The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

by William Hope Hodgson; Douglas A. Anderson

  “That’s a wicked thing to say, Cap’n!” she interrupted. “The whole world acclaims him great!”

  “He’s one more proof,” I said, “of the truth of my contention that a man may be a ‘great painter’ or a ‘great sculptor’ without being a great artist; in other words a man of great feeling, and intellectuality combined—that is to say, a Compleat Personality.

  “I admit that a great artist does occasionally happen to be a ‘great painter’ or a ‘great sculptor’; and as a result his sculpture or painting, as the case may be, is vastly more complete, perfect, great, (call it which you like) than the work of the other sort; but, so far, the ‘other sort’ seems able to dispense with the greatness of personality, which is the ‘bricks’ of the great artist. . . . This quality doesn’t appear to be necessary to their ‘greatness,’ any more than greatness of Personality is necessary to the making of a great singer. A great singer may be (and sometimes is) a human pig, into whose larynx has been inserted the throstle of an angel; but he’s still what he’d be if you took the tune-pipe out of his throat—and that’s plain unadulterated, unintellectual, unfeeling p-i-g. I don’t mean to say they’re unemotional. They’re generally emotional enough, the Lord knows! So’s a congenital idiot, a drunken man, a woman of easy virtue, or a certain type of actor when he’s just been told he’s outtopped old Garrick!”

  She was gasping now in her attempts for words suitable to my eternal quenching. She got some of them out; but they cut no ice! Finally, she demanded fiercely, in so many words:—“What do you mean?”

  That was a plain question; and I answered it plainly:—

  “The da Vinci johnny was too busy looking out for his abysmal deeps of human nature, to remember the heights!” I told her. “He was like a painter, with his eye glued into a sewer, painting and sweating himself into eternal fame—that is in the eyes of other Perverts like himself; and in the eyes of the big blind, indiscriminative, unmeaning crowd that follows the shouting of the Perverts, because they don’t know enough to shout tosh frankly.

  “Now, the value of the Mona must be put at a high figure, maybe ten million dollars in the open market.” (I grinned cheerfully at the back of my mind.) “But if it’s worth that, it’s worth it as a painting—not as a compleat work of art!”

  “You’re mad, Cap’n; either mad or ignorant, or both!” she slammed out at me, and I could see that Mr. Black wanted to say much the same thing.

  “St. Paul is my brother, dear lady,” I said; “only he was accused of achieving his through much learning!

  “Meanwhile, I assert that our friend da Vinci was not a great artist—not if you judge him on the merits of the Mona as a compleat work of art. (Fine word compleat. Means just what I want it to mean!)”

  “Why? Why? Why?” she broke out again, reduced once more to blank questioning.

  “Yes,” joined in Mr. Black, beginning to show warmth, “I’d just like to know, Cap’n, how you make out da Vinci’s not a great or compleat, or whatever you like to call it, artist?”

  “Because,” I said, “Art is personality expressed in and through the ‘artist’s’ subject. If the artist’s personality is a great personality and a balanced one, it will express itself in and through his subject in a great and balanced way. And the greater and more balanced the personality, the more the artist’s work will approximate to perfect art—Great Art; always supposing that the man is a master craftsman, which, of course, is understood.

  “The Great Art is the great, wise, compleat human personality, vital and therefore creative, expressing itself through some medium; inevitably a ‘handicraft.’ I’m using the word widely.

  “If, however, the artist has a twisted personality, the twist will express itself in and through his work, and the work will be as much out of perspective in its deviation from compleat sanity and truth, as it would be technically, were the artist an indifferent craftsman.

  “You see, sound art is a true, personal expression of anything, in its general relationship to human nature. If a man’s art produces results which are not coupled up with human nature, it becomes non-intelligible to the human; as much so, as are the X rays to the human retina!

  “And it is because of all these things that I condemn the Mona as a work of the highest art. It is the product of a twisted art and a very great handicraft.”

  “It is a perfect work of great and wondrous art!” said Miss Lanny. “I like to see how piffly little amateurs, try to teach the Master!”

