Chapter II: Eyes a Year After

_“The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that
in reality they honor and love only themselves (or their own ideal,
to express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peaceable:
but in fact woman is essentially unpeaceable.”_

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE--_“Beyond Good and Evil”_
_(Trans. Helen Zimmern)_

1

Yellow shriveled leaves fluttering through the red light of the slanting autumn sun.

Lester Drane always walked rapidly with body somewhat bent forward. His shoulders were more ape-like than bowed. He was very strong. He crossed the untidy square and turned down a little side street. Several small Italian children were playing near the steps of the house where he lived. His dark skin and thick brows seemed to make him one of them. The leader of the games, a ten-year-old girl with budding bosom, stumbled against him as he paused to take a bunch of keys from his pocket. She glanced up, a look of instinctive fear in her moist startled eyes. He smiled down at her. She paid him no further attention, and resumed her shouting sway over her playmates.

Lester ran quickly up the old stairs.

As he entered the living-room he whistled, one note rising sharply after the other, an old signal between him and Emily. Then his heart sank at the silence and the darkened windows. Three months before she had attempted suicide. Death as a playmate.... None of their friends believed such things.

“Em!”

The habitual droop at the corners of his rather small straight mouth was emphasized. But he knew she was there.

He called again.

“Em!”

2

Em lay on the tobacco-brown rug in the bedroom, a pale blot in the darkness. He knelt beside her.

“What is it, darling?” Too-heavy brows--smudges on her dim face.

“Oh, Les--” she sobbed.

To Em all things were of equal importance if they were equally near to her. It made her an artist. It made him wary. Em had cried daily for four days. Even before that, ever since the meeting with Howard Story in the restaurant, she had been distraught. Damn that night at Manzinetti’s when Mark introduced him!

Four days. Howard Story’s party at Algeria Westover’s studio. Four days ago. Why did I go? Algeria Westover in Europe. Howard in her studio. Lovers.... There flashed on Les the picture of Howard and Em at the party. Lazy blue smoke in the room. Candles ... dull green and yellow mist ... broad couch ... Howard enthroned ... giant heron on a nest.... More talk. El Greco, Cezanne, Hodler--Em hanging on Howard’s words ... defenseless eyes....

“What is it, dear?” Les asked again gently.

“Oh, I want to die--” she wailed with sudden harshness.

The first time he heard this cry a year ago he had thought it only words. Now. Belief always comes. My love of life has separated us forever....

“Tell me what it is, Em.”

She raised herself on one long narrow hand. The beautiful curve to her thin lips gone. Her face close to mine....

“You know, Les.”

His heavy eyelids twitched. Les feared Em’s concrete fleshliness because he knew it could ignore his idea of himself. He would not bear that anyone but himself should excite her. What he feared had come.

She rose to her knees and seized him fiercely in her arms.

“Les, do you hate living with me? Why didn’t you let me kill myself a year ago?”

Her tears burned his cheek. He shut his eyes. Eyelids of day closing ... wide mantle of the moonlight ... nothing clear or simple ... sick joy ... people like shadows ... formless suffering ... dogged by death ... Sophocles.... Em is right. More Jean Jacques Rousseau. Agh! Lights on still water ... golden lilies with shining stems....

3

They had talked for an hour. They were tired. A candle burned on the mantel. Both were standing now. Les began to walk slowly to and fro. His small rigid hands clenched. His large brow wrinkled, eyes almost colorless in thought.

His voice trembled slightly.

“I am not possessive, Em. You can see whom you wish--do what you wish.”

“Oh, you _intellectualize_ me so!” she cried. “It’s more subtle than that. A woman--Can’t you see? Oh no, you can’t--you can’t. You hate me--you hate me--” She hid her face in her hands.

“Don’t, Em. Please, Em.” No matter how subtle the reason is, the means of hurting me is just as horrible.

She heard nothing he said. She only felt that he was repudiating her.

“You hate me--” she moaned. The slender fingers with widened tips were trembling. Em gave an impression of delicacy and lack of physical stamina.

Lester could be only quietly eloquent.

“We cannot talk. You hear only those words of mine that serve your instinctive purpose to shatter our relation. You resent our relation because I built it and not you. You have always failed it and therefore you wish it away. It is not I who hate you, Em. You hate me when I fight for our life together. If you had made it you would defend it with your life blood. You would adore me because I was subject to what you had made. But now you would destroy with secret joy because you know the death-blow would be yours and not mine.” Stupid talk.... I can’t. Professor. Schoolmaster ... the god of pity....

His face was lined and his usually ruddy skin was gray. He always feared her response, fought for fixity in her desire.

