Chapter 2
I hope so. Yes, I hope that from your point of view I am quite mad. You won't understand me, because you don't understand what I most love and what I most hate. Oh you self-made Americans! When I really needed your helping hand you didn't think of me. You had the American idea that every tub must stand on its own bottom, that every young fellow must make _good_--that is, make money. You buy "art" at a certain stage in your development just as you buy motor cars, and you think you can buy artists the same way. You don't know that to buy dead art is to starve live artists.
Well, I made good. I can stand alone. Are you offering me money now to help me in my work? Not a bit! Rich men haven't changed since the first tribal chief ordered his bow and arrows, his wives and servants, to be buried with him.
UNCLE RICHARD
You conceited young rascal! I needn't leave you a cent!
RICHARD
I haven't asked you to. I never thought about your money. I can get along very well without it. But can you take it with you?
UNCLE RICHARD
Of course not! But I can leave it to whom I please.
RICHARD
Why don't you leave it to Joseph?
UNCLE RICHARD
To Joseph--my coachman? Are you joking?
RICHARD
Not at all. Didn't he save your life in the Civil War? And what have I ever done for you?
UNCLE RICHARD
I have remembered Joseph very handsomely, but to make him my _heir_--why, that isn't the same thing at all!
RICHARD
Well, to a university then?
UNCLE RICHARD
No.
RICHARD
A church?
UNCLE RICHARD
No!
RICHARD
A cat hospital?
UNCLE RICHARD
Damn cats! There's been enough of them sick in my own house!
RICHARD
Well, I give it up.
UNCLE RICHARD
You young fool! You don't know what you are saying! _Joseph! Church! Cat Hospital!_ What good would I get out of that? Is that what I have been working for all my life? No indeed!
_Richard, you shall be my heir!_
RICHARD
I won't! You are only interested in me because I bear your name. If I were John Smith, though ten times the better man, you would never waste a thought upon me. My name is an accident--I care nothing for that. My real self is my art, for which you care even less. All you want is to establish a dynasty--the last infirmity of successful men.
No, I won't be your heir!
UNCLE RICHARD
Madness, madness! What kind of a world are we coming to?
RICHARD
Listen. One day when I was walking outside Siena I came to a fine old villa with a wonderful garden. A row of cypresses ran along the wall inside, and I wanted to paint it. The gardener let me in for a tip. While I sat there working, he watching me--even the peasants have a feeling for paint over there--we heard a tap on the window. It was the padrona. I saw that she wanted to speak to me, and I went in. She was an old, crippled woman, holding to life by sheer will, sitting all day by the fire in one room. She spoke French, so we could talk. To my surprise she was very much interested in me--asked questions about my work, my family, and so on. I couldn't understand why. But when I left she began crying and told me that I reminded her of her grandson who had been killed in Tripoli, and that there was no one of the family name left, but that she had to leave the property either to a cousin whom she detested, or to the Church. And she said just what you have: that this wasn't the _same thing_. She had nothing to live for, she said, now the heir was dead, except keep the place out of others' hands. There she was, a prisoner in that beautiful villa, enjoying nothing, where an artist would have been in paradise. I see her yet, bent over the fire in a black lace shawl, crying.
On my way back to town I happened to think of my last visit with you, and my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on which the world is based, the curse of dollar worship that keeps opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we worshipped life instead of metal disks, we would see that the young are not really the heirs of the old, but the old are heirs of the young. Then and there I vowed to keep myself clear of the whole wretched tangle, even if I had to carry laundry all my life, so that if any one ever tried to fetter me I could fling his words back in his face! (_Uncle Richard's nerves are all on edge. A terrific storm of overbearing temper visibly gathers during this speech, and the Colonel's long habit of successful domination seems about to assert itself in an explosion. But at the last moment another power, deeper than habit, older than character, represses his wrath, and when Uncle Richard speaks again it is with an earnest gentleness almost plaintive._)
UNCLE RICHARD
Richard, for heaven's sake let us stop this quarreling! Let us forget what has been said and done on both sides and begin anew. I offer you a home here during my life time, and all that I own after I am dead. I _do_ care for you, my boy, I know it now as I know my own name. Surely, Richard, you need not take this offer amiss?
RICHARD
Well, but you see, Uncle Richard....
