Chapter VII: Part 7

“Yes. I believe sometimes I can think with my nose, my smelling sense is so keen. I can almost divine approaching enemies. Who is that girl staring at you so hard, M. Godard, a very pretty blonde; she looks like an American? No, not near the house--there, over there!” Helena reminded Paul of a cat that lifts a threatening furry back when she scents a hostile dog.

“Oh, Lord!” he groaned. “It must be Rue. That settles me for good.” It was Rue, and she had never looked lovelier. The slight bruise under her eyes betokened emotional exhaustion. She was dressed in white, and the simplicity of her gown and its charming fit made the German women plainer. Paul’s heart knocked against his ribs as he returned her constrained bow. He saw that she had quietly and earnestly examined Helena, and as the eyes of the women met antagonism kindled. But the American girl was mistress of herself. She began to talk to the group of artists about her, while Helena sulked and glowered at Paul’s too openly expressed admiration.

“You admire your own countrywomen, do you not, M. Godard?” she asked, and the inflection in her voice was cruelly sarcastic. Before Paul could answer she touched his arm softly and said:

“If you can’t look at me when I talk to you, why, you may take me home.”

Paul at once begged her pardon, called for his reckoning and they prepared to leave the garden. He did not again salute Rue Towne, for she was talking earnestly to an ugly old fat man with a grey beard and a Wagnerian forehead half a foot high. But from the tail of his eye he saw that she was fully conscious of his departure. Scarlet spots came into her face, and as Paul walked down the garden steps he felt as if two eyes burned into his back. Then he did what other desperate men have done under similar circumstances. He made violent love to Helena, and it relieved the pain of his heart. But the girl was capricious, and only by dint of magnificent lying did he finally force her hand into his. They were now walking toward the Hofgarten, down a deserted street. The many bells of Baireuth told them that it was a quarter past eleven, and the moon rode tenderly in the blue. It was a night made for soft vows and kisses, and as Paul walked he thought of Rue; Helena fell to dreaming of the prince in her native Roumania who had played the weakling to her strong woman’s heart, and thus the pair reached the hotel, and after a brief parley at its door said good night and parted.

O blessed love, that can at least console two hearts glowing for the absent!

Paul awoke next morning with what the hardheaded Germans call a moral headache. He had a bad taste in his conscience, and he decided to call as soon as possible on Rue. It was nearly eleven before he got to her house. As she had no rehearsal for Siegfried, she received him. He thought that she was distant, but he talked fast and earnestly, and soon the ice began to thaw. Paul felt happy. Helena appealed to his decadent taste, but Rue was as the perfume of the morning. He told her so, and explained at great length and with considerable ingenuity how he came in the company of a lone young woman. Her two chaperons--Paul fancied two sounded more imposing--had gone by mistake to the garden of the Sonne Hotel; that is why he left so soon with the lady, who was only a recent acquaintance.

He felt Rue’s eyes on him as he wove this roundelay, and, feeling hot about the neck and a little fearful of his ability to keep up the strain much longer, he suddenly grasped the girl, crying out, and most sincerely:

“O Rue! why do we waste time talking about a woman I never cared for and never expect to see again. I love you, I love you, my darling! Kiss me just once and tell me you care a little for me.”

As he fell upon her she was taken off her guard, and the inevitable happened. She kissed Paul and he placed a big ring on her finger, and left the house an hour later an engaged and also a much be-perjured man. He was happy until he thought of Helena.

That evening when Siegfried was finished Paul walked arm and arm with Rue down the hill to Sammet’s. As they entered they brushed against three ladies, and Paul said aloud: “Oh, Lord!”

The next day Rue had to go to a rehearsal for the Rhine Daughters in Die Götterdämmerung, and Paul was whistling the Spring Song from Die Walküre in his room when a knock at his door brought the news that a lady wished to see him. He wondered who the lady was, and, as the parlor of the house had been turned into a bedroom, he put on his hat and went into the hall, to be confronted by Helena, shamefaced but resolute.

“Come out into the street,” he begged, for in her implacable eyes he read signs of the approaching storm.

They silently descended to a lower étage. Then she turned and faced him:

“So you didn’t come to me this morning,” she said. Roumania excited was a stirring spectacle, nevertheless Paul wished that he was up the Hudson playing golf.

He endeavored to placate her. Helena, angered at her loss of dignity in condescending to call on this man, reproached him bitterly, and it seemed to him that she was about to sing the picturesque songs of hate which Carmen Sylva has made known to us, when they reached the street. Then her rage vanished in a moment.

“You conceited man, and you really took me in solemn earnest! I fancied the Americans had a sense of humor. Pooh! You’re not a man to love more than a moment, anyhow,” and she went on her way laughing mockingly, leaving Paul shamefaced, angered, his self-love all bruised and his senses aroused, for Helena wrathful was more beautiful than Helena amiable.

He was so distressed in mind that he only sat through one act of Die Götterdämmerung; his Wagner madness seemed to have evaporated. He hovered around the back of the theatre, and caught a glimpse of Rue getting in a carriage with the same fat old German--her singing-teacher, he fancied.

Although it was late, he called at her house. She had not yet arrived, the maid told him. He mooned about disconsolately until one o’clock, keeping at a safe distance from the Hotel Sonne. Then he wearily went to bed and dreamed that the Nornes were chasing him down Fifth Avenue.

