by Osie Turner
"Suddenly I felt sick—deathly sick. I had the strange sensation of having some precious secret drawn from me against my will—the same sensation, in fact, that I had experienced once before. Then followed dizziness and helplessness. Martin's face appeared to loom above me, gigantic, monstrous. It grew larger and larger—a huge, terrifying mask behind which an evil passion lurked. Suppose he should remove this mask? Ah, it was slipping now, slipping
Everything grew black before my eyes. I felt a sharp blow on my forehead, then numbness and nothingness. I had fallen over in a swoon.
For the duration of that week I was delirious with typhoid fever. Strange dreams tormented me, and in these dreams Martin was always the central figure. I can still remember one of them distinctly.
I felt that I was lying naked on the scorching sand of a desert beneath the rays of a blistering sun. It was useless to struggle; I was held down by some invisible weight. And over my bare, burning body an army of tiny ants was crawling, causing me acute agony. But just as my sufferings were at their height, Martin's lean face bent over me, his cold grey eyes peered curiously into mine, and he said earnestly: "How do you feel now?"
When I at last came out of the land of delirium, I was as weak as a new-born child. The sun was streaming through the window, casting its javelins of light on every side. One of them lay across the bed like a bar of molten gold. It occurred to me that I would like to feel it’s reassuring warmth, but I had scarcely enough strength to reach out my hand.
Suddenly Martin's voice broke the silence. "How do you feel now?" he asked.
I started at these words which had echoed through my dreams. I had to steady myself before I answered feebly: "Much better, thank you."
During the next few days I improved rapidly. Martin was a competent nurse. Sitting beside my bed, he whiled away the tedious hours by his remarkable knack of story-telling. It was not the stories themselves which held me—he would often repeat those I had already heard—but his truly remarkable wording which made them flow as smoothly as a river of oil and was as pleasing to the ear as music.
Sometimes I would speak of Paul, and then Martin would be the eager listener. I received several letters from home. One of these worried me. It was from my father and ran as follows:
"Dear Charles: Paul is drinking again. I can do nothing with him. The slightest reprimand drives him into a frenzy of remorse and despondency. At such, times he is quite capable of taking his own life. I wish you were home. Perhaps you could manage him. Affectionately, Dad."
This letter came while I was still very weak and I asked Martin to read it aloud to me. I saw his face darken as he perused it. When he had finished, he sat in gloomy silence. At last I heard him mutter: "It's in his blood. I could handle him, but another might take the wrong way. It would be fatal to…"
"You must think a great deal of Paul," I broke in.
"A great deal?" he cried vehemently. "Why, Paul means more to me than my art! Do you think I would have wasted my time pulling you out of the valley of death if you weren't his brother?"
He rose without waiting to hear my response and hurried from the room. Although it may seem surprising, I was relieved by what he had just said. I had never liked the fellow; and to be weighed down under a load of obligations to one heartily disliked, is a very unpleasant experience. If he had nursed me back to health merely on account of his friendship for Paul, surely I did not owe him as much as if he had been actuated solely out of regard for me.
Soon I was strong enough to leave my bed and sit up for an hour or so each day. For three weeks I had been living on a diet of milk and broth, but now the doctor allowed me solid foods. Ah, the joy of eating when one is recovering from typhoid! It repays one for all those earlier sufferings.
One evening as I was waiting impatiently for supper to be served, I heard Martin's bedroom door open. A moment later he entered, carrying a suitcase. A mutual coldness had sprung up between us, but this unusual sight made me forget everything.
"Why, where are you going?" I cried in astonishment.
"Home," he answered, placing the suitcase on the floor.
"Not to America, surely?"
"Where else?"
"But your art? How about your painting?" "Oh, I'm giving that up," he said in a matter of fact voice.
"Giving it up!" I cried. "After what you've already done! Why, you will be recognized by the world in another year or so! You must be mad!"
"Do you think so?"
"I know so!" I answered with some heat. "What else could you turn your hand to with the same success? Art, such as yours, springs from the soul. By renouncing it, you would be tearing out the best in you."
"I will have to do that in any case to follow the career which I have planned for myself." "What is this precious career?"
"Literature," he answered calmly. "I took up drawing merely to illustrate my stories. No other man could do them justice."
"So you are one of those numerous young men who think they can write," I said in a tone which brought a flush to his sallow cheeks. "What reason have you to suppose so?"
"You must acknowledge that I can tell a story."
"Yes, but your stories are not original. Have you a keen imagination?"
"Not a vestige of one," he said simply.
"Then how can you expect to become a successful writer? A literary man without any imagination ia doomed to failure from the start."
"You are wrong—entirely wrong!"
"How so?" I demanded.
