Anthony The Absolute

My lips met hers.

Her hands slipped out of mine, and slowly – oh, so slowly! – slid up on my shoulders.

Then her arms were about me, and my arms were about her; and our hearts were beating together, very fast.

“Listen!” she whispered, all breathless, turning her head.

Some one was knocking at my door.

I stood up, irresolute. I was bewildered. She looked wan and weak, lying back there against the pillows. I was choking back the sobs that nearly came.

“Oh, Heloise,” I managed to say. “I meant not to. Forgive me, dear!”

But she was not looking at me. “See who it is,” was all she said.

So I went through to my own room, closing the connecting door behind me. I hurriedly brushed my hair, then opened the door.

It was the physician from the English mission. He was a young man, who looked at me coolly and with some curiosity.

I told him what had happened.

He weighed the morphine bottle in his hand, and pursed his lips over it.

“She must have taken between ten and twenty grains of the stuff,” said he, musingly.

“That, of course, is incredible,” said I.

He shook his head and replied in a casual tone for which I hated him.

“Oh, no. An overdose will act that way with some people. The system simply refuses to assimilate it or even retain it.”

I reported to him what I had done. He then went in and looked at Heloise and asked a few questions.

Occasionally his eyes flitted about the shabby room. Then he would dart little glances at her and at me.

He was a depressing person, this young physician. It was clear enough the impression he got of us.

Heloise felt it keenly. I saw that little droop of sadness coming about her mouth.

Then he told me that I had done about everything he could have done, that she would be all right in a day or so, and that she had had a rather lucky escape.

He left a little medicine, and went away. We both felt that he did not care to have us call him again; and we each knew that the other felt this, though we did not put it in words.

Finally I said, after I had sat by her for a time in moody silence —

“It is very late, dear. I rather think you will sleep to-night, in spite of the coffee and all.”

“Yes,” she said, “I think I will. And you, Anthony” – she caught my hand – “I don’t like to see you look so tired.”

“I shall sleep,” I replied. Then I kissed her forehead, and went into my own room, leaving the door ajar in order that I might hear if she called.

We did sleep, both of us. At least, she says she did. And she looked rested this morning, when I took the breakfast tray from the waiter and carried it to her. She was up, and dressed.

I have realized since that I did not succeed at all in my efforts to hide the serious mood that took possession of me from the moment I woke. She caught it. Every now and then she flashed an odd, puzzled glance at me.

Finally, when we had finished and I had put the tray in my room, she broached the subject that was uppermost in both our minds.

“Before we go any farther, Anthony dear, I am going to tell you – ”

I stopped her.

“But Anthony, you must let me speak. You are giving up everything for me, and you don’t even know – ”

“I know all I wish to know now, dear.”

“But this is very important. I can’t forgive myself, when I realize that you don’t know what I have done – ”

I could n’t stand this. I simply took her two shoulders in my hands and made her look squarely at me; and I spoke with a sudden uprush of feeling.

“Dear, dear girl,” I said, “I’m not interested in what you have done. I am interested in what you are.”

“But Anthony, if I am not worthy – ”

It hurt me to hear her speak in this way. I was thinking swiftly, bitterly, of certain episodes in my own life. I was thinking of the men I knew, and what they had done. I thought of Crocker and his outrageous code. I thought of my own latest episode of the sort – with the little girl at “Number Nine” – and of the queer masculine twist in my own thinking that had led me to consider myself “unmanly” because I had run away from that girl when she wanted me to stay.

No, I could not bear to have her speak or even think so of herself. So I said, still holding her there before me:

“Men are accustomed to judge women, Heloise. You say that I must know what you have done. Has it occurred to you that I ought to tell you – very humbly, dear – what I have done?”

She looked really puzzled at this.

“Why,” she said, “I don’t know – I never thought. T have always heard that men were – well, different.”

“You have heard that – from men,” I replied sadly, and turned away.

She caught my arm. “But apart from all that, Anthony,” she broke out, “there is one thing that you must let me say. You must!” She hesitated, caught her breath, then plunged desperately along with it. She was not looking at me now. Her color was rising; and her voice low.

