The Darrow Enigma Part 12

"I am dying, Egypt, dying; Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast."

It was about noon the next day when Maitland called upon me. "See here, Doc," he began at once, "do you believe in coincidences?" I informed him that his question was not altogether easy to understand.

"Wait a moment," he said, "while I explain. For at least two years prior to my recent return from California the name 'Cleopatra' has not entered my mind. You were the first to mention it to me, and from you I learned that Miss Darrow was to have charge of the 'Antony and Cleopatra' night. That is all natural enough. But why should I, on every morning since you first mentioned the subject to me, awake with Antony's words upon my lips? Why should every book or paper I pick up contain some reference to Cleopatra? Why, man, if I were superst.i.tious, it would seem positively spookish. I am getting to believe that I shall be confronted either by Cleopatra's name, or some allusion to her, every time I pick up a book. It's getting to be decidedly interesting."

"I have had," I replied, "similar, though less remarkable, experiences. It is quite a common occurrence to learn of a thing, say, this morning for the first time in one's life, and then to find, in the course of the day's reading, three or four independent references to the same thing. Suppose we step into the library, and pick out a few books haphazard, just to see if we chance upon any reference to Cleopatra."

To this Maitland agreed, and, entering the library, I pushed the Morning Herald across the table to him, saying: "One thing's as good as another; try that." He started a little, but did not touch the paper. "You will have to find something harder than that," he said, pointing to the outspread paper.

I followed the direction of his finger, and read:

"Boston Theatre. Special engagement of Miss f.a.n.n.y Davenport.

For one week. Beginning Monday, the 12th of December, Sardou's 'Cleopatra.'"

I was indeed surprised, but I said nothing. The next thing I handed him was a copy of G.o.dey's Magazine, several years old. He opened it carelessly, and in a moment read the following line: "I am dying, sweetheart, dying." "Doesn't that sound familiar? It reminds me at once of the poetic alarm clock that wakens me every morning,--'I am dying, Egypt, dying.' There is no doubt that Higginson's poem suggested this one. Here is the whole of the thing as it is printed here," he said, and read the following:

LOVE'S TWILIGHT

I am dreaming, loved one, dreaming Of the sweet and beauteous past When the world was as its seeming, Ere the fatal shaft was cast.

I am sobbing, sad-eyed, sobbing, At the darkly sullen west, Of the smile of ignorance robbing The pale face against the breast.

I am smiling, tear-stained, smiling, As the sun glints on the crest Of the troubled wave, beguiling Shipwrecked Hope to its long rest.

I am parting, broken, parting, From a soul that I hold dear, And the music of whose beauty Fades a dead strain on my ear.

I am dying, sweetheart, dying, Drips life's gold through palsied hands,-- See; the dead'ning Sun is sighing His last note in red'ning bands.

So I'm sighing, sinking, sighing, Flows life's river to the sea.

Death my throbbing heart is tying With the strings that ache for thee.

"Yes," I said, when he had finished. "I shall have to admit that immediately suggests Higginson's poem and Cleopatra's name. But here, try this," and I threw an old copy of the Atlantic Monthly upon the table. Maitland opened it and laughed. "This may be mere chance, Doc," he said, "but it is remarkable, none the less. See here!" He held the magazine toward me, and I read: "Cleopatra's Needle. The Historic Significance of Central Park's New Monument.

Some of the Difficulties that Attended its Transportation and Erection. By James Theodore Wright, Ph. D." I was dumfounded.

Things were indeed getting interesting.

"Magazines and newspapers," I said, "seem to be altogether too much in your line. We'll try a book this time. Here," and I pulled the first one that came to hand, "is a copy of Tennyson's Poems I fancy it will trouble you to find your reference in that." Maitland took it in silence, and, opening it at random, began to read. The result surprised him even more than it did me. He had chanced upon these verses from "A Dream of Fair Women":

"'We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife.

"'And the wild kiss when fresh from war's alarms, My Hercules, my Roman Antony, My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms, Contented there to die!

"'And there he died! And when I heard my name Sigh'd forth with life, I would not brook my fear Of the other! With a worm I balked his fame.

What else was left? look here!'

"With that she tore her robe apart and half The polished argent of her breast to sight Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, Showing the aspic's bite."

"There is no doubt about that," I said, as he laid the book upon the table. "I want to try this thing once more. Here is Pascal; if you can find any reference to the 'Serpent of the Nile' in that, you needn't go any farther, I shall be satisfied," and I pa.s.sed the book to him. He turned the pages over in silence for half a minute, or so, and then said: "I guess this counts as a failure,--no, though, by Jove! Look here!" His face was of almost deathly pallor, and his finger trembled upon the pa.s.sage it indicated as he held the book toward me. I glanced with some anxiety from his face to the book, and read, as nearly as I now can remember: "If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the entire face of the world would have been changed."

It was some minutes before Maitland fully regained his composure, and during that time neither of us spoke. "Well, Doc," he said at length, and his manner was decidedly grave, even for him:

"What do you make of it?" I didn't know what to make of it, and I admitted my ignorance with a frankness at which, considering my profession, I have often since had occasion to marvel. I told him that I could scarcely account for it on the ground of mere coincidence, and I called his attention to that part of "The Mystery of Marie Roget," where Poe figures out the mathematical likelihood of a certain combination of peculiarities of clothing being found to obtain in the case of two young women who were unknown to each other. If the finding of a single reference to Cleopatra had been a thing of so infrequent occurrence as to at once challenge Maitland's attention, what was to be said when, all of a sudden, her name, or some reference to her, seemed to stare at him from every page he read?

