The Devil in Manuscript And Other Tales of Forbidden Books

by Osie Turner

  "The proper guidance!" I murmured. "Surely Professor Brent is a competent teacher of English literature. He's had several books of essays published."

  Again Martin's lips drew up at the corners. "A small man," said he "—a small man with a small mind. His work fairly bristles with penny-whistle platitudes. All his sunny little essays are woven out of the worsted mottoes our grandmothers used to frame and hang on the wall: 'Be good and you'll be happy', 'Virtue is its own reward', 'If at first you don't succeed, why try, try again'. What sickening, sentimental slop! Teach me literature? Why, he can't even teach himself!"

  Martin's words and the sneering contempt with which they were uttered, made me boil inwardly. My college career had formed me into the usual type of undergraduate to whom the institutions of the university were sacred matters not lightly to be tampered with. Professor Brent had grown grey in service and had even made his voice heard in the outer world; yet here was a green freshman attempting to overthrow him! What consummate conceit! But I would put this young ass in his place.

  "Perhaps you can tell me how Professor Brent's essay on man could be improved upon," I said coldly. "I happen to have the book with me."

  "Oh, I say, Charley," Paul broke in, running his hand through his hair, "that's his very best essay! Of course, there's nothing much wrong with it."

  But Martin's grey eyes brightened as he took the small leather volume I offered him "Without doubt the ideas expressed in it are puerile," said he, opening the book to the essay in question. "Let us examine the style. Ah, just as I thought—stiff, laborious—a very poor flow of words."

  "Could you do as well?" I asked ironically. The man's insufferable egotism grated on my nerves like sandpaper.

  "Much better," he answered simply. "Come, I'll prove it. You are familiar with this essay, I presume?"

  "I know it by heart."

  "So much the better. Now I'll read it as it should have been written, transposing as I go along."

  Martin bent his brows over the essay while my brother and I interchanged glances. Although I tapped my forehead with a meaning forefinger, Paul smiled triumphantly. Evidently he had perfect confidence in his new-found acquaintance.

  Now our host's voice broke the silence—a voice, rich, vibrant, which carried one along with it as on a swiftly moving stream. And, strange to say, although the meaning of the essay was in no manner changed, the style was entirely altered. New life seemed to have been infused into every line. The sentences glowed with poetic fire. My artistic sense was stirred by such a perfect phraseology. It seemed well-nigh impossible that any man could read on without hesitation and transpose so remarkably.

  "Splendid!" I cried when he had done. "But surely you worked that out before?"

  "I never even read it until just now," he answered, smiling at Paul. "Really, I wouldn't waste my time over such material. Well, did I improve upon it?"

  "That's a matter of opinion," I muttered, overcoming my admiration with a mighty effort. "Personally, I've always liked Brent's style."

  "Own up when you're beaten, Charley," Paul cried. "There's no comparison. I'm a dub about most highbrow matters, but even I realize that Martin has improved it."

  "That's a matter of opinion," I repeated stubbornly.

  Martin raised his eyebrows and regarded me quizzically. "You don't appear to have much literary taste," said he. "However, that won't bold you back as a painter. Paul tells me that you intend studying under Verone. Perhaps we can hire a studio together." He rose to his feet. "I've a painting in my bedroom which might interest you."

  "Yes, indeed, I would like to see it."

  Martin strode into an adjoining room and returned almost immediately with a canvas under his arm. Placing it in a position where the light touched it effectively, he stepped back.

  "There you have it," said he.

  I uttered an exclamation of surprise at what I saw. To my as yet untrained eye, it seemed a truly remarkable piece of work. And it affected me strangely. Although it was very warm in the room, I felt a wave of intense cold pass through my frame, followed almost immediately by a sensation of acute nausea.

  The painting which affected me thus was startling in its conception. It depicted a young girl lying dead on a country road blocked with snow. Desolate and forsaken, she lay there, her white face upturned to the leaden sky. Blood was streaming from her neck and slowly sinking into the snow. And all about her the tiny flakes were still falling—a thick veil of them which shut in this tragedy completely from the outer world. Somewhere in the swirling background, a dark shape lurked—an evil, twisted shape, vague and unreal as a distant dream. Was it the assassin, or was. it merely the shadow of approaching night? As I watched, it seemed to stir slightly.

  "Why, this is the work of a great artist!" I cried in amazement. "Did you paint it?"

  "Yes," he answered slowly. "But it won't do. It's very crude."

  "Crude! Why, it fairly stands out of the canvas, I think it's a masterpiece; You're too modest."

  "That's what I say," Paul chimed in. "He's entirely too modest."

  "I'm nothing of the sort," Martin said contemptuously. "No one is actually modest and only fools pretend to be."

  "But where did you get the idea?" I asked. "It's a remarkable conception."

  "The girl was a friend of mine. One afternoon I found her lying dead in the road with her throat sliced from ear to ear. Of course, I was thoroughly shocked; but I realized perfectly what an excellent model she made. I couldn't resist making a sketch of her just as she was."

