Samuel Merwin

“ It is not easy to do, Crocker. But Heloise must go to Europe, and take up her study. Her gifts, her hopes, all lead her straight toward opera. Neither you nor I has the right to stop her. It is the instinct for expression, nothing else. You have followed that instinct freely in your own life and work. I have followed it freely in mine. Now let her do the same. Work—the sort of work that will give scope to his own peculiar sort of energy—is what every human being needs. It is, above all, what Heloise needs. ”

“ Through the windows and the open doorways one caught glimpses of the spring flowers and blossoms that play so great and fine a part in the esthetic life of this extraordinary people. And here and there, at a window or over a balcony railing, could be seen a face—a quaint and girlish face with glossy black hair done up fantastically high over wide shell combs and with glimpses of flowered silks about slim shoulders. The fragrance of the early cherry and plum blossoms was in the air.
The famous “Number Nine” proved to be a large house at the end of the street. The door stood invitingly open. ”

“ There was a circle of tourists about the old Chinese conjuror who sat on his heels in a corner among his cloths and bowls and what not; I walked slowly around this circle, seeking the erect figure, the solid shoulders, and the drink-flushed face of Crocker.
I walked deliberately through the lounge, studying every solitary figure there among the easy chairs and the little tables and the potted shrubbery.
I went down the long corridor to the bar, and stood squarely on the threshold surveying the large room. There was a considerable number of men there—fifty or more, easily. ”

“ It grows by feeding on itself. It exalts. It devastates. It contains within itself all the latent possibilities of nobility and service, of lust and jealousy, of tenderness, of sacrifice, of murder. It is a blind, insistent force; yet it shines before the mind's eye like dewdrops on the gossamer wings of fairies.
When morning finally came, I stood there at my window and watched the sun climb slowly over the Legation walls. It was a flat red sun, hung behind a film of dusty air.
I wondered how long it would be before I should tap on Heloise's door. Not long. ”

“ For this life of mine is a working life no longer. It has turned off into the dark byways of passion. My purpose, hitherto compelling, falters now. My once clear mind is clouded and confused. I do not know when I shall work again. I do not know what I shall do. I only know that all is dark and still in the room next to this dingy room of mine, and that a sad, beautiful woman sleeps softly there. I only know that I love her beyond my strength, and yet that I seem unable to hate the man who would hate me if he knew. ”

“ Surely every human being, at certain intense moments of his life, needs a confidant. And I suppose there is never any telling, in a given case, what sort of individual will be chosen for the trust. Crocker chose me—and Sir Robert! I chose Mr. Hindmann, of Cincinnati... sitting there in a corner of the lounge of the Hôtel Wagon-lits, talking in a low voice in order that the little groups of American and British folk and Germans might not hear the details of the love that has so very nearly' torn my life to pieces. ”

“ We have no longer the poignantly intimate sense of apartness from the world that we had during those strange, wonderful days at the Hôtel de Chine. The world has thrust itself between us. I can see now that we were a million miles away from actual life, over there in our two little rooms with the shrunken door between. ”

“ Sometimes, when I talk with a hard, practical man of the world, I find myself feeling vaguely out of it all. My life, devoted as it is to the discovery and classification of facts, is certainly a practical life; yet I seem to dwell aside from the main current. I do not quite catch the point of view of a rough-handed rich man like Crocker. And when I speak my mind, as I always endeavor to do, men do not resent it. I do not understand this. Come to think of it, I was decidedly outspoken last night with Sir Robert. ”

“ A few days ago I would not have observed his condition with any sympathetic understanding; but now that I, too, have been torn between the exaltation of love and the degradation of jealousy, I can only shake my head in a sad sort of wonder at the mysterious strength of these forces that drive men and women together, and apart, and that linger even after a mismating and a subsequent separation to stir and bewilder the spirit.... Yes, I can, in a way, feel with Crocker now. ”

“ Holding so curious a faith, it was surely natural enough that he should have tried to force poor Heloise's life into his own hard mold of thought and habit. Nor is it unnatural that he should have been outraged when this lovely possession turned in despair from the atmosphere of suppression and inactivity in which he had been so determined to keep her and tried, blunderingly, all wrong, to find an outlet for the fine spirit stirring in the depths of her being.
For this was rebellion. And Crocker, I can see, hates rebellion. His sort always do. ”

