Thomas Wolfe, page 244
Until he looked at Esther. And then he knew that every woman in the world should be like her. She was radiant. He had never seen her so beautiful as she was that night. His eyes kept going to the portrait behind her on the wall that Henry Mallows had painted of her in her loveliness of twenty-five, and then with wonder back to her face, and, “God, she’s beautiful!” was all his mind could say. And between the living portrait and the living woman he was haunted by the miracle of time.
She was dressed in a simple but magnificent evening frock of plum-colored velvet, her smooth shoulders and her arms were bare, and she wore a cluster or a brooch of gems against her breast. Her eyes danced and sparkled, and her tender face, as always, was as flushed and rosy as a flower. She was so radiant, merry, happy, and so full of life and health that it was fascinating just to look at her. He became so absorbed in the spectacle that he almost forgot to eat the delicious food. He looked at her with a kind of fascinated interest, as a parent might regard the self-absorbed activity of a child; he was enchanted by it, and even the gusto of her appetite, the gusto of a healthy person interested in good food, somehow delighted and amused him. She had just opened her mouth and was about to take a greedy little bite when she looked up, their eyes met, and they roared with laughter.
It was the gayest, merriest meal he had ever known. Mary Hook looked on and laughed at the radiant elation of these other two. And even Hook, behind his customary mask of bored indifference, which was really just a kind of protective shield to his excruciating shyness and sensitivity and which could not conceal the real warmth and generosity of the man’s character, could not wholly hide the amusement and interest that the energy and love of these two people had for him.
The women began to talk to each other, and the young man glanced quickly from one to the other. Then his eyes met Hook’s, and for a moment there was a flash of amused communication between them, the communication of two men looking at the world of women, which is wordless and perhaps untranslatable, but which seems to say: “Oh, well. You know how they are!”
As for the women themselves, they were delightful. He had never felt before so happily and so completely the purely enchanting quality of female companionship, a quality that is assuredly conveyed by sex, since it is only in the presence of women that one feels it, but that is divorced from crude desire, or the animal magnetism of seduction.
It was half-past nine before they got up from the table, and almost ten o’clock before, farewells having been said, Monk and Esther departed for the party. Her happiness and elation continued during the drive downtown.
Mrs. Jack’s friend, Frank Werner, was a bachelor, and had an apartment in a house on Bank Street in Greenwich Village. The house was a pleasant one, of a familiar type, one of the better sort of houses that are to be found in that part of town. It was a modest three-story structure of red brick, with neat green blinds, a flight of steps, and a graceful arched doorway of Colonial white. It belonged to the good style of architecture that was being followed eighty or ninety years ago, before the harsh and ugly brownstone front had begun to dominate the city. So conceived, it was, of course, Victorian, but it had still managed to retain some of the grace and simplicity of its Colonial predecessors. Even if the simplicity of this kind of structure was not the result of the deliberation of high art, at least it was infinitely superior to the calculated ugliness of a later and more ornate style. The neat green blinds, so bright and gay, and the spotless white of the arched doorway, the polished doorknob, and the shining brass of the neat stair rails were, if not an innovation of more recent time, at least an afterthought. The flavor of this place, therefore, was Colonial—Greenwich Village Colonial—just a little bit too quaint, and artfully contrived.
It was a very pleasant house to look at. Monk had seen its like many times before. To a young man, alone and friendless, and living in a rented room, it gave a pleasant feeling of warmth, of friendship, and of quiet luxury. More than this, it suggested, in the roaring vortex of the city’s life, the security of quiet retreat, the sense of homely comfort and of modest living. It seemed to be the kind of house in which “writers and artists” ought to live. His glimpses into houses of this sort, with their pleasant rooms, their shelves of books, and warm yet quiet lights, had touched him with a desire to know these houses and their inmates better, a feeling that here were people living sanely, soundly, quietly, as the artist should.
For it still seemed to him that the life of the creative man should represent an achievement into this kind of security. It still seemed to him that the mature artist could, in a life like this, achieve an escape from—he would have called it a triumph over—the savage conflicts of the world, the harsh and violent grappling with reality. With the ignorance and the hope of youth, the warm and cozy little light that such a house as this suggested, seemed to him to be a consummation devoutly to be wished, the kind of life an artist ought to have. His untried youth was not able to understand, would perhaps have been unwilling to face the grim fact, that man’s conflict with the forces of reality is unceasing, that life is an ordeal to which a true man must expose and steel himself with ever-increasing fortitude, that for the artist most of all in this hard world there is no security, that he, above all other men, must draw his nourishment from stone, win through to glory and his soul’s salvation with a taste of steel upon his lips—and that there is for him no comfortable retreat behind green shutters and warm lights as long as life waxes in him and endures.
Frank Werner’s apartment was on the second floor of this pleasant house. They mounted the street steps, and in the vestibule they found his name and bell in a neat row of other names and bells. They pushed the button, the lock clicked, they went in. The hall within was carpeted, there was a polished table and a mirror, and a silver tray. They climbed a graceful flight of stairs, and as they did so a door above was opened, they heard the warm, exciting medley of fused voices, Frank Werner came out on the landing and waited for them, and they heard his cheerful voice raised in greeting.