  "Who murdered her?" I asked.

  "No one knows."

  "And you mean to say, Burgess, that you made a sketch of her while she lay Weeding there 1" Paul cried. "Don't tell me that you're such a hard-hearted brute as all that! I don't believe a word of it."

  Martin regarded him for a moment with a kind of cold curiosity in his grey eyes. "I see that you read me like an open book, Paul," he murmured.

  "Not at all. But no one could sit down calmly beside a murdered friend and make a sketch of her. The thing is impossible."

  "Perhaps. But that is exactly how she looked when I found her."

  "What was the motive for the crime?" I asked.

  "Apparently no motive," Martin answered with a shrug of his shoulders. "Or, at least, none that could be discovered. But let's say no more about it. It's a nasty story and brings back unpleasant recollections."

  Soon the talk drifted into other channels. Martin gave us a glimpse into his childhood which must have been far from a happy one. At an early age he had" lost both parents and had been adopted by an eccentric aunt who had taken him to live with her in a lonely house far out in the country. This aunt had had many peculiarities. A firm believer in spiritualism, considering herself a medium, she- had often taken her small nephew into a dark room at the top of the house where she carried on ghostly conversations with the dead.

  "I was only six years old at the time," Martin finished, "and you can readily understand what effect such treatment had on my forming mind."

  "What became of her?" I asked.

  "She died at last and went to join her spirit friends. But long before that I knew the whole thing to be a farce. She left me ten thousand a year which is some recompense for all she made me suffer."

  At that time ten thousand a year seemed to me a princely income. I would willingly have put up with a dozen eccentric aunts to have secured it. Something of this must have been written on my face, for Martin's lips once more curled up at the corners into a grimace which was half smile and half sneer.

  "Yes, ten thousand a year," he repeated slowly. "Much more than I spend, for I believe that an artist should live without the luxuries of life. I tell you all this, of course, because I would like to have you with me in Paris and I don't think you would readily room with a pauper."

  "After seeing your work, I would room with you if you hadn't a cent," I said warmly. "The thing is settled as far as I am concerned."

  II
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br />   During the remainder of the college year Paul saw Burgess Martin daily. A close friendship sprang up between the two which was to me, at least, unaccountable. They were such direct opposites that such an alliance seemed altogether beyond the bounds of reason. Perhaps, after all, real warmth is obtained only by rubbing together two quite dissimilar substances.

  Paul had been going downhill steadily ever since entering college the previous fall. He was one of those unfortunate men over whom alcohol in any form has a deadly influence. High spirited, generous to a fault, full of the joy of life, my younger brother was a delightful companion and one of the most popular freshmen in the university. But let him have a few drinks and soon a startling transformation would take place. He would become morose, intolerant, prone to fly into a rage at the slightest provocation. Then would follow a period of deep depression which bordered on melancholia—a dangerous mental state when I have known him to contemplate suicide.

  But Martin, in some miraculous fashion, succeeded in curing him. Paul no longer returned at night the worse for liquor. He gave up cafe life altogether and took up reading seriously. I often saw him in the college library browsing over some book which Martin had recommended. In those last few weeks of the spring term, he succeeded in passing his examinations.

  The following autumn found Martin and me snugly ensconced in a comfortable apartment in Paris. My father provided me with an ample income to pursue my artistic studies and I was not slow in spending it and making acquaintances in the Latin quarter.

  Those were happy days. Our studio soon became the meeting-place of congenial spirits. Martin struck the one jarring note in an otherwise perfect harmony. Among those gay chattering magpies of art, he seemed as somber and solitary as a crow. He avoided my guests as much as possible; behind his back, they called him "Monsieur la Nuit." He had an especial detestation of women, alluding to them very much as a man might speak of some deadly and prevalent disease. When he heard the swish of their skirts on our landing, he would lock himself in his bedroom and not come out again until they had gone "A true artist can have but one mistress—his art," he was wont to say. "The rest are leeches."

  Although I failed to share my roommate's views, I never allowed friends to interfere with my work. I improved rapidly. Often our instructor, the famous Verone, stood before my easel longer than was his wont with the other students. Martin's drawings alone overshadowed mine; yet I felt vaguely that they were disappointing to the master.

  One bright sunshiny afternoon in May, Emile Verone rested his hand for a moment on my shoulder. "Ah, monsieur," he murmured, "you have talent and your heart is in it. There is life in that figure. You have caught it in a web of youth. Bravo!"

  Leaving me jubilant, he passed on to Martin's easel. Here he remained motionless for several moments, a frown of perplexity creasing his forehead, gazing at my roommate's canvas in the manner of a man attempting to read a riddle.

  "It is good—very good," I heard him mutter. "And yet there is something lacking. It is not technique, it is feeling. It—Ah, I have guessed your little secret. Your heart is not in your task. Am I not right, Monsieur Martin?"

  "Perfectly," Martin answered, glancing up. "The model is not to my taste. That big, fat peasant with a face like a pumpkin does not inspire me."

