Part 2

It may interest some readers to know what M. Fort has been doing since the war. He is an inhabitant of Rheims, born opposite the beautiful “cathédrale assassinée”; and he sits in a room at 125 Boulevard St. Germain writing, writing, poems against the invading Germans, poems to cheer on his heroic countrymen, poems mourning friends fallen on the battlefield, poems against H. I. M. the Kaiser, against the Prussian officers, against the “Monstrueux général baron von Plattenberg” (commanding the army which bombarded Rheims), poems to the English, to Joffre, and on the Battle of the Marne. The odd thing is that they are so good. I quote this one, from national vanity:

LA MANIERE[1]

ON meurt: l’Anglais s’élance et le Français le suit.... Il bondit, le Français!... L’Anglais court apres lui.... L’Anglais vif le rattrape. Qui, c’est même vaillance. Il me revient un mot, la fleur des mots guerriers. L’Anglais stoppe, et avec une grâce de France: “Messieurs de France, à vous de tirer les premiers.”

[1] This poem is printed by permission of M. Fort, from his periodical, “Poèmes de France,” published fortnightly at 25 centimes the number, 125 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris.

The Subman

Life and Literature in Russia are interdependent forces to such a degree that in approaching a phenomenon, whether in book-form or in reality, we can hardly discern the line of demarcation between cause and effect. If it is true that a number of Russian writers have mirrored actual life in their works, it is more significantly true that many powerful authors have influenced life and have moulded it in accordance with their views and ideas. And it is to be noticed that the less artistic the writers have been, the more obvious has been their tendency to preach and sermonize, the stronger their influence upon the young minds; more than Gogol and Dostoyevsky have such second-rate writers as Chernyshevsky and Stepnyak succeeded in shaping the creeds of their readers. We must remember that literature in Russia, although gagged by bigoted censorship, has been the only medium for expressing and moulding public opinion throughout the past century, and to a great extent this holds true to our very day. Revolutionism, terrorism, socialism, have been propagated through the mouths of novel heroes and heroines for the ardent emulation of the seeking susceptible youth.

The furor produced in Russia by the appearance of Artzibashev’s _Sanin_ some eight years ago has had no parallel even in that country, where a new word in belles-lettres has always taken on the significance of a national event. The importance of this novel is partly due to chronological circumstances—the fact that it came as a luring will o’ the wisp in the post-revolutionary gloom of Russian life. The young generation was on the verge of despondency; the collapse of the Revolution brought to nought the long struggle, the thousands of sacrificed lives, the high aspirations; the Constitution, which had been the ideal of generations, the religion of all pure-minded Russia, had degenerated into a mocking buffonade, the subservient Duma. At such a time Artzibashev steps forward offering the disillusioned youth a new type—the strong, sane Sanin, who derides the altruistic strivings of his compatriots and advocates simple animalistic life, sans principles, sans standards, with the sole aim of satisfying one’s impulses. So strong and timely was the appeal that it immediately created a large following; clubs and societies were formed for the promulgation of the new religion, Sanin’s ideas were hotly discussed from the lecture platform and in the press—in short, such a formidable movement burst forth that the government, which has usually welcomed any sign of deviation from revolutionary thought, became alarmed and withdrew the book from circulation.

But the importance of _Sanin_ has been far more than local. In Germany it was translated and even dramatized, and has created a literature. Even France, oversatiated with pornography, was for a moment stirred at the appearance of the sensational novel, until a new scandal captured the limelight. Finally, with the customary Anglo-Saxon retardation, we have the book in English.[2] The universality of Artzibashev’s appeal is thus evident, and the question arises: What is the underlying force that makes the book arouse interest, admiration, and indignation in various tongues and countries? To my mind, this is the answer: The author, a typical representative of our age, has performed a purely subjective, introspective study—hence he has voiced the ideas of his contemporaries, hence he is so readily understood and appreciated by the children of our civilization.