Em looked up. She made a little movement toward him and then retreated. The tense droop to his mouth gave slightly as the muscles of his cheeks relaxed. She stared into his eyes with a tragic intensity that hypnotized herself. He returned her gaze unwillingly because he did not wish to lower his eyes. Irrelevantly he noted the faint down on her lip and cheeks.

Em’s heart expanded in a sudden and uncontrollable wave of compassion.

“Oh, my darling--” She convulsively strained his head to her breast. “My poor boy. Oh, Les, I love you--”

Strife made her amorous: peace made him amorous. His breath came quickly. Em, can’t you see, _can’t_ you see you are killing me? Dumb. Why can’t I say what I feel? She believes in me only when I am weak.--Then she can pity me. I can’t think any more ... a body that breaks ... swinging on the bough of life ... why....

The tears were running down her cheeks.

“Sweetheart--” she whispered.

They stood with their arms about each other.

“Em, I want you to see him whenever you care to.”

“But precious, I don’t want to see him--oh, I’ve hurt you--”

4

Lester was coming home again, this time early.

His clean-cut body, always swaying forward, moved neatly through the crowds. Always between me and mine. Sex. He mused as he walked. Love without life. Childhood ... shadows on the wall like great bats ... wicked children ... little Hilda ... drawers unbuttoned ... music of tiny bells ... millions of flowers bursting into bloom ... white birds with shining wings ... women ... lustful kisses ... Em. Her weakness cutting at the roots of life.

As he ascended the dingy stairs he knew Howard would be there.

Em was pouring tea.

“I asked Howard to come. I didn’t expect you so soon.” Em hated evasions. She hadn’t a particle of malice and she hadn’t a particle of mercy. What she did have was a straightforwardness that slew people.

Talk between them. Howard’s greenish eyes turned on Les.

“You’re a realist, Mr. Drane. A man of your scientific training appraises us intellectually with no emotional sharing.”

Sunshine was streaming through a window in the Dranes’ living-room. It threw saffron highlights on half of Lester’s large, almost four-square nose, and on one heavily lobed ear.

“I suppose so.” His voice was cool and kind.

Em’s directness was like a sword-thrust.

“Bosh! Les is the sweetest thing you ever saw, Mr. Story. You’re encouraging him in being a clam, that’s all.” Her Scotch-hazel eyes flashed and the reddish glow warmed in her thick brown hair as she moved nervously. They’re all alike--mythmakers, she thought. Lester hated her impatience of moderation. Even when they were at peace, he feared.

Howard crossed his long legs and bent over the table. He gazed like a huge bird at one of Em’s unfinished drawings.

“No, I’m not a mythmaker, Mrs. Drane.” Em started visibly and pulled her sagging green smock further up on her shoulder. “I knew you were thinking that,” Howard continued, smiling. “We artists--”

Their voices grew vague to Les. Always seeking, he thought as Em and Howard rattled on. Understands her soul. Every new person she meets is to give her something I cannot.

“I appeal to Drane.”

Howard’s voice came to Les as from a perfect stillness.

“I beg your pardon,” said Lester awkwardly.

Howard was sure Lester disliked him. Em felt that she was being reprimanded.

“These expressionists,” Howard turned formally to Lester. “Don’t you think they are trying to get the exact opposite of impressionism?”

“I’m not sure that--” Les’s deep blue eyes sought Em’s.

Howard interrupted.

“Well, at any rate--”

The conversation flowed on again without Lester. Em makes me helpless before my enemies. He feared flux, that which alone she trusted. He was always fighting for their sanity. She would throw all into the dust in a second. Pity has cut me off from her forever.... Howard was rising. His gaunt length towered in the dim room.

He held out a bony hand.

“Well, Drane, I suppose we’ve bored you with this shop.”

“I’m not much of a conversationalist. You’ll have to get used to me.”

“Emily tells me you write. I’d love to see some of your stuff some time.”

“Thank you.” The man’s like a marionette--sodomy with art!

Em’s eyes were dark and inscrutable.

“I’ll show you down.” She seized a candle and lighted it. “The stairs are frightfully dark.”

“Thanks. Aren’t you nice?” smiled Howard. “Good-night, Drane.”

“Good-night.”

Dark. Darkness falling like rain ... calm and peace ... vain like acted scenes ... dead and wordless pain ... lips white in pain ... shadow like a shapeless stain ... the terror by night ... glowing sparks of stars vanished altogether ... sprinkle tears of pity over the dumb hearts of the earth....