“I have – a – husband – ” she said.

“Yes.” I interrupted her. “I am going to talk to him now.”

I went straight into my own room and got my hat and stick.

She followed me as far as the doorway. I saw her leaning there, all limp and white.

“You knew!” she was murmuring, as if to herself. “You knew!”

“I don’t believe I shall need my overcoat,” said I, glancing out at the sunlight on the roofs. God knows why I said just that at such a moment. I added —

“Wait here, Heloise. It will be all right. But the time has come to stop drifting. We are going to stop drifting now, you and I – and he. Good-by, dear, for now.”

I knew I must hurry. I simply could not talk this out with her now. I felt that I could not endure it. I doubted if she could. Besides it would get us nowhere so long as the question of Crocker himself should be left unsettled to menace our two lives.

I opened the door.

She came on into the room, reaching her hands out toward me. She seemed actually weak, trembling.

“Oh – Anthony!” she breathed, staring at me with something that was almost fascination in her eyes, as if she were now seeing me for the first time.

I could not trust myself at all. I hurried out, closing the door behind me. I ran down the stairs.

It was the thought of the telephone that had come to me with such force on the preceding evening. I knew now that it was not necessary to keep up this terrible waiting for him. It would be easy enough to call him up; then I could go to him and still feel that I was not leaving Heloise at the mercy of a chance visit from him while I was away.

It took a long time for them to get him to the telephone, over there at the Wagon-lits– fifteen or twenty minutes, I should say.

Finally I heard his voice.

“How are you, Eckhart?” he said, in the easy, offhand way that men employ one with another. “How have you been?”

I thanked God, under my breath, that he was in condition to talk. I simply could not have endured further delay.

“I’ve been all right,” said I. “I want to see you, Crocker, in regard to a very important matter.”

“Surely. Any time you say.”

“Suppose I come right over there to the Wagon-lits.”

“All right. I’ll wait for you in my room. Good-by.”

“Good-by, Crocker.”

Then I went out into the little Chinese street, and once again headed toward the big hotel in the Legation Quarter.

April 14, (continued)

CROCKER opened his door at my knock.

He was half dressed, with a quilted gown drawn about his big frame.

He gripped my hand. I permitted this, which was perhaps an odd thing to do; but it came about so easily and swiftly that I could not think how to prevent it without appearing merely childish.

Then I went on into the room, and stood, with some sense of inner tension, while he drew an easy chair to the table and with a paper cutter pried open a box of cigars.

He has changed, even in the fortnight since our parting in the railway station at Yokohama. He is putting on weight pretty rapidly, and his face distinctly exhibits the ravages of drink. It was pale this morning. His eyeballs were crisscrossed with red veins, and there was an incipient puffiness under them. His hands were unsteady, too; I noted that fact when he opened the cigars. And afterward, when he dropped on the sofa and settled back against the cushions, he extended his right hand as I had seen him do once or twice before, back at Yokohama, and make an unsuccessful effort to hold it still. Then he let it fall across his knee, and for a moment stared gloomily at the carpet.

I observed, too, that he was more nervous. He moved with a jerky abruptness. And when he glanced up at me, it was suddenly, with a perceptible start, as if I had spoken sharply, though in reality I had not spoken at all. It made me think of the torturing confusion of moods that was racking his nervous system, and of the merciless voices of unrest that were so evidently whispering every moment at his inner ear. A few days ago I would not have observed his condition with any sympathetic understanding; but now that I, too, have been torn between the exaltation of love and the degradation of jealousy, I can only shake my head in a sad sort of wonder at the mysterious strength of these forces that drive men and women together, and apart, and that linger even after a mismating and a subsequent separation to stir and bewilder the spirit… Yes, I can, in a way, feel with Crocker now. To live with memories of magical hours passed with a woman one has since lost – elusive, poignant memories, that come in the still hours of night to triumph over the brutal facts of the day that is gone and the day that is to come – this is the stuff of tragedy.

