Chapter III: Diluting the Needs of Man

_“Knowledge is not our proper Happiness. Whoever will in the least
attend to the thing will see that it is the gaining, not the having,
of it, which is the entertainment of the mind.”_

BISHOP BUTLER--(_Sermon XV_)

1

A friendly morning. Howard’s apartment looked its warmest in the copious diffused light that flowed all around and through the quiet rooms. The over-restraint was less emphasized in the soft intimate radiance that seemed specially made for human use and comfort. In the living-room the subdued exquisite colors of the two Japanese prints glowed gently against the gray that was no longer somber but silvery and alive, and the beautiful simplified exaggerations of the figure in the Matisse etching were more familiar and believable.

Howard, in a dark dressing-gown, moved silently about the flat. Without warning he opened the door to Em’s room and thrust in his head. Em was awake. He came and sat on the edge of her bed. She lay prone, her slender arms above the bed-clothes, her thick gleaming hair spread out over the pillow like a rich tapestry. Her high small breasts stood hard and round under the covers.

She did not resist the reality of his approach. A soft pink tinged her cheeks, grateful for his seeking. Clutching at life, loving surprise, her eyes sought his and her lips parted. He bent over her and covered her mouth with his own. She forgot that his belief was only in self-expression. He had come. Joy in being needed. She wanted to be destroyed for his need. She gave, obliterated in being.

Howard always left her psychically unappeased. The opposition of his egotism summoned her, only to retreat within itself. Now he raised himself on his elbow and scanned her face. She was yet breathing rapidly from emotion and her eyes were wide and still. He avoided her drinking eyes.

“Em, you’re a beautiful object when you’re aroused,” he said reflectively. His thin features and light green-brown eyes glowed with esthetic satisfaction. “Love is an artistic discovery.” He tried to think of her only as this. He wanted to escape what seemed to him the moral distortion of life.

At times she felt that his gaze saw through her clothes, and at such times she became happy for a moment; but now his obliviousness to the personal element in their experience degraded her to herself.

“_Don’t_ look at me without seeing me,” she whispered.

Howard frowned. He wished her desire fixed on _him_, resented her private emotions and responses. When she spoke like this she seemed less beautiful to him. He could not bear any ugliness in others. Their defects made him think of his own inadequacies. As a man who was primarily an artist, he refused to be responsible for himself.

“I’m analyzing love.” His detachment prevailed. “Men and women should come together for a perfect moment and then part forever. That would be the only poetical love affair.”

“Howard!” Em frowned also.

“The memory might endure. The love won’t--that’s an illusion. Only something completed is beautiful.”

Em drew slightly away from him and he sat up.

“Nothing completed is ever beautiful. It’s dead,” she said quickly. “You’re afraid of everything that’s alive.” Her cheeks glowed.

Howard studied her unmoved. He tried to convince himself that Em was too much the woman ever to achieve the artist’s detachment. He enjoyed his implacableness toward her, the severity of his moral contempt for himself. Em was alone. When _I_ feel, he’s only curious, she thought bitterly.

“Cowardice is admirable in the lover,” he returned slowly. “Moral courage becomes the solitary. Your artistic perceptions all go into painting, Em.”

“I don’t see how you can simplify life like that, Howard.” Emotionally formulated, she thought, just as Les is intellectually. “Physical intimacy is too big. It’s weakness--so it’s moral. It’s by touching that we exist.”

Howard hated Em’s concrete personalness because it intruded into his own type of sensual mood. He needed her for a chorus to his own sensations, not to be occupied at the same time with _her_ excitement. He had never allowed himself to face any conception of human obligations. Life aside from art was distasteful to him. When Em was most the woman he despised her, but there was a hardness and courage in her painting that he envied. He attempted to disassociate her personality from her work. It left him confused. He rose and lighted a cigarette.

“Both of us care only for ourselves,” he returned irritably. “Why blur things? That’s the trouble with you moderns, even in art.”

Em was sitting up in bed now, her chin in her hands. Her hair fell in a cloud about her.

“There’s something more--” she began earnestly.

“Pooh! Romantic twaddle--woman a burnt offering on the altar of man’s lust!”

Em’s eyes flashed.

“Howard, you’re unjust--”

His hawk face hardened.

“It’s a crime to be just to you,” he said. I don’t count, she thought, sick and angry. Always showing desire for me, and then this--Les at least--“You’ve been spoiled by Drane’s incense-burning,” Howard added mercilessly.

2

Howard was away two days. Em had now no money of her own, and ate insufficiently. She was nervous. Intellectually she did not blame him, but something deep down in her did. About seven o’clock in the evening the latch clicked and he let himself into the apartment. Em was sitting silent in the soft dusk. Amid the imperfect obscurity of the twilight objects were vague and unsubstantial. Howard’s movements were rapid and decisive.

“Hello, disembodied spirit! What about dinner?” He wanted to forget the tensions and unpleasantnesses which had separated them.

“I’ve had something,” she replied.