"Because a writer does not necessarily need a creative imagination," he said a trifle wearily. "I, myself, have what is far better—a concise memory and the ability to write in the most perfect wording exactly what I see and feel. There is enough going on in the world at this moment to serve as the substance for a million stories. Of course, one has to branch away from the beaten path to find such material. But that is exactly what I am going to do."
"But you haven't mingled enough with other men," I hastened to add. "You know little or nothing of human nature. A man to be a successful writer"—I was quoting Professor Brent—"must be a student and admirer of his fellow men. Without companionship, a writer misses the human touch."
Martin's lips curled up at the corners in one of his irritating smiles. "My dear Smithers," he said in a tone which he might have used in speaking to a tiresome child, "you're entirely at fault in such a surmise. Surely an onlooker, a mere spectator with no party feeling of any kind, can witness the battle of life with better results than can the actual combatants. You say that a writer should study and admire his fellowmen. That is impossible. If we admire a man, we cannot study him. We are prematurely blinded to all but his virtues. By taking that attitude toward mankind at large, we lose the larger half of faults and follies which go into the makeup of the average mortal."
"I don't agree with you," I said coldly. "But even if you were right, you'd be a fool to throw away a certainty for an obscure possibility. Have you stopped to think that the successful writer of today has to cater to the mob as you call them?"
"But I won't have to do that," he cried with flashing eyes. "I intend devoting my time exclusively to horror tales. Have you ever witnessed an accident on the street? Well, in a moment, hundreds collect where there was but one. They are drawn thither by that morbid streak in humanity, that overmastering desire to feast one's eyes on gruesome details. Such a sensation will be gratified in my stories. Men and women will buy them to experience the delightful tremor of tragedy beside their own firesides. Who would not walk many blocks to see a murder committed? Nearly all of us would go if our own precious lives were not endangered. I tell you the public will snatch up my work because it will give them the exact sensation of those who stand about on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of death."
In spite of myself, his words stirred my imagination. Was it possible that literature could be made as vivid as this? He had succeeded in portraying horror most realistically with the pigments of the painter, but could he cr
eate such an atmosphere with cold words alone? No, it was impossible—even laughably absurd.
"You cannot possibly create such an acute feeling in the minds of your readers," I said at length. "No man could do it."
"What no man can do, I can do," Martin replied with insufferable egotism. "I will surely succeed as a writer—as surely as you will fail as a painter."
"Really!" I cried with a sneer. "Emile Verone thinks rather highly of my work."
"Your work is promising now because you paint as your eye tells you. But later, when you get out into the world, it will be different."
"In what way?" I asked.
"Because a successful portrait painter—bear in mind that I am speaking from the commercial, worldly standpoint when I say successful—must be nothing more or less than a beauty doctor. Men and women do not wish to be painted as they are, but as they think they are. Flatter them cleverly enough, and you'll soon become what the world considers a successful artist. What a soul-stirring vocation! Your watchword through life shall be: "When I touch my patron's vanity I also touch his pocketbook."
"I'll never do that—not if I have to starve first!" I cried angrily.
But Martin only smiled unpleasantly and picked up his suitcase. With a curt nod, he turned and strode out of the room. A moment late I heard the outer door slam. He had gone.
IV
That same week Martin sailed for home. He left behind him his gruesome paintings which he bequeathed to me in a sarcastic note. I immediately removed those grisly masterpieces and hung up in their place some of my own work. At the time I was living a trifle beyond my means; and so, when I received what I then considered a handsome offer from Emile Verone for my roommate's morbid creations, I was glad enough to accept it. Of course I intended paying Martin the price I received for them at some future date—a date which, unfortunately, never materialized. These same paintings, I now understand, hang in the Louvre and are worth their weight in gold.
After Martin had left Paris, I began to look around for another roommate who would share my expenses. One evening, as luck would have it, I happened to run into an old acquaintance at the Follies Bergere. He had wandered to Paris alone to amuse himself and was delighted at the prospect of living with a former college friend who knew the ropes.
Wilbur Huntington was a plump young man who had made quite a reputation for himself at the university. No one had ever caught him in the act of opening a hook, yet he had always glided smoothly through the examinations. He was an anomaly to the professors who claimed that success required effort. His half shut, sleepy, brown eyes, his bland smile, his round, expressionless face, quite belied the man's intelligence. Although he was lazy to a fault, his mind was as keen as a knife which had just visited the grindstone. I have never met his equal as a psychologist.
I was lucky to have fallen in with him. He came of a very wealthy New York family, who gave him a lavish income—an income which he was not slow in spending. Money meant little or nothing to him. During the months we roomed together we lived like fighting cocks.
There was nothing Huntington liked better than to fill our studio with Emile Verone's pupils and discuss art. He would start the ball rolling with some tidbit of knowledge which he had picked up; start it rolling, and then sink back comfortably on the lounge, close his narrow-lidded eyes and smile blandly at the ceiling. He liked to hear the maniacs rave, as he expressed it. In the Latin Quarter he was called "Le Cochon d'Inde." They facetiously brought him offerings of lettuce leaves which he devoured solemnly and rapaciously. The man's appetite was amazing.