He was a well-kept, pleasant-looking man of middle years, and his costume suggested a casual yet rather foppish elegance. He wore grey flannel trousers, thick-soled shoes, a well-cut coat of English tweed, a white shirt with a turn-down collar, and a red tie. He had a pleasant, agreeable, sensitive, and intelligent face. He was somewhat above the average height, and rather slight of build, but his face was ruddy and healthy-looking, and his high forehead and partially bald head was browned and freckled as if he went much out of doors. He was holding a very long and costly-looking amber cigarette holder with a lighted cigarette, and his whole manner radiated good cheer and a state of elated good spirits, which one guessed was habitual with him.
As they came up, he raised his voice in cheerful greeting, chuckling and smiling as he did so, and displaying pearly, well-kept teeth. He patted Mrs. Jack lightly on the hand as he welcomed her, kissed her lightly upon one rosy cheek, and said: “Darling, how beautiful you are tonight. I quite think,” he said, smiling and turning to the young man, “she has discovered that magic fountain of youth that the rest of us are always looking for in vain, don’t you?” He smiled winningly at his guest, and then, turning to Mrs. Jack again, he laughed with exuberant good spirits. “Hah, hah! Yes indeed!” he cried. His tone was rather mannered and over-cultivated, but his good nature was genuine enough.
The room which they now entered was fine and large, the first impression was of warmth, of comfort, and of peace. There were thousands of beautiful books, one whole wall being built up to the ceiling with shelves. Their rich bindings seemed to receive and to return the warmth and color of the whole room. Behind a screen, there was a fire of snapping pine, the furniture was simple and Colonial, there were a few fine etchings of the city on the walls, the shaded lamps gave off an orange glow.
A door led from this room to another one behind of about the same dimensions as the first. There was a small room up front in which Frank Werner kept his bed, and to the rear, upon one side, a kitchenette, upon the other, a bath.
Everything about the place gave the effect of comfort, culture, and a quiet taste. A closer and practised eye might have found the scheme a little foppish for a man’s apartment. There was too fine and too precise an eye for everything: the andirons and the meaningless and useless warming pan were just a little bit too precious, and suggested the touch of the interior decorator.
There were several people in the front room, and a sound of voices from the room behind. A young man and a young woman were standing talking with highball glasses in their hands. The girl was pretty and had an air about her of the young heroines in smart novels. The young man was fair-haired, and when he spoke he had an effeminate lisp. Two men were seated by the fire. One was heavy-looking, with a red face, very fine-spun white hair, and buck teeth which showed constantly through a mouth that was always partly open. The other man, smaller and darker, suggested amber: he had a silky little mustache on his upper lip and a Semitic cast of countenance. Everyone except the host was formally attired, although there was no apparent reason why people should have dressed for such quiet surroundings, and the fact that the host alone had failed to do so now gave a trace in affectation to his own simplicity.
Frank Werner now made introductions. The amber-looking man got up and greeted Mrs. Jack very warmly. He was Maurice Nagle, and he was a director of the famous Play League in which so many of her friends were intimately concerned.
The man with the buck teeth, whom Werner addressed as Paul, was Van Vleeck, the novelist. His books were enjoying a great celebrity. They were very sophisticated books about tattooed duchesses, post-impressionist moving picture actresses, and negro prize fighters who read Greek, and they were a sufficient indication to the world that when it came to sophisticated knowingness America could hold her own.
Van Vleeck did not get up to greet the newcomers, nor did he even speak. He simply turned his pink and heavy face upon them and stared with unwinking eyes. In this stare there was a kind of calculated simplicity as of a person of such complex and subtle feelings that he was always looking for something complex and subtle in other people. Apparently he did not find it here among these new arrivals, for, after looking at them heavily for a long moment, he turned his head away and went on talking to Nagle.
The young woman said, “How do you do,” without friendliness or warmth, and turned away, as though she felt there was some kind of uncompromising honesty in her rude manner. But the young man with her was lush and effusive: he was the son of a well-known actress and he immediately began to tell Mrs. Jack rather gushingly that he knew about her work in the theatre and thought it was “too marvelous!”
At this moment Rosalind Bailey entered the room from the door which led from the room behind. There was no doubt at all who she was. Her cold beauty was celebrated, her picture was well known, and, in justice to her, it must be said that she was one author who fully lived up to her photographs. Although she was well past forty, her appearance was astonishingly youthful. The impression she gave was virginal and girlish, and it was not contrived. She had the long, straight, lovely legs of a young girl, she was tall, and she carried herself proudly. Her neck and the carriage of her head were young and proud and beautiful, her dark hair was combed in the middle and framed her face in wings, her eyes were very dark and deep, and her glance was proud and straight. Anyone who ever saw her would always retain the memory of her lovely, slender girlishness, her proud carriage, the level straightness of her glance, and a quality of combined childishness and maturity, of passion and of ice.
