by John Collier
«Sure,» said the gorilla.
«They knock each other down,» went on his admirer. «As they taste the salt blood flowing over their lips, or see the female form suddenly grow tender under the influence of innumerable upper-cuts, right hooks, straight lefts, they become aware of another emotion —»
«Yes!» cried the gorilla with enthusiasm.
«And with a cry that is half a sob—»
«Attaboy!» cried the gorilla.
«They leap, clutch, grapple, and in an ecstasy that is half sheer bursting, burning, grinding, soul-shattering pain —»
The gorilla, unable to contain himself any longer, bit through the best branch of Mr. Grantly's fig tree. «You said it! That's my book, sir!» said he, with a mouthful of splinters.
I hate to have to record it: this gorilla then rushed into the house and seized his hostess in a grip of iron. «I'm in a creative mood,» he muttered thickly.
Mrs. Grantly was not altogether free from hero worship. She had taken her husband's word for it that the gorilla was a genius of the fiercest description. She admired both his complexion and his eyes, and she, too, observed that his grip was of iron.
At the same time, she was a young woman of exquisite refinement. «I can't help thinking of Dennis,» said she. «I should hate to hurt him.»
«Yeah?» cried the ill-bred anthropoid. «That poor fish? That ham writer? That bum artist? Don't you worry about him. I'll beat him up, baby! I'll —»
Mrs. Grantly interrupted him with some dignity. She was one of those truly noble women who would never dream of betraying their husbands, except at the bidding of a genuine passion, and with expressions of the most tender esteem.
«Let me go, Ernest,» she said, with such an air as compelled the vain ape to obey her. This ape, like all vulgarians, was very sensitive to any hint that he appeared low. «You do not raise yourself in my opinion by disparaging Dennis,» she continued. «It merely shows you are lacking in judgment, not only of men but of women.»
«Aw, cut it out, Joanna,» begged the humiliated gorilla. «See here: I only forgot myself. You know what we geniuses are!»
«If you were not a genius,» said Joanna, «I should have you turned out of the house. As it is — you shall have another chance.»
The gorilla had not the spirit to interpret these last words as liberally as some of us might. Perhaps it was because he had lived so long behind bars, but they fell upon his ear as upon that of some brutalized coward snuffling in the dock. The timid husky saw no invitation in Mrs. Grantly's smile, and he was panic-stricken at the thought of losing his snug quarters.
«Say, you won't split on me, sister?» he muttered.
«No, no,» said Mrs. Grantly. «One takes the commonsense view of these trifles. But you must behave more nicely in future.»
«Sure,» said he, much relieved. «I'll start in working right now.»
He went straightaway up to his room, looked at himself in the glass, and thus, oddly enough, recovered his damaged self-esteem. «I'll show those po' whites how to treat a gentleman,» said he.
«What did that poor worm say? 'Leap-clutch-grapple —' Oh, boy! Oh, boy! This book's goin' to sell like hot cakes.»
He scribbled away like the very devil. His handwriting was atrocious, but what of that? His style was not the best in the world, but he was writing about life in the raw. A succession of iron grips, such as the one he had been forced to loosen, of violent consummations, interruptions, beatings-up, flowed from his pen, interspersed with some bitter attacks on effete civilization, and many eulogies of the primitive.
«This'll make 'em sit up,» said he. «This'll go big.»
When he went down to supper, he noticed some little chilliness in Mrs. Grantly's demeanour. This was no doubt due to his cowardly behaviour in the afternoon. He trusted no one, and now became damnably afraid she would report his conduct to her husband; consequently he was the more eager to get his book done, so that he should be independent and in a position to revenge himself. He went upstairs immediately after the meal, and toiled away till past midnight, writing like one who confesses to a Sunday newspaper.
Before many days had passed in this fashion, he was drawing near the end of his work, when the Grantlys announced to him, with all the appearance of repressed excitement, that the best selling of all novelists was coming to dine with them. The gorilla looked forward to the evening with equal eagerness; he looked forward to gleaning a tip or two.