The next morning he called again on Rue. She sent down word that she was tired. He called again in the afternoon; she was not at home. In the evening, feeling as if he were going mad, he was told that she had gone out and would not be back until late. He hung around the house in a hungry-dog fashion, smiling bitterly at times and beginning to doubt even his own intentions. But no Rue.

He went home at last, and in a rage of love and jealousy he sat down and wrote to Rue this letter:

“Rue, my Rue, darling, what is the matter? Have I offended you? Why did you not see me to-day, to-night? Oh, how lonely was the street, how sad my heart! I thought of Verlaine’s ‘It rains in my heart as it rains in the town.’ Why don’t you see me? You are mine; you swore it. My sweet girl, whose heart is as fragrant as new-mown hay! Darling, you must see me to-morrow--to-day--for I am writing to you in the early, early morning. You know that you promised to come to me next year in America. Only think, sweetheart, what joy then! The sky is aflame with love. We walk slowly under few soft spring stars, and your hand is in mine, and that night, that night your heart will sob on my breast, my lovely woman, and your heart will fiercely beat as we both slip over the hills to heaven. Rue, you will make me a poet. Only tell me, I beg of you, the hour when I may see you.”

Then Paul threw himself on the bed, but not to sleep. It was daybreak, and the Teutonic chanticleer of the dawn had lusty lungs, and it was almost time for coffee. He dressed in feverish haste, went out of doors, secured a messenger and despatched the letter. He walked up and down the Lisztstrasse for twenty minutes, and his emotion was so great at the sight of the boy returning, a letter in hand, that he retreated into the doorway and awaited the news. It was brief. He read this in Rue’s firm handwriting:

“Your friend Helena has told me all. Here is your ring.”

There was no signature.

Then Paul did what most cowards do. He went to the other woman. The storm in his soul might be allayed, and he could have the pleasure of showing Rue that she was not necessary to him. Of course the jealousy of Helena had spoiled his game; for he really had meant to be sincere with Rue, so he told himself in the inward, eloquent manner which paves hell with composite intentions. It was all clear to him. Helena loved him, else why did she tell Rue of his double-dealing? It gave him a glowing feeling again in his distracted bosom, and as he walked into the Hotel Sonne he said between clutched teeth:

“Black wins!”

He was met by a polite portier, who told him that his friends had left on the early train for Vienna. But there was a letter!

Heart-sick and with trembling hands he tore open the envelope.

“Did you really think I loved an American when I can have a Roumanian? Better console your singer.”

No signature.

“When does the next train leave for Paris?” asked Paul of the polite portier.

* * * * *

There is a rumor in society that Paul Godard is engaged to Edith Vicker. He never goes to a Wagner music-drama, and is passionately addicted to cabaret dancing.

Americans are versatile.

V

THE CARDINAL’S FIDDLE

Yakov leaned out of his window and greedily listened to the Cardinal playing his fiddle. The window was small and under a hot roof. From it a view of the great palace of his Eminence was easy, for the house of Yakov’s mother stood in a narrow court at the rear, and was a low-sized building, not far from the Cathedral which dominated this old-fashioned and once aristocratic section of the city. The bedroom of the boy was on a level with the living-room of the Cardinal--a tall, spare old man with mild eyes and ascetic face. His bushy white hair and ruddy complexion, coupled with a high, hawk-like nose, gave him the appearance, in Yakov’s eyes, of a benevolent bird of exotic origin. Stranger still was his passion for music. At least once a day he could be seen by the lad, walking with long, elastic strides about the large bare room, a violin tucked under his chin, his eyes closed, and he fiddling as if rehearsing for a classical concert. Yakov knew it was “classical” music because he couldn’t make head or tail of it, although he was studying the instrument himself at the big conservatory on the square. But he was only a beginner--that’s what his cross teacher told him when his lesson was a poor one--and he realized the fact, while the Cardinal--oh! he played everything difficult, and always without notes.

He wondered why this kindly old gentleman in the queer dress should fiddle in the great palace across the way; he, so rich and powerful, doing for fun what the poor little Yiddish boy did as a task. When Yakov could play he wouldn’t live in a palace, but would try to get a job in a theatre orchestra. His mother answered his query, “What is a cardinal?” with a vague, “Oh, he is a sort of high rabbi,” which didn’t tell her son much. He was brought up in the orthodox faith, went to Shool--the synagogue--and was careful to eat no food that had not been prepared in Kosher fashion. This last practice brought him into conflict with the boys of his class at the public school around the corner. They were American born, though many of foreign descent. That made no difference, for, as much as they quarrelled with one another, they were a unit as to the undesirability of the Jew. Their teacher had scolded, had even punished them, but uselessly. They were sarcastic, were these boys of Italian, Irish and German parents, calling aloud, “Micky,” “Dutchy,” “Guinney,” “Wop,” but for Yakov and his like--in the majority at the school--they had choicer terms: “Sheeny” “Kike!” “Mekmek!” Yakov didn’t much mind the nicknames.

He only feared the suddenly delivered punches at his back, the vise-like grip of “Jimmy the Brick” (self-christened) on his neck, and the hateful grin with which a ham sandwich would be thrust into his mouth. This last was the supreme insult. If he did not complain to his teacher, it was because he feared reprisals. So he only told his mother, with tears in his large, dark, expressive eyes, and she comforted him. She said it was the glory of his race, this badge of suffering, these insults from the Gentiles. He must not fight back, but meekly endure. Jehovah would watch over him. She was a decent widow woman, who had a small dressmaking business in her house and barely supported herself and child, also giving him a musical education. Oh! to see him a great violinist! She loved music, and as she worked her sewing-machine she hummed to its rhythms. Once, many years ago, she had heard in Lemberg, her Galician birthplace, the greatest violinist in the world, Joseph Joachim, and one of her race. She was unmarried then, yet she made a silent vow that if ever she had a son....

