Part 16 (1/2)
I went to the telephone directly I entered my room and called for the room clerk. I told him I wanted another room on the same floor. While I waited for the bell-boy to bring the key I wrote a note and pinned it on the mirror where it would attract Will's attention. ”I have gone to another room. Don't disturb me, please. We'll talk it over to-morrow.”
When I had turned the key in the lock and had surveyed my own domain I felt strangely light in the head. I opened a window and mechanically arranged my toilet articles. Then I disrobed, unpinned my hair and cleansed my face with cold cream. At least, I _a.s.sume_ that I did all these, for the next day, when I awoke to consciousness, everything was in place, my hair was braided in two pig-tails, and my face still showed traces of cold cream. From the moment I had locked myself in I had no recollection of what followed. The doctor called it ”syncope.”
CHAPTER XIV
”St. Louis, Mo., March 10th.
”Darling Girl:
”I am taking for granted that you arrived safely. There has been no word from you since you returned home a week since. I hope you found the apartment in good shape and that things did not suffer too much wear and tear at the hands of our late tenants.
”Just as I predicted, the folks were much disappointed at not seeing you here. There was a regular family reunion. Grandma Murray came on from Indianapolis and two of my paternal aunts all the way from Kansas. As none of the relatives has ever seen Boy you may imagine how disappointed they were. However, it couldn't be helped.
Naturally I did not tell them that you had been to Cincinnati. I let them infer that you were not sufficiently recovered from the effects of your recent operation to permit your making the trip. I fully appreciate the state of your nerves and that a relapse was inevitable; just the same I think you should write me and keep me informed of your condition. Take it quietly for a few weeks and you'll come out all right. Don't let that Cincinnati affair prey on your mind: a little later when your health is better, you won't take it so seriously. Now don't jump at the conclusion that I don't appreciate the way you played up, or the narrow escape I have had. You may feel sure that sort of thing will never happen again.
And that reminds me: I had a letter from Mr. F. saying he had consulted his lawyer about taking action against the Club Window and had been advised to let the matter drop. (_Requiescat in pace!_) He wished to be remembered to you.
”The weather is depressing. I'm not feeling up to my standard. I suspect I have been eating too much and exercising too little.
Well, Girlie, the train leaves in an hour and I have still some odds and ends to look after. I enclose our route to follow Kansas City. Now write me at once or I shall begin to worry about you. A bunch of kisses to Boy from his Dad, reserving all you want for yourself, of course.
”With all my love,
”Your devoted husband,
”WILL.”
This letter was a week old. I had made several attempts to answer it but all had ended in the waste-basket. Following my home-coming, I had been glad to lie quietly in bed in obedience to the doctor's orders. A heavy inertia lay upon me. My nights were an amorphous jumble of improbable situations; I awoke of mornings with a nausea at heart. My mind was furred with unpleasant memories. It revolved in circles. The more I thought the faster it whirled, resulting in complete confusion. Inner adjustment seemed impossible. I realized in a hazy way that I must arouse myself or fall a prey to melancholia. Even Boy's laughter as it was wafted to me from another room unleashed a thousand apprehensions.
The effulgence his being had shed into my life was now dimmed by fears for his future. Should I be able to steer his craft, even launch it safely, _preparedly_ on the turbulent sea of life? It was, probably, in the very nature of things that I should exclude my husband from any partic.i.p.ation in my plans for the child. A fierce, almost a defiant, sense of proprietary right began to a.s.sert itself in relation to our son. The inertia gave way to a state of turbulence, which burned like a consuming fever. To Will's numerous letters and enquiries I at last responded by telegraph, ”All well,” I said.
One day there came a bulky envelope addressed in Will's handwriting. It enclosed a letter from John Gailbraith, the sculptor, who was still in Paris. Across the top Will had written: ”This will interest you.” Under separate cover came a package of photographs, reproductions of the colossal work he had recently completed for the Spring Exhibition at the Salon.