  I laughed at her bad temper.

  “Dear lady,” I said, “you admit my copy of the Gioconda is not so bad,” and I beckoned to where I had pinned the picture on the bulkshead, under the skylight.

  “By the side of the original,” she smiled at me, “it is as a ginger-pop bottle beside a Venetian glass wonder. You sure got a healthy conceit of yourself, Cap’n!”

  “Mea culpa, dear lady!” I murmured, holding out my case of gold-tips. “I suppose you’ll deny next the truth of my contention that all art must say something, or it’s nothing?”

  “Art needn’t say a thing, and you know it, Cap’n!” she said.

  “Just so,” agreed Mr. Black. “It’s sufficient to be just what it is! A picture isn’t meant to be a book!”

  “Quite so!” I told him. “It takes a certain amount of brains and mental energy, that is, personality, to write even a moderately good book! And a book is great or not, in so far as it says much or little, and says it truly or askewly, completely or incompletely. And that simple little test is the test for all art—painting, sculpture, prose, poetry, music—all of it; for if a ‘work of art’ says nothing, it is nothing.

  “The matter with the Mona is that it says only part of what it should say; and the part that it does say is no more a compleat measure of a woman, than a pint-measure approximates to a furlong, in any sense. He has seen only the female in the woman, and painted it in the ‘moment of gratification.’ It no more approximates to a normal or compleat human woman, than a male, portrayed in a moment of murderous fight, approximates to a normal or compleat human man. It is simply an abnormality—showing nothing beyond what is painted! As abnormal as if the artist had drawn, shall we say, one enlarged nostril of an ape-man, and handed that down to posterity as a compleat work of art. But it is wonderful handicraft; and does not forget the shaven eyebrows—”

  “Why, Cap’n, you’ve painted your copy with eyebrows!” interrupted Miss Lanny.

  “Yes,” I said. “I like the effect better. I’ve no use for those abnormal effects. Besides, it’s more decent!”

  “Lord!” muttered Mr. Black, “you sure are cracked to-day, Cap’n.”

  “The Mona,” I asserted once more, “is a twisted fragment of a woman—the produce of a twisted nature. As opposed to this inadequacy, the Greatest Art is complete, in the sense that it shows a Man or a Woman or a Moment in such a way that you see, with the great and particular insight of the artist who created the work, the thing you are shown, plus all the rest, which it makes or aids you to comprehend also. It portrays the Man, the Woman, or the Moment, in such a way that you realise, as you look, all the potentialities of the Man, the Woman, the Moment—The greatness and absurd weakness of the Man; the infinite tenderness and incredible meanness of the Woman; and the æons of Eternity that lie in wait behind the Moment.

  “The Gioconda is, as I’ve said, a small Art and a very great Handicraft; that is, if it is anything at all! It’s abnormal—a fine handicraft and a cute brain used to give out to the world the twisted freakishness of the biassed soul, that could not see the woman as a complete whole! I understand, I guess, because I’m a bit twisted myself; it’s only in odd moments that I can fight down the twist in me, which makes me see every woman worse even than she is.

  “There, you see! I can’t stop slamming at ’em; not even when I’m out to explain!”

  I had to laugh at myself; and the tension eased out of the two of them. I had watched the softer look of capable feminine interest, supe
rsede the incapable critical light in Miss Lanny’s eyes, as I had explained my own short-comings.

  “Cap’n Charity’s sure running amock, every time a woman’s on the carpet!” said Mr. Black. “I guess, Miss Lanny, he’s like a number of men, he’s gone and got fond of a bad ’un, some time or other, and she’s scorched the youngness out of his soul. I know!”

  He wagged his head at me.

  “The only reason he’ll talk about the Mona, is because she’s a woman, bless her,” he said. “But, you know, Cap’n, you’ll sure have to quit going on the rampage like that, or it’ll be getting a habit. I once got a bit like that myself, and I guess I know! It was some fight I had to break from it.”

  Miss Lanny reached out her hand for another cigarette, and then bent towards me, for a light.

