Chapter XXXV: Section 5: Thyris invested in a newspaper, and as they went back to

get the violin they read the advertisements of furnished rooms. In respectable neighborhoods which they tried they found that the prices were impossible for them; but at last, upon the edge of a tenement district, they found a corner flat-house, with a saloon underneath, where there were two tiny bedrooms for rent in an apartment. The woman, who was a seamstress, was away a good deal in the day, and Corydon learned with delight that she might use the piano in the parlor. The rooms were the smallest they had ever seen, but they were clean, and the price was only fifty cents a day--a dollar and a half a week for Thyrsis’ and two dollars for Corydon’s, because there was a steam-radiator in it.

There was a racket of school-children and of streetcars from the avenue below, but they judged they would get used to this; and having duly satisfied the landlady that they were married, and having ascertained that she had no objection to “light housekeeping,” they engaged the rooms and paid a week’s rent in advance.

“That leaves us two and a half to start life on!” said Thyrsis, when they were on the street again. “Our housekeeping will be light indeed!”

They walked on, and sat down in the park to talk it over.

“It’s not nearly so reckless as it would seem,” he argued. “For I have to earn money for myself any-how. And then there’s the book.”

“When will you hear about it?”

“I called the man up the day before yesterday. He said they were reading it.”

“Have you said anything to him about money?”

“Not yet.”

“Will they pay something in advance?”

“They will, I guess, if they like the story. I don’t know very much about the business end of it.”

“We mustn’t let them take advantage of us!” exclaimed Corydon.

“No, of course not. But I hate to have to think about the money side of it. It’s a cruel thing that I have to sell my inspiration.”

“What else could you do?” she asked.

“It’s something I’ve thought a great deal about,” said he. “It kept forcing itself upon me all the time I was writing. Here I am with my vision--working day and night to make something beautiful and sacred, something without taint of self. And I have to take it to business-men, who will go out into the market-place and sell it to make money! It will come into competition with thousands of other books--and the publishers shouting their virtues like so many barkers at a fair. I can hardly bear to think of it; I’d truly rather live in a garret all my days than see it happen. I don’t want the treasures of my soul to be hawked on the streets.”

“But how else could people get them?” asked Corydon.

“I would like to have a publishing-house of my own, and to print my books with good paper and strong bindings that would last, and then sell them for just what they cost. So the whole thing would be consistent, and I could tell the exact truth about what I wrote. For I know the truth about my work; I’ve no vanities, I’d be as remorseless a critic of myself as Shelley was. I’d be willing to leave it to time for my real friends to find me out--I’d give up the department-store public to the authors who wanted it. And then, too, I could sell my books cheaply, so that the poor could get them. I always shudder to think that the people who most need what I write will have it kept away from them, because I am holding it back to make a profit!”

“We must do that some day!” declared Corydon.

“We must live very simply,” he said, “so we can begin it soon. Perhaps we can do it with the money we get from this first book. We could get everything we need for a thousand dollars a year, and save the balance.”

The other assented to this.

“I’ve got the prospectus of my publishing-house all written,” Thyrsis went on. “And I’ve several other plans worked out--people would laugh if they saw them, I guess. But before I get through, I’m going to have a reading-room where anyone can come and get my books. It’ll be down where the poor people are; and I’m going to have travelling libraries, so as to reach people in the country. That is the one hope for better things, as I see it--we must get ideas to the people!”

Thus discoursing, they strolled back to the home of Thyrsis’ mother, and he went in to get his belongings together. Corydon went with him; and as they entered, the mother said, “There’s an express package for you.”

So Thyrsis went to his room, and saw a flat package lying on the bed. He stared at it, startled, and then picked it up and read the label upon it. “Why--why!--” he gasped; and then he seized a pair of scissors and cut the string and opened it. It was his manuscript!

With trembling fingers he turned it over. There was a letter with it, and he snatched it up. “We regret,” it read, “that we cannot make you an offer for the publication of your book. Thanking you for the privilege of examining it, we are very truly yours.” And that was all!

“They’ve rejected the book!” gasped Thyrsis; and the two stared at each other with consternation and horror in their eyes.

That was a possibility that had never occurred to Thyrsis in his wildest moment. That anyone in his senses could reject that book! That anyone could read a single chapter of it and not see what it was!

“They only had it five days!” he exclaimed; and instantly an explanation flashed across his mind. “I don’t believe they read it!” he cried. “I don’t believe they ever looked at it!”

But, read or unread, there was the manuscript--rejected. There was no appeal from the decision; there was no explanation, no apology--they had simply rejected it! It was like a blow in the face to Thyrsis; he felt like a woman whose love is spurned.

“Oh the fools! The miserable fools!” he cried.

But he could not bring much comfort to his soul by that method. The seriousness of it remained. The publishing-house was one of the largest and most prosperous in the country; and if they were fools, how many more fools might there not be among those who stood between him and the public? And if so, what would he do?