The great man arrived; his limousine was sufficiently resplendent. The big ape eyed him with the very greatest respect all through the meal. Afterwards they sat about and took coffee, just as ordinary people do. «I hear,» said the Best-Seller to Grantly, «that you are just finishing a novel.»
«Oh, a poor thing!» said the good-natured fellow. «Simpson, here, is the man who's going to set the Thames on fire. I fear my stuff is altogether too niggling. It is a sort of social satire, I touch a little on the Church, War, Peace, Fascism, Communism — one or two things of that sort, but hardly in a full-blooded fashion. I wish I could write something more primitive — fecund women, the urge of lust, blood hatred, all that, you know.»
«Good heavens, my dear Grantly!» cried the great man. «This comes of living so far out of the world. You really must move to some place more central. Public taste is on the change. I can assure you, that before your book can be printed, Mr. P—» (he mentioned the critic who makes or breaks) «will no longer be engaged, but married, and to a young woman of Junoesque proportions. What chance do you think the urge of lust will have with poor P—, after a month of his marriage to this magnificently proportioned young woman? No, no, my boy, stick to social satire. Put a little in about feminism, if you can find room for it. Guy the cult of the he-man, and its effect on deluded women, and you're safe for a record review. You'll be made.»
«I've got something of that sort in it,» said Grantly with much gratification, for authors are like beds; even the most artistic requires to be made.
«Who's doing the book for you?» continued his benevolent mentor. «You must let me give you a letter to my publisher. Nothing is more disheartening than hawking a book round the market, and having it returned unread. But Sykes is good enough to set some weight on my judgment; in fact, I think I may say, without boasting, you can look on the matter as settled.»
«Say, you might give me a letter, tool» cried the gorilla, who had been listening in consternation to the great man's discourse.
«I should be delighted, Mr. Simpson,» returned that worthy with great suavity. «But you know what these publishers are. Pigheaded isn't the word for them. Well, Grantly, I must be getting along. A delightful evening! Mrs. Grantly,» said he, slapping his host on the shoulder, «this is the man who is going to make us old fossils sit up. Take care of him. Give him some more of that delicious zabaglione. Good night! Good night!»
The gorilla was tremendously impressed by the great man's manner, his confidence, his pronouncements, his spectacles, his limousine, and above all by the snub he had given him, for such creatures are always impressed by that sort of thing. «That guy knows the works,» he murmured in dismay. «Say, I been barking up the wrong tree! I oughta gone in for style.»
The Grantlys returned from the hall, where they had accompanied their visitor, and it was obvious from their faces that they, too, placed great reliance on what they had heard. I am not sure that Mr. Grantly did not rub his hands.
«Upon my word!» he said. «It certainly sounds likely enough. Have you seen poor P—'s fiancée? His views will certainly change. Ha! Ha! Supposing, my dear, I became a best-seller?»
«It's terribly exciting!» cried Joanna. «Will it change your idea of going on a cruise when first the book comes out?»
«No, no,» said he. «I think an author should detach himself from that side, however gratifyingly it may develop. I want to know nothing of the book from the moment it appears till it is forgotten.»
«What? You going to spend a coupla days at Brighton?» stru
ck in the gorilla bitterly.
«Ha! Ha! What a satirist you would make!» cried Grantly with the greatest good nature. «No. We thought of going for a trip round the world. I agree a shorter absence would outlast whatever stir the book may make; however, we want to see the sights.»
The gorilla wrote never a word that night. He was overcome with mortification. He could not bear to think of the Grantlys sailing around the world, while the book he had despised piled up enormous royalties at home. Still less could he bear the thought of staying behind, left without a patron, and with his own book piling up no royalties at all. He saw a species of insult in his host's «striking gold,» as he termed it, and then turning his back on it in this fashion.
«That guy don't deserve the boodle!» he cried in anguish of spirit. In fact, he uttered this sentiment so very often during the night that in the end an idea was born of its mere repetition.