5

Genevieve called Les on the telephone. He seized the receiver briskly. Hair well trimmed, clothes not new but carefully brushed, perfect linen, motions definite. He showed a confidence he never felt.

“Empire State Trust Company,” he said curtly.

“Hello, Les.”

“Hello,” he replied in another tone. Before him lay an orderly pile of papers. Brazier Smelting Company Incorporated Twenty-Year Sinking-Fund Convertible Gold Notes--Slater County Electric Transit Corporation First Equipment Mortgage--It seemed impossible that any of his life could come to him through the desk telephone in his hands.

“Are you and Em going to Manzinetti’s tonight?”

“No.” His end of the conversation must sound like a business call.

“Well, we’re not either. Come over to our place and I’ll cook dinner. Michael will be here.”

“All right, thank you.”

Les’s assistant, young Babbitt, was listening.

“Was that the Potter-Wright people?”

“No,” said Les.

“Their manager called me three times yesterday. Worried as hell. We won’t renew. They’ll get theirs all right all right.” Young Babbitt licked his lips.

6

Em was asleep when Les reached Jane Street.

“I was dreaming.” Her eyes were soft.

“What did you dream?”

Em’s eyes changed but she did not answer. When she arose and put on her hat and coat it was as though she were still in the dream.

On the street they were silent. They reached the narrow old-fashioned red brick house where Genevieve and Stuart lived, and Stuart himself opened the door to their ring. His small pale mouth was hard and in his eyes lay a look of unacknowledged frustration. Genevieve came out of the little kitchen. A large apron protected her severe dull-purple gown.

“Where did you get your new earrings?” asked Em listlessly.

“Eve sent them to me from Moscow. They’re from Samarkand.”

“What color of hair is she wearing now?” asked Les mischievously. Poor old joke! I wonder how I’ll get through this evening.

Genevieve made a face at him. She wouldn’t argue about her friend Eve. She wanted things to be gay to help Les and Em.

“We won’t wait for Michael. You children sit down and I’ll bring on the nourishment.” Her rich voice was the same, but at home she dropped her undue precision of speech.

“Good idea.” Les was almost dumb with pain. His pride made him speak naturally.

“Stuart’s father wired yesterday that he was coming down for the night, and so I had to go over and sleep with Blanche,” said Genevieve crossly as they began their soup. “And my mother is coming Wednesday, so Stuart will have to go over to Michael’s. One wonders when they’ll meet, or one of them open a bureau drawer. Sweet land of liberty--it’s as bad as being married!”

“Worse,” remarked Les.

“Well, I’m _not_, anyway, and nobody can alter that.”

“Nobody but yourself.”

“And I _won’t_ be, either.”

A ring. Stuart opened the door and Michael hurried in.

“Hello, kids. So sorry to be late.” He seated himself hastily and pulled a large bottle from his coat pocket. Michael’s brown eyes gazed at people with a passionate yet abstracted intensity. It was only when one noted his thin wide mouth that he failed to resemble the portraits of Lord Byron.

“As it occurs so seldom, you’re forgiven this once,” said Genevieve ironically.

Michael flushed.

“I’ve brought some home-made Malaga as a peace offering,” he replied humbly.

Emily said hardly a word. Stuart was engulfed in gloom. Lester seldom talked much, and the meal was enlivened only by affectionate banter between Genevieve and Michael. It was not the success of her dinner that caused Genevieve’s anxious look. She glanced stealthily at Em from time to time. After he had eaten, Stuart promptly went to sleep on the couch. He had had a story rejected, and Genevieve was thinking of him, too. Michael called Em over to one side of the room to read her a poem, the writing of which had made him late to dinner. He laughingly refused to let the others hear it.

“You’re worried, Les,” said Genevieve sympathetically.

There was a reserved but intricate emotional understanding between the two. Her intellectual generalizations were usually crude and always on the safe side of pessimism, but she was capable of intense personal loyalty and her instinctive feeling was basically fine.

Les spoke in a low tone.

“I wish Carl were here.”

“Is it anything about you and Em?” she asked softly. She already knew.

“It probably is.” His face was immobile. Genevieve put her hand on his and her eyes were moist. “You’re good, Jen,” he said.

They were both embarrassed by their emotion. Les lowered his eyes and reached uneasily for his pipe. Genevieve moved across the room to a chair beside Emily. Michael, when he saw that Les was alone, rose, lighted a pipe also, and walked over and stood by the mantel. He stared down at his friend.

“What’s the matter with Em tonight, Les?” he asked in a low tone.

“Nothing,” replied Les impatiently. Kindness. They pity me. I shall go ... healing in the spaces of the world....