“ No person in the world—not a single living being—has quite so great a need for absolute pitch as I. With that, coupled with my ear for intervals, I would stand as the one scholar perfectly equipped for my own line of investigation. As it is, I am not unlike an astronomer with enthusiasm, exhaustive knowledge, a fine mathematical brain, and a marvelous seeing eye, but with a very slight—oh,—very slight—touch of color-blindness. ”

“ Sir Robert again drew a long, long breath. “But what's the use, Eckhart?” said he. “What you say is of course true. But why make a Quixote of yourself? Why be a dam' fool! Society does cling to its little lie. Even at a sacrifice of half the women in the world. Admitting that some of our traditions are nothing more than outworn tribal notions, what's the use of beating your brains out against them. I tell you, my boy, if you talk too much of that sort of truth the world will kill you. And the women who call themselves good will lead the attack, for they are the sheltered, the privileged class. ”

“ Despite his condition at the moment, I felt again, looking at his shoulders and chest and arms and the outlines of his head, the primitive force of the man. And the expression of his face, now maudlin with drink, oddly recalled my memory of him as I had last seen him at the Yokohama station when there were tears on it. I had never before seen a man cry. I do not know that the possibility of such extreme emotion in a strong man had ever occurred to me. ”

“ My mind was racing back into dim periods of Chinese history. It would be interesting to know where those jade stones have been—in what old royal palaces of Peking, Nanking, Hangchau, Sian-fu—through what wars they have lain buried or have passed from one conquering hand to another—in what stately caravans they may have been transported across a swarming, prostrate land. From their appearance they must have been in existence long before the destructive hand of the old Emperor Che Huang-ti was raised against every book and every instrument of art or music in the land. ”

“ There will be failures, but we shall be patient. My life work is to be a true science at last. They can no longer say that it depends on the caprice of a single human ear. They shall now hear for themselves, they shall make their own comparisons, working with our absolute phonographic scale. Who knows, perhaps we shall yet make the final perfect scale of eighty-one distinct notes to the octave. No voice has yet done that. And no violin. For no living performer has the delicacy of ear and muscle. ”

“ And yet, Anthony, you have the hardihood, you assume the wisdom, to decide for us both—squarely against the dictates of both our hearts. You assume not only to decide for us now—you are deciding what the future would be if we should stay together. And that is—why, that is silly, Anthony. There never was a man and woman who needed each other more than you and I need each other.” Her voice dropped, and softened. “I don't think a man and woman ever loved more wonderfully, Anthony. We are n't children. ”

“ The Chinese waiter had turned back, by this time, and stood, bowing respectfully by his chair.
Crocker swore under his breath, sprang to his feet, and with a short, hard swing of his right hand struck the unsuspecting Chinaman on the jaw.
I never before saw a man fall in precisely that way. Indeed, it was not a fall in the ordinary sense of the word. It was more like a sudden paralysis. ”

“ I see confusion in your face. You are groping for something to say about the music of Greece. Very well; I will say it for you. The Greeks had no piano, because they had no harmony. They did not know that harmony was possible. And if they had heard it, they would not have liked it.”
“Ah,” cried Sir Robert, flushing under the parchment of his skin, and (I must say) taking up the gage of battle, “but Greece gave us our diatonic system. The root of our scale, the tetrachord, came to us from the Greeks.”
I laughed him down. The intervals of that Greek tetrachord were not the same as ours. ”

“ In the “social hall” some ungoverned young thing is eternally at the piano—“On the Mississippi” and “The Robert E. Lee” and the other musical literature of the turkey trot. I could not possibly sit five minutes there without shrieking. Outside, on deck, it has been raw and chill for a week, with rain penetrating my clothing and misting the lenses of my spectacles and rousing my slumbering rheumatism. And you can not sit long in a stuffy cabin, with the port screwed fast; it is unpleasant enough sleeping there.... So I have huddled myself each night in a corner of the smoking-room. ”

“ I am writing this journal for my own eyes alone; and, God knows, hours enough of my life have been wasted in the pale avenues of introspection. I am not a wholly bloodless being. And I know well enough that the average man buys women now and then, here and there, whatever obligation he may think himself under to conceal the fact and thereby contribute his support to the immense foundation lie on which our Anglo-Saxon structure of virtue and morality rests. ”

