Anthony The Absolute

I stood, strung up, all blazing with the fire that was in me. I knew I had broken bounds. I thought that now, surely, he would turn on me and fight me; and I did not care. I even thought wildly of settling it all with him then and there, with blows, as men do. For I had the fire and the will within me; while he, with all his height and strength and native vigor, was palsied with that poison that eats away a man’s will and leaves but a shell of bluster.

But instead of anger on his face, as I stared into it, I saw only bewilderment. He seemed to be groping after the ends of a new concept, with a mind that had lost something of its power to grasp new concepts.

“Good Lord,” he said then, “you’re talking as if you were in love with her yourself.”

I nodded at him, breathless and deeply solemn. “I am,” I said. “I love Heloise, and I shall love her with all my heart until I die.”

Perhaps I was guilty of a tactical blunder in giving him this information. He was so evidently not himself that he should have been handled with tact and not further confused. As it stood, I had laid the train of a profounder confusion than I could possibly have foreseen. But I had to say it.

He was still groping to comprehend this amazing thought.

“I don’t get you,” he said. He was not looking at me now, and seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. “You have n’t known her – it’s only a few days – ”

“It is nearly two weeks.”

“But you don’t mean” – he fell to walking about the room, and I followed him with my eyes – “you don’t mean to say – ”

He stopped short, and pondered. Then he turned toward me; and it seemed to me he appeared more like his normal self than at any time since I had entered the room.

“So you ‘re talking for yourself,” he observed, coldly.

“No,” I replied, “I am not.”

“But you tell me you love her – ”

“That does not stand in the way of my doing precisely what I insist that you shall do – give her up.”

“That’s easy to say, Eckhart.”

“It is not easy to do, Crocker. But Heloise must go to Europe, and take up her study. Her gifts, her hopes, all lead her straight toward opera. Neither you nor I has the right to stop her. It is the instinct for expression, nothing else. You have followed that instinct freely in your own life and work. I have followed it freely in mine. Now let her do the same. Work – the sort of work that will give scope to his own peculiar sort of energy – is what every human being needs. It is, above all, what Heloise needs. It will be her salvation, if anything will. Can’t you get that into your head? She doesn’t need any application of the punitive frenzy that we men call justice. She does n’t need the easy moralizing of men like you – and me. She needs work!… As regards my giving her up – she goes to Paris; I stay here in China for at least two years. If you can think of any way in which I can put more miles than that between us, tell me, and I’ll promptly give up my own plans and do it.” And I snapped my finger.

Some of my phrases were over his head, I suppose. But he came back at me with a good deal of vigor, ignoring my intense mood: —

“You tell me you love her,” he said; “and you talk about giving her up. You don’t mean to say that you think she is in love with you?”

This sobered me – suddenly. I felt my eyes drop, and the hot color coming back into my face.

The talk was turning on me in a way I had not precisely foreseen. But after all – it was only fair. Certainly I had shown no hesitation at exposing his hurt places. So I raised my eyes and looked squarely at him, knowing that, though it would be torture, I should tell him the truth as I had been coming to see it during these morning hours.

I shook my head.

“I should hope not!” he muttered.

I paid no heed to him. The thing now was to get the truth out and have it over with.

“There have been one or two moments when I dared think she was beginning to love me,” I went on. “But I was reasoning from my hopes. She was alone. She was destitute – desperate. There was no one she could turn to, except myself. She knew that I had come to love her. And hurt and crushed as she was – with all the gratitude that the biggest heart I have ever known could – But what is the good of this! What fault there has been, is mine. She is a buoyant, vital thing, an artist, all spirit and fire. Even in her suffering I can see that. There have been glimpses, when we were working and she could forget for a moment. I am a quiet man, a man of the study, a narrow man.”

“Yes, you are narrow,” he put in.

“She must have variety. She must have stirring moments, strong reactions. She could not possibly be happy with me. And as for you, Crocker – well, we know about that. You are quite impossible. You thought you could possess her. Finding that you couldn’t, you would kill her.”

He winced. I was glad to see it. I must make him wince. I must show him that he was not only a brute, but an absurd one.