My feelings soared far, as I sat there – all in a moment. I was thinking of strong passions and of elemental things. It came to me, oddly, that I had never really understood certain of the great poems and the greater music dramas. I told myself that I must seize the first opportunity to hear “Tristan” again. I would understand if now. Yes, surely… there was the surging, heartbreaking climax of the “Liebestod,” for example – it was surging in my feelings now, and in my brain. I could hear the swelling of the violins. And I knew all at once that it was not the mere heartbreak of Isolde and her Tristan that surged and swelled with them, I knew that it was the universal story of man and woman everywhere. Underneath the trivial vulgarity of the daily newspaper, with its commonplace recital of petty dramas and pettier tragedies, I suddenly knew, surge and swell the hopes and dreams and casual disasters of a million Tristans and a million Isoldes. It is men like Crocker and myself, I thought, and women like Heloise, who enact, all unconsciously, tossed helplessly about on great billows of feeling, the heroic drama of life.

It was the inner man that dwelt on these stirring things. The outer me was declining a cigar, and taking the easy chair, and for a moment letting my eyes w ander about the room. It was going to be pretty difficult to broach the subject. I could see that. Yet it had somehow to be done.

There was a bottle half full of whisky on the table, and glasses. Evidently the embargo had been raised. I could not help staring at that bottle for a moment. And, though he did not raise his eyes, I felt that Crocker knew what was in my thoughts.

His suit-case, with the cover thrown back, rested on a chair by the wall. The contents were rumpled about; but among them, right on top, I saw a knife-handle of Japanese lacquer and silver projecting from a lacquered sheath with a silver tip.

He caught me looking at it, sprang up – with an abruptness that made me jump – and slammed down the cover of the suit-case.

Then he came back to the sofa with a short laugh that was plainly designed to cover inner embarrassment, and poured out a good three fingers of the whisky. He drank it neat.

“Have some?” he said.

I shook my head.

“It settles my stomach,” he continued, with an air of apology. “I have n’t been at all well lately.”

I watched him while he poured out another, and tossed it down.

He lighted a cigar.

“Where you stopping?” he asked. “Have n’t seen you around here, have I?”

I shook my head.

“There’s another hotel here, then?” said he. And his eyes narrowed craftily.

“Oh, yes,” I replied, “two or three.”

Then I hesitated. But after all, why evade the man? I had come to his room with precisely the opposite intent. So, with a nervous abruptness not unlike his own, I gave him the name of my hotel – and Heloise’s. And at the same time I watched him closely to see if it conveyed anything to him.

Plainly it didn’t. He merely blew out a long spear of smoke, followed it for a moment with his eyes, and then glanced down at the cigar that he was turning slowly round and round between his fingers.

But he could not sit quietly for any length of time. He got up again, with that same jerky abruptness, and, muttering something about the room being close, strode to the window and threw it open.

He knew that he was acting rather uncivilly, for he turned to me then and said, with a fairly good imitation of a casual manner – “Mind a little air?”

“Not at all,” I replied. It was depressing to be talking thus about nothing, knowing so well what was in his heart and what was in mine. But I only mumbled the stereotyped phrase, “Not at all.”

He took another drink – neat again. Then he drummed on the table with the fingers of one hand.

If there is one thing above another that I abominate, it is that kind of idle drumming. He made it worse by whistling softly between his teeth a crude song of the streets. I knew that I must keep myself in hand, but could not help fidgeting a little in my chair.

Nervously self-centered as he was, my discomfort quite escaped him, of course. What stopped his whistling and drumming appeared to be a sudden thought that came to him with the tune.

He looked down at me. His eyes narrowed again. He opened his mouth, then abruptly closed it on the words that were so close to utterance.

When he did speak, I felt certain that his question was not the one he had meant at first to ask.

“How’s the phonograph business?” he said, and tried to smile.

“It’s all right,” I replied shortly.

He sat down on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees, and smoked fast.

“What sort of place is that hotel of yours?” he inquired, after a little.

“Middling. Not so good as this.”

“Near by?”

“Not far.”

“I suppose any rickshaw man would know the way,” he mused.

