They sat still watching upon the hill-top, drinking in the scent of the clover. “Ah, if only we might have come back here!” she sighed. “If only tee had never had to leave!”
“That way lies unhappiness” he said.
“Perhaps,” she answered; and then quoted—
   ‘Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
        In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp’d hill!
    Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?”
 
“I wonder,” said he, “if the poet put as much into these stanzas as we find in them!”
Section 1. Through the summer Corydon had been living week by week upon the hope that her husband would be able to send for her; all through the fall she had been dreaming of the arrangements they would make for the winter. But by now it had become clear that they would have to be separated for a part of the winter as well. She had sent him long letters, full of hopes and yearnings, anxieties and rebellions; but in the end she had brought herself to face the inevitable. And then it transpired that even a greater sacrifice was required of her—she was to be forbidden to see Thyrsis at all! If a man did not support his wife, said the world, it was common-sense that he should not have any wife; that was the quickest way to bring him to his senses. And so the two had threshed out that problem, and chosen their course; they would live in the same city, and yet confine themselves to writing letters!
A curious feeling it gave Thyrsis, to know that she was so near to him, and yet not to be going to meet her! He could not endure any part of the city where he had been with her, and got himself a hall bedroom on the edge of a tenement-district far up town. Then he had his shoes shined, and purchased a clean collar, and wrote Miss Ethelynda Lewis that he was ready to call. While he was waiting to hear from her, there came to him a strange adventure; assuredly one of the strangest that ever befell a struggling poet, in a world where many strange adventures have befallen struggling poets.
For six months Thyrsis had not seen his baby; and there had come in the meantime so many letters, telling so many miraculous things about that baby! So many dreams he had dreamed about it, so many hopes and so many prayers were centered in it! Twenty-two hours had he sat by the bedside when it was born; and through all the trials that had come afterwards, how he had suffered and wept for it! Now his heart was wrung with longing to see it, to touch it—his child. He wrote Corydon that he could not stand it; and Corydon wrote back that he was right—he should surely see the baby. And so it was arranged between them that Thyrsis was to be at a certain place in the park, and she would send the nurse-girl there with little Cedric.
He went and sat upon a bench; and the hour came, and at last down the path strolled a nurse-girl, wheeling a baby-carriage. He looked at the girl—yes, she was Irish, as Cordon had said, and answered all specifications; and then he looked at the baby, and his heart sank into his boots. Oh, such a baby! With red hair and a pug-nose, plebeian and dull-looking—such a baby! Thyrsis stared at the maid again—and she smiled at him. Then she passed on, and he sank down upon a bench. Great God, could it be that that was his child? That he would have to go through life with something so ugly, so alien to him? A terror seized him. It was like a nightmare. He was hardly able to move.
But then he told himself it could not be! Corydon had written him all about the baby; it was beautiful, with a noble head; everyone loved it. But then, were not mothers notoriously blind? Had there ever been a mother dissatisfied with her child? Or a father either, for that matter? Was it not a kind of treason for him to be so disgusted with this one—since it so clearly must be his?
There was none other in sight; and though he waited half an hour, none came. At last he could stand it no more, but hurried away to the nearest telegraph-office. “Has baby red hair?” he wrote. “Did he come to the park?” And then he went to his room and waited, and soon after came the reply: “Baby has golden hair. Nurse was ill. Could not come.”
Thyrsis read this, and then shut the door upon the messenger-boy, and burst into wild, hilarious laughter. He stood there with his arms stretched out, invoking all posterity to witness—“What do you think of that? What do you think of that?”
And a full hour later he was sitting by his bedside, his chin supported on his hands, and still invoking posterity. “Will you ever know what I went through?” he was saying. “Will you ever realize what my books have cost?” Then he smiled grimly, thinking of Voltaire’s cruel epigram—that “letters addressed to posterity seldom reach their destination!”