He went over to the bureau and rummaged nervously in the top drawer. I could see, in the mirror, that his face was working, in the way it has when he is deeply stirred. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he came back to the table, and with a fair assumption of an offhand manner reached for the whisky bottle.

I snatched it away from him, sprang to the window, and threw it out, hard. I heard it break on the pavement below.

Then I turned and faced him, wondering, with a swift uprush of excitement, what he would do. I had taken him quite by surprise, which was a point for me. His great strength had not enabled him to keep that bottle.

His first expression was a sort of hurt bewilderment. He took a step toward me, but without any particular evidence of anger – more as if he meant to protest.

Next he turned, slowly and heavily, in the direction of the bell. This was over by the hall door. I ran toward it. A chair stood in the way, and I remember throwing it over in my rush. I had my back against the bell before he had got to the middle of the room.

He just stood there, trying to think. Then, abruptly, he turned back, dropped on the sofa, and buried his face in his hands.

I came across the room, as far as the table, and stood over him until he lifted his head. He was evidently fighting to keep from going to pieces. And his pride was not yet wholly gone, for he said —

“See here, Eckhart, I’m not feeling well at all. Just let me ring for a drink, and I’ll talk with you. I will. I ‘ll talk. This thing has driven me wild. But you’re right enough, I suppose. Just push the bell, will you? The thing has got to be settled. We’ll settle it, you and I. If you think there’s really any show for her, on her own, I’ll be reasonable. It’s been the thought of that fellow – of other men – Oh, God!” His face dropped again on his hands.

It was at this point that I began to feel discouraged over the prospect of arriving at any real settlement of the business. The man could not be counted on to remain in the same state of mind for two consecutive hours. I told him, in good round language, that he could not have another drop of whisky; and he exhibited self-respect enough (for the moment) to stop his whining.

Then for a little while I just sat on the edge of the table and looked at him. This was Heloise’s husband. My spirit revolted at the thought. Her husband! The crude law under which we live actually gives such a man “rights” over that fine woman. It was unthinkable. And it was so.

“Come out with it,” I heard him saying. “What’s your proposition?”

I had to think quickly. For this, after all, was the opportunity I had been so desperately seeking. I must talk straight.

“You are to let her have a divorce. If I know her at all, she will not accept alimony – ”

“Stuff!” said he. “Did you ever see anybody that would n’t take money!”

They were as far apart as that, those two. I pushed right on – “but she will have to accept something. A lump sum, say, on the ground that you have held back her training and limited her immediate earning capacity. I think, if that point is made very clear to her, she will be reasonable about accepting enough to carry her through her two or three years of study and the getting up of a repertoire. I would not ask her to agree to more than that. Not from you.”

There, that was plain talk enough, surely, even for Crocker!

He took it pretty calmly. In fact, I am not sure that it wasn’t something of a relief to his hard head to get down to what he would call “brass tacks” – meaning money, and the traffic in money.

“That’s your proposition?” he said.

“That’s my proposition.”

“And when do you want an answer?”

I must admit that he surprised me here. “Why,” I replied, “now. On the spot.”

He shook his head.

“No,” said he. “You are asking me to agree to a plan that would change my whole life.”

“For the better!” I interrupted eagerly.

“Perhaps,” said he. “Do you think I have traveled from New York to Peking for the purpose of changing my mind in one minute, because you ask me to?”

He had stiffened up, as he sat there, and was talking, all of a sudden, quite like a responsible business man. Whether this change was merely a momentary outcropping of self-respect, or whether there was man enough in him to bring that drink-fuddled brain so swiftly under control, I could not imagine.

“What else can you do?” I asked, as quietly and reasonably as I could manage. “At this moment you seem more like your real self, Crocker, than at any other time since I came in here – ”

“I’m myself, all right,” he broke in gruffly. “Never you mind about that. Let me hear your arguments.”

“ – and you can’t sit here, and look me in the eye, and tell me that you seriously consider carrying out the insane purpose that brought you here. You can’t, man!”

“Cut that talk out!” he cried angrily. “Stick to your own side of it.”