She had Yakov now, and his father was gone. She always said to him--dead. But she knew better. He had deserted her for another woman, left her without a dollar, and she had been fighting for ten years to keep their heads above water. Living in this humble yet genteel court behind the Cathedral, she dreamed of Yakov’s future, and she cried with joy when the teacher at the conservatory grudgingly admitted that the boy had talent and might--he coughed his reservations--with hard work make a fair musician. Yakov went to school and in the afternoons practised. The weather was warm, windows were opened, and he attentively heard the fiddle of the Cardinal.

The music was a succession of beautiful sounds for the young visionary. His eyes glittering, his lips apart, his arms tightly folded about his thin little frame, he listened as if to the voice of God. The Cardinal played the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s concerto, and, threadbare as has become this familiar song, to Yakov it was an enchantment. Its obvious sentiment seemed a call from his dead father in heaven. When the music ceased he involuntarily stretched aloft his arms. The eye of the Cardinal must have caught the glint of white--the boy was in his shirt-sleeves--and came to the window cautiously, peering across to Yakov. He vaguely smiled, and to Yakov’s sorrow he closed the window, yet the sound of his fiddle softly echoed in the ears of the boy.

Every evening he stationed himself at the same spot, but the Cardinal did not play. Yakov yearned for his music. His own cheap red fiddle became hateful to him. Its rasping tones when he attempted scales extinguished his ambition. One day his mother said in her purring Yiddish: “Yakov, you must be more industrious, else the gentleman at the conservatory will send you home.” Even that didn’t arouse him. He suddenly took to playing in the court with the other boys after school. Such rough games! He stood a lot of kicking and punching, especially from Jimmy the Brick, who, after all, wasn’t a bad-hearted chap. He once grabbed Yakov’s lunch-box and critically swallowed the contents, which pleased him, as he liked full-flavored food. “Say, Kike, that’s not bad grub. I like your stuffed fish better than the macaroni of that Wop kid Tony.” With this backing of the boss Yakov enjoyed comparative peace. He had thought of revenge, of organizing into a compact phalanx the large body of Jewish boys at the school, but his mother’s advice and the patience of his race dissuaded him from active rebellion. He let things slide along, and in the meantime his music was almost neglected. In vain did his teacher rap his knuckles with the fiddle-bow and threaten him with dismissal. Yakov knew the crosspatch wouldn’t keep his word, for he was a pay pupil; not much pay, to be sure; anyhow, not a charity scholar.

The magic of a windless June night transformed the old Red Lion court into an operatic picture. Moonlit, it recalled a prosperous past that had hardly modulated into its present middle-class shabbiness. Old houses, colonial in style, but sadly defaced by time, slept tranquilly in the magnetic rays of a moon which breasted the low housetops. The din and gabble had ceased, the only noise being the sound of hammered iron on the anvil of the blacksmith’s at the corner. So changed were times that the legend over the door of the smithy read, “Sokolov & Grünstein--Horseshoers.” The ancient and honorable profession had been wrested from sturdy English and Irish hands by the more persistent hosts from southeastern Europe. For Yakov the change meant nothing, but it gave extreme pain to Jimmy’s parents, and so Jimmy, with his faithful band, was in the habit of yelling defiant and insulting words at the two blacksmiths, though keeping at a safe distance. The rhythmic tapping of the hammers brought peace to Yakov, who stood in his window regarding with awakened curiosity the spectacle of the Cardinal’s living-room, lighted for the first time in weeks; perhaps--! Presently the sound of a fiddle oozed through the open space. He was back, the Cardinal with his fiddle. What was he playing? Hymn tunes, surely. First, the Adeste Fideles, which Yakov remembered because in a moment of condescending generosity Jimmy had taken him to Vespers at the Cathedral and had told him the name of the music he had heard.

Then the tune shifted to a more solemn, a celestial tune, indeed, which the listener couldn’t place. He didn’t know it was the O Jesu, by Haydn, but that didn’t matter; his ear was ravished by its pleading strains, and he hung out of his perch, tremulously absorbing every tone. The Cardinal’s humor shifted. He dashed off a gay Tipperary jig, and followed this with The Valley Lay Smiling Before Me, and The Harp of Tara. Yakov felt that the violinist must be an Irishman, but ever so different from the noisy Jimmy. Yet Irish!

What, what! He pinched himself as the grave music of the Kol Nidré, the sacred tune sounded on the Day of Atonement, came swelling across the Cardinal’s windows. The Kol Nidré, that immemorial cantillation of the Hebrews, in it compressed the dolors of the ages, and perhaps first chanted in the house of Egyptian bondage, perhaps out of the dim centuries before Egypt, before the shadowy Sumerians! Who knows? What concerned the boy was the strange happening--a potentate of the Gentile Church playing on a fiddle the grand and venerable hymn of the Jews. But that he was fascinated by the music he would have rushed down to his mother to tell her the glad tidings. She knew of the playing across in the palace, and was pleased because of Yakov’s evident interest. She would welcome the return of the Cardinal, for her boy would be again spurred to study. He couldn’t leave the window till the last note had been squeezed from the august and mournful melody.