“You look like a picture by Bonnard.” Howard approached and seized her in his arms. There was about him an air of aliveness and satisfaction that compelled. His unmoved artistic analyses of Em’s states of suffering or pleasure never extended to himself. When he was undergoing pain he was oblivious to everybody, enwrapped in an emotional preoccupation that admitted no possibility of examination. When his desire was aroused Em’s impulses were unnoticed. Now she was far away. He kissed her passionately and unknowingly. When she allowed him, he experienced her as an impersonal beauty, and his eyes were dim and bright with an almost religious intensity. “What were you thinking about, Em?”

“You.”

Howard felt concretely, but was carried by generalities. At this moment he was lost in himself. His hands were upon her.

“You’d better think about me!”

She shrank from his breath on her face. I’m forgotten, she thought. A shiver ran through her body.

“Don’t, Howard.” She pushed him away. In the deepening darkness she could distinguish the greenish glitter of his eyes, the bitterness of his lips. Her unwillingness aroused him. He crushed her in his arms. Her flesh hurt. I will not be snatched. She thrust out with all her strength and struggled free. They stood up, facing each other in the gloom.

“You’re becoming very sophisticated, Em,” he protested, vexation in his tone. “You would delight a voluptuary.”

The appraisal humiliated her more than his disregard. She stood erect, voice opposing.

“I’m human at least.”

Howard’s raptness had passed.

“I’d rather be sophisticated,” he gibed.

“Sophistication is like breeding,” she said coldly. “You’ve got to forget it to have it.”

He always felt that her emotional nakedness was vulnerable, but her infrequent mental flashes put him on the defensive. He shrank where he could not invade.

“And so I haven’t any?”

“You can see others cruelly enough, Howard, but you never see yourself.”

“Are you going to dinner?”

“No,” she rejoined. She turned on the light and picked up a book.

He took up his hat and stick and went out.

3

Howard returned almost at once. Em looked up in surprise as he unlocked and swung the door open. He was manifestly changed in mien, and she gazed at him curiously. In his hand was a letter with a Paris postmark.

“I forgot a portfolio I want,” he said defensively. He stood more upright than usual but turned his hat over and over in his hands, and his glance was placating.

Em was disarmed by his awkwardness. The fact of his coming back meant something to her. He looks like a little boy!

“Is it this one?” She held up a leather case.

He stretched out a hand without looking.

“Thank you.” Their eyes met. “I found a letter from Algeria in the mail-box.”

“Yes?” Em smiled slightly.

“She says that--”

“What does she say?” Em asked with frank interest.

Howard drew a long breath.

“Well, that--I might as well read it, I suppose--” His hat fell unnoticed from his hand.

“Please do,” said Em excitedly.

Howard sank into a chair and drew the letter from its envelope. Em drew her own chair nearer and leaned her elbows on the table between them.

“‘O Dearestie--’ You know she talks like that,” Howard interpolated glibly. “‘I’ve just had a _tea_ (for _artists_ and others) and Félicien Le Gros brought WIEGAND (!) and _of course_ I showed him your _etchings_, and he said _quite_ spontaneously that they were not only MASTERLY (_définitif_) as to technique but showed CHARMING mood as well. So now go and _crow_ over unfriendly New York. I _hope_ to--’ That’s all about me--my things.” He looked up quickly at Em, his eyes exultant and his pale cheeks slightly flushed.

The pathos in his elation over a word of praise made Em warm. His poor etchings! That’s what makes him so cruel. Any little scrap of commendation from Europe. This was really nothing. She thought of her own elation over Lepelletier’s telegram. She looked at Howard almost compassionately.

“Won’t you take me to dinner after all, Howard?”

“Sure,” he agreed comfortably.

On the way to a familiar restaurant they met Pierre Gouvain. Howard greeted him warmly.

“Won’t you go to dinner with us?”

“Wiz plaisir.” Gouvain’s eyes drank Em’s profile. She turned to him as Howard led the way into the restaurant.

“Who is Wiegand?” she asked.

Gouvain smiled charmingly.

“Oh, he iss one French etcher, fery good of ze sécond rang, and much amateur, of weemen.”

A cheerful waiter bustled forward. Their favorite table was empty. Howard was gay during dinner.

“I heard from Algeria today, Gouvain.”

“You haf? What does she do?”

“Why, she seems to spend her time boring people with my stuff.”

“Read what she says, Howard,” begged Em kindly.

“Oh--”

“I am fery interest,” vowed Gouvain earnestly. Howard read the extract. “It iss verité, ze etchings of technique are wonder, and haf ze mood,” agreed Gouvain generously.

Howard smiled contentedly. He did not notice Gouvain’s ardent eyes seeking Em’s. Neither did Em. I understand him, she thought. He’s only an artist, and he can’t be one. She felt that Howard had been made little and dear to her again. At the restaurant door they said a cordial good-by to Gouvain.

Howard looked down at Em.

“Shall we go back to the apartment?”

“Yes,” she whispered, putting her arm through his.

Her look of longing revived his contempt. He was in the mood which his timidity seldom allowed him, and believed in himself. For the instant _he_ was the great artist and Em, primarily woman, was outside his life. He encouraged the profoundness of his momentary illusion, knowing unadmittedly that it could not last. He wanted the sweetness of condescending to Em. His gentleness did not spare her. She was one of many. Em felt something vaguely unpleasant in his amorousness. She had come no nearer success with Howard--not so near as with Les. I must have someone, she thought. Em was discouraged. I’m frightened.