“There is no other side of it, Crocker. You’re not going to kill her. She’ll never go back to you. Your only possible course is to give her up. And my guess is that you’ll show yourself a reasonably good sport.”

This touched him. At last I had hit on a phrase that he could understand, in all this ugly talk that I was driving so desperately at him.

“Never mind that, either,” he growled.

I stood up, and looked at him. It seemed to me that I had him. Certainly, he was avoiding my eyes.

He jerked out his watch, and stared at it, turning the stem around and around between his fingers.

“It’s eleven-fifteen,” he said, then slowly let the watch drop back in his pocket.

He had smoked the last of his cigar. Now he lighted a fresh one.

“I’ll give you my answer at two,” he added.

For a moment I did not know what to say to this.

“What’s the matter,” he said, in that rough voice.

It was such a voice, I imagined, as he would employ with business subordinates. “What’s the matter? Isn’t that reasonable? You’ve stated your proposition. I’ll think it over and give you my answer after lunch. If I accept it, I’ll pack up and leave Peking on the first train.”

Still I hesitated. He just sat and smoked.

“You know what’s the matter,” I replied, finally. I decided to stick to my policy of talking in his own blunt way. “How do I know that you will be sober at two?”

“I’ll be sober,” said he. He thought this over, and added, “After all, Eckhart, I suppose you have a right to ask that question. I’ll admit that I’ve been making a dam’ fool of myself. I’ve been drunk ever since I got here.”

“Yes,” said I, “I know it.”

This disturbed him a little, but he went on – “I’m glad you threw that bottle out. It was what I needed to bring me to my senses. I’m all right now. You ‘ll see. Tell you what I ‘ll do – I’ll take a cold bath. That always sets me up. Then I’ll order up a lot of coffee with my lunch, and only a light wine.” He got up, and stood over me. “There’s my assurance that you’ll find me here, O. K., at two. I’m not a common drunkard, Eckhart. You’re not a man of the world, and you don’t see these things quite as they are. I’ve been stewed, that’s all. I’m through. Now for the coldest bath they’ve got.” He began stripping off his clothing. “Come right in at two. Don’t bother to send your name up.”

For a moment I could only look up at him. I must admit that he was convincing. What he said was quite true – disordered as he had been, through passion and drink, he was not yet a common drunkard. There was yet stuff in the man Besides if, as I was beginning to hope, he really meant to accept my plan, the less than three hours he asked for was a quite reasonable concession to his pride.

I had to make the decision. I did make it.

“All right,” I said, “I’ll come at two.”

He looked straight at me, and held out his hand.

“You’ve helped me, I think,” he said, in a very decent spirit. Then he glanced down at his big hand, and added – “Better take it, Eckhart.”

I took it. Then, stirred by doubts and hopes so extreme and so confused that I hardly knew what I was thinking, I went out. The last I saw of him, then, he was throwing aside his under-wear, and exposing a deep chest, with big muscles curving down over the shoulders, and smaller ridges of muscle in rows on either side. And on his face was that set look.

I ran up the stairs (at the Hôtel de Chine) and burst into my own room. Then I stopped short, and took off my hat.

For there, by the window – in my room – stood Heloise. She wore a simple but very beautiful frock of her favorite color, blue. It made her look taller, and slimmer, and more exquisitely womanly.

The room itself was changed. She had picked it up, and given it what few cheerful touches she could. On the bureau, in the toothbrush holder from my washstand, stood a spray of white cherry or pear blossoms. I can’t imagine where she got them; I did not think to ask, when we were together, for we had so much else on our minds.

On the bureau, also, in a neat little pile, were the pieces of my ten broken cylinders. She had gathered them all and put them there.

It was the first time she had ever tidied up my room like that. It touched me. I stood motionless for a moment, looking about.

“Did you see him?” she asked, very low.

“Yes,” said I, still looking about the room, “I saw him. It is going to be all right, Heloise – all right. We are to meet again at two.” Then I indicated the white blossoms. “You have made it seem almost like a home.”

“Oh – that?” she murmured. “It was hard to wait. I had to keep myself busy.” She said it very gently. And it thrilled me to realize that, whatever strange event might come to her and to me, we had at last arrived at a fine spirit of companionship.