During the next few days he hastily and carelessly finished his own masterpiece, to have it ready against the coup he planned. In a word, this vile ape had resolved to change the manuscripts. He had alternative title pages, on which the names of the authors were transposed, typed in readiness. When at last the good Grantly announced that his work was complete, the gorilla announced the same; the two parcels were done up on the same evening, and the plotter was insistent in his offers to take them to the post
Grantly was the more willing to permit this, as he and his wife were already busy with preparations for their departure. Shortly afterwards, they took their farewell of the gorilla, and, pressing into his hand a tidy sum to meet his immediate necessities, they wished his book every success, and advised that his next should be a satire.
The cunning ape bade them enjoy themselves, and took up his quarters in Bloomsbury, where he shortly had the pleasure of receiving a letter from the publishers to say that they were accepting the satirical novel which he had sent them.
He now gave himself airs as a writer, and got all the publicity he could. On one occasion, however, he was at a party, where he beheld a woman of Junoesque proportions in the company of a bilious weakling. The party was a wild one, and he had no scruples about seizing her in a grip of iron, regardless of the fury of her companion. This incident made little impression on his memory, for he attended a great many Bloomsbury parties.
All the same, nothing is entirely unimportant. It so happened that the bilious weakling was no other than P—, the greatest of critics, and the Junoesque lady was his promised spouse. The critic reviewed her behaviour very bitterly, the engagement was broken off, and you may be sure he noted the name of the author of his misfortunes.
Very well, the two books came out: Grantly's, which the gorilla had stolen, and the gorilla's own raw outpourings, which now appeared under the name of Dennis Grantly. By a coincidence, they appeared on the same day. The gorilla opened the most influential of the Sunday newspapers, and saw the stimulating headline, «Book of the Century.»
«That's me!» said he, smacking his lips, and, fixing a hungry gaze on the letter-press, he discovered to his horror that it actually was. The critic, still a celibate, and by now an embittered one also, had selected the anthropoid's original tough stuff as being «raw, revealing, sometimes dangerously frank, at all times a masterpiece of insight and passion.» Farther down, in fact at the very bottom of the column, the stolen satire was dismissed in two words only —«unreadably dull.»
As if this misfortune was not sufficient, the next day, when the poor gorilla was leaving his lodgings, a young man in a black shirt tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he was Mr. Simpson. The gorilla replying in the affirmative, the black shirt introduced him to a dozen or so friends of his, similarly attired and armed with black jacks and knuckle dusters. It appeared that these young gentlemen disapproved of certain references Grantly had made to their association, and had decided to give the wretched Simpson a beating-up by way of acknowledgment.
The gorilla fought like a demon, but was overpowered by numbers. In the end he was battered insensible and left lying in the mews where the ceremony had taken place. It was not until the next morning that he was able to drag himself home. When he arrived there, he found a bevy of lawyers' clerks and policemen inquiring for him. It appeared that Dennis, for all his delicacy and restraint, bad been guilty of blasphemy, ordinary libel, obscene libel, criminal libel, sedition, and other things, in his references to the State, the Church, and so forth. «Who would have thought,» the gorilla moaned bitterly, «that there was all that in a little bit of style?»
During the various trials, he sat in a sullen silence, caring only to look at the newspapers, which contained advertisements of the book he had substituted for Grantly's. When the sales passed a hundred thousand, he became violent, and insulted the judge. When they reached double that figure he made a despairing attempt at confession, but this was put down as a clumsy simulation of insanity. In the end his sentences amounted to a book in themselves, and were issued in serial form. He was carted off, and put behind the bars.
«All this,» said he, «comes of wanting a suit of clothes for the public to see me in. I've got the clothes, but I don't like them, and the public aren't allowed in anyway.» This gave him a positive hatred of literature, and one who hates literature, and is moreover in prison for an interminable period of years, is in a truly miserable condition.
