"It"s something I"ve thought a great deal about," said he. "It kept forcing itself upon me all the time I was writing. Here I am with my vision--working day and night to make something beautiful and sacred, something without taint of self. And I have to take it to business-men, who will go out into the market-place and sell it to make money! It will come into compet.i.tion with thousands of other books--and the publishers shouting their virtues like so many barkers at a fair. I can hardly bear to think of it; I"d truly rather live in a garret all my days than see it happen. I don"t want the treasures of my soul to be hawked on the streets."
"But how else could people get them?" asked Corydon.
"I would like to have a publishing-house of my own, and to print my books with good paper and strong bindings that would last, and then sell them for just what they cost. So the whole thing would be consistent, and I could tell the exact truth about what I wrote. For I know the truth about my work; I"ve no vanities, I"d be as remorseless a critic of myself as Sh.e.l.ley was. I"d be willing to leave it to time for my real friends to find me out--I"d give up the department-store public to the authors who wanted it. And then, too, I could sell my books cheaply, so that the poor could get them. I always shudder to think that the people who most need what I write will have it kept away from them, because I am holding it back to make a profit!"
"We must do that some day!" declared Corydon.
"We must live very simply," he said, "so we can begin it soon. Perhaps we can do it with the money we get from this first book. We could get everything we need for a thousand dollars a year, and save the balance."
The other a.s.sented to this.
"I"ve got the prospectus of my publishing-house all written," Thyrsis went on. "And I"ve several other plans worked out--people would laugh if they saw them, I guess. But before I get through, I"m going to have a reading-room where anyone can come and get my books. It"ll be down where the poor people are; and I"m going to have travelling libraries, so as to reach people in the country. That is the one hope for better things, as I see it--we must get ideas to the people!"
Thus discoursing, they strolled back to the home of Thyrsis" mother, and he went in to get his belongings together. Corydon went with him; and as they entered, the mother said, "There"s an express package for you."
So Thyrsis went to his room, and saw a flat package lying on the bed.
He stared at it, startled, and then picked it up and read the label upon it. "Why--why!--" he gasped; and then he seized a pair of scissors and cut the string and opened it. It was his ma.n.u.script!
With trembling fingers he turned it over. There was a letter with it, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it up. "We regret," it read, "that we cannot make you an offer for the publication of your book. Thanking you for the privilege of examining it, we are very truly yours." And that was all!
"They"ve rejected the book!" gasped Thyrsis; and the two stared at each other with consternation and horror in their eyes.
That was a possibility that had never occurred to Thyrsis in his wildest moment. That anyone in his senses could reject that book! That anyone could read a single chapter of it and not see what it was!
"They only had it five days!" he exclaimed; and instantly an explanation flashed across his mind. "I don"t believe they read it!" he cried. "I don"t believe they ever looked at it!"
But, read or unread, there was the ma.n.u.script--rejected. There was no appeal from the decision; there was no explanation, no apology--they had simply rejected it! It was like a blow in the face to Thyrsis; he felt like a woman whose love is spurned.
"Oh the fools! The miserable fools!" he cried.
But he could not bring much comfort to his soul by that method. The seriousness of it remained. The publishing-house was one of the largest and most prosperous in the country; and if they were fools, how many more fools might there not be among those who stood between him and the public? And if so, what would he do?
Section 6. So these two began their life under the shadow of a cloud. At the very first hour, when they should have been all rapture, there had come into the chamber of their hearts this grisly spectre--that was to haunt them for so many years!
But they clenched their hands grimly, and put the thought aside, and moved their worldly goods to the two tiny rooms. When they had got their trunks in, there was no place to sit save on the beds; and though Corydon had cast away all superfluities for this pilgrimage, still it was a puzzle to know where to put things.
But what of that--they were together at last! What an ecstasy it was to be actually unpacking, and to be mingling their effects! A kind of symbol it was of their spiritual union, so that the most commonplace things became touched with meaning. Thyrsis thrilled when the other brought in an armful of books to him--all this wealth was to be added to his store! He owned no books himself, save a few text-books, and some volumes of poetry that he knew by heart. Other books he had borrowed all his life from libraries; and he often thought with wonder that there were people who would pay a dollar or two for a book which they did not mean to read but once!
Also there were a hundred trifles which came from Corydon"s trunk, and which whispered of the intimacies of her life; the pictures she put upon her bureau, the sachet-bags that went into the drawer, the clothing she hung behind the door. It disturbed him strangely to realize how close she was to be to him from now on.
And then, the excursion to the corner-grocery, and the delight of the plunge into housekeeping! A pound of b.u.t.ter, and some salt and pepper, and a bunch of celery; a box of "chipped beef", and a dozen eggs, and a quart of potatoes; and then to the baker"s, for rolls and sponge-cakes--did ever a grocer and a baker sell such ecstasies before?