Francis Hackett, who, when he writes on books, has no equal in this country, has remarked with his usual insight: “It is plain that for himself Artzibashev has made not a man, but a hero, a god.” To this true statement I wish to add that when we humans erect a god, we endow him with those qualities and virtues which we ourselves lack, which to us are but unattainable desiderata. Artzibashev glorifies Sanin because he himself is Sanin’s antipode, the whining, impotent Yourii, whom he paints with obvious disgust. This is no sheer presumption; I have followed the author’s career since his early short stories written in a Tolstoyan, idealistic vein, where he revealed a restless, self-questioning, self-analyzing spirit of the sort that he caricaturizes in Yourii: “Perpetual sighing and groaning, or incessant questionings such as ‘I sneezed just now. Was that the right thing to do? Will it not cause harm to some one? Have I, in sneezing, fulfilled my destiny?’” But the idealist-Artzibashev-Yourii lived not in the clouds, but in the midst of the St. Petersburg Bohème, with the decadent crowd of the restaurant “Vienna”—a life of questionable virtuousness and of dubious hygiene. He conceived the idea of _Sanin_ when he had become almost a physical wreck, forced to spend his time, when not in “Vienna,” in a resort in Crimea. Incapable of enjoying carnal life any longer, yet morbidly craving to empty the cup of sensuous pleasures to the dregs, he creates for himself a fetish, an ideal male, stripped of all human weaknesses, doubtings, and questionings, free of all principles but the principle of professing no principles, living to the full the life of a healthy animal.

In order to accentuate the superiority of his god, Sanin, the author surrounds him with sentimental weaklings, vegetating in a small provincial town, engaged in petty philosophizing and whimpering, bored with one another and with the general ennui of their life, aimlessly pining, striving purposelessly. In such a setting the figure of Sanin naturally looms up as the least boring individual. But try to transfer the hero from this stage of marionettes into real Russian, or, for that matter, into any life full of struggle and love and passion, and what a platitudinous, uninteresting figure he will make! In what he says is nothing strikingly new; his discourses on Christianity or on morality could have been borrowed from any modern rank-and-file radical. As to what he does—well, it is zoology. A witty critic has endeavored to pin to him the label of Superman; what an insult for our hero, who after a feast of vodka, cucumbers, and cheap cigarettes, “undressed and got into bed, where he tried to read _Thus spake Zarathustra_ which he found among Lida’s books” (an interesting detail about the intellectual status of the provincials who read Ibsen, Hamsun, Nietzsche). “But the first few pages were enough to irritate him. Such inflated imagery left him unmoved. He spat, flung the volume aside, and soon fell fast asleep.”

Artzibashev is obviously an erotomaniac. His men and women think of one another only in sexual terms, dream of possessing and being possessed. Broad shoulders, strong muscles, intense virility; ample bosoms, swaying hips, supple bodies—these are the _ne plus ultra_ attractions of his heroes and heroines. Even nature appears to his characters through a pathological prism; under the influence of moonlight or sunshine they dream of nude bodies, white limbs, yielding mates.

I repeat my statement: _Sanin_, or rather Artzibashev, is typical of his age—the age of the oversatiated enervated urbanite, the age of civilization overdeveloped at the expense of culture. You see them in the big cities (perhaps to a lesser degree in this young country), on the streets, among society, among professionals—those over-ripe men and women whose senses have become dull, who are driven by ennui and imbecility to seek the piquant, the bestial, the “healthy.” But the true healthy men and women do not talk health, sex, muscles, virility, for as long as our natural faculties are sound we are hardly aware of them. The healthy, those who are pulsating with life, strive to surpass themselves, strive towards the Superman; it is the pathological, the incapacitated, the withered, who impotently yearn for a retrogradation towards the Subman-Sanin.

[2] _Sanine, by Michael Artzibashef._ [_B. W. Huebsch, New York._]

There is hardly any danger of the book being persecuted by Anthony Comstock, for whatever pernicious influence it might have had has been splendidly neutralized through the wretched translation which evidently was rendered from the French version, in its turn a poor translation from the German; this explains—does it justify—the cosmopolitan transliteration of the proper names and the numerous nonsensical errors. The publisher threatens to present the public with Artzibashev’s _Millionaire_; let us hope that this time the author will be spared the atrocious mutilation by the hands of the humoristic Percy Pinkerton.

