Chapter 5

"But, my dear Quell, are not all men mad at some time or another? Madly in love, religiously mad, patriotically insane, and idiotic on the subject of clothes, blood, social precedence, handsome persons, money? And is it not a sign of insanity when one man claims sanity for his own particular art? Painting, I admit, is--"

"What the devil do you know about painting?" Quell roughly interposed; "you are a poet and, pretending to love all creation,--altruism, I think your sentimental philosophers call it,--have the conceit to believe you bear a star in your stomach when it is only a craving for rum. I've been through the game."

He began to pace the sward, chewing a blade of grass. He spoke in hurried, staccato phrases:--

"Why was I put away? Listen: I tried to paint the sun,--for I hate your moon and its misty madness. To put this glorious furnace on canvas is, as you will acknowledge, the task of a god. It never came to me in my dreams, so I wooed it by day. Above all, I wished to express truth; the sun is black. Think of an ebon sun fringed with its dazzling photosphere! I tried to paint sun-rhythms, the rhythms of the quivering sky, which is never still even when it seems most immobile; I tried to paint the rhythms of the atmosphere, shivering as it is with chords of sunlight and chromatic scales as yet unpainted. Like Oswald Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, my last cry will be for 'the sun.' How did my friends act? What did the critics say? A black sun was too much for the world, though astronomers have proven my theory correct. The doctors swore I drank too much absinthe; the critics said a species of optical madness had set in; that I saw only the peripheral tints--I was yellow and blue crazy. Perhaps I was, perhaps I am. So is the fellow crazy who invented wireless telegraphy; so is the man off his base who invents a folding bird cage. We are all crazy, and the craziest gang are our doctors at the Hermitage." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Arved rolled his handsome head acquiescingly.

"You poets and musicians are trying to compass the inane. You are trying to duplicate your dreams, dreams without a hint of the sun. The painter at least copies or interprets real life; while the composer dips his finger in the air, making endless sound-scrolls--noises with long tails and whirligig decorations like foolish fireworks--though I think the art of the future will be pyrotechnics. Mad, mad, I tell you! But whether mad or not matters little in our land of freedom, where all men are born unequal, where only the artists are sad. They are useless beings, openly derided, and when one is caught napping, doing something that offends church or State or society, he is imprisoned. Mad, you know! No wonder anarchy is thriving, no wonder every true artist is an anarch, unavowed perhaps, yet an anarch, and an atheist."

"Not so fast!" interrupted Arved. "I'm an anarchist, but I don't believe in blowing up innocent policemen. Neither do you, Quell. You wouldn't hurt a bartender! Give an anarchist plenty to drink, and he sheds his anarchy like a shirt. There are, I have noticed, three stages in the career of a revolutionist: destruction, instruction, construction. He begins the first at twenty, at forty he is teaching, at sixty he believes in society--especially if he has money in the bank." Quell regarded the speaker sourly.

"You are a wonder, Arved. You fly off on a wild tangent stimulated by the mere sound of a word. Who said anything about dynamite-anarchy? There's another sort that men of brains--madmen if you will--believe and indirectly teach. Emerson was one, though he hardly knew it. Thoreau realized it for him, however. Don't you remember his stern rebuke when Emerson visited him in Concord jail: 'Henry, why art thou here?' meekly inquired the mystic man. 'Ralph, why art thou _not_ here?' was the counter-question. Thoreau had brave nerves. To live in peace in this malicious swamp of a world we must all wear iron masks until we are carted off to the _domino-park_; pious people call it the cemetery. Now, I'm going to sleep. I'm tired of all this jabbering. We are crazy for sure, or else we wouldn't talk so much."

Arved grumbled, "Yes, I've noticed that when a man in an asylum begins to suspect his keepers of madness he's mighty near lunacy himself."

"You have crazy blue eyes, Arved! Where's that flask--I'm dry again! Let's sleep."

They drained the bottle and were soon dozing, while about them buzzed the noon in all its torrid splendour.

When they awoke it was solid night. They yawned and damned the darkness, which smelt like stale india-rubber, so Quell said. They cursed life and the bitter taste in their mouths. Quell spoke of his thirst in words that startled the easy-going Arved, who confessed that if he could rid himself of the wool in his throat, he would be comparatively happy. Then they stumbled along, bumping into trees, feeling with outstretched arms, but finding nothing to guide them save the few thin stars in the torn foliage overhead. Without watches, they could catch no idea of the hour. The night was far spent, declared Arved; he discovered that he was very hungry. Suddenly, from the top of a steep, slippery bank they pitched forward into the highroad.

Arved put out his hand, searching for his comrade. "Quell, Quell!" he whispered. Quell rose darkly beside him, a narrow lath of humanity. Locking arms, both walked briskly until, turning a sharp, short corner, they beheld, all smiling in the night, a summer garden, well lighted and full of gay people, chattering, singing, eating, drinking--happy! The two fugitives were stunned for a moment by such a joyful prospect. Tears came slowly to their eyes, yet they never relaxed their gait. Arriving at an outlying table and seats, they bethought themselves of their appearance, of money, of other disquieting prospects; but, sitting down, they boldly called a waiter.

Luckily it was a country girl who timidly took their order for beer and sandwiches. And they drank eagerly, gobbling the food as soon as it came, ordering more so noisily that they attracted attention. The beer made them brave. As they poured down glass after glass, reckless of the reckoning, insolent to the servant, they began wrangling over the subject that had possessed their waking hours.

"Look here, Quell!" Arved exclaimed crustily, "you said I had crazy blue eyes. What about your own red ones? Crazy! Why, they glow now like a rat's. Poets may be music-mad, drunk with tone--"

"And other things," sneered the painter.