Just to think that she could do this friendly act, feeling in her heart that I would not misinterpret it or in some crude masculine way take the advantage – I like that, even though I distinctly do not deserve it.

But she was speaking, still in that low voice, but breathlessly, I thought: —

“How will it be ‘all right,’ Anthony? What do you mean? What have you done?”

I felt that I must be very gentle. But with her, as with that man over yonder in the other hotel, it was the time for frank talk. For as I had insisted with Crocker, her life was her own to live; and I could not go on now without her approval.

I drew my one comfortable chair to the window for her. She took it. Then I explained to her, just as briefly as I could, that Crocker had agreed to consider setting her legally free, on condition that she go to Paris and work out her career independently of myself or any other man.

She heard me without a word, sitting there, her hands folded in her lap. I could not make out the expression of her face. It was grave, of course, but composed – with no sign of the hysteria that I had considered as a possibility. Indeed, I am not certain but what she was rather calmer than I.

When I had said it all, and had paused, looking anxiously at her, she asked: —

“How long have you known about him? Did he” – she indicated the room across the hall with a slight movement of her head – “tell you?”

I explained to her that I had been with Crocker on the ship and at Yokohama, and that he himself had talked to me of his difficulties.

This surprised her, I could see, but she made no comment regarding it. Her next question was uttered with hesitation: —

“Was he – did he seem – ”

I caught her drift. “To-day, you mean?”

She nodded, with compressed lips.

“He has been pretty bad, but I really think he is sobering up. When I left him, he seemed to have himself under control. And he gave me his word that he would be sober at two, when I go back.”

She seemed to be musing, in a depressed fashion. Then she glanced up, met my eye, and tried to look brighter. “The trouble with him is,” she said, “you can never be sure.”

“I know,” I replied, “but I could n’t refuse to give him three hours – less than three hours. You see, dear, there is no pressure I could bring upon him. I have n’t even the advantage of physical strength. And, really, you know, when you come right down to it, my whole position was the weakest possible – I had absolutely no right to talk to him like that.”

We fell silent again. Finally she turned squarely around, and leaned against the casement, and gave me her hand. I saw then that there were tears in her eyes, and deep sorrow, but about her mouth there were evidences of a strong determination that explained why the tears did not come.

We looked at each other.

“Tell me,” she said, “what becomes of you in this arrangement?”

“Oh,” I replied, “I stay here and do my work. There is just one thing I am going to ask of you, Heloise – will you help me make the scales again?”

She looked surprised, I thought: and her mouth twisted ‘nto the faintest of smiles. Then she nodded. “Yes,” she said, “we will make the scales.”

“Don’t you see,” she went on, “that what you are trying to do brings us closer together than years of ordinary, selfish love-making?”

“Yes,” said I, “in a way.”

“In every way,” said she. “Are you blind, Anthony? Can’t you see how you are making me love you?”

I tore my hands away from her. I could not stand it. But my brain was still dear, thank God!

“Heloise – dear!” I cried, “this only makes it harder. We must play fair. We must see it through. If he goes back to America, then you must go to Paris, and I must stay here.”

“What if I should refuse to go to Paris?” said she, still looking at me.

“You will not do that,” I answered her. “For it is the condition on which he will set you free.”

“Then what is to prevent my waiting for you there – one year, two years?”

“You will be too busy to wait – you will be working, growing, changing – yes, you will change. You will not need me then. Your life must not stand still because of a man who loved you away out here in Peking,” – I said this as steadily as I could, – “it must go on, and on, and – ”

“Oh,” said she, “you think I would do that. You think I would change.”

I nodded. “Life is change. And you are full of life. Sad as you have been, dear, I can see that. I am a narrow man. If you came to me, I would be weak enough to want you by me, in my home. I should want – children. I should want you to be my wife, my helpmate, my – ”

“Well…” she breathed, with shining eyes.

“No, Heloise, whatever you may think now, I could never forget what I should be shutting you out from, and it would make me unhappy. Don’t you see, dear? You must follow your own genius. That is what I am trying to help you do.” And I added sadly, “It is the only way out for you, anyway, because it is the only course that he will agree to – if he should agree to anything.”