"'There is something in this more than natural, If philosophy could find it out,'"

murmured Maitland, more to himself than to me. "Come, what do you say?" and he turned abruptly to me with one of those searching looks so peculiar to him in moments of excitement. "I see," I replied, "that you are determined I shall give my opinion now and here, without a moment's reflection. Very well; you have just quoted 'Hamlet'; I will do likewise:

"'There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy!'

"You seem in some strange way to be dominated by the shade of Cleopatra. Now, if I believed in metempsychosis, I should think you were Mark Antony brought down to date. There, with that present sober air of yours, you'd pa.s.s anywhere for such an anachronism.

But to be serious, and to give you advice which is positively bilious with gravity, I should say, investigate this thing fully; make a study of this ancient charmer. By the way, why not begin by going to see Davenport in Sardou's 'Cleopatra'? You have never seen her in it, have you?"

In this way, I succeeded in getting him out of his depressed state.

We got into an argument concerning the merits of Miss Davenport's work. I know of nothing Maitland would sooner do than argue, and, if attacked on a subject upon which he feels strongly, he is, for the time being, totally oblivious of everything else. For this reason I trapped him into this argument. I abominate what is now known as "realism" just as much as he does, but you don't have much of an argument without some apparent difference of opinion, so, for the nonce, I became a realist of whom Zola himself would have been proud. "Why, man," I said, "realism is truth. You certainly can't have any quarrel with that." I knew this would have the effect of a red rag flaunted in the face of a bull.

"Truth! Bah!" he exclaimed excitedly. "I have no patience with such aesthetic hod-carriers! Truth, indeed! Is there no other truth in art but that coa.r.s.e verisimilitude, that vulgar trickery, which appeals to the eyes and the ears of the rabble? Are there not psychological truths of immensely greater importance? What sane man imagines for a moment that the pleasure he derives from seeing that greatest of all tragedians, Edwin Booth, in one of Shakespeare's matchless tragedies, is dependent upon his believing that this or that character is actually killed? Why, even the day of the cranberry-juice dagger is long since pa.s.sed. When Miss Davenport shrieks in 'Fedora,' the shriek is literal--'real,' you would call it--and you find yourself instinctively saying, 'Don't!---don't!'

and wishing you were out of the house. When Mr. Booth, as 'Shylock'

shrieks at 'Tubal's' news, the cry is not real, is not literal, but is suggestive, and you see at once the fiendish glee of which it is the expression. The difference between the two is the difference between vocal cords and grey matter."

"But surely," I rejoined, "one doesn't want untruth; one wants--"

but he did not let me finish.

"Always that cry of truth!" he retorted. "Do you not see how absurd it is, as used by your exponents of realism? With a bit of charcoal some Raphael draws a face with five lines, and some photographer snaps a camera at the same face. Which would any sane man choose as the best work of art? The five-line face, of course. Why? Is the work of the camera unreal? Is it not more accurate in drawing, more subtle in gradation than the less mechanical picture? To be sure.

What, then, makes the superiority of the few lines of our Raphael?

That which makes the superiority of all n.o.ble art--its truth,, not on a low, but on a high, plane: its power of interpreting. See!"

he said, fairly aglow with excitement. "What does your realist do, even a.s.suming that he has reached that never-to--be-attained perfection which is the lifelong Mecca of his desires? He gives you, by his absolutely realistic goes with you, and interprets its grandeur to you. Stand before his canvas and enjoy it as you would Nature herself if there. Surely, you say, nothing more could be desired, and you clap your hands, and shout, 'Bravo!' But wait a bit; the other side is yet to be heard from. What does the true artist do for you by his picture of Yosemite Valley? He not only gives you a free conveyance to it, but he goes with you, and interprets its grandeur to you. He translates into the language of your consciousness beauties which, without him, you would entirely miss. It is this very capability of seeing more in Nature than is ever perceived by the common throng that const.i.tutes the especial genius of the artist, and a work that is not aglow with its creator's personality--personality, mind you, not coa.r.s.e realism--can never rank as a masterpiece. But, come, this won't do. Why did you want to get me astride my hobby?"

I thought it advisable to answer this question by asking another, so I said: "But how about Davenport? Will you go?"

"Yes," he replied. "Anything with a Cleopatra to it interests me.

I'll go now and see about the tickets," and he left me.

I have related Maitland's aesthetic views as expressed to me upon this occasion, not because they have any particular bearing upon the mystery I am narrating, but because they cast a strong side-light upon the young man's character, and also for the reason that I believe his personality to be sufficiently strong and unique to be of general interest.

We went that same night to see Sardou's "Cleopatra." I asked Maitland how he liked the piece, and the only reply he vouchsafed was: "I have recently read Shakespeare's treatment of the same theme."

CHAPTER II

If events spread themselves out fanwise from the past into the future, then must the occurrences of the present exhibit convergence toward some historical burning-point,--some focal centre whereat the potential was warmed into the kinetic.

It was nearly a week after the events last narrated before I saw Maitland again, and then only by chance. We happened to meet in the Parker House, and, as he had some business pertaining to a case he was on, to transact at the Court House, I walked up Beacon Street with him. There is a book or stationery store, on Somerset Street, just before you turn down toward Pemberton Square. As we were pa.s.sing this store, Maitland espied a large photographic reproduction of some picture.

"Let us cross over and see what it is," he said. We did so. It was a photograph of L. Alma-Tadema's painting of Antony and Cleopatra.