"--but at least their work is great when it endures; it does not fade away on rotten canvas."

"Now, I know you ought to be in the Brain-College, Arved, where your friends could take the little green car that goes by the grounds and see you on Sunday afternoons if weather permits."

His accent seemed deliberately insulting to Arved, who, however, let it pass because of their mutual plight. If they fell to fighting, detection would ensue. So he answered in placatory phrases:--

"Yes, my friend, we both belong to the same establishment, for we are men of genius. As the cat said to Alice, 'We must be mad or else we shouldn't be here.' I started to tell you why my people thought I had better take the cure. I loved the moon too much and loathed sunlight. If I had never tried to write lunar poetry--the tone quality of music combined with the pictorial evocation of painting--I might be in the bosom of my family now instead of--"

"Drinking with a crazy painter, eh?" Quell was very angry. He shouted for drinks so rapidly that he alarmed the more prudent Arved; and as they were now the last guests, the head waiter approached and curtly bade them leave. In an instant he was dripping with beer thrown at him--glass and all--by the irate Quell. A whistle sounded, two other waiters rushed out, and the battle began. Arved, aroused by the sight of his friend on the ground with three men hammering his head, gave a roar like the trumpeting of an elephant. A chair was smashed over a table, and, swinging one-half of it, he made a formidable onslaught. Two of the waiters were knocked senseless and the leader's nose and teeth crushed in by the rude cudgel. The morose moon started up, a tragic hieroglyph in the passionless sky. Quell, seeing its hated disk, howled, his face aflame with exaltation. Then he leaped like a hoarsely panting animal upon the poet; a moment and they were in the grass clawing each other. And the moon foamed down upon them its magnetic beams until darkness, caused by a coarse blanket, enveloped, pinioned, smothered them. When the light shone again, they were sitting in a wagon, their legs tightly bound....

They began singing. The attendant interrupted:--

"Will you fellows keep quiet? How can a man drive straight, listening to your cackle?"

Arved touched his temple significantly and nudged Quell.

"Another one of us. Another rebel of the moon!"

"Shut up or I'll gag you both!" imperiously commanded the doctor, as the wheels of the ambulance cut the pebbly road. They were entering the asylum; now they passed the porter's lodge. In the jewelled light of a senescent moon, his wife and little daughter gazed at them curiously, without semblance of pity or fear. Then, as if shot from the same vocal spring-board, the voices of poet and painter merged into crazy rhythmatic chanting:--

"Rebels of the moon, rebels of the moon! We are, we are, the rebels of the moon!"

And the great gates closed behind them with a brazen clangour--metal gates of the moon-rebels.

V

THE SPIRAL ROAD

There can be nothing good, as we know it, nor anything evil, as we know it, in the eye of the Omnipresent and the Omniscient.--_Oriental Proverb._

I

THE STRAND OF DREAMS

"I must see him if only for a minute. I can't go back to the city after coming so far. Please--" but the girl's face disappeared and the rickety door, which had been opened on a chain, was slammed after this imperative speech, and Gerald Shannon found himself staring exasperatedly at its rusty exterior. To have travelled on foot such a distance only to be turned away like a beggar enraged him. Nor was the prospect of returning over the path which had brought him to Karospina's house a cheering one. He turned and saw that a low, creeping mist had obliterated every vestige of the trail across the swamp lands. There was no sun, and the twilight of a slow yellow day in late September would soon, in complicity with the fog, leave him totally adrift on this remote strand--he could hear the curving fall and hiss of the breakers, the monotonous rumour of the sea. So he was determined to face Karospina, even if he had to force his way into the house.

Two hours earlier, at the little railway station, they had informed him that the road was easy flatland for the greater part of the way. He had offered money for a horse or even a wheel; but these were luxuries on this bleak, poverty-ridden coast. As there was no alternative, Gerald had walked rapidly since three o'clock. And he had not been told the truth about the road; where the oozing, green, unwholesome waters were not he stepped, sometimes sinking over his ankles in the soft mud. Not a sign of humanity served him for comfort or compass. He had been assured that if he kept his back to the sun he would reach his destination. And he did, but not without many misgivings. It was the vision of a squat tower-like building, almost hemmed in by a monster gas reservoir, fantastic wooden galleries, and the gigantic silhouettes of strange machinery, that relieved his mind. But this house and its surroundings soon repelled him. His reception was the final disenchantment.

He played a lively tattoo with his blackthorn stick on the panels of the door. For five minutes this continued, interspersed with occasional loud calls for Karospina. At last the siege was raised. After preliminary unboltings, unbarrings, and the rattling of the chain, Gerald saw before him a middle-aged man with a smooth face and closely shaven head, who quietly asked his name and business.

"I have a letter for you, Mr. Karospina--if you are that gentleman--and as I have put myself to much trouble in getting to you, I think I deserve a little consideration."

"A letter, my worthy sir! And for me? Who told you to come here? How do you know my name?" This angered the young man.

"It is from Prince K. _The_ Prince. Now are you satisfied?" he added, as his questioner turned red and then paled as if the news were too startling for his nerves.

"Come in, come in!" he cried. "Mila, Mila, here is a guest. Fetch tea to the laboratory." He literally dragged Shannon within doors and led him across a stone corridor to a large room, but not before he had bolted and barred the entrance to his mysterious fortress. Seeing the other's look of quiet amusement, he laughed himself:--

"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 passionate 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, nobleman, 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 assured 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 assistant 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 attitude. 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 rehearsed 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 embarrassment 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, Dostoïewsky, 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.