UNCLE RICHARD
Do you prefer poverty for its own sake?
RICHARD
Of course not. But I prefer it to hypocrisy and compromise.
UNCLE RICHARD
Well then. You will accept, Richard? For my sake, Richard?
RICHARD
Well....
UNCLE RICHARD
It is the only pleasure left to me, Richard, thinking of the old name going down honourably in you. And as for the past, my mistakes were due to not having a son of my own. You have no idea what a difference it makes. It's my dream, Richard, don't destroy it!
RICHARD
If you really mean it that way--
UNCLE RICHARD
My dear Richard! My dear boy! Why--now I know why we have been quarreling, Richard!
RICHARD
Why?
UNCLE RICHARD
Because we are so much alike. At your age I was the same self-willed beggar you are. Richard, you are more like me than you are like your own father!
RICHARD
Le roi est morte, vive le roi. _But_ (_and he thumps the table with great emphasis_) but there's one thing understood--I'm going to paint _masterpieces_!
UNCLE RICHARD
Of course you are, my boy, of course you are! In fact, I always _knew_ you would, Richard!
THE INCOMPATIBLES
_A corner table in a Broadway restaurant, at evening. Between the man and woman who have just taken seats is a bouquet of red roses._
MARIAN
No, I don't want any oysters or clams. I ate enough sea food in Atlantic City to last a season. I want some--Oh, what gorgeous flowers! Umm! I love the smell of roses! Especially out of season. Why, the other tables haven't any! Fred, did you--?
FRED
Sure I did, Marian. I knew you'd like 'em.
MARIAN
I do. But you mustn't be a silly boy any longer, Fred!
FRED
I will, too. It isn't silly, to give _you_ flowers.
MARIAN
That's all right, Fred. Goodness knows I like the flowers. But I'm not a young idiot who expects her honeymoon to last forever. I've had one experience, you know.
FRED
Yes, but you mustn't judge all men by _him_.
MARIAN
I don't. I knew well enough you're different, or I'd never have married you. But at the same time--
FRED
Well, I'm going to show you that a _real_ man don't get over the fun of being married to a peach like you in just two weeks. You don't want me to, do you?
MARIAN
Course not, Fred! Didn't I say you were different? But I don't want you to set a pace you can't keep up. You'd hate me in no time if I did.
FRED
I couldn't hate _you_, girlie! Besides, isn't this our first night back in the old town? We shan't be having dinner out like this every day.
MARIAN
Well, only I don't want to have you flop all of a sudden, like _he_ did. What'll you have, a cocktail?
FRED
Let's see.... What's the matter, Marian?
MARIAN
Sh! Don't turn round!
FRED
What's up?
MARIAN
_Him!_
FRED
Him who?
MARIAN
_George!_
FRED
Good Lord! Well, don't mind _him_. He hasn't got anything on you now. You're _mine_.
MARIAN
Sure I am. He isn't looking. He's with a woman. By jingo! It's that millinery kid!
FRED
What millinery kid? Besides, what difference does it make? Let him have a hundred, if he wants 'em. _We're_ happy.
MARIAN
The nerve of him! I knew it was her right along. He tried to throw a bluff it was some swell. I'll bet he paid good for those clothes!
FRED
Oh, come on! What'll you have? Besides, she might have made the clothes herself.
MARIAN
Made 'em herself! Say, a fine lot you know about ladies' gowns! That came from the Avenue, straight.
FRED
Well, what if it did? I'll get you a better one, you just wait.
MARIAN
Sh! He's looking over here!
FRED
Hm! Look at me and you won't see him.
MARIAN
The nerve!
FRED
What's he done?
MARIAN
He smiled right over like nothing had ever happened. I'll bet he's going to say something mean about me. Oh!
FRED
Let's change our seats. I'm hungry!
MARIAN
Change nothing! Catch me giving him a laugh like that! I could tell her things, the young--There, now _she's_ looking!
FRED
What if she is? Say, look here--
MARIAN
He's getting up! Well, of all the brass!
FRED
What?
MARIAN
He's coming over here!
FRED
He is! Don't you say a word. I'll take _him_ on!
MARIAN
If he dares--
GEORGE
Hello, Marian!
MARIAN
Hm!
GEORGE
What, got a grouch on your honeymoon? That's a bad sign, Marian!
