O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 28

Waram lifted the dead body and pushed it over the edge. Grimshaw, trembling violently, watched it fall. I think, from what Doctor Waram told me many years later, that the poet must have suffered the violence and terror of that plummet drop, must have felt the tearing clutch of pointed rocks in the wall face, must have known the leaping upward of the earth, the whine of wind in his bursting ears, the dizzy spinning, the rending, obliterating impact at last....

The pedlar lay in the valley. Grimshaw stood on the brink of the "wall." He turned, and saw Doctor Waram walking quickly away across the plateau without a backward glance. They had agreed that Waram was to return at once to the village and report the death of "his friend, Mr. Grimshaw." The body, they knew, would be crushed beyond recognition--a bruised and broken fragment, like enough to Cecil Grimshaw to pa.s.s whatever examination would be given it. Grimshaw himself was to go through the wood to the highroad, then on to Finhaut and Chamonix and into France. He was never again to write to Dagmar, to return to England, or to claim his English property....

Can you imagine his feelings--deprived of his arrogant personality, his fame, his very ident.i.ty, clothed in another man's dirty garments, wearing about his neck a clattering pedlar's outfit, upon his feet the clumsy boots of a peasant? Grimshaw--the exquisite futurist, the daffodil, apostle of the aesthetic!

He stood for a moment looking after Douglas Waram. Once, in a panic, he called. But Waram disappeared between the larches, without, apparently, having heard. Grimshaw wavered, unable to decide upon the way to the highroad. He could not shake off a sense of loneliness and terror, as if he himself had gone whirling down to his death. Like a man who comes slowly back from the effects of ether, he perceived, one by one, the familiar aspects of the landscape--the delicate flowers powdering the plateau, the ta.s.selled larches on the slope, the lofty snow-peaks still suffused with rosy morning light. This, then, was the world. This clumsy being, moving slowly toward the forest, was himself--not Cecil Grimshaw but another man. His mind sought clumsily for a name. Pierre--no, not Pierre; too common-place! Was he still fastidious? No. Then Pierre, by all means! Pierre Pilleux. That would do. Pilleux. A name suggestive of a good amiable fellow, honest and slow. When he got down into France he would change his ident.i.ty again--grow a beard, buy some decent clothes. A boulevardier... gay, perverse, witty.... The thought delighted him and he hurried through the forest, anxious to pa.s.s through Salvan before Doctor Waram got there. He felt extraordinarily light and exhilarated now, intoxicated, vibrant. His spirit soared; almost he heard the rushing of his old self forward toward some unrecognizable and beautiful freedom.

When he struck the road the sun was high and it was very hot. Little spirals of dust kicked up at his heels. He was not afraid of recognition. Happening to glance at his hands, he became aware of their whiteness, and stooping, rubbed them in the dust.

Then a strange thing happened. Another herd of goats trotted down from the gra.s.sy slopes and spilled into the road-way. And another dog with lolling tongue and wagging tail wove in and out, shepherding the little beasts. They eddied about Grimshaw, brushing against him, their moon-stone eyes full of a vague terror of that barking guardian at their heels. The dog drove them ahead, circled, and with a low whine came back to Grimshaw, leaping up to lick his hand.

Grimshaw winced, for he had never had success with animals. Then, with a sudden change of mood, he stooped and caressed the dog's head.

"A good fellow," he said in French to the goatherd.

The goatherd looked at him curiously. "Not always," he answered. "He is an unpleasant beast with most strangers. For you, he seems to have taken a fancy.... What have you got there--any two-bladed knives?"

Grimshaw started and recovered himself with: "Knives. Yes. All sorts."

The goatherd fingered his collection, trying the blades on his broad thumb.

"You come from France," he said.

Grimshaw nodded. "From Lyons."

"I thought so. You speak French like a gentleman."

Grimshaw shrugged. "That is usual in Lyons."

The peasant paid for the knife he fancied, placing two francs in the poet's palm. Then he whistled to the dog and set off after his flock.

But the dog, whining and trembling, followed Grimshaw, and would not be shaken off until Grimshaw had pelted him with small stones. I think the poet was strangely flattered by this encounter. He pa.s.sed through Salvan with his head in the air, challenging recognition. But there was no recognition. The guide who had said "The tall monsieur will not arrive" now greeted him with a fraternal: "How is trade?"

"Very good, thanks," Grimshaw said.

