Chapter I: The Island in the Moon

“SCHWARZ--_You’re just making believe!_
LULU--_You’re making believe yourself, it seems to me.
I make believe? What makes you think that?_
I never needed to do that.”

FRANK WEDEKIND--_“Erdgeist”_
(_Trans. S. A. Eliot, Jr._)

1

Home again! Liberty drowning in the harbor, Manhattan mushrooms sprouting in the haze (lower Broadway dividing them like a gash), murky snakes of water curling round the low island--the big ship slouches up to the pier. Tiny tugs and thin hawsers tease her into the slip, and gently and imperceptibly she is captured, bound helpless to the land. High above, on the upper deck, Howard and Em silently watched the waiting crowd on the dock. No familiar face. Em shivered slightly.

“Cold? Suppose we go on shore here.” Howard’s tone was careless. He did not look at her.

Bustle, luggage, customs inspector, porters.

“Get me a taxi.”

“Here you are, sir.”

Streets of New York. Clanging cars, autos, whish! trucks thundering, screaming fire-engine, scattering people, black crowds, all dead, tramp, tramp, thud, thud, something steady and awful. Over all, this giant rhythm. A dark face in the mass on the sidewalk, Dhas Mitra, “Elephants!” Through Em’s mind stride the lines of a young New York poet.

_“With huge diaphanous feet,
March the leaden velvet elephants,
Pressing the bodies back into the earth.”_

And the sky overhead was dull, the buildings stood stiffly, remote and unfriendly amid the impudent din. The throbbing beat grew dim again. To Em the city seemed vague. It belonged to Les. She and Howard did not speak until the taxi drew up before Howard’s apartment.

“We’ll stop here, for the present at least,” he said. Dead gray walls, Matisse etching, two priceless Japanese prints, conspiring degradation and fear. Em was dumb. Did I ever belong here? Howard pointed to a door. “Take off your things in there.”

Em entered the bedroom and looked with wretched interest in the mirror. Her chin seemed more pointed, her cheek-bones accentuated. She had almost no color.

2

Em and Howard at Esther’s. Dingy cellar restaurant, flaring orange curtains, tables with rickets, spineless chairs, green candles, bad drawings by habitués. Skimpy table-of-the-host dinners, demi-celebrities. The place now favored by emotional dilettantes.

Conversation nine feet high!

“Dada is a snort--_junge Kunst_, pooh!--all art is music--Kokoscha--instead of giving you people gives the feeling people give him--” Howard seldom tried his brilliance on Em now. She ate laxly, almost without hearing him. But others were listening. His voice was raised a little. “Matthias Grünewald--de Sade with a brush--necrophiles--wax tears on a coffin--beauty is digestion--Renoirism--tra, la, la, la, la, la--don’t you think so, Em?”

“What did you say, Howard?”

“Why don’t you listen? Might learn something.” His voice, keyed lower, was hard. Something ached in her. The smell of Greenwich Village revolted her. Chicago. I wonder if I loved everything he did, she was helplessly musing. Not like Howard’s contemptuous understanding. “_Indépendants_--André Lhote--sugar teats--_refusés_--” The monologue across the little table became indistinct to her again. “Intransigents--_communards_--painting with a broom--_blague_--” Howard’s voice had become saw-like. “Why in hell don’t you pay some attention to what I say, Em?”

“I’m sorry, Howard.”

His face cleared at her unpassionate tone. Howard was just back from Europe.

“Cezanne--form and color have no--” he resumed complacently.

“You’ve said that before, Howard. I don’t care about the pathos of the artist’s expression, or impression. I can’t paint now.” Cezanne again! She longed for the liquid darkness outside. Les would--

“It’s because you’re losing your interest in it. Good thing. Art’s a perversion in women, anyway.” Howard laughed. Em bit her lips. He offered her a cigarette but she shook her head without looking at him. He was ashamed for her recent failures. When she did well, something in him hurt in resentment, but he boasted of her to others. He despised the blatant conceit of other men in sex. He wanted a woman who did him more subtle credit. “You ought to etch. Give you outline. You need it.” He lighted his own cigarette contentedly. “What did you think of what I said about Kokoscha?”