In a fever Yakov seized his tiny instrument and lovingly mimicked the Cardinal. Its squeak reached the priest, who came to the window and waited until Yakov’s imperfect interpretation of the Kol Nidré ended, and, smiling a kind smile that melted the heart within the bosom of the boy, he waved a slender hand, as if to say, “I salute a brother artist!” It was too much for Yakov, who ran to his mother’s sewing-room, there to pour out his joy and receive her gentle blessing. He, too, would play the fiddle like the Cardinal--play the Kol Nidré for a hall full of listeners, who would applaud him! The mighty Cardinal had played the Kol Nidré for the poor little Jew boy, and he hadn’t even bowed his profound gratitude!

On wings of song, he mounted the stairway to his garret, but the music was no longer heard, though the windows were still alight. Not able to control himself, Yakov took his instrument, and, all the while playing, marched down-stairs into the court, and in the mystic moonshine he played on, played the Kol Nidré. Soon the gang surrounded him, and Jimmy the Brick cried: “Aw, give us a rest with that tune. Play a coon song.” Yakov only shook his head and kept on playing.

“Stop it, I say!” yelled Jimmy. “We want none of yer Kike music in this court. D’ye hear?” Yakov still played, and the tune rang out with the terror and desolation of the Day of Atonement.

“Hit him, Tony! Grab his fiddle, you Wop!” hoarsely commanded the leader. The boys closed about him and in a twinkling the current of the music was cut off, the red violin smashed into a hundred bits, the bow snapped in two and its coarse hair twisted about Yakov’s neck. He fought silently, tearlessly. The firm of Sokolov & Grünstein came to his rescue, and, being muscular men, they routed the band and sent the victim to his home with consoling phrases. But he was hopeless. That another fiddle might be bought for him found no place in his whirling imagination. He had been cruelly treated. Why should he be so punished? As he sank on his knees at his attic window tears flowed and sobs followed. Yakov mourned and would not be comforted. And across the court in the chamber of the palace the Cardinal played with exquisite melancholy that antique Hebraic tune, the Kol Nidré.

VI

RENUNCIATION

The hearts of some women are as a vast cathedral. There are its gorgeous high altars, its sounding gloom, its lofty arches, and perhaps in an obscure niche burns a tiny taper before the votive shrine. And many pass through life with this taper unlighted, despite the pomp and ceremonial of the conjugal comedy. Others carry in the little chapel of their hearts a solitary glimmering lamp of love that only flames out with death.

A grand piano, its burnished ivory teeth gleaming in the candle-light, stood near the open window, and at it one lounged and idly preluded Schumann-like harmonies that questioned the night. Outside a veiled fumidity, behind which lurked thunderous prospects; the air was still with languorous anticipation, and the month of the year was April. He would not have been human and an artist to have withstood the dumb depression of the moment. Snatches of heavily brocaded harmonies of Chopin, mute interrogations of Brahms, and furtive glitterings of Liszt vibrated through the chamber. One sultry chord, persistently repeated and unresolved, told the temper of him who played.

It was a sober apartment; a half-score of wax tapers sang with a bunch of tuberoses a sweet duo.

A few chairs, some music scattered about, a tall bookcase, gaunt and shadowy in the background, and a polished floor made the ensemble of an artist’s living-room. The playing grew vaguer and the night without more menacing. Then the first eight or ten bars of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde forced into shape on the keyboard and--hush! a delicate knock at the door. He harshly called, “Entrez!” She was without a wrap, her head enveloped in a filmy burnoose. She faltered, then moved to him as moves a sleep-walker. “I know that it is wrong, but I--how can I help it? I have come to you--and you?” She paused, her face illuminated by love-doubt. His voice was muffled when he answered her, “Pray be seated, madame.”

She divined his reluctance: “We leave to-morrow, and you must play for me once more.”

“I could have called at your hotel,” he gently replied.

Impetuously she cried: “I have risked much to be near you, to hear you play; yet you stand coldly, and after yesterday--Ah, you forget!”

“I do not forget,” he replied.

She moved toward him; his reserve vanished and he advanced with both hands outstretched. “Dearest, it is madness. See, it is late; you will be missed, and the night bodes a storm. Play! I would play for you if Paradise threatened and hell yawned rather than refuse you.” “Play!” she cried. “Play for me Chopin, but do not come near me.” He shivered, and their eyes kissed, hers burning like misty-green signals of love and sorrow; then he faced the night for a moment, and turning to the piano began without preluding.

It was the Second Impromptu of Chopin, the rarely heard one in the key of F sharp, major mode. As he struck the octave in the bass the approaching storm muttered in the west, the wind soughed into the room, and the flame of the wax tapers flickered faint messages to the tuberoses. She on the couch sighed softly. The magic of Chopin enveloped them as the plaintive theme broke the air into melodic ripples. It sang her into depths of dreams, anterior to which lurked other dreams--dreams with soft-sounding syllables, dreams that lapped her consciousness into the golden gloom of drugged slumber, dreams opal-tinted and music-melancholy beyond compare. She swooned and then swam out to the infinite with bold, blissful strokes, for he was playing with rare cunning the closing choral-like measures of the first part of the Impromptu.

The moan without deepened into a roar, then came a vermilion flash followed by a crash of thunder. The lights were extinguished, all but one, swayed feebly in the rush of the wind, and the tuberoses listened thirstily to the plash of the new-born rain.

