Visionaries Part 7

"Wolves, my dear sir, wolves, _human_ wolves, prowl on the beach at night, and while I have no treasures, it is well to be on the safe side.

Mila, Mila, the tea, the tea." There was a pa.s.sionate intensity in his utterance that attracted Gerald from his survey of the chamber. He saw that in the light Karospina was a much older man than he had at first supposed. But the broad shoulders, the thick chest, and short, powerful figure and bullet head belied his years. Incredulously his visitor asked himself if this were the wonderful, the celebrated Karospina, chemist, revolutionary, mystic, n.o.bleman, and millionnaire. A Russian, he knew that--yet he looked more like the monk one sees depicted on the canvases of the early Flemish painters. His high, wide brow and deep-set, dark eyes proclaimed the thinker; and because of his physique, he might have posed as a prize-fighter.

He took the letter and read it as the door opened and the girl came in with the tea. She wore her hair braided in two big plaits which hung between her shoulders, and her bold, careless glance from eyes sea-blue made the Irishman forget his host and the rigours of the afternoon. A Russian beauty, with bare, plump arms, and dressed in peasant costume; but--a patrician! Her fair skin and blond hair filled him with admiration. What the devil!--he thought, and came near saying it aloud.

"My niece, Princess Mila Georgovics, Mr. Shannon." Gerald acknowledged the introduction with his deepest bow. He was dazzled. He had come to this dreary place to talk politics. But now this was out of the question. And he began explaining to the Princess; Mila he had fancied was some slattern waiting on the old fanatic of a prince. He told Mila this in a few words, and soon the pair laughed and chatted. In the meantime Karospina, who had finished the letter, began to pace the apartment. Apparently he had forgotten the others.

"Tea, tea, where's the tea?" he presently shouted. As they drank, he said: "The prince asks an impossibility, Mr. Shannon. Say to him, _no_, simply no; he will understand, and so will you, I hope. I'm done with all militant movements. I'm converted to the peace party. What's the use of liberty to people who won't know what to do with it when they get it?

Tolstoy is right. Let the peasant be shown how to save his soul--that and a little to eat and drink and a roof are all he needs in this life."

Gerald was startled. He had expected to find an "advanced" leader of the Bakounine type. Instead, a man of the "vegetarian" order,--as he had heard them called,--who talked religion instead of dynamite;--and after all the bother of bringing the letter down to this remote country!

Decidedly the princess was more enjoyable than a reformed anarchist. She was gazing at him seriously now, her society manner gone. Her nose, rather large for the harmony of her face, palpitated with eagerness.

Evidently, thought Gerald, the young lady is the real revolutionist in this curious household. He also ventured to say so to her, but she did not meet his smiling declaration. Her uncle, irritated by his interrupted discourse, exclaimed:--

"Never mind what the Princess Mila thinks, Mr. Shannon. Women change their minds. The chief matter just now is that you cannot go away to-night. You would lose your way, perhaps be drowned. Can you sleep on a hard bed?" He was a.s.sured by Gerald that, if he had been turned away, he would have slept in an outhouse, even under one of those windmills he saw in such number on the strand. Karospina smiled.

"Hardly there--that is, if you expected to awaken." Then he left the room, saying that some one must see to the supper. His niece burst into laughter. Gerald joined in.

"He's always like that, fussy, nervous, but with a heart of gold, Mr.--Mr. Shannon. Thank you. It's an Irish name, is it not? And you look like an Irishman; a soldier, too, I fancy!"

Gerald blushed. "A soldier in the cause of humanity," he answered, "but no longer a hireling in the uniform of kings." He felt so foolish after this brave bit of rhetoric that he kept his eyes on the floor. In an instant she was at his side.

"Give me your hand--_comrade_!" she said, with a peculiar intonation.

"Oh! if you only knew how I longed to meet the right men. Uncle is a convert--no, hardly a backslider; but he swears by the regenerating process instead of violence. Formerly the cleverest living chemist, he now--oh! I shame to say it--he now indulges in firework displays instead of manufacturing bombs with which to execute tyrants." She slowly dropped his hand and her eyes wore a clairvoyant expression. He was astounded.

"Fireworks! Doesn't the prince hold by his old faith--he, a pupil of Bakounine, Netschajew, and Kropotkin?" Just then the prince came in, bearing a tray. He seemed happy.

"Here, sit down, dear sir, and partake of a few things. We live so far from civilization that we seldom get a good chicken. But eggs I can offer you, eggs and ham, cooked by me on an electric machine."

