King, who tossedit to Marigold. The little Princess kissed it and covered the grinninghorror with her yellow veil.
The last words died away.
There was no applause. Only silence. All were stricken with the dreadthat men feel in the house of God or His awful presence in genius.
But the boy lay back in his chair. The cold sweat had gathered on hisbrow and his temples throbbed. Nature had mercifully clogged his headwith blood. The rush of it drowned the crying voice of the nerves,deadening for a while both consciousness and pain.
XII
Somehow the night had passed--somehow in bitterness, in anguish. But ithad passed.
Ernest's lips were parched and sleeplessness had left its trace in theblack rings under the eyes, when the next morning he confronted Reginaldin the studio.
Reginald was sitting at the writing-table in his most characteristicpose, supporting his head with his hand and looking with clear piercingeyes searchingly at the boy.
"Yes," he observed, "it's a most curious psychical phenomenon."
"You cannot imagine how real it all seemed to me."
The boy spoke painfully, dazed, as if struck by a blow.
"Even now it is as if something has gone from me, some strugglingthought that I cannot--cannot remember."
Reginald regarded him as a physical experimenter might look upon thesubject of a particularly baffling mental disease.
"You must not think, my boy, that I bear you any malice for yourextraordinary delusion. Before Jack went away he gave me an exactaccount of all that has happened. Divers incidents recurred to him fromwhich it appears that, at various times in the past, you have been onthe verge of a nervous collapse."
A nervous collapse! What was the use of this term but a euphemism forinsanity?
"Do not despair, dear child," Reginald caressingly remarked. "Yourdisorder is not hopeless, not incurable. Such crises come to every manwho writes. It is the tribute we pay to the Lords of Song. Theminnesinger of the past wrote with his heart's blood; but
we moderns dipour pen into the sap of our nerves. We analyse life, love art--and thedissecting knife that we use on other men's souls finally turns againstourselves.
"But what shall a man do? Shall he sacrifice art to hygiene andsurrender the one attribute that makes him chiefest of created things?Animals, too, think. Some walk on two legs. But introspectiondifferentiates man from the rest. Shall we yield up the sweetconsciousness of self that we derive from the analysis of our emotion,for the contentment of the bull that ruminates in the shade of a tree orthe healthful stupidity of a mule?"
"Assuredly not."
"But what shall a man do?"
"Ah, that I cannot tell. Mathematics offers definite problems that admitof a definite solution. Life states its problems with less exactness andoffers for each a different solution. One and one are two to-day andto-morrow. Psychical values, on each manipulation, will yield adifferent result. Still, your case is quite clear. You have overworkedyourself in the past, mentally and emotionally. You have sown unrest,and must not be surprised if neurasthenia is the harvest thereof."
"Do you think--that I should go to some sanitarium?" the boy falteringlyasked.
"God forbid! Go to the seashore, somewhere where you can sleep and play.Take your body along, but leave your brain behind--at least do nottake more of it with you than is necessary. The summer season inAtlantic City has just begun. There, as everywhere in American society,you will be much more welcome if you come without brains."
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