He had begun the D major section of the Impromptu; the rhythmical swing of the bass seemed a proud spirit defying destiny, and the massive chords, with virile assertive tones, blended with the night and roared answer to the thunder’s bellow. They rose to a crescendo, they dominated all, for the man within was storming out his resolves and passions on the keyboard. The fury increased to a sheer height of tone; then, melting away into a mere echo, it almost fainted. His soul chased hers and together they followed the enigmatic tones of that modulation which is an abysm betwixt fragrant meads, and warns them that seek its depths. The lovely F major part glimmered in the air.

“Come back to me, to the first of all;
Let us learn and love it over again.
Let us now forget and now recall,
Break the rosary in a pearly rain,
And gather what we let fall.”

“Browning,” she softly mused, “and life.” The plot thickened, the harmony grew denser--a musical palimpsest lay before them, and as they strove to unweave its meaning they shuddered at the gulf. Weary and panting in spirit they stared askance and questioned the future. “Not that,” the music implored. Then burst that delicious cascade of silvery scales. They coruscated, they foamed, they boiled with melodic laughter. It seemed as if God was with the world and he and she heard the lark trilling to the dawn as hand in hand they mounted in their dizzy flight. Their naked, unabashed souls groped in the azure and they carolled that song which is as old as eternity. They fell through space into fathomless twilight, and the piano sang the echo-like refrain of the first motif. It was the swan-song of their hopes. The heavy-scented night spoke softly to their hearts; a nightingale dimly piped in the distance, and with velvety clangor the music ceased.

He remained at the piano. She rose. Without were odors and starlight. The two drank each other’s gaze with the thirst of lost souls. Then she went into the night, and the other one, staring at the tuberoses, heard their perfumed murmur: “Renounce thou shalt; thou shalt renounce.”

VII

THE VISION MALEFIC

“To be in Heaven the second, he disdains:
So now the first in Hell and flames he reigns,
Crown’d once with joy and light: crown’d now with fire and pains.”

--_Phineas Fletcher_ (1582).

I am not a diabolist. I was an agnostic until ... I have read Huysmans and I do not believe he ever saw half he describes. Yet I, and in commonplace America, have seen things, have heard things, that would make mad the group of Parisian occultists. I dislike publicity, but Vance Thompson has asked me to relate the story, and so I mean to give it, names and all, with the faint hope that it may serve as a warning to callow astrologists, and all the younger generation affected by the writings of impious men who deny the existence of the devil.

More than twenty years ago I was the organist of a Roman Catholic church in the lower part of my city. I had studied the instrument in Germany and believed in Johann Sebastian Bach. I played and pedalled fugues on week-days for my own pleasure, and on Sundays executed with unction easy masses by Bordoni, Mercadante, and Haydn; my choir was not an ambitious one. The stipendium was small, the work light, and the two priests amiable enough. One, a German, Father Oelschlager, was the rector. His assistant was an Irishman with French blood in his veins. His name--shall I ever forget his name and face?--was Father Michael Moreau. He was crazy about music and occultism. The former he made no secret of; the latter I discovered only after a long acquaintance. Moreau came to the organ-loft when I practised on week-days, sang a little, and feasted much on Bach chorales. Urged often to visit his room, I did so, and he showed me rare black-letter missals, and later the backs of a number of old books whose titles I could not decipher. I am no Latinist, yet I knew these volumes were written neither in Latin nor Greek. The characters I had never seen before, and when I remarked their strangeness, Father Moreau smiled and even laughed as I quoted Poe: “the volumes of the Magi--in the iron-bound melancholy volumes of the Magi.”

Music led us to discuss religion, and my friend astonished me by his erudition. His sensitive features would become illuminated when he spoke of the strange tales of the Talmud. “Oh, my God!” he would cry with a patibulary gesture. “Why hast Thou not vouchsafed us more light?” And then would beg for Bach, and on the mighty stream of the D minor fugue his harassed mind seemed to float and find comfort. As time wore on he grew morbid, morose, reticent, and devoted himself to his dull duties with a fanaticism that was almost harsh. The parishioners noticed it, and his reputation for saintliness increased. His confessional was always crowded and his sermons remarkable for the acerbity, the awful pictures he made of the sufferings of the damned and of the relentlessness of God’s wrath. His superior, good-natured Father Oelschlager, bade the other look at the cheerful side of the question, to believe more in God’s mellowness and sweetness, and would quote Cardinal Newman’s Lead Kindly Light, and certain comforting texts from the Scriptures, and then smoke his pipe. But the ascetic temperament of Moreau barred all attempts at palliation or attenuation of the God of Hosts, of the God who laid low the pride of Greece and Rome. Life to him was a cancer to be extirpated, and he confessed to me one night after rehearsal that he had almost doubted God’s existence and courted suicide after reading Renan’s Vie de Jésus. I suggested change of scene, less strenuous labors, above all, the world, music, and athletics. My advice availed not, and I saw that Father Moreau was fast becoming a monomaniac. His sermons during the hot summer were devoted to the personality of the devil, to his corporeal existence, to his daily presence in the marts of mankind; and so constant was his harping on this theme that Father Oelschlager had to forbid him the subject. “It is so warm, my son! Why, then, do you hold forth on hell? Let the poor people hear more of the crystal rivers, the green meads of the New Jerusalem. It would be more seasonable.” Moreau frowned, but obeyed his superior.