MARIAN
No, I haven't got any grouch! Don't _you_ worry! You're the only grouch I ever had, thank the Lord!
GEORGE
Well then. It isn't every woman gets rid of an incompatible husband and gets hold of a compatible one, all in same season.
FRED
Look here!
MARIAN
That's just like him! Coming over here with a grin on like a kid with a new toy. Well, we don't want anything to do with _you_. See?
GEORGE
Sure. Excuse me for butting in. I just wanted to make a little announcement.
MARIAN
Oh, you did! Well, I'm surprised! I didn't think _she_ was the kind you had to marry.
GEORGE
Huh! I knew you'd have your little knife out for her. But why you should have to be jealous _now_ I can't see.
MARIAN
I'm not jealous!
GEORGE
What you worrying about, then?
MARIAN
I'm not worrying! I'm only sore because you butted in when we were so happy together here without you.
GEORGE
Oh, _excuse_ me! As a matter of fact, I didn't come over to make any announcement. It's too late for that. I--
MARIAN
Married already! Anybody'd think you might wait a little while for common decency!
GEORGE
I waited a day longer than you did, anyhow.
MARIAN
That's different.
FRED
I _beg_ your pardon! We were just ordering dinner. If you didn't come to make any announcement, why--
MARIAN
Yes, what did you butt in for?
GEORGE
Why, I got a letter from your friend Grace, and--
MARIAN
Grace? What did she have to say to _you_?
GEORGE
She said she was sorry I had to get a divorce, but I told her--
MARIAN
Sorry _you_ had to get a divorce! Well, if I don't fix _her_!
GEORGE
Oh, she's getting married, too.
MARIAN
Who to?
GEORGE
That fellow, what's his name, that's got the garage over on Seventh Avenue.
MARIAN
Snider! So _he's_ the one! Well! And I suppose she'll be all over town in a new car.
GEORGE
Sure. Saw him to-day. A big yellow one. I always told you she was out for money. And you thought she was in love with Jackson!
MARIAN
Hypocrite! She was. Or she told me so. Cried all over me. Have you seen Jackson?
GEORGE
Yes. He's as blue as your old kimono. He said--
FRED
Look here, Marian! I'm not going to wait all night for my dinner!
MARIAN
Order your old dinner! What did Jackson say, George?
THE GENIUS
_The front porch of a small farmhouse in New England. Stone flags lead to the road; the yard is a careless, comfortable lawn with two or three old maples. It is autumn._
_A boy of sixteen or so, carrying a paper parcel, stops hesitatingly, looks in a moment and then walks to the porch. As he stands there a man comes out of the house. The man is in his early forties, he stoops a little, but not from weakness; his expression is one of deep calm._
THE MAN
I wonder if you have seen my dog? I was going for a walk, but Rex seems to have grown tired of waiting.
THE BOY
Your dog? No, sir, I haven't seen him. Shall I go look?
THE MAN
No, never mind. He'll come back. Rex and I understand each other. He has his little moods, like me.
THE BOY
If you were going for a walk--?
THE MAN
It doesn't matter at all. I can go any time. You don't live in this country?
THE BOY
No, sir. I live in New York. I wish I did. It's beautiful here, isn't it?
THE MAN
It's very beautiful to me. I love it. You may have come a long road this morning, let's sit down.
THE BOY
Thank you. I'm not interfering with anything?
THE MAN
Bless your heart! No indeed. What is there to interfere with? All we have is life, and this is part of it.
THE BOY
I like to sit under these trees. It makes me think of the Old Testament.
THE MAN
That's interesting. How?
THE BOY
Well, maybe I'm wrong, but whenever I think of the Old Testament I see an old man under a tree--
THE MAN
Yes?
THE BOY
A man who has lived it all through, you know, and found out something real about it; and he sits there calm and strong, something like a tree himself; and every once in a while somebody comes along--a boy, you know,--and the boy talks to him all about himself, just as we imagine we'd like to with our fathers, if they weren't so busy, or our teachers, if they didn't depend so much upon books, or our ministers, if we thought they would really understand,--and the old man doesn't say much maybe, but the boy goes away much stronger and happier....
THE MAN
Yes, yes, I understand. The Old Testament.... They _did_ get hold of things, didn't they?