Section 2. Thyrsis received a reply to his note, and went to call upon Miss Ethelynda Lewis. Miss Lewis dwelt in a luxurious apartment-house on Riverside Drive, where a colored maid showed him into a big parlor, full of spindle-legged gilt furniture upholstered in flowered silk. Also the room contained an ebony grand piano, and a bookcase, in which he had time to notice the works of Maupassant and Marie Corelli.
Then Miss Lewis entered, clad in a morning-gown of crimson “liberty”. She was petite and exquisite, full of alluring dimples—and apparently just out of a perfumed bath. Thyrsis sat on the edge of his chair and gazed at her, feeling quite out of his element.
She placed herself on the flowered silk sofa and talked. “I am immensely interested in that play,” she said. “It is quite unique. And you are so young, too—why, you seem just a boy. Really, you know I think you must be a genius yourself.”
Thyrsis murmured something, feeling uncomfortable.
“The only thing is,” Miss Lewis went on, “it will need a lot of revision to make it practical.”
“In what part?” he asked.
“The love-story, principally,” said the other. “You see, in that respect, you have simply thrown your chances away.”
“I don’t understand,” said he.
“You have made your hero act so queerly. Everyone feels that he is in love with Helena—you meant him to be, didn’t you? And yet he goes away from her and won’t see her! Everyone will be disappointed at that—it’s impossible, from every point of view. You’ll have to have them married in the last act.”
Thyrsis gasped for breath.
“You see,” continued Miss Lewis, “I am to play the part of Helena, and I am to be the star. And obviously, it would never do for me to be rejected, and left all up in the air like that. I must have some sort of a love-scene.”
“But”—protested the poet—“what you want me to change is what my play is about!”
“How do you mean?” asked the other.
“Why, it’s a new kind of love,” he stammered—“a different kind.”
“But, people don’t understand that kind of love.”
“But, Miss Lewis, that’s why I wrote my play! I want to make them understand.”
“But you can’t do anything like that on the stage,” said Miss Lewis. “The public won’t come to see your play.” And then she went on to explain to him the conditions of success in the business of the theatre.
Thyrsis listened, with a clutch as of ice about his heart. “I am very sorry, Miss Lewis,” he said, at last—“but I couldn’t possibly do what you ask.”
“Couldn’t do it!” cried the other, amazed.
“It would not fit into my idea at all.”
“But, don’t you want to get your play produced?”
“That’s just it, I want to get my play produced. If I did what you want me to, it wouldn’t be my play. It would be somebody else’s play.”
And there he stood. The actress argued with him and protested. She showed him what a great chance he had here—one that came to a new and unknown writer but once in a lifetime. Here was a manager ready to give him a good contract, and to put his play on at once in a Broadway theatre; and here was a public favorite anxious to have the leading role. It would be everything he could ask—it would be fame and fortune at one stroke. But Thyrsis only shook his head—he could not do it. He was almost sick with disappointment; but it was a situation in which there was no use trying to compromise—he simply could not make a “love-story” out of “The Genius”.
So at last there came a silence between them—there being nothing more for Miss Lewis to say.
“Then I suppose you won’t want the play,” said Thyrsis, faintly.
“I don’t know,” she answered, with vexation. “I’ll have to think about it again, and talk to my manager. I had not counted on such a possibility as this.”
And so they left it, and Thyrsis went away. The next morning he received a letter from “Robertson Jones, Inc.”, asking him to call at once.
Section 3. Robertson Jones, the great “theatrical producer”, was large and ponderous, florid of face and firm in manner—the steam-roller type of business-man. And it became evident at once that he had invited Thyrsis to come and be rolled.
“Miss Lewis tells me you can’t agree about the play,” said he.
“No,” said Thyrsis, faintly.
And then Mr. Jones began. He told Thyrsis what he meant to do with this play. Miss Lewis was one of the country’s future “stars”, and he was willing to back her without stint. He had permitted her to make her own choice of a role, and she should have her way in everything. There were famous playwrights bidding for a chance to write for her; but she had seen fit to choose “The Genius”.