  “Was she a very bad woman, Captain Charity?” she said, under her breath. “She must have been!” She looked up into my eyes, through the smoke of her cigarette. “I’m sorry you’ve had that sort of experience of women,” she went on, still in an undertone, and still looking up into my eyes. “You ought sure to know a really nice woman; she would heal you up.”

  “Why?” I asked. And then:—“Do you reckon you’re qualified to act the part of kind healer, dear lady?”

  “I’d not mind trying,” she said, still in a low tone.

  “Why,” I said, out loud, so that Mr. Black could hear, where he sat, over by the open doorway, “in your way, you’re just as bad! You say a thing like that, in a tone to make me think you’re a stainless Angel of Pity and Compassionate Womanhood; and at bottom you’re just another of them! You may be virtuous, I don’t say you aren’t. I believe you are; but you’re up to all the eternal meanness and everlasting deceit of the woman! You come here, posing as my friend; as the friend of Mr. Black, chummy and friendly with us, even to the point of losing your temper; and all the time you’re one of a gang of thieves aboard this ship, trying to diddle Mr. Black or me out of a picture you and your pals think is aboard!”

  As I spoke, she had whitened slowly, until I thought she must surely faint. And she sat there, without saying a word, the smoke curling up from her cigarette, between her finger-tips, and her eyes looking at me dumbly, and big and dark through the thin smoke.

  Mr. Black had stood up, and taken a quick step towards me, an incredulous anger in his face, as I had proceeded to formulate my charge against Miss Lanny; but he had checked, at my mention of the picture, and now he was staring in a stunned sort of way at the girl. We were both looking at her: but she never moved, and she never ceased to look at me in that speechless fashion.

  “You allowed Mr. Black to make love to you last night, late, so that you could keep him up on the boat-deck, while your friends ransacked his suite. And now, as you realise that Mr. Black has not got the picture, you and your friends suppose that I must have it; and you have been directed to divert your valuable attentions to me. . . . If necessary, I don’t doubt that you meant to encourage a little love-making on my part, up on the boat-deck or elsewhere to-night, while an attempt was made on my cabin.

  “But I assure you, dear Madam, that, where a lady is concerned, it has been my rule in life to avoid making one of a crowd. Also, as Captain of this vessel, I have facilities for keeping an eye on things which might surprise you and your friends.

  “In proof of this, let me mention the names of your gang. . . . They are Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley and finally Mr. Alross, your husband.

  “I had the names of three of them before we had been at sea twenty-four hours; and now I think I may say I can put my finger on the whole lot of you.

  “It is quite within my power to cause the arrest of you and your party; but there is no need.

  “Neither Mr. Black nor I have any fear of what your friends can do; for let me tell you, the only Mona Lisa on view aboard this ship, is the copy which you see hanging up there on the bulkshead.

  “Surely you did not suppose that if Mr. Black has or had a valuable picture to transmit to New York, he would advertise the fact to people of your sort, by travelling in the same vessel with it!

  “That is almost all I have to say. You had better go now. Provided I receive from your party before to-night, the sum of one hundred and two pounds, fifteen shillings (which is the chief steward’s estimate of the damage done to Mr. Black’s suite last night), I shall allow affairs to pass; and your party may land free in New York.

  “But, if the money is not delivered before six o’clock to-night, and if afterwards I have any further trouble with Messrs. Tillosson, Vrager, Bentley, Alross or yourself, I shall order the arrest of the entire party, and shall hand you all over to the police, when we enter New York.”

  She had spoken not a single word; only once had she shown any sign of feeling, and that was when I announced my knowledge of her relationship to Mr. Alross, a tall, thin, blond man, of quiet manners and an unhappy skill at cards. Then the hand which held the cigarette had begun to shake a little; but, beyond this, never a sign of the shock, except the absolutely ghastly whiteness of her face. She certainly is a woman of nerve, and a good pluck too, I grant her.

  Then she stood up suddenly, and what do you think she said?

  “Cap’n, your cigarettes are as treacherous as you seem to imagine all women to be. See how it’s burnt me, while I was listening to your scolding. . . . I must run away now.”