Her voice had stiffened.

“The same thing I thought the last time you said it. I can’t understand your idea that color and form are different things. I don’t care whether Kokoscha gives you people or the feeling people give him--you give me neither.”

Howard flushed.

“I’ll take back what I just said. What you need is a new man.”

“I need something besides what I get from you,” she flamed.

“Ditto,” said Howard viciously. He was a little frightened at his own words.

Life was more concrete to Em. She was glad of pain. It was definite and familiar.

3

Two days later they ran into a large group of Howard’s friends uptown. Too late to evade them.

“Of course you know Miss Tyler. She was nice enough to lunch with me today.” No implication that it was not a casual occurrence.

Em remembered that twice recently when the door-bell rang Howard had refused to answer. She wondered how many people he had written to about their relationship while they were abroad. She greeted his acquaintances distantly. Howard’s eyes menacing.

“Come right with us!” invited Carmen Stubbs raucously. Whorey-aired goodsoul, she was a perpetual virgin, yet kind. “It’s Celia’s twentieth birthday. We were just going into Boutelle’s here. We can get hooch. They know _me_. Just got paid for a bum story and I’m going to spend some of it on the dear child.” Pale delicate-featured Celia St. John did not even smile.

“All right,” acquiesced Howard without glancing at Em.

The party filed into the restaurant. Two tables in an alcove were pushed together.

“Me at the head of the board for once,” announced Carmen huskily. She patted the chair at her right. “And the blessed damozel must sit here.” Celia seated herself composedly. “Come up here, you.” Carmen beckoned to the Great Modern Critic, who had again honored the occasion with his presence. He glanced apprehensively around, visibly relieved at the absence of the Hungry Soul. The Critic seats himself at Carmen’s left.

Howard is next to Celia, Em between him and Jobson, the novelist. Mitra, at Jobson’s side, produces an olive-colored crumpled cloth from his coat pocket and calmly winds it about his head as a turban.

“And I go to the foot of the class for once.” The rafters ring with bullofbashan little Stieg’s proclamation. He seats himself impressively opposite Carmen. None of the others notice him. A passionate poetess, very fat and with hairy upper lip, is at Stieg’s right. Next her is Tanaka, smiling and silent. Les’s girl acquaintance sits between the Jap and the sculptor, Pierre Gouvain. She has candid eyes. There is considerable chatter and laughing as the party settles round the tables. Gouvain turns to the Critic.

“It wass you who haf said zat my weemen are fat, eh?” He rumples his black hair reproachfully.

The Critic (more impressive than when he spent the evening of Howard’s party in the clutches of the Hungry Soul) turns his blue fish-eyes on Gouvain, but his reply is inaudible in the general prefatory discussion of food. The ancient ascetic waiter, in full keeping with the faded hangings and shabby dignified furnishings, is bending discreetly over Howard and Em. Howard has ordered liberally. She shakes her head.

“Madame cares for nossing?”

Howard answers shortly.

“You bring the food and we’ll decide who’s to eat it.”

Synthetic cocktails, eagerly gulped by all save Em, the two Orientals and the Critic. Stieg breaks out (stentorian tones).

“All modern fiction can be traced to the influence of three men--my next book on Stendhal, Dostoievsky and--” (_The_ GREAT CRITIC _is beginning to speak and the company frowns resentfully at_ STIEG. CARMEN _says_, “Sh-h-h.” STIEG, _evidently overawed for the time, subsides_.)

CARMEN.--(_Smiling to her left._) Shoot again, please.