Beyond the village he quickened his pace, and easing the load on his back by putting his hands under the leather straps, he swung toward Finhaut. Behind him he heard the faint ringing of the church bells in Salvan. Waram had reported the "tragedy." Grimshaw could fancy the excitement--the priest hurrying toward the "wall" with his crucifix in his hands; the barber, a-quiver with morbid excitement; the stolid guide, not at all surprised, rather gratified, preparing to make the descent to recover the body of that "tall monsieur" who had, after all, "arrived." The telegraph wires were already humming with the message. In a few hours Dagmar would know.

He laughed aloud. The white road spun beneath him. His hands, pressed against his body by the weight of the leather straps, were hot and wet; he could feel the loud beating of his heart.

His senses were acute; he had never before felt with such gratification the warmth of the sun or known the ecstasy of motion. He saw every flower in the roadbank, every small glacial brook, every new conformation of the snow clouds hanging above the ragged peaks of the Argentieres. He sniffed with delight the pungent wind from off the glaciers, the short, warm puffs of gra.s.s-scented air from the fields in the Valley of Trient. He noticed the flight of birds, the lazy swinging of pine boughs, the rainbow spray of waterfalls. Once he shouted and ran, mad with exuberance. Again he flung himself down by the roadside and, lying on his back, sang outrageous songs and laughed and slapped his breast with both hands.

That night he came to Chamonix and got lodging in a small hotel on the skirts of the town. His spirits fell when he entered the room. He put his pedlar's pack on the floor and sat down on the narrow bed, suddenly conscious of an enormous fatigue. His feet burned, his legs ached, his back was raw where the heavy pack had rested. He thought: "What am I doing here? I have nothing but the few hundred pounds Waram gave me. I'm alone. Dead and alive."

He scarcely looked up when the door opened and a young girl came in, carrying a pitcher of water and a coa.r.s.e towel. She hesitated and said rather prettily: "You'll be tired, perhaps?"

Grimshaw felt within him the tug of the old personality. He stared at her, suddenly conscious that she was a woman and that she was smiling at him. Charming, in her way. Bare arms. A little black bodice laced over a white waist. Straight blonde hair, braided thickly and twisted around her head. A peasant, but pretty.... You see, his desire was to frighten her, as he most certainly would have frightened her had he been true to Cecil Grimshaw. But the impulse pa.s.sed, leaving him sick and ashamed. He heard her saying: "A sad thing occurred to-day down the valley. A gentleman.... Salvan ... a very famous gentleman.... And they have telegraphed his wife.... I heard it from Simon Ravanel....

It seems that the gentleman was smashed to bits--_brise en morceau.

epouvantable, n'est ce pas_?"

Grimshaw began to tremble. "Yes, yes," he said irritably. "But I am tired, little one. Go out, and shut the door!"

The girl gave him a startled glance, frightened at last, but for nothing more than the lost look in his eyes. He raised his arms, and she fled with a little scream.

Grimshaw sat for a moment staring at the door. Then with a violent gesture he threw himself back on the bed, buried his face in the dirty pillow and wept as a child weeps, until, just before dawn, he fell asleep....

As far as the public knows, Cecil Grimshaw perished on the "wall"--perished and was buried at Broadenham beneath a pyramid of chrysanthemums. Perished, and became an English immortal--his sins erased by his unconscious sacrifice. Perished, and was forgiven by Dagmar. Yet hers was the victory--he belonged to her at last. She had not buried his body at Broadenham, but she had buried his work there.

He could never write again....

During those days of posthumous whitewashing he read the papers with a certain contemptuous eagerness. Some of them he crumpled between his hands and threw away. He hated his own image, staring balefully from the first page of the ill.u.s.trated reviews. He despised England for honouring him. Once, happening upon a volume of the "Vision of Helen"--the first edition ill.u.s.trated by Beardsley--in a book-stall at Aix-les-Bains, he read it from cover to cover.

"Poor stuff," he said to the bookseller, tossing it down again. "Give me 'Ars ne Lupin'." And he paid two sous for a paper-covered, dog-eared, much-thumbed copy of the famous detective story, not because he intended to read it, but in payment for his hour of disillusionment. Then he slung his pack over his shoulders and tramped out into the country. He laughed aloud at the thought of Helen and her idolaters. A poetic hoax. Overripe words. Seductive sounds. Nonsense!