They carried it all home, and while Corydon scrubbed the celery in the bath-room, Thyrsis got out his chafing-dish and set the beef and eggs to sizzling, and they sat and sniffed the delicious odors, and meantime munched at rolls and b.u.t.ter, because they were so hungry they could not wait.
What an Elysian festivity they made of it! And then to think that they would have three such picnics every day! To be sure, the purchases had taken one half of Thyrsis" remaining capital; but then, was it not just that spice of danger that gave the keen edge to their delight? What was it that made the sense of snugness and intimacy in their little retreat, save the knowledge of a cold and hostile world outside?
The next morning Thyrsis took his ma.n.u.script to another publisher, and then they went at their work. Corydon laughed aloud with delight as they began the German--for what were all its terrors now, when she had Thyrsis for a dictionary! They fairly romped through the books. In the weeks that followed they read "Werther" and "Wilhelm Meister" and "Wahlverwandschaften"; they read "Undine" and "Peter Schlemil" and the "Leben eines Taugenichts"; they read Heine"s poems, and Auerbach"s and Freitag"s novels, and Wieland"s "Oberon"--is there anybody in Germany who still reads Wieland"s "Oberon?" Surely there must somewhere be young couples who delight in "Der Trompeter von Sekkingen," and laugh with delight over "der Kater Hidigeigei!"
Also they went at music. Corydon had been taught to play as many "pieces" as the average American young lady; but Thyrsis had tried to persuade her to a new and desperate emprise--he insisted that there was nothing to music until one had learned to read it at sight. So now, every day when their landlady had gone out, he moved his music-stand into the little parlor, and they went at the task. Thyrsis proposed to achieve it by a _tour_ _de_ _force_--the way to read German was to read it, and the way to read music was to read music. He would set up a piece they had never seen before, and they would begin; and he would pound out the time with his foot, and make Corydon keep up with him--even though she was only able to get one or two notes in each bar, still she must keep up with him. At first this was agony to her--she wanted to linger and get some semblance of the music; but Thyrsis would scold and exhort and shout, and pound out the time.
And so, to Corydon"s own amazement, it was not many weeks before she found that she was actually reading music, that they were playing it together. In this way they learned Haydn"s and Mozart"s sonatas, they even adventured Beethoven"s trios, with the second violin left out. Then Thyrsis subscribed to a music-library, and would come home twice a week with an armful of new stuff, good and bad. And whenever in all their struggles with it they were able to achieve anything that really moved them as music, what a rapture it brought them!
Section 7. This was indeed the nearest they could ever come to creative achievement together; this was the one field in which their abilities were equal. In all other things there were disharmonies--they came upon many reefs and shoals in these uncharted matrimonial seas.
Thyrsis was swift and impatient, and had flung away all care about external things; and here was Corydon, a woman, with all a woman"s handicaps and disabilities. She was like a little field-mouse in her care of her person--she must needs scrub herself minutely every morning, and have hot water for her face every night; her hair had to be braided and her nails had to be cared for--and oh, the time it took her to get her clothes on, or even to get ready for the street! She would struggle like one possessed to accomplish it more quickly, while Thyrsis chafed and growled and agonized in the next room. There was nothing he could do meantime--for were they not going to do everything together?
Then there was another stumbling-block--the newspapers! Thyrsis had to know what was going on in the world. He had learned to read the papers and magazines like an exchange-editor; his eye would fly from column to column, and he would rip the insides out of one in two or three minutes.
To Corydon it was agony to see him do this, for it took her half an hour to read a newspaper. She besought him to read it out loud--and was powerless to understand the distress that this caused him. He stood it as long as he could, and then he took to marking in the papers the things that she needed to know; and this he continued to do religiously, until he had come to realize that Corydon never remembered anything that she read in the papers.
This was something it took him years to comprehend; there were certain portions of the ordinary human brain which simply did not exist in his wife. She had lived eighteen years in the world, and it had never occurred to her to ask how steam made an engine go, or what was the use of the little gla.s.s k.n.o.bs on the telegraph-poles. And it was the same with politics and business, and with the thousand and one personalities of the hour. When these things came up, Thyrsis would patiently explain to her what she needed to know; and he would take it for granted that she would pounce upon the information and stow it away in her mind--just as he would have done in a similar case. But then, two or three weeks later, the same topic would come up, and he would see a look of sudden terror come into Corydon"s eyes--she had forgotten every word of it!
He came, after a long time, to honor this ignorance. People had to bring some real credentials with them to win a place in Corydon"s thoughts; it was not enough that they were conspicuous in the papers. And it was the same with facts of all sorts; science existed for Corydon only as it pointed to beauty, and history existed only as it was inspiring. They read Green"s "History of the English People" in the evenings; and every now and then Corydon would have to go and plunge her face into cold water to keep her eyes open, The long parliamentary struggle was utter confusion to her--she had no joy to watch how "freedom slowly broadens down from precedent to precedent." But once in a while there would come some story, like that Of Joan of Arc--and there would be the girl, with her hands clenched, and hot tears in her eyes, and the fires of martyrdom blazing in her soul!
