Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self Part 43

This rule he carried out in all branches of art,--except his own 'cello-playing. That was NOT great,--that would never be great,--but it was his pet pastime; he chose it in preference to the billiards, betting, and bar-lounging that make up the amus.e.m.e.nts of the majority of the hopeful manhood of London, and, as has already been said, he never inflicted it upon others.

He rubbed the rosin now thoughtfully up and down his bow, and glanced at the quaint old clock--an importation from Nurnberg--that ticked solemnly in one corner near the deep bay-window, across which the heavy olive green plush curtains were drawn, to shut out the penetrating chill of the wind. It wanted ten minutes to nine. He had given orders to his man servant that he was on no account to be disturbed that evening, . . no matter what visitors called for him, none were to be admitted. He had made up his mind to have a long and energetic practice, and he felt a secret satisfaction as he heard the steady patter of the rain outside, . . the very weather favored his desire for solitude,--no one was likely to venture forth on such a night.

Still gravely rubbing his brow, his eyes travelled from the clock in the corner to a photograph on the mantel-shelf--the photograph of a man's face, dark, haughty, beautiful, yet repellent in its beauty, and with a certain hard sternness in its outline--the face of Theos Alwyn.

From this portrait his glance wandered to the table, where, amid a picturesque litter of books and papers, lay a square, simply bound volume, with an ivory leaf-cutter thrust in it to mark the place where the reader left off, and its t.i.tle plainly lettered in gold at the back--"NOURHALMA."

"I wonder where he is!" ... he mused, his thoughts naturally reverting to the author of the book.. "He cannot know what all London knows, or surely he would be back here like a shot! It is six months ago now since I received his letter and that poem in ma.n.u.script from Tiflis in Armenia,--and not another line has he sent to tell me of his whereabouts! Curious fellow he is! ... but, by Jove, what a genius! No wonder he has besieged Fame and taken it by storm! I don't remember any similar instance, except that of Byron, in which such an unprecedented reputation was made so suddenly! And in Byron's case it was more the domestic scandal about him than his actual merit that made him the rage, . . now the world knows literally nothing about Alwyn's private life or character--there's no woman in his history that I know of--no vice, ... he hasn't outraged the law, upset morals, flouted at decency, or done anything that according to modern fashions OUGHT to have made him famous--no! ... he has simply produced a perfect poem, stately, grand, pure, and pathetic,--and all of a sudden some secret spring in the human heart is touched, some long-closed valve opened, and lo and behold, all intellectual society is raving about him,--his name is in everybody's mouth, his book in every one's hands. I don't altogether like his being made the subject of a 'craze';--experience shows me it's a kind of thing that doesn't last. In fact, it CAN'T last.. the reaction invariably sets in. And the English public is, of all publics, the most insane in its periodical frenzies, and the most capricious.

Now, it is all agog for a 'shilling sensational'--then it discusses itself hoa.r.s.e over a one-sided theological novel made up out of theories long ago propounded and exhaustively set forth by Voltaire, and others of his school,--anon it revels in the gross descriptions of shameless vice depicted in an 'accurately translated' romance of the Paris slums,--now it writes thousands of letters to a black man, to sympathize With him because he has been CALLED black!--could anything be more absurd! ... it has even followed the departure of an elephant from the Zoo in weeping crowds! However, I wish all the crazes to which it is subject were as harmless and wholesome as the one that has seized it for Alwyn's book,--for if true poetry were brought to the front, instead of being, as it often is, sneered at and kept in the background, we should have a chance of regaining the lost Divine Art, that, wherever it has been worthily followed, has proved the glory of the greatest nations. And then we should not have to put up with such detestable inanities as are produced every day by persons calling themselves poets, who are scarcely fit to write mottoes for dessert crackers, . . and we might escape for good and all from the infliction of 'magazine-verse,' which is emphatically a positive affront to the human intelligence. Ah me! what wretched upholders we are of Shakespeare's standard! ... Keats was our last splendor,--then there is an unfilled gap, bridged in part by Tennyson..... and now comes Alwyn blazing abroad like a veritable meteor,--only I believe he will do more than merely flare across the heavens,--he promises to become a notable fixed star."

Here he smiled, somewhat pleased with his own skill in metaphor, and having rubbed his bow enough, he drew it lingeringly across the 'cello strings. A long, sweet, shuddering sound rewarded him, like the upward wave of a wind among high trees, and he heard it with much gratification. He would try the Cavatina again now, he decided, and bringing his music-stand closer, he settled himself in readiness to begin. Just then the Nurnberg clock commenced striking the hour, accompanying each stroke with a very soft and mellow little chime of bells that sent fairy-like echoes through the quiet room. A bright flame started up from the glowing fire in the grate, flinging ruddy flashes along the walls,--a rattling gust of rain dashed once at the windows,--the tuneful clock ceased, and all was still. Villiers waited a moment; then with heedful earnestness, started the first bar of Raff's oft-murdered composition, when a knock at the door disturbed him and considerably ruffled his equanimity.