CRITIC.--(_Speaks quietly and insolently. His first words are heard only by those near him, but the others soon listen in silence._) The revolt against naturalism, through the neo-Stendhalians, such as, for example, Bourget, while a psychologic throw-back to Stendhal, still clings to the pseudo-scientific manner of Zola. The revolt is, of course, wider than this, and may be seen, too, in the--(_The company grows restive. Whispering at the other end of the tables._)

PASSIONATE POETESS.--(_Known to her friends as P. P. Is heard audibly repeating her last verses to_ TANAKA.)

All his desire
Lisped in his yearning blood,
His hungry hands upon her gleaming thighs--

CELIA.--(_Laughs musically, her face like a Botticelli angel._) How much farther did he go? (_The P. P. glowers._ TANAKA _stops smiling for the first time during the meal_.)

HOWARD.--(_Smiles at_ CELIA, _replies to something the_ CRITIC _has said during the confusion_.) Sternheim! Pooh! The expressionists belch instead of write!

(EM, _her hands clasped tightly in her lap, stares steadfastly at her plate_.)

CRITIC.--(_With hauteur, raising his voice slightly._) In order intelligently to understand a movement one cannot overlook its genesis. The wave of naturalism that routed the Goethe-Heine romantic lyricism split up, as I see it, under three principal influences: Whitman, Nietzsche and the Russians--

STIEG.--(_Eager, voice like a hallo._) A new book of mine, three--

CARMEN.--(_Hoarsely._) Be still, Stieg. (_Adds briskly with cajoling cheerfulness._) Why won’t you kids listen?

(EM _has not touched the food_ HOWARD _has insisted on placing before her. Her face suggests vicious despair. The novelist, his mouth full, addresses her._)

JOBSON.--(_Enigmatically._) Good royalties! (_This is his sole remark during the whole course of the meal._ EM _glares at him without reply._ Jobson _bends obliviously over his plate again. His Hindoo neighbor adjusts turban and exclaims explosively._)

MITRA.--Elephants! (_Then, leaning behind the busy_ _Jobson_, _he whispers caressingly to_ EM.) Little tiger! (EM _does not appear to hear_.)

CRITIC.--(_Resuming Johnsonian sway with practiced hand._) All Russian literature is pre- or post-Pushkin. When he, with Gogol and Lermontov, brought--

STIEG.--(_Almost screaming._) The three--

HALF A DOZEN VOICES.--Shut up! Down, Fido! Chloroform! etc.

GOUVAIN.--(_Clasping his head wildly._) What ze hell! I shall go--how you say?--dement.

(_During the mêlée, the girl with candid eyes leans over the table and speaks to_ EM. HOWARD _is intent on a whispered conversation with_ CELIA, _and does not hear._)

“How is Mr. Drane? I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

Em was very pale.

“He’s in Chicago.”

Stieg’s feelings were evidently hurt, because the P. P. was cautiously consoling him with more verse. The Critic held the floor again.

“In Italy the reaction away from the grandiose gestures of Carducci, D’Annunzio and Pascoli--” (Stieg trembled at the mention of a trinity, but the P. P. soothed him) “the spiritual voracity of Papini and the fanatical ethicism of Croce--”

Em ceased to hear the cadenced tones. Brrh! Not their equal in sophistication, not Howard’s equal! _He_ trying to reduce me as an artist! Never himself except in jest. This is their Bohemia! Bloodless. Cynical. Ugly and false life. Death of art. I’m more than all of them. I’m honest--not--I’m--I’m--I wonder how well Les knows that girl with nice eyes. Les. He’s the only one good--A burning wave flooded her. Les! Where are you--She breathed quickly and her eyes were suffused with unshed tears. Mad--better to die--The people and sounds all grew dim. Howard still whispering to Celia--Em rose unsteadily from the table.

“I’m going, Howard,” she said in a hysterical undertone.

The Critic paused in the middle of a word and looked peevish.

“Why dearie--” Carmen expostulated breathily.

Howard turned.