  I knew of Verone's hasty temper and was prepared for some manifestation of it. My roommate's answer had been rather unceremonious. But the little Frenchman did not appear to be the least bit ruffled. His voice suddenly sank into a soothing murmur.

  "Quite so," he said mildly. "Every artist has his likes and his dislikes. But I have a plan. Absent yourself from the class for a month and choose a model for yourself. I will be anxiously awaiting the result. Does that satisfy you, monsieur?"

  "Yes, indeed," Martin answered with a strange glint in his grey eyes. "Nothing could suit me better."

  During the days that followed I saw very little of my roommate. He would leave the studio each morning, his portfolio under his arm, and not return again till the shadows of nightfall. And the few hours which he did spend in the apartment were spent in the privacy of his bedroom behind a locked door.

  To tell the truth, I was relieved by his absence. The man was like a wet blanket thrown on the bonfire of goodfellowship which I was attempting to kindle in the studio. My guests were ill at ease in his company; and I, myself, felt a strange irritation at his every word and gesture. Now, as I look back on it, I think it was his atmosphere—that ever-present atmosphere of personal power—which we could not forgive him and which was as gall and wormwood to our own growing personalities.

  One night, while champagne corks were popping merrily and laughter echoed through the studio, Martin's bedroom door swung open and he stepped into our midst. His face was a deathly white and there were great, black hollows under his eyes. Instantly our laughter died away.

  "Pour yourself a glass of wine," I said with forced heartiness. "Have you come to join the merrymakers?"

  "Just that," Martin muttered.

  "What have you been doing with yourself?" one of my guests asked. "You're as pale as a ghost, monsieur."

  "I've been living with a corpse for a month," Martin said slowly. "Would you like to see the results?"

  He turned and re-entered his bedroom. A moment later he glided out again with a canvas under his arm. Placing it on the mantelpiece where we could all get a good view of it, he turned toward us and said in his deep, sonorous voice: "Allow me to introduce to you the results, gentlemen."

  Again there was silence, broken only by the deep breathing of those about me. All eyes were fixed on the painting. For many moments we stared at it, spellbound, motionless. It was the most sincere tribute I have seen paid to a living artist. There were two or three men present that night who afterward became international figures; but, at the moment, we knew in our souls that there was but one great master and that he now stood before us.

  What was there in this painting to move us so? It is beyond my feeble pen to describe adequately the sensations of horror with which it filled me,—horror, overmastering and vaguely sinister; horror whose breath, was cold and damp as the tomb. One seemed to enter that picture bodily; to enter it and lose oneself in the shadows.

  The painting represented the morgue in the dim twilight and more especially the body of a man lying on one of the marble slabs. The upturned face of the corpse was a mottled green shade; the protruding eyes were covered with a kind of fungus. And, to add to its horror, the bristling chin had dropped, disclosing two yellow fangs in a ghastly grin. On either side of this grim figure, partly revealed in the semi-gloom, were other slabs—each the bed of some new fantastic terror. Underneath this revolting conception was written in English these four words, "He Laughs at Death."

  We toasted Martin with brimming glasses, we shook him by the hand, we called him "master." And he, for once, shook off his cloak of aloofness. Indeed, he put himself out to amuse us, telling us stories so intensely droll that we roared with laughter till all unconsciously our eyes returned to the painting. Then, as the laughter died in our throats, as the smiles faded from our faces, I thought I saw his lips curl in triumph.

  III

  Emile Verone went into ecstasies over Martin's painting, calling it "a masterpiece of the terrible"; and soon it became noised abroad that my roommate was one of those rare freaks of nature, a genius. Art students now began to seek Martin out as a profitable acquaintance. But he refused to be drawn out of his cocoon of solitude and mystery. His personality, as always, enwrapped him like an impenetrable coat of mail. Would-be friends and admirers flinched when they met his cold grey eyes. Soon the first fine edge of their excitement wore off; they gave him up as impossible with a shrug of the shoulders and a muttered "Monsieur la Nuit."

  Time passed quickly. Almost before I realized it, a year rolled by. Martin had worked diligently; now the walls of our studio were covered with morbid masterpieces. As one might imagine, a highly strung person could not have entered t
his apartment for the first time without an inward tremor. Indeed, when the lights burned low, the room seemed to be a veritable charnel house.

  One gloomy afternoon in autumn, these paintings were too much for my self-control. I was on the brink of a serious sickness at the time; and, as I sat alone before the dying fire, the flickering flames would reveal first one stiffening horror and then another till my overtaxed nerves could stand no more. Leaping to my feet with a muttered curse, I began turning those ghastly painted faces to the wall.

  Suddenly I heard a low laugh behind me. Wheeling about, I encountered Martin who had entered as noiselessly as a cat. His sallow face still wore a crooked, evil smile which creased his right cheek like a scar.

  "Emile Verone is right," he said, moistening his lips with his tongue. "No one will buy my paintings because they are too good, too realistic in their horror. And if they were sold by any chance, they would be banished to the attic. Who would live with the dead but Martin?"