"Come in!" he called testily.

His man-servant appeared, a half-pleased, half-guilty look on his staid countenance.

"Please, sir, a gentleman called--"

"Well!--you said I was out?"

"No, sir! leastways I thought you might be at home to him, sir!"

"Confound you!" exclaimed Villiers petulantly, throwing down his bow in disgust,--"What business had you to think anything about it? ... Didn't I tell you I wasn't at home to ANYBODY?"

"Come, come, Villiers!".. said a mellow voice outside, with a ripple of suppressed laughter in its tone, . . "Don't be inhospitable! I'm sure you are at home to ME!"

And pa.s.sing by the servant, who at once retired, the speaker entered the apartment, lifted his hat, and smiled. Villiers sprang from his chair in delighted astonishment.

"Alwyn!" he cried; and the two friends--whose friendship dated from boyhood--clasped each other's hands heartily, and were for a moment both silent,--half-ashamed of those affectionate emotions to which impulsive women may freely give vent, but to which men may not yield without being supposed to lose somewhat of the dignity of manhood.

"By Jove!" said Villiers at last, drawing a deep breath. "This IS a surprise! Only a few minutes ago I was considering whether we should not have to note you down in the newspaper as one of the 'mysterious disappearances' grown common of late! Where do you come from, old fellow?"

"From Paris just directly," responded Alwyn, divesting himself of his overcoat, and stepping outside the door to hang it on an evidently familiar nail in the pa.s.sage, and then re-entering,--"But from Bagdad in the first instance. I visited that city, sacred to fairy-lore, and from thence journeyed to Damascus like one of our favorite merchants in the Arabian Nights,--then I went to Beyrout, and Alexandria, from which latter place I took ship homeward, stopping at delicious Venice while on my way."

"Then you did the Holy Land, I suppose?" queried Villiers, regarding him with sudden and growing inquisitiveness.

"My dear fellow, certainly NOT! The Holy Land, invested by touts, and overrun by tourists, would neither appeal to my imagination nor my sentiments--and in its present state of vulgar abuse and unchristian sacrilege, it is better left unseen by those who wish to revere its a.s.sociations, . . don't you think so?"

He smiled as he put the question, and drawing up an old-fashioned oak chair to the fire, seated himself. Villiers meanwhile stared at him in unmitigated amazement, . . what had come to the fellow, he wondered?

How had he managed to invest himself with such an overpowering distinction of look and grace of bearing? He had always been a handsome man,--yes, but there was certainly something more than handsome about him now. There was a singular magnetism in the flash of the fine soft eyes, a marvellous sweetness in the firm lines of the perfect mouth, a royal grandeur and freedom in the very poise of his well-knit figure and n.o.ble head, that certainly had not before been apparent in him.

Moreover, that was an odd remark for him to make about "wishing to revere" the a.s.sociations of the Holy Land,--very odd, considering his formerly skeptical theories!

Rousing himself from his momentary bewilderment, Villiers remembered the duties of hospitality.

"Have you dined, Alwyn?" he asked, with his hand on the bell.

"Excellently!" was the response, accompanied by a bright upward glance; "I went to that big hotel opposite the Park, had dinner, left the surplus of my luggage in charge, selected one small portmanteau, took a hansom and came on here, resolved to pa.s.s one night at least under your roof ..."

"One night!" interrupted Villiers; "You're very much mistaken, if you think you are going to get off so easily! You'll not escape from me for a month, I tell you! Consider yourself a prisoner!"

"Good! Send for the luggage to-morrow!" laughed Alwyn, flinging himself back in his chair in an att.i.tude of lazy comfort, "I give in!--I resign myself to my fate! But what of the 'cello?"

And he pointed to the bulgy-looking casket of sweet sleeping sounds--sleeping generally so far as Villiers was concerned, but ready to wake at the first touch of the master-hand. Villiers glanced at it with a comical air of admiring vanquishment.

"Oh, never mind the 'cello!" he said indifferently, "that can bear being put by for a while. It's a most curious instrument,--sometimes it seems to sound better when I have let it rest a little. Just like a human thing, you know--it gets occasionally tired of me, I suppose! But I say, why didn't you come straight here, bag, baggage, and all? ...

What business had you to stop on the way at any hotel? ... Do you call that friendship?"

Alwyn laughed at his mock injured tone.

"I apologize, Villiers! ... I really do! But I felt it would be scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board, and lodging, without giving you previous notice, and at the same time I wanted to take you by surprise, as I DID. Besides I wasn't sure whether I should find you in town--of course I knew I should be welcome if you were!"

"Rather!" a.s.sented Villiers shortly and with affected gruffness.. "If you were sure of nothing else in this world, you might be sure of that!".. He paused squared his shoulders, and put up his eyegla.s.s, through which he scanned his friend with such a persistently scrutinizing air, that Alwyn was somewhat amused.