  And she turned and walked out of the chart-house, as calmly as if she had just been in for one of her usual chats.

  “How’s that for ‘some’!” I said to Mr. Black. “Let me tell you, man, I respect her courage. She’s got the real female brand of pluck, and full strength at that. She’s stunned half dead at the present moment, yet she carried it off! But, Lord! She’s a conscienceless creature.”

  Mr. Black was all questions; and he wanted to know why I’d tried to make them think the picture wasn’t aboard.

  “I told them what I told ’em,” I said, “in the gentle hope that they may try to believe it, and so not consider it worth while to lay information with the Customs, which is a thing they’d do in a moment, as you mentioned, just to make things ugly for us, and to ease their own petty spite.”

  “Why not arrest them?” he asked.

  “Don’t want any unnecessary Mona Lisa talk in New York, do you?”

  “My hat! No!” he said.

  “And now they know I’m on to the crowd of them, they’re bound to walk a bit like Agag—eh?” I said. “No, I guess we’ll have no more trouble with ’em, this side of New York. And I bet they pay up within the hour.”

  April 12th. Night.

  I was wrong in one respect, and right in the other. The money was sent up to me by a steward, inside of half an hour; and I sent back a formal receipt.

  But we have not seen the end of our troubles about the picture; for the gang approached Mr. Black quite openly, last night, and told him that if he’d let them come in on a quarter-share of the profits, they’d hold their tongues, and give him all the assistance they could. If he said no; then the New York Customs were going to get the tip, as soon as ever the search officers came aboard.

  They told him quite plainly that they knew the picture was aboard; and that they were satisfied I was the one who had it hidden away. But, as they put it to him, it was one thing to hide contraband Jewels, like small packets of pearls, of which a hundred thousand dollars worth could go into one cigar; but that I could never hope to hide from the Customs, if they were put on the scent, a thing the size of the Mona, which being painted on a panel of wood, could not be rolled up small, like a picture on canvas, etc., etc.

  They quite worked on poor old Mr. Black’s feelings. I guess he may be some expert at picture stealing, like any other dealer; but he’s out of it when it comes to real nerve—the kind that’s wanted for running stuff through the Customs!

  However, I’ve got him pacified; and I guess he’ll manage now to keep a stiff upper lip. I pointed out to him that a twenty-thousand-ton ship is a biggish
affair, and there are quite some hiding places aboard of her; and that I know them all.

  I told him, in good plain American, that the picture would not be found.

  “You needn’t fear they’ll start to break the ship up, looking for it!” I told him. “Ship-breaking is an expensive job. Don’t you get fretful. They’ll never find her, where I’ve put her!”

  April 13th. Evening.

  We docked this morning, and the gang did their best to do us down.

  I reckon they’d guessed I wasn’t keen to arrest them; and they just put the Customs wise to the whole business, before they went ashore, that is, as far as they had it sized up.

  Well, next thing I knew, the chief searcher was in my place, demanding Mona Lisas, as if they were stock articles; but I disabused him, to the best of my ability.

  “No, Sir!” I told him. “The only Mona Lisa picture we’ve got on exhibition in this gallery, is the one there on the bulkshead; and I guess you can have that for fifty dollars, right now, and take it home. I reckon that’s a good painting now, don’t you, Mister, for an amateur?”

  But I couldn’t enthuse him; not up to a sale! He was out for big things it seemed, by his talk; so I let him search. . . .

  They’re still at it, and Mr. Black, last I saw of him, as he went ashore, was looking about as anxious as a man who’s bet someone else’s last dollar on a horse race!

  April 14th.

  Still searching.

  April 15th.

  Still searching.

  April 16th. Afternoon.

  Mr. Black sent a messenger down aboard this morning, to ask when ‘it’ was going to come.

  I swore; for if that note had got into the wrong hands, the game would have been all up. I’ve warned him to keep away from the ship, and not to communicate with me, in any way. I’ll act as soon as it’s safe.

  I decided to give him a heart-flutter, as a lesson to be patient.