Anthony The Absolute

Grand Hôtel des Wagon-lits. April 17th. Later

I HELPED Heloise get her things back to our little hotel last night. Then I packed a bag and came over here and took a room.

She did n’t say anything when I told her I was going to do this. But I am sure she realizes that it is the only thing to do. It disturbs me to think of her alone over there. But now that she is known to half the white people in Peking, I will not permit myself to stay there with her. I will not have her talked about on any new grounds. And now that I am beginning to understand her, I see clearly enough that I must protect her. Lately it has seemed to me that none of the more artificial restraints that society accepts as necessary details of a working code mean much to her.

I begin to think that in certain fine ways women are more primitive than men. In the sense, I mean, that their deeper emotional nature lies closer to the roots of life than ours does. They are more elementally natural, harder to sophisticate. They feel more swiftly and surely, without the elaborate intellectual machinery that men find it necessary to call into use in order to arrive at conclusions. In certain respects they are deeper and bigger than we are.

I have read all this in the books, of course – years ago – but never before believed it in the sense that belief implies personal experience and understanding.

April 18th. Morning. (At the Wagon-lits)

YES, I was right in moving over here. Heloise admitted it to-day. I asked her if she did n’t agree with me, and she said she had come to think that my judgment is better than hers in these matters. God knows, I am unworldly enough – sometimes I feel that she and I are nothing but a couple of babes in the woods of life – but at least I am a bit more worldly than she.

And I was right in insisting that we go right on with our plan, as if nothing had happened. I have forced myself to go over the whole difficult business, thinking it out step by step; and I was right.

It is a difficult business. Sometimes, at night, when my imagination slips out of control and dream-pictures come of a home of my own, it is almost more than I can bear. Last night I had to switch on the lights and work until daylight over the notes for Volume Six. (That is to be the section devoted to “True Intervals and Natural Song.”)

I am driving myself to think constantly of the other side of the picture – to realize how beautiful Heloise is, what a person she is and what a voice she has. No home that I could conceivably offer her would be large enough to contain her life. And when I construct in my mind the years during which she would have to fight her own inclinations, deliberately confine her activities and build barriers against the growth of her own soul, my resolution strengthens. If it is hard to give her up now, it would be impossible then. I know myself well enough to know what I should be and do, then. I would be jealous of her very bigness. I would, likely as not, come to hate her beauty, her voice, her capacity for work. I would fight to make a Hausfrau of her, with babies, and meals to get – meals for me! – and sweeping and dusting to look after. And then, should I succeed in that miserable purpose; should I have to realize, every day and every night, with her beauty fading and with that wonderful edge on her voice becoming blunted and the tones growing uneven and foggy, that I had shut her out of the chance for growth that God gave her – this, after she had already taken one desperate, tragic step toward freedom – should I find myself forced to live, day after day, year after year, with any such realization as that, I think the time would come when I would want to kill myself.

The man who deliberately stops a woman’s growth – no matter what his traditions and beliefs; no matter what his fears for her – is doing a monstrous thing, a thing for which he must some day answer to the God of all life.

As civilization stands now, the woman who marries shuts herself out from the possibility of a career. Not in every instance, of course; but certainly in such an average, modest marriage as mine would have to be. I have some means, of course; but not nearly enough. And it is not likely that I shall ever “make” money in any large way.

No, I really don’t believe the thing can be done. Not yet. I like to hope that some day the world will become more nearly civilized as regards marriage. But first we must make it less a matter of land and houses and goods, and of woman as property along with these. And I think we shall probably come to some system of paying woman directly for the great service of child-bearing and rearing. Yes, we men must give up the last shreds of our thought of woman as a personal possession. We are farther from that, still, than we realize, I think. I myself am far, far from it. Where Hel-oise is concerned, I know perfectly well that I am not to be trusted. God only knows what I would do, what I would come to think and believe. For the magic that is always between us would be confused in a thousand subtle ways with the heritage, of deep-lying racial habits that are in me as in every other man.

But at least, I have come to see it. For this I am thankful.