"You have no servants?" Gerald ventured.

"Not one. I can't trust them near my--toys. The princess plays Chopin mazourkas after she makes the beds in the morning, and in the afternoon she is my a.s.sistant in the laboratory." Again the young man looked about him. If the room was a laboratory, where were the retorts, the oven, the phials, the jars, the usual apparatus of a modern chemist? He saw nothing, except an old-fashioned electric fan and a few dusty books. The fireworks--were those overgrown wheels and gaunt windmills and gas-house the secret of the prince's self-banishment to this dreary coast? What dreams did he seek to incarnate on this strand, in this queer tower, locked away from the world with a charming princess--a fairy princess whose heart beat with love for the oppressed, in whose hand he might some time see the blazing torch of freedom? He, himself, was enveloped by the hypnotism of the place. Mila spoke:--

"I fear I must leave you. I am studying to-night and--I go early to rest. Pray dine as well as you can, with such a chef." She smiled mischievously at her uncle, courtesied in peasant fashion to the bewildered Gerald, who put out his hand, fain to touch hers, and disappeared. The prince gazed inquiringly at the young man.

"Revolutionists soon become friends, do they not? The Princess Mila is part Russian, part Roumanian,--my sister married a Roumanian,--hence her implacable political att.i.tude. I can't lead her back to civilized thinking. She sees war in the moon, sun, and stars. And I--I have forsworn violence. Ah! if I could only make the prince change.

Bakounine's death had no effect; Netschajew's fate did not move him; nor was Illowski's mad attempt to burn down Paris with his incendiary symphony an example to our prince that those who take up the sword perish by the sword. Ah, Tolstoy, dear Leon Nikolaievitch, you showed me the true way to master the world by love and not by hate! Until I read--but there, it's late. Come with me to your room. You may smoke and sleep when you will. In the morning I will show you my--toys." They shook hands formally and parted.

His bed was hard, and his room cheerless, but anything, even a haymow, rather than walking back to the station. After he went to his bed, he rehea.r.s.ed the day's doings from the three hours' ride in the train to the tower. How weary he was! Hark--some one played the piano! A Chopin mazourka! It was the princess. Mila! How lovely her touch!... Mila! What a lovely name! A sleeping princess. A prince with such a sleepy head.

How the girl could play ... along the spiral road he saw the music glow in enigmatic figures of fire....

II

THE PANACEA OF CORUSCATION

He seemed to be uttering her name when he awoke. It was daylight; the sun poured its rays over his face, and he asked himself how he could have fallen asleep leaving the lamp burning on the table near his bed.

He must have slept long, for he felt rested, cheerful--happy. As he dressed he speculated whether it was the sunshine, or the prospect of going back to life, or--or--Did he wish to return so soon? He wondered what Mila was doing. Then he went into the stone corridor and coughed as a hint that he was up. Not a sound but the persistent fall at a distance of some heavy metallic substance. It must be Karospina in his workshop, at his rockets, pinwheels, torpedoes, and firecrackers. What a singular change in a bloodthirsty revolutionist. And how childish! Had he squandered his millions on futile experimentings? What his object, what his scheme, for the amelioration of mankind's woes? Gerald's stomach warned him that coffee and rolls were far dearer to him than the downfall of tyranny's bastions, and impatiently he began whistling. The rhythmic thud never ceased. He noticed an open door at the back of the house, and he went out, his long legs carrying him about the yard, toward the beach. The air was glorious, a soft breeze blowing landward from the ocean. He almost forgot his hunger in the face of such a spectacle. The breakers were racing in, and after crumbling, they scudded, a film of green, crested by cottony white, across the hard sand to the young man's feet. He felt exhilarated. And his hunger returned.

Then Mila's voice sounded near him. She carried a basket and fairly ran in her eagerness.

"Mr. Shannon, Mr. Shannon, good Prince Gerald--" he was amazed; where could she have heard his Christian name?--"your breakfast. Wait--don't swim the seas to New York for it. Here it is." She opened the basket and handed him a jug of coffee and showed him the rolls inside. Without the slightest embarra.s.sment he thanked her and drank his coffee, walking; he ate the bread, and felt, as he expressed it, like leading a forlorn hope. They went on, the cutting sunshine and sparkling breeze alluring them to vague distances. It was long after midday when they marched back at a slower pace, Gerald swinging the basket like a light-hearted boy, instead of the desperado he fancied himself.