“Personally,” said Mr. Jones, “I don’t believe in the play. I would never think of producing it—it’s not the sort of thing anybody is interested in. But Miss Lewis likes it; she’s been reading Ibsen, and she wants to do a ‘drama of ideas’, and all that sort of thing, you know. And that’s all right—she’s the sort to make a success of whatever she does. But you must do your share, and give her a part she can make something out of—some chance to show her charm. Otherwise, of course, the thing’s impossible.”
Mr. Jones paused. “I’m very sorry”—began Thyrsis, weakly.
“What’s your idea in refusing?” interrupted the other.
Thyrsis tried to explain—that he had written the play to set forth a certain thesis, and that he was asked to make changes that directly contradicted this thesis.
“Have you ever had a play produced?” demanded the manager abruptly.
“No,” said Thyrsis.
“Have you written any other plays?”
“No.”
“Your first trial! Well, don’t you think it a good deal to expect that your play should be perfect?”
“I don’t think”—began Thyrsis.
“Can’t you see,” persisted the other, “that people who have been in this business all their lives, and have watched thousands of plays succeed and fail, might be able to give you some points on the matter?”—And then Mr. Jones went on to set forth to Thyrsis the laws of the theatrical game—a game in which there was the keenest competition, and in which the “ante” was enormously high. To produce “The Genius” would cost ten thousand dollars at the least; and were those who staked this to have no say whatever in the shaping of the play? Manifestly this was absurd; and as the manager pressed home the argument, Thyrsis felt as if he wanted to get up and run! When Mr. Jones talked to you, he looked you squarely in the eye, and you had a feeling of presumption, even of guilt, in standing out against him. Thyrsis shrunk in terror from that type of personality—he would let it have anything in the world it wanted, so only it would not clash with him. But never before had it demanded one of the children of his dreams!
Mr. Jones went on to tell how many things he would do for the play. It would go into rehearsal at once, and would be seen on Broadway by the first of February. They would pay him four, six and eight per cent., and his profits could not be less than three hundred dollars a week. With Ethelynda Lewis in the leading role the play might well run until June—and there would be the road profits the next season, in addition.
Thyrsis’ brain reeled as he listened to this; it was in all respects identical with another famous temptation—“The devil taketh him upon a high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the earth!”
“And then there is England”—the man was saying.
“No, no!” cried Thyrsis, wildly. “No!”
“But why not?” demanded the other.
“It’s impossible! I couldn’t do it!”
“You mean you couldn’t do the writing?”
“I wouldn’t know how to!”
“Well then, that’s easily arranged. Let me get some one to collaborate with you. There’s Richard Haberton—you know who he is?”
“No,” said Thyrsis, faintly.
“He’s the author of ‘The Rajah’s Diamond’—it’s playing with five companions now, and its third season. And he dramatized ‘In Honor’s Cause’—you’ve seen that, no doubt. We have paid him some sixty thousand dollars in royalties so far. And he’ll take the play and fix it over—you wouldn’t have to stir a finger.”
Thyrsis sprang up in his agitation. “Please don’t ask me, Mr. Jones,” he cried. “I simply could not do it!”
It seemed strange to Thyrsis, when he thought it over afterwards, that the great Robertson Jones should have taken the trouble to argue so long with the unknown author of a play in which he did not believe. Was it that opposition incited him to persist? Or had he told Ethelynda Lewis he would get her what she wanted, and was now reluctant to confess defeat? At any rate, so it was—he went on to drive Thyrsis into a corner, to tear open his very soul. Also, he manifested anger; it was a deliberate affront that the boy should stand out like this. And Thyrsis, in great distress of soul, explained that he did not mean it that way—he apologized abjectly for his obstinacy. It was the ideas that he had tried to put into his play, and that he could not give up!