“You can’t go now.” He spoke rapidly in a low voice and tried to pull her down. Her face was pale and she jerked her arm from Howard’s grasp. Pierre Gouvain’s beautiful eyes sent her a look that made her grateful. “You win,” said Howard with slow malice. He turned away from her and resumed his talk, trying not to acknowledge his confusion even to himself. She could humiliate him.

Mitra shot Howard a glance of feline hate, but was immediately again impassive. Trembling, Em adjusted a fur scarf about her neck. She tried to keep from seeing the eyes turned upon her, especially the eyes of Les’s girl friend, who looked frank and sympathetic.

“Are you ill? Shall I go with you?”

“No!” Em’s mouth quivered and she almost whimpered as she hastily left the table.

The P. P. was holding Stieg’s hand.

“I hope you--” Celia’s cool saint-eyes lingered on Howard’s.

“I’m not going,” he said shortly.

Carmen beckoned to the waiter.

“More wine, son,” she whispered shrilly.

As Em moved between the other tables toward the door, the group she had left relaxed into attitudes of relief. The Critic settled himself with dignity and resumed his oration.

“The rejection by the younger Scandinavian writers of the realistic formula--”

4

Em rushed rapidly, almost running, along the slate-colored side street. The cold wind flapped her dark skirt against her knees. She carried her gloves in one hand, her bare fingers felt like ice. The sky was unendurable, a gray that had no blue or pink in it, gray like a dead dilution of lampblack. The whole world was terror.

No happiness or unhappiness, only pain, nothing strong and beautiful. I _am_ an artist. Oh, I need--Where shall I seek? These people. The froth of life. This Howard with no mercy. Oh, Les--he servant of peace, dead in calm--Em was crying but she did not wipe away her tears.

She stopped short. I wonder if Howard and Celia went--_She_ can’t be hurt. Em hugged her own power of being hurt. She had to convince herself of life. I can get peace alone. I don’t want--The sky is dead.

Oh, I _won’t_ die, she said to herself. It was almost as if she had spoken the words aloud.

Several children paused in their play to look solemnly at her. Em turned and started for Howard’s apartment.

5

The thin sunshine thrust through the overhanging haze and waved its broad smoky-silver fans of light at all the strange pale windows of the city. In Howard’s apartment the small clock ticked garrulously to the secretive walls and to the something of silence that filled the rooms.

Celia’s birthday had been too symbolic.

Em and Howard both hurt for days. This morning after breakfast she sits wordless by a window. Medium height and slim, feet under her, body curved nicely into a chair. Lilac smock, flood of hair, too heavy brows, too thin nose, too narrow long chin, all lovely in profile. Les is right. Tongues in cheeks. No art. Life without conduct. The way to death. She was using Les’s thoughts unknowingly. Howard sulks, coarse wiry hair untidy, avian head thrust forward, walking back and forth with graceless steps. Wish she were never anything but profile! Em disenchanted! Rot! What pretentiousness! He felt he had been uselessly humiliated. Not enough, Em thought. Savagely helpless.

The clock ticked blithely and shamelessly.

“How long is this going to last?” he jerked out finally, pausing to light a cigarette.

“I don’t care how long it lasts, Howard.” Em did not look up. She was seeking for his weapons. “I’m perfectly satisfied.”

“You look it,” said Howard with a sarcasm that he knew to be feeble.

Em could be grim. Howard’s vanity needed that their relation should mean more to her than to him. I must be like them, she told herself.

“Well, I am. I never expected too much. You’re only an experience, young Mr. Story--I knew that when I took you--and you’ve _been_ one.”

It seemed sinister that Em should be flippant. Always so direct. I’m the one--Besides, he was suffering from silence. Howard was not coldly, but temperamentally superficial. He could be brilliant only when he was in the ascendant. He knew that Em had cried alone in the night, and now he looked at her with mingled curiosity and fear.

“What are you talking about, Em?”