These were the hours which revealed to Thyrsis the treasure he had won--the creature of pure beauty whose heart was in his keeping. He was humbled and afraid before her; but the agony of it was that he could not dwell in those regions of joy with her--he had to know about stupid things and vulgar people, he had to go out among them to scramble for a living. So there had to be a side to his mind that Corydon could not share. And it did not suffice just to tolerate the existence of such things--he had to be actively interested in them, and to take their point of view. How else could he hold his place in the world, how could he win in the struggle for life?
This, he strove to persuade himself, was the one real difficulty between them, the one thing that marred the perfection of their bliss. But as time went on, he came to suspect that there was something else--something even more vital and important. It seemed to him that he had given up that which was the chief source of his power--his isolation. The center of his consciousness had been shifted outside of himself; and try as he would, he could never get it back. Where now were the hours and hours of silent brooding? Where were the long battles in his own soul? And what was to take he place of them--could conversation do it, conversation no matter how interesting and worth while? Thyrsis had often quoted a saying of Emerson"s, that "people descend to meet."
And when one was married did not one have to descend all the time?
He reasoned the matter out to himself. It was not Corydon"s fault, he saw clearly; it would have been the same had he married one of the seraphim. He did not want to live the life of any seraph--he wanted to live his own life. And was it not obvious that the mere physical proximity of another person kept one"s attention upon external things?
Was not one inevitably kept aware of trivialities and accidents? Thyrsis had an ideal, that he should never permit an idle word to pa.s.s his lips; and now he saw how inevitably the common-place crept in upon them--how, for instance, their conversation had a way of turning to personality and jesting. Corydon was sensitive to external things, and she kept him aware of the fact that his trousers were frayed and his hair unkempt, and that other people were remarking these things.
Such was marriage; and it made all the more difference to an author, he reasoned, because an author was always at home. Thyrsis had been accustomed, when he opened his eyes in the morning, to lie still and let images and fancies come trooping through his mind; he would plan his whole day"s work in that way, while his fancy was fresh and there was nothing to disturb him. But now he had to get up and dress, thus scattering these visions. In the same way, he had been wont to walk and meditate for hours; but now he never walked alone. That meant incidentally that he no longer got the exercise he needed--because Corydon could never walk at his pace. And if this was the case with such external things, how much more was it the case with the strange impulses of his inmost soul! Thyrsis was now like a hunter, who starts a deer, and instead of putting spurs to his horse and following it, has to wait to summon a companion--and meanwhile, of course, the deer is gone!
From all this there was but one deliverance for them, and that was music. Music was their real interest, music was their religion; and if only they could go on and grow in it--if only they could acquire technique enough to live their lives in it! This would take years, of course; but they did not mind that, they were willing to work every day until they were exhausted--if only the world would give them a chance!
But alas, the world did not seem to be minded that way.
Section 8. Thyrsis had waited a week, and then written the second publisher, and received a reply to the effect that at least two weeks were needed for the consideration of a ma.n.u.script. And meantime his last penny was gone, and he was living on Corydon"s money. It was clear that he must earn something at once; and so he had to leave her to study and practice in her own room, while he cudgelled his brains and tormented his soul with hack-work.
He tried his verses again; but he found that the spring had dried up in him. Life was now too sombre a thing, the happy spontaneous jingles came no more. And what he did by main force of will sounded hollow and vapid to him--and must have sounded so to the editors, who sent them back.
Then he tried book-reviewing; but oh, the ghastly farce of book-reviewing! To read futile writing and sham writing of a hundred degrading varieties--and never dare to utter a truth about them! To labor instead to put one"s self in the place of the school-girl reader and the tired shop-clerk reader and the sentimental married-woman reader, and imagine what they would think about the book, and what they would like to have said about it! To take these little pieces of dishonesty to an office, and sit by trembling while they were read, and receive two dollars apiece for them if they were published, and nothing at all if one had been so lacking in cunning as to let the editor think that the book was not worth the s.p.a.ce!
However, Thyrsis had cunning enough to earn the cost of his room and his food for two weeks more. Then one day the postman brought him a letter, the inscription of which made his heart give a throb. He ripped the envelope open and read a communication from the second publisher:
"We have been interested in your ma.n.u.script, and while we do not feel that we can undertake its publication, we should like an opportunity to talk with you about it."
"What does _that_ mean?" asked Corydon, trembling.
"G.o.d knows," he answered. "I"ll go and see them this morning."
When he came back, it was to sink into a chair and stare in front of him with a savage frown. "Don"t ask me!" he said, to Corydon. "Don"t ask!"
"Please tell me!" cried the girl. "Did you see them?"
"Yes," said Thyrsis--"I saw a fat man!"
"A fat man!"
"Yes--a fat man. A fat body, and a fat mind, and a fat soul."