THE BOY
What I can't understand is how nowadays people seem more grown up and competent than those men were, in a way, and we do such wonderful things--skyscrapers and aeroplanes--and yet we aren't half so wonderful as they were in the Old Testament with their jugs and their wooden plows. I mean, we aren't near so big as the things we do, while those old fellows were so much bigger. We smile at them, but if some day one of our machines fell over on us what would we do about it?
THE MAN
I wonder.
THE BOY
I went through a big factory just last week. One of my friends' father is the manager, and all I could think of was what could a fellow do who didn't like it, who didn't fit in.... Nowadays most everybody seems competent about factories or business or something like that--you know--and they've got hold of everything, so a fellow's got to do the same thing or where is he?
THE MAN
That's the first question, certainly: where is he? But where is he if he does do the same thing?
THE BOY
Why, he's with the rest. And _they_ don't ask that question....
THE MAN
I'm afraid they don't. It would be interesting to be there if they should begin to ask it, wouldn't it?
THE BOY
Yes.... I'd like to be there when some _I_ know ask themselves! But they never will. Why should they?
THE MAN
Don't you mean how _can_ they?
THE BOY
Yes, of course. They don't ask the question because the big thing they are doing seems to be the answer beforehand. But it isn't! Not compared with the Old Testament. So we have to ask it for ourselves. And that's why I came here....
THE MAN
Oh. You want to know where _they_ are, with their power, or where _you_ will be without it?
THE BOY
Where I'll be. I hate it! But what else is there to-day?
THE MAN
Why, there's you.
THE BOY
But that's just it! What am I for if I can't join in? I came to you.... You don't mind my talking, do you?
THE MAN
On the contrary.
THE BOY
Well, everybody I know is a part of it, so how could they tell me what to do outside of it? I've been wondering about that for a year. Before then, when I was just a boy, the world seemed full of everything, but now it seems to have only one thing. That or nothing. Then one day I saw a photograph somebody had cut out of a Sunday paper, and I thought to myself there's a man who seems outside, entirely outside, and yet he has something. It wasn't all or nothing for him ... and I wondered who it was. Then I found your book, with the same picture in it. You bet I read it right off! It was the first time in my life I had ever felt power as great as skyscrapers and railroads and yet apart from them. Outside of all they mean. Like the Old Testament. Those poems!
THE MAN
You liked them?
THE BOY
It was more than that. How can a fellow _like_ the ocean, or a snow storm?
THE MAN
Is that what you thought they were like?
THE BOY
Why, they went off like a fourteen inch gun! Not a whine about life in them--not a single regret for anything. They were wonderful! They seemed to pick up mountains and cities and toss them all about like toys. They made me feel that what I was looking for was able to conquer what I didn't like.... I said to myself I don't care if he does laugh at me, I'll go and ask him where all that power is! And so I came....
THE MAN
There's Rex now--over across the road. He's wondering who you are. He sees we are friends, and he's pretending to be jealous. Dogs are funny, aren't they? But you were speaking about my poems. It's odd that their first criticism should come from you like this. You must be about the same age I was when I began writing--when I wanted above anything to write a book like that, and when such a book seemed the most impossible thing I could do. Like trying to swim the Atlantic, or live forever.
THE BOY
It seemed impossible? I should think it would be the most natural thing in the world, for _you_--like eating dinner.
THE MAN
That's the wonderful thing--not the book, but that _I_ should have come to write it!
THE BOY
But who else could write it?
THE MAN
At your age I thought anybody could--anybody and everybody except myself.
THE BOY
Really?
THE MAN
Really and truly. You've no idea what a useless misfit I was.
THE BOY
But I read somewhere you had always been brilliant, even as a boy.
THE MAN
Unfortunately ... yes. That was what made it so hard for me. Shall I tell you about it?
THE BOY
I wish you would!