“But,” persisted the manager—“write other plays, and put your ideas into them. If you’ve once had a Broadway success, then you can write anything you please, and you can make your own terms for production.”
That thought had already occurred to Thyrsis; it was the one that nearly broke down his resistance. He would probably have surrendered, had the play not been so fresh from his mind, and so dear to him; if he had had time enough to become dissatisfied with it, as he had with his first novel—or discouraged about its prospects, as he had with “The Hearer of Truth”! But this child of his fancy was not yet weaned; and to tear it from his breast, and hand it to the butcher—no, it could not be thought of!
Section 4. So he parted from Mr. Jones, and went home, to pass two of the most miserable days of his life. He had pronounced his “Apage, Satanas!”—he had turned his back upon the kingdoms of the earth. And so presumably—virtue being its own reward—he should have been in a state of utter bliss. But Thyrsis had gone deeper into that problem, and asked himself a revolutionary question: Why should it always be that Satan had the kingdoms of the earth at his bestowal? Thyrsis did not want any kingdoms—he only wanted a chance to live in the country with his wife and child. And why, in order to get these things, must a poet submit himself to Satan?
Then came the third morning after his interview; and Thyrsis found in his mail another letter from Robertson Jones, Inc. It was a letter brief and to the point, and it struck him like a thunderbolt.
“Miss Ethelynda Lewis has decided that she wishes to accept your play as it stands. I enclose herewith a contract in duplicate, and if the terms are acceptable to you, will you kindly return one copy signed, and retain the other yourself.”
Thyrsis read, not long after that, of a young playwright who died of heart-failure; and he was not surprised—if all playwrights had to go through experiences such as that. He could hardly believe his eyes, and he read the letter over two or three times; he read the contract, with Mr. Jones’ impressive signature at the bottom. He did not know anything about theatrical contracts, but this one seemed fair to him. It provided for a royalty upon the gross receipts, to be paid after the play had earned the expenses of its production. Thyrsis had hoped that he might get some cash in advance, but that was not mentioned. In the flush of his delight he concluded that he would not take the risk of demanding anything additional, but signed the contract and mailed it, and sent a telegram to acquaint Corydon with the glorious tidings.
Section 5. One of the consequences of this triumph was that Thyrsis purchased a new necktie and half a dozen collars; and another was that an angry world was in some part appeased, and permitted the struggling poet to see his wife and child once more.
They met in the park; and strange it was to him to see Corydon after six months’ absence. She was beautiful as ever, somewhat paler, though still with the halo of motherhood about her. He could scarcely realize that she was his; she seemed like a dream to him—like some phantom of music, thrilling and wonderful, yet frail and unsubstantial. She clung to his arm, trembling with delight, and pouring out her longing and her grief. There came to them one of those golden hours, when the deeps of their souls welled up, and they pledged themselves anew to their faith.
Even stranger it was to see the child; to be able to look at him all he pleased, and to speak to him, and to hold him in his arms! He was as beautiful as Thyrsis could have wished, and the father had no trouble at all in being interested in him; his smiles were things to make the angels jealous. Thyrsis would push his carriage out into the park, and they would sit upon a bench and gaze at him—each making sure that the other had missed none of his fine points.
He was beginning to make sounds now, and had achieved the word “puss-ée”. This originally had signified the woolly kitten he carried with him, but now by a metonymy it had come to include all kinds of living things; and great was the delight of the parents when a big red automobile flashed past, and the baby pointed his finger, exclaiming gleefully, “Puss-ée!” It is an astonishing thing, how little it takes to make parents happy; regarded, purely as an abstract proposition, it would be difficult to explain why two people who possessed between them a total of sixty-four teeth, more or less, should have been so much excited by the discovery that the baby had four.