As for Dennis Grantly: by the time he returned he was so much the fashionable author that he never found a moment in which to open a book again, and thus he remained happily ignorant of the fraud. His wife, when she reflected on the fame and riches won by her husband, and remembered that afternoon when she had been almost too favourably impressed by the iron grip of the primitive, frequently went up to him and gave him art uninvited hug and kiss, and these hugs and kisses afforded him a very delicious gratification.
NIGHT YOUTH PARIS AND THE MOON
Annoyed with the world, I took a large studio in Hampstead. Here I resolved to live in utter aloofness, until the world should approach me on its knees, whining its apologies.
The studio was large and high; so was the rent. Fortunately my suit was strongly made, and I had a tireless appetite for herrings. I lived here happily and frugally, pleased with the vast and shadowy room, and with the absurd little musicians' gallery, on which I set my phonograph a-playing. I approved also of the little kitchen, the bathroom, the tiny garden, and even the damp path, sad with evergreens, that led to the street beyond. I saw no one. My mood was that of a small bomb, but one which had no immediate intention of going off.
Although I had no immediate intention of going off, I was unable to resist buying a large trunk, which I saw standing outside a junkshop. I was attracted by its old-fashioned appearance, for I myself hoped to become old-fashioned; by its size, because I am rather small; by its curved lid, for I was always fond of curves, and most of all by a remark on the part of the dealer, who stood picking his nose in the disillusioned doorway of his shop. «A thing like that,» said he, «is always useful.»
I paid four pounds, and had the large black incubus taken to my studio on a hand-barrow. There I stood it on the little gallery, which, for no reason, ran along the farther end.
This transaction having left me without money, I felt it necessary to sublet my studio. This was a wrench. I telephoned the agents; soon they arranged to bring a client of theirs, one Stewart Musgrave, to inspect my harmless refuge. I agreed, with some reserve. «I propose to absent myself during this inspection. You will find the key in the door. Later you can inform me if my studio is taken.»
Later they informed me that my studio was taken. «I win leave,» I said, «at four o'clock on Friday. The interloper can come at four-thirty. He will find the key in the door.»
Just before four on Friday, I found myself confronted with a problem. On letting one's studio, one locks one's clothes in a press reserved for the purpose. This I did, but was then nude. One has to pack one's trunk. I had a trunk but nothing to put in it. I had bidden the world
farewell. Here was my studio — sublet. There was the world. For practical purposes there is very little else anywhere.
The hour struck. I cut the Gordian knot, crossed the Rubicon, burned my boats, opened my trunk, and climbed inside. At four-thirty the interloper arrived. With bated breath I looked out through my little air-and-peep-hole. This was a surprise. I had bargained for a young man of no personal attractions. Stewart Musgrave was a young woman of many.
She had a good look around, pulled out every drawer, peeped into every corner. She bounced herself on the big divan-bed. She even came up onto the little useless gallery, leaned over, recited a line or two of Juliet, and then she approached my modest retreat. «I won't open you,» she said. «There might be a body in you.» I thought this showed a fine instinct. Her complexion was divine.
There is a great deal of interest in watching a handsome young woman who imagines herself to be alone in a large studio. One never knows what she will do next. Often, when lying there alone, I had not known what I would do next. But then I was alone. She, too, thought she was alone, but I knew better. This gave me a sense of mastery, of power.
On the other hand, I soon loved her to distraction. The hell of it was, I had a shrewd suspicion she did not love me. How could she?
At night, while she slept in an appealing attitude, I crept downstairs, and into the kitchen, where I cleaned up the crockery, her shoes, and some chicken I found in the icebox. «There is,» she said to a friend, «a pixie in this studio.» «Leave out some milk,» said her friend.
Everything went swimmingly. Nothing could have been more delicate than the unspoken love that grew up between the disillusioned world-weary poet and the beautiful young girl-artist, so fresh, so natural, and so utterly devoid of self-consciousness.
On one occasion, I must admit, I tripped over the corner of a rug. «Who is there?» she cried, waking suddenly from a dream of having her etchings lovingly appraised by a connoisseur.