“Women are cut off from different experiences. I don’t mean to be. You’ve taught me something. Not much. You play one tune, but it’s in different keys, you know. So my time’s not entirely wasted, is it?” Her face was hard. Oh, how can I, she groaned soundlessly. No real words to reach anyone. To feel only through hatred. To test life by its pain--She was tired of it.

Howard was silent. Tinkle of the door-bell. Em rose. A telegram. Howard received the envelope and handed it to her. She opened it.

“Oh, Howard!” She burst into tears.

“What is it?” he asked with nervous impatience.

“My pictures, my pictures!”

“Those we left in Paris with Lepelletier? What’s happened to them?”

“Yes! He got _three_ hung at the Munich show, and one received honorable mention! You remember the one, the purply-orange thing? Dear old Lepelletier! He _always_ believed in me.”

“Well, what are you crying for?” Howard was not gracious.

“For delight,” she wept.

“You seem delighted,” he remarked cuttingly.

Em was oblivious to his vexation.

“I am! Oh, I am, I am!” She laughed hysterically, tears still in her eyes and running down her cheeks. “Oh, Howard, I’m so _happy_!” She seized him in a bear’s hug and danced him unwillingly around the room. Em felt vindicated. This was the answer to her doubts. I can work now, she thought joyously. She was already far away from all pettiness. Life was resolved once more. Now her pride was untainted with artifice. She _felt_, without suffering. She loved Howard. The world was real again. I wish Les knew--“Isn’t it gorgeous?” She released Howard and dived contentedly among the feathery cushions on a couch, Her cheeks had a thin color and her eyes were softly brilliant. She lighted a cigarette and began to smoke briskly and with gusto.

Howard’s sex vanity had always, half-consciously, kept him from showing Em his reluctant admiration of her superiority as an artist. His etchings were not fine. They were workmanlike. That his temperament was for life and not for art hurt him. He felt maimed, and like a cripple he wanted to torture something for it. His appreciations were keen enough to see that Em’s passionate particularness in feeling was real art, and that his intellectual mood-stuff was formula. This added to the bitterness of his half-acknowledged jealousy that tried to destroy her, that his own art--which he secretly despised--might live. Now he was chafed by the addition of European tribute coming so soon after the light words she had used about his importance as a lover. His mightiness was raw, and he chose words with deliberation.

“Not surprising,” he said carelessly. “You’re in style. Women can adapt. I admit you’re clever, but of course this fad you excel in won’t last.”

Her beautiful teeth still showed in a happy smile. His jealousy was too obvious to take seriously. She almost loved him for it.

“Howard’s mad,
And I’m glad,
And I know what to p-l-e-a-s-e
him,”

she sang impudently. Something in her again wanted her life with him. She wanted it simple. Howard never was. He had always to be playing to an audience in himself. He was afraid of his own self-criticism. He did not smile.

“Emotional language without meaning, a Rodin technique applied to nothing--”

“You’re very kind, Mr. National Arts Clubber!” Em tossed her head with lofty sarcasm.

“Kindness is an attempt to focus attention on oneself. I forego that to point out that being mentioned by a small bunch of esthetic quacks in Germany isn’t immortality.” Howard’s green-brown eyes sparkled and his mouth recovered its curve. He was tearing now, not being torn.

Em pointed a teasing finger at him.

“Sour grapes! Sour grapes! You formulated old etcher. You’re jealous. Booh!”

“I wish I were,” he retorted cruelly.

She flinched, but continued to smile.

“Well, let’s go out to lunch and celebrate, anyway. You might have thought of that, and not I.”

Em’s elation was broken but not dead. She still hoped, but belief was tainted. He didn’t mean it, she insisted to herself. I hadn’t been very nice to him. I don’t think he meant it. But she could no longer whole-heartedly delight in her good fortune.

Howard felt absurd. The blatancy of his outburst made him ridiculous to himself, and vicious toward Em. To be justified he had to discover the falseness of her art. He began to study her work with a warped bitterness of criticism. Complacency is the beginning of the end, he thought. At least I’m decently dissatisfied with myself.