He fell silent again. Then, finally, he put the question that was on his mind, not looking at me, trying to speak casually; but his voice was not quite steady, and I could see the cigar shake in his hand: —

“Have you happened to see a woman over there – young, good looking, rather slender, blue eyes? Could n’t say what name she’d be using.”

In a flash I knew that this was my opening. And on a great wave of relief – for we had to come to the issue – I leaned back in my chair and said, “There is such a woman there. She is using the name of Crocker.” Then I watched him.

I have never seen a man’s face go so blank. His jaw dropped – literally. And his eyes were wide.

I found myself returning his gaze, and nodding rather emphatically. I kept on nodding.

Then I said, holding his eyes with mine —

“See here, Crocker, I know all about that. You told me yourself. Have you forgotten?” Slowly the recollection came to him. “Oh, yes,” he replied, “at Yokohama.”

“And you told Sir Robert at Nagasaki. Have you forgotten that?”

This seemed to sting him. “How do you know I did?” he asked sharply.

“He told me. We talked you over. I asked him about the legal possibility of placing you under some sort of restraint.”

Curiously, this didn’t anger him. He merely looked puzzled. I wonder if I am doomed to remain ineffectual to the last – an odd, scientific little person, to be humored by the practical men of this rough-and-ready world, even in their least practical moments.

“I don’t get you, Eckhart,” said he. “What have you to do with my affairs?”

“At this moment – everything,” I answered him, feeling suddenly very sad.

Sad, because it came to me that you can not talk intelligently with another human being without a common language. And this, I knew all at once, Crocker and I did not have. I had thought of many things that I should say to him; now I had lost confidence in all of them, for I realized that the word which means one thought to me would mean another and different thought to him. Each of us would have to interpret words and phrases in the light of his own mental images. And the mental images of each were outgrowths of his individual philosophy of life.

Yes, my arguments, that had, on the way over, seemed so potent, would not do now. In order to reach that mind of his, I must think in his terms and not in my own. And I tried, desperately, to piece together something like his code, as I sat there… That man is a free and dominant creature, half god, half beast; that a small, sheltered section of womankind is of superior, almost divine stuff, designed to comfort and elevate man on his god side, to bear his children and, under his own general government, “keep his house,” while the other and greater section of this same womankind is mysteriously of poorer stuff, and is worthy only to do his rougher work at such a wage as can be wrung from him or (in a pitifully matter-of-fact way) to cater to the vices of his beast side – something like this was surely Crocker’s sort of philosophy.

I tried to bring myself to realize what this meant. Holding so curious a faith, it was surely natural enough that he should have tried to force poor Heloise’s life into his own hard mold of thought and habit. Nor is it unnatural that he should have been outraged when this lovely possession turned in despair from the atmosphere of suppression and inactivity in which he had been so determined to keep her and tried, blunderingly, all wrong, to find an outlet for the fine spirit stirring in the depths of her being.

For this was rebellion. And Crocker, I can see, hates rebellion. His sort always do. He is profoundly a conventional man, even in his vices.

I thought all this in a swift moment, as I sat there, wondering, wondering, how I could say the things that must somehow be said.

Crocker waited as long as he could for me to go on, keeping himself busy with his cigar. Once I thought I detected a furtive expression on his face, as if he dreaded what was to come.

The man was conscious of his own inner weakness, of course. He must have been. Perhaps he remembered telling me of his solemn resolution to give up liquor. Even as this thought occurred to me, he reached out and again tipped that convenient bottle. It seemed to me that there was an extra set to his chin as he did this, a slightly overemphasized casualness that bordered on bravado.

Then he sprang to his feet and moved about the room behind me.

As for myself, I was cool enough. And, once I could hit on the proper beginning to the talk, I felt pretty sure that I could handle the situation. It is evident to me now that the plan I arrived at last night, there in Heloise’s room, had cleared the air for me. For I knew – deep, deep in my heart I knew – that I stood ready to give Heloise up. There is selfishness enough in me, God knows. There will be moments of weakness, when the touch of her hand, the blue of her eyes or the shadow of her long lashes on her skin – perhaps even the mention of her name by some common acquaintance – will stir that strange magic that has, in such different ways, torn Crocker’s heart and mine. But I believe I shall never again forget that the woman I love, has a life to build, and that the finest duty I have is to help her build it.