Hunger

GEORGE FRANKLIN

The moment seems due. Fashion had better take care. Beggars can spit very venomously. Weird-looking jumbles of bones in rags are leering and grinning, jostling and hustling very defiantly. Men are blowing their noses on doorsteps and wearing their hats in church. Hunger is no more passive. Time comes, and with it the fulfillment of every destiny prophesied by a fact. Hunger is sickly till Frenzy quickens it. Hunger has no brain, and does not consider. It curses and swears, is blear-eyed and croaks. It sneers, mocks, jeers, coughs. It spits and throws filth on fine linen. It pours out from cesspool haunts and stinks out the most respectable of neighborhoods. Hunger has no morality—is devoid of all shame. In highest moods hungry knaves will hurl stones, smash windows, pinch, eat, drink, tear down altars, stretch the necks of the Respectable between the head and the shoulders, use guns, laugh, grin, joke, mock, stick grass in mouths of their victims, use pikes, uproot bastiles, and without ceremony lop off heads with every consecutive second of the clock. Hunger startles the world from its slumber, with a shock. Beware, Friends! Hunger is lynx-eyed and sees behind every fact. It sniffs and can smell out anything suspicious. Hunger will hurt no man except he smell or look a little of Tyranny. Does Tyranny wear a powdered wig, talk good French and say “Monsieur”—Hunger looks, sniffs, finds it, and sends its head rolling into a bushel basket. Does it look like a New York banker, have crease in pants, talk grammatical English, wear gold chain, wipe nose with clean handkerchief, wear feathered plumes and fashionable gowns—Hunger noses it out and despatches it without delay. Respectability with its disdain; Education with its stupidity; Fashion with its vanity; Wealth with its luxury; all exhale the same odor to the sniffings of Hunger. When Hunger sniffs, it is time for Fashion to drape itself in rags and give to its body a smell of dung. If Hunger cannot taste food, it will drink blood. There is only one passion stronger than Love—Hatred. Love will Sacrifice, but Hatred will live, though it torture the world with all the machinations of hell. Hatred and Hunger are dogs of the same kennel.... Hunger Hounds, starved, snarling, bloodshot eyes, fangs bared, straining at their chains—Friends, Beware!... Hunger—lean, bony, naked, and grimy—with talons and claws. Hunger with fever and mad. Hunger goaded. Hunger grinning. Hunger in consort with Death. Hunger—hideous, impalpable. Hunger that cannot die. Hunger, blood-smeared, ghastly, and sallow, with rotting teeth. Hunger that spits and leers. Hunger—devilish nightmare to all Tyrannies. Hunger, the fiendish torment of all Fashions and Respectabilities. Hunger without Reason—mad and demoniac. Hunger! Hunger! Hunger! Hunger! Friends, Beware! The moment seems due. Time will fulfill the destiny of a Fact.

To follow the impulses of my heart is my supreme law; what I can accomplish by obeying my instincts, is what I ought to do. Is that voice of instinct cursed or blessed? I do not know; but I yield to it, and never force myself to run counter to my inclination.

—_Richard Wagner._

Poems

DAVID O’NEIL

APATHY

The bodies of soldiers Come floating down the river To the green sea, Rich in amber, Waiting to embalm them; All is splendid silence In this pageantry of wanton glory Awed By the setting sun.

ONE WAY OUT

In this terror of blood-spilling lust, Why throw it in a ditch, This boy’s beautiful body, When his spirit might rise like steam from the soup And stir the live ones to vengeance? Disease will deter you? Ah, but boil it well And the thought will give it a spice. Cannibalism, you say? Why stop when you have gone so far? He that died Would rather his body Gave life to his fellows, Than be trampled over, Shot over, Shoveled like offal away. Why throw it in a ditch?

VICTORY

I see captured shot-rent flags Dancing with the wind, Flying high to glory. Why not anchor them With a pyramid of bones, Those of our own men? It would tell Of the price that was paid To have these flags here, Whipping in the wind.

OUR SON JACK

Our son Jack, Wild with life, Went through When law and nature Said, “Go around.” Thus he died.

THE OAK

Gaunt, Stripped of leaves, Death-defiant, Yet triumphant In this thought: There is nothing more to lose.

MOODS AND MOMENTS

I.