Michael smoked in silence, a kind look in his remote eyes.

“What is it, dear?” Genevieve, screening herself from the others, kissed Em.

“Oh, Jen, I don’t know.” Em tried to conceal her agitation. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lips quivered.

Genevieve stared at her sympathetically but a little severely.

“Les is a darling,” she said slowly at last.

“Oh, Jen, I know it.” Em gave a tiny sob.

“Is it--someone--when we all believed so in the relation between you and Les?”

Em was mute, condemned but rebellious. They don’t know. Never anything to touch. Something in me hates and fears the idealism Les loves. I want to be touched--I want it to be me. Just being an artist isn’t enough. I’m weak. I know it.

Les rose to go. “Hadn’t we better leave these people their sleep?” He could not prolong the evening. His face was gaunt. Genevieve, turning from Emily, made no comment. Stuart was roused from the couch, where he had been reposing with privileged rudeness, and shook hands with affectionate depression. Michael smiled evasively. They realized something was wrong, and their powerless sympathy left them constrained.

“Good-by.”

Em and Les went down the stairs. They walked a little apart, Em glancing at him now and then with a furtive and apologetic anxiousness. She felt helpless.

7

Lester had been a university professor and dean, a naturalist of international fame, organizer of a dozen scientific expeditions. Tropical lands, great laboratories, students flocking, presidencies of learned societies, degrees, dinners, speeches--We have with us tonight ... researches that have shed undying luster....

Undying poppycock. He had given up everything when he met Em. Scandal. Em, from a small Southern town, had run away with him. Distinguished colleagues cut him. He knew that to those who needed less than he did the absoluteness of his gesture seemed false. Artist. Write. Having Em, he wanted to write. He had always wanted to write. Grandiose. He still had verses written when he was twelve years old. His Ballad of the Mayden Bride written at sixteen. Les could repeat it to himself to this day.

_Come lithe ye then kind gentlemen
And harken to this verse,
So alle may learn that love wyl spurn
And break cruell Dethe’s curse._

_A noble knyght wyth armour bright
There rode from his demesne,
Who kist wyth pride his ladye bride
That ne’er his wyf had been._

_Proud to bee sent on quest urgént
Yf on his marriage morn,
He rode away the somer’s day
From his dere love forlorn._

_Who to him sayde, “Ye have I wed
And even shulde I dey
E’er me ye wive, I shal yet lyeve
To kiss ye tenderly.”_

How his boy’s heart had thrilled to have written it!

_Ten years were fled ere returnéd
Alle gaunt and pale the knyght:
His errand made, his steed a jade,
At the postern he did lyght._

_He walked silént and then sone went
Into the busy court
Wher his folk stode talking not loud,
And the children laughed at sport._

_When he cam there they eche did stare
And fell round and kneeléd;
“Dere Lorde,” they cried, “our Ladye died
Last even in her bed.”_

Have I really outgrown this?

_He sayde no reply and went straightly
Up to the chamber above
Thyder was layd his wyf yet a maide
Whom his bolde herte did love._

_He kneeled to rest his hede on her breast
And clipt her his arms around:
Wyth gentle syghs she oped her ees
As coming fro a swound._

_Her pale cheek did flush wyth love’s swete blush
And she kist his lips anoon;
Then he lift his hede for she was agayne dead,
And he rose and stode allone._

Les decided that he liked it, even yet.

_He past the court through and his people trewe,
And no wordis did they saye
Till that the knyght in the fading lyght
Rode once agayne away._

In India, Africa and the islands of the sea he had tried to write. _Un Byron de nos jours._ When he was through with it, it all seemed flaunting. There was something--so he discovered--he hadn’t yet realized about himself. Sonnets on Fate--

_O impotent Philosophy! What sage
Hath e’er devis’d a meaning of our birth
Or death--the reason of the stars, this earth?
As well the gibber of some ancient mage
As the blind wilderings of mine own age,
Or God, created in man’s piteous dearth
Of alternate, to build with hideous mirth
The universe to be our mad souls’ cage._

_Sophist avaunt! What good to know or learn
These meaningless inventions of the mind?
O fool, what boots to bind thy soul ’neath stern
Discipline’s rod, who hastest as the wind
From nothing--hurl’d through fancied life and fate--
To endless nothing of the ultimate?_

Cosmic. Bah! He smiled at this, but his bitterness even now made such a gesture. Sometimes he seemed to himself the only actuality in an unreal world. To write this! To write. The itch was still in him. More than ever, perhaps. But he knew better now. Novels. He had written and burned half a dozen. Had shown them to no one, had learned from his despair. He must snare significances more subtly. Grasp the shimmering inexpressibilities....