"What are you staring at me for?" he demanded gayly,--"Am I so bronzed?"

"Well--you ARE rather brown," admitted Villiers slowly ... "But that doesn't surprise me. The fact is, it's very odd and I can't altogether explain it, but somehow I find you changed, . . positively very much changed too!"

"Changed? In appearance, do you mean? How?"

"'Look here upon this picture and on this,'" quoted Villiers dramatically, taking down Alwyn's portrait from the mantleshelf, and mentally comparing it with the smiling original. "No two heads were ever more alike, and yet more distinctly UNlike. Here"--and he tapped the photograph--"you have the appearance of a modern Timon or Orestes..

but now, as you actually ARE, I see more resemblance in your face to THAT"--and he pointed to the serene and splendid bust of the "Apollo"--"than to this 'counterfeit presentment,' of your former self."

Alwyn flushed,--not so much at the implied compliment, as at the words "FORMER SELF." But quickly shaking off his embarra.s.sment, he glanced round at the "Apollo" and lifted his eyebrows incredulously.

"Then all I can say, my dear boy, is, that that eyegla.s.s of yours represents objects to your own view in a cla.s.sic light which is entirely deceptive, for I fail to trace the faintest similitude between my own features and that of the sunborn Lord of Laurels."

"Oh, YOU may not trace it," said Villiers calmly, "but nevertheless others will. Some people say that no man knows what he really is like, and that even his own reflection in the gla.s.s deceives him. Besides, it is not so much the actual contour for the features that impresses one, it is the LOOK,--you have the LOOK of the Greek G.o.d, the look of conscious power and inward happiness."

He spoke seriously, thoughtfully,--surveying his friend with a vague feeling of admiration akin to reverence.

Alwyn stooped, and stirred the fire into a brighter blaze. "Well, so far, my looks do not belie me," he said gently, after a pause.. "I AM conscious of both power and joy!"

"Why, naturally!" and Villiers laid one hand affectionately on his shoulder.. "Of course the face of the whole world has changed for you, now that you have won such tremendous fame!"

"FAME!"--Alwyn sprang upright so suddenly that Villiers was quite startled,--"Fame! Who says I am famous?" And his eyes flashed forth an amazed, almost haughty resentment.

His friend stared--then laughed outright.

"Who says it? ... Why, all London says it. Do you mean to tell me, Alwyn, that you've not seen the English papers and magazines, containing all the critical reviews and discussions on your poem of 'Nourhalma?"

Alwyn winced at the t.i.tle,--what a host of strange memories it recalled!

"I have seen nothing," he replied hurriedly, "I have made it a point to look at no papers, lest I should chance on my own name coupled, as it has been before, with the languid abuse common to criticism in this country. Not that I should have cared,--NOW! ..." and a slight smile played on his lips.. "In fact I have ceased to care. Moreover, as I know modern success in literature is chiefly commanded by the praise of a 'clique,' or the services of 'log-rollers,' and as I am not included in any of the journalistic rings, I have neither hoped nor expected any particular favor or recognition from the public."

"Then," said Villiers excitedly, seizing him by the hand, "let me be the first to congratulate you! It is often the way that when we no longer specially crave a thing, that thing is suddenly thrust upon us whether we will or no,--and so it has happened in YOUR case. Learn, therefore, my dear fellow, that your poem, which you sent to me from Tiflis, and which was published under my supervision about four months ago, has already run through six editions, and is now in its seventh.

Seven editions of a poem,---a POEM, mark you!--in four months, isn't bad, . . moreover, the demand continues, and the long and the short of it is, that your name is actually at the present moment the most celebrated in all London,--in fact, you are very generally acknowledged the greatest poet of the day! And," continued Villiers, wringing his friend's hand with uncommon fervor.. "I say, G.o.d bless you, old boy! If ever a man deserved success, YOU do! 'Nourhalma' is magnificent!--such a genius as yours will raise the literature of the age to a higher standard than it has known since the death of Adonais [Footnote: Keats.] You can't imagine how sincerely I rejoice at your triumph!"

Alwyn was silent,--he returned his companion's cordial hand-pressure almost unconsciously. He stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, and looking gravely down into the fire. His first emotion was one of repugnance,--of rejection, . . what did he need of this will-o'-the-wisp called Fame, dancing again across his path,--this transitory torch of world-approval! Fame in London! ... What was it, what COULD it be, compared to the brilliancy of the fame he had once enjoyed as Laureate of Al-Kyris! As this thought pa.s.sed across his mind, he gave a quick interrogative glance at Villiers, who was observing him with much wondering intentness, and his handsome face lighted with sudden laughter.

"Dear old boy!" he said, with a very tender inflection in his mellow, mirthful voice--"You are the best of good fellows, and I thank you heartily for your news, which, if it seems satisfactory to you, ought certainly to be satisfactory to me! But tell me frankly, if I am as famous as you say, how did I become so? ... how was it worked up?"