“Oh, Anthony,” she said, “is all that true? Is it just the old conflict between one’s own personal life and the career that one is drawn to? Don’t you suppose I could give my life to helping you and be happy in it – so happy that it would make you happy too? Thinking of those days that we spent working together, it has seemed that way to me. Just to-day it has seemed so.”

I shook my head. “You have a great gift in your voice, Heloise. It must be used. It must grow greater. You are unsubmissive, a rebel; which is precisely what an artist must be. You have the spirit of a fine artist. You must cultivate and expand that spirit. There is nothing ahead of you, Heloise, but work – hard, hard work. And loneliness. That is the lot of the artist. But it will bring its compensations. And even the work itself is a great opportunity.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “I know that.”

“And you must not weaken, dear. You have headed that way – you must go straight on now. And I will live in your success.”

“Does it really come down to that, Anthony?”

“It comes down to that. You’ve got to do it, anyway – you have no choice. I am only bringing up these reasons now because they may help you to think it out.”

“Perhaps this is my real punishment,” she observed, “losing you just when I have found you.” And then the tears came to her eyes again.

“Perhaps,” said I. “Perhaps not. If so, it is a punishment for being alive, since, one way or another, every human being must face it. Every life has to be lived, you know, dear. It is hard to live a life – straight through to its end. It is still harder if one fails to live it… And then, this applies to me, as to you. There is no more reason that you should give up the proper direction of your life than there is that I should give up mine and follow you.”

“Oh,” she said, with a little gasp, “I never thought of that!”

“It is so, Heloise. We are both positive natures. We have each a life to live. Let us try to live them honestly and thoroughly. Perhaps, in doing that, each will one day make the other happy and proud.”

We paused. And then Heloise, being a woman, turned swiftly back to the practical aspect of the problem.

“But, Anthony,” she broke out, “you don’t for a minute suppose that I would let you undertake all that expense for me? You don’t really think I would accept it?”

Now it had to come; the money business, that I had shrunk from mentioning when I told her of my talk with Crocker.

I hesitated, then blurted it out —

“He must pay you a reasonable sum to cover that expense.”

“Oh – Anthony!” Her eyes flashed fire. “I won’t touch a cent of his money!”

“But – but – ”

“Not one cent!”

Somehow I felt very sordidly masculine as I stood there trying to explain. I gave her the reasons, as I had thought them out – that it was mere justice to recompense her for the time he had forced her to lose.

But my voice began to falter, as I ran on with the jargon; for I saw that she was not listening. She had become very white. She leaned against the casement, all limp and sad, gazing out over the roofs. Her breath was coming more quickly. And I saw her draw her under lip in a little way between her teeth.

My voice trailed off into silence. For I suddenly knew that she was thinking of her own utter helplessness. And as the fact tortured her nne, free spirit, so also it tortured mine. I reached my hand toward hers; then, since she did not see, withdrew it. There could be no help for either of us in that contact – nothing but a deeper confusion. Then I turned and walked away across the room, and sat gloomily on the edge of the bed.

We must have remained silent for several minutes. It seemed an hour to me, as I sat there, brooding, and struggling against the tendency to brood.

Then I heard her step, and her voice; and looked up to find her standing over me. She was actually smiling – a resolute smile.

“Forgive me, Anthony,” she said. And then, before I could exclaim at this, she added, enthusiastically, like the girl she often seems —

“Let’s make the new scales now!”

For a moment I could only look at her, wondering at her astonishing buoyancy of spirit. Then, as she was herself carrying my phonograph to the table and adjusting the horn, I got up – still heavy and a thought bewildered – and brought a box of cylinders.

While I was at this, she walked a few times to the window and back, swinging her arms freely, like a boy, and inhaling deep breaths. Her collar evidently confined her throat, for she tore it open with an unconscious vigor that displaced a hook and sent it flying against the window. She seemed not to notice this. She swung up on the balls of her feet and ran through a number of vocal exercises. It thrilled me to hear again that wonderful voice, with the firm resonance and the fine quality that always, to me, makes her seem something more than woman.