Entering the house, Mila hunted up some cold meat, and with fresh tea and stale bread they were contented. The formidable pyrotechnist did not appear, and so the young people enjoyed the day in each other's company.

She conducted him like a river through the lands of sociology, Dostoewsky, and Chopin. She played, but made him sit in the hall, for the piano was in her private room. And then they began to exchange confidences. It was dusk before the prince returned, in the attire of a workingman, his face and hands covered with soot and grease. A hard day's labour, he said, and did not seem surprised to see Shannon.

After supper he asked Gerald if he would smoke a pipe with him in his laboratory. Mila must have bored him enough by this time! They lighted their pipes; but Mila refused to be sent away. She sat down beside her uncle and put her elbows on the table--white, strong arms she had, and Gerald only took his eyes from their pleasing contemplation to lift them to hers. He was fast losing what little prudence he had; he was a Celt, and he felt that he had known Mila for a century.

"Young man," said Prince Karospina, sharply, "you have the message I gave you last night! Well--and you will say _no_, to my beloved friend K., without knowing why. And you will think that you have been dealing with a man whose hard head has turned to the mush of human kindness,--an altruist. Ah! I know how you fellows despise the word. But what have Kropotkin, Elisee Reclus, Jean Grave, or the rest accomplished? To build up, not to tear down, should be the object of the scientific anarch. Stop! You need not say the earth has to be levelled and ploughed before sowing the seed. That suits turnip fields, not the garden of humanity. Educate the downtrodden into liberty, is my message, not the slaughtering of monarchs. How am I going to go about it? Ah! that's my affair, my dear sir. After I read a certain book by Tolstoy, I realized that art was as potent an agent for mischief as the knout. Music--music is rooted in s.e.x; it works miracles of evil--"

"Now, uncle, I won't hear a word against Chopin," said Mila, looking toward Gerald for approval.

"Music, Mila, in the hands of evil men is an instrument dangerous to religion, to civilization. What of Illowski and his crazy attack on Paris and St. Petersburg? You remember, Shannon! Leave Wagner out of the question--there is no fusion of the arts in his music drama--only bad verse, foolish librettos, dealing with monsters and G.o.ds, and indifferent scene-painting. Moreover, this new music is not understood by the world. Even if the whole of mankind could be a.s.sembled on the roof of the world and at a preconcerted signal made to howl the Ma.r.s.eillaise, it would not be educated to the heights I imagine. Stage plays--Shakespeare has no message for our days; Ibsen is an anarchist--he believes in placing the torpedo under the social ark.

Painting--it is an affair for state galleries and the cabinets of wealthy amateurs. Literature is a dead art--every one writes and reads and no one understands. Religion! Ah! Yes, religion; the world will be a blackened cinder or cometary gas before the love of G.o.d is stamped from its heart. But religion and art must go hand in hand. Divorced, art has fallen into the Slough of Despond; else has been transformed into an acrid poison wherewith men's souls are destroyed as if by a virulent absinthe. United with religion, art is purified. All art sprang from religion. All great art, from a Greek statue to a Gothic cathedral, from a Bach fugue to Michael Angelo, was religious. Therefore, if we are to reach the hearts of the people, we must make art the handmaid of religion." He stopped for breath. Gerald interposed:--

"But, dear prince, you say 'art.' What art--painting, sculpture, architecture, music, poetry, drama--?"

"One art," harshly cried the now excited man, as he pounded the table with his hard fist. "One art, _my_ art, the fusion of all the arts. I, Prince Igorovitch Karospina, tell you that I have discovered the secret of the arts never dreamed of by Wagner and his futile, painted music on a painted stage; I have gone, not to art, but to nature--colour, fire, the elements. The eye is keener than the ear, vision is easier comprehended than tone. Ah! I have you interested at last."

He began walking as if to overtake a missing idea. His niece watched him cynically.

"I fear you are boring Mr. Shannon," she said in her most birdlike accents. Her uncle turned on her.

"I don't care if I am. Go to bed! I am nearing the climax of a lifetime, and I feel that I must talk to a sympathetic ear. You are not bored, dear friend. I have pondered this matter for more than thirty years. I have studied all the arts--painting particularly; and with colour, with colourful design I mean to teach mankind the great lessons of the masters and of religion."

"Ah, you will exhibit in large halls, panoramic pictures, I suppose,"

interrupted Shannon.