Immediately, however, she began to behave in a strange manner. Taking no notice of the newcomers, she swept through the doorway and then stood there before Werner with a proud and outraged look.
“Frank,” she said, in a cold, decisive voice, “I will not”—her voice rose strongly on the word—“stay here in this room as long as Paul remains.”
Monk was struck by the absurdity of the statement, for she had just come into the room of her own accord, and obviously in search of trouble, and she must have known all the time that Van Vleeck was there.
“Now, Rosalind,” said Van Vleeck, looking up and staring at her heavily, and speaking petulantly, “I’m not going to talk to you.”
“I am not going to stay here where he is, as long as he says such things!” she declared strongly and loudly, without looking at Van Vleeck, and seeming a very goddess of outraged injury.
“I am not going to talk to her any more,” said Van Vleeck, turning away, and speaking in the same aggrieved tone as before.
“I will not stay here,” she declared, “if Paul is going to get in one of his insulting moods.”
“But darling,” protested Werner gently, obviously alarmed, and doing what he could to pacify her, “I’m sure he didn’t mean to——”
“I will not listen to him!” she cried again, imperiously. “I am not going to be insulted in this way!”
“But Rosalind!” protested Werner mildly, “I’m sure he had no intention of insulting you.”
“Yes, he did!” she cried, and then in a tone of outrage, “He said that Eleanora Duse was the most beautiful woman he had even seen!” And with this astounding statement a black ice of fury seemed fairly to crackle from her blazing eyes.
“I’m not going to talk to her any more,” said Van Vleeck, staring petulantly into the fire.
For the first time she turned on him in a cold voice: “Did you or did you not,” she cried, “say that Duse was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen?”
“I’m not going—” said Van Vleeck again.
“Answer me!” the goddess cried like an awakened wrath. “Did you say it, or didn’t you?”
“I’m not going—” he began again, then he turned slowly in his chair, and for a moment stared at her sullenly. “Yes,” he said.
She burst into tears, and, turning, fell into the comforting arms of her husband, who had just come in, sobbing convulsively like a child. “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” she sobbed. “He said—he said—” words choked in her and she sobbed more bitterly than ever, “I can’t endure it!”
They gathered about her in a hovering brood, coaxing, petting, pleading, praying, cajoling—her husband, the pretty girl, Werner, Maurice Nagle—everyone except Van Vleeck, who sat heavily and solemnly impassive, staring into the fire.
It was a precious coterie—a group of privileged personalities who had won for themselves an intoxicating position in the life of the city. They had formed themselves into a clique, which at that moment was supreme, and at the head of this clique, crown jewel of its reverence, object of its idolatry, was the poetess, Rosalind Bailey.
She was at once the idol and the victim of the time that had produced her. One of those people who live to witness their own immortality, she was assured of it, and she did not know how fast and fleeting was her fame.
Poor Keats cried out, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water,” and died. The cultists of Rosalind cried, “Here lives one whose name is writ in tablets of enduring bronze”—but she was to die. It was perhaps a symbol of the time that they needed some such image as this winged fame to preserve for them the illusion of eternity. At a time when all seemed to come, to go, to vanish, and to be forgotten with tragic haste—when today’s enthusiasm would tomorrow be as dead and stale as last week’s news—they felt the need of some more certain value that was sacred and that would endure.
And the woman was the queen of that impassioned incarnation. There had been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous—and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and of destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman now, and the man was gone.
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31
DARK INTERLUDE
Where the days and months had gone, Monk never knew, but the seasons passed in their appointed rounds, he worked, he loved, he walked the furious streets of night, and now his book was rounding to the finish.
Meanwhile, and almost imperceptibly, his relations with Mrs. Jack had taken on a different tone and color. There was still gold and singing in their love, but now, with increasing frequency, there were also patches of grey shadow, and sometimes, in the fury and unreason of his restless, tortured soul, there were streaks and spots of bloodshot red. Time, dark time, washed over them, and worked its subtle changes in their lives.
His conquest of the woman was no longer new, but a familiar thing. And, even more, he now began to feel that he himself was caught up in the web which they had spun together. He loved her still, loved her as he knew he’d never love another; but the more he loved her, the more he felt she had become the single great necessity of his life, the more he also felt that he, the trapper, had been trapped. And as he felt this, he would see her as the author of his doom, and he would lash out at her even while he knew he loved her, and while a mounting sense of shame and anger rose up in him to crush him as he did it.
Then, too, although he demanded faithfulness of her, and often drove himself half-mad with groundless fears and vague imaginings that she was being false and wanton, yet his own desires and hungers strayed and would not stay on leash. He loved no other woman, certainly; all the love that he could give was hers, and hers alone: but still he was unfaithful.
But Esther did not change. She was just the same. The fault was in himself, and in his growing knowledge that, for him at least, love was not enough, and that a love which made him so dependent on her, which made him feel, without her, hopeless, helpless, and a thing of no account, was, for such a man as he, a prison of the spirit—and his spirit, needing freedom, now began to hurl itself against the bars.