In dreams I have been swept through space On a star-hung swing, Like a silkworm Upheld by a slender strand, Tossed about in the gale.

II.

His life was well ordered And monotonously clean As an orchard with white-washed trees. But he felt not the cool Of the sun-splotched woods Nor the mad blue brilliance Of the sea.

III.

I see green fields In the first flush of the spring, And little children playing, Clustered as patches of white flowers.

Musik or Music?

JAMES WHITTAKER

Despite its two world-cities our America is still a vast unattached province, subject now to the influence of London, now to that of Berlin or Paris, and again in a period of disaffection and unrestraint. Our taste is childish,—a capricious, intermittent taste—good once in a while, never lasting, and by no means frequent. Such a taste gives a few pleasures but not the developed one of judgment. It never lasts long enough to be imposed. We are unable to pair two congenial traditions and get a tendency. There is nothing for it but to welcome another generation of incomprehensible foreigners in the hope that among them will be found a mate for our very real desire for fine things.

One country has sent us little inspiration. Her natives do not willingly leave her soft sky for our harsh brilliant western sun. They have a proverbial preference for her gentle manner and speech. For our youth she has the admiration and envy of age, for our red knuckles and large ankles she has the indulgence of one who has been beautiful for many lovers, but for our loud-mouthed demand for adulation she has the aloofness of one who has still many courtiers. If we go fearfully as befits our youth and humbly as befits our awkwardness to Paris, instead of waiting for Paris the beautiful to come to us, perhaps we shall receive what Berlin and London have not yet given us.

London came to us willingly with a scholarly something that was better than our previous nothing. Berlin forced on us a manner of strong professionalism that was better than our previous weakness. Now we are beyond the age of facile conquests and we must, at the risk of being rebuffed and made unhappy, seek the favor of a lady who stays at home.

Since the spirit of Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert left Vienna, Music has loved no city. We shall soon agree that she did not love Weimar greatly nor Munich at all nor Leipzig enough. As for the lusty person who flaunts a passion for Berlin, we must call her a maid masquerading in her mistress’s cloak if, indeed, we concede her a resemblance to music at all.

The joy of loveliness admired, the frankness and naivete, the “jeu perle” and natural melodiousness that were the life of Viennese Music vanished utterly with the death of Schubert unknown. It seemed that he and his predecessors must have brought music into a cul-de-sac from which it would have to extricate itself. German music did and received new impetus from the professionalism of Weber, the literary romanticism of Liszt, the savoir-vivre of Chopin, and the cosmicality of Wagner. France, meanwhile, entertained loyally the older manner, nursing it through its unpopularity into the convalescence it now enjoys. When we come to discover that the spirit of Berlin is rather of something hyphenated to “Kultur” than of music purely, we shall also discover the spirit of Vienna,—vigorous and slightly Frenchified, in the Conservatoire and the Schola Cantorum.

Somehow, without the least effort or merit, we have strolled into the position of the “distinguished amateur.” It is an eminence from which one may see everything if one but keep a clear eye and a doubting mind. What fools we should be to view the road before us as we can only this once, wearing a prejudice like a pair of smoked goggles. To doubt is a privilege which the wise will make a duty. We should doubt what has given us our artistic existence, and if it can only stand by our faith it will fall—but we shall not fall with it. We should doubt the things we desire so that when we abandon them we cannot be reproached with broken faith. We _must_ doubt the strength of organized professionalism that Berlin would teach us, the value of hard work the contrapunctalists of the Royal Academy preach;—we _must_ doubt the superiority of art and the artist, the inviolability of tradition, the legitimacy of the Beethoven-Wagner-Strauss succession for the reason that they have been so freely offered if for no other. Surely such eagerness to be accepted does not prove great worth. Let us pooh-pooh all these magnificent “Pooh-Bahs” of music to see if their threats to have our heads off are real or bluff. Then with our tongues still in our cheeks, let us continue on to other courts.

If we have enjoyed the simple and fine art with which Beethoven and Schubert enlivened and refined the salons of Vienna, we shall enjoy Franck. If we should prefer our Mozart livelier by a notch of the metronome and lighter by one-half of the strings than we hear it now, we should be pleased by Chabrier and Faure and the way they are played by the half-dozen youngsters who get their premier prix at the end of each year’s work in the Conservatoire. From pure inertia we have out-stayed our pleasure in modern German music. A bit of animation and on to Paris!