"Surely I can do better than that to-day," he thought.

He saw two children working in a field, and called to them.

"If you will give me a cup of cold water," he said, "I'll tell you a story."

"Gladly, monsieur."

The boy put down his spade, went to a brook which threaded the field and came back with an earthenware jug full to the brim. The little girl stared gravely at Grimshaw while he drank. Grimshaw wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"What story shall it be?" he demanded.

The little girl said quickly: "The black king and the white princess and the beast who lived in the wood."

"Not that one," the boy cried. "Tell us about a battle."

"I will sing about life," Grimshaw said.

It was hot in the field. A warm, sweet smell rose from the spaded earth and near by the brook rustled through the gra.s.s like a beautiful silver serpent. Grimshaw sat cross-legged on the ground and words spun from his lips--simple words. And he sang of things he had recently learned--the gaiety of birds, the strength of his arms, the scent of dusk, the fine crystal of a young moon, wind in a field of wheat....

At first the children listened. Then, because he talked so long, the little girl leaned slowly over against his shoulder and fell asleep, while the boy fingered the knives, jangled the key-rings, clipped gra.s.s stalks with the scissors, and wound the watches one after the other. The sun was low before Grimshaw left them. "When you are grown up," he said, "remember that Pierre Pilleux sang to you of life."

"_Oui, monsieur_," the boy said politely. "But I should like a watch."

Grimshaw shook his head. "The song is enough."

Thereafter he sang to any one who would listen to him. I say that he sang--I mean, of course, that he spoke his verses; it was a minstrel's simple improvisation. But there are people in the villages of southern France who still recall that ungainly, shambling figure. He had grown a beard; it crinkled thickly, hiding his mouth and chin. He laughed a great deal. He was not altogether clean. And he slept wherever he could find a bed--in farmhouses, cheap hotels, haylofts, stables, open fields. Waram's few hundred pounds were gone. The poet lived by his wits and his gift of song. And for the first time in his remembrance he was happy.

Then one day he read in _Le Matin_ that Ada Rubenstein was to play "The Labyrinth" in Paris. Grimshaw was in Poitiers. He borrowed three hundred francs from the proprietor of a small cafe in the Rue Carnot, left his pack as security, and went to Paris. Can you imagine him in the theatre--it was the Odeon, I believe--conscious of curious, amused glances--a peasant, bulking conspicuously in that scented auditorium?

When the curtain rose, he felt again the familiar pain of creation. A rush of hot blood surged around his heart. His temples throbbed. His eyes filled with tears. Then the flood receded and left him trembling with weakness. He sat through the rest of the performance without emotion of any sort. He felt no resentment, no curiosity.

This was the last time he showed any interest in his old existence. He went back to Poitiers, and then took to the road again. People who saw him at that time have said that there was always a pack of dogs at his heels. Once a fashionable spaniel followed him out of Lyons and he was arrested for theft. You understand, he never made any effort to attract the little fellows--they joined on, as it were, for the journey. And it was a queer fact that after a few miles they always whined, as if they were disappointed about something, and turned back....

He finally heard that Dagmar had married Waram. She had waited a decent interval--Victorian to the end! A man who happened to be in Ma.r.s.eilles at the time told me that "that vagabond poet, Pilleux, appeared in one of the cafes, roaring drunk, and recited a marriage poem--obscene, vicious, terrific. A crowd came in from the street to listen. Some of them laughed. Others were frightened. He was an ugly brute--well over six feet tall, with a blonde beard, a hooked nose, and a pair of eyes that saw beyond reality. He was fascinating. He could turn his eloquence off and on like a tap. He sat in a drunken stupor, glaring at the crowd, until someone shouted: "_Eh bien, Pilleux_--you were saying?" Then the deluge! He had a peasant's acceptance of the elemental facts of life--it was raw, that hymn of his! The women of the streets who had crowded into the caf listened with a sort of terror; they admired him. One of them said: "Pilleux's wife betrayed him." He lifted his gla.s.s and drank. "No, _ma pet.i.te_,"

he said politely, "she buried me."

That night his pack was stolen from him. He was too drunk to know or to care. They say that he went from cafe to cafe, paying for wine with verse, and getting it, too! At his heels a crowd of loafers, frowsy women and dogs. His hat gone. His eyes mad. A trickle of wine through his beard. Bellowing. Bellowing again--the untamed centaur cheated of the doe!