I heard a rustling behind me. I turned. Crocker had thrown aside his lounging robe, and was getting into his street clothes. While I sat there watching him, he put on his waistcoat and coat. He put on his hat, pushing it back on his head. Then he busied himself transferring his pocketbook, a handful of small change, some papers and a key ring from the pockets of another suit that hung from a hook on the closet door.

I got right up and stood there, by the table.

“Tell you what, old man,” said he, rather apologetically. “I’m all out of sorts. Guess I need the outside air. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Yes,” I replied, with a ring in my voice that was surprising even to myself. “I do mind. I’ve got something to say to you.”

“Don’t talk about that,” said he, and walked to the open window, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

“But I will talk about it, Crocker. It is what I came here to talk about. And I propose to make you talk about it, also.”

He offered no reply; just stood there, staring out the window. I went on. I don’t know now where the words were coming from that rushed so unexpectedly to my lips; but I knew, as I uttered them, that before either of us should leave that room he would be taking me seriously.

“There is a woman over yonder, in the Hôtel de Chine,” I said “From your own confession to me, you have followed her here to kill her. There is nobody but me to talk to you, but you are not going to dispose of me so easily. This thing is going to be settled. It is going to be settled to-day – and without any killing, We are not living in that sort of an age, Crocker. Not quite.”

“What do you mean – settled?” he muttered, without turning.

“Settled. Just that. And there won’t be any murder. You and I are going to arrange terms of separation between Heloise and yourself. Then you are going home. You will leave this city before night. You may go either way – Tientsin or Hankow; it is the same to me. But you’ve got to go… Will you please sit down here and try to discuss this thing like a rational man?”

Now he did turn.

“I suppose you think you can talk to me like this,” he said, with something of a sneer.

“I think just that,” I replied. “Sit down, please. We shall see if I can drive a little sense into that fuddled mind of yours.”

I stood there waiting. He did not move, except, it seemed to me, to square his shoulders. And there was the same set to his chin that I had noted a few moments earlier, when he was drinking.

“I’m standing a good deal from you, Eckhart,” he said. “But after all, I’ve got nothing against you. You can’t be expected to understand these things.” This evidently struck him as a happy idea, and he repeated it: “You can’t be expected to understand these things.”

Suddenly he frowned. “How’d you know her name was Heloise?” he asked.

“How did I know?” I repeated. “I will tell you how. I will tell you much that you yourself do not understand.” My voice was rising. I had to struggle to control myself. But I knew that I must, for it was not myself I was fighting for now. “We will not waste words, you and I. We are past that, Crocker – far past it, if you only knew. I have seen” – the words “your wife” had come to my tongue, but I could not say them; it was a profanation even to think of that fine woman as “his” – “I have seen Heloise. I have come to know her. I have seen how sad she is, and what a struggle she has been making to begin doing something with her life. For she has been alone, Crocker – ”

“Alone?”

“Yes. She did not stay with that other man. She could not. And she has been struggling all alone.” I fought back the emotion that was breaking into my voice. “I know you both now, Crocker – pretty well. And knowing you both, I can see, oh, so clearly, that she could never, never be happy with a man like you. She has ability, she has spirit, she has what they call temperament. She is an artist. And do you not know, man, that the artist must always be struggling toward expression, that his whole life is nothing but that struggling? You can not make a domestic drudge of such a woman. Of some women – yes. But not of the artist. You tried to do just that. You chose the woman who was beautiful to your eyes, and whose spirit made her most desirable, and then you tried to crush that spirit. I have no doubt she tried to submit, that she fought her own finest qualities, for years, in the hopeless effort to make of herself what you demanded. And then she broke – all helpless, all dependent on you as she was – and risked everything to get away from you because it was worse than death to her to be with you. And now you hound her around the world like the savage beast that you are… Good God, man, can’t you see that she was right in leaving you! Can’t you see that it was the finest, bravest thing she could have done!”