The Critics’ Catastrophe

(A Probable Possibility)

HERMAN SCHUCHERT

The scene is a dining-room of the “Cave Dwellers,” Chicago’s most exclusively stupid club. At one table are seated four musical critics, and one ex-critic, of the daily papers. That this gathering is unique is attested by numerous hushed conversations at other tables; the critics’ table is a center of half-concealed interest. A waiter has just cleared away the dishes; cigars are brought. The youngest critic, of the Worst Glaring Nuisance (witness the yellow acre of illuminated sign at the foot of Michigan avenue) speaks as if to reassure his natural timidity:

DONALD WORCESTER. I suppose it will be eminently respectable. (The others appear not to have heard his remark, until a reply is carefully chosen by

CARBON HATCHETT. Her advance notices would lead one to suppose that she has something of a prestige.

EDWARD MORLESS. That guff! I saw it. Awful! What I want to know is: what the devil does she mean by beginning her program with Debussy. I just wonder what’s become of Beethoven—ha, ha!

DONALD WORCESTER. I suppose she imagines she’s going to revolutionize program-making.

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Gentlemen, when I give my piano recital on March twentieth, you’ll hear the best possible way to start a program. Debussy is altogether too weak to lead; he’s scarcely able to get in at all (chuckle) but I’ve found a leader that is a leader—Archibald Shanks. If I know anything, and I do, this Shanks is going to become _the_ American composer. Why, he’s so much better than MacDowell with all his Scotchy junk that there’s no comparison. I found Shanks in Rolling Prairie, South Dakota; and when I play his _March of the Rock-Spirits_ at my recital on March the twentieth, you’ll hear the real thing—it’s music, I tell you.

XILEF BOWOWSKI. Hmh! Ah-hmh! I remember looking over compositions by Archibald Shanks, sent me by a certain New York publisher, to get my opinion before taking them; and in one of them—I forget the title—I think it was _Through the Marsh_—some such title—hmh!—it doesn’t really matter—I found seven consecutive fifths and twelve parallel octaves within the space of a few bars. Positively inexcusable!

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Blgh-h! That belongs to his early period. _Through the Marsh_ is simply a practice-stunt, done when he was about fifteen—a mere youthful exercise. You can’t judge by—blgh-h!

DONALD WORCESTER. I read in the _Artists’ News_ that young Shanks is only seventeen at the present time.

EDWARD MORLESS. Probably means his son—Waiter!—What do you want, boys? I’m dry as a bone. And we’ve got a long afternoon before us. However, for my part, I shan’t be in any hurry about getting there. What’ll it be?

XILEF BOWOWSKI. A little plum brandy for me.

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Bring me some Haig and Haig.

CARBON HATCHETT. Manhattan cocktail.

DONALD WORCESTER. A large beer.

EDWARD MORLESS. Good! Let’s have some Green River, Tim. Krupp, do you think she’ll be any good at all?

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. A woman? From Budapest? On a Thimble piano? Starting in with Debussy? And you ask if she’ll be good! How could she be?

DONALD WORCESTER. I was reading the other day——

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. All she plays is trash, of one kind or another. Debussy never does anything but move up and down the whole-tone scale; no melody, no counterpoint, no music at all. And take the Tchaikowsky thing, for instance. Everybody knows that Tchaikowsky always carried a whip in one hand and a gun in the other, and when he wasn’t using one, it was the other. It’s proverbial, and makes such a handy remark when thinking would take too long. And his piano-style: he simply hasn’t got any; it’s pathetic. I see you don’t get my joke on the sixth symphony—the Pathetique. I say, America won’t stand for that sort of thing. Some kindly person should have informed this Madame Frizza Bonjoline before she made a complete fool of herself.

CARBON HATCHETT. She hasn’t played yet, and maybe it won’t be so bad after all.

DONALD WORCESTER. A friend of mine tells me that Mr. Debussy is one of the greatest living melodists.

BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Blgh-h!