”I have great hopes for this,” he wrote. ”(Hope is always promise-crammed, isn't it?) You will see that I have called it 'Super-Creation.' It was conceived like a lightning flash but the working out, the compelling cold, hard stone to express clearly what I intended to convey is the result of a dogged grind of nearly three years' incessant toil. Have I succeeded, do you think? Of course you have not seen the original, but the photographs are excellent work, having been taken at various angles and positions and under my supervision. You will observe that the work is--well, nothing short of monumental will express it. And, unless a government or an inst.i.tution is moved to buy it, I shall probably have to build a house around it! However, I'm not discouraged though I've gone in debt for years to come and mortgaged almost my soul in order to get the wherewithal to complete the work. I suppose this is what you call 'the artistic temperament.' But I simply had to do it--I had to get it out of my system and in doing so I feel that I have lived up to the best that was in me. After all there is some consolation in the thought that one _has_ lived up to one's best instincts. How goes your own work? And your missus? Ask her to write me and tell me without circ.u.mlocution what she thinks of my effort, especially the conception on the whole. I should like to have discussed it with her and to have had her opinion in the making. Over here one gets only the one-sided opinion of one's confreres or the unimaginative view-point of a few moneyed Americans who want names (_BIG TYPE_) to fill up the bare wall-s.p.a.ces.... I should like to ask your wife whether she is pursuing her work in earnest or whether like so many lady _dilettantes_ she is only amusing herself.... How I should like to see you both here this coming summer! Is it not possible? I'll turn over my menage to you if that is an inducement. Let me hear from you soon and send me the latest picture of the son and heir.
”Yours fraternally,
”J. G.”
I had thrilled at the mere suggestion of a trip abroad but relegated the thought to a background of remote probabilities and gave myself up to an eager contemplation of the photographic reproductions of the sculptor's work. Following the numbers indicated on the back of each, I arranged the photographs consecutively across the wall.
The form appeared to be a kind of spiral, each step or incline complete in itself yet suggesting a connecting thread. At first glance I was struck with the multiplicity of figures, all nearly life size. But as my eagerness gave way to soberer perspective, something I had overlooked now a.s.serted itself: _In the score of characters represented there were but two faces--that of one man and one woman!_ That is to say, the two faces were reproduced ... yet ... or did one's fancy play at tricks?...
I applied the magnifying gla.s.s.... Yes, there were but two faces, both repeatedly used by the artist, but with what wondrous and illuminating difference! Starting from the left and lowest plane--symbolic of the theme--there was embodied in the figures of the man and maid the lowest form of love.... The youthful prettiness of the girl, the soft roundness of her form, the maiden breast ... all these but accentuated the undeveloped soul. Her very att.i.tude, the abandon as she lay smiling, half-hid amongst the leaves and blooms ... here, indeed, was ”a parley to provocation.” ... Above her towered the figure of a man. In his spare, sinewy form, conscient of its strength, vibrant with s.e.x, the young male was epitomized.... ”Instinct” need not be carved across the base.... Instinct, the first and lowest form of love.
From the gra.s.sy knoll the path ascended to a rocky promontory, bleak, arid. Straining 'gainst the fury of the storm, the man and woman climbed; his muscles tense, confusion limned upon his face; the woman, crouching in her fright, hiding her face in her wind-tossed hair; while underfoot they trampled on a mask, the leering mask of former self ...
and, riding on the wind, half cloud, half G.o.d, a phantom with veiled face laid on the lash.... Confusion.... Chaos....
The path led on and up through th.o.r.n.y underbrush; a parched earth; the cactus plant; some blanched bones, a horned toad. He stood apart with sullen mien; his features thick and brutalized; his muscles lax and loose, as if impotent rage had yielded to dumb apathy. The woman, lying p.r.o.ne, distorted with revolt and fright, seeking to shut out from view the hideous deformity at her breast--half man, half beast; its clenched fists, contorted legs raised to rebel; the grotesque mask miming its own despair. And in the background, poised on abyss-edge, a Hecate band whirled in orgy-dance.... Where is the tutelary G.o.ddess now--the Better Self, the Soul of Things? And even as I asked I followed in the path which, still inclining, reached a broad plateau. In the foreground, the man--gaunt and grim--the grimness of despair; his muscles knotted, his h.o.r.n.y hands, the poised axe. Through the matted woods a skulking wolf.... Beyond, the woman; haggard of face, drawn with fatigue; no longer full and round of form. Dropping seeds on fresh-tilled earth; a living burden on her back; around her neck two chubby arms. And at the entrance to the cave, half blended with the rocks, the Inscrutable One stood guard.... ”The Will to Live” was written here....