But parenthood, as Thyrsis found, meant more than charming baby-prattle and the counting of teeth. Little Cedric’s tiny fingers were twisted in his heart-strings—he loved him with a love the intensity of which frightened him when he realized it. And sometimes things went wrong, and then with a pang as from the stab of a knife would come the thought that he might some day lose this child. So much pain and toil a child cost, so much it took of one’s strength and power; and then, such a fragile thing it was—exposed to so many perils and uncertainties, to the ravages of so many diseases, that struck like a cruel enemy in the dark! Corydon and Thyrsis were so ignorant—they were like children themselves; and where should they turn for knowledge? There were doctors, of course; but this took so much money—and even with all the doctors, see how many babies died!
Thyrsis was learning the bitter truth of Bacon’s saying about “giving hostages to fortune.” And dearly as he loved the child, the artist in him cried out against these ties. Where now was that care-free outlook, that recklessness, that joy in life as a spectacle, which made up so much of the artist’s attitude? When one had a wife and child one no longer enjoyed tragedies—one lived, them; and one got from them, not katharsis, but exhaustion. One became timid and cautious and didactic, and other inartistic things. One learned that life was real, life was earnest, and the grave was not its goal!
Cedric had been weaned; but still he was not growing properly. Could it be that there was something wrong with what they fed him? Corydon would come upon advertisements telling of wonderful newly-discovered foods for infants, and giving pictures of the rosy and stalwart ones who were fed upon these foods. She would take to buying them—and they were not cheap foods either. Then, during the winter, the child caught cold; and they took that to mean that it had been in some way exposed—that was what everybody said, and what the name “cold” itself suggested. So Corydon would add more flannel dresses and blankets, until the unfortunate mite of life would be in a purple stew. And still, apparently, these mysterious “colds” were not to be thwarted. Thyrsis felt that in all this there must be something radically wrong, and yet he knew not what to do. Surely it should not have been such a task to keep life in one human infant.
Then, too, the training of the baby was going badly. He lived in close contact with nervous people who were disturbed if he cried; and so Corydon’s energies were given to a terrified effort to keep him from crying. He must be dandled and rocked to sleep, he must be played with and amused, and have everything he cried for; and it was amazing how early in life this little creature learned the hold which he had upon his mother. His chief want had come to be to sleep all day and lie awake half the night; and during these hours of wakefulness he pursued the delightful pastime of holding some one’s hand and playing with it. Corydon, nervous and sick and wrestling with melancholia, would have to lie awake for uncounted hours and submit to this torment. The infant had invented a name for the diversion; he called it “Hoodaloo mungie”—which being translated signified “Hold your finger”. To the mother this was like the pass-word of some secret order of demons, who preyed upon and racked her in the night; so that never after in her life could she hear the phrase, even in jest, without experiencing a nervous shock.
Section 6. This was a period of great hopefulness for Thyrsis, but also of desperate struggle. For until the production of his play in January, he had somehow to keep alive, and that meant more hack-work. Also he had to lay something by, for after the rehearsals the play would go on the road for a couple of weeks, to be “tried on the dog”; and during that period he must have money enough to travel, and stay at hotels, and also to take Corydon with him, if possible.
The rehearsals began an interesting experience for him; he was introduced into a new and strange world. Thyrsis himself was shy, and disposed to run away and hide his emotions; but here were people—the actor-folk—whose business it was to live them in sight of the world. And these emotions were their life; they were very intense, yet quick both to come and to go. Such people were intensely personal; they were like great children, vain and sensitive, their moods and excitements not to be taken too seriously. But it was long before Thyrsis came to realize this, and meanwhile he had some uncomfortable times. To each of the players, apparently, the interest of a play centered in those places in which he was engaged in speaking his lines; and to each the author of the play was a more or less benevolent despot, who had the happiness of the rest of the world in his keeping. Once at a rehearsal, when Thyrsis was engaged in cutting out one of the speeches attributed to “Mrs. Hartman”, he discovered that lady standing behind him in a flood of tears!