With the autumn and winter his habits became more secretive, his visits to me less frequent, and his air of detachment most melancholy. Advent saw him a mere wraith of a man, worn by speculation, devoured by an interior flame, a flame that was wasting his very soul to despair. He seldom conversed with me, although I watched him anxiously and occasionally interrogated him regarding his health. At last I spoke to his associate, but encountered an easy-going philosophic spirit, which assured me Father Moreau was going through what most young priests should. He was at the period of unfaith, was nettled by doubt, and after he had wrestled with Satan, and won the good fight, he would again become normal. This seemed consoling though vague.

The day before Christmas I promised that I would not send a substitute to play the midnight mass at the church. Our church was the only one in the city where the old-fashioned mass at twelve o’clock on Christmas Eve was celebrated. It is located near the river, and my journey was a long one, for I lived up-town. I ate a six o’clock supper and went to bed, telling them to arouse me at a quarter before eleven. I wished to be fresh for the early service. By eleven I was out on the street, and took a car bound south. I reached the church in time, and soon the solemn high mass began. My choir had with elaborate care prepared Cherubini’s mass, and despite the poor organ, the extra chorus and much enthusiasm made some effect. The congregation was attentive, and Father Oelschlager delivered a short, happy sermon, urging his flock to rejoice at the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus the Infant Christ, uncrucified, but newly born into a world of toil and sin for our redemption. At the consecration of the host the good rector’s beaming faith was most edifying. He was served by Father Moreau, a melancholy deacon, indeed. “Ite Missa Est” pronounced, the faithful dismissed, I was overjoyed at the release, for I was tired. The choir chatted about the service, the singing, and at last I was alone. I placed the music-books back in the tall Gothic cupboard, closed the manuals of my instrument, and put on my overcoat. It must have been half past one, perhaps quarter of two, and I relished the prospect of my arrival home, where a warm breakfast would be awaiting me, and then once more to bed, for I had to play the regular half past ten o’clock Christmas mass for the benefit of the sleepy ones, who loved their couch better than their Christ.

Father Moreau met me at the bottom of the choir-loft steps. He was dressed for the street, his eyes were blazing, and as he took my arm his fingers were vise-like. “Will you come with me?” he asked. I was startled. I explained that I would not have much rest, nor should he waste his sleeping time on the dismal, cold streets; besides, I was hungry. I feared that he was about to deluge me with more of his studies in the customs of the early Gnostics, and, to be quite frank, I was worn out and not in a receptive humor for such untoward cryptic wisdom. Any other time--“Will you come with me?” he reiterated, and the clutch on my arm became oppressive. “Where?” I asked, for I hated to affront a friend. “Will you come with me?”

By this time the church was quite empty, and I pushed out into the street. It was dark and snowing hard. We walked toward the street, and as we neared the corner I heard the lucky sound of a horse-car--there were no trolleys then. I excused myself, ran and caught the car; the priest, following, sat down beside me. I paid both fares, and as I had nothing to say we preserved a sad silence. The mean light, the deserted streets, the lonely car, and the muffled strokes of the horses’ hoofs on the snow chilled my soul. I looked sideways at Father Moreau. He was reading a big parchment-covered book, which I saw by the dim lamplight was entitled Le Satanisme, by Jules Bois. I was shocked. A priest fresh from the holy sacrifice of the mass devouring the blasphemies that I was sure were in the gruesome volume, alarmed my piety. Presently he saw me and shut its leaves. “There are curious things in it, my dear friend,” he muttered, and his voice came from across a waste of sorrow. “Curious things; but you are a believer, are you not?” he eagerly repeated. “I am,” I replied devoutly, and I crossed myself. He fairly jumped at me, his eyes wide open and full of devouring flames. “Will you come with me?” he almost screamed, and for the fourth time. “East Street,” called out the conductor, and rather than let my half-mad companion alone--he surely must have been mad--I left the car with him, the conductor gazing after us with cynical eyes. He evidently took us for belated revellers.

We walked slowly for ten minutes until we arrived in front of a sad-looking church, and then I stopped: “The place is not open yet; they do not have Christmas service until five o’clock.” For the last time my companion whispered, “Will you come with me?” and, pushing past me, struck three times on the big doors. A small postern gate opened at once and we entered the vaulted passageway. I trembled at the strangeness of the adventure, and held fast to Moreau, for it was pitch black, and while I heard soft footfalls beside me--the footfalls of an unknown man--I could not see my hand before my face. We must have traversed a long yard, for the wind blew freely about me; I heard it playing on the housetops like a balloon in distress. Yet it felt as if issuing from a sepulchre, and my heart went to my empty stomach. Even in my growing terror I craved for coffee; its aroma would have made me stronger for this inhuman cruise. We went down eleven steps--I counted them--my conductors on either side of me. Dampness and malodors warned me of our proximity to some ancient cellarage, some forgotten catacombs, wherein Father Moreau expected to give me a sacerdotal surprise, a revival perhaps of an antique and early Christian ritual. I feebly applauded his intentions, but wished he had chosen some other time and that the surroundings had been less sinister.