"Nothing of the sort," was the testy reply. "For thousands of years the world has been gazing upon dead stones and canvases, reading dead words.

Dead--all, I tell you, all of these arts. And painting is only in two dimensions--a poor copy of nature. The theatre has its possibilities, but is too restricted in s.p.a.ce. Music is alive. It moves; but its message is not articulate to _all_. I want an art that will be understood and admired at a glance by the world from pole to pole. I want an art that will live and move and tell a n.o.ble tale. I want an art that will appeal to the eye by its colouring and the soul by its beautiful designs. Where is that legend-laden art? Hitherto it has not existed. I have found it. I have tracked it down until I am the master who by a touch can liberate elemental forces, which will not destroy, like those of Illowski's, but will elevate the soul and make mankind one great nation, one loving brotherhood. Ah! to open once more those doors of faith closed by the imperious dogmas of science--open them upon a lovely land of mystery. Mankind must have mystery. And beyond each mystery lies another. This will be our new religion."

Gerald had caught the enthusiasm of this swelling prologue and rose, his face alight with curiosity.

"And that art is--is--?" he stammered.

"That art is--pyrotechny." It was too much for the young man's nerves, and he fell back in his chair, purple with suppressed laughter. Angrily darting at him and catching his left shoulder in a vicelike grip, Karospina growled:

"You fool, how dare you mock something you know nothing of?" He shook his guest roughly.

"Uncle, uncle, be patient! Tell Mr. Shannon, and he, too, will become a believer. I believe in you. I believe in him, Mr. Shannon. Don't sneer!

Tell him, uncle." Mila's words, almost imploring in their tone, calmed the infuriated inventor, who left the room. He reentered in a moment, his head dripping, and he was grinning broadly.

"Whenever I encounter a refractory pattern in my fireworks--as you call them--I am compelled to throw a bucket of water over it to quench its too ardent spirits. I have just done the same to my own head, dear Mr.

Shannon, and I ask your pardon for my rudeness. Get some fresh tea, Mila, strong tea, Mila." Pipes were relighted and the conversation resumed.

"I forgot in my obsession, in what Jacob Boehme calls 'the shudder of divine excitement,' that I was talking to one of the uninitiated. I suppose you think by pyrotechny I mean the old-fashioned methods of set pieces, ghastly portraits in fire, big, spouting wheels, rockets, war scenes from contemporary history, seaside stuff, badly done--and flowery squibs. My boy, all that, still admired by our country cousins, is the very infancy of my art. In China, where nearly everything was invented ages ago, in China I learned the first principles, also the possibilities of the art of fireworks; yes, call it by its humble t.i.tle.

In China I have seen surprising things at night. PaG.o.das blown across the sky, an army of elephants in pursuit, and all bathed in the most divine hues imaginable. But their art suffers from convention. They accomplish miracles considering the medium they work in--largely gunpowder. And their art has no meaning, no message, no moral principle, no soul. Years ago I discovered all the aids necessary to the pyrotechnist. I am not a chemist for nothing. If I can paint a fair imitation of a Claude Monet on canvas, I can also produce for you a colourless gas which, when handled by a virtuoso, produces astonishing illusions. In the open air, against the dark background of the horizon, I can show you the luminous dots planewise of the Impressionists; or I can give you the broad, sabrelike brushwork of Velasquez, or the imperial tintings of t.i.tian. I can paint pictures on the sky. I can produce blazing symphonies. I will prove to you that colour is also music. This sounds as if I were a victim to that lesion of the brain called 'coloured-audition.' Perhaps! Not Helmholtz or Chevreul can tell me anything new in the science of optics. I am the possessor of the rainbow secrets--for somewhere in Iceland, a runic legend runs, there is a region vast as night, where all the rainbows--worn out or to be used--drift about in their vapoury limbo. I have the key to this land of dreams. Over the earth I shall float my rainbows of art like a flock of angels. With them I propose to dazzle the eyes of mankind, to arouse sleeping souls. From the chords of the combined arts I shall extort n.o.bler cadences, n.o.bler rhythms, for men to live by, for men to die for!"

Shannon was impressed. Through the smoke of his host's discourse he discovered genuine fire. The philosopher took his hand and led him to the window.

"Stand there a moment!" he adjured. Mila joined him and after turning the lamp to a pin-head of light, their shoulders touching--for the window was narrow--they peered into the night. They were on the side of the water. Suddenly Gerald exclaimed:--