In the beginning Thyrsis paid many visits to the apartment on Riverside Drive; for Miss Lewis professed to be very anxious that he should consult with her and tell her his ideas of her part. But Thyrsis soon discovered that what she really wanted was to have him listen to her ideas. Miss Lewis was at war with Thyrsis’ portrayal of Helena—it was incomprehensible to her that Lloyd should not be pursuing her, and she playing the coquette, according to all romantic models. Particularly she could not see how Lloyd was to resist the particularly charming Helena which she was going to make. She was always trying to make Thyrsis realize this incongruity, and to persuade him to put some “charming” lines into her part. “You boy!” she would exclaim. “I believe you are as obstinate as your hero!” Miss Lewis was only two years older than the “boy”, but she saw fit to adopt this grandmotherly attitude toward him.
And then came Robertson Jones, suggesting a man who could play the part of Lloyd. But Miss Lewis declared indignantly that she would not have him, because he was not handsome enough. “If,” she vowed, “I’ve got to make love to a man and be rejected by him, at least I’m not going to have it an ugly man!” When an actor was finally agreed upon and engaged, Thyrsis had a talk with him, and it seemed as if Miss Lewis, in her preoccupation with his looks, had overlooked the matter of his brains. But Thyrsis was so new at this game that he did not feel capable of judging. He shrunk from the thought of having any actor play his part—that was so precious and so full of meaning to him.
But when the rehearsals began, Thyrsis speedily forgot this feeling. The most sensitive poet to the contrary notwithstanding, the purpose of a play is to be acted; and Thyrsis was like an inventor, who has dreamed a great machine, and now sees the parts of it appearing as solid steel and brass; sees them put together, and the great device getting actually under way.
The rehearsals were held in a little hall on the East Side, and thither came the company—six men and three women. There was no furniture or setting, they all wore their street clothing, and in the beginning they went through their parts with the manuscript in their hands. And yet—they had been selected because they resembled the characters in the play; and every time they went over the lines they gave them with more feeling and understanding. So—vaguely at first, and then more clearly—the poet began to see them as incarnations of his vision. These characters had been creatures of his fancy; they had lived in it, he had walked and talked and laughed and wept with them. Now to discover them outside him—to be able to hear them with his physical ears and see them with his physical eyes—was one of the strangest experiences of his life. It was so thrilling as to be almost uncanny. It was a new kind of inspiration, of that strange “subliminal uprush” which made the mystery of his life. And it was a kind that others could experience with him. Corydon would come every day to the rehearsals, and for four or five hours at a stretch they would sit and watch and listen in a state of perfect transport.
Section 7. Also, there were things not in the manuscript which were sources of interest and delight. There was Mr. Tapping, the stage director, for instance; Thyrsis could see himself writing another play, just to get Mr. Tapping in. He was a man well on in years, and wrecked by dissipation—almost bald and toothless, and with one foot crippled with gout. Yet he was a perfect geyser of activity—bounding about the stage, talking swiftly, gesticulating—like some strange gnome or cobold out of the bowels of the earth. Thyrsis was the creator of the play, so far as concerned the words; but this man was to be the creator of it on the stage. And that, too, required a kind of genius, Thyrsis perceived.
Mr. Tapping had talked the problems out with him at the beginning—talking until two o’clock in the morning, in a super-heated office filled with the smoke of ten thousand dead cigars. He talked swiftly, eagerly, setting forth his ideas; to Thyrsis it was a most curious experience—to hear the vision of his inmost soul translated into the language of the Tenderloin! “Your fiddler’s this kind of a guy,” Mr. Tapping would say—“he knows he’s got the goods, and he don’t care whether those old fogies think he’s dippy, or what the hell they think. Ain’t that the dope, Mr. Author?” And Thyrsis would answer faintly that he thought that was “the dope.”—This was a word that Mr. Tapping used every time he opened his mouth, apparently; it design............