At last we paused and descended another flight of steps--this time I didn’t number them, for the cold was intense, and it was with relief that we suddenly arrived in a dimly lighted and warm chapel. It was empty, devoid of pews, of chairs, of furnishings of any sort, except, at the upper end, a small votive altar. Before it swung a lamp of Byzantine workmanship, in which burned a solitary tongue of yellow flame. The lamp swayed rhythmically, and on the altar were two tall tapers, lighted and perfumed. And then my eyes rested on the spot where should have been the tabernacle, surmounted by the gold cross. Judge of my consternation when I saw, saw as distinctly as I see the pen which traces these letters, a huge bronze serpent, with overlapping, glistening, metallic scales. The eyes of this python were almost feminine, and their regard gentle, reproachful, and voluptuous. My knees bent beneath me and my face was wet with fright.

“You are a believer, then?” crooned a dull voice in my ear. It was Moreau. He had thrown off his outer wrap and stood in a black soutane. He was white with emotion and said in tenderest accents: “Listen; be my friend. Do not desert me at the crisis of my life. It is to be my first mass, my first three o’clock mass. My deacon is already at the altar. Be the solitary worshipper. It will be a low mass--remember, a low mass!” He spoke clearly, rapidly, sanely, and seeing that I had something more than a lunatic to deal with, I removed my overcoat and knelt down near the altar just as Father Moreau ascended its steps, his assistant holding the end of his _black_ canonicals. If it had not been for the apparition of the serpent, I might have fancied that I was assisting at the lonely, pious vigil of a parochial curate. But the eyes of the serpent devoured mine, and I had none for the two silhouetted figures that went through with febrile velocity the familiar motions of the mass. It was low mass, and from the introit to the preface the space was scarcely appreciable. I heard mumblings, and the air became chillier as the celebrants moved and bowed or extended arms; the air grew colder, denser, and tenser. It vibrated like the wires of a monstrous zither, and my temples throbbed as if in the midst of a magnetic storm. I felt that I was nearing a great catastrophe, that God had abandoned His universe to its wicked will, and that I must sob, or scream, or pray, or die, or be damned forever, or--the tap of the silvery little bell was as if a sweet summer air had swum over my agitated soul. It was the bell that announced the solemn moment when God became man, when the divine spirit, by the miracle of transubstantiation, became flesh and blood.

In an ecstasy of faith, of awe, I plunged on my face and adored and wept, and a mighty wind swept from the altar with strange moanings and lamentings, and the lights were extinguished; yet there was a luminous fog, that enfolded us, and in it I saw the great serpent, symbol of wisdom, symbol of eternity, rear spirally aloft, and beneath it--oh, beneath it!--was the Beatific Vision. In swelling nimbus of flame was a counterfeit Mother of God, and holding the hand of Him, of the Infant, Jesus, born but three hours, and--oh, the horror of it!--not _my_ Christ, not _our_ Christ, not the Christ of the Christians, but an Antichrist from some fetid hell, sent to seduce us, curse us, destroy us! My eyes almost burst from their sockets, and the humming of hell’s loom roared about me as I met the gaze--of the Woman. And now her eyes were the serpent’s eyes, and on her head was the crown of hell and its multiple kingdoms. She was naked, and set against her breasts were sharp swords. She was Mater Malorum, and her breath sowed discord, lust, and cruel murder. I yearned to pronounce the name of the true Mother of God, to bid this blinding vision, this damnable vision, vanish, but my tongue was like wet twine and my sight blistered by the pageantry of Satan, of Satan and his Dam. And as I struggled the silvery little bell tapped once more, and in a fading perspective I saw the Madonna and the Child give me such a sweet, beseeching glance that my heart dissolved within me, and I cried aloud, my tongue snapping in the roof of my mouth:

“Mary, Mother of God, preserve us from the Devil and all his works!” A withering streak of light struck my eyeballs, and I glimpsed the serpent falling to earth with distended jaws, as two priestly figures reeled off the altar-steps, and in the brassy clangor of despair we fell, all three, and swooning blackness shut down upon us like smothering velvet.

It was still dark when solicitous hands lifted me to my feet: my coat was thrown about my shoulders, and I was hurried in shivering gloom to the street. The other one disappeared at the little postern gate, and, parting outside, with damp, hot hands, and face plastered with hideous passion, the mad priest said to me, in a cracked voice:

“You have seen _my_ God, the only true God of hell--heaven and earth.”

BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER

_What some distinguished writers have said of them_:

Maurice Maeterlinck wrote, May 15, 1905: “Do you know that ‘Iconoclasts’ is the only book of high and universal critical worth that we have had for years--to be precise, since Georg Brandes. It is at once strong and fine, supple and firm, indulgent and sure.”

And of “Ivory Apes and Peacocks” he said, among other things: “I have marvelled at the vigilance and clarity with which you follow and judge the new literary and artistic movements in all countries. I do not know of criticism more pure and sure than yours.” (October, 1915.)

* * * * *

“The Mercure de France translated the other day from Scribner’s one of the best studies which have been written on Stendhal for a long time, in which there was no evasion of the question of Stendhal’s immorality. The author of that article, James Huneker, is, among foreign critics, the one best acquainted with French literature and the one who judges us with the greatest sympathy and with the most freedom. He has protested with force in numerous American journals against the campaign of defamation against France and he has easily proved that those who participate in it are ignorant and fanatical.”--“_Promenades Littéraires_” (_Troisième Série_), _Remy de Gourmont._ (Translated by Burton Rascoe for the Chicago _Tribune_.)