THE MAN
Brilliance--I'll tell you what that was, at least for me. I wrote several things that people called "brilliant." One in particular, a little play of decadent epigram. It was acted by amateurs before an admiring "select" audience. That was when I was twenty-one. From about sixteen on I had been acutely miserable--physically miserable. I never knew when I wouldn't actually cave in. I felt like a bankrupt living on borrowed money. Of course, it's plain enough now--the revolt of starved nerves. I cared only for my mind, grew only in that, and the rest of me withered up like a stalk in dry soil. So the flower drooped too--in decadent epigram. But nobody pointed out the truth of it all to me, and I scorned to give my body a thought. People predicted a brilliant future--for me, crying inside! Then I married. I married the girl who had taken the star part in the play. According to the logic of the situation, it was inevitable. Everybody remarked how inevitable it was. A decorative girl, you know. She wanted to be the wife of a great man.... Well, we didn't get along. There was an honest streak in me somewhere which hated deception. I couldn't play the part of "brilliant" young poet with any success. She was at me all the while to write more of the same thing. And I didn't want to. The difference between the "great" man I was supposed to be and the sick child I really was, began to torture. I knew I oughtn't to go on any further if I wanted to do anything real. Then one night we had an "artistic" dinner. My wife had gotten hold of a famous English poet, and through him a publisher. The publisher was her real game. I drank champagne before dinner so as to be "brilliant." I was. And before I realized it, Norah had secured a promise from the publisher to bring out a book of plays. I remember she said it was practically finished. But it wasn't, only the one, and I hated that. But I sat down conscientiously to write the book that she, and apparently all the world that counted, expected me to write. Well, I couldn't write it. Not a blessed word! Something inside me refused to work. And there I was. In a month or so she began to ask about it. Norah thought I ought to turn them out while she waited. I walked up and down the park one afternoon wondering what to tell her.... And when I realized that either she would never understand or would despise me, I grew desperate. I wrote her a note, full of fine phrases about "incompatibility," her "unapproachable ideals," the "soul's need of freedom"--things she _would_ understand and wear a heroic attitude about--and fled. I came here....
THE BOY
Of course. But didn't she follow you? Didn't they bother you?
THE MAN
Not a bit. Norah preferred her lonely heroism. In a few months I was quite forgotten. That was one of the healthful things I learned. Well, I was a wreck when I came here, I wanted only to lie down under a tree.... And there it was, under that tree yonder, my salvation came.
THE BOY
Your salvation?
THE MAN
Hunger. That was my salvation. Simple, elemental, unescapable appetite. You see I had no servant, no one at all. So I had to get up and work to prepare my food.... It was very strange. Compared with this life, my life before had been like living in a locked box. Some one to do everything for me except think, and consequently I thought too much. But here the very fact of life was brought home to me. I spent weeks working about the house and grounds on the common necessities. By the time winter came on the place was fit to live in--and I was enjoying life. All the "brilliance" had faded away; I was as simple as a blade of grass.
For a year I didn't write a word. I had the courage to wait for the real thing, nobody pestering me to be a "genius"! Some day you may read that first book. People said I had re-discovered the virtue of humility. I had.
THE BOY
I will read it! And how much more it will mean to me now!
THE MAN
I suppose you know the theory about vibrations--how if a little push is given a bridge, and repeated often enough at the right intervals, the bridge will fall?
THE BOY
Yes.
THE MAN
Well, that's the whole secret of what you have been looking for--what you found in my poems.
THE BOY
I don't understand.
THE MAN
A man's life is a rhythm. Eating, sleeping, working, playing, loving, thinking--everything. And when we live so that each activity comes at the right interval, we gain power. When one interrupts another, we lose. Weakness is merely the thrust of one impulse against another, instead of their combined thrust against the world. When I came here, feeling like a criminal, I was obeying the one right instinct in a welter of emotions. It was like the faintest of heart beats in a sick body. I listened to that. Then I learned physical hunger, then sleep, and so on. It's incredible how stupid I was about the elemental art of living! I had to begin all over from the beginning, as if no one had ever lived before.
THE BOY
That's what you meant in your poems about religion.
THE MAN
Exactly! I learned that "good" is the rhythm of the man's personal nature, and that "evil" is merely the confusion of the same impulses. As time went on it became instinctive to live for and by the rhythm. Everything about my life here was caught up and used in the vision of power--drawing water, cutting wood, digging in the garden, dawn. It was all marvelous--I couldn't help writing those poems. They are the natural joys and sorrows of ten years. As a matter of fact, though, I grew to care less and less about writing, as living became fuller and richer. People write too much. They would write less if they had to make the fire in the morning.
THE BOY
The first impulse ... I see. Oh, life might be so simple!
THE MAN