“ It is a difficult business. Sometimes, at night, when my imagination slips out of control and dream-pictures come of a home of my own, it is almost more than I can bear. Last night I had to switch on the lights and work until daylight over the notes for Volume Six. (That is to be the section devoted to “True Intervals and Natural Song.”)
I am driving myself to think constantly of the other side of the picture—to realize how beautiful Heloise is, what a person she is and what a voice she has. No home that I could conceivably offer her would be large enough to contain her life. ”

“ Primitive races invariably express their emotions in primitive music. They try to tell me that the Chinese are a civilized people. 'Very well,' I say then; 'let me hear their music.' No nation has progressed far along the great highroad of civilization without coming into an understanding of the diatonic system. The Chinese civilized? When their finest musical instrument is the little sheng, a crude collection of twelve pipes that are not even in tune? When they have failed to arrive at even a rudimentary perception of tonality and scale relationships? ”

“ She did not see Crocker's face, there at the Yokohama station. She does not dream that he is scouring the Coast for her from Mukden to Singapore—that in his heart, where pity should be, there is outraged pride, and the exhausting bewilderment of a man who has only a code where he should have been taught a philosophy—and murder.
This world is hard on women. Perhaps because we men run it. ”

“ He holds ideas regarding men, women and morality that are profoundly repellent to me, this crude yet not wholly unattractive man. He is permitting his life to be wrecked for these ideas—which at least indicates some sincerity. Heaven knows a man can't “own” a woman, or a woman “own” a man. Neither can possibly possess more of the other than that other is compelled by the power of love to give. There are no “rights” in love.
Yet—and this is the puzzling thing—when I was with Crocker, I liked him. ”

“ I was thinking of the men I knew, and what they had done. I thought of Crocker and his outrageous code. I thought of my own latest episode of the sort—with the little girl at “Number Nine”—and of the queer masculine twist in my own thinking that had led me to consider myself “unmanly” because I had run away from that girl when she wanted me to stay.
No, I could not bear to have her speak or even think so of herself. So I said, still holding her there before me:
“Men are accustomed to judge women, Heloise. You say that I must know what you have done. ”

“ I gripped her shoulders. I tried to make her look at me. For it would not do for us to go all to pieces—we must face this thing.
“Heloise, dear—you are making me say it, but you knew the problem is there. You have not forgotten what those three great singers said?”
“No,” she murmured, “I remember well enough.” But still she would not look up.
“You know what they said... the art of the opera singer is the most exacting thing in the world. There is no place in it for a husband, a home... and children, dear. ”

“ I could finish the packing later. Certainly, I could n't finish it now, with every nerve tip quiveringly conscious of her nearness, there behind the thin partition and the shrunken door.
If I should find it too hard to come back later, I decided then, I would send a Chinese valet from the other hotel to finish the job for me.
Among the qualities that go to make up the unrest that we call love, it appears that self-absorption plays no small part. Perhaps this selfishness, lying at the root of desire, is the element of positive force in love. ”

“ In the next room Heloise was still singing, softly and brightly.
I stepped out on the little balcony.
What was it Sir Robert had said? Oh, yes, that Crocker had come to Peking. This was dreadful. It meant trouble. One way or the other, I myself was involved in this trouble. A wife is, in a sense, the property of her husband—in a sense. If she dishonors his home by leaving him for another, he has some right to be indignant. If his outraged sense of possession lashes him into a murderous passion he can not be stopped from killing her. ”

“ It is Heloise's last gift to me, done in a strange sort of joy that, even to-night, breaks triumphantly through the shadow that lies on her life and mine.
She watched me while I removed the last of the twelve cylinders, and carefully sealed it in its separate box, and wrote the label. Then she said:
“Oh, Anthony, it is so—worth while!”
All I could say in reply—so full was my heart—was:
“Yes, dear. Work is the answer.” ”

“ It was Heloise's handkerchief.
I held the absurdly small square of linen and lace in my two hands and looked at it. I folded and unfolded it. I pressed it to my lips, again and again.
Am I to become the helpless victim of these crude emotional uprushes—like any common clerk with his shopgirl? I, who have for so long observed the human herd from afar with a sort of casual interest?... I wonder.
Suddenly the thought of the man Crocker came to me. He was in this city. He was over there in the Legation Quarter, behind the walls that I could see—over in the big hotel. He was drinking again. ”