With such a companion, the months sped by merrily. Occasionally I received a letter from home. It seemed that Paul had reformed, and that this reformation had been brought about through Martin. Apparently my former roommate had sought him out immediately on his return to America and had once more succeeded where others had failed. The letter, which informed me of this, was written by my mother. It ran as follows:
My Dear Son: You will be glad to know that Paul has given up drinking. What a relief this has been to your father and me! We have been so worried about him since you left home! But now everything seems to be all right.
We owe Paul's reformation to your friend, Mr. Martin. He has a remarkable influence over the boy. And yet, somehow, I can't bring myself to like him. When he is in the room, I always feel as though I had a precious secret which I must keep from him at all cost. This is absurd, of course.
My dear boy, I am glad that you are getting along so well in your studies! I hope you will come home soon. Father has not been in good health lately. I believe he has been worrying over business affairs. Lovingly,
Mother.
At the time I did not give much heed to the last few lines of my mother's letter. Father had always been such a strong, robust man that I could not imagine him sick. Death and failure seemed quite remote from him. And so, when I received a letter from Paul two months later, I was quite unprepared for what it had to tell me. The news which it contained was like a bolt from the blue. I quote it here:
Dear Charley: Come home at once. Father died this morning, and we need you. Only yesterday I learned that the firm had failed. Would write more, but mother is calling. Hurry home. Affectionately,
Paul.
"What's the trouble?" Huntington asked. He had come into the studio unnoticed and now stood at my elbow. What's the trouble?" he repeated. "You're as white as a ghost."
I tried to answer him but couldn't. Something clicked in my throat like a clock running down. I handed him the letter in silence.
"I don't know what to say," he muttered a moment later. "I'm awfully sorry, Charley. I want you to know that." He offered me his plump hand boyishly.
But I did not see it. There were weak, womanly tears in my eyes. Father was dead—not only dead but ruined! I had pictured to myself two more years in Paris and then a luxurious studio in New York; and now these air castles had crumbled in an instant. But what a selfish brute I was! Father had just died, and I was already thinking of myself. Martin had been right in his estimate of me.
"The Marseillaise sails to-morrow," Huntington said. "I'll hustle down and get our staterooms reserved."
"But surely you're not going to leave Paris?" I murmured. "I can make it all right by myself."
Huntington smiled sleepily. "Don't you worry about that," he answered. "I'm sick of Paris. When you go, I go. Besides, as you know, queer birds are my hobby; and I'm rather anxious to meet this chap, Martin, of whom you have told me so much."
On the following day we took passage for New York. The ocean was rather rough for that time of year; to my natural depression were added the qualms of seasickness. But on that trip I learned the true worth of the plump, sleepy man whom my associates of the Latin Quarter called "Le Cochon d'Inde". He was indefatigable in his efforts to cheer me up.
I found affairs at home even worse than I had imagined. My father had died a bankrupt. He had left nothing except the house which was heavily mortgaged and several debts incurred during his illness. These bills, added to the natural grief attending his death, had aged my mother at least ten years. I had, indeed, come home at the right moment if I could help.
My one pleasant surprise was Paul. He had matured considerably in the last few years. I found him looking splendidly—a handsome, capable fellow, if there ever was one. On the first night of my homecoming we had a long talk together after mother had gone to bed.
"They tell me you're not drinking any more, Paul t" I said casually.
"No," he answered with a grim smile. "I'm through with that stuff for good. Martin cured me."
"How did he go about it,” I asked.
"Oh, he showed me a few examples of what it could do to a fellow. You see he's living in the slums these days, and he has lots of opportunity to study drunks in their last stages."
"In the slums! Why does he live there?"
"He's gathering material for a book on murder— studying the criminal types close up. He s
ays it pays to get first-hand knowledge of a subject. When I begin practicing law, he'll send me a lot of clients."
"When do you go up for your final examinations?"
"Next month—thanks to Martin. If it weren't for him, I'd probably be hitting the high life yet. But one night he collared me, dragged me over to his tenement, and introduced me to a bleary-eyed old chap who was fighting imaginary snakes. What a sight he was!" Paul passed his hands across his eyes as though to shut out a picture. "He had been a gentleman, too, in his day—a Harvard man, I believe. Anyone could tell he wasn't an ordinary drunk by his ravings He quoted a lot of poetry to keep off the snakes. Dante's Inferno I believe it was. Well, it cured me."
"I'm glad of that. But you mustn't give Martin all the credit. A great deal belongs to you."
"Not a bit," he answered with a rueful shake of the head. "Martin scared me into it. But what are you going to do now, Charley? Are you going to paint portraits?"