He saw in each failure how he might say the hitherto impossible. He felt he had at last come to strive for the evocation of the simple. It was a deep personal necessity for him to articulate himself. None of them understood--never would. He was an artist. He knew it. The last novel at least--half-finished and now in his desk--showed it: in it he longed to imprison forever the poignance of trifles, to record for all time for beautiful souls the grave mystery of the body. Alone, he had never deeply distrusted himself; but Em’s hungry specificness made him doubt his pale wide solutions of inner tragedies. He poured senseless oblation before her momentary color, but he was afraid of it. The logic of the ideal: the fallacy of the flesh! Where was the way? He only knew he must go on.

His name was not Lester Drane. Em’s name was not Emily Tyler. Also they were not married, though all but their most trusted friends supposed they were. She loved passion for itself. He had destroyed his background at one blow. To be free. To write. Chimera. No, it was not fantastic. He believed. He had known that he must feel the inner sympathy of another artist. Emily was an artist. Someone in Europe once said she was and so America had found it out. She was one who did the things other women threaten to do. Her hair was glorious.

They had lived together now for nearly two years. It had taken a year of the time for the scandal to blow away and leave them in peace. They were in Greenwich Village. Why they could not tell. Living among the blackmailers of art, he thought. He longed for the wilderness. Sentimentalists. At first they had accepted the extravaganza. It was new. Babes in the wood. Em had been smothered in a traditional home. They needed background. Untrammeled! The lion’s den. Les ceased to think.

8

Les deceived himself, but not about Em’s interest in Howard.

It was no ordinary affair. Em had had such. Howard was a symbol--because he seemed to have no reservations. Hawk face with pleading lips. Color of temperament ... red beads ... green and yellow ... a string of beads without the string.... Latin.... Preserving his emotional integrity by capitulation. Em believed in no feeling that did not go out in emotional language.

Howard was fluid--not fixed with shame.

Les knew that if he could weep Em would be all tenderness to him, too. I cannot.... I cannot.... She resented that in him which she didn’t touch--but he felt she shouldn’t want to touch it. Thus she kept hurting herself to hurt him. Intimacy without tenderness. What does she want now? Never forgiving strength ... she strong and I weak ... repelled by my subjection.... Em, Em, Em ... not perfect but what all other women lack she has ... they seem dingy ... never passive in anything ... piercing like a white flame ... body like ... love me....

He slept badly. Too much thinking.

Tonight Em sat up in bed, her slim body tightening, her small breasts rising beautifully behind the yoke of her nightgown.

“Les, why don’t you like Howard Story?”

Talk till morning. It was trying to grasp smoke. At first they had been able, when things came between, to release themselves by talking. Em still could strike through the mist with ruthless words. Drawing fire to warm.... But he had not been able to bear it. He had taken refuge.

“You won’t face the simple fact that you’re a jealous husband, Les.”

Les sprang out of bed and opened the window. His heavy features were quiet. The arclight guilty before the dawn ... rose and pearl ... floating on the blue pool of heaven ... peace like warm snow ... street gleaming like a reptile ... night soaring ... dead of light....

Em looked at him scornfully.

“My God, but you’re romantic, Les!”

9

Les was romantic--no doubt of it.

He was walking in the park but he did not see the park.

Sand ... drifted and white to the horizon ... camels rocking like ships ... sun of blood plunging over night’s verge ... mother-of-pearl fields ... sleep....

Snaky caravans winding ... groined forests ... church ... jungles with leaden leaves ... snuffling beasts in the dark ... thatched kraals ... haystacks ... naked women ... bronze statues ... drums in the moonlight, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum, tum....

Palms beckoning in the still night ... coral beach ... faint white sickle of shore ... moon like the Holy Ghost ... hidden eyes ... breasts like eyes in the pale radiance ... flower in her hair....

Peons ... lean faces in Rembrandt shadows ... knife flash ... life blood spurting down ... fireflies worn for jewels ... lace bobbins, tap, tap ... lips on her jonquil skin ... stars ... a thousand golden throats singing ... Algol sang loudest of all....

Crashing colors in a blinding glare ... wise giants crawling ... red and gold howdahs on their backs ... tinkle, tinkle, tinkle ... smells ... thousands of smells ... rubies ... bracelets rubies ... rubies set in beautiful noses ... maddening bodies hidden under swaying cloth ... dust ... gray dust ... blue dust ... soldiers ... pah!...

He rarely spoke of fifteen years spent at the ends of the earth.