* * * * *

Paul Bourget wrote, Lundi de Paques, 1909, of “Egoists”: “I have browsed through the pages of your book and found that you touch in a sympathetic style on diverse problems, artistic and literary. In the case of Stendhal your catholicity of treatment is extremely rare and courageous.”

* * * * *

Dr. Georg Brandes, the versatile and profound Danish critic, wrote: “I find your breadth of view and its expression more European than American; but the essential thing is that you are an artist to your very marrow.”

UNICORNS

“The essays are short, full of a satisfying--and fascinating--crispness, both memorable and delightful. And they are full of fancy, too, of the gayest humor, the quickest appreciation, the gentlest sympathy, sometimes of an enchanting extravagance.”

--_New York Times._

MELOMANIACS

“It would be difficult to sum up ‘Melomaniacs’ in a phrase. Never did a book, in my opinion at any rate, exhibit greater contrasts, not, perhaps, of strength and weakness, but of clearness and obscurity.”

--HAROLD E. GORST, in _London Saturday Review_ (Dec. 8, 1906).

VISIONARIES

“In ‘The Spiral Road’ and in some of the other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne’s Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering, and unblessed. But Hawthorne’s splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker’s stories.”

--_London Academy_ (Feb. 3, 1906).

ICONOCLASTS:

A Book of Dramatists

“His style is a little jerky, but it is one of those rare styles in which we are led to expect some significance, if not wit, in every sentence.”

--G. K. CHESTERTON, in _London Daily News_.

MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC

“Mr. Huneker is, in the best sense, a critic; he listens to the music and gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words as possible; or he sketches the composers in fine, broad, sweeping strokes with a magnificent disregard for unimportant details. And as Mr. Huneker is, as I have said, a powerful personality, a man of quick brain and an energetic imagination, a man of moods and temperament--a string that vibrates and sings in response to music--we get in these essays of his a distinctly original and very valuable contribution to the world’s tiny musical literature.”

--J. F. RUNCIMAN, in _London Saturday Review_.

IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS

“Out of the depressing welter of our American writing upon æsthetics, with its incredible thinness and triteness and paltriness, its intellectual sterility, its miraculous dulness, its limitless and appalling vapidity, Mr. James Huneker, and the small and honorable minority of his peers, emerge with a conspicuousness that is both comforting and disgraceful.... Susceptibility, clairvoyance, immediacy of response, are his; he is the friend of any talent that is fine and strange and frank enough to incur the dislike of the mighty army of Bourbons, Puritans, and Bœotians. He is innocent of prepossessions. He is infinitely flexible and generous. Yet if, in the twenty years that we have been reading him, he has ever praised a commonplace talent, we have no recollection of it. His critical tact is well-nigh infallible.... His position among writers on æsthetics is anomalous and incredible: no merchant traffics in his heart, yet he commands a large, an eager, an affectionate public. Is it because he is both vivid and acute, robust yet fine-fingered, tolerant yet unyielding, astringent yet tender--a mellow pessimist, a kindly cynic? Or is it rather because he is, primarily, a temperament--dynamic, contagious, lovable, inveterately alive--expressing itself through the most transparent of the arts?”

--LAWRENCE GILMAN, in _North American Review_ (October, 1915).

NEW COSMOPOLIS

“Mr. James Huneker, critic of music in the first place, is a craftsman of diverse accomplishment who occupies a distinctive and distinguished place among present-day American essayists. He is intensely ‘modern,’ well read in recent European writers, and not lacking sympathy with the more rebellious spirits. Ancient serenity has laid no chastening hand on his thought and style, but he has achieved at times a fineness of expression that lifts his work above that of the many eager and artistic souls who strive to be the thinkers of New England to-day. He flings off his impressions at fervent heat; he is not ashamed to be enthusiastic; and he cannot escape that large sentimentality which, to less disciplined transatlantic writers, is known nakedly as ‘heart interest.’ Out of his chaos of reading and observation he has, however, evolved a criticism of life that makes for intellectual cultivation, although it is of a Bohemian rather than an academic kind. Given a different environment, another training, Mr. Huneker might have emerged as an American Walter Pater.”--_London Athenæum_ (November 6, 1915).

FRANZ LISZT

_WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS_

CHOPIN: The Man and His Music

OVERTONES:

A Book of Temperaments

_WITH FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT OF RICHARD STRAUSS_

“In some respects Mr. Huneker must be reckoned the most brilliant of all living writers on matters musical.”

--_Academy, London._

THE PATHOS OF DISTANCE

A Book of a Thousand and One Moments

“He talks about Bergson as well as Matisse; he never can keep still about Wagner; he hauls over his French library of modern immortals, and he gives a touch to George Moore, to Arthur Davies, and to many another valiant worker in paint, music, and letters. The book is stimulating; brilliant even with an unexpected brilliancy.”--_Chicago Tribune._

PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST

“We like best such sober essays as those which analyze for us the technical contributions of Cézanne and Rodin. Here Mr. Huneker is a real interpreter, and here his long experience of men and ways in art counts for much. Charming, in the slighter vein, are such appreciations as the Monticelli and Chardin.”--FRANK JEWETT MATHER, JR., in _New York Nation_ and _Evening Post_.

EGOISTS

_WITH PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS_

“Closely and yet lightly written, full of facts, yet as amusing as a bit of discursive talk, penetrating, candid, and very shrewd.”

--ROYAL CORTISSOZ, in the _New York Tribune_.

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK

Transcriber’s Notes

A few minor punctuation errors were corrected.