Late Afternoon. (still the 18th.)

HELOISE understands now. And she agrees that I am right. She will accept the loan I suggested. And she will go to Paris.

She called up this afternoon – while I was writing.

“Anthony,” she said, “take me for a walk. It is stuffy here. I want some air.”

So she started out, and I met her near the eastern end of Legation Street.

“Just a little walk, Anthony,” she said. “I’m not getting any exercise these days. I don’t seem to want to go out alone any more… Up on the wall, Anthony, where we can feel the wind. And there won’t be so much dust.”

So we climbed the ramp, and walked from the Hatamen to the Chienmen and back – two miles. South of us extended the Chinese city, that lies outside the historic stronghold of the Manchus. Northward, as far as we could see, stretched the Tartar capital, now all fresh green foliage with bits of curving tile roofs peeping out in gray-brown patches. For Peking is a city of trees.

We could see the brick walls of the Imperial City, and, within that, of the Forbidden City itself; with its acres of glazed yellow roofs.

The Tartar wall is all of fifty feet high, and nearly as broad on the top. Grass grows there; and there are parapets, and the casual ruins of stone barricades where men have fought.

I told Heloise, while we walked, that I had worked it all out. I told her, too, of a curious coincidence of this very morning. I picked up a magazine in the hotel lounge, and, turning the pages, found my attention arrested by an interview with some great singers. In that paper the three finest living operatic sopranos agreed that marriage, home, domesticity, could play no part in their lives.

I felt it my duty to tell her about this. We simply have got to face these facts. And I must help keep up her courage with my own. Once she finds herself established at Paris, her work going on, the stimulus of new acquaintances and of fine music and of the stir and rush of the Western World all about her, it will not be so hard, I think. At present, the loneliness, the sense of distance from her own kind, and the perplexing reactions of the tragedy that we have both had to pass through, combine to bring her deep emotional self closer to the surface than normal.

Then, of course, she is quite dependent on me. We do not speak of this; but I know well enough that it is every moment in her thoughts.

We did not stay out long. It is most difficult when we are together. I am going to start my own work at once. It is the only way to keep steady – I can see that. I have letters to the American Minister. I shall present them tomorrow.

We lingered at the door of her hotel. Neither of us wanted to say good-by. We stood there for several moments without speaking. Then she said:

“Will you come in?”

I shook my head.

She took a few slow steps into the doorway; then stopped.

“I shall not change, Anthony – in Paris!” she said, and hurried in without looking back.

I have succeeded in getting reservations for her on the Trans-Siberian, leaving Harbin on the 23rd. That means starting from Peking on the 21st – in three days.

She says that she will not mind the long journey alone. I wish I knew of some American or English family that is going through to Moscow on that train. But I feel pretty sure that she will make the acquaintance of some fairly congenial group of tourists.

Sometimes I think of troubles that may come to her in case she should meet with no such good fortune; and then my head becomes hot and I have to clench my hands and walk out in the air. There will be men of course – and ten long days of that train! Certain ugly phrases of Sir Robert’s float to the surface of my thoughts and stay there to irritate me. I can’t help dwelling a little on the sinister code of the white men who travel in the East.

But it is no good thinking of these things. Heloise says they are only the chances of life, and that we have to take those. “And Anthony,” she added to-day, “they can annoy me, but they can’t hurt me – they can’t make any difference.”

April 19th. Noon

I SENT one of my letters of introduction to the American Minister to-day, by coolie.

He replied at once, with a cordial chit asking me to tea this afternoon.

I find that Hindmann knows him. and has spoken of me to him. It turns out that the Minister regards himself as something of an amateur in Chinese music. He knew my name.

“He showed me a big book,” said Hindmann, in telling me about it, last night. “Had a lot of queer music scales in it, and pictures of instruments. He said it was the standard authority on the subject.”

“What book?” I asked him.

“Don’t remember the title,” said he.

“But think, man! Think! Who wrote it?”

“Did n’t notice that, either. Some German, though.”

“That can not be,” said I, with some excitement, I will admit. “Neither Boag nor von Stumbostel is within five years of publishing the results of his researches. I am nearer it than they.

“My first volume, ‘The Origins of Musical Sound,’ stands now in galley proof and will be published within two years. No, no, no! There is no German work that is the authority on primitive music. There is, as yet, no authoritative work. Van Haalst, Elton, Père Avard, and twenty others, merely pointed the way. All of them pointed the way wrong in certain important respects. No, if there is an authority, it is myself. I am the standard authority. The Minister does not know what he is talking about.”

Hindmann grinned.

“Seems to me,” he observed, “it was published at Bonn.”

“At Bonn!” I shouted at him – “At Bonn!”

“Yes – I’m sure it was Bonn.”

“It was not the book of von Westfall?”

“That’s it,” said he, nodding. “That’s the guy – von Westfall.”

So the influence of that scoundrel has penetrated to Peking! He has actually got himself regarded as an “authority”! I did n’t know what to say or think. But Hindmann calmed me down a good deal. He has a steadying influence on me, anyway.

“You needn’t sputter at me,” he said. “I did n’t write it.”

“I know,” said I. “But I was not thinking of you. I do not know what to do. I was to have had tea with the Minister to-day.”

“Well,” remarked Hindmann, around his cigar, “why not?”

“Why not?” I repeated. “It is impossible. This man will wish to talk my subject – my subject! – with the work of that charlatan at his elbow. No, I will not talk with him. I can not. Don’t you see?”

“No,” said Hindmann, “not exactly.”

“I am at once placed in competition with one that I know to be an absolute impostor. The Minister will take seriously what he regards as his own views. But they will not be his own – they will be the views of von Westfall. Don’t you see? I can’t go!”

Hindmann sat for a little while, smoking and thinking. He has a very comfortable way of settling his plump person into a big arm-chair.

“Look here,” he said. “You want to go over there. It’s worth doing.”

I’m afraid I sniffed at this.

“But it is,” he went on. “So what you want to do is to go right ahead with it. Don’t be licked by a book.”

He did n’t quite understand me there. I was not “licked” at all, and I told him so.

“Prove it by going, then.” he said.

“But I’m afraid I shall insult him. I shall have to say what I believe.”

“Go ahead and insult him, then,” said he; and he took out his cigar and grinned cheerfully.

Same date

I GOT Hindmann to help me out with the notes and the assignment of her interest in the estate.

He knows all about these things. He got blank note forms from the manager of the hotel. And he himself dictated the assignment paper to a Japanese stenographer. It was astonishing to me to hear him do this; on matters of legal phraseology, and where precise statement of fact is required, he is very clear-headed. But then, I suppose that my peculiar faculties would be equally surprising and interesting to him.

The document worried me a good deal. It is quite long; and it makes over to me, in the most unequivocal language, Heloise’s entire interest in the property. It is worded harshly and sharply. Just reading it, I had the unpleasant feeling that I was forcing her to sign away to me everything she may possess in the world as security for a paltry loan.

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Hindmann, watching my face.

“It has such a horribly ironclad look,” said I. “Then why make her sign it?”

“Because she’d never in the world accept the money, any other way.”

“Oh,” said he, very thoughtful.

“Look here,” I suggested, “could n’t you modify it a little? Make it not quite so strong?”

He shook his head. “It’s the regular legal form, Eckhart. I’ve had to do this sort of thing half a dozen times.” He smoked a little. “I suppose you know it is n’t worth a hang.”

“Not worth anything?”

“Poorest security in the world. It won’t be even partly binding until the executor of the estate has pledged himself to you to execute the agreement, and to accept personal responsibility in the matter. Full of holes, that thing is.”

I did n’t dare let him know how my heart jumped at this. I am glad it is n’t binding. I only wish it did n’t look so ugly. I can’t bear to think of watching her face when she reads it. I fear it will depress her. And she will have to struggle to conceal her depression.

I have figured it out that I can spare a thousand dollars from my letter of credit now. So that all she will have to do is to sign that document and one note for a thousand dollars. Then when I send her the next draft I need only enclose a new note for her signature. At Hindmann’s suggestion I am going to draw each note to run a relatively short time – a year, say. Then I can look after the renewing of them myself, from time to time.

The thousand dollars that I let her have now will of course have to come out of my research money, which is really not mine at all. But at the same time that I write Harbury, of the Foundation, to sell my real estate bonds and the two railway bonds that are at the Trust Company, I shall ask him to notify the Committee that I have diverted this amount for personal use and request him to hold back an equal amount from this money of my own that he will be sending me, against the draft on my letter of credit. Hindmann has drawn up just the paper for me to send Harbury, giving him complete power to dispose of the properties for me. Really, I don’t know what I should have done in all these financial complications without that fat man.

One thing I am very glad of. It is n’t going to pinch me at all to do this for Heloise. My salary will go right on, of course; and the research fund will be there as before. I shan’t even have to skimp on hotels and small purchases. To tell the truth, I was worried, a little, when I made that offer to her the other day. I did n’t realize, at the moment, how much money I have, and how easy it is to get at. This way, I can look right into her eyes and tell her that I shall not be the less comfortable for one single hour; and I can tell her with such conviction that she will know it for the truth. It won’t be nearly so hard for her.

Same date

I CAN’T take those papers over. I just can’t. I’m going to send them by messenger.

I’m sending the money too – in gold – in a bag. A thousand dollars. The messenger will have instructions to remain with her, and carry the money to the Hongkong bank for her in order that she may convert the greater part of it into traveler’s checks or a letter of credit. It will be best for me not to appear in this transaction, of course.

I am sending it to-day because surely she will have little purchases to make, and I know how irritating it is to a person of spirit to be dependent on another for small sums of money.

I did not foresee how deeply it would stir me to do this little thing. It has roused unfamiliar, haunting thoughts and feelings and day dreams. I have been thinking of children, and of the wonderful pleasure of doing for them and making them happy…

This will not do.

I am going over to the Legation now for tea.

I got out my black cutaway coat and had it pressed, And the China boy has smoothed down my silk hat, after a fashion. I shall carry the gold-headed cane that was given me by my seminar students six years ago, lacking two months. It was a curious thing for them to do. But pleasing. Hindmann had the right idea, as usual.

I will not be licked by a book.

And I shall say exactly what I know to be true. Not in a quarrelsome spirit, of course; but straight out. It is nothing to me that he is the American Minister.

Still the 19th. Very late

I HAVE been greatly surprised.

When I was shown into the drawing-room at the Legation residence, the Minister himself greeted me. He is a not unattractive man – past middle life, rather stout, with many of the familiar mannerisms of the prosperous man of business who has reached a point in life where he feels he can afford to indulge and, perhaps, educate the gentler side of his nature.

I suppose his present position is a reward for generous contributions to the expenses of his party. Though I should personally regard it as a punishment.

He and his lady (a person of some real charm) have surrounded themselves with attractive objects of Oriental art. The large rug in the drawing-room is as fine an example of Chinese blue and white weaving as I remember having seen. I had an opportunity – when the Minister stepped out of the room for a moment, and before the ladies came in – of turning back a corner and counting the threads. They ran twenty and twenty-one to the inch, using my thumb-joint as a rough measurement; which is pretty close weaving, especially when you consider that the rug is at least sixteen feet by twenty-four in size.

The chairs and tables were all of carved blackwood and teak stained black, very elaborate, and pleasing in an ornate way. One nest of tables, in the corner, was far and away the finest example of Chinese carving I have seen, barring small objects of ivory and such, where the work is all on a minute scale and therefore more delicate in design and workmanship. There were two exquisitely carved wooden screens, and a great number of small vases, each on its wooden stand. The most beautiful objects in the room were two immense blue and white vases, standing all of seven to eight feet high on their pedestals. The Minister says they are of the Ming period. And while he did not exactly speak of them in terms of money value, as we Americans are prone to do, he did refer casually to another pair, similar to these except that the glaze was distinctly inferior, that sold in New York for sixteen thousand dollars.

I mean to give more time to the study of Chinese porcelains later on, when settled down in my work, as well as to the history of their painting and draw ing. The early musical forms of a people are so inextricably linked with all their other folk-habits that one must understand something of all of them in order to arrive at a really thorough knowledge of any one. Otherwise one would be a mere narrow-rut scientist, like an oculist who git es no thought to the general health of a patient or the stomach specialist who has no regard for the condition of the teeth.

I fear I was a little stiff at first, even severe, when tea was served. The talk was general. But I could not forget that somewhere on that nan’s shelves stood von Westfall’s work. Of course though, the Minister is the merest dilettante. I saw that right away. The sort of man who uses his money to build up an atmosphere of understanding and refinement about himself, without being altogether successful at it.

Some other outsiders had come in, ladies from the hotel, and officers of the Legation Guard; and when these rose to go, and of course I with them, the Minister asked me to stay. He led me to his office, seated me comfortably, and gave me a cigar – the best cigar, in fact, I have smoked since landing at Yokohama. Out here, it is impossible to get much besides the rather rank Manila article that comes wrapped in tinfoil. This was a real Havana, however, carefully preserved in a humidor. Then he said:

“I have known for some time of the work your Foundation is doing in the study of primitive music, Dr. Eckhart. And it is, I may say, a subject that greatly interests me.”

I would not speak what was in my mind. Not yet – for he had not yet thrown that book at my head. It was not yet the time to insult him. It would be distinctly unreasonable to insult him at this stage. So I inclined my head, and waited.

“I have read some of the older works on the subject of Chinese music – Van Haalst, Elton, Avard, Pegrew, and so on – and have looked forward rather eagerly to the more complete results of modern research. A book was recommended to me when I was home last year – a book by von Westfall, of Bonn.”

I smoked hard and fast. He went on:

“It was recommended as an authoritative work. But I find it, in certain respects, quite unsatisfactory.”

I sat right up in my chair and stared at him. He continued, rather apologetically —

“Of course, I am an utter amateur in these matters, Dr. Eckhart. But it is disturbing to me to find this supposed authority referring to the twelve liis as giving the twelve equal semitones of the octave. Why, that is Van Haalst’s old error. I know better than that myself. I have sounded the liis in the Confucian temple, and they give out very uneven intervals, ranging over an octave and a half, at least.”

I jumped to my feet and waved my cigar at him. And my voice rang out shrilly. I could n’t help this; my surprise was so sudden and so complete.

“An octave and three quarters, very nearly,” I cried. “From about our a to the f of the second octave above.” And I added, “von Westfall is a faker – a cheap scoundrel masquerading in the robes of the scholar – a man who rushes his guesses into print before the honestly prepared work can be completed. He is not an authority. He never was. It is I who am the authority. I, and perhaps von Stumbostel, of Berlin. Ask Boag! Ask Ramel, Fourmont, de Musseau! Ask Sir Frederick Rhodes, of Cambridge!” And I laughed.

The Minister was impressed. I will say that for him. He got up too, and seized my hand.

“I am delighted,” he said. “You confirm my own rough conclusions. Come with me. I have something here that will interest you. At least, I should be glad to have your opinion of it.”

He led the way into a small room across the hall, unlocking the door with a key from his pocket. I followed him in. He raised the window shades, then turned with a gesture.

There, against the wall, stood an object the precise like of which I had never expected to see outside of the Imperial palace and possibly a temple or two at Peking or Nanking.

It was one of the old stone chimes. The very first glance assured me that it was authentic. The stones were all of the same size, shaped roughly like the letter L. They hung in a double row, in a carved frame of wood, each separate stone suspended by a metal ring – gold, I think – that pierced the stone at the angle. They were all the same size, of course, for the difference of pitch is accounted for by the varying thickness of the stones. I counted them; there were sixteen – the